Dani took a long look at Jake’s crotch before she stared into his eyes and answered, “Really, what other gifts do you have?”
“You see, that right there.” Jake pointed his finger at her, adding, “You might be trying to hide it, but something tells me you’re not shy.”
“Get in the truck, cowboy.” Dani slammed the door shut.
“Yes, ma’am.” Jake walked around the front of the truck as Dani reached across the seat to unlock his door but, just before he pulled on the handle to open it, he looked back at the four men they had just walked past. He opened his door slightly and said, “I’ll be right back. This won’t take a minute.”
“Where are you going?” asked Dani.
“Stay right here.” Jake turned back toward the black Ford truck.
At first, Dani was alarmed because she thought Jake was going to go start a fight with one of the men who whistled at her but, as she watched, Jake did nothing more than have a short conversation with them before shaking each of their hands. Two minutes later, he was in the driver’s seat, inserting his key into the ignition.
“You know those fellows?” asked Dani.
“Thought I knew one of them…that big guy.” Jake started the engine and put the truck in reverse. He put his right arm across the bench seat, looked out the back window and backed out of the space as he added, “Thought it could’ve been a friend from back home in Oklahoma, but I was wrong. Looked like him, though.”
“That’s odd.” Dani set her purse on the seat beside her. “Why didn’t you stop and ask when we passed them the first time?”
Jake pulled the gear lever into drive and started for the parking lot exit. He looked at Dani and smiled, “Well, darlin’, you got me.”
“What do you mean, I got you?” asked Dani.
Jake grinned. “Well, if you must know, when we walked past those fellows, I wasn’t much paying attention to them.”
“Because?” asked Dani.
“Because,” Jake said, “I was having a hard time getting my eyes off those jeans you’re wearing.”
“Good answer. Something tells me you’re not the shy type, either.” Dani smiled, moving her purse out of the way so she could slide across the seat to press up next to him. She reached down with her right hand and started rubbing the growing bulge between his legs as she whispered in his ear, “But I’m not interested in little things.”
Jake put his right arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Dani Harrison, looks like you’re in luck.”
Dani sat up straight and stopped rubbing Jake’s pants to ask, “You got any beer in your room, or do we need to stop and get some?”
“I got some.” Jake squirmed in the seat to let her know she could continue. He added with a laugh, “We wouldn’t be able to stop anyway. I wouldn’t be able to stand up straight.”
“Well, we need to get where we’re going, then,” said Dani with a smile. She resumed her rubbing. “Mmmmm. By the looks of it, you need to hurry.”
Jake ran six red lights over the course of thirteen blocks, all while weaving in and out of traffic as he barreled down Fourth Street at eighty-five miles per hour.
* * *
“Jesus, my head hurts.” Jake blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness in the room. He took a glance at the alarm clock on the night stand, only to find it gone. The lamp, too. He rolled over to look at the other side of the bed and found it empty. He was alone.
“Damn, sweetheart, where’d you go?” he muttered. Rubbing the top of his head, he stretched from head to toe, then sat up on the edge of the bed to look around.
His room looked like a war zone. The sheets and bedspread were scattered around, the mattress he sat on was cockeyed and only halfway on the box spring, empty beer bottles were strewn about the carpet, both bar stools were haphazardly laying on their side, each lamp was knocked off the night stands, one smashed, and the phone was lying next to the far wall underneath an indention in the sheetrock that made clear the phone was traveling at a high rate of speed when it made contact. Jake seemed to remember throwing it.
He rose to his feet and made his first order of business a trip to the restroom. He found the alarm clock in the toilet.
“Damn,” he grumbled, “how the hell did that get in there?”
He pulled it out by the cord and dropped it on the floor before he urinated for what seemed like five minutes. Afterward, he moved to the sink to look at his reflection in the mirror.
“Damn, Jake…no wonder you feel like shit. You look like you lost a fight with a tractor.” He rinsed his face with cold water and wiped it off with a dry towel before walking back into the room.
A razor blade sat on the small kitchen counter top surrounded by an empty bottle of Cuervo, empty beer bottles, a rolled-up hundred dollar bill, and a couple of untouched lines of cocaine.
“Praise Jesus…help is on the way.” Jake reached for the bill and snorted one of the lines. He briskly rubbed his nose and breathed in a few times before he put the bill down and gazed around. Noticing a folded piece of stationary taped to the door, he walked over, took it down, and opened it up. He read the note aloud,
Jake,
Sorry I couldn’t say goodbye.
I had to get going.
Dani
“Son of a bitch.” Jake wadded up the note and tossed it on the floor. He picked up the phone and walked over to set it back on the night stand. “Who the hell is that girl?”
Still naked, he sat on the bed and plugged the phone into the wall plug. The red message light started flashing, followed by a loud ring. Jake picked up the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Mister O’Brien, this is the front desk. We’ve been trying to reach you.”
“What’s up?” Jake leaned forward and slowly scratched the back of his head. “Did I make too much noise last night?”
“No, sir…far as I know, anyway. It’s about your friend, Mister Butler,” said the voice in the handset. “He’s in intensive care at the Yuma Regional Medical Center. Evidently, he was in a fight.”
Jake, suddenly alert, sat up straight. “How is he? You know what kind of shape he’s in?”
“They didn’t say, sir,” the desk clerk replied. “Just asked us to get the message to you.”
“All right. What time is it?” Jake got to his feet.
“10:37, sir.”
“Thanks.” Jake hung up and headed for the bathroom. Thirty-five minutes later, he was showered and shaved as he walked up to the desk guarding the intensive care unit. He tipped his hat to the nurse behind the counter and asked, “Ma’am, can you point me in the direction of Willie Butler?”
The middle-aged nurse looked up from her paperwork. “Are you family?”
“We’re not blood,” answered Jake with a smile.
“Then I’m afraid…” the nurse started to say.
“Look, ma’am,” pleaded Jake with as much charm as he could muster, “Last year, me and him rodeoed from one end of this country to the other. We put over seventy-thousand miles on my truck together. We’re about half that so far this year. I’m the only family that guy’s got right now. Please, I need to see him. I’ll only stay a bit.”
The nurse paused to think it over, then looked down the hall and pointed as she replied, “Room 6, halfway down on the right.”
Jake tipped his hat again. “Thank you very much.” He made his way down the hallway and arrived at Room 6, where he softly knocked twice before stepping in. Jake expected Willie to be in bad shape; he was in ICU, but he had to hide his true reaction when he laid eyes on his partner for the first time.
Willie’s whole face was black and blue and one eye was swollen shut. A gauze bandage wrapped around his head and there was a jagged cut across his cheek closed with eight or nine stitches. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with his legs, but his torso was propped up by the adjustable bed because his right arm and chest were covered with an entire upper body cast. His arm hung from a metal wire attached to
a portable stand on the side of the bed. The swollen fingers sticking out of the end of the cast looked as black and blue as his face.
“Jesus, Willie.” Jake took his hat off and walked to the side of the bed. “What the hell happened to you?”
Willie rolled his head over on the pillow so he could look at Jake. “The motherfuckers got me. That’s what happened.”
Jake pulled the only chair in the room to the side of the bed and sat down. “Who?”
“Don’t know…never seen ’em before.” Willie groaned. “I was having a good old time with Stephanie; we were dancing, drinking, laughing, minding our own business.” He coughed once, then paused to let the pain subside before he added slowly, “Damn, I forgot how bad broken ribs can hurt. Anyway, we were walking out…I guess it was about eleven, just before closing time. Next thing I know, I got three big dumbass rednecks in my face. I guess they didn’t like it much that I was leaving with Stephanie.”
“I can see you didn’t try to buy them a drink.” Jake shook his head.
“No, I didn’t,” answered Willie, attempting a laugh and wincing. “Don’t make me laugh, Jake. Please, it hurts too much right now.”
“Sorry.” Jake looked down, both hands fiddling with his hat. He hesitated before looking back at Willie. “So you finally got into a fight you didn’t win. What started it?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t,” said Willie. “But I had a pretty little girl on my arm and just enough to drink to feel like Superman, so soon as one of those boys called me a faggot and another called Stephanie a cheap whore, I went into whip-ass mode.” He smiled as he recalled a part of the fight. “I had all them on the ground pretty quick, too…and I think they were just about to get chicken shit and run, but somebody must’ve snuck up behind me and hit me with something. Must’ve kept hitting me with it by the looks of my shoulder. Anyways, I can’t remember shit after that; everything else is a blur. I vaguely remember Stephanie bringing me here.”
Willie lifted his head up from his pillow slightly to look down at his body. “And now look at me; I’m all busted up. I should’ve walked away. I should’ve listened to you, Jake.”
Jake rubbed his forehead. “Damn, Willie, what did the doctors say?”
Willie closed his eyes as a tear rolled down his cheek. “My shoulder’s busted up bad. They say I’ll never rope again.” He paused to regain his composure before looking back at Jake. “There’s these things in there called a humeral something, a tubercle thingamajig and a glenoid cavity. I think that’s what it’s called. Anyways, they’re all smashed up and I got screws and pins all over the place. They say it’s going to be months before I get out of this cast…and maybe a couple years more before my arm is back to normal. They told me arthritis will set in for sure when I’m older, too.”
“Yeah, but what do those asshole doctors know?” Jake frowned, then paused a bit to let the news sink in. “Damn, that’s all bad shit. Is there any good news?”
Willie sighed before he said, “I ain’t going to go out this way. I’m going to prove those sawbones wrong. I’m going to prove everybody wrong.”
“I believe you, Willie…I do,” Jake said. “Damn, I shouldn’t have left you there. I’m sorry.”
“Hell, it ain’t your fault,” said Willie. “You tried to warn me…and you’re right, I should’ve bought those assholes a drink. Besides, I wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving you there if Stephanie had dragged me out of there like her sister did you.” Willie winked with his one open eye. “So how’d it go last night?”
Jake shook his head and leaned back in the chair. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to pay for some damages to the room. From the looks of things, I don’t know if we were fighting or fucking.”
Willie couldn’t help busting into a belly laugh. He grimaced as his broken ribs shrieked in pain, then breathed in and out quickly until the agony subsided. “Damn, Jake,” he said, catching his breath, “I asked you not to do that.”
“Sorry.” Jake leaned over in his chair and asked, “What happened to the guys that did this?”
“Nothing, probably,” answered Willie. “Cops came in here this morning asking questions but, once they found out I was a rodeo cowboy and was from out of town, they lit out pretty quick. I figured it must’ve been time for a new batch of crullers to come out of the fryer over at the donut shop.”
“Maybe so,” Jake said with a chuckle. “What about Stephanie? Have you heard from her?”
“She left a note.” Willie shook his head. “Said she had a great time and was sorry to see things end the way they did. The nurse told me she waited around a while to make sure I was going to be okay, but lit out this morning early.” He winked at Jake again and smiled, “The good news is she left me her number. Asked me to look her up whenever I go through Childress. I think that’s going to be one of the first things I do after I get out of here.”
“How long will you be stuck in this dump?” asked Jake
“They say a couple weeks,” answered Willie.
“Well, tell you what I’ll do.” Jake thought for a moment. “I’ll pack your things up at the hotel and get them over here. And I’ll find someone who’ll take Buck, your tack, and all your other shit back to your folks in Empire City.” He rubbed his chin as he finished, “That way, you don’t have to worry about anything when you get out of here. All you’ll have to do is hop on a bus to get back home…or maybe call your folks to come out here and fetch you.”
“Damn, Jake,” said Willie, “you know my daddy’s truck barely makes it to the goddamned liquor store in town. It’ll never make it halfway across the country.”
“Yeah, sorry. I guess that’s right,” Jake agreed. “Tell you what, then,” he added as he put his hat back on and stood. “I’m gonna call on this here body shop you’re stuck in on a regular basis and, you know, make sure you’re all right. And, if you’re having a hard time finding a way back home, I’ll see what I can do to change my schedule around and take you back myself.”
Willie held out his left hand as he answered, “I don’t know which would be worse, riding back to Oklahoma in a body cast pretending to be fascinated while my momma shows me pictures of my sister’s bratty ass kids all the way, or going with you listening about all the money, glory, and women you won over the last few weeks.”
Jake took Willie’s outstretched hand and shook it gently. “If I was you, I’d take the ride home with your momma.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Willie’s smile wavered a bit. “But, hey, I was only kidding. Hell, by the time I get out of this fun house, I’ll be needing some rodeo stories.” He gripped Jake’s hand firmly and added, “Likely as not, you’re going to be too busy to come back here just to take my busted-up ass home but, if you can, I’d appreciate it if you’d throw a cow chip on the front seat between us. By the time I get out of here, the whiff of a good fresh cow turd will probably do me a lot of good.”
They both chuckled before Willie finished, “You notice how it’s the same in every hospital you ever been in? All the goddamned ammonia they perfume these buildings with smells clean and fresh on one hand, but stinks like death and dying on the other. Isn’t that something?”
“You’re right,” answered Jake. “I never thought about it like that, but it does.” He laid Willie’s hand on the cast covering his chest, adding, “Look here, Willie, I got a rodeo to get to. We’ll talk soon.”
“I hope so.” A tear rolled down Willie’s cheek, “But you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be all right one way or another. What you need to do is get back out there on that horse of yours and kick some ass. And don’t ever give those other boys a chance to see what it feels like to be the lead dog.”
Jake stepped over to the door and paused before he opened it. He looked back over his shoulder. “I won’t. I’m going to win this one for you, Willie. I promise.”
“You’re a great friend. I’ll see you later.” Willie smiled just before Jake turned to step
out and added a final goodbye. “Remember to keep your eyes on Earl Campbell. That son of a bitch is gonna be the best fucking running back ever…mark my words.”
“Sure thing.” Jake nodded and stepped out into the hallway.
* * *
Jake walked out the front door of the Yuma Regional Medical Center and made his way to his truck. He reached into the bed and pulled out two large suitcases. Back at the front desk of the intensive care unit, he was pleased to see a younger, prettier nurse talking on the phone.
He gave her his most charming smile when she looked up at him. “Hello. I was wondering if you could help me.”
“I’ll try.” The girl ended her call, putting down the handset. She put her elbows on the counter and folded her hands together under her chin. “What can I do for you?”
Jake saw she wore no wedding ring before he set the suitcases on the floor. He took his hat off. “My name is Jake O’Brien…”
“The rodeo cowboy?” asked the nurse with a gleam in her eye.
Jake shrugged and smiled. “Yes, ma’am. That’s me. I have a bit of a problem I was hoping you could help me with. You see, my friend, Willie Butler…he’s in Room 6.”
“I heard,” said the nurse sadly. “But I promise you he’s in good hands and we will do everything we can to get him well again.”
“I know, I know.” Jake glanced down at the suitcases on the floor before looking back at the nurse. “But I was wondering if you could give him his things later this evening, if possible. Maybe even tell him I stopped by to see him, but he was asleep…so I left.”
“Why?” asked the nurse. “Why not give them to him now?”
“Well, I was going to,” said Jake. He shook his head and put his hand over his mouth as if he was going to get emotional before adding, “I think I’ll be okay tomorrow, but…it’s just that it was really hard to see him like that.”
“Oh, you poor thing.” The nurse stood and walked around the counter to put her hand on Jake’s shoulder. “I understand; I do. I’ll be running the front desk until six tonight. I’ll take them to him an hour or so before I get off. Is that all right?”
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