Hell, Yeah (16 page)

“You mean you’re not going to volunteer to help me put things in order tomorrow morning?”

“No, ma’am, I am not. I’ve got to be at the rig site at nine o’clock and there’s no way I’m waking you up that early.”

“That’s probably wise,” she agreed.

He hummed along while Loretta Lynn sang about being someone’s Kentucky girl. Cathy could be his Alaska girl, but the way her business was booming she’d never leave the Honky Tonk.

My girl! When did that happen? I’ve kissed her a few times. I haven’t even made love with the woman. So why do I think she’s my girl?

“What are you thinkin’ about?” Cathy set six Jack and Cokes on a tray.

“As many times as I’ve leaned on these handles, I’m wondering whether we’re goin’ to run out of beer. How much you got in the cooler?” He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d been entertaining notions of her being his girl.

“There’s enough to last until closing. I may have to call the distributor and ask him to make an extra run on Monday to get through the first of the week. But right now we’re in good shape,” she answered.

At one o’clock part of the crowd called it a night and Tinker let the rest of the folks who’d waited in the yard inside. They hit the bar for buckets and Mason jars of beer and fresh energy pushed its way right out onto the dance floor. At one thirty it thinned out a little and at five minutes until two Tinker unplugged the jukebox right after Conway sang “Lonely Blue Boy.”

A lady yelled, “Ah, man, we only got an hour.”

“Come early on Monday night. We’ll open at eight,” Tinker said.

“I’ll be the first one in line if I have to camp out on the doorstep all night,” she said.

The place was empty at two when Tinker set his cooler on the bar and for the first time since Cathy had been in the Honky Tonk it still had two unopened Dr Peppers in it.

“Didn’t have time to drink much,” he said.

“It’s just a crazy fad,” she said.

“Busier than I’ve ever seen it. If it keeps up we might need to hire Travis or Larissa full time. I thought I saw those two men again tonight. They were out in the parking lot leaning on a car. Things was busy so I didn’t get out there to put them going. I expect they’re stalking Larissa because when she left they did too.” He waved good-bye and left.

Travis picked up two beers and headed for a table. “What’s going on with two men?”

“Tinker thinks there are a couple of stalkers hanging around. At first he thought they were looking at me but now he thinks they are after Larissa. Don’t know what or who she was before she came here. Maybe she knows them.” She didn’t tell him that she’d had the uncanny suspicion they were following her in the Wal-Mart store or to the bank.

“Show them to me the next time they’re here and I’ll find out what they’re up to. Now…” he held out a hand, “…want to dance?”

“Hell no.” Cathy slipped her boots off behind the counter and followed him in her stockings. “I want to put up my aching feet and guzzle a beer.”

Travis sat across the table from her. He tipped back his beer and took a drink. Lord, it tasted good after that six-hour run. He set it down and looked at her long, long legs. He leaned across the table and took her left foot in both his hands and began a deep foot massage.

“Oh God, don’t stop,” she moaned.

“That sounds like more than harassment,” he teased.

“Honey, what you are doing feels so damn good you can sue me. Hell, I’ll give you half my kingdom if you’ll do that for an hour,” she said.

“What would I have to do for all your kingdom?”

She’d never known that icy blue eyes could have fiery hot embers in them, but his did. They could have set the Tonk on fire if it had been physically as hot as the vibes they shared.

“More than rub my feet,” she said. “Don’t ask me things like that tonight, Travis. I’m too tired to be rational.”

“Then how about going out with me tomorrow night for dinner? You name the place. A real date. I’ll pick you up at six and we’ll do dinner and then a movie.” He started on the arch of the other foot.

She leaned back and shut her eyes tightly. “If you won’t stop for the next ten minutes the answer is yes.”

“Can you stay awake for ten minutes?” he asked.

“Probably not. Wake me up when it’s over.”

He laughed.

“No sexual connotation intended,” she said.

“Let’s curl up on your sofa and just cuddle together until we fall asleep?”

“Can’t do it.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I’d want more and I’m too damned tired to enjoy it,” she said honestly.

“Then there is a tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” She pulled her feet down. “You sleeping on the sofa tonight or going home?”

“I sleep better on the sofa. You seen anymore of those stalkers?” He finished his beer, stood up, and brushed a kiss across her forehead. If he kissed her lips he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“Not lately. I can’t even be sure that they ever followed me the first time. It all could have been my imagination since Tinker and I’d talked about them. Nerves talking instead of common sense,” she said as she locked up, turned out the lights, and followed him to the apartment.

He pulled his duffle bag from the coat closet, removed a pair of clean pajama bottoms, and made a mental note to repack it the next day. Lately, he’d spent more nights at the apartment than he had in the trailer. Most mornings he was long gone before Cathy awakened, but he enjoyed that hour of company they shared after the Tonk closed. When he did go home before closing, he watched for the parking lot to empty, Tinker to go home, and the light to appear in her window. That was his cue to traipse out across the grass and knock on her door.

While she showered he peeked out the window. No slow moving vans. Maybe Tinker and Cathy had both been wrong. Shady characters often hung around beer joints. He dropped the mini-blind slat when he heard the shower stop.

“Your turn,” she called out.

He washed the smoke and day’s grime from his body, donned faded pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, and went back to the living room where she waited on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and one of green tea in the other.

“So tell me, you going to get that oil to come up out of the ground in the allotted time? Are you really going to Alaska?”

He reached out and took one of the cups and sipped the chocolate. “I hope so on both counts. You ever been up there?”

She shook her head. “I’ve seen pictures on the Internet.”

“It’s not the same as seeing the place. You live a lifetime in Texas and see maybe two or three bald eagles. In Alaska you’d see that many in a week. Lighting on telephone poles and looking like the king of the clouds. And the peace is unreal.” He sat down in the rocking chair.

“To me this place is peace,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “A noisy honky tonk?”

“That’s right. Peace is the condition of the heart, not the place the body abides.” She didn’t say that lately her heart hadn’t known a moment’s peace or that most nights she fell asleep wondering what it would be like to awaken all curled up in his arms.

“Want to watch a movie tonight?” he asked.

“No, I’m wiped completely out. I’ve got to get up in the morning and balance the cash register and then drop a deposit at the bank so I’m ready for bed.”

“On Sunday?”

“I usually make my biggest deposit on Sunday. There’s a night drop at the bank so it’s no big deal. But it takes me a while to get it ready and on Sunday I don’t have to rush. What’s your day looking like tomorrow?”

“We’re on schedule but I’m going to put in some hours out at the rig. Want to go out tomorrow evening for dinner and maybe a movie. A real date?”

“How much of your money is in the pot?” she teased.

“Enough to buy dinner and a movie. But I’ll give it all to Luther if you’ll go with me,” he said.

She nodded on her way to her bedroom. “I’d love to. Good night, Travis.”

He carried both cups to the sink, rinsed them, and put them into the dishwasher. He thought he heard a vehicle moving slowly through the parking lot but he was already half asleep and didn’t leave his warm spot to check it out.

* * *

The next morning Cathy found the sofa put to rights and the covers folded in the rocking chair. She called Daisy while she ate a Pop Tart and coffee breakfast but only got her answering machine. She left a message telling her that she’d call later in the week and went into the Honky Tonk, took all the money from the cash register, pulled the tape, and set down to balance them.

Lately she’d been bringing in twice what she did in the first days when she took over the joint. If the fad built into a steady thing she’d have to consider hiring full-time help. Her zippered bank bag was full of cash and credit card receipts when she finally got the money and register tape to agree.

She still wore her flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt but she didn’t need to be dressed up to drop a bag of money through a slot. She thought about putting on a hooded sweatshirt or a jacket but the truck would warm up quickly and then she’d be too hot so she tugged on her cowboy boots, stuffed her cell phone into her pocket, and headed out to the garage. From the edge of her vision she caught sight of a van going down the road too slow.

“Tinker, you’ve got me seeing demons on every corner.” She sighed. She kept a watch in the rearview mirror as she drove to Stephenville but only saw a pickup truck with an elderly couple talking with their hands and one of those new station wagon vehicles with several children in the backseat.

She made her deposit, stopped by the Sonic for a cherry limeade, and headed home. When she reached the turn-off to go to Garrett’s ranch, she slowed down and seriously considered going for a visit. Then she remembered what she was wearing and changed her mind.

She rolled up the garage doors with the remote and backed the truck inside. When she stepped out two men rushed inside. She scarcely had time to blink before one had her around the neck and the other was pointing a pistol at her head. She kicked the gun from out of the red-haired man’s hand and elbowed the one trying to strangle her. Gun man made a dive for her feet and she planted a boot in his shoulder, sending him sprawling against the pickup.

“Get the hell off my property,” she shouted.

Neck man jumped on her back and she leaned forward and then threw herself backwards against the Cadillac parked next to the truck. She heard a whoosh as the air left his lungs and he slumped to the ground. The banty rooster in front of her went for the gun and pointed it at her again. She plowed into him like a bulldozer over an ant hill, cussing and ranting like a mad woman. The gun went off in the melee and ricocheted around in the garage, hitting an empty metal gas can and rattling around inside until it came to a stop.

The red-haired man was on the ground, with her knee in his chest and her fingers around his neck. She enjoyed the beautiful sight of his face turning blue when something stung her neck. She could endure a bee sting if she could watch the man turn one more… shade… of…

Suddenly the man’s face was entirely too close. Why would he try to kiss her when she was strangling him? Her hands went slack and she couldn’t convince them to press any harder. The garage walls danced toward her and everything went black.

* * *

Cathy’s eyelids felt like they were made of those heavy rubber bands. She’d open them and then they’d spring back shut. She forced them open and listened to her captors. Why weren’t they dead? Why were they still talking? She’d choked one and smashed the other.

“So you think we’ll be there by nightfall? I hate that place after dark with all those weird sounds and the rats. God, I hate rats,” one said.

“Stop your bellyachin’ and look back there and make sure she’s still sleeping,” the other answered.

“Stop worryin’. She’s out for twenty-four hours. Ain’t no way she’ll wake up after that shot. Damn she’s a big woman, ain’t she? We shoulda brought one of them stretcher things. It woulda made the job easier.”

Cathy blinked several times. Her nose itched but when she tried to scratch it she couldn’t move her hands. They were both asleep and she was lying on them. She never slept with her knees drawn up but they were all cramped up under her and she couldn’t straighten them. She inhaled deeply and tried to stretch but neither her legs nor arms would move. The strong smell of hamburgers, onions, beer, and smoke filled the room. In the dizzy darkness she wondered what those aromas were doing in her bedroom.

“Don’t know why in the hell he wants someone that damn big. Ask me, a little woman is a lot easier to control. Slap her once and she knows who’s boss. That big old horse of a woman ever hits him back and he’ll be on the floor whinin’ like a pissy little girl.”

She was in the middle of a hellacious nightmare and couldn’t wake up or move. Where was Travis? Had he awakened early and left the television playing when he left for work? Was she meshing whatever dialogue the actors were saying into her dream? She tried to swallow but her mouth was so dry it felt as if it had been packed with sand. She looked around the blurry room. Only it wasn’t a room. She was in Travis’s trailer house and it was rocking worse than it had during the tornado. Had they made love and she’d slept through it? Then someone started talking again.

“She made him mad when she lied about being married to that redneck rancher. He said he’d get even. And then his uncle said that if he didn’t settle down with a woman like her he was going to be out of a job. I guess some women at the oil company filed a sex harass thing against him. His uncle got him out of it but said he had to get a wife and be ’spectable. It’s probably the truth about him comin’ on to the women. That boy never could keep his zipper up even when we was all kids. If it was a girl it was fair game. He reckons that by the time she spends a few days in that fishin’ shack she’ll be softened up and ready for him to rescue her. She’ll be so damned grateful to be out of there that by fall she’ll be engaged to him again. Then the old man will be happy because he always did like her more than he liked Brad anyway. At least that’s what he told me. Did she kill off all your brain cells when she put that choke hold on you? I done told you this once.”