by Laura Bickle
“Yeah. Charming.”
“It’s Justin and his posse of wannabe thugs. They kept trying to buy cold medicine from me to cook that crap up.” Bear gestured at a locked case holding medicines behind the register. “Once I figured out what they were up to and threw ’em out, they must have found another source.”
Petra smiled to imagine Bear forcibly throwing the young men out of his store. “Must have.”
Bear’s gaze darkened. “You got a gun?”
“You’re the second person to ask me that.” Petra dodged the question, ambivalent about the gun. She suspected that once people knew she was packing, she’d go from being the new girl in town to something else entirely. And she didn’t want to know what that was. Instead, she said: “What I’d really like to get a line on would be a vehicle. Car, truck . . . doesn’t matter, as long as it runs.”
Bear rubbed his beard. “I’ll check around for you. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find a ride in a day or two.”
“Great. Thanks.” Petra looked at the menu, trying not to salivate over the list of sandwiches, salads, and sides. “What’s the house special, Bear?”
“Bear’s Bacon Buffalo Banana Pepper Bacchanalia. Number 42. Comes with slaw and potato salad. I also recommend the root beer. Local brew with extra sassafras.”
Petra slid the menu across the counter. “Hit me with the Bacon Buffalo Bacchanalia and the root beer.”
The Bacchanalia almost did Petra in. A half hour later, she was wobbling on the stool like a stuffed tick. Bear had given her a bag of ice to prop her ankle up on. Grudgingly, she slipped from the stool and foraged among the aisles for provisions. Bear rang her up and sacked her groceries in a brown paper bag. Petra thanked him and lifted her groceries. She could get back to the Airstream with this load, but she’d have to take it slow.
He looked out the window and pointed. “That’s Maria Yellowrose’s truck. Looks like she’s got a FOR SALE sign on it.”
Petra peered out the window to see a huge, rust-colored midseventies Ford Bronco parked on the street. The back window had been painted with white FOR SALE lettering and a phone number.
“Thanks, Bear.”
“Don’t thank me.” Bear pointed upward. “Thank Daisy. The luck’s all hers.”
Petra grinned and clanked through the door with her sack in hand. She crossed the street to get a better look at the Bronco. Rust had chewed through some spots in the wheel wells, but the tires still had enough tread on them to last until winter. It was no doubt a gas guzzler, but Petra didn’t mind the idea of visiting Bear’s deli on a regular basis to get gas and Bacchanalia sandwiches. The Airstream kitchen was not made to produce three-course dinners.
The Bronco was parked on the curb in front of the Compostela, a bar that looked like it had stood since the Gold Rush days. The faded wood building was pierced by gothic windows and shutters, fronted by a porch with creaky floorboards. Petra guessed that it might have originally been a church. Perhaps as a nod to its origins and the name of the town, a wooden cross was hung over the door. A sign in the window announced beer and appetizer specials for happy hour.
Petra glanced at her watch. It was almost 2 P.M.—a bit early for drinking. Maybe Maria Yellowrose worked here.
Shuffling her groceries to her left arm, Petra pushed the door open into the shade of the bar. It took a moment for the red sun shadows of the day to resolve themselves. This place had, indeed, been a church in a prior incarnation. The gothic windows still held colored glass that played on the scarred floor in kaleidoscopic colors. The effect was no doubt spectacular under the influence. Church pews had been cut up and reassembled as booths and table seating. The altar area had been converted to a bar. Pendant lights glittered over a slab of highly polished wood that looked to have been cut from a single tree.
There was something pragmatically blasphemous about the whole setup. Petra didn’t believe in anything that couldn’t be quantifiably recorded. Religion held the same sway over her that fairy tales and New Age crystals did. But she still found it amusing.
The bar was sparsely populated at this hour. A group of old men sat playing cards in the corner, and a half dozen other patrons were silhouettes in the pews. Petra made her way to the altar. The bartender was a blond man about twenty years older than Petra, dressed in black. The wall behind him gleamed in a pattern of stars hammered out of tin.
“Can I help you?” Petra could feel his gaze sizing her up.
“Hi. I’m looking for Maria Yellowrose.”
The bartender pointed behind her. “She’s over there. But now might not be a good time.”
Petra turned. At one of the pews, a man and woman were arguing. Or, rather, the man was arguing, and the woman was attempting to reason with him.
“ . . . not going anywhere,” the man slurred. He was dressed in jeans with a loose button-up shirt, and his hat lay before him on the table. His skin was pale, and his wizened hands curled protectively around an empty glass.
The woman stood beside him, hands pressed to the table. Black hair dusted her shoulders, and she wore a long lace tunic over a gypsy skirt. She spoke low, so low that Petra could barely hear her.
“It’s time to come home, Frankie,” the woman said. “I’ll take you.”
Frankie shook his head. “I’m not going home to listen to any more of that bitchin’.”
“You can’t stay here. You’ve already been cut off.”
Frankie stared into his empty glass. “No.”
“You can either come willingly, or get thrown out.” The woman’s eyes slid to the bartender.
Frankie slammed down his glass. “Let me take a piss first.”
“Okay. Then we’ll go.”
Frankie stumbled out of the pew and wandered away to the restrooms. The woman sat at the edge of the pew and rested her heart-shaped face in her hand. Her sloe eyes were fixed on Frankie’s empty beer glass.
Petra hated to intrude, but she didn’t relish the idea of roaming the countryside without the protection of a steel skin around her. She screwed up her courage and approached the pew.
“Excuse me, are you Maria?”
The woman blinked and looked up. “Yes?”
“Hi. My name’s Petra. I saw that your truck was for sale. But if this is a bad time . . .” Petra’s gaze slid to the men’s room.
Maria shook her head, and her silver earrings shivered. “There’s no such thing as bad timing. I need to get that beast sold before insurance is due on it this fall.”
“Tell me about it?”
“It’s a ’78. Three hundred sixty-seven thousand miles. New water pump and fan belt, old tires, air-conditioning doesn’t work. Put a battery in it last year. But it runs. It’s never left me stranded.”
That squared with what Petra had observed. Her ankle throbbed, and she was reluctant to walk all the way back to the trailer. Even if the truck was a lemon, it might be fixable. “What are you asking for it?”
“Eight hundred, firm.”
“Let’s go look at it.”
Maria nodded. She glanced back toward the men’s room, where the sounds of vomiting could be heard. She caught the eye of the bartender.
The bartender didn’t look amused. “I’ll send him out when he’s done.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
Petra followed Maria out to the sunlight. The beast of a truck cast a shadow on the gravel, seeming to give Petra the once-over through dirty headlamps. Maria opened the driver’s side door, popped the hood. Petra stood on tiptoe to look in at the dusty engine as Maria started it. The engine vibrated with a satisfying idle, deep and loud enough that Petra had to shout to be heard above it.“Smells like oil.”
“Yeah. It burns about a quart every three months. Wasn’t worth it to track down the leak.”
Petra nodded and dropped
the heavy steel hood down with a puff of dust. Maria shut the engine off, but the sound still roared in her ears. Petra stepped up on the running board and peered into the interior. The vinyl seats were intact, and a fist-sized charm made of citrine beads clicked from the rearview mirror. But she was more interested in the shotgun in the backseat.
“Is that for sale, too?”
Maria shook her head. “Sorry. But the pawn shop could probably hook you up.”
“Where’s that?”
“Two streets over. Stan’s Dungeon.”
“Sounds like an S&M shop.”
Maria cracked a smile. “Nah. Though you can probably score some handcuffs there, if that’s your thing.”
Petra shook her head. “I’ll pass. But thanks for the info.” Her fingertips lingered on the hot dashboard. “Eight hundred bucks? Can I take it today for cash?”
“Eight hundred bucks and a ride back to the reservation,” Maria amended.
“Deal.” Petra extended her hand, and Maria grasped it, bracelets chiming.
At that moment, Frankie came stumbling from the bar into the street. He patted his pockets, looked right, left, and then fixated on a box truck parked on the curb ahead of the Bronco. A man in jeans and a black cowboy hat was loading fence posts and coils of barbed wire into the back from the hardware store next door. In this heat, he was wearing long sleeves, buttoned at the wrist. A raven paced on the roof of the truck, watching the man in the hat work.
“Hey, you!” Frankie stabbed a finger at the man in the black hat. “Shouldn’t you be back at the ranch, sucking Rutherford’s cock?”
The man in the hat ignored him, throwing sharpened fence posts into the back of the truck as if they were foam pool noodles and not hardwood four-by-fours. The raven stopped pacing, turned its unblinking obsidian eyes toward Frankie.
Maria grabbed the old man’s arm and dragged him toward the Bronco. “Time to go, Frankie.”
But Frankie wasn’t through shooting his mouth off. “You digging graves for him? He got you digging your own?”
The man at the truck looked up then. Under the shade of his hat burned the coldest, most distant look Petra had ever seen. Petra had only seen a look that remote on a corpse.
“Watch your mouth, old man. Or the next grave could be yours.” His voice was barely a whisper, but the threat in his amber eyes chilled Petra’s blood. The man turned his back to them and continued to load the truck, while the raven continued to stare at Frankie, fluffing its wings.
“Frankie,” Maria hissed. “Shut the hell up.”
“He ain’t right. Rutherford’s boys aren’t natural. The raven told me.” Frankie flailed as Maria attempted to shovel him into the car.
Awesome. She forgot that the drunk guy was coming along for the ride, too. Petra hoped he didn’t barf in the Bronco, since she was pretty sure that the mess was now hers.
“Get in the truck, Frankie,” Maria said, slamming the door after him. Frankie wormed to the other side and slithered out the opposite door. Petra saw him snatch a fence post from the ground. The raven cawed, a harsh, raw sound.
“Look out!” Petra shouted.
Frankie swung on the man in the hat. The fence post crashed into his back with an audible crack. The stranger slumped against the side of the truck. Frankie swung and struck the man again, hitting so hard that the man’s shoulder dented the side panel of the truck on impact. Blood spattered on the dingy paint. The raven fluttered down from the roof of the truck, skittering helplessly along the perimeter of the fight.
“Jesus, Frankie’s gonna kill him.” Maria dug in the back of the Bronco for the shotgun, scrabbled in the glove box for loose shells.
In the doorway of the bar, Petra spied the bartender. He stayed in the shadow of the door, watching.
“Help him!” Petra shouted.
The bartender shook his head. He watched with detached interest, like a vulture watching a predator make a kill that he could pick over later.
The taillight of the truck broke under the impact of one of Frankie’s blows, glittering red in the spatters on the pavement. The stranger was on the ground, and Frankie slammed the fence post into the man’s ribs. The stranger’s hat lay on the pavement, broken plastic shards glittering on the leather. The raven paced beside the hat, wings spread, shrieking.
Petra stepped up to Frankie. “Leave him alone.”
Frankie paused. Petra marveled at the power of her voice, that Frankie was willing to stop midstrike, bloody fence post lifted over his head.
Then she looked down, saw the pistol in her hands and the barrel pressed against the base of Frankie’s neck. The pressure seemed to keep the gun from shaking.
“Holy shit,” she breathed at herself.
The raven looked up at Petra and cawed hoarsely, as if challenging her to act. Or pleading.
Chapter Three
Bluffing
A shotgun shell ratcheted noisily into its chamber somewhere behind Petra. She held her breath, tensing to receive a load of buckshot in the back.
“Do as she says, Frankie,” Maria snarled. “Drop it.”
Frankie let the stained fence post clatter to the ground. Sullenly, he turned to Petra and Maria. Spittle ran down his chin and flecked the front of his T-shirt.
“Last chance. Get in the truck, Frankie.”
Frankie, grumbling, shuffled toward the Bronco. He vomited in the street and collapsed upon reaching the truck, passing out against the fender.
Petra knelt before the beaten man. His dark hair was matted with blood and dirt. Petra rolled him on his side, saw the purpling bruise already swelling on the right side of his face.
“Are you okay?” It was a dumb question. He clearly wasn’t.
“Mmmph,” he said.
She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and called 911. The call rang twice, then disconnected.
“Hey,” she shouted over her shoulder at the bartender. “Call an ambulance.”
The bartender disappeared. Petra didn’t know if he’d make the call, if there even were ambulances out here.
Petra pried open the man’s good eye. The pupil in his shimmering amber iris contracted in the sun. That much was good. The eye began to roll back into his head.
“You.” She shook him. “Stay with me. What’s your name?”
The man coughed a mouthful of blood up on Petra’s shirt. “Gabriel.”
The raven paced before them, rustling its feathers in agitation. Petra tried to shoo it away, but it hopped back, making sketchy tracks in the blood with its claws.
Petra turned Gabriel’s stubbled face toward her, examining the bruise covering the right side of his cheek. His skin was oddly cool, like stone, and he smelled like metal. No heat emanated from the wound, nor from the blood that covered his skin. Petra rubbed her hand on her pants, conscious of the risk of blood-borne contagion.
Gabriel touched Petra’s collar. “Sorry about your shirt.”
Her gold pendant necklace spilled out from under the fabric, and Gabriel immediately brushed his fingers against it in fascination. “The true green lion,” he rasped,
“What? You know about this?”
His amber eyes fluttered shut, and she reached for his wrist to take his pulse. Her fingers sought an arterial thump of blood. But she didn’t feel a thump . . . she felt a buzz. Like placing her fingers on a stereo speaker that was playing only static. “Paramedics will be here soon.”
Gabriel shook his head. “No paramedics.” He shifted his weight, struggling to get his hand under him to climb to his feet.
“You need a doctor.”
“No. Help me up.”
“Absolutely not. The squad will—”
“ ‘Medicines are our poisons, and poisons our medicines. Even the New Testament can be poison, ’ ” Gabriel muttered.
“Wh
at are you talking about?” That sounded like something a whackadoodle would quote to avoid treatment. “The Bible?”
“Paracelsus. He wasn’t an idiot on all counts.”
Something seemed to move under his shirt. She thought it was a trick of the light, but something like black feathers twitched at the edge of his collar.
“What—?”
Gabriel shoved her hands away and hauled himself to his feet. The raven cawed at him, lighting on the driver’s side mirror as he stumbled to the cab of the truck.
“You can’t drive. You’ll pass out,” Petra yelled at him. The absolute gibberish he was spewing suggested that he had at least a concussion, maybe a skull fracture or a brain bleed. The raven buzzed the airspace near her left ear, startling her into stepping back.
Maria Yellowrose grasped her arm. “Don’t follow him.”
Gabriel’s truck chugged to life and rolled down the street. The raven took wing overhead. The truck and the bird disappeared in the bright, dusty sunshine.
A man from the hardware store, wearing an apron and a name tag, came outside. He cranked open the valve to a garden hose spigot and began to rinse the blood from the street, as if someone had spilled a milk shake, and he wanted to rinse the stickiness away before it attracted wasps.
“What the hell was that about?”
Petra rode in silence for the first ten miles in the shotgun seat of the Bronco before she spoke. Hot afternoon air slid through the open windows, rattling Maria’s car charm against the windshield. She could taste the red dust on the breeze. In the backseat, Frankie stretched out, sleeping off his bender with a crust of vomit drying around his lips.
Maria glanced sidelong at her. “How about you start with what the hell you’re doing here, at the ends of the Earth?” Maria had the shotgun wedged up next to her, between the door and her hip.
Petra tried a half-truth. “I got a job. I’m a geologist.”
Maria watched her. “The economy’s that bad, that a geologist would come all the way here?”
“Yellowstone’s an exciting place. It’s the caldera of an active volcano. Hot steam geysers, noxious gases, mudpots . . . for a geologist, it’s a playground.”
