We made the big curve and came over the hill and looked down on town. I was never quite prepared for the sight of it, though I’d lived outside it for twenty years. Even when it had been tiny, its abrupt appearance after the bend always made it seem large. Now, with a couple of housing developments and the new community college campus and the strip malls that followed, it was damn near urban sprawl.
“I don’t know why you let this place bug you so much,” Gus said. “It’s just a town and not much of one. Just a bunch of buildings where people live and work. Hell, it’s not like it’s Phoenix.”
“It was fine ten years ago.” I glanced at the fuel gauge and made a note to fill up. “It used to be a village, a real Western town. Now, now it’s working on being just like anyplace else.”
“Get off your soapbox.”
I shut up.
“Did you remember to bring the list?”
I felt my breast pocket and said I did. I was always forgetting lists. I was good at making them and, with the list in my pocket, I could take care of everything without looking at it. But my habit was to forget the list, and then I couldn’t recall a damn thing. “Are you sure you don’t want me to wait for you at the doctor’s office?”
“I’m sure. When he’s done poking me, I’ll just want to grab a bite and head home.”
I pulled into a diagonal space in front of the doctor’s office and watched the old man walk through the door. I then drove to the opposite side of town, not far, to the Broken Horn Feed Store.
The doors of the store always sported some new, tacky novelty that the shop owner, Myra, hadn’t been able to resist. Today it was a pony-sized, stuffed horse with eyes that followed anyone who walked by and said, “Clippity-clop, cowpoke” in a John Wayne voice. I watched the eyeballs track me to the counter, then reset.
“That’s real nice, Myra,” I said.
“Ain’t it a hoot?”
“That’s what it is, all right. What else does it do?” I asked.
“Well, it doesn’t shit on the floor.” Myra flashed her wide, gap-toothed smile. “Around here that’s a pretty good trick.”
“I reckon. Say, do you have my de-worming paste all packed up?”
“Not yet. I was in the middle of doing that now.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ve got a whole list of stuff. I’ll get what I need while you wrap it up.”
“How’s that ancient uncle of yours?” she asked as I stepped away.
“He’s at the doc’s right now getting his oil checked,” I said. “He’s okay. He doesn’t say much about how he feels.”
I walked over to the wall of bits and bridles. I always marveled at the wide array of shapes, weights, and materials of the bits. Many were beautiful. All were meant to cause possible discomfort. Some were harsher than others and served as a reminder of how cruel people could be. I picked up a bicycle chain mule bit and felt a chill creep over me. The only positive thing was that this bit had remained on the wall unsold for at least five years. I put it back and went on to collect my Betadyne, drawing salve, and other things. I piled the stuff on the counter.
Myra came from the back with my box. “Hey, did you hear about that boy?”
“I don’t think so. What boy?”
“They found this college kid dead at the mouth of Damon Falls Canyon.” Myra shook her head. “I heard he was strung up like an elk with his throat slit.”
“My god.” I looked outside at the road. The image made my stomach turn a bit and I swallowed hard. A gasoline truck rumbled by. “My god,” I said, again. “What the hell happened. Was he robbed?” I didn’t know why I was asking that question. I imagined I was just trying to have a senseless thing make sense. I stared at Myra.
“I don’t know. It’s pretty awful, though. You know, people are just animals anymore.”
“No, they’re people. That’s the problem. Did they catch who did it?”
Myra shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything about that.” She totaled up the bill.
I wrote out a check. I noticed my hand trembling a bit, then it stopped. “There you go, ma’am.”
“You tell that uncle of yours I asked about him.”
“I will, Myra.”
I left the store, put my supplies in the back of the Jeep, then sat behind the wheel, staring through the glass at the empty bench on the deck by the front door. I glanced at my rearview mirror and caught sight of a flatbed loaded with hay pass by. I cranked the engine, backed out and pulled away; the crunching of the gravel gave me comfort.
At the Lone Steer, a diner that seemed to change ownership monthly but never changed, I sat near the end of the long counter and ordered coffee from a young woman who managed to tell me between my ordering and her delivering it that she was only there to earn enough money to go back to college in Fort Collins and that she would never marry another man from Wyoming, especially a cowboy, no matter how cute he or his horse was.
“Maybe you shouldn’t marry a man at all,” I said, more into my cup than right to her. “We’re nothing but trouble.”
Yeah,” she agreed, nodded. “That’s about the truest thing I ever heard a man say.”
“Trouble’s all I’ve ever given myself,” I said.
“And that would be because you’re no damn good.” This from Duncan Camp who had straddled the stool next to me.
“I told them to put a screen on that door,” I said.
“How you doin’, buddy?” he asked.
“I’m okay. You?”
“I’m as fine as frog’s hair,” he said. “Hell, partner, if’n I was any finer, I’d be sick.”
“That’s pretty fine.”
“Where’s Unc?” Duncan asked.
“I’m meeting him for lunch in a few minutes. As he likes to put it, the doctor’s got him on the rack right about now.”
“You’re not eating here?” Duncan whispered.
Whispering back, “No way. I’m trying to keep the old guy alive. Talk about wasting a trip to the doctor.”
Duncan laughed. The waitress slid his coffee in front of him, and he took a sip. “You hear about that boy?”
“A few minutes ago.”
“Awful, just awful, thing like that. The paper didn’t say much, but I heard whoever did it stretched him out like Christ.” Duncan caught the waitress’s eye. “Darlin’, are those doughnuts made here on the premises?”
“No, sir.”
“Let me have one, then,” he said.
“I heard the boy was gay,” the waitress said.
“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” Duncan said. “But it’s a damn shame any way you cut it. Bad choice of words.”
“Any idea who did it?” I asked.
“Hell if I know,” Duncan said. “All I know is I’m keeping my daughters close to the ranch for a while. You don’t know what kind of weirdos are prowling around out there. Worse yet, we do know. Wolves ain’t nothing compared to a sick person.” Duncan shook his head and poured a generous amount of sugar into his coffee. “Can I get some milk over here, darlin’?”
“How are things at your place?” I asked.
“I had two horses come down with the strangles. God knows where it came from. And I’m struggling to get the hay in before it rains.”
“Horses okay now?”
“Yeah, they’re fine. By the way, horse trainer, I’ve got a horse I’d like you to work on for me.”
I finished my coffee and set down my mug with a thud. “I’d expect you to pay me.”
“Damn. All anybody can think about in this country is money. What about this poor horse that needs your sweet, loving attention?”
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“One thing, he’s a horse. The other thing is the idiot’s afraid of his own shadow. He bolts for no apparent reason. Usually with somebody on his back. Namely, me. I’m figuring that’s a bad thing.”