Bounty

  He took it but didn’t express gratitude.

  “Eat hearty,” I bid as I moved away, wishing I could sit next to him, hang with him, shoot the shit with him. If he wasn’t into me, at least be his friend.

  I exited the space and moved into my bedroom.

  He did not call me back.

  * * * * *

  Deke

  The next afternoon, Deke sat in his deck chair close to the shore, his line in the lake, a cooler of beer in between him and his bud, Wood, the only guy Deke knew in Carnal who liked to fish.

  Luckily, he was a decent guy, was good with being quiet and being in the sun by the lake with a rod and a beer, but when he talked, it wasn’t about bullshit or the man could be funny.

  “Hear Max’s got you workin’,” Wood noted.

  “Place on Ponderosa Road,” Deke answered.

  “Flash?” Wood asked, being a lifetime Carnal resident, knowing that area and knowing most of it now, with new builds and renos, was flash.

  “Yeah and no. Gonna be the shit when it’s done, but not in-your-face the shit.”

  “Who’s the client?”

  “Woman named Jus. Loaded. Crazy.”

  “Crazy-loaded or loaded and crazy?”

  “Both.”

  “Pain in your ass?”

  “She brings me sandwiches.”

  Deke felt Wood’s eyes so he looked to him.

  “That’s crazy?” Wood asked, grinning.

  “Don’t want her bein’ nice to me, don’t need her charity.”

  Wood quit grinning and started looking watchful but puzzled. “Charity?”

  “Rich bitches like that, gotta stay alert. They give with one hand, take a lot more with the other.”

  “Seems you got experience,” Wood muttered, still watchful.

  Deke absolutely fucking did.

  “Dad got dead when I was two,” he told Wood. “Ma did what she could, which meant bein’ a maid. Live-in ’cause she needed a roof over our heads. Ate shit for as long as I could remember. Watched her do it. Folks she worked for had three daughters. Little cunts, all of ’em. Treated Ma like dirt, same with me. They had friends, not a one of them better than the three. Wife of the man who paid my mom was no better. She had friends too. Different colored hair, cut from the same cloth. So yeah, Wood, I got experience.”

  “This Jus woman like that?” Wood asked.

  “They don’t come off like that when they need somethin’ from you, so no. All that kind got it in ’em, though.”

  Wood looked to the lake. “Didn’t think you had it in you, paint everyone with the same brush.”

  “You watch your mother clean up vomit splashes every fucking day, ’cause two of those bitches were bulimic and one was the mom. Watch them shout at her like the world was about to end when she didn’t set a table like they wanted, that bein’ not buyin’ coral roses for a centerpiece instead of peach, whatever the fuckin’ difference is. I could go on for days, brother. Fuckin’ days, and it gets worse. So Jus seems cool. But I don’t open wide for women like that. No fuckin’ way. You don’t keep your shit, you get burned.”

  “Not bein’ funny, just pointing out, known you years, first I heard of this so you don’t open wide for anyone, Deke. That bein’ said, you the last man standin’ in our posse who doesn’t have a chain you don’t mind dangling from your ankle, it’s especially with women,” Wood remarked.

  “Got reason,” Deke grunted.

  “One of those bitches burn you?” Wood asked quietly.

  Clearly sun, beer and a rod in his hand put Deke in the mood to share. Share shit only a few people knew and the only two of those in town were Tate and Jim-Billy.

  Or maybe it was being around Jus, day in, day out, the temptation of her, that meaning he needed to get this shit out and remind himself who he was and how that came about.

  “One of the daughters played me. Went from nasty to sweet. She did this because she wanted my dick, panted after it. I was fifteen and the only thing on my brain was pussy, so I gave it to her,” Deke stated. “When I didn’t want more, she told Daddy. He canned Ma’s ass then blackballed her and Ma and me ended up in a homeless shelter six months later, this was after livin’ most of those months on the street. All that Ma endured and all that was on me. So yeah, one of those bitches burned me, Wood.”

  While he was talking, Wood looked his way. “Jesus, Deke. Had no clue.”

  “Ma eventually got a job, I was old enough, so did I. We got out. Took two months, but we got out. Worked and didn’t go back to school to keep us out of that fuckin’ place.”

  “That sucks, brother,” Wood said quietly.

  It fucking did.

  It was the worst.

  He could hack it. Deke could hack anything. He didn’t need much. Learned not to need it so his mother could live with not being able to give it to him.

  But he’d fucking hated watching his mother suffer like that. Worry so bad, she never slept (and Deke knew she hadn’t because he didn’t and he heard her toss and turn in her cot in that fucking shelter). Kick her own ass she couldn’t give her boy better. Beg child protective services to let her keep him as she pulled her shit together.

  He hated all that because there was a lot to hate.

  And most of that hate was about him putting his dick where it didn’t belong and making it so his ma went through that.

  Since there was no reason to reply to Wood, Deke didn’t.

  “I get what you’re sayin’, man, but Emme’s family’s got money and she’s not like that,” Wood noted.

  “Yeah, and Emme’s got Decker’s ring on her finger,” Deke returned.

  “What I’m sayin’ is, your story sucks and you’re a brother, we’re tight, I hate knowing that happened to you and your ma. But still, not all kinds are the same as their kind. Emme’s proof of that.”

  Deke looked to the lake.

  “This Jus young? Old? Pretty? Married?” Wood asked.

  “Young. Not pretty, fuckin’ pretty. No ring, no man I can see.”

  “And she’s bringin’ you sandwiches.”

  Deke returned his attention to Wood. “She likes the fire pit I built.”

  Wood burst out laughing.

  Deke looked back to the lake.

  Wood was still laughing when he asked, “You that clueless?”

  Deke turned eyes back to Wood.

  “She’s into me,” he said quietly. “She tries to hide it but she gives it away a lot. I am not gonna go there, Wood. Even if she isn’t a cunt like most of her kind are, she’s not Emme. Shit, pregnant and Emme’s fightin’ Deck about letting her do some drywalling or whatever the fuck in that fuckin’ wreck of a house of theirs. Emme’s not like a lot of women.”

  “This is true,” Wood muttered.

  “Jus doesn’t work,” Deke kept at him. “I don’t even know what she does, except talk on the phone and spend money. Bangin’ the woman who’s payin’ my wages is fuckin’ stupid. It’s not gonna happen. Been there, learned that lesson the hard fuckin’ way.”

  “Yeah you did,” Wood replied quietly.

  Deke heard his words, didn’t acknowledge them because he didn’t need to and kept going.

  “Job’s done, going there, unless the promise of her is a total lie, it’d be fuckin’ great. But I’d go in knowin’ there was nothin’ but a lot of fucking to get our fill and nothin’ on the other end for either of us. Got enough experience to know most women don’t like that shit. Women like her would like it less. So it’s not gonna happen.”

  “Why would there be nothing?”

  “Lot her place is on cost more than I’ve made, maybe in my life, Wood. Wherever she came from to get here, she doesn’t need to work, and trust me, she did not just win the lottery. Kinda money she’s got, you can smell it from a mile, sunk down deep in her bones. Would you be down with that?”

  “Fucks me to say, I see your point,” Wood replied.

  Deke’s gaze went to the lake.

  “
I see your point, Deke, but the woman’s bringing you sandwiches,” Wood said. “She might not be what those bitches treated you to. And if she’s into you, be cool.”

  “Not bein’ a dick,” Deke told the lake, though he was, just enough of one to put her off.

  He could be a bigger dick but she didn’t deserve it. He knew that even if he had no idea about her and the little he knew he wished he didn’t.

  He also wasn’t being a bigger dick because when she was being cute, he didn’t have it in him. No one could be a dick to Jus when she was being cute, and if you didn’t wake her up, she was cute all the fucking time.

  He didn’t share this with Wood. He also didn’t share that he still could not shake the fact that there was something familiar about her.

  But Deke knew he couldn’t have met Jus before, and not just because she was so damned friendly, if he had, she’d be all over that.

  Because he’d remember her, no way he’d forget meeting a woman like Jus, those eyes, that hair, those legs, that ass, all that fucking cute. No way in hell.

  Even knowing that, something in his gut told him he’d seen those eyes, that ass, those legs and definitely that fucking amazing hair.

  He had to get through this job and get paid.

  That was it.

  “More to all this too, I reckon,” Wood noted. “Seein’ as she’s settlin’ in up there and not a lotta women are good to leave it all behind, jump on the back of their man’s bike and take off to nowhere whenever the winds change.”

  “There’s that too,” Deke agreed.

  He agreed but he hadn’t thought of that.

  It was good Wood threw that out there. As gypsy princess as her clothes and truck were, no way a woman like Jus would close down a house like she was going to have and take to the open road with no destination, no purpose, just riding until the breath you were breathing felt right again.

  “Have you noticed nothing’s biting?” Wood asked, ending the conversation because there was nothing left to say, he knew it and he knew not to push Deke if he didn’t agree there wasn’t.

  Yeah, Wood was a good friend.

  “Have you noticed we’re sittin’ on our asses on the shore, not in a boat, so odds are, anything bites, it’ll be an inch long?”

  “Not feelin’ rowing out to the middle of that fucker,” Wood remarked, leaning to his left and pulling out a cold one.

  “That’s good ’cause I got no boat.”

  Wood burst out laughing again.

  This time, Deke joined him.

  * * * * *

  Justice

  Sunday afternoon, I swung up on the barstool next to Jim-Billy.

  He turned his baseball-capped head my way as I did and grinned his broken grin, one tooth missing.

  I didn’t figure he was going to get it fixed but I hoped he didn’t. As I’d noted thus far in my journey through life, there were some imperfections that were perfect. Jim-Billy’s missing tooth was one of them.

  “What’s shakin’?” I asked.

  “Nothin’,” he answered.

  “I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about that,” I remarked.

  “I do. Simple life, simple pleasures.” Jim-Billy lifted up his draft. “Means you always avoid disappointment.”

  I stared at him a beat, rocked by this wisdom, before I asked, “What are you, a mountain man maharishi?”

  “Yup,” he muttered and looked away, chugging back a big gulp of his beer.

  I burst out laughing.

  I finished laughing with Jim-Billy again looking my way and grinning.

  Krystal appeared, throwing a beer mat on the bar in front of me.

  “What you drinkin’?” she asked.

  “Beer. Cold. I don’t care what kind but none of that fancy shit or you’ll make me testy,” I answered.

  She looked from me to Jim-Billy. “I know this is goin’ against all I am, but I already like her,” she declared, jerking her head my way.

  That felt great.

  “Pregnancy is softening you up,” Jim-Billy commented.

  Uh-oh.

  Wrong thing to say.

  “Take that back,” she snapped, proving my assessment right.

  “Not a bad thing, darlin’,” Jim-Billy pointed out.

  She leaned in to him. “Take that back.”

  “Krys—”

  “My name is Justice Lonesome,” I blurted the reason I was there (outside to hang, have a beer and get to know my Carnal neighbors some more).

  Both Krystal and Jim-Billy looked to me.

  I’d started it, it was time. Shambles and Sunny knew. Although I’d asked them to keep it quiet until I was ready to let it loose, and they’d promised to do that, the more I got to know these folks, the longer I left it unsaid, the bigger the chance of me courting the possibility of hurting people’s feelings. Because anything important left unsaid eventually became a lie if you let it get to that.

  “My father is Johnny Lonesome. Aunt and uncle Tammy and Jimmy. Granddad was Jerry.”

  I sallied forth even though both of them were staring at me, silent.

  “I cut a record six years ago. It did well. I toured with it. I did well. Then my drummer overdosed. He was a good guy. A good friend. He’d been with my dad before he went on the road with me so I’d known him years. He was part of the family. It tore me up. On tour, I hooked up with another guy in my band. He was into that shit and us losing someone didn’t make him stop. He wanted me on that trip with him. I wanted nothing to do with it. The pressure was heavy because the life is extreme and there’s a lot of times when you just need something to keep going. We weren’t serious but it was an ugly break. That tore me up too. A lot of the shit I did and saw and had to eat to live that life tore me up. So I left it.”

  Jim-Billy and Krystal kept staring.

  I kept blathering.

  “Dad died of an aneurysm four months ago. No warning except he ate anything he liked and drank all he wanted and didn’t take care of himself, but he ran around onstage like he was still twenty-one, so the doctors said if it wasn’t that, he’d have a stroke or a heart attack and not later, but sooner. He was Johnny Lonesome but to me he was just my dad. I loved him. He loved me. A lot. And I miss him.”

  “Jus,” Jim-Billy whispered.

  I knew why. I felt the tears brimming in my eyes.

  I focused on him because Krystal looked pissed.

  “I didn’t tell you because I wanted peace,” I whispered back to Jim-Billy. “Just some time where I was Jus. Not Justice Lonesome, not Johnny Lonesome’s daughter, Jerry’s granddaughter. I wanted you to get to know me. And lots of stuff is happening since Dad’s died and it’s a pain in my ass. So I wanted that peace. I’m sorry I didn’t share right off the bat. But can you understand why I wouldn’t?”

  “Of course, sweetheart,” Jim-Billy said immediately.

  “Justice Lonesome,” Krystal said over him.

  I looked to her and braced.

  “Heard Johnny’s daughter cut a record. Heard a song. It was slow and sappy. So, hope you don’t mind, but I gave my cake to your old man. Bought every album he put out seein’ as he was a goddamned rock ‘n’ roll genius,” she declared.

  “I don’t mind,” I told her quietly, warmth stealing around my heart at her words about Dad, still braced because she wasn’t sending warm vibes to me.

  “Saw him in concert twice. Two best concerts of my life,” she stated.

  “Yeah. He was great live,” I agreed.

  All of a sudden, her hand came out, palm flat on the bar in front of me.

  She didn’t touch me, not even close.

  What she did was look me in the eye and say in a tone in my not-very-long acquaintance with Krys I’d never heard or suspected she could take, “His loss was a great one.”

  And there was the warmth.

  I couldn’t hack it.

  Grief was a tricky thing. When we lost Granddad, I’d learned that, for me, it wasn’t those who gave you so
rrowful looks, gazing on you with understanding, keeping their mouths shut.

  It was the folks who offered sympathy.

  It meant the world and it was necessary to have to file away and take out at a time when the loss was less raw and those words could be soothing.

  But when the loss was raw, it tore the wound wider.

  “Thanks,” I replied shakily.

  Krystal knew my kind. She saw exactly where I was at.

  “You need a beer,” she decreed, pulling her hand away.

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

  Jim-Billy moved and he didn’t stop short of touching me. He took my hand on the bar and gave it a lovely squeeze before letting it go.

  I gave him a lame smile.

  I’d done right, picking that crazy house in this crazy town with these crazy people.

  So right.

  Krys came back with my beer.

  I kept on mission.

  “If you guys could, you know, not lie but not spread it around. I’ll share and all. If you know Shambles and Sunny from La-La Land, well, they listened to my stuff so they already knew me, obviously, before we met the other day. But, you know, a little bit more of that peace would work for me.”

  “Babe, you’re gonna get peace. Any motherfucker fucks with your peace, they got my buckshot in their ass,” Krystal declared.

  My eyes got wide.

  “Not to scare you or anything,” Jim-Billy leaned toward me and stage-whispered. “But she ain’t jokin’.”

  “Damn straight,” Krystal said and indicated my draft with a quick movement of her ebony-flame-tipped-haired head. “Holler, you need a refill.”

  She wandered off.

  “Bubba shoulda knocked her up years ago,” Jim-Billy noted, watching her go.

  I shook off the emotion their kindness left with me and gave him a grin.

  It wasn’t the pregnancy.

  It was and it wasn’t.

  It was just that Krystal, as hard as she was on the outside, was not stupid.

  She, too, recognized bounty.

  And it felt fucking awesome she saw it in me.

  Chapter Five

  Bad Timing

  Justice

  My phone ringing Monday morning woke me.