Free Fire

“In his room,” Bud Sr. said, spearing a thick steak with his fork and sliding it onto his plate. “His back’s hurting. He says he may never walk again.”

Lucy looked up in alarm.

“Not really, darling,” Bud Sr. said. “That’s just how Bud Jr. is. Everything’s a big deal.”

“It’s called creativity,” Missy said softly.

Eduardo, Maria’s husband and one of the ranch hands at the table, described driving out to the fence line that afternoon to retrieve Bud Jr. He found him lying on his back in the cheater grass, moaning. He brought him home.

“Shamazz, eet look like he was dead,” Eduardo said in a heavy accent. Pascal, the other hand, tried to disguise a sudden bout of laughter by coughing into his hand. Pascal made no secretof his contempt for Bud Jr.

Missy seemed distracted, and had hardly looked up. Joe had to admit how attractive she was for her age, and she looked especiallygood tonight as she sat there and picked at the tiniest portions possible of everything on her plate. She wore a charcoalcashmere sweater and a thin rope of pearls, dark lipstick. Her hair was perfect, not a strand of gray. When she caught Joe watching her, she glared back for a second before breaking the gaze.

Joe wondered what he had caught her thinking about.

“You’re dressed up,” Marybeth said to her mother. “Are you going out?”

“I’ve got a meeting in town tonight,” Missy said dismissively.“Just the county arts council thing.”

“My little artiste.” Bud Sr. grinned and reached over and stroked Missy’s shoulder. “Don’t you want some more steak?”

“No, thank you. You know how I feel about red meat.”

Bud shook his head. “She’s as tiny as a bird, my little artiste.”

Now Sheridan coughed in her hand. Marybeth shot her daughter a look.

“Good steak,” Joe said.

“Damned good steak.” Bud Sr. nodded. “Real food.”

“Ees good,” Eduardo said, and Pascal agreed.

Marybeth looked at Joe, her eyes saying, Get me out of here.

On the way back to their house, Joe shone his flashlight on the path and everyone followed him holding hands in a line: Joe, Marybeth, Sheridan, Lucy.

“Come along, my little ducklings,” he said.

“Come along, my little artistes,” Sheridan said. “My tiny littlebirds.”

Joe laughed.

“Sheridan,” Marybeth said sternly. “Don’t mock.” Then: “Joe, you’re not helping the situation.”

“Sorry.”

The stiff grass had a sheath of beaded moisture. It would frost tonight, Joe thought.

“Look,” Sheridan said after a moment, “you don’t have to say anything about what happened today at school. I know I screwed up. I never should’ve taken the bait from that ass Jason Kiner. I’ll never do that again, not because he doesn’t deserve a good ass kicking, but because it embarrassed me and it embarrassedyou. I’m better than that. Okay? Can we drop it now?”

Joe waited for Marybeth to answer. This was her department.

“Okay,” Marybeth said in a way that made it clear the discussionwas over.

“She said ‘ass’ twice,” Lucy whispered, and Joe laughed again. Luckily, so did Marybeth and Sheridan, both relieved that a confrontation had been averted.

As they approached their house, Joe squeezed his wife’s hand in the dark and she squeezed back.

“I know that look in her eye,” Marybeth said later, once the girls were in their rooms, Sheridan doing biology homeworkand Lucy working on another project for Mrs. Hanson.

“What look?” Joe asked from the couch. The file the governorhad given him was in his lap. The woodstove was lit and ticking as it warmed, the television was off. He’d been waiting for his wife to change clothes after they returned from dinner. She hadn’t had time earlier. Even in her worn baggy sweats, Joe felt a zing when he saw her come down the hallway. He liked how she walked across the floor to him. His wife was blond, trim, attractive. Although she was the same age as Joe, when he looked at her he saw the image of the girl he had seen for the first time on the campus of the University of Wyoming, the girl he knew, that instant, he wanted to marry. It was the best decisionhe ever made, and he still felt that he could be exposed at any time as not being worthy of her. She brought a purpose to his life. And he was as crazy in love with her as Bud was with Missy.

“That determined look in her eye,” she said, “combined with the sweater and the pearls.”

Joe finally got it that Marybeth was talking about her mother.

She said, “It’s like a knight putting on his armor or an Indian painting his face. She’s getting ready to take action.”

“What action?” Joe asked, patiently waiting for Marybeth to finish with her theory so he could tell her about the offer.

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m suspicious. I think we’re looking at the opening phase of another round of trading up.”

Joe nodded. Bud Longbrake was Missy’s fourth husband. The first, Marybeth’s father, was a small-time defense attorney in Denver. The second was the owner of a real estate company. The third was a developer and state senator in Arizona who was eventually convicted of fraud. Each man had more social status than the last and a bigger bank account. Missy had each new potential husband lined up, thoroughly smitten, and locked-in before announcing her intention to divorce. As a game warden, Joe had observed predators like coyotes, eagles, and wolves for years. None of them held a candle to his mother-in-law.

“Who do you suppose is the target?” Joe asked as Marybeth joined him on the couch. The log home was sturdy, dark, and comfortable, despite its age. Generations of ranch foremen and their families had lived there before Joe and Marybeth, and they’d taken good care of it and, like so many old ranch structures, added on. There were three bedrooms. The kitchen was bright and sunny and looked out over the Twelve Sleep River, and the living room where Joe sat-the original room of the home-had elk and deer antlers on the walls and cattle brands burned into the logs. A rarely used stone fireplace dominatedthe north wall. A family photo covered a section of the wall where, for a reason never explained, someone had fired six bullets into a log from inside. Walking through the house in the dark was an adventure. Corners of rooms were out of square and floors weren’t level from room to room. The house had character and was filled with the benevolent legacy of past cowboysand their families. Joe loved the place, despite the circumstancesof how they had come to live there.

Marybeth said, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I can come up with one man. Earl Alden.”

“Ah,” Joe said. They called him the Earl of Lexington. Alden was a Southern multibillionaire media mogul who had recently bought the former Scarlett Ranch. He divided his time between the ranch and three other residences in Lexington, New York City, and Chamonix. The rumor was that Mrs. Alden didn’t like their ranch, and she rarely came with him. The fact that there was a Mrs. Alden had never posed much of a hurdle to Missy before.

“The Earl just gave a couple hundred thousand to the Twelve Sleep County Arts Council,” Marybeth said. “So it’s possible he’ll be at the meeting tonight.”

“Where Missy can begin her charm offensive,” Joe said.

“Exactly.”

Joe said, “How did you turn out so well?”

Marybeth smiled. “My mother wouldn’t agree. She wonders where she went wrong.” Missy made no secret of how she had hoped Marybeth-the smartest of her children-would become a corporate attorney or a U.S. senator, or at least follow her exampleand marry one.

Joe patted himself on the chest. “I was your downfall.”

Marybeth sat back and facetiously looked him over, nodding.“Yes. Marrying you doomed me. Then you made me have our children. Now I’m trapped.”

Joe thought, She’s kidding but her mother is not.

Joe told her about the offer from the governor. He gauged her reaction carefully as he laid it out. He noticed that while he spoke, she glanced several times at the file folder in his lap.

When he was through, she hesitated for a beat and said, “Can we trust him?”

“The governor?”