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  High Desert Barbecue

  A Tale of Suspense, Pyromania

  and Sexual Tension

  by J.D. Tuccille

  High Desert Barbecue

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright (c) 2011 by Jerome D. Tuccille

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise).

  Stubbed Toe Press

  Cornville, Arizona

  Photo Credits:

  Cover photo: Bureau of Land Management/California

  For Wendy, who had no idea what she was

  in for when she married a writer.

  A note to my readers

  You know this, but I’ll tell you anyway, since somebody, somewhere, probably didn’t get the memo. This is a novel. A work of fiction. The author has played fast and loose with settings, geography and time frames—particularly with regard to Sycamore Canyon—for the purpose of telling an entertaining yarn. Please don’t attempt to use this novel as a hiking guide.

  Chapter 1

  Rollo sat under the cover of the Ponderosa pines framing a steep ridge line, gnawing a piece of venison jerky and washing it down with sips of warm water from a dusty, fabric-covered canteen. He watched the Forest Service workers below. He watched them warily, back in the shade of the trees where he was lost in shadow beneath the windbent branches. Rollo didn’t get along well with the khaki-shirted federal employees. Forest Service personnel had but recently destroyed his house, stolen his truck and sent him fleeing into the forest.

  Of course, Rollo’s house was a hand-built shack on federal land and his truck was an unregistered beater he’d salvaged from a dump. But he’d really liked that little shack, what with its views off Arizona’s Mogollon Rim to Sycamore Canyon below and its mostly waterproof roof to fend off the monsoon rains, rare though they were during drought years. The shack he could build again—he’d done it before. But the truck was a real loss. Now he’d have to hoof it into town for supplies and to visit his friends. Williams was a long walk with a full pack, and Flagstaff was out of the question until he had new wheels.

  Such is the life of a modern mountain man. Or social drop-out. Or loser. Rollo’s ex-wife definitely would have gone with “loser.” But, then again, thought Rollo, Toni hated the outdoors and couldn’t build a campfire for shit.

  Rising on slightly creaky knees—45 was just around the corner and Rollo hadn’t had time to properly stretch before donning his heavy backpack and sprinting (well, lurching) from the marauding rangers—he finished his water, capped the canteen, and looked around.

  That’s when he noticed the Forest Service Chevy Blazer parked at the mouth of a dry wash, out-of-sight of the cluster of workers clearing the debris that had recently been his hovel-with-a-view.

  “I’ll betcha … I’ll just betcha those dumbasses left the keys in the ignition,” Rollo muttered out loud.

  He started walking, slowly but eagerly, through the brush, descending to the wash and the concealed Blazer. The high, dry grass rustled as he passed, and pine cones crunched softly underfoot. Within a few minutes, he stood by the open window of the Blazer, and let out a low whoop—audible only to him and to a curious prairie dog watching from the edge of its hidey hole.

  “It’s only fair,” Rollo said to himself as he tossed his pack across the cab into the shotgun seat, slipped behind the wheel and took hold of the key. “They took my truck. Now I take theirs.”

  He paused and glanced back in the direction of the hidden Forest Service workers. He snorted, loudly. Then he shifted the Blazer into neutral, released the emergency brake, stepped out, and began pushing against the open driver’s door. The truck barely budged, then eased, slowly, onto the jeep road that had brought it to this spot. Silently, Rollo guided the truck around a bend and down a flat stretch of road.

  Glancing over his shoulder, the straining man saw a thin column of smoke rise into the sky.

  “Bastards can’t just wreck my house; they have to burn it, too,” he grumbled. Then he hopped behind the wheel and started the engine. For a few minutes he kept his speed down to minimize dust and engine noise. Then, as his old homesite shrank in the rearview mirror, he jammed on the accelerator and sped his new vehicle down the dirt road in the direction of the Interstate. A high column of dust kicked up behind, mingling with the smoky haze gathering in the air.

  Rollo howled with laughter.

  An hour later, the Forest Service truck sat in the driveway of a small house on the north side of Flagstaff. Rollo forced the flimsy latch on the back door, leaving a small spray of splinters projecting from the doorframe, grabbed a cold beer from the refrigerator, and planted himself on the sofa.

  Which is where the homeowner found him upon returning from the market.

  Chapter 2

  When Scott entered his house through his front door—his unlocked front door—he saw a stocky, middle-aged man on his sofa. The man had long salt-and-pepper hair tucked under a wide-brimmed canvas hat, and wore a ratty plaid shirt with greasy corduroy shorts. A pair of heavy hiking boots rested on the floor, the feet they’d formerly confined stretched across the coffee table.

  The room smelled strongly of unwashed … well … everything.

  “The least you could do is open a window, Rollo.”

  “I’m on the lam, Scott. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.”

  Scott crossed the living room, passing through the archway into the kitchen where he deposited the plastic shopping bag from the supermarket on the counter. Then he helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator.

  “On the lam? Does anybody even say that anymore?”

  The back door into the kitchen hung slightly open. Scott poked at the spray of splinters probing into the room.

  “Hey, you know the front door was unlocked, right?”

  “Unlocked? Shit.” A muffled shuffling noise, like that of greasy fabric rubbing against upholstery, came from the living room. “Sorry. I’ll fix that lock.”

  “Anyway,” Scott said, returning to the living room “if you wanted to keep a low profile, you probably shouldn’t have parked the Forest Service truck in my driveway.”

  “Too obvious, is it?”

  “Just a bit.”

  Scott perched himself on the lodge-pole pine sofa arm at the opposite end from Rollo. He fanned his hand at the older man.

  Rollo pointedly looked away, and took another long sip of beer.

  “That truck, Rollo. Is that something I’m likely to have to explain to anybody who sees it parked by my house?”

  Rollo shrugged.

  “Well, move it then.”

  “OK.”

  Scott took a deep breath, and then wrinkled his nose at his mistake.

  “All right, I’ll bite. Why are you on the lam?”

  “Those khaki-shirted bastards burned my house and stole my truck.”

  Scott squinted.

  “Are you talking about that shack of yours and the rolling deathtrap you got from the junkyard?”

  “That’s an unkind way of putting it. Anyway, I’m without a house at the moment, though I have new wheels.”

  “That would be the Forest Service truck.”

  Rollo brandished an index finger, wagging it back and forth so rapidly it seemed to have no bones. “Hey, they owe me a vehicle.”

  “It hardly seems a fair trade, seeing as how this truck has functioning brakes and the like.” Scott shook his head. “Anyway, what do you mean they burned your house?”

  “I saw it burning a
s I made my getaway.” Rollo paused. “At least, I think they did. They tore my house down and I saw smoke rising from the spot where the rangers were vandalizing my stuff.”

  “Huh. That’s the place overlooking Sycamore Canyon, right?”

  “Yep, the same one you saw on your last visit.”

  “That’s a hell of a place to set a fire. It’s full of brush and the place is bone dry—it will be until we get some decent rain.”

  Rollo snorted. “Rangers are a bunch of dipshits. They don’t know from dry.”

  Scott nodded. While they were a mixed bunch, he’d met some boneheads in the local Forest Service ranks, and he could think of a few who made Rollo look like a paragon of sensible life choices.

  “So you came here because …”

  “Any chance I can stay here tonight?”

  Scott closed one eye and pursed his lips.

  “Oh come on.”

  “Yeah, you can stay. But you have to shower and wash your clothes before you touch anything else—and I mean anything else. And the truck goes.”

  “Done.”

  “And you have to clear out for a while. Lani is coming over and she’s not your number-one fan.”

  Rollo shrugged. Then he rose from the sofa and drained his beer.

  “I’ll be back later. I have a few chores to run.”

  “Murphy’s raised their beer prices. And that escort service you like got busted.”

  “Shit.” Rollo clenched a fist. “Cities are only good for bars and hookers. What’s the point of visiting ‘em if they’re gonna make it a hassle?”

  “You’ll figure something out.”

  “I guess. See ya later.”

  Rollo walked toward the front door.

  “Don’t forget to get that truck out of my driveway.”

  Chapter 3

  With Rollo gone, Scott took his half-finished beer down the corridor to the second bedroom, which was outfitted as an office. Without sitting, he flicked his computer mouse with the tip of his finger to get rid of the screen saver. The gesture revealed a long line of new, unread e-mail messages and he groaned. He quickly peeled off his light nylon jacket and short-sleeved, button-down shirt, and kicked off his shoes. That left him wearing denim shorts, sunglasses and a straw cowboy hat.

  He opened the first e-mail—and groaned louder than before. “A meeting?”

  Then he opened the attached file on a second e-mail and started printing. As the printer spit pages, he double-clicked the media software on his laptop, and started shuffling randomly through its full load of music. Toby Keith’s “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight” filled the room.

  When ten pages were stacked in the printer tray, with more on the way, he grabbed the pile of papers, shoved them in the fax machine resting on the file cabinet by the window, punched the button for a pre-set number, and sent an electronic stream of numbers and pie charts flowing through the telephone lines.

  The phone rang.

  Scott retrieved headphones from under the piles of paper on his desk, all held in place by a Colt Mark IV Series 80 .45-caliber pistol used as a paper weight, and plugged them into the laptop, cutting Toby off in mid-proposition. He donned the headphones under his hat, leaving his right ear uncovered, and then answered the phone.

  “Scott here.”

  “Hey Scott, it’s Brian here in the office, with Jennifer, Kathy, Todd and Justin.”

  “Hey guys!”

  He was answered by a round of “heys.”

  “How’s Arizona treating you?”

  “Oh, you know how it is. Another lousy day in paradise.” Scott danced slowly around the room, more or less in rhythm with the music in his headphones.

  “See any moose recently?”

  “Elk, Todd. We have elk here. I almost got mugged by one the other day.”

  Scott shot a glance toward the fax machine, which was slowly digesting the last page in the tray.

  “Hey, did you guys get my Web-traffic report?”

  “No,” Brian answered. “I was going to ask you about that. Did you send it through?”

  The fax machine emitted a low buzz as it sent the last bits of data streaming off to New York.

  “Yep. If it’s not in your hands, it should be sitting on your fax machine. The news is good, by the way. Traffic is up and the new small-business section seems to be a big draw.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  Scott recognized Todd’s voice.

  “Are we really still emailing the data off to Scott, to print out and fax back to us?”

  The telephone speaker remained silent for a long moment as Scott promenaded across his office to the opening strains of a 1980s-era Pogues song.

  “Uh oh,” he mouthed to himself.

  “Well … yeah,” Brian answered. “The networking site is his baby. Scott is responsible for submitting all the reports for his area of responsibility.”

  “But that raises another issue,” Kathy said.

  You bitch, Scott thought. I’m being ambushed.

  “What exactly is Scott’s area of responsibility?”

  “I’m editor of the networking and development site,” Scott answered, slowing his fancy footwork so exertion wouldn’t show in his voice.

  “But what do you edit?” Kathy asked. “Didn’t we out-source all of our content something like two years ago?”

  “Well … he does write a column,” Brian chimed in. “You write a column, don’t you, Scott?”

  “Every week!”

  “And what about the newsletter?” Brian asked, grasping at a slender straw. Brian was Scott’s manager and had signed off on his continued employment through repeated reviews.

  “The newsletters are all automated,” Todd said. “They even send themselves.”

  A long pause ensued. Scott resigned himself to the inevitable

  “What about managing staff?” The voice sounded like Justin.

  “I’ll take this one,” Scott said, hoping to get the painful process done with. “Nope, we let go of the last of my staff sometime last year. That was Cathleen. Nice girl. We ran out of stuff for her to do.”

  “Then what is it we’re paying you for?”

  Scott thought long and hard, keeping his feet in motion to the music as he did so. He banged his shin against a fully loaded backpack perched atop a pile of camping gear that occupied the corner of his office, winced, and then turned his attention back to the conversation.

  “Well, aside from the column, you’re pretty much paying me to print out e-mails you send me and fax ‘em back to you.”

  Another long pause ensued.

  “So, Todd, out of curiosity … What is it that you do?”

  Chapter 4

  Fortunately for Lani’s peace of mind, she had no idea that her boyfriend had taken in a lodger. A woman of passionately held beliefs wrapped up in a petite blonde package, Lani passionately believed that Rollo was a lazy bum and at least a low-grade menace to the public good. The fact that the subject of her disdain wouldn’t necessarily dispute her description didn’t improve her outlook one bit.

  She also passionately loved Scott, so she tolerated his itinerant friend—barely.

  And she also liked kids. Which was good, since she spent a lot of time with them as a teacher.

  “Hey Miss Roche!”

  Lani peeled her eyes from the box of feminine pads in her hand. Regular or slender, she pondered. There were so many choices. She looked around for the source of the greeting. Nobody was visible up the aisle of the supermarket, and the large, dark-skinned woman in the other direction was facing away.

  “Miss Roche!”

  She looked down.

  “How’s it goin’, Miss Roche?”

  “Oh, Ozzie. How are you?” She tossed the box—regular it was—over her shoulder into the shopping cart.

  “He’s in summer school, Miss Roche.” The large woman she’d noticed before wheeled a cart that groaned under its load. “He don’t do so well in all his classes like he d
oes in yours.” She shrugged. “He don’t do so well in summer school either.”

  Lani grimaced sympathetically.

  “I’m sorry about that Mrs. Begay. I wish I could help, but there’s not much I can do about summer school.”

  Ozzie tugged at Lani’s shirt.

  “They don’t let me cut class like you do.”

  “Ummm … Let’s call it independent study, Ozzie. Not cutting class.”

  “Yeah. They just make me sit there. It’s boring. I wish I could cut like I did in your class—”

  “Independent study, Ozzie.”

  “Yeah, but Mom says she’ll whup me if I do.”

  “I don’t care what you call it,” Mrs. Begay said. “You let him go in the forest and he reads books about the outdoors.”

  “Call of the Wild!” Ozzie shouted.

  “Yeah. And you finished it. But the other teachers, they make him sit at a desk and he doesn’t read anything. I know what works. But I don’t want him held back.”

  Lani smiled.

  “I don’t blame you. He won’t get through school doing his own thing, I’m sorry to say. The schools want everybody learning the same way, even if it doesn’t work for all the kids. I try to give my own students a little more space.”

  “Yeah. I wish there was more like you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Not wanting to spend the entire day chatting with a former student’s mother, Lani dropped her eyes to her shopping list. She hoped she wasn’t being too rude, but she had chores to do.

  “Hey.”

  Lani’s eyes rose—and froze. The box of feminine pads she’d tossed in her cart was being roughly examined from between Mrs. Begay’s large, calloused hands.

  “You use these? Don’t they hurt?”

  Lani bent her lips into a weak smile.

  Chapter 5

  When Lani arrived at Scott’s house, Champ, as usual, surged ahead, straining at the leash.