Helen DePrima - Into The Storm

She had cleaned most of the blood off his face and fixed a strip of adhesive tape across the bridge of his nose. He touched it gingerly—probably broken, not for the first time. Two black eyes and a long scrape along his right cheek made him look like the loser in a bar brawl.

By the time he came out fully dressed, he felt closer to normal. Shelby had covered the tank top with a blue plaid flannel shirt and had tamed her hair into a thick braid tied with red yarn.

The morning sun had already reduced last night’s snow to slushy puddles in the graveled parking lot. Jake squinted up and down the row of concrete block units, relieved he didn’t see any familiar vehicles. Bad enough he’d be answering questions about his face without explaining his rig parked outside a hot-pillow joint.

“I threw the floor mat in the back last night,” Shelby said, “and left the windows open a crack to air out the cab.”

Jake shook his head. “Must have been close to a quart of bourbon spilled—I guess I didn’t screw the cap on tight.”

She held out his keys, but he waved them off. “You drive,” he said. “There’s a good little diner about ten miles north—we’ll get breakfast there.”

* * *

A ROUND-CHEEKED WOMAN wearing a snowy apron bustled out to greet them when they entered Rosie’s Kitchen. “Jake, I was so scared for your boy last night, when we watching on the TV. That bull, stepping right on his leg!” She pinched his chin and turned his face right and left. “What, you’re riding bulls, too? Crazy like Tom?”

“Nothing that exciting, Rosie,” he said, giving her a quick hug. “Smacked into my steering wheel.” He nodded toward Shelby. “This lady came along and got my rig out of the ditch.”

“You’re one lucky hombre.” She swatted his chest with her order pad. “Coffee first, while I fix your usual.” She took Shelby’s order for a cheese omelet and returned to the kitchen, yelling in Spanish at a doleful-looking man at the grill—her husband, Martin, Jake told Shelby.

“You want some bacon or sausage with your omelet?” Jake asked.

“I’d love some,” Shelby said, “but I lay off meat for a few days before I start new horses, especially ones that haven’t been around people much. Horses are prey animals. It’s better if I don’t smell like I might want them for my next meal.”

“Where’d you learn that? I never heard it before, but it makes sense.”

“From my granddaddy, and he heard it from his granddaddy. I don’t know if it matters, but what can it hurt?”

“How’d you hear about Ross’s mustangs?”

“I keep a standing ad in Western Horseman,” she said, “but most of my jobs come by word of mouth. The rancher I worked for last in Lubbock knew Mr. Norquist.”

By the time Jake had downed his first cup of coffee and most of his cheese and bean enchilada with green chili, the headache had retreated to a small zone behind his left eye. He slouched on the red leatherette and watched Shelby devour her omelet.

“You being afoot the backside of nowhere, I’m guessing your car broke down,” he said. “Where abouts?”

She grimaced. “Albuquerque. I had to leave it at the Lincoln dealership—they need to find a fuel filler tube for a ’90 Town Car.”

“Whoa, girl! No telling how long that will take! Shouldn’t you have something easier to fix, traveling cross-country between jobs?”

“I expect I should,” she said with a sigh, “but it belonged to my granddaddy. It’s a good road car and big enough to sleep in if I need to. I caught a ride with a trucker who was going to be passing through Durango. The service manager vouched for him—his brother-in-law. Once we got off the Interstate, he changed his mind about the ride being free.” She tightened her lips. “I told him I’d sooner walk.”

“Miserable so-and-so, setting you down miles from nowhere!”

“My choice—better than what he had in mind. Stranger backed me up.”

Jake glanced out the window at the dog sunning himself in the bed of the truck. “Guess somebody with evil intentions might walk soft around a dog that size.”

“He’s meek as a mouse unless he gets worried about me,” she said. “Then, stand back.”

“Funny name for a dog.”

“From my mama’s favorite gospel song.” She sang in a husky contralto. “I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger a’traveling through this world of woe.” I found him limping along I-30 in Arkansas just about starved and his paws worn bloody from running on pavement. Somebody must have dumped him off.”

He couldn’t fathom anyone being so heartless, although he’d seen worse. “Some people just aren’t worth killing.”

He refused to let her pay for her breakfast and climbed back into the passenger seat. “I could drive,” he said, “but you’re doing fine. This road takes us all the way to Durango. I’ll give you directions to Norquist’s from there.”

He sipped coffee from his travel mug while Shelby maneuvered his rig out of the cramped parking lot and onto Route 550 headed north. The sun shone and he had a full belly; he hadn’t known such uncomplicated pleasure since just after his daughter’s birth, he reckoned, before the sky had started to fall in slow motion. He stretched his legs and leaned back.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHELBY SETTLED BEHIND the wheel. Stranger gave a contented sigh and stretched out on the backseat to chew his red rubber KONG.

She sneaked a glance at Jake and then looked quickly back at the road. No wedding ring, but she could see a tanned-over mark where one had been. His hair had fooled her about his age. Once she had sponged the blood off his face, she pegged him as early forties, possibly good-looking once the bruising and swelling subsided. She’d come to think of his build as cowboy-cut, narrow-hipped and heavily muscled through the chest and shoulders from wrestling calves and bucking sixty-pound bales.

Not that she cared. She had left a man behind in Texas, a nice guy who had mistaken their shared love of horses for a prelude to wedding bells. The ugly scene she’d staged still made her cringe, but she’d made sure he wouldn’t come chasing after her with a ring in his pocket.

Shelby put Texas behind her. Not a cloud marred the morning sky, and last night’s snow lay on the red-gold buttes and bluffs like sugar icing on a layer cake. Silver peaks appeared teasingly to the north, only to disappear as the road dipped to cross a shallow wash or follow a winding valley. Her heart quickened with anticipation. She had crisscrossed the prairie states for more than a decade, with a couple of jobs in California, but somehow her wanderings had never brought her to the spine of the Rockies.

“So there stood Great-Great Grandpa Jacob, eyeball to eyeball with the grizzly and no weapon but his Navy Colt the Yankees let him keep. He got the bear, right through the mouth, but the bear got him, too—fell spang on him and half scalped him on the way down.”

Shelby realized Jake had been talking a blue streak—she’d seen that with concussions, sometimes drowsiness, sometimes running off at the mouth.

“I guess he survived,” she said.

“Only because some Ute girls picking berries found him the next day. My great-great grandma probably never saw a white man before, never mind a redheaded one—”

“You’re part Indian?” She glanced again at his face. Mighty light-skinned, but something about the tilt of his eyes and the shape of his mouth...

“I know I don’t look it,” he said. “I take after old Jacob, redheaded like him before my hair turned. Our ranch backs up to Ute land, so I grew up hunting and fishing and scrapping with my cousins on the rez. My boys have dark hair and brown eyes, but my daughter got the red hair. It looks a lot better on her than it did on me.”