Cold Wind - C. J. Box [79]
“Shamazz, what the fuck?” one of the women said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
24
Johnny Cook and Drennen O’Melia were outside of Farson and Eden in west central Wyoming doing meth and getting their ashes hauled. They’d been there most of the week. Their plan, for a while, was to go west to California or at least as far as Las Vegas. But they hadn’t even made it to the Utah border.
It was that green sign saying they’d entered the tiny town of Eden that held them up. Who, Johnny had asked, wouldn’t want to stop and have a beer in a place called Eden?
Johnny was taking a break. He slumped in a director’s chair someone had set up outside between clumps of sagebrush about fifty yards from the trailers and smoked a cigarette and drank a can of beer. Although the sun was moving in on the top of the Wind River Mountains in the distance, it was still warm out and Johnny didn’t know where his shirt or pants were, which trailer, so he sat there in his straw cowboy hat, boxers, and boots with a pistol across his bare knees. He knew he looked awesome without a shirt, so he didn’t mind.
Occasionally, he would raise and fire a Ruger Mark III .22 pistol at gophers that raised their heads up out of a hole. He’d hit a couple. When he did he’d shout “Red mist!” to the sky. He’d watch as other gophers rushed over to feed on the remains, and when they did, Johnny shot them for being such lousy friends. At one point he’d had a revelation about the nature of friendship in the cruel, cruel world, but he couldn’t remember now what it had been.
Johnny shivered, despite the heat. The tremor ran through his entire body and raised goose bumps on his forearms. Immediately afterwards, he was flush and felt sweat prickle beneath his scalp. Damn meth, he thought, trying to remember the last time he’d eaten something. Two days ago, maybe. He had a vague recollection of eating an entire package of cold hot dogs dipped one-by-one into a warm jar of mayonnaise. But he might have dreamed that, he conceded.
He heard a whoop from behind him and he turned his head to see Drennen emerging from one of the trailers. Drennen was telling one of the girls inside something, and he heard her laugh.
“Don’t go anywhere or get too comfortable,” Drennen said to the girl. “I’ll be coming right back after I reload.”
As he shambled toward Johnny in the dust, Drennen said, “Jesus, what a wildcat. Cute, too. I can’t get enough of that one. Lisa, I think her name is. Lisa.”
Johnny nodded. “Brunette? Kinda Indian?”
“That’s her,” Drennen said. “Like to burn me down.”
Johnny thought Drennen was lucky any girl would spend time with him, even for money. The burns on his face and neck from the back-blast of the rocket launcher on his face and neck looked hideous, Johnny thought. All red and raw and oozing. Drennen forgot how crappy he looked because he was high all the time, but no one else could possibly forget. He’d be fine after a while—the damage wasn’t permanent—but getting there was not sightly.
Drennen collapsed into the dirt next to Johnny, then propped himself up with his elbow. He reached up and plucked the pistol from Johnny’s lap and fired a wild and harmless shot at a gopher before handing it back. “Missed,” he said. “Where’d you put that pipe?”
“You weren’t even close.” Johnny gestured toward their pickup. “In there, I think. Let me know if you see my shirt or my pants anywhere.”
“I was wondering about that,” Drennen said, slowly getting up to his hands and knees. “We still got plenty of rock?”
“I think so,” Johnny said, distracted. “I can’t remember a damn thing, so don’t hold me to it.”
Drennen laughed, got to his feet, and lurched toward the pickup to reload. Drennen said, “Man, I love this Western living.”
The collection of double-wide trailers hadn’t been out there for very long. They weren’t laid out in any kind of logical pattern and looked to Johnny as if they’d been dropped into the high desert from the air. The dirt roads to get to the trailers were poor and old, and there wasn’t a single sign designating the