Landry’s hand burned and the pain shot clean through to his wrist.
What in the hell just happened?
He studied his hand with the two marks. It had to be a rattler. He had dug into a den without knowing it and reached right into it. He could not know if it was a baby or an adult, but he did know, this time of year it didn’t matter, they’d all be potent. He would know in a few minutes if he began to become more ill.
Damn, baby rattlers are more dangerous. Even though the adult vipers produce more poison per bite, they were at least able to withhold venom for a dry strike, unlike their slithery offspring.
Landry ignored the wound for now hoping it would not be as serious a bite. With his other hand, he jerked at the canvas, from the top now.
“Did ya lose something?”
Landry jumped up and turned to face the voice that was behind him. How had she sneaked up on him?
“What the hell?”
“Well, that’s my question Landry. What the hell?”
She glanced at his bared hand, swelling now and turning an ugly purple color.
“Oh God, what happened?”
“Somethin’ bit me. A denned-up rattler I think.”
“Landry, what is going on? What are you doing? What the hell have you done? Was it you?”
He looked around. He wondered if she had the law with her. She read his thoughts.
“There’s no one here. I came alone. Almost left and went back but Clancy is so cheap that he doesn’t put gas in his snow mobiles and besides, this is me! Why won’t you talk to me?” She shouted now to be heard over the driving wind and snow.
“You should leave. I don’t want you in this.”
“Well dumbass, I was “in it” when you shot me! So it’s a little late.”
“I was shakin’ so badly from doin’ it, and I think the bullets ricocheted from those steel and concrete pillars. Sorry. You know I’da never hurt anyone.”
“I don’t think I know you at all but for some reason, I believe you right now.”
“I’m tryin’ to fix it.”
“Fix it?”
“I came to get the money and put it back.”
“Really; you just gonna go back there and make a deposit? For God’s sakes Landry, why’d you do it to begin with?”
He shouted nearer to her to be heard over the storm, “It’s a long story and we need to get back. I’m gettin’ sick. Are you with me or against me?”
She stood for a while watching the snow pile around her ugly rubber boots in which her feet were freezing.
She knew she should be calling the authorities and be writing about it to those people who count on her to report the truth. But right now, she was more than a reporter. Something tethered her to him. It was a feeling. As wrong as he was for doing what he did, he was somehow right underneath it all, she found herself identifying with him.
She suspected, knowing what he’d been through, how he’d been broken for no reason by those men who just wanted more and more power. It was how this had all happened. She didn’t answer his question though.
“I don’t have the snow mobile anymore. It’s outta gas.”
“You’ll have to ride with me and we better get going. The snow is gettin’ bad enough that ole Brownie is havin’ a hard time and I cannot see a thing.”
His lips were turning a bluish color and he was shaking uncontrollably. She had to get him back home where they could work this thing out. She had to get him some help for his snakebite.
Brownie stood up to his knees in a snow drift now, as the two mounted, one behind the other. Tippi looked around her at what was nothing more than a white blur.
“Which way is home?”
“I think it’s this way,” Landry mumbled.
Landry turned Brownie’s head loose and hoped the horse found the rode home, as he had done many times before.
Zeke woke from a dream about a colt he’d broken, and he loved the dream.
He pondered the feel of the blue cow pony, its rich, sweaty smell, as he settled on him in the bronc pen.
He closed his eyes and willed himself to reenter the dream. Laying in his bedroll on the floor, he again felt the rush of adrenaline as the tops of his thighs found the underside of the swells on his dark, water and oil-stained bronc saddle.
In his dream, the horse tensed and then leapt straight up in the middle of the pen, then pounded the soft dirt simultaneously with all four feet.
The colt’s head marked time with the man’s hands and the two were one as he finally kicked open the bronc pen gate and the two galloped out over the range.
Zeke lay there in the fuzzy twilight half sleep and thought about it. It’d been a long time since he’d had a dream he could remember. Hell, most nights he was so numb from drinkin’ he didn’t even remember how he’d gotten to bed, let alone what he had dreamed in his sleep. Most days the only visions he had were daydreams about how it had been before all of this.
It had been a hard life then, but a simple one working for those outfits in Arizona, Montana and New Mexico. There were 50 and 100 sections joined with no cross fencing. It had been a life most couldn’t understand, fathom even. A life with one fork, and no electricity. There were long months with no conversation, save that which he held with his horse, his dog or his God.
He rolled over in his bedroll, stiff and numb on one side. He wanted it again, that life. But he knew they feared him for what he knew about them. Thornton and Adler would track him down and “neutralize” him as they liked to say about other guys who became their targets.
It’d been some of what he had been doin’ for them. He’d not killed anyone yet. But he’d threatened decent people, people whose witnesses on the stand could have cleared someone. But that didn’t always fit into these guy’s plans.
In the end with them, it didn’t matter sometimes if you did the crime. If these guys wanted you, if you fit into their master plan to take someone off the streets and pin something on someone, you became their mark.
They had always justified their actions or want of actions to him and he had accepted their explanations. Nevertheless, his growing sense these two had gone rogue was now entrenched in his mind.
Squeaking old joints in the antique wood bed drew his look to where the woman had lain as afternoon had progressed.
Zeke glanced at his watch, something he had never worn in all the years before going to work for these two. It was early still, just 6:30 p.m. How had they fallen asleep so early? He closed his eyes as she got up and tiptoed, sock-footed across the dark, oak floorboards to the pile of wood next to the fireplace. She bent, grasped a log and threw it on the muted fire.
“Can’t sleep?”
She startled visibly, as if she had forgotten he was there.
“I don’t sleep.”
“Never?”
“Oh my God.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean I don’t sleep well.”
“Hmm.” Zeke sat up and leaned against the rock hearth of the fireplace and fixed his yellow eyes on her for what seemed to him to be the first time. He’d never noticed anything about her until this moment. Had it been that long since he’d opened his eyes? But oddly, it wasn’t her incredibly long, wavy reddish-brown hair, the hazel eyes or her curvy shape that he noticed most. He had never been a man who focused too much on how a gal looked and especially this one in particular, since she had been covered up with coats and coveralls the two times, he’d seen her.
With her, over the last few hours, it had become something more.
She’s kinda a mystery to me. Maybe even more than I am to myself.
Simultaneously, she seemed the same and different than other women he’d been with. She looked somehow uncomfortable all the time, like she could not find a place where she felt safe enough. He somehow understood her and pitied her at the same time. He looked at her now, clearly restless and getting more so each second, he watched her.
“What?”
“What…what?” he said and chuckled.
“What are you looking at?”
“I’m not sure. That’s how you like it, ain’t it? People ain’t so sure ‘bout you?”
She shrugged and looked away.
“Don’t really care one way or another at this point. Don’t want to talk about it anymore either. You’ve said enough.”
Silence consumed the room for a full minute. The only sound was the gentle tapping of icy, wet snowflakes hitting the tiny glass window and the constant popping of burning red cedar wood in the fireplace. Tawny suddenly leapt back from the fire and slapped a hand over her left eye.
“What happened?” Zeke jumped to his feet and stepped toward her.
“My eye, my eye, an ember popped into my fucking eye.”
“There you are with the language again.”
Thick, work hardened hands gently pried her own hands away from her eye.
“Here, let me look. If it’s that, we need ta-get-er-outta there.”
His voice was quiet and deep. Despite her mistrust of him, she relaxed as he tilted her head back with one hand and pulled open her stinging eye with the other.
“There it is.” He whispered, as if he were only talking to himself. Using his forefinger, he gingerly brushed the ember away and spit right into her eye. It left a small, red bump beside her eye.
“What the fuck?” She jumped back from him.
He looked surprised. “What? Again, with the f-bomb?”
“You spit in my eye?” She was shouting, then quieted her tone, as if someone would hear her.
Zeke licked the corner hem of his untucked Wrangler shirt and dobbed it on the spot.
“Really? Now you just basically licked my eye?”
Zeke chuckled in his signature laugh.
“I guess I did.”
He reached behind him, bent and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels off the floor and uncapped it.
“A little something to take the sting away.”
She grasped the neck of the bottle and let the liquid slide into her gut and then handed it back to him.
“Thanks.”
He reached for the bottle, but let his hand instead grasp her arm gently. Tawny stiffened but didn’t pull away from him. He pulled her a step closer to him and reached toward her face slowly with his other hand. He leaned into her and she felt herself relax. She didn’t know why, but she wanted his touch. She smelled his breath, sweet with the scent of whiskey and rich with his unfiltered Camels. He touched her face just above the eye she had burned and again, he used his forefinger to wipe away another ember that had landed there and then patted her on the head and sat back down on his bed roll.
“You had one more of those on your face I thought you’d want to know about.”
Embarrassed by her assumption, Tawny walked briskly back to her bed and flopped down on it with a sigh.
“Night, smartass.”
Zeke chuckled “Always happy to help.”
Tippi didn’t know the first thing about a horse, and yet she found herself guiding the giant as he stumbled along slowly through the snow, in a direction she was not at all sure about.
The sun had long ago gone down, and the night pressed down, inky and unsure.
As the hours had progressed, Landry had all but lost consciousness and barely stayed mounted in front of her. She had taken to wrapping her arms around his waist and holding the reins and him while she prayed to a God she had never prayed to before in her life, that they would soon come to a road.
“Landry, are you awake.”
“Yep.” His voice was barely audible, a whisper really. “Just don’t fall asleep. Why aren’t we there yet?”
She wasn’t sure why she said it, but that is what everyone on television always said to someone about to die, so she said it too.
Suddenly, the horse came to a halt in what seemed like a ridge or a shelter from the wind.
Tippi dismounted and while still grasping the reins walked toward the dark shape that was cutting the snow and wind and she touched it.
“It’s wood,” she shouted. “It’s some kind of building. I’m going to leave you here just for a second. Don’t worry, I’ll get you.”
“Okay.” His voice was raspy.
Feeling her way along the wall, she shuffled her feet through the huge drift that had formed. Something hard and large stopped her from shuffling further. She lifted her foot and whatever it was only about two feet high, so she stepped on it and over it.
She felt her way further along the wall, came to an overhang, a porch of sorts and turned the corner to find herself under the shelter of its roof. In the blackness that covered her she felt the side of the wall for an entrance.
Her hands ached and her feet were blocks she could barely control, as she limped along the wood flooring of the porch.
Finally, a door latch. It was the old kind you push down on. She shoved it down hard and leaned into the door falling into surprising warmth.
Zeke sprang to his feet and at the same time shoved his hand into his bedroll and palmed an old Colt left to him by his grandfather.
He wiped his eyes, trying to clear them from the fitful sleep that had consumed him after he had finally taken a few more hits on the bottle. When his eyes had cleared, he saw the girl, struggling on the floor, trying to regain her composure, and he relaxed a bit.
Tawny, awakened by the clamor, had also trotted over and stood with a troubled look on her face, but didn’t look frightened.
“Nice boots.” Zeke couldn’t help but notice the psychedelic rubber boots.
Tippi stood in a defensive manner and despite not knowing these people, she felt relieved she was inside, and finally out of the storm. For the first time in hours, she allowed herself to think about something else besides surviving.
“They were on sale,” she said, glancing down at the boots, which now she was so glad she had slipped on earlier that evening.
Zeke stepped toward the still open door and moved to close it.
“Wait, my…boyfriend is outside.” It felt funny to call him that – funny but natural.
“Where” Zeke asked, the hair on his neck standing up.” He had not known Thornton and Adler to travel with a woman, but then he was willing to admit, he always expected them to do the unexpected.
“I need help getting him off his horse, he’s hurt.”
Zeke put his coat on, slipped his feet back into his boots, the Colt into his pocket and followed the girl out the door and around to the south side of the cabin. As he went, he felt himself stumble on what must have been the heifer. She had died there and now was covered by the snow.
“Great,” he muttered under his breath. “This day just keeps gettin’ better.”
He slowed as the two approached an old but huge dark brown gelding. The animal was tired and hung his head.
Zeke eyed the bundled stranger, unable to see his face. Only a hand stuck out from the coat and a black felt that was shaped by someone who knew how to wear one. He again, released the grip on the Colt revolver and let it slide back into the deepness of his pocket.
“What’s wrong with ‘im?”
“He got bit by a snake”
“Huh? This time of year?”
“I’ll explain when we get inside,” Tippi whispered.
He eyed her for a second and then helped her hoist him down from the horse.
The two dragged the large man through the door and laid him down easily by the fire.
Despite the cold, the man’s forehead was covered in sweat, and his skin was blueish and clammy.
Tawny rushed around the cabin and tried to find more blankets.
“I know they had a bunch of them out here somewhere.”
Tippi held Landry’s head and wrapped the one blanket they had placed over him around his shoulders.
Zeke worked to pull the man’s coat off, stopping to inspect his now swollen hand.
“We gotta do something with this bite. It’s already infected, and he’s been poisoned by the bite.”
Zeke jumped up and walked to the bed where Tawny had been sleeping forcefully jerked the top sheet off. Reaching into his back pocket, he poked the sheet in its center with his knife, creating several long strips out of the thick cotton sheets.
“Those were 1,000 count Egyptian Cotton,” Tawny said, appalled by what he had done.
“Good, now they’ll actually be useful.” He chuckled again. “Lady, you are definitely an attorney.”
Quickly returning to the man, he wrapped the strips firmly around his wrist just below the bite.
Turning toward the fire, Zeke held the long blade over the blue part of the flame. Then, drawing it out, he poured some of the Jack Daniels onto the blade and before anyone could ask him, he had cut a tiny slash into the top of the swollen hand. Clear fluid poured out of the wound.
Landry’s moans; hardly heard.
“Here buddy,” Zeke said as he poured some more of the Jack into a tin cup.
“Have a little of that and see if it brings ya round.” While the man drank, Tawny held the leftover strips of sheet, Zeke wrapped his seeping hand with the strips, making sure to make them firm on the wound, but not so tight, it would cut his circulation off.
“How’d this happen.” Zeke didn’t look at Tippi when he talked. But she knew she would need to come up with something.
“He disturbed a nest of them I guess.”
“I got that figured out. What in Sam Hill was he doin’ out in this weather messin’ around with snakes for?”
Tippi looked at the two who she had stumbled upon and considered her options. She glanced up at Tawny and then back to Zeke. She didn’t know these people. Who were they and what would they do if she told them the truth?
“He was digging.”
Zeke looked up and then back to Tawny. He asked no more questions. He didn’t have to.
He poured another half a cup of Jack and handed it to Tippi.
“Here, get some o that in ya and rest.” He returned slowly to his feet and motioned for Tawny to follow him outside.
“I’m gonna move your horse inside the shed. He looks like he could use some rest and a little hay, what there is of it.”
“Thank you.” Tippi said the words through still chattering teeth.
The two shuffled through the still raging blizzard toward the horse and grasped his reins. The horse stood, exhausted now and unwilling to move.
“Get behind that cocksucker and slap him on the ass.”
Tawny stepped to his side and forced the exhausted horse to move.
Finally, when the two were in the shed, Zeke turned to Tawny.
“You know what we got here don’t’ you?” Zeke asked the question while he fumbled with the straps on the old brown horse’s saddlebag. The handle of a short spade shovel of some type stuck out of the top of it. He pulled the shovel out and under it was the canvas bag. He unzipped it and pulled the loose cash out in handfuls.
“Yep, I do. I figured it out about the time you did. But there’s something you ought to know and perhaps you ought to not have your fingerprints all over that stuff.”
“What? Oh, Tawny, you watch too much television, there are hundreds of finger prints on this money, it was not clean cash out of a vault, it was money in the tills brought in and circulated millions of times. But what is it that I don’t know?”
“That man in there may be the man who robbed the bank, but he’s also the former sheriff.”
“You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me.”
“Oh, now it’s okay for you to use the F-bomb?”
“Ok, fair enough,” Zeke said and shook his head.
“While you took care of his bite, I was asking myself all those same questions.”
“Why the former sheriff? Where I come from, once you become the sheriff, you’re perty much the sheriff till ya die.”
“He lost the election, from what little I hear out at the ranch, mostly from Ronnie. Ronnie says it was because some hoity-toit congressman accused him of being involved in an oil theft ring of thugs that was going around draining tanks and takin’ it across country to sell it.”
“Was he?”
“Well, when he lost the election, the case sort of disappeared from the headlines. Nothing was ever really proven and since he lost the election it became old news. He never got a chance to show them the evidence he said would exonerate him. But I think the powers’ that wanted him outta there knew what they wanted and how to get it. It didn’t matter if it was false, it ruined him anyway.”
“So what? Did he need the money?”
“Well, that’s the odd thing. No, he didn’t because his father left him a lot of money and a home and some land that was paid for, or at least that is what I heard anyway. And by the way, how do you know about the robbery? You just got here the day after it happened.”
“I just heard about it comin’ into town.” Zeke folded his arms around himself and rubbed them to ward off the cold.
“Let’s go back inside.” Zeke stuffed the money back into the saddle bag and placed the tool on top of it the way he had found it.
“Wait, what are we gonna do? We think this guy robbed the bank and you’re just gonna leave him the money in the saddle bags to run off with it again?”
“The way I figure it, we wait till he comes around and feels better.” Zeke stood and pondered for a moment.
“Let him tell us, if he will, what this is all about. If he thinks we don’t know, he might be more inclined to relax and let us in on things.”
“You’re kidding right?”
“Nope, just follow my lead.”
“I barely know you. Hell, you could be a part of this.” She paused, her brow furrowed as she considered her situation.
“Lady, I didn’t plan this blizzard and I sure as hell didn’t arrange to get stuck in this cabin with you! I didn’t even know about it. So, come back from Psycho Island and let’s deal with what we got right here and right now. You can go back to Fantasy Land tomorrow when you are back being ‘in charge’, as you like to call it, of this ranch.”
Zeke said the words and made a large quotation gesture when he said, “in charge”. Then he pulled his collar back up around his neck and stepped out into the wind toward the cabin.
Tawny fidgeted for a moment and then, throwing her hands up in the air, she followed him. It’s what she’d been doing since he’d arrived on the ranch. She had woken up late that day and been behind the eight-ball ever since.
Why stop now? I can’t always control everything.
“Thornton, man, we gotta find the way outta here.”
Every inch of Frank Adler felt as if it were shivering and he wasn’t sure why Thornton had become so focused on gettin’ rid of Zeke. He knew the cowboy probably knew too much about the things they had done for slam dunk convictions. But he didn’t think he would have ever revealed it.
“No, look up there, there’s something up ahead of us, a building of some sort. We can get in there and hole up for a while.”
The two inched toward an old shed they could barely make out in the storm.
