Ronnie rolled over in her bed and hit the alarm. Damn, it's too early. She hated walking in to work, the mile or so would feel like ten today after last night. No matter what thoughts popped into her head about what her romp with Mac meant, part of her was glad it happened. All those months of wondering what he would be like and now she knew. As she crawled out of bed a pang of pain shot through her inner thigh. Mac certainly had been rough. That just means he wanted you. She let that thought take over so she didn't feel used by this man she had practically thrown herself at.
Showered and dressed, Ronnie went for her bag and realized she had left it in Mac's truck. He'd be in to give it back to her, she was sure. Time to go. As she was taking her familiar walk toward the Luna Mesa, she had to step out on to the shoulder when a local Garfield County sheriff sped by her in the direction she had just come. Harley. He never was too bright. Soon after, Sheriff Pratt's cruiser went by with almost the same amount of speed. Must be something exciting, she thought.
Walter smiled at Ronnie as she walked in to her second home. "How was the walk in, honey?"
"Fine, Walter. You see Pratt or Harley this morning?" Ronnie asked as she prepped her area and put on her apron.
"Not this morning. Why?"
"They were headed out toward the direction of my place, on the old highway this morning like they couldn't get there fast enough."
"Probably just some idiot tourist got himself dehydrated." Walter snickered at his own comment making Ronnie laugh in turn. She liked having moments like that with him. It wasn't often he acted goofy, but that was part of the reason she looked up to him. Walter smiled his crazy grin at her and went back about his business.
Most of the day had gone by and still no Mac. Every time someone would come in, Ronnie would eagerly glance at the door then feel stupid for doing so. Close to the end of her shift, Harley came walking in looking like he could use a drink. Walter looked at Ronnie as if to say, please talk to him so I don't have to.
Harley was not entirely bad to look at, but Ronnie hated talking to him. When he would get excited or nervous he would stutter, sometimes so badly she wanted to laugh. It was never because she wanted to make fun of him or be mean; she just thought it was funny. Ronnie was sure she would either piss him off our hurt his feelings and she didn't want to experience either. She walked over to him with a shy smile to take his order.
"Hey, Harley. What can I get for you tonight? You off duty?"
He let out a heavy sigh and sat down at the bar. "Just a beer, Ronnie. Yeah, I'm off duty. It has just been a rough day."
Ronnie didn't really want to have a conversation with him, but her curiosity was piqued about where he and Pratt had been driving to. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought better about asking, but she had ventured in to new territory the night before with Mac and was feeling a bit more confidence in her ability to deal with things. What harm could it do? "Where were you and the Sheriff heading off to this morning in such a hurry? Is that why you feel so rough?"
Walter handed Harley a beer and went back to what he was previously doing. Harley nodded at him and tipped the bottle in his direction before practically slamming the whole thing in one drink. Ronnie was sure the look she gave him reflected a bit of concern and as Harley pulled the bottle away from his mouth, he coughed a little - beer spittle landing on his chin and uniform shirt. "Damn tourist got themselves lost or something last night. W-We were out there all day looking for them, but couldn't find them. Just an abandoned vehicle and a b-b-broken cell ph-ph-phone." he finally spit out.
Ronnie looked over at Walter, who seemed interested in the fact that tourists had gone missing. She could tell he was listening to the conversation - even as he served other customers. "Tourists go missing all the time here though, don't they? They Canyon can be deceiving to someone who's never been out there."
"That's the t-t-truth, Ronnie. Guess Sheriff Pratt has some heat on this one because when w-we ran the plates, turns out one of the guys is the son of some State Senator from up around Ogden." He took the last swig of his beer and turned his attention to Walter. "You get any tourists in here yesterday, Walter?"
The look on Walter's face would have made Ronnie like to forget she had ever asked the question, but then it faded in to a smile. His accent thick at times, he grumbled back, "We always get the occasional tourist. Would you be asking about a specific type?" He looked aggravated to even be answering questions.
Ronnie could tell that Harley was not going to continue the conversation. He looked uncomfortable. Harley never was one to be assertive. If not for the fact that Pratt was his uncle, he likely never would have landed a job as a Garfield County Sheriff. Certainly he would never make it back in Salt Lake City. "It's okay, Walter. I think the Sheriff will be in at some point with pictures. He is trying to keep the trouble out of the Canyon, so hopefully the k-kid will show up soon and we can be done with it." He threw a few bucks on the bar and nodded at Ronnie, placing his hat back on his head as he exited the Luna Mesa. Ronnie looked over at Walter who gave no reaction and went back to drying his drinking glasses.
Mac started to stir in his bed. As he forced his eyes open he felt he was drenched in sweat. The damn generator must have tripped or ran out of gas because the air was not moving in the house and everything was dark. As he started to sit and stretch out any aches and pains from the previous night of mischief, he realized there was someone knocking on his door. "Just a damn minute!" He tried to yell, but his mouth was dry and he really wasn't as coherent as he should be. The words came out as no more than whisper.
As the pounding on the door continued, he could hear a familiar voice calling out his name. "Fuck." he said quietly. Walter. Not the person he wanted to see, not that he really wanted to see anyone. Mac stood and stretched out his arms attempting to get the tingling feeling to stop in his fingertips. "I said just a damn minute! I'm comin', I'm comin'!" This time loud enough for Walter to hear. Or at least Mac thought he heard because the pounding stopped. Running his fingers through his dusty hair, he shuffled out to the front door and threw the bolt. "Fuck, Walter, what do you want?" He looked at the old man like he was taunting him.
Walter stepped inside, not waiting to be invited and even though Mac stepped out of the way he shot Walter a look of annoyance at the invasion of his space. "Sure, come right on in, old man."
"You best watch your tone with me boy." the look in Walter's eyes, seen only by the light of the moon, making Mac stand a little straighter.
There were few things in this world that made Mac change his tune. A run in with the law, even the local rubes, and he usually played innocent. He could be charming if he wanted to, even with his meth-rotted grin and the scabs and scars from years of picking at things that didn't exist. Though he had spent many a drunken night sleeping it off in the local jail, he had never been convicted of anything. Not even assault. Every public fight he'd been in was rendered as a misunderstanding and no one had ever pressed charges. Sometimes he attributed that to the fact that the local users in town knew he was the one cooking the shit up and they wanted what he had. Mac was not afraid to turn away a sale. For him, it was never about the money. He never saw a great deal of it anyway. Enough to keep him in the things he wanted, but he never wanted much. The only thing he ever really wanted was a place of his own. He didn't want to live in the shadow of his father and pompous little half-brother anymore. And even though his half-brother never lived with him and his dad, he knew that little prick was his dad's favorite. Devon was the apple of his father's eye. He was the product of a relationship that made Mac's stomach turn because his father had professed his love toward the mother and she ended up running off with some other blow hard to LA because her family didn't approve of his Hispanic origins.
That was the age when Mac decided love was for suckers. Mac was around 10 years old when Devon was born. Up to that point, there were few things that bothered him. School and other kids, but he loved coming home, playing with all the dogs, taking them on long walks out in the desert and finding new and interesting ways to destroy shit. He was a rowdy boy, like most young boys. He also loved his father, and even though his dad could be harsh and sometimes downright cruel he always sought to please him. Part of him wanted his dad to be proud of him. That was until Devon came along. Their father pampered Devon and gave him all the things he would never let Mac have. Not that Mac ever cared about stuff, it was the attention he craved and in the end - Devon got it all. Every time Mac would try and show his father he was the better son, he would be shown otherwise in word and deed by this man they shared. He would grow to hate Devon, even though he only ever saw him during summer breaks when his mom would want to vacation out at the Canyon. The reality was she was coming out to bang the man she left. The man whose child she was raising. The man standing in Mac's living room giving him the evil eye for his attitude.
"Sorry, Pop. You just woke me up. Tied one on good last night, ya know?"
"Why aren't your fucking lights on? And why is it so damned not in here?" Walter fussed, waving his chubby hands around.
Mac looked at his dad, deciding not to say anything else and went to see why the generator had shut off. After fussing with it for a few minutes the familiar rumble came on and the lamps on the outside of the property kicked on illuminating the yard. It wasn't much of a yard. Like every other house out here, it was just dirt and bushes. Though Mac had a wicked collection of half finished projects laying around collecting rust and wasps nests from lack of progress. He walked back into his house and closed the door. "What's up, Pop? To what do I owe this pleasure?" Mac was trying to keep an even tone, even though part of him was hoping he would piss his dad off.
Walter looked around Mac's place. It was void of most furniture that houses had. He had very few possessions, and a lot of the stuff he used in the 'lab' was stored here. The one thing that was in abundance was artwork. If you wanted to call it that. Mac had a habit that started at a young age of drawing things repetitively. Like he was trying to perfect one or two images, though he never seemed to master any of them. There were drawings covering nearly every wall of spiders or bugs and a mans face. Mac liked to say he was spewing hatred. Walter hated the drawings, and usually made it clear that it was just another thing that made Mac the lesser son.
"Those assholes from the bar last night, they went missing. You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?" Walter spoke sternly. "The last thing I need is some state police coming in to the Canyon and investigating because you couldn't control yourself."
Mac started to feel nervous. He wanted to draw something to get his head around the answer he wanted to give. His finger started moving in the air by his side, drawing a spider in him mind and trying to focus. "I didn't do shit. And why would the state police get involved in some missing person case anyway?"
"Because one of those fools was the son of a state senator. I mean it Mac, if you did anything you better make fucking sure there is nothing - and I mean NOTHING - that leads it back to either of us. You ruin the operation and I will kill you myself. You always were a worthless fuck up." Walters words were the only ones that ever cut Mac.
"Well, like I said, Pop. I didn't do shit. You got nothin' to worry about. There ain't no evidence of nothing, because there ain't nothin' to find." Mac looked in his fathers eyes, knowing full well that Walter knew what Mac had done. "Anything else?"
"Not tonight. But maybe you should lay low for a few days, hopefully Pratt and Harley will find them boys dehydrated out in desert and we can go about our lives. Business as usual. Got it?" Walter always spoke so sternly to him.
"Sure thing, Pop. Whatever you say."
Walter left, leaving Mac feeling deflated. He walked in to his bedroom and rummaged around for one of the tins he kept stashed at the top of his closet. After rolling a joint, he grabbed a beer and sat down at his drawing table. Tonight he would try and improve upon 'the man spewing hatred'. Intently he scribbled, fading deeper and deeper in to the zone where nothing else mattered but what he was doing. One line at a time, he felt farther and farther away from the man that made him feel so small. Lay low for a few days. Not a bad idea.