by Linda Mackay
The rich aroma of a cigar hit me. “It’s safe to come out.”
“That’s debatable.” I said to Mac.
“Wind’s non-existent so it’s pretty nice out here.”
“You’re becoming acclimatized when you enjoy sitting outside in thirty degree temperatures,” I said.
“The cigar helps,” Mac said. “Would you like one?”
“I love the smell, but can only smoke a couple puffs and then I’m done.”
Mac handed me his cigar. “Enjoy. Liz brought some good ones from DC.”
“You know, I can see her sitting around a fireplace with a bunch of guys smoking.”
“Don’t tell her that. She hates smoking. But she has excellent contacts.”
“It does taste wonderful.” I handed back the cigar. “I’ve never seen you smoke before.”
“I rarely do. I’m a one or two cigars a year smoker and that’s it.”
“You’ll live longer that way,” I said.
“I’ll live longer because I retired.”
“You admit to be being a spy?”
“No. I was never a covert field agent. My job was languages and translations. Agents like Liz do the hard work.”
I wasn’t convinced. “Then why were you in Iraq?”
“Because I could communicate with locals and read the language. I was like the translator for a group of Americans on a bus tour in a foreign country.”
“More likely, a tour of duty.”
“Do you think your mother was a spy?” Mac asked.”
“Of course, not.”
“So why won’t you believe I wasn’t a spy?”
“Liz said you were.”
Mac took a final puff on the cigar, carefully ground it out and smiled. “She did, didn’t she?”
“What did I say?” Liz was bundled up like a polar bear.
“You said Mac was a spy,” I said.
“I did, didn’t I?”
Standing up, I twisted my boot on the last of Mac’s cigar.
“Hey, that was a $200 cigar and I was saving the last third for tomorrow night.”
“Bill me!” No wonder it tasted so good.
“I will, sugar.”
I closed the door and hung my coat on the rack. My hand automatically went to my head to remove my hat, but it had been eaten by Yellowstone Lake.
“What climbed up your panties?” Todd asked.
“I miss my hat.”
“I’ll loan you one,” Todd said.
Ed stuck his head out of the kitchen, “I’ve got dozens you can pick from.”
I thought about his multi-colored hat. “Are they all like the one you were wearing today?”
“Most are crazier. I get tired of wearing ranger green and brown all the time.”
“Sounds good.” I could use a pick me up and a fun hat was a good start.
“Come on, let’s go look,” Ed said.
“I’m coming too,” Todd said.
“Me too. We’ll be your fashion consultants,” Amanda said.
The four of us walked out the front door and without checking my surroundings I stepped off the porch. The bison grunted and shook his head. I backed up the steps slowly, and discovered everyone else had run inside. The bison walked in front of the cabin, his head turned just enough to keep his eyes on me. A hand reached out the cabin door and pulled me inside.
“Nice going, slick,” Ed said.
Todd bent over and held his stomach. “I think I’m gonna need to poop.”
“Okay, little boy, you go poop while the adults walk to Ed’s and pick out a hat for Jorie,” Amanda taunted.
“If it’s okay with you, this adult prefers to drive his truck home,” Ed said.
“Give me a minute, I don’t think its ready,” Todd stood up. “Nope, here it comes.”
While Todd ran to the bathroom, the rest of us gathered outside the door and cheered him on. I was happy to see the attention turned on him, and not my colossal mistake.
“Go away, it won’t come out with all of you listening at the door.”
“Do you need something to help?” Liz asked.
“We could invite the bison in, bet that would do it,” Ed said.
Amanda stuck her fingers under the door and tapped the floor. “Look, it’s little pixies dressed up like fingers for Halloween.”
“Here’s some reading material.” Liz shoved an old People magazine under the door.
“On my god!” Todd said. “Jen and Brad got a divorce.”
“I’m devastated too. I’m going to need to sit down and contemplate this tragedy,” Mac said.
“Don’t plan on sitting in here, buddy.” Todd yelled through the door.
Mac shook his head. “You all go ahead. I’ll wait on the pooping machine.”
Chapter 22
There’s a reason all government agents wear nondescript clothing,” Liz pointed to herself and the other two feds.
“I’m not an agent, so tough marshmallows.” I hated sounding like Howdy Doody instead of Tour of Duty.
“The designer for the feds has no style,” Amanda smoothed Ed’s pants leg. “Even a few nondescript stripes here would improve the ensemble.”
Todd stepped up to help. “Padding in the shoulders would go a long way to making you look more Mafioso and less underpaid security cop.”
Mac came in the door carrying firewood from the stack on the front porch. “She may not look like a fed, but I think Jorie’s hat is perfect for her.”
I’d chosen to borrow Ed’s wool ski hat with the Donald Duck head. It was probably wise not to overthink why Mac thought it was perfect for me. Instead, I stirred the fire to generate more heat.
Liz strapped on her shoulder holster, checked her firearm didn’t have one in the chamber, and then secured the pistol in the holster. “Ed, guard the rock people and Bernie. Mac and I are going to recon our perimeter.”
“In this storm, footprints are your best friend and your worst enemy,” Ed said.
“Thanks for the use of your winter camo coat,” Mac said.
“Don’t get any blood on it.”
“I’ll try not to, buddy.”
“Go!” Todd pushed them out the door. “You don’t stand around with the door open in winter. Freaking tourists.”
Amanda looked out the window. “Hard to tell if it’s snowing hard, or if it’s wind driven snow.”
“Either way, we’re stuck inside. Who’s up for a game of Chicken Foot dominos?” Todd asked.
“We playing for money?” Ed asked.
“We play for M&Ms, otherwise I’ll be broke by lunch.” Amanda said pulling up an extra chair at the small table.
Todd laid out the dominos. “Pay off your points after each round. If you run out of M&Ms, you can buy back in from the bag of pretzels. Under no circumstances do we allow you to play with Jorie’s favorite cheap-out: dry pinto beans.”
Ed picked out his dominos laughing. “She must lose a lot.”
“Mostly she hates sharing her M&Ms,” Todd said.
“True.” I lined up my dominos so no one could see the dots.
Todd and Amanda were setting up dominos for an extra player. Ed and I looked at each across the table. “Please tell me they aren’t dealing in Bernie,” Ed said.
“Okay, they’re not dealing in Bernie.”
“Liar.” Ed reached into the giant bag of M&Ms and placed a handful in front of Bernie’s dominos. “Now I understand why you asked me to include two large bags of M&Ms on Stu’s grocery list.”
“Be sure to keep an eye on Bernie’s stack of candy, those two are known cheaters,” I said.
“That rat, Bernie has to be holding most of the doubles,” Todd said.
“He’s obviously cheating,” Amanda complained.
“Sure does take out some of the fun if there aren’t doubles to create and satisfy a chicken foot,” Ed said.
“What are they doing?” Liz asked walking in the front door.
The domino players a
ll turned to her. “Close the door!”
Mac shut it. “Cranky bunch.”
Liz looked at the table. “You’re playing dominos with a dead guy?”
“Not really; poor fellow is still in the bag where you left him creeping us all out,” Ed said. “We respectfully dealt him in and changed the rules a little to say his dominos can’t be drawn until the very end.”
Liz looked at Bernie’s dominos. “You are all screwed.”
“I knew it!” Todd said.
Mac took some of Bernie’s M&Ms. “Looks like I’m not the first to pilfer his pile.”
“Don’t tell on me,” Todd said. “I was getting hungry.”
“I could go for lunch, tromping around in that storm burned a lot of calories,” Liz said.
“Give us five to finish this hand, and I’ll fix lunch.” Todd played a seven/nine domino.
Mac took a deep breath. “Whatever it is, it smells good.”
“Chile,” Amanda said.
“Can’t wait.” Mac looked over my shoulder at my remaining domino. “You should throw in the towel.”
Ed looked at Mac and played his twelve/three.
I played my three/nine and went out. Mac and I high-fived.
“I see how this works. Next time you won’t be so lucky Dr. Clark,” Ed said.
The cabin creaked and rocked in the fierce winds. Snow built up on the windows, making it impossible to see out. Normally, our snow contains little water content. However with temperatures hovering between 30 and 32, the early-season, heavy, wet snow clung to everything it touched like it had been painted on with the thick palette of a Van Gogh. Grateful we weren’t riding this out in tents, the group had settled in for a quiet afternoon.
Ed returned to his house to do paperwork. Mac was lounging on the couch reading a book on the history of bison in the west, and in charge of keeping the fire going. Todd and Amanda started out playing cards on Todd’s bunk. When I last looked, both had fallen over with exhaustion and were napping, curled up on the bed like puppies.
Liz and I escaped to our room. I looked across at Liz who was staring at the ceiling in what appeared to be a meditative state. Without the stress of her job weighing on her, she looked twenty years younger. Her body was muscled, and her stomach flatter than most twenty year olds. Her face showed no wrinkles, not even around the delicate skin of her eyes. I set aside the academic paper I was reading about the locations of the magma and hydrothermal chambers in Yellowstone, and really looked at Liz. How old was she? And how did she manage to look dangerous and one step from committing murder, and then turn if off and become gracious and refined?
“Stop staring. It’s bad manners.” Liz spoke with quiet authority.
“How do you do it?”
She slowly turned towards me and smiled. “Do what?”
“You don’t look any older than me.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
She had me there. Was she was younger than I presumed? “How old are you?”
“How old are you?” Liz asked.
“You’re playing the same questions game Mac plays,” I said.
“Mac likes playing with you.”
I looked at Liz, whose ingénue smile left me questioning everything I’d previously assumed. Amanda told me, Liz and Frank were an item. Mac talked about how long she’d fought for a career in a male-dominated organization. Todd teased her about being old, but he also called me old. Did she color her hair white blonde to disguise her age, or was she simply a woman whose hair turned early and she chose not to color it? No one had actually said how old she was. And if she wasn’t old could she and Mac have been more than friends?
Liz snapped her fingers. “What people see is what they want to see.”
“I don’t know what I see anymore.”
“Never stop believing in what you see. But learn to accept that what you see is not necessarily the truth, just your story.”
“There are a lot of people preaching that your truth is fact,” I said.
Liz shook her head. “A young woman goes to a club with friends for a night of drinking, dancing, and hopes to hook-up with someone. At 1 a.m. she tells friends she’s going home with a hot guy she’s been dancing with. They go to his apartment and have a sexual encounter. Then his roommate comes home; they have another drink and a threesome. The young woman tells them it was the best night of her life. The next morning she wakes up in bed with them, quickly dresses and leaves. Later she meets a friend for lunch and tells her how she was raped over and over in the worst night of her life.”
“Are you insinuating she was drunk and therefore coerced?”
“Is that the story you heard? Let’s add, the guy’s roommate was a girl. Does that change the truth again?” Liz asked. “Not sure? Well, here’s more information. That evening two police officers come to her house and arrest her. Seems her credit card fell out of her pants pocket and was found on the floor along with one dead body.”
“What happened to the other person?” I asked.
“Are you sure there was another person, or was that just part of her truth?”
“Maybe she was drugged and passed out. The other two got in a fight, one was killed and the other fled the scene.”
“Possible,” Liz said. “People’s truth is nothing more or less than their story. It may or may not have any validity to what actually happened. And it’s always clouded by their personal beliefs.”
“Is that why those stories told to harm someone twenty years after the so-called-event, are suspect?” I asked.
“That’s a whole other game of blame that I refuse to engage in,” Liz said. “In my line of work, after that much time passes, we find it’s often more about a personal revenge than truth.”
“Are you trying to school me that video and audio cameras are the only way to go?”
“Not at all.” Liz took a deep breath. “Let’s say a prosecutor shows you a video of someone committing a murder on one street camera and deems that factual. However the defense attorney shows you a video on another camera from around the corner and you now see the accused murderer, raped and beaten at gunpoint. She manages to grab the assailant’s gun, takes several steps backwards, which now puts her on the prosecutor’s camera, and pulls the trigger. Now you have a different story.”
“This is why you’re fighting so hard to have numerous types of evidence,” I said.
“It’s why I fight for my country every day. And when that country betrays me, it pisses me off.”
“Do you think it will piss everyone off once they learn about the assassination?” I asked.
Liz shrugged her head no.
“Many won’t believe us.” I said.
“They wouldn’t believe us if we had a video of the new president standing over her predecessor stabbing him over and over yelling, die, die, I’m in charge now you fool,” Liz said. “And honestly, I’ve seen enough doctored videos to make me want to join Todd in the conspiracy theory seats.”
“Then why bother?”
“I used to ask myself that. Then, I accepted when we let those who believe only the stories that fit their needs or ideas win, the country becomes an open door policy for mental pygmies.” Liz closed her eyes and did several deep breathing exercises before her breathing quieted and I assumed she was asleep, or at least signaling me our conversation was over.
I snuggled into my sleeping bag and was almost asleep when I realized she never answered how old she was.
Chapter 23
You ever driven one of these?” Todd asked Mac who was climbing on the snow machine in the driver’s position.
“No, but it can’t be that difficult.”
“Outta my way, rookie, you’re riding shotgun.”
Mac got off the machine and helped Ed uncover the other snow machine. There wasn’t time to argue about who was driving and who was riding since it was late afternoon and we needed to check on the horses before dark. The storm had already dumped 18 inches of snow,
making car travel on the unplowed roads impossible. The hotel facilities manager loaned us his snow machine, which Todd would be driving. I would drive Ed’s machine, leaving him free to navigate. Some people think you hop on these, squeeze the throttle and go. Those people often end up dumped on their backsides. The tracks on snow machines are difficult to steer, and prone to sliding sideways when you brake. With the road blown in and unplowed the likelihood of getting stuck was also possible and required an experienced driver.
“Look at it this way, Mac, your talents are better utilized riding,” I said.
“Could be, but I’m not sure my life is safer.” Mac pointed at Todd who was standing on the runners, revving the engine and doing donuts.
I yelled over the noisy machine. “He’s one of the best ‘bilers on the ranch, so try not to embarrass yourself by falling off.”
“I thought he hated snow machines?” Mac asked.
“Just because you hate something, doesn’t mean you can’t be good at it.” Todd yelled cutting another donut in the snow. “Besides, it’s the snow I hate, not the machine.”
Ed climbed on behind me, and we took off, trailing a cloud of snow that covered the others. I was pretty sure Todd was plotting revenge, but covering Mac in snow was worth it. The ride to the stable was not easy, with the wind coming off the lake creating a whiteout. I tried to steer the machine to the middle of the road, but seeing the road was difficult. Concentrating on where the road edge was I almost missed seeing the bison and her yearling calf covered in snow lying in the middle of the road. I hit the brakes, throwing Ed into my back and we both almost flew over the handles. Todd and Mac skidded to a stop beside us.
“What now?” Mac asked.
“We wait,” Ed brushed the snow off his pants. “Forcing her to move will piss her off and she’ll charge us.”
“That’s a battle we have zero percent chance of winning,” Todd said.
Ed got off the machine. “I’m going to take a stroll off the road and see where the ground and snow will cooperate to let us move around her.”
