| With several head of cattle are gazing nearby, Zach and a young Italian looking man, Micheal, have raised the cover of their camouflage tarp to combat the heat. Sweat beads about Zach�s face as he picks up his binoculars. He scans the landscape then is suddenly up close and personal with a cows rear end. �This is beautiful country. There is good money in cattle,� Zach tells Michael. �Yea, well, you can kiss my butt and send me back to the Bronx! The only kind of cow I care to look at is an inch thick, medium rare, and sitting on a plate with some french fries.� A cow�s nostrils blows hot air into the dugout along the of Michael face, scaring him. �Holy, fucking Christ!� Michael pulls out his gun and aims it at the cow. � Scare the shit out of me you four legged T-bone.� The cow continues to sniff around the camouflaged dug out. �Put the gun away, Michael,� Zach orders. �Fuck, I hate this place! I�ve got bug bites all over me. Your Brian better show up.� The cow turns and urinates upon the edge of the men�s hiding place causing a stream of urine to pour down the side. �Fuck the fuck... ah!� Micheal cocks his gun to shoot the cow. In split second, Zach is holding Michael gun and has arm around his neck. He says quietly, �Don�t tempt me. If you make another sound, I will have my problem breaking your spindly neck. That cow is just fucking with you.� Michael can�t breath. �Do you think you will die without air? I do. I think you will be glad for any breath of air even if it�s filled with the stench of cow piss.� Zach tosses the man right into the cow urine. Michael gasps for air. �I have know idea why Jack would hire you. You think because you�ve gunned down a few people that you are dangerous killer. A real killer is a hunter.� Zach chuckles. �I should kill you just to save you from yourself.� �You forget my connections. Jack would never allow...� �Jack doesn�t need you little man. He�s using you to buy time.� �What the fuck do you care! You�re just a dumb ass trigger. Maybe not as dumb as this Brian character, but dumb enough. Who the fuck steals a disc that�s worth millions and doesn�t try to sell it! This Brian is sentimental fool.� �Brian is no fool. Never understimate your prey. Now how do you about the disc?� �Ah... Ben told me.� �Interesting...� *** Ethan and Justin sit silence in Ethan�s car as drive behind Emmett�s pickup. Justin is withdraw within a reflective sadness. Ethan can only look at Justin through the corner of his eye. After several serval minutes have past, Ethan decides to break the ice. �Thank you for coming with me, Justin.� Justin looks over at Ethan and a thousand questions come to mind, but H=Justin decides to change the subject instead of asking any questions at this time. �Smith�s Pharmacy... do they still make the best malts in the whole world?� �I don�t know about the world, but yeah.� Ethan becomes troubled and says, �Jesus, Justin, I must have practiced a thousand times what I was going to say to you the next time I saw you.� He pauses for minute, and then continues, �But what really only matters, I guess, is that I�ve been holding onto something for you all these years. Lindsay gave it to me to gave to you on the day she, she... her last day.� �It must have been so horrible for you. I�ve never forgiven Lindsay for hurting you like that.� �She hurt all us, didn�t she? People who commit suicide are...� �Mentally ill. If Linz wanted to blow her brains out, why did she have to leave you to find her first. I mean the two of you were best friends.� �Maybe because we were best friends. Some honor, huh? To get to haul your best friends bloody body back to her father only to have that man kick the shit out of you. Your father was like a madman.� �I think he�d probably been wanting to get his hands on you ever since, well, you know. When your grandmother called about Lindsay death, and you being in the hospital, I enlisted in the Air Force. You knew I always wanted to be a pilot, and the four years of french I took in school helped me get into Europe.� �Europe? Wow you always wanted to travel too.� �Yes, I did.� Justin smiles a weak and brief grin. �I was seduced by it, by France by... I�m just tired of being afraid.� �Afraid?� �I can�t talk about it. Let�s just I took a wrong turn.� Ethan looks into rear view mirror, and sees the UPS truck following them again. Then he looks at Justin as they stop at an intersection. A red pickup truck drives pass them, and Ethan waves at the driver. The driver, Brian, disguised as Kyle Peterson, tips his cowboy hat in acknowledgment. Brian now has blond hair and shaggy beard. He looks every inch like a professional rodeo circuit bull dogger that he has chosen to portray. �It would only take a few minutes to swing by my house,� Ethan explains as turns to head to his house. Pulling up in the Patrol car onto the driveway of a small attractive house with lots of healthy flowers planted around it. There are models of Trans Ams torn down for parts neatly arrayed. And within the garage is parked a shiny black classic 1978 Tran Am, fully restored. The UPS truck drives past the house. Brian parks the car and turns off the ignition. �... she had asked me to take her hunting, I should have known something was up. Lindsay never liked going hunting, but I was feeling guilty about not coming home on the weekends as often as I could have. Hell, you were half way across the country, and I was just a hour away from Custer.� �I remember the freedom I felt just being away from here. Do you know what I mean?� Leda knocks on the roof of Ethan�s patrol car and greatly startles both of them. �Who died?� Leda asks leaning into the car door window to give her breasts their greatest exposure. Ethan becomes flustered. �Nobody.� Justin is mostly amused. �You took off so quickly that we didn�t get a chance to settle on when we were going to go out.� Ethan doesn�t answer. �I�m Rebecca Chastely. Ethan here just saved my life when he fixed my Vega for me. It just went phooey on me. I�m ready to head on to Las Vegas as soon as I save up a little more traveling money. I�m actually an exotic dancer, but I�ve been having to wait tables. If it wasn�t for Ethan here, why I don�t know what I would have done.� �Can�t go tonight, Becca, but Thursday is looking promising.� �Thursday? I wasn�t really planning on hanging around this, and excuse my opinion, shit hole, quite that long. They say suicide in Kansas is redundant and brother do I believe it!� Ethan appalled and quickly opens his door pushing her backward. �Thursday! Oh, all right. Thursday it is, but it is going to cost you.� �Rebecca, I�m busy right now as if you hadn�t noticed.� �Jesus, Ethan.� Leda peers at Justin. �I�ve had stiffer competition than him before. You just give me a chance darling.� �Thursday at eight. Now, why don�t you run along.� �Till Thursday then.� Leda blows Brian a kiss and sashays across the street towards the boarding house where she is staying. Justin gets out of Ethan�s car. � A stripper huh.� �She prefers exotic dancer.� �And you are into her?� �I have needs, Justin. Come on in.� Ethan and Justin enter the house. �Are you are still swing both ways, or have gone straight?� �I guess I�m still swinging. Where ever I can find some action.� Ethan begins to fill in Justin on everything that has happen to him since he left as walks through his house towards his bedroom with Justin following behind him. Sometimes he stops to make a remark, but soon they find themselves in his bedroom. �...basicly I been keeping myself busy working on cars and I stay at out of the bars nowa days.� Ethan turns to look at Justin with pride in his eyes. �I got a fully restored 1978 Tran Am in my Garage. I did all the work myself. You should see it take the highway.� There are several photos in collage of Ethan on the dresser. Justin stares at the ones with Lindsay and him in it. Three teenagers look like a happy threesome. �I remember you helping Craig work on the tractor and the Pontiac.� �Craig taught me lot. I respect him a great deal, but let me tell you straight out that he hates my guts. He won�t even walk on the same side of the street.� �When we Taylors are hurting we�re capable of pushing people away far, far away.� �I noticed.� Ethan disappears into his closet and comes back with cigar box. He opens the box and looks inside. ...FLASHBACK Lindsay and Ethan walk side carrying their hunting rifles. It is brisk day and the wind makes its cold presence known. �Promise me you�ll give that to him the next time you see him.� Lindsay hands a small package to Ethan. �Surely, he�ll come back for Christmas. He can�t stay away forever.� �I wouldn�t bet against it. Look you should know that Dad knows you two well, he knows you did it in the barn. He watched you, I think.� �Shit!� �And, well, Dad kicked him out of the house. Said he was a faggot and a lot worse. He had me gather up his things and drive him to the train station.� �Why didn�t he tell me?� �You were working at feed mill. He knew you needed earn money for college.� �So, I could have gotten off for Christ sake.� �Ethan, Dad beat him up pretty bad. Even your grandmother was afraid of what you might do to Craig.� �She knew!� �Yeah.� �Lindsay, I thought him... I thought he ran away from me. I asked him to marry me. Did you know that?� �He told me.� �I always figured he took off like because he didn�t want me.� �He just wasn�t ready. I think he�s better off away from here. He�s always wanted to travel, see the world. He�s got a real chance to be something and if he had gotten tied down with you, well, he�d never have see it. I love you both, and I�m telling you , Ethan, let him go. You need to get on with your life.� �Get on with my life! I�m doing just fine!� �No, you're not. I know what it is to be burden and right now, what with my Dad being the man he is and all the hurting Justin must be going through, no one can erase the past. Don�t take on the blame for things that are not of your making.� �Do you think I still stand chance? To get her back, I mean.� Lindsay says angrily, �Have you heard anything I just said?� �I heard and I�ll be a good boy.� �You need to be.� Lindsay breaks into a smile. �You need to focus in on what Ethan needs to survive in this fuck up ole world and give yourself a chance. Promise me you�ll put your life together and look after yourself!� �It�s hard, Linz.� �You don�t know what hard is! I think you both need some time apart just to see things, life clearly. Now promise you�ll give this to him the next time you see him.� �I promise.� �Good. Look, we ain�t having any luck this way. Lets slip up. I�ll go south, you go north.� �Okay. Meet up at the pond then?� �Sounds like a plan.� ...PRESENT Taking out a small package out of the box, he says, �Lindsay wanted you to have this.� Ethan hands it to Justin. �You never opened it?� �No, never.� �You must have been curious.� �It seemed the least I could do was save it for you.� Justin opens the package. There is a silver heart necklace and a note. �This was my mother�s locket. I thought it was lost.� Opening the locket. There are two baby pictures inside it. He hands the locket to Ethan to see. �Linz and me.� Justin begins to the note to himself then looks up at Ethan and reads it out loud. �Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I wish you and Ethan every happiest in the world. What is meant to be, is simply meant to be. Forgive me for being so disparately thoughtless and cruel. My love to you both. Your sis, Linz.� |