by Pat Henshaw
“Coffee?” he asked.
I nodded, and we walked toward the row of pots on a sideboard. “You have any favorite tunes you’d like to hear me play?”
He grinned and pointed to an empty table. I figured of the few people in the room, most of whom were staring down at their cell phones, this guy would be the best choice to keep me engaged and not worrying. I helped myself to coffee even though Gloria, standing next to the kitchen door, made a sour face, shook her head, and gestured for me to come into the kitchen. One taste and I excused myself to my companion and followed her.
“The coffee’s really bad this morning,” I said, handing her my cup.
“Sorry, boss. Usually I stop by Penny’s down the street and get them to fill up the containers, but I was running late this morning. I figured with the bachelor party and all, they’d be too hungover to notice.” She shrugged and poured my special roast into my personal mug. She handed me the mug. “I didn’t think you’d want to share your personal stash. Besides, we don’t have enough to give it to everybody.”
I wondered if Penny’s could deliver. I mentally put a call to Jimmy, who owned Penny’s, on my to-do list. Maybe we could strike a deal to have someone bring the coffee down here every morning. It would save Gloria a step and probably make the guests happier.
I thanked her and slowly walked back out to the dining area, where I found Vic and Hayden at the table where my breakfast companion sat. As I eyed the table and the one vacant chair there, the unnamed man gestured for me to join them.
“Zeke, you know Vic and Hayden, right?” The guy grinned at me as he pointed to Vic and his brother with his coffee cup. This guy was a type I knew well, not only a talker but also a glad-hander, someone who liked to know everyone and wanted everyone to know him.
I nodded, laughing to myself. These guys always figured everyone around them knew their name. But I didn’t know his and probably half the people he talked to during the day didn’t either. Fortunately Vic wasn’t in the clueless group with me.
“Tripp here said he didn’t think you’d mind if we joined you.” Vic reached over and pushed out the empty chair beside him. With a smile, he turned away from me as I sat. “What was it you said you do, Tripp?”
“Sell industrial plastic products. You’d be surprised at how fascinating it is.” And Tripp was off, giving us the particularities of plastic fabrication and the proper use of plastics in construction.
Everyone who knows me and my family thinks that, when I took over, I inherited money from my granddad to update the hotel. Not true. I’d made the money myself.
By the time I hit high school, the Bandy was on the brink of folding. Neither my dad nor my granddad knew squat about finances, budgeting, or business. They spent exorbitant amounts keeping the hotel minimally afloat, but they had no saving or reinvestment plans.
In high school I’d been thrust on Mr. Smith, a thin, impeccably dressed teacher who lived in a neat little bungalow right outside Old Town. Everything about him screamed conservative except his concept of fluid math and investing. Rigid and precise Mr. Smith taught an investment system of research, math principles, and gut feeling. You liked to fly fish? Find out who made your favorite equipment and invest in them. As it turned out for some of us, including me, his simple strategy was surprisingly lucrative.
Like a lot of my school friends, I was into computer gaming, so I invested in a little software group and a little hardware company. I put my pretend class money and twenty-five dollars of my own savings into them as well as investing in Wells Fargo, because of the stagecoach, and Pepsi, because I drank a lot of it. Then I sat back to watch the stock market. By the time I got to college, I had an active portfolio and enough dividends to pay for school while I lived in the garage apartment of a friend of my dad’s.
So while Hayden’s eyes glazed over and Vic seemed to be staring off into another world, I listened carefully to what Tripp was saying about plastics and construction. I might have another winner for my portfolio.
The breakfast room did a brisk business. As Tripp wound down, I got his card. During his lecture, I’d watched the guys at the other tables frown at their cups, then get up and wander away. Jimmy had me to thank for the extra business this morning at the coffee shop.
As Tripp left to clean up for the day, I made a mental note to schedule a comprehensive staff meeting as soon as the wedding festivities were over. We needed to plan for the upcoming tourist season, and we needed to hire summer staff.
“So, Zeke, how about a tour of the hotel?” Vic looked excited to see what I had to show him, which pissed me off a little. A young relative of his had been badly beaten and was in trouble. Why wasn’t he asking me what had happened last night after I returned to the hotel?
“So, Vic, how about you tell me about Calvin?”
He looked startled for a second, his smile slipping and his face blanking as if he’d never heard of anyone named Calvin. Maybe because I have no blood relatives that I know of or because nobody gave a damn about me before Nathaniel Bandy adopted me, Vic’s uncaring attitude upset me.
Hayden came to his rescue. “Yeah, Zeke, have you heard anything about Cal this morning?” They looked at me as if I had answers. “Did he get here?”
“Yes,” I answered with a shrug. “Last I heard he was spending the night at the clinic for observation.”
“Observation? For what?” Hayden asked.
“Someone beat the shit out of him,” I said. I couldn’t believe they didn’t know all of this.
“What? Who?” Vic asked.
Neither of them acted overly upset, but more like they were hearing about someone they weren’t related to.
I turned to Vic, who still attracted me even though I was a little pissed off about his lack of concern about Calvin.
“Has Lloyd called you, Vic?” At his blank look, I added, “Lloyd Campbell, the sheriff? Or Yarnell Grace, medic at the clinic? I thought you and Hayden were the ones in touch with Calvin’s father, Tobias.”
Vic sighed. “Not me. Hayden. You don’t understand, Zeke. My adoptive family’s complicated.”
“Every family is complicated.” The disgust in my voice matched the disgust I felt for both of them. Why didn’t they know or care about a kid in their extended family who’d been beaten up, presumably by his own father?
Last night they both had sat in Stonewall listening to me play as they drank beer and talked to Jimmy, Fredi, and Max, while here at the hotel, their cousin bled and cried. Obviously they didn’t know then that Calvin had been hurt. But Raynetta had said that Hayden had gotten a text or a call from Tobias alerting him to the fact that Calvin was missing and had probably come to see Raynetta and Justine. Had either Vic or Hayden bothered to get up and come over to check with the girls to see if Calvin had shown up? Nope, not as far as I knew.
I’d say the family had stepped beyond complicated to fucked up.
“Look, I’m not as bad as you’re thinking.” Vic’s seductive voice wasn’t so smooth now, but harsh. His ebony eyes were spitting fire. “Hayden may be blood-related to Calvin and Tobias, but I’m not. I washed my hands of everyone but Hay years ago when Tobias disowned me as the Red Bastard Mistake his brother Hebron made when he took me in.”
That changed things. I chided myself for jumping the gun before I knew the facts. I hated it when someone did it about me, the hotel, and the people who lived here. How could I be so stupid as to do it to someone else? Maybe I’d be better off finding out what the real story was.
“So why’d Tobias get in touch with you of all people?” I asked Hayden.
“Good question. I figured he called to harass me about coming to town and staying in the hotel where his devil-whore brother Ray lived. He said something about Cal coming to Stone Acres, but he was so incoherent, I hung up on him. It didn’t register that Calvin was really in any kind of trouble.”
“So will you and Vic take care of him now?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s u
nderage, so I don’t know what to do.”
Vic’s mouth had thinned out, and he looked livid.
Hayden glanced at him and winced. “I guess Raynetta, Vic, and I’ll have to decide when we find out how he is and what he wants to do.” He sighed. “It’s a mess—as usual in my family.”
The room had emptied as we talked, so Lloyd Campbell clomping in shattered the stillness.
“Zeke, I got Calvin with me. I need to find Raynetta and the boy’s cousins to see if anyone is going to accept responsibility for him so I can get in touch with his dad and find out what this is all about.”
I was never so relieved to see the sheriff and happily introduced him. After he’d shaken Vic’s and Hayden’s hands, I called Raynetta on my cell phone only to find out she and Justine were at the barber shop.
It took a few minutes to get everyone together, but since I wasn’t needed, I had Gloria get them some good coffee and closed off the breakfast room so they could talk. I assured them that Calvin had Room 305 for as long as he needed it. Then I was out of the conversation. I had a hotel to run.
I completed my morning rounds, talking to Greg about last night’s check-ins, which he said went smoothly, to Jax about today’s housekeeping and restocking needs, and finally to Gloria when she was done with the breakfast room cleanup. Letty was manning—or rather, womanning—the desk this morning, so I went back to my suite and sat down to my desk of bills.
Chaos ruled the morning, with the guests for Sam and Ned’s wedding still checking in. The guys were getting married in the historic First Community Church down the block in Old Town. The church had undergone major changes after the beginning of the year with the appointment of the lesbian pastor and then the first gay wedding. The church had become the preferred place for queer weddings in the area with receptions held either in the Old Town City Park or the historic library. Even the hotel had been part of the excitement twice with small receptions in the breakfast room.
This week I’d opened up the unused third-floor bedrooms to overnight stays, something I rarely did since the residents up there saw their floor like people living in suburban neighborhoods view their blocks. No one wanted to live in a transient area, even if they lived in a hotel room.
By noon my energy level was running down, which didn’t bode well for the rest of the day and especially for tonight, my regular Thursday-night gig. When I’d been in my teens, I’d been grateful Stone had given me the two nights to blow off some steam and have some fun on stage.
In school, I’d lusted after Stone, but he’d never been anything but friendly and kind to me. Although he’d had quite a few boyfriends through the years, I’d never been one of them. Because I was five or six years younger, I think he’d always seen me as a younger brother at best or a pest at worse. Maybe they were the same things.
I bumped into Vic in the foyer. He invited me to lunch on the condition that I’d get us there and back. I agreed since I was starving and I could practice flirting with him. Two birds for the price of one stone.
“Let’s see. Would you consider this a date?” I teased.
“Oh yeah, since I’m taking you to dinner tonight.”
“You are?” I didn’t know whether he was teasing or serious.
“Yup. We’re going to the Silver Star, where I’ve heard we’ll get a four-star meal.”
“Oh. Yeah? Okay.” I was stunned and flustered. I’d never eaten at Stone Acres’ four-star restaurant. Was this really happening to me? Where could I take him that would impress him? “Let me take you to the best restaurant around.” I grabbed the keys to my truck from the board behind him.
“Better than the gourmet place everyone’s been telling me about?” He sounded skeptical.
“Oh yeah. Best American diner food in the area. Best you could ever eat.” I stepped out the back door and led him to where the truck was parked. “Unless you don’t eat American food.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying something about me looking like a Navajo?”
He didn’t sound particularly angry or even upset. All he looked was gorgeous and way out of my experience.
“Naw. I was implying that you might be a New Age vegetarian who didn’t believe in things like bacon or sausage or biscuits and gravy.” I got in and slammed my door.
“Lead on. I can eat a skinny guy like you under the table.”
Even though I thought I heard seduction underneath his flirting before, we seemed to have stepped onto the buddy platform now. In a way I felt relieved. Buddies, I could do.
He’d stopped walking and was staring at the truck. “This thing works?”
“You kidding? Get in. Things don’t need to be beautiful to work just fine.” Take me, for example, maybe not a gem, but all parts were working great, thank you.
My 1972 Ford pickup with its beat-up sides and jutting bed looked a little like it was sniffing the ground, trying to figure out if Vic was friend or foe. The chassis might look like it had led a hard life—which it had—but the engine was in top-notch shape. Del at the Old Town Garage kept it in pristine condition, mostly because he said he was going to buy it from me someday and give it a facelift.
I drove us to the Rock Bottom Cafe, a roadside diner run by a couple of friends. This would be a true test of how compatible we were. If he hated the Bottom, then he hated me, and we had no future even as friends.
LORRAINE CULPEPPER, the Rock Bottom’s co-owner and often the only waitstaff, greeted me like she hadn’t just seen me a few days before. She batted her eyes at Vic, then sat us at the front window so we could see and be seen.
“You come here often?” Vic was studying his menu as if it had the answers to the Rosetta stone.
“Often enough. I went to the same school as Bud and Lorraine, the owners. This is a pretty tiny community. We’ve all known each other a long time and know just about everything there is to know.” I shrugged, throwing the realities of small-town life on him. As I watched people come and go, I realized I knew everyone so far, every single one of them. A couple of guys nodded, and one even said, “Nice set last night,” before he paid and left.
“So what can I get you boys?” Only four or five years older than me, Lorraine always acted like she was my mother or favorite aunt. She’d even watched over me a bit while we were in school. I never could figure it out.
We both ordered iced tea, and after he’d read over the menu, Vic settled on the same brisket sandwich and fries that were my favorites. Lorraine smirked at our identical orders and then sashayed back to the kitchen to give them to Bud.
“Can we talk about the hotel and the pictures and journals?” Vic leaned in toward me, ignoring the window and the view of Bud’s new parking lot and the people coming and going.
“Sure. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” If he’d been a squirrel, Vic would be sitting up and begging. “History first.”
He looked so cute, I blushed when I realized he was sitting with me and staring as if I were wonderful.
“Okay, let’s see.” I took a deep breath. The hotel’s history? A piece of cake. I’d told the hotel’s history countless times before. “In 1853, the Army built a fort where Stone Acres stands. Its job was to shelter pioneers and homesteaders who’d come through the pass from Nevada. Fort Murdock’s walls were made up of two structures—the hotel and a prison. Colonel Ebden Pilcher, the commanding officer, was a godly man who saw the fort more as a protector from the elements and supplier of goods and services than a military base.” Once I got into guide mode, it was hard to stop me.
“The fort became a refuge for anyone suffering abuse, including women, children, Native Americans, anyone who needed asylum. Pilcher also saw it as an outpost for artists, naturalists, explorers, and others to share their stories and craft their art. He and his wife, Anna, loved actors, dancers, and musicians and hosted both formal and informal productions, inviting their Native American neighbors to the entertainments.”
“Sounds like a pretty
enlightened guy.” Vic had been staring at me as I talked. I couldn’t tell if it was me or Colonel Pilcher who’d enraptured him. I wanted to believe it was me.
“Yeah. Very enlightened.” I leaned in because I was sharing a part of history very few people knew. “And very gay.”
I waited for his reaction. I hadn’t told many others this about old Ebden, but I figured Vic would appreciate knowing the colonel’s secret.
“Pilcher was gay? How do you know?” He was as breathless as the others I’d told. Greg, Jax, Raynetta, Justine, and even Sheriff Campbell had all been gobsmacked to learn of the revered Colonel Pilcher’s orientation.
“In the piles of pictures, journals, notes, and letters that were left in the attic and the basement when I took over, old Ebden had left his story. His ‘wife’ had once been a guy named Andrew Smith who came to the fort from St. Louis dressed as a woman named Anna. Ebden wrote that they had met in Missouri and had been married there.”
Lorraine was hurrying over to us, so I stopped that part of the story while she served us and got us refills on our tea. After we assured her we’d be fine and she left, I continued.
“They lived together for twenty-four years at the fort until Anna came down with influenza and died.”
“But how do you know Anna was a man?”
“By the two nude studies an artist painted of her. They were small, neither larger than wallet-sized, but both of them are very worn, as if Ebden always carried them around with him. And both are very explicit. Not many women have large erect penises and no breasts.”
Vic stared at me for a couple of seconds, then started laughing. The sound went from a low, tickled-pink chuckle to a full-on belly laugh. Tears rolled down his adobe cheeks, and his ebony eyes glistened.
“What?” I gave him my wide-eyed doe look. “What’s so funny?”
“Jimmy was telling me the other night about the current town fathers.” He stopped to mop up the tears, then started laughing again. When he calmed a little, he finished explaining. “He told me the council members were against gays moving in on their historic town.” And he was off laughing again. “Just wait until they get a load of this!”