The “limo” as it turned out was a four-wheel drive Chevy Blazer with the license plate SPUD 6. Buck had left the engine running to make sure the inside remained warm for her, a gesture which was not lost on a city girl who knew anyone doing the same at Kennedy or LaGuardia would end up one car poorer for the effort.
Buck hoisted her suitcase through the open tailgate as Sandy settled herself on the front seat. It was quite a climb from ground level, and one of her high heels almost didn’t make it. Obviously she was not dressed appropriately for Billings weather. A gush of frigid air smacked her as Buck slammed the tailgate closed. A few seconds later he pulled himself up behind the wheel.
“Where’s all the cameras, ma’am?”
“What? Oh, you mean for when we film the interview. I’ll come back with those after we put the story together, after it’s approved. First I’ve got to learn what Mr. Hollins has to say.”
“Sorta like an audition, right?”
“Not far from it, I suppose.”
“Kinda gives ya a jump on the guy you’re puttin’ the story together on, don’t it?”
Buck pulled the Blazer out into the road that circled the airport. Sandy could see the snow piled high along the sides, pushed there by powerful plows.
“That’s the nature of the business, Buck,” Sandy said.
“Yeah, well, I been hear’n ’bout news media types slantin’ stories and rearrangin’ them to say what they want ’em to say. Can’t say I take a fancy to that.”
“Neither do I.”
“See, the way it is, ma’am, there’s lots of us work for Mr. Hollins hate to see him hurt. Know what I mean?”
“I think I do.”
They drove north on I-87, heading toward the outskirts of Roundup and Spud Hollins’s ranch. Buck’s frankness had Sandy wondering what kind of man it took to inspire such loyalty. She looked forward to meeting him all the more.
“That there’s the Musselshell River, ma’am,” Buck announced, thrusting a finger across her toward the right. “That’s where we get the water from for our ranch. Damn thing’s frozen solid by this time of year. Been a bad winter so far and winter ain’t even shot its biggest load yet. Could be the worst since sixty-two, when …”
Buck droned on for five more minutes until they came to the entrance of the Hollins ranch, a simple gate with one word burned in wood over it:
SPUD’S
“Here we are, ma’am,” Buck said, spinning the wheel. “Five thousand acres of the prettiest land you ever did see.”
Buck followed the winding road for what might have been a mile over snow that seemed more packed down than plowed. It didn’t seem to faze him. And he was right about the land; it was postcard perfect, especially with the snow-covered mountains standing watch over it all beneath the crystal blue sky.
Finally the Blazer reached the semi-circular driveway that fronted the two-story mansion built of dark-stained natural wood, its roof covered with a coat of snow. Buck hurried around the Blazer to help Sandy down and then set about collecting her tote bag and suitcase. The heavy double doors at the front of the house opened as she approached them, and a striking middle-aged man stood smiling before her with his hand outstretched.
“Spud Hollins, Miss Lister. Pleasure to meet ya.”
Sandy said that the pleasure was all hers and she meant it. Her research put Hollins’s age at fifty-nine, but he looked a good dozen years younger. His straight, silvery hair, showing no sign of thinning, hung over his ears and forehead. He wore faded jeans, a denim shirt open at the collar to reveal a bandanna, and scuffed cowboy boots. His flesh was wizened and creased, coppery from the mountain air and the winter sun. Hollins’s deep eyes, the same color as the Montana sky, watched Buck tote her bags inside.
“She accepted your invitation, Spud,” he said.
“Ain’t that nice,” said Hollins, and Sandy smiled tightly, not recalling that she had actually accepted at all.
Hollins closed the double doors. “Wanna talk first or get freshened up?”
“Talk,” Sandy said eagerly. “I’ve been traveling too long for freshening up to do any good.”
“A pretty lady like you don’t have much call for that anyway, I reckon. Let’s go in the den. Coffee?”
“Please.”
“Buck,” Spud said, “have the kitchen mix us up a couple cups.”
Then the two of them moved down a short hallway into a large room with a fire crackling in a central hearth.
“Wow,” was all Sandy could say.
“Yup, it’s my favorite room too.”
“It’s beautiful,” she added lamely, enchanted by the natural wooden decor and the view provided by the large expanse of glass on one wall.
Hollins’s gaze grew distant. “Sometimes, well, I just sit here and wonder what took me so long to get out of the real world and into this one. I guess it was just stuck in me like a drug. I wanted to get out, but I didn’t have the guts to do it. Guess I owe Randy Krayman a debt more than anythin’.”
Sandy’s eyes danced at that. Interviews came much easier when the subject broached the issue at hand first. Sandy now determined she would not use tape and take no notes while they spoke, intent on doing nothing that might disrupt the natural flow of Spud Hollins’s thoughts. She found herself captivated, enthralled by this man. He was like one of those politicians you can’t take your eyes off when they come into town. Perhaps he had missed his true calling. No, more likely Spud Hollins was just a man who could stand tall because he had escaped the constant pressures that weigh on so many in the business world. He looked like a character out of a Ralph Lauren aftershave commercial. In fact, he looked like a crusty, country version of Ralph himself.
“Let’s sit on the couch, Miss Lister,” he offered, and as they did, Sandy noted a mantel lined with pictures of his various children and grandchildren. His wife, she knew, had died some years before, when the Krayman battle was reaching its head.
“I think maybe I’m doing a story on the wrong man, Mr. Hollins.”
Hollins laughed. “Call me Spud. I left all that kind of stuff behind me ’long with my seat on the stock exchange. Your ass, if you’ll excuse my word choice, takes on a funny shape when you sit in business too long. Nope, Krayman’s a much better choice for a story than me. He probably ain’t got much of an ass left by now.”
A maid entered and put two steaming cups of coffee along with generous helpings of cream and sugar on the table in front of the couch.
“Not many people are willing to talk about him on the record, Spud,” she said, adding two spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of cream.
“Can’t say I blame them, Sandy. People are scared of old Randy Krayman because he’s been known to chew a few up over the years.”
“Like you?”
Hollins smiled but didn’t laugh. “Well, most of the chewin’ in my case was done by me. Krayman added a couple bites here and there.”
Sandy sipped her coffee. It burned her tongue but tasted wonderful.
“Bites is an interesting choice of words, Spud, considering it was over the computer kind that the two of you went to war.”
“Business ain’t war, Sandy. In war you take prisoners. In business you take shit. I got out ’cause I didn’t have the stomach for the shit anymore.”
“And you sold out to Krayman.”
“If I had kept fighting him, I would have been selling out period. Like I said before, old Randy did me a favor. Made me a damn good offer. Had good reason to also.” Hollins crossed his legs and reached for his coffee. “How much do you know about what went on between us back then?”
Sandy wished she had her notes to consult. “Most of it concerned an ultra-density memory chip. Your company got one into production first, then COM-U-TECH developed a better one and undercut the price by two thirds.”