When the Women Come Out to Dance Read online

  "I see that. Listen, I told your daddy. He ought to be along pretty soon." Ben raised the window, nothing more to say, an d continued on toward town.

  Doing the one-eighty brought him to life again and got him thinking of Carl, what Carl would say to him: "There yo u go, you don't take abuse from those people. You can tell looking at 'em they're dirty. What you said's fine. Get off my property or I'll fuckin run you off." They looked serious enough to come after him, and h e couldn't help thinking this situation could be in a movie. Th e only thing different, he'd be the good guy for a change. An d it was real life.

  III.

  Preston Raincrow could trace his people back more than a hundred and sixty years: some of them from a Cherokee clan, the Keetoowah, and some from slaves owne d by the Creeks, black slaves brought all the way here fro m Georgia or Alabama during the Trail of Tears. His greatgrandma, Narcissa Raincrow, lost a child when she was sixteen--not having any business being with child--and Virgil Webster hired her as a wet nurse when Graciaplena died giving birth to Carl. Narcissa stayed on as Virgil's housekeeper, "becoming as close as a man and woman can be," Presto n would say, "till she died a few years ahead of old Mr.

  Webster."

  Preston and Ben played basketball three years for the Bulldogs, Ben looping the ball toward the basket, Preston finally growing tall enough to go up for the ball and stuff it. Afte r high school Preston went to work for Ben's granddad Carl i n the orchards and rode bulls every year in the Okmulgee Invitational, the all-black rodeo they held out at the Creek Nation arena, fourteen thousand in prize money. Ben told him he wa s too lanky for bulls and Preston switched to saddle broncs. I t was fun, but didn't offer a living. After a few years he gave u p working for Carl and joined the tribal police, became a Muskogee Nation Lighthorseman and drove around in a white Taurus with a gold star on the door.

  Ben called the Lighthorseman headquarters from the motel and was told Preston was no longer with them, now workin g for Russell Exterminating, killing bugs. Ben said, "You'r e kidding--Preston?" but didn't get a reason or any more information. He called the exterminators to learn Preston was out on his route. Ben left his name and the Shawnee Inn phon e number.

  Five-thirty, Preston Raincrow hadn't called.

  Ben was about to try him at home, say hi to Ophelia and find out where he might be. That was when Preston knocked o n the door and came in the room in his dark-green exterminato r uniform.

  The first word he said was "Tenkiller. Man, it does me good to see you," and wrapped his long arms around Ben.

  "How'd you find that out?"

  "What, calling yourself Tenkiller?" Now he stepped back to look Ben over. "I'd catch a glimpse of you in a movie fallin g off something, or getting beat up by the good guy, but I w ouldn't see your name there at the end? I don't know why I n ever wrote and asked. So one time I kept stopping the tap e to look good. I see 'Ben Tenkiller' there with the stuntme n and I know it's you."

  "I used it," Ben said, "to get the job on Dances with Wolves, told 'em I was Indian. But then once I was known in the business as Tenkiller I was stuck with it."

  "You name yourself after the lake?"

  "After the Cherokee with ten notches on his bow the lake was named after. What're you doing killing bugs?"

  "You mean 'stead of arresting drunk Indians? I stopped a white guy come driving away from the Elks, weaving all ove r the road, and I stood at attention while I caught hell for it.

  What Caucasians do is not the business of a Lighthorseman.

  The guy even sideswiped a car, said somebody cut him off, two A . M., not a soul on the street. I said fuck it. I said wha t am I doing working for the law? My great-grandma Narcissa?

  Her daddy, Johnson Raincrow, was bad as they come and got shot for it in the olden days. Shot while he's sleeping outsid e on the ground, the only way to take him."

  "You gonna turn outlaw?"

  "I was thinking you could get me work in the movies.

  Sonny Samson from here made it big. One Flew over the Cuckoo's? The man didn't even talk and was one of the stars."

  "You want a beer?"

  "I don't need any for a change, but yeah, gimme a cold one."

  Preston looked around the room of dark wood, the king-size bed, walked over to the balcony and looked out from the second floor. "Man, you could almost dive from here in the swimming pool. But don't try it, you hit your head on the concrete.

  It's too cold anyway, do any swimming."

  Ben got a couple of Buds from the cooler asking Preston how his family was doing. Preston said Ophelia took the kid s to her mama's when he quit the cops and stayed drunk for a while. He said, "It ain't hard to act stupid if you put you r mind to it. But two weeks of missing them was all I coul d take." He asked how Ben was doing and Ben told how Ki m was killed, falling off a ladder while he's slicing mushrooms , and Preston said, "Did it turn you stupid, get you thinkin g you're to blame?" Ben said he was handling it. He didn't mention the feeling of expectation, ready for somethin g new in his life. Or ask about Denise, if Preston had seen he r lately.

  He told about going out to the house and finding these people living there, the Grooms, Avery, Hazen and Brother , and what they'd pulled on Lydell, getting him to lease th e property.

  "Bring Lydell to court with you," Preston said. "The judge'll let you tear the lease up."

  They were seated at the table now, drinking their beer and smoking cigarettes. "They're bad guys," Ben said, "but I can't figure out what they're up to."

  "What made you suspect it, big ugly prison tats on their arms?"

  "They're not working the place," Ben said. "Letting it go to hell. The barns are closed up, the equipment's all outside i n the weather. They got cows in there eating the papershells of f the ground."

  "That's only criminal in the eyes of a pecan grower," Preston said. "What else you see?"

  "Nothing."

  "What you suppose are in the barns all closed up?"

  Ben said, "If I could get deputies to go out there to take a look--"

  Preston was shaking his head. "They have to know what they're looking for."

  "But they could go out with subpoenas, couldn't they? Get these guys to appear in court?"

  "Once you file a complaint."

  "But when's the court date, next year? I want 'em out of there now, so I can still hire the pecans picked. I gave 'em til l noon the day after tomorrow."

  Preston, starting to grin, said, "Or what?"

  "I'd run 'em off."

  "You told 'em that, uh? Man, you sound like old Carl.

  That's what he'd do. Come back from Hollywood and find squatters on his land? He'd go out there with a shotgun an d run 'em."

  "If he didn't shoot 'em," Ben said.

  Preston got up from the table and went to the phone on the desk. "Avery Grooms and Hazen. What's Brother's name?"

  "Haven't any idea. But that notebook right there has his license number in it."

  Preston dialed, waited a moment and said, "Eddie? Guess who I'm sitting here with having a beer. Our old point guard , man, Ben Webster." He nodded, quiet for a few moments, an d said, "I'll tell him that. Listen, what I need, somebody to ru n two guys name of Grooms, Avery and Hazen, on NCIC." He opened the notebook. "And a license number I'll give you , from Arkansas." Preston spelled the names, gave the number , spoke and listened for a while and said, "Yeah, if you can do i t now, I'll buy you three beers." He said to Ben, "Remembe r Eddie Chocote, the only freshman made the team our las t year? That was Eddie."

  Ben said, "Went on to play for Tulsa."

  "That's right, and he said you were the quickest guard he ever went down the floor with, and that's counting colleg e ball. But you rather ride bulls."

  "It paid," Ben said, "else I'd have to've sold the farm."

  "Why keep it? Other than you grew up there."

  Ben said, "I have to think about it."

  Eddie Chocote came on again and Preston talked to him for a few minutes takin
g notes, then came ove r to sit at the table saying, "Hazen have dog bite scars on hi s left arm?"

  "He didn't show me any."

  Preston looked at his sheet of notes.

  "Hazen Richard Grooms, May 12th, 1967. Served a hundred and thirty-two months in the Cummins Unit over there, Arkansas Department of Corrections. You want to guess wha t for?"

  "Tell me."

  "Theft of property and aggravated robbery. Hazen hijacked a highway hauler and they caught him with the tractor. Tha t was, let's see, twelve years ago."

  "What about the old man?"

  "Avery Louis Grooms, wears dentures, has 'Lucky Dog' tattooed on his left arm. D . O. B. August 5th, 1940. He went down for theft by receiving and was given ninety months i n their North Central Unit, the same time Hazen was in Cummins. There's a detainer on him for parole violation. All you do is tell the sheriff and Avery's gone." Ben said, "I don't know if that would settle it."

  "Maybe not," Preston said, "but it would spray their hive, get 'em active." He looked at his notes again. "Next piece o f business, the Ford pickup's registered to Jarrett Lloy d Grooms, so Eddie ran him on the crime computer. Date o f birth April 10th, 1975. He's six-four and weighs two-forty.

  That sound like Brother?"

  "Those're his dimensions. What'd he do?"

  "Went down for third-degree battery on a list of assault indictments, but all he got was a year in the Lonoke County jail." Preston Raincrow laid his notes on the table. He said , "Ben, these people are into hijacking trucks."

  "We know Hazen tried it," Ben said.

  "I see it as their criminal enterprise. I bet they keep those barns closed tight and locked."

  "I never got close enough to tell," Ben said.

  Preston took his time. He said, "Maybe I could look into it. Go out there, tell 'em I'm checking on Lyme disease for th e county."

  Ben said, "Or mad cow."

  It got Preston nodding his head. "Yeah, I like mad cow. Say I need to check the feed and the cow shit."

  "You think they'll believe you?"

  "I wear my exterminator uniform and bring Eddie Chocote along with his sidearm. Tell 'em this mad cow business coul d be a terrorist plot, like anthrax. Eddie's cool, he'll go along.

  We find stolen property, we tell the sheriff. We find a meth lab working--speed's big around here--we call the DEA.

  They'll go out there with marshals. But if we don't get to peek in the barns . . ." Preston shrugged. "You ever in a movi e had this kind of situation? Guys you think are bad won't come out of the house?"

  "I was one of the guys," Ben said. "I made a run for it and got shot."

  "You were good at dying."

  "We played guns enough when we were kids. Get shot and go, 'Unhhh, I'm hit,' and fall in the river." Ben thought o f what he'd say next, hesitated and then said it. "I almost go t shot for real one time, taking a midnight dip in the countr y club pool."

  "And they put you in jail--I remember that. You were with some girl we went to school with."

  "Denise Patterson," Ben said.

  "That's right, she's Denise Allen now, married twice. The first time to some country singer came through with a sho w and Denise ran after him. The second time to a guy in Tuls a with oil money left over from the '80s. They got divorced an d she come back home. Her folks moved to Hawai-ya and le t her have the big house on Seminole Avenue she grew up in.

  That's where she's at now. Yeah, Denise Allen, in the real estate business, sells farms, sells lake property--"

  "How do you know all that?"

  "Ophelia does her cleaning. She says Ms. Allen isn't like any other ladies she works for."

  "I believe it," Ben said. "One time she wanted me to take pictures of her bare naked, she's sixteen years old, and sen d 'em to Playboy."

  "You keep any?" "I never took the pictures. I was hardshell Baptist at tha t time," Ben said, "account of Carl had found Jesus. I was reading scripture so I wouldn't go to Hell. I'd go skinny-dipping with Denise and leave my underwear on."

  "I remember in school," Preston said, "some guys called her Denise the piece. They said she'd let you screw her long a s you were Caucasian. You still Baptist?"

  Ben said, "More Unitarian if anything," thinking of Kim.

  Thinking of her for the first time in hours.

  Preston said, "Yeah, Ophelia told her me and you write to each other and she's always asking what you're doing."

  "Denise?"

  "Who we talking about? I was you, man, I'd give her a call."

  IV.

  The way Denise met Hazen Grooms: one night in that dark, smoky bar at the Best Western, months ago, h e asked her to have a drink with him. He was scruffy, but ther e was something about his pose she liked, his cool, sleepy eyes , and shrugged, why not, and said she'd have a Margarita. He told her he was a cattleman. Denise said, "You mean yo u shovel cow shit?" Hazen said he speculated on cattle, oil an d land development--looking like he might have five bucks i n his jeans. He asked her with his sleepy Jack Nicholson look , "What's a hot number like you doing in Okmulgee?" Denis e kept a straight face and laid her OK Realty card on the bar. I f this cowboy was into land development he could put up o r shut up. Hazen said, "Hmmm," studying the card. He said h e had run into a relative of his operated a pecan farm and wa s talking to him about working shares. He asked Denise if sh e could put together a lease agreement. When he told her it wa s the Webster property out in the Deep Fork bottom Denise almost came off her bar stool.

  Oh, really?

  Since high school she had not stopped thinking of Ben Webster. Not every day, but a lot; in fact more than ever whil e she was married to those two jerks. She was sure this lease dea l would put her in touch with him again. They'd talk about i t on the phone and she'd say, "By the way, I'm coming out t o the Coast soon." Ben could even come here to look over hi s tenants and she'd act grown-up for a change, try to be mor e subtle than she was dreaming up ways to seduce him. Like th e skinny-dipping. Like asking him to take nude pictures of her.

  Like doing a Sharon Stone, sitting with her knees apart in a miniskirt. Nothing worked. Finally she put the question t o him in a soft voice, "Ben, are you gay? It's okay if you are." I t wasn't, but that's what she said. He looked surprised and tol d her no, of course not. She said, "Then why don't you want t o do it?" He said, " 'Cause it's a sin." It was that fucking Carl's born-again influence. She wondered if it was still a sin no w that he lived in Hollywood and was in movies, an Indian, i n Dances with Wolves, but which one? She caught glimpses o f him in other pictures, once she learned which ones he was in.

  He looked great, even getting shot.

  She was dying to see him. He'd called and was coming to the house and she wasn't sure what to wear, if she should g o smart or hot.

  First Hazen calling with "Guess who just came by." No, "Guess who jes come by here," and knew right awa y who he meant--without knowing why she knew it--and fel t a twitch in her stomach, or even lower. Hazen said he wa s calling because now he wanted to buy the property an d needed his offering drawn up before the movie star went bac k to Hollywood, California. He always called Ben the movi e star, getting it from Lydell, who hadn't seen a movie sinc e Gone with the Wind and assumed any picture Ben said he wa s in he must've been the star.

  "Since you and him are old school buddies," Hazen said, "I b et he'd want you to be in on it and get a nice commission , huh?"

  It sounded fishy. Where would he get the money for the down payment, sell his repainted Cadillac?

  Hazen said, "I'll find out where he's staying and let you know. See, then you can invite him over, say you got an offe r for his property you want to talk to him about." Hazen said , "I can come by your house tonight with the figures. Yo u gonna be home?"

  "Tomorrow at the office," Denise said, and wouldn't let him talk her out of it.

  She had never allowed him in the house. Several times they had drinks and dinner together because she had nothing to d o and was curious about him and woul
d listen to Hazen tel l how he'd once rustled cattle with a semi-trailer and had don e some prison time in his wild youth, but never associated wit h the perverts or hogs inside and had kept himself clean, Haze n eating his dinner with his cowboy hat on. Hazen wanted he r to know he'd had an outlaw streak in him but now was a straight-shooter looking for the girl of his dreams. If she eve r told anybody she'd add, "You have to hear him say it."

  Finally, the last time they went out together and he took her home, he started putting the moves on her in his car, th e backseat full of engine parts and trash, Hazen kissing an d feeling, the straight-shooter smelling of cigarettes, tequil a and Aqua Velva, breathing hard through his nose till Denis e shut him down with a quiet tone of voice.

  She said, "Hazen, please don't," and thought of telling him she was a lesbian, but couldn't bring herself to say the word.

  So she said, "I'm not used to a man like you. Twice I was talked into getting married, not giving myself time to realiz e what I was doing, and both times I made an awful mistake.

  You'll just have to be patient with me."

  She didn't have to tell him to get his hand off her tit. He grumbled something and withdrew it. So she didn't have t o pull the SIG Sauer .380 she kept in her handbag and shove i t under his nose.

  It was time to dress for Ben.

  The way it turned out it didn't matter what she was wearing.

  Denise opened the door. Ben came in. They looked at each other, neither one saying a word. They went into each other's arms for a hug after all these years, kissing each other on th e cheek, on the mouth, on the mouth hard, and ended up on th e oriental that covered the living-room floor, scrambling to ge t enough of their clothes off, Ben's windbreaker, his boots-GCo g oddamn it, a pair of the newer ones, hard to pull off--hi s jeans, Denise her cotton sweater, no bra but the panties beneath the skirt, and love was made in a fever that lasted only a few minutes after twenty years of it never having happened. On the floor side by side looking at each other, both a t peace, smiling a little, she said, "Well . . . how've you been?"

  He said, "You look better than ever."

  She said, "I like your hair like that."