I could hear the noise of a large vehicle coming up the road behind me. I turned and waited as it crested the hill and slowed to about twenty. The brights clicked on and, with the curve of the road, the headlights were pointed straight at me.
It was a new truck, big and red, a one-ton duellie with an extended cab. It bristled with oversized wheels and tires, fender flares, and a grill guard. It looked for a moment as if the truck were going to stop, but the big Dodge accelerated slightly at the curve, the Cummins diesel clattering along on the gravel road toward the Powder River, and I looked at the reflection of myself in the tinted window as the truck disappeared over the next hill, the next, and the one after that.
It didn’t have any plates.
I tossed the rope onto the passenger-side floor and made Dog move over. As we drove back into Absalom, I mused on the thin line between smitten and stalking. It was obvious that Hershel had some kind of crush on his former employer and I figured it was innocent, but it wouldn’t hurt to have Ruby run a check on the old fellow.
The outpost of a town along the Powder River was still awake when I parked the rental alongside the railroad tracks. I was tired, but I had work to do and it was possible that a portion of the work might be in The AR.
I reached in the open window to get the insurance binder and popped it into the trunk to keep company with my large duffel and a small hard case. I rolled the windows almost up, leaving an opening for Dog, and massaged my temples in anticipation of the headache that was beginning to hit me like a short-handled shovel. I’d have to make an appointment with Doc Bloomfield about these headaches one of these days.
I locked the car, set the alarm so that it wouldn’t go off with movement inside, took a deep breath, and told Dog not to play with the radio; it was our joke-he knew he could play with the radio if he wanted.
It was a mixed lot in The AR, and I had to admit I was a little disappointed to see the middle-aged lawmaker in the Sheridan Seed Company hat behind the bar rather than the young woman. He ignored me as I took the stool nearest the door and propped my elbows on the particleboard. Mercifully, the jukebox was turned down low, and the television was tuned to the weather and on mute.
There were a couple of old ranchers sitting in the gloom at one of the tables, two younger fellows playing eight-ball near the boxing ring, and a large, surly-looking individual in a two-day beard, sunglasses, and a stylish black straw hat at the other end of the bar. He was talking to an elaborately tattooed young woman who held his arm and pressed her hip against his. I smiled and nodded toward them, and they smirked at me.
“What’a ya want?”
I turned, looked at the bartender, and my headache worsened. “The simple, gracious companionship of my fellow man?” He didn’t say anything and continued to stare at me. “Rainier.”
He fished a can out of the cooler and set it on the counter. It was common to have can-only bars in the rougher areas of Wyoming-nobody ever got hurt throwing a can, and nobody in this part of the world ever threw a full one. “Buck-seventy-five.”
I pulled two ones from my jacket pocket and flicked them onto the bar. “Keep the change.” He glanced at me without altering the look on his face and then took the bills and walked away. I’d meant it as an insult, but I wasn’t sure he’d taken it that way. “What happened to the girl who was here this afternoon?”
He punched the numbers on the cash register, and the drawer came open. He shut the drawer and stuffed the money in his shirt pocket. “She don’t work here no more.”
“She quit?” He didn’t answer but continued back to the area I assumed was the kitchen and disappeared.
I sighed and kneaded the back of my neck. There was a piece of paper taped to the bar’s surface announcing the Friday Night Fights, Powder-River-Pound-Down-Tough-Man Contest that had a list of about a half-dozen names.
Jesus wept.
The can was cool, and I held it to my left temple in an attempt to stall the headache that continued to surge there. I wondered if I was doing any good with all of this covert stuff. Then I started wondering about the dubious judgment and apparent difficulties of going undercover in a town of forty people.
“You lost?”
I turned and looked at the surly-looking fellow with the woman attached to his arm and hip, and they both smirked again. I lowered the can. “Nope.”
“I wouldn’t drink that horse-piss on a bet.”
I popped the tab on the can and raised it in salute. “Expense account-don’t want to cost the company too much.”
He lowered his sunglasses and stared at me from under the brim of his stylish hat. With half-eyes evident, he looked like one of those drugstore cowboys who sing shitty songs and sell pickup trucks. “Those insurance companies make enough money, why don’t you buy all of us a drink?”
I sipped my beer. “I’m only here for one.”
He glanced at the bottle blonde. “Seems like I’ve paid enough money in premiums for one lousy drink.”
It was quiet in the bar except for some of the aforementioned modern country music that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be when it grew up and moved to Branson. I put the can back on the stained surface of the cheap bar and looked at the names listed on the sign-up sheet for tomorrow night’s fights-the first name was of interest. “Like I said, I’m only here for one.”
I heard the stool’s legs rub against the floor as he pushed out and then walked toward me. I waited as he pulled the next seat over and sat facing me. “I can’t believe I have to beg a man to buy me a beer.” He turned and looked back at his girl-friend as she continued to smile with only half her face. “Shit, it’s common decency and western hospitality to buy a round.”
I continued to study the bar and, absently, the sheet of paper. My head was killing me now, and this character wasn’t making it any better. “Well, then, why don’t you?”
He was silent for a second and then continued. “I did… earlier.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed it.”
“Leave him alone, Cliff.”
I recognized the voice and turned my head just a little to see the green-eyed rancher that I’d met at the bridge earlier in the afternoon.
“Oh, he looks like a big boy. I bet he can take care of himself.”
Mike Niall countered as I looked down and closed my eyes in an attempt to loosen the grip of the pain in my head. “Yep, I bet he can. As a matter of fact, I bet he could stick his boot so far up your ass, your breath’ll smell like Kiwi shoe polish, but you work for me now and if you think I’m going to buck bales by myself tomorrow morning, you’ve got another think comin’.”
I could feel the drunken cowboy’s breath on the side of my face. “Are you a fighter, mister?”
The blonde still looked straight ahead but spoke up. “Kick his ass, Cliff.”
I finished off my beer in one swig and placed the empty can back on the bar. There wasn’t anything here for me, my head hurt, I was tired, and it was possible that I’d lose my patience, so I figured the best thing for it was to go get Dog and duffel and head for my bed, which was only four doors down.
I tried to remember if I had any aspirin in my suitcase.
I started to rise and turn, but he placed a powerful and young hand on my shoulder. I continued up as he stood, and we were very close. I was sober and he wasn’t, and that was probably something he was used to, but I was bigger than he was, and that he wasn’t.
You always register the hands. His were occupied, one on my shoulder and the other hitched in his pocket. And register the eyes. One was focused on my face, and the other a little right.
The mechanics of twenty-four years on the job fall into place in these situations, and you don’t have to think about taking the hand on your shoulder by the base and twisting it in a reverse wrist lock that plants his face suddenly and securely on the surface of the bar, about the second hand that pins his neck, and the boot that kicks his feet out and spreads them so that he has no leverage to resist.