Mrs. Mallomar woke up the next day with no clue as to where she was. Her mind shuffled through her Rolodex of hospitals, first, second, and third homes, development sites, and hotels—and drew a blank. Wherever she was, her arms were not restrained, she noticed. That was a good sign. And it was quiet. She smelled fresh paint and the pleasant aroma of newly laid wood flooring. Slowly, she untangled her bony legs from the sweat-knotted sheets, stood up and walked to the door. The hallway led to the overview of the house’s Great Room: an architectural assembly of trusses and beams that arched cathedral-like over a two-thousand-square-foot living room complete with a ten-ton fieldstone and blackened-iron fireplace.
“This is the fucking cabin?” she mumbled to herself as she held on tightly to the railing trying not to slip on the just-polished stairs. Mrs. Mallomar, no slouch when it came to interior decorating herself—having previously decorated four of their part-time houses—took note of the salvaged barn wood he had used extensively on the interior walls. “I know where you got that idea, Marvin,” she grumbled. It was at the Democratic Fundraiser at the teen-movie director, Adam Schreifeldt’s house on Long Island. He had bought the barns from four different defunct potato farms that could no longer afford the increased Hamptons real estate taxes.
When Mrs. Mallomar finally made it to the bottom of the stairs, she stood mind-boggled, facing what could still be identified as a hundred-thousand-dollar Frank Lloyd Wright dining table—its legs having been cruelly sawn off by her husband to create a coffee table large enough to fit the scale of the oversized room. The monster. Was he in the house? She couldn’t wait to scream at him for the nouveau-riche boor he was. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen. She was alone except for the two Ute girls who were washing the windows in the Great Room.
Not many rich people used Utes as domestics, she would learn, generally favoring the less expensive illegal Mexicans, but Mallomar had found, after going through every able-bodied woman from Ridgway to Egnar, that the Ute women were the only ones with the requisite courage and balance to ascend the thirty-foot extension ladders needed to wash his Great Room’s twenty-five-foot picture windows. Lolly and Lily Longfeather, chammies clutched in puckered brown fingers, were perched atop twin ladders looking very much like their cliff-dwelling ancestors depicted in the clay model at the Anasazi Visitors Center in Mesa Verde. Unaware of Mrs. Mallomar’s pale-faced presence, they paused for a moment to look through the just-cleaned upper portion of the windows and contemplated the clouds drifting by Sunshine Peak, Lizard Head, Mt. Wilson, El Diente, and Lone Cone Peak—the sacred gateways of the Ute and Navajo Indian Nations. Suddenly, a blue jay, fooled by his reflection in the sparkling clean window, smacked into it and fell to the ground, its neck swizzling 180 degrees. Shocked by the impact, the Ute women wobbled on their ladders for a moment, but regained their balance. They looked at the dead jay, and then at each other with horror. This was bad Ute juju. Even Mrs. Mallomar sensed it—in her first sober moment in forty-eight hours.
In the meadow behind the house, Buster and his horse, Stinker, were inspecting the ditch line for blockages. Buster was proud that the work he had done on the irrigation system might last for generations. But something was wrong with Stinker. He wouldn’t stop fidgeting and cantering sideways from the house. The more Buster tried to get him to go closer to the house, the more agitated he became.
“Something wrong, old boy?” Buster said, trying to soothe him. His eyes were wide with fear, and his nostrils flared. Buster quickly looked around to see if there were any mountain lions. Stinker started gagging on his bit, backing up. Buster squinted in the direction of what was spooking him. About twenty-five yards away, the ghostlike figure of Mrs. Mallomar could be seen in the window, looking down at the hapless feathered aviator. Stinker, it seemed, had never seen a human being as skinny and pale as her before and bucked with such ferocity that his bridle broke. Off he went, Buster holding on for dear life, as the horse leapt over the river-rocked garden wall, smashing two $3,500 teak chaise lounge chairs that Mallomar had just uncrated from Smith and Hawken.
Mrs. Mallomar screamed so loudly, and so unexpectantly, that the Ute women fumbled their Rubbermaid buckets of vinegar and water. The ladders waved together then parted like knitting strands of DNA—and then women, buckets, and ladders crashed to the floor. The buckets, smashed the Frank Lloyd Wright coffee table in half soaking the forty-by-sixty Persian rug with vinegar. The overstuffed leather sofas fortunately broke Lilly and Lolly Longfeather’s fall. They were unhurt, but had trouble catching their breath. The damage would clearly cost twenty years of their combined salaries. Numbly, they looked out at Buster, now on the patio, who had dismounted to look for his hat. Sadly, he found the little bird instead, picking it up in his big hand. He gazed up at the Ute girls through the window and pantomimed to the dead bird. “Did I do this?”
The Utes mutely shook their heads. Relieved, he smiled. That is until he saw Mrs. Mallomar. She stormed out the patio doors, scaring Stinker away.
“Uh, afternoon, Mrs. Mallomar. Sleep well?” Buster said, holding the jay behind his back so as not to further upset her delicate constitution.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Well, ah’m Buster. We, uh, met…already.”
“Is this my house?”
“Uh, yes, ma’am.”
“Do you work here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then you’re fired.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Buster said, and stuck his hat back on his head. Then he laid the dead bird on top of the covered Wolf gas grill like a Raja on a funeral bier. Stinker had run all the way back to the barn where Buster retreated as well.
About an hour later, Mallomar, who’d been in town ostensibly discussing chicken-fried steak franchises with Mary Boyle, found Buster’s pickup and trailer next to the barn. He was inside packing up his horse tack.
“My wife said she fired you over some crappy furniture you broke. Is that what’s going on here?”
“Yessir. Ah’ma leavin’.”
“Did you tell her you were the foreman of this place?”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t you think you should have conveyed to her, in all her fucking dazed glory, that you run this place…that you’re my partner?”
“Dint wanna rile her no further.”
“You’re not afraid of her, are you?”
“No sir, not ’xactly.”
“Well, tell me something. Would you turn your back and run away from a mountain lion?”
“No sir, ah sure would not.”
“How about a grizzly bear?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why, in the fucking world, would you run away from a ninety-five-pound drug-addled woman?”