“I Hate Cowboys” starts to play. Maggie releases a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.
Hank turns off the radio. “So, what did you and Travis talk about back at the church?”
The abrupt change of subject would have been welcome if it were to any other topic. Maggie had hoped Hank would forget about Travis’s interrogation. She needs to mull it over more before talking to Hank about it. He’s feeling so much better—she doesn’t want to be the reason for a setback.
“He wanted to go over the timeline of my whereabouts since the last time I’d seen Paco.” It isn’t a lie. It isn’t the complete truth either. She hopes it’s enough.
“At the funeral. Come on, man.”
“I know, right?”
“Anything else about Andy?”
Now she relaxes. On this point she can tell the whole truth and nothing but. “Not a word.” She glances at him. In profile, he is stalwart, strong, and achingly gorgeous. She swallows. “I need to tell you something.”
He grunts, and she takes it as “Go ahead.”
“I found the note you kept. The one I left for you in Chugwater.”
“Found it. In my drawer. In a box.” He dimples up.
“I, um . . .”
His dimples are deep and sweet. “I don’t care, Maggie. I don’t have anything to hide from you. If you need to look around to satisfy yourself on that, be my guest.”
She hesitates. Does he expect her to return the offer? She doesn’t own anything to hide. Not after the fires. But she’s not sure how she’d feel about him snooping if the tables were turned. Not that she’s hiding anything, just the general concept. “You kept it.”
“Of course I did.”
Maggie picks up her hobo bag from the floorboard. From her wallet, she retrieves the note he’d left her from a secret compartment in her wallet. She reads it aloud to him. “Best night of my life, music girl. Between you and Big Sky, I’m walking off the stiff and sore. Back in an hour with coffee and breakfast. Don’t get dressed, gorgeous. Hank.”
He reaches for her hand. “So you kept yours, too.”
“I’ve had it with me ever since.”
“Big Sky was one lucky draw.”
“So that’s your reaction to me sharing that with you?” She punches him.
“If I hadn’t drawn him, I might not have won, and we might not have ended up together.”
“I’ll let you in on some late-breaking news: I was yours whether you won or not.”
He chuckles, and she leans over the console and puts her head on his shoulder. She wakes up with a sore ribcage and crick in her neck on the south side of Casper. Hank smiles at her. “Wake up, sleepyhead.” He gets out of the truck.
She sits up and stretches. By the time she has her bearings and looks outside, Hank is working his credit card at the gas pump.
Maggie comes around to stand beside him. “Time to trade off drivers after I’m back from the loo?”
Louise barks.
“And take Louise to pee?”
Hank sets the automatic pumping switch on the nozzle. “Sure. But I’ll take her.”
Maggie peers into the back window. Plastic sandwich bags and newspaper are shredded all over the seat. “Oh my God.”
“What is it?”
“Louise got into the bag of treats Trudy sent with us.”
Hank shakes his head. “Bad dog. Buy me some venison jerky, then?”
“Got it.” Maggie heads inside.
After the stop is over, Hank falls asleep before Maggie wrestles the truck and trailer back onto the interstate. “Right in Time” by Lucinda Williams plays on the radio, drawing a smile from Maggie as she looks over at Hank. Louise snuffles daintily in the back seat. The miles fly by, with more stops, more trading off driving duties, and more naps. The scenery is monotonous this time of year. Tan, brown, and beige, broken up every half hour by small towns. But Maggie has eyes only for Hank beside her, and no complaints.
They make it safely to Duncan in the wee hours, with Maggie finishing her book, Plenty-coups, about the great Crow chief during one of her riding shifts. Hank is driving when they get there, so he parks their rig and they settle in for a few hours’ sleep in the living quarters of the trailer. Maggie wakes, disoriented, when it’s barely light outside, troubled but unsure why.
“Hank.” She rolls over and puts her head on his chest.
He groans. “Too early.” Then he goes rigid. “What’s that smell?”
That’s it, Maggie realizes. A noxious odor is what woke her. Then she hears the thump-thump-thumping of a tail. “Oh, Fucker.”
“She didn’t.”
“I’m pretty sure she did. Five feet away from us. Rock, paper, scissors for who cleans it up?”
“I got it.” Hank levers himself up on an elbow. “But tomorrow night, she sleeps back in the stalls.”
Maggie gags and doesn’t argue.
Twenty-Four
Hank leaves with Gene to check on their hooved athletes not many hours later, with a promise to text and catch up with her soon. Maggie sleepily trolls the grounds, after walking Louise and leaving her to nap in the trailer. On the outside of the covered arena, colorful banners tout the Prairie Rim Circuit Finals Rodeo. Prairie Rim isn’t a nationally known rodeo, but it’s a Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association event that draws contestants from Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, so it’s plenty big. Food trucks line a crowded parking lot, and the aroma of funnel cake is making Maggie salivate. Vendors are hawking wares ranging from Western wear and rodeo gear to jewelry, farm equipment, and—Maggie’s favorite—home décor, not unlike the things she salvages and repurposes at her store in Texas. Or did, anyway.
As she weighs out whether to give in to funnel cake for lunch, her phone sounds its tone for voicemail. She pulls it from her jeans pocket. She has three voicemails from yesterday that only just appeared on her phone. The coverage had been spotty on the drive, which she is used to in Wyoming, but she’d expected better of eastern Colorado and the Texas Panhandle. One is from Charlotte, another from Franklin, and a third from a Colorado number. The Colorado call is the most recent, so she plays that message first.
“My name is Amos. I’m a freelance reporter, and I’ve written a few pieces on you. I saw you online in a video from the Occidental Saloon in Buffalo, Wyoming. Wait, did I get that right?” There’s a pause. “Yeah, The Occidental. Anyway, I’m swinging up that way and hope I can interview you. Please give me a call so we can arrange a time to get together.”
Amos. The name is familiar, but she doesn’t think she knows one. Was he the reporter being quoted on the air yesterday, talking about her? He sounded so smug it makes her itch to punch him. She hates reporters automatically, but she’s sure she’ll hate him specifically, too. And video? She should have known someone would post it from the Ox and mention her. She considers deleting his message without calling him back, but experience tells her if she does, he’ll show up anyway, pester her, and interview everyone she’s ever pissed off in Buffalo and Sheridan. Starting with Sheila.
She calls him back.
“Amos speaking. Hit me.”
His voice sounds too old to be a hipster wannabe–cool cat. She shudders. “Absolutely not.”
There’s a silence. Is he there? “Sorry, I had to look at the incoming number. Is this Maggie Killian?”
“Unfortunately it is. I’m sorry, but I can’t meet with you. I’m just passing through the Buffalo area.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
Now she feels certain he’s the reporter quoted on the air yesterday. “I can’t control what you hear. Or the rumors you spread. Buh-bye.”
She hangs up. Hopefully the call will be enough to keep Amos south.
She listens to Franklin’s message next. It’s a hang-up. She growls and calls him back, but the call fails to connect. She tries twice more. Same result both times. She moves on to Charlotte. Before she can play her mother’s message, a text comes in.
She grins, stops, and types. Looking for her man.
Ready for the nickel tour of the Double S setup, then some grub?
A big, warm paw lands on her shoulder.
She startles, then smiles, matching the dimples winking down at her. “Hey, cowboy.”
“Someone told me, once upon a time, that you hate cowboys. Especially bull riders.”
“I’m experiencing a change of heart.”
“You’re having a flashback. You pretend not to like them, but I think rodeos turn you on.”
Maggie laughs. “Or something.”
“Behind the chutes we go, then.”
“Aren’t the chutes inside and your animals outside?”
“Details.”
Together they stroll through the pens outside the arena. Hank can’t walk five steps without someone hailing him up, slapping his back, and asking about how the Double S buckers look for the event. Nearly everyone talks about his storied past as a bull rider. Many mention what a blessing and miracle it is to see him hale and hearty, referencing his spectacular career-ending injury. Maggie is in the presence of rodeo royalty, and she revels in the respect shown Hank, and her own anonymity. He introduces her by her first name only, which she appreciates. People are nice. But Hank is the star. She feels a flash of irritation as she remembers Travis’s insinuations at Paco’s funeral. Hank isn’t a jealous killer. Not the Hank she knows, that all these people revere, not even in the throes of the worst of one of his brain trauma episodes. It’s preposterous.
Hank stops her at a pen of muscular horses in a rainbow of colors. She recognizes some of them from the ranch. They’re a little jacked, milling about, lifting their heads over the metal rails and bumping into them with loud clangs.
“Every one of these beauties traces back to Sassafrass, our original broodmare.”
“The one you bought with your Frontier Days winnings?”
“Yep.”
“And losings.”
He shrugs. “It’s true. I’m not proud of that. But it’s part of the history.” Hank had taken money to stay out of the winner’s list each day, until he met Maggie and she’d convinced him she only dated winners. He’d incurred the wrath of his Argentinean “employer” then by winning it all. Mafia thugs had chased Maggie and him over half of Wyoming, but here they were as a result.
“The man, the myth, the legend.” Maggie bumps him with her hip. “Do you ever see Christiano Valdez?” He was the bull rider the mafia family had backed.
Hank bumps her back. “You’re not going to believe this. Paco worked for him a few years ago. Small world.”
“What did he do for Christiano?”
“Shovel shit, mostly. But I haven’t seen Christiano in many years. Last I heard he was back in Argentina, fat and rich.”
“Good.” For many reasons, Maggie thinks. Her thoughts return to the buckers. “Don’t you risk genetic issues with so much of one bloodline in your horses?”
“Lots of other bloodlines in the mix, too. We’ve been careful to keep it diverse. There are incredible champions in all their parentage.”
“You sound like a proud papa.”
“I am. We are. It’s very rewarding. And exciting.” He waves at the pen. “This here is a crop of youngsters. You remember we hold inside events at the ranch for up-and-coming cowboys, to evaluate our three-year-olds?”
“Yes, and I can’t wait to see one.”
“They’re a party.” Hank nods. “These horses passed that test and are working their way up to bigger venues.”
“Will any of these be bucking at the National Finals Rodeo next month?”
“Nah. They’ll have to earn that later. Only the best of our best, the seasoned warriors, buck at NFR.”
Maggie remembers Hank explaining before that they cross draft horses into the herd to keep them hearty, and colder-blooded horses for their athletic ability and fight. “Are any of these horses related to Lily?”
He rubs his chin, then points. “That big mare, the blue-roan. This is her first season on the road. She’s draftier than we usually see in our successful buckers. But nobody told her that. She’s like nitroglycerin in a brick house.”
“She’s my favorite.”
Hank smiles. “Of course. Want to go see the bulls? Gene’s over there.”
Maggie climbs on the rail, looking for bulls. The humped backs give them away. She spots Gene outside a pen. While her attention is off the horses, the blue-roan mare charges at her, snorting, then ducks away.
Maggie jumps down, startled. “She’s feisty.”
“Her blood is up. She knows it’s almost showtime. If you approached her in the pasture back home, she’d ignore you.”
They amble to the bulls through a repeat of the glad-handing and introductions.
One old-timer breaks away from a group. “Mr. Sibley, the first time I met you, you was wandering through the parking lot of the fairgrounds in Mandan, South Dakota. It was the middle of the night, and you wasn’t wearing nothing but a long-john top. Not a stitch.” The storyteller pulls at the handlebar mustache hiding his smile.
Maggie socks Hank’s arm. “Wait, you were naked?”
“I was changing clothes beside my truck after a few shots of whiskey. I accidentally locked myself out. So I was looking for a pay phone. Only I didn’t have a quarter.”
The geezer winks at Maggie. “I hope for your sake it was only the cold that made him so—”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Hank claps him on the back.
He cackles and wanders back to his friends.
Maggie raises her eyebrows. “You certainly have a colorful past.”
“Mostly lies and exaggerations.”
“What part of streaking around bare-assed was a lie, and what part was an exaggeration?”
“Well, that was mostly true.”
She loops her arm through his, and they resume walking toward Gene. The smell of bull manure grows stronger with every step.
Maggie holds the back of her hand under her nose. “Why does bull shit smell so much worse than horse shit?”
“An age-old question. And why do bovines taste so much better than equines? There’s another for you.”
“You’ve eaten horse meat?”
“I’m speaking theoretically.”
Gene spots them and doffs his hat at Maggie. “What do you think of it all?” He opens a bag of Cheetos and offers it to her.
She’s hungry, but the thought of food so near the bull manure turns her stomach. She holds up a hand to decline. “That you guys have come a long way from the broke-ass bull riders I met in Cheyenne. I can’t believe you even scraped up enough money to buy your fancy broodmare.”
“Sassafrass?”
“Yeah. Hank spent his stake of the money for her on a getaway truck for us in Wheatland.”
Gene cocks a brow. “You’re right, Maggie May. And I nearly killed him for it. But everyone loves a Frontier Days winner, lucky bastard, and we had just enough that they gave us a short extension.”
Hank thumps his chest. “I came up with the money.”
Maggie says, “You’re a better man than me not to have killed him, Gene.”
He grins. “Thanks. I think. Anyway, Hank’s point man on the horses, but the bulls are my babies.”
“Babies? Hardly. These are monsters.” Maggie leaves a five-foot buffer between herself and the bull enclosure.
“Nasty, ugly muscleheads. Just how we like ’em.”
“Which make more money, the horses or the bulls?”
“Used to be the horses, hands down. With the advent of bull-only events like the Professional Bull Riding shows, we’ve got a growing market for the uglies. But every rodeo has two bronc riding competitions—saddle and bareback—and only one bull-riding event. So it’s a toss-up.”
Hank slaps his thigh with his hat, back and forth, knocking off the sod the blue-roan splattered him with earlier. “The horses are a little fussie
r. More prone to hurting themselves.”
“At events?”
“No, at life. Horses are experts at doing stupid stuff. One time we had a hand who parked a truck across an open gate. One of the horses decided to jump out, over the hood and windshield of the truck. He almost made it too, except for a back hoof. New windshield. Lotta stitches. Three-month bucking hiatus while he recovered from his injuries.”
Gene nods. “A bull would have just rammed the truck and walked away.”
“But both require a lot of special care traveling to and from events. We had a harder trip here than these animals. Twelve to fourteen hours of rest for every ten spent on the road. Standing in a half foot or more of sawdust to cushion their hooves and legs. A veterinarian on call at every event. At the slightest sign of strain, we pull ’em, rehab ’em, and call in an expert if needed. Anything to keep them in tip-top shape during rodeo season. It’s not cheap to run the operation.”
“But it must be worth it.”
The two men grin at each other and answer at the same time. “Oh yeah.”
Hank slings an arm around her. “We make more money than we did rodeoing, and nothing beats this life.”
Maggie loves the feel of his taut frame and strong arm. She leans in. “It’s making me remember how much fun the events were back when I was touring and performing. But I’d forgotten about all the vendors. It’s a pretty diverse enterprise of businesses.”
“A lot of the vendors just follow the rodeos all season. Like us. And some of the rodeos dwarf Prairie Rim. Money to be made, for sure. Now, let’s go to our box. Time to watch our brand in action.”
The seed of an idea germinates in Maggie’s mind. But hunger calls first. “And feed your woman.”
Hank squeezes her to him. “And that, of course.”
Twenty-Five
An announcer’s voice reverberates through the arena. “Next up we have the saddle bronc riding competition.”
He keeps talking, but it’s just yammering to Maggie. She turns to Hank, accidentally kicking what’s left of the nachos she got at the concession into the seat-back in front of her. She braces for an explosion, but the woman who’s now wearing chips and nacho cheese on her sweatshirt is oblivious. It’s not that bad, so Maggie isn’t going to be the one to clue her in.
Dead Pile (Maggie #3) Page 13
