The Great Jackalope Stampede

by Ann Charles

  She stepped out into the warm sunshine, feeling less like slipping into flight mode for the first time since she had found out the pocket watch had been stolen and realized the risk it meant to her family. She whistled as she walked the four blocks to Gramps’s 1949 flame-painted blue Mercury, which she had borrowed since Katie had needed her car to run errands this afternoon.

  When she turned the corner of the building she had parked behind, she stumbled to a stop at the sight of Sheriff Grady Harrison leaning against the front quarter panel of her grandfather’s car. His long legs were crossed at the ankle, but his shoulders were stiffer than the Tin Man’s after a downpour.

  Come on! Now what had she done? Had Aunt Millie called him as soon as Ronnie left the library, singing like a canary? No, she would not have done that. He must have seen her entering the library from his cop shop window.

  He stared across the parking lot at her from behind his sunglasses, his mouth molded into a flat line.

  Lowering her forehead, she readied herself for more head butting. There would be no getting around him, so she might as well take him straight on. She crossed the lot, fixing a fake smile on her face.

  “Hello, Sheriff. How are you doing on this fine afternoon?”

  “Cut the chit chat, Veronica.” He stood up straight and tugged the brim of his hat lower. “We have a problem.”

  So much for feeling sorry for the jerk about his ex-wife scandal.

  “Really, Grady?” Her lips pursed. “What is it now? I can hardly wait for yet another threat from you.”

  “You lied.”

  “About what?” She had lied about so many things since coming to Arizona that she knew better than to engage in any denial without knowing where to start.

  “Your husband.”

  “I told you our marriage was invalid.”

  “I’m not referring to that particular admission.”

  “Okay, so what exactly did I lie about when it comes to Lyle Jefferson?”

  “You withheld the fact that he is currently in prison, for one thing.”

  Someone had been doing his homework. Ronnie had figured it was a matter of time before he stumbled across Lyle’s prison sentence. “I don’t remember saying he was a free man these days.”

  “You insinuated that he was traveling.”

  “No, you misunderstood and assumed he was traveling. He used to travel weekly until he ended up in prison.”

  “You lied by omission, then.”

  She wagged her finger in front of his rock hard jaw. “Au contraire, Sheriff. You’re very good at twisting things to make me look shady and suspicious.”

  He captured her finger in a steel grip, his palm hot to the touch, and yanked her close enough to step on his toes. It was a replay of the other night, including her speeding heart. “From what I read, Veronica,” his voice was low, dangerous, “you’ve done a good job of doing that to yourself.”

  He was looking down his nose at her again, both figuratively speaking and for real. God, she ached to knock that crooked appendage off his face. Ronnie pulled her finger free and stepped back, clenching her fists. “Be careful assuming things about me, Grady. The truth might sneak up and show you for a fool, along with the rest of your friends with their fancy suits and search warrants.”

  “What are you doing here, Veronica?”

  “Visiting my family.”

  “No, I mean here in Yuccaville. Today. You’re digging for something in the library. What? Something to do with that article with the pictures of pocket watches?”

  Shit-sticks! This guy did not give up, did he? Good thing Ronnie had already bought his aunt and her gang’s silence. She mentally patted herself on the back for being one step ahead of the busybody staring down at her from behind his dark glasses.

  “Your aunt and her friends explained it all yesterday, Grady. I’m learning how to knit and speak German.”

  He shook his head, barely letting her finish before visibly rejecting her explanation. “Christ. You’re a real professional, Veronica Morgan.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff.” She deliberately misunderstood his insult.

  “You stand here in broad daylight, blowing my hair back with your lies without showing a single twinge or twitch of guilt. It’s been a long time since I’ve come across someone as smooth tongued.”

  A long time as in five years ago when his wife pulled her whammy on him? He must kick himself daily for not seeing the truth on her face day after day for nine long months.

  “You’ve had a lot of practice perfecting your craft, I’m betting.” The glower he was wearing spoke volumes about his feelings for her at the moment.

  His disdain burned, darn it. The resulting sorrow floated up toward the surface, but she caught hold of it and jammed it back down deep before he could see how his opinion affected her.

  Why in the hell did she care what a small time sheriff thought of her? He was just one more authority figure treating her like she was something that fell out of the back of a manure spreader.

  But she did care, damn it. Maybe it was because of the camaraderie she had felt after hearing he, too, had been royally screwed by his ex. Or maybe it had less to do with the Sheriff himself and more related to the fact that the stink Lyle had marked her with was still hovering around her. It was something she could not shake even a thousand miles away from South Dakota.

  She squared her shoulders. The Sheriff wasn’t going to be her best friend anytime soon. So what. Life would go on as it had for the last few months. He was just one more person to keep an eye on as she figured out her next move.

  “Are we done here, Sheriff?” She hit a button on Gramps’s key ring. The Mercury’s door unlocked with a clunk.

  He stepped aside, letting her open the door and crawl inside. “I don’t know that we’ll ever be ‘done,’ Veronica.”

  She flashed him a sideways glance. “Then you’ll need to get in line.”

  “And what line is that?” He gripped his belt with both hands, the butt of his gun brushing his wrist.

  Mabel rumbled to life, her V-8 growling under the flame-covered hood.

  “The one filled with other badge-carrying assholes like yourself.”

  Ronnie slammed the door shut in his face, shifted into gear, and rolled away. Her eyes found him in the rearview mirror as she paused before pulling out into the street. He still stood there stiff-legged, watching after her.

  “Fuck.” Ronnie said, slamming the heel of her palm on the steering wheel. Every time she tried to untangle herself from the law, the web tightened further. At least he had not threatened to slap her with an assault charge for her rodeo ride on the drunk cowboy last night.

  She checked for traffic. Other than an older, red two-door pickup idling curbside with a cowboy smoking a cigarette behind the steering wheel—like every other Jimmy Don and Billy Bob in the region—the road was empty.

  She turned, hit the gas, and waved goodbye to the Sheriff. For now.

  * * *

  “Did you take the test yet?” Natalie asked Claire. She’d just returned from Ruby’s shed where she had been searching for something to secure the hinge on the ladder Gramps had bent when he had fallen. The makeshift fix Claire had made to it had broken during the night when it somehow had fallen over onto the new concrete floor. Claire suspected foul play; Natalie pointed out some dirt tracks that looked very much like a raccoon had come calling. Such was the difference in their perspective on life in Jackrabbit Junction.

  “Shhhh,” Claire nudged her head in the direction of the three musketeers sitting in their lawn chairs on the other side of the newly wired restroom wall. They had spent the afternoon drinking cheap beer and talking smack. She could only imagine the gossip her possible pregnancy would fuel.

  Natalie pointed a pair of wire cutters at the wall separating them from the boys. “They can’t hear anything above shouting level with all of that hair in their ears and you know it.”

  Claire walked away from her, trying to
put some distance between herself and the pregnancy mess in general.

  Natalie followed. “Well?”

  “It’s the same answer I gave you the last three times I came back from the bathroom.”

  “Why not? What are you waiting for? You either are or aren’t. Waiting only delays finding out a fact.”

  Claire planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t you have some wiring to do in the other room?”

  “Fine,” Natalie grabbed her tool belt and slung it around her hips. “You can put me off, but I’m not going to stop bugging you about it.”

  “Claire!” Gramps shouted.

  “Saved by the crotchety bell.” Natalie shoved Claire toward the entryway. “Take the damned test, chicken shit.”

  Claire flipped her off over her shoulder and walked out into the afternoon sunshine. Across the park, the two older ladies in khaki everything sat at the picnic table next to their ultra-beige camper, hovering over what looked like an unrolled poster or map from this distance. Jess’s beanpole was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was probably with everyone else at the dig site. So why had the khaki club-ettes not gone with the rest?

  She crossed the raggedy, mostly dead grass to stand in front of Gramps. “What do you want?”

  He glanced down at her stomach for a split second. “I think you should sit here by me.” He pointed at the ground next to his feet.

  “I think you’ve confused me for your lousy mutt.” Henry, his ever faithful companion, growled up at her from behind wrinkled black lips. “How much beer have you had this afternoon?”

  “I know you’re not a damned dog, Claire. I just think you should take a break for a bit.”

  Oh, lord. She never should have come clean with him last night after the card game fiasco, but she couldn’t help it. She had felt bad for him after Ruby left, especially when she had seen the flashes of pain on his face as he had tried to stand.

  After some badgering, he had let her help him to the couch where he figured he’d be spending the night. She had sat next to him like she had when she was a kid, leaning her head on his shoulder. After several minutes of silence, he let it leak that he was concerned about Ruby’s future. He did not want to leave her in a mess like Joe had. Claire had recognized his need for a partner in commiseration, and the only thing she had going for her was possibly being pregnant and what that might mean in the grand scheme of her screwed up life.

  Gramps had promised after their bitchfest not to tell Ruby until Claire gave him the green light. However, if he did not stop babying her as he had been all morning, insisting she stay off the roof and let Natalie do the brunt of the work, telling her to take breaks every hour, Manny and Chester would be planning her baby shower by supper time. Strippers would undoubtedly be included on the guest list, with mud wrestling being one of the games for all to play.

  “I’m fine,” she told Gramps.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Chester asked, speaking around his cigar. “Yesterday you were barking at the girl for not moving fast enough. Today you’re wiping her brow and asking her if she needs more peeled grapes while you fan her with a palm frond.”

  Claire liked the picture Chester painted. Only switch out Gramps for Mac, who had not called her yet today but who was supposed to be back to the R.V. park later tonight.

  “She caught you smoking, didn’t she, viejo?” Manny elbowed Gramps. “You lost the bet and she’s making you pay in kindness and amor?”

  “Maybe I’m just taking care of my granddaughter.”

  “What about Natalie?” Chester asked.

  “What about me?” Natalie joined them, stealing a beer from their cooler and cracking it open.

  Chester’s scowl stretched from the beer can up to her face. “Why isn’t Ford telling you to take breaks like he is Claire?”

  Claire shot Natalie a warning look. Her cousin knew Claire had spilled the beans to Gramps, but one wrong step in front of these two old badgers and they would lock their jaws on tight. No amount of tugging would free Claire from having to tell them the truth.

  Natalie shrugged and took a drink of beer before answering. “Probably because I took my breaks on the way to and from Yuccaville. Claire has been here working straight through, putting up with your sorry asses all afternoon. She deserves a break or ten.”

  Chester’s wrinkles around his eyes deepened. His wary expression said he was not buying their song and dance. “Something fishy is going on here. I can smell it.”

  “That’s just the fumes coming from your boxer shorts,” Gramps said, making Manny sputter.

  “Now sit, Claire.” Gramps pointed at the ground next to where Henry sat, his tongue hanging out even though they were in the shade. “Please.”

  Claire gave in, lowering to the ground next to him, leaning back against his good leg.

  He patted her head, making Henry whine and squirm. Claire stuck out her tongue at the mutt.

  Manny grabbed a beer from the cooler and held it out to her. She waved it away, grabbing the bottle of water Natalie handed her.

  One of Manny’s bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows lifted, but he sat back without saying anything.

  “How are things in the house?” Natalie asked Gramps. The fact that Ruby was still pissed at him was no secret from Natalie, who had told Claire earlier that she had walked in this morning and found him on the couch where Claire had left him last night.

  “I don’t know.” He took the beer Manny had intended for Claire.

  “He’s too scared to risk Ruby’s wrath,” Chester explained with a shit-eating grin.

  “Damned right I am. She has a wicked swing. I don’t want to end up kissing the hard side of that cast iron skillet she uses to cook my bacon and eggs every morning.”

  “Did either of you two wiseasses tell Gramps about last night?” Natalie asked Chester and Manny.

  “Tell me what?”

  Chester winced. “We were trying to avoid that name for the rest of the year.”

  Manny chuckled. “El stinko here thinks if he says the word ‘Deborah,’ he’ll turn into a pile of salt this fast.” He snapped his fingers.

  “A ‘pillar of salt,’ you Latin loser,” Chester shot back.

  “What happened last night?” Claire wondered what she had missed while staying back at Ruby’s and dodging her mother’s barbs.

  Chester pulled his cigar from his lips. “Jessica’s daddy showed up at the bar.”

  Snorting, Gramps said, “So he likes to drink—so do we.” He reinforced his comment with a gulp of beer.

  Sitting forward, Claire picked up a couple of pieces of gravel and tossed them into the drive where they belonged. “I thought Mom told us he was going home after he dropped off her and Jess.”

  “He probably changed his mind when he drove past The Shaft.” Gramps seemed to have taken up the role of devil’s advocate for some reason today, the polar opposite from last night.

  “The horny toad tried to get into Natalie’s pants,” Chester added.

  Gramps ramrodded up, his knee nailing Claire in the back. “I’ll kill that cradle-robbing bastard.”

  Jeez! Gramps left rubber on the asphalt from that u-turn. Kneading where his knee had jabbed her, Claire scooted forward.

  “I’m no longer cradle-robbing material, Gramps.” Natalie squeezed his shoulder. “But thanks for making me feel younger.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what age you are. He’s old enough to be your …” he paused, doing the math on his fingers.

  “Much older brother,” Claire said, wondering if he had forgotten about his and Ruby’s age difference.

  “He hit on Ronnie, too,” Natalie added. “More than he hit on me, actually.”

  “That’s because she was already drunk,” Chester said, shoving his cigar back in his mouth.

  “No, she wasn’t.” Natalie handed Manny her empty beer can. “She was only on her second glass of gin and tonic by then.”

  “You mean third, chiquita,” Manny said. />
  “No, second. She dumped one glass over that cowboy’s head for getting too grabby.”

  “What cowboy?” Claire and Gramps asked in unison.

  When Ronnie had made it home last night, she had been stuck on MUTE, claiming exhaustion, holding up her hand in Claire’s face when pressured for any information on the pocket watch. This morning, she had upped her syllables per sentence to one, claiming a hangover, avoiding Claire’s questions to the point of locking herself in the upstairs bathroom and cranking on the bath faucet. Claire had slammed her fist against the door and left, muttering all of the way to the back of the R.V. park, kicking gravel at grasshoppers along the way.

  Something was very wrong with her older sister, and Claire had a feeling the volcano inside of Ronnie had lava bubbling up its throat. She had gone totally off the “weird” scale and was now existing somewhere in the lower realms of “temporary insanity.”

  Kate thought Claire was blowing things out of proportion, looking to find problems in everyone’s lives rather than focus on her own, and Kate was probably partially right. This possible pregnancy was fucking with Claire’s head. But she had been watching their oldest sister closely this last week, and every time someone asked Ronnie about her ex-husband or brought up the whole divorce shambles, she found some excuse to leave the room. Now add Ronnie dumping a drink over some stranger’s head, which went completely against all of those etiquette lessons she had been force fed, and Claire was pretty damned certain the volcano was about to go ka-boom!

  “Kate said he was some drunken cowboy that Ronnie shoved to the floor. Then she rode him like a stallion,” Manny said, his moustache curling with his lips. “Ay yi yi, I love a woman who likes to buck.”

  “She did what?” A vein in Gramps’s forehead throbbed.

  “She didn’t ride him like a stallion,” Natalie clarified. “What Kate really said was that when the cowboy tried to backhand Ronnie, she did some fancy jujitsu-like move and knocked him to the floor, sat on his back, and yanked up on his arm until he bawled like a baby. Arlene’s story matched Kate’s, except she mentioned something about Ronnie asking the crowd for a piggin’ string.”