“So what are you doing here?” Tara asked while depositing Kelly and Connor on the bump slide on the jungle gym. “You and Derek got together before he left, right?” Tara said with a smile.
Mesa nodded. It had been two weeks of nonstop sex, usually fueled by too many beers after endless late nights at the Current. “I said I’d follow him anywhere, which may have been a slight exaggeration.”
“The sex really wasn’t that good?” Tara asked.
Mesa shrugged. “About as good as my timing.”
“I know I’m not Einstein,” Tara said, “but I still don’t see the problem.”
“The day after Derek left, Chance began his campaign to get me to run the Messenger until Nan’s back on her feet. Now that I’m finally here, Derek wants me to come to Portland. He submitted my resume for a job that’s come open, and I fly in for an interview on Friday.”
“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Tara said.
“You’re telling me. He’s the hard-drinking, married-to-the-job type,” Mesa said. “But the job screams real potential. I’m just not sure how I’m going to explain the change in plans to Chance.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve kept your options open because you’ll never guess which old heartbreaker is back in town, and headed right this way.”
Mesa tried to ignore the slight increase of her heartbeat. Then she turned to look straight into the eyes of Hardy Jacobs.
“How’s she going?” he said to them both. Then to Mesa he murmured, “I heard you were back in town.”
Brown hair tipped blond, no doubt by a summer of biking all over southern Utah, framed Hardy’s youthful good looks and blue-green eyes. He looked like he belonged in one of those Ralph Lauren ads in Rolling Stone magazine.
“Not too bad,” Tara said. “How ‘bout yourself?” she said and nodded toward his foot.
“Ended up on the wrong side of some reckless slick-rocker who should have been walking instead of riding.” Hardy held up a bandaged left ankle. “Twisted it a bit.”
“Can I get either of you ladies a drink?” He held up an empty Mountain Dew can. “Time for another. Don’t you move,” he said to Mesa. “Be right back.”
Tara and Mesa watched him hobble toward the drinks tent, each waiting until he was out of hearing distance. Tara was the first to react.
“Oh my God. He is too smooth. He acts like he just saw you yesterday. How long has it been?”
“Your birthday party at the McQueen.” Christmas four years ago, the last time Mesa had been in Butte. Hardy had shown up halfway through the evening, fresh from a weekend’s work as a snowboard instructor at Big Sky. Tan and buff as ever, he looked half his age dressed in baggy ski pants and a long-sleeved tee shirt advertising some brand of snowboard. A stocking cap completed his ensemble, with errant wisps of hair peeking out at the ears and neck.
“Oh yeah, now I remember. Didn’t you hook up with him and take off to Big Sky? I was so bummed. I hardly saw you at all that Christmas.”
After a few quick beers, she and Hardy had drifted together, reminiscing about old times. One thing led to another. How could she blame herself when the next day she had gone to Big Sky and stayed the weekend at the cabin Hardy shared with two other ski bums? They had pledged seriously to see each other again soon. At least Mesa thought they were serious.
She had returned to her job at the Current with perma-grin. Then, in the next four years, she had received exactly two postcards from Hardy, who spent May through October working for an outfitter in southern Utah, and continued to winter in Big Sky.
“Good thing he never misses any free food, or it might be another four before you see him again.”
The two women stood next to the ladder of the slide, helping Kelly and Connor. “Tara, don’t get evil on me. We had a lot of good times together.”
“If you can call watching baseball all summer a good time.”
A decade ago, Hardy breathed baseball, playing shortstop for the Miners—Butte’s double A American Legion team. With a handful of other female fans, Mesa and Tara had spent the summer pretending to be devoted to the great American pastime.
“Excuse me, did you or did you not meet your husband while he was playing third base for the Helena Saints?” Mesa countered.
Those were the days when ball players and fans alike drank beer at the Vu Villa. The closest bar to the baseball field, the team, and their followers naturally gravitated to the Vu, drinking til midnight if they lost, til closing if they won.
Hardy’s older brother lived in an apartment on Park Street where they invariably crashed afterward. Mesa often snuck home in the pre-dawn, barely able to get a few hours’ sleep before work at the paper the next day. No easy feat in her grandmother’s creaky, old Victorian house.
She knew Hardy took a lot of grief from his teammates when he would walk her the six blocks home from the bar. But she had fond memories of those long summer evenings when they would walk hand in hand down Platinum Street, when neither had a care in the world.
* * *
“Jesus H. Christ, if it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Irita said. She sat back down next to Mesa, who had retreated to the war memorial when Tara had decided to take the twins home for their nap, and Hardy had gone off to talk baseball with an old teammate.
“Anything newsworthy?” Mesa asked, resisting the instinct to look for bad news.
“Not for the moment,” Irita said and picked up her cold hotdog.
“I had no idea you had grown children,” Mesa said with a smile, “and grandchildren, too?”
“Why, thank you,” Irita said. “Aren’t they adorable?”
Mesa looked over at the playground where she could still see the little girl being pushed in a swing by her Uncle Garrett, who was now accompanied by a blonde woman in blue jeans and a western shirt. She looked familiar, and though Mesa couldn’t remember her name, she felt reassured by the woman’s presence. That soldier needed some TLC.
“So, what’s the problem?” Mesa probed while Irita attacked the rest of her hotdog.
Irita sighed and looked around as if she wanted to be sure no one overheard. “Turns out Garrett was supposed to report back to his unit already. His sergeant called Kathy, as next of kin, this morning looking for him and to say if Garrett’s not back in 48 hours, he’ll be AWOL. So, naturally, she told his sergeant she didn’t know where Garrett was. She wasn’t going to rat out her own brother, at least not ’til she talked to him first.”
“What’s the brother say?” Mesa asked, marginally surprised to hear that Garrett was not looking forward to a return to duty.
“Well, that’s part of the problem. Apparently, he’s wound tighter than the inside of a golf ball. Hasn’t slept a wink lately and isn’t eating or talking much either.”
Mesa looked at Garrett, who did seem to take a more-than-passing interest in those around him—maybe a touch of paranoia. Of course, from the way the Army operated recently, people really were after him or would be shortly.
“What happens to somebody who goes AWOL these days?” Irita asked half out loud.
“I think they stopped shooting deserters after World War II,” Mesa said, trying not to sound sarcastic. She had a long enough association with the Air Force to understand the gravity of regulations, though her father had never broken any, at least not to her knowledge. “Maybe they send you back to the frontlines, although I’m not sure if they know where that is in the Middle East anymore. I think you have to be gone for a while before they consider it desertion.”
“I’m surprised to hear he’d pull a stunt like that,” Irita said. They were both watching him swinging his niece. “He’s not a bad guy. The kids idolize him. Before Afghanistan, he was talking about going into business for himself.
“I told Kathy I’d ask around. See what she can do to help him get back into the good graces of the Army.”
“What did he do in Afghanistan?” Mesa asked.
“Dr
ove a truck is all, as far as I know. But I did hear he had some buddies blown up by one of those roadside bombs a week after they were deployed. Kathy says he never talks about it. She heard about it from a friend who read it in the Billings Gazette.”
“Well, I think you better tell him the Army called.”
“That’s what I said, but Kathy’s afraid he might do something drastic.”
“Sounds like he already has.”
Chapter 6
That afternoon Mesa reviewed the proofs for Wednesday’s paper. She shook her head and wondered how she could be dumb enough, once again, to allow Chance to talk her into having him take her photograph. At least it was inside on the first page.
Irita had argued to put the whole story on the front page. “Hell’s bells,” she had said, “A new editor is a big damn deal. People in town need to know who she is, that she’s Butte connected, and that she’s not some Easterner trying to reinvent herself.”
Mesa wasn’t so sure what the photo conveyed. To get her to relax, Chance had posed her leaning on the office credenza. Too relaxed, Mesa thought. She had slouched instinctively so as not to accentuate her height, and now her bony shoulders stood out.
Her head was cocked just to the left and she sported one of those “I can’t believe you’re making me do this” smiles. Thank goodness, for a thick head of dark hair and the money she spent to get a decent haircut. At least she didn’t look like a pinhead.
Never mind the photo. The bottom line was that her appointment as editor was not a story she wanted to publicize . . . period—not with the Portland interview looming—but she didn’t have the heart to tell anybody on the first day. But Irita was right. The newspaper business these days, especially a local, neighborhood newspaper, relied on stability. You couldn’t have your readers wondering if the paper was going to be out on time. Or God forbid they should worry that the story about their nephew might get left out. The paper needed to reflect her arrival somehow.
Mesa scanned the piece, which sounded less like the usual bio and more like a sweet homecoming story—up-and-coming journalist leaves a thriving career in cutting-edge journalism. She definitely couldn’t leave that story line in. She would have to come up with something else.
Mesa sighed and flipped through the remaining pages of the paper. Micah had written a short piece about the challenge faced by fourth graders starting at a new school after the closure of their beloved Longfellow Elementary. The story hit at the heart of one of every mining town’s dilemmas. The ebb and flow of the population, along with the inevitable aging of those who stayed behind, meant the children had to toughen up. School closings were unavoidable.
Erin had contributed part two of the saga of the Butte Jazz Society, a group of well-meaning, musically inclined citizens. The society had hoped to preserve and renovate the now defunct Presbyterian Church across from the public library. A board member had hoodwinked them all and diverted their grant funds to cover gambling debts.
The building showcased a beautiful stained-glass rose window. Everybody had been heartened to see that it might be rescued. Once again, some outsider had made off with the loan money and robbed Butte of an opportunity to improve its community. So much for the good news.
Irita stuck her head in the door and interrupted Mesa’s musings. “On the first day, you don’t have to burn the midnight oil.” She smiled. “I’m assuming Mrs. Ducharme gave you a key?”
Mesa nodded and smiled back.
“Good, looks like you’re the last one out, so lock up, okay?”
Irita disappeared down the hall, leaving Mesa grinning and offering a mock salute. Her father would call Irita a piece of work, someone who did things her way and expected other people to oblige. But as far as Mesa was concerned, Irita did it in a charming way. Local Irish blarney had rubbed off on her.
In fact, Irita could probably run the Mining City Messenger, despite Chance’s attempts to make the job sound tough. That could be Mesa’s salvation. Irita would step up, at least until Nana came back.
Mesa’s mind began to spin in the stillness of the empty office. Maybe there was a way after all to extract herself from Butte and the Messenger without disappointing too many people.
She felt exhausted after her first day on the ground. She had moved enough in childhood and in college to know it would take a while to feel comfortable. But if she took the Portland job, then her transition was just beginning.
She looked at the family photograph on her grandmother’s credenza, a portrait of the Dawsons. Chance looking like Dad, handsome well-proportioned features sitting above high cheekbones and a strong chin. She stood next to him looking like their mother, except bantam size and freckled. They were all so lean and healthy then.
Mesa glanced at the desk calendar. It was September 7th, her mother’s birthday. She would have been how old? Mesa did the math, feeling slightly guilty that she didn’t know by heart.
In the weeks after her mother died, Mesa had struggled to imagine life without her. It still made her uncomfortable to think about that time, when her father had returned to his assignment in Germany, throwing himself back into his work to avoid showing his own grief.
Without giving much thought to it, she picked up her cell phone and called his office at the Pentagon. All she heard was an answering machine. Silly, she belittled herself; it was nearly eight o’clock in the evening on the East Coast. Even Colonel Nathaniel Dawson wouldn’t be in the office at that hour. She got the same response at his apartment in Crystal City. She left a simple message: “I’m at Nana’s. Miss you. Call me.”
* * *
Chance meandered through the token “after work” crowd in Muldoon’s. A perennial St. Patrick’s Day favorite, off-duty cops and other law enforcement types held the bar in high regard, mainly because the bartender always seemed to have a connection to the department. In this case, the current barkeep, Casey Van Zant, had a brother on the force.
Chance scanned a group of guys standing under the moose antlers and looked for Nick Philippoussis. He had promised to hook up after a quick trip to the mortuary to prepare one of the Elk Park traffic victims for cremation.
Chance wouldn’t describe himself as a barfly, but that didn’t mean he was uncomfortable in any of the local drinking establishments. Bars in Butte performed a peculiarly social function, more local and familiar than the bars Chance had frequented in eastern cities. Each place had its regulars who, on any given evening, appeared like clockwork.
He often wondered if this was a legacy of the days when miners frequently went from work to the bar and, sometimes, vice versa. In its heyday, Butte had one bar for every twenty miners. And after every mine accident, no doubt a silent tally of customers took place to see who, if any, were missing.
At this point in the day, Chance felt the need to quench his thirst. After an hour of knocking on doors in the neighborhood around Porphyry and Washington Streets, he had come away frustrated. Less than half the residents were even at home. The ones he had talked to had seen nothing of the plane crash, let alone anyone walking away from it. He told himself to be patient and to try again the next day when people would be back from their three-day weekend.
Nick was still nowhere to be seen. Surveying the crowd again, Chance didn’t see any off-duty cops either. He wasn’t likely to pick up any new information on or off the record. It looked like he would have to take potluck and check the word on the street. Otherwise, he would have to wait until tomorrow’s press briefing when with any luck the crash investigators might be forthcoming.
He sat at the bar and turned his attention to Casey. She was certainly the best looking among Butte’s many barmaids, and well informed particularly about police matters. But she had a prickly side, and even Chance had to work to get a smile out of her.
“What happened to your Red Sox this year?” he asked when she delivered a bottle of Moose Drool to him.
“They’re not my Red Sox anymore, and consequently I could care less wh
at happened to them.”
“After all these years, a devoted fan such as you?” Chance teased gently.
“I’ve turned over a new leaf on numerous fronts.”
Casey had broken up with her live-in, a guy named Mattie Gronauer. He was a washed-up forward with the Roughriders, Butte’s hockey team, who now worked construction. He had been working out of town in Bozeman, so one night she had driven over to surprise him. Instead, she found him doing the horizontal mambo with a casino girl from a joint over there. That was Mattie, always lazy. He never looked far for women, not that he had to.
“Mattie never seemed like your type,” Chance said quietly, not wanting to open their conversation to others. He knew he was taking a big risk. Casey might just tell him to shove it, or she might just appreciate the support. He was counting on the latter.
She stopped in front of him, wiped the bar, and said, “Thanks, Chance.” She looked at him with a sigh.
He could see the loneliness in her, the small lines around the corners of her eyes, evidence that she had not been sleeping well.
“Funny how you can get used to having a son-of-a-bitch around all the time,” she said.
“Never mind, what you gotta do is get back in the saddle,” Chance said and held an imaginary set of reins in front of him while he made a slight bucking motion on his barstool.
She broke into a smile, which he returned.
“What you up to yourself?” Casey asked. “I hear your sister’s back in town.”
News was traveling at its usual pace. “Yeah, she’s helping out at the paper til Nan gets back on her feet. She has me working this story about the plane crash.” Chance knew this wasn’t entirely true, but he liked promoting the idea that Mesa was in charge.
“Brock told me about it,” Casey said. “A stolen plane, no pilot, and a notorious but dead ex-con. One too few you, if you want my opinion.”
Chance drained his Moose Drool and said, “Leave it to Butte to attract the most infamous ex-fugitive in three decades.”
Casey shrugged and brought him another. “I hear the station is crawling with investigators from the plane manufacturer to the FAA. I’m sure they think they’ll have it all figured out in no time.” She glided toward the other end of the bar to customers clamoring for refills.