Cowboy Junkie: A Lyndy Martinez Story, Part-4

Lyndy Life Observation: The backroom area behind the shoe display at REI seems like a narrow corridor, perhaps seven or eight feet wide. So why do REI employees disappear for 45 minutes in a stretch when all you want is to try on sneakers.

“Siberia is a feral horse. Her coat is cream in color, hence the name,” Annabel corrected, a bit irritated with her companions for having a chuckle at Lyndy’s expense. “Hasn’t been a wolf in the Mojave since the early nineteen thirties.”

In a whisper Wade explained, “Siberia is kinda the Loch Ness Monster of our local area.”

Jared turned, bracing palms flat on the dinner table—its natural woodgrain top hewn of trees having had sequoia-like proportions—and looking to Lyndy. “Some people think it’s fun to tell spooky stories around a campfire about Siberia. But we’re talking about a horse, living in the wild, which would be 25 or 30 years old by now. Think about it.” He tapped his finger on the table.

“Certainly rare, but scientifically possible under the right circumstance,” argued Dr. Stork. “Horses have been known to live a lot longer.”

Clutching her mug with both hands, enjoying the entertaining discourse, Lyndy finally eased back in her chair. “I should pen a book: Lyndy’s Guide to Freeloading,” she thought.

Jared continued presenting the case to Lyndy. “So the sheep ranch is twelve miles away in a straight line. Between here and there is all Circle-Bar-Circle range. The cattle guzzler he’s talking about is more than fifteen miles away. Plenty of unconfirmed sightings, but like Sasquatch, this white mare hasn’t been photographed in at least a decade. You’d think somebody would’ve got a picture by now.”

“Do you carry a camera everywhere you ride?” jabbed Annabel.

“Chase is pretty sure of what he saw,” said Ben. “You can’t mistake a palomino horse.”

“Where’d it come from?” asked Lyndy, her curiosity piqued.

“Glad you asked. We were getting to that,” replied Jared, his body now animated. “Two rival cowhands were feuding. Summer of fifty-seven. Well, between fifty-seven and fifty-nine,” he corrected. “A dry series of years.”

“Legend is they were brawlin over a beautiful young lady,” Wade chimed in. “She was a waitress serving miners in a bar at Rearden Gulch. Much like yourself.” He grinned to Lyndy. While the comment could have gone the wrong direction, somehow Wade dignified it and it came out g-rated.

“Don’t believe it. They were fighting over water rights,” professed Annabel. “Like you just said, it was a record drought.”

“Not quite.” Jared shook his head, raising a finger to silence Wade who’d been preparing to argue. “Actually, it did involve a bar at Rearden Gulch, but they were fighting over a card game and a lost bet that wasn’t paid. One of them pulls his Colt, a distance of twenty-five yards, as the other cowboy was leading Siberia. He in turn pulls his own six-shooter, but not fast enough. A shot from the hip is fired. In the confusion Siberia bucks, yanks away the reins and races off. The other cowboy is knocked from his horse too. His bolts off, but they found it. Siberia on the other hand, disappears and never returns. That is a very bad omen.”

“Wait, it’s a bad omen if your horse runs away?” questioned Lyndy.

“Very bad,” said Jared. She couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.

Rolling her eyes Annabel added, “Some of us have real work to do.” Annabel whispered in Lyndy’s ear as she pushed in her chair. “You’re gonna fit in fine here.”

Minutes later …

Her boots were clicking as she paced the plank porch, dabbing on purple lipstick. The floors were uneven, a bit weathered and in need of a good sanding. But with this end facing south, the afternoon sun was warm to her skin, making Lyndy happy she’d worn shorts. At the corner a hummingbird buzzed around the rain chains. She poked at a dangling wind chime, the kind sounding like a kid’s xylophone.  

Meantime Annabel was still inside the lodge, purportedly retrieving spare keys to the Harvester truck. Her simple mission was taking a long time. Following lunch the other staff had returned to their various chores, dispersing throughout the property.

Across the lawn she watched a car arriving in the parking lot, kicking up puffs of dust as it bounced over ruts. It was one of the only guests, the first new one she’d spotted, and they’d managed to tackle that difficult road in a Mercedes-Benz. A coupe version no less.

At first the driver set their bumper almost touching the trunk of a mature sugar pine, its pliable branches sagging under weight of too many pine cones and yet still providing shade. But here the newcomer lingered only half a minute. Then restarting the engine, the driver backed halfway out across the clearing—quickly turning their wheels—while they lurched forward to situate themselves on the same row, but over thirty feet away from the big pine, into a sunnier span.

After a brief pause, out stepped a blonde wearing designer jeans and a performance vest bought from one of those luxury outdoor stores Lyndy couldn’t afford to shop. She seemed slender, youthful, perhaps younger even than she and Annabel, but at this distance it was hard to tell.  Murphy’s Law would dictate this had to be the same visitor whose fancy wine bucket she’d overturned, the one called Holly.

You know the feeling when you should probably give someone a chance and not be too judgy, but you can’t help yourself? This was one of those times.

“Oh great, just what we needed, a Catherine Cookson,” she muttered to herself. It would seem she’d grossly underestimated the female competition this ranch would have to offer, and that included Dr. Stork.

Zipping up her snow bunny coat and pushing her way back into the lodge, Lyndy went searching for Annabel or Jared. Drinking a liter of coffee at lunch was beginning to take its toll and now she needed to pee like Secretariat preceding a big race; she couldn’t imagine bouncing along in that worn out truck in her present condition. She kept an eye out for signs, but the fifty-year-old log building was byzantine, with meandering hallways and meeting rooms she’d not been introduced to.

Did they use outhouses here? “Annabel? Or uh, Doctor Stork?” she called, tempering her voice so as not to seem like a crazy person.

She meandered down one corridor beyond a bank of cramped offices, not seeing another person. Should I call out their names again? Unable to locate anyone she resorted to testing a few doors at random in the hallway off the public dining area. The first she tried was storage. None having windows, they couldn’t be used as guest rooms.

Above the next door, someone had nailed an upside-down horseshoe. She twisted the brass knob, hinges creaking as it opened inward on its own mass. The  room was lit with one yellow bulb. In stunned silence, her eyes absorbed the scene. The space contained no commodes, but did have a stack of extra chairs and some portable cots; that wasn’t the shocking part. What made her dizzy and unsure how to react, was the sight of Annabel Stork and Jared Warner in passionate embrace—Annabel’s coat and shirt were unbuttoned, and Jared’s hands were wrapped around her torso. For an instant, the three stood frozen under a curious spell. Her next urge, one she suppressed, was to burst into laughter.

“Dios mio!” Lyndy put up her hand, twisting back around to leave. “I saw nothing. Wrong door. I saw nothing.” She began rubbing her eyes with her palms, shuddering at the same time, as though trying to erase a mental image. “Of course, I should have guessed. You two were arguing like a married couple,” Lyndy added. She reached for the door to pull it shut.

“You cannot tell anyone about this,” pleaded Annabel in desperation. “Nobody else on staff knows.”

Jared bent down, ducking under Lyndy’s arm and stopping her from closing the door. “Please wait,” he demanded.

“This isn’t what you think,” added Annabel. She was blushing, in a very obvious manner due to her skin type.

“Please let me shut the dang door,” argued Lyndy, trying to muscle it away from Jared, except he was too powerful. “Can this day get any weirder?”

“You have to promise not to tell anyone first,” Jared demanded. Using his other elbow he hastily rubbed the area around his mouth, attempting to remove Annabel’s lip gloss.

“Who the heck would I tell?” Lyndy replied.

He reached out a hand for part of Lyndy’s coat, but just as he grabbed hold she swatted it away. “Hands off,” she stated, backing further out of reach.

Restraining hot emotions, Jared tried explaining. “Look, Miss Martinez. It’s not that we’re doing anything wrong. It’s just a delicate time for us. Things are complicated at the ranch right now, for our whole business.” 

“He’s engaged,” Annabel blurted out, in the process of buttoning her shirt.

“Ay caramba!”

Jared glanced back at Annabel. “That’s one reason we don’t want this getting out.”

Lyndy sighed. “I can keep a secret,” she assured. No I can’t. She pointed a finger in the direction she assumed was the parking lot. “By the way, there’s a babe, some Colorado mountain town version of Barbie who just arrived out front. I’m assuming that’s Holly.”

Jared inhaled uneasily. Still looking to Annabel he said, “See you tonight then?”

Annabel nodded in agreement.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he emphasized sternly.

“I was just searching for the little girl’s room,” declared Lyndy.

“I’ll show you on the way out,” said Annabel gruffly.

---

20 minutes later …

Lyndy Life Tip #203: Here’s a tip you can really put to good use. When apartment hunting, always visit the potential complex in question on a weeknight, after the office closes, say ten or eleven PM. There are two reasons for this: 1. You’ll have a sense how bad crime is. i.e. you may see some stuff that you wouldn’t during daytime. 2. You’ll get a good idea of how rented out they are. If the parking lot is all full up, then you know demand is high.

Back at the stranded Mustang, the mood had changed from lighthearted, budding new friendship, to thorny and glum. Even the skies were overcast now, the atmosphere threatening a cold front. Still for the time being it was relatively temperate. Enough that a red-tailed hawk circled in constant orbit above the ridge, on a hunt for tiny prey.

When she wasn’t staring up at the hawk, Ruby busied herself snapping at all the bees. Totally absent in the morning, honey bees had somehow invaded the roadside, seeking water or possibly attracted by the smell of spilled coolant.

The Spitfire was concentrating. She had the side of an old paint can in the vice, which mounted sturdily to the bumper of the Harvester. Her plan was straightforward. In order to limp the Ford home, she needed to temporarily patch the leak without ruining the whole radiator. Thus if she matched this square piece of tin to the cracked section of radiator, she could solder around it with a butane torch. As long as this kludge held coolant for a day or two, it would be enough to get to a Barstow radiator shop.

“I have another confession,” voiced Annabel, who’d taken to leaning on the rear quarter panel of the iron lady. Her braid was in front now, and notably reached below her belt.

“What’s that?”

Annabel opened the lower half of her coat, revealing a clear bottle with a red and white candy stripe label. “I stole the peppermint schnapps from the bar.” She yanked the cork out of the bottle and set it to her lips. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Oh groovy. Pass it on over,” said Lyndy, cupping her hand towards herself.

Squeezing the metal, she went to work with shears, trimming it down to a square that would match the size of the dent. Then all she needed to do was hammer it to a 90 degree V.

Annabel passed her the bottle and Lyndy sipped a capful. She squinted hard as she swallowed, passing it back. “Yeesh. It’s like cramming a fistful of crushed peppermint sticks in your mouth and pouring on booze.” She stared at Annabel, jealous of her long hair. “Hey just curious. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when was the last time you had a haircut?”

Casually, Annabel flicked her long braid over top of her shoulder, as one would getting an errant purse strap out of their way. “I dunno, spring of 1966,” she said with a smile. “I’m from Chicago. I haven’t been back there in two years either.”

Lyndy chuckled, as she returned to sizing her metal patch.

“They’re obviously not right for each other,” declared Annabel, perhaps preaching to herself.

“You won’t hear any argument from me,” Lyndy chimed in.

“I know everything about what it takes to run this place. How to take care of every animal. Holly knows what … how to run a ski lift so it doesn’t seize up and strand people. Big deal. I can do anything Holly can do for Jared, and that includes making babies. He doesn’t need her.”

Lyndy inhaled. She felt torn between holding her tongue, not wanting to get involved, but also needing something to occupy her for the next several days at a resort, without Ted. “Did he give her a ring?” She put a hand across her forehead as if checking for a fever. I can’t believe I’m asking.

Wordlessly, Annabel nodded. After a brief silence she exclaimed, “Oh god I’m a disgrace. Every last shred of dignity, wiped out! Sorry to completely shatter your image of me. You probably thought I was so smart and gifted, one of those good girls.” Annabel took another sip.

“I’ve been in your shoes before,” Lyndy replied. “Couple times actually.” Her mind immediately skipped to her roller-coaster relationship with deputy Keynes. The sneaking around. The shame in the grocery store, feeling like you needed to leave town. Having to lie to Miranda on the telephone, saying she didn’t know where Dale was and hadn’t seen him that night. Miranda thinking he was dead. Saying he must be in one of those radio dead zones—cause he had a radio system in his goddamn patrol Bronco. Lying to Miranda: that had to be the absolute worst.

Lyndy looked to Annabel with pity. “I have to be honest though, it didn’t end well.”

Annabel was silent.

“In fact it was bad-ugly.” Lyndy sniffed. “So what does Holly do for a living anyway? She drives an expensive car.”

“She’s a business consultant for Vail Resorts. She’s supposed to be helping us, the Circle-Bar-Circle, return to a semblance of profitability. Her pitch is that she can revitalize this place. Which in her eyes, probably means turning every last hillside into a ski run.”

Lyndy was beginning to appreciate the packrat-like nature of Wade Evans. This rusty old truck had everything under the sun, just in small quantities. That included flux and solder.

“She’s also training for the Winter Olympics or something.”

Newly minted patch in hand, Lyndy set aside her pretty coat, then scooted on her butt at the front of the Mustang for the second time. Testing the fit, she matched the V-shaped metal so it covered around the dent, crack included.

“Ugh, where are the boys when it’s time to do crap like this,” lamented The Spitfire.

“They’re cowboys but they hate getting dirty more than we do,” quipped Annabel.

Ruby came by to lick her hair and face, but Lyndy pushed her snout away. She heated up the metal with a butane torch, keeping it moving in circular strokes, while Annabel had taken a seat in the dirt beside her. She was giving Ruby a brushing.

“What’s the story with that Nash guy?” voiced Lyndy.

“What do you mean?”

“Seems like he hates me.”

“He and Jared grew up together. He works anywhere Jared does. The ranch they grew up on bordered an Indian reservation.” Annabel took a sip from the striped bottle.

“Seriously?” The patch was starting to draw the solder in like a magnet; the heat was working.

“They met when they were five, same age. Nash is the only child from the reservation who visited the cattle ranch. I believe he was the only kid from his clan who was allowed. Most were forbidden from interacting with the Warners. Jared doesn’t generally talk about his childhood. But if you manage to coax some details out of him it can be fascinating. He had some crazy stuff happen, experiences only he and Nash know about.”