Stef Ann Holm

T
he
Mountain Gazette
would later report that virtually the entire population of Red Duck, Idaho had gathered in the Mule Shoe Bar to witness history in the making.

With heightened anticipation, gazes fastened on the big screen television during the world news broadcast. The aroma of coffee mingled with remnant tobacco smoke from the night before. Steady conversation filled the barroom as the sun began to rise.

A handful of those in attendance had barely let their bar stools cool down for four hours before returning at this early hour to support something really big.

There hadn’t been this much excitement in town since Bruce Willis premiered his latest movie at the Mint Theater in Hailey. Second to that was when John Kerry ran for president and the majority of Democrats in Red Duck had to go over to the dark side and turn Republican. But that was a heated story, one that was often rehashed over shots of Jack Daniels.

“It’s coming on in a just a few minutes!” P. J. Guffy said, aiming the clicker at the television to turn up the sound. “Quiet, everyone!”

The noise in the crowded room hushed to a soft murmur as the morning broadcast changed gears and moved on to the weather.

Red Duck had its own radio station and a newspaper that came out once a week. To tide everyone over until each Wednesday when the
Gazette
was published, gossip was exchanged over at the High Country Motel’s lounge. The closest thing to local news in between was the TV stations airing from Boise.

The toupee-wearing anchor in a double-breasted suit filled the screen, animated hand signs indicating it was going to be another record-breaking day in the area.

But nobody in Red Duck cared about the barometer.

Sitting dead center in the room for the best view of the television was the soon-to-be local celebrity.

Fern “Spin” Goodey-Leonard had both hearing aids ramped up to full power so she wouldn’t miss a thing.

One of her liver-spotted hands clamped down on the chair’s wooden arm while the other held on to a coffee sweetened with brandy. She smiled broadly, but at no one in particular—just a double check to make sure her dentures were still firmly in place. She inhaled, sucked in her gut, the latex of her girdle constricting her effort. When she’d been a spry young woman, and tall as a barn post, she’d been nicknamed “Spin”—short for “Spindly” because she’d always been so thin. Now she relied on Playtex to keep everything in place. It was amazing how one could pour one’s skin and flab into a girdle, and in a matter of seconds, elastic smoothed out all the wrinkles.

She’d been the seventh woman admitted to the Idaho Bar in 1924, quite a feat back then. Judges had been discriminatory in the courtroom, her cases having been especially trying when she was defending other women. It was amazing she’d lasted in a male-dominated business, her career spanning three decades. She gave up her practice in 1953 and moved to Red Duck with her husband, Wally. God bless him, Wally had died in 1956 in a bear-hunting accident. Having lived with the love of her life for the better part of thirty-two years, Spin had never remarried.

P. J. Guffy flapped his arms, cranking the volume higher.

A stillness fell over the room as Willard Scott’s face filled the screen.

Applause rose and Spin wasn’t even on yet. Willard was one of Spin’s favorites. She’d tried for a few years to get his recognition and, finally, this was her year. She was glad she’d held on this long, because she didn’t think she’d be around for next year’s birthday. Her bladder was failing and her kidneys gave her trouble. Cataracts had messed with her vision and her oil painting skills had suffered in recent years. But her mind was still relatively sound, so thank God for that.

As Willard addressed the camera, photos of centenarians across the country flashed on the screen, each one bordered by the well-known checkerboard frame.

“And from Red Duck, Idaho, Fern Goodey-Leonard, who turns one hundred and three this week.”

Cheers rose in the barroom as soon as Spin’s name was called, and gooseflesh prickled her loose skin. She hoped her red lipstick was still on straight. Seeing her picture on the television made her so happy. She had lived a long time for this.

Holiday poppers exploded in the bar, with tails of streamers falling over her shoulders and catching on her rhinestone-rimmed eyeglasses.

And it wasn’t even over yet.

The screen went from Willard Scott to blackness as Guffy turned off the set, and all of a sudden the bar was filled with big lights from the local news media. Channel 7 had been sent to Red Duck to do a follow-up on Spin’s birthday bash.

The reporter, perhaps twenty-two if she was a day, shoved a microphone in her face.

“So, Ms. Goodey-Leonard,” she stated, “how does it feel to see yourself on national television?”

Spin spoke loudly. “Good.”

“You’re almost an icon in Idaho. The seventh woman to be admitted into the Idaho Bar. How have things changed since you practiced law in the early years? There used to be some dissension between you and a Judge—” the reporter referred to her notes “—Judge Harrison.”

Spin went into a bit of history of the Idaho judicial system, careful not to call Harrison an asshole, but she thought it just the same.

Big-ass asshole, male-chauvinist pig…asshole.

Asshole.

That last asshole thought made her brows pucker. She should have stopped while she was ahead.

The reporter asked, “Are you in good health?”

“As good as I can be for one hundred and three.”

“You look wonderful.”

“I feel so-so,” she quipped. “But I can die fulfilled now that Mr. Scott has recognized me on his weather segment.”

“The whole of Boise would like to recognize you, Ms. Goodey-Leonard.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I’m having my ashes returned to Boise when I’m gone.”

This piece of bold news caused the woman to falter somewhat. She probably hadn’t dealt with death very much at her young age. “Oh, I’m sure that will be nice for you,” she managed to murmur.

“It’ll be more than nice. It’s my way of saying a final goodbye to Judge Harrison for all those years in the courtroom when he looked at me like a tomato rather than a lawyer.” Before the anchor could cut her short, Spin grabbed hold of the microphone and continued, “I’m having my ashes baked into bread, then fed to the courthouse pigeons.”

The anchor attempted to pull away the mike, but Spin held fast, her red lipstick grazing it as she looked directly into the camera. “Then when the pigeons shit on Harrison’s statue in the court gardens, it’ll be my way of saying goodbye to the asshole.”

Stunned but good-natured laughter erupted in the Mule Shoe as the camera crew cut the film.

Spin didn’t care if her segment aired or not.

She was one hundred and three tomorrow and she didn’t give a good damn what anyone thought. She’d been on NBC. Coast to coast. And with the checkered Smucker border setting off the lace collar of her blouse, she’d looked peachy on TV.

She hoped her great-nephew, Morris Leonard, wouldn’t give her too much crap about the interview. He was a prominent Boise attorney and a fine catch for the right woman.

By lunchtime, life in Red Duck had settled back to normal: the sheriff cited two speeders; Jacquie Santini from Realty Professionals sold a 4.6 million dollar home to an “unnamed” movie actor from Holly-weird; Sutter’s Gourmet Grocery put buffalo meat on sale; and a benefit to improve the Little League field was announced.

That night, Spin’s interview was edited and cut to suit prime-time television. No surprise there. But the residents didn’t seem to mind.

There was other news already brewing in Red Duck.

“T
hat stretch of Timberline Highway by the golf course looks like a slaughterhouse floor.” The blue Idaho sky with its popcorn-shaped clouds reflected in the sheriff’s sunglasses. “I don’t recall such a massacre so close to town before.”

Lucy Carpenter grabbed her two sons by their shoulders and drew them in close. Her lanky sixteen-year-old, Jason, shrugged out of her protective embrace, while her twelve-year-old, Matt, stuck next to her as his mouth dropped open.

The deputy, a whipcord thin man wearing a cowboy hat and sporting a red Fu Manchu mustache, remarked, “It’ll be one hell of a job scraping off the pavement.”

The lump forming in Lucy’s throat ached, making it more difficult to swallow. Her skin grew clammy. The band of her bra seemed to constrict and cause a thin line of perspiration to roll between her breasts. With one hand, she flipped open the top two buttons on her wool jacket, welcoming the chill air through her knit shirt.

Suddenly, moving to Red Duck seemed like a horribly ill conceived idea. How could these two men talk so casually about a dead body on the road?

Jason’s voice regressed to a prepuberty squeak. “Mom, I told you Boise wasn’t
that
bad!”

“I never said it was a crime capital.” Lucy’s response was a little too abrupt, and perhaps on the defensive side, when she didn’t intend for it to be. “I simply said the city was a bad influence on you.”

“I only smoked some pot. They kill people up here!”

That last part, or rather that first part, had both law officials looking at her son as if he were a notorious drug dealer.

“We don’t tolerate any mary-wanna-go-to-jail in this town,” Sheriff Roger Lewis cautioned, his small eyes narrowing to slits. He had a dark tropical tan that George Hamilton would envy. Silver hair framed his long face, and his teeth were a blinding white. He sported a felt-brimmed cowboy hat in the same silver color that accessorized both law-enforcement uniforms. And each officer had a very large revolver in a holster.

Lucy’s eyes felt dry. She blinked and tried to focus.

The deputy ran his forefinger under his nose, scratched it, then shifted his weight to an exaggerated stance. “Back in the late nineties, a few bad apples from Boise brought some cocaine with them, and several fledgling businesses went up some noses.” He traded glances with the sheriff, the pair obviously recollecting the damage. “The Iron Mountain Paragliding School was one of them.”

“What Deputy Cooper’s saying—” the sheriff hitched his pants to high-water level while looking directly at her son “—is we won’t tolerate any big-city trouble.”

The crispness in the late May day seemed to evaporate, Lucy’s cheeks growing warm. Indignance threaded through her. She laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder, drew him close. This time he didn’t resist. “We don’t smoke marijuana and I wouldn’t dream of bringing any drugs into town.”

But as she spoke, she recalled her firsthand encounter with drugs and her son.

Jason had been caught with a marijuana cigarette in his hall locker. He’d been put on suspension, but it wasn’t his first violation in the nearly two years since her divorce. There had been the day he’d cut class to go fishing with his buddies, and received his second speeding ticket on the way home. He’d had his driver’s license taken away for thirty days. His rebellious behavior after her ex-husband left them was why she’d made the decision to move her two boys to the small town of Red Duck.

The glossy travel brochures touted that tourists might flock to Timberline, but they played in Red Duck. Golf, biking, skiing. Red Duck had a year-round population of three thousand that swelled to six thousand depending on the season.

Nestled in a flat valley at the base of the Wood Ridge Mountains, Red Duck only had two traffic signals on Main Street. All the buildings had the same false-fronted design—from the old Mule Shoe Bar to the new Blockbuster on Honeysuckle Road.

“Mom, can we go now?” Matt asked, the freckles on his face prominent from being in the high altitude sun.

They’d arrived in town a good hour ago and, for the life of her, she hadn’t been able to find their rental. She’d gone several miles beyond Main Street, even into the Timberline Resort, but the road she was supposed to turn on seemed to have vanished.

She drove the do-it-yourself moving truck with all their possessions packed inside, navigating the best she could, with her sixteen-year-old, at the helm of her beloved car, following behind. Each time she’d stopped to turn around, Jason had raised his hands in exasperation as if to say, “Where are you going?” Then he’d clamped hard on the steering wheel and accelerated far too fast for her comfort.

Against her better judgment, and for lack of an alternative driver, she’d let her son make the two hundred mile trip from Boise to Red Duck in the Passat. She’d insisted Matt ride with her so he couldn’t distract Jason—who’d totaled his small pickup almost two months ago and was without a car.

In defeat and puzzlement, Lucy had brought the boys to the sheriff’s department, hoping the law officials would know how to direct her. Now she regretted that decision. Being put under a microscope before she’d even unpacked a single dish wasn’t how she had envisioned their arrival.

Lucy squared her shoulders. “I’m renting a house on Lost River Road and I can’t seem to find the turnoff. I’ve been up before. I thought I knew how to get there, but for some reason, the street’s missing.”

Matter-of-factly, Sheriff Lewis said, “It happens in the spring. Snowmelt. You get some flash floods out that way from the Lost River.”

The deputy added his two cents. “It’s a river that comes and goes depending on the rainy season.”

“The street was washed out last week. Nobody’s gotten around to putting up a new sign yet.”

“Aw jeez,” Jason whined. “We live on a street that disappears, and they’ve got dead bodies here, too.”

“Dead bodies?” Sheriff Lewis echoed, his hand falling too close to his holster. “Where’s a dead body?”

Matt’s voice came out in a quiver. “Timberline Highway. The big massacre.”

The sheriff had the nerve to laugh. Lucy was about to tell him that it wasn’t funny in the slightest.

“That’s no dead body. It’s a road-kill elk,” Deputy Cooper supplied, his facial expression trying to remain neutral, but a grin cut across his mouth. “And a damn big ’un. What’s left of the carcass and guts is spread out on both lanes, blood splattered from here to kingdom come. My guess it was a three-quarter-ton diesel that got it.”

The sheriff cocked his hat. “I’m thinking a Hummer.”

“Drew Tolman drives a Hummer,” the deputy mused. “I haven’t see it in town today.”

“Too early.” Sheriff Lewis gazed at the sun. “Tolman doesn’t roll into Opal’s for breakfast until noon.”

“Unless it’s Little League season. Then he gets there about nine. Orders the same thing every day. Steak and eggs.”

“Sometimes he swaps out the steak for six sausage links. I saw him do that a few times.”

At that, Matt said, “Mom, I’m hungry.”

They’d been snacking on crackers and fruit in the car, and now that food had been mentioned, Lucy’s stomach growled. She could all but taste her special roasted pepper omelet with seasoned potatoes.

“We’ll get something as soon as we find the house.” To the sheriff she queried, “If the road is washed out, how am I supposed to get there?”

“Cooper’ll draw you a map on how get in the back way. What’s the address?”

“346 Lost River Road.”

Sheriff Lewis gave them each another long, skeptical glance. “That’s Bud Tremore’s teardown.”

Lucy cringed, not wanting to have to explain that to the boys in mixed company.

“What’s a teardown?” Jason asked, slipping away from her once more. While it was a physical distance, she’d been feeling the emotional distance as well. He wasn’t her baby anymore, and she hoped this move would help their relationship retain some of the closeness they’d once had. Relocating would allow him to make new friends, boys who were boys and not young men who thought they were tough and knew everything.

The sheriff didn’t give her the opportunity to elaborate. “A teardown is just what you think it is. A building that’s going to be torn down. Real estate in Red Duck is so pricey you just can’t buy good land anymore. You take what’s a pile of junk, demo it and build new.” Looking at Lucy, he arched his brows. “I didn’t think Bud was renting out that place anymore.”

He wasn’t. Or wasn’t going to until she’d convinced him otherwise.

On her scouting trip, she’d been quickly disillusioned. She’d learned through a Realtor that the people who worked here most likely didn’t live here. They lived in Twin Falls or Shoshone and rode a bus to and from town.

Bud Tremore owned the Salmon Creek RV Park, and when she’d been at her rope’s end, unable to find a place to live, she’d stopped in to use the restroom and put a dollar in the vending machine for a bottle of Coke. She’d got to talking to Bud, and ended up telling him her hard luck story—something unlike her. But it had been a long day of disappointment, and he mentioned having a vacant house he used to rent out before the foundation resettled and knocked off the right side of the porch.

She’d begged him to show it to her, and she’d made a deal on the spot for $1,500 a month. Dirt cheap. Rent in Red Duck was obscene. She couldn’t even think about buying, not even with the proceeds from the sale of her Boise house. And Timberline? You couldn’t touch a home for less than two million.

“We have to live in a piece of junk?” Jason’s question broke through Lucy’s thoughts.

“No. It’s not bad at all. I really liked it and there’s a view of the ski mountain.”

Well, sort of. The trees blocked it off. But they could fix up the house and make it a home. It was the best she could do and still live in Red Duck.

“I never wanted to move here,” Jason grumbled, flipping the key of her Passat open and closed like a switchblade. “Why can’t we go back to Boise? All my friends are there.”

She kept an assurance in her voice she hoped would convince him. “You’ll make friends here.”

Matt rubbed his belly. “I’m hungry.”

“We’ll get something to eat soon.”

The deputy returned with a map. She followed his finger as he traced a road, showed her how to get to the house.

“Just what is your business in town?” the sheriff asked, puffing out his chest like a rooster.

Lucy stared at him a long moment. “My business.” Then she thanked the two for their time, put the boys back in their respective vehicles and began traveling on Honeysuckle Road.

Her hands gripped the wheel of the moving van, her stomach pitching. Not from hunger this time, but from trepidation. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

She’d spent hours, days…several weeks planning for this move and contemplating every angle of what could or would go wrong. The positives outweighed the negatives. She could work up here, make a nice living as a personal chef. She’d gotten that part covered and knew the business could be stable. But a piece of her was riddled with guilt. She’d taken the boys away from the only home they’d ever known. She’d sold the house she’d won in the divorce—a modest four-bedroom with a big yard, basketball hoop, skateboard ramp in front where all the neighborhood boys congregated.

Things would be different for them up here. But it would be a good different. She had to remind herself that this was for the best.

But as the house came into view, with its gray-weathered sides, a magpie squawking on the roof, the porch sloping and in need of repair, and a discarded truck tailgate in the front yard, she bit the inside of her lip.

Matt rolled down the window and stuck his head out as she let the truck engine idle. “Cool! This place looks like a junky fort.”

Jason had gotten out of the Passat, stood next to his brother at the open window. He gave Lucy a pathetic glare, then muttered, “I wish you and Dad never got a divorce.”

Lucy wished the same thing, but her marriage bed could sleep only two people comfortably, and Gary had decided he liked his office secretary taking dictation in between the sheets. Her ex suffered from classic male menopause and had bailed to Mexico on an extended holiday.

“Well, we did get a divorce,” Lucy all but snapped. “So now it’s the three of us and we’re going to make the best of it.”

She spoke more to reassure herself than the two boys, whose gazes had slid back to the house just as the magpie dropped a present on the front steps before flying away.

Before the day was over, Jason knew he could find someone in Red Duck to hit him up with a bag of pot. His mom was dumb to think that this potato-land town didn’t have drugs for sale. If a dude had some money, anything was for sale.

Buying weed and keeping a joint in his hall locker had been effing stupid. The Special Resource Officer at his old high school was like a canine. He had a nose that could sniff out a stale P & J sandwich locked tight in a binder. Getting busted had reeked. Jason had really screwed up. That had been the first time he’d smoked weed, and he’d paid a penalty for it, but he’d done alcohol and never got caught.

When Gary left them, Jason got drunk on purpose to make the hurt go away—a pain he didn’t talk about, not even with Matt. His mom never found out about the drinking. He told her he was going to the skateboard park with his friends, but they ended up at Brian’s house instead. Brian’s parents had a wet bar stocked with any liquor you could think of. Brian put water in the vodka bottle to make up for what he and his friends drank. They took some Smirnoff Ice, too, since there were a couple cases of it in the garage refrigerator. Five or six missing bottles—it was nothing noticeable.

Thinking back, Jason remembered how he’d puked his guts up and had a headache all the next day. He’d lied, told his mom he had the flu. After that, he swore, no more alcohol. Just grass. But not regularly. Only when he needed to forget his troubles.

He didn’t hate his mom. She was trying. And he knew that he was a shit to her sometimes. But he couldn’t help himself. He had a lot of anger in him. Sometimes he just wanted to hit something. Like maybe Gary for running off to Mexico.