“How was your afternoon with Jory?” Peggy asked her between bites of cherry pie, by way of rescuing Neal.
“Fine,” she answered.
Peggy picked up on it. For her exuberant daughter, “fine” was a barely positive description.
“Why? What’s wrong?” Peggy asked.
“I don’t know. He’s been a little quiet lately.”
“Jory Hansen’s never been exactly a chatterbox,” Peggy said.
Shelly hesitated. “He seems angry,” she said.
“Honey, I think he’s been a little angry since his mother died,” Peggy answered.
Peggy knew how he felt. She was angry too. Barb Hansen had been one of her closest friends. They had raised their babies together, helped each other through all of the childhood illnesses and injuries, sipped on a little wine together when the men were up in the hills cutting timber or hunting. They had spent long summer afternoons down at the creek, watching their kids splash around in the water and trading notes on marriage, business, cooking, ranching, and just plain stuff. She missed Barb Hansen too.
And Jory-short for Jordan-was such a sensitive kid. Much more like his mom than his dad. It was a hard loss for him.
“That’s three years, Mom.”
“I know.”
“He talks strange lately.”
“Strangely,” Peggy corrected, “and what do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Politics. How the country’s changing. He talks like a right-wing Republican or something.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked that boy,” Steve observed.
“He just seems angry,” Shelly repeated. “It scares me a little.”
“Maybe you ought to go out with other boys,” Steve suggested, ducking his head closer to his pie to avoid his daughter’s sharp eye.
“What other boys? Jory’s the only one around here who thinks that there might be more to life than roping cows,” Shelly answered. “Besides, I love him.”
“There’s always that,” Steve answered and the conversation turned to the local economy, politics, and the usual topics that people discuss when they’re getting to know one another.
And then the conversation turned to Neal.
He pretty much made the cover story up as he went along, letting it out little by little, playing at being shy and embarrassed but always observing the number-one rule of a good cover: stay as close to the truth as you can.
So he told them he’d been in graduate school in New York, that he’d fallen in love with a woman who broke his heart, and how all of a sudden life didn’t make any sense anymore and he just needed to get away to think.
So by the time he was into the second piece of pie and the third cup of coffee he was telling them how he’d flown to the West Coast, hadn’t found what he was looking for there, and decided to buy a cheap car and work his way back east.
All of which was technically true in its parts and a complete lie in its whole. The essence of a good cover story.
After dinner they repaired into the living room. Shelly went upstairs to take a shower and go to bed early.
Neal sank into the sofa and took the glass of scotch that Steve handed him. It smelled a little like the smoke from the charcoal fires in the monastery kitchen. He took a sip and let it linger in his mouth a moment before he swallowed it. It felt like a blanket wrapping around him.
“You look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet,” Steve said to him.
Neal had no idea what he meant but nodded anyway. He took another swallow of the whiskey and drew the blanket a little tighter around himself.
Peggy came in from the kitchen. She had a drink in her hand and a serious look on her face. She sat down next to Neal on the sofa.
“Steve and I were thinking,” she said. “Steve could use a little help around the place. Winter will be here before we know it and we have a lot of hay to put up, that sort of thing. We’d probably need to hire someone anyway, and as long as you’re here…”
“We couldn’t pay much,” Steve said. “But you can have the spare bedroom here, and the food is great.”
And so is the location, Neal thought.
“How about if I lived in that cabin up on the spur?” he asked.
The Mills laughed.
“You don’t want to live out there,” Peggy said. “It’s filthy, for one thing. It’s cold, it’s isolated…”
Well, I’m not going to be here long enough for it to get cold, Mrs. Mills, and isolation is just what I need to conduct my little search for Harley and Cody McCall.
“Neal might want some privacy, Peggy,” said Steve.
“There’s not even any electricity. Just that old wood stove.”
“I’ll be fine,” Neal said. “And I’ll work for the rent on the place and a few supplies to get me started. I have a little money in the bank at home I can have sent out.”
“Are you sure?” Peggy asked.
“I think this is what I’ve been looking for,” Neal said.
Or it’s damn close, anyway.
4
The next morning Steve and Neal drove into town to get supplies.
They didn’t have to do a lot of walking around; the town had one store. It didn’t have a name-people just called it “the store.” Even Evelyn Phillips called it “the store,” and she had owned it for thirty years. She figured that if another store ever came to town, then she’d give her store a name, although Steve allowed that if that unlikely situation ever came to pass, people would probably still call Evelyn’s store “the store” and call the other store “the other store.”
Evelyn also owned the town’s one restaurant across the street. It even had a name: Wong’s. Wong’s had red paper lanterns, Chinese fans on the walls, and a big dragon textile inside the front door and it didn’t serve a smidgen of Chinese food. Hadn’t since Wong died back in 1968 and Wong’s wife and children eagerly moved back to San Francisco. Evelyn bought the restaurant and, at the prompting of grateful customers, changed the menu. Everyone had always liked the decor, though, so that stayed.
“Worst Chinese food in the West,” Evelyn told Neal.
“God awful,” Steve agreed.
She hadn’t gone in much for decorations in the store, though. People didn’t come in to browse, they came in to pick up things they needed. The men who came in just wanted to get their stuff and get back to work-or steal an hour at Brogan’s. The women had already memorized the inventory, so they spent their time in the store talking-exchanging news and gossip. Most of the places outside of town didn’t have telephones yet, so the store was the place for a catch-up with the neighbors.
With Steve’s advice, Neal picked out a couple of pairs of heavy jeans, three denim work shirts, a pair of work boots, and a hat. Steve had cajoled him into trying on a cowboy hat, but Neal looked so embarrassed-with good reason, Steve agreed-that they settled for an Allis-Chalmers ball cap. Then they picked out some canned goods, cooking stuff, frozen meat, and that sort of thing.
“Is this cash or on your tab, Steve?” Evelyn asked as they set the stuff down on the counter. She was a tall woman in her early sixties. She’d played trombone in an all-girl band in California back in the old days and then figured she wanted something a lot different. She never married, although the rumor was that she had regular alliances with a couple of the businessmen who traveled through periodically.
Steve looked over to Neal.
“Cash,” Neal said.
Evelyn didn’t flinch at the hundred-dollar bill he laid down.
“Speaking of tabs,” she said to Steve, “you haven’t seen Paul Wallace around, have you?”
Say what? Say who? Whom? Neal slowly put his change back in his wallet and examined his purchases. Which Paul Wallace is she talking about?
“Paul Wallace…” Steve said, testing the sound to see if it rang a bell.
“I believe he’s one of Hansen’s hands,” Evelyn said. “Came in here and ran a tab against his pay, and I haven’t seen him since. Been about three weeks. Hansen pays every two, doesn’t he?”