Emma glanced back at Cook, who still read her paper, then back to him, one hand resting on her hip. She tilted her head to the side, like a bird does while inspecting a tree bark crevice for its insect breakfast. “Where from?”
“Los Angeles. Riverside, actually. To the east of downtown LA.”
Emma shook her head. “Too many people in places like that for me. You want coffee with your pie?”
Damn. He was going to lose her. And with the mystery of the road sign still unresolved. He stuck a fork in the pie, but held on to eye contact. “Maybe later. Hey—you know anything about the road crews that put out the highway signs?”
Emma leaned back against the rim of a nearby tabletop, crossing her arms and relaxing as if she had nothing better to do. Or perhaps… perhaps being friendly with an out of town stranger was normal here. No one had asked his name yet. Emma hadn’t bugged him about cash money. Emma smiled easily.
“Some. Janie’s boyfriend Joe works for them sometimes. When he’s not doing seasonal work on a Forest Service fire crew. What’cha want to know?”
“There’s a funny road sign a few miles north of here.”
“Funny?” Silvery-gray eyes sharpened.
He shrugged, enjoying the cool shadows of the cafe, the woman’s feminine presence, the smell of the cooling pie as vanilla ice cream melted into creamy white pools on either side, even the studied indifference of Cook. The spring-tight nerves he’d had ever since blowing most of his cash in Gallup to fix a dead radiator eased a bit. “Yeah. The litter control signs. You know them?”
Emma looked away, eyes going momentarily distant; when she looked back, the friendly smile seemed guarded. “Sure. The County puts them out. Mary Alice over in Public Works orders them up from some sheet metal shop down in Silver City. So?”
“The one north of town said something crazy. It said—Litter Control. Next 3 Million Miles. Uncle Jack’s Home for Retired Space Beings.” He grinned, feeling boyishly foolish at saying something so silly. Emma didn’t smile.
“Jack’s Home? Oh.” False front surmise filled her windburned face. “Hey. Someone’s messing with Mary Alice. Jack runs a dude ranch east of town, off a dirt track going up to Eagle Peak.”
No aliens. No space beings. Just some summer camp for yuppies who liked to ride horses, use an outhouse, and go back home to brag about how they’d “roughed it”—once. Unlike the people who lived it day in and day out. Like his grandpa. Still… money was money. Truth didn’t matter all that much. Another overseas lesson. “How do I get there?”
Emma grimaced. “You got four-wheel drive in that jalopy? No? I thought not. You’ll bottom out on the road up to Jack’s place.”
“I take pictures. I can always take pictures of the mountain and Jack’s place. Maybe write a story. Help him out.”
“He don’t like visitors.”
“But it’s a dude ranch. For tourists. You said so.”
She blinked, looking suddenly tired. “Look. I got a cafe to run and a teenage daughter to feed and clothe all by myself. I’ll bring your coffee.” She stood up.
“Emma.”
“Yeah?” she called back his way as she walked past Cook to the kitchen’s open doorway.
“I’m Bill.”
“Your coffee’s coming right up, Bill.”
Silence. Cook read on. The cool shadows deepened. The country music moaned. Finally, all he could do was eat the pie, slurp up the melted ice cream, drink the coffee, and wish he were back home with Davy. Him and Davy. All that was left.
Small towns weren’t supposed to be so lonely.
The gas station attendant’s rough-scrawled map to Jack’s place didn’t match anything he saw after he turned off county road 435 and crossed the San Francisco River. Then he’d gone stupid. Leaving the green-grassed valley that stretched south to San Francisco Plaza and Lower Plaza for the windy, narrow Forest Service dirt track that led deep into the high ponderosa groves of Gila National Forest had been stupid. Continuing on even after he high-centered and lost his muffler was criminal. Still, he’d always been stubborn. Before he’d lost hope.
A fork in the road loomed in the late afternoon sunlight. To the right it opened out into a high mountain meadow; weathered wood buildings shimmered in the distance. To the left it disappeared into the ponderosas, heading vaguely east, towards the high purple-red rock of Eagle Peak. The map indicated a right-hand turn. He turned right.
Nothing but an old mining ghost town. Only the wind still argued about stolen claims. He turned back, driving carefully to avoid the sharp-edged rocks exposed by late spring rains. Nobody had been up here to grade the road in a long time.
The fork.
It would be dark in a few hours. He had a photo shoot already set up in Silver City. Some kind of gamblers mecca place that would open soon, and the owner wanted national travel magazine exposure. Which was why he’d advanced Bill gas money. Still, he didn’t like being put off by country bumpkins.
He turned right at the fork, heading up a dirt track that showed deeper rutting than the ghost town track.
Two miles. Another mountain meadow. Four miles. A dense ponderosa forest. Six miles, and his car nosed out slowly into a wide clearing. A clearing that lay pristine, natural and heart-aching beautiful just below a sheer cliff face. Above the cliff ran a sawtooth ridgeline, angling left, towards still distant Eagle Peak. Down below, to one side of the clearing, stood a two-story lodge made from rough-sawn planks, notched logs, and scavenged windows. Stately ponderosas flanked the lodge, while a dozen or so log cabins hid among a scatter of other ponderosas, their green-topped crowns swaying lazily ninety, a hundred feet high overhead. Big trees. A lone Suzuki jeep with ripped out seat cushions lounged in front of the lodge. Somewhere, horses neighed, maybe in the barn he now saw lying on the other side of the clearing, next to a broken down corral.
Some dude ranch.
He stopped by the jeep, got out, took the lens cover off his camera, stepped onto the open porch, and walked up to the lodge’s front door. The interior of the place stood open, only a rickety screen door preventing the entry of anything larger than a mongrel dog. He knocked on the door frame. It banged loosely.
“Hello? Jack? Is Jack around?”
Footsteps sounded inside. Off to his left, among the weathered cabins, something moved. “Hello?” He turned.
Something yellow, sheetlike and very fast moved around a cabin corner, disappearing from his peripheral vision before he could focus on it.
The screen door opened outward, forcing him to step back. An older man looked at him. The uncle of the Marlboro Man. Shit. Even down to the scratched cowboy boots, leather vest, heavily washed lumberjack shirt, and crow’s feet around stark blue eyes. But the six-shot revolver hanging from his narrow hips was not some advertising image. It was real. Real like the gray in the man’s handlebar mustache. He looked surprised at finding a visitor on his front stoop.
“Hello yourself. Who are you?”
“Bill Johnson. I’m a photojoumalist from LA.” No reaction. “Emma said you ran a dude ranch. That true?”
The man rubbed his freshly-shaven chin. “Used to. Not anymore. I’m retired.”
“You Uncle Jack?”
The man crossed his arms, leaned against the doorframe, and eyed Bill with a sardonic skepticism that seemed reserved for officious, nosy outsiders who didn’t understand the rules of country privacy. “Maybe. Who’s asking?”
Damn. He was already late and this character wanted to play games. “Hey. I’m not IRS. I don’t give a damn if you work on the side to supplement your social security. I just wanted to know if… if this was Uncle Jack’s place.”