The big man’s spurs chirped with each step as he strode onto the wooden sidewalk, which skirted Lexi’s Cafe. He didn’t know why he’d been coming here all these years.
The place had bad coffee and was so old, well, that’s why, he guessed. Because through the years here, I have become as rotten as the coffee and as predictable too, I guess.
“I shouda took my damn spurs off, Landry thought-much too early in the day to be wearin’ em.”
But it was too late now. Besides, he had already explained himself to that ranch manager for Morris’s operation. He’d just stick to the same story if people wondered why he was out. For now, though, he needed to make his entrance into the cafe like he had all these years.
He needed to walk in like he was the same guy today as he was yesterday.
Ever since he’d lost the bid for Sheriff, he’d been buying a few calves to stock his land left to him by his father and day-working for some local ranchers. He’d been gathering a few calves and helping at brandings.
Finally, people were getting used to him as one of them now, instead of him as their Sheriff, though they still called him Sheriff.
The old, rickety door groaned as he pulled it open and let it slam behind him. Bells on the back of it chimed like Christmas, a sound he had become so accustomed to, he had stopped hearing it. He wondered why he noticed it today.
The normal group of ranchers and ranch workers glanced up at him without interest, still groggy and inattentive. Probably worried about the wheat. Most had to sow their wheat into dusty fields this year. The moisture had finally come but it came with too much ice.
It’ll make the weeds in the ditches grow. That’s what they’ll say this morning. They’ve been bitching about no moisture for months. Now they’ll be mad about how it came. Might be too late anyway.
Landry thought it odd, him thinking about the wheat and the farmers at a time like this. But he was.
“Mornin’ Sheriff.”
“Mornin’”
“Whada-ya-know this mornin’”
“Well, looks like Hell is gonna freeze over if the weatherman got it right this time.”
He paused and looked sideways at the group, testing how they reacted to him. Then he continued.
“Course who knows. If he gets it right, it will be surprising, but it won’t make us like him any better.”
A gentle chuckle waltzed with the scent of pine that heated air in the place.
“Whada-ya make of this bank heist? We was all wonderin’ when you’d git here and we could ask ya,” Curtis Barns asked.
Curtis always had to know everything, so he had something to gossip about on his cell phone while he drove tractor.
“Ya know, I wouldn’t have a clue remember? I’m not the sheriff anymore.”
The men were silent but nodded their heads and then returned to other conversation.
Those ones, the ones who gathered there early each morning, were the only ones Landry felt comfortable with at all. But even they could not be trusted.
Now, today, he wondered if they would still be his friends if they knew. He wondered, in that paranoid way the guilty wonder things, if those men at that table in Lexi’s Cafe knew what he was now, a common thief, that he had become just what the others in town had accused him of to begin with, if they’d still stand by him.
Laughter and muted conversations bounced around in the room, riding to him on the scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls.
Landry stood for a second, absorbing the room, feeling it for anyone who might have a sense of him being the one who’d done it. However, everyone remained involved in his or her own conversations.
He silently moved to the wood stove situated on the north wall of the café, grasped a small log and threw it onto a discouraged flame. He turned and pulled a chair out from the large, communal table in the center of the cafe and sat with the others.
“Betcha you’re glad you ain’t the sheriff now, after this bank robbery thing yesterday. What a pain in the ass that’d be. Why is every single news crew in the state here? Seems they want all the details bout the guy gettin’ away on a horse,” Curtis Barns said, followed by a snort. That was his peculiar way of laughing and it drove everyone crazy. “On a horse,” he said again and shook his head. “What a dork. Shot that ole’ gal from the paper too but just winged ‘er.”
While he knew the man had no idea who he was talking to, he was making fun of the way he had pulled off the heist. He had to admit that information stung a little too.
Nevertheless, it was, again, the mention of his former position as the sheriff of Cheyenne County that reopened the bloody wound.
That injury was still fresh to him, even though it had been nearly a year ago when he’d been accused of being in on an oil theft ring that had been estimated to have cost several oil companies more than $5 million. The accusations hadn’t stuck, but the timing of the accusation and the threat of a trial against him had been expertly planned by that Oklahoma Congressman, Arnold Lakin.
Lakin had made sure a grand jury, and all the allegations had come out just months before the election. Everyone knows a small-town feasts on gossip, like a pack o’ kids at an ice cream stand.
The people of Cheyenne were divided by the scandal, and he’d lost the election. There was no real secret about what the Congressman wanted. Talk was, everyone knew what he was doing.
Why…That son of a bitch had wanted his son-in-law, Gatlin Sandridge to win the sheriff’s race in the election four years earlier.
So much so, he had thrown more than $35,000 at it, and when the pup lost that year, Landry had heard through the rumor mill that Lakin was out to get ‘im.
Nevertheless, he just passed it off. It hadn’t been the first threat to him. I’ve missed a “bullet” or two before in my career, he’d thought at the time. But he had been wrong.
When it all happened, community members who he’d known for years came to him and swore they didn’t believe it, and yet, on election day he still lost.
So here he was now, defeated and replaced by Lakin’s know-nothin’ puppet, who don’t even wear the pants in his own family, his mind added at the end.
Somehow, he had thought robbing the bank would make him feel better. He thought it would be like he’d evened the score somehow. Now, with $200,000 of the community’s money tucked away in the Gloss Mountains, Well I ain’t so sure, and when ya think on it, $200,000 ain’t a pot-to piss-in and it still ain’t enough to pay me back. Hell, $200 million couldn’t pay me back for what I lost.
“Humph,” he said not looking’ up finally deciding to respond. “There probably wouldn’t have been a robbery if I were still the sheriff.”
He glanced up at the men at the table. The men laughed and called Lexi over to refill their cups with her miserable, watery swill.
She romped over and spilled the brew from her crusty glass pot into their cups.
“There you go boys,” she said as she tarried for just a split second, the warmth and pressure of her ample breast pressed against Landry’s shoulder. He glanced at her, uncomfortable with her closeness. The others at the table snickered.
The shit tastes like it has cooked all night, he thought as he shifted the slightest bit to the right and glanced furtively at the woman pressing herself into him as she once again, moved with him, continuing the contact.
Landry looked quickly down at his hands, which shook while he hid them in his lap. Had he already said too much?
“You gotta point there Sheriff,” Barnes piped up again. “Poor ole dumbass that’s in there now will have to handle it. That’ll be cheap entertainment, watchin’ ‘im. They wanted ‘im in that position, now they got ‘im. I guess we’ll know in time.”
Barns got up, pulled his black felt cowboy hat off the rack near the door, and slammed it on his balding head. Without a pause, he changed the subject.
“I gotta git. If that storm comes tomorrow like they say, I’d hate to be out in it trying to get hay to the cows. Think I’ll bet on the side of the weatherman today and let ya’ll laugh at me tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving.”
Ice on the back bumper of the Ford, made for a slippery step as Tawny shakily climbed onto the flat bed.
She jerked down a set of broken post-hole diggers, intent on getting her money back.
She looked at the sky and wondered how such a hot place in the summer could become this cold in just a few weeks.
Low slung clouds sulked and refused to leave, like a hangover after too much tequila.
It’s early in the season for this kind of weather. Too early.
Tawny’s blood ran fast as she quickly trotted into the warmth of the Cheyenne Farmers and Ranchers Cooperative. A sign on the door met her. “We will close at noon today for Thanksgiving.”
She looked at the wire cutters lying on the counter next to the cash register. A price tag gleamed neon green with black writing, $57.
“You sure are proud of these. Almost as proud of them as you were these post-hole diggers I’m bringin’ back.”
It was Gerald. He managed the co-op.
He was a big, quiet, gentle man, probably 300 pounds, or better.
She liked his quiet way. Something told her there was a lot going on with him just under the surface. She sensed a certain sadness, but you could never be sure with Gerald.
He was good at hiding his feelings.
“I mean $57 for a set of wire cutters?” She repeated the question, forcing him to make some kind of verbal reply.
“Yep.” There, he did it again. It was all he pretty much ever said.
He’d been there all his life in Cheyenne.
Raised there by a guy everyone swore was an ex-convict, but no one ever really could say for what crime.
That’s the kind of thing the guys would say.
On one of the earlier mornings, when Tawny had been by to get a load of cow cake for the heifers before going out for the day, he was gone and of course, they were talking.
They had told Tawny the rest of the family was killed in a fire when Gerald was only eight. Some said it was a fire set by Gerald’s dad, but it was never proven.
Gerald’s dad died about a year ago. No one went to the funeral, except Gerald and the people who worked at the co-op, Tawny thought now, too bad I hadn’t known about it. I’d a gone to it.
She liked him for the pain he had endured in life, or the pain she had heard about anyway, even though they never talked about it together. She fancied they both felt as hobbled in life as the other did. That’s what she told herself anyway. But she would never know, because she had said less than 50 words to him in the four years she’d been back to the area.
Now she shot a look around the room at ranchers in the area who had come into the co-op to drink coffee, but mostly, to gossip.
God, it isn’t as if they don’t have coffee pots at home fer God’s sakes; Bunch of nattering hens. Tawny shook her head visibly, not sharing her thoughts.
Like it or not though, she knew this was the place where the best stories were told. You got it all here. Depending on how much stock you put in what you heard, you could find out who had sold property and for how much. You could learn who was getting divorced and always you knew who would get divorced if whoever it was only knew that his wife was seeing “ole Randall, the feedlot cowboy,” while he was working that second job to support the ranch.
Today it was something else though, Tawny caught the excited look on Leon Shaffer’s face.
She could tell Leon was busting with some story. Leon came to the co-op before anyone else every morning. He made coffee so strong that no one could stand it.
Tawny guessed his wife threw him out as early as possible to get away from his constant chatter about other people in town.
He’s worse than a woman, she thought.
“Mornin fellas.” Tawny plopped into a cold metal chair. “Id’a thought you guys’d be stuffin’ yourselves with turkey today instead of comin’ here.”
“Did ya hear ‘bout it Tawny?” Leon didn’t even answer the question.
“Bout what?”
“The bank robbery.”
“Huh?”
“Yep.” Leon leaned forward. Rusty bolts in the metal chair complained and a small chip of cream-colored paint fell to the wood floor.
“What bank?”
“The Cattlemen’s Exchange Bank!” Leon looked almost proud that he was getting to tell someone who didn’t know the latest gossip in town. “Yep, got away with more than $200,000 and shot a gal-that gal, what’s-her-name, you know, from the paper.”
“He shot someone?” Tawny’s eyes widened. “That must-a-been what the hands were talking about on the radio this morning.”
“Yeah, but she’s okay. Just a flesh wound I heard.”
“How’d he get away? Do they know who it was?”
“Well, that was the funniest shit of it all…They don’t even know who it was. He was all covered up and had one of those voice-box things. But whoever it was, he got away on a damned ole horse.”
Tawny straightened up after dropping the last bale from her pickup.
It was her first pasture of the day. There were 100 older cows on this pasture. All looked to be here and in good shape. The more experienced cows, the ones older and able to calve on their own mostly, were kept here.
She leaned against the back window of her growling Ford and rested. Her breaths were tiny clouds that drifted upward and frosted tired, green eyes. Her chest rose and fell in time it seemed, with the munching of the cows.
She was still thinking, envisioning a bank heist that involved a horse, and she laughed aloud. The cows stopped munching for an instant and turned their chiseled white faces up at her. Quickly, she began counting cows, calves, and checking to see if any without calves had bagged up. She had several in the bunch that were about to calve any time now.
She bent and opened another bale with the $57 wire cutters she had decided to purchase earlier. They worked well and she was glad.
She kicked the fragrant bale into the feeder. The sweet smell of it tickled her nose as hungry cattle shoved their faces into it, probably sensing bad weather rising.
Bitter wind nipped her cheeks. Tawny pulled her coat around her face and pulled warmer air into stinging lungs. She reached up and massaged the back of her neck, working out a pain that never seemed to go away. But there was another pain, a deeper pain.
What was the emptiness stalking her like a hungry coyote, darting in and out of her life like she was its next prey?
She gazed across the fence to the prairie beyond. Dried buffalo grass not covered by snow bent, as if it could shelter itself from a scouring wind, which seemed always to be blowing here.
Midday sunlight reflected ice crystals floating for just a second in the air before the next gust of wind purchased them.
Impulsively, she pulled the snaps of the Carhartt jacket and dropped it on the bed of the Ford with her gloves.
Icy fingers dragged at the snaps on her gray flannel shirt, exposing her skin to a cruel breeze. She could feel it, in a way that she knew it was there. She held her shirt open like some offering to a god she wished she knew better and stood there for what seemed like a long time.
Out here, as lonely as it could be, it was everything it presented. Hard and mean, it would kill, it would heal, but it would never lie.
Tawny stood in the grip of it for a second more and quickly realized where she was and redressed. Returning to her senses, she hoped that none of the other hands had ventured out far enough to see her.
As if on cue, the two-way radio clipped on her belt talked to her.
“One to Nine, Tawny.” It was Morris.
“Go ahead.”
“Could you come up to the office, I need to talk with you.”
“Roger that.”
Tawny creased her brow and fumbled with her shirt and jacket.
He usually did not call during the day, saving information like new cattle coming or a load of feed for later in the day. She hated being interrupted and despised the nervousness those meetings caused when her boss “wanted to see her.”
