Chapter #22Templar Is Taken by: Seuzz   Your pack is lying by the truck, where'd you dropped it when Howland had called you inside, and with one hand you toss it into the bed next to the compound bow. You pinch your nose and run a thoughtful hand over the side of the truck. It's filthy, but there's no point in washing it now, not in the middle of a job.
Fuck. You've been saying that for four months now.
From the toolbox in the back you take a canister of compressed air and blow the flat tire back up again. Then you're finally able to climb in. The cabin air is musty, so you roll down the window as you slide on some shades. The motor turns over neatly; it's been two years since you've needed a tune up, thanks to the last one Nash gave your baby. You shift into first, and the truck with a satisfying growl pushes toward the exit. Gamble is walking toward the lodge, and you catch his eye with a short but intense stare—but no salute or acknowledgement—before turning onto the old mountain road. Inside of fifteen seconds, you've punched it up to fourth gear, and the engine surges easily to take you up to fifty. Hard, beautiful mountain country glides past, and you tap a lazy finger on the wheel as you drive it.
It's only four-thirty when you get back to Olympia, but for several reasons you don't return to the place you've been staying. First of all, you're hungry and thirsty. Second of all, there's someone you want to see. And last—
Well, you don't want to think about that yet.
* * * *
The sun has just touched the high crest of the western hills when you pull up in front of the Kill Hand Saloon, so the sign—showing two crossed pistols over a busted flush—hasn't been turned on. There are several trucks in the lot. Some are bigger than yours, but none are as well-beaten.
Soft honkytonk is playing when you step inside, and from the back sounds the hard crack of billiard balls colliding. There's only a single bluish stream of cigarette smoke in the air, burning under a low light, coming from a girl at the bar. She glances over, and follows that glance with a long and appreciative double-take as you slide onto a stool at the end. But even in the low light you can see she's been ridden hard for more years than would interest you, and her hair is lank. You rest both elbows on the well-polished bar. After a moment's consideration, you stretch and reach under the counter, feeling around until you find a cigar and packet of matches. You slip them into your pocket.
"So the bear didn't eat you," a lazy voice calls, and you raise your head as Connie slithers up. "I'm glad, 'cos he left enough for me." She puts her mouth to yours, pressing into your beard, feeling at your lips with her tongue. You open your mouth a little, just enough so she can say she kissed you, but you otherwise remain rigid and ungiving. "You starving, sugar?" she asks. "You smell like you just got back."
The girl with the cigarette turns away, and moves to a booth.
"Yeah, I could eat that bear that didn't eat me," you say. "I'll take a green chile cheeseburger, and something black and chewy until it comes."
From under the bar she takes a bottle, busts off the cap, and claps it down. You raise the Voodoo Lager to your mouth and swallow it all down in one great draught of several deep gulps.
"Oh, honey, you just made me cum," Connie moans as you set the empty down. "Want another now?"
"With the burger. Is Steve here?"
"In his office. Cookie!" she yells, and slaps the call bell by the register. She steps over to the swinging door to the kitchen, and passes your order inarticulately inside.
Footsteps sound behind you. "Look what I found on our doorstep," Connie says with a pout to the guy behind you. "Can we take him home and keep him?"
"I don't think he's housebroken." A hard hand slaps your shoulder, and a strong arm embraces your neck. "Dumbass."
"Scatterbrain." You squint over at the rangy figure—half a head taller than you—who settles onto the next stool and leans back against the bar.
Except for a leathery ruggedness around his cheeks, Steve Patterson looks almost unchanged from his days at Westside. He is still tall and strong, and his gray eyes are still cold and piercing. But there's an easiness to his gait, and his smile, which comes ever more readily as the years pass, warms his gaze like strong sunlight on a chilly day. "When'd you get back?" he asks.
"A fast beer ago." You tap the bottle.
"Need another?"
"Connie got me tingled up."
Steve cranes his neck to grin back at his wife, and with a crooked finger pulls her close. Their kiss, unlike the one you shared with her, is long and wet and loud. "So that's what you taste like, Dumbass," Steve snickers. "Wet dog."
"Sorry, I came straight here."
Steve turns around and settles into a pose like yours. Connie grins at the two of you, then goes off to look after another customer. "You get your mule deer?" Steve quietly asks.
"No," you mutter, and push the empty beer bottle around with a finger tip. "I'm driving over to Bixby tomorrow morning."
"Bixby?"
"That's where the trail was leading. Fuck." You grind a knuckle into your temple. "Three days, I wasted three days getting back to my truck so I can try catching it at Bixby."
"Couldn't you take the pass? If Joe and I could get over it last year—"
"I was running low on provisions and didn't feel like taking down any game."
"Didn't feel like," Steve sneers softly. "You're getting sloppy and sentimental, Dumbass."
You shrug. "I wasn't the only one up there. You take down a deer, you gotta dress and pack it out."
"How far in country were you?"
"Far enough, but I wasn't alone, I saw the signs. And I was worried it would get behind me. If I'd left a fresh deer where there were bennies around, and the—"
You clap your mouth shut as Connie sidles back up. "You get your mule deer, Frank?"
"No."
"No?" She looks shocked. "Cookie got me mine in two days."
"Your cookie's better than me."
"Oh, I don't believe that!"
"Then why'd he get you a deer in two days and I couldn't in ten? I think I will take that second beer now."
"I'll get your burger too, hon, it's gotta be ready." After dropping another lager by your hand, she steps into the kitchen.
"Tomorrow morning, huh," Patterson says. "So why don't you try getting laid tonight? I always track things better after I've scored." He sniffs. "Clears the sinuses or something."
"Don't you get laid after?"
"Oh, well, after, that goes without saying," he says. "I wrap myself in the bloody hide and Connie tears it off me with her teeth."
"She is good for you, Scatterbrain."
"She coulda been good for you, Dumbass. I gave you every chance with her."
You caress the cold bottle, then take a long swig. "Yeah, because that's just what she needs. A husband who calls her at work one morning to say 'I'm going into the mountains now to kill a mule deer, I don't know when I'll get back,' and twenty years later they still haven't found his body."
"You're not going to get taken out by a 'mule deer'," Steve says, crooking his fingers around the words. "Anyway, you'd tell her the truth and she'd know the risks."
"Bennies don't need to know."
He turns around to fully face you. "Then why aren't you with Rosalie? Fuck me, Dumbass, the most dangerous thing that Joe—"
He flinches as you straighten up sharply. "Don't go there, Patterson," you growl. "Don't."
So you're both rigid and silent when Connie comes back out and drops a plate in front of you. The burger is six inches across, sloppy, piled over with hot, greasy fries. You thank her, and she watches hungrily as you lift it to your mouth and tear a wide, dripping bite from it. The juice of the meat and the tomatoes and the chiles soaks into your beard, and she groans. "Cookie, why don't you go with Frank on his next hunt? Then you could have one of those when you got back without feeling guilty, and I could get wet watching you eat it."
Patterson leans across the bar to grasp her wrist, and pulls her into another kiss; she devours him as loudly as you do the burger.
* * * * *
After you finish eating you take a piece of apple pie but decline a third beer. Steve joins you for a short game of pool, and advises that you move down to the El Dorado, where you would be certain to score some tail. You politely decline to follow his advice, to his chagrin.
Instead, you drive up to the bluffs overlooking Crenshaw Avenue and sit on the hood of your truck, gazing down at the lights of Olympia: a small, tightly clustered constellation pooling in this valley in the high country. You smoke your cigar and suck on a toothpick and smile down at the town, then lift your eyes to smile at the sky. Mars glows feebly on the horizon, and you feel a quickening as it twinkles at you.
You flick away the toothpick, take out your cell phone, and text your bosses: "templar is taken."
But your satisfaction is not and cannot be complete until you have gone home. Not until you have safely paced the flagstones of the old castle can you start to hope that this stronghold is well and truly yours.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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