Buster hitched a ride on a lumber truck that was taking the shortcut across the Lame Horse Mesa to Cortez. He walked the rest of the way to Jimmy’s then packed his few possessions, loaded up Stinker in the trailer and returned to his sheepherder’s campsite. It was a little worse for wear after the winter, but he didn’t care about his own comfort. All Buster could think about was Destiny. For the first time in his life he was angry and heartsick at the same time—angry at Jimmy, heartsick at losing Destiny to a real estate salesman. The whole idea of finding his real family to impress the Stumplehorsts had backfired badly. Now he was faced with a choice. Should he fight back and try to reclaim Destiny or should he take the beating—like he had with Cookie—and chalk it up to one of those lessons in life? He decided that this time he would fight back. Destiny was meant to be with him. He had to save her. To anybody else, it would seem clear that she didn’t want to be saved. But in Buster’s particular upside-down way of thinking, Destiny had supplied a small clue as to why he should continue his pursuit. It was the fact that she had climbed backwards out of the lavatory window in a dress. To Buster, that told him that, despite her new position as a real estate executive, she was still at heart, the girl in the barn. So pride and commonsense would have to hold his coat while he fought for her.
He was going to need a job. Pragmatically, he drew a twenty-five mile circle on a map around Vanadium and drove to every cattle operation within that. Only one of the cattle bosses didn’t give him a flat out “no.” That guy backed out at the last moment.
“How come you changed yor mind?” Buster asked.
“Look, kid, I hear you’re a top hand, but I buy my hay from Stumplehorst. Do I need to draw you a picture?”
Buster increased the circumference on his map to fifty miles with no greater success. Jimmy was right about how no one wanted to go up against the Stumplehorsts. But then again, Jimmy could go to hell.
Buster stopped off in town to pick up supplies and check his post office box. There was some mail that had been forwarded from Jimmy Bayles Morgan’s box number. He was about to read it when he caught sight of Destiny’s photo on the front page of a free real estate flyer. It was an ad for an open house that Destiny’s real estate company had scheduled for that very same day—a little farmhouse just outside of town with five acres for $149,000. Was it unreasonable to think that such a place was within reach of a young cowboy without a job? What was the harm in dropping by in taking a look? And if he happened to bump into Destiny—well, wouldn’t that be a funny coincidence?
Buster drove over up to the house in his Apache and parked on the gravel county road. There were a few cars in the driveway. Buster decided, for the maximum dramatic effect of his reappearance, to wait until they had left. He passed the time braiding strands of horsehair for a fob for his truck keys. When every car had driven off, leaving a lone copper colored BMW X-5, he got out of his truck and walked up to the front door.
Downstairs was a little walnut table in the entranceway. There was a silver tray with Cord Travesty’s business cards fanned across. There were some plastic glasses with dribs of white wine left in them by the potential clients who decided they’d had enough of looking at this sad and dingy house. Buster looked in the kitchen. The faucet was leaking. He tried to turn it off. It still dripped. Probably needed a new gasket. No one was in the pantry. No one was in the spare downstairs bedroom, either. That meant that there was only one place left for Destiny to be, the upstairs bedroom. Buster ascended the stairs quietly—hoping to surprise her. The door was closed. Buster eased the door open slowly—just in case she was on the other side of it with a tape measure or something. Instead, he found her on the bed with Cord Travesty. He was copulating with her very quickly from behind as if he was competing in some crazy athletic event. Buster stood there until his eyeballs filled with tears and quietly closed the door.
At his camp that night, he sat for hours looking into the fire. Not giving up was proving to be a more painful proposition than he originally imagined. Then he remembered his groceries were still in the truck. He retrieved a package of hot dogs, some potato salad, which he sniffed, and a pint of vanilla ice cream—which was now completely melted. Down at the bottom of the soggy bag was his mail. There was a notice for jury duty, an offer for a credit card with 0% interest for three months, and a letter. He tossed the jury duty notice and the credit card offer in the fire, put three hot dogs on a cottonwood skewer, and opened the letter. It read:
Dear Buster,
I remember you telling me that you didn’t use the Internet, so I am writing this the old-fashioned way with paper and a fountain pen. This particular pen that I acquired at auction was said to have belonged to Secretary of State, George Marshall. Anyway, I enjoyed myself very much on our little ride up the mountain. It kind of got me thinking. This is going to sound crazy, but what if you and I went elk hunting together? If I was so lucky as to catch one, I would like the proceeds to be “swapped out” for some canned goods and other essentials the same way you do. We could go 50-50 on it. Please arrange this for me.
P.S. Don’t worry. I’m not bringing my wife this time.
Sincerely,
Marvin Mallomar, New York City
Buster folded the letter and tucked it in his jacket. Mr. Mallomar on an elk hunt? The notion seemed preposterous. Arranging it wasn’t the problem. He was surrounded by one of the largest elk herds on the western slope. The problem was whether Mr. Mallomar would survive the heart attack he would most likely have while traipsing the eleven-thousand-plus-foot mountain ridges in the coming snow.
Buster wrote Mr. Mallomar back on a postcard depicting an old photograph of a stuffed black bear sitting in an outhouse.
Dear Mr. Mallomar,
Ah’d be tikkled to set you on an elk this fall. Jes hope you know what yor in for. Yor gonna be trakin these animels in freezin cold wether pretty high up. Ah’d feel a hole lot better if you got yoserf in shape a bit.
Ceerly,
Buster McCaffrey, Vanadium
Even though Buster meant well, Mallomar was rankled by the insinuation that he was out of shape. He was a pretty strong guy for his size. He didn’t drink all that much. Well, maybe he drank, but he never smoked besides the odd Cuban. In business, he had the reputation of being a tough guy. When he gave his look, people would want to shit their pants. But even Mallomar had to admit that intimidating people and coping with the elements—high altitude and steep terrain—were not the same. Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that Buster might be right—although, this assessment only came after he’d taken his Lexapro for depression (he discovered he liked it better than his old Elavil) and paced for two hours. And pacing wasn’t going to get him in shape either, so for the next four weeks he walked the six blocks to his office building. When he got there, he took the stairs to the fifteenth floor—muttering every step of the way about Buster underestimating the determination of Marvin P. Mallomar.
b
In Vanadium, the first rifle season had begun. Lame Horse Mesa’s surrounding mountains provided the best elk hunting on public land that any workingman could ask for in North America. From October 12 to the end of December, a continuous elephant walk of Texas and Oklahoma trucks circled Vanadium’s downtown looking for a parking place. The two restaurants and hardware store were filled from ten o’clock until three—because if a hunter hadn’t filled his tag by morning, he usually came into town to warm up or nurse a few beers and watch the Fox Channel before heading back to his freezing tent. But it wasn’t only the hardware store and restaurants that benefited from the orange “Welcome Hunters” banner that hung across Main Street.
Cookie Dominguez and the Busy Bees operated two jerky stands at either end of town. Originally, the Bees sold topographical maps of the area—Cookie’s version of Hollywood Maps to the Stars. Hunters would stop to get a map of the BLM and National Forest lands that were available to the public. They would then show Cookie, on those maps, where they were camping and place their orders for liquor and prostitutes. Cookie would ride the women up the mountain on ATV’s and pick them up in the morning. With the Christmas only two months away, there was no shortage of women needing cash. The hunters, most of them sorely lacking in outdoor skills, stood no better than a 10 percent chance of getting an elk. Those lucky enough to get one either shot theirs illegally in the middle of a county road or in someone’s yard. The brilliance of Cookie’s service was that even those who were unlucky could still go home with a wonderful memory of Vanadium. Unfortunately, over time, the hunters began to prefer Internet pornography to his flabby-fleshed lineup. Cookie, too smart a businessman to buck a trend, replaced prostitution with selling jerky. The Busy Bee vacuum-packed jerky was, of course, a loss leader. The real sales were in meth rocks and loose joints.
Each of Cookie’s jerky stands was positioned over a storm drain. The counter man had a piece of kite string tied to his finger. At the end of that string was a daisy chain of Ziploc bags containing several thousand dollars worth of black market goods hanging inside the storm drain. When a customer requested some weed or methamphetamines, the counter man would simply reel up the bags and package it with a small bag of jerky. In the event of a bust, the Busy Bee would simply release the string, make note of the amount and report it to accounting as a write-down. This system worked so well that Cookie decided to expand his drug franchise over the Fourth of July weekend by selling meth along with fireworks.
Buster had spent the last couple of weeks frantically preparing his spike camp for Mallomar’s arrival. He was making his last trip to the grocery store when he happened to see Cookie serving up his special jerky to a young hunter with “Sooner” plates. Their eyes met momentarily as he drove past and Cookie glowered at him. Buster thought about what Jimmy had said regarding Cookie’s intentions to kill him and quickly decided to go have a word with him. Buster hit the brakes and made a U-turn. The screech of the brakes startled Cookie and he reached reflexively for his baby Glock embedded above his fat right butt cheek. It wasn’t there. He panicked. He’d forgotten that he’d moved it to his left butt cheek since the loss of his two right fingers. Cookie’s customer seemed uncomfortable with a stranger walking up and he made a quick exit to his fifth wheel.
“What the fuck do you want, fuck face?” Cookie said, as Buster sauntered over, unaware of Cookie’s real enterprise.
“Ah was jes thinkin’ that this here’s gone far ’nuff—with you and me clashin’ like.”
“Why don’t you learn to speak English, joto? This only gets settled one way. Now fuck off.”
“C’mon now, Cook. Why you talkin’ like that?”
“You want me to put you down right here? Is that what you want, culero?”
Cookie yanked his pistol out if the holster and let Buster have a peek at it under a laminated jerky menu.
Buster put his hands up. “Easy there, bollito.”
“Now you’ve done it!” Bollito, Spanish for cookie or biscuit, was what he only allowed his mother to call him. “Now you’re dead.” Buster closed his eyes and waited for the shot to ring out, but it didn’t. “Oh shit,” he heard Cookie say.
Buster opened his eyes to see that Sheriff Dudival had pulled over. He had not yet seen the gun. He had been distracted by a dead yellow bug on Buster’s right fender and stopped to scratch it off with his thumbnail. Cookie had the gun in his left hand and held the string to his drugs in his right.
“Uh, ah’d like to buy some jerky,” Buster said, trying to help everyone concerned. Cookie slid the gun back off the counter and held it at his side.
“Just take it and get the fuck out of here.”
“Ah ’spect to pay fer it.” Buster took a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet. There was no way Cookie could make change with his hands filled as they were.
“Did you hear what I said, you fuckin’ idiot?”
A customer slowed down to pick up some of Cookie’s fast-paced jerky, but when he saw the sheriff waiting at Buster’s truck, he sped up and drove away.
“Ah’m payin for it. No ifs, ands, er buts.”
“Just go, faggot. I don’t have change.”
“I have some change,” Sheriff Dudival said, overhearing.
Dudival reached for his wallet as he approached the stand. Cookie realized that his best option was to drop the gun in the grass behind him, but used to holding it in his right hand, he released the string by mistake. He shuddered as thirty thousand dollar’s worth of crank disappeared down the storm drain and splashed below. He wanted to kill both of them or kill himself—he was so angry but, after considering all outcomes, dropped the gun into the goldenrod behind him. “I’ve got ten singles. That any help?”
“Yeah,” Cookie said hoarsely.
Buster handed Cookie the ten and opened his package of jerky, tore off a piece with his big teeth and chomped it.
“Say…this here’s top shelf!”
Cookie smiled weakly as the sheriff provided the change.
“Buster, do you mind if I have a word with you…in private?”
“Nice visitin’, hermano,” Buster said.
“Yeah,” Cookie said, his mouth spitless.
Buster and the sheriff walked back to his truck.
“You’re working as a game guide now. Is that right?”
“Yessir. Elk and the like.”
“I presume you have a guide’s license?”
Did he have to ask that? Of course Buster didn’t have a guide’s license.
“Ah kinda don’t, seein’ as how ah’m doin’ this for a friend like.”
“Oh,” the sheriff said, wincing at his speech as much as his disregard for the law. “But…if you decide to make this a permanent commercial venture, you will need to file the proper paperwork. The Department of Wildlife is very specific about that.”
“’A course.”
“Do you have a tent cabin for your client?”
“Not yet, ah don’t.”
“I have one if you want to make use of it.”
“Golly, how’d you come acrost one a them?”
“Two hunters from Oklahoma went missing. They were found on Lone Cone this morning—all cozied up in their sleeping bags—dead. From what I could gather, asphyxiation. They must have closed the tent flaps and had the propane heater on all night. I contacted the family. They’re obese and can’t make it up the mountain to retrieve the tent. So, it’s yours for the asking.”
“Gosh…ah’m much obliged…”
“Come by the office and I’ll give you the map coordinates so you can haul it out.”
“But uh…what do ah owe ya, fer it?”
“Nothing.”
“Jiminy. Really? That booger gotta be worth a grand er more.”
“There’s just a small thing I’d like you to do for me.”
“Shoot.”
“This unpleasantness between you and Jimmy. I’d like to see it end. She feels sorry about what she did.”
“She can jes tell me that himself then.”
“You know her better than that.”
“Well, if she ain’t man ’nuff to ’pologize…” Buster got into his truck and rolled down the window. “Ah’d like to give you a side of elk in ’xchange for the tent, if you don’t mind…jes to keep thangs straight.”
“The rightful recipient of that would be Jimmy,” the sheriff said as Buster kicked over the engine. “She’s the one who found them.”
“Found who?”
“The dead hunters.”