Cowgirl Come Home (21 page)

OC had insisted Bailey accompany them. Something about needing help remembering his meds so he didn’t reach for a bottle of booze by mistake.

Paul was sure the man’s not-so-subtle blackmail didn’t fool anybody. OC wasn’t thrilled about being stuck in a little plane for God knows how long with the person he once threatened to hike to Coffin Lake at gunpoint so he could dump his body well away from Marietta.

Sure, OC had been drunk at the time, but seventeen-year-old Paul had slept with a hunting knife under his pillow for a week before his mother confiscated it.

Paul had always felt relaxed and at home in the air. Jen claimed that was why he didn’t fly more often. “You’re addicted to drama. Big Z’s is like your personal soap opera. When things get boring, you fire half the staff and bring in new characters.”

“I do not,” he’d denied. “That only happened once when half of them failed a drug test. What was I supposed to do?”

She’d waved aside his question. “I’m not wasting my breath trying to tell the great and powerful Paul Zabrinski how to run his store. Just don’t kid yourself. You’d be a basket case without the drama.”

In a way, she was right, but not for the reasons she thought: ego, power or distraction. The store was home to him. Growing up, he often felt overlooked by his busy family. His sisters alternately adored him or ignored him. Austen accepted Paul’s adoration as befitting a hotshot big brother but gave little if any attention in return.

On the days his mother dropped him at Zabrinski’s Hardware—before it became Big Z’s—so she could do her weekly shopping in peace, Paul explored. He watched and learned. And he knew he’d take over from his father some day.

The same way he’d known he would learn to fly the first time Grandpa took him for a ride in his old mail plane.

“When did you learn to fly?” Bailey asked, leaning forward and sideways. She’d chosen to sit directly behind the co-pilot’s seat. OC wanted to sit in the back so he could sleep, but the logistics proved impossible. Of the two, Bailey was more nimble.

“I took lessons in college. It was cheaper. Everybody in my family has their pilot’s license—even Mom, but none of them can teach worth shit. We formed a consortium awhile back and went together to buy this bird.” Since then, he’d bought Mia’s share to help her pay for her divorce and Meg’s share so she could use the money to fund some kind of wolf-related study project.

The plane hit a pocket and made a stomach-lurching drop. Bailey gave a little gasp. Her big, badass father moaned.

Paul glanced sideways. Sure enough, the larger-than-life, watch-out-Big-Foot-here-I-come OC Jenkins was afraid to fly. And the tinge of gray in his cheeks made Paul glad he had a supply of barf bags.

To spare the old man’s dignity, Paul pointed to the pouch in the door and said, “Your pain meds might not work so well at cruising altitude. There’s a barf bag just in case. No shame. Happens to the best of us.”

OC gave him a look through narrowed eyes that told Paul nothing. But he fumbled for a sack and held it on his lap for the rest of the trip, which, luckily, didn’t include any more turbulence.

*

OC’s hands were
shaking on his walker by the time he reached Jack’s floor. He couldn’t complain about the flight or his pilot. Young Zabrinski did a good job piloting the plane. He didn’t even make moon pie eyes at Bailey the whole time—even though OC picked up on some kind of undercurrent between the two.

He’d made up his mind not to think about what they might be doing back at the hotel. Bailey was a big girl, and she more than deserved a little happiness, if that’s what Paul Zabrinski was offering.

Whether or not Paul could deliver was another thing outside of OC’s control.

“Excuse me, ma’am. I was told I’d find my friend, Jack Sawyer, on this floor. Could you point me in the right direction?”

OC hated the walker. He hated looking handicapped. But the darn thing got him help when he needed it.

A Hispanic woman in a bright purple uniform—when did nurses stop wearing white, he wondered—burst from behind what looked like the helm of the Starship Enterprise. “You must be OC. He’s been asking for you. We’re all curious what OC stands for.”

“Depends on who you ask. My wife would tell you Oscar Clark. Most of the bar owners in town would say Obnoxious Customer.”

“Oh,” she said, kindly, patting his hand. “I don’t believe that.” She directed him to an open door a few steps away. “Mr. Sawyer is resting at the moment. He’s been in and out of consciousness. More out than in, lately, but I know he’ll be very happy to see you.”

OC followed her into the room. His second stinking night as a visitor in a stinking hospital. Welcome to old age, he thought bitterly.

He and Jack used to joke about how they’d die.

“I plan to be thigh deep in spring melt with a twenty-pounder on the hook,” Jack once told him.

Hooked up to more bells and whistles than either of them ever saw wasn’t even close, OC thought, pausing in the doorway to observe the body in the bed. Tall and gangly as ever, but something about hospital beds made even the heartiest person look half-shrunk.

The nurse brought him a chair and positioned it close enough that OC could speak without feeling like he was shouting. They had some things to say to each other. Not good-bye. That was a given. OC wasn’t leaving until Jack stopped breathing. He knew if their positions were reversed Jack would have done the same.

He felt a vibration near his hip. Bailey had insisted on him taking Louise’s cell phone so they could keep in touch.

He appreciated that she and Paul had given him this time alone with his friend. Louise wanted to come along, but her doctor couldn’t be reached for permission to fly.

The last thing Jack would have wanted was to cause Louise and OC any more pain. So, she’d stayed behind to watch after Paul’s children and keep an eye on that fancy-dressed brother of his.

He held the phone out far enough to read the screen.
Take a pain pill now.

He snickered. The text came from a number he didn’t recognize but the tone was Louise’s. His wife was getting to be near as bossy as his daughter always had been.
Stop drinking, Dad. Quit smoking, Dad. Get off the floor, Dad.

Back then, he’d ignored their pleas and thumbed his nose at sane and polite behavior. But look where going rogue got him.

He massaged the fleshy part of his leg above his stump as he felt the pain starting to radiate outward. Louise knew him better than he knew himself.

He poured water from the plastic pitcher beside Jack’s bed into a paper cup and took one of the green pills. The blue ones were to help him shit the rock hard stools produced by the green pills.

He sighed and closed his eyes a moment, worn out. A sound made him look up. Jack’s eyes were open, blinking.

Was he trying to figure out where he was and how the hell he got there? OC knew the feeling well.

He reached out and put his hand on Jack’s forearm. They weren’t touchy-feely kind of men, but each was the closest thing to a brother either had.

Jack’s chin turned. Slowly. The drugs appeared to keeping a thick layer between the patient and his world.

“OC,” Jack said, his voice scratchy, barely audible. “You dead, too?”

OC let out a gruff hoot. “Not yet. Neither are you.”

Jack’s eyes closed. “Will be soon.”

A peculiar smile formed on his cracked, dry lips.

“Whatcha thinking, pal?”

“Marla never did have any patience. If she’d waited a few months, she wouldn’t have had to shoot me. I’d have keeled over from the cancer.”

OC squeezed his hand. “You knew?”

Jack nodded. “For a few months. My coughing was scaring the fish. Doc said the X-ray of my lungs looked like Swiss cheese.”

“You didn’t tell anybody? Even Marla?”

“Couldn’t see the point.” His head moved a tiny bit. “Like you always said. No fixin’ stupid.”

OC flashed to the many nights he and Jack wound up at the Wolf Den lamenting about the silly, hopeless flatlanders they’d spent the day trying to turn into sportsmen. His mouth could almost taste the whiskey.

“Louise thought maybe Marla’s embezzling was because you needed the money for treatment. She was sure you were headed to Mexico for some kind of witch doctor cure.”

Jack smiled for the first time. “Your wife is the kindest woman I ever knew. Tell her I said so.”

A little cough escalated to a full-body engagement that took on the nature of an epileptic fit. A nurse—an older black woman dressed in lime green—came in. She raised the bed a few inches and helped Jack take a sip of water through a straw. She fiddled with something on one of the tubes leading from a clear sack to Jack’s arm.

She gave OC a kind, encouraging smile before she left.

“Goddam cancer sticks,” Jack muttered. “Bailey was right. Sorta pisses you off, don’t it?”

OC laughed again. “Remember when she was a little girl and she’d hide our smokes?”

Jack smiled. “Stopped up the can once.”

OC bit his lip, the memory as clear as if it happened earlier that day. Bailey was nine or ten. She found a brand new carton of cigs OC left on the counter at Fish and Game.

They figured it must have taken her an hour to open every pack, break them into pieces and flush down the toilet.

When OC and Jack got back from a long day on the mountain, OC was the first to use the toilet. Since it was a particularly smelly job, he flushed before standing up to zip. The monumental backup chased him—pants around his ankles—into the main office.

Jack laughed so hard he fell to his knees, holding his gut as he rolled, well away from the mess. Despite his best effort to stay mad, OC couldn’t help but join in. The two laughed until they cried.

“I’m gonna miss that girl. Best of both you and Louise.”

“What are you talking about? There ain’t no good in me.”

Jack turned his head to look at OC. His expression stern. “You saved my life, Oscar. I’d have wound up being a bum on the street if you hadn’t snatched me outta the gutter and taught me how to fish. All the mistakes…I made those myself. Those are on me. Not you. I’m only sorry I didn’t do something to stop Marla sooner. I always knew she was poison. I let her ruin things between us, and for that I—.”

OC gripped Jack’s arm hard. “No. We’re good, Jack. Always have been.”

A tear slipped from the corner of Jack’s eyes. His labored breathing eased slightly, his muscles relaxed. The monitor showed his heartbeat slower but still steady.

Sleep took him fast. OC could only hope death did the same. But, for as long as this process took, he’d be here, keeping watch. His best friend in the world would not die alone.

B
ailey stood at
the window of their hotel looking toward the desert. Twilight was a funny thing on the vast openness. The Sierras to her right cast long shadows spreading out like the aftermath of a wildfire. Highways packed with car lights crisscrossed what once, not long ago, had been barren land.

Somewhere four hours south of here was the ranch Ross bought for them. She’d only seen it in photos. She’d resisted, protested, ignored and, finally, disconnected herself from Ross’s plan. Only now did she really understand why.

I could never live in this dry, barren landscape.

She was Montana born. Since returning home, she’d slowly started to feel alive again, re-connected to her mountains, to the green and the heartbreakingly blue sky. She’d spent the past fifteen years trying to outrun something that was bone deep inside her.

“Sorry about the room,” Paul said, exiting the bathroom.

She turned. “What do you mean? It’s fine.” Fourteenth floor of a casino. Functional. Sparse. The kind of room designed to make people eager to go gamble.

He put out his hands in a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine gesture. “You wanted two rooms. They only had one.”

She shrugged. “That was when I thought OC was going to be with us. I hate to think of him sitting up all night at Jack’s bedside, but he’s going to do what he’s going to do. Always has.”

She walked to the closest bed and sat, glad to get off her feet. She used the spare pillow to elevate her foot. “There are two beds. We’re grown-ups.”

“How’s your ankle?”

Sitting in the cramped backseat of the plane hadn’t been the most comfortable, but she really couldn’t complain. “It’s okay. You’re an amazing pilot. Smoothest flight in a small plane I’ve ever been on.”

He walked to the minibar in the étagère across from the foot of her bed. “We got lucky. Great weather. I wasn’t sure your dad was going to be able to hold it together the whole way, but he did.”

“He’s a tough old coot.”

She’d come to appreciate that fact more and more the past few weeks.

He cracked open a beer. “Want anything?”

“No, thanks. I’m still full from lunch. Dinner. The bibimbab or whatever it was called.”

She’d left her To-Go box with Mom, not certain how her stomach would handle the flight. So, as soon as they had a room and dropped off their bags, she started looking for a restaurant, but Paul surprised her by insisting they hop back in the rental car and head to the closest Korean barbecue.