That’s okay. I’ve sold enough today. Mind if I sit? I’m kind of tuckered.
I don’t mind, I said.
And I moved over on the wooden slat seat to give her some room. She sat down, slipping the tray from her shoulder and letting it rest against her booted leg. The skin between her skirt and her white boot tops was very tan. A real outdoor Montana type.
You got a cigarette?
I’ve given up smoking, I told her. Cigarettes can kill you.
Lotta things can kill you, she said. I also drink Scotch whiskey and that can kill me. When I visit my sister in California I could get killed by an earthquake. Or a dog with rabies could bite me. Hell, I could even meet up with the Big Sky Strangler—but right now, I just want a cigarette.
Her remark about meeting the Big Sky Strangler seemed almost surreal. The last thing this woman figured was that she was talking to him right this minute. Strange. Life can be strange.
It wasn’t easy for me to quit cigarettes, I told her. It’s something I really had to work at.
What do you want from me? she asked sharply, a Boy Scout merit badge?
You can make fun of it if you want to, I said, but I’m proud of what I’ve done.
She patted my shoulder. You’re right, I was just being a bitch. Didn’t mean to put you down, darlin’, but I get a little testy about this time of day. This is no sweet job, lugging heavy cans of beer up and down these lousy grandstands, and getting my fanny pinched by drunken cowboys who think I can’t wait to climb into the saddle with ’em. Lotta creeps in this world.
I can see how it’s a rough job, I told her.
She took off her big white hat and pushed at her hair. It was the same color hair as the one that I killed in Butte, a kind of sandy brown.
I’m gonna take off early, call it a day, she said. Do you like fish?
I blinked. Oh, I guess they’re all right. I neither like nor dislike them, I said. I never had one as a pet.
She let out a hoot and slapped her hat against one knee.
No, no. What I meant is, do you like eating them?
I had to laugh at myself on that one. I’d taken her question in a literal sense. Her personality was throwing me off. I’m never much good with direct women.
My boyfriend, bastard that he is, just rode off into the sunset, leaving me with a fridge full of trout and no one to feed ’em to. So what do you say to a free fish dinner?
I say great, I told her. In fact, I appreciate the offer.
Good. You may be straight arrow, but I think you’re cute. She shook my hand and her grip was firm.
I’m Lorry Haines, she said.
Ed Timmons, I said back to her.
I didn’t want to eat alone tonight, she said. Now I won’t have to.
Lorry Haines drove me to a small cream-colored frame house trimmed in blue with a neat little fenced yard.
I met Bobby at a rodeo in Billings, she told me as she started dinner. He was a bronc rider, top of his class. Tall and hunky with muscle in all the right places. We hit it off and he asked me to leave town and tour the circuit with him.
Is Billings your home town? I asked.
Yeah. I grew up there. When I met Bobby, I was working in a clothing store. Went to the rodeo that weekend with a girl friend and there was ole Bobby, tall in the saddle, with a glint in his eye. Before the weekend was over I’d agreed to quit my job and follow him around the circuit.
That’s when you started selling beer, eh?
Yeah. They always need people in the stands. It was easy to get work.
What happened between you and Bobby?
Oh, it was great for awhile. He was Bobby Superstud, knew just about everything there is to know about giving a girl a good time in the sack.
Uh huh, I said, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.
But we fought like a couple of bobcats. Over all kinds of stuff. Then, last night, I came home here to this house and found a note from the bastard. A kiss-off note. He just up and took off. Probably with some bimbo he met in town.
Then this place isn’t yours?
Nope. I never owned me a house. This belongs to a friend of Bobby’s, a retired rodeo rider. He’s out of town this weekend, so we got it. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.
Where will you go?
Who knows? I’m just a rolling stone these days.
Funny, I told her. That’s what a lot of people have called me.
Yeah? And she smiled. Just a couple of rolling stones, you and me.
She’d been fixing dinner as we talked, bustling around the kitchen while I sat at a small Formica table in the dining nook. She asked me to help her fix the salad, so I started cutting up the lettuce she’d washed.
You could always go back to Billings, I said. Aren’t your folks still there?
Sure, but we never got along. We’re not on what you might call the best of terms. Mom’s a real bitch, if you want to know the truth. And Dad’s no bargain, either.
So what are you going to do?
She turned from the trout, which were browning in the pan, and grinned at me. I dunno, she said. Maybe I’ll join a convent.
I grinned back at that. Yeah. I can see you as the praying cowgirl nun!
I know one damn thing, she said. After tomorrow, I’m finished with rodeos.
The food was ready and she laid it out on the table. We sat down and began eating. The trout was great—covered in cornmeal, all brown and crusty, just the way I like it—and I told her so.
Thanks, pardner! she said.
We ate in silence for awhile, then she canted her head and gave me a little cat-grin.
Anybody ever tell you how cute you are?
I knew it was coming, but it still shook me. This direct sexual approach. Like the older woman in Butte. I didn’t know how to handle it. I never have.
You’re the cute one, I said. Bet a lot of guys have been after you since you grew up.
She bit into a dinner roll. Then she took a swallow of coffee. Then she looked at me again.
You like oral sex? she asked.
I woke up the next morning alone in the bed. Lorry was already dressed and packed.
You better get your butt in gear, darlin’, because ole Jeeter, who owns this place, is due back today. And that man can be mean as a snake in a sock. We’d best be gone.
She was right. It would be hard to explain just who I was if this Jeeter guy showed, so I took a quick shower, got dressed, gobbled down the breakfast Lorry fixed for me (great little cook!) and got out of there.
We’d talked in bed after we had sex. About the future. About us pairing up on the road. Just two rolling stones. It sounded good to me at the time, since the sex with Lorry had been real fine and I needed somebody like her to help me straighten out. Naturally I didn’t tell her about the compulsion, or that I’d ever killed anybody.
The thing is, and I know whoever reads this will get a big laugh out of it, but the thing is I was in love. For the first time in my whole life. Truly in love. They say that love can strike like lightning, that one minute you’re not in love and the next minute you are. And that’s how it happened with me and Lorry. There was something about her that just ignited my blood. I don’t mean just the great sex we had, I mean her whole being. She gave off a kind of wondrous aura. I don’t expect you to understand because I don’t myself. But it happened, and a fact is a fact.
Lorry owned an orange VW—a Volkswagen bug. I’d never driven one before and I was not impressed with its performance. It had so little power that it was almost impossible to pass other cars on the Interstate.
A bug’s not supposed to be fast, she told me with a grin. This is no sports car. VWs were made to last. This one’s twenty-five years old.
She told me she’d had it for the last three years and it had never given her any mechanical trouble.
I don’t like it, I said. Ted Bundy drove a Volkswagen.
Who?
The guy that killed all those coeds, I told her. Cut
their heads off, on a lot of them. He drove a gold VW.
So he drove a bug, she said. So what? It’s not going to turn you into a mass murderer.
I blinked at that. Talking to her about Bundy was stupid. I had to avoid that kind of talk.
I want you to sell it, I said.
Sell it! Her voice jumped up a couple octaves. You gotta be nuts. I’m not selling my bug.
I didn’t look at her, just kept driving. I’d made her angry. Our first day together and already we were fighting.
When we get into Great Falls, I said, I want you to find a dealer and get rid of this car.
You’re serious, aren’t you?
Yes.
But Eddie, we need wheels. If we’re gonna travel around together we need a car.
Fine. Buy another. Just so it isn’t a VW.
A silence. Then she said, hard-toned: And what if I say no?
Then we split, I said.
Over a car! Her brows were lifted in astonishment.
I took the next off ramp from 1-15 and pulled to a stop on an access road under a big tree. Then I turned off the engine and reached for her. She came into my arms smooth as butter. I kissed away the frown between her eyes. She kissed me back. Things were a lot better.
I’m really not trying to give you a bad time, I said. It’s just that whenever I’m in this car I’ll be thinking of Ted Bundy and what he did to those coeds—and I don’t want to do that.
She nestled her head against my shoulder.
Okay, she said, if it bothers you so much, I’ll sell the VW.
Then she raised her head and looked at me. You know, Eddie, you’re a strange guy.
I nodded. I never said I wasn’t.
I’m not going to let what we’ve got go to hell over a car, she said. Already, you’re very special to me.
When I came to Montana, I said to her, I never thought I’d get into a heavy relationship. It’s kinda spooky.
I think I love you, she said.
I think I love you, too, I told her.
She nestled deeper into my shoulder. It was a fine fall day, cool and crisp. A slight breeze ruffled her hair against my cheek. I had my arm around her and I guess we looked like something out of one of those Norman Rockwell paintings.
I want to know all about you, Lorry said. I don’t know anything. What was your childhood like?
I don’t want to get into that kind of stuff, I said. Not now.
She didn’t argue, just closed her eyes and let the breeze blow over us under that big Montana sky.
I sat there in the silent VW with her head pressing against my shoulder wondering if this was the karma that Kathleen Kelly told me I’d find here in Montana. Was this the answer to my problem! Was this what I came here for? And what about the future? Could I have a real future—a loving future—with Lorry Haines? A man like me?
Could I?
I started the engine of the VW, then headed back for the Interstate. We would have to live the future hour by hour, day by day.
And the compulsion. What about the killings? Maybe, with Lorry in my life, I could find a way to stop.
Maybe.
As a native Montanan, Lorry knew Great Falls. She was my own personal tour guide, telling me things as we drove.
Got its name, she said, from the Lewis and Clark Expedition when ole Meriwether Lewis walked out of camp one summer morning in 1805, following the sound of a tremendous roar along the river. That’s when he discovered what he called The Great Falls of the Missouri. Big dam is there now.
Is it still worth looking at? I asked Lorry.
You bet, she said. It’s a sight, lemme tell you.
You know, I told her, I’ve always had a yen to go white water rafting down the Colorado River, along the Grand Canyon and all.
Sounds like fun. We can do it together, she said.
The scenery around us was postcard perfect. Off to the west the Rockies took a hike into the sky and to the east were vast wheat fields and rolling prairies.
How big is Great Falls? I asked.
Pretty big, for Montana, she said. More than seventy thousand, last time I heard. People just like the location, the way it’s set between Glacier and Yellowstone. And the winters are not at all that bad here, because of the chinooks.
The what?
Warm winds that blow down off the slopes of the rockies. You never heard of ’em?
Never, I said.
Now we were into town, with Lorry pointing out various sights as we drove past.
That’s the Russell Museum, she said. You know, the famous western artist, Charles M. Russell. He lived here in Great Falls. His paintings are worth a fortune.
I think I’ve seen some of his stuff, I said.
This would be a nice place to raise kids, Lorry said.
I never wanted kids, I told her, my voice taking on a sharp note. If you’re looking to have kids by me, you’ve got the wrong stud.
Hey, don’t take everything so personal, she said. I was just talking about what kind of a place this is. It’s a family kind of town.
What about you, I asked. Did you ever want children?
I guess every woman wants children at some time—but I don’t think I’d make a very good mother, she said.
Maybe not, I said.
We found a motel with a long wooden hitching rail in front and three big plaster horses hitched to it. The place was called (you guessed it) The Hitching Post. Another touch of the Old West.
We booked a room there and spent most of the afternoon having sex.
Lorry was great in bed. I’d never felt so free before when I’d been with a woman. With her, everything was different. Easier. More comfortable. And a whole lot more fun.
We had a TV in our room and Lorry was watching the news when I came out of the bathroom, rubbing my head with a towel. They had a picture of the Big Sky Strangler on the screen. I threw the towel aside and sat down on the bed, staring at the composite drawing, asking myself, does it really look like me? How much does it look like me?
I don’t know how they expect to catch the guy from that sketch, Lorry said. It could be any one of ten thousand guys. What they need is a big scar on his cheek, or a harelip, or something.
I was calm. Inside me, there was no feeling of connection with the news story.
The anchorwoman was talking about how police throughout Montana were looking for the killer.
How do they know he’s still in Montana? I said. The guy could be halfway across the country by now.
Lorry didn’t reply. She was listening as the woman reported that authorities figured that the same killer was responsible for another murder. The police had discovered the strangled body of a 12-year-old girl in Dodson, not for from Malta. She’d been dumped in a trash bin behind a drugstore.
When they showed the little girl’s photo I jumped from the bed, walked over and snapped off the television set. I was furious and my heart was pumping fast.
Lorry complained. Hey! I was watching that. What’s wrong with you? Why did you turn it off?
My hands were fisted. I was half-shouting at her. Because they’re lying! That . . . guy they’re after . . . he’d never kill a 12-year-old!
Lorry stared at me. How do you know?
I hesitated. I realized that my sudden anger had put me in a tricky spot with her. I took in a couple of deep breaths to steady myself.
Well . . . because . . . his other victims were all much older. Why would he start killing children? It doesn’t fit his pattern.
Lorry shook her head. Who knows what a crazy person is going to do next? she said. I can’t understand why you’re so upset.
I . . . I just get emotionally involved with this kind of thing. I don’t like the way they exploit these deaths.
Murder is news, she said. When a serial killer is on the loose, people deserve to know. They need to, for their own self-protection.
What are they gonna do—carry guns around? I asked.
People deserve to
know, Lorry insisted. Now can we watch the rest of the news?
Sure, I said, slumping into a chair. I felt exhausted, drained of energy.
I’d have to be more careful around Lorry in the future.
That night I had another dream. Another nightmare. About being down in Mexico (where I’ve never been) and walking naked over this landscape of dead trees and broken brush—like after an atomic blast, and having one tree look like its head had been ripped off. It had long, clutching arms with dead bark clinging to them like pieces of black skin and one arm had a hand on it, like one of my hands. A strangler’s hand. In the dream I stumbled over a rock, and the tree’s dead hand closed over my neck. I could feel it tightening around my windpipe and I could feel the sharp-edged bark digging into my skin like razor blades.
And that’s when the dream ended.
The next morning we went out to sell the VW. Lorry had a pretty fair idea of what the car was worth, even as old as it was, and she didn’t like what the first two used car lots offered her for it.
These VWs can run forever, she told me. This one’s in real sharp condition. Engine had a complete overhaul last year. Got another hundred thousand miles in it at least.
Then we saw this lot with big coloured banners and a blinking neon sign:
FRED FARLEY IS FAIR!
TOP DOLLAR FOR YOUR CAR!
YOU CAN TRUST FAIR FREDDY!
Pull in here, Lorry told me.
I did, and by the time I’d cut the engine a tall skinny guy in a dark business suit topped by a white ten-gallon hat comes out of this wooden shack to look at the VW. He’s all smiles.
Howdy there, folks! I’m Fred Farley. They call me Fair Freddy.
He didn’t impress me much. Just another cheap huckster.
I wandered around the lot looking at the cars he had for sale while Lorry talked to him about the VW. Some of the cars looked okay, but there were plenty of junkers. When I got back to Lorry she was shaking hands with Farley. They both seemed satisfied.
We’ve made a deal, she told me. Mr Farley says he’ll swap even—my VW for the red Mazda pickup. What do you think?
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