As Dale walked Joe out to his van, a green Ford Explorer with Minnesota plates pulled off the highway and into his parking lot. A man and a little girl got out. The guy was six foot, outdoor lean, but not a farmer. Carpenter maybe. The kid was six or seven, with coppery hair done back in a pony. She wore denim shorts, a green T-shirt, and scuffed tennies.
Looking closer, Dale saw that the guy had a fresh bandage on his left hand and the makings of a shiner on his left cheek under his eye. Then he placed him.
“That’s the guy Gordy knocked on his ass in front of the bar yesterday,” Dale said in a low voice to Joe. “Supposed to be that woman’s husband, come to take her back home. Guess he didn’t get very far.”
“Still here though,” Joe said slowly. “Maybe he’s gonna give it another try.”
“Or maybe he’s shopping for big iron. Tell you what. He can get a hell of a deal on an old Deere 644.”
“An hour,” Joe said. Then he got in his van and drove away.
Dale walked up to the stranger with the black eye and the little girl. He extended his hand. “Dale Shuster. You need some help?” They shook hands.
“Phil Broker,” the guy said. “We’re just passing through on our way back home. Heard in town you were clearing out your stock. I got this little landscape operation on the side. Thought maybe I’d take a look.”
“Damn near all gone.” Dale motioned for Broker to follow him into the shed. Then he pointed at the Deere sitting just outside the open door at the far end. “All I got left is that loader. She’s got a few miles on her, so you could practically name your price.”
“Kinda looking for something in a backhoe.”
Dale smiled. “ ‘Backhoe in every garage’ was my old man’s motto. Sorry. No backhoes left.”
“I was looking at this Jap rig back home, a Komatsu…”
“Nah, don’t do it. They might be cheaper up front, but the repair and the replacement will kill you. That’s where they make their money. Stay American. Get you a Cat or a Deere.”
“I’ll remember that,” Broker said. He pointed to the loader. “Mind if I take a look?”
“Go on. Go ahead, start her up if you want.” He paused and pointed to the ground. “Ah, kinda muddy out there. Probably more than her footwear can handle.”
Broker nodded and stooped to his daughter. “Kit, I’m going to look at that machine there. You stay right here where I can see you. I’ll never be out of sight, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“She be all right here?” Broker asked.
“Sure,” Dale said. “I’ll find some cartoons on the TV.”
Arms folded defensively across her chest, Kit nodded warily.
Dale went and thumbed the remote off the weather channel, finally found Nickelodeon. “How’s that?”
“Thanks.”
Then Dale opened the refrigerator. “Would you like a Coke?”
The girl, arms still crossed, looked at him, wary, smart, judgmental. “That’s just sugar-water and acid. It rots your teeth and makes you fat.”
“Oh-kaaay…” Dale studied her and felt a slow rise in his mood. She was a pretty kid, healthy, athletic, nurtured. Smart little bitch would never be fat or unpopular.
“I’d like a water, please,” she said, pointing at several clear plastic bottles on the shelf next to the ranks of red cans in the open refrigerator.
“Sorry,” Dale said blandly. “I don’t have any water.” He watched her young face jerk, trying to make the evidence of her eyes and the message of his words link up. He shut the ice-box door. “Where you from?” he asked, sitting down in his desk chair. He was starting to enjoy himself.
She shifted her feet, uneasy. Glanced out toward her dad, then back again. “Devil’s Rock, Minnesota.”
He glanced toward the back of the building where Broker was walking around the loader, inspecting the worn-out tires. He stayed in sight, like he told his kid, but he was ducking around back there, definitely snooping. Dale swiveled his chair back toward the girl, composed himself with his hands folded in his lap. “You like stories?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Well. I know a guy named Ole, and he went over to Thief River Falls in Minnesota and he bought this cow.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“Well. He got this cow home and he went out to milk it. You know how to milk a cow, don’t you?”
She nodded her head. “I been on a farm. You squeeze the things and the milk squirts out.”
“Right. The things are called tits, just like your mom’s got. Course she’s only got one on each side. Cow has four.”
The kid narrowed her eyes, alert but not quite sure what she was supposed to be wary about. She took a step back to put distance between herself and something in Dale’s manner.
Dale said, “So this guy yanks on the tits and the cow farts.”
The girl made a self-conscious face, but a fast lick of humor darted in her green eyes. The old bathroom humor connection.
“So the guy went and got his neighbor and brought him over and he says, ‘This is the damnest thing. I bought this cow and I go to milk it and I grab hold of the tit, and when I squeeze, the cow goes and farts.’
“And his neighbor says, ‘You got this cow in Minnesota, didn’t you?’
“And the guy says, ‘How’d you know that?’
“And the neighbor says, ‘ ’Cause I got my wife in Minnesota.’ ”
Dale laughed at his joke, and at the girl’s discomfort and confusion. She went to the edge of the concrete pad and called to her dad. “Dad, I need to use the bathroom.”
Is there a bathroom she can use?” Broker called.
“Sure, it’s right in here,” Dale pointed to the doorway in the partition. “Sometimes you got to flush it twice.”
She nodded and went through the door and shut it behind her. Almost immediately Dale heard her playing with the toilet, flushing it twice. Then after a few moments, she flushed it again.
By the time she had finished in the bathroom and was back out standing by the desk, Broker came back.
Dale watched him closely. The guy was trying to act interested in machinery but what he was really doing was scoping out the Missile Park across the road. Looking for signs of his runaway old lady.
If that’s what she really was. Jeeez-if the wife could be a cop, this guy could be a cop too.
“Well, thanks for letting me look around,” Broker said.
“Any time. Like I said. There’s not much left. I’m about to the pull the plug.”
They said goodbye to the heavyset, moonfaced guy and walked out to the Explorer. Kit looked up at her dad and said, “That guy’s weird.”
“Why do you say that?” Broker said.
“Well, he told me this story about cows and farts.”
“Yeah?” A little more alert, Broker looked at the thickset man standing in the doorway.
“And when I went to the bathroom…”
“He didn’t do anything weird then, honey. I was watching him. He was sitting at the desk the whole time.”
“No, it was something that was in the bathroom. The toilet wasn’t flushed.”
Broker nodded in vague sympathy.
“No, Dad. There was this blue poop in the toilet.”
Broker grinned. “That’s probably Lysol bowl cleaner, you squirt it around the edge to clean-”
“No, Dad.” Kit stamped her foot and folded her arms across her chest. Peeved, she continued. “You’re not listening. There was this blue poop floating in the water. It was yucky.”
“If you say so.”
Kit turned away, hugged herself tight around the chest, and raised her chin in a haughty display of disapproval. “Dad. You are not taking me seriously.”
“Okay. I don’t know about blue poop. But I do know that when little girls crank their stuck-up noses in the air, they gotta watch out so birds don’t drop white poop on them.”
Kit glowered and kicked at the trap rock in the driveway.
“Sometimes you’re not a very nice daddy.”
“C’mon, honey,” Broker said. “Time’s getting close.”
Exactly an hour after he left, Joe Reed drove up and parked his van. He came into the shed wearing fresh jeans, a clean oatmeal-colored Carhartt T-shirt, and all his scars washed. Musta taken one of his cat baths in his van. He saw the loader. “No sale, huh?”
“She’s a boat anchor. Leave it for scrap.”
Joe looked up suddenly and cocked his head. Nothing wrong with his hearing. If anything, his other disabilities had made it more acute. Because Dale heard stuff just fine, and he didn’t hear it until seconds later.
“Plane coming in,” Joe said.