I

“Wyatt!” Three knocks. She groaned.

She was spilled across the back of the couch, her dress riding up around her thighs. She had puked on the seat cushions, and apparently pissed herself at some point. Her head was pounding, her stomache was twisting, and her mouth felt like something had died in it.

“Wyatt, open the door! Dammit woman, open this door!”

“It’s not locked, Marshall. Open it your own self.” Obedient to the last, the door swung open and there was Marshall, framed in sun and foaming at the mouth. He stomped in and froze when he realized whose backside was tipped over the sofa. He hastily slammed the door shut behind him and leaned against it, suddenly desperate to be on its far side.

“Wyatt, your car’s in a tree.” She glared blearily over her shoulder.

“What?”

“A tree. The one in your neighbor’s yard.” She rolled off the couch, avoiding the vomit with skill born of long practice, and staggered toward the curtained window.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“You’ll be arrested.”

“Like hell are you arresting me.”

“Your car’s in a tree.”

“And your wife’s in Reno. Got a point? Or a cigarette?” She threw a blanket over the mess on the sofa and collapsed into a vibrantly purple chair. Marsshall sighed heavily as he threw her the lighter and the mostly empty pack of Texas Stars from the dish on the side table.

“Wyatt, your car is in a tree. How am I supposed to explain this? I mean, when it was your car in the ditch, that was one thing. But the neighbor’s tree? What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Bonzai.” She grinned a shark’s smile, flicking ash for the rapidly disappearing cigarette.

“Bonzai?”

“Bonzai. Those little Oriental trees, you know? Like classy Chia Pets? Bonzai trees.”

“What do Chia Pets have to do with you parking your car in a tree?”

“The tree’s to big. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have parked my car in it. I was making a statement.”

“How about I just call a tow truck and you go to work?” Marshall always talked like that, making things into questions. He was to nervy, like a cat that just knows there’s a dog somewhere nearby.

“I’m to hungover to work.”

“You’re going to have to pay for the tow truck, and I don’t think you can afford it.”

“Then I’ll go to work. Great job I have, Marshall. It’s noon, and I still have time for breakfast.”

“And a shower.” She glared. “Please?”

Prologue

The bar is dark and crowded, but around her is a ring of emptiness. She watches her martini. All around her, people crush into each other, trying to pass at a safe distance. She stares down the martini, a microcosmic effigy of some long-ago cowboy, trigger finger twitching as he/she considers their opponent. A wailing note slices through the tension, and a tumbleweed bounces past. Her heavily manicured fingers tighten on the delicate glass stem. The audience is held breathless, suspended in the ‘maybe’ of his/her pause.

The cowboy draws.

Her rings flash in the low light.

The black hat falls in a dusty heap.

The empty martini glass is slammed onto the table.

Itchy trigger finger.

~*~

He hadn’t expected her to be so heavy. She’d been bragging to her girlfriends just the other day about losing three pounds. Stupid fat cow.

The bag ripped on a rock as he dragged it to the edge of the outlook and her hand fell out; a bleached spider on the black earth. He scrambled to the low stone railing, chest heaving as he gathered her weight in his arms and lifted her. She teetered on the rail for a long moment before plummeting off the cliff. He stood listening for a long time.

 Listening to the echos of her landing.