The Cowboy

‘Howdy.’

The voice came from nowhere, a man materialising from a cowboy film. He stood behind Jennifer’s empty seat, thick fingers gripping the top of the chair. His skin was brown and wrinkled as if he’d spent his whole life burying bodies in the desert. He wore a black cowboy hat pushed slightly back from his forehead. He had a denim jacket buttoned to his chin, which made it look as if he were hiding secrets. And violent ones too.

He eyeballed the parcel. I edged it closer. His eyes followed. He didn’t ask if the seat were free; he didn’t repeat his ‘howdy’. He just stood there.

I remembered the black pick-up I’d seen from the bus. And this was so very much the same guy, the driver. Curling round his tight, thin lips was that dead caterpillar of a moustache. It belonged in the National History Museum.

I looked past his facial hair, to the door to the toilets, praying for Jennifer to return. She seemed like the type to know what to do when tall mute cowboys stood at your table without saying anything.

‘I’ve finished my food,’ I said, smiling like I was looking into the sun, because I had to say something.

‘That I can see,’ he said in as cowboy a voice as you could imagine, especially if you’re from Somerset. ‘Me? I’ve never had much time for French fries. I’m more of a grits man.’

I felt like I should offer him some food, but all that was left was a tiny fragment of lettuce. He didn’t look like he’d enjoy tiny fragments of lettuce. I mean, he wasn’t a rabbit.

‘I like burgers,’ I said, and I don’t know why.

The Cowboy stared.

‘You sound like you’re a long way from home, son.’

And I think he would have continued staring if he hadn’t started coughing. It was a hacking, rattling sound. And as his body bent in two, Jennifer appeared behind him. She froze outside the toilet door. Her face fell as she saw the Cowboy. She recognised him and you could see she wanted to run. But she was tied to that parcel, the one on my table, as securely as a dog to a lead. So, slowly pushing the door open behind her, she shook her head. She drew a line across her neck.

‘Do you want some water?’ I asked, shrugging my shoulders at Jennifer, as the Cowboy’s lungs cracked the air. ‘I could get some.’

Recovering, he noticed that I looked past his shoulder. He turned. But all there was to see was the closing toilet door. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his mouth.

‘You here on your own, son?’

‘I’m on holiday with my British family. We’re British holidaymakers. From Britain.’

I don’t think I’d ever said ‘holidaymakers’ before. It was a word my gran would use when trying to buy the Daily Mail from a Spanish newsagent’s.

‘Uh-huh?’ said the Cowboy. ‘Is that so? Where are your parents? If you called out, could they hear you?’

I smiled in a kind of dentist’s-waiting-room way.

‘They’re in the toilets. Their stomachs.’ I indicated the fast food restaurant. ‘You know. British.’

His eyes fixed on the parcel. He moved to speak but thought better of it. Instead he smiled. You might have expected rotten teeth or ones coated in silver. But they were film-star perfect. How old was he? There was something treelike to him. Like you could work out his age by cutting him open and counting the rings.

‘You’re right. Excuse my … lack of manners. I’m no great conversationalist.’ He touched the brim of his hat. ‘You have yourself a swell time. Enjoy the bus journey. I’ll be seeing you.’

Back on the coach, Jennifer didn’t even let me ask the driver about my phone charger. She rushed me through to my seat with urgent, shaking hands.

‘It’s just that my phone’s at, like, fourteen per cent.’ Sitting now, Jennifer had her head in her hands, her elbows balanced on the parcel. Her legs trembled. I decided to stop talking about batteries. ‘You okay?’

‘What do you think?’ she said.

‘No? I mean, the guy was creepy. Maybe he was just really old. People get weird when they’re old. My gran …’

My voice faded. I was doing it again: nervous talking. I turned to check if there were any free seats nearby. Maybe sitting somewhere else would be a good idea. Jennifer raised her head. Her fingers picked at her nails.

‘The guy works for my grandmother. A fixer. They call him the Cowboy. The police have failed, so now she’s sent him.’

‘The Cowboy? You knew him? Are they real?’

‘Are what real?’

‘Cowboys?’

Jennifer blinked at me.

‘What are you talking about?’

I shook my head.

‘Cowboys. I didn’t realise they were a thing.’

‘Look, there was this time a –’ she did air quotation marks – ‘business associate of my grandmother’s ran off with some money. Took a suitcase on a plane to Hawaii with a fake name, fake ID, everything. Who should be waiting for him as he steps out in Honolulu? The Cowboy. With the business associate’s name on A4 laminated card and everything. You want to know what happened to the business associate?’

‘They killed him?’

‘Worse.’

I laughed. Jennifer didn’t. I decided, like, maybe leaving this was a good idea.

‘He wasn’t expecting you,’ she continued. ‘He held off. But he’s on our trail. It’s only a matter of time now. He was a US marshal back in the day. He knows what he’s doing. You’re just a complication.’

‘I’ve never been called that before.’ Jennifer didn’t react, not even with a half-grin. ‘So what will you do?’

‘I’ll think of something. Don’t sweat. He’s not the problem. Grandmother is the problem.’

‘Why?’

‘You want to know why? I’ll tell you why. You like superheroes – who’s the bad guy from Superman?’

‘Lex Luthor?’

‘Yeah. That’s the dude. Grandmother’s him.’

‘She’s bald?’

‘She’ll be pissed at me running off. And taking this –’ she patted the parcel –‘will have turned her nuclear.’

I’d thought things were bad when I’d missed the flight. Now I’d covered for a girl wanted by the police and found out she was being pursued by some cowboy dude, and had stolen from her scary grandmother, who was also Lex Luthor.

My eyes pricked with hot tears. I turned away from Jennifer. I tried to clear my head. I tried to pretend that everything was okay and I was, like, on a bus to school or something.

‘Did you say you had painkillers?’ I said in a tissue-thin voice. ‘I think my allergies are flaring up.’