Toward lunch, I introduced the idea of multiple targets. I stopped her. She held the gun at the ready, arms extended, finger straight, just below the target. “Most altercations involve more than one assailant. Why? Because wolves travel in—?” I prompted her.
“Packs,” she said.
“Right. So, stop the threat in front of you, then search and scan. Be looking for what you can’t see.”
The morning brought us in close proximity to each other. It demanded that I learn to trust her and she me. Multiple times, I adjusted her grip, placing my hand on hers, brushed shoulders, placed my hand on her back. Or, maybe it didn’t demand it. Maybe I brought myself into proximity with her. Maybe.
She wasn’t bashful and when she’d learned that I’d forgotten the paper cups, she didn’t mind drinking out of the large Gatorade cooler on the back of my truck by sticking her mouth to the spigot.
We each ate a bologna sandwich, two MoonPies, and polished it off with an RC Cola. She toasted me. “The lunch of champions. You shouldn’t have.”
“I got a can of sardines in hot sauce if you’d prefer that.”
After lunch, I introduced the three types of malfunctions that can occur—a failure to feed, a failure to eject, and a double-feed—and how to clear them not so that she’d master them but just to bring it to her attention and let her know that we’d revisit it in lesson number two.
Finally, I stepped alongside her, shoulder to shoulder, and drew to the ready. “If you’re fighting for your life, it’s best to do it with someone else at your side. A partner is a good thing to have. Texas is a big state and there aren’t nearly enough of us Rangers so we don’t often get a partner, but when we do, we know the value in it. Hence, learn to communicate.”
She interrupted me with a smile. “Sounds like you should take your own advice.”
I smiled. “Easy, Annie Oakley. Right now, I’m teacher. You’re student.”
She shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
For the next hour, we ran drills simulating multiple threats. I acted as her partner. When I ran empty, I hollered, “Cover!” She fell silent and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. I leaned toward her and said, “You’re supposed to say, ‘Covering.’ ”
Sam yelled, “Covering!” She turned to my target and fired three rounds center while I loaded.
Seconds later, when she ran empty, she yelled, “Cover!”
I turned the turret of my shoulders and arms toward her target and responded, “Covering!”
She reached for a magazine but she was out. Seven empties lay at her feet. Her left thumb was cut and bleeding from racking the slide and she had smeared powder across her lip. Sweat trickled down the sides of her neck. Her focus surprised me. She shook her head without taking her eyes off the target and said, “I’m out.”
Without looking at her, I reached in my back pocket, handed her a loaded magazine. She accepted it without moving her muzzle away from her target. She loaded without looking and fired three rounds.
If there was a moment when I felt something twinge inside me, it may have been there. That moment. When she took that magazine from my hand. When she took it without looking and then loaded without looking.
She returned to ready, checked over both shoulders, and said, “Clear.”
I nodded, thumbed my safety up and “on” and holstered. She did likewise. I pulled off my earmuffs, nodding. “That’s a good place to quit. Line’s cold.”
She slid off her muffs and looked up at me. “How’d I do?”
We walked toward her target. The ground was covered in hundreds of spent brass casings. She’d done well. She’d kept her head, learned much, shot well, and been safe—which meant using her brain. I ran my hand across the plate-sized hole that once represented the chest of her cardboard target. “I’d hate to be him, but more important, we’re safe and not leaving here with any more holes than when we started.”
She laughed.
I helped her loosen her belt and slide the holster and magazine carrier off. I confirmed the condition of it, which means I double- and triple-checked to make sure it was empty, then placed it inside my range bag on the tailgate and gave her a towel to wipe her face and hands. She wiped the back of her neck and arms. She said, “Some girls perspire. I sweat.”
I nodded at her sweaty pits and the trail of sweat down her stomach. “I gather that.”
I drove her back to the house and we stood next to the widow’s truck. She handed the towel back. “Well, since you’re not going to ask me, I’m asking you.” This had a bad feeling to it. “How about a date?”
“What do you mean by ‘date’?”
“You and me. Doing something fun.”
“This is you and me and this was fun.”
“Nope. No, sir. You’re not getting off that easy. This is not a date. You didn’t ask. And while this was fun, I ’bout pooped my pants ten times and I’m pretty sure I peed a little, so no… this doesn’t count. Besides, you’ve taught me something. Now I want to teach you.”
I scratched the back of my head. “Like what?”
“To dance?”
I shook my head. “H-e-double-L no.”
She laughed. “Yes. I want to go dancing.”
“I’m not going anywhere where other people are watching me make a fool of myself.”
“Okay, how ’bout just you and me. Nobody’s watching.”
“Couldn’t we just go for a walk or something? Maybe catch a movie.”
“Nope. You need to dance. Those hips are so stiff. You walk like you been sitting on a horse your whole life. I want to teach you to dance.”
I let out a deep breath. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”
“Nope.”
I chewed on my bottom lip.
“What if we asked Georgia to watch the kids while I gave you a dancing lesson?”
“Where?”
She looked up, out of the corners of her eyes. “Your barn. There’s room in there. And no one will be watching.”
She had a point. “When?”
“This Friday is movie night at school.” I could tell she’d already been scheming. “Maybe Georgia could take the kids to watch Star Wars then keep them company a few hours. She’s got an iPod with a little speaker I could borrow. You could cook me dinner.”
I nodded. “Deal. What do you like to eat?”
“Anything. You pick it. But…” She stuck a finger in the air. “I get to pick the dancing and the music.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Sure you will. Once you loosen up. I think all that starch has sunk into your skin. Look at you, there’s not a wrinkle anywhere and I look like I’ve been wadded up a week.” She pulled on my shirt, reached up, kissed me. Then kissed me again. “Thank you for today. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She climbed in, I shut the door and she raised both eyebrows. “It’s okay. You can smile. It was a kiss. Lots of people do it. You should try it sometime.”
“I know what it is. It’s just I hadn’t done it in a few years. I was hoping I hadn’t just messed it up.”
She licked her top lip. “There’s room for improvement.”
“Listen, since you now know what you’re doing, Andie’s got one of these in a hand safe bolted in the closet. Combination is four fingers in sequence.” I demonstrated. “There’s a flashlight and a couple of loaded magazines in there with it. I thought you’d feel safer, at night, given things being what they are.”
“Thank you.”
I walked to my truck, cranked it, and sat with the diesel idling. I stared through the windshield watching the dust settle. While it did and she disappeared, I licked my top lip and then tried to decide if I liked the taste.
It didn’t take me very long.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dear God,
Momma’s calling him “Tumbleweed” now. He limps and I saw his leg. Got a big scar. I can tell Momma likes hi
m. We saw him naked. Actually, Momma saw more than I did. She told me to go back to the house but I didn’t. I stared through the trees. He didn’t see me. We were walking across his pasture when we came around the corner and he was standing underneath the windmill rinsing in the shower. Naked as a jaybird. Momma calls it his birthday suit but I don’t know if it’s his birthday. He’s got a big scar on his left leg. The one he limps with. And he’s burnt all up and down the left side of his body. But, his privates weren’t burnt. Not that I could tell. Not that I was looking. Not really. But, when I asked Momma she said no, they didn’t look like they were burnt and then she started blushing. So, I think Momma likes him. Seeing him naked didn’t scare me.
He taught her to shoot. Gave her a gun. She keeps it in a little black safe bolted in a drawer next to the bed. I’m glad, ’cause if Billy shows up, she can shoot him.
Oh, and I forgot to tell you one more thing. It’s not that I hadn’t wanted to tell you, it’s just that I been thinking a lot about it and I hadn’t been quite sure how I felt about it until maybe now and even now maybe I’m still a little fuzzy about it, but well, the other night, Cowboy took us to get ice cream. He knew it was kind of a bad memory for me and all so he sat me down with Momma and told me about this place in Brenham, Texas, called Blue Bell and how they make the best ice cream in the whole world and how they have this truck that delivers it to Rock Basin so we don’t have to drive all the way to hell and gone. Sorry, his words. Not mine. Anyway, I said I’d go but that I really didn’t want any, but then we went and Brodie got some and he gave me a bite and you know what it tasted like, it tasted like the cream at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans and I thought it was real good. So, Cowboy bought me some. First I had two scoops. Then I had two more. Then him and Brodie and me and Momma laughed till we about peed, well, we laughed a lot. And I liked the ice cream. He told us we could go back anytime. That ice cream was so good, it got me to thinking the same thought I had back in New Orleans. Why do we even mess with the other stuff when we got Blue Bell?
Turbo’s doing good. I think he likes it here. He’s growing. I think we’re feeding him too much and I think Brodie is worried about his mom. I asked about her but he wouldn’t talk about her. Then he started talking about her and he didn’t stop for a long time. He told me all about her. Told me about how they’d go riding together, how she made the best salsa in all Texas, how she breaks the speed limit when she drives, and how sometimes she’d let him stay up late and sit with her on the porch and wait for Cowboy to come home. He told me how she loves him. How she loves them both. How she still does.
That made me sad. I’m just being honest. Momma and Cowboy were off having fun, having a date, and there was Brodie talking about how he loves his mom and how she loves his dad. Well, if that’s the case, then what’s he doing with Momma?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I drove Brodie to Georgia’s salon and waited for Sam to finish her last pedicure before we walked in. He was quiet. “You okay, big guy?”
He looked down between his feet. “Dad, are you going on a date tonight with Miss Samantha? Hope said you two were going on a date.”
“Is that what she said?”
He nodded.
“I suppose, in a way. Yes.”
“You know Mom will be home in two weeks.”
“I know.” I had told him about the divorce. He’d taken it like the man he was becoming. His mom had been gone long enough that it wasn’t a shock.
“You gonna ask her out on a date?”
“I don’t think so, son.”
“Why not?”
“I think maybe your mom and me… we’ve had our last date.”
He nodded.
“I think your mom is dating another man here in town.”
“So, Mom’s not your”—he seemed to search for the right word—“girlfriend anymore?”
I shook my head.
“Is Miss Sam your girlfriend?”
“No, not yet. But, she might be.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Would that be okay with you?”
He stepped out of the truck and climbed the steps into the salon.
Sam eyed me as I led her to the barn. She raised her nose in the air. “You smell good. What is that… Brut 33?”
“Very funny.”
“Stetson?”
“Old Spice.”
“I knew I’d smelled that before. This’ll be just like dancing with my dad.” Her eyes climbed up and down me. “You always look like that when you go on a date?”
“What?”
“The starch, and the gun and the hat and the… did you actually iron your jeans?”
I turned around, and started walking away from the barn. She ran around me, hooked her arm in mine, and kept walking me toward the barn. “Just a few steps further.” She laughed. “It’s like getting a shot. The worst part is thinking about it before you get it.”
Sam set the iPod on the counter while I shut the barn door. My nearest neighbor was two miles away but I wasn’t taking any chances. I clicked on all the lights and raked some of the straw out of the middle. The smell of horses, straw, and manure filled the air. Cinch leaned over his stall and looked at me like I was nuts. Sam was wearing the jeans I’d bought her, the boots Dumps had made her, a white designer T-shirt, and a straw hat one of the girls in the salon had loaned her. The edges of the brim were folded up like Tim McGraw or Kenny Chesney.
I met her in the middle as some song started that I’d never heard. I glanced at the white iPod. “What is that?”
“Celine Dion.”
“Brodie told me if I listen to Tyler Fast anymore that he’d stamp my man card.”
“Taylor Swift.”
“Yeah, her, too. He said, if I dance to any of the stuff that sounds like that, he’ll revoke it for a year and I can only reapply after a probationary period in which I must recite Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Willie Nelson backwards.”
“Cowboy, you ever been to Hollywood Boulevard?”
I shook my head.
“Well, me, either, but I’m told they have stars on the concrete, like poured in, for the people that are permanent fixtures. It means something like, they are Hollywood.”
“Your point?”
“I think you’re a permanent member of the man card group thing. If ever a man earned one…” She shook her head. “Yours is not revocable.”
“You don’t know Brodie.”
“Funny. Come here.”
She held out her hands. I did likewise. She took my hands and commenced leading me in a few steps. She kept stepping on my toes. I said, “You walk on the tops and I’ll walk on the bottoms.”
After about sixty seconds of this, she stepped back, shook her head and chewed on a nail. “This won’t do.”
“What won’t do?”
Her eyes climbed up and down me. “This.”
“What’s wrong with this?”
“Most everything.” She paused, and then curled her finger with that “come hither” motion. I stood next to the counter. She took off my hat and set it down. Next, she said, “Pardon me,” and unbuckled my belt, slid it out of my jeans while I caught the holster. “Put that on the table.” I did. “Magazines, too.” I emptied my back pocket of the two loaded magazines. She eyed my ankle. “What about little brother?”
I unvelcroed the holster and laid both holster and the S&W 327 on the table. She crossed one arm and tapped her chin. “Any more weapons of any kind?”
“Pocketknife.”
“Lay it on the table.”
“Lady, I ain’t felt this naked since I was born. I’m keeping the knife.”
She put her hands on her hips and pointed at the table. I slid the knife from my pocket and laid it on the table along with half a tube of ChapStick. Then she reached up and began unsnapping my shirt. Once unsnapped, she slid it off my arms, folded it, and laid it on the table. She stared at my blue undershirt. “Are you actually wearing a Superman T-shirt?”
“
Brodie makes me wear it. Says it keeps me safe.”
Her left eyebrow lifted slowly above the right. “You mean, you have more than one?”
“Got a drawer full. One for every day of the week.”
She shook her head, untucked it, and began pulling it over my head. “I’m not dancing with the Ranger. Or Clark Kent. Or John Wayne. I’m dancing with Tyler.”
I stood there, bare-chested, feeling like an idiot.
“Boots, too.”
“Nope. Man’s got to have his limits and the boots are mine. Boots stay on.”
She raised both eyebrows and stuck a finger in my face. “Tyler Steele, put the blasted boots on the table.”
I slid them off and stood sock-footed next to the table. She combed my hair with her fingers. “Much better.” She pushed a button on the iPod and pulled me by the hand. “Now come here.” We walked back to center and stood facing each other. I’d never felt so naked in my whole life. Not even under the windmill. She extended her hands. “Sam Dyson. Nice to meet you.”
“Tyler Steele. I’m the town idiot.”
“Well, just play along. You should fit right in.”
The music started. I held my arms like I’d seen Patrick Swayze do in Dirty Dancing. She laughed. “You need to relax. You ain’t Patrick Swayze.” She adjusted me.
I eyed the iPod. “Who’s singing now?”
“Josh Groban.”
“You got any Don Williams? Waylon? Willie? Hank Jr.?”
“Hang in there. This won’t kill you, but your beer-drinking, two-stepping, somebody-shot-Momma-who-was-drunk-when-she-picked-me-up-from-the-train music is killing me.”
“But I’ve always liked David Allan Coe.”
“Yeah, well, get over it.”
“Then, at least, please tell me you have Emmylou Harris? Everybody knows she’s an angel on loan. I’ve always thought if I was dying, I’d like her to sing over me while I passed from here to there.”