THE FERAL STRUT

Chapter 40

She'd just gotten up to sneak down the hall to Slim's room when he edged through her door. She flipped the covers back and he tossed his clothes on a chair, then slipped in with her.

They whispered for a while, too nerved up to sleep.

"So— tell me about the Kung-fu Nun," he said.

"Actually, it's Shorin-ji Kempo. Japanese style, good for street fighting. Or getting a rapist off your back."

"And the nun?"

"Sister Honoria." She repeated the story she'd told Ginger, with such embellishments as Slim demanded.

"I didn't know there was a Catholic high school in Rock Springs," Slim said.

"There's not. It was St. Joseph's in Ogden. Boarding school."

"Isn't that pretty expensive?"

"Yeah. But this one church lady— the kind of good Catholic who isn't a worse shit than ordinary people— took me in. There was this program: Grandfriends. Sort of like a Big Sister thing, for wayward youth. Which I was, at that point. Mom ended up in Lusk."

Slim nodded and she went on.

"Anyhow this ranch lady, Mrs. Ybarra, signed up for the state foster thing and took me out to the ranch for the summer. She and her husband John had five daughters, all grown and married. They were used to having a girl around the place, she said, so I was doing them a favor. I worked out there, irrigating and stuff. Learned to repair a truck, drive a tractor, saddle a horse, fix fence."

"And they got cheap labor," Slim said.

"Don't be such a cynic!" She pinched him. "They paid me wages. And they didn't need the foster care money so she took the checks and put them in the bank for me— a college fund. She helped get me a scholarship to St. Joseph's. I spent my last three years of high school there, or at the ranch."

"What happened to your mom?"

"When she got out of Lusk, she went off to Texas with some old boyfriend. To hell with Wyoming, she said. I wrote letters and sent a Christmas card, but it came back." She sniffed. "Mom never was much for writing."

Slim drew her close and murmured, while she had a good, quiet cry, that softened into sleep.

The sun was lighting the window when Mary sat bolt upright.

"Oh no! The gig. We forgot to call."

"Wuzzat?" Slim opened one eye.

"The job in Salt Lake— tonight. I forgot to call." She slid out of bed and shrugged into a turtleneck, rummaging in her bag. Slim rolled over and opened his other eye, so he could survey her bare bottom in the golden morning light— remarkable, he thought.

She felt his gaze and flushed, then found her panties and jeans and slipped them on, before locating a phone. There was one in every room.

She dialed and waited for the machine to answer— rather few punk clubs take calls at seven-thirty AM. She left a terse message cancelling the gig and apologising— "Our bass player's in the hospital," she said, before leaving Krista's number.

She went back to the bed and Slim tried to draw her down, but she slipped out of his grasp. "Bad mouth," she said.

"There's toothbrushes and stuff in the bathroom. New ones. Quite a place," he said. When she came back, he was dressed. "Let's get coffee," he said, "and figure out what to do next."

Louisa was up, dressed, not a hair out place. Krista sat at the table, in her school clothes that made her look younger.

"Temple went to the hospital, early. She's off the ventilator and doing well, but not conscious. They're doing some sort of brain scan— to see if there's damage. She stopped breathing in the ambulance."

Krista and Mary shared a worried glance.

"Do you have dog food? There's a hungry animal roaming the yard." Louisa cocked her head towards the glass doors, through which Gris peered, fogging the glass with his breath.

"It's up at the yurt— I'll have to hit the market."

"Will he eat scrambled eggs with chorizo?"

"Pretty safe bet," Mary said.

Slim spoke up: "Where's Spider?"

"He left early— a racing clinic in the upper bowl."

Mary looked at Slim. "So much for a comprehensive strategy," she said.

"Krista, it's late— you'd better start for school," Louisa said. When she'd gone out the door, Louisa came back to the table, Pallas Athene in tweed.

"I think there's more you need to tell me," she said.