C Box - Below Zero

“Then show me how much you care,” Stenko said. “You’ve got two minutes to make the wire transfer.”

They stared at each other in silence for the first minute. She wanted Alex to help her, to agree with her out loud. To stomp the living shit out of this Stenko.

“Do something,” she said to Alex.

He sighed.

Through gritted teeth, she said, “Send the goddamn money, Alex. You’ve got it. It’s not like you won’t get more.”

She leaned forward until her lips brushed Alex’s ear, whispered, “Do it. There have to be ways of canceling a wire transfer after its been made. We’ll call the police and my dad and get it canceled.”

Alex snorted, looked away.

“Alex, you’ve got the money,” she said.

“So do you,” Alex said, sullen.

She was shocked, and she sat back and glared at the side of Alex’s head, thinking that perhaps she hated him.

“I don’t care which of you does it,” Stenko said, “we’re running out of time.”

“It’ll have to be you,” Alex said to her.

She looked at him, openmouthed.

Alex said, “Sorry, Patty.”

“My God,” she said, “you’d actually choose your money over our marriage? Over me? That’s why you brought him in here?”

“Don’t forget the planet,” Stenko said helpfully.

“I’m sorry, Patty,” Alex said again.

Stenko said to Patty, “This is the man you want to spend your life with?”

She laughed harshly, more of a bark. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

“So,” Stenko said to her, “it’s up to you. You want the phone?”

She looked from Alex to Stenko and back to Alex.

Stenko said, “Sorry kids. I’d hoped we could come to an understanding, but like I said, I’m impatient. Time’s up.”

Saddlestring

JOE ROLLED INTO TOWN AT THREE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING as the fingers of morning mist began their probing ghost-creep from the river into Saddlestring and the single traffic light at First and Main blinked amber in all directions. There were no lights on yet downtown, and the traffic consisted of a single town cop spotlighting a raccoon in an alley. The only people up, it seemed, were the bored clerk reading a newspaper on the counter of the twenty-four-hour Kum-And-Go convenience store and the morning cook at the Burg-O-Pardner starting on the biscuits and sausage gravy for early rising fishermen.

His street was dark as well except for the porch light burning at his house and the kitchen light next door at neighbor Ed Nedney’s, a retired town administrator who’d no doubt arisen early to get a jump-start on late-fall lawn maintenance or putting up the storm windows or plucking the last few errant leaves from his picture-perfect lawn- completed tasks that would make Joe’s home look poorer by comparison and Joe himself seem derelict. This is what Nedney lived for, Joe thought.

Joe didn’t like his house, and every time he came back, he liked it less. It wasn’t the structure or the street; it was simply that he didn’t like living in town with neighbors so close, especially after years of waking up on Bighorn Road to the view of Wolf Mountain and the distant river. But it was where his family lived, and that fact far outweighed his dislike of the location.

His neighborhood was new in terms of Saddlestring itself-thirty years old-and had grown leafy and suburban. The Bighorns could be seen on the horizon as well as the neon bucking bronco atop the Stockman’s Bar downtown. The houses seemed to have been moved a few inches closer together since the last time he was home a week ago, but he knew that was just his tired eyes playing tricks on him.

He flipped a U-turn and parked behind Sheridan’s twenty-year-old pickup- her first car! -leaving the driveway open for Marybeth’s van. Tube bounded out as if he knew he was home at last, and Joe unstrapped the eagle from his pickup wall and picked the bird up to take to his shed in the backyard. It squirmed when he lifted it up but relaxed as he carried it, either resigned to its fate or calmly looking for an opportunity to blow up and escape. He carefully avoided the talons, aware that if the eagle gripped his hand or wrist it could take him down to his knees in pain. The eagle turned its sock-covered head from side to side as he carried it toward the house.

He didn’t hear Ed Nedney come out and stand on his front porch in his robe smoking his morning pipe. And he didn’t see him until Ed cleared his throat loudly to indicate his disapproval of Tube, who’d wandered from Joe’s lawn onto Nedney’s perfect grass to defecate. The pile was huge, steamy.

“Geez, I’m sorry,” Joe said. “I’ll clean that up.”

Nedney snorted, as if to say, Of course you will. Then: “So the game warden returns. How is life in Baggs?”

He said “Baggs” the way a rich San Franciscan would say “Iowa”-with disdain.

“Fine,” Joe said, regretting what Tube had done.

“What do you have there all wrapped up in swaddling clothes?”

“A bald eagle.”

“My God. Does it screech?”

“You should hear it. It can wake the dead.”

“As long as it doesn’t wake me.”

“I didn’t think you slept,” Joe said, “with all the lawn maintenance and all.”

“Well, I do. What’s wrong with that dog? Why does she look so… ridiculous? She looks like a sausage.”

“He’s a he. His name is Tube.”

“Going to be home for a while?”

“Yup,” Joe said, thinking, Probably not.

“Maybe you’ll get a chance to get the house painted before the snow hits,” Nedney said casually.

“It’s not that bad,” Joe said, wishing he hadn’t sounded so defensive.

“Check out the north side under the eaves. The wind is starting to chip away at the paint. Believe me when I tell you this,” Nedney said, sighing, the weight of the unkempt world on his shoulders. “I have to look at it every day.”

Joe thought, Tube, go over on Nedney’s lawn and take another dump…

When Marybeth opened the front door, saw the eagle in his arms wearing Joe’s sweatshirt and sock and the huge frankfurter-like dog at his feet who instantly fell in love with her, she said, “Joe, come inside.” Then: “So this is Tube. He’s very unusual.”

Joe nodded, “Did I tell you I caught the Mad Archer of Baggs?”

“Yes, twice on the phone. Congratulations, Joe. And welcome home.”

AFTER SETTING UP the eagle in the shed with water and rabbit roadkill he had picked up from the highway outside of town, Joe entered the house from the back to avoid seeing Nedney. It was warm and dark inside and smelled of cooking and his family. He was suddenly tired.

Marybeth was sitting on the couch in the front room with her laptop and Sheridan’s cell phone. She said, “Do you need to get some sleep? I’ve been dozing the last couple of hours waiting for you.”

“I do,” he said. But when he looked into her green eyes and saw the way she was curled up on the cushions of the couch, he said, “But first I need you.”

She smiled cautiously and shot a look toward the darkened hallway that lead to Sheridan’s and Lucy’s bedrooms. “Joe…”

He took her hand, she squeezed back, and he guided her to the bedroom.

For a few minutes they forgot about the text messages, Nedney, what time it was, and even Tube, who curled up on the rug at the foot of the bed like he owned the place.

“ I WAS UP a long time after the text-message exchange last night,” Marybeth said at the breakfast table, after Joe had slept hard for three hours but awakened only an hour past his usual time of six o’clock. She had made a fresh pot of coffee, and she poured a mug of it for him. She said, “I read and reread it and I’ll walk you through it. Then I got on the Internet and started plugging in the place names April mentioned in the past couple of weeks. You’re not going to like what I came up with any more than I do,” she said.