Lori Armstrong - No Mercy

My back stiffened. “No. Not my day to entertain him.”

“No need to snap at me.”

“Sorry. Habit. I’m just sick of everyone around here assuming Jake and I are still some star-crossed lovers. That time apart has mended our broken hearts and we’ll ride off into the sunset together on white horses and live happily ever after.”

“Ain’t a romantic, are ya?”

“Not a single bone.”

“Good. You can find someone better’n him anyway.”

My brows lifted with surprise. “You think?”

“Yeah. Jake might be John-John’s cousin, but I ain’t got much use for him. Takes that wooden cigar Injun bit too far.” He held the door open for me.

I ducked under his beefy arm without commenting.

Creedence Clearwater Revival blasted from the jukebox, which separated the central core of the bar from the back room. Both pool tables were in use. Ditto for the dartboards.

In the far corner, several guys straddled chrome bar stools, sipping mugs of beer, vacant eyes glued to some sports event on a big-screen TV suspended from the metal rafters.

I’d barely stumbled in when I heard my name shouted as a benediction. I was wrapped in a bear hug so tight my eyeballs threatened to pop out. A feather tickled my nose.

The burly bear in question, John-John, resplendent in black jeans, a black silk shirt, purple velvet vest, and a matching beret (complete with a red feather) gave me a slow once-over.

“Don’t you have the wholesome Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island meets slutty Daisy Duke look? Love the belt.”

“Thanks. You can borrow it anytime.”

“Honey, if I had a waistline like yours, I’d take you up on that.”

“Aw. Turn a girl’s head, you talk so sweet, John-John.”

Muskrat snorted.

“Trey, you’re in Mercy’s spot,” John-John said, and shooed a very good-looking, whipcord-lean young cowboy off my favorite bar stool.

“I’ll move. No problem.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks, Trey.”

He gifted me with one of those playful, cocky male grins, and my stomach actually fluttered. “I’ll be over there if you need anything. Anything at all.”

My flirting skills were rusty, not corroded. I winked. “I’ll keep it in mind, cowboy.”

I set my forearms on the shellacked bar top, elbowing aside the ashtray Trey used as a spittoon.

“Whatcha drinking?” Muskrat asked.

“Double shot of Wild Turkey and a Bud Light chaser.”

John-John grinned. “Bad day?”

“Might say that.”

He slid the first shot in front of me. The bitter taste hit the back of my throat and ate a path through my stomach lining. I could afford expensive whiskey, but old habits die hard.

It made me laugh, those pretentious people who looked down at the Scots and the Irish and their homemade hooch. Now those same snobs consider themselves whiskey aficionados and search high and low for the “real thing.” Spare me. Only two types of whiskey in my book: free and not free.

I chased the shot with an icy cold glug of beer. “Ah. I’m feeling better already.”

“That’s why we’re here.” He murmured something to Muskrat and Muskrat lumbered to the other end of the bar.

John-John’s soulful black eyes connected with mine, mirth gone. “We need to talk. I had a vision about you.”

I sucked down another mouthful of beer, fortifying myself.

John-John and I had been best pals since we were kids. He is what the Lakota Sioux people call winkte , or two-spirited, a person born with both a male and female spirit.

In the days before Indians were relegated to reservations, it was a sign of good luck from the Great Spirit if a winkte was born into a family. The winkte was allowed to hunt with the men. Cook and sew with the women. It didn’t matter which sexual organs the winkte was born with, he/she had always been an honored and welcomed member of the tribe.

Part of being two-spirited also meant a closer tie with Wakan Tanka- the Great Spirit-and what I considered the woo-woo factor in Lakota religion, so it’d always freaked me out that John-John experienced visions. Mostly because they were dead-on.

I shivered.

He saw it. “If you hadn’t come in here tonight, I would’ve stopped by the house tomorrow.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Subject to interpretation, as always, but yeah, it is disturbing.”

“Well? Let’s have it.”

John-John squeezed my hand. “Somebody wants to hurt you, Mercy. Real bad.”

“Physical or emotional kind of hurt?”

“Physical.”

“I don’t suppose in this vision you’ve seen who?”

“No.”

“You have any idea when this will happen so I can try and stop it?”

“No.” He winced. His eyes filled with pain and guilt as he remembered. We both remembered.

When we were kids, John-John had had a vision about my mother’s death. Nothing that could’ve prevented it, just an impression of blood and horses.

It wasn’t until a year after we’d buried my mother that he’d mustered the guts to tell me of how, on the day of her funeral, he’d confessed to his unci Sophie what he’d seen.

Sophie realized the onset of puberty had started John-John on the sacred path. She’d taken him to the tribal elders for advice and guidance. John-John was lucky his grandmother hadn’t abandoned the traditional Lakota ways, or he could have floundered for years to understand who and what he was. Unlike kids who struggled with a conflicting sexual identity, he’d always been comfortable in his own skin.

“Mercy? Hon?” John-John prompted.

“Sorry. Lost focus for a sec. What did you see?” I asked, even when I really didn’t want to know.

“Red ground, red sky, red water. Though the impressions were blurry.” He frowned. “Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you. I just wondered if I should avoid blow-drying my hair in the bathtub or shoving a knife in the toaster.”

“Don’t be flip.”

“I’m not. I hope nothing happens tonight because I left my guns at home.”

“Don’t you think you’ve killed enough, kola ?”

What else had his vision revealed about me? God forbid anyone found out what I’d seen. Or what I’d done. I pushed the empty shot glasses at him. “Another round, barkeep.”

He pressed his lips together and turned away.

I used the lull between us to drain my beer. The jukebox was silent. I twirled around on my stool to rectify the situation when I noticed someone was already making selections.

Whoo-yeah. A tall male someone with an ass to die for, a perfect butt gift-wrapped in a pair of tight-fitting, faded Wranglers. A black-and-gray-plaid shirt stretched over wide shoulders and a broad back. I couldn’t see the color of his hair beneath his black Stetson, but I knew I was looking at a gen-u-wine cowboy.

God save me. I’ve had it bad for cowboys my whole life. Since the first time I’d seen Clint Eastwood. Since my first rodeo, watching bareback and saddle bronc riders getting tossed on their asses in the dirt and then climbing right back up into the saddle and doing it again. Around age thirteen I fell in love with bull riders. I mourned the death of Lane Frost like some mourned the loss of John Lennon.

Something about cowboys speaks to me on a visceral level. Rugged-looking men making a living from the land. Wearing dirty, mangled cowboy hats. Hearing the jingle of spurs. Seeing work-stained ropes draped over tired shoulders. Tight jeans. The faded circle on the back pocket of those jeans from the ever-present can of chew. Scuffed boots covered in manure. The tougher-than-shit attitude. The gentlemanly way a cowboy held a woman as they two-stepped. The brawling in the name of honor, dishonor, or just because a good fight seemed like a good idea.