b
That night Skylar Stumplehorst was not able to sleep. Seventy-five hundred an acre times six hundred forty Stumplehorst acres was either four point eight million or forty-eight million—depending upon where you thought the decimal point should go. It didn’t matter, because either way, it was more money than he’d ever dreamed of getting his hands on. He looked at Calvina asleep on the pillow next to his—her gray skin bunched and folded like refrigerated biscuit dough. It had been years since they’d had sex. It had been even longer since they’d had a laugh. If he sold father-in-law Calvin’s damn ranch, they could afford to separate and go their merry ways in style. Living in Las Vegas, thought Skylar, yielded several possibilities besides the obvious Nevada state tax exemption. He didn’t know the man in the gray suit—Glasker, they said his name was—but it was obvious he was an intermediary for a man of lucrative hidden purposes. It was only a matter of time, Skylar thought, before developers would come knocking on the Stumplehorst door needing more land for trophy homes and condos. And he, Skylar Stumplehorst, would be ready. He’d say, “Boys, I’m willin’ to sell you two hundred and fifty acres at ten grand per—jes to get the ball rollin.” That’s right, thought Skylar, you’ve been to the state fair. You don’t sell the whole caboodle at once like some damn hick. You give them a little taste then hold back the lion’s share for when the prices really go up! Skylar rolled away from his wife and wondered whether the Wild Heifer Ranch, forty miles north of Las Vegas, still had “Greek style” on their laminated sex menu.
There was someone else at the ranch that night having trouble sleeping—and it wasn’t because Doc and Ned were downstairs snoring as loudly as tyrannosauruses in the death throws of extinction. Buster couldn’t stop thinking about Destiny Stumplehorst. Even though they’d hardly exchanged two words, Buster had already dreamed of saving her from drowning, saving her from a runaway loco horse, and saving her honor from the untoward advances of terrorists who had snuck over the border to scout Lame Horse Mesa’s “soft targets.” All of these dreams ended the same way with Buster marrying Destiny in a small ceremony atop a hill with all of his former parents, brothers, and sisters in attendance. How could he turn his dreams to reality? That was the question he tossed and turned with. Buster wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, but wondered why his three previous fathers hadn’t taken the time to clue him in about love. He squinted at his alarm clock. It was 3:30. No use beating a dead horse. Quietly, he eased out of bed and got himself dressed.
The temperature had dropped into the thirties that night. Buster watched the steamy breath of the horses in the corral for a while, and then decided to look in on the cows. Buster grabbed a shovel and cleaned up the manure that had gathered during the night. He laid down fresh straw and saw to their feed. Once the feed had been put in their troughs, he closed the head gates—holding the cows in place while he went around the other side and pulled up a stool. The cows’ teats and udders had to be sponged off with an antiseptic solution before milking.
Buster was performing this task in a gentle and respectful way—cleaning, then pulling and squeezing the cow’s teats to release the milk into his pail. He suddenly got a start when he felt warm, soft hands surrounding his. He stopped. Slowly, he bent down and looked under the cow’s belly. Destiny Stumplehorst had quietly taken a stool, sitting on the opposite side of the cow. Buster couldn’t see her face, but he knew it was her from the Tom and Jerry slippers. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. Then she took his hand off the cow’s teat and pulled it toward her. She put his hand on her knee, then parting her robe, moved his hand between her thighs to her vagina—which to Buster felt smooth and slippery like the first peel off a spring onion. Buster, in the meantime, had his ear pressed tightly to the cow’s flank. His first sexual experience was being chaperoned by a cow. Destiny guided his hand to her clitoris and slowly moved her pelvis, then after a few moments, her whole body seemed to pulsate rapidly like ABS brakes in a skid. Then she made a little noise, stopped, withdrew his hand, got up from the stool, and went back to the house.
For Buster, the rest of the day was a blank. He missed lunch. He let deer flies bite him and mosquitos drink his blood. There had not been a single thought in his head but for Destiny. If life were to offer him nothing else besides her, he would die satisfied. He was going to marry her, that much he was certain. Back at the cabin, after forgetting to eat dinner, Doc Solitcz and Ned Gigglehorn tried talking to him, but he could only see their lips moving.
He excused himself and went to bed where he stayed in his clothes, laying on his side and watching the hands on his alarm clock slowly move until it was four o’clock in the morning and time to milk the cows.
Now back in the barn, he sat down to milk the first cow, his heart galloping. He squeezed and pulled the first cow’s teats as if they were the magic lantern that would make Destiny reappear. He milked the cow dry, and Destiny did not appear. He picked up his stool and moved to the next cow. He milked her, as well. Still, no Destiny. Buster continued to milk the next four cows hoping for Destiny to materialize, but she did not.
Later that day, Buster was mending a four-strand barbed wire fence on the back of the property. Fence mending was another never-ending job for a ranch hand. Cattle were always putting their weight against a fence—either to get at the proverbial greener grass or just to test their boundaries. Buster made a loop at the end of the broken strand and ran a piece of barbed wire from his reel through it, wrapped it four times back on itself, took the fence stretcher and proceeded to splice in the graft when he felt the vibration on the ground of a horse approaching. Stinker whinnied and stamped his no-longer-tender feet, so it was probably Maple.
“Were you waiting for me last night?” Buster continued doing what he was doing.
“Cows gotta get milked, one way or ’nother.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nuthin to ’pologize for.”
“Aren’t you gonna look at me?”
Buster shifted around to face Destiny.
“Daddy says this is what you wanna do with the rest of your life.”
“What’s wrong with livin’ on a ranch?”
“It’s all right if you’re five years old,” she said. “After that, you gotta be brain dead to wanna be here.”
“That so?”
“I don’t belong here, Buster. I look at my mother and father…my sisters doodling pictures of Jesus in their school notebooks like he was some boy they had a crush on…those men at breakfast and I think…this has to be a mistake. Are my real parents still out there somewhere, heartsick, still trying to find me…stapling my picture to a telephone pole?”
By the time she was done, she was crying.
“What’re ya talkin’ ’bout, fer petesake? They is yor parents.”
Destiny smiled, wiped her nose on his sleeve.
“You’re awful sweet, ya know that? You’ll make someone a good ranch husband.”
“I shor hope to, all raht.”
“You know, my sister, Charity…she thinks you’re cute.”
“That so?”
Buster stood up. Stinker was making Maple nervous and he thought he better get his hands on her halter before she started kicking him.
“All she wants is to be a rancher’s wife and have a bunch of kids.”
“Nuthin’ wrong with that.”
Stinker was trying to nuzzle Maple. She didn’t like it and started to move her hind end in position for a headshot.
“That’s why I think maybe you and her should get together.”
Maple let Stinker have it with a kick in his chops. He stumbled back.
“Well, thank you, ma’am, for thinkin’ a me, but ah’m o’ready fixin’ t’marry someone else.”
“Who’s that?”
Buster moved Destiny’s boot out of her stirrup and stepped into it from the other side, lifting himself
up to her level.
“Ah’m gonna be marryin’ you.”
She looked at him like he was crazy and laughed. Then she leaned forward and kissed him. Buster wrapped his arms around her and held her tight as Maple suddenly bolted and ran off through the pasture—with Buster standing in one stirrup. They must have galloped for a mile—with Buster subtly reining her into a circle—before she realized the futility of it and stopped right where she had started—her passengers’ lips still pressed together. Then Destiny pushed Buster’s foot out of the stirrup, forcing him to drop to the ground. And she galloped back to the house.
By 5:00 a.m. they were back in the barn kissing again. Buster had not slept or eaten in twenty-four hours and was starting to hallucinate. Breaking finally for air, he tried to get his wits back.
“Yor mama, uh Mrs. Stumplehorst, she’ll be comin’ down here soon and if she sees me…”
“She won’t be coming anywhere ’til she has her bowel movement at five-forty-five. She takes her tonic.” It was true. Every evening to stave off depression or constipation from drinking the hard well water, Mrs. Stumplehorst mashed to a paste lavender leaves, dandelion root, dogwood bark, apple seeds, coffee grounds, anise seeds, and cayenne pepper, added two cups of cod liver oil as the delivery system, then drank it. Until the inevitable, which was usually around five-forty-five the next morning, she found it wise to stay within twenty feet of a toilet.
With Buster’s concern for his termination of adoption/employment out of the way, Destiny resumed kissing him with renewed vigor. To Buster, Destiny’s mouth, after having a morning cup of chamomile tea, reminded him of chewing on a fresh piece of alfalfa. She now slid his hand into her opened blouse and placed it on her left breast as if she were showing him the correct way to Foxtrot. Buster solemnly followed her lead. Then, like the other times, as if becoming aware of herself, she suddenly removed his hand and promptly left the barn.
b
On Sundays, the Stumplehorsts went into town for church. In the summertime, the other cowboys rented a leaky houseboat on Groundhog Lake for the purpose of getting drunk, but none of them asked if Buster wanted to come. Despite all of Buster’s efforts to be helpful and friendly, the other hands held firm to their belief that he was a suck-up who had killed Bob Boyles—the cowboy Mickey Mantle of Vanadium—and would have nothing to do with him.
Lovesick and lonely, he decided to walk into town. He didn’t get more than a quarter mile past the Stumplehorst driveway before a truckload of cowboys stopped when they saw him walking on the shoulder of the road.
“Hey pard, you all right?”
“Yeah, ah’m all right,” Buster answered.
“Then what the fuck are you doin’ walkin’ ’long the road?” They sped off, kicking gravel in Buster’s face. Their incomprehension was understandable. Cowboys never walked—the only reason for foot travel was the breakdown of a truck or a horse. After a while, Buster lost heart and turned around to go back. As he reentered the Stumplehorst gate, he heard the sound of tires behind him. It was Sheriff Dudival in his police cruiser—another person not to walk when he could ride. He rolled down his window and drove slowly alongside Buster.
“Good mornin’.”
“Mornin’, Sheriff.”
“Just thought I’d drop by to see what you were up to.”
“Not much. Ah can tell you that.”
“We pulled a truck out of Miramonte reservoir last spring. It was under the ice for God knows how long, so the frame and body panels stayed in good condition. Nobody ever claimed it. I’ve kind of made it my own little project.”
“Well, that’s nice, Sheriff. Real nice.”
“Got it over at Fall-Out Salvage. Why don’t you come help me? I’m just putting a couple finishing touches on it, then I thought we’d go for a ride.”
“Ah don’t rahtly know much ’bout cars ’n’ sech.”
“That’s how one learns…by trying new things.”
“Welp…okay.” The 1961 Chevy Apache truck was hardly what Buster had imagined.
Dudival had cut the bottom out of the cab and replaced it with OEM galvanized floor pans, installed ten-bolt chrome mounts, an Oberhauser intake, an Edelbrock 600 carburetor, an electric igniter, a 420 turbo transmission, a four-speed shift kit, and six coats of crème paint with accented side panels of Indian paintbrush red. A 420-cubic-inch V-8 cadged from a Camaro involved in a vehicular homicide powered what had originally been a six. Fortunately, it had just been a rear-end collision, and the seats were relatively un-bloodied and useable. The sheriff’s finishing touch was a like-new CD stereo that he had rescued from a Cadillac Escalade. That owner had gone headlong off Vanadium Hill while being fellated by his children’s SAT tutor. They fired up the 400 horses and went for a joy ride down Highway 141 singing at the top of their lungs along with the Sons of the Pioneers’ “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds.”
“See them tumblin’ down,” bellowed Sheriff Dudival in his Eddie Arnold baritone.
“Pledgin’ their love to the ground,” answered Buster.
“Lonely, but free I’ll be found…driftin’ along with the tumblin’ tumble…” Suddenly the sheriff’s voice weakened as if something had caught in his throat, his eyes filling with tears. Dudival took a clean hankie out of his pocket and blew his nose—caught off-guard by yet another bout of sentimentality that seemed to be ambushing him more and more these days. For some reason, he was plagued with this at the most inopportune times. It could come over him hearing an old song or watching a movie. The Best Years of Our Lives was a particularly hard movie to watch unless he was by himself and could blubber with abandon.
d
Sheriff Shep Dudival had been raised in Beecher Island, Colorado, on the eastern slope just a few miles from the Kansas border. Beecher Island wasn’t really an island, nor was it much of a town. Its only claim to fame was its war memorial dedicated to Lt. Fred Beecher who died on a clump of trees and gravel in the middle of the Arikaree River in 1868. General Philip Sheridan, fresh from the Civil War, had a new idea concerning the best way to neutralize the Cheyenne Indian forces in the area that were cutting telegraph wires and harassing settlers. He put together a small expeditionary force that could travel fast, attack, and retreat, an early proponent of “guerilla warfare.” This was probably lost on Pvt. Shep Dudival when he found himself, one hundred years later, stationed outside Saigon at Cu Chi. He and his brother, Adler, had flipped a coin to see who would stay to work the family farm and who would go to do their duty for God and Country. Shep lost.
Buster attempted to reel him back with the next verse of “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds.”
“Ah know…” Buster sang, “…when night has gone…”
“…that a new world’s born at dawn…” answered Sheriff Dudival hoarsely. “Deep in my heart is a song… Here on the range ah belong…”
“Driftin’ along with the tumblin’ tumble…weeds…!” Tears were streaming down Sheriff Dudival’s face. He turned away from Buster.
Unlike the other grunts in his unit, Dudival liked Vietnam. The farmers around the military base reminded him of the hard-working residents of Beecher Island. There was a Vietnamese girl by the name of Bian Trang who cleaned his hooch and washed his laundry. The other guys extorted sex from their hooch girls, but not Dudival. He took the American mission to win hearts and minds seriously and therefore treated Bian with respect. Over time, he developed deep feelings for her, and she for him. Her family, the Trangs, lived nearby. Dudival would often ride his Honda 50 to their farm—loaded with presents from the PX, food, gym shoes—Prell shampoo being a particular hit with them. Her father, Mr. Trang, could fix just about anything with a screwdriver and baling wire. His daughter, Bian, had not found a husband, he said, because of the war. Dudival began to fantasize that when the war was over and the United States had liberated these people, he would return to court Bian in the Vietnamese fashion, whi
ch would require flowers and candy for the parents and chaste walks along the river.
This romantic notion was short lived when the GIs discovered an elaborate network of tunnels right beneath the base that had their own sleeping, eating areas, munitions caches, even hospitals. Unfortunately, they also discovered Bian’s father down there with explosives. Dudival’s visits to the Trang farm prompted an investigation. Only when Intelligence was certain of Dudival’s loyalty did they inform him of Mr. Trang’s true identity—that being a decorated colonel in the NVA. Bian was suspected of using her base pass to smuggle medical supplies through the tunnels at night. Intelligence asked Dudival if he was planning on seeing Bian anytime soon. He sheepishly admitted that he had promised to bring the Trangs a set of chaise lounge chairs from the PX. They told him to go ahead and play dumb—which so far, he had been doing admirably. And so they next day, he rode his Honda 50 over to the Trang’s farm. He brought the chairs. Bian made tea. Dudival looked around and disingenuously asked after her father—having brought him a gift of Dr. Scholl’s foot powder and a carton of Kools. Bian broke down and admitted that he’d been missing for two days. Dudival, reciting the dialogue given him by his handlers, suggested that she tell him the names of some her father’s friends—so that he might make inquiries on her father’s behalf. Bian abruptly stopped crying and looked up at him with a soldier’s face.
“This is our country. You should leave.”
Dudival left the chairs and rode his Honda 50 back to the base. There, he conveyed Bian’s recalcitrance to the Intelligence Officer. He sheepishly came clean about his feelings for the girl and how he had been duped. Surprisingly, the Intelligence Officer responded with understanding. He told Dudival that if he still cared about what happened to Bian, there was a chance she could redeem herself in the eyes of the US Armed Forces. It was suggested that Dudival escort Colonel Trang and his daughter to Da Nang for questioning. There, with some distance from her comrades, she might, with Dudival’s urging, feel more inclined to cooperate. So the next day, Dudival received permission from his Commanding Officer to accompany the group. When the helicopter had achieved altitude over the South China Sea, the Intelligence Officer tapped Dudival on the shoulder and yelled something in his ear that he didn’t quite understand over the din of the prop. The Intelligence Officer helped him by gesturing to the Trangs and pantomimed a pushing motion.
Improbable Fortunes Page 11
