I had never received a note from Vic that had less than two PSs. I continued to hold up the yellow legal sheet and noticed the little pinholes of light shining through everywhere she had made a period. I laid the sheet of paper down and looked at the phone again. The feather caught my attention, and I picked it up, turning it in my fingers as it had turned in my mind all day. I picked up the phone, but it just hovered in my hand, a foot away. I could hear the dial tone, so it was working. I gently sat it back on the cradle and looked out the windows; as I suspected, the clouds were starting to haze out the mountains. I hoped that whatever Vic had found with Omar this afternoon was safely tucked away or covered with a staked plastic drop cloth.
I picked up the phone again, dialed, and listened to it ring. On the fourth ring there was the mechanical fumbling of the answering machine, and I left the daily message I had been leaving since last week, “This is your father, I just want to know if you’ve escaped, or do we have to pay the ransom?” Nothing, so I hung up.
My attempts at reviving my mood were failing, so I went back to the refrigerator in the jail to retrieve my trout dinner, and there, proudly standing at the front of the top shelf among the potpies and Reynolds-wrapped fish, was a mountain fresh, twelve-ounce bottle of Rainier beer. There was a yellow Post-it stuck to the bottleneck with Ruby’s careful handwriting, “In honor of your getting in shape.” That Ruby.
I twisted off the top and tossed it into the trash can, headed back into my office, and sat back down. I took a swig of the beer and felt a lot better. I picked up the phone yet again, and then remembered I was going to have to look up her number. I finally found my battered phonebook in the bottom drawer of my desk and sat about working my way through the H s. Michael Hayes. I dialed, and she picked it up on the second ring. “Yes?”
The yes surprised me, but I got back on my feet quick. “Hey, I haven’t even asked you yet.”
The response was soft. “Hello, Walter.”
I could see her curled up on one of those leather couches by the fire with the phone pulled in close. It had been so long and I was so out of my depths, I was always feeling dizzy when I spoke with her. “I can take that yes as a blanket response?”
“Is a sheriff supposed to be making these kinds of phone calls?”
I sat the bottle down and began working on the label with my thumbnail. “Sheriff who?”
“I was thinking about inviting you over for dinner.” There was a pause. “How about tomorrow night?”
“Perfect. What can I bring?”
“How about a bottle of fine wine and your fine self.”
“I can do that. Tomorrow’s a court day, but then I’ll just be running around like a chicken with its head cut off, standard operating procedure.” She laughed, and it was warm and melodic. I should have pushed for tonight. She advised me to take care of my head till then and bid me farewell till light through yonder window break. It was hard to describe, but courting Vonnie seemed to elevate me onto another plane. Without trying to sound like some lovesick teenager, the world just seemed better, like the air I was breathing had a little something extra.
I finished off the beer, gathered up the feather and fish, and headed for the Bullet. I looked at the smear of clouds reflected by the moon. It looked cold on the mountain. We were in the fifth year of a drought cycle, and the ranchers would be glad of the moisture collecting up there. In the spring, the life-giving water would trickle down from the precipices, growing the grass, feeding the cows, making the hamburgers, and paying the sheriff’s wages. It was all in the natural order of things, or so the ranchers told me… and told me.
I fired the truck up and let her run, rolling up the windows and looking at my right eye in the rearview mirror. It was a handsome right eye, roguish yet debonair. The right ear was also evident, a handsome ear as ears go, well formed with a disattached lobe. A sideburn had a little gray, just enough for seasoning, and it blended well with the silver-belly hat. A damn fine figure of a man or a man’s eye and ear. I avoided the temptation of ruining the effect by readjusting the mirror for a fuller view.
I had a date. My first date in… since before I was married. Wine, I had to remember wine. The only place that would be open was the Sinclair station’s liquor annex. Somehow, I didn’t think they would have the vintage I was looking for. If I could catch Henry at the bar, he could supply me. I backed out and headed for the Wolf Valley.
When I got to the bar my mood deflated a little; the lights were all off, and there wasn’t a vehicle in sight. Henry often closed up if no one was around. I suppose he figured that nursing the drunks through the nights when they were there was one thing, but anticipating them was another. I swung around and headed back home. I thought about continuing on out to his place but figured I would just call him at the Pony tomorrow. I looked over at the lovely fish resting on the passenger-side floor mat and tried to think of how to cook them without messing them up. I relaxed a little when I caught a flash of reflected taillight as I pulled up the drive to my little cabin. I looked in at the powder blue Thunderbird convertible with its top down and at the pristine white interior as I gathered my assortment of things.
Henry’s father had bought the car new in Rapid City back in 1959, about three months before he was diagnosed with “the” cancer. That’s what they called it back then, “the” cancer, like “the” winter, or “the” Black Death. I leaned over the door and read the odometer: 33,432 miles. When the old man passed over, there had been a great deal of controversy in the family as to who would get the T-bird. Henry ended the debate by fishing the keys out of the old man’s last pair of pants that lay crumpled beside his deathbed. Henry started the Thunderbird, drove the old girl forty miles, and parked her in an undisclosed garage somewhere in Sheridan. None of them ever asked him about it again, ever. He called the car Lola.
“Hey, get away from that car.” The deep voice had come from the darkness, somewhere under the new porch roof. I walked up the slight grade to the front of my newly transformed log cabin. The porch ran the entire length of the house, and the smell of the freshly cut redwood was enchanting. The roof consisted of two-by-six tongue and groove; the green tin surrounded the edges and joined seamlessly with the already existing roof. It was a really good job, even I could see that. The rough-cut six-by-sixes gave the place a look of permanence, the look of a home. There were a couple of concrete blocks stacked on the ground at the center, which allowed access between the railings.
I stood beside the blocks and leaned against one of the upright timbers. “Damn.”
“Not bad, huh?” He sat by the front door and leaned against the wall with his legs crossed and stretched out in front of him. His worn moccasins translated the print of his feet through the moosehide. He reached down and plucked out a bottle of beer from the holder and tossed it to me; it almost slipped, but I caught it. “You were going to be able to have three, but then it got late. Now, you only get two.”
I opened the beer and took a sip. “They do good work.”
“They are going to be back tomorrow to finish the railings and put some steps in.”
“They know it’s going to snow tonight?”
He shrugged and straightened his shoulders against the log wall. “Not until after midnight.” I looked out at the convertible and hoped he was right.