Cactus Jack

by Brad Smith

  Al from the garage called at a quarter to four to say that the truck was ready. Luke got up to leave, making eye contact with the waitress standing by the bar. She winked at him over the shoulder of the man she was talking to. The next dancer was being introduced over the loudspeaker as the “mesmerizing Jasmine.” Luke put his hat on and was almost out the door when he looked back to see the young woman with cropped hair prancing onto the stage. He stopped in his tracks.

  He parked the truck in the lot behind Honey Bunnies, a few yards away from the red Mustang convertible. He’d taken the Ford down the road a couple of miles and back on a test drive and the clutch was working fine. He had no idea how long he was going to have to wait in the parking lot, but it didn’t matter to him if it was ten minutes or ten hours. He would wait.

  Shortly after five o’clock the lot began to fill up, guys getting off work, Luke assumed. Most were rednecks driving pickup trucks or Jeeps, young guys with money in their pockets, looking to see some naked flesh.

  She came out the back door about an hour later. Off duty now, she wore jeans and boots and a denim jacket. She slipped on sunglasses as she crossed the lot to the Mustang and she didn’t see Luke until he was a few feet away.

  “If it ain’t my favorite schoolteacher,” he said.

  She turned and it took her a moment, but even then she was quick on her feet. Maybe her eyes showed some reaction but they were hidden behind the shades.

  “You’re mixed up, buddy. I’m no fucking schoolteacher.”

  “I know you’re not,” Luke said. “And your name’s not Rachel. Or Brenna. I actually kinda doubt that it’s Jasmine either, but I don’t really care. Whatever it is, you and me need to have a conversation.”

  “I got no idea what you’re talking about.” She turned and unlocked the car door. “You keep standing there and I will run you over, you fucking hillbilly. Just try me.”

  As she got behind the wheel, Luke took his buck knife from his pocket and shoved the blade into the front tire of the Mustang. As the air hissed, the woman came out of the car unhinged.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed.

  “I expect you have a spare tire in the trunk,” Luke said. “We can talk while you change it. You don’t want to talk, then I’ll give your license plate number to the cops and you can talk to them. I’m guessing a nice girl like you has a record of some sort. Tell me though—will this be your first time up on blackmail charges?”

  “You’re a fucking asshole.”

  “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

  Twenty-Five

  TUESDAY WAS THE THIRD DAY RUNNING that Jodie hadn’t shown up at the farm and now Billie was worried. That morning she tended to the animals and then sat on the bench outside the barn, drinking coffee. She was thinking about smoking a cigarette and was glad that she didn’t have one to smoke. She thought about the last time she had talked to Jodie, in the truck after the race on Saturday. They’d been sitting in the driveway of the kid’s place, looking at her mother in the yard with her chop shop friends, talking about what Reese Ryker had said. Billie had thought at the time that things were okay between them when she left. Maybe that wasn’t so. And now she was worried about a kid she had never wanted around in the first place.

  She had other irons in the fire today. She’d posted an ad the night before at Chestnut Field and another on the internet, offering the colt for sale, and had already received two calls. A man named Donaldson was coming to the farm that morning at eleven o’clock. The horse in question was at the moment standing fifty feet away in the pasture with his head over the fence, looking at Billie as if he knew she was planning his fate.

  “You had your chance,” Billie told him.

  Tossing the cold coffee remains into the dirt, she got in the truck and drove over to the double-wide where Jodie lived. With all the vehicles parked in the yard, she couldn’t tell if anybody was home or not. A dog was barking as she walked up to the door of the trailer and knocked. When nobody answered she had a look around back. A very large mutt that looked part mastiff was in a chain link run there, drool hanging from its mouth as it barked. Seeing Billie, the dog charged at her, leaping up to plant its large front paws on top of the gate. She stepped back but then realized that the animal didn’t seem all that malicious. There were pails for food and water in the pen, both empty. Billie dragged a garden hose from the house over to the run and filled one of the pails through the chain link. The dog came over at once and began to noisily lap at the water. There was nothing Billie could do about the empty food dish.

  She went around to the front yard and stood there. Spotting an old brick farmhouse a couple hundred yards to the east, she went back to the truck and drove over.

  A woman answered the door, or at least opened it a couple inches, enough to look at Billie in a suspicious manner. She was around fifty, with auburn hair that showed a good inch of gray where the roots had grown past the color job.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know if anybody is home next door?”

  “Who you looking for?”

  Billie gestured vaguely north. “I have a farm. Jodie, the girl, keeps her animals there and she hasn’t been around for a couple days.”

  “I can’t say where she got to,” the woman said. “They carted the rest of them off to jail.”

  Billie turned to look at the double-wide, as if there were something she’d missed. “Carted who off to jail?”

  “The woman and that boyfriend of hers. Sheriff showed up with four or five of them big trucks they drive. They all had on that SWAT gear you see on TV and they arrested the whole damn bunch.”

  “Arrested them for what?”

  “Drugs, I’m thinking.”

  “What happened to Jodie—the little girl?”

  “Couldn’t say. I reckon they’d a taken her somewheres though.”

  Billie exhaled. “I reckon.”

  Back home she made more coffee, and while she waited for the buyer she called the sheriff’s department in Marshall. The woman who answered the phone asked who she was and then about her relationship to the family. When Billie said she was a friend, the receptionist—or whoever she was—told her they weren’t releasing any information about the family.

  “All I can tell you is that the mother’s being arraigned tomorrow.”

  “I’m worried about the daughter,” Billie persisted. “I don’t care about the rest of them.”

  “Can’t help you,” the woman said and hung up.

  “But you’re supposed to help people,” Billie said to the dead line.

  The man Donaldson showed up early, driving a black Lincoln Navigator that appeared to be new. Billie met him at the house and they walked to the pasture together. The man was tall and thin and wore a brown suit, no tie, and a tan Stetson. He wasn’t a talker and barely bothered with hello. As they walked, Billie saw him looking at the three animals in the paddock by the barn. The pony and donkey were on their feet, watching the approaching humans, while the goat lay contentedly in the dirt. Donaldson smirked at the sight of them, as if he’d stumbled upon a side show.

  By the pasture fence the colt came directly to them as was his habit. Donaldson looked the horse over like he was scanning a menu. He didn’t bother to go into the field.

  “You have the paperwork?”

  “Up at the house,” Billie said.

  “And Saguaro’s the sire?” He turned to Billie. “That’s what your ad says.”

  “That’s right.” Billie indicated the chestnut mare, standing hipshot by the pond, watching them. “There’s the dam.”

  Donaldson shrugged to show he couldn’t care less about the dam. “There was no asking price with the ad.”

  Billie hesitated. She’d been back and forth on the number ever since she’d posted the colt for sale. What was too much and what was too little? Glancing toward the house, her eyes fell on the new Lincoln in the drive. The horse had to be worth more than the car.

 
“I have to get a hundred thousand for him,” she said. “The colt is fast. I can show you his workout sheets.”

  “He wasn’t very fast at Chestnut Field last weekend.”

  “He had an off day,” Billie said. “Even Secretariat got beat.”

  “Not at Chestnut Field he didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s the price,” Billie said.

  Donaldson looked at the gray a moment longer, then took a cell phone from his pocket. “I have to make a call.”

  He tapped in a number and walked down the hill toward the barns as he talked, out of earshot. Billie leaned back against the gate and watched him. There was something about the man that didn’t sit right. He had barely looked at the colt, hadn’t checked the animal’s teeth or feet, hadn’t asked to see the workout figures. He never asked to see the ID tattoo, either. He didn’t act like any thoroughbred buyer Billie had ever known.

  After a few minutes he put the phone in his pocket. Removing the hat briefly to push back his lank blond hair, he started back toward Billie.

  “I’ll have a trailer here this afternoon.”

  “We have a deal at a hundred thousand?” Billie asked.

  Donaldson nodded. “You’ll take a certified check?”

  Billie allowed that she would, but she was already second-guessing herself. Whether she was doing the right thing or not, it wasn’t what her father would have done. But wasn’t the alternative to keep the colt and lose the farm? Even David Mountain Clay was of the opinion that the old man hoped that Billie would hang onto the property. Horses come and go. Will Masterson knew that fact better than anybody.

  Then she remembered what Tyrone had pleaded. Let him run his race. One time. Billie looked at the colt; the animal was looking back at her. Goddamn it.

  “I’ll need a bill of sale,” Donaldson said. “And all the paperwork. I’ll bring the money when I come back for the horse.”

  With that Billie was filled with full-blown seller’s remorse, even though she hadn’t actually made the transaction yet. She could back out now, find a trainer and run the colt once more, to eliminate any second thoughts she might have next week or next year—or in forty years, when she might be sitting around a home somewhere, telling people about the great horse she almost raced.

  But Luke had said that another bad showing would drop the price drastically. If that happened, she could lose both the animal and the farm. If only the colt had performed better on the weekend. But it wasn’t the horse’s fault. She silently cursed Luke for his duplicity, and as she was cursing him she swore she could hear the bark of his truck’s exhaust.

  And then the sound grew louder. She looked toward the side road and saw the beat-up Ford pulling into the drive, bouncing in and out of the potholes before rolling to a stop by the barn. Luke got out and started toward her, looking suitably hangdog. He stopped when he got a look at Donaldson.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?”

  Even if Billie had been considering introductions, she wouldn’t have had time as Luke charged across the yard to land a right hook on Donaldson’s jaw. Donaldson went with the punch and came right back at Luke, dropping into a crouch and firing both hands like a boxer. A very good boxer.

  It was a mismatch. Donaldson had obviously done some fighting and Luke was a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet, with a reputation as a man who’d had a lot of fights but never won one. Soon he was on the ground and Donaldson was pounding on him. Billie let it go on for a bit, thinking that Luke was getting exactly what he deserved, but then she told Donaldson to stop. When he ignored her, she told him again, loudly this time, and then she went into the machine shed and came out with a shovel, which she slammed across the man’s back. He went down in the dirt and when he attempted to rise, she hit him again. This time the steel spade cracked his head and he stayed down, covering up and shouting he’d had enough.

  “What in hell is going on here?” Billie demanded of Luke. “How do you know this guy?”

  Luke got up. His nose was bleeding and his shirt ripped nearly off. “His name’s O’Hara and he’s working for Ryker.”

  Billie turned to look at the man on the ground. He was on one knee now, groggy from the blow to his head, one hand held up defensively against another whack from the shovel. Billie glanced at Luke.

  “Well, that makes two of you,” she said.

  “They blackmailed me, Billie.” Luke ran the back of his hand under his nose, spreading the blood across his cheek. His eyes were on hers, pleading. He was like a little boy telling a tall tale that just happened to be true.

  “Oh Christ,” Billie said. She turned to Donaldson or whatever his name was. “You—get the fuck out of here. Now.”

  The man got up and when he reached for his hat Luke kicked it across the yard. The man retrieved it and pointed at Luke.

  “I’ll remember this,” he said.

  “Anytime, asshole,” Luke told him.

  “Oh, stop it,” Billie said.

  Donaldson, or O’Hara, walked away. There was a trickle of blood running down into his collar. When he got to the Lincoln he turned and looked at them both for a long moment, as if he were considering walking back down the hill. He thought better of it and got into the car and drove off.

  Billie turned to Luke. “Let’s hear your story and make it quick because I want you out of here, too.”

  She changed her mind, albeit reluctantly, after she heard what had happened. She might have doubted it coming from somebody else but she knew that it was precisely the type of situation Luke could find—and find better than anybody she’d ever known. When she had appeared dubious, he offered to show her the pictures of himself and the stripper/schoolteacher. She had quickly declined and then pointed him to the tap outside the barn door.

  “Wash the blood off your face and change your shirt,” she told him. “I suppose I owe you a beer for coming to my rescue. Although if you weren’t such a fucking jackass it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

  She brought two cans of beer and some ice in a washcloth to stop the bleeding from his nose. He sat on the bench outside the barn, with his head back, until the flow finally stopped. Billie drank her beer, leaning against the fender of Luke’s truck, watching him, wondering how she was going to manage to forgive him. Blackmail or not, he had still betrayed her. If she wanted to get all superior and morally outraged about it, she could say he betrayed the colt, too.

  In the end she decided that worrying over whether or not she should forgive him was a waste of her time. Expecting Luke to ignore the advances of a pretty girl in a bar would be like waiting for the sun to rise in the west. Let him drink his beer and be on his way.

  He set the washcloth aside and had a drink before looking over at her, smiling the goofy smile she’d known since she was eighteen and they had first gone on a drive together. It had worked for him back then. A few nights later they’d had sex in the backseat of his buddy’s Oldsmobile.

  “We need to make a plan,” he said.

  “We need to make a plan?” Billie repeated. “Okay, here’s the first part of the plan. Finish your beer and get into your truck and go back to Idaho or Nebraska or wherever it is you’re racing your quarter horse this week. As for me, I have another buyer coming here at two o’clock to look at the colt. With any luck I won’t have to hit this one with a shovel.”

  She could see Luke thinking about it, his brow furrowed. “How do you know that O’Hara wasn’t the decoy?” he asked. “And this next buyer is Ryker’s guy, too. You can’t put anything past him.”

  Shit, Billie thought. The scenario seemed highly unlikely but how would she know? She hadn’t known with O’Hara. She didn’t like it when Luke turned out to be smarter than her. The good thing was that it was a rare occurrence.

  He tilted the beer back and drank. “Besides, you can’t sell that horse.”

  “I have to sell the horse.”

  “We gotta run him again.”

  “He had his chance and so did you,” Billi
e said. “I have no time for tilting at windmills. The bank is on my case. I’m going to lose this place at the end of the month.”

  “End of the month,” Luke said. “Shit, that changes things.” He sat thinking. “Okay, how much money do you need—just to keep them at arm’s length?”

  “I don’t know,” Billie said. “I was hoping to get a hundred thousand for the horse. Donaldson agreed to it, before I found out he wasn’t Donaldson.”

  “Sure he agreed, on Reese Ryker’s dime.” Luke had another drink, then shook the can, sending a hint to Billie that it was empty. “We got ’til the end of the month. The way I see it, we can only run him twice, then. How we going to do this?”

  “Those punches to the head affected either your thinking or your hearing,” Billie said. “I’ve made up my mind that I want to hang on to the property, which means I’m selling the horse. Don’t think you can come around here looking for sympathy just because you can’t keep your cock in your pants. You’re feeling guilty because of what happened Saturday. Well, you should feel fucking guilty. But you’re forgetting that you’re the one who told me that running the horse again is a bad idea.”

  “I was being blackmailed at the time, Billie.”

  “For picking up yet another girl in yet another bar,” Billie reminded him. “Oh, the irony.”

  “I don’t understand irony,” Luke said.