Authors: Virginia Swift
“Oh boy,” said Sally weakly.
“Brit! Brit Langham!” came a loud voice. “How you doin’?”
Suddenly a horse and rider loomed over them, skidding to a halt in a clatter of hoofbeats. Sally felt her heart leap in her chest, slammed down on the panic. The cowboy, a broad-backed, narrow-faced young man with skin that bore the scars of recently conquered teenage acne, was beaming the kind of idiot grin that Brit tended to bring out in human males.
Brit looked up and for once actually smiled back. Cowboy sex voodoo in action? “Hey, Herman! How’s life in the big time?” she asked.
“Can’t complain,” he said. “Makin’ enough to keep me and McGuinn here in Top Ramen and oats.” He stroked the horse, a glossy chestnut mare, on the neck.
“This is Herman Schwink,” Brit said, introducing them. “We went to high school together. He’s a big star on the PRCA circuit. Team roper.”
Herman Schwink? Weren’t rodeo cowboys supposed to have names like Ty Travis and Boot Bodine?
“How about that,” said Hawk. “Roping steers for a living? Hell of a hard way to earn a paycheck.”
“Yeah, but it’s a pretty good paycheck for a guy who never went to college,” said Schwink.
“Herman finished in the top ten on the circuit last year,” Brit explained. “He can probably afford chicken pot pies by now.”
“Even a T-bone now and then,” he said. “I could see my way to buyin’ you one, honey, if you’ve got the time.” He hesitated a moment, then took off his hat. “Hey Brit. I was real sorry to hear about your cousin,”
Schwink said. “Terrible, terrible thing. Tell your mom I send my condolences. I’m gonna try to make it to that memorial service tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” said Brit. “Did you read about it in the paper?”
“Naw,” said Schwink. “Heard all about it from my brother. I guess the police have been all over the Lifeway, giving the employees the third degree. Adolph said the detective kept him for over two hours.”
Adolph? Mmm-hmm. That was it. Herman was bigger and sweeter, but the skin and the shape of the face made the connection.
“Was your brother Adolph a friend of Monette’s?” Sally asked.
“Naw—not as I know of,” said Herman. “Just a coworker. Barely knew her. But you know how it is. Cops gotta question everybody that might have seen anything.”
Barely knew her? Sally thought back to the conversation over the melons. What was young Adolph Schwink trying to hide?
Herman Schwink’s mare shuffled nervously, snorted, tossed her head, rolled her eyes. Sally took a little hop backward. The cowboy tugged tight on the reins, whispered “Whoa, McGuinn,” and the horse stood still. It was probably her imagination, but Sally was sure that horse was giving her a threatening look.
Sally had done plenty of time around rodeos, but generally didn’t get closer to the livestock than the grandstands or the beer tent, and she’d chiefly experienced the festivities from a stage or bar stool in some honky-tonk. Hawk had bought her a forty-dollar Stetson hat, twenty years back in Moab, Utah, as a lovestruck present. She’d come by her battered old cowboy boots honestly, one long-ago night in Ennis, Montana, winning them off a ranch hand who’d been confident that his pair of queens would assure the sight of Mustang Sally Alder topless at the table. Sally had bet her three sixes, unwisely perhaps, but well. The boots had even fit.
But Sally was no cowgirl. Nobody, not even Hawk Green, knew that Sally Alder was terrified of horses.
“Come on,” said Hawk, tugging on her hand. “I want to see them let those barebacks out.”
“Don’t forget about the steak, Brit.” Herman Schwink pulled a business card out of his wallet and pressed it in her hand. “Call me on my cell phone. Name the night.”
“A cowboy with a cell phone,” said Hawk. “What would they say out on the Chisholm Trail?”
“Probably just punch in their GPS location and try to find out what cattle futures are going for in Kansas City,” Brit muttered, pocketing the card. “He’s a nice guy. What the hell.”
The first bareback riders were getting mounted up by the time Sally, Hawk, and Brit got to the chutes, and the place was crowded with contestants waiting for their turn to ride and stock handlers and spectators. The cowboys wore big black hats and gorgeously fringed and spangled chaps in brilliant colors, strapped around the backs of their thighs leaving the butts of their jeans exposed in fetching fashion. They swaggered around, taping their hands and arms, tightening their gloves, flexing their hands. Those next in line sat up on the high rail of the aluminum chute enclosure, psyching up, focusing silently on some inward third eye of bareback riding, or talking to themselves. “You’re the Man!” affirmed a boy in turquoise chaps trimmed in iridescent green fringe, with sequined red roses on the thighs, as he threw his leg over a snorting black gelding. The horse reared, nearly leaping out of the chute, its hooves clashing against the stall fence, its big body crashing the secured chute gate, the handlers grabbing the straps of the rigging that was all that kept the cowboy sunnyside-up on the horse. “That sumbitch is one hell of a high roller,” said someone nearby.
The cowboy might be the Man, but Sally was sure that the horse was the Horse, and it wasn’t happy being in the chute. Her breath came in shallow pants, and sweat trickled down her back. If she didn’t get hold of herself soon, she’d never make it to see Herman Schwink wrestle a steer, let alone be around at the end for the bull riding.
Jostled by the milling crowd, Sally found herself separated from Hawk, closer than ever to the bucking chute, standing next to Dwayne. “These guys are incredible,” Dwayne said, and pointed at the man in the turquoise chaps. “Look at how that kid works his rigging. He’s gotta get it just tight enough around his mount—too tight and the horse won’t buck. Too loose and he’ll slide around like hot bologna in red-eye gravy. Every bare-back rider has his rigging custom-made. The handhold’s the real art—it’s got to be just the right length, width, and thickness to fit the rider’s hand. Using somebody else’s rigging would be like wearing somebody else’s boots.”
Sally had happily been wearing the Montana ranch hand’s boots for many years now, without visible harmful effects, but maybe that was because she’d kept strictly clear of horses. And now, at this moment, as the throng of spectators lunged forward for a better look, she was pushed up against the back rails of the chute.
All at once the cowboy whooped and gave a signal and the front of the chute slammed open. That was almost the last thing Sally remembered. The very last was the sensation of being shoved hard in the back, her head snapping into the big space between the second and top rails, just as the bucking gelding plunged out of the chute, its huge hooves slashing out behind.
Chapter 12
Smile When You Call Me That
“Comin’ around there. All right. Okay. Take it easy, miss. Here—hold her head. Easy, easy, that’s it. All right. Can you sit up now?”
Ugh. She struggled to a seated position, hands pushing from behind.
“You gonna lose your cookies there, lady?” someone asked.
Sally’s stomach lurched, but didn’t actually do a somersault. “No. Thanks. Could I have a drink of water?”
Someone handed her a Dixie cup half full of warm water. She drank it down.
Someone else sponged off her face with a wet paper towel. It was Hawk. “Hi, honey,” he said, his eyes searching her face. “You okay?”
It took her a minute to answer. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think,” she said. “What happened?”
“You fainted and almost fell into the bucking chute,” said Dwayne. “Scared the heck out of me, Mustang.”
“Didn’t know you were the fainting type,” said Marsh Carhart, who was also in the room.
She was damned if she’d tell them how she felt about horses. “I’m not,” she said shortly. “What are you doing here, Marsh?”
“I helped Dickie and your boyfriend carry you in,” he said. “You were dead weight.”
She was sitting on a metal examining table in a room with white-painted cinder-block walls. “Where am I?”
A middle-aged woman in a white shirt and jeans, wearing a MEDIC armband, explained. “This is the emergency medical assistance room. This is where we bring the contestants when they get smashed up. We’re right behind the chutes.” She shone a penlight in Sally’s eyes, while another medic wrapped a blood pressure cuff on Sally’s arm. “We got you right in here when you fainted. We thought at first that bronc had kicked you in the head. That wouldn’t have been good.”
Hawk was still wiping her cheeks with the cool towel. The thought of the close call with the demon horse almost had her passing out again. “How long was I out?”
“Just a couple of minutes. We work fast,” said the medic woman. “Do you have a history of fainting or a medical condition that gives you seizures?”
“No. This is the first time I’ve ever fainted.”
“Any idea why?”
“I’m not sure,” said Sally. “Maybe the crowd. Maybe the heat. I got shoved into the fence and all I could see was that bucking horse’s hooves coming at my head.”
“That’d make me faint,” said Dickie sympathetically, patting her hand.
The medic finished up the examination, testing Sally’s reflexes, making her count backward from ten to one, getting her to answer simple questions. “You look okay to me—no shock, even. Nothing serious going on. Did you have dinner?”
“Salad,” Sally answered. With a bourbon chaser.
“Maybe you should think about getting something to eat,” said the medic. “And see your doctor. Maybe you’re a little hypoglycemic.”
“Smile when you call me that,” said Sally.
“All right. Get out of here,” said the medic.
It was a little more difficult than she’d thought. People began to filter out of the room. Nattie had shown up to commandeer Dwayne, and he gave Sally a little pat on the back before he left. Carhart went with them. Jerry Jeff stuck his head in, waved, and said he had to go get ready to rope. Brit, who’d been hovering in a corner, nodded at her, reassured, and took off after JJ. The medics were next, finished with Sally and going back on alert for more serious contusions and concussions.
Sally wobbled when she put her feet down on the floor, and had to put a hand on Hawk’s shoulder to get her balance. But at last she walked out on her own, Dickie and Hawk at her heels, and ran smack into Scotty Atkins.
“Okay, what happened?” said Atkins. “Can’t you keep out of trouble for twenty-four hours?”
“What?” she said. Annoyance cleared her head. “What the hell’s your problem, Scotty?”
“I turn my back for one minute, and the next thing I know there’s commotion over by the bucking chutes, and then people saying some woman got kicked by a horse, and by the time I get over here, of course, I find you lying on a steel table. What are you, Calamity Jane?”
“What are you, John Wayne? Give me a break, Scotty. I got squashed up against that fence, and the next thing I know, somebody gave me a shot from behind and I was on my way to La La Land.”
Hawk took her by the shoulders. “Somebody gave you a shot?” he said through his teeth.
“Ouch, quit squeezing. Yeah. Somebody shoved me. Hard. My head went right between the rails, right into kicking range of that fucking bucking bronco. I hate rodeo!” she fumed.
“Can you tell me,” said Atkins, very evenly, “exactly what you remember? Details are important.”
“Details? Okay—Hawk and I went over to the chutes. It was crowded back there, and by the time they got ready to ride, the crowd had gotten pretty packed. I got separated from Hawk and ended up next to Dwayne, right by the chute. He was explaining all about the cowboys’ rigging and all that, and the rider was having serious problems controlling that horse. But then again, I guess they breed ’em to be hard to handle, right? I mean, if the horses just came out all nice and trotted around the ring, who’d pay fifteen bucks to watch? Certainly not me! When it comes to watching guys ride horses, I want to see the riders nearly get killed every time! Or at least a good maiming, right? That’s my idea of a good time, yessirree . . .”
“You said you wanted details,” Hawk told Atkins.
“We’ll get ’em, eventually,” Atkins said impassively. “She seems a little upset at the moment.”
Dickie put his face close to Sally’s but kept his voice warm and sweet. “Do you have any idea who might have pushed you?”
“Jesus!” she said, flailing her arms to knock Hawk’s hands off her shoulders, pushing Dickie in the chest to get him out of her face, waving her hands to keep Scotty Atkins from coming any closer. “Don’t you think that if I knew who did it, I’d be telling you? Boy, I swear, you guys are some ace investigators. That’s the kind of police interrogation that usually requires rubber hoses, huh?”
“Sally . . .” said Dickie, half warning, half pleading.
Hawk put up a hand of his own. “That’s enough. She’s out of her mind. I’m going to take her home and feed her and put her to bed.”
“I’ve already eaten,” Sally insisted. “We had a big salad for dinner, as you’ll recall.”
“More details,” said Atkins to himself. “Great.”
“Salad,” said Hawk, “isn’t dinner.”
“Sure it is,” Sally shot back. “That salad had plenty of stuff in it. I could put a porterhouse steak in a salad, and you’d say it wasn’t dinner.”
“The lettuce contaminates it,” said Hawk.
“That’s a known fact,” Dickie agreed.
“Much as I enjoy discussing nutrition,” said Atkins, “this is a waste of time. I want to ask you some questions, Sally. You’re not up for it now, but tomorrow for sure. After the service for Monette. You,” he said, pointing at Hawk, “see if you can keep an eye on her for one night. And you”—he rounded on Sally—“put me on your busy schedule.”
“I think I can work you in,” she said, mustering her dignity.
“I’ll bring the rubber hose,” he said with a scowl, and turned and walked away.
Hawk was silent and thin-lipped as they drove home.
“Salad,” he said at last, each syllable raspy with exasperation.
Sally stared straight ahead until he pulled into the driveway and turned off the truck. Then, still not looking at him, she said, “You’re mad at me.”
“No! I’m in a dazzling mood. I’m filled with joy and amusement. I love the life we’re living—rape, murder, some kind of deviant sex lingerie attack, now a real assault.” His voice rose. “What’s next, Sally? What’s tomorrow’s crime? Arson? Grand theft auto? Shit!” he said, smacking the steering wheel with the flat of his hand, hard.
Whump
. “Shit, shit, shit!” he repeated, whacking the wheel in time:
whump, whump, whump
. Seventeen times in all. She counted. He’d be lucky if he hadn’t broken a bone in his hand.
Finally he slumped back against the seat, breathing hard, and said, “No. I am not mad at you. I’m out of my mind with worry and frustration and rage. I’d like to think I can protect you. I don’t think I can.”
She turned to him, took his face in her hands, and turned his head until he was looking in her eyes. “Listen to me very carefully,” she said then. “I did not pass out because you weren’t protecting me, or because I had salad for dinner and went into a hypoglycemic swoon. I fainted because somebody pushed me into that fence, right next to a big, bucking piece of horsemeat, and horses scare the bloody hell out of me.”
Hawk took her face in his own hands. “I know about the horses. In all the years we’ve been doing fun things together in cowboy country, you’ve never once mentioned the idea of horseback riding. You’ve never shown the least curiosity about farm animals. I’ve thought about planning trail ride treks now and then, and decided that you’d have brought it up if you had any interest in going.”
“I admit it. I think horses are goddamn intimidating big beasts, I don’t like
anything
that has its eyes on the sides of its head, and I want nothing to do with them, now or ever.” She blew out a breath of her own. “I’m getting a little tired of being frightened. For three days I’ve been alternately terrified, disgusted, mortified and pissed off. I need a more satisfying emotional palette. And I don’t need to eat.”
They were still holding each other’s faces, looking in each other’s eyes.
“I’m tired of being scared too,” Hawk told her, moving closer, his mouth now slipping across hers. “And I don’t need to eat either.”
He was kissing her sweet and gentle, and underneath, she could feel another kind of hunger. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered in her ear, a little breathless, fingers massaging the back of her neck. “You’ve been through a lot. I don’t want to push you.”
She brought his mouth back to her own and tasted his lips, and traced them with her tongue. “I don’t know,” she said. “Having things go this crazy, I’m actually kind of flexible. Go ahead and push me.”
By now they were lying down on the bench seat of the truck, kissing deep and starting to mess with each other’s clothes. “Are you flexible enough to fuck in my truck?” Hawk asked.
They made an earnest effort, but between deciding not to put their feet out the window and arouse neighborhood curiosity, and bumping their heads and various extremities on the steering wheel, the gearshift, and the glove compartment latch, they opted for the bed.
It was a good strategy. It had been hot and horny, banging around in the truck, but the necessity of rearranging their clothes, getting out into the night air, unlocking (sigh) the house, and going in started the fun all over again.
“This might be an unhealthy idea,” she said, “but I could use a brandy.”
They’d bought a bottle of Courvoisier the previous Christmas, and hadn’t opened it since.
“Not a bad idea at all,” said Hawk, heading for the kitchen cupboards. “Since you didn’t have an actual head injury, I suppose it’s okay.”
The bottle had come with two balloon glasses, and Hawk poured them each a temperate shot. His hands, Sally noticed, weren’t as rock-steady as usual. “Let’s take these in the bedroom,” he said, unnecessarily. She was already halfway there. He followed with the glasses.
By the time he got there, she was sitting on the bed, trying to get her boots off. He put the glasses down on the bedside table. “Let me,” he said, sitting beside her, putting her leg in his lap, pulling the boot off by the heel, and slipping off her sock. He kneaded the arch of her foot, a bit of bliss. “Now if you want me to do the other one, better give me a sip of that stuff.” She held the glass for him while he sipped, then picked up her other leg and pulled the other boot free.
“Now yours,” she said, putting his glass on the table. Sally pulled up a small needlepoint footstool, an incongruously delicate heirloom from the Venerable Grandmother Green, and sat down in front of Hawk. She ran her hands all the way up the sides of his leg and down before settling them around his heel, and dealing with the boot and sock. “I get a sip too,” she said, and he obliged her, but found he had to put his hands in her hair and kiss her for quite some time before she went to work on the other leg.
The brandy and the kisses were warming her up nicely. He put her glass down and pulled her up onto the bed, and rolled over on top of her, their mouths fierce and open to each other. “Isn’t this a stroke of luck,” he said, raising his head and noticing the metal snaps that fastened her denim shirt, and ripping them open, then moving quickly to unsnap the front closure of her bra. “I have to admit, Mustang, I do admire the fact that you believe in efficiency in garment engineering.”
“You’ve always said you thought underwear was overrated,” she observed.
But he wasn’t saying anything, because his lips and tongue had gotten very busy.
“Wait a minute there, son,” she gasped, her fingers numb, knowing that most of her available blood supply had risen to meet the explorations of Hawk’s accomplished mouth. “Don’t I get my turn?” She worked at the buttons of his shirt while he reached for the brandy, and had it mostly unbuttoned when he dipped his fingers in the glass and shook a few droplets on her breasts, then bent down to lick them off.
He sighed and rolled on his back. “My woman tastes like fine French cognac. Must be a sign of maturity.”
But now she was working on dragging his jeans off.
“Two can play at that game,” she said.
Much later: “Boy, these sheets have gotten pretty sticky.”
“Just a part of the effort to keep you from going hypoglycemic.”
“Smile when you call me that.”
“I am.”