Lone Creek

11

Sarah Lynn Olsen and I had been sweethearts in high school and until my last year in college. Since then we'd both been married to, and divorced from, other people. I didn't see her often these days-just when we'd run into each other on the street or in a bar. But she was always warmly friendly, and she was a partner in her family's real estate business, which owned things like shopping malls. I figured those were the best odds I was going to get for a loan, although I wouldn't have blamed her a bit if she'd decided that a phone call from jail didn't fit her Saturday night plans.

But Gary came back to say she was on her way, and he took me out to the visiting room. She must have jumped into her car as soon as they'd finished talking, because she was there within ten minutes.

Sarah Lynn was very attractive, with a sort of earth mother quality-buxom figure, long wheat-colored hair, and a sweetness that sometimes came across as drifty. Old friends called her by her initials, Slo. But right now she looked a little exotic, wearing an expensive black dress that was just short and clingy enough to turn the jailers' heads.

Not surprisingly, she seemed nervous. It didn't help that we were talking on phones with a thick Plexiglas window between us, and everything had the kind of greasy feel you didn't like touching your skin. But I also suspected that I'd interrupted her getting ready to go out, and now she was running late.

"Aw, Huey," she sighed. "Gary didn't tell me anything except you'd asked to see me. What'd you do?"

"Pissed somebody off."

Her eyes widened in fake disbelief. "No!"

"My bail's twenty-five thousand bucks, Slo."

She sat back a little-maybe at the amount, maybe because it suggested a serious crime.

"I need twenty-five hundred, cash, or else I stay here," I said. "I can pay you back most of it as soon as I get out, and the rest within a few days."

"I'm not worried about that, honey. I'm worried about what kind of trouble you're in. Of course I'll help you."

I closed my eyes briefly in relief.

"I'll buy you a drink and tell you all about it," I said.

"Deal."

"You're an angel, Slo. I'm sorry to wreck your Saturday night."

Her mouth twisted in a quick wry smile. "My Saturday night's a bottle of white wine and whatever trash is on TV."

"You look like maybe you had a hot date."

She glanced down at her outfit.

"Oh, that's left over from this afternoon. Once in a while I decide I'm going to go out and do something wild and exciting. I usually end up shopping."

Then she looked at me straight on. Her eyes were a deeper blue than Gary's and usually seemed dreamy, but right now, they were very focused.

"Thanks for noticing," she said.

"It was easy."

She stood up, still holding the phone, and smoothed her skirt with her other hand.

"I'll have to go to the office safe to get the money, so it'll take a few minutes," she said. "What then?"

I told her about Bill LaTray's bargain basement option. She said she'd make sure he agreed to it, and I knew she would. She might have been dreamy in some ways, but she had a good business head, like most people who'd grown up in that world.

She stalked out, looking like a million bucks.

I spent most of another dreary hour back in my cell before a jailer led me to the main desk, where I signed away my immortal soul to Bill's Bail Bonds. Bill was there, with his hit-man leather coat and stony face. He didn't say much, but he didn't have to. We both knew that the last thing in the world I wanted was him on my ass.

The desk sergeant told me to show up first thing on Monday-the judge would see me as soon as he had time. A clerk got my truck keys and my plastic sack of clothes from a storage room.

When I put them on, I imagined I could still smell those horses.

I didn't see Gary Varna again. Sarah Lynn had come in along with Bill LaTray, but she'd disappeared by the time I finished dealing with the paperwork. I thought she'd probably slipped outside for a cigarette.

But when I walked out onto the worn stone steps of the courthouse, she was gone, too.

I sat down and threaded the laces into my boots. The afternoon had turned into a luscious September evening, with the sky a shimmering blue that deepened every minute and the mountainsides going from green to purple. The air was taking on the crisp chill it did that time of year, after the warm days suckered you into thinking it was still summer.

Maybe she'd left to spare me any feeling of obligation. Maybe the tawdriness of this had come home to her, and she'd wanted to distance herself.

Maybe it had to do with a road I didn't care to look back down.

She and I hadn't ever been officially engaged, but it was understood that we'd get married after I finished college. I was the one who'd pulled the pin, for reasons I'd never really been able to explain to her.

On my way out of town, I stopped at Louie's Market for a six-pack of Pabst. They kept their beer ice-cold, and the first one was about as good as anything I'd ever tasted.

Then I headed home, to scrub off that smell, root out my money stash to pay Sarah Lynn, and figure out where I was going to score a truck and driver to haul my ill-gotten lumber back to the ranch.