Cowboy Crazy

chapter 34



The view from the porch was bleak, just a flat plain scattered with rocks and sage, but the longer Sarah looked the more she felt like she belonged here. This was the landscape she’d grown up with. The subtle greens and golds broken by gold and gray rocks and pale, parched earth were the colors of home.

It was a good day for horses, the kind of day she’d loved as a girl. The heat of the sun was tempered by a gentle, lilting breeze, just enough to cool the skin without raising dust. The Wyoming sky was a hard gemstone blue, and the grass glistened like gold tinsel. It would be a perfect day to spend with Flash Junior. What had Lane called him? Cinnamon Chrome. Cinn.

She squinted at the dusty, disreputable car parked in the drive, with all her earthly possessions jammed inside. She was in transit, moving from her old life to something new and unknown. This wasn’t the destination she had in mind, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t pause and rest, let herself out to play like a dog taking a roadside break on a long car trip.

She checked her watch, thinking of Roy as she always did when she looked at the no-frills Timex with its bold, simple numbers. It was early, not even six yet. She was hungry, and she didn’t have the energy to cook. In any other town, she’d have found a diner and gone for breakfast.

She took a long sip of coffee and set the empty cup on the porch rail, glancing down at the watch again. Her stepfather would have told her to stick it out in town, force them to respect her. He would have been ashamed of the way she’d turned tail and run. Gentle as he was, he’d had a core of iron, and he’d wanted Sarah to have that inner steel too.

“All right, Roy,” she muttered, stepping off the porch and heading for the car. She didn’t know for sure what her future held, but she knew she was going to be in Two Shot for a while if she stayed with Kelsey. Sooner or later, she’d have to tackle Suze and her customers. She might as well do it now.

The trip to town went far too fast. Parking spaces were in surprisingly short supply, and she was forced to pull in almost two blocks from the diner and walk. Her experience the other day had grown in her mind to the point where she fully expected to hear hissing from the few cars that passed by, but everyone was just going about their business.

She swung into the diner and slid into a booth near the door, glancing around the room. Joe was at the counter again, but it was early and only two members of the poker gang sat in the corner booth. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her, so she slid the menu out from behind the napkin holder and perused the familiar offerings.

“Can I get you something? Coffee to start?” Sarah looked up and was relieved to see that Suze wasn’t her waitress this time. Instead, a white-aproned teenager stood over her. The girl had lovely clear skin and flushed cheeks, but she was tall and raw-boned, a farm-girl type clearly going through an awkward stage, and her thick wire-framed glasses didn’t help. Judging from the way she held the order pad just inches from her nose, they didn’t do her much good.

“Cheese omelet,” Sarah said. “And does Eddie still make those home fries with onions and peppers?”

“Yup. Home-style potatoes.” The girl scribbled down the order with her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. “Something to drink?”

“Coffee and a small orange juice, please.”

“Okay.” The girl lowered the order pad but didn’t leave the table. She stood over Sarah, shifting awkwardly from one foot to another.

“You’re her, aren’t you?” she finally said. “The girl who got that scholarship and left.”

Sarah swallowed, her throat suddenly dry, and nodded. For a little while there she’d thought she might get through breakfast without any complications, but clearly her reputation had preceded her.

She met the girl’s eyes, which wasn’t easy since they were flicking nervously around the room, lighting on everything but Sarah. They looked foggy and misshapen behind the thick glasses. “Yes, I did.”

To her surprise, the girl slid into the booth across from her and leaned forward eagerly. “I want to go too,” she said, clasping her hands together. “I want to leave so bad.”

Sarah looked again and saw past the tawdry uniform, the unkempt hair tumbling out of a tightly rubber-banded bun, and the thick glasses. She caught a glimpse of her old self in the girl’s breathless anticipation of a world full of wonders beyond Two Shot.

“How are your grades?”

“They’re good. I’d have straight As if it wasn’t for Phys Ed.” She made a wry face and Sarah was reminded of Carol Burnett, only this girl wasn’t playing her awkwardness for laughs. “I got a C in it last semester. We did volleyball, and I’m scared of the ball. Same thing with basketball. I try to catch it, but I flinch and then it’s gone. Or it hits me.” She put a hand to her chest as if remembering the ball’s last assault.

Sarah hadn’t been much for team sports either, but there had been other options that worked for her.

“Have you tried track?”

The girl sighed and gazed out the window, her cheeks flushing again. “My legs get tangled up and I fall down.”

Sarah suppressed a smile. The girl was long-limbed as a colt, and apparently just as clumsy. “It’ll change. You’re going to be pretty when you grow up.”

“Oh, no.” The girl’s blush looked almost painful now as it suffused her neck and chest. “I’m homely, and my eyes…” She made a helpless gesture toward the glasses. “But I’m smart.” She said the last line with a hint of defiance. There might be hope for her despite her lack of confidence.

“You’re not homely. You’re just young. What grade are you in?”

“Tenth.”

“Have you looked at scholarships? Thought about where you want to go to college?”

“I want to go to Vassar,” the girl said, looking away and twirling a wayward strand of hair around one finger. “Like you did.”

“That C in gym might keep you from being able to do that.” The girl’s face fell, and Sarah hurried to turn the conversation to something positive. “But there are lots of good colleges out there. What do you want to study?”

“Science.” The girl’s voice had dropped almost to a whisper and she glanced around the room as if afraid someone might hear. “Maybe engineering.”

“They have a good program in petroleum engineering at UW.”

“No. I want to go someplace better. Someplace further away.”

Sarah looked into the girl’s glowing face and saw her old, hopeful self, setting off into a world that had proven to be as much of a struggle as life in Two Shot.

The girl straightened self-consciously, clearly forcing herself to be brave. “Don’t tell me I can’t. That’s what everybody says.” She tugged at her hair so hard Sarah winced. “I can do it.”

“I know you can,” Sarah said. “Just don’t forget what matters, okay?”

“Grades?”

Sarah shook her head, smiling. “Home. The people who love you. Don’t leave them too far behind. And don’t ever forget where you came from.”

“I’m from Two Shot,” the girl said scornfully. “What good is that?”

“You might be surprised.” Sarah stifled a smile. “It could come in handy sometime.”

The swinging doors thwapped across the room, revealing Suze with her hands on her big hips, glaring at the waitress. The girl flinched guiltily.

“Emmy?” Suze’s tone was harsh. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry, Suze, it’s my fault,” Sarah said.

“Don’t you be filling her head with your Carrigan crap,” Suze growled.

“I don’t work for Carrigan anymore.”

“Oh? How come?” Suze swung one hip sideways to rest against the table and casually considered her fingernails as if checking her polish. The move was so absurdly feminine and out-of-character that Sarah knew immediately that Lane was right about those phone calls.

Sarah narrowed her eyes as Suze’s glanced flickered up to her face, then back down to her nails. She’d been bold enough to leave anonymous phone calls, but she couldn’t look Sarah in the face.

Sarah thought back to those long conversations she’d had with Suze when she was still living in Two Shot. Suze had always argued passionately for animals, for conservation, for the environment. Sarah should have realized she’d be against the drilling. Why had she assumed it was Lane?

“Apparently, some people in Two Shot don’t want Carrigan here.” She struggled to keep her tone conversational instead of combative.

“Those rigs are ugly,” Suze said. “I like my plains unspoiled. I like to look out and see for miles, the way you can now, without a house or a factory or even a phone pole in the way. There’s hardly anyplace left in the world like this anymore.” She waved toward the window with such an expansive gesture that Sarah looked out and half expected to see Venetian canals or craggy Alps instead of a line of empty storefronts and crumbling garages.

“But people need jobs,” Sarah said. “Do you really think your pretty view trumps making a living?”

Suze glowered at her a moment, then focused on the waitress and twitched her head toward the double doors. “Back to work.”

The girl scurried off, and Suze started to follow. Impulsively, Sarah reached out to stop her. She didn’t really mean to grab the tie of the woman’s apron, but the knot unraveled as the woman whirled to face her.

“Sorry,” Sarah said. “I just wondered if you could sit a minute.”

“Nope.”

“Please. You lost me my job, Suze. I need to know why.”

“Wasn’t just me.”

“Are you saying you didn’t orchestrate the whole thing? I know who holds the power in this town. Just talk to me a minute.”

Suze was the least vain person Sarah had ever met, but the mention of power made her sigh like a beleaguered starlet as she plumped down into the booth across from Sarah. “Okay. What?”

Sarah gazed pointedly around the diner. “Not many people here this morning.”

Suze shrugged. “Some days are busier than others.”

“I noticed that Best’s Store is boarded up.”

Suze shrugged again, her heavy shoulders rising and falling with exaggerated carelessness.

“If something doesn’t change, Two Shot’s going to die,” Sarah said.

“We get by. There’s ranching, in case you forgot.”

“It’s harder and harder to make a living that way. Who do you know that ranches without a day job to pay the bills? You know what they say. Behind every great cowboy is a wife who works in town.”

Suze snorted. “Maybe. But there are jobs. They can always work for me.”

Sarah nodded toward the kitchen. “You think that girl should wait tables all her life?”

“She could.”

“Not much of a future for a bright kid.”

“Good enough for most people.” Suze shot a disdainful glare across the table. “Not good enough for you, I guess.”

“But Carrigan would bring something better. They’d…”

“Don’t tell me what they’d do.” Suze snorted and everyone in the diner turned as if a volcano had erupted in the corner. “You think they’d give the jobs to Two Shot folks? They bring in out-of-towners for those rigs. I know. I met some of ’em. A bunch came through here on their way to Casper. Caught Emmy out back after her shift and teased her ’til she cried. Don’t know what they woulda done to her if Eddie hadn’t happened to go out there.” She pressed her lips together. “They gave Eddie a hard time too, but they finally left.”

“They’re not all like that.”

“Don’t care. Two Shot’s not ready for change.” She nodded toward the door again. “Emmy’s not ready.” She jabbed a finger toward Sarah. “You tell her to go to UW, ’cause if she goes out of state folks’ll eat that girl alive.”

“She’ll learn.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Suze’s expression softened and for a moment she looked almost motherly. “It’s not just the view I want to save. I want the people to stay the same too.” She settled deeper into the booth, her hostility fading. “I been all over before I got here. Two Shot people’s good folks. There’s not many like ’em left in the world.”

Sarah looked around at the other customers—the poker group in the back in their striped cowboy shirts and Carhartt jackets, Joe sitting at the counter in a T-shirt and worn denim overalls, his battered cowboy boots propped on the rail. Eddie was at the counter, his simple face creased in concern as he watched Suze and Sarah argue.

The place was pretty much the same as it had been when she’d left all those years ago. She felt a sudden wave of warmth curl around her heart. She’d longed to leave Two Shot, but it wasn’t such a bad place to come back to, even when it didn’t want you.

At least she knew what to expect. All the time she’d been gone, Two Shot had hung in the distance like a safety net poised to catch her if she fell. It really was like a family. That’s why it had hurt so much when they’d been so cold the day before.

But looking at Suze, she knew that like a family, they’d all forgive her eventually.