The Love of a Stranger Read online

  Chapter 11

  Though ten days had passed since Alex had walked out of the movie, then kicked Doug out of her car, she hadn’t left his mind. He didn’t understand why the abrupt end to that afternoon mattered so much, but it did. What was more confounding, he couldn’t keep himself from looking across the valley at night for her lights against Wolf Mountain. No woman had ever consumed so much of his mental energy.

  Monday’s mail had delivered a check for $1,000. No note, just a check. He would take it, but he was certain it wasn’t enough to cover the fender repair. Damn her arrogance.

  To add to his consternation, Ted and Pete had brought out burgers and beer a few nights ago and most of the conversation had been about Alex. Pete laughed about her going hunting with Ted a couple of times and outshooting him. They talked about her long standing feud with Miller and Cindy Evans, with whom Alex’s husband had openly cheated for years.

  And lastly, Pete told about her standing up to Miller in Carlton’s when the logger beat hell out of a skinny kid he accused of stealing chainsaws from a logging site. According to Pete, Miller would have taken a cue stick to the kid if Alex hadn’t planted herself between them. Nobody else made an attempt to stop him. She appeared to be the only hero in Callister.

  After Ted and Pete left that night, Doug had found himself thinking dumb stuff, like wondering how it would be to take her hunting or fishing or if she would like the plan he had sketched for his kitchen. His thoughts bordered on being downright possessive, which was just plain silly.

  Even with her filling some part of his every waking minute—and a few of his sleeping ones—he stayed busy with planned tasks. He finished the workshop—new roof sheathing and shingles, new electrical wiring, new insulation. A little paint on the walls and he would have a shop any half-assed carpenter would be proud to own.

  Last week, he had bought a wood cutting permit from the Forest Service. He heard a checker at the grocery store say, “We’ll be building fires by the middle of September.” Hard to believe with afternoon temperatures climbing into the hundreds, but he had taken her at her word. He intended to cut, split and stack firewood—a first for him—and toward that end, he had devoted a day to shoring up the old woodshed a few steps from the back porch. He might have grown up in Nebraska, but living in Southern California for so many years had distorted his perception of weather. He didn’t remember if the Nebraska winter temperatures hit thirty below and if they had, he couldn’t recall how it felt. She was sure a fire in the washed stone fireplace would be welcome on a frigid night.

  And all of that had brought him to today’s chore—tearing out the wall that separated the dining and living rooms. His vision for his home included making the living, eating and cooking areas open and airy. He liked watching TV or talking to someone sitting in the living room while he cooked. Before getting shot had altered his life, much of his social activity had revolved around cooking and dining and he longed to reach that place again.

  The wall demolition turned out to be a nastier job than he anticipated and he’d had enough of it by late afternoon. To finish the task, he needed a few items from the building supply store. He showered and shampooed away the paste of grime and sweat that had covered him all day. Nothing felt as good as clean hair and a clean body after a day of grungy work.

  Afterward, he weighed himself. He had put on a couple of pounds, despite doing hard physical work every day. His body felt as close to normal as it had in more than two years. He was returning to his old self. Good thing, too, because hunting season was right around the corner and if he went for both a deer and an elk, he wanted to be in top shape.

  He dressed in a T-shirt that said NEBRASKA and Levis so worn they felt like chamois, then slipped his sockless size-elevens into boat shoes and headed for town. Relaxed, he hummed along with a blues tune playing from a Boise radio station.

  Callister Hardware & Building Supply, a block off the main street, would fit into one-tenth of the average Home Depot, but Doug had found the owner—his name was Jack—to be friendly and accommodating. Supporting a hometown small business was good.

  He chatted a few minutes with Jack who told him no one had ever lived at the Stewart place except the man who built it and his children. Doug liked that, even envied it. He couldn’t claim such constancy or deep roots. After his mother’s death, he had lived in his brother and sister-in-law’s house, but it had never been home. He moved out his first semester at Nebraska and returned only for an occasional visit. To a man who had hung his hat in apartments, first in Lincoln until graduation, then in Los Angeles until he finally bought a condo in Santa Monica, the idea of living in the same house for two generations was awesome.

  He left the store owner at the cash register and ambled to the back of the store where he found a display of blades for his Skil saw.

  “Afternoon, Kenny,” Jack’s voice said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Red paint. Hope you got it.”

  The gravelly voice had a familiar ring to it. Doug moved to the end of an aisle where he could see the cash register. The big dude he had met in Alex’s office stood at the counter talking to Jack. Today, he had foregone a dress shirt and slacks. Today, he wore a blue T-shirt and suspendered black pants that barely touched the tops of work boots. Work clothes. No longer than Doug had been in town, he had already learned that Kenny’s dress—almost a uniform—was that of a logger and the shortened pants were for safety and convenience. He stayed in place and watched and listened.

  “Get any damage from that fire up at McGregor’s place?” Jack asked, hefting a foot-square cardboard box onto the counter.

  “Nah.” Miller’s voice came as a growl.

  “That was sure something, Charlie McGregor dying like that. With him not around to run interference with Mrs. McGregor, you gonna be able to get that right-of-way you need?”

  With a knob-knuckled hand, Miller hoisted the box to his shoulder. “That bitch is a fuckin’ nut. Don’t you worry. I’ll be falling trees on Wolf Mountain before the month’s out.”

  “Sure hope so. Hope it works out. Too bad, a man having to fight with an outsider when he’s trying to make a living.”

  Growling an order to put the paint on his bill, Miller left the store and climbed into a late-model diesel truck, the same one Doug had seen parked in front of Alex’s house.

  Doug returned his attention to his task. He chose a saw blade and a short crowbar, then sacked up some nails from the bulk bin. He carried all of the items to the cash register where Jack waited with the 2x4s he had ordered. Since the store owner was a talkative guy, Doug quizzed him. “Was that the big time logger I’ve heard about?”

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but he’s big time all right. Don’t know what we’d do without him. Keeps a lot of folks employed.” Jack watched as the truck backed in an arc and churned out of the parking lot. His expression sobered. “Hard-working guy, ol’ Kenny. He’s in a scrap with one of our summer residents up on Wolf Mountain over a right-of-way.”

  “The California dame, right? A right-of-way to what?”

  “Timber. Only thing around here that’s worth anything. He’s got to build a road across her property to get his trees.

  “And she’s holding him up? What’s she doing?”

  “He’s got to build a road across her property to get to some trees he owns. She said no.” Jack laughed a phony heh-heh-heh. “But if I know him, it’s only a temporary situation. If he says he’s gonna be cutting timber by the end of the month, you can take it to the bank that’s what he’ll be doing. Not too many get the best of ol’ Kenny.”

  Doug considered the few facts he now knew about “Ol’ Kenny” and determined the store owner had just about summed it up. Now he knew the crux of the feud between Alex and “Ol’ Kenny.”

  Leaving the building supply, still thinking about the man he had just seen, Doug nosed the Blazer toward Ted's office, his aim to catch his pal and buy him a beer. When he reached the Forest S
ervice facility, Ted was just locking up and two men, one in cowboy garb and the other in a Forest Service uniform like Ted’s, were standing on the sidewalk. Doug recognized the cowboy as Pete Hand, but not the other man. He beeped his horn.

  Ted saw him and yelled across the street, “We're going to Carlton's. Come have a cold one.” Ted lagged behind and waited for him, while the other two men sauntered up the block.

  Doug wheeled into a space in the grocery store parking lot, his interest piqued by going to Carlton’s. He wasn’t much of a beer-drinker, but he had been curious about the bar ever since he learned Alex owned it. He jogged across the street to where Ted waited.

  “Haven’t seen you in days,” Ted said. “You come to town to party on Friday night?”

  “Partying might kill me. I’ve been to the building supply.”

  “Buying a lock for the gate?”

  “Do I need one?”

  Ted’s teeth bared in a wicked grin. “Any day now, these man-hungry women in Callister will find out you’re single. They’ll be out to your place in a stampede.”

  Doug laughed, though he didn’t find the scenario funny. “Actually, I was picking up some paint for the workshop walls and some studs. Painting the walls will finish up the workshop. I’m eager to start on the house. I plan to work inside all winter.

  “When did you take a liking to construction work? When we were kids, you used to complain about having to help your brother with his building projects.”

  True. Doug’s older brother Steve and his wife made a living from a blue-collar bar, but on the side, they bought old houses, remodeled and resold them. Doug had learned carpentry and remodeling, hands on as a teenager. Helping Steve had often conflicted with football practice and even games, which had been a source of disagreement between him and his brother. “It's therapeutic. Thinking about fixing up that old place was what kept my head straight during”—Doug drew a deep breath—“ all that court crap.”

  Oops. Slip of the tongue. Doug had nearly said too much about his troubles in L.A., where, after a trial that had gone on for months, a jury acquitted him of manslaughter. Thankfully Ted didn’t ask a follow-up question.

  “So how do you like it after a month in the hinterland? Twelve miles out in the country in the middle of twenty acres must be a big change after living in the big city.”

  The differences between life here and the treadmill that had been his existence in Southern California were laughable. “I’m loving it. It’s quiet.”

  “Too bad you didn’t buy all that old Stewart place.”

  “What would I do with three hundred acres?”

  “Stewart’s grass used to be some of the best in the county. Come spring, you could get the irrigation ditches up in shape and maybe fertilize. Get a horse or two, some calves to fatten.”

  “God, Ted. What would I do with animals?”

  ****

  Carlton’s Lounge & Supper Club fronted the main street. As Doug followed Ted into the smoky gloom, dust motes danced in the sunlight that sliced through the open door. Doug looked into the cave-like space. Nothing could seem more unlikely than Alex owning what stretched before him. The room was maybe thirty feet wide. A massive antique bar and tall stools ran the length of it and took half the width. His gaze roved over columns of dark curlicues and he admired a carved festoon of oak leaves and acorns crowning the top. Mahogany, Doug guessed.

  Stealing glances at their own reflections in a gigantic backbar’s black-veined mirror, a few men sat on the stools nursing drinks. Doug noted the stools bolted to the wooden floor. “Wow. Look at that old thing,” he said. “I think I saw it in an old western movie on TV the other night. A few gnarly gunslingers should be standing there swilling whiskey.”

  “Wait a while,” Ted said with a laugh. “It’s still early.” He hitched his chin toward the back of the room. “There’s Pete and Mike. C’mon. You haven’t met Mike Blessing. He’s an engineer with the road crew.”

  A row of tables marched in a line along the wall across from the bar, creating a narrow aisle. Pete and the man Doug had seen in front of the Forest Service offices sat at the farthest table back. Ted headed in that direction.

  As Doug approached the square table table-for-four, the man Doug hadn’t met rose with a big grin and introduced himself. Doug took a seat and had a déjà vu moment. The table’s laminated top, scarred by cigarette burns, its edges ragged and chipped, looked hauntingly similar to his brother’s joint back in Wilson, Nebraska.

  Surveying the room, he tried to visualize a scene in such a small space where the big dude he had just seen in the building supply store beat a kid senseless. He could picture it, and just as clearly, he could see the woman who had whacked his pickup fender taking up for the kid. What he couldn’t spot anywhere was a holder for cue sticks or a pool table.

  Ted waved at an overweight bartender who returned the gesture with a ham-like arm. “That’s Estelle Watkins. She’s the manager when Alex is out of town.”

  Doug sized up the bartender’s line-backer body. It was covered by a bright blue tent dress splattered with enormous pink and white flowers.

  “I'll go get us a beer,” Ted said. “No sense making Estelle walk any farther than she has to. I imagine she’s been baling hay all day.”

  Doug leveled a frown at Ted. “Baling hay?”

  “He’s not kidding,” Mike said. “She really does bale hay.”

  Doug grinned. “Well, you don’t see that every day.” He looked around again. “Say, where’s the pool table?”

  “Don’t have one right now. You a pool player?”

  “I’ve been known to shoot a game or two.”

  Years gone by trickled back. Doug had paid for his school supplies and clothing with money he won on pool games in his brother’s bar. He had worked for Steve almost every night from the time he was old enough to push a broom until he left his brother’s home for college. As an under-aged kid, he hadn’t been allowed to sell liquor, but Steve hadn’t stopped him from hustling at pool.

  “We only have pool when we ain’t got a cook,” Pete said, tilting his head toward a doorway leading to another room.

  Trying to reason through Pete’s remark, Doug glanced through a wide doorway. Bathed in amber light and surrounded by the same dark paneling that covered the walls in the barroom, two couples sat at tables hidden by red-checkered tablecloths.

  Ted returned with two frosted glasses of beer and slid one toward him. Lifting his glass, Doug tilted his head toward the back room. “That’s a restaurant?”

  Pete gathered himself from his relaxed posture and rested his forearms on the table, looking back over his shoulder to where Doug’s gaze had stopped. “Yep.”

  “Food any good?”

  “Doug’s into food,” Ted said. “He’s a cook.”

  Pete raised his arm and waved and a dining couple waved back. “Right now, it ain’t too bad if you like steak.”

  “The cook we’ve got now’s an ex-con,” Mike said. “Before he come along, nobody could get along with Alex for more than two weeks. She practically wore out the pool table hauling it in and out between cooks. Customers never knew if they were gonna get to eat or have to settle for s game of eight ball.”

  Doug’s three companions laughed and he chuckled along with them. He could visualize Alex cracking the whip while somebody carried a heavy pool table in and out of the small space.

  “But this one doing the cooking now’s been here a few months,” Pete said. “When she says jump, he says how high.”

  Doug grinned. Alex’s bar might look like something from the 1800s, but her selection of employees made it current and colorful. Nothing about Carlton’s appeared to fit her rigid personality.

  “Customers don’t get upset if they come to eat and all that’s available is pool?”

  “People around here don’t get upset about much,” Pete said, “especially over what goes on in some café. Now the bar’s another story. They didn’t like it one bit when th
is place used to run short of whiskey. But that don’t happen anymore. Since Alex has been running the show, the bills get paid. And she don’t never run out of booze.”

  “That Alex is something else,” Mike said. “Donald Trump in Sharon Stone’s body. Awesome. Man, if I wasn’t married—”

  “She wouldn’t spit on you, Mike,” Pete said. “Why, look at Ted. He kisses her ass six ways from Sunday and she walks over him like he’s a horse turd in the road.”

  “Cut it out, Pete” Ted said defensively, then turned to Doug. “Alex runs a tight ship and it’s a good thing. I don’t know what this town would do without Carlton’s. There’s always a wedding reception or a banquet of some kind. This is the only decent place in town for a group of folks to get together where they can eat and have drinks.”

  Doug had yet to see Ted fail to defend and try to explain Alex McGregor. Doug couldn’t keep from wondering if she knew the depth of Ted feelings.

  “Unfortunately,” Mike said, “the local culture, and I use the term loosely, doesn’t know the difference between a decent place and any other. If the natives get bored and restless at the Rusty Spur across the street, they fight their way here to crash whatever’s going on. Then all hell breaks loose.”

  Pete gave the engineer a pointed look. “Well, hell, Mike, so what? Nobody minds. Everybody has a good time. After all, we’re all kin to each other.”

  “This is true,” Mike said to Doug, “either by birth or by marriage. And even if they aren’t, most of them have grown up together. If it wasn’t for the infusion of some fresh blood from Forest Service personnel or new school teachers, the whole county would be inbred.”

  “Just shut up, Mike,” Pete said. “I was born in Callister. And it’s just as good a town as any other. We got a mayor and a city council. And we got commissioners. They keep things running just fine.”

  Doug kept his thoughts to himself and sipped at his beer. He wondered if the town might really be run by an oversized power broker named Kenny L. Miller.