The Winslow Incident (7 page)

“Get away!” Patience cringed.

Tanner shrugged. “You’re the one
who brought it up.”

She made a sour face at him. “I’m
talking about what the future holds. Not the past.”

“I know exactly what the future
holds,” Hazel said. “I’m leaving this rotting leftover of a town.”

Tanner burped and crumpled up his
beer can. “I’m with you—this place totally sucks.”

“You’ve only been here two weeks,”
Sean said. “What the hell do
you
know?”

“That here is
nowhere
and
that nobody gives a shit what goes on up here.” He tossed his can toward the
garbage bin and missed just as Kohl and Tilly Thacker walked by. They cast him
twin shaming glares. “Not that anything does go on that I’ve seen.”

“How can you say that?” Hazel
asked. “Sometimes we get deliveries from Darryl the mail lady
and
Fritz Earley
the grain guy in the very same week.” She pitched her can and made it into the
bin.

Tanner smirked, popping open
another. “You could all eat each other over the winter and nobody would even know
until the pass thawed.”

“You’re right.” Patience’s eyes
went wide and she took a noisy sip. “That’s scary.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Sean said.
“He’s completely full of shit.”

“A Donner Party waiting to
happen,” Hazel muttered. Jinx twitched in his sleep beside her. She rubbed his
soft belly and whispered, “It’s only a bad dream, boy.”

“You just don’t know yet,”
Patience told Tanner, one hand on her hip. “We’ve got a lot to offer here.” She
gestured wide.

“Are you offering me something?”

Flustered, she looked to Hazel for
help. “I just meant . . .”

“All right already,” Sean said.
“Give it a rest. Let’s finish these beers and go on a ride.”

“Can’t.” Patience rose and
repositioned her shorts. “I have to go change for the rodeo.”

“Knock ’em dead,” Hazel told her
as she was leaving.

Tanner stood and announced, “I
gotta get ready too.”

“What for?” Sean asked.

Tanner hitched his thumbs through
his belt loops and cocked his head. “I’m ridin’ in this here rodeo.”

“You’re
joking
,” Hazel
said.

“Nope. Calf-roping contest. Uncle
Pard’s letting me use his horse. Says Blackjack’ll know what to do. I just
gotta hold on and swing the rope around the little cheeseburger’s neck.”

Hazel blew out her breath like
oh,
boy
, while Sean scoffed.

Tanner turned and started to walk
away. “I’ve been practicing,” he said.

“Break a leg!” Sean called, and
Hazel noticed Tanner’s stride stiffen.

Sean handed her another can, which
she took and held against her hot forehead.

“Think the Tilt-A-Whirl will make
us puke after all this beer?” Sean asked.

Placing her can against his cheek because he
looked overheated too, Hazel said, “Every ride’s an adventure.”

I
t was difficult for Hazel to decide who was the
bigger blowhard: her father or her uncle.

First her dad took the stage above
the rodeo field. Looking hot as blazes in his uniform, he droned on for a good
five minutes, welcoming the out-of-towners and espousing Winslow’s many glories
harking back to the boom days of the town’s founding in 1888. Shamelessly he
tossed words like “grit” and “mettle” and “pluck” all over the oval ring.

They’re already here, Dad
, thought Hazel,
enough with the sales pitch.

Then, dressed in parade chaps and
his customary scowl, her Uncle Pard wrested the microphone away and lectured on
a vanishing way of life and the joys of freshly slaughtered beef, until
finally: “It’s great y’all got out here to support us. Now enjoy the show!”

“Get
on
with the show
already!” Sean yelled from beside her.

They’d jostled their way onto an
area of the bleachers with a modicum of shade but it was still hot and Tilly
Thacker sitting on the other side of Hazel smelled like damp laundry.

Hazel swiveled to take in the
sweating crowd of tourists and what looked to be every soul in Winslow, and
thought,
What am I doing here.

Turning forward, she placed her
cheek against Sean’s shoulder and whispered, “I wonder if Doc Simmons figured
out what’s wrong with the cattle yet. I don’t see him here, do you?”

Sean shook his head just as Rose
Peabody, Hazel’s boss at the Crock, squeezed by, struggling to maintain the
integrity of her flimsy cardboard drink tray. She lost the battle and splashed
cola on Hazel’s legs.

“Wonderful,” Hazel said, feeling cold,
sticky soda dribble down her calves. “That feels great.”

“I’m so sorry, Hazel!” Rose cried,
looking even more like Olive Oyl than usual with her skinny arms bared and her
dark hair gathered in a low, fat bun. “I’ve been really lightheaded all day.” She
shook her head as if to clear it.

“It’s all right,” Hazel said. “Please
just sit down before you lose the rest of it.” Though Hazel rolled her eyes, it
was impossible for her to ever be truly annoyed with Rose. No matter how many
times a day Hazel had ventured into the Crock that first summer after her
mother left, Rose had never failed to give her a gentle hug and an extra large
scoop of rainbow sherbet.

Now, as Hazel watched Rose
maneuver toward an open seat, she grew concerned; Rose didn’t look so good and
Hazel worried she might faint and go tumbling down the bleachers, her bony
Olive Oyl limbs knocking people in the head all the way to the ground.

Sean was wiping soda from Hazel’s
thighs with the hem of his t-shirt. “Think the ants will find us soon?” he
asked.

Before Hazel could fully
contemplate that possibility, drums started up from behind the stands. From the
stage, her father announced, “First, some local talent.”

“If you want to call it that,”
Hazel said.

“Whoa,” Sean said, “check her
out.”

The crowd cheered as Patience rode
her appaloosa mare Trixie onto the field. Patience was outfitted head to toe in
American cowgirl regalia: pure white hat, red suede vest festooned with silver
stripes, and fringed blue chaps studded with rhinestone stars.

“She’s really outdone herself this
time,” Hazel said.

“Freak,” Sean said.

As her horse galloped around the
ring, Patience beamed, shiny eyes scanning the crowd.

“Bouncing in all the right
places,” the guy in front of Sean felt the need to say out loud.

“Giddy up, cowgirl,” his pal
added.

“Can you believe these smooth
talkers don’t have dates?” Hazel said loud enough that they both turned around
to glare at her. She scowled back; she always bristled when jerks like these
two salivated over her friend.

After Trixie performed a high stepping,
back-and-forth sort of dance that Hazel knew had taken Patience a month to
perfect, the horse cantered up to the stage steps where Patience dismounted
gracefully enough.

Next, the rodeo clown shuffled
onto the field to the accompaniment of the Stepstone Valley High School band’s
jerky rendition of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

Hazel stared in disbelief: Zachary
Rhone as the clown? She’d always considered the baker to be wound way too
tight. So tight, in fact, that he’d always scared her a little, as if at any
moment he might snap into sharp angry pieces. Made scarier still, thanks to her
Uncle Pard’s threat looming over them that he’d tell Zachary what really
happened to his father. Yet here Zachary was, garbed in gigantic patched
overalls and a bright red wig. She turned to Sean. “What’s he doing as the
rodeo clown?”

“Got me.” Sean’s brown eyes
narrowed. “Not a funny bone in that guy.”

Violet and Daisy Rhone were on the
field now, too, along with a squadron of other little girls. Several were armed
with pom-poms, others had batons; all were dancing offbeat to the music.

“Looks like Patience has some
competition,” Sean said.

The band members marched around
looking miserable, sweating it out beneath tall hats with yellow plumes. Behind
them, Ben Mathers and Cal from the Fish ’n Bait and a few other old fogies
wearing fezzes goose-stepped onto the field carrying Washington state and
American flags.

“Are we the only locals who aren’t
in this show?” Hazel asked, shifting in her seat. Her bottom was already aching
from the metal bleacher, and thanks to all that beer, her bladder felt ready to
burst.

Sean pushed hair off his forehead
and smirked. “Nobody in my family is.”

“Lucky you,” she said. But as she
watched her dad clapping along on the stage, in his element, her humiliation
gave way to relief at the sight of him so much happier than he’d been that
morning.

Then everyone simmered down while
Winslow’s favorite bartender Marlene Spainhower gave “The Star-Spangled Banner”
her all . . . and erupted in cheers at her short-winded conclusion.

With the opening pomp out of the
way, her Uncle Pard again took the microphone. “Today I’m proud to announce
that my own nephew will be first up in the calf roping competition. Let’s all
give a big hand for Tanner Holloway on Blackjack!”

A few scattered claps sounded
across the bleachers while Pard took off his hat and wiped his face with a blue
bandanna. Hazel recognized that bandanna from last night, and thought her uncle
was doing a bang-up job of pretending all things were precisely as they should
be in Winslow.

She looked over at the bucking
chutes to see Tanner mounted and ready with a loop of rope in one hand, another
in his mouth. His right hand gripped the saddle horn for dear life.

“This I gotta see.” Sean sat
forward, a sadistic grin on his face.

The cowhands released the calf and
swung open Tanner’s chute gate but Blackjack just sat there until Kenny Clark
smacked him hard on the rump. Then the horse bolted—kicking out behind
and getting elevation—and Tanner instantly lost hold of the rope and
saddle. He slid down and off the side, still hooked to the animal by one foot
caught in the stirrup, dragging in the dirt until Blackjack finally shook him
free and chased after the calf.

Tanner pushed himself up from the
dirt, humiliation washing over his face.

Hazel pressed her fingers to her
forehead. “Uncle Pard should’ve known that would happen.”

“No kidding. I almost feel sorry
for him,” Sean said. “Almost.”

Clown Zachary tried to escort Tanner
off the field but Tanner shoved him away and hobbled off on his own, the crowd
laughing at the spectacle of Blackjack still pursuing the calf.

“And my uncle wonders why I show
no interest in being a rancher,” Hazel said.

“All right,” Pard shouted overly
loud into the mic. “Simmer down, folks. Up next we’ve got Holloway Ranch
buckaroo Kenny Clark. Let’s show ’em how it’s done, Ken.”

At only nineteen, Hazel’s least
favorite ranch hand already bore the leathered face of the older cowpokes. She
had no doubt the filter-less cigarettes Kenny smoked helped that look along.
But the weirdest thing to her about the Clarks was that they weren’t even from
Winslow—they
chose
to move here.

Kenny shot out of the chute,
lariat swinging high above his head, and lassoed the calf in seconds. To the
cheers of the audience, he leapt off his horse, picked up the calf and slammed
it down on its side. Then he tied three of the terrified creature’s bony legs
together with his rope. Triumphant, Kenny stood to face the crowd, sucking up
the applause.

“Not much of a match,” Hazel said,
flashing on the furry little calf from last night and the way his blood had
turned the white crescent moon markings on his face a deep red.

“Yeah, Kenny’s the kind of guy who
gets off on torturing small defenseless animals,” Sean said.

“And shooting calves,” Hazel added.
“Psychopath.”

By the time Kenny’s mother Maggie
Clark finished the trick-riding routine she performed every year, the rodeo had
been underway only half an hour but already dust was everywhere and Hazel could
barely make out what was taking place down on the field.

Tilly Thacker leaned close to
Hazel, her stench wafting in with her. “Anabel Holloway was the best trick
rider we ever had in Winslow.” She gave a pitying sigh. “The best.”

Hazel crinkled her nose and
recoiled from Tilly against Sean, her blood beginning to boil. What right did
this nosy old bat have telling Hazel anything about Anabel Holloway?

Apparently overhearing, Sean put
his arm around Hazel and pulled her closer. Too hot and agitated for comfort,
she shrugged him off.

Following the applause for Maggie,
it got quiet again, the dust settled, and Pard announced the bull-riding
contest. “Some of you already know Indigo,” he said, “and that there’s never
been a rider this boss couldn’t toss. Now let’s see if we can’t break that
downright disgraceful four-second record and get us a real eight-second ride!
Are you ready?”