Chapter 6 Captain Dave goes back to Texas
Musical theme; Crying Eyes by J.J. Cale
Dave came out of the airport carrying their baggage. He set it down. Jainie was looking at a new truck parked across the way. He came over, taking the bags, and tossed them in the back. The man with Jainie gave him a dismissive look. Dave opened the door, and popped the hood. He checked the fluid levels, and looked over the engine. He closed the hood, and looked at the tires. He knelt next to the truck and looked at the undercarriage, and he did it from the other side. He took the driver’s seat, and looked over the instrument panel. “Clear, Jainie?” he asked, as she stepped back. He jammed it on, driving clearly faster than the airport would like, and slammed on the brakes, bringing the truck to a smoking stop. He flipped it into reverse, and hit the throttle, then the brakes, stopping it cold. He pulled it back alongside Jainie. “Nothing obviously wrong with it, honey.”
“Let me see the paperwork.” He said to the man who had given him the look. Dave reviewed the documents, sitting at the wheel. He crossed out a few provisions, and signed the contract of sale. He handed the seller’s copy to the guy. “You were rude, but you were on time,’ he said, and handed the guy a $100 bill. The guy gave him a strange look. They drove off.
“What did you cross out?”
‘The line about incorporating the fine print on the reverse.’
“You can just do that?”
“I just did it.”
“Can you just do that?”
“This, from the girl who thinks I can’t take her off the Clarissa Marlene? Of course I can. They presented us with a contract, we modified it, and signed as modified, and their agent accepted it. They could claim he did not have authority to accept it, but it’s a rough road for them.”
“They sent a jackal to deal with a lion.”
“About that. Do you see the manual in the glove box?”
“It’s here.”
“I was going to ask about cruise control, but it’s the same old same old.”
“You don’t need it?”
“I don’t.”
He put the truck on the highway and engaged cruise control. “They say not to keep a constant speed breaking in a new engine. If the rings come to the exact same place so many times, it makes a shoulder in the bore, is the idea. I drive a new one easy, and change the cruise a little now and then. And I cannot tell you it matters.”
“The boys probably put it to the metal and see how fast it will go.”
“I imagine they do.”
“You’re not offended.’
“I could be, but it would be useless. Cowboys are cowboys. You couldn’t get anyone else to do the crazy things they do to make a living. So yes, they beat the shit out of pickup trucks. That’s the biz. Just make sure you pick the driver for the Baby carefully. Unless you want it to go into the grist mill.”
“The Baby is for you and me to drive. Nobody else. Maybe a real professional trucker if we need him. I even want to keep this truck nice until I take it to Wyoming, and let them trash it.”
“That’s what you do, drive the new ones, and then hand the keys over to the boys, so they can destroy them?”
“You’re shooting close to the heart with that.”
“We’re under new management.”
“Yes, you and Kevin Lake. Kevin drives up in a D-10, and you come in, stinging him with a D-12. yeah, they so much got the message. You were as subtile as Patton and Bradley. They know you are in charge, and no shit, that will matter a lot. My own authority up there is about the same, but Kevin or you, you scare them so the piss runs down their legs.”
“You don’t usually talk like that.”
“I don’t. I should be more ladylike.”
“You don’t have to, but I do like it when you do.”
She smiled. “Are we past all that stuff about the Clarissa Marlene?”
“I suppose I am. I can’t hold a grudge against you any more than a cardboard box can hold a neutrino.’
“That’s probably a really nifty line if I know what it means.”
“Neutrinos are sub atomic particles that zip right through everything. The earth isn’t even much to them.”
“So you just said something very nice to me. My silly mathematician.”
“Actually, what about the Clarissa Marlene? Do I just let her go on as she was?”
“Run her, sell her, whatever. I worked a super trawler. It was fun. My husband took me off her because he thought I would get killed out there, and he was probably right.”
“You’re very agreeable just now.”
“I am very.”
“A Japanese firm wants her.”
“They can have her. Insist on health and dental coverage for all hands. And anyone they downsize gets severance pay for the time they worked for us. Equal to that. Even if they are on some other boat tomorrow. They won’t put anyone on the boat who does not get health, dental, and a 401(k). They can pay 10% matching. Nobody gets a pay cut. Nobody works for less than we paid. Not ever.”
“What about the price?”
“Take them for all you can get. Add a half million if they don’t close before December 7th.”
“A day that will live in infamy?”
“Yes.”
“It might be hard to, uh, negotiate.”
“Then don’t. We will take 110% of what we paid for her, and the crew conditions, and we will not negotiate. Take it by Pearl Harbor Day, or forget it.”
He pulled into a truck stop, and went to pee. He bought a cup of coffee, and went out to the pickup. “You sure what you told me?”
“Have you ever seen me indecisive?”
“No.”
“So call them and tell them the haps.” He did, and was immediately told that the price and terms were accepted. He asked the papers to be sent to his office in Texas, and also the main office in Louisiana.
“Are you going to want some coffee, or something?”
“I’ll take a sip of yours.’
“You just sold a multi million dollar boat, and you want to drink your husband’s coffee?”
“You say that again. ‘Husband.’ I like that. Do they have those huge cups here, like 64 ounces?”
“I think so.”
“Would my husband go and get one of those cups, get it filled with coffee, and come back without flirting with the ladies more than a little, to be polite and make them glow a bit?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dave went in again, grabbed one of the big cups, and went to rinse it in the sink beside the coffee machines. As he turned, he found himself against an astonishingly beautiful woman in a short dress with fishnet stockings and black patent leather boots. “Excuse me, ma’am.” He said, as he went to the coffee machine.
He filled the cup, and put some cream in it. As he turned to go to the cashier, she was still there. ‘Excuse me again, ma’am’ he said. She looked him in the eyes. “You have nothing to ask to be excused for.”
“My wife is in the car out there. It’s been nice meeting you.”
“My name is Rebecca. I tolerate ‘Becky’ but I don’t like it, really.” She kissed Dave on the cheek, and that was what Jillian saw when she came in.
Dave went to the cashier. Jillian was there. “Who is she?”
“Rebecca. She doesn’t like ‘Becky’ but she answers to it.”
“So you know her.”
Dave looked over, and saw that Rebecca was gone. He couldn’t ask her to help him explain. “No. She just introduced herself, right before you came in. I told her I was here with my wife.”
He started toward the door, and awkwardly looked for somewhere to set the cup down. The cashier saw him, and pointed at the cup, then made a swishing movement toward the door. Dave and Jillian went out.
“So you know her.”
“I don’t know her.”
“But you know she doesn’t like to be called ‘Becky’.”
“She said that just before you came in.”
“So before that?”
“Well, I almost ran into her, and I said ‘excuse me’, and then when I had the coffee cup filled, I turned around, and almost ran into her again. ‘I said ‘excuse me’’ and she said I had nothing to be excused for.”
“When did you find out about not calling her ‘Becky’?”
“Right after. She introduced herself, and she said she didn’t really like being called ‘Becky.’”
“She knows you. And she’s a whore.”
“She doesn’t know me, and so far as I know, she isn’t a whore. I mean, she could be, but not to my knowledge. I wouldn’t accuse a lady of being in that profession unless I knew for sure.”
“You’re lying to me.” She walked out and got in the truck, and drove away.
Dave came back inside, and paid for the coffee, and the cup. The cashier found him a box to make a sign from, and wrote “Big Bird” on it with her marker. “I hate to see this,” she said. “I thought she just talked to you. That lady, she isn’t, well. My name is Kelly, by the way,” she said with a sort of hopeful expression on her face.
“Thanks, Kelly.” He said. He went to the highway. At least he was in Texas. He could call someone if he couldn’t get a ride. Anyway, Texans are southern. A Texan might well give you a ride 200 miles out of his way just because you are a Texan. Big Bird was on the highway, so he needed a 140 mile ride up there, and it would not matter one way or another. His truck was in Wyoming, but he could buy another. He held up his sign, and a pickup stopped. It was a brand new white Toyota Tundra. “Get in, Dave.”
She shot onto the highway. “If I believed what you said, what would I do, even so?”
“You would say a pretty lady flirted with your husband at a truck stop.”
“You would describe Rebecca as a pretty lady?”
“Sure.”
“How about ‘beautiful?’ How about ‘hot as molten glass’? How about well, you supply one.”
“Call her a dream girl. That’s about as bad as you can make it sound.”
“A dream girl. You actually came up with that one, just to help me.”
“You asked.”
She took out the .44 Kodiak, and he took it out of her hand. He put it in his back pocket.
“You’re supposed to throw it out the window.”
“For some punk to find it, or law enforcement to waste money trying to see why it was there?”
“It’s just not what you do. You throw it out the window.”
“In the movies, nobody keeps a six hundred dollar revolver, because Clint Eastwood makes that much in an hour. I’m not giving this gun back to you, because you might do something to make me regret it.”
“I can buy another.”
“You can.”
“I don’t seem to be doing very well in this. You’re so articulate and reasonable. But you wanted to bang that Rebecca, anyway.”
“I did, but I wouldn’t have. Kelly doesn’t think she’s a lot lizard, but she could be wrong.”
“So now we have another woman in this.’
“She made this sign for me. Jillian, I can’t deal with this. I don’t know how. I love you, but I can’t steer this kind of straits, where the truth doesn’t even matter.”
She suddenly swerved off the highway, smashing a small mesquite and obliterating some prickly pear cacti. “You drive.”
“Where are we going?”
“Your house.”
“OK”
“If I don’t believe you, I can just drive away.”
“And you don’t even need the boys to start on smashing up your new truck.”
“That would be funny if I wasn’t so mad.”
“You are going to have to get ready for downtown Big Bird.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, it’s not like just any downtown, you see.”
“How is it different?”
“Do you take long blinks?”
She was working hard to keep from laughing. “You think she’s hotter than Marcie?”
“That Rebecca?”
“I’m not asking about Mother Teresa.”
“She was a nice lady.”
“To keep to the subject.”
“Someone I have known for less time than we have discussed her.”
“Yes. Is she hotter than Marcie?”
“In the class, anyway.”
“And Marcie is hotter than me.”
“Marcie is not anywhere near as sweet as you.”
“I hope not. What are her vices?”
“She’s your cousin.”
“Say something mean about her.”
“She is vicious, manipulative, and cruel.”
“You know you’re right.”
“I like Marcie, but not like I would ever have married her.”
“You’re not much good at saying mean things.”
“I’m not mean.”
“So suppose I forgive you.”
“When I didn’t do anything? Suppose you do.”
“Then we’ll be back where we were, you will still love me?”
“I will still love you, pretty much regardless of what you do.”
He slowed them down a few miles an hour with the cruise. He checked the mirrors and the instruments.
“What’s your house in Big Bird like?”
“You already know.”
“Well, sort of. I have seen what it looks like from the air.”
“We’ll be there within the hour. It’s old and run down, but it’s kind of neat. Uncle Jack did a lot of nice things with it.”
“He wasn’t your uncle, though.”
“Right. He left it to a nephew in Chicago who sold it without ever seeing it. The nephew sold it to a software company that thought it would be a great location, not realizing it was located in the heart of the ignorance belt. Then everyone sued everyone else over nothing, and I ended up accepting it as my share of what had been a big dot com. I was settled out of the lawsuits, and ended up with a little ranch in West Texas, while the rest of the players turned their assets into attorney fees. I gave up my stock, and my rights to a lot of stuff I had written, but I was out of it. I worked at sea for a while, and got my license and all. Uncle Jack left a bunch of files about the house and ranch on his old PC. So I came to know an amazing man after he had died. You must already know most of this.”
“I did, except nobody told me about his files.”
“Nobody but you knows, honey. He did all sorts of creative things with the house and all, and left a bunch of files on the PC about how it all works.”
“You’re going to tell me.’
“I’m going to show you, too. He built a vacuum system that dumps the dust in the furnace, which is wood burning, and outside. From there the heat goes into the house in ducts. A lot of things like that.”
“I’m sorry I lit into you about that Rebecca.”
“It’s OK, although I would like less drama in my life.”
“She was beautiful.”
“She was probably up to something. Women have never paid all that much attention to me, except since I found you. What do you suppose that is about?”
“If you have one you must be worth it. So the others want you. I suppose that’s the best summary, anyway.”
“That seems kind of ridiculous. I’m not saying you’re wrong.”
“That women can be ruthless, petty, vindictive, nasty, and mean? Of course they can be. Except for me, of course. Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. I’m a princess.”
“You’re my princess.”
She leaned over and put her head in his lap. “I am, Dave.”
She was asleep, so she missed the sights of downtown Big Bird, Texas, pop 873. (Including, of course, the greater metropolitan area). Dave parked the truck beside the Buick that had taken him here years ago, and died where it still sat. He unbuckled Jainie’s seat belt, and slipped out from under her. He went in, and turned on the lights. He went out to the furnace shed, and started a fire in the wood box. He started the little tractor, and dumped a bucket of trash and wood into the wood box. He went out to the barn and saw that his animals had been properly cared for. He put his hand on Clyde, the huge draft horse. “How has my Clyde been?”
She came in behind him. “You have a Budweiser horse!”
“He’s a Clydesdale. His name is Clyde. You can ride him if you like.”
“You have a saddle and all? It’s not dark yet.”
“I never have seen a saddle big enough for Clyde. I don’t even have a bridle for him, just a collar so he can tow. Clyde is a great stump puller.”
“How can you ride him?”
“Bareback. Hold onto his mane. Clyde wouldn’t hurt you.”
She scurried up the side of the stall like a squirrel, and jumped on Clyde. “Open the gate, Cowboy!” He did it. Out they went, faster than Dave had thought they would. Clyde took her around the farmhouse, and up into the negligible hills. A few minutes later, they were back. She jumped down from him, and kissed his face, running her hands down his nose. Clyde was obviously enjoying the attention.
She put him back in his stall. “He’s so neat, Dave! And he’s so big! Can we take him to the ranch?”
“You’ll have to ask Clyde about that.”
“This big black, what is his name?”
“Rastafarian. Be careful. Rasta used to be a rodeo bronc. He can be very dangerous.”
Dave saw the light in her eyes. Of course, Rasta would push her buttons.
“Can I ride him? You can’t tell me no.”
“Not this evening. We’ll do that in the morning or something.”
“I’m going to.’
“Yeah, I should have known that. But we’ll do it when I have a couple of hands here. Rasta kicks and bites. He killed a cowboy up in Calvary.”
“Clinton Reese.”
“Clint was a nice guy.” It figured that she knew all about it.
He moved on back. “Now here is someone you should like. Martine. She’s a good horse, aren’t you Marti?” He petted her. She nuzzled him. “Marti is the mother of a lot of good horses. She doesn’t even make things hard when she gets shoed, do you, Marti?”
Jillian stroked Martine’s face without interest. She was a crème colored horse with black speckles. She looked past Martine at the end of the barn. “What about the bike?”
“It’s a Montessa 400. You’re not riding that.”
“Of course I am.”
“It’s a racing dirt bike. You’re not riding it.”
“Oh, yes I am.”
“Or you will buy one like it.”
“That’s what I will do. How fast will it go?”
“About 130 miles an hour.”
“Those are dirt tires.’
“Right.”
“It can do 130 miles an hour on dirt?”
“Assuming a professional motocross rider, yes.”
“I’m going to have to ride it.”
“You don’t have leathers, boots, the helmet.”
“I’ll buy all that stuff on eBay.”
“I was going to show you the house, but you don’t care about anything but the most dangerous things. Rasta and the Montessa. I suppose you would also like to play with my blasting caps.”
“Do you have blasting caps?”
He mentally kicked himself. He had said it for effect, but she could read him like a comic book.
“You do. I want to blow something up. I don’t much care what.”
“I don’t expect you do.”
“Can I blow something up, Dave?”
“I guess so. Do you just want to do a technical blasting job, or just blow hell out of an old dead tree?”
“I just want to blow something up. An old tree would be fine. Do you have a real cool detonator with the T handle and the box?”
“It looks more like a walkie talkie, with a button that has a cover over it. It beeps when you lift the cover, then you push the button, and it blows the hell out of whatever you have wired.”
“I bet you have a machine gun, too.’
He looked away.
“You do.”
“We can go to Louis Daigne firearms and shoot some belt fed machine guns if you like.”
“But you have some of your own.”
“I have a couple of AK-47’s I brought back from the sandbox illegally. If you want to shoot, we’ll go to Louis Daigne’s.”
“I want to see a real AK. Come on, Dave.”
He took her into the house, and into the workshop. He opened an unmarked door, and a safe door. He took out a for real AK. He checked it for an empty chamber, and then handed it to her.
“How did you get this, Dave?”
He didn’t answer.
“You blew the guy who had it away, and took his piece.”
He didn’t answer, although she had it all figured out anyway.
“You smoked these two guys, and took their rifles home. They probably wouldn’t be too hard to transport missing a few parts.”
“Auto bolt. The actual part is smaller than a banana. Without one of those in the receiver group, it is just parts.”
“But you have the bolts.”
“This is it, right here.” He put his finger on it.
“Can I see your sniper rifle?”
He took the AK back, put it in the safe, and took out the .375 Whitworth Express rifle. He opened the bolt, looked in, and then handed it to her.
“How many people have you killed with this?”
He didn’t answer.
“This isn’t the stock barrel, I don’t think.’
“It’s a Seuraque.”
“Stainless. I don’t imagine they are cheap.”
“They are not.”
Military stuff fascinates me, but it doesn’t hold my interest for long. Why don’t you lock this stuff up, and we’ll do something else?”
He put the rifle back in the safe, closed the door, and spun the dial. He closed the outer door, and locked it. “Would you like to barbecue a couple of steaks?”
“I sure would.”
He took her hand, and led her out the door to the barbecue pit. They put a bunch of mesquite junk and a few small logs in it, and lit it. He got them each a Shiner Bock. “Say what you will about Big Bird. You can see the stars here.”
“It would be neat to have a telescope.”
When they finished cooking the steaks, he led her back inside. “As it happens, we do have a telescope. Not a real good one, but well sited.” He took her upstairs, to the little observatory on the roof. “Venus is rising, but the moon may be more worth looking at.”
“Since I don’t know…”
He got out of the chair, and motioned her in. She took the seat. “Oh, this is amazing! How much magnification is this?”
“Three hundred.”
“I knew the moon looked like this, but I am really looking at it, now.’
“Give an hour, and I will bring in a nebula that will get your attention. Too much solar radiation right now.”
She stopped looking and ate some of her steak. “This is so cool. We could have something like this at the ranch.”
“You could do much better. Less light ‘pollution’ and better seeing, I would think. A better telescope. The boys won’t see the point, though.”
“This won’t be a good view, but I can probably get Saturn.”
She let him in. He dialed the telescope around, and nodded. “There it is.”
She sat at the telescope. “There it is! I can see the rings. It’s not a picture in a book. I’m looking at Saturn! Dave, this is so cool!”
“Want to see Venus?”
“Oh, yes.”
He took the chair and moved the telescope around. Venus was easy to find. It was a naked eye object. He focused on it, and gave her back the chair.
“I’ve never seen Venus. It’s pretty.”
“When you’ve seen it, we can go in and finish dinner, and in about an hour, I will have a nebula for you to look at. Nebulae are the real thing. Talk about pretty.”
“Prettier than Rebecca?”
“Oh. Yeah, much. I won’t be able to show it to you other than on the computer tonight, but the Great Nebula in Orion, that is the stuff.”
“How do you know what you will be able to see, and when?”
“Star charts will tell you