Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  Maggie crosses her arms. “Not a good idea to show up unannounced around here, mister. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  “Amos. We talked on the phone.”

  “Sic ’em, Louise.”

  His scream is high-pitched like a young girl. His arms flail the air, and he releases his nose, ducking his head and face. “No, no, no.”

  Louise doesn’t know any commands. Even “come” and “sit” are still beyond her, no matter how many treats Maggie has offered her to learn them. But Amos doesn’t need to know that.

  “I told you not to come.” Maggie’s nose wrinkles up. “God, what’s that horrible smell?” She’s been so focused on the unwanted visitor, she just now realizes she’s standing beside something dead and seriously rank. Not rank like owl vomit. Rank like . . . she searches the ground around her. Yep. Rank like a baby skunk. “Louise, bad girl.”

  “She smells like a skunk.”

  “You think?”

  “It’s making me nauseous.”

  The dog slinks to her, but she looks proud, not chastened. Her tail wags harder and harder. She smells as bad as the dead animal. Maggie is about to banish her to the barn until she can bathe her, but decides against it. She can take it, and it appears the sensitive flower from Colorado can’t.

  “If you don’t like it, the interstate runs north and south, just a few miles that way.” Maggie points.

  His voice is icy. “Are you always this nice to people who drive hundreds of miles to see you?”

  “No. Sometimes I call the cops.” She opens the door to the house and starts to go back in. “Stay out here, Louise,” she tells the eager dog.

  “Wait! We got off on the wrong foot. Talk to me. Please.”

  She shuts the door. From the sound of the dog’s growl, Maggie can tell she’s rushing the Prius again. Amos screams. Maggie smiles and sits on the couch to check her phone.

  Andy runs up, hollering at Louise. Dammit. After a short conversation, Andy pokes his head in the door. “Maggie?” he hollers.

  “Right here.”

  “Oh. Sorry. There’s a reporter here to talk to you.”

  “I know.”

  “What should I tell him?”

  “That I’m not available. But I already did.”

  “Louise is terrorizing him. And she got a skunk. But I’ll bet you already knew that, too.”

  “Sure did.”

  “I’m going to take her out to the barn and put her in one of the stalls.”

  “A shame. She was being such a helpful girl.”

  “Maggie.”

  She grins. “I’m kidding.”

  “He, um, he asked if he could interview me, since I know you.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I don’t recommend it. Reporters are vultures.”

  “I’ve never been interviewed for a magazine.”

  “E-zine. Blog. Or worse.”

  “What?”

  “Do it, then. It’s fine. Get it out of your system. Have fun.”

  “Can I bring him in here?”

  Maggie nods. “I’ll take care of Louise. I have work to do outside anyway.”

  Andy’s eyes light up. “Thank you.”

  “I wouldn’t thank me.” Maggie follows Andy out, stepping over the skunk, and grabs Louise.

  “You’ve decided to talk to me?” Amos asks from his dented rooftop.

  He’s finally looking at her without his hand clamped over his nose, and a bad feeling starts in her stomach, like the kind she gets from too much sugar. She knows this person. His salt-and-pepper hair is longer than she remembers it. He’s wearing a beard on his formerly clean-shaven face. But she’ll never forget the face of the man who used to be one of the top disc jockeys on the radio, until he harassed Maggie in an interview. Aaron cum Amos’s fascination with her and his smears thinly veiled as news make sense now. He’s got a hard-on for revenge.

  “Not a chance. Especially not now that I see who you really are, Aaron Cryor.”

  “I don’t use that name anymore.”

  “Freelancer now. My how the mighty have fallen.”

  “If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is.”

  “No argument here. Come on, Louise.”

  Louise lifts a leg on the Prius like a boy, then follows Maggie to the barn. Maggie doesn’t look back at the former shock jock. At the barn, she gives Louise a hose bath with skunk shampoo she finds with the dog supplies in the feed room. After Maggie rinses her, Louise shakes immediately, dousing Maggie.

  “Stop.” But Maggie laughs. She’s going to smell like a skunk, too, but the temperature is a gorgeous fifty-five outside, and a little stinky water won’t kill her. She goes for buckets and fills one with all-stock feed for the goats and another with sweet feed for Lily. They’ve already been fed, but she feels like spoiling them. She goes to the goats first. They’re tethered behind the guest cabin she’d stayed at in August, before she and Hank were back together.

  “I need to make you guys a pen before Mrs. Sibley has you butchered.”

  They don’t seem overly concerned. She lets them loose. They follow her—and the feed buckets—to Lily’s paddock.

  “You’re looking like an elephant today, my pretty one,” she says to the horse.

  Eyes on the feed, Lily jukes and jives as light-footed as if she weighed three hundred pounds less. She starts her funny buh-buh-buh, like a motor having trouble starting on a cold day. Maggie sets the goat bucket outside Lily’s gate, then pours the horse’s feed into her trough. The goats and horse eat quickly. When they’re all done, she pushes the goats in with Lily. Louise squeezes in after them. The creepiness of last night and irritant of Amos’s visit slip away in the presence of her favorite animals, just as she’d hoped they would.

  She tips her head back, eyes closed, and soaks in the Indian summer sun. A flapping noise makes her open her eyes. A flock of Canada geese wing in front of blue sky and fluffy white clouds, then turn. She rotates with them and admires their silhouettes in front of the yellow orb of sun, like they’re fleeing from a world on fire.

  A blue-roan in the next paddock turns sleepy eyes on Maggie. The docile animal looks familiar.

  With a start she realizes it’s Crazy Woman. “Hey, superstar.” She walks to her pen and holds out a hand. The horse rubs her nose on her foreleg, then goes back to dozing. “No love for your fans, huh?”

  She’s going to miss this in Texas.

  Her phone rings in her pocket. Franklin. Finally they’re going to connect. “This is Maggie. Give me some good news, Franklin.”

  “Oh, um, hi. I expected to get voicemail again.”

  “You need to learn what to do with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been waiting on this claim information, and you’re holding it captive.”

  He clears his throat. “It’s our policy not to leave it in a message.”

  “Then spit it out already.”

  The line goes dead.

  She stares at the phone. “Dammit, T-Mobile. Dammit, Wyoming.”

  It rings again.

  “Yes?”

  “I lost you.”

  “Talk fast.”

  He gives her a number for reimbursement on rebuilding. It’s less than half the amount of the lower of the two estimates she’d read earlier. And those were already for no-frills buildouts. Not nearly as nice as the originals.

  “Come again?”

  He repeats it.

  Maggie is silent. She walks into the pen with Lily, the goats, and Louise. Omaha and Nebraska bleat at her and butt her legs. She reaches down and trades off between them, scratching behind their horns.

  “Are you there?”

  “I’m here. This is me being speechless.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “How could I be okay? That amount won’t pay for me to rebuild a shed, much less a house, a shop, and a barn.”

  Frank
lin hems and haws. Maggie doesn’t listen.

  “So what do I get if I don’t rebuild?” she asks.

  He names a far lower number. That, plus selling the land at the price the realtor suggested a few days before wouldn’t give her enough money to buy a new place. She can’t rebuild, and she can’t afford to replace what she had. Not to mention she can’t afford to give up the rental income on Gidget’s place, and she sure can’t afford to lease Lumpy’s place, nor can she qualify for a loan to buy ranchland for Double S. She’d been living in a dream world.

  “What the hell was I paying for with my premiums all these years? You guys are screwing me.”

  “This isn’t personal.”

  “Getting screwed is always personal. Expect a call from my attorney next.”

  He tries again to explain, but she ends the call in the middle of his sentence. Lily stares at her and swishes her tail.

  Maggie kicks the gate. It hurts. “Son of a bitch.”

  Thirty-Nine

  After finishing the rest of her ranch chores in a blue funk, Maggie takes her laptop into Hank’s sitting room and plops onto the brown leather couch. It’s worn but still feels plush under her. She puts her feet on the coffee table. Typing ninety-to-nothing on her phone, she shoots off an email to Michele about the insurance payout. Then she texts her: SOS. Sent you an email. Getting effed over on insurance.

  As always with Michele, the reply comes fast: See know more. Dammit. Trying out voice recognition. Quitting voice recognition. Seriously, I’m on it. Don’t worry another minute.

  Maggie smiles for the first time since she talked to Franklin. Thanks.

  “Maggie, is that you?” It’s Trudy’s voice from downstairs.

  “Hi, Trudy. Yep, it’s me.”

  “I have a surprise for you. Can I come up?”

  “Of course.” Maggie boots up her laptop while Trudy climbs the stairs.

  The woman appears bearing a small plate in one hand and a steaming tin mug in the other. Maggie smells coffee.

  “You seem to be sick of apples.”

  “I, um . . .”

  Trudy sets the mug down by Maggie’s feet, then hands the plate to her. On it is a sugar-sprinkled scone with some kind of reddish berries. “It’s cranberry.”

  “I freakin’ love cranberry scones.”

  “Good.” Trudy brushes her hands on her jeans. “It’s my own recipe.”

  Maggie bites into it. She moans. “It’s still warm.”

  Trudy smiles. “Do you have a sec?”

  Maggie pats the couch and takes another bite.

  “Did Andy tell you he’s engaged?”

  Maggie nods and rolls her eyes, still chewing.

  “Yeah. Me, too. Do you know anything about her?”

  Maggie sets the scone on the plate and the plate on the coffee table. “She’s a wonderful banjo player. She used to date Paco. Michael beat Andy up over her. And two days ago she thought Andy was too religious for her. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “That’s more than I had. What’s her name?”

  “Penny.”

  “Penny what?”

  Maggie stares back at Trudy. “You know, I don’t have a clue. I told myself I was going to do some hunting around for information on her this afternoon, but I’m not going to get very far without a name.”

  “She’s Crow?”

  “Well, Native American at least.”

  “No, I remember. Cheyenne. Andy told me.”

  That thickened the plot with Michael, for sure, since he was from the Cheyenne reservation. “Should narrow it down some.”

  “I have to admit I’m surprised. Andy hates Cheyenne.”

  “There’s that.”

  “I’m worried this is just some kind of rebellion he’ll regret.”

  “He’s smitten with her, but I agree. Even if it’s true love on his part, this relationship has regret written all over it.”

  “If you find anything out, let me know, okay? I can’t stand the thought of him getting hurt.”

  “I will. You, too.”

  Trudy’s face is pensive as she walks away.

  Maggie’s laptop is booted up. She eats the last bite of scone and sips her coffee. Time to do some good for Andy. She decides to research Mary, since she has a last name to go on. Martin. She types Mary Martin, Sheridan, Wyoming into Google. The search engine asks her if she meant Mary Marton Sheridan, Wyoming. She thinks about it, replays the sound of Hank introducing the woman to her in her memory. Mar-TAHN. Yes. Marton. She clicks to accept the change, and more search results appear on the screen.

  Mary Sanders Marton. The Facebook profile picture is definitely the curvy brunette. Born in Sheridan, Wyoming. Graduated Sheridan High School. Married to William Marton. His name is not highlighted, so it doesn’t appear he’s on Facebook. Mary graduated from Eastern Wyoming College. Works at Sheridan Vet Clinic. Occupation: Vet Tech.

  Maggie scrolls down Mary’s timeline. She finds pictures of her with June. With Sheila. With Sheila and June. One is at the Ox. She pulls it up and enlarges it to see the other people in the background of the shot. There’s a flash of red on the feet of a cowboy sitting with his back to the camera. He has his arm around a woman in profile. A woman with a sheet of long black hair. Penny. The photo is creepy, since it brings life to a dead man, but it doesn’t tell her anything new. She keeps scrolling. Mary likes to post selfies with her four-legged patients, as well as rescue animals from the local shelter. Maggie sees pictures of Mary on horseback at brandings, in the mountains on a four-wheeler, and fly-fishing in waders. What she doesn’t see is any pictures of Mary with a man—Paco or her husband, or even friends or family.

  She Googles Sheridan Vet Clinic. The website is factual and functional, with no pictures of the staff. Maggie reruns her search on Mary and sifts through the results. Mary has volunteered with rescue events, and she’s competed in some 5K runs.

  The sound of the front door opening and closing tears her attention away from Mary. Heavy boots clomp through the great room.

  “Who’s there?” she says, loud enough to be heard downstairs, but not shouting.

  “Michael.”

  She pushes the laptop onto the couch and jumps to her feet. “Wait up.” She runs down the stairs in her stocking feet.

  He’s waiting, and looking puzzled. “What’s up?”

  “Are you getting coffee?”

  “Yep.”

  “I thought I’d join you.”

  “Free country, except on the res.” There’s an edge to his voice, and he doesn’t meet her gaze.

  She follows him into the dining room. It’s empty and so is the kitchen. Michael grabs a mug from the stack by the percolator and pours coffee into one. He sets it aside and pours another, nodding at the first one. She doesn’t need more coffee, but it seems like the right thing to do.

  “Thanks.” Maggie gets pumpkin spice creamer from the refrigerator. “I saw Andy earlier. He looks like shit.” Michael had filled the mug nearly to the rim, so she’s not able to get in as much as she likes.

  “Yeah? Well, he had it coming.” Michael walks to the door.

  She stirs in her creamer. “It’s a good way to get fired, and to hear you tell it, you really need the money.”

  He stops at the door. “Some things are more important than money or jobs.”

  She wishes she knew whether Gene or Hank talked to Michael about his time in prison. Bringing it up first herself wouldn’t be right. “Like punching your boss?”

  “Like Penny.” He spits out the words like pellets from a gun, then turns on his heel to go.

  “But why?”

  He disappears without answering her.

  Forty

  Maggie takes a late-afternoon shower to wash the day and dust off before dinner. When she gets out, she dries off, then uses the towel to turban her hair. She pads dripping into the bedroom. Hank is on the bed with his hat over his face. She removes the hat and kisses his cheek.

  He opens his e
yes, and his dimples are like the Grand Canyon. “Hello, beautiful.” He reaches for her.

  She wags a finger at him. “Time for me to dress for dinner. How was Paco’s family?”

  He sits, his long legs swinging over the side of the bed and his boots hitting the floor. “Sad. Nice. We took them to eat. Then they got on the road.”

  “Such a sad journey for them.” Her dream image flashes back through her mind. She hopes his spirit went with them, if that’s what it was.

  “You sure you’re in a hurry?”

  She shimmies into panties. “I’m sure. I skipped lunch. But I’ll take a rain check tonight.” She doesn’t tell him that she’s still too depressed about the contractor estimates and insurance claim news to get her sexy on now. Somehow she doesn’t think her bad news will be as bad to him as it is to her.

  “Probably for the best. My head is killing me. I’m going to take some stuff.”

  “Did you do your shot?”

  He mouths a pill in the doorway, talking around it, glass in hand. “Yethterday.” He swallows the pill. “Don’t be pushy, woman.” But he smiles.

  Her phone rings.

  He swallows his gulp of water. “Aren’t you going to get it?”

  She picks up her phone and groans. “It’s Amos, that reporter from Denver. He showed up here today uninvited. But get this: Amos is a pseudonym. It’s Aaron Cryor.”

  “That asshole DJ you got fired?”

  “None other.”

  “Give me that.” He takes the phone from her and answers. “This is Hank Sibley. Listen, asswipe, leave my girl alone.”

  “That won’t make it better.” Maggie holds her hand out for her phone.

  “And don’t come on my property again without an invitation. That’s a shooting offense up here.”

  “Give me the phone, Hank.”

  He slaps it into her palm. “I feel better.”

  She shoots him a look. “Aaron, don’t bother me anymore.”

  “Amos. I texted you the link to today’s article.”

  “Super.” He must have written it in real time as he did the interview.

  “Take a look. I’ll hold.”

  “That’s okay.”