Under The Wild Wyoming Skies

Copyright 2017 by RWSTEWARD All rights reserved. Reposting without written permission prohibited.

From my point of view any door that's open was an invitation for people to look inside. That's exactly what I did. There were several pianos that appeared well worn, and I carefully sat down in front of one. My fingers moved along the ivory keys, and before I knew it a melody began to emerge. I hadn't touched the keys since Alexandria... It was going on three years, and I still couldn't get her off my mind.

"Excuse me?" a voice said, "The pianos are here for the students and not the parents."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything. I mean I didn't... There was no intent to do harm." There stood a woman wearing jeans and sneakers with her arms folded over her chest in the doorway. She was not too tall yet skinny as a cheap hotdog cooking over a campfire. She had flaming red hair that parted in the middle. It was not quiet long enough to touch her shoulders. There was a scowl on her face.

"You're not from around here are you?"

"No. How can you tell?"

"You talk funny."

"I'm from the East coast. New York. Manhattan, as a matter of fact."

"What's your name, city boy?"

"Jack. Name's Jack Abbey."

"Hmmm, well city boy, Jack, what in the world are you doing sitting in front of one of my pianos?"

"You're a teacher?"

"Yep, music and English. And you didn't answer my question."

"I applied for a job."

"I'm not sure a janitorial position is open at the moment—"

"Oh, no... I'm inquiring about a teaching position. Science and American Government."

"I see..."

Her face turned a slight shade of red. It didn't quite match her hair color. She had a pretty face when she smiled. "And what's your name?"

She uncrossed her arms and held out her hand. "I'm Diana, Diana Compton."

She had a surprisingly strong handshake for such a slight build.

"You staying in town?" she asked.

"No, I bought a farm."

"Here? A city boy from Manhattan bought a farm? In Wyoming?"

"It's not much, only about thirty acres. Buying it on a land contract. The guy at the bank said it was the old Bookmen farm."

She put her hand to her mouth to hide her laugh from me.

"You didn't? Really? I mean the Bookmen farm? The farmhouse is about to fall over. I guess P. T. Barnum was right, there is a sucker born every minute. You're not serious, are you?"

"It needs some work. Roof leaks like a sieve. You're pretty." Oh, for the love of God, why did I say that?

"City boy, I hope you didn't pay too much for it, 'cause if you did, you got took."

Maybe she didn't hear me, because she didn't flinch a bit.

She placed her hands to her face once more, and I could see it took everything she had to keep from bursting out laughing. She turned and walked down the polished floor and disappeared into a hallway.

She was pretty in her own right, that's for sure, but nothing that would cause you to turn around as you walked through Times Square. There were hundreds of thousands of women that live on the island that were much better looking than Diana. I'd call her country pretty. For right now, I had other worries. The only clothing that I had is what I'd brought with me on the back of the bike. The only other things I had were the bike itself, and a handful of money that seemed to disappear little by little with every passing day.

And a farmhouse that was about to fall over.

*******

It had been several days since I applied for the opening at the high school. No news is good news as they say. After a breakfast of instant oatmeal, repairs to the roof were urgent. The weather guy called for rain most of the evening and all day Sunday. During the last few rain showers, I could have taken one in the living room. There was one section of roof that was being held together with nothing but spider webs, dust, and fly shit.

I stood outside and looked over the place I was trying to call home. I heard the now familiar sound of a truck door as it slammed close. I didn't turn around. Why? More than likely another one of the local farmers was here trying to sell me another piece of equipment for which I had no clue of the purpose, or have the money to pay for. I heard the gravel stir as footsteps grew louder. They stopped just behind my left side.

Without looking I said, "Whatever you're trying to sell me, I don't have the money."

"I'm not selling a thing."

I turned and there stood the woman I met at the high school days earlier. "Compton... Diana right? Mrs. Compton?"

"It's Miss, and let's drop the formalities shall we, city boy?"

"On one condition,"

"Shoot."

"My name is Jack, and not city boy."

She gave me a quick grin then spat in her hand before extending it out to me. "Deal."

What the hell? I did the same in my hand and we shook. "You're quite a woman."

"You'd better say so."

"Why's that?"

"'Cause I'm the woman with a dozen sheets of OSB board, six rolls of tar paper and ten squares of shingles. I wasn't sure my old truck would carry it all, but here we are. We best get to work before the rains come." She turned and started to work on her belt buckle. Before I knew it, she had taken off a holster, and what looked like a rather large caliber handgun. She placed it over the only section of porch railing that still stood erect.

"Do all the women around here carry a sidearm?"

She shrugged. "I can't talk for the other women, but I do."

"For what?"

"Bears mostly. Sometimes snakes. And not all snakes crawl on their bellies."

She yanked down the blue tailgate on a red truck. It banged and a cloud of dust and rust bellowed out. Before I could do anything, she started to slide out a sheet of OSB. She didn't say a word as she hoisted it up and out of the truck before setting it down on the ground. She leaned it against the fender of the truck. I went next, and damn those sheets were heavy. Before she grabbed another one, I touched her shoulder.

"You didn't need to do this."

"If someone is dumb enough to buy this old farm, well, they need some help."

"I hope you don't think I'm a hard luck case. I mean, I have money coming. It's a matter of setting up an account with the bank and then getting funds transferred from New York to here." I sat the last sheet on the ground when she pulled her gloves off and laid them over the top of the stack of OSB.

"Did you mean what you said at the school the other day?"

My mind rushed. All this seemed to be happening too fast, and I struggled to keep my thoughts in a straight line. I tried to recall what I said and when I said it. "Ah... refresh my memory for me? This week has done the number on me. I'm trying to get a job at the school, this old house; things are all piling up on me."

"You said I was pretty. Did you mean it?" Her face flushed once more.

"Oh, that."

I looked into her face. Diana had a small nose, and her high cheekbones gave her that same model's face that Lexi had. Those eyes, green like sea foam, and looking just as delicate.

"Sure. And you know what? You've got the prettiest green eyes I've ever seen."

She flashed me a quick smile. "That's an old pickup line even out here. You got someone back East?"

"Not anymore."

"Oh, got dumped huh? Start'n over? Going to be a farmer now? It's a long way from the city lights to no lights out here. Must'a hurt when she dumped you to get all pissed off and..." She grew quiet as she wrestled with a roll of tarpaper. "It hurts...when you're abandoned by everyone."

"Something like that... but I'm here now. What about you? You got a guy on the side or do you like repairing roofs of strangers?"

"Between boyfriends at the present."

"I find that hard to believe. You certainly have a nice figure."

There I went and did it again. What did I say? "I didn't mean it that way."

"What part didn't you mean? The part about me not having a boyfriend or having a nice figure?"

My mind was a wasteland. Maybe it was the sunlight, or the white shirt she had on that made her red hair stand out. There was a bit of a breeze out, and the wind blew errant strands of red hair across her face. I'm not much of a jeans on a women type of guy, but Diana filled them out in all the right places.

"I meant to say, that you have a nice figure, and I can't see why you wouldn't have plenty of boyfriends."

She pulled a tool belt tight around her tiny waist. She handed me a hammer. "You sure get tongue tied trying to talk to me. You did have a girlfriend right, and not one with a dick between her legs? You're not here for your own personal

Broke Back Mountain

shit are you?"

"I'm not tongue tied. I don't swing that way. You have a nice figure, okay?"

"Tell you what, you can cook us dinner after we get this roof on." She looked over her shoulder at the black clouds that were building in the west. "We best get going, or we'll be hammering in the rain."

We started toward the back of the house when she caught my arm. "For the record, you're not bad looking either; for a city boy."

***************

We tore off parts of the old roof that had rotted away. We nailed new sections of OSB down. We worked as fast as we could, and I kept a constant eye on the black storm clouds that seemed to loom larger with each passing minute. They grew dark and angry looking. The sky looked like someone was holding a flame to it making the clouds build and boil. You could smell the ozone in the air. As the last row of shingles went down, rumbles of thunder could be heard in the not too far off distance.

"That's it. Off the roof," I announced.

No sooner than our feet touched the ground than the sky dumped on us. The rain came down like a waterfall of biblical proportion. We were instantly soaked to the bone. Diana's cheeks were wet with rain and they appeared as rosy as a ripe apple. Water trickled down her face while crystal drops of rain glistened on her eyelashes. I don't know why we didn't simply run into the house. We stood there and looked into each other's eyes for a second.

All of a sudden a flash of light filled the front yard, and the instantaneous clap of thunder caused Diana to leap into my arms. My hand moved along the side of her face, and gently brushed strands of wet hair from her eyes. I leaned in. Diana closed her eyes as her lips parted and we kissed. The warmth of her hand filled mine as we kissed in the rain. Lightning jumped from cloud to cloud and the sky boiled with anger. We broke our kiss and with the back of my hand, I stroked her smooth cheeks. Lightning wasn't only happening across the skies; I felt it inside me, too.

Feelings seemed to come alive that had lain dormant for years. I reached behind Diana and wiggled the back of her wet shirt from her jeans. My hands made a mad dash behind her and soon they were all over her back. Rubbing and touching her wet skin, feeling her warm body as the rain pounded on us. I was kissing this woman in the midst of a thunderstorm, and I simply didn't give a shit.

Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning had to have struck a hundred meters from us. We jumped as the pressure wave rolled pass. "We have to get inside!" I yelled over Mother Nature's mayhem. I took her hand and we made a mad dash to the front door.

Once inside we shook like a couple of wet dogs. Diana began to laugh and soon I joined in. When I looked at the shirt, and how most of it was no longer inside her jeans, my laughter stopped. "I didn't mean to do that. I guess I got caught up in the moment."

She didn't say a word. She looked at me with a sad face, and I didn't know why.

"I'm not like that. I don't know what came over me," I said, "It's been a long time since..."

She pulled her wet hair back, and with a rubber band she tied it into a short ponytail. With her shirt wet the outline of her pink bra showed. Embarrassed, I turned my face away.

"It's okay. God, don't be such a prude."

She moved toward the front window, and watched the sheets of rain as they pounded that miserable excuse of a front yard. The rain didn't simply come down as drops; they fell as torrents that spread across the land. Then she turned toward the ceiling, and then back to the window. "Guess we didn't do too bad of a job." She smiled at me while she pulled the front of her shirt out of her jeans. "I'm soaked to the skin."

My mind raced out of control. I've got a pretty woman standing in my house dripping water on the floor and I'm stuck in stupid. Think man!

"All I have are a few tee shirts... I have a robe. Yeah, it's not Macy's best, bought it at a resale store in town. I'll get it."

Diana followed me down the short hallway to the bedroom. When we entered, she stopped, looked around, and then flashed that smile at me once more. "Boy you weren't kidding about not having much. It's as empty as a bread box before payday."

"I've been sleeping on the couch. I don't have a bed. I... I...I think maybe I'd better find a job before I start buying stuff I'll might have to sell later so I can eat."

Another bolt of lightning flashed and the whole house shook from the thunder. "Damn, that was close." The lights blinked a few times then went out. The house plunged into the grey twilight of the storm. Diana didn't flinch. The storm distracted us and we somehow found our way back into the living room.

"Keeping the power on around here seems to be a full time job for the local electric company. They told me I'm on the end of the run, thus I'm one of the last to get serviced restored."

Diana stood and watched the rain. "I can make it."

Before I could ask what she was talking about, Diana threw the front door open and then sprinted to her truck. In an instant she came running back with some plastic bags in her hands. When she returned, raindrops covered her face once more. She was so close to me, my fingers moved across her cheeks and wiped the drops away. Diana closed her eyes. I wanted so badly to kiss her again, yet somehow I knew it would be wrong. Never. I never should have kissed her to begin with. After all, I think of Lexi every night. She's the reason why I'm here. And yet there's Diana standing in front of me. She opened her eyes.

"You could have kissed me again if you wanted to."

There wasn't anything for me to say, so I opted for, "Let me take those from you." She handed me the wet plastic bags. "What's in the bags?" I asked as I placed them on the table.

"Our dinner."

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second. I didn't ask for any of this. I mean I'm deeply in your debt for helping me with the roof repair, but I don't want—"

"Want what?"

"You know." My fingers pointed at the bags on the kitchen table. "This!"

"That's our dinner. Now, where's that robe you promised?"

"Bathroom. Just past the bedroom."

Diana turned and walked away. She certainly could fill out a pair of wet jeans. Apparently, she slipped her gun into the waistband of her jeans, as I could clearly see its outline. Why was she carrying a gun anyway? God, the Wild West came and went. Would my friends back East read about my demise by the hands of a red haired killer? The only thing to do was smile.

The food went into my fridge. My clothes were wet and I was getting a bit of a chill. The fireplace worked, I'd tried it out a few times, so, why not have a warm fire? The kindling was dry and the fire jumped to life. A few small hunks of wood later made the fire burn nicely.

"Excellent idea," Diana said.

"I was thinking maybe you could hang your clothing by the grate and they'll be dry before you leave."

"They should be dry by morning without the fire."

"What?"

"Don't pop a gasket, city boy."

"I'm not. It's..."

"You don't like girls?"

"Of course I like girls."

"And your problem is?"

I stood and paced around the front of the fireplace. "I'm not asking for sex."

Diana began to giggle. "I sure as hell wasn't offering."

"What then? I mean. Outside and all? We were kissing. I... I..."

She shrugged. "I can kiss a guy without screwing him. Besides, I think you're cute. I like the way you talk. Haven't you ever wanted to be with someone because you wanted to?"

Lexi came to mind. "Yeah, I guess so..."

"Tell me one thing?" she asked.

"Shoot." I rolled my eyes. Perhaps that was a bad choice of words on my part.

"That old stove. Propane?"

"Yeah. So what? The fridge runs on it, too."

"You don't need juice to cook then."

"Damn, it never dawned on me. I guess I really am a city boy." When I turned toward the kitchen she grabbed my hand.

"Why don't you get out of your wet clothing, too?"

"You've got the only robe in the hotel."

She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You're either dense as granite, or dumber than you look. Boxers or briefs?"

I stood there for a second or two. "Boxers, why?"

"Are we bashful? You said you had a few tee shirts. Put one on and a pair of dry boxers. I won't tell the neighbors I saw you in your underwear." There was that smile again.

"What the hell? All right. I'm game."

In the bedroom, she had placed her wet clothing across the back of a chair. I scooped them up along with mine and returned to the kitchen. Our clothing went over the back of a chair I scooted it close to the fireplace and kind of spread out our wet clothing. Diana was in front of the stove with one of the old cast iron skillets a previous owner of this mansion left behind.

"All right, you happy?" I said as I turned a three-sixty.

"See, didn't kill 'ya. "

She had that gun right next to the stove. "You always have a gun nearby? There are no snakes or bears in here."

"I like protection."

My hands came around her waist and I turned her toward me. Her hair was dry, and I pulled the rubber band freeing her red tresses as my fingers weaved through her hair. She dropped the spatula from her hand and it hit the floor with a splat.

Something came over me. I don't know what. My fingers pulled on the ties of the robe, and when I tried to push the two halves apart, she grabbed my hands and yanked them away.

"No! No. Please don't."

"I'm sorry! I thought—"

I ran out the front door and stood on the wet porch looking for a rock to crawl under. Like everything else in my life, the floor had warped and weathered over the years. I pressed my palms against my temples as hard as I could. What the hell was I doing? What the hell was she doing? There were so many signals, so many different directions pulling at me all at the same time. I wanted to run. Run as fast and as far as I could... I promised myself I'd never fall in love again. How could I? Jesus, could I use a drink. And right then getting drunk sounded like a perfect solution to all my problems.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "I'm not ready for that yet," Diana said, "Maybe later."

"Later. Yup, that's fine. You sure can send some screwed up signals. Is this a hobby of yours?"

"Come inside and we'll make dinner." She offered her hand and then said, "I won't bite."

*********

The storms moved away. We ate quietly and talked a little about ourselves. It was light banter on light subjects. I was still embarrassed by my actions. Still, you don't give a starving dog a bone then yank it from its mouth. I knew I couldn't do anything with a woman right now. How do you go from kissing a guy to turning him down all within minutes?

When the storms went through they took all the clouds with them, and moonlight filled the sky. We needed some fresh air, so I cracked open a window. The air felt wet and it had a taste to it. It's hard to describe, but it reminded me of the smell of frogs. Yeah, the air smelled like frogs.

"This isn't as bad as I thought it would be," she said.

"Me?"

"No, of course not. This old house. It's quaint in a way. Could use a woman's touch. You got someone back East?"