The Harder They Fall (14 page)

“Then what should I wear?” she asked, turning around and into his waiting arms.

“Jeans and a T-shirt. Boots.”

“I don’t have any boots.”

“Tennis shoes, then.”

“You mean sneakers? That’s what we call them in New Jersey, sneakers.”

“Right.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Go put on your sneakers and I’ll take you to Brodie’s.”

Helene hurried to change and reappeared in the kitchen minutes later, wearing her oldest jeans with a leather belt and a faded cotton shirt tucked into it.

“There you go,” Chris said, when he saw her. “Perfect.”

“I don’t feel perfect. I had to let the belt out two notches and the top of my jeans won’t button closed.”

“Gee, you look like you’ve gained at least... two ounces.”

“Three pounds,” she said glumly.

“My, my, what’s next? Weight Watchers? Come on, chubby, your chariot awaits.”

Brodie’s was in the same section of downtown as the house Chris had shared with his mother, on a dark corner across the street from a defunct convenience store with Spanish-language signs tacked to its front. Neon advertisements glowed in Brodie’s windows and country-and-western music blared from the smoky interior as they pushed their way through double doors and went inside.

The main room was dominated by a wraparound bar, with most of the stools occupied by customers, and a group of pool tables with a clutch of booths at the back. Through an alcove at the left dancers moved to the music of a jukebox just inside the door. Voices called out greetings to Chris as they entered, and he nodded to several people as he steered Helene past the bar toward one of the tables. Once they were seated a waitress appeared almost immediately.

“Hi, Chris, how ya doin’?” she asked brightly as Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” began to pulse through the room.

“Hi, Marge,” Chris replied.

“Two beers?” Marge said.

“Mineral water for me,” Helene said.

“Mineral water?” Marge said, looking at Chris.

“You have club soda, don’t you?” Chris asked.

“Sure.”

“Beer for me and club soda for the lady.”

“This must be your wife,” Marge said, examining Helene with a practiced eye.

“That’s right.”

“Ginny told me you got married.”

There was a long, pregnant pause.

“I’m awfully thirsty, Marge,” Chris said gently.

“Right,” Marge said, and walked away.

“I’m beginning to think that you knew best about my coming here,” Helene observed quietly.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Chris said.

“Did you see the way she was looking at me? I’m sure Ginny can expect a full report at the earliest opportunity.”

“Ginny has already seen you.”

“Then they’ll compare notes.”

“Are you really that insecure? Is that why you wanted to come here?”

“Let’s put it this way. I realize that I’m something of a departure from your previous life and I have been curious about what you were doing before you met me.”

“I was doing nothing before I met you. My life began the first time I saw your face,” he said quietly.

Helene reached for his hand across the table, her eyes filling with tears. Every time she began to panic about the differences between them, the chance she had taken in falling in love with him, he said something like that and her fears dissolved immediately.

“How about a game, Chris?” said a voice at her elbow.

She looked around to see a middle-aged man, suntanned and weatherbeaten, gazing at Chris expectantly.

“I don’t know, Chet. I’m here with the lady,” Chris replied, smiling slightly.

“Oh, it’s all right with me,” Helene said hastily.

“This the missus?” Chet asked.

“That’s the missus,” Chris confirmed.

“Ma’am,” Chet said, inclining his head and extending a callused hand. “Right proud to meet you.”

Helene shook hands with him, her fingers soft and small against his horny palm.

“This is Chet Ridgemont, Helene. Chet works on the Simpson ranch over in Red Pass,” Chris said.

“Pretty filly,” Chet said to Chris.

“Thanks,” Chris said shortly, glancing at Helene. She felt she had passed some sort of test.

“Dance?” Chet said to her.

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to do that,” Helene said, glancing at the couples doing the two-step in the next room.

“It’s easy, I’ll show you,” Chet said.

“I think she’s a little tired tonight, Chet, maybe some other time,” Chris intervened.

“That’s right. Go ahead and have your game,” Helene said. “I’ll just relax and listen to the music.”

“Why don’t you get a table, Chet? I’ll be right along in a minute,” Chris said.

Chet nodded to Helene and moved off to the side of the room, where he was soon selecting a cue and chalking it.

“Can’t you do the two-step, Mrs. Murdock?” Chris said to Helene as he rose.

“It didn’t come up much in New Jersey,” Helene replied.

“You’ll have to learn if you plan to stay out here,” he said.

“Some other time.”

“Sure you’ll be okay alone?” he asked.

She nodded and regretted it shortly, as Marge slid into the seat across from her as soon as Chris was gone.

“Here’s your drinks,” Marge said, depositing a club soda in front of Helene and slipping a paper coaster under Chris’ beer.

“Thank you,” Helene said pointedly, taking a sip of her drink and turning away.

“Not from around here, are you?” Marge said.

“No.”
 

“Back East?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so—you talk kinda funny. Like those people on TV giving out the evening news, you know what I mean?”

Helene didn’t know what to reply to that, so she just smiled and took another sip of her drink.

“So how long you been out here?” Marge went on.

“Not long,” Helene answered, thinking glumly that she had brought this interrogation on herself by insisting on coming here.

“Me, I never thought Chris would get married,” Marge volunteered. “He was always such a free spirit, took his good times where he could find them. It seemed like he just lived for that ranch and the rodeo. All those trophies in that case against the wall are his, you know.”

“They are?” Helene asked in surprise, wondering what else she didn’t know about her husband.

Marge nodded. “Chris didn’t want them and Brodie said they’d be good for business, the champ bein’ a regular customer and all.”

Helene glanced over at Chris, who was leaning across a pool table angling for a shot.

“Think you’ll be staying out here?” Marge inquired.

“I imagine so. Chris wouldn’t want to leave the ranch.”

“Marge, you got some thirsty people looking for you back at the bar,” said a voice to their left.

Both women looked up to see a heavily muscled blond in his late thirties grinning down at them. He had his short sleeves rolled up to expose bulging biceps and a pack of cigarettes tucked into his sagging breast pocket. His smile revealed a broken incisor and did not extend to his hard blue eyes.

“All right, Randy,” Marge said meekly, sliding out of the booth and scurrying back to the bar.

Randy took her place, still grinning. “I’m Randy Sills—I work here nights. Keeping order, you might say.”

“Are you the bouncer?” Helene asked bluntly, before she could stop herself.

“That’s right. And you’re the Murdock bride. Been hearin’ a lot about you from Sam. Your husband’s headman is my uncle.”

“I see.” Helene looked nervously over at Chris, who was leaning on his cue watching Chet take a shot.

“So which brother is it you’re hooked up with, exactly? I keep forgettin’. You were engaged to the dead one and now you’re married to the live one, is that the story?”

“That’s it,” Helene said coldly, now actively trying to catch her husband’s eye.

“Quite a switch, huh? I mean I never met the older one but Sam says he was just the opposite to our boy Chris—must have taken some gettin’ used to, right?”

Chris finally looked up from his game and saw Helene staring at him. He dropped his cue without even glancing at it and it slid off the corner of the table and hit the floor.

“Hi, honey,” Helene said loudly, reaching out to take his hand and smiling warmly when he arrived.

“Sills,” Chris said flatly in acknowledgement of the other man, his eyes wary.

“Hiya, Murdock. I was just havin’ a little chat with your wife,” Randy said.

Chris nodded, unconvinced. His wife looked too stressed for that to be the whole story.

Randy rose and slid out of the booth, turning until he was facing Chris in the aisle.

“She was just about to tell me what it was like to go from your brother to you. Like one of them what do you call ‘em, those lady slaves.”

“Chris, let’s leave,” Helene said quickly, getting up and tugging on his arm. She was too aware of what the tightening of his jaw meant to wait for the rest.

“Watch it, Randy, your brains are running out of your mouth,” Chris said quietly. Too quietly.

“Yeah, well, at least I’m not the type to steal my brother’s woman. Hardly waited for the body to get cold before you jumped the fiancée, right, boy?”

Chris lunged forward and his fist crashed into Randy’s jaw before anyone could prevent it. Helene gasped in horror as Randy staggered back, shaking his head, then recovered enough to launch himself at Chris.

The scene that followed seem to linger in slow motion limbo forever, but Helene realized afterward that it probably lasted only a few seconds. The two men struggled, tumbling to the floor and knocking over a hat stand, rolling over and over and landing wild punches before Chet and several others succeeded in prying them apart.

“You’re a sore loser, Sills—you were a sore loser in the third grade,” Chris gasped, struggling against the arms holding him back, trying to get at Randy once more.

“And you were a low-life townie then and you still are now, Murdock,” Randy replied through bloody lips. He had gotten the worst of the fight and looked it. “A hundred rancher fathers and lawyer brothers can’t change that.”

Two of the men dragged Randy off to the next room and Chris slumped back into the booth they had left, taking a long pull of his now flat beer. Helene stood mute, staring at the large, purpling bruise on his left temple.

“What are you looking at?” he finally said.

“Are you all right?” she said, finding her voice.

“Of course, I’m all right. That’s not the first fight I’ve ever had and it won’t be the last.”

“Why?” she said, sitting across from him. “Why was he acting like that?”

“He came in second at the rodeo. He comes in second every year—I beat him all the time. I guess he doesn’t like it.”

“What was all that about third grade?”

“We hated each other as kids, too. This is nothing new. We lived near each other and he resented it when I found my family and took over the ranch. He’s still living in the same house and thinks I’m putting on airs. I don’t give a damn what he thinks, to tell you the truth, but saying that about you got my goat.”

“That’s why he said it.”

“Sam can’t see what a loser he is. Randy is his brother’s kid and Sam talks too much around him.”

“It isn’t Sam’s fault. I wanted to come here.”

“I guess you didn’t know that Randy Sills has the emotional development of a two-year-old.”

“You didn’t look too highly evolved yourself, rolling around in the sawdust with him.”

Chris looked at her for a long moment, then glanced away.

Marge appeared with a bunch of ice wrapped in a towel.

“For your eye,” she said to Chris, handing the bundle to him.

Chris applied the pack gingerly to his face, wincing slightly.

“Randy’s face is much worse,” she volunteered.

“Randy’s face was much worse before the fight,” Helene said, after Marge left. “Poor Marge. She must have nursed a few gladiators before you two.”

“Especially on Saturday night, there’s always at least two real dustups.”

“Aren’t we fortunate it isn’t Saturday?” Helene asked sweetly.

“Have you seen enough of Brodie’s?” Chris asked dryly, setting the ice pack on the table.

“I think so,” Helene replied.

“Then how about we head home?” he asked.

“Fine.”

They walked out, Chris’ arm around her protectively, saying goodbye to Chet and Marge at the bar.

“Do you want me to drive?” Helene asked as they neared the car and his hand went into his pocket for his keys.

He looked at her in disbelief, the neon window lighting making his skin glow red.

“Chris, you just had a concussion at the rodeo and now you had this fight. Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”