Cold Wind - C. J. Box [27]
The more she watched them, hearing snatches of braggadocio and bullshit, knowing they were being observed and playing it up as much as possible, the more she began to believe she’d found the right boys. They’d be perfect for the job. They were role players, too: rent-a-cowboys for the summer. The guest and dude ranches throughout the Bighorns as well as most of Wyoming and Montana were swarming with them. The ranch owners needed seasonal help who looked and acted the part, because their clients expected it, and boys like Johnny and Drennen were perfect for the kind of job she had in mind. Young, handsome (at least Johnny was), Caucasian, nonthreatening to the permanent staff, unambitious in terms of running the guest ranch operation, willing to work the short three- to four-month seasons between snows, and without two nickels to rub together. For the ranch managers, it helped if they knew something about horses, and it was even better if they could play a guitar and sing a cowboy song. Mostly, though, they were required to look and act the part. No backwards baseball caps, street piercings, baggy pants, or shirts two sizes too big. These types would never replace the real wranglers and hands on the ranches, but they’d serve as pleasant enough fantasy eye candy for the wives and daughters, and they’d provide strong arms and backs for menial chores around the ranch.
Unless, of course, they lured the two teenage daughters of a wealthy Massachusetts union boss away from their family cabin while the parents participated in Square Dance Thursday and got the girls drunk on Keystone Light beer and were caught in the horse barn in the act of ripping the tops off the foil-wrapped condoms with their teeth—well, then they’d be fired, like Johnny and Drennen had been.
And they’d wind up playing eight-ball for drinks in the historic Stockman’s Bar, overlooked by beer lights hung from chains from the knotty pine ceiling, and generations of local black-and-white rodeo cowboy photos looking down at them from the walls, judging them and no doubt finding these two insufficient. As if Johnny or Drennen would give a rip about that.
Once she’d decided they were probably the right fellows, she slid off her stool and slinked by them on the way to the women’s. They politely tipped their hats to her, and she paused to talk. She offered to buy them both a drink when they were through playing pool. She said she liked their style. That she was intrigued by them. They ate it up.
Laurie Talich settled into one of the dark high-backed booths near the restrooms and waited. Timberman brought her another Crown Royal and Coke, and she ordered two long-necked Coors because that’s what Johnny and Drennen were drinking. She’d counted and knew they’d each had six beers already.
They played the last game fast, and lost when Drennen scratched on the eight ball. She watched the shot and determined he’d done it intentionally to speed things up so they could meet her. She suppressed a smile and waited to unleash it when the two faux cowboys joined her in the booth. Drennen asked to sit next to her and she moved over. Johnny slid in straight across the table. Neither removed his hat.
It didn’t seem to matter that she was ten years older and without another female friend. She caught Johnny staring at her wedding ring, despite the fact that she’d sprinkled the phrase “my late husband” into the conversation here and there. Since the boys weren’t much for nuance, she finally said, “My husband was killed two years ago,” and it finally seemed to register with them.
“Uh, sorry about that,” Drennen mumbled.
“What happened?” Johnny asked.
“He was shot,” Laurie said, keeping her voice low and steady. “And I was kind of hoping you might want to help me locate someone. A man who