Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  The eggs are striated with cream cheese. Maggie’s mouth waters. After all that Balcones last night, she needs those eggs bad. “So, where do you come from, Andy?”

  His voice is soft. “Ashland.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Montana.”

  “So how’d you end up working in Wyoming?”

  Andy shoots a glance at Gene. Maggie catches Gene’s smile as he encourages the younger man to speak.

  “It’s, um, ah, I’m on Rumspringa, ma’am. I mean Maggie.”

  “Rumspringa?”

  Andy stuffs a biscuit into his mouth.

  Gene answers for him. “Rumspringa is a period when the Amish youth can leave their communities and experiment with life outside. A time for them to make adult decisions on the path their lives will take, before they’re baptized into the church.”

  “Oooh.” Maggie gets it now. Andy’s dress. His manners. His reticence. He’s Amish. She’s never actually met an Amish person before Andy, and she knows very little about them.

  Paco toasts Andy with a cup of coffee. “I’m teaching him the ways of the world. The English world. I keep trying to tempt him with beer and dancing, but I guess I haven’t introduced him to the right girl—yet.”

  Andy’s face goes tomato red. He serves himself eggs and fills his mouth.

  “Not yet, young man,” Mrs. Sibley barks.

  Maggie is stuck on one of the things Paco said. “The English?”

  Gene answers again. “All of the rest of us. The Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch in their communities. We speak English. Thus, we’re the English.”

  Trudy emerges from the kitchen with more dishes. She’s strong and steady with her armloads of food. Three dishes this time, and they look heavy. Bacon and sausage on one, an assortment of butter, jams, hot sauces, and ketchup in a basket, and hash browns in a shallow round dish. Everyone leans toward the food.

  Maggie wonders why they don’t dig in.

  “Mr. Sibley will lead us in the prayer,” Mrs. Sibley announces.

  Gene clears his throat. “He’s not in, so I’ll bless the food, if that’s all right, Mrs. Sibley.”

  Maggie realizes that Mrs. Sibley is referring to her dead husband, and that Hank isn’t coming to breakfast. Gene says grace, but Maggie is oblivious. She’s preoccupied with Hank’s absence. She knew he was going out with Sheila, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to her that he’s not here. Still, she hopes he’s just sleeping in, not sleeping with Sheila. God frowns on premarital sex with a Sunday school teacher, she feels certain, and she knows she sure as hell does.

  “Amen.”

  As soon as Gene utters the word, the men descend on the food. A pre-served plate is in front of Mrs. Sibley again. But she’s not eating. Her lips are pinched and her nostrils flare. She glares at Maggie every few seconds.

  Maggie whispers to Gene. “She really doesn’t like me.”

  Gene grins. “You have that effect on women.”

  Maggie rolls her eyes at him. The first of the breakfast dishes reaches her, and she scoops out a sizable portion of scrambled eggs. After last night’s meal, she knows she won’t get a second chance.

  She passes the platter to Andy, who adds to the mound of eggs on his plate. “So you’re Amish, huh?”

  “Yes, ma—Maggie.”

  The hash browns and bacon arrive back-to-back, requiring Maggie’s attention for a second. “I’m Lutheran, but Wendish.”

  He looks at her blankly, then serves himself hash browns and shovels in a bite with a piece of bacon.

  “The Wends, my people, live in a community away from town. Very religious. Very different from the other people in the area.”

  He slathers a biscuit with butter and jam. He nods, still chewing.

  “I’ve never been to an Amish community, but I imagine they’re similar to the Wends in some ways.”

  Andy swallows. His biscuit hovers near his mouth. “Are you Anabaptists?” His teeth sink into the biscuit and jam oozes out.

  “Ana what?”

  He talks through his food. “Anabaptists.” He chews, swallows, then restarts. “We believe baptism is an adult choice, and, if you’re baptized as a child, you must be rebaptized as an adult.”

  “Oh. Then no, we’re not Anabaptists. I was baptized twice. Once as a baby and again when I was five. It didn’t do much good. Maybe they should have kept trying.” Maggie samples the eggs. Cream cheese and chives. Perfect texture and seasoning. And not what she would have expected on a ranch table in Wyoming. The hands don’t seem to mind the hoity-toity eggs, judging by the empty platter.

  “Do you drive cars and use electricity?”

  At the end of the table, Tom says, “You need to eat those delicious eggs before they get cold, Mrs. S.”

  Maggie glances at the old woman. Yep, still glaring at Maggie. What had Andy asked? Did the Wends drive cars and use electricity? “Yes.”

  “We don’t.”

  “Everything here must be very different to you, then.”

  “I’m used to it. My father and brothers and I have worked for the English since I was a boy. But now I can choose to do whatever I want. Because of Rumspringa.”

  Mrs. Sibley bangs her spoon on her glass. “Quiet! Quiet, children. I can’t digest my food with this racket.” Then she turns to Tom. “I have somewhere I need to be.”

  Her food is still untouched.

  He jumps to his feet. “Yes, Mrs. Sibley.”

  As the others had the night before, they call their goodbyes to her. She ignores them all. Trudy brings a dish cover for Mrs. Sibley’s plate. Maggie wonders how Hank deals with his mother’s illness. It must be incredibly hard.

  Paco says, “Did you hear Chet Moore was murdered yesterday?”

  Chet? Maggie drops a biscuit and chokes on the bite she’d just taken. She reaches for her orange juice and gulps quickly. Her eyes water. She tries to remember Chet’s last name, the Chet she hooked up with, but she can’t. Moore doesn’t sound familiar. Maybe it’s a different Chet. She hopes it is. Coughing some more, she feels conspicuous, but no one glances her way. They’re all focused on Paco.

  “What happened?” Gene asks.

  “Dunno much, except they found him in the parking lot of the Bison Inn with his head bashed in.”

  His words are thunder in Maggie’s ears. “Oh God!”

  All heads swivel in her direction. She balls a fist and presses it to her mouth.

  The coincidence was too much. Chet. Murdered. Only hours after he left her, only hours after they’d been intimate. Just outside the hotel where she slept. Oh God. Oh God. He was so vital, so strong.

  “Maggie?” Gene is in front of her, hands on her forearms. He gives her a shake. “Maggie May?”

  Her mouth hangs open. She feels shocked and sad for a moment, but then a horrible thought occurs to her. She was probably the last person to see him alive. Other than the murderer, of course. The police would be reconstructing Chet’s last hours. They’d know he stayed at the Bison Inn. But no one knew they’d spent the night together. The room was in his name. When Chet checked them in, she’d stayed in his truck. The next morning, he’d left alone, and she’d made the walk of shame back to Bess hours later. And she hadn’t given the desk clerk her room number, thank God. Relief courses through her, along with a sickening guilt. No one would know she was with him there. She doesn’t want everyone and his dog knowing her business. She especially doesn’t want Hank to know about her hooking up with Chet after finding out about him and Sheila.

  She looks away from Gene, down at the biscuit she’d dropped. Everyone is looking at her. They’re wondering why she’s lost her shit. She has to calm down. Figure out how to act. Concerned first, because she met a guy who may be dead now. But not devastated or terrified. Those would be inappropriate. But upset would hit the right note. So, upset. That will be easy enough, because she’s very, very upset.

  She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I, um, met a guy at the Occidental. His name
was Chet. I hope it’s not him? He bought me a drink. Too young for me, so I sent him packing, but so nice and really cute.” She’s babbling and her voice sounds like a strangled cat, but she holds her face steady in a concerned expression.

  Gene nods, looking at her with a confused expression. “Um, yeah, Chet was at the Occidental.”

  Maggie shifts gears to sadly upset, which comes out more authentically, amongst the other bigger, scarier feelings she’s hiding. “Oh my God. This is . . . horrible. Do they know who did it?”

  Paco says, “He was a hound dog. And that chica he used to date, she’s stone-cold crazy, and her brothers are dangerous. They’re all into meth now. If it wasn’t the crazy chica, my bet is a pissed-off husband or boyfriend.”

  Gene releases Maggie and turns back to Paco. She keeps one ear on the conversation and the other turned inward. The woman who slapped Chet. The men who held him still for her. Was that not enough for them? Did they come back and kill him?

  Beside her, Andy’s voice is sonorous. “God take his soul, and may he rest in peace.”

  Maggie’s mind races. It doesn’t matter that no one saw her with Chet at the Bison. Because half the town can place them together at the Occidental. Chet had bought her drinks. They’d walked out together. Gene had probably even seen them.

  Paco pours himself more coffee. “I heard he checked into the Bison the night before. Only reason for that is a hookup.”

  Maggie’s throat closes. People are already talking about Chet spending the night with a woman. It won’t take them long to come looking for her.

  Gene whistles. “Must have been someone he wanted to impress to shell out for a room.”

  Paco grins. “What’s it to him? He makes good money. Or made, anyway. Worked for a drilling company.”

  Andy chimes in. “Isn’t that wasteful, when he has a perfectly good ranch with a house?”

  “Sounds smart to me. A woman’s got a lot of time to change her mind on a forty-five-minute drive.”

  Maggie remembers the urgency on her part, the need to have sex with Chet immediately. To feel like she’d shown Hank. But shown him what? She feels sick. She hadn’t shown him anything. And now Chet was dead.

  Gene puts both hands on the table. “Well, I’m sure the police will figure it out. We sure won’t sitting around here gossiping. Time to get to work.”

  Chairs push back, and the men leave quickly, not dawdling in the community room like the night before. Louise dashes in the door as the hands exit.

  Maggie stays frozen in her chair. Maybe she should call the cops. But what did she have to tell them? She doesn’t know anything about Chet. Certainly nothing about how he died. The police would delay her departure. Her personal business would become public information. She needs to get on her way as fast as she can get Bess fixed. Forget this whole horrible trip ever happened.

  But if she’s still here and they haven’t caught the killer by then, she can always call the police Monday.

  “For now, I’ve just got to chill.” She speaks her thought aloud.

  Louise whines and nudges her hand.

  Maggie pats the dog’s head. “I know. Easier said than done, girl.”

  Eleven

  Maggie paces in the direction of the paddocks, not eager to return to the cabin. It’s not even seven a.m. The Ford dealership won’t be open yet. She forgot to get lightbulbs and the Wi-Fi password. She’s stranded with nothing to do, so she might as well make the best of it. Take a walk with Louise. Get some exercise. Burn off some of her stress. Clear her mind.

  She marches on toward the gate, Louise her shadow. Andy canters out of the stable yard in front of her on a big buckskin gelding. He points his horse toward higher elevation, roughly in the direction of the big house on the mountain. Paco drives off on a four-wheeler. A blacksmith is shoeing a horse beside a farrier truck, his hammer clanging like a bell as it strikes nail and shoe.

  Her phone vibrates with a text. She checks it—shocked she has service here—still walking.

  Michele: Did you get ahold of your renter? Are you on your way home? Goats are at Gidget’s.

  Maggie stops. Twenty-four hours later, the world is a much different place than when she’d talked to Michele.

  No, I’ll try again. Bess broke down. Delayed. Thanks on the goats.

  She almost updates Michele that she has definitely talked to Gene since she’s staying at Hank’s and oh yeah, by the way, her hookup was murdered, but she doesn’t have the oomph right now. She hits send.

  Then texts her guest again. Leslie, hey, I didn’t hear back from you. Just want to make sure you’re OK.

  Michele: OMG so sorry. Keep me posted!

  Michele would be double sorry if she knew the whole story. Maggie pockets her phone and resumes her walk. As she nears a pen in the warren of livestock enclosures, she notices a glossy black horse. The massive animal whirls and stares at her. Maggie climbs on the bottom metal rail and holds her hand out, palm down, over the top. The horse looks away.

  “Come here, sassy. I don’t bite.”

  “You’re a stranger and a meat eater. She’s a mare conditioned to be on the lookout for threats to the herd. Of course you bite, and she knows it.” Gene runs up the rails with hands and feet, and swings over to sit atop the fence.

  “I’m not a horse lover, but I could make an exception.”

  “She knows that, too.” Gene opens his hand. In his palm is a horse cookie. “Lily, Lily girl. Cookie. Come get a cookie, Lily.”

  The horse walks over in slow motion, her ears pricked forward. She reaches her neck out to its full length, then stretches her lips to take the cookie from Gene while remaining as far from him as possible.

  He laughs. “Same old Lily girl.” He digs in his pockets and hands Maggie some cookies. “You can give her a try, but don’t touch her face. It’s a blind spot for a horse. She considers it pushy. Rude on a first date.”

  “Got it.”

  Louise stands on her hind legs, pawing the air with her front paws.

  “And don’t feed the circus animal. That dog is a beggar. She eats at the barn with all the other clawed critters every morning.”

  Maggie slips Louise a cookie after Gene turns away.

  “I hear her chewing.”

  She climbs the fence and sits next to him. “Here, Lily. Here, my pretty. Come get a cookie.” She holds out her hand, palm up.

  Lily swings her head to look Maggie over, then swings it back to eyeball Gene.

  “She’s okay, Lily girl.”

  Lily repeats her slow-motion walk, but she comes all the way up to Maggie, presenting the side of her neck. She whisks the cookie daintily from Maggie’s palm with velvet lips.

  “She likes me.”

  Gene shakes his head. “She’s Hank’s, so I guess it figures.”

  “I can’t help it if she has good taste.”

  “Give her a rub under her mane, like you’re giving a person a neck massage. Kind of up on the crest. You’ll feel the muscles there.”

  Maggie slips her fingers under the long, coarse hair and strokes the horse’s neck. “Wow. Thick.”

  “She’s mostly Percheron. Their necks are very strong.”

  “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, girl, but you’ve got a giant ass, too.” Probing the arch of the muscle, Maggie kneads it gently. Lily bobs her head in time with Maggie’s massage. “Aren’t Percherons draft horses?”

  “They are.”

  “I thought you raised buckers?”

  “We do. A bucking horse has to be sturdy. Lily adds size and strength to the bloodline.”

  Maggie whispers in Lily’s ear. “All that and a pretty face.”

  “The most successful and famous bucker in Wyoming history was half Percheron. Steamboat. The horse on the license plate.”

  “No pressure, girl.” Maggie gives Lily an extra good rub where her muscles converge behind her ear. “Is she always this big? Her gut is huge.”

  “No, she’s pregnant. This
will be her third foal. The first one is just starting out. She’s a peach.”

  “Does she buck?”

  “With great enthusiasm and a lot of strength, when we ask her to. But it was never her career. She’s a nice ride, actually. Just antisocial. Well, not as much with you. Are you usually this good with horses?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t have horses when I was growing up. I’ve ridden some, but really, I don’t have much experience.”

  “You’re a natural. Maybe you’re part Indian.”

  Maggie smiles. “I am. One eighth Crow.”

  “That may explain it. They were incredible horse people. Many still are. And you almost qualify for enrollment.”

  “What?”

  “You can enroll as a tribe member if you’re one-quarter Crow.”

  Does my father know? “Closeness only counts in horseshoes, I guess.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that you have Crow ancestry. It may have something to do with what Lily senses in you.”

  “That sounds like superstitious stereotypical BS.” She smiles at him as she says it.

  Gene laughs. “Superstitions and stereotypes have a source, sometimes. I’m just saying it could matter. Don’t be all closed-minded about it.”

  Lily tosses her mane and Maggie catches a glimpse of the arched muscular neck she’s been petting. It makes her look regal. Maggie reaches for Lily’s nose, wanting just one more feel of its cushy softness, but Lily backs away.

  “I told you she doesn’t like to have her face touched.”

  “You can’t blame me for trying.”

  “Oh, but I can, Maggie.” He turns his torso to face her. “Or should I call you Lily?”

  “Why would you call me Lily?”

  “Because you back away whenever anyone tries to get close.”

  Ouch. His words catch her off guard, but she doesn’t let him see he’s wounded her. “Can’t a girl be hard to get without a guy being mean about it? Don’t listen to him, Lily.”