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Murder on the Red River. Marcie R. Rendon
Читать онлайн.Название Murder on the Red River
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781941026533
Автор произведения Marcie R. Rendon
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Издательство Ingram
“Yep,” said Cash, already climbing up on the tractor. Sven must have gotten to the field at sunup because he was more than half done. Cash plowed till about five, then drove the tractor and plow over to the field she knew Sven would plow next. She walked across the dirt furrows, climbed into her Ranchero and headed back to Fargo.
She took a quick bath and changed into clean clothes. She grabbed the thin quilt off her bed and a box of .22 shells from the top dresser drawer. Down at the Ranchero, she checked to make sure her .22 rifle was still behind the seat before heading back on the road. One of the things she had learned from all her out-of-body meditation practice was that sometimes she really did see things. Another thing she had learned over the years was the only person she could trust was herself and so more often than not she chose to follow her quirky intuitions.
She drove north through Halstad, stopped in another smaller town to buy some cigarettes. She used the restroom of the town bar and continued north, cutting cross-country on gravel roads.
At some county junction, there was a township so small she missed the name as she entered the village. It was dark. She cruised the main street, the only street, trying to decide between two bars, one on the south end of town, one on the north. The north-end one looked a little more rundown, probably a little more welcoming to a dark-haired female pool player. She pulled headfirst into a parking spot close to the one streetlight on the block. Reached into the glove box and pulled out a hairbrush, which she pulled through her hair before braiding it down the middle of her back. Never knew what kind of trouble one could run into in these small-town bars in northern Minnesota. One braid was less of a handful to grab than a whole head of hair.
Cash reached behind the driver’s seat and pulled out her cue stick in its leather case. She hesitated a moment, then took the cue out of the case. She knew that white farm folks tended to not like anything too Indian up here in northern Minnesota and she didn’t want to risk damage to the one possession, next to the .22, she was attached to.
The place smelled like every other bar in the state. She scanned the place as she walked in. Noted the couple nuzzling in the back booth. The jukebox against the east wall. The mandatory town drunk on the end barstool, well into his nightly stupor. A couple of young farmer dudes shooting pool. They looked up at her, took in the cue stick and smirked at each other.
“Hey, baby, women’s lib doesn’t reach this far north,” the one in a checkered shirt hollered. His buddy, still wearing his manure-crusted work shoes, laughed and swigged a drink of his beer. “Wowee, we got a girlee here thinks she can shoot.”
Cash walked up to the bar and ordered two Buds. The bartender asked to see her ID, which she pulled from the back pocket of her jeans. Cash looked him defiantly in the eyes as he scanned the ID. “You don’t look a day over twelve, kid,” is what he said, inspecting the front, back and edges of the ID. But he served her the beers. Cash walked over to the pool table, past two women sitting in another booth. Must be wives or girlfriends of the farmer boys. Cash put her beers on the ledge that lined the wall and her quarters up on the pool table. She perched on a red leather barstool to wait her turn. The guy with the crappy shoes wasn’t half bad.
Checkered Shirt couldn’t bank for shit. She figured she would have to let them each win at least once, play for beers initially, then switch to cash in about an hour. She had been driving for hours it seemed, much of it on gravel roads that had covered her truck in a fine layer of dust. It was dark, and she would have to sleep in her Ranchero. Thank god, she was in the woods, the real woods, the pinewoods of northern Minnesota. Easy to hide a truck and a woman sleeping in it.
Checkered Shirt lost when he called the wrong pocket for the 8-ball.
Cash walked over to the table and slid her quarters in. The clunk of dropping balls was music to her ears. She put the rack on the table, flush with the green cushion, squatted and used two balls to a hand to fill the rack. Positioned the balls just so. Stripe. Two solids. 8-ball between two stripes. Two solids, a stripe, a solid. Stripe, solid, stripe, solid, stripe completed the rack. She slid the rack back and forth positioning the lead stripe just so on the circle. The rack was tight. “Straight eight?”
Crusty Shoes answered, “We were playing last pocket, but I’ll switch to straight eight for you, doll.”
Doll, my ass. Cash chalked her cue while he postured for the break. Sipped her beer, hip resting on the barstool. Crack. Balls scattered. Her opponent war-whooped as three balls dropped. Two stripes and a solid. Being a gentleman he chose the solids and ran four. Cash made the fifteen and scratched trying for the eleven.
Cash overheard Checkered Shirt say to his girl, “She brought her own cue stick for looks. Can’t shoot for shit.” Cash let the farm boy win the game and put up another pair of quarters. She watched Checkered Shirt lose to Crusty Shoes. When their game was over, Cash smiled to herself, plugged in her quarters and asked her opponent if he wanted to play for beers.
“Sure,” he said. Cash drank for free until closing time. Crusty Shoes was an easygoing loser. Checkered Shirt got more angry and foul-mouthed as the night wore on, complaining to his girl, wondering why the damn squaws don’t stay on the reservation where they belong and how come drunken Indians were takin’ all my money, honey. Cash just played and drank.
When the bartender gave the last call, Cash scratched on the eight, shrugged her shoulders, finished her beer and broke down her cue. As she walked by the boys’ booth, Checkered Shirt’s girlfriend slurred bitch. Cash, though tempted to finish something, steeled her resolve and left.
She lit up a Marlboro before turning the key in the ignition and backing out. She didn’t feel drunk at all and wished she had bought a six-pack for the road. Too late now. As she headed out of town, she checked the rearview mirror more than once to make sure the boys and their girls hadn’t decided to follow her. No headlights appeared. When the jack pines started to line the road on either side, she slowed and scanned for a turn-off road. It was too late to keep driving. She needed to sleep before hitting the reservation tomorrow.
About fifteen miles out of town, her headlights grazed the ruts of a logging road off to the right. She pulled in and drove about a quarter of a mile before backing her truck as close into the trees as she could get. She reached under the seat for her flashlight.
She stood in the dark and listened to the night sounds. In the far distance she could hear a car. A few minutes more, she saw the car continue north on the main road. She was in a good place. No one was going to come down this road tonight. She listened again before switching on the flashlight and scouring around in the truck bed of the Ranchero. After shaking the road dust off everything, she made a bed for herself with the quilt, covering herself with the wool blanket she had stashed there too. She went back into the cab of the truck and pulled her .22 from behind the seat. Made sure it was loaded and went to sleep with it hidden under the quilt with her hand on the rifle butt.
The sun woke her. The fall morning air was crisp. She shoved the blankets back under the two-by-fours, unloaded the rifle, dropped the .22 bullets into her front pocket and put the rifle in its place behind the front seat. She jumped in the cab and turned on the heat full blast. She lit up a cigarette and cranked the driver’s window about three inches to let the smoke drift out. If she leaned forward on the steering wheel, she could see the occasional car drive by on the main road—farmers going into town for a needed part or to pick up feed. She finished her cigarette and crushed it out in the ashtray. No point in starting a forest fire today, she thought, shifting into first and pulling out into the overgrown ruts of the logging road. Her mouth tasted like stale beer and cigarettes. The thermos on the seat beside her had a mouthful of coffee left in it. Cold, but it covered the taste from the night before. Foolish to try the radio, nothing but static up here in the woods.
Cash smoked and drove. The weather was good. Sun was shining with the occasional thin white cloud. No cotton candy clouds today, just streaks of white. She thought about the stand she had seen along the road when she was lying down in her truck bed, the guy dead in the field