The Last True Cowboy

by Laura Drake

  I unlock the door of the SUV, shift a stuffed Minion to the passenger seat, and climb in. The hot air is infused with eau de Kid. Discarded juice boxes and crumbs litter the floor. My mood falls like a rock tossed into a dry well. It’s not that I need a vanful of kids to feel complete. I have a full life. But dang, my dreams aren’t all high-and-mighty. All I want is to raise a big family in a small town, with the love of my life. Cutting Austin loose will mean cutting loose of all my dreams. But I’m sick of hoping and praying and attempting long-distance mind manipulation.

  Maybe I can convince him to come home, take over his dad’s ranch, and start our business.

  Yeah, that’s the maybe I hoped for last year.

  And the year before that. And…I blow out a breath. I’m not getting anywhere sitting here, sweating and counting spilled goldfish. I fire the engine, put the car in gear, and head out of town.

  Floyd’s Super Clean Used Cars sits all by itself, two miles out of town on the road to Albuquerque. Cars are cheaper in the big city but I don’t have that kind of time. Turning into the almost-deserted lot, I park and head for the ’50s-style glass-fronted building. Metallic air conditioning greets me, along with a gum-snapping salesman. Ignoring his howdy, I stride for the back office to rustle us up a new truck. Who am I kidding? Rustling is about the only way we could afford a new one. If I don’t find a way to compete with the Lunch Box…One problem at a time.

  The owner hasn’t changed a bit from our high school days. Well, except for the paunch. “Jeez, Floyd. Really?”

  He drops a nasty girlie magazine in a drawer and his cowboy boots from the desk. “Hey, Carly.” His eyes scan the parking lot. “You looking to trade in the mommy-mobile, huh?” He drops a wink. “Austin know about this?”

  I cross my arms. More crap I do not need. “You know very well that’s Jess’s car.”

  One corner of his mouth lifts. “Ah, so it is. What can I do you for, Carly?”

  “I need to buy a used truck.”

  “What happened to Nellybelle?”

  “She took a dump on the way to work this morning.”

  Floyd stands, sweeps off his cowboy hat, and lays it over his heart. “Please extend my condolences to your dear Nana.”

  “Cut the crap, Floyd. I need wheels.” I do some quick math in my head to figure what I can afford. “And none of that south-of-the-border stuff you slap a cheap paint job on to make it look saleable.”

  He puts on a hurt look. “Darlin’, you know that when I do have the occasional ‘international trade,’ I save it for the tourists.”

  Except the only tourists in Unforgiven are ones who made a wrong turn on the way to Albuquerque. And they sure aren’t looking to buy a car. “Just show me what you’ve got.”

  He leads the way to the almost-empty lot. “We’re a little short on inventory. We had a big blowout sale here last week. You prob’ly heard my commercials on the radio.” He puffs out his chest and steps to a dusty compact with burnt paint.

  I heard them. But again, not a mean girl. “That won’t work. You know it’s too small to carry Papaw’s…product.”

  “And fine product it is, too. Been known to sample it a time or two myself.” He wanders to a battered Dodge Caravan that, from the look of it, could be the first specimen that came off the assembly line.

  “It’ll hold six, with room left over for a golden retriever.” He gives me the sleazy salesman grin and waggles his bushy eyebrows.

  The sticker on the window is in my price range, and I’m desperate. But I haven’t fallen that far yet. If Austin sees me in that, he’ll think…well, I don’t want to think what he’ll think. What the whole town will think. Poor Carly, wannabe mommy. My face blazes hotter than the 102-degree air. “Floyd, this will not do. I’m not looking for anything special, just a better-than-beater truck that’ll get me to work, and Papaw can borrow now and again for deliveries. How hard can that be?”

  He takes off his hat and scratches his head. “Honest, Carly, that’s all I’ve got right now. Next shipment of used cars isn’t for two weeks.”

  “I don’t have two weeks, Floyd.” I hate the whine in my voice, but I really am desperate.

  He squints into the sun. “I do have something. But it’s not what you’re looking for.”

  Neither is the Mommymobile. “Let’s see it.”

  I follow Floyd’s waddle to the shop behind the showroom. “If you’re gonna try to sell me something you’re working on—”

  “Nope. Just storing it to keep it out of the weather.” He strides to a sheet-covered mound in the center of the bay, lifts the edge, and pulls it off with a magician’s flourish.

  “That’s not a car.”

  “Damn, Carly, your powers of observation are downright acute.” He drops the cover in a corner and slaps the dust off his hands. “This here’s a 2005 Honda Shadow Spirit VT750.”

  The motorcycle is low to the ground, but it’s not a cruiser; you’d sit almost upright on it. It’s got chrome pipes running down the side and a cushy seat that steps up to a tiny passenger seat with a short sissy bar. But it’s the paint job that makes me fall in insta-love. An eye-popping royal blue, with lighter blue flames rippling down the tank. Thoughts zip through my brain like summer heat lightning.

  My grandparents would have a fit. I get it; my parents died on a bike.

  He names a price lower than I’d have guessed.

  It sure wouldn’t work as Papaw’s delivery van. But it’s cheap enough that maybe he could buy a truck, when Floyd gets more inventory.

  “It’s got low mileage.” Floyd must see something on my face, because he’s got a greedy gleam in his eye. “Prettier’n a speckled pup, ain’t it?”

  I nod. My brain flashes to the picture on the wall outside my bedroom. I’ve seen that photo every day since I’ve been old enough to toddle down the hall. A frozen moment, of parents I don’t remember. My dad, in greasy jeans and a white T-shirt, sitting on a Harley with ape-hanger handlebars, grinning at the camera. My mom, draped around him wearing shorts and a halter top. When I was little, I got the happy. As I got older, I got the sexy. My mom is smiling, but her nails make indentations in the T-shirt—like she wanted to rip it off and do him, right there.

  They died on that motorcycle. But even that was romantic—they went together, her arms wrapped around him. Neither had to face a long life of being alone. The thought makes me shudder.

  That photo whispers to me at night, telling me bedtime stories of speed and laughter and love. When I think of my parents, it’s that stop-action moment that I feel in my gut. Young, full of the future, and mad for each other. That’s what I want.

  That’s my dream.

  I found the guy, but that dream depends on Austin to make it come true. Here sits a dream I can make come true, all by myself.

  But Nana and Papaw…No, you know what? I’ve worried about what people would think all my life: I’ve worked my butt off, being what everyone expected Carly to be: Austin’s girl, the dedicated granddaughter who quit rodeo to take over the diner. Well, everyone is going to have to stand back—I’m going to put what I want first for once.

  Floyd is still standing there with his face and his stomach hanging out.

  “You’d give me more off, if we bought a truck too, right? A volume discount?”

  He rolls his eyes to the rafters. “Lord, I give to your church every Sunday, but I hadn’t planned my business to be nonprofit.”

  I give him my best Rodeo Queen smile. “If money’s tight, maybe you should drop your magazine subscriptions.” Floyd’s a negotiator, but he’s got nothing on the grandkid of a Cajun bootlegger.

  His fat mouth twists. “Oh, all right. Fifteen percent off the bike for a package deal.” He squints across the bike at me. “You got a license to ride, Carly?”

  “Yep.” I got it back in high school, and never dropped the endorsement. I pull my wallet from my back pocket. “How much you want to hold it?”

  Floyd holds up his hands. “I�
��ve known you since kindergarten. Your word is good enough for me.”

  * * *

  That evening, Lorelei is driving me home. We’ve passed Nellybelle’s corpse and are almost to our turnoff when my phone blares “Austin.” I check the time, then power off the phone. He must be getting desperate if he’s calling this close to his event. I look up to see a flash of pity crossing Lorelei’s face.

  “Friday is Sadie Hawkins. You may ride over with Nana and Papaw, but you know darned well that when Austin shows up and bats his eyes, you’ll end up two-stepping the night away—first in the town square, then in his bed.” She turns into the long dirt drive that leads to my house.

  I rest my arm on the open window and let the breeze blow out my thoughts. “Not this time.”

  She doesn’t roll her eyes, but it’s a near thing. “So, what, you gonna dump Austin and go out with Quad?” She pulls in the dooryard.

  “Nah. When Austin really understands how important it is to me, he’ll agree to make this his last season.”

  “If you say so. I’ll be by in the morning to pick you up for work.”

  “Thanks, Lorelei, I appreciate the ride.” I slide out, slam the door, and wave as she backs up.

  The screen door shushes over the worn green linoleum that’s been here so long there’s a thin spot next to the sink. The smell of liver and onions smacks me in the face.

  Nana is at the stove, poking the contents of a cast-iron skillet like she’s got a live rattlesnake in there. If it weren’t for the liver smell, I’d half believe she did. Nana’s always been quirky and outspoken, but the past few years, as she puts it, her “give-a-shit gave up the ghost.” She now says whatever she’s thinking, to whomever. We had her tested; it’s not Alzheimer’s. It’s more like Old Folks Tourette’s.

  She removes the perpetual cigarette from the corner of her mouth, taps the ash on the coffee can ashtray on the counter, then returns it to her lip. “Well com’ere an’ give me a hug, sugar.”

  She watches me cross the floor with the forever squint she’s gotten avoiding smoke from that cigarette. Her gray hair is pulled into a messy bun on the top of her head, stray bits standing straight out, defying gravity. Nana’s hair used to be red, like mine. They say she was a looker in her day.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Ducking the cigarette, I put my arms around her short frame. Her skin is like biscuit dough, white and pillow-soft, and she smells of smoke, onion, and sweat. The smell of love, and home. “You won’t want to hug me when I tell you that Nellybelle died.” I kiss her cheek.

  “I heard.” She rocks me a few seconds, then releases me. “Ah, fuck it. The old nag outlived her usefulness ten years ago.” She turns back to the stove. “Now go wash up. Dinner’s in fifteen. Emma Jean’s pickin’ me up, an’ I can’t be late to Bingo.”

  Instead, I head for the office where an ancient desktop computer perches on the rolltop desk. It takes forever to fire up. Papaw refuses to replace it, or to get faster internet service, contending that it’s bad enough that they make him pay for TV when it used to be free. With Papaw, all change is seen as a conspiracy.

  When I finally get to Google, I type, “Motorcycle riding tips.”

  Luckily, I won’t have to start from scratch. My memory flashes film clips from high school, when Austin taught me how to ride the county dirt roads on his little off-road Yamaha. He’d yelled “Shift!” in my ear until I figured out the sound of the revs winding up. And when it got hot, we’d stop at Chestnut Creek to skinny-dip and wind up each other’s revs. We had no responsibilities. No expectations. Life rolled out in front of us, and we screamed along, flat-out, never thinking ahead.

  God, I miss those days.

  I jot several websites on a scratch pad from Haley Feed &Tack, fold the sheet, and put it in my pocket. I’ll do research at the diner tomorrow, where they don’t haul in pixels via mule team.

  By the time I’ve set the table, Papaw is washing up at the kitchen sink. “I’m gonna have to use the Camry tomorrow to pick up a load of corn at the feed store.”

  Nana sets the bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. “Last time you did that, we had that squirrel ’pocalypse in the trunk.”

  “I’m gonna buy it in bags this time. Can’t fit as much in that way, but…” He crosses to the fridge, opens the door, and roots around for ketchup.

  I pour three glasses of iced tea. “I stopped by Floyd’s, but he had a blowout sale last weekend, and didn’t have anything worthwhile. He says he’ll have some trucks in next week.”

  Papaw plops the ketchup in front of his plate and lowers his long, thin frame into the chair with a grunt.

  His knee must be bad today. Probably not a good time to bring this up, but he’ll know soon anyway. I set the gravy boat on the table and sit. “Looks good, Nana.” In keeping with our mealtime hierarchy, I pass the platter of fried liver to Papaw.

  “Thank you, missy.”

  Nana fills hers, then passes each plate to me.

  Papaw says grace.

  Might as well get it over with. “I bought a motorcycle at Floyd’s today.”

  Forks still.

  Papaw peers over his half-glasses at me. A stray sunbeam hits his gaunt cheek, silvering his whiskers, aging him. Or maybe it’s just highlighting what I haven’t wanted to notice. When did he get so old?

  “What in tarnation you gonna do with that?”

  “Time I had my own vehicle.” I try to cut my liver, but my knife screes across my plate. “It’s used, and cheap. Floyd cut me a volume discount, so we can still afford a used truck.”

  “Ladies don’t ride motorcycles.” His voice cuts better than my knife.

  My back goes up. “This one will.” No one has a say in this dream. Besides, he makes me sound like I’m a flighty teenager. I’ve come up with a practical solution to a problem. A great solution.

  I bite the inside of my cheek to keep the words in. I can fight with Nana. But Papaw is so close-lipped and prickly, I can never be sure enough of his love to fight with him.

  “What does Austin have to say about this?”

  Pawpaw always takes Austin’s side. “He has no say in this.”

  “Oh.”

  If I hadn’t been watching close, I’d have missed his eye twitch.

  “I mean it.” The words bounce off the walls, louder than I’d meant.

  “I ain’t disagreein’ with you, missy.”

  “You may not have noticed, but I’m all grown up now. And if I want to ride a motorcycle, I’m danged sure gonna do it, and no man is going to tell me different.”

  Papaw wipes his mouth on his napkin. “Lord help us, you sound like your daddy.”

  His quiet sadness cools my temper. I reach out and touch his hand, suddenly aware how frail his bones are. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan to become a statistic.”

  “Neither did they.” A stringy muscle works in his jaw. “Don’t promise what you cain’t deliver, missy.”

  Chapter 2

  Carly

  Keep dawdlin’ and we’re gonna miss the whole thing,” Papaw bellows from the living room.

  “Cool your jets, Slick. Perfection takes time.” Nana yells back.

  I set the rhinestone comb in her hair, and when it tries to fall out, I secure it with a bobby pin. “You look beautiful.” I kiss her cheek, inhaling her signature scent; lilac dusting powder.

  We both look at her in the oval mirror over her dresser. Despite my curling iron and enough hairspray to kill the ozone layer, stray hairs still float around her head, but at least they’re slightly curled hairs. I managed to talk her out of her puffy slip, so her red, white, and blue square-dancing skirt stands only at half-mast. The tan support hose and black orthopedic shoes make her legs look even bonier. But the eyelet cotton blouse sets off her cornflower-blue eyes, and when she smiles, a pretty, younger woman peeks out at me.

  She winks at the mirror. “Let’s go knock ’em dead.”

  “Word, Nana.” We fist bump, and head
down the hall.

  Papaw is pacing. “Product’s loaded. We gotta go.” Seeing Nana, his long face lifts into a shy smile and he fingers the brim of his hat in his hands. “You look real nice, hon.”

  “Why, thank you, Leroy.” She pats her hair.

  “What about me?” I give a Vanna White flourish.

  Papaw frowns. “Women oughtn’t go to a dance in britches.”

  “These are my favorite jeans. Cost me half a week’s wages.”

  “Then you got robbed. Didn’tcha see the holes in ’em?”

  I know a useless argument when it’s coming at me. “Let’s go. We’re going to be late.”

  “Where’s that man of yours? He should be pickin’ you up at the door.”

  “Sadie Hawkins is girl’s choice. I’m going stag.” I step past him and out the screen door, but I catch the worried look they exchange. The ride to town is mostly quiet.

  When Papaw turns onto the town square, my lips and my heart rate slide up. The shadows hide the worn paint and empty stores. The high school kids have dressed the trees and the bandstand in white twinkle lights, changing the ambiance from neglect to magic.

  Pat and the Squeaky Wheels are tuning up on the bandstand. Pat Stark owns the auto repair shop in town, and only hires mechanically inclined musicians. They may have a few screws left over after an engine rebuild, but they can flat-out play. Pawpaw cruises by slow, then parks behind the diner.

  I scoot out of the backseat, then wait while he walks around and hands Nana out. I follow, smiling at their clasped hands. This could be Austin and me, in some future, forty years from now. Our kids will be grown and gone, but we’ll still have each other. The love I’ve stuffed down the past week rises like warm dough, encasing my heart in softness. I get impatient with him, but I know in the bedrock of my being that he’s the only man for me. Soulmates. It sounds like a sappy bathroom-stall-etching, but it fits.

  * * *

  Austin

  I’d recognize my baby anywhere, even from the back. Hair the color of a strawberry roan’s mane, and that smokin’ body, slid into my favorite jeans, the ones with the pocket bling that flashes when she rolls her hips. She’s standing at the edge of the dancers, watching her grandparents, a shimmer in her eyes and a smile on her lips.