Chapter 1. THE STRANGER
I saw the dust he raised before I saw anything else.
We lived at the end of a long dirt road and we didn’t get much traffic up our way except during elk season, which wouldn’t start yet for another couple of months. I was at the front gate by the time his truck pulled up. Which the dogs, burrowing under the barbed-wire fence, immediately circled, like warriors around a wagon train.
The pup Mongo put his floppy paws on the door of the driver’s side and started to stick his head inside the window.
And Mongo suddenly found his head squeezed shut tight.
“Don’t hurt that dog, Mister!,” I yelled, just as Mongo freed his big head with a shrill squeal of surprise.
The window came down as I got the dogs settled. Loud music blared from within. “And if I die before I wake, feed Jake,” was playing, one of my favorites. The driver leaned into view and I found myself almost paralyzed. He looked like something out of an made-for-television mini-series, a red kerchief tied around his neck, handsome like a movie star with a wide smile full of white teeth against a tan chiseled jaw. High cheekbones, clean shaven except for a bold moustache flecked with grey. Mirror-lensed sunglasses shielded the man’s eyes.
I felt threatened.
“Howdy,” he said in a surprisingly pleasant voice. “I hear you’re looking for a hand.”
“That’s true,” I answered, not knowing what else to say.
One of the dogs, Diva, growled low to break the silence.
“What’s your name, young man?” the stranger asked me.
“Zachariah.”
“Well, Zachariah, are you going to open that gate or should we just sit here a spell?”
I wasn’t supposed to let anybody onto the property without permission, but I knew we were looking for some help around the farm. I was still wondering what to do, when the driver’s side door opened and the man stepped out. He was taller than I had imagined.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I warned. “These dogs don’t much like strangers.” All barking up a racket now, Mongo, Diva and Andy, as soon as the truck door opened, they had the man surrounded, pinned against the vehicle.
Suddenly, the animals quieted. As if hypnotized. They sniffed him all over and started to wag their tails like he was a long lost friend. Another member of the pack.
“Good dogs. Good boys.” He bent down and let all three of them lick his face. Mongo knocked the man’s glasses off, so I could see his eyes, and I wasn’t afraid. Everything about him seemed hard, but even a kid could see the gentleness in those eyes. They were a startling pale purple color and somehow reassuring.
“Oh, so puppy wants to play.”
He lifted Mongo up like a cheap stuffed animal and hugged him to his chest. Mongo was amazed.
I was amazed myself.
“I guess it’ll be okay,” I said, as I reached for the key to the padlock. I put the lock on top of the gate post just as the stranger gently deposited the puppy onto the ground.
In the excitement, I wasn’t as careful as I should’ve been, and I jostled the green ceramic frog Mom had put on the post – “to keep evil spirits away,” she’d said. The suddenly unlucky little guardian was plummeting to the gravel, and I was already thinking about how Mom would be so disappointed with me for breaking the darn thing, when the stranger’s hand shot out and plucked the frog out of mid-air. He gave the frog a curious but brief glance, then held it out to me.
I put the frog back and opened the gate.
He had remained sitting in his truck until I got down to the parking area between the house and the barn. The dogs were already circling the vehicle excitedly. When the stranger saw I was alongside, he climbed out.
The first thing I noticed were his clothes. He was dressed completely in black, except for the kerchief, but there was nothing dark about him. He was wearing a wool baseball cap with the picture of a wolf’s head on the front and a leather jacket, soft, probably made out of deerskin, decorated with fringe across the chest and down the sleeves. His shirt, with pewter buttons on a full bib, looked like something a cavalry officer wore in the days of the Old West. His jeans were also made of leather and tucked into heavy tanker-style boots which rode halfway up to his knees. He looked overdressed for the time of year.
I could see a long knife hanging in a sheath from his belt. Nothing he wore looked new, it didn’t look old either. Like the man himself. Everything about his clothing seemed uniquely well suited to his person, a part of who he was. Nothing trendy. I started to imagine myself in much the same outfit.
Rhino came out of the barn, quietly closing the barn door behind him.
The stranger spun around at a sound I didn’t hear. He relaxed when he saw Rhino approaching.
“My name is Barker Ajax,” he announced, holding out his hand for Rhino to shake.
“Yeah.”
Rhino let the man’s hand hang there too long, I thought, before offering his own. The stranger didn’t seem to notice.
“Rhino. What can I do you for?”
“As I told young Zachariah here, I heard at the feed store in town you might be looking for some help.”
“Could be.”
“I’m a fair hand.”
Rhino took his time sizing up the stranger, taking his measure.
“You mind if I let my partner out of the truck? He could probably use a bit of a run.”
I hadn’t even noticed. There was a dog sitting in the passenger’s seat.
“Go right ahead,” Rhino answered, “although Diva thinks she’s the lead bitch around here.”
Just then Mom came out of the house.
Diva followed the stranger as he walked around to the other side of the truck and opened the door. His dog didn’t jump out immediately, like he was waiting to be invited.
“Gang, out,” the man commanded.
And a giant dog leaped right over Diva and raced across the lawn. He was black and beautiful. Diva, Mongo and Andy gave chase, yapping, but they couldn’t catch him.
“Ma’am,” Barker acknowledged Mom, taking off his cap, a full mane of dark curly hair cascading to his shoulders.
My mother’s round face lights up when she smiles and she was smiling now.
“Hiawatha Moscowitz.”
“Call me Barker. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
She took his hand and held it. Mom was staring at the stranger with that look she used on me when she thought I might have been getting into trouble. Like she was trying to get inside his head.
Barker Ajax didn’t seem worried. She had his complete attention. Heck, even I was aware of her beauty. She had a face someone else’s son would love. My mother was, well, voluptuous – I think that’s the word – with a narrow waist and a generous chest, a baby’s soft, unwrinkled skin and a not quite untangled mass of shimmering red curls. Like a maraschino cherry on a vanilla sundae.
As Mom concluded her inspection, the stranger turned to watch the four dogs frolic in the fields. He took the opportunity to conduct an examination of his own.
There wasn’t much to see, but what there was we were proud of. Mom wouldn’t have it any other way.
When we’d bought the place, the twenty acre triangle – half cleared, half woodland – was without improvements except for a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style manufactured home sitting on a concrete slab. Mom and Rhino reshingled the roof before the first winter and covered up the unsightly aluminum siding with cedar shakes. A greenhouse was soon tacked onto the south side for Mom’s herbs. Rhino had added a small porch on the front and a wide, covered deck in the back with a panoramic view of the valley below and in the distance the snow-capped peak of Mt. Hood. In the center of the deck was a hot tub Mom had insisted upon; she’d put the tub in herself.
Rhino didn’t like to soak.
The two of them had built the pole barn all by themselves, as well as the carport. They’d built sheds for the goats and the donkeys. Barb-wired fencing secured the property’s boundaries and separated the house from the stock’s pasture, through which a year-round stream flowed. Mom’s vegetable and flower garden, she loved to feel the rich warm dirt, dominated the spit of land behind the house that would someday be our lawn.
Rhino didn’t like yardwork.
I had helped all I could, which wasn’t much. I was too little then, although I’m much bigger than that now. I always seemed to have plenty to do.
Rhino was examining the stranger’s truck.
I have to admit the truck was something special. Vibrant red, with a glistening white top. One of those classic Ford four-wheelers built long before I was born, maintained so well, it could’ve rolled off the showroom floor late this morning.
“You run a 351 in this?,” Rhino asked, as if to get the man’s attention away from Mother as much as to get a response.
“Good choice. But, no,” he answered. “‘Shane’ – that’s what I call her – came with a 302 V-eight. Actually, she’s a Baja Bronco, one of 600 made special by a legendary racer name of Bill Stroppe. A 1973 factory hot rod of sorts.”
“Is that right.” Rhino tried hard to sound unimpressed.
“She’s got a four-barrel carb, a C4 automatic transmission with a column-mounted shifter, Dana 44 front axle, a Ford 9-inch rear axle, power steering, dual shocks on all four corners, fender flares wrapped around 33 inches of rubber, a frame-mounted rollcage and a tow hitch.”
You could tell by the way he clicked off the truck’s features, the man was trying to be friendly. Maybe just a little proud, too.
Like I said, he was tallish. Rangy. With particularly large hands and generous feet. Well-built but lean, sleek and slender, so he seemed almost delicate beside the hulking bulk of Rhino. He moved with a natural grace that suggested a wiry endurance, a dancer’s flexibility, an acrobat’s agility. Effortless power and balance. Smooth and unhurried.
Nothing seemed to escape the man’s notice. He appeared inherently attentive, habitually alert. His high forehead tracked back and forth, around and behind, like a man who was used to traveling through dangerous territory, ever vigilant for a possible ambush or sneak attack. Kinda spooky actually, the way he managed to be so at ease, yet so tense at the same time.
The dogs were still running around the yard. The stranger whistled once, long and loud, and a moment later his dark sidekick was seated at his feet. Mongo, Diva and Andy followed shortly, flopping down in a small semi-circle of exhaustion.
The stranger pulled a large plastic container from his truck and gave his dog a drink of water.
“Will you be staying for dinner, Barker?,” Mother asked.
“I certainly hope so.”
Rhino didn’t say a word.
“Oh, please,” I begged.
“Sure,” Rhino said with a shrug. “Stay for dinner.”
“I’d be much obliged.”