The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance (The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection Book 1)
Page 1
Clark Hays
Kathleen McFall
The Cowboy
and
The Vampire
A Very Unusual Romance
The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance © 2014 by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Pumpjack Press, except for brief quotations used in articles and reviews.
This is the first book in The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection.
Third Edition
First Printing, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9838200-6-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013922970
Pumpjack Press
Cover design by Aaron Perkins; www.aaronperkins.com
Second Edition, published 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7387-2161-3, 1 printing
First Edition, published 1999
ISBN: 1-56718-451-0, 1 printing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Pumpjack Press
Portland, Oregon
www.pumpjackpress.com
Praise for The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection
“Riveting. Love and blood in the modern west. Meaningful conflicts, world-altering choices, existentialist underpinnings, but first and foremost a thriller.” Kirkus Reviews
“This deliciously dark, witty novel will be a hit with fans of Anne Rice.” Booklist
“A choice and very much recommended read, not to be missed.” Midwest Book Review
“If you’re looking for a combination of sex, blood and western romance, pour yourself a shot of the good stuff and settle in for a wickedly good read.” The Eastern Oregonian
“A must read for fans of vampire fiction. It’s one of the best in the genre that I have read this year.” A Chick Who Reads Book Blog
“Rawhide romance with bloody fangs. While mashing up all the stereotypical plot elements of Paranormal Vampire and Contemporary Western Romance, The Cowboy and the Vampire delivers unremitting fun, and a damn good read.” Freshfiction
“Sexy, dark, witty, and nothing less.” Erin Cole, author of Grave Echoes
“A sizzling dark tale, and surprisingly funny … an enigmatic journey from Wyoming to New York to New Mexico where vampires snap at your heels and what stands between you and your enemy is your cowboy and his sheer will to survive. Oh, and his cow dog too.” For the Love of Reading Book Blog
Also by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
The Cowboy and the Vampire: Blood and Whiskey
The Cowboy and the Vampire: Rough Trails and Shallow Graves
Also by Clark Hays
Red Winter
To Stephanie,
for your
unbounded enthusiasm.
And to Rex,
a very good dog
About the authors
Clark Hays was raised on a ranch in Montana and spent his formative years branding cows, riding horses and writing. His poetry, creative fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many journals, magazines and newspapers. Most recently, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for a short story appearing in Opium magazine.
Kathleen McFall was born and raised in the heart of Washington, D.C. She has worked as a journalist and has published hundreds of articles about natural resources, environmental issues, biomedical research, energy and health care. Previously, she was awarded a fellowship for fiction writing from Oregon Literary Arts.
The authors live in Portland, Oregon.
Connect with the authors:
www.cowboyandvampire.com
www.facebook.com/cowboyandvampire
@cowboyvamp (Twitter)
@cowboyvampire (Instagram)
Part One:
Death
Prologue
“I cannot believe one person is worth this much trouble.” She leaned forward and tapped her clove cigarette into the ashtray. Julius patted the back of her hand. The scented smoke irritated his sinuses, as she was well aware, but he smiled frigidly through the haze of it and through her pettiness.
“Elita, my dear, jealousy is so unbecoming.”
“Julius, I have known you a great number of years, too many perhaps.” He maintained his smile, but it failed to reach his eyes.
“And you know I have nothing but respect for your judgment,” she said, pausing long enough to measure the effects of her remarks. No change was visible on his pale countenance.
She shrugged her shoulders, a delicate motion. “Why not simply take her and be done with it? Why make such a fuss out of it?”
“Fuss? You have adapted well to the clichéd words of this era, my dear.” His expression abruptly changed and, smooth as the velvet texture of his words, he leaned forward, drawing her close with a fierce stare. “I wonder, Elita, how you can question me at all.” His voice reverberated with buried passion. “You, of all people, should fathom the importance of her blood. In her veins run two thousand years of royalty. The first family. And with it, the power of the uncreation. Our people will have their due, and I shall be the one who gives it to them. We will honor the past by seizing the future.” He leaned back into his chair and luxuriantly sipped a cognac.
“This,” he waved futilely, setting the snifter on the table, “this centuries-old Diaspora will end. The Adamites had their chance. We let them play their little games and live their little lives in the sun. We have hidden away from them as if they were to be feared.”
He paused, savoring the taste of his own words, and then dropped his voice to a low, soft growl, a mesmerizing tone. “That is about to change,” he said. “I caution you, lovely Elita. It would serve you to remain on the winning side. Should you take it upon yourself to make some misguided effort to turn back this tide, well, I would miss you.”
He reached across the table and stopped her hand in midair as she moved her cigarette toward her lips. “My dear, I have seen the future and the future is Elizabeth Vaughan. Are we clear on this?”
She nodded sullenly and stood. As she did, every man in the bar stopped to study her: the pale skin, the silky black hair falling to her shoulders, the cling of the dress to her narrow hips, the erotic strength flowing from her. Women turned too. Elita, aware of the eyes but heedless, ran her fingers through her hair, arranging it behind her ears to reveal her slender throat. Bending toward the table, she stubbed her cigarette and brushed at imaginary lines in her dress as she straightened.
“Very clear,” she said. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of your machinations. As if I could. Elizabeth Vaughan. Such a tedious name. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He tilted his head in agreement, his lips forming a dismissive but appreciative smile. Elita turned and walked toward the door. Pausing by the bar, she laid her hand on the shoulder of a young man sitting alone. Leaning close to him, her lips brushing against his hair, she whispered in his ear. He nodded vigorously, gulped at his beer and slammed the glass down. Quickly he stood, marveling at this turn of extraordinary luck.
With eyes mocking her young victim’s adoration, Elita twined her arm around his waist. Smiling over her shoulder at Julius triumphantly, she disappeared into the night, hips swaying, her conquest in obedient tow.
ONE
Me, I like the sunrise.
There ain’t nothing on this earth that compares to seeing that first glow lighting up the sky, touching everything with golden fingers and dripping copper-red honey down the jagged slopes to the timberline below.
Sitting out on the porch with a steaming cup of coffee scorching my fingers through the enamel and Rex curled up tight at my feet, life seems close to perfect. There’s a quietness in the air that always makes me think today is the day to make things right. No matter how hopeless it might have seemed when I bedded down the night before, morning always comes and brings with it the familiar sense that maybe I can fix an old mistake or two and lay a claim on a parcel of the future.
Of course, oftentimes the sunrise comes way too early and I keep my eyes screwed shut against it, wishing I could sleep right through, especially when the remnants of last night’s whiskey are percolating around my bloodstream. Still, I can honestly say I’ve seen more sunrises than not, which is more than most folks can say.
This morning, however, I wouldn’t argue with most folks who would call me loco for being such an early riser. The high-beam lights from my truck were half-blinding me as I tried to herd my neighbor’s funny looking goats back through the hole in the fence, cussing and throwing rocks at them in hopes of getting them off my property.
The fence wires have a mysterious habit of cutting themselves right next to my water tank, and them goats, known to some as alpacas, mistakenly think it’s okay to come traipsing through to drink.
The first couple dozen times those damn alpacas trespassed, Rex rounded them up and sent them all skittering home like the champion cow dog he is. Eventually, the goats took to spitting on him and so damaged his pride that he now refuses to even get out of the truck when they’re around. Cow dogs are touchy about that sort of thing. This morning, he sat in the driver’s side looking nonchalantly the other way like he was dreaming of a better place, the kind of place where dogs don’t get spit on by goats.
All God’s creatures have a purpose and I suspect that holds true for alpacas, but I can’t tell what that might be. Best I can figure, their purpose in life is to act haughty and spit on whatever they can’t shit on, which is pretty much everything. All that really matters is they ain’t cows, and cows are all that was intended to be raised here. That’s why Wyoming is called the Cowboy State and not the Alpacaboy State. Times are changing and you got to go where the money is, but the day Wyoming becomes known for its overpriced goats, well, that’s the day I pack my bags.
After finally chasing the goats off, I set about splicing the wires together with cold, numb fingers. Ever since George Harlan moved here from back east, it seemed I’d gotten pretty handy at fixing this particular stretch of fence. A hundred years ago, this sort of activity would have gotten Harlan shot. Of course, a hundred years ago there weren’t alpacas in these parts, or big city folks looking to get away from it all. Back then, Wyoming was so far away they had to pay people to come here. Now we’ve got movie stars strutting around with purple cowboy hats and pointy silver boots trying to blend in with the locals.
Cursing under my breath, I stapled the wire into the posts and threw the wire stretchers in the back of the truck, scooting Rex over from the driver’s seat. I gave one last glare at them goats lined up at the fence glaring back at me. “For the love of Pete, Rex, this is your ranch too,” I said and poured a cup of coffee from the thermos.
It was so bitter, leftover from yesterday, that I nearly choked so I tossed it, steaming, onto the frosty ground. Rex ignored me all the way back to the trailer.
I stomped inside, pulling off my boots and throwing them in the corner, along with my coat. Rex slunk in and jumped up on the couch, curling up with a sigh. I was starving and was mighty disappointed to find the fridge woefully empty. Rex was still pretending to ignore me, but watched out of the corner of his eye as I pulled my boots back on. “I ain’t gonna apologize,” I said, “but you’re more than welcome to ride into town with me for breakfast.”
He jumped up and scrabbled past me, slipping on the linoleum, and nosed the trailer door open. By the time I stepped outside into the struggling sunshine, he had already loaded up through the driver’s window, which I always leave open for him except when it’s miserably cold. He was setting behind the wheel yawning and wagging his little stump of a tail and I reminded him for the umpteenth time that I was driving and to scoot the hell over, which he did reluctantly.
We set out, rattling down the ruts that serve as my front drive, bumping our way over two hundred acres of prime Wyoming grassland. When I say grassland, I mean just that: land with grass on it. Perfect for grazing though, and for decoration there’s a beautiful tree and some lovely rocks down in one corner right next to my galvanized steel water tank. That same well supplies the water to my single-wide trailer which makes up in charm what it lacks in size. One of these years I plan on building me and Rex a little cabin, or at least adding on to the trailer, but that sort of stuff is a long ways off. Right now, I’m just happy that me and the bank own such a lovely piece of property.
On the way to town, I met a bunch of folks on the highway who I knew well enough to swerve across the center asphalt line like I was going to hit them and then they’d throw their arms up as if to cover their faces from the coming accident. It was big fun on Highway 14 at seven in the morning, which says a lot about the entertainment prospects of living in LonePine.
LonePine, Wyoming, has a steady population of four hundred and thirty eight people, except on the Fourth of July Rodeo and Outdoor Barbecue when folks come from as far away as the next county. Suddenly, there’ll be several thousand people standing around in the sun, drinking beer and waiting until it’s dark enough to go inside and drink beer.
Not counting dirt roads, Highway 14 is the one major thoroughfare in LonePine, connecting it to other, more exotic places like West Yellowstone, Montana and Salt Lake City, Utah.
Cruising the main strip takes a grand total of three minutes. There’s a bank, a pharmacy, a dress store and a post office on one side. On the other side is Manny’s Dollar Store, which doubles as the mall, a video store, and the Sagebrush Cafe. Most important to the local folk, ’cause they figure so largely in LonePine’s social pursuits, are the Silver Dollar and The Watering Hole. These two bars — facing each other like gunfighters across the highway — are famous for near a hundred miles around and even this early in the day, several trucks were parked out front. If I happened to drive by around midnight, they’d still be there, with many more joining them.
Conveniently located behind the Silver Dollar is the Sleep-O-Rama Motel, where most of LonePine’s public affairs are tended to. LonePine was one of the first towns in Wyoming to institute a recycling program, only it wasn’t for empty pop cans and such, it was in the area of personal relationships. Due to the limited number of available mates, folks round here took to using other people’s. Under this system, one man’s wife might be another’s girlfriend and one woman’s husband might be another’s boyfriend.
For the sake of fairness, those who participate in this program switch off partners every couple of months or so and thereby prevent any sort of jealous altercations from developing. The system is not foolproof, however, and many a heated discussion has erupted in the parking lot behind the Sleep-O-Rama centered around just how married a given individual may be. It’s usually resolved, after many beers and a repledging of love, at one of the two saloons.
All in all, LonePine is just like any other sleepy, one-horse town in the wild, wild, dying west.
Although I was hungry for breakfast, I pulled into the post office first to check my mail that had been piling up for near a week.
Before I even had a chance to open my box, Melissa Braver walked in and started talking at me. Owing to the generous nature of her natural assets and her willingness to display them to her fullest advantage, she was somewhat of a destination resort around these parts. Melissa and me stepped out a f
ew times back in the day, but lived through it and even remained friends against the odds.
“Tucker, where you been?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”
“I’ve been up on Widow Woman Creek doing some work for Dad,” I said, and then checked my box. “Bills, bills, overdue bills,” I grumbled. “Hey, what’s this?”
“What’s what?” Melissa asked.
“It’s a postcard from Lizzie.” I held it up. It was a close-up photograph of Dorothy’s ruby slippers, the heels clicked together, and ‘There’s no place like home’ written under them.
Maybe today would be better than I had thought.
“That from your city girl?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t know what she sees in a washed-up old cowhand like you,” she said, a trace of what’s-she-got-that-I-ain’t in her voice.
I shook my head. “Me neither. Must be my rugged good looks and keen intellect.”
“I think she’s just naturally attracted to bullshit,” Melissa said, pulling a bunch of envelopes out of her mailbox. “Hey, look at this. I may already be a winner.”
I didn’t want to read the postcard with Melissa standing right there watching me so I slipped it into my back pocket. “I’m gonna get some breakfast. See you later.”
“Next time she comes out, you bring her round, Tucker. Don’t be stashing her up at your trailer. She’ll get bored as hell up there.”
“Like she won’t get bored in town,” I said. “She’s from New York goddamned City. There’s more people living in her apartment building than in all of LonePine put together.”