Chapter 5
The biker gang, the garage and the Piggy Wiggys
Elgin woke with the sun gleaming through the blinds of the window over his bed. He’d gone to bed late and Sundays at home were lazy. He had to be at the Library to open up by noon but before that it was ‘make and mend.’ Humph was sprawled over the undersized cat bed, snoring, which had never seemed a very ‘cat’ thing to do. As Elgin started to move around the cat woke up and viewed him through slitted blue eyes, youwlped a complaint and then snuggled back, satisfied that Elgin would set out breakfast and fresh water.
There were a pair of jeans to sew up and a shirt to replace a button on, socks to repair holes in and a pile of laundry to sort, he’d run a couple of loads at the Laundromat after he closed the library at four. Mail got read, checkbook balanced, an experience that still seemed new and a little wrong somehow, having money in savings felt even more wrong but the occasional urge to splurge on something was usually easily quashed by nowElgin.
By the time he was ready to leave his aluminum shell the sun had been replaced by drizzling rain and he left the Norton in its shelter and took the Chevy instead.
It was eleven, he hesitated, then flipped on the radio, “This is WBUT the voice of Beauty, Wyoming and the East Black Bear Lake Region. In the news, two locals were killed by what is thought to be a rabid bear that broke up the annual tribal council spring meeting last night. Cherry Smith and her uncle Will Jones were killed by the animal after chasing them into the woods. Their dismembered and partially eaten bodies were discovered early this morning,” the announcer put just the right amount of vaguely ghoulish regret in the words, “about a half dozen others were lost in the woods after fleeing the council compound in panic. Everyone else is safe; multiple, cuts, sprains, bruises and abrasions as well as several cases of shock were treated and released overnight at the LittleWolf Hospital Clinic. Search parties are beating the woods to find and kill the crazed animals.”
This was followed by more normal reports, a none fatal wreck on the north lakeside road, an arrest for drunken driving and a fight at the Ludwig, “More bizarre, several people on East Roaring Creek Lane reported a woodpile on fire in the middle of the road. The fire department was called out and put out what appears to have been a compost heap fire, set in the middle of the road...a trail of crushed and smoldering debris leading back to a bonfire in the rear of Mrs Elsa Elsinore’s home, seemed to show that someone had dragged the pile several hundred feet before leaving it in the middle of the road. The fire department is investigating it as an arson attempt.” Elgin flipped the radio off. Two people dead and who knew what the mobile trash heap would have done if it hadn’t wandered into someone’s bonfire.
He pulled up outside of TwoShoes Garage & QikMart, of which he was the semi official manager now. Duval, one of Griff’s cousins, was just leaving, his niece Nancy Jones was just taking over and Dan the swing shift dogs body was pressure spraying the concrete. They were beginning to get the rotting trash smell the place had built up over the years, under control.
As he chatted with Duval there was a growing rumble from the west, Duval looked over Elgin’s shoulder, “Damn Bikers.” Elgin shrugged tolerantly.
But instead of passing by as they had both expected four stuttering choppers rolled onto the little gas station plaza and stopped. The hair on the back of Elgin’s neck was standing on end, as he turned with a smile, the bikes were parked neatly enough in a row in front of the storefront, six big black clad figures swinging down. Four men, all well over Elgin’s six foot, two women, who were probably almost that tall, lots of tanned and tattooed skin, a Mohawk, two greasy ponytails one with shaved sideboards and one gleaming dome, all semi anonymous behind wrap around sunglasses.
They gave Elgin, Duval and Dan emotionless, dismissive glances as they moved to the door and went inside. As Duval made to follow them Elgin waved him back, saying “Call the sheriff if something looks wrong Duval,” he wanted to support Nancy but limit any provocation.
The bikers had dispersed quickly, one of the women and one of the men were out of sight, probably in the restrooms, one was by the self serve coffee, another by the self serve cold drinks, another looking over the selection of beer in the cooler another walking the aisles of food and sundries. The bald one, the apparent leader had pulled a full cup of coffee from an urn, now he took a swig, and sprayed it out “Faugh, fuck that! This place used to be half decent before they let the grease monkeys in! What now? You reusing the oil in the coffee?” he emptied the thirty ounce super size coffee into the drain, spraying more coffee over the counter.
There was a crash from the aisle, “Damn it, can’t you worthless assholes keep the aisles clear? Just about broke my ankle! The woman in the aisles said, having taken down a display of cell phone recharges, calling cards and other cell phone paraphernalia. “I should sue.”
The woman’s lavatory door opened with a crash,, “What a pigsty, I’m going to call the county health department,” called out the harpy who came out, smiling as she pranced down the aisle. The men’s door opened, “Piss all over the damn floor, toilet plugged and overflowing, litter all over the place, it’s a disgusting disgrace!”
The cooler door crashed shut, and the glass crazed, “Damn, don’t keep their stock up.” Snarled the man with a Mohawk, carrying two twelve packs of Coors towards the checkout counter. By the self serve cold drinks ice was piled high in the drain channel and all over the floor. The grinning thug with a huge mug of apparently mixed sodas, dropped something into it and stepped back, an instant later the cup geysered brown foam to the ceiling.
While all this had been going on Nancy had been standing with her back to the tobacco rack, hand over her mouth, eyes huge. Elgin had calmly walked around the end of the counter and stood behind the cash register, watching the show. There was no point starting a fight he was bound to loose.
Mohawk slammed the beer down on the counter, “I guess I’ll buy this, and some chaw,” He sneered at Elgin, his breath reeking, his teeth a dentists despair, yellowed, decayed, blackened and broken.
“The case has a sign saying no Sunday sales I’m afraid. State and county law, the sheriff would revoke my license and arrest you if I sold it.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder whith a shrug, “What’ kind of chewing tobacco can I get for you.” He ignored the two women in the aisles picking items up, glancing at them and dropping them on the floor, then stepping on them.
He was fighting very hard to let it all simply slide off his back, having gotten to this point there was little he could do short of physical violence to stop this and he’d either get beaten to a pulp or end up killing, and maybe eating, all of them, and he suspected they’d disagree with even the Iffrit’s cast iron stomach.
“I don’t care about the bitch sheriff, I said I wanted to be a good citizen and buy this beer.”
The other five were looking towards the stupid confrontation at the front of the store. Elgin smiled, “I can give you a note, and you can come in tomorrow and pick them up, heck what if I say you can have four twelve packs for the price of two, tomorrow? For your trouble as it were.”
Elgin looked levelly past the glasses into the others muddy, bloodshot eyes. He knew he was supposed to be looking down, showing submission, but he wasn’t going to sell the beer and all the submissive act would do is stretch the game out a few more moments.
The big thug, probably nearing three hundred pounds, and very little of it fat, leaned forward, “Mister baby blue eyes, I am going to buy this beer, today, here.”
“No mister bad breath and worse attitude, you aren’t.” Elgin replied with a cheerful smile, which confused the other man for several seconds.
Then Mohawk moved with startling quickness, his fist, encased in a fingerless leather glove, with rounded studs over his knuckles, came up from his hip, in an upper cut at Elgin’s chin. Elgin leaned back out of the other man’s reach. Held up his hands, “look, I don’t want any tr
ouble, the sheriff is on her way by now, you leave and I doubt she’ll be bothered with my having to clean up the mess.”
The shaven headed man looked at him, “You think you’re a hero or something Chalmers?”
Elgin smiled, “I’m just a guy trying to get by Mr. Greer. And I understand that you’re delivering a ‘message,’ which will be followed up with some demand. I’m not going to fight you unless you attack me or Nancy, there’s no reason to get beaten to a pulp just because you’re trashing my place of employment and trying to put me out of a job. I like my teeth just where they are thank you.” He smiled gently, letting them see that he had all of his The result of having too little money to buy sweets when he was young, combined with good genes.
“You smug son of a b...” Mohawk made to jump over the counter and mess Elgin up.
“No Hawk, we’re done here.” The shaven headed man snapped coolly. Out of the corner of his eye Elgin saw a sheriff’s cruiser draw up outside. The man dropped the second cup of coffee he’d made on the floor, “All of you, mount up, we’re out of this pig sty.” The others left, leaving the bald man holding the door, staring at Elgin from behind mirrored glasses, “How’d you know my name Chalmers?”
Elgin had no idea, but the Iffrit replied in his voice, “Your reputation precedes you Mr. Charles Greer. Beard and long hair or clean shaven, it’s hard to miss that you’re the man in charge and you’re not Claw.”
“You’ve got a smart mouth and poor attitude Chalmers. Remember a sheep gets sheared by the farmer or eaten by a wolf. Smart mouthed sheep tend to get eaten because they think too much of themselves, or put down because they’re too much damn trouble.” He turned away and walked to his bike, the four bikes started with a synchronized blatting roar, and the clumsy machines taxied slowly out to the road and roared away.
“Oh my God Mr. Elgin, I couldn’t believe it, you stood them off.” Nancy was white and shaking.
Elgin, patted her arm, “I just did what I needed to do, I didn’t stand them off, I just didn’t let them make things worse. Now, how are you feeling?” He checked her more carefully, she was obviously angry and shaken.
The door opened, letting in Duval, Ben and a female deputy. She wasn’t familiar which was a bit surprising, but then the Sheriff might be hiring from outside the county. She wasn’t particularly tall or broad. As far as Elgin was a judge either of the biker chicks would have broken her over their knee with ease. Except of course for the baton, Tazer and Glock 20, the great equalizer, sometimes.
Duval and Dan looked around in horror, “How the hell did they do all this in ten minutes?” Duval said.
“They’re professional wreckers.” Elgin replied, quietly. “Dan, Nancy, we’re closing the store till it’s fixed up again. We’ll sell gas of course, use the night pass through so cash customers don’t have to come indoors. Give directions to three or four places for toilets, and the stuff they could pick up here. Duval, if you could, can you stay around and help with the clean up?”
The Deputy had taken out a smart phone and started snapping pictures and muttering into it. A few minutes later she came back to Elgin who was just hanging up after telling an apoplectic Griffith TwoShoes what had happened, big brown eyes looked him up and down thoughtfully, “You going to press charges Mr. Chalmers?”
“For aggravated littering and nasty personal cleanliness habits?” Elgin asked a bit bitterly.
“Destruction of property, public threats, that sort of thing,” She smiled, “The judge would love to convict on the nasty personal cleanliness habits though.”
“Can you put the report in, say that I’m not pressing charges due to cost of trying to litigate, but keep filed in case something worse happens. Also can you send me a copy of the report and photos, for the insurance you know?” Elgin grinned.
She nodded her head, “Certainly can.” She looked around, “They wouldn’t have done this for the fun of it, it wouldn’t have been Movie Star if that was all it was.”
“The sheriff warned me that the Wiggins don’t like having anybody around who might grow into competition for their happy little monopoly.”
The deputy nodded, “Makes sense, the Piggy Wiggys see everything as a threat, or an opportunity.”
So maybe she was a local, Piggy Wiggys was the local, very secret nickname for the Wiggins, secret because the whole Wiggins clan was pathologically vindictive.
-o-
The four hours at the library next to the old Catholic church and school had become an interesting experience in a different world for Elgin, it was rarely busy, or it hadn’t been in the three months he’d been there. He enjoyed looking books up for kids, having the Dewey Decimal System explained to him by ten year olds. He actually had a couple of helpers who came in to help the poor dweeb Miss Wilkerson had suckered into opening the library on Sundays. He also met a lot of people looking for this or that and interacted with the few intellectual souls who lived in the extremely earthy, anti-intellectual Beauty.
Today the four hours stretched out, he had almost called in and canceled but in the end couldn’t convince himself he had a good reason to do so. The bikers weren’t going to do anything else yet. He was worried about the longer term, he, and maybe more than just Elgin, had sensed something truly evil about this morning’s bikers, unlike the ones he’d run into in town, who were dangerous, nasty, unpleasant, but who were at bottom just spoiled children. MovieStar Greer and his coterie were destroyers, give them the power and they would wage war on the world for the fun of it.
The garage was in the town limits but beyond the last small housing development. It had a phone line and was in cell range, a silent alarm system was already in the planning. But a single Molotov cocktail would send the old building up in flames before the local volunteer fire brigade could get there. A drive by shooting could do a lot of damage, and there was a chance more thugs would just be sent to mess the place up.
There was a pause in the foot traffic and he lost himself looking at the computer screen that still showed the searches he’d been doing on the Evil Eagle’s Claw Club. Not much public commentary, the gang was at once too small and remote and too feared for much to make it into the public record. He thought about how to protect the building and the employees, and as he did the Iffrit started to build a plan.
“That’s a rather nasty grin Mr. Chalmers,” The feminine voice was amused rather than chiding.
Elgin jumped, Katherine Pauls was dressed in Sunday finery, the pink dress with jacket and even a little pink hat with swirls of netting, were utterly modern and 1950’s at the same time. He blinked, “Uh, Mrs. Pauls, you really ought to warn a man before appearing like an apparition from above, I was kinda wondering if my time was up.”
She dimpled very prettily, “Well I declare, that was a very nice compliment Mr. Chalmers!” Then the smile became less coquettish and more real, “I see the rumors of your subjugation are true, Elgin Chalmers, cowboy librarian!”
“Six shooter and rifle at hand, he kept an eye out for coyotes and renegades while the wimminfolk and children studied.” Elgin said in his best Lorne Greene, holding a noble, distant expression, his gaze fixed, for a moment, on some imagined horizon. Then he looked at her, “Or I just let my High School English teacher bribe me into it. I have a key now so I can come in and look things up when I want to, which is usually after normal closing time, given the hours the library has to run these days.”
“And this would be a prize for the cowboy Elgin Chalmers because?” she asked a bit archly. But her eyes were thoughtfully questioning.
“I guess I’m interested in the world these days, guess I had an epiphany back at the beginning of the winter, decided that I was going to have to do something with my life or I was going to waste it.” He shrugged, feeling his face warm a little.
Her eyes were even more thoughtful now, a little frown creased her smooth brow, “Well it appears to have been quite a shock to quite a few folks.” She smiled
wickedly, “Not all of the old biddies, female and male, are taking it well. I guess they liked having a ne’er do well to point to as an example of all that was wrong with the world.”
Elgin chuckled, “Can’t please all the folks all the time Kitty.”
“No, no you can’t.” She replied with an odd smile, “Well I’m going to go see if there are any good, silly romances, out that I haven’t read.” She walked away, the sway of her hips in the tight dress pink dress utterly hypnotizing.
-o-
It was midnight and Elgin rode his bike to the garage. Winifred was the night clerk with another cousin of Griffiths dozing in the corner behind the counter, with a well kept lever action rifle across his lap. Elgin checked around again, the damage and ruining that the bikers had accomplished had been made good and the debris packed away for the insurance company to claim. The claims adjuster had already been out to review the damage, the evidence, and talk to the deputy about what had happened. The insurance adjuster was grumbling about it but there was a riot clause in the coverage that Griffith had paid for and was invoking.
Once outside Elgin walked around the garage, looking inwards the first time, outward the second time and down the third time. As he walked the ground under him changed, a tiny amount most places, but quite a lot in others.
Done with the outer defenses he walked back to the building, which had a new glass and aluminum front, but a core of glazed tile blocks from the 1940’s when this had been the main road through the mountains and the garage the only full service station in several hundred miles. He walked around the building and in his mind the shadow realm version, a half eroded; open topped shell took on a near reality.
He hoped he was just being paranoid but was not betting on it.
-o-
Monday morning Elgin read the local newspaper, the ‘bear maulings’ filled the most of the column space. He was depressed as he saw the pictures of the man and woman who had died. But he kept reading, the police and forestry service were confused but not admitting it, there was no sign of the bear everyone claimed to have seen. The bodies, had been terribly mutilated, partly eaten, by something ‘like a very large bear.’ but there was no blood at the site they had been found and no sign of the bodies being dragged from elsewhere. Tracking dogs brought in to help figure out what had happened were not finding anything. In fact there was a little tag piece that indicated that the dogs were refusing to go into the forest around the council lodge.
Elgin read it all and rubbed his eyes, something was probably in the forest, and he’d thought, hoped, the rubbish pile monster burning in the middle of the street had been the end of that. He ate breakfast and strolled towards the old bunkhouse.
There was a light on in the main house, and a small car tucked up in the covered parking spot round the side. He’d heard that the Smith-Samson’s were going to be moving up for the summer in the next week or so, maybe the housekeeping staff was getting an early start. He stepped onto the porch and into the front room, glancing around at the other three people already there, drinking coffee. He exchanged nods and smiles with the two men and the woman waiting for Mitch.
The ranch had a ‘crew’ of six, eight if you included Mitch and Betty, but Mitch rarely left the paddock area and Elgin wasn’t sure that Betty could ride, though a lot of ‘cowboy’ work was done in wheeled vehicles these days anyway. While a horse was better in some small number of situations, they required vastly more care and ate all the time, not just when running. The horse was on the way out except on boutique ranches run more for show than money, but then many modest sized ranches in the US fit that description, even the CircleSBarS.
Mitch came in from the residence part of the building, he shot a Elgin a darkling look, he hadn’t gotten over Elgin going over his head to the Smith-Samson’s. “OK, all here I guess.” He sniffed, “Emma, you and Pedro, no change, you’re to relieve Juan and Donna, out in the main grazing.” He glanced at Elgin, “Tomorrow you go out for two nights, since Juan did two for you this weekend, right!”
Elgin bobbed his head, “Yes sir.”
“I’ve got a pick up for you at the Franking yard, you can drive over there in the ranch van, after lunch.” He looked at the slender youngster who was new this year, “Winters, you and I are working running up to the highland to check the auto watering system.” He glanced back at Elgin, “You’ll have the ranch card for the pickup, don’t lose it.”
“Yes sir.” Elgin replied with a bob of the head, but he wondered what was going on, normally it would be Elgin going with Winters, Mitch doing the pickup at the ranch supply depot in town. And letting anyone else have the card was almost unheard of, he figured anyone who got their hands on it would charge personal items to it which, as everyone knew, Mitch did regularly.
There was always work to do around a ranch, the small stable to muck out, the herb garden in the back to till, a gutter to fix, etc, etc. So Elgin just went about those jobs. At some point the small car he’d seen parked in the family section was gone, and a little later a WyoMaids car appeared, so apparently the other car had been someone else.
The old Ford panel truck started after a bit of a struggle, Elgin filled up with diesel and checked all the fluid levels, which all needed topping off. He put an oil and filter change, along with a belt tightening and all round greasing of the old iron on his list of things to do. The pair of them happily rumbled through town, towards Winston Gap, Just past Wiggins Motors he swung the big white truck with its gold CircleSBarS brand on the side into Franking Farm and Ranch Supplies.
A warning bell went off when he saw two choppers parked by the ‘store’ and a grimy gray and rust truck pulled up at the far end of the dock. He’d seen the truck before, sometimes escorted by Evil Eagle Claw Club bikers. But he had a job to do and maybe this was just coincidence, deep in his mind he heard two ancient cynics snort in amusement.
He dropped down from the truck and walked to one of the rickety wooden steps up to the dock. The main yard was closed off by a chain link fence and a motorized chain link gate, controlled from the little shack tacked onto the side of the main building. Hands tucked into his pockets, Stetson pulled down he strolled towards the shack. He had the order number and packing list in his jacket pocket along with the ranch credit card.
A big man stepped out of the office, and glanced around, elaborately play acting to the crowd of none. In black leather pants, jacket and wrap around mirrored glasses, Mohawk, or Hawk, was dressed just as he had been at TwoShoes. Elgin suspected he smelled just as rank as well. The sleek mirrored shades swung his way as Elgin approached, a theatrical start of recognition, “Oh look, it’s mister clean cut cowboy.” Hawk’s voice was almost cheerful, a very bad sign.
Elgin touched the brim of his Stetson in a silent, polite greeting and aimed to go around the bigger man. But Hawk swung around and into Elgin’s path, “Say, don’t I know you, tall skinny and stupid?” The smile was unpleasant, not the least because it showed the yellowed, broken and rotten teeth.
Elgin came to a stop, “We’ve met before, Mohawk.” He would not start anything but neither was he going to back down, he was almost certain it wouldn’t do any good and it wasn’t in his nature anyway.
A big greasy hand had reached up to rub the distinctive hairdo, “Like it cowboy? when I was a kid I liked playing cowboys and Indians, I was always the Indian and I liked beating the crap out of the snots who wanted to be cowboys.”
“It’s at least as good as a name tag Mohawk.” Elgin replied flatly, “I grew up around here, wanted to play the Indian, but everyone made me play the cowboy because I look like one. There were always a lot more Indians than Cowboys, so I got the crap knocked out of me a lot, but then so did the Indians.”
“Still mouthy aren’t you.”
Elgin grinned, “You bring it out.”
The big biker took a long stride forward, reaching out to grab Elgin, obviously planning on a little shaking, followed by throwing the
smaller man to the ground and the application of the huge and heavy steel toed boots he was wearing. Hawk was fast for such a big man, fast and unhesitating, still smilingly confident of his power, speed and ruthlessness.
Elgin was already moving by the time the other man had started to lean forward for the step, pushing off backwards and swinging to Hawk’s off side. Hawk recovered quickly, obviously surprised at how quick his opponent had been. “You dance like a cowgirl.”
“You’re big Hawk and I’ve no reason to let you get hold of me. Just remember that a little guy like me is going to have to play rough if it really comes down to it.”
Hawk’s face split in a genuine smile, “Play rough, you’re going to have to play rough?” He laughed, but it didn’t stop him lunging at Elgin, with a driving punch aimed low, which Elgin step-spun away from again. This time Hawk had anticipated the counter and let his punch spin him as he dropped to launch a savage side kick that would have either broken a knee or taken Elgin’s legs out from under him if it had connected. Elgin hopped over the scything kick and jumped back even further. But not too far, Hawk had him trapped against the lip of the dock with its four foot drop.
The biker swirled back to his feet and danced forward, a manic grin on his face. He was showing Elgin that he was a practiced and dangerous multi martial art fighter and was only just getting started. “You’re quick for a pretty faced cowboy, but it’s not going to help you.”
Elgin’s reply was a flickering attack aimed at his opponent’s genitals, an attempt to end this with one kick. But a moment later he was rolling away his left foot tingling from hitting the discrete metal codpiece Hawk wore under his leathers. Elgin rolled to his feet, no longer with his back to the drop off.
Hawk stagger spun to keep facing Elgin, his smile frozen from astonishment, the blow had hurt, even with the codpiece, and it had been powerful enough to almost knock him over, but more than either of those was the speed, one instant Elgin had been out of reach and then there was a savage low blow.
The biker shook himself and dropped into more of a wrestling posture as he sneered, “Well I guess there are never going to be any little cowboys in your future are there?”
Elgin’s second blow smashed into the side of Hawk’s jaw with the power of his first attack. And the fight was over. Hawk twist-crashed into the ground his jaw broken and several teeth flying away, the big man lay where he had fallen, unconscious.
Without checking the black clad lump out Elgin simply turned and continued his walk to the gatehouse. As he did a woman in black leather, including stiletto heeled lace up leather boots, that put her a couple of inches over Elgin’s six foot plus, stalked past him, her expression poisonous as she looked at Elgin, but she wasn’t even trying to run to the assistance of ‘her man.’ Another couple of leather clad figures were walking towards the dock from the store. One was ‘Gilly’ and the other one of the thugs from the incident at the garage, they ignored Elgin and walked towards Hawk’s slumped figure.
The clerk, probably the kid of an ‘immigrant’ was standing behind the counter and away from the bow window that had a view of the gate and dock area. His eyes bugged out as Elgin stepped in and took off his hat, “You Chalmers?”
“I am.”
“Uh...I...,” he pointed at the phone, “you need to call the police?”
Police? Definitely an immigrant, “I’ll tell the sheriff the next time I meet her. She has enough to worry about right now.”
The boy nodded, his eyes huge, “Uh, you’re here for the CircleSBarS pickup?”
Elgin pulled the packing list out of his pocket, “Yep.”
The order was ready and the boy called for one of the yardmen to bring it to Elgin’s truck.
When Elgin went back outside the two bikes and the grimy truck were both gone. And the tires on his truck had been slashed. Which just made Elgin shake his head and go back inside to make another call.
-o-
Elgin sat and drank a coffee as the sun went down, there was a muted mutter of an engine and the sweep of headlights. A car pulled into the covered parking next to the house, where he’d seen the compact this morning. Someone was staying there apparently.
The new kid Winters had taken the pad just beyond the group of trees Elgin camped under. The young cowboy didn’t have a camper, he was actually living in a biggish army surplus tent, while he made out to be a somewhat seasoned hand Elgin was fairly certain he was a city kid, possibly a college drop out with some dude ranch holiday time in his past. It didn’t matter to him, the kid was a hard worker, did what he was told, and knew which end of a horse did what, the rest was just experience.
Winters looked up as Elgin wandered over, he smiled shyly, “You and the Boss don’t get on well do you.”
“A perspicacious observation my young padawan,” Elgin smiled as he perched on a rock.
The younger man started to get up, “Uh, I can get another chair?”
Elgin waved him down, “No need, comfortable here, sat here a lot of times in the past.”
“Yeah, I guess, uh, thank’s for making this easy for me, you guys are great, I hear all sorts of stories about hazing upstarts.”
“What college did you drop out of to join the jolly brother-sisterhood of cowpokes Winters?”
The other man opened his mouth to deny the charge, then shut it, shrugged, “Cal Tech.”
“Good school I hear, couldn’t decide what you wanted to do with your life?”
“I was spending all that money and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a bio engineer. My parents were so proud, all my relatives, I got a scholarship, but it was still so expensive, and the school wouldn’t let me put off starting till I’d figured out what I wanted to do. I thought about the Army or the Air Force but with the draw downs it would have been a year or so before I got into boot camp.”
“Spent some time on a dude ranch over the years?”
“Yeah, well actually summer camp, three years and then worked on a dude ranch in high school, in Colorado, figured I might like the real thing better.”
“Talk to me about that after the first thunderstorm out with the herd,” Elgin smiled. “I hope your parents know where you are?”
“You sound like my sister,” he said it with a smile, “And yes, through sis, I can’t say no to them like she can.”
Elgin grinned, “OK, sounds like a good family.”
“We’re tight, too tight maybe.”
“Doesn’t seem possible, but I wouldn’t know.”
“Your mother and father divorced?”
Elgin swirled his coffee, “My father died on my sixteenth birthday, my mother left when I was twelve and no one has heard from her since, so she’s probably dead as well.”
“Damn, I’m sorry sir.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, just facts, but it makes me wonder what a regular family would have been like.”
Looking for something the boy went back to the first comment, “I thought you and Mitch must be pretty tight, you both being long term and all. But he kept muttering about what a trouble maker you are. Then he swore a blue streak about you after he got a text as we were coming down from the high range.”
Mitch wasn’t being particularly discreet, but then the big manager had never had to be. He got by, on being reasonably good at his job, only moderately corrupt and having an imposing presence when he wanted to.
Elgin sipped his coffee with a faint smile.