by Rawlin Cash
“New guy,” Chet said.
Hunter looked up.
“You doing the fence?”
Hunter nodded.
The three of them were a little older than he was. Maybe twenty.
“We’re going into town,” Chet said.
“Oh yeah?”
“You want to come?”
“You don’t mind?”
“Course we don’t mind.”
They rode into town in a truck and Hunter sat in the trailer with Mercy.
“Mexican?” Hunter said.
“Sí,” Mercy said.
“Is Mercy really your name?”
“No.”
“Why do they call you that then?”
Mercy shrugged. “I don’t know. My name’s Miguel Ángel. I guess Mercy’s shorter.”
“They should call you by your name.”
Mercy shrugged again. “It doesn’t really bother me,” he said.
Hunter offered Mercy a cigarette and they sat with their backs to the cab and smoked.
When they got to town they pulled up outside a bar called The Stampede and climbed out.
Chet said the Hunter, “Anyone asks, you’re twenty-one.”
“I know,” Hunter said.
They walked into the bar and took a booth. Hunter thought it was a nice place. There was a decent crowd. It had pool tables, darts, a long bar with green shaded lights above it. There was a table of four blonde girls across the way and all four boys immediately noticed them.
“You see those girls?” Chet said.
“Yeah, I see them,” Hunter said.
“We know them pretty good.”
Hunter nodded even though he didn’t believe it.
“You should go to the bar and order them a pitcher from us.”
Hunter went to the bar and ordered the pitcher.
“Those girls know you?” the bartender said. The bartender had black stubble over most of his face, almost to the eyes, and hair on his neck too.
“They know my friends.”
“The three stooges over there?”
“Yeah, them.”
“Those three idiots wish they knew those girls.”
“I figured,” Hunter said.
“If you want my advice, buying them girls a drink’s a waste of time.”
“One of my friends is paying.”
“They make you go to the bar, they’ll stick you with the bill.”
Hunter nodded.
“Those girls will drink the pitcher and still not talk to you.”
“I guess I don’t really know how it’s done with girls around here,” Hunter said.
“Who told you to buy the pitcher?”
“Joel.”
“The fat one?”
“No, the one in the cowboy hat.”
“Those girls wouldn’t touch that guy with a ten foot pole.”
Hunter shrugged.
“And I’d bet you five to one he’d stick you with the bill too.”
Hunter looked over at the girls. He knew why Joel sent him to buy the pitcher, but those girls were like a tall drink of water. Just looking at them made Hunter’s chest pound.
“Those girls,” Hunter said, “they don’t exactly look like the type that want a pitcher anyway.”
“They’d drink it.”
“But what would they prefer? If someone was going to really try to impress them.”
The bartender smiled. “White wine spritzer,” he said. “That’s the classy option.”
“What’s in that?”
“White wine and soda.”
“How about a slice of lemon too?”
“I could do that,” the bartender said. “Lime’s what you really want though.”
“You got lime?”
“Of course I got lime.”
“Make them with lime then.”
“I will.”
“And instead of club soda, use Sprite.”
The bartender nodded. “Girls like sweet things,” he said.
“Never knew one that didn’t,” Hunter said.
“What’s that come to?”
“I can do that for fifteen bucks.”
Hunter gave him a twenty. “Keep the change.”
“Don’t you guys want anything to drink?”
“I reckon we need a pitcher but I ain’t ordering it. One of them other idiots can pay.”
The bartender nodded and Hunter made his way back to his table.
“Oh, and a word of advice,” the bartender said, calling him back over.
Hunter went back to the bar and the bartender leaned in to him. “The short one,” he said under his breath. “The fatter one there.”
“I see her.”
“She’s dumber than the others.”
“Dumber?”
“Let’s just say, she’s the easiest to work on.”
Hunter nodded. He looked at her and then at the pretty one. Then he turned to the bartender and said, “The dumb ones ain’t ever as dumb as people say.”
He went back to the table and Joel said, “That took long enough.”
“The bartender said those girls don’t like beer.”
Chet laughed. “Oh, they like beer.”
“Well, he said they’d prefer white wine spritzers.”
“I seen them drink five beers apiece, those girls,” Chet said.
“Not according to him.”
“And what did that cost you?”
“Fifteen bucks.”
“He upsold you,” Joel said.
“Upsold me?”
“Made you buy something more expensive.”
“What’s a pitcher cost?”
“No fifteen dollars, that’s for sure.”
Hunter shrugged. “I suppose he did then.”
“Did you get us anything?”
“I spent all my money on the spritzers.”
Joel rolled his eyes and sent Mercy to the bar. Mercy came back with a pitcher and four glasses. They sipped the beer and waited for the bartender to bring the girls the spritzers.
There were other boys in the bar and they knew Chet and Joel and Mercy. Some of them had girls with them. One guy asked Chet to play pool and he got up.
Hunter watched with Joel and Mercy as the girls received the spritzers. The bartender was at the girls’ table and he pointed over. Hunter looked away. Joel waved at them. Mercy gave them a little two finger salute like it was his fifteen dollars that bought the drinks.
“Now someone’s got to go over and talk to them,” Joel said.
“Don’t look at me,” Hunter said.
“You bought the drinks.”
“Those girls are in their twenties.”
“No they ain’t.”
“What age are they?”
“I think they’re seniors.”
“They’re in high school?”
“I’m sure the one in white is.”
“I ain’t going over,” Hunter said.
He looked at the girl in white. She was pretty as a flower.
“What if I buy us a round of shots?” Mercy said.
Hunter and Joel didn’t object and Mercy went to the bar and came back with a tray. On it were four shots of tequila and they knocked them back without ceremony. Chet came back and had his shot and Joel took his place at the pool table. Chet bought another pitcher and another round of shots.
“If someone doesn’t go over there and talk to those girls, I will,” he said.
Hunter felt like he should stop him but he didn’t. He wanted to see what happened.
Joel came over and handed Hunter the pool cue while Chet crossed the bar toward the girls.
“You’re up,” Joel said.
“I’m watching Chet.”
Joel offered the cue to Mercy and he took it.
“Why did you send Chet?” Joel said.
“He offered.”
Joel laughed. “They’re not going to talk to him. You or I should have done it.”
“I d
idn’t want to do it.”
“Because you’re chicken?”
“Because I ain’t in the habit of trying things I’m no good at.”
“That’s how you learn, son.”
Hunter said nothing.
“Besides,” Joel said, “how do you know you’re not good at it?”
Hunter shrugged.
“You need to man up,” Joel said. “You know what sort of man gets pussy?”
“The one that goes over and talks to them?”
“Exactly,” Joel said.
Chet was standing by the girls’ table talking to them. Hunter couldn’t hear over the music but it didn’t look like a complete disaster. The girls were laughing. Chet was laughing. He was a little limbered up from the shots and looked like he was entertaining them pretty well. After a minute he came back over and grabbed Joel.
“They love the spritzers,” he said to Hunter.
Then the two of them went over to the girls and started talking. Hunter watched them and then forced himself to look away. He went outside and smoked. There were two guys out there and Hunter nodded at them. They nodded back.
“You working at Sonny’s?” one of them said.
Hunter nodded.
The guy asked him for a light and Hunter gave it to him. The guys went back inside without returning the lighter and Hunter lit a new cigarette from the butt of the last.
He was looking in the window of the furniture store when someone spoke to him from behind.
“So,” she said. “You’re the new guy?”
Hunter turned. It was the girl with the white dress. The pretty one.
“I ain’t new,” he said.
“You’re new here.”
He nodded.
“Are you going to offer me a cigarette?”
He did and she took it. She waited.
“I lost my light,” he said.
She looked disappointed but had a lighter of her own and lit herself.
He watched her do it. She took the first breath from the cigarette like someone drinking a shot of liquor they didn’t like. She managed to pull it off with some grace though. Hunter watched every movement.
“So you like fancy drinks?” she said.
He didn’t know what to say to that. “The bartender said you wouldn’t want a pitcher of beer,” he said.
“So the spritzers were his idea?”
“Yes.”
“But you had the idea to buy us a pitcher?”
“No, that was Chet.”
“The one in the cowboy hat?”
“No, the fat one.”
“He’s funny, that guy.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
She made a face. “You don’t think he’s funny?”
“He’s all right. I just met him.”
“At the bar?”
“No, at Sonny’s Ranch.”
“You signing on there.”
“Yeah.”
“You a cowboy?”
“I’m just fixing the fences.”
The girl laughed.
“What?” Hunter said.
“You know how much fence they have?”
“I reckon fifty or a hundred miles.”
“Exactly.”
“But I only have to fix what’s broken.”
“That’s true of us all,” the girl said.
Hunter smiled.
She said, “What’s your name?”
“Rawlin,” he said.
“Mine’s Sally Jane.”
“Sally Jane.”
“Yes. What do you think?”
“About what?”
“About my name?”
“I think it’s pretty.”
She smiled and stepped closer to him. “What do you think we should do?” she said.
“I think we should go sit in the back of that pickup truck and look at the stars,” he said.
His heart was pounding in his chest.
He led her to the truck and wished he had a blanket to give her. They lay on their backs and looked up at the stars. They were very bright. The sky was as big as the one in Texas.
Their arms were touching and she was more the instigator of what followed than he was. She lay with her arm touching his, then she had her leg over his, crossed at the ankles. Then she was leaning up on her arm, looking down at him, letting her hair touch his face.
Eventually he just reached out and pulled her down on top of him and they were making out like it was their last night on earth.
“What age are you?” she said when they came up for air.
“Sixteen. You?”
“Eighteen.”
“I like your hair,” he said.
“I’m robbing the cradle.”
“You ain’t robbing nothing.”
They made out for a while longer and Hunter wanted to take her home with him but he didn’t want to offend her by asking. That and he’d been expressly forbidden from bringing women to the bunkhouse.
They stopped making out after a long while and lit cigarettes and talked more.
She told him her daddy owned a string of businesses across the state. She had two sisters but they were a lot older than her and were already married. She was the baby. She was a daddy’s girl. She was spoiled and got everything she wanted. She had a car. A Cadillac. She had a horse. She went across the country every summer to learn tennis from some famous player. She skied in Colorado in winter.
Hunter listened to all of it. He’d never met anyone like her. The girl at the bar in Amarillo had been a lot different. She said supposebly instead of supposedly and had a tattoo of a cobra over her pussy.
This girl smelled like baby powder.
He could fall for this girl.
He could fall all the way.
Seven
The first time Hunter met Sally Jane’s father, he had his pants around his ankles and his cock in her mouth. They’d seen each other every night since their first meeting. Hunter would ride his horse to the bar after dinner and when he was with her she only drank spritzers. The first time they made love was in the fields on the edge of town under the big tree. It was the third night since their meeting. On the fifth night, Hunter snuck her into the bunkhouse and she spent the entire night. The next morning, the boys gave them such a hard time she refused to go back.
“Come on,” Hunter said to her when they were drinking at the bar the night after. “Those idiots are just jealous. They couldn’t get themselves a girl if they were the last men in Nebraska.”
“That’s not the point,” Sally Jane said.
“They weren’t that bad.”
“Maybe to you.”
“We’ll be quieter tonight.”
Sally Jane looked at him and she was angry. “I don’t know what kind of girl you think I am, Rawlin.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know damn well what that means.”
“No I don’t.”
“Having me in your bunkbed like some two-bit whore.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh come on. Me moaning and wailing with them right there listening.”
“They weren’t listening.”
She gave him a look like he was trying to sell her a vacuum cleaner.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay what?”
“We’ll do it in the cornfield again.”
Sally Jane stood up and slapped him across the face. She put her muscle in it. Then she turned and stormed right out of the bar.
Hunter didn’t see her again that night. He waited around until closing time and the bartender said to him, “You struck out.”
Hunter sighed. “I don’t know what her problem is.”
“Sure you do.”
Hunter nodded.
“I told you to go for the fat one,” the bartender said.
“Yeah,” Hunter said.
“She wouldn’t be giving you this trouble.”
“I suppose
she wouldn’t,” Hunter said.
The next day he went up to Jimmy before dinner.
“What is it?” Jimmy said.
“What are the chances of me borrowing a truck?”
Jimmy laughed. “You think you been here long enough to be borrowing trucks?”
Hunter shrugged.
“What do you need it for?”
“I met a girl in town.”
Jimmy laughed again. “She need a ride somewhere?”
“I don’t know what she needs.”
“But a truck will help?”
“I think so.”
Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know, kid.”
Hunter nodded. He was going to saddle up his horse and ride into town but he knew Sally Jane, even if she was there, wouldn’t be giving him a look in if he didn’t come up with something.
Jimmy was already walking away.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Hunter said.
“What now, kid?”
“You mind if I ask Sonny?”
Jimmy waved his hand. “I don’t care who you ask if it’s not me.”
Hunter went up to the house and stopped in front of it. He’d never been inside. He’d never even been on the porch. He thought of Sally Jane and went up the steps and knocked on the door.
“Rawlin. Everything all right?”
“Yes, sir. I wanted to ask you something.”
“All right.”
“Did I interrupt your dinner?”
“Is that what you wanted to ask?”
“No, sir.”
The old man looked at him.
Hunter cleared his throat. “I need to borrow a truck.”
“How’s the horse treating you?”
“She’s good.”
“I see you going out on her in the mornings.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jim says you’re almost as far as the creek.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sonny nodded. “That’s good work.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where you taking the truck.”
“To the bar.”
“You’ve been taking the horse, haven’t you?”
Hunter nodded.
“You getting tired of riding the horse?”
“I met a girl.”
“Oh, you did?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you want to take her down a country road?”
“No, sir.”
“No?”
“I mean, yes, sir.”
“This girl old enough to be going down country roads?”
“Yes, sir.”
The old man sighed. “I’ll tell you what, Rawlin Cash. You take the truck but you have it back by ten.”
