by Anna Jeffrey
“I think we should have flaked out,” Piggy said.
They sat in the Blazer in the Forest Service parking lot, shivering. It was Monday. They had dragged themselves out of their sleeping bags before daylight.
“It’s too late. Jerry’s depending on us,” Dahlia replied.
Jerry soon arrived and the agony began.
“I think you’re right,” Dahlia told Piggy on Wednesday. “We should have flaked out.”
“C’mon, Dal. What are we, sissies?”
On Wednesday evening Luke called and invited Dahlia to dinner for Saturday night. She supposed he got the phone number from Information. She declined.
On Thursday, Piggy said, “I’m ready to flake out. I’m gonna tell Jerry to get somebody else.”
“C’mon Piggy. We aren’t quitters.”
And so the week went. By Friday, they had braved snow, freezing temperatures and more ice-cold mud than either of them ever imagined existed in the world. They knew the definition of bearing trees, brass caps, blaze lines. New phrases were becoming commonplace in their vocabularies: metes and bounds, range and township. They also knew how to re-trace an old survey over ridges and canyons and what they had to do if brush and trees obstructed their paths. Piggy’s question, “What are we gonna do with these machetes and chainsaws?” had been answered.
Every muscle and sinew in their twenty-nine-year-old bodies ached. Dahlia had played tennis in college, had worked out in a gym when she lived in Dallas. More recently, she jogged, put in long hours in the grocery store hefting beef and pork carcasses, boxes of produce and cases of canned goods, but she had never done so much relentless, strenuous physical labor. Neither had Piggy. Jerry laughed and called them cream puffs, told them to take the week-end off and recover.
For Dahlia, accompanying the physical challenge, was the memory of Luke’s kiss and her hand pressed against his manhood. And the glimpse into the all-too-human man he had shown her when he let his guard down on her front porch. As much as her work-weary body looked forward to crawling into her sleeping bag every night, she couldn’t find rest until she had replayed the scene on the stoop and his phone call inviting her to dinner. She couldn’t keep from wondering if he would call her again.
And she thought of Jimmy McRae. A dull-witted little boy alone in big, new world of strangers, rules and education, without the protection of his very capable father.
On Saturday, they hauled their filthy clothing to the only coin-op laundry in town. “R and R is what we need,” Piggy said, as they watched the dryers spin. “Entertainment. We deserve it after the week we’ve put in. There’s a band at the Rusty Spur Saloon tonight and I haven’t been dancing since the last time I went to Billy Bob’s with Bill Porter.”
With reluctance, Dahlia agreed to the outing.
The wardrobe they had brought with them was limited, but as she usually did for a boot-scootin’ Saturday night, Piggy managed to dude up. Blue satin Western shirt with black fringe, skin-tight jeans belted by silver conchos and stuffed inside a tall pair of high-heeled boots. And half a pound of sterling silver hanging from her ears.
Dahlia donned the only dress-up outfit she had brought—a white long-sleeved silk shirt and sedate black slacks. She carried her Ferragamo sandals, black-patent and high-heeled, to the living room sat down on one of Luke’s recliners to strap them on. They had cost a week’s pay. She had sacrificed many things since leaving her well-paying job in Dallas, but some luxuries, like Italian shoes, she couldn’t give up.
“Far out,” Piggy said. “Fuck-me shoes. You’re finally coming out of it.”
“Shut up, Piggy. These are all I brought with me.” Dahlia returned to the bathroom and gussied up her wild hair, pinning the sides back with green crystal hairpins.
At nearly nine, they arrived at the Rusty Spur. As soon as they entered, Dahlia recognized it for what it was—a honkytonk, just like in Texas. And the place was packed. A wooden dance floor the size of a tennis court dominated the room. A four-sided bar squared off on one end against a low stage on the other. A long banner stretched between two wooden posts and tuning up under it was a six-piece band, “Rocky Mountain Electric.” A juke box struggled on one corner of the stage, to be heard above the buzz of the crowd.
Dahlia and Piggy pushed their way through the crush and lucked into an empty booth at the edge of the dance floor. A layer of low-hanging smoke blurred vision, but Dahlia could see they were surrounded by cowboy hats and bill caps. No question. The Rusty Spur Saloon was a working class gathering place. They tagged a waitress and ordered Coors Lights.
The band exploded to life with a thundering drum and a growling bass guitar, opening with a raucous rendition of “Truck Drivin’ Man.” A collective cheer and whistle surged from the crowd and dancers began to scoot and spin around the floor. Soon, a bearded, stubby-legged cowboy they had seen at the Forest Service offices ambled over and asked Piggy to dance. Dahlia sipped her beer and watched, feeling out of place. Though she had grown up with country-western music, Kenneth had refused to so much as listen to it. Music illiterates, he said. Thus, hoe-downs in honky-tonks hadn’t been part of her social life since college.
What social life? a voice in her head asked.
At the end of a clattering version of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” the band took a break. Piggy, breathless and perspiring, led her partner back to the table and they flopped onto the seat. She introduced him as Pete Hand, range inspector, fence rider and Forest Service horse wrangler. Also part-time steelhead fishing guide. Only Piggy could learn that much about somebody in a milieu where conversation couldn’t be heard.
The party in the booth behind them left, to be replaced by a tall, attractive couple. The woman’s carrot-colored hair hung to her waist. She wore jeans, a plate-sized belt buckle and a silver-studded, Western jacket that screamed Santa Fe style. She rounded the end of Dahlia’s and Piggy’s booth and slid into the empty seat beside Dahlia. “Mind if I sit down?” She nodded toward Pete. “I want to ask my cousin, Grizzly, a question.”
“Not at all,” Dahlia said. The newcomer stuck out her right hand. “My name’s Kathleen
Adams. What’s yours?”
Dahlia said her own name, then Piggy’s. The lanky redhead threw Piggy a curious look. “What’s that again?”
“P-I-G-G-Y. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy—”
Kathleen tilted her head back and shrieked with laughter. “That’s different. Where you from?”
She turned back to Dahlia. “Texas. You too? You look Chinese.”
The comment, put so bluntly by a stranger, caught Dahlia off-guard. They all look alike. Instant dislike erupted in Dahlia’s mind. “Uh, actually, my mother was Filipino.”
Kathleen turned her attention to Piggy’s new friend. “Say Grizzly, you been out to look at our fences yet?”
“Too cold. Figured you still had snow.”
“Mud, mostly. You’d be doing us peons a favor if you’d get out there pretty soon. The whole north line between us and the government has to be rebuilt. My brother’s been in such a snit for the last three weeks, nobody can stand him.”
Kathleen’s companion, blond and tanned, striking in a white polo shirt and pleated jeans, dragged a chair from a nearby table. Straddling it, he rested his forearms on the back, a Coors longneck dangling from his left hand. An impressive diamond wedding band circled his ring finger. “And my friend,” he said, placing a hand on Pete’s shoulder, “it’s pure hell riding for the Double Deuce when John Wayne’s pissed off.”
Dahlia’s ears perked up. She felt Piggy’s toe dig into her shin under the table.
Pete laughed. “Serves you right, tenderfoot. Ol’ Luke’s a tough ’un, alright. Him and Ted went at it again last week over the new grazing rules. I thought somebody was gonna have to touch off a couple of rounds to settle ’em down.”
“Wouldn’t have done any good. Luke McRae catches bullets with his teeth.”
Dahlia felt Piggy’s kick
. The blond man stood and leaned over the table. “Where’d a hairy-faced old fart like you find these lovely ladies, Pete?” He thrust his hand toward Dahlia and drawled in an exaggerated imitation of a cowboy, “Dave Adams is my handle, ma’am, and I’m just passing through, lookin’ for my wagon train.”
Everyone laughed. Dahlia, then Piggy shook his hand and said their names again.
Kathleen gave him an icy stare and clacked her empty beer can on the table. “I’ve told you not to make fun of my brother. He’s had a bad week. You’re mad ’cause you’re six years younger and can’t keep up with him.”
Dave arched his brow at Pete. “See how they stick together?”
The band resumed with a rafter-rattling number. Dave raised his voice to a yell. “A poor outsider like me doesn’t stand a chance. The only place I come out on top is in bed.”
Kathleen sprang to her feet and dragged him off his chair. “Let’s dance. You’re embarrassing me.”
Watching as they melded into the dancing crowd, Pete chuckled. “Now there’s a pair to draw to.” He turned to Dahlia. “Don’t pay no attention to what she said. She’s got hoof-in-mouth disease, but she’s good people.”
“Exactly who are they?” Piggy asked.
“Part of the McRae clan. Kind of like royalty in these parts. Kathleen’s one of the princesses. The pretty blond is her husband. At the Forest Service, we call him Cinderella.”
“We know about the McRaes,” Piggy said. “They’re ranchers.”
“They’re more than that. Around here, they’re a legend.
“That Dave sure doesn’t look like a cowboy.”
“He ain’t. He was a tennis player somewhere over in Washington. Kathleen drug him home to work on the ranch. Luke McRae’s got his hands full making cowboys out of his two sisters’ husbands. I think old Dave must be coming along though. I heard it’s been months since he’s had to walk back to the barn.”
Dahlia tucked all of that information away. Dave and Kathleen returned and as Dave latched onto the passing waitress, his attention went to the front entrance. “Well, I’ll be dipped. Speaking of John Wayne . . . ”
Dahlia looked up. Just inside the door, dimly visible through the smoky haze, stood Luke. He appeared to be surveying the crowd. Panic was her first reaction and to prove it, she tipped over her beer can with a clatter. Fortunately, it was empty.
One of his hands rested on the shoulder of a woman standing in front of him. She was too far away for Dahlia to make out her features, but she was dressed in jeans and a short, fringed jacket. Rodeo Queen. The memory of the kiss on the stoop flew into Dahlia’s mind. Again. A green imp hissed in her ear. She craned her neck to see if this blond threat also wore a trophy belt buckle.
“He must be lost,” Dave said to his wife. “I didn’t think he knew this joint was here.”
“Maybe Lee Ann talked him into coming to hear the band,” Kathleen mumbled.
“I thought she’d hooked up with some dude from Oregon. I wonder what she’s doing with Luke?”
Dahlia wanted to know, too. If Luke’s sister and brother-in-law knew this Lee Ann, she must hold a position a notch above the groupies.
“I don’t know, but it’ll make Mom happy,” Kathleen said.
Another cryptic remark Dahlia couldn’t fathom.
Kathleen stood on her knees on the booth seat, stuck her fingers into her mouth and released an ear-splitting whistle. She waved her long arms over her head like a signalman directing a jumbo jet. “Luke,” she yelled. “Over here.”
Luke spotted her, hitched his chin in her direction and he and the woman moved toward them.
Damn.
When Dahlia had turned down his dinner invitation she had told him she would be too exhausted by Saturday for a night on the town. She didn’t like being caught in a fib, even an unintentional one. Hemmed in by Luke’s sister, she couldn’t get out of the booth and flee to the ladies’ room. And while she was considering what to do, Piggy’s toe gouged her shin so hard it felt as if it had broken skin.
Luke approached the table glaring at her, calling her a liar with his eyes.
Dahlia refused to be intimidated by a man who had propositioned her as if he had no girlfriend. She raised her chin and glared back at him.
His girlfriend wasn’t unattractive, she noticed—square-faced with prominent cheek bones and thin lips; long, bleached-blond hair, parted in the middle and hanging straight. It did nothing to make her look more feminine, Dahlia thought with satisfaction. The interloper’s close proximity revealed she did indeed wear a silver belt buckle, a figure of a bronze calf roper etched in its center. Calf Roper?
The woman greeted Kathleen and Dave as if they were old friends and struck up a gossipy conversation. Yes, she was definitely more than a groupie, Dahlia concluded.
Standing behind Dave, Luke gripped his brother-in-law’s shoulders with both hands and
dug in his fingers. The dominant male gesture wasn’t lost on Dahlia, particularly since Luke sent her a heated glance while he did it. “Don’t forget, hoss,” he said to Dave. “We’re sorting cattle early in the morning.”
“Ow, ow.” Dave scrunched up his shoulders. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, boss man. A day of rest.”
“Those cows don’t know that,” Luke said. “Don’t you forget either, Sister.” He pointed a finger at Kathleen. “I want to see your butt in the saddle at daylight.”
Someone called to him, and he looked away. His companion said something to him and he started to move away, guiding her with a hand on her back. He touched his hat to Dahlia and Piggy, but didn’t show so much as a flicker of acquaintance.
“That was my brother,” Kathleen said. “Sorry I didn’t introduce you, but you never know what kind of mood he’s in.”
A black cloud formed within Dahlia. Left alone while her group danced, she barely endured the next few songs. She turned down three invitations to dance, hunkered in the corner of the booth and peered at the dance floor, intending to torment herself by watching Luke dance with his blond date. But she didn’t see him.
When Piggy and Pete landed again, she told them she had a headache and wanted to go home. Pete volunteered to give Piggy a ride, so Dahlia left in the Blazer.Back in the cottage, she changed into sweats, stoked up the fire and settled in front of TV with a blanket. The irony of having Luke’s sister sit down beside her loomed in her mind.
You look Chinese.
Well, so what?
Channel-surfing took her to an old Western. “High Noon.” She had seen it before. She had seen most old movies before, a disgusting commentary on her social activities.
She couldn’t stick with it. In Gary Cooper, she saw Luke McRae, but watching Grace Kelly, she didn’t see herself. The blond actress didn’t “look Chinese.”
Having somebody question her ethnicity was hardly new. Besides Chinese, she had been labeled Indian, Mexican, Middle-Eastern, even Hawaiian. But she hadn’t heard direct comment about it since Kenneth. He used to add a footnote about her appearance when he introduced her to new people, as if he thought he needed to apologize for her not being one-hundred-percent Anglo. His infidelities had been with blondes. Once, Dahlia had even considered bleaching her hair.
Silly, fawning Dahlia. Always trying to please.
She had gone out of her way to try to make his family and friends see her Anglo side over the Filipino. Why had she done that? Being half-Filipino was nothing to be ashamed of. And she was certain that her mother, if she were alive, would be a nicer person than Kenneth’s mother, who had been in touch with her only once since his death. Dahlia wished now she had flaunted her own mother’s ethnic customs and language at Kenneth’s WASPish parents.
Oh, Dahlia. Get over yourself…
She awoke to Piggy shaking her shoulder. “Hey, girlfriend.”
Dahlia came out of a deep sleep, her hip aching from her leg being twisted in the chair. “What time is it?”
“Late. Or early, depending on how you look at it. Yo
u should have stayed for the fight.”
“Who had a fight?”
“A couple of tree fallers.”
“Tree fallers?” Dahlia creaked to her feet, one foot tingling.
“Yeah. You know. Big guys who cut down trees.” Piggy raised her arms and flexed her muscles. “Tough bastards. Something about a girl and a pool table. Luke’s sister’s a hoot, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, a real hoot.”
“I didn’t see him anymore. He must have left.”
“I didn’t ask.” Half-asleep, Dahlia padded toward the bedroom, dragging her blanket behind her.
“Then I won’t tell you the girl he was with is his neighbor,” Piggy called after her. “She’s also his old high school girlfriend.”
“Okay, don’t tell me.” Stiff everywhere, Dahlia eased down to sit on the edge of her cot, then swung her legs into her sleeping bag.
Piggy clicked on the overhead light, flapped out a white T-shirt and held it up. “Pete bought me this.”
Dahlia raised her head and squinted to read it. An ugly vulture sitting on a limb covered most of the front with a message underneath: I SURVIVED BREAKFAST AT BETTY’S ROAD KILL CAFÉ.
“Pete and I went to breakfast with Kathleen and Dave. I found out what’s wrong with Luke’s kid. They call it FAS. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Luke’s ex-wife—her name’s Janet—is a drunk.”
Dahlia’s eyelids snapped wide.
“Kathleen told me she was drunk the whole nine months she was pregnant with Jimmy,” Piggy said.
Could this guy get any more complicated? “Dahlia lifted her head, wide awake now. That’s insane. No woman in her right mind would do that.”
“Kathleen told me something else, too. Jimmy might not even be Luke’s kid, but they don’t know. When Luke found out his wife was pregnant, his mom wanted him to do that paternity test thing, but he wouldn’t.”
“His sister told you all that? We just met her.”
“It’s no big secret. Apparently everybody in town knows it.” Piggy laughed. “Hell, this place is no different from Loretta.”
