Coyote Hill - rough draft - part 1

Coyote Hill

Ms. Hunter Ash

Working title

08/20/15

Jake

Jake Carter leaned on a shovel and pulled out a bandana and wiped his face of the ever present sweat and looked around.

He almost moaned. He had been digging most of the morning and it was approaching noon and it didn’t feel like he had made much progress at all.

He put the bandana away and dropped the shovel. With a sigh he bent down and picked up a “grave marker” and replaced it in the now-open slot. Jake added some of the ground back around the marker and a couple of the hardpan rocks he had dug up for stability.

It was something he had done four times before that morning.

This was taking longer than he had anticipated, he thought.

Jake smiled widely when the back door to the main building opened and Laura stepped out with a tall glass of iced tea. Before moving to the deep Southwest Jake had never really liked iced tea or hot tea for that matter but after moving to the desert, he was learning to love the thirst quenching beverage. He was also careful to balance that with plenty of water throughout the day.

A person could dehydrate very damn quickly in this place.

“Thanks!” he said as his wife handed him the iced tea. Without a word both of them moved in under the eaves of an old wooden building on the side where the sun couldn’t reach at the moment.

You didn’t stand in the sun very long if you could help it.

“Slow going,” Laura commented and Jake nodded.

“I’ve got five done,” he said. “Only seven more to go.”

He could see her almost flinch from the irritation in his tone. He felt the irritation going from minor to medium.

“Do we really have to have 13 graves?” Laura asked, a frown crossing her otherwise beautiful face.

Well, Jake thought it was beautiful. He knew his friends thought Laura was nice looking but she wasn’t a supermodel nor was she built like an overly endowed Pamela Anderson at her….peak of popularity. Jake didn’t care, Laura was beautiful with beautiful green eyes, auburn hair and a well-balanced, defined face. No, she wasn’t a supermodel but she wasn’t one of the wallflowers at a frat party who had been dragged there by well-meaning friends.

Besides two families running a restaurant, it was a given that the kids would marry, right? It made business sense and the marriage worked and there was only some minor irritations at times.

“Come on, hon,” Jake said. “The tourist love that touch the old man said. Besides, the graves aren’t real so there’s no bad luck.”

“There’s thirteen things everywhere here,” Laura complained.

“I didn’t know you were so superstitious,” Jake commented and took a long pull at the iced tea.

“I wasn’t until we moved here,” Laura said as they glanced around the desert “attraction”. Rumored to be the desert hide out of a semi-famous gunslinger and the “Boot Hill” in the area of bad men, the place had taken in its fair share of small money on Route 66 in the 1960s and 70s. The 80s and 90s had been a time of breaking even and then came the millennium. Things had gone downhill and the major interstate freeways weren’t the only thing that had badly damaged the tourist trap, bad management, frequent turnover of owners and bad feelings with a local tribe of Indians had helped send the attraction into the red very quickly.

Now people were curious and anxious to drive the old fabled highway roaming from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. Most were in their 40s-60s, anxious to relieve part of their youth and also included those who wanted to pretend they had been there. All of them wanted to grab part of the energy of the old and treasured highway.

Jake thought they were chasing a brass ring that was always going to be just out of reach. You couldn’t “recapture” something like that. All you could do would be to add the weakly found energy to your own memories. There was nothing from the past that you could touch really, Jake believed. The dead were dead and whatever energy, vibes, magic or mojo that had existed on Route 66 was long gone and the efforts to revive it were like trying to raise a corpse into a zombie, you sure as hell weren’t going to get the original person back, you were going to get just the shell.

The ironic part? He and Laura were trying to entice those tourists to stop and drop a few dollars into their pockets by offering some of the “magic” that had been Route 66.

A tourist trap that offered up a museum of relics from the Old West from branding irons to mannequins dressed in western and Indian clothing. There was the “graveyard” with colorful names on the tombstones and even more colorful stories on plaques next to the graves. There was a barn where a local blacksmith worked his trade for a cut of whatever profit the items he made on the site that the tourists liked. He also made items for sale to locals like branding irons and horseshoes mostly.

“We were crazy,” Laura said softly.

Jake looked at his wife and he was relieved to see she didn’t appear to be angry or regretful. He’d describe her expression as…rueful.

“Well, it had been a wild idea,” Jake admitted. For some unknown reason both he and Laura had been enchanted with the dilapidated, dusty old place when they had stopped on a whim the year before. They had settled onto a covered patio with sandwiches, chips and sodas they had purchased from the nearby tiny town and they had talked with the owner.

Jake almost chuckled to himself. The old man was like something out of time. He was the classic old west old man, or any old man in small towns with his dark green work pants, button up shirt showing very faint stains that the washing machine had lost a valiant fight against. Gray beard, eyebrows and hair (all needing a trim) and the fact that he looked…grizzled.

Jake and Laura had listened with interest to the history of the place, the truth about the graves and some of the “antiques” and the fact that the old man wanted out. He had a daughter up in Idaho and he was done with the desert.

It turned out that Jake and Laura were tired of the winters of the north and were becoming “snow birds”, those from the north traveling to the south, west and south west to escape the winters filled with snow, ice and back breaking work.

Most snowbirds were retirees but Jake and Laura worked in the family business that Jake wanted to run but that wasn't likely for another 30 years if either father had a say in things, damnit! The couple had worked out vacation times with members of the family, they’d be gone in the winter and would work the restaurant the other three seasons.

Other than flying home for Christmas, of course.

They had started out in California in a rented small RV, more like a camper but slightly more comfortable and they had hit the roads to Route 66.

Jake smirked at himself. Yep, they had been part of that group of people trying to catch magic on the old highway. It had worked in many ways, he and Laura were closer than ever and the stress of being part of running a restaurant had faded with the wave of their hands as they had boarded a plane in Michigan in a light snowfall to land in Los Angeles and be hit with warm weather in late November.

After touring most of California and Nevada, they had dropped back down into California at Barstow and then headed out on Route 66. Venturing off at Oklahoma, they had dropped to explore the south, ending at the Keys off of Florida where their coats and sweats were going to gather a lot of dust.

Even after settling into the beach life both Jake and Laura had found themselves talking about the tourist trap and the old man.

Jake had surprised them both by suggesting they check it out. They could have the place open in the winter when the tourists were around and closed in the summer when living there was impossible. If the business was profitable enough they could think of hiring someone to run the place in the summer.

Laura had laughed but then had grown thoughtful.

A year later their family was covering for them at the restaurant during the last of the summer months while the young couple fixed the place up and settled in after buying the place, driving the old man to the airport in a major city 3 hours away and changing the locks on the buildings, except the barn and blacksmith toolshed, of course.

“G-d, we’re nuts,” Laura said.

“We are but it’s an adventure,” Jake said. “We know Route 66 will never be what it was but the numbers are good for a small profit if we run it right. With the internet we can expand the site’s footprint with tourists and we get to be warm in the winter months while our families are freezing.”

Laura nodded. The desert was warm even in the winter and the old weather reports showed there were occasions when they might get snow but nowhere near had the amounts Michigan received.

“I’m still not dressing up in a bonnet and long skirts,” Laura said firmly.

“Only when we rent out the place for weddings, parties, proms and old west re-enactor weekends,” Jake said. He was actually looking forward to wearing period clothing. He wouldn’t dress up like a gunslinger or farmer. As a sheriff maybe. As an afterthought or even with no real thought at all, he pulled his phone out of its case on his belt and quickly checked to see if there were any new messages. It was set to vibrate and play a tune when he got calls and messages but you never could tell.

“I think you pay more attention to that thing than to anything else,” Laura complained.

“Yeah? Well I miss my brother and I like getting the stupid little joke things he sends. What else is bothering you?”

“I just wish the local Native Americans would talk to us,” Laura commented as she reached for his empty glass. “We’ve offered to remove the mannequin and donate the Indian clothing back to them.”

“They still want that old grave marker gone,” Jake said. “The old man said it was the one thing that every tourist seemed to love, a cowardly gunslinger Indian with a curse on the place.”

“A made up story that insults Native Americans,” Laura pointed out.

“Oh to hell with Political Correctness,” Jake grumbled as he put his straw hat back on. “Next they’d want us to close up totally because in the old days white men fought with Indians and we shouldn’t focus on that. Or they could lend a hand to some groups in the South that want that rebel flag eliminated from history totally.”

Laura laughed softly and kissed her husband’s cheek. “Don’t stay out here too long, it’s getting much too hot for us Yankees.”

Jake nodded and picked up the shovel. They had to get ready for the tourists coming through and that meant resetting the “tombstones” and plaques, replacing some boards in the barn and out buildings, clearing the sewer lines that fed into a septic tank. Jake made a mental note to get some stuff to shock the tank.

It was probably item number 89 of the TO DO list.

And it bothered him that Laura's laugh sounded forced and she practically oozed reluctance. Why? She had wanted to do this just as much as he had! Now she was reluctant? Because of Indians?

They had argued over some things over the years, of course, what couple didn't? He chuckled to himself as he remembered how she had tried to threaten him after he had thrown a cup across the room. She had even threatened to leave if he ever aimed anything at her or actually hit her.

As if she'd do anything.

# # # #

Jake sat down at the same picnic table they had eaten at over a year before. He and Laura were sharing a bowl of popcorn and both wanted to be outside now that it was twilight and the heat was beginning to cool down.

Laura sat down opposite him and reached for a handful of the buttery goodness. “How much did you get done?”

“I got two more done before it got too hot,” Jake said. “I moved inside and worked on dusting the museum pieces, the big ones like the old plow, printing machine and stuff. Oh hey, I brought in the paper for Indian Joe, it’s getting faded, could you type up a new one to fit in the holder?”

“Indian Joe,” Laura said with a frown and took the faded piece of paper. “Indian Joe, one of the fastest guns in the territory and one of the most notorious cowards. Indian Joe robbed stagecoaches, trains and two banks in his short career. Born of a white man and Indian squaw, Indian Joe grew up hating his mixed blood and hating white people. He was quick and deadly with the pistol. He was known to shoot people even when they weren’t armed or resisting. Once, when a posse was closing in on him and his gang, Indian Joe, using his wily Indian ways, slipped away in the dark, leaving his men to be captured. He was also well known as a back shooter and card cheat. He met his end when he was finally captured by a brave lawman and was hung. He was crying and screaming on his way to the gallows and swore he’d never rest until his name was cleared of being a coward.”

Laura set the paper down. “Jake, this is really offensive and you know it. Wily Indian ways? Mixed blood, white people? If the story were true or if it wasn’t about a Native American I wouldn’t protest but I can see why the Native American hate this thing.”

“Would it be less racist if it was a white guy?”

“Yes, it wouldn’t even be mentioned,” Laura said, nodding her head. “Let me rewrite it.”

“Okay, just don’t take out the Indian part,” Jake said. “Tourist love it.”

“Oh all right,” Laura said softly. “I’m taking out the word ‘squaw.”

“Sure,” Jake said as he glanced over the story. “I bet old Indian Joe would be rolling in his grave if he were real. Did you paint the public bathroom like you were going to?”

“Yes, took me all day,” Laura said. “Instead of that g-d-awful salmon pink we now have Western like colors and clean walls. Let’s hope they stay that way.”

“I don’t think any teens traveling with their parents are going to mark up the walls in this small of a place,” Jake said. “I’ll finish up the graves in the morning and give you a hand with the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” Laura said as she looked out over the desert and the purples and reds that mingled with the tans and oranges. “Sure is different than Michigan.”

“Amen,” Jake said. “You missing home?”

“And the snow? Nope,” Laura said with a smile. “I just hope this works. I never in a million years thought I’d own a Wild West tourist trap complete with Boot Hill. Thirteen graves, 12 of them inside the fence and one outside.”

“Only white men were buried in most Boot Hills,” Jake said. “That’s what the old man said.”

“The font of wisdom,” Laura muttered and looked up at the small mound and the “graves”. Prominent outside the fence was one tombstone.

“You ready to go in? Your favorite show will be on in 10 minutes.”

“Yeah,” Laura said, tearing her eyes away from the graves. Jake had been doing a good job, she reflected as they stood up and he grabbed the bowl of popcorn. Instead of just planting the tombstones he was making small mounds for each grave, not large ones like a new burial but small ones. It gave the graveyard an eerie feeling.

She smiled at her husband and walked inside ahead of him.

Laura didn’t stop to look at several photos on the wall, in their personal space out of sight from the tourist areas. Family photos, wedding photos, some photos of she and Jake on their honeymoon and travels and some of friends from highschool and college.

Laura never stopped to look at the one of her best friend in highschool.

Jake really hated that picture and any talk about Brittany. He also hated the fact that about once a year detectives came around asking the same questions they had asked in the summer between their junior and senior year. The summer Brittany had been found beaten to death with a tire iron.

The fact that Laura and Jake had been broken up at the time and that he had dated Brittany for a nano-second kept detectives coming back year in and out. There were few clues and Jake’s family had supplied an alibi but still the detectives kept coming.

She knew he hated being accused in their tones of voice and questions and wondered if their move to the Southwest was also a means of leaving that behind them.

# # # #