Finders Keepers (6 page)

“I lost the boots fifty feet back! Might want to do the same
if you’re hoping to not break your neck!” Jesse yelled from his perch on one of
the tall rocks dotting the riverbank.

“We wouldn’t want the town going and throwing a celebration
party if both Black men died in the same week, would we?” I replied, continuing
over the treacherous terrain. “Thanks for the tip but no thanks. I’m a cowboy.
The real kind. We don’t take our boots off, god dammit.”

Jesse tossed a pebble my way. “Don’t or won’t?”

“With me, Jess, they are one and the same.” After slipping
yet again, I finally made it to the rock Jesse had climbed and heaved myself
up. “Nice suit, shithead.” The only time I’d seen Jesse in a suit was at a
funeral or a school dance. In Montana, men only wear suits for death or
dancing. True story.

“Nice lack of suit, dipshit.” Jesse shoved me as I sat
beside him, keeping a respectable distance so we wouldn’t look like a couple of
love birds watching the river pass by.

“So . . . now that you’ve got me out here which, by the way,
is so very serene and inspiring”—I swept my arm dramatically—“why don’t you
just let me have it so I can go get shit-faced like I need to. You don’t bury
the man who wished he’d never given birth to you every day, you know.”

Jesse almost sounded like he mumbled
dipshit
, but I
couldn’t be sure. Grabbing one of the flat rocks he’d piled up beside him, he
flung it out into the river. It skipped five times. Weak. “How are you? What’s
going on in that depraved head of yours right now?” Points for getting straight
to the point. Negative points for getting straight to
that
point.

“I’m living the dream, Jess. Fucking on top of the world.” I
grabbed my own rock and launched it out into the river. Six skips. I grinned.

“Yeah, you sure look like you’re living the dream.” Jesse
didn’t examine the scruff on my face, or the dark circles under my eyes, or the
notch I was down to on my belt. His words and tone said it all.

“Yeah, yeah. Bite me. Next question.” One down. Knowing
Jesse, probably only a few million more to go.

“Do you need anything? Is there anything . . . you know . .
. I can do for you?”

I wasn’t sure who looked more uncomfortable: Jesse or me.
“You know, your fee-an-say knew better than to ask those exact same questions.
She basically told me she knew I either wouldn’t give her an answer, or if I
did, it wouldn’t be a straight one. So what makes you think I’ll give you an
answer or a straight one?” I flung another rock, and it barely skipped three
times. The stupid Kumbayah conversation was messing with my stone-skipping
skills.

“Because I, unlike my sweet one hundred and twenty pound
soaking wet fiancé, can and will happily kick your ass in order to beat the
answers out of you if need be.” I broke out in laughter. Stomach-grabbing,
body-rocking laughter. “What?” Jesse shoved my arm. “What’s so funny?”

After forcing myself to calm down, I answered him. “I can’t
decide what’s funnier—you describing Rowen as sweet or being so confident you
can kick my ass.”

“Watch it, Black. I can put up with you insulting me all the
way to the second coming, but I won’t tolerate for one fraction of a second you
insulting Rowen.” He interrupted me before I could say what I was about to. “In
jest or not. I’m protective like that.”

“Protective? You? No way.” As much as I loved giving Jesse a
hard time —in fact, it was a favorite pastime—when it came to Rowen, it was
only out of habit. “You know I like the two of you at least ten times more than
I like myself, right? I might talk a lot of shit, but you know if either of you
needed anything . . .
anything
. . . I’d give my fucking life if need
be. Right?” I nudged him, making sure he was getting what I was saying. I’d shove
him straight off the rock if that’s what it took for him to get it. “Right,
Jess? You know that, right?”

Jesse’s face couldn’t have gotten more solemn. Then he
grinned. “Are we having another moment?”

I should have shoved him off the rock. “Shithead.”

Jesse laughed, sending another rock skipping into the river.
I was too pissed to count. “I know. Difficult as you are and as much as I know
you’d rather chop off your left arm than show any real emotion, I know you’ve
got Rowen’s and my back when and if we need it.” He paused just long enough to
cue me in that he was winding up to say something big. Jesse loved using
dramatic pauses. “You do know, though, that friends-through-thick-and-thin goes
both ways, right? You need something, we’re a phone call or a five-hundred mile
drive away.”

“So you shouldn’t be the first person I call if I sever my
carotid artery?”

“Only if you’ve got a death wish.” That ever-present hint of
smile fell clean off of Jesse’s face. “Shit, Garth. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it
like that . . .”

“Walker, please, for the love of god”—I picked up one of the
rocks just so I could squeeze it—“don’t start treating me like I’m some nut
case about to stuff my head in an oven. Give me enough credit that I’m too
self-centered to do something like that because really, I can’t take another
person treating me like I’m going to implode if they say the wrong thing.”

Jesse stared out into the river before nodding. “I can do
that. No imploding nut cases around here.”

“Ha. Other than the one beside me.”

“At least your warped sense of humor is still intact,” Jesse
replied.

“In tip-top shape actually.” The rock I was squeezing was
either going to break a few bones in my hand or crumble, so before either rock
or hand broke, I hurled it into the river. No skipping that time.

“If you want to take some time off and come hang out with
Rowen and me in Seattle—”

I lifted my hand, stopping him. “Again, your woman already
beat you to the offer-the-loon-refuge punch. If I wasn’t terrified of the
permanent damage that would be done to me hearing the two of your freaky mating
sounds, I might actually take Seattle and your couch into consideration.”

“Green much?” Jesse quipped, unfazed.

“Gloat much?”

Jesse sighed. “Take it or leave it, just so long as you know
you’re welcome whenever. Okay?”

I nodded my acknowledgement because I knew Jesse wouldn’t
let it go until I did. Before he could get anything else out, because lord
knows, that guy couldn’t not talk if his life depended on it, I took the
conversation and ran with it. “So, what about you? How’s pussy-whipped life . .
. I mean ball-and-chain life . . . I mean married life . . . I mean engaged
life treating you?”

“Just so you know, if you hadn’t just been at your dad’s
funeral fifteen minutes ago, your ass would be off this rock right now.”

“Fuck, Jess. I thought I told you to stop treating me like a
self-imploder?”

He shrugged. “Fine.”

Then before I noticed him move, my ass didn’t fall off that
rock—it
flew
off. It was a damn good thing said ass landed on a patch of
sand, or I would have paid back the favor and then some. “I sure have missed
you, Jess. Kind of like the girl you screw once and who just won’t take a hint
that you don’t want to slap a ring on her.”

“Missed you too, pal.”

“This summer, eh? You’re really ready to castrate yourself?”
I’d almost climbed back on top of the rock when Jesse gave me a warning look.
“I mean, you’re really ready to tie the knot?”

“I’m really ready.”

“My god, Walker. You are insane.”

“It’s a concept you will never quite grasp, I get it.” Jesse
slid out of his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt.

“What? Getting married?”

His head moved side to side. “No, loving a woman enough to
even imagine getting married.”

“Ouch.” I thumped my fist against my chest. “I just ‘buried’
my father. Take it easy on me.”

“I thought you didn’t want me treating you any differently.”

“So did I,” I replied.

“Well make up your mind already.” Jesse smiled at me and
hell if I couldn’t not smile back.

“What’s the rush?”

“I was planning on asking you to be my best man, but that
seems wrong if you’re still under the belief that love and marriage are your
arch nemeses. I need a best man who’ll support me and have my back, not one
who’ll try to talk me out of saying ‘I do’ right up until I say it.” I glanced
over at him, lifting my brows. “Or talk me out of it after saying ‘I do,’”
Jesse added with an eye roll. “Not exactly the kind of stuff a guy needs in a
best man.”

“But you and I both know no one is better suited to throw
the bachelor party that would go down in infamy. We’re talking get Guinness on
the phone because we’re going to break every bachelor party record out there.”

Jesse pitched another rock into the river. “Yeah, something
else I’m really not looking for in a best man.”

“You suck the fun out of any and every situation, you know
that?” Even though I was masking the whole best-man conversation with humor, I
was honored as all hell that he’d even consider me his best man. We’d grown up
together, but plenty of shit had gone down between us—thanks to yours truly—and
I just considered myself lucky that Jesse still talked to and tolerated me.
Never once had I guessed he’d consider me as his best man.

But he was right. I’d make one pathetic excuse of a best man
with my ideas on love, marriage, and happily ever after. I could smile and get
through the ceremony, but I didn’t believe in any of that shit. Kind of hard to
when the closest thing to love I’d experienced with a girl had been not wanting
to immediately toss her out of my bed in the morning. For Jesse, I got it. I
understood why he wanted to marry Rowen. He had it so bad for her, his eyes
were about to go crossed. Love and marriage made sense for Jesse Walker. Love
and marriage made no sense for me. Arch nemeses may have been an exaggeration,
but they were concepts I was definitely avoiding.

Or had they been avoiding me?

“Do me a favor and give it some thought, will ya? I’d love
to have you as my best man, but I’ll understand if you’re not up to it.”

I nodded. It was a decision I wouldn’t make lightly. “There
doesn’t happen to be a spot for a ‘worst man,’ is there? Because I can assure
you that’s got my name all over it.”

Jesse laughed with me. I was about to climb off the rock and
go in search of that whiskey—enough heart-to-heart for a lifetime—when his face
got all serious again. Shit. “What are you planning on doing now?”

I knew what Jesse was asking, but hell if I was answering.
“Getting rip-roaring drunk and finding a woman who can make me forget
everything, including my name, for a little while. Or a long while preferably.”

He let out a long sigh. “And after that? Then what? Dad said
he told you that you were welcome to move into the bunk house with the rest of
the hands, but you said you were staying at a friend’s place for a while.”
Jesse gave me a purposeful look. “What friend do you have that I don’t know
about who’d give you the green light to move in with them indefinitely?”

“One you don’t know.” I kept my reply short and my eyes
forward. Jesse was an expert at sniffing out my lies. Probably because he had
fifteen years of experience doing so.

“Name?”

“I’ve got a name for you.” I lifted my middle finger at him.

Jesse looked like he was going to shove me off the rock
again but stopped. That, right there, was the defining line between the two of
us. Jesse thought first, jumped later. Me, I jumped first and maybe,
maybe
,
thought later. I’d make an argument as to which was the better option if it
wasn’t so damn obvious which one of us was winning at the game of life.

“Fine. Should you ever desire to move out of your ‘friend’s’
place, or should they decide to kick you out, you know you’re welcome at Willow
Springs, right?”

“As welcome as the clap,” I replied.

Jesse let out another sigh. His and Josie’s reactions to me
were lining up. “I already said I’ve missed you, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. And I think I forgot to say
fuck off
.”

“It’s good to have friends.”

I tipped an imaginary beer at him. “Hell yes, it is.”

EIGHT SECONDS OF glory. All a man
like me could ask from life.

Clay had beat that phrase into me when most parents were
teaching their kids the alphabet. With Clay, it was all about the most
important eight seconds of a man’s life, the glory to be earned from it, and
not resting until I’d given the best ride of my life.

In another life, Clay’d been a bull rider, too. From what
I’d gathered in between benders and the few pictures scattered around the
trailer, one hell of a rider. He’d even been a part of the pro circle for a
while. Then he met my mom, knocked her up with the little bastard known as me,
and had his kneecap stomped on by a two thousand-pound, pissed off animal.
Clay’s riding career had ended that day in the arena a month before I was born,
and even though he left it with his life, it wasn’t much of one. I’d never
known the man he was before the accident, and what I knew of the man after
didn’t make me want to know who he’d been. Clay could have been the fucking
Dali Lami of Montana and it wouldn’t have compensated for the man I’d known
growing up. Atonement just wasn’t in the cards for Clay Walker.

Other than our looks, Clay and I never had much in common.
Rodeo was the one exception. I was trotting on a horse before I could walk, and
Clay tossed me up on my first steer the summer before kindergarten. Bull riding
wasn’t about a father bonding with his son. No, bonding was something Clay
reserved for his whiskey. Bull riding was about one man living vicariously
through another. It was about Clay living his eight seconds of glory through
me.

Eight seconds of glory and a whiskey cap. That’s all the man
who’d conceived me had left me with. Not even a nickel more. It wasn’t a big
surprise Clay had never made out a will because, really, what was there to
fight over when he died? The macrame pillow coated with years of smoke and
whiskey fumes? The single dinner plate I’d glued back together so many times
I’d lost count? The trailer I’d been too embarrassed by to invite a friend or a
girl back to? No, there was nothing to fight over. Nothing to show for a man
who’d lived forty years of life other than a whiskey cap and a son who gave his
middle finger to life at every turn. Even if there had been stuff, there was no
one to fight with. I was the only family Clay had. Or at least the only family
he hadn’t severed all ties with. Talk about leaving a legacy behind . . .

The fire department had determined the fire had started
thanks to a faulty space heater. My guess was that the main “faulty” part of
the fire had been Clay, but I guess even the fire department was worried about
me losing it if they told me the whole truth. Oh well. How it had happened
didn’t change that it had happened.

By the calendar’s measure, it had been three months since
the fire. By my measure, it felt like a couple centuries. Clay was a distant
memory, along with so many pieces of my life. Working at Willow Springs and
bull riding were the only pieces of my former life that hadn’t changed. I’d cut
off contact with most of the people in my life, at least the ones who knew the
real me, not the person I wanted people to see when they looked at me.

Well, I’d
tried
cutting them off. Josie showed up at
Willow Springs every now and then, trying to get me to ‘snap out of it,’ but
she’d been about as successful as Jesse had. I wasn’t ‘snapping out’ of
anything. I was happily snapped in. If they didn’t like it, that wasn’t my
problem.

“Black. You’re up.”

I lifted my chin and slid into my leather gloves. Since the
fire, I’d stepped up my training. I’d linked up with a few other guys who
trained every Thursday night with Will Jones, who was basically bull riding
royalty. Will was an old timer, probably in his seventies from what I knew of
his career, but he still moved and held himself like one of us “young and dumb”
types. Will had an indoor arena, a few practice bulls, and a mountain of champion
belt buckles. The opportunity to train with one of the best didn’t come free.
Or even cheap. I was shelling out hard-earned cash in my pursuit of eight
seconds of glory, and the longest I’d managed to stay on a bull since the fire
was five.

Five pathetic seconds of no glory was all I had to show for
weeks of hard training and a boatload of cash. That was about to change.

Climbing the gate, I held in my groan when I saw which bull
I’d drawn. Bluebell. A sweet name for an anything-but-sweet creature. I was
convinced Bluebell had been Attila the Hun in a former life because the bull
was merciless and out for blood. In the few months I’d been riding him,
Bluebell had drawn plenty of mine.

“All right, Black, try to stay on just a few seconds longer
than you stayed on top of your date last night.” Jason, whose right eye was
still black from when he’d run his mouth last Thursday, smirked. My fist was
twitching, just dying to make contact with his other eye, when Will hollered at
us from the stands.

“You boys going to sweet talk each other all night, or are
you going to ride?”

“I don’t know about Jason here, he seems the sweet talking
type”—I flashed him a tight smile—“but I’m riding.”

Jason laughed. “Is that what you call it? I thought what you
did was eat dirt.”

If I wasn’t already getting into position on Bluebell, my
fist would have cracked into Jason right then. Oh, well. I’d just have to give
the ride of my life and shut him up that way. Double-checking my grip on the
bull strap, I lifted my other arm and gave the nod.

The gate flew open, and Bluebell burst out of it like a
devil out of hell who was down on his quota for the month. The one benefit to
having ridden Bluebell so many times was that I knew the bull’s patterns, how
high he jumped, and which way he liked to spin out of the gate. Most of bull
riding was sheer determination, training, and luck, but some of it was
probability and statistics. I knew Bluebell spun to the right. Not every spin,
but always the first spin out of the gate. I felt the bull tighten beneath me,
ready to break into a spin after lunging out of the gate. I braced myself, and
one millisecond too late, I realized my mistake. For probably the first time in
the creature’s life, its opening spin was to the left and I was, yet again, eating
dirt.

Probability and statistics my ass.

I didn’t bother to jump up and flee for the gates. The damn
bull knew it could do nothing worse to me than throw me before the eight-second
mark. I swear it gave the bull equivalent of a smirk before heading to the
holding gate at the other end of the arena. The day Will decided Bluebell was
ready to retire, I was buying that damn bull and turning his hide into a pair
of boots just so I could have the satisfaction of returning the dirt-eating
favor with every step I took. Cursing under my breath, I hoisted myself up and
tried not to hobble across the arena. Jason and the rest of the guys were
applauding my performance with wide grins. Bastards.

“Impressive performance out there, Black. I think you
managed to stay on a whole two seconds that time, which was a whole second
longer than your date last night had the pleasure of.”

If I wasn’t already covered in bruises from our training
session, I would have thrown off my gloves and charged Jason. What stopped me
wasn’t the fear of losing a fight to Jason Simmons. When I did have a go at
him, I wanted to be at my best because I wanted him to remember every hit I got
on him. If I wanted to just kick his ass, it would have been game on, but I
wanted to kick his ass
and
teach him a lesson. With the way I was
already beat to shit, teaching him a lesson would have to wait.

I had to spit out a mouthful of dirt before replying. “At
least I know
how
to pleasure my date. Unlike your sorry excuse for a
dick. And the staying-on-my-date jokes were old five hundred ago. Get some
fresh material and get back to me.”

“A cowboy who stays on a bull for eight seconds doesn’t have
to know how to pleasure his date. He’s got a whole line of dates just waiting
to pleasure him.”

For a cowboy who’d ridden a whopping five rodeos, he sure
had a big head. “The only line I see around you is a blank-faced, nose-picking
male bunch.” I waved toward the other guys we trained with on Thursdays. I
didn’t know their names because I didn’t care to know their names. They only
rode bulls for the pussy that came along with it. A real competitor didn’t
disgrace the sport by riding for pussy. They rode because they were fucking
cowboys with dicks, and that’s what real cowboys with legitimate dicks did.
Fucking posers.

“Okay, boys. I’m calling it a night before someone kills
themselves or someone else,” Will yelled. Part of his job was training us, and
part of it was keeping us from strangling each other. I don’t know if he would
have taken us on if he’d read that in the fine print. “Pack it up. I’ll see to
the bulls.”

“If you need any tips, Black, give me a call. I know a thing
or two when it comes to eight seconds.” Jason slid out of his protective vest,
chomping his gum and grinning at me. “Oh, hold up. You don’t have a phone,
right? The cell got cut off due to insufficient funds, and the landline . . .
well, the landline was burnt to a crisp like your has-been daddy.”

Rage monster, here I come.
I’d just torn off my
gloves and started marching toward Jason—after what he’d just said, he was
going to get his ass beat
and
learn a lesson—when a firm pair of hands
grabbed my shoulders and stopped me.

“Bad idea, Garth.”

I tried pulling free of Will’s hold, but the old timer was
either hooked up to a steroid drip every night or was a descendent of Superman.
I might as well have been struggling against a pair of steel vices.

“Save your battles for the arena. Beating him by earning a
higher score will shut him up a hundred times faster than any ass-kicking.
It’ll keep you out of jail too because I don’t know about you, but Jason seems
like the type who would press charges for battery or some shit.” When I stopped
struggling, Will let me go. “He’s the kind of man—I use that term loosely—who
doesn’t understand you don’t call the cops to work out a situation when a pair
of fists does a better job of it.”

I’d always liked old Will Jones, but my opinion of him had
just jumped a few hundred levels from moderate to severe hero worship. “I’d
love to shut him up by giving the fucking ride of my life, but I can’t even
manage a mediocre ride that hits the eight-second mark.”

“When was the last time you stayed on a full eight?” Will
asked when I turned to him, after waving both of my middle fingers at Jason and
his jackass apostles as they left the arena.

“A little over three months ago.”

Will grunted, nodding. I’d never talked about it with him,
but it was a small town. Will knew what had happened to Clay, how it’d
happened, and when. That he’d never felt the need to bring it up or ask if I
wanted to “talk about it” put him that much higher in my esteem.

“I went through a dry spell once myself, too. My issue was a
woman. A crazy, vivacious one I couldn’t get out of my head. I was so consumed
with her that I’d already be out the chute before I realized I was on the back
of a pissed off bull that wouldn’t think twice about stomping me to death.”
Will’s eyes went somewhere else. “That woman . . .” When he came back, he shook
his head and studied the ground.

“Well? How did you beat it? How did you get her out of your
head and end your dry spell?” That was the point of the whole segue, right?

Will smiled. “I all but hog-tied her, drug her to the
closest church, and married her.”

I hadn’t seen the marry-the-crazy-distracting-woman one
coming. “And marrying her
helped
your riding?”

“I earned my highest score my first ride after saying
I
do
.”

“How in the hell did that work?” If a woman was my problem,
marrying her would be the worst possible solution.

“Because I’d fallen so completely in love, my mind and body
and every other part of me wouldn’t rest until I’d made her mine forever, for
God and everyone else to know. I couldn’t be
some
other man to her when
I wanted to be
the
man for her.”

The conversation was getting a little too touchy-feely for
me. I stepped back in case Will was close to breaking out in tears and needing
a hug. I wasn’t the person to hug when someone was in the midst of a meltdown.
I was the person who shook the hell out of someone and ordered them to get
their shit together. “Well, that’s a Precious Moments story, but it does me a
whole lot of no good because my problem ain’t no woman.”

“Your daddy?” At least if he was going to bring it up, he
didn’t beat around the bush and he looked me in the eye.

“Daddy, ashes to ashes, dust to dust—literally—dearest.”

Will didn’t blink. I suppose when a person had lived as many
years as he had, there was little left to be seen or heard that could surprise
them. “And what makes you think your daddy dying is causing you to lose your
head when you’re up there on a bull?”