Chapter 21

So ... just in case you didn’t get the memo ... I was ... am ... pissed. What was everybody grousing about? I got the women home safe. So it was a little scary ... so we only slid into the creek once ... big deal ... the boulder we high centered on stopped us ... and it was just a little waterfall ... not much more than 10 feet ... okay ... fifteen ... maybe.

There used to be a road through that swampy meadow ... I was following the stagecoach wheel ruts. We were fine. Of course ... the last stagecoach ran in 1880 ... what’s a hundred years?

One thing for sure ... I’m going back for the wheel. It isn’t every day a guy finds an abandoned stagecoach wheel. If I hadn’t been so loaded down with fussy passengers ... it was just a little mud.

After the conclusion of the skunk episode and I was allowed in the house ... and car ... and the Avocado ... the Spur, the Two Bit, Main Street. You get the idea ... civilization accepted me again ... not necessarily with open arms ... and people didn’t sniff before a hug ... not much anyway ... I set a humane trap for the family of Mephitis mephitis and released them in the wild ... one at a time.

It was the least I could do for the critters.

They were responsible for my divorce.

Yes!

Wendy went back to Denver. I hated to see her go ... but I loved watching her walk away.

She went back to Denver ... and took the other girls with her. Visions of romance and happily ever-after were lost in the memory of the long wet slide down the grassy mountainside and the sudden stop on the boulder that ... just possibly ... saved their lives. I was buckled up ... they didn’t have that option. No belts in back.

A thought: (While I’m picking up the wood spoked wheel, I need to get my pry bar and sledgehammer from the creek bed.)

Since Karen took my Gibson I need another electric. I need to go to town. I walked from the living room through the box storage to the kitchen. On the way by I noticed Karen had left her door open ... I peeked. Yup ... adult girls room. The keyboard let me know that she took her Vega to school.

I picked up her Jeep keys and thought.

Hmmm. Repercussions. Not a good idea, Hairy.

I put them back and grabbed the Dodge keys. I passed Sally coming in as I was going out.

“I can do the coal, Sally,” I said.

“Nope ... she pays me to do it and I’m saving up for college,” she said.

“What’s your bank account deposit number?”

“NO!” she said, “I’ll do it.

“And quit leaving money laying around. I give it to Karen.”

Heck.

She grabbed the buckets and I headed out to the Dodge. I fired her up and opened a window.

(Am I ever going to get the smell of urine out of the seats? Stop at Western Auto and see what they have.)

Bobby sniffed me before he let me in the door. The only vacant seat was next to Judge Armbruster ... and she sniffed me before she let me sit!

I pushed the nearly clean enough to stack and reuse plate away from me and belched.

“Thank you,” said Bobby.

“Best biscuits and gravy ever, Bobby. How’s the band?”