Cactus Jack Read online

  “No, I don’t know,” Athena said. “I don’t know how this shit works.”

  “I woke up with a sore face,” Billie said. “That’s how it works.”

  “Except it’s not supposed to work like that,” Athena said. “And you know it. That fucking prick.”

  Billie released a long sigh and took a drink. The traffic on the thruway a hundred yards away was noisy, tractor-trailers running into the night, bound west to Chicago or east to Boston or New York.

  “I’m trying to look at it as a good thing,” she said. “I’ve spent all damn day thinking about it.”

  “Better think some more, if you decided it’s a good thing.”

  “I’m looking at it as my way out. Now I’m done with the asshole forever,” Billie said. “I know I should have been that first time but then he cried and swore it had never happened before and wouldn’t again. Blah, blah . . . is there anything worse than a guy crying? It’s fucking pitiful.”

  “Getting hit a second time by that guy is what’s pitiful. You should have been out the door after the first.”

  “All right, all right,” Billie said.

  Athena took the joint from her purse and lit it, taking a deep pull before handing it over. Billie had a toke and began coughing.

  “Watch it now,” Athena said. “That’s harsh shit.” She took the joint back. “I never could figure what you saw in that prick anyway,” she said, exhaling. “What—he make your socks roll up and down, that it?”

  “Not likely.” Billie had another toke, smoother this time. Old trickster.

  “Then what? The man couldn’t carry on a conversation unless it was about himself. Him and that fucking car. That it—you in love with the car, Billie?”

  Billie told her what had happened that morning.

  “Holy shit,” Athena said. “No wonder he was giving you the stink eye earlier. You might just as well killed his mama as kill that car.”

  “See, that’s what I’ve been thinking about,” Billie said. “Why did I do that? What would possess me to destroy his car? All I can come up with is that somewhere in my hungover, pissed-off brain, I knew that if I did that, it was over. No more apologies, no more crying, no more nothing. Like this was some kind of instinctual defense mechanism that got triggered. This is my out.”

  “Except now you have to worry about the motherfucker wanting revenge.”

  “Oh yeah,” Billie said, laughing. The weed was working. “Forgot about that.”

  “You cannot forget about that.”

  Billie glanced over. “What do you think Freddie said to him?”

  “Oh, probably that if Rory started any shit in Freddie’s, his fat white ass would end up in tomorrow’s chowder. That’s what I figure.”

  Billie had refilled her plastic cup.

  “He’s not going to forget about you, Billie,” Athena said. “You saw how he was looking at you. You better lay low. Matter of fact, you better stay at my place tonight. I need to talk to you anyway.”

  “I don’t need you yelling at me anymore,” Billie said. “I told you I was done with him and that’s not going to change tomorrow or next week or next year.”

  “I believe you,” Athena said.

  She took another toke and held the joint out, but Billie shook her head. Instead she reached into her purse for a cigarette. The pot nowadays was killer stuff and she couldn’t handle more than a hit or two. She lit the smoke as Athena pinched the roach off and put it in her pocket.

  “Turn down my kickass marijuana and smoke that shit,” Athena said.

  “Don’t start.”

  “You said you were going to quit.”

  “And I am,” Billie said. “I’m like Mark Twain. He said it was easy to quit smoking. He’d done it lots of times.”

  “Yeah, you and Mark Twain are two peas in a pod,” Athena said, laughing. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “Maybe I will sleep on your couch, though,” Billie said. “Give asshole a couple days to cool off.” She paused. “What do you mean, ‘miss me’?”

  Athena reached for the bottle and filled the little cup before pouring more for Billie. “I’m getting out of here.”

  “Out of where—Freddie’s?”

  “No, out of Chillicothe. Out of Ohio.”

  “Where you going?”

  “San Francisco.”

  Billie sipped her wine.

  “So I wanted to tell you,” Athena said. “Because I kind of feel guilty about leaving you alone here. I mean, who’s going to look out for your skinny white ass?”

  Billie shook her head. “At what point did you become my mother? I’m, like, a decade older than you.”

  “Yeah, but I’m way older than you . . . here.” Athena tapped her temple with a fingertip. “That’s what you need to realize.”

  Billie rolled her eyes. “So what’s in San Francisco?”

  “My aunt got me an internship with this designer there,” Athena said.

  “You want to be a designer?”

  “You know that,” Athena replied. “I told you that.”

  “You told me you wanted to be a singer, too. And a photographer and I don’t know what else. So I’m taking all of this with a grain of salt.”

  “I figure to establish myself as a designer first. I got some serious talent in that department. About all you ever see me in is this fish shirt, but I got some moves when it comes to design. I’ll show you some drawings.”

  Billie looked away toward the traffic on the thruway again. Athena watched her for a time, studying the bruise on her face. “I’ve always wondered who started that ‘grain of salt’ thing.”

  “What?”

  “When you think about it, it makes no sense. Why not grain of sand, or grain of rice? Even then, it makes no sense.”

  “My grandmother used to say it all the time,” Billie said.

  “You never asked her what it means?”

  “I know what it means.”

  “But where’d it come from? I doubt your granny invented it.”

  “Maybe she did.”

  “Nah, it’s been around forever,” Athena said. “People been saying it and nobody ever questioned it . . . until this very moment.”

  “You’re right,” Billie said. “That pot is badass.”

  Athena laughed. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “So you’re leaving,” Billie said and took a drink. “What about Lesley?”

  “Lesley and I are finished,” Athena said.

  “Good. I never thought she was right for you,” Billie said. “Woman has no sense of humor, for one thing.”

  “She never knocked me around,” Athena pointed out. “You know—like some people I could name.”

  “For fucksakes.”

  “But yeah, I’m leaving,” Athena said after a long pause. “So what are you going to do?”

  “About what?”

  “Your life,” Athena said. “You even listening to me?”

  Billie shrugged. “I figure I’m doing it.”

  “Really?” Athena asked. “This is it? Getting high in a parking lot? Getting smacked around by Rory white trash? That’s it?”

  “That shit with Rory is done, as I’ve told you fourteen times in the past couple hours. And I never noticed you having any problems with getting high in a parking lot.”

  “You know what I mean,” Athena said. “Didn’t you tell me you went to college?”

  “I did.”

  “For what?”

  “Journalism and communications.”

  “And you graduated?”

  “I did.”

  “And that led you to your current position at Freddie’s Fish Shack?”

  “That’s right.”

  Athena finished her wine. The bottle was now empty. “What’s so great about this place, that makes it better than home?”

  “You just answered your own question.” Billie hopped off the hood and walked over to toss the empty bottle in the recycle bin. Kentucky was where she was f
rom. It was also where her mother had killed herself. “Anyplace is better than home.”

  Athena lived in a small apartment over a gallery downtown. The gallery sold mostly prints of cats and dogs and re-pops of movie posters. Billie went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and when she came out Athena was sitting in a recliner with her laptop. There was a blanket and pillow on the couch. Billie stripped to her underwear and T-shirt and stretched out, adjusting the pillow beneath her head.

  “You’re a good friend, Athena.”

  “I know it.”

  Billie began to drift off. It had been a long day, following a brutal night. She was thinking about what Athena had asked. Actually, she was trying not to think about it. What was she going to do? She was thirty-two years old, working as a waitress, making eleven bucks an hour with minimal tips. She had a bruised cheekbone courtesy of someone who had been, up until twelve hours earlier, the man in her life. The highlight of her week was Thursday night softball.

  She decided that not thinking about it was the better option, for tonight anyway. Such procrastination worked for Scarlett O’Hara. At least it had been working for her when the movie ended; hard to say what went down after that. Content in her solidarity with Miss Scarlett, Billie allowed herself to drift off.

  “Pliny the Elder,” she heard Athena say.

  Billie opened her eyes. “What?”

  Athena indicated the screen. “That grain of salt shit. Old Pliny started it.”

  Three

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN THEY got back from Chestnut Field. They had spent the better part of the day there, depositing the colt in the stall Will had rented for the season and then arranging for Skeeter Musgrave to work the animal in the morning. Skeeter was a former jockey; Will had known him for thirty years or more and had used him as a rider for a number of those years until Skeeter couldn’t make the weight anymore. He’d retired then, but within a year he was back at the track at dawn every day, working horses for any owner willing to pay him twenty bucks a toss. The money had nothing to do with it.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he’d asked Will shortly after coming back. “Sit and watch TV every morning? Have you seen TV lately?”

  There was a card running that afternoon, so Will and Jodie climbed into the bleachers and watched the first few races. As for wagering, they came up with a plan. Each race one of them would pick a horse and bet two dollars to win. They would alternate the picks from race to race. Will won the coin toss and chose the favorite in the first race and the horse finished second to last. Before the next race they went down to the walking ring to look at the entries there, and Jodie settled on a tall chestnut gelding. The horse went off at eight to one and won going away. They collected nearly nineteen dollars.

  Before the third race, Chuck Caldwell joined them in the stands. He was the track manager and he liked to cozy up to Will, mainly because Will had been around longer than just about any of the other owners and Caldwell liked to pretend he was part of the old boys’ network, even though he wasn’t. He was from back east—Connecticut or Vermont or one of those places—and he’d married a Lexington girl he met on vacation somewhere in Mexico. Her father knew the manager at Chestnut Field back then and had gotten Caldwell a job as an assistant. He was made manager when it was decided by the owners that he could handle the job without screwing it up. It had required some apple shining on Caldwell’s part for that to happen, but he was fairly good at that. His wife made decent money in advertising, more than Caldwell, something she reminded him of quite frequently.

  “I saw the colt in the row, figured you were kicking around here somewhere,” he said as he sat down. He indicated the horses on the track, just now approaching the gate. “You making any money?”

  “You’re looking at your worst nightmare,” Will said. “The kid and I are fixing to break this place today.”

  At that Caldwell laughed harder than was required. He had splotchy skin and thinning red hair and wore the same clothes every day—tan khaki pants and a black shirt with the Chestnut Field logo on the breast.

  “You working the horse tomorrow, then?”

  Will nodded.

  “I might show up early to watch,” Caldwell said.

  Will knew that he wouldn’t. He was constantly saying that he wanted to watch the colt run but Will got to the track at dawn and Caldwell three hours later. For their schedules to mesh Caldwell would have to be out of bed by five o’clock and Will didn’t see that happening. But Caldwell seemed excited about the colt, if for no other reason than the fact that the animal’s sire was Saguaro. Chestnut Field rarely was home to such lofty bloodlines.

  “Any idea when you might run him yet?” Caldwell asked.

  “Sooner than later,” Will told him.

  Caldwell hesitated. Will knew what was coming. “Any idea where?”

  Will figured to run the colt right there at Chestnut. After all, that’s where he’d been working the animal. The track usually ran a few juvenile races every year by midsummer. Will was waiting for things to feel right. He wasn’t going to rush this horse. But he also wasn’t going to tell Caldwell his strategy. He had a feeling that to tell Caldwell was to tell the whole world, and the colt was Will’s business, not the world’s.

  “Still thinking on that,” he replied.

  Caldwell sat with them and watched the next race and then left, after receiving or pretending to receive a text on his phone.

  “Do you like that man?” Jodie asked when he was gone.

  “I guess I don’t like him or dislike him,” Will said after thinking about it.

  “Me too, I guess,” Jodie said.

  For the next three races, they never got a sniff and decided to call it a day.

  Will let Jodie cash the winning ticket and hold the money. When they got back to the truck, she handed it over to him.

  “It’s half yours,” he reminded her.

  “I owe you for feed,” she said.

  “We’re going to keep that separate,” Will told her. “Today’s money is fun money. We split it straight down the middle. We’ll worry about the feed another time.”

  They stopped for French fries and ice cream at a burger shack outside of the town of Chestnut. The bill came to within fifty cents of what they’d won.

  “So we broke even,” Will said. They were sitting outside, under an awning. The heat of the day melted the ice cream as quickly as they could eat it. “That’s a good day in the thoroughbred game.”

  After eating they sat there for a while, watching the traffic pass. Will removed his sweat-stained Stetson and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt before putting the hat on again.

  “You need a new hat,” Jodie told him.

  “Why do I need a new hat?”

  “That one is dirty.”

  “Still does the job,” Will said. “That pony was dirty and you didn’t throw her away, did you?”

  “No, but I cleaned her.”

  “I have a clean hat,” Will said. “I save it for special occasions.”

  “What kind of occasion?”

  “I can’t think of one just now,” Will admitted.

  Jodie looked off toward the horizon, her eyes narrow. “What about when Cactus Jack wins his first race? Will you wear your clean hat that day?”

  “I most certainly will.”

  When they got back to the farm, Will offered to give the girl a ride home.

  “Throw your bike in the back.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll ride.” And then she was on her bike and pedaling up the drive to the highway.

  He had offered to drive her home in the past and she had always declined. She lived with her mother in a rented double-wide. The place was in poor repair and Will suspected that the girl was embarrassed by the fact. Well, Will himself wasn’t exactly living in the Taj Mahal.

  When she was gone, he ran water for the stock and then went up to the house and had a nap on the couch for an hour. It was still daylight when he woke up. H
e heated a cast-iron pan and cooked a flank steak alongside three eggs, sipping on a can of Budweiser while he did. He ate outside on the picnic table, on the deck overlooking the farm. Finishing the meal, he opened another beer and sat there as dusk approached. The sky to the west showed no remorse, clear and cloudless, marred only by the haze from the unrelenting heat. Down by the barn, the livestock were quiet. The mares stood not five feet from where Will had first seen them that morning. From the other side of the barn the donkey had brayed for a while over something and the goat had replied, as if telling the jack to be quiet.

  It was nearly dark when Marian pulled up in her Honda SUV. She parked on the slope and got out, carrying a small cardboard box. Coming up on the deck, she walked behind Will and bent over to kiss him on the cheek, her free arm draped lightly around his neck.

  “Hey, old man.”

  “How are you, Marian.”

  She moved around to sit across from him, placing the box on the table. She wore a navy skirt and a white blouse. Will looked at her legs as she crossed them. She had great legs for sixty-two years old. She had great legs for any age.

  “Bourbon?” he asked.

  “Maybe in a bit,” she replied. “Too hot to drink, even.”

  He indicated the box. “What’s this?”

  “The bake sale at the church today,” she replied. “Brought you some goodies that didn’t sell.”

  “I get the dregs—is that it?”

  “That’s it.” She turned to look toward the outbuildings and the assorted animals down below. “You get your hay?”

  “Came this morning,” Will said. “Some peckerwood delivered it.”

  She smiled. “Peckerwoods have to work, too.”

  “Price went up by nearly half,” Will said. “And it’s only going to get worse. They’ll be trucking it from out of state next.”

  “We’ll get rain.”

  Will drank from the can of Bud. “You keep telling me that but you don’t say when. You worked all day at the church? Can’t you talk to God about the weather, maybe put in a good word for me?”

  “He has no interest in a sinner like you.” Perspiring in the heat, Marian used her fingertips to push her hair back from her temples. “And yet He sees the sparrow fall. Isn’t life strange?”