“What’s her name?” she asks Hank.
“Who?”
“Lily’s blue-roan bucking baby.”
“Crazy Woman.”
Like an echo, the announcer says, “First up will be Josh Cassidy on a fine young mare from Double S Bucking Stock, Crazy Woman. Josh is coming off a big win in New Braunfels, Texas at the Comal County Fair. Let’s see how he handles a bona fide descendant of Sassafrass, two-time winner of the PRCA Saddle Bronc of the Year.”
Maggie screams with delight. “Go, go, go, Crazy Woman!” That earns her a few looks, but she doesn’t care.
The blue-roan mare explodes out of the gate. Even though Hank rode bulls in his day, saddle bronc riding has always been Maggie’s favorite event. And something about Lily’s high-spirited daughter has lit her fire. The young mare does not disappoint. Within two jumps, she’s bucking like a catapult. The cowboy on her back is clinging with his legs to the saddle, his rein hand high and other arm flailing. Maggie sees air between his butt and the seat. That’s the end of the line for him, she knows.
“Go,” she shouts again. “Come on, Crazy Woman!”
Beside her, Hank joins in. “Get him, girl. Get him.”
And the powerhouse mare does. Her hooves rocket upward with her head down and body fully and beautifully extended. The crowd exclaims en masse. Has a horse ever bucked this high or looked this good doing it? Maggie doesn’t think so. At the height of her buck, Crazy Woman twists. Her front feet are still two feet off the ground as her back half torques sideways. Everything seems to move in slow motion to Maggie now. Like a demon-possessed toy top, the horse spins before she lands. The cowboy tumbles through the air and into the dirt. Then Maggie’s slo-mo ends, and the horse bucks riderless in real time.
The buzzer sounds. The cowboy is already on his feet and picking up his hat. Meanwhile, Crazy Woman attacks likes she’s trying to take down the sky. Two pick-up riders make their way to her, but when they get near her, she morphs into a heaving race horse. The three horses streak down one side of the arena. Crazy Woman pulls ahead in the curve, then the pick-up horses gain on her in the straightaway again as she continues to kick and buck. At the end of the second lap, the chasers finally get close enough to remove the sheepskin flank strap. They peel away, and she slows to a lope, tail and head high, black mane flapping, sweaty sides heaving. She’s a sight to behold. The crowd stands and cheers.
The announcer says, “That round goes to Crazy Woman. I can’t decide if she’s named right or if they should have called her Blue Lightning. Better luck next time, Josh.”
After they sit, Maggie leans to Hank. “How often do horses get standing ovations?”
One corner of his lip quirks. “It’s rare.”
“So she really is special?”
“It appears she may be.”
“I love her.”
He laughs. “I know you do.”
The rest of the rodeo flies by in a blur for Maggie. She cheers for the Double S stock, drinks a few beers, and eats a cool hot dog with too-sweet relish. When it’s over, she’s jazzed like Crazy Woman. She holds Hank’s hand as they wait in line to exit.
“What now?” she asks.
“We circulate.”
“Where?”
“In the parking lot. From trailer to trailer. It’s a progressive party out there.”
“Sounds good. Where’s Gene?”
“One of the bulls was pulled because he’s got a cut or something. He’s going to find out what happened.”
They swing hands and joke around until Maggie’s phone rings.
Hank drops her hand. “It’s okay if you want to get it.”
“Thanks.” She pulls it from her pocket and checks the screen. It’s a Giddings number. “Hello?”
“Maggie Killian, please.”
She doesn’t recognize the woman’s voice. “Who’s calling?”
“This is Trish Jasper. I’m a real estate agent in Lee County, Texas. If this is Maggie, you contacted me about one of my listings.”
Maggie shoots a glance at Hank. He’s waving like a pageant queen. She lowers her voice. “Now’s not a good time.”
“Okay, can we talk quickly about you listing your place, then? I think I have a buyer who’d pay cash and promise a quick close.”
Irritation burns through Maggie. How presumptuous. She whispers, “How can you have a buyer when I don’t have it for sale?”
“Based on comparables, I have a fair idea of the value. Assuming you’d accept an offer in that ballpark, this buyer is ready.”
“Ballpark as in the numbers you emailed me?”
“Yes.”
“Not interested.”
“Okay, then. What number would you be interested in?”
Hank stops, striking up a conversation with some really dusty cowboys. Maggie realizes they are competitors from the night’s rodeo.
She holds up one finger at Hank and mouths, “Just a minute.”
He nods and keeps talking.
“I’m not,” Maggie says.
“I have an idea. How about we list your place at a number above what you’re interested in, and just see what you get? You don’t have to accept an offer. Your property is safe and remains yours if you’d like, but you get an idea of its worth on the current market.”
“How about not.”
“Okay, well, if you change your mind, please let me know. And if you’d like, we can talk about the ranch listing tomorrow.”
“I’ll call you.” Maggie hangs up.
Hank is leaning against the wheel cover of a black trailer. He salutes her with a can of Bomber Mountain. “This is my girl, Maggie. Maggie, meet some of the poor saps that got their asses kicked out in the arena today.”
The cowboys clustered around him are mostly a head shorter than Hank. Zero percent body fat or thereabouts with sinewy muscles and more tobacco bulging in their cheeks than butts in the rear of their jeans. One of them spits brown juice in the dirt.
“Hi, guys,” she answers, to a chorus of hellos.
The dustiest of the cowboys says, “I hear your horse threw me.”
“My horse?”
“Crazy Woman,” Hank says. His eyes are smiling and don’t leave her face.
“Does that mean you’re giving her to me?”
He pops the top on another can of Bomber Mountain. “What’s mine is yours, sugar.”
The cowboy thrown by Crazy Woman lifts a bottle of tequila. “A toast, to Crazy Woman.” He tips the bottle back. His Adam’s apple bobs four times before he passes the bottle to Maggie. “She’s your horse, so drink up, Miss Maggie.”
“Miss Maggie? That sounds like something a chauffeur would call his elderly passenger.”
“Hell no. Miss Maggie, like the smokin’ hot Maggie.”
“Excuse me?” Hank says.
“I’m just saying, your girlfriend is very nice-looking, Mr. Sibley.”
He grumbles something that isn’t a thank-you.
“Are you going to drink to your horse or not, Maggie?” the cowboy asks.
He’s cute, Maggie realizes. And, while lean, he exudes strength and a cocky, self-assured manner. Like Hank. It almost makes her laugh. “Tequila makes me sad, mean, and headachy. I’ve outgrown self-sabotage.”
Hank slides an arm around her waist and pulls her backward into him. “Have you, now?”
“Mostly. Enough that I prefer anything but tequila.”
The cute cowboy says, “What would you like? We’ve got a full bar in the trailer.”
“If I had my way, a sweet tea spiked with Koltiska.”
He salutes. “One sweet TKO coming up.” Then he disappears inside the trailer.
Hank nibbles her ear. “Just like old times. All the cowboys want my woman.”
“And you won my heart, fair and square.” She snuggles against him. “Now I’m just Sibley’s old, worn-down nag.”
“Far from it.” He snorts. “Are you sure you want that drink? If not, I can think o
f other things to do.”
“You win the prize.” Maggie takes his hand and two steps toward their own trailer. “Again.”
He hoots, she laughs, and they run to the trailer together.
Twenty-Six
Saturday afternoon, Hank and Maggie shop the vendor booths outside the arena. Maggie is intrigued by the home décor and kitsch, but they linger in a booth with a frightening display of knives.
“Do you like these?” Hank holds up a wicked-looking knife in one hand. A leather belt scabbard with beading depicting a sunset and a pigging string knotted through a leather thong hangs from his other.
“Gorgeous.” Maggie runs her fingers over the beads of the scabbard.
“And useful.” He stabs over his shoulder. “In case of a mountain lion attack.”
She laughs.
“I’m not kidding. We’re just guests in their world up at the ranch. They stalk and attack from behind. By the time they’re on you, the only thing that works is a knife. If you’re lucky and fast.”
“Comforting. Makes me wonder why anyone ever settled in Wyoming in the first place.”
“The grizzlies and Indians were far more dangerous. And the weather.”
“Case in point.”
Hank hands the items to the attendant, who rings them up. “For you, my dear.”
“But you already gave me a knife.”
“I gave you my knife, and I want it back.” He presses the bag into her hand. “Practice with it. A lot. And keep your mutt with you.”
She salutes. “I will. Thank you. But you should be scared I’ll use it on you when you snore.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Snore? That would be you, princess.”
“What? I don’t snore.”
“You did last night. Like a chainsaw.”
“The hell you say.”
“Which is exactly how I slept. Like hell.” He swats her on the behind, and they walk on.
She stops to admire more home décor.
Hank holds up a barbed-wire cross. “This looks like something you’d make.”
There’s a good market for all things religious in Texas, and, it appears, at rodeos in general. Person after person is checking out with different sizes and types of the barbed-wire crosses. Crosses mounted on tin siding. Crosses festooned with bows and boots. Crosses accenting painted homilies on weathered barn wood.
Before she can respond to Hank, a slight guy with a hat bigger than his torso corners him. Hank listens and nods, then steps over to her.
“Maggie, give us a moment? Gotta solve an issue with a horse.”
“Not Crazy Woman?”
“Yeah, but it’ll be fine. She’s just got more buck than we bargained for. She may be better than this rodeo. That’s a good problem.”
Maggie feels a warmth in her chest. Pride? “Go on. I’ll be fine.”
She’s admiring some horseshoe art, thinking about the plentiful supply of that particular raw material at Double S, when her phone rings. Charlotte. She never called her mother back yesterday. Hank’s still occupied, so she picks up.
“Surprise!” It’s Boyd’s voice on her mother’s line.
“It’s both of us,” her mother adds in a trill.
Speakerphone. Both of her living parents, birth and adoptive. “Wow.” Don’t the two barely know each other?
Boyd’s voice holds a smile. “We joined forces over lunch, since we share a common interest.”
“You,” Charlotte explains.
“Yes, I got that, Mom.”
Boyd continues. “We need to know when you’re coming back.”
Charlotte’s voice is giddy. “Because I’m making a big Thanksgiving dinner. For everyone!”
“Define everyone.”
“All the family. Edward. Boyd and his wife. Michele, Rashidi, Belle, Sam, and Charlie. Gene, if he can make it down. And you.”
Her mom hadn’t included Hank in the list. Intentional or not? “I’ll be there. Hopefully with Hank. My boyfriend.”
“That’s great. How’s it going on your house and the Coop?” Boyd asks.
“Baby steps.”
Hank saunters back, looking satisfied.
“Listen, I’m at a rodeo in Oklahoma. I’ve gotta run.”
Boyd and her mother pledge their love, and Maggie returns it before she hangs up. Maggie and Hank walk into a livestock supply booth.
“What was that about?” he asks.
“Thanksgiving. At my mom’s. Wanna come?”
“Sure. We can drive up through New Mexico on the way back to Wyoming. Stop and see Mickey and Laura.”
Maggie bites her tongue. She expects to be back in Texas long before Thanksgiving, hopefully with Hank, and neither of them returning to Wyoming after. And she can’t think of anything worse than going to visit Laura.
Hank picks up a silver bag. “This is what we need for Crazy Woman.”
Maggie reads the label. “What does Mare Magic do?”
“Makes a mare less like a hysterical woman.”
“I’ll give you two point five seconds to retract that explanation in favor of something that will keep you warm in bed tonight.”
“It takes the hormonal edge off a difficult mare. Sometimes.”
Maggie ponders. “Would it make Lily stop running off?”
“Maybe. But so would latching her gate better.”
Maggie buys a bag.
“You’re wasting your money.”
“Mine to waste.”
“There’s also anecdotal evidence that an ounce per day in the last trimester is helpful for the uterus and hormones. So I guess it can’t hurt.”
“Good. Now buy me a funnel cake.”
As they exit the booth, the cute cowboy from yesterday—the one too young to flirt with her—appears.
“Hey, you left without your drink, Miss Maggie.” He whistles. “Damn, you’re even more beautiful today, and twice as hot as the actress who plays you in Love Child.”
She tenses. He figured out who she is. Please be smart, she thinks. But apparently he’s landed on his noggin a few too many times.
“You know if you get tired of this has-been, I’m your man.”
Hank moves, quick as a big cat. Suddenly, the young cowboy is dangling two inches off the ground against the side of a box trailer.
“Don’t come near her ever again. Got it?” Hank’s voice is lethal.
“Hey, man, I was kidding. I didn’t mean nothing.”
“Hank”—Maggie puts her hand on his arm—“put him down.”
“He’s disrespecting you, Maggie.”
“I don’t think it’s my honor you’re concerned about. Put him down, now.”
Hank drops him.
The cowboy shakes his head. “I’ve always heard you were a crazy son of a bitch.” He walks off, still muttering.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie calls after him.
Hank growls. “Don’t go apologizing to him for what he did.”
“I’m not. I’m apologizing for you.”
Volatile. Physical. She tries to unremember her conversation with Travis, but she can’t. Neither can she hold it in any longer. “You want to know what Deputy Travis said to me at Paco’s funeral?”
“I thought he was checking your alibi.”
“No. He was checking yours. Because he’s started hearing rumors about your jealousy, and he’s been putting it together with your volatility and violence.”
“Jealousy? I’m not jealous. I’m protective. Of you.”
“And some guy told Travis you warned Paco to stay away from me.”
“I wasn’t jealous of Paco. You and I weren’t even together then. I was just trying to keep him from hurting you. He’s a complete womanizer.”
“Well, now Travis is wondering about you. To me. Like wondering if you could have killed Paco.”
“But you can’t think that of me.” All of a sudden, his eyes look hollow and dark, his skin pallid.
“Even though you have killed someone.�
�� She feels bad bringing it up. Sure, it was in defense of his mother, but dead is dead.
“You know what I mean.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what I think.” She stalks away, toward their trailer. Too late, she realizes it sounded like she doesn’t know whether or not he killed Paco. That’s not what she meant. Or not really, anyway. She’s good and pissed at him, and worrying about it a little might be good for him.
Hank doesn’t follow her.
Twenty-Seven
Two hours later, Maggie heads to the arena for the finals of the rodeo. Hank hasn’t shown up, called, or texted. She’s not going to miss seeing what she came for—the Double S stock in all their glory. But with Hank’s latest explosion, Travis’s words are haunting her.
Gene shouts over a line of people at the gate. “Maggie, wait up.”
She waves and does.
“Have you seen Hank?” he asks.
“Not since he almost beat a guy’s ass for flirting with me.”
“Shit. Then he’s probably half a bottle of whiskey down at a trailer somewhere out there, with an old-timer who doesn’t realize he needs to send him on his way.”
Maggie pulls Gene out of line, away from all the ears. “What’s with him, Gene? Is he always like this? He’s scaring me.”
Gene sighs. “Which question do you want me to answer first?”
“Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Let’s walk.” They head inside the arena, where the sounds of the “Star-Spangled Banner” begin and swell as the crowd sings along. He raises his voice in her ear to be heard over the music. “Okay, first, he’s not always like this.”
Maggie exhales, loudly. “Thank God.”
“He is occasionally.”
“I liked your first answer better.”
“You know about his brain injury? God—I hope you do, or I’ll catch hell for spilling it.”
“I do.” Maggie shows her contractor badge to the attendant at the entrance, as does Gene.
Dead Pile (Maggie #3) Page 14