The Prodigal Cowboy. Kathleen Eagle
Bella prompted.
“You get to be around wild things. Wild kids, wild horses and what’s left of wild country.” Shelly moved into the shade of a tall cottonwood, and Bella followed suit. “Wild hearts attract each other.”
“How’s yours?”
Shelly grinned. “I’m the maypole they all get to dance around. I have to crunch the numbers and find the wherewithal.”
“I like that image. This could be a good story, and KOZY isn’t the only media outlet I can access.” Bella smiled. She didn’t mind throwing her TV connection into her pitch. Most people—local people, anyway—were dazzled by it. If they had nothing to hide they eventually opened their doors. Sometimes they couldn’t resist even if they did have something to hide. Besides, everything she was saying was true. “Do you have time to show me around?”
Of course Shelly did.
She led the way with a “follow me,” and they started toward the barn. “The bunkhouse is new.” She pointed toward what might have passed for a truncated no-name roadside motel—plain white, no-frills. “Kitchen and commons area downstairs, bunks upstairs. You wanna see inside? Nobody’s there now except the cook.”
Bella shook her head. “Another time. Who paid for the improvements?”
“We qualified for a government grant and scored some private funding, as well. We get community support, too. People come in and teach whatever skills they have to offer.” Shelly glanced over her shoulder. “TV reporting must require all kinds of skills.”
“You mean, besides talking to the camera?”
“Are you kidding? You’re talking to thousands of people.”
“I don’t think of it that way,” Bella said absently as they rounded the corner of the bunkhouse and headed toward the barn.
“I’d be shaking in my boots and tripping over my tongue,” Shelly said.
“You get used to it. The scary part can be trying to get information out of people who don’t want to talk or pictures of things they don’t want you to see.”
“We tell the kids, once you find out what a relief it is to come clean, you’ll never want to—” They turned another corner and ran into an old flatbed farm truck with its hood up, one guy standing and another guy squatting next to the front tire, and one pair of boots sticking out from under the orange cab.
“Did you guys run over somebody?” Shelly called out. She glanced back at Bella and nodded toward the two faces now turned their way. “There’s your man.” She raised her voice. “You’ve got a visitor, Wolf Track.”
“You patted her down, didn’t you?” Ethan wiped his hands on a rag as he rose to his feet. “Was she packin’?”
“Packing what?” Shelly asked.
“A .38.” Grinning at Bella, he touched the brim of his straw cowboy hat in salutation. “Smith & Wesson, right?”
Bella’s eyes widened as she and Shelly approached the truck. “That was you?”
“You saw the pickup that cruised past? That was trouble.”
“You followed me?”
“Trouble followed you. I followed them.” Beneath the bent brim of his hat a smile danced in his dark eyes. “You don’t wanna tip your hand out on the street like that, Bella. Some people might find a Smith & Wesson even more tempting than a Bella Primeaux.”
She returned a level stare. “Neither one was there for the taking. As I said, I know how to use it.”
“If you really knew how to use it, you wouldn’t be giving away your advantage by broadcasting it.”
“This sounds like an interesting reunion,” Shelly injected, amused. “I’m guessing high school sweethearts.”
“No. Never.” Bella laughed. “I was a lowly underclassman when Ethan was the cock of the walk.”
“The what?” Ethan said.
“You were the captain of everything except the cheerleading squad.”
“And our little two-man history team.” He winked at her, and she wondered whether the gesture had become pure reflex. “I dropped the ball on that one. It was your leadership that got us on the A list.”
“Well played, captain. Credit your teammates. We’d love to hear a play-by-play. Sounds like the makings of an excellent lesson in humility.” Shelly slipped an arm around Bella’s waist. “Please stay for supper so the boys can watch their hero recover whatever he’s fumbled.”
“Thank you, I will.” Bella gave Ethan a sweet smile. “I’m interested in seeing how a cock walks the straight and narrow walk. We already know how he talks the talk.”
“You do know a cock is a rooster, right?” Ethan said.
“Of course. My mother had one. Beautiful plumage. But the hens got tired of him, and the neighbors complained about the crowing.” She shrugged. “So we ate him. I made a tiny dance bustle out of his tail for my little cousin.”
It took a moment, but Ethan burst out laughing. The boy standing near the truck joined in, and the one underneath called out, “Whoa!”
“Are you watching what you’re doing there?” Still chuckling, Ethan returned to his duty. “Has the oil finished draining from the filter?”
“How am I supposed to tell?”
“Use your eyes, Dempsey. See anything dripping?”
“Out of the filter, Dempsey, not your face,” the other boy jeered as Dempsey scooted out from under the cab.
Ethan tapped the scoffer’s barrel chest. “You’re not gonna make it as a comedian, so you’d better learn to make yourself useful for something else.” He reached through the cab window and drew out a box. “Step two.”
“I gotta get back under there?” Dempsey whined.
“What do you say, Bongo?” Ethan laid a hand on the big boy. “You wanna do the oil filter?”
Bongo chuckled as he glanced under the hood. “Does it go on top?”
“No, you gotta get down and dirty.”
Dempsey laughed. “Good luck gettin’ him back out.”
“So that was our automotive program,” Shelly said to Bella as she turned her toward the barn. “The next stop on our press tour will be the henhouse. One of the few centers of serious, steady, no-bull productivity on the place. Besides the kitchen, where we have another woman in charge. I swear, Bella, the testosterone …” With a smug smile she glanced back. “Carry on, boys.”
Ethan looked up at Bella as he sank down, butt to boot heels. “You stay for supper, me and the boys’ll show off our table manners. We just learned that passing is our first option.”
“Yeah, but Bongo still wants to run with the bowl.”
“Shut up, Dempsey,” Bongo called out from under the orange cab.
“Count me in, Shelly,” Bella said, amused, hesitant to move on. “I’m really interested in your program.” To be honest, she felt favored, much the way she had the day Ethan had tapped her on the shoulder in history class and pointed his finger in her direction and then his own. You’re with me on this one.
“I’m interested in her .38,” Dempsey said, loud enough to be heard.
“Jeez, Dempsey, what’s wrong with you?” Bongo asked.
“You do know a .38 is a gun.”
“Sure, I do. And I figure she can read the No Firearms sign out at the gate.