THE LEGACY OF MAD DOG
by Galen Hardesty
CHAPTER FOUR
THE FREMONT TRAIL
------&
"You girls hurry up! Wanda will be here any minute!" Helen called from the hallway. She stuck her head in Daria's room. "Daria, don't you have anything to wear that looks better than that?"
Daria gestured to her closet. "Well, there's my bridesmaid's dress..."
Helen made a face and tossed Daria her car keys. "Well, go on down and open up the car. We'll be there as soon as I can drag Quinn out."
-&
Wanda pulled up and parked in front of the Morgendorffer house as Daria was exiting the front door. Daria waved and beckoned to Wanda over to Helen's SUV.
"Thanks for coming with us, Wanda," Daria said as she unlocked the SUV's front passenger door. "Mom and Quinn should be down any second."
"My pleasure," Wanda smiled as she got in. "There wasn't any p.r. work for me to do at the office today, and this has got to be more interesting than the stuff I'd be stuck with otherwise, even without the barbecue thrown in."
The front door opened again and Helen emerged, followed by Quinn, hands held up in front of her like a freshly scrubbed surgeon waiting for gloves. As Helen locked the door, Quinn called out, "Daria, be a dear and open the door for me. My nails aren't dry yet."
I'd rather be a deer and open the seat of your pants with an antler, Daria thought, but opened the right rear door without comment. After Quinn was in, she walked around the car, opened the driver's door for Helen, and then took her place at the left rear.
-&
They'd reached the outskirts of Lawndale. Daria watched as the increasingly scattered orchards, vineyards, grain fields and horse paddocks slid by, and the countryside began to look more like what it was without irrigation... the high plains desert. They passed Happy Herb's Used Cars with its tattered banners hanging limp in the breezeless air and its perimeter fence decorated with tumbleweeds. Beyond, except for an occasional cleared patch or empty shed of unknown purpose, sagebrush reigned unchallenged out to the eastern horizon. Daria turned from the window toward her sister on the other side of the car.
"Quinn, remember last night when we pulled into Mad Dawg's parking lot, you remarked that you felt sort of at home there?"
"Yeah... but that changed when the fight started."
"No surprise there, but what about between the time we got out of the car and the fight?"
"Uh...what?"
"During that minute or so before you started swinging that pool cue, what did you feel?"
Quinn gave Daria a puzzled look at the strange question, but considered her answer carefully. "Well, it's strange, but... it was sort of like I was going to visit someone I hadn't seen in a long time, and... and I knew they'd be glad to see me."
Daria considered this. In the front seat, Helen and Wanda were silent. "Hmm. Did you have anyone in mind?" Daria asked.
"No. I wasn't thinking about anyone we'd seen in Mad Dawg's. It was more like if we were going to see Gramma Ruth, only I wasn't thinking of her either. Uh, why do you ask?"
Daria hesitated, then said, "You went into an altered state last night, and I'm curious about what brought it on."
Quinn looked alarmed. "Altered state? What do you mean, altered state?"
"Don't panic. I just mean that your mind shifted gears there, when you started to see red."
"Oh. Well, I was like really scared, and then you went all Bruce Lee and I was like wow, and then that creep pulled that pool cue and I was like, I'll kill 'im! I'll kill 'em all! I got mad." Quinn paused, then said, "Really mad."
"Uh-huh. Was there anything else?"
"No. Well, sort of. There was this feeling that I was, like, carrying on a family tradition, like I, uh, won a ribbon at the fair with Gramma Ruth's secret pickle recipe or something." Quinn pondered a minute, then shook her head. "No, that's dumb. It's more like the way Kevin's dad would feel when he scored a touchdown."
"I see. Interesting."
"Yeah. But the funny thing is, it's like it wasn't me that felt that way, it was someone else. Like maybe the person who was glad to see me."
Daria stared at Quinn. In the front seat, Helen's eyes widened, and Wanda's mouth opened but no sound came out. "Uh, could you expand on that?" Daria asked.
"Umm... it was right when that guy yelled "yeah!""
"I don't remember anyone yelling 'yeah!'" They were yelling 'ow!' and 'argh!' and you were making a noise like a catfight, but I don't remember a 'yeah!'.
"Well, I'm not surprised. You were pretty busy. It was just after I grabbed that piece of pool cue and clocked that first guy with it. Some guy yelled 'yeah!' and there was this really proud, satisfied feeling. Only it wasn't my feeling."
"Very interesting. Do you think the guy who yelled 'yeah' was the one who felt proud?"
"I don't know. I kinda think so."
"And did it seem like he was proud of you whacking this other guy with the pool cue?"
"Um, could have been, I guess. Or maybe just because I got into the fight. I don't know."
"Hmmm..."
"What do you think it means?"
Daria stared thoughtfully down at her boots for several seconds. I remember all the events of that fight in minute detail, she thought, and I saw Quinn grab that pool cue out of the corner of my eye in the mirror behind the bar, and no one yelled "yeah!" when she did. She shook her head. "Beats the heck out of me." She continued to stare unfocusedly at her boots and massage her chin meditatively.
Quinn waited what was for her a long time, hoping Daria would say more, then turned and looked out her window.
------&
Jake Morgendorffer gazed out over the high plains desert. The seemingly dead grass glowed golden in the early evening sunlight, and the distant hills were beginning to show off their strata of different-colored stone in that special way that could only be seen near dawn and sunset. Smiling, he took in a big lungful of clean desert air, and caught a whiff of burning mesquite.
Turning about, Jake surveyed the preparations for this evening's barbecue going forward outside Mad Dawg's. Smoke was rolling out of the big trailered grill with its sign advertising a local building supply store. The store owner's son and another man were preparing a bed of coals, and grilling some hot dogs to take the edge off some of the guests' hunger until the barbecued beef and pork were ready later. Tea, lemonade, soft drinks and cheap beer were on the house inside, and the slaw, potato salad, baked beans, french fries and chips were on the way from a caterer in town.
Jake took another gulp of his lemonade and grinned. This was going to be fun. It was costing him a sizeable chunk of change, but it would be great PR. He'd be a much higher profile personage in and around Fremont after tonight. And it should go a long way towards putting the kibosh on those stories about his daughters being teenage mutant ninja werewolves, or whatever.
Jake sighed. Damn shame, though. Jake was so proud of his girls, and he really wanted to brag on them. But then, he realized, he could brag on them with these people. They were here, they saw the whole thing. In fact, his schmoozing instinct said, better to start by letting them tell him the story. It was the media they needed to bamboozle, and small-town folk had an instinctive talent for doing that to city slickers, Jake knew. He'd just have to make sure they classed the Morgengorffers in the 'friends and neighbors' category, and not with the 'city slickers'. An exercise in positioning. Jake could handle that.
------&
Quinn reached into her faux pinto purse and pulled out her dual grit diamond nail file. She was about to start working on her left thumbnail when she remembered she'd already filed, buffed, and polished her nails today. Making a tiny frustrated noise, she resheathed the file, tossed it back into her purse, and turned to watch yet more scrub flow by the window.
Wearing the genuine gingham outfit Travis had bought for her with Jane's bail money... well, actually, that she'd bought when Travis was caught trying to shoplift it... seemingly so long ago, Quinn was a lonesome cowboy's dream. Her makeup and nail polish was all in coordinated shades from Kiki Muffington's Taos collection, her eyes were the clear blue of the western sky, and her fragrance was Desert Moon. Quinn was dressed to kill. Sadly, she lacked prey.
On the other side of the SUV's middle seat, Daria placed her bookmark and closed her book. Laying it in the center of the seat, she slid closer to the door and availed herself of the armrest. Daria found the sameness of the passing scene soothing, especially in the evening , like now.
Daria was also dressed to kill in her jacket of low-observable green over an earthtone shirt, black pleated skirt for maximum lower limb motility, and heavy-soled, battle-tested Corcoran mil spec jump boots. And in an inner jacket pocket, precision machined and polished of fine, high-tensile stainless alloy, the reassuring weight of her trusty SAK.
"Daria, do I look okay?" Quinn was feeling the lack of admirers.
Daria sighed and passed up an opportunity to needle her sister in favor of supporting the team. "You look stunning, Quinn. You're a vision of cowgirl loveliness, as you know better than I."
Quinn seemed slightly reassured. "How about my perfume? Do you think it goes with my outfit?"
Daria dutifully sniffed at her sister's offered wrist, and laid it on heavy. "It's perfect. It evokes the freedom of the great outdoors and the mystery of the night."
"Really? Thanks! Uh, Daria, are you wearing a fragrance?"
Daria extended a wrist toward Quinn. "Why, yes, I am." Behind the wheel, Helen's eyes widened.
Quinn sniffed, looked puzzled, sniffed again. "Well, it's, uhh.. different. I can't quite place it."
"I chose it to help me blend in rather than to attract, to get them to accept me as 'one of the boys'. It's targeted at the rugged, self-reliant outdoorsy type."
"An interesting strategy." Quinn mused. "Suits our purpose tonight. What's it called?"
Daria replied "Hoppe's Number Nine." Behind the wheel, Helen smirked ruefully and shook her head. Wanda grinned and choked back laughter. Quinn made a mental note to ask the perfume girl about it next time she went to Cashman's.
------&