‘Yeah, I remember ‘cos he was looking out for someone and then he suddenly stops when this dude goes up to his room.’
‘What kind of dude?’
‘White guy. About six foot, athletic. I only saw him from behind. Looked like a bull rider.’
‘And?’
Ellen thought. ‘Donny says, Okay so the pigeon has landed, or sumpin like that.’
‘Like he was waiting for the white guy to show?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ellen. ‘So he tells me he’s going up there in a few minutes but there’s still time for—’
‘Okay,’ said Gallen, getting the picture. ‘What then?’
‘About five minutes later, there’s this banging sound and Donny’s looking in the mirror and freaking, saying Shit and Fuck, and something like He doubled back, then he’s out of the car and running across the parking lot in his shorts.’
Gallen remembered the night well. ‘And then? ‘
‘There’s this talking and arguing behind us, and then Donny comes back, gets in the car and lets me keep the whisky and the smoke. Tells me the party’s over, see ya later.’
‘That was it?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ellen. ‘I was getting my shirt done up and this guy turns up beside the car, and Donny is outa there, snapping to attention.’
‘Like Donny’s boss, maybe?’
‘Just like that,’ said Ellen. ‘Except Donny was scared.’
‘Know the guy? This boss man?’
‘Well, I thought you all knew each other,’ said Ellen.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw you in the restaurant. I work in the kitchen.’
Gallen was confused. ‘So?’
‘I work the breakfast shift, Roly,’ she said, like it was elementary. ‘You had breakfast with the boss guy.’
CHAPTER 36
It was low cloud and not much above freezing when Gallen picked up the mail, dropped the red flag and drove up the drive, aiming at the big white sign that said Sweet Clover.
The muffled bark of a dog sounded from inside the farmhouse as Gallen eased himself onto the muddy turning area. A red Dodge Ram was parked alongside the farm labourers’ bunkhouse. The house door opened and a black retriever limped out, barking like Lauren Bacall.
‘That you on the TV?’ said Roy, stretching on the porch.
‘Not the dead one,’ said Gallen, patting Roy’s old dog as she sniffed his foot.
‘Coulda called.’
Gallen handed over the mail as he walked past. ‘Anyone been here?’
‘Like who?’ said Roy, shutting the door as he followed Gallen into the warm kitchen.
‘Like men wanting to check the gas or the power lines; someone who turns up, says you need your satellite dish adjusted?’
‘Just your girlfriend,’ said Roy, face flushed with last night’s whisky. ‘She’s riding that jumper.’
‘Yvonne?’
Roy smiled. ‘Like I said.’
The weak sun warmed his back as he watched Yvonne take Peaches over the low practice jumps in the arena. The front hooves were hitting the top rails and they weren’t yet the height she’d be jumping at the first competition in Douglas County.
Smirking as he heard her cussing, Gallen resisted the temptation to light a smoke and instead lowered himself to the sandy surface and walked to the second jump, tender on his leg.
‘What’s going on?’ she said, walking the horse to where Gallen stood at the jump. ‘This was working yesterday.’
‘Eye-line,’ said Gallen, replacing the rail and walking across the arena to the fourth jump.
‘Where am I looking?’ said Yvonne. ‘At the cute cowboy?’
She was joking, but Gallen didn’t get that immediately, and in the time he took to turn and squint into the sun at her face, he blushed.
‘Sorry, just kidding around,’ said Yvonne.
Gallen recovered but the moment was lost.
‘So,’ she said, ‘Kenny got a few days off?’
‘Kenny’s not working here no more,’ said Gallen.
‘Saw him at the supermarket last night,’ she said.
Gallen tried to act natural. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘He asked after you, Gerry,’ she said, dismounting. ‘Told me he had a new cell number, asked me to give it to you.’
‘Really?’
Yvonne reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulled out a piece of paper. ‘Yeah, he wrote it down.’
Gallen took the paper, still a bit flustered. ‘By eye-line, I meant you were lookin’ at the rail, not at the landing ground.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ she said. ‘I gotta work on that.’
Gallen flipped the stirrup over the saddle, undid the girth. ‘I didn’t know you were divorced.’
‘Well, I knew you were,’ said Yvonne, rubbing the horse’s nostrils.
Gallen went to talk but laughed instead.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Gallen shook his head as he lifted the saddle and its blanket off the animal’s back. ‘Women seem to know all this stuff.’
‘Maybe we listen better,’ said Yvonne.
‘Sorry, what was that?’ Gallen turned for the barn.
Giving him a slap on the bicep, Yvonne flicked the hair from her face, becoming serious. ‘It was hard, living in that house, waiting to settle on my new farm, and here’s my ex-husband just walking in and out like I’m still his, his…’
‘Property?’
Yvonne’s eyes widened. ‘Yes, just like that. After you left with Kenny I thought maybe I should have told you about the divorce, but…’
‘It’s okay,’ said Gallen, walking to the tack room in the barn.
‘So how did you find out?’ Yvonne said, following.
‘Girls’ talk,’ said Gallen, heaving the saddle on the saddle rack.
‘Who?’
‘Frank Holst.’
‘Hmm. Frank the Octopus, huh? Not much changes in Clearmont.’
‘’Fraid not,’ said Gallen, pointing at a hook where Yvonne could hang the reins.
‘Least of all the music.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The Muskrats are still playing, down Arvada.’
‘Didn’t they play—’ His mind wandered back to a yee-haw band that played their prom night almost twenty years ago.
‘That’s them. Remember Katy Shanahan kept harassing them to play “Achy Breaky Heart”, and when they finally did, she slipped over in that spilled punch and knocked herself out?’
‘Yeah,’ said Gallen. ‘And that good ol’ boy finished the song and says, And that, kids, is why I don’t play no Billy Ray Cyrus.’
‘That’s the one,’ she said, looking at her feet. ‘So, you wanna…?’
Gallen felt himself turning away from those brown eyes and clearing his throat. He wasn’t ready for dating.
‘Yeah, so I’m up tomorrow,’ said Yvonne, recovering fast. ‘You be here?’
‘I’ll be here,’ he said, annoyed he’d fudged the invite to the Muskrats.
Watching Yvonne peel out in her new red Dodge, Gallen leaned into the boot room and grabbed the keys to the truck.
The transmission behaved impeccably on the drive into Clearmont. The mechanics had used the reconditioned tranny that’d been on order for months and the whole job had come in at just under twelve hundred dollars, not a bad price for another hundred thousand miles of towing. Now all he had to worry about was the diesel, which had started losing power.
Pulling in to the dispatch compound at the rear of the post office, Gallen got out and walked towards the overweight man in the US Postal Service windbreaker who was tapping on a clipboard and talking to another man as a large van was loaded with mail bags.
‘You know that half of that bag is stamped day before yesterday?’ said the overweight man. ‘This is the US Postal Service, not a fricking river boat in Indonesia!’