Event

SEVENTEEN

The dining room window of his mother's bar and grill afforded Billy Dawes a view of the piece of desert entrapped in the large valley, and for the first time in his young life the view didn't hold imaginings of adventurous things. It now seemed to be holding a dark secret that was hidden from him and those around him. He couldn't put his finger on it, but the world out there was different somehow and it made him wish they lived where there was no desert, valley, or stone mountains.

As he turned from the window, he saw two tourists, a man with plaid shorts and black socks, and another, who had to be his wife, with a sunburned face. Both were sitting at the bar eating hamburgers and drinking Cokes; they had spent the last half an hour arguing over the map they had just purchased from Phil's Texaco. There was also Tony Amos, trying his best to stay on one of the high barstools and not succeeding well at all; the beer glass he had in front of him had been emptied twenty minutes before. Then there was Billy's mother. She was wiping water rings off the bar with a dish towel as she looked his way and smiled.

Julie Dawes had purchased the bar a year after the death of Billy's father in a mining accident. Billy was proud of his mom, the way she handled the bar and grill and the constant fending off of advances by the miners and construction workers who found their way into the Broken Cactus. She was still pretty at age thirty-eight.

She gave him a wink as he walked back behind the bar and started cutting limes and lemons for tonight's run.

She walked up behind him, lightly throwing the bar towel over her shoulder. "Why don't you go riding for a while before it gets too dark, baby? I'll do that."

Billy cut the lime on the cutting board into four wedges and sighed.

"Gus is in the mountains," he answered, hoping she didn't see the worry on his face as he didn't want to answer any questions about how he was feeling about the desert.

Julie raised her left eyebrow. "That's never stopped you before. I thought you liked it out there."

Billy set the knife down and looked through the large plate-glass window again. He wiped the acidic juice from the fruit on the apron he had tied around his waist, then brushed back some of his brown hair as it fell across his forehead.

"I don't want to go out there today." He hesitated. "I... I think I'll wait until Gus gets back."

Julie didn't really like Billy's only having one friend. And that friend being Gus Tilly, who was old enough to be his great-grandfather, made it worse. Oh, she liked the old man well enough, but she thought it couldn't be too healthy for Billy to be around Gus only. For that very reason she was thinking of selling the Broken Cactus and moving back to the Phoenix area. The boy needed kids his own age.

"What's wrong with you, kiddo?" she asked.

Billy turned and faced his mother, then glanced at the two tourists who had driven up in one of those battleship-sized Winnebagos. They were busy looking at a map, arguing about whether they wanted to drive to the San Carlos Reservation or move on to New Mexico and Carlsbad Caverns, and weren't listening, but he lowered his voice anyway.

"Something... I don't know, Mom." He looked at his tennis shoes. "It's weird out there since yesterday and I don't know why."

Julie looked out the window a moment, then patted his head. "Why don't you go upstairs and watch TV for a while and I'll bring you a couple of cheeseburgers, okay?"

Billy acted out the best smile he could muster and nodded his head. "Yeah, that'll be great."

Julie Dawes watched her son as he sadly climbed the stairs. Then she turned to the window and the street beyond. She didn't know what her son was talking about, but for some unknown reason, she wished more people would arrive a little earlier tonight just for the added company. Then Tony, the town's lonely drunk, tapped his glass.

"I'll take one more beer, then tha's all," the drunk slurred, raising his head.

Julie turned and shook her head. "I think you'll not. You go and lay down in your truck until later, and then we'll see about another."

He raised his head and squinted at Julie. "I have a truck?" he asked, swaying.

Julie watched him stumble off the stool and out the door. Then she looked out the window at the desert beyond and pondered what Billy had said about something being wrong in the valley.