The Cowboy Who Strolled Into Town (4 page)

They paid no heed to the heads turning as they made their exit.

Chapter 6

“What are we doing here?!” Julianne asked, a naughty smile spread across her face. She reached across and grabbed Daniel by his collar and pulled him close to her, kissed him fully across his lips, “I am ready to wake up in your bed now Dan.”

Daniel could feel his temperature rise a few notches. The pure sensuality of the moment, of her perfume; the primal nature of his make-up since sticking one at Tyler Blackford all tumbled forth in one  kissed her back, just as passionately, there in the semi-darkness of the truck, under the silence of the moon. He pulled away, and kicked the truck into gear.

The tyres screeched on the kerb as they drove off, high as kites, away from the gloomy front of her house wherein Tyrone sat waiting, on to the house at the edge of the city where untold pleasures could be unfurled.

They rediscovered themselves in each other’s arms that night, gently caressing the layers off. By the end of the night, they lay panting side by side in the grey stage of the morning, nothing between them; each of their souls laid bare for the other to see.

They were married three months later in a small ceremony for family and friends, which meant for Daniel that the Yalows were in attendance, in a ceremony comprising no more than fifteen people. 

The reception took place in the great barn within which the tractor normally resided, with the corn just starting to flower dancing in the wind nearby, and for a whole day at least, Daniel and his new bride had not a care in the world.

In truth life had been bitter-sweet leading up to the wedding. The farm had thrived, and every evening, Daniel, Stanley and often Julianne had developed a habit of strolling through the acres of corn, enjoying the feel of nature responding to constructive human input. On the other hand it had become increasingly difficult to engage the local population ever since the altercation with the popular Tyler Blackford. Somehow the story had changed from what had actually transpired to a fist fight in which Tyler had valiantly stood his own, leaving Daniel no choice other than to storm off, spewing death threats.

Tyler had put his popularity and cowboy charm to work, as he spread his rumours throughout the framework of the city, and it had been only a matter of weeks before the county had rallied around him. Pretty soon stories had resurfaced of the boy who had sent beloved Sheriff McGrady Sr. to the wheelchair. However, Tyler steered clear of mentioning anything directly disrespectful about Julianne. Maybe that was a fight he did not want a part of.

And while crowds at the grocery store pointed and whispered as Daniel passed by, and occasionally at Julianne, Stanley took up the gathering of provisions for the farm, and for the house whenever he could which was often. So in the midst of adversity, the farm flourished and their romance flourished; Julianne always reassuring Daniel of the fleeting nature of human perceptions, and bolstering his confidence towards his goal of establishing himself.

“Whatever happened, happened years ago, and most people don’t even remember with that generation dying out slowly. As for Tyler, he’s gonna get what’s coming to him.”

Presently, at the reception Stanley appeared to have had too much to drink and wobbled all over the place, he wobbled across the room, creating a nuisance of himself among the small group before climbing up the stairs, towards the hay pen, which was cluttered with boxes loaded with equipment usually employed in the rearing of livestock.

“Stanley is such a perfect gentleman; I didn’t know he would have a problem with the drink?!” Somebody said, laughing from within the crowd.

It was all so conspicuous, somewhat embarrassing, and his mother, Grace, made to put a stop to the spectacle but her husband put a restraining arm against her; his lined face, sombre, “Let the boy be; he has to be allowed to make his own mistakes,” The quizzical look on Grace’s face went ignored.

At that moment, Stanley came out from behind a high stack of boxes, and stumbled over to the balcony overlooking the barn beneath, wobbling precariously along the railing. Daniel, trim and proper in his wedding suit, set out at once to get him before he hurt himself.

“Dan! Julianne is gonna give you nothing but sugar from now,” He said, his voice barely coherent, and sounding loaded with drink, “Well here is my own sugar to you great folks!” and with that he hurled, ten metres to the ground, a white plastic sack he had been carrying, “Sugar for everybody!” he screamed as the bag split open upon impact on the floor, spreading a thin film of white powder in all directions

Daniel caught up to him the next second, reeling him off the edge, “It’s okay folks. Stanley is just having a little too much fun that’s all.”

The small crowd, comprising of hard men and women of the south, and one junk head, laughed at the spectacle, but thought nothing. Eventually, the crowd thinned out and there remained only the newly-weds and the Yalows, who eventually separated on their way to the house.

Chapter 7

Daniel dressed in black khaki pants and a black bodice, was totally invisible from his vantage point in the tall, still stalks of corn. It had been a windy day, and the moon was shrouded in the clouds, further reducing visibility. Daniel took a swig from the decanter he had lying beside him in the bushes, and resisted the urge to put on his flashlight to make sure he was not missing anything. He felt his breath ran cool even as his temperature rose due to the whisky he had laced his coffee with and he thought of his brave bride, spending her wedding night alone as he played soldier spy in the bushes. He shoved thoughts of her aside, and forced himself to concentrate.

He pointed his binoculars towards the very edges of the farm, tracing the boundaries right up to the Yalow’s residence before returning to the barn where the wedding reception had taken place earlier. He resisted the urge to go scouting in the night, in the hope of finding hidden passages into his barn.

He squinted at his watch, but could not be sure of the time; maybe 2am-just after maybe. He was wondering about this when, and cursing himself for not getting a glow in the dark watch when he thought he saw something just off the edge of his vision. He looked up to see a mole dash across to disappear in the shadows around the barn. He was still looking about at other possible sources of movement when he saw two shadows emerge like wraiths from the edge of the corn farthest from his vantage point.

Daniel grew very still, his alert at the two moving figures, ten seconds later he realised he had been holding his breath. He released it gently, and waited to see if there would be any other shadow following on the heels of the first two, and then he crept forward on his belly as the figures entered into the barn. He eventually got up and bounded off at a trot, head down over to the wall beside the open door of the barn. He could hear the sound of two men shuffling around in the barn.

“I’m telling you Ty, I saw him toss a bag of powder calling it sugar all the way to the floor! They must have cleaned it up. They know I tell you!” One of them said.

“I knew we should have moved this stash before now. Check the stuff to make sure it’s still there.”

Daniel could clearly hear the voices of Tyler and Tyrone, on the surface, the strangest of bedfellows, but deep down it was difficult to tell who was more rotten. He knew they would be fidgeting with the floor boards as they tried to get the huge stash of cocaine deposited underneath.

Daniel risked a glance round the edge of the door. He saw both men gingerly ripping out floor boards and drew back to gather his fief before moving in on them, when he felt a blow at the back of the head. He lost consciousness in a bright multi-coloured flash behind his eyelids.

The two shadows turned towards the door in apprehension, when they heard the sound of shuffling, but relaxed to see Sheriff Vincent McGrady, dressed in black coveralls, “Look what the sheriff dragged in.”

It took a while for the stars dancing before his eyes to go away, but even after this, his head felt like he had borrowed it, and screwed it on wrongly. Shutting his eyes did not make the pain go away, so he kept his eyes open, and he could not help groaning even though a part of his mushy brain insisted that silence would have been the better option.

A shadow came over, leaving the other two at the boards, and kicked him hard in the belly with cowboy boots  that still managed to gleam even in the dark; Tyler, Daniel guessed, “That is for kicking me in the crutch, you piece of shit!” he hissed, the menace in his voice open and blatant, now that the crowd had gone home.

Daniel was too dazed to scream so just writhed on the floor like a fish out of water. Tyler kicked him again, harder the second time, the sharp tip of his boots connecting with bone. Daniel grunted in pain.

“You know Daniel all you had to do was stay away like you had done for the last twenny years and everything would have been fine, but you had to come back, and you had to settle, and you had to start a farm, and you had to discover our stash-two million dollars’ worth of powder right under our feet.”

“We got the boards out, Ty” Tyrone whispered in the darkness, “come help us get it out.”

Tyler grumbled on his way back, clearly not pleased at the interruption, obviously enjoying his monologue. Daniel touched the base of his skull, flinching at the soreness of the mountain-sized bump he encountered. His head no longer swam, and now he cursed inwardly for not waiting a little bit longer for the possible third person. His heart sank, but he was not surprised when he realised that his pistol was not at its holster. He threw his head left and right helplessly, aware that he was as likely to find his weapon in the darkness as he was as likely to find a needle in a haystack. His left side hurt where it had received punishment from Tyler, but he began to crawl towards the wall that lay to the right, of the gaping mouth of the barn.

He had already crawled one metre when Tyler saw, and came rushing over. Beside the door, and under the partial view of the stars, Daniel saw the gleaming approach and caught the malicious boot. Twisting with all the might he could muster, he heard Tyler scream in agony, and felt his knees buckle.

Daniel tried to shake off the weight of Tyler off him, and tried to limp the remaining distance but McGrady tackled him, catching him across his body, and slamming him into the ground with a muffed thump. Daniel tried to put up a fight, but he went unconscious again in a flash.

When Daniel came through again, it was not as bad as the first time. He suspected he had hit his head against the wood of the floor and passed out. He tested his hands and feet to realise that he had not been restrained, but when his eyes cleared he realised the emaciated figure of Tyrone keeping a watch over him, a pistol in his hands, pointed unwaveringly his way.

Daniel looked at the other two who were busy packing out the bags of cocaine

“So Tyrone have these two told where they are gonna bury your body yet?” Daniel croaked, his voice piercing through the night air.

“Shut up!” Tyrone hissed.  The gun pointed a lot straighter after that.

A few minutes later, Daniel broke the silence again, “My guess is in there; under the boards with the rest of the coke they can’t stuff conveniently into their pockets. After all this is your mess, and they know it.”

“Keep that pie hole shut, Tyrone! Can’t you do anything right?” McGrady hissed.

“Oh he can, he got you guys here didn’t he? Fell for the trap like a racoon.”

Tyrone kicked him across the ankles, “Shut up!”

“No I won’t shut up you Moron! They are going to kill you! And after that they are going to blame it on me again like they did the sheriff; you were there that day-you know what happened!”

“That ain’t gonna happen! I mean we pals; we always been!” Tyrone piped in the night.

“And if I don’t come back home, you think your sister who has put up with your bull shit her whole life would want to see your stoned head again? A crack head with his nose in his own supply? Who’s gonna take you in? Them? Like I said, they want you dead; you’re a liability-you know too much.”

“For goodness sakes Ty put him to sleep!” Tyler hissed from the background, “ I swear I still can’t figure out why you don’t move backwards instead of forward, you dumb as hell!”

“Hey don’t talk to me like that! We all partners here!” Tyrone lost his temper, screaming now, he turned to face the others and Daniel seized his chance. He bounded off the floor, took a step and dived as far as he could towards the wall to the right. He crashed into it, and a second later, the lights in the barn came on, blinding all four of them located below.

“Alright hold it, and put your hands where I can see’em!” Stanley bellowed from the top of the balcony from which he had previously hurled the bait for the present debacle.

McGrady’s service pistol was out faster than Tyley’s colt. Pretty soon McGrady was pointing at Stanley while Tyler’s aim was straight at Daniel’s chest.

“What’s the matter Tyrone? You don’t have no weapon? Thought this was gonna be a regular pick n’ shift? I told you they was gonna kill you.” Daniel teased a bewildered Tyrone who was still trying to get adapted to the light.

“Alright this is not a Mexican standoff; drop your weapon Stan, and come over peaceably.” Tyler commanded, the sophisticated charm back on like the electricity.

“What makes you think you got the advantage? Pa!”

On cue a shot went off just beside McGrady’s foot, the bullet lodging itself in the wood. Daniel turned to look up at the balcony opposite Stanley’s to see Old man Yalow nod in recognition, but keeping his eye steady through his rifle.

They had been there the whole time, angels hidden by the night, waiting for the lights to shine.

McGrady gently lowered his gun, giving a blizzard stare at the rifle pointed at him. Tyler Shot him in the back, and shot at Tyrone’s head before dashing out into the night. Nobody could react in the split second that it all occurred.

He did not go far however; he was soon backing back into the barn, a shotgun pointed at his nose, and Julianne unflinching in her full intent to use it if need be. Tyler gulped, his hands in the air about his head in surrender, “You wouldn’t dare,” he stammered, “You wouldn’t dare! Your no killer; your husb-“

The shotgun continued pointing at him as he cringed in pain, and fell to the floor. She had rammed her cowboy boots square on his crutch, “You shot at my brother, so don’t be so sure, and never insult my husband again.”