Montgomery nods at the weapon. “All right.”
He steps forward a couple paces past Sam, squares his stance and his shoulders, and aims his pistol with both hands wrapped around the grip. He stands there for a moment, body relaxed, just pointing the gun.
He shoots left to right, hitting only the beer cans, pausing between each gunshot and explosion of aluminum. Birds rush out of the trees behind them, and the noise echoes through the otherwise quiet landscape.
Montgomery stops halfway across the log and turns around to face Sam. “You been to ranges, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, of course,” Sam says. A cop has to know how to shoot properly and be able to hit a target, if he’s going to carry a weapon, and he’s obligated to carry one. He just never made a hobby of shooting. And in Lassen County, California, population 32,136, he only ever had to draw his weapon maybe two or three times. He’s never fired it on the job.
“You know your way around that six-shooter?”
“Five, actually. I’ve put… maybe fifty rounds through it?”
Montgomery nods and gestures at the targets with his hand. “Have at it, Deputy.”
Sam moves past him until he’s within range of the targets and aims at the first jar on the left, mimicking Montgomery by using both hands to grip the revolver. He looks at the jar through the gun sight, tries to clear his mind, and pulls the trigger.
He almost misses the jar, hitting it near the mouth in its right shoulder and breaking it into several pieces. He moves his eyes and the gun to the next jar, thumbs the hammer down, and shoots. He hits the center of the jar, and it bursts, pieces flying in all directions and the sound of the glass shattering rattling through the pasture.
He misses the next jar, then hits it on his second try. He burns with embarrassment, feeling Montgomery watching him, but moves on without comment. He hits the next two jars on his first attempts and stops where Montgomery did, leaving the other half of the target line-up.
Montgomery steps up alongside him on Sam’s right. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at the log with his hands on his hips. The sun’s higher in the sky now, the landscape brighter and the air a little bit warmer.
“You shoot out here a lot?” Sam says.
“Not a lot,” says Montgomery. “Usually don’t have the time when I’m working and I don’t want to scare the cows too much. Or the horses.”
He pulls his pistol from the holster again and shoots his next beer can one-handed. He uses his left, Sam notices.
“Bill and I been shootin’ a time or two. Rifles.”
“You hunt?” says Sam.
“Only when somebody like him asks me to,” Montgomery says, as he lifts his cigarette to his mouth again. “I don’t enjoy doing harm to nature. I like a good steak as much as the next guy, but that don’t mean I want to butcher the cow.”
He shoots the next jar and the next, body loose and almost lazy. Sunlight curls up in the brim of his hat like a cat content to sleep there, and the plains grass rustles in the breeze around his legs. He lowers his gun and just stares at the remaining targets, waiting for Sam to take his turn.
Sam moves to Montgomery’s right and aims for the first remaining can. Shards of glass left on the log flash when they catch the light, and the can follows suit, winking at him before he blows it to hell.
CHAPTER FOUR
It takes some digging, but Montgomery finds her: Donna Rey, the blonde with the big breasts. She has a little house in Dewey, east of the 69. A shoebox house, painted a pastel blue with a dark shingled roof and white trim. She’s single and lives alone with her two dogs. He knocks on her door late one Wednesday afternoon, about a week and a half after riding with Sam, and when she answers, she’s barefoot in a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a white blouse. She has her hair up in a messy, just-rolled-out-of-bed style, and it looks soft, pieces of it hanging around her face. She reminds him of the pinup models he’d see in his dad’s skin magazines from the 70s, stashed away in an old portable cooler in the garage. Innocent baby blue eyes and peachy cheeks. She’s wearing a lot of black mascara. He can tell she’s in her mid-to late thirties, but she looks younger.
“Can I help you?” she says.
“Donna?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to talk to you about Joel Troutman.”
She gets that caught look on her face. “Come on in.”
Montgomery follows her inside, holding his hat in both hands and stepping on the carpet like he doesn’t want to disturb the house. He can see the dogs watching him from the other side of the sliding glass door leading into the backyard. They don’t bark. They just look at him.
Donna goes into the kitchen and takes a couple glasses from the cupboard. “You want something to drink? Water, lemonade, iced tea?”
“Iced tea’ll be fine,” he says, just to oblige her hospitality.
She pours it into both glasses, and he sits at the kitchen counter opposite her, his back to the living room.
“Did he tell you about me?” she says.
“No,” says Montgomery. “Somebody at Billy Jack’s told me about you and Joel. I had to find you on my own.”
She ducks her head like she’s embarrassed that anybody remembers seeing her and Troutman in public together.
“Let’s not give each other the run-around, all right? You know he’s been missing since he held-up that diner in Prescott, don’t you? I want to know where he might be.”
“Why?” she says, blue eyes rolling up to meet his, voice breathy and low.
“His wife’s looking for him,” Montgomery says.
“Oh, my God,” says Donna. “Does she know about me?”
He pauses for effect, blinking his languorous eyes at her. “No. I don’t have any reason to tell her about you. She asked me to help her find him before the cops do, so that’s what I’m doing.”
Donna raises her eyes to the ceiling, as if thanking God. She looks cherubic when she does, blonde hair like a halo.
Montgomery wonders why she’s the secretive type mistress instead of the vindictive exhibitionist kind. Does she love Joel Troutman? Enough to want to make his life easy at her own expense? Can she love him that much and still give him up to a stranger?
“Do they know for sure it was him?” she says, hope and dread blended in her eyes. “I’ve been going kinda crazy ever since he disappeared. I haven’t been able to ask anyone about him, and he hasn’t called or anything.”
“As far as I know, they’re sure,” Montgomery says. “They didn’t see his face or nothing, but he went missing the day of the robbery. No reason to make yourself scarce if you’re innocent.”
She wilts, gaze falling to the countertop. She’s always wanted to believe that Troutman is better than he is, Montgomery can tell.
He sips his tea and lets the truth sink in.
“What’s his wife going to do?” Donna says. “If he comes back? Is she going to leave with him?”
Montgomery watches her, pausing before he answers. “I don’t know. I think right now, she’s just a panicked woman who wants to talk to her husband.”
Donna closes her eyes and presses the heels of her hands to her forehead, fingertips against her scalp. She breathes. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe he would do something like that. Why would he do something like that? Does he really need the money that bad? He never told me…”
Montgomery hunches over, elbows on the counter, curling his hand around his glass. “You know where he might be, Donna?”
She glances at him. Snags her bottom lip in her teeth. She’s trying to decide whether helping him would be protection or betrayal.
Montgomery looks into her eyes and thinks of Sam. “If he’s going to get out of this, he needs somebody on his side. We can’t help him if he’s in the wind.”
She folds her hands around the base of her glass and looks into her iced tea. They’re feminine hands, fingertips narrow and pointed, nails long and manicured.
Montgomery stares at her and wonders, where did she think her relationship with Troutman was headed? What’s this woman’s story? What makes her the woman who became Troutman’s mistress?
“There’s this place,” she says. “An old trailer where we would meet to be together. I’ve wanted to go so many times since he left, see if he might be there, but—I’m afraid.” She almost laughs, breaking into a toothy smile. “I don’t know why. Maybe I’m afraid he won’t be there, you know? That he’s really gone.”
Montgomery sets his glass down and leans forward, arm underneath him on the counter. “Where?”
~~*
She’s on top of him, knees in the mattress, back arched and eyes closed with her face tipped up to the ceiling. Her tits jiggle and her sighs fill the room over the sound of the creaking bed springs. Sam watches her, sweat broken across his brow, until he’s so close that it hurts. He keeps one hand on her hip, reaches up and grips the headboard with the other, trying to pump into her faster but her weight limits his movement. She leans forward, plants her palms on his chest, and clenches around him. They come within seconds of each other. She makes an animalistic noise, half groan and half shout, grinding against him, and he squeezes her ass, whimpering with his eyes closed. She collapses onto him, hot and limp, and he keeps thrusting until his body stills itself.
They lie there, motionless, for a while. Catching their breath. Her face is covered in a curtain of blonde hair, and he can smell her shampoo and rose-scented soap on her skin. She rolls off of him and lies in the bed next to him for a few minutes, before getting up and crossing the room to the tall wooden dresser. She retrieves her pack of cigarettes and lighter, lights one up, and lopes back to the other side of the room. Sam watches her. She’s tall for a woman, about five nine, with a long back and slender limbs. Narrow hips and wide shoulders, a little bit of muscle in her arms. She has a slim waist but a soft belly. She picks her silk robe off the hook on the back of the door, puts it on, and stretches out in the big, upholstered armchair facing her corner of the bed. The robe is midnight blue with tiny white dots all over it; the hem and the ends of the sleeves are striped with rosebud pink, green and white paisley, and a row of birds with their wings outstretched. She almost looks like an old movie star in it, with the cigarette in her hand.
She smokes in silence until Sam sits up, his back against the pillow and headboard. She watches him, and he avoids her at first, then looks at her. She grins, and he smiles in turn.
“You’re good, Deputy,” she says. “Better than I expected.”
“I don’t know,” says Sam. “Seems to me you do most of the work.”
“I know what I like. But don’t sell yourself short.” She draws on the cigarette and taps the ash into a metal plate on the floor that he told her to use the first time she came over. “It’s about time for the talk, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the conversation about keeping this casual. You tell me that you like me, but you aren’t ready for anything serious. Reassure me more times than necessary that it’s really got nothing to do with me, to make yourself feel better. I accept it gracefully and go home, after agreeing to call you when I want to fuck again.”
Sam ducks his head, arms draped over his knees in front of him.
“Except,” she says, “that conversation is pointless because I don’t want this to be more involved either.”
He looks up at her again, surprised.
She smiles, satisfied with herself, and smokes. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re a great guy, Sam. But I’m happy with my life the way it is. And I had a feeling the moment I met you that you’re not exactly desperate for a girlfriend. That’s one reason I picked you.”
He almost laughs. “Well, it’s obvious who the smart one is,” he says.
She slouches in the chair, reaching her long legs to touch the corner of the bed with her feet. “Any other single woman in this town would definitely meet your expectations,” she says. “You just so happened to run into the exception.”
Lauren Baker is nothing like Sam’s ex-wife. She reminds him of a lion, with her platinum blonde hair and dark brown eyes and the way she prowls wherever she goes. No matter what she wears, she looks ready to strip it off. She’s more sexually aggressive than just about every woman Sam’s been with. In her late-thirties, she’s never been married nor had kids, which is peculiar for a woman in these parts. A native of Flagstaff, she moved down to Prescott five years ago because she wanted to distance herself from the people she knew. Sam gets the impression that he has no idea who she really is. “Lauren Baker” could be a fake name; it wouldn’t surprise him.
Like many of Prescott’s residents who aren’t retirees, she lives in town rather than outside its limits. She has a college degree in astronomy, spent ten years with the Flagstaff Fire Department after graduation, and now works an administrative customer service job at an auto shop. She drives a salmon pink 1957 Lincoln Premiere, and she likes to drink whiskey straight out of the bottle. Her favorite pastimes include throwing darts in bars, screwing male tourists, and climbing trees. When Sam met her in the summertime, she wore denim shorts on the weekends that barely covered any thigh, paired with expensive red cowboy boots several years old. She has great legs and a great laugh.
They sit in silence for a while, as Lauren smokes in the chair and Sam watches her.
“Am I allowed to ask you a personal question?” he says.
She gives him a saucy grin. “You’re a sheriff’s deputy. I think you can interrogate me anytime you want.”
“Do you have any close friends here? In town?”
“I think we’re getting closer every time we see each other,” she says, playful and flirtatious.
He wants an honest answer to his honest question, but he doesn’t know how to ask her to drop the sexy act without sounding rude. “I mean, are you close to someone that you aren’t having sex with? Someone you can count on, who really knows you and cares about you? Maybe even loves you?”
She holds the cigarette in her fingers and stares at him without any flirty suggestiveness. She takes a drag. “There are people I like, who like me. Most of them are men. Some of them I’ve been with, and some of them I haven’t. It’s hard for me to keep other women as friends. They’re always worried I’ll steal their boyfriend or their husband or the guy they want to be with. Or we just don’t have enough in common.”
“So, no one close? No best friend?” Sam says.
“No, I guess not,” says Lauren. She puffs on her cigarette, her hand elegantly posed. “Why? Are you in the market?”
He smiles, mouth waving only for a second. He looks down at his lap. “Maybe. Maybe I’m just lonely. I’ve been here four months, and I don’t really have any friends. I don’t see the other deputies outside of work, and there don’t seem to be many guys my age in this town, let alone ones who aren’t married with kids.”
“I know how you feel. Sort of. Married people are no fun—and even if they could be, they don’t usually want to spend time with someone who reminds them what it was like to be free.”
Sam pauses, and she looks at his face.
“What?” she says.
He shakes his head. “I’m divorced, and if I’m any freer than I was married, it doesn’t feel like much.”
“Do you miss your ex?”
There is no simple answer to that question. Sam thinks of Jen less now than he used to, less than he did when he first moved to Prescott, but sometimes, he does miss her. He suspects that most of it is about not having anybody in his life that he feels bonded to, the way he once did with her. He doesn’t regret the split. He wouldn’t go back to her even if he could. But when he’s home alone at night, watching television, or lying awake in bed, he wishes he could call her—just to hear a familiar voice. It’s hard to miss who she was and what they had when they were falling in love, without forgetting that she isn’t that woman anymore and he isn’t that man and even if they reconciled
now, their relationship wouldn’t be the one that he remembers when he looks at the only wedding photo he kept.
“No,” he says to Lauren. “I guess I don’t know how to be single anymore. It’s not the same as it was when I was in my 20s.”
“Of course not,” Lauren says, sitting up and dropping her cigarette butt in the ashtray on the floor. “But hey, you got divorced for a reason, right?”
Sam nods. “Yeah, I did.” He runs his hands back through his hair and exhales, resting his elbows on his knees in front of him, the sheet tented around him. He looks at Lauren and debates talking to her about something else that’s been on his mind. He decides to take a chance. “You ever been in love?”
She laughs, leaning back in the chair again, her feet on the floor now. “Hell, I don’t know. I thought I was a bunch of times in high school and college, but I’m pretty sure that was just me being a horny kid with a big imagination. I’ve never met anyone I wanted to be with the rest of my life. If I had, I would’ve married him.”
He pauses, before asking his next question. “You ever have feelings for another woman?”
Lauren looks at him like he’s joking. “No,” she says. “Why? Do you fuck men?”
Sam shakes his head. “I didn’t ask about sex. I asked about feelings.”
“Well, shit, Sam, feelings usually go hand in hand with sex, don’t they? Unless you’re talking about some other kind I know nothing about.”
He’s not sure what he’s talking about. He’s only ever dated women. He’s never wanted to have sex with men, but there have been a couple times in his past where he thought he felt something for a man that wasn’t any different than the romantic love he’d felt for ex-girlfriends. His best friend in high school was Brian Dunne. He remembers star gazing with him in a field one night when they were seventeen, after splitting a six pack Brian took from his dad’s stash. He looked at Brian’s face in the dark and felt the most intense love he’d ever felt. Sam wanted to kiss him.
In college, his closest friend was a guy named Andy Albright. They got drunk together once, right after Melanie Schaefer dumped Andy, and made out with each other in the privacy of Sam’s bedroom after returning from the bar, falling asleep in his bed together. Afterward, they pretended like nothing happened, and their friendship survived until graduation.
Lone Star on a Cowboy Heart Page 4