by Aimée Thurlo
Jo went out onto the loading dock, intending to call him over, when a big red Dodge Ram pickup loaded with chrome and testosterone came to a sliding stop beside Ben’s truck.
“Hey, butt-wipe! Was that you who cut us off back there?” a man wearing a cowboy hat yelled, sticking his head out the passenger-side window.
Jo recognized Danny Vaughn, one of Ben’s pals back in high school. With him, sitting behind the wheel, was Artie Sayers, Ethan’s son. The trio had raised hell all the way from Kirtland to Shiprock back in high school.
“Hell, yeah, it was me. Wanna step outta that pussy truck and do something about it?” Ben yelled back a second later, recognizing the pair.
“Damn, straight, dickhead. But before I kick your ass, let’s grab dinner and a couple pitchers of beer,” Danny said, throwing open the door and stepping down.
“Now you’re talking, Danny,” Ben said, jogging over. They exchanged fist bumps, then vigorous handshakes. “Hey, Artie. Long time,” Ben added, stepping over and fist-bumping the driver next.
“Climb in, Danny,” Ben said. “I’m not riding between you two ladies,” he said, pointing at the seat.
“You duck down while we’re rolling, and I’ll throw you out, bro,” Danny said, laughing as he climbed back in.
“Dream on, Dan,” Ben said, joining in the laughter.
They never saw her standing on the loading dock, and before Jo could step down and get Ben’s attention, he was in the truck heading out. She watched as Artie whipped the Dodge around, burning rubber as they raced down the highway and out of sight.
Though she’d looked forward to talking to Ben, she was glad to see him finally catching up with old friends. He deserved some downtime. Ben had fought in two brutal wars, and all he’d found stateside was more sorrow and death.
What she had to say to him would wait. She had plenty of work still waiting inside.
FIFTEEN
“Sorry about your dad, bro,” Danny said, nodding to Ben as they raced east toward the community of Kirtland.
“Me, too,” Artie added. “Everyone around here respected Tom Stuart. He was a good man.”
“Yeah, and he did the right thing, throwing me to the wolves and making me choose jail or the army,” Ben said quietly, knowing that would be the next thing to come up in the conversation. They hadn’t really talked about it at the time, and he hadn’t seen these guys since graduation night.
“‘Tough love,’ my mom called it,” Danny said.
“I was a real screwup back then, and it took the army to straighten me out,” Ben said with a nod. “Danny, did anyone ever figure out you were with me the night we went joyriding?”
“If they did, they never said,” Danny answered. “You saved my ass, bro, throwing me out just before the deputies pulled you over.”
“You were already on probation. Add joyriding in a ‘borrowed’ car to that, and you’d have served time for sure,” Ben said. “I got off lucky. I was given a choice. Serve your country or serve time.”
“That night scared me straight,” Danny said. “I’ve been clean since then, not even a frickin’ speeding ticket. Got a good job at Valley Auto. Four years now, and I’m shop foreman—salary and commission.”
“Hey, all this touchy-feely shit is making me thirsty,” Artie said, jumping in. “Where we going, the Palomino?”
“You said dinner. They have a kitchen now?” Ben asked. That bar had been pretty rough. He’d been thrown out the only time he tried to get served. Of course, he’d been seventeen at the time, carrying a really bad fake ID.
“You are out of touch, bro. They’re practically a family restaurant now,” Danny said, elbowing Artie. “Right, Artie?”
“Exactly. And there’s a dress code. All the waitstaff are required to wear tiny tops and the tightest shorts in the county. They make Hooters seem like Sunday school. You still remember women, don’t you, Ben?”
“Oh, man, Ben’s back in the saddle for sure. You seen Jo lately?” Danny laughed.
“So are you and Jo catching up on old times?” Artie asked. “Jo’s sure filled out. Short but stacked, and those jeans…”
Ben just shrugged, feeling uncomfortable and growing more annoyed by the minute. “Jo and I haven’t gone out since high school, and our only connection now is The Outpost. So let’s talk about your fantasy love lives, guys. Those are bound to be more interesting than what’s not going on with me and Jo. Artie, what ever happened to you and Etta Mae, that band chick with the button-popping chest? You ever stop drooling long enough to ask her out?”
* * *
A half hour later, Ben was sipping a Coke at the Palomino Tavern, trying not to make eye contact with the leggy blonde waitress who kept looking his way. She had wonderfully tanned legs that went all the way up to those tight jeans shorts, but he’d always preferred women who advertised less. He was partial to someone like Jo, who made a man’s imagination do the work.
“Ben, you sure you don’t want to tap into a brew?” Artie asked, holding up his bottle of Coors.
“He’s watching his figure. That right, bro?” Danny smiled, raising his own beer bottle toward the center.
“Nah, that’s not it.” Ben brought up his Coke, and they clicked their drinks in a toast. “To Mexican Cokes, with sugar, not corn syrup. When there were no locals around, we had beer up to our asses, even at the most remote outpost you can imagine. But Mexican Cokes? Hell no!”
Danny nodded. “Ah well, I’d still take beer,” he said after a long swallow. Then he lowered his voice. “Ben, I hear you went to sniper school. You were always good with a rifle. Tell me something. What’s it like to kill a man at a thousand yards?”
Ben put down his Coke and glanced around the room. It was so strange hearing that question here, as far away from combat as you could get.
“How’d you know about my sniper work?”
“I’d come by and talk to your old man every once in a while. He liked to brag about you, showing me photos of you in uniform, getting that Silver Star and all. I read the citation. You bailed your unit out of an ambush by taking out, what, twelve bad guys with twelve rounds?”
“Tom told everyone who’d listen, Ben,” Artie added. “So why did you switch to medevac duty for your second tour? It sounds like something out of Jo’s playbook, keeping the balance and like that.”
“Guess it does,” Ben said with a shrug. He had no intention of talking about that now. Seeing the waitress approaching with three big plates, he took the opportunity to change the subject. “Here comes our Navajo tacos. It’s been a damn long time.”
“Sorry about that, honey, we’re a girl short,” the tall blonde whispered, giving him a big smile. “How can I make it up to you?”
“Whoa. I’m eating here, too, Barbie,” Danny joked, reading the name tag perched atop a sloping chest.
“It wasn’t the service, ma’am,” Ben said, trying to suppress a laugh. “It has just been a long time since I’ve had this particular meal.”
“Then you’ve got to come here more often, handsome. I work Monday through Thursday nights,” Barbie said.
“Good to know,” Ben said, returning her generous smile.
“Must be your aftershave,” Danny grumbled after the woman stepped away.
Ben chuckled, then hearing loud footsteps on the hardwood floor just to his left, turned his head. An ugly but familiar face from his not-distant-enough past, Roger Ferrell, was coming toward him. Last time they’d met, Ben had stepped in and traded punches with Ferrell, who’d been roughing up A.J. They were both suspended that last week of their senior year.
“Well, look at you, Smart-ass Stuart. You’ve finally lost your baby fat. Did the army give up trying to make a man out of you?” The big, former high school tackle weighed maybe 250 now, and it looked to be all muscle.
“Farthead Ferrell,” Danny muttered under his breath, and Ben couldn’t help but smile.
“Good to see you again, Roger,” Ben answered pleasantly enough
. This evening was about catching up with old friends, and there was no need to rekindle old grudges. “Buy you a beer?”
“I don’t drink with pussies, Stuart,” Roger growled, loud enough now for half the room to turn their way.
Artie and Danny both set down their beers and started to rise to their feet. “Stand down, guys,” Ben ordered. “Roger’s just giving us a hard time, right, Rog? No harm, no foul.”
There was no way he was going to let this idiot ruin their dinner. Two years ago, he would have gone for the guy’s throat, with or without a KA-BAR. Tonight was going to be peaceful.
“Hard time? Hey, Stuart, hear you’ve been trying to get back into Jo Buck’s panties again. Wonder if your hard time is as big as your old man’s hard time? Now we know how she convinced him to leave her your trading post. Down on her knees a lot, was she?”
Ben went hot before the big guy could throw up a fist. His chair flew back, there was a blur, and suddenly he was on top of Ferrell, who was flat on his back like a thrown steer. Ben never even felt Ferrell’s few desperate punches as training took over and he gripped the big man’s throat, pressing in with his thumbs.
Artie and Danny moved in and pulled him off Ferrell. “Whoa!” Danny said, his arms still locked around Ben, who was on his feet now.
Artie glared at Roger, his boot a foot from his head. “Haul ass out of here before you really get hurt. In case you haven’t noticed, this place is on Ben’s side.”
The bar owner strode up, holding a baseball bat in his burly grip. “Out of here, Ferrell, or I’m calling the cops—after I clock you one myself.”
After Ferrell left the tavern, Danny eased his grip and Ben relaxed. He ached in a few places, but the son of a bitch had deserved what he got.
“Man, you’re going to have some shiner tomorrow,” Danny said, looking back at Ben.
Ben felt the cut over his eye and realized he’d been hit probably two or three times. Head wounds—they always bled like crazy. He glanced at his Navajo taco, which had managed to survive the carnage. “Damn. I was really looking forward to that,” he said, trying to button up his torn shirt.
Barbie was suddenly right there. “Somebody’ll keep your meal warm, hon, don’t worry. Come with me into the back room. I can patch you up. We’ve got some skin glue.”
“Go for it, bro,” Danny whispered. “We’ll wait out here. Maybe we’ll have another beer in your honor. It was about time someone dropped that jackass.”
Ben had to smile even though it hurt to do so. “I’ll take you up on that patch job, Barbie, and I’m definitely staying for dinner.”
The owner gestured toward one of the side rooms. “You’re Tom Stuart’s boy, right? You’ve fought for our country and deserve more respect than what you got here tonight. Dinner’s on me.”
* * *
Jo looked up at the clock and noticed that it was nearly midnight. Ben and his friends had obviously decided on more than dinner and a few beers.
Jo leaned back in her chair and glanced at the shotgun she’d brought into her office. There’d been too many incidents for her not to take precautions, and having it within arm’s reach made her feel safer.
Reaching into her top drawer for the peanut butter chocolate cups she loved, she wondered if Ben would come home sober. A boys’ night out around here usually went hand in hand with a case of beer and a wobbly ride home. She hoped one of them had held back so he could take the wheel.
Jo walked to Tom’s office and placed the flash drive with the accounting records back into the safe. As she reached to close the heavy metal door, some papers propped flat against the side wall of the safe caught her eye. Jo reached in and pulled out a handful of newspaper clippings encased in the type of plastic sheets usually found in photo albums. Curious, she placed them on the desk and took a closer look.
A cursory glance at the first article from a Manhattan, Kansas, newspaper gave an account of Ben’s heroism under fire. A sniper, he’d saved his platoon, part of the First Infantry Division, from being cut off and wiped out. Though hit by mortar shell fragments, he’d taken out three machine gun positions and kept the remaining enemy pinned down while the wounded were evacuated. He’d received the Silver Star as a result.
Another headline told how soldiers from Ben’s brigade had been treated for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, after returning home two years ago. Reading how their heroism in the villages and mountains of Afghanistan had come at a cost, Jo once again thought about the Enemy Way Sing. It was the Navajo way of restoring the hózho. The ceremony was lengthy—one of the prayers done was 399 lines long—and required nothing less than perfection both in intonation and wording.
The Sing concluded with the words, “It is normal again. This day may I go invisible to evil.…” That set the patient free, and beauty was once again restored.
While there were prayers in Ben’s world, there were no such ceremonies and no way of releasing contamination from evil, fear, and death—the by-products of war.
She read the headlines and opening paragraphs of the last two articles. The first reported Ben as having been in a serious vehicle accident off base, a short time after his last return stateside. He’d been driving drunk and skidded off a cliff. Miraculously, he walked away with only minor injuries. Ben had been cited, then disciplined by his unit commander.
She remembered that time. Tom had driven all the way to Kansas to see Ben, but she never knew the details, only that Ben had been injured off base.
The last, most recent article featured a medical unit Ben had been assigned to during his last deployment. Judging from the headline, Ben had distinguished himself there, too, risking his own life to recover and evacuate wounded soldiers while under fire.
Although she wanted to read each of the articles carefully, gleaning as many facts as she could, she resisted the urge. Even by glancing at these articles, she’d probably done more than she should have, intruding on both Ben’s and Tom’s privacy. Ben, in particular, had told her he wanted to keep his past a closed book.
She returned the articles to the safe, placing them back in a way that would make them easier to spot in hopes that Ben would find them on his own. They’d all known Tom was proud of his son, but this was tangible proof. The way he’d kept track of Ben and the manner in which he’d preserved these articles said it all.
Yet after seeing these, she found Ben to be more of an enigma than ever—a man wrapped in contradictions. As a soldier, he’d distinguished himself many times. Yet now he wanted to leave that world and come back to one that had never satisfied him before. She still had difficulty seeing him settling down to a life of predictability and routines.
Jo stood and stretched. She was beat. It was time for her to go home.
Turning out the office lights, she entered the storeroom and reached for the final switch when she heard a pickup roaring up out back. Cautious, she turned out the light and went to the back door, opening it slightly and peering out.
As Ben stepped out of his friend’s truck into the glow of the overhead lamp, a beer bottle rolled out the door with him and fell to the ground. Disappointment washed over her. At least part of the bad boy she’d known once was still alive and well—or at least still standing.
Ben bent over, picked up the bottle, and tried to hand it back through the window, but someone inside rolled up the window, almost catching his hand. Ben dropped the bottle. Jo heard Danny and Artie laughing, and Ben had to jump back as the pickup lurched forward.
As they drove off, Jo went outside to help Ben, who’d picked up the bottle again. He was fumbling in his pocket with his other hand, probably for his keys. Close up, beneath the bright cone of the parking lot light, he looked like crap. There were bruises on his face and his left eye was almost swollen shut. The only plus she could find was that he didn’t appear to be drunk, and didn’t smell of booze either.
“I thought you’d finally grown up. This reminds me of high school, when you were always getting into a f
ight over something or another.”
“Yeah. It really pissed you off back then.”
“I’m not overly impressed now either,” she snapped. “Come on, let me give you a hand. You’re not too steady on your feet right now.”
“I took a few punches, no prob. At least I wasn’t dodging RPGs.”
She blinked, suddenly regretting her words. He’d been in foreign, hostile lands fighting for his country and saving the lives of fellow soldiers. She could, and should, cut him some slack. “So what happened tonight?”
“I had the best Navajo taco in the world, and the first Mexican Coke since—forever. You can’t believe how much I’ve missed the little things in life.”
She took his arm and draped it around her shoulders.
“I like this,” he said.
“Don’t get used to it. I’m just helping you walk home. What happened?”
“Just a guy with a big mouth. Remember Roger Ferrell?”
Jo nodded. “He’s still a jerk after all these years. You were saying…”
“He started it, I finished it. End of story.”
She rolled her eyes. “Couldn’t you have just walked away?”
“I did—right after he hit the floor.”
“Before that,” she said.
“No, sometimes you have to stand your ground.”
“I don’t understand you. I would have found a way to walk away.”
“Are you really so sure?”
She saw something flash in his eyes. Was it a warning? She couldn’t tell. “I wouldn’t have put myself in a position where I couldn’t back out, or chosen a place where I’d be inviting problems just by being there.”
He didn’t argue the point, and she took it as confirmation. He’d gone out with his pals and found trouble—his specialty. She considered letting go and pushing him in the right direction, but she owed Tom more than that.