by Dan Dowhal
“Thanks, Doc. Don’t worry, you’ll get your money. Come back Thursday and I’ll have it.”
“You’re staying here at the rancho? No shit. Well, hopefully I won’t have to charge you for reattaching your balls, too. Or for snakebite.”
Shane returns to the house and borrows the phone again to call the Sheriff’s Department to report the robberies.
“Dispatcher says a deputy will be by in a while to take my report,” he tells his audience after hanging up.
Tammy rises to usher Shane out of the room. “Wait in the parlour, then,” she instructs him. “Once you’re done with the law, we’ll have supper, and then we’ll get you set up in the stable. Meanwhile, we got chores to do, so stay put and out of our hair, okay?”
Shane exhales irritably, but complies. He stretches out on the couch and tries to nap, but the drugs have his brain buzzing, and memories of the day’s events keep swarming relentlessly, like backwoods blackflies. He gets up and wanders the room, looking for something to occupy himself. There is no television set, no stereo, no magazines or books — except for an ancient and well-used Bible. Spirituality is not an affliction Shane has ever suffered, so he opens the Bible out of boredom, not interest.
The inside cover contains a record of births, deaths, and marriages in one branch of the DeWitt family, going back almost two centuries. Working through the genealogy, Shane deduces that the unhappy couple depicted in the photo on the wall are Jacob DeWitt and his wife Catherine DeWitt, née Stouffer, who moved to this place sometime before the birth of their first child in 1891.
Shane skims forward to the end of the handwritten entries. They show that Tammy’s maiden name was Brand, and that the little girl Gracie, whose full name is Grace Roberta DeWitt, was born six months after Tammy’s marriage to one Robert DeWitt. The final entry reads: “Pvt. R. DeWitt, killed in action, Bahrain, Iraq, September 12, 2012.” There is nothing to explain the identity of the other women or the boy also living on the ranch.
Feeling like he has violated Tammy’s privacy, Shane softly closes the Bible and goes to the window. The wind outside has worsened, and he watches the swirling patterns of dust, grateful he is no longer sitting in the middle of it. It is hard to imagine anyone choosing to live here, let alone clinging to a patch of arid scrub brush for over a hundred years. Given his own nomadic history and the fact that as of a week ago, he has been technically homeless, there is something admirable about the household’s tenacity.
He returns to the sofa and soon drifts off into an uneasy half sleep. He is awoken by the deputy sheriff rapping on the door. The short, big-boned woman introduces herself stiffly as Deputy Alvarez and never removes her stetson or mirrored sunglasses throughout the interview. While Shane relates his story, the deputy listens quietly and takes notes, her expression inscrutable. She then starts asking questions to fill in the details.
“Can you describe the kid who stole your wallet?”
“Tall and skinny. Sandy blond with a weird-ass bowl haircut. Dressed strange, too.”
“How so?”
“Well, his clothes looked like something from an old movie. The pants were black and kind of crude, and held up by leather suspenders. He had these old-fashioned boots, too. Oh yeah, and his shirt didn’t have a collar,” Shane adds.
“What colour was the shirt?”
“White … well, white originally. Had a lot of stains on it.”
“And how much money was in your wallet?”
“Around four thousand. But that’s not the half of it. He took my credit cards, my ID, my passport … everything.”
“Four thousand? You always carry that much cash?”
Shane shrugs. “I was travelling.” He doesn’t feel the need to explain that his assets were recently purloined, and that was all the money he could scrape together.
“And you say he was driving a black Indian motorcycle with a sidecar? What year would you guess?”
“It was vintage, maybe from the 1930s or so, but still in perfect shape.”
“I don’t suppose you got the licence plate number?”
“No. It happened too fast. By the time I realized what was going on, the bastard had driven off.”
Deputy Alvarez flips through her notebook. “Six one. Around seventeen years old. A hundred and sixty pounds. Sound about right?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“We know of him, although he’s moving up in the world if he stole that motorbike. We figure he’s one of the boys who got run off from Holy Waters.”
“What’s that?”
“Blessed Temple of the Holy Waters. It’s a renegade offshoot of the Mormons … started a farm up in the foothills about forty years ago. They’re polygamists. The old guys run off the young men — don’t want them competing for wives — and some end up hereabouts. They account for a fair bit of the petty crime. Don’t really have what it takes to make it in the outside world.”
“Isn’t polygamy illegal?”
Alvarez smirks. “So’s a lot of things, but people do ’em anyway. State’s been trying to make a case against them for a few years now, but no luck. They’ve got those women brainwashed, and they circle their wagons whenever outsiders come around. Now, tell me about the men in the pickup who stole your motorcycle. Got a make and model on that one?”
“It was a 2017 Ducati 1199 Panigale R Superleggera. Mint condition … I just picked it up from a collector a month ago.”
“I meant the truck.”
“Oh. Sorry, no. I can tell you it was black with red detailing, but I haven’t a clue what its make was originally. All tricked out now with big-ass monster tires, brush bars, running lights — the whole nine yards.”
“Licence number?”
“Don’t even recall seeing any plates. Wasn’t exactly seeing straight by that point, though.”
“And you say they were all Hispanic?”
“Yeah. The two riding in the back wore jeans, plaid shirts, and straw cowboy hats … looked to be in their forties. Both had big walrus moustaches. The guy driving was younger and clean-shaven. He was definitely the boss.”
“And you say he’s the one that pulled a gun on you?”
“That’s right. I swear he wouldn’t have thought twice about blowing me away, but one of the older guys called him off. They spoke in Spanish, but I made out ‘la migra’ — that’s border patrol, right?”
Deputy Alvarez nods, but is clearly puzzled by the information. “That one’s harder to figure. It’s nobody local. Almost sounds like they were from one of the Mexican drug gangs down south, but we’ve never known them to operate on this side of the border. And then to pull a stunt like stealing a motorcycle … just don’t make sense.”
“I got the feeling the boss man was into fine motorcycles. He damn near creamed his jeans when he saw mine.”
“You don’t say. What’s the bike worth, you figure?”
“I paid almost ninety K for it with all the bells and whistles.”
Deputy Alvarez’s eyebrows arc above her mirrored sunglasses.
“Ninety thousand for a motorcycle! What do you do for a living, Mr. Bronkovsky? If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look like someone who can afford that kind of coin.”
Shane feels the serpent of his anger stir within him. Somewhere, in the distance, like someone calling from far off in the woods, the voice of prudence tries to intercede, but he shoves it aside.
He rises to his feet and looms over Alvarez. “What the fuck are you grilling me for? I’m the victim here. Those motherfuckers robbed me. Shouldn’t you be out trying to catch them instead of giving me a hard time?”
Only when he sees the deputy’s hand slide down to the taser on her hip does he realize he has again let his rage possess him.
“Mr. Bronkovsky. I’m going to have to ask you to sit down and get a hold of yourself. I am investigating here, and I advise you to co-operate, if you know what’s good for you.”
Shane drops back onto the sofa and f
eels the familiar feeling of remorse wash over him. He has been like this as long as he can remember. There is a beast that lives coiled within him, a sly, powerful, and venomous thing that strikes without warning, then slithers away, leaving him swollen with guilt. He has received counselling for his anger in the past — learned tricks and techniques to mitigate his raw emotions — but these all proved to be clinical abstractions. Plus, the whole therapeutic exercise was rife with hypocrisy, since the people who’d sent him there were the same ones who expected him to let his fury erupt when it suited their purposes, then exploited it and banked on it, even while publicly condemning it.
“I’m … or at least, I used to be a professional athlete,” Shane says quietly, residual emotion causing his voice to tremble.
“Really? What sport?”
“Hockey.”
“No fooling. What team?”
“Columbus Blue Jackets. Columbus, Ohio, that is.”
Alvarez shrugs. “Never heard of them, but I don’t really follow hockey. Now, my brother — he’s a huge fan. Never missed a Scorpions game when they were still around.” Shane has never heard of any hockey team called the Scorpions, but nods anyway. “Well, you being a hockey player, that explains a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“The missing teeth and those scars on your face, for one thing. But that shiner you’re sporting looks kinda fresh.”
“I was playing just last week — first round of the playoffs.” He scratches the whiskers on his face. “I guess I never got around to shaving off my playoff beard, either. Anyway, we got eliminated, and my season’s over.” My career, too, he adds mentally.
Out of habit he runs his tongue through the gaps in his teeth. “Speaking of missing teeth, the little rat bastard stole my dentures, too.”
Alvarez records that in her notebook. “Anything else?” she asks.
“My cellphone … and the alligator leather bag I kept everything in. I guess that’s it.” He purposely omits the marijuana and cocaine he was also carrying. His supply of drugs was significantly depleted over the past few days, anyway.
“I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Bronkovsky. Most of your stuff’s probably been tossed in the desert somewhere.” She tears off a slip of paper and hands it to Shane. “That’s the police report details. You’ll need it for your insurance company. My advice is, file a claim and start getting all your stuff replaced. Have you reported your credit cards missing?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, I’d start there, although I doubt that kid’s got the savvy to use them. Now, we might have better luck with your bike. Given, from what you tell me, it’s rare. Still, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.” She rises and flips her notebook shut with a practised flourish. “Where you staying, in case we need to get in touch with you?”
“I’ll be here for the next couple of days until I can get some money wired to me. After that, I’m not sure, but I’ll let you know.”
“You’re staying here? Hmm. Well, I guess a big macho hockey player like you should be able to take care of himself.”
FIVE
Shane is dozing fitfully on the sofa when chattering voices and clattering dishes in the kitchen wake him. He opens his eyes and turns to gaze through the parlour’s grimy window. Outside, the wind is blowing shifting pillars of dust across his field of view. In the far distance, a tumbleweed bounces down the driveway, dancing ever closer as if it, too, is coming to stay at the ranch house.
The sight makes Shane smile. Until a couple of days ago he had only ever seen tumbleweeds in cowboy movies, and he’d always assumed they had been a fixture of the Western landscape for eons. But last night, in a drunken conversation with a stranger at a roadhouse outside of Las Cruces, he learned that the plant was an invasive species called Russian thistle — although not really a thistle. According to the gabby stranger, it had been accidentally imported in shipments of flax seeds by Ukrainian immigrants to North Dakota in the 1870s. Clearly liking its new home, the Russian thistle had quickly spread throughout the Southwest, earning the name tumbleweed for its itinerant behaviour. The Hopi Indians, on the other hand, equating it with another invader, named it White Man’s Plant.
Shane seldom goes out of his way to acquire new scientific or historical knowledge, but being of Ukrainian descent himself, manages to retain last night’s facts. He even remembers that the plant is classified as a diaspore because it spreads hundreds of thousands of tiny seeds as it tumbles along. His father had often talked of the Great Diaspora that brought the family to Canada. Right now, watching the rootless invader spin in the wind, Shane can identify with the tumbleweed.
In the next room something smashes, and the sound is immediately followed by a woman’s howl of indignation. From hunger as much as curiosity, Shane rises to investigate. When he enters the kitchen, the boy Vern is down on his knees picking up the pieces of a broken plate, while Tammy looms over him, scolding.
“I swear you’re the stupidest, awkwardest child I ever met. Now you’ve gone and done it. There ain’t enough plates to go around for supper. Well, you’re just gonna have to eat from one of the tin bowls, that’s all there is to it.”
Vern says nothing, but when he looks up at Shane’s entrance, there are visible tears forming at the edges of his eyes. Shane instantly feels sorry for the boy.
“That’s okay,” Shane says. “I don’t mind eating from whatever’s handy.”
“No, sir, you’re a guest in this house, and we ain’t going to punish you on account of this one being so darn clumsy. It’s only fair he pays for his mistake.”
Over by the stove, Maybelline and Yolanda are fussing with pots and pans, uninterested in the spat.
“Well, something smells good, that’s for sure,” Shane comments, trying to steer the subject away from Vern.
“Nothing special. This ain’t no restaurant, so you’ll just have to eat what we eat.”
“Silly, we’re having chili willy-nilly,” Maybelline calls over.
“Con carne,” Yolanda adds. Something in her delivery makes Shane think he’s missing a private joke. As the butt of countless locker room pranks in the past, he is a minor authority on the subject.
“There’s rice, too, and biscuits in the oven,” Tammy says.
“Oh, boy, biscuits!” Vern exclaims and jumps to his feet. He dumps the pieces of the broken plate into a trash can with a clatter and goes to hover near the oven. “Aunt Tammy makes the best biscuits.”
“So, Vern’s your nephew?” Shane asks.
“He’s no blood kin of mine. He’s my late husband’s sister’s son,” Tammy says without enthusiasm. As if to reinforce the point, she swats the boy across the back of the head with a dish towel. “Git away from there, child. They’re not ready yet. Make yourself useful and pump some water for cleaning up.”
Vern’s shoulders slump, but he obeys. As the boy approaches the sink, Shane again marvels at the ancient cast-iron pump in place of a faucet. Standing on the tips of his toes, with two hands, Vern begins to labour at the handle, which creaks with resistance.
“Here, let me help,” Shane offers. He goes over and starts pumping, relishing the physicality of it. It takes a half-dozen strokes before a trickle of water emerges. By this time Vern has fetched a large kettle, and he gives Shane an appreciative smile.
“I took him in after both his folks were killed in a tornado over in Ector County,” Tammy says. She jerks her thumb generally eastward. “That’s in Texas.”
Shane glances at the boy to see if there is any reaction to the mention of his parents’ death, but Vern is watching him, bright-eyed, intrigued by the history of violence written on Shane’s face. By now the water from the pump is flowing freely, and Shane pushes harder, feeling his biceps swell with the effort.
“Easy, hombre! That old thing isn’t used to a big muscleman like you,” Yolanda exclaims. “She won’t be able to pump for a week after you’ve finished with her.”
The other women erupt in la
ughter at the joke.
A veteran of locker room banter, Shane jumps reflexively into the play. “Maybe she’s just out of practice. I bet with some proper lubrication she can pump all night.”
“Maybe she can handle it, but I never met a man who could keep it up that long,” Maybelline retorts, and does a curtsy.
The women all laugh again, and suddenly Shane feels like the joke is on him. He fumbles unsuccessfully for a witty retort and falls silent. The kettle is now full. Seeing Vern struggle to lift it from the sink, Shane hoists it out with ease and brings it to the stove.
His stomach growls, reminding him how long it’s been since he last ate. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
At this, the girl, Gracie, who has been sitting silently at the kitchen table grinding chili peppers with a stone mortar and pestle, begins to wail.
“We don’t eat horses!” she screams, and pounds the table with the pestle.
“For heaven’s sake, Gracie, he didn’t mean nothing by it,” Tammy sighs. “Tell her, Shane.”
Shane squats down beside the girl. “That’s right, Gracie. I didn’t mean it. It’s just a figure of speech.”
“Oh,” says Gracie. She stops blubbering, but looks unconvinced.
“I’d never really eat a horse,” says Shane.
“Some folks do … and dogs, too.”
“Well, I’ve heard stories of them eating dogs in other countries, but they don’t do that around here, do they?”
“No, silly, dogs eat horses … you know, they put ’em in dog food. I don’t think it’s right.”
Shane’s ex-girlfriend, Brandi, used to feed her Lhasa Apso the choicest food straight from the table, and frankly, Shane would have preferred for the spoiled little mutt to have been fed dog food made out of any kind of cheap animal by-product instead, but he does not say this to Gracie.
“No, I don’t think it’s right, either,” he agrees, and that brightens her up. “My neighbour used to have a horse I was friendly with when I was growing up. His name was Opie.”