Chapter Three

“You’re going to do what!” Bodey Landrum shouted as Clint Beck helped himself to an oversized portion of scrambled eggs from the breakfast buffet in the bunkhouse.

“I thought I’d take Renee around on the circuit with me for a few months, try to break her of some of her bad habits. Not that sharing my bed will be any hardship.”

Bodey lowered his voice since all the students craned their necks to listen in. “If Renee sees that fancy rig of yours, that old Corvette like the one I got back in Texas, she’ll do a computer search to see what you’re really worth. All those Millionaire’s Son Fights the Bulls stories are gonna pop up, and you are doomed. I know she Googled me. If I hadn’t been so in love with Eve, she might have taken me down. Before you know it, you’ll be married to her.”

“Would that be such a bad thing? You know I live for danger.” Clint put two bran muffins studded with raisins on his plate and picked a ripe banana out of the fruit bowl. He passed over the bacon and home fries.

“Yes, yes, it would. She’s a man-eater, not your ordinary house cat.”

“I have a plan. I’ll trade rigs with Snuffy for a while—and keep her away from computers if that will make you happy.”

“Have you ever been in Snuffy’s trailer? It’s a health hazard. There is a reason why he got the Snuffy nickname.”

“I’ll clean it up. We’ll only use the thing for a month or two.”

“And when someone on the circuit calls you the ‘Bean King’, what are you going to say?”

“I’ve got an explanation all worked out. There’s nothing in my program biography about Beck’s Baked Beans, just a blurb that I went to UT and once tried out for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. After that, it’s just a list of awards and honors.”

“You know, I thought I was brave man, but Clint, you take the prize buckle with this one.”

****

Snuffy Jones showed even less enthusiasm for the idea than Bodey. “Let you use the Belly Nelle and my trailer? Well, I don’t know. We been together a long time. That would be like letting you sleep with my wife—if we weren’t divorced.”

“Say, I’m doing that rodeo for special kids up in Casper for you, no charge, in a week. You didn’t have to beg me to take the time from my busy schedule. Just let me use The Tin Can and the Belly Nelle until then. You can take my motorcoach.”

“What about the Corvette?”

“Ah, I promised Bodey he could use it. What do you say, Snuff?”

“Maybe I can endure the separation for a good friend who’s saved my balls from bulls a few times.”

“Great. Only one favor. Be sure you spit your chaw into a cup while you use my rig.”

“You got it. I have to move out some of my stuff.”

“I’ll help you before we start class.”

Snuffy’s ancient metal-clad trailer had been rolled by a tornado in Kansas and battered by hail in Texas. The barrelman had painted her affectionate nickname, The Tin Can, on her side. Clint hauled the case of beer and three bottles of whiskey over to his luxury motorhome while Snuffy gathered up his street clothes, costumes, and make-up kit. The Tin Can’s refrigerator held only leftovers from the generous meals provided by Bodey, so Clint loaded up his groceries, too, along with all his bullfighting gear and a week’s worth of clean clothes. Bodey would store his surplus and more upscale clothing. With the transfer completed, Clint figured he still had a lot of work to do before he would be able to coax Renee through the door.

After working in the bullring all morning with the students, Clint skipped lunch and sought out the nearest K-Mart about ten miles away from Rainbow for an array of cleaning supplies. He looked over a display of Martha Stewart sheets and picked a couple of sets in red. If Martha said that was good taste, then it was. The tiger print throw and pillows he got didn’t bear her name. He found some narrow floor runners that looked like fake Persian rugs to cover the snuff-stained beige carpet in The Tin Can. He couldn’t stand the thought of walking on it barefooted. Once he got back, he realized he should have gotten some new curtains to replace the sorry, striped, grease-streaked ones hanging over the small windows. They’d probably been there since before Snuffy’s wife, Ruth Ann, refused to travel anymore and left him years ago. Too late for another trip now. Clinton O. Beck had a toilet to scrub.

The stains in the bathroom proved to be permanent, but Clint had the satisfaction of knowing he’d disinfected all surfaces his flesh or Renee’s was likely to touch. He put out an air freshener hoping it would compensate for the aroma of used snuff that seemed to hang in the air, the cloudy mirror over the sink, and all the other imperfections of The Tin Can. The mattress on the foldout bed proved to be better than expected and probably newer. Fresh sheets made it look good, if he did say so himself.

Snuffy poked his head in the door, searching for some forgotten item. “Wouldn’t hardly recognize the place, Clint, all duded up for a woman. I like that tiger skin blanket. Do I get to keep this stuff when you’re through with it?”

“You bet.” Clint could see Snuffy puckering and looking for a place to spit and grabbed a paper cup in a hurry.

“How about the mountain bike you got on that rear rack. I get to use it? I figure I can store my custom barrel back there, too.”

“Sure, use the bike. I’ll be getting my exercise another way.”

“You’re spoiling me, Beck. I plan on leaving tomorrer evening and get on up to Casper to visit with my kid. See you there.”

“That’s a promise.”

****

After the bullfighting class ended for the day, Clint took a box of files over to Bodey for safekeeping.

“Papers that might reveal my net worth. Keep ’em safe for me, Bodey.”

“You bet. What about your laptop?”

“The Belly Nelle has a bunch of secret compartments, not to mention trapdoors.”

“Good, then you can escape Renee if you have to run.”

“Cut it out. I promise to bring her home a changed woman.”

Eve Landrum, who had been rocking her baby and obviously listening in, said, “Clint, be careful with her. I don’t think Renee is as strong as she seems. Tricking her is wrong.”

“Yeah, right. Like she didn’t try to trick me or half a dozen other men,” Bodey snorted.

Clint left it at that and went to convince Renee Hayes to ride the circuit with him.

****

Renee allowed herself to be persuaded to go along fairly easily. After two rounds of very hot sex, she regarded a fingernail she’d broken on his back and said, “What else have I got to do? Give me a day or two to get ready.”

She admitted the sad truth about not having anything else to do, though pronounced the fact so casually Clint mistook it for boredom. After Eve snatched Bodey away from her, two other well-researched marriage prospects slipped through her fingers in the last year, each one now engaged to women in their early twenties. Sure, those men had been willing to try to the goods, but neither closed the sale with her.

Renee didn’t even have her art classes to distract her anymore, she thought resentfully. Eve Landrum had been her instructor and stopped giving lessons a month before the baby came. Mrs. Bodey Landrum showed no signs of returning to her small studio on the other side of Rainbow. She’d quit her waitress job after marrying the great bull rider, but honored her teaching contract at Mt. Carmel Academy until the Christmas break to allow the school time to find a new riding instructor and art teacher. Early on, most of the older women who had taken painting classes from Eve nodded wisely and said Eve had signed up for the mommy track and would be showing a baby belly any day now. How right they were. That howling kid must have gotten its start on the wedding night. Bodey built an art studio next to the house for Eve’s own pleasure, but she wouldn’t be instructing others anymore. Some people had all the luck.

What was Renee Hayes supposed to do with no place to paint, and no one to listen to her schemes? How selfish of Eve to abandon her best pupil, especially when she’d taken that lecherous fraud of an artist, Evan Adams, off of Eve’s hands for a while, and let the way wide open for Bodey to step in and claim her.

Getting away would be good. Who knew, maybe she would bump into a Texas millionaire at one of those rodeos or a bull rider as rich as Bodey Landrum. In the meantime, she’d have a man with a gorgeous bod and lots of stamina for entertainment despite his country yokel personality. If nothing else worked out, she’d fly home from wherever she wound up once she grew tired of Clint.

Her preparations for the trip were simple. She packed a small suitcase since Clint said he didn’t have much room to spare in his trailer and stuffed her most essential items—make-up, condoms, her diaphragm and spermicidal jelly, spare contacts, a touchup kit for her hair color, and a pile of credit cards, most of them near their limit—into an oversized leather satchel. She expected Clint to pick up the tab for anything else in return for her company.

The shock arrived when the Belly Nelle returned to her driveway hauling a trailer that looked like something cartoon characters, mouse, a duck and a parrot, would take on vacation. She knew her mouth hung open but couldn’t seem to close it.

Clint spread his arms wide. “My home away from home, princess. Climb aboard.”

She did, not sure why, but she did. The interior, a decorator’s nightmare, possessed a strange odor that a cheap floral air freshener couldn’t hide. She felt the urge to bolt.

“Thanks for packing light, Renee. You can see I don’t have much room, but that there bench folds down into a pretty good bed.”

“Oh, none of my clothes take up a lot of space, and I have everything I really need in my satchel. You can buy me anything I’ve forgotten later.”

Renee pretended an interest, opening cupboards and the refrigerator. “You certainly like Beck’s products. I believe you have every variety of beans they put out, plus the complete line of pickles and their spicy brown mustard.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a story behind that. See, I do like their foods. One time, just once, I mentioned in front of Snuffy that maybe I might be related to those rich folks somehow, and maybe they’d sponsor some bullfighting competitions. He about busted a gut over that. Calls me the Bean King, now. So do a lot of the guys. I have to put up with a bunch of flatulence jokes, too. It’s embarrassin’.”

Half a truth was better than none, Clint figured. His mother kept him well-stocked with the family products, which were certainly high quality and very nourishing for a reasonable price. He had asked his father to sponsor a bullfighting competition, but his dad lowered his head and bellowed like one of the bulls Clint fought, “Are you out of your mind!” He hadn’t asked again.

“Now, the announcers call me Clinton O. Beck, the Bull Bomber. I like that better.”

“So do I.” Renee felt a tiny twinge of pity for this nice, unassuming, well-built, sexy guy. “Come on Bomber, let’s try out the hide-a-bed.”

They rocked The Tin Can on her old springs for an hour, then Clint helped her into a pair of short shorts so tight he’d had trouble getting them off. They got back to the business of moving on.

Renee wanted to say good-bye to her mother, and Clint had to gas up and get some fresh food for the trip, so they towed The Tin Can up the rest of the hill and parked in the circular drive before Tara-on-the-Bayou.

“Want me to come in and meet your mom so she’ll feel better about you going off with a stranger?” Clint offered.

“No, thanks. I just want to leave a note with your name and that we are heading off to Casper, then Glendale, Arizona. Where after that?”

“Wherever the road takes us, baby, but we’ll be in Cheyenne at the end of July.”

If they lasted that long, if she didn’t find someone better, Renee thought. She let herself into the phony mansion and looked around for her mother. The maid dusting in the den said Miss Prudence sunned out by the pool—of course.

Renee found good old Mom basking, basted with coconut oil, and out cold. The pitcher of luridly pink cosmopolitans sitting on the table next to her lounger told Renee her mother had fallen off the wagon again. A life of tennis and sunbathing had stained Pru Niles’ skin the color of leather and wrinkled her hide to the toughness of an alligator’s back. She wore a bikini but possessed the sex appeal of a skeleton. Years of alcohol abuse and bulimia kept her extremely thin. Her short cut of dyed red hair only pointed up her sunken cheeks and bad teeth, slightly exposed like those of a dried out mummy, except Mrs. Niles snored, miraculously not dead yet.

Renee didn’t bother to wake her parent, but she slammed the door to the house harder than she intended. She got a notepad and paper in the kitchen and wrote out her itinerary, gave them Clint’s name, reminded them she could be reached on her cell if they wanted to get in touch—as if. She stuck the note to the refrigerator door where her father would find it just as Pru Niles staggered in.

“Wadda you want, Renee? I heard that door slam exactly the way you used to do back in your teens. You think by now, you’d let a woman get her beauty rest.”

“I want nothing from you, Mom. I’m leaving on a trip. I asked Dad to make sure my gardener is keeping up the yard. My cleaning lady will come once a week to dust and water the plants. I’m off with a new friend of mine. His name is on the note. Don’t know when I’ll be back.” Renee didn’t bother to hide her scorn for the woman who gave birth to her. She stared at the emaciated form before her with hard, green eyes.

“Don’t know how I raised such a piece of trash. You’d go off with any guy with a big dick and a little money. Must of got running around from your father. He’s down the hill doing that Parker bitch right now.”

“Sally, my friend, Sally?” Not Sally who had always been the most decent member of her old Academy clique, the Sexy Seven, if you didn’t count her cousin Rusty’s wife who had never really belonged.

“No, the old bag, my former friend, Sally’s mother. Since her husband left with his secretary, she thinks my husband is fair game. But, you know what? Jed promised he’d never, ever leave me, so she’s in for a shock. The Niles men keep their word even if they do screw around on the side.”

“Dad didn’t make me what I am, Prudence. Think about it when you sober up. Meanwhile, I’m outta here—with a guy who’s good-looking, brave, and—simple and sweet and almost poor.”

“Like the nigger yardman you screwed for a while, the one caused your divorce from Elias? Or was it the personal trainer. I forget since you had another husband since then. You really can’t hold on to them, can you, Renee?”

“Gerry died on me!”

“Yeah, right on top of you in bed, naturally. Poor old geezer, you screwed him to death.”

Knowing from years of sparring verbally with her mother that she would not win the battle of words because all Prudence said rang with truth, Renee retreated through the house. She slammed the front door harder than she had the back. Climbing into the cab of the Belly Nelle, she slammed the truck door, too. The vibrations sent a cascade of small, stuffed animal toys sliding into her lap from the dashboard. Clint stared as Renee buried her face in her hands.

“Ah, maybe if your mama is real against this, you shouldn’t go.”

“She doesn’t care where I go or with whom. What is with all these stuffed toys? You must have fifty of them shoved in here.” Renee began pushing the plush unicorns and blue teddy bears back into the heap on the dash.

“Snuffy—and me—like to give ’em out to little kids at the rodeos. Besides, I’m a devil with the claw machine. Passes the time, you know.” Clint sorted through the stack. “Here, looks like you could use a furry friend to cheer you up, too.”

He handed her a tiny tiger with green glass eyes. Renee blinked. In high school, boys hopeful of getting in her pants spent all their cash trying to win the huge pink poodle or the enormous stuffed panda at the booths of passing carnivals. In college, they wooed her with bouquets of expensive roses or jewelry full of diamond chips. After graduation, men who sought her favors gave her cars and rings with colored gems, usually emeralds. She had no idea why such a small, cheap toy made her feel as warm and happy as when her father had given her similar items in her childhood. She blinked her eyes a few times to hold back some sentimental tears.

“Now, don’t cry. There’s plenty more where that came from. Take your pick if you don’t like the tiger but it reminds me of you.”

“No, I love the tiger. My contacts are bothering me.” Renee tucked the little beast deep into her satchel.

Clint swung the truck and trailer out of the driveway and went down the hill, passing through the brick pillars with the rust-red iron horse heads on top that marked the entry to Red Horse Acres.

“Swanky place,” Clint remarked. His family owned an estate so big and venerable you couldn’t see any neighboring houses. “Maybe you should see an eye doctor when we get back.”

“I don’t really need them. They are for effect.”

“Effect. You mean you don’t really have green eyes? So what color are they?”

“None of your business, Clinton O. Beck. Do you want to tell me what the O in your name stands for?”

“No, ma’am. The only way you will find that out is when the preacher says it on my weddin’ day.”

“I’ll bet Snuffy knows. I could ask him.”

“Yep, he knows, all right, but he won’t tell because I know his real name. It’s a standoff, you see.”

Clint parked his battered rig in front of Plato’s Liquor and Groceries where he’d attempted to buy a fine wine a few nights ago. At least, the gas wasn’t overpriced considering the small size of the town. He got out and swiped a credit card, careful not to use his American Express platinum, at a relatively new pump. The front of the store looked to be a hundred years old with its gray and sagging cypress boards, but its protruding back was a long metal building stuffed with all the needs for a small community. He thought he’d seen some homemade bread in there on his last trip, and he did need to stock up on fresh items.

“Want to come in and shop with me?” he asked Renee.

“It’s what I do second best.”

She slid down from the truck seat and climbed up on the old porch. A couple of bentwood chairs sat on either side of an antique cracker barrel with a checker game set on its top. This was Ja’nae Plato’s doing, preserving the rustic charm of Rainbow, Louisiana. Her Unc Knobby, who owned the place, wanted to tear down the old entry, Renee knew, and put up a neon sign and some aluminum siding that would never need painting. Not that any of the Platos had painted the store before, but Ja’nae, a force in the community, prevailed. Beyond the front door, the grocery was just another warehouse-like building with florescent lighting and long rows of coolers and canned goods. Renee and Clint went down a small ramp and got a grocery basket to wheel around.

Clint headed for the dairy aisle and loaded a half-gallon of skimmed milk, a jug of orange juice, and two dozen eggs. He recognized the cheese assortment from Renee’s refrigerator and tossed in a bag of the chunks, then headed over to produce. Bananas were a must. He filled filmy plastic bags with some other fairly fresh and firm fruit, including a pineapple that could ripen on the way, and picked over the home-grown tomatoes, choosing a few red ripe and half a dozen partly green, to go with the bags of salad he threw in the cart. In the cereal aisle, he selected a box of shredded wheat and Cheerios. For cold cuts, he settled on the 96% fat free ham and smoked turkey. And, what the heck, some lean bacon. Crisp bacon was one of those simple pleasures in life he didn’t often allow himself with keeping an eye on his cholesterol.

Renee showed little interest in his choices until they got to the gourmet section, more of Ja’nae’s work, near the registers. She tossed a jar of Louisiana caviar into the basket. Clint picked it up, checked the price, and put it back.

“That’s big money for some salty fish eggs. Got to watch my budget.”

Renee pouted and wandered away to the liquor display. “Want some beer or wine or anything harder?”

“Nope. I rarely drink. May have a beer or two after an event, but that’s about all. If I hit the bottle, I’d have a lot more scars than I do.”

“Makes sense.” Secretly, she was relieved. Drunk men were often abusive men, and how well did she really know Clint Beck? She looked into the basket and saw he had added a jar of locally-made organic strawberry preserves and two loaves of herbed wheat bread baked by the Herbarium tea room down the road.

“That’s fancy bread for a cowboy. And those preserves cost almost as much as the caviar.”

“Yeah, but this stuff is good for you and tastes better, too.”

“So you are a connoisseur of caviar?”

“I been to some fancy affairs. Don’t care for it. Let’s pay up and get on the road.”

Renee seized the cart and swung into line at the register, cutting off two elderly nuns who were getting a treat of their own. Each clutched a chocolate ice cream bar. Clint wrestled the cart away from Renee. “After you, Sisters.”

“In fact, just put those ice creams on my tab,” Clint told the dark-skinned cashier.

“Why, bless you, son,” the nun with watery blue eyes said. “Is this a friend of yours, Renee?”

“Yes, he is, Sr. Helen. He’s a rodeo bullfighter, and we’re going on the road together. That’s his truck and trailer outside.” Renee gave the nuns a defiant glare and latched on to Clint’s muscular arm.

“Yes, maybe you should hang on to him. He seems to be a kind and generous gentleman,” remarked the chunky nun with the chopped off salt-and-pepper hair showing around the edge of her short veil. In a slightly gravelly voice, Sr. Inez added, “We’ll pray you have a safe journey.”

“Thank you, Sr. Inez. Clint, we need to get going.”

“Sure, honey. Nice meeting you, ladies.”

The two old nuns hobbled out of the store. They were sitting in the bentwood chairs and licking their ice creams when Renee and Clint finished hauling the groceries into the trailer and took off for Wyoming. Renee flicked a wave at them as the Belly Nelle pulled onto the blacktop road.

“I think we failed that child,” Sr. Helen said, watching as the trailer rattled away.

“She was a nice girl, sort of a tomboy, always hanging around the stables when she first came to the Academy. Then, she turned twelve and had no more time for horses. Boy crazy in the worst possible way.” Sr. Inez caught a dribble of chocolate ice cream sliding down the stick of her treat with her tongue.

“Well, they all go a little crazy when those hormones kick in, but I felt something might have gone wrong at home. Of course, Mrs. Niles is a drinker, but she seemed to keep it under control when her girls attended school with us. Renee’s father spoiled her with expensive gifts, too.” Sr. Helen finished her fudge bar and tidily disposed of the stick in a brass spittoon placed on the porch for decoration and sometimes used for its original purpose.

“No, I always felt there was something more. I asked her once if she wanted to talk to me about anything. She said I couldn’t help, no one could.” Sr. Inez missed a drop of chocolate that splattered onto the front of her short-skirted, plain habit.

“God could help her. We must put her in our prayers, Nessy. Also, that nice young man. I hope Renee doesn’t damage him.”