by Meryl Sawyer
“I’m looking for Paul Winfrey,” Zach said.
“Did he do something?: As usual, Rufus was suspicious, but then, thirty-odd years as manager of the Golden Palms had given him reason to be suspicious.
“He’s doing business with a friend of mine. I just want to meet him.”
“He rented number seventeen over yonder.”
Before Zach could thank him, Rufus lumbered back to his soap opera. Zach walked across the park with a quick look at the space where he’d grown up. Another trailer was there now, and wash was hanging from a line, indicating someone had a baby. Still, Zach could see himself there, hoping his father would come home and knowing his mother would pass out any minute.
The single-wide that Winfrey had rented was by far the worst trailer in a park that had more than its share of used, sorry-looking trailers. It was the kind of place most people never escaped from. Once you sank this low, you gave up. Already Zach felt sorry for Paul Winfrey, but that didn’t mean he was going to let him get too close to Claire.
The bearded man who answered the door was shorter than Zach and thirty pounds lighter. As usual Zach hadn’t bothered with a badge, but the man gazed at him with more than a hint of caution.
“I’m Zach Coulter, a friend of Claire Holt.”
The wariness vanished, replaced by a flash of teeth in the thick beard. “I’m Paul Winfrey. What can I do for you?”
Zach quickly sized up the man, a habit from his days on homicide. New clothes, cheap but brand new. New boots, too. Zach had a thing about boots that dated back to his Golden Palms days when he’d had to go around with holes in his boots. Winfrey’s boots were new, but dirt cheap. The seams would split before the first snowfall.
Dilapidated pickup, new cheap clothes, a trailer at the Golden Palms. Zach would bet his life that he knew why this man was so vague about himself.
“I’m the sheriff. I kind of like to get to know the newcomers,” he said with a friendly tone, but at the word sheriff, Winfrey’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It helps prevent problems.”
“I can assure you, Sheriff, I won’t be a problem. I’m just a struggling artist. Claire’s given me a break.”
There was a slight crack to his voice and so much heartfelt sincerity that Zach almost slapped him on the back and wished him good luck. But first he had to know the truth.
“How long have you been out of prison?”
Winfrey turned and retreated into the trailer. Zach followed him, noting the cot that made beds in The Hideaway look like the Ritz.
“Once a con, always a con. There are no second chances.”
“I didn’t say that,” Zach replied, feeling like a mean son of a bitch. “I just want the truth.”
Winfrey faced him and stroked his beard. “I spent fifteen years at Vernon State Prison for second-degree murder. I killed a man in a fight in a bar when I was barely thirty. I served my time. I’m starting over.”
Again there was the ring of truth in his voice and unmistakable sincerity. All Zach could think was—there but for the grace of God, go I. He’d been in plenty of fights in his time. He’d lived in this hellhole, too.
“Looks like you’re making a great start. Claire believes in you, so you must be a winner.”
Winfrey rewarded him with a smile.
Zach wished him luck and left. He hurried toward his Bronco with a quick glance at the space where he’d grown up. He stopped, looking at the reddish dust swirling around his favorite boots. Aw, hell. He could imagine himself living in this prison called the Golden Palms. Maybe Alexander Holt had done him a big favor. If Claire’s father hadn’t all but run him out of town, Zach might still be trapped here, going nowhere.
It had been a long uphill battle to make something of himself. Rented rooms in rundown boardinghouses, macaroni and cheese night after lonely night, blankets that were too thin on beds that were too hard. And when he’d graduated from the police academy—first in his class—no one had been there to be proud of him.
Zach gazed at the space where his trailer once had stood, wondering what his father would have said. Jake Coulter was proud of Zach’s talent. He never expected Zach to become a sheriff, but he would have understood that a man had to support himself. If you were ever getting out of a place like this, you had to earn money.
Zach knew he was good at what he did. He might have chosen to be something else, but life hadn’t given him much choice. Paul Winfrey didn’t have much choice either.
He turned and strode back to Winfrey’s trailer. Through the screen door, he saw the man at the small counter, opening a can of Beanie Weanies.
“Hey, Winfrey, there’s a widow just outside of town,” Zach said. “She travels most of the year and needs a house sitter. You interested?”
Twelve
Claire gazed out of The Rising Sun’s window at the brightly lit plaza. The summer sun had drifted behind the tall mountains, cloaking the plaza in shadows even though the last rays of light glowed between the ridges of the buttes. Twinkle lights outlined the trunks of the graceful cottonwoods while piñatas hung from the higher branches. Marachis were playing in the gazebo in the center of the square. Later a rock band would take over and there would be dancing.
Her gallery looked as inviting as the plaza, she thought. It had taken her most of the night to rearrange it. Now Paul Winfrey’s two oils had the prime spot directly in front of the door.
She tapped her foot to the beat of the guitar and squinted hard to see if there were people in Lowell Hopkins’s gallery across the plaza. Most of the guests she expected to be interested in Paul were still at private cocktail parties. She couldn’t tell if any of them had arrived at the River Spirit Gallery yet. Of course, Nevada would be inside with Lowell, waiting for customers to pay court.
With Duncan Morrell out of the picture, Lowell Hopkins was her main competition. She truly believed that Paul Winfrey was the find of the decade, a cut or two above Nevada. But what would everyone else think?
She had put exorbitantly high prices on Paul’s paintings. Was she asking too much? She’d justified the price to the horrified artist, telling him no one had seen art of this caliber in years. She wanted everyone to know how much she believed in his work.
It was a calculated risk, and she knew it. The paintings might not sell. If she later reduced the price, it would diminish the artist in the eyes of the art community and make it impossible to sell his paintings. Should that happen, she would be forced to close her gallery.
She heard Suzi greeting Paul and realized he’d come through the rear entrance where Lobo and Lucy were waiting. It was going to be too crowded tonight to keep the dogs inside. She’d told Paul to come at eight. She checked her watch and saw he was right on time.
“What do you think?” he asked rather sheepishly.
She hardly recognized him. Paul had shaved his beard and trimmed his hair. He was wearing different clothes. His jeans were of soft Tencel denim that looked old even though they were brand new. His chambray shirt was nicely cut and accented by a bolo tie with a hand-tooled silver clasp. His belt had a similar silver buckle. But it was his new cowboy boots that really shocked her. They were black snakeskin with the unmistakable cut-work design of Tres Outlaws.
Where did he get the money? She had advanced him a little cash for art supplies. Had he used the money for clothes? She resisted the urge to scold him. After all, image was the name of the game. Artists with a shtick were adored by the public. Competing on Nevada and R. C. Gorman’s turf, Paul Winfrey was taking on two extremely popular Native American artists—the big leagues.
“You look terrific,” she told him.
“He reminds me of Clint Eastwood,” Suzi put in.
Paul shuffled his feet, but Claire agreed with her assistant. Paul did remind her of the actor in his younger years. Lean and rangy with rough, masculine features. Was he the man from The Hideaway, she wondered for the thousandth time. Her sixth sense told her that he wasn’t, but a niggling doubt remained. Wha
t had happened to the bearded man?
“Zach says the public wants a star, so give them a star,” Paul replied with a shrug that telegraphed insecurity.
It was the absolute truth; once, the art world hadn’t been that way, but times had changed. Struggling artists were perceived as unsuccessful. “I guess you and the sheriff have gotten friendly,” she said.
She had expected Zach to check out Paul, but obviously, they’d established some sort of a relationship. Sheesh! The last thing she needed was Zach Coulter telling her artist what to do.
“Zach’s great,” Paul said with a smile. “He got me a new place. I’m staying at Sylvia Henley’s home while she’s off in Europe. He lent me some money and helped me pick out the right clothes.”
Claire attempted a smile but she was secretly upset. Every time she turned around, there was Zach Coulter. Of course, she hadn’t seen him last night. She’d been at the gallery until dawn, but he hadn’t called or come by to tell her what happened when he went to see Paul.
He must have gone out to Vanessa Trent’s home to protect her from the chukes. Not that she gave a darn. Then she reminded herself to be totally honest. She’d made that pact with herself when she’d come home. Despite everything, some small part of her did care about Zach Coulter.
Paul broke into her thoughts. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“Mingle with the guests and talk about yourself. Nevada goes into a whole number about his Sioux ancestors and how their spirits inspired him.” The routine was so phony that it made her gag. Most people, especially women, went for it.
Paul looked at her strangely for a moment, then said, “Could I talk to you privately?”
“I’m outta here,” Suzi said. “I’ll take care of the couple who just walked in.”
Claire led Paul to the back of the gallery where she had her office, an ominous feeling dampening her earlier excitement.
“Zach told me to tell you the truth,” Winfrey said, and Claire waited, holding her breath. “I was in prison. That’s where I met Quentin Reynolds. He came in one weekend to teach an art class.”
Claire was too stunned to say a word. An ex-con. People would never buy his art, if they knew he had committed a crime. Oh, Lord, what was she going to do? The silence that followed was more than awkward. Noise filtered into the alcove from the gallery. People were arriving, happy chatter filling the air. The blender whirred as the bartender made margaritas. Neither of them said a word.
She stared down at the toes of the vampy sandals she’d selected for this special night, finally asking, “What were you in prison for?”
“Second-degree murder,” Paul replied.
Murder, she thought, the worst possible crime. Why couldn’t it have been bad checks or something that would be easy to explain away?
“Didn’t Quentin think this would be a problem?” she asked, more thinking out loud than asking a question.
“Oh, yes. Quentin warned me, but he said that you could help me if anyone could. I wanted this chance so much that I wasn’t going to tell you about my past. Zach said it was bound to come out eventually, so I should deal with it now.”
She turned toward the rear entrance where Lucy and Lobo were poking their heads through the open door. “Let me think.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Paul said. “I punched him and he went down. His head hit the side of the brick building.”
“What were you fighting about?” she asked, ready to grab at any crumb of information that could be helpful.
“He wouldn’t sell me back the mare I had sold him.”
Great. A fight over a horse could cost this man a future as a renowned artist. A horse. She loved animals and had put herself at risk several times to help them, she thought, as she gazed at Lucy and Lobo.
She recalled rescuing Lucy from that terrible man. She could easily have misfired and hit him instead of the pit bull. At any given moment your life could be turned upside down. Unbidden the image of her wonderful mother in Jake Coulter’s arms came into her mind.
Yes, at any given moment your life could be turned upside down.
“Why did you sell your horse if you wanted to keep her?”
“I needed the money.” Paul’s gaze was level, but there was an underlying current of emotion in his tone. “I thought he was going to ride her. Misty could run like the wind, and she had a soft mouth. Just a flick of the reins and she’d turn on a dime.”
“What did he do with Misty?”
“He had several strings of mares that he kept in a miserable, hot barn in stalls not big enough to turn around.” With every word the disgust in his voice intensified, and she saw that he could be scary when he was angry. “Misty was pregnant, her belly bulging with a foal. She should have been outside getting air and light.”
“Why wasn’t she?”
“It wasn’t just Misty who was carrying a foal. They all were, and every damn one of them was in the dark in a box of a stall. He had them urinating into buckets. He collected the urine and sold it to a lab.”
“To make Premarin,” Claire said, the light dawning. She’d read about this in several animal rights publications she received. Urine from pregnant mares was used to make the estrogen replacement drug.
“Yeah. The worst part was the guy didn’t give the mares enough water. That would have made them urinate more and it would have been more expensive to ship to the lab,” he said with undisguised bitterness. “The mares were so thirsty their lips were cracked, and they’d fight like stallions over the one pan of water they were all forced to share.”
“There’s no excuse for the way they treat those mares,” Claire said, fighting the lump swelling in her throat as she imagined horses being abused like this. “The drug can be made from plants or synthetically produced in a laboratory.”
“I studied up on Premarin when I was in prison. I had plenty of time on my hands.” He was frowning hard now and shaking his head. “They can make it in the lab, but they still torture mares. It’s cheaper.”
He’d certainly pushed the right button with her, she realized. Her next thought was that Zach had clued him in. He knew about her brush with the law to rescue Lucy. She had spearheaded the drive to get Khadafi away from Bam Stegner even though she hadn’t been the one to actually steal the bear.
“I’d sold everything I had. My truck, my saddle and tack. I hocked the watch my daddy left me, just to raise the money to save Misty, but the jackass refused to let her go.”
The raw emotion in his voice and his heartfelt words tore at Claire. This man had tried to help a beloved animal who was suffering cruelly. His efforts had backfired and he’d gone to prison. To hell.
“Do you know what the worst of it was?” he asked. “I never knew what happened to Misty. I’d lay awake at night in my cell and pray that she was free somewhere. Running in a field of clover, that’s what I wanted to believe.
“But I knew it wasn’t true. There’s too much money in that kind of operation. Someone else took it over, I’m sure. Misty stayed chained to the wall, her belly bloated with one foal after the other. All the time she wondered why I’d done this to her.”
Claire understood completely. She had spotted Lucy in a pen, next in line to be torn apart by pit bulls. She would have done anything, taken any risk to help her. If Lucy had died, she would never have forgiven herself.
Then she thought about Khadafi. She’d heard a rumor that Bam was using the bear for bear baiting. She had gone out to his club and found the bear chained to the wall of a shed behind the club.
The bear had cowered as she approached, but when she kneeled down and spoke softly, he had gazed up at her with big brown eyes that pleaded with her to end his suffering. The poor thing was toothless and so starved that it was almost too weak to eat the blue corn mush she had brought in a bowl.
How did bear baiters get any pleasure out of beating up a creature so defenseless, so weak?
She would have done anything, taken any risk to h
elp the bear. But Tohono had stepped in, showing her another way. She had spearheaded the crusade to gather money to get the bear away from Bam Stegner. But someone else had broken the law to free the helpless bear. Paul hadn’t been so lucky.
“If I ever get my hands on some real money, I’m going after the drug companies who look the other way while mares are tortured,” he said, and she had no doubt he would do it.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Claire said, quickly before the swell of tears in her eyes became the real thing. “Tonight don’t mention anything about prison. If people ask you about your past, concentrate on what you did in the years before you were convicted. By the end of this summer, you will be launched as a premier artist. Then you’ll call a news conference and give the details about your past.
“We’ll play up the animal cruelty stuff. We’ll get Zach to give the law-enforcement angle and tell how he helped you start over. Let’s turn this into a positive not a negative.”
The gratitude in Paul’s eyes for her understanding and support made her smile at him with tender reassurance. But she knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Too many ifs. If she could launch his career before anyone discovered the truth about his past. If she could manage to convince the public he was a good man despite having killed someone. If he stayed out of trouble with the law.
“Claire, I don’t mean to interrupt—” Suzi poked her head around the corner “—but Tohono’s here.”
“It’s all right. We’ve finished talking.” She gave Paul another encouraging smile. “I want Tohono to meet Paul.”
As she walked out into the gallery, Claire saw a few people had arrived and had margaritas. They were clustered around Paul’s painting, discussing it. She looked over her shoulder while Paul awkwardly straightened his bolo tie.
Claire went up to Tohono who was standing apart from the group of tourists, studying the painting. “This is a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect you.”
He turned to her, a slow smile spreading over a weathered face that was a testament to his will and wisdom. “Ah, Claire. I came especially to meet the new artist you have discovered and to see his work.”
