An over-the-top, swashbuckling adventure.
Big Baby Blue was a car built for the long road. Steve sat back with one hand on her wheel, stretched his arm across the back of the seat, and let the sun warm his face. He and that big old car were almost there, and the snowy peaks that grew gradually closer drew a jagged horizon above Cimarron.
Steve rolled to a stop at the hotel where, not long ago, gold miners rubbed shoulders with gun slingers, land barons, and thieves. Dusty pickups lined up along the street, and a row of Harleys leaned on their stands where travelers once tethered their rides.
The clerk worked behind a battered wooden counter darkened with time. “Check out’s at one,” he said and handed Steve a key. He didn’t have much to say.
Steve bounced his bag on his bed and found a seat at the bar. “Rye,” he told the barkeep. “Straight up.” He glanced over his shoulder. A blonde with curly hair piled on her head wiped her hands on her apron and worked a dimly-lit room—bikers in leathers and bandannas on one side, and cowboys in black hats and bluejeans on the other.
The bartender set a shot glass in front of Steve with one hand and added a glass of water with the other. He picked up his dish towel and started drying glasses while the elk’s head mounted above the mirror watched over his shoulder.
“That ragtop caddy out there—that yours?”
“‘57 Eldorado,” Steve said. “Picked her up just to drive her here.”
“Ain’t seen a car like that but in parades—you know, with beauty queens waving from the back. Where you comin’ from?”
“New Guinea.” Steve sniffed at his shot to brace himself then slammed it. He put the glass down, and a shudder went through his shoulders. “Damn!”
The waitress set her tray on the bar. She hopped onto the stool beside Steve and asked, “What’s in New Guinea?”
“This is Josie,” the bartender said. Josie held up four fingers on one hand and three on the other, and he set up seven shots—three with Jacks and four with Cuervo.
Josie found Steve watching. “Bourbon for the cowboys. Tequila for the bikers,” she said.
“There’s a gold mine in New Guinea,” Steve said. “I got out when the natives got restless.”
“They might be gettin’ restless here.” Josie picked up her tray and Steve watched her little skirt sway on her way to the tables.
“Best knockers in town,” the bartender said. “Not that you can tell from this side.”
“Hit me again,” Steve said.
The barkeep filled Steve’s shot glass and spilled in a little extra. “New Guinea. Ain’t that a long way from here?”
“I travel some.” Steve tipped his glass to the keep. “Columbia next. But first I’m gonna see my kid sister graduate.”
Josie climbed back onto her stool. “Sure you didn’t get your dates mixed up? High school graduation was last week.”
Steve took a lingering look down Josie’s top. She straightened her back and made sure the ruffles didn’t hide his view. “Good for tips. What’s your name, stranger?”
“Cox. Steve Cox. She’s graduating from the convent school.”
The barkeep scratched his head. “There’s a convent school?”
“You know,” Josie said. “You see them nuns come to town, but mostly they keep to themselves.”
A big laugh, loud and mean, came over Steve’s shoulder. Someone bellowed Josie’s name, and she slipped off the stool. “Look,” she said, with her hand on Steve’s bulging bicep, “if you see me duck out the back, that means things in here is goin’ south.”
Steve spread his elbows on the bar and kept an eye on the mirror. This time he took the rye a little slower.
A chair hit the floor, and a biker squared up on a cowboy. The biker snarled, “Some respect for the little lady.”
Josie gave a little “Eep!” and headed for the back door.
The cowboy that stood up to face the biker looked like he wrestled steers for the fun of it. He tipped his hat back as if he might have something to say, but then slammed a right cross into the biker’s jaw. The biker’s head snapped to the side, but he dove at the cowboy’s chest and knocked him over the table.
The barkeep pulled a sawed-off shotgun from under the cash register while the cowboys and bikers swung fists and chairs. He checked the breech and closed the gun. “Just gonna sit there?”
“Not my fight.” A chair hit the stool where Josie had been, and a biker threw a cowboy against the bar. The cowboy lurched into Steve, and Steve’s whiskey splashed on the bar.
“Where’d you get your manners?” Steve pushed him away, and the cowboy took a blind swing that glanced off Steve’s shoulder.
“That’s it,” Steve said. He shoved the cowboy back into the fight, and followed him in.
Steve caught a cowboy who stumbled into him and shoved him over a table. He ducked haymakers and turned, and he found himself back-to-back with a big biker. “We good?” he asked. “I’m Cox.”
“Bear,” the biker answered, and they took on anyone who dared—until the barkeep pumped his shotgun and blasted a round into the timbers overhead. The bikers and the cowboys were showered with dust and debris.
Steve caught sight of the clock over the door. “Gotta meet a nun!” he said, and stumbled out past the Harleys and the pickups. He straightened his back and brushed grit off his shirt.
A flag pole marked the post office just across the road. That’s where he needed to be, but there wasn’t a nun in sight until an old two-seater jeep skittered around the corner and rattled to a stop in a little cloud of dust.
“I’m Sister Clarice,” The nun said. She hiked up her black tunic and climbed out of the jeep. “You’re Steve Cox? Sorry I’m late, but it took a prayer and a kick to get Betsy started.”
Sister Clarice walked around the jeep and gave Steve a close look. “I see the family resemblance.” She touched her fingers to Steve’s broad shoulder then pulled her hand back. “And differences. You look like you’ve been in a fight.” She turned around, bent over Betsy’s door, and came back with an envelope. “This is from Nita.”
“Thanks for all you’ve done—getting Nita’s letters out to me.” Steve tore the envelope and unfolded the letter inside. He held it up in the sunset’s last light to read, and he barely heard Clarice.
