Page 28 of Misadventures Of A Single Mom
“Looked like it to me,” I replied. “He was completely wigged out.”
“My next-door neighbor’s son was arrested on Monday for possession of meth.”
“Really? Mrs. Tanner’s son?” Mrs. Tanner taught at the university. English professor, if I remembered correctly. Her son had to be in his twenties and obviously up to no good. God, I hoped my kids wouldn’t turn to drugs and blow all the hard work I’d been doing.
“He worked at one of hot springs, I can’t remember which one, and someone discovered him selling in the men’s locker room.”
“A hot spring?” That was surprising. Natural hot springs were all over Montana, several within an hour’s drive of Bozeman. One was just down the road from Kelly’s house so she went often with the kids. So did lots of other families. Most have four or five pools, each with a different temperature ranging from average pool water to just-before-scalding. They always smelled faintly of rotten eggs.
“It’s weird there were two meth incidents within a few days. It’s getting a little too close to home for me,” Kelly said.
With seven kids, I couldn’t blame her.
“Oh, I forgot. When Ty came to get Bobby’s arm out of the patio umbrella stand, he said they went on a few meth calls. He told me today a meth lab burned down in Churchill. And, there’s something big going on but they don’t know what it is yet.” I poured apple juice into plastic cups and called for the boys to come in from the backyard to get their snack.
“In about ten years we’re going to be dodging all kinds of teenage crap without having to deal with drugs, too.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle drugs, but teenage s…e…x, no problem,” I spelled out as I handed Bobby his cup.
“Yeah, we’ll just make them sit down with Goldie for The Talk. I guarantee she’ll embarrass them into staying virgins until they’re thirty.”
“Don’t forget Paul. He’ll probably take them to watch a teenager give birth and scare the hell out of them.”
“Ah, you’ve got the best family.”
Every year in July,the Gallatin County Fair is held at the Fairgrounds, a few blocks north of Main. Contests gave blue ribbons in all kinds of categories. Horses, cows, chickens, rabbits, sheep, pigs. Quilts, pies and jams. Displays for each category were spread across various buildings of the Fairgrounds. The buildings reminded me of the old National Guard stations, built decades ago with vintage drab gray sheet metal siding. They were all shaped the same, long and narrow. Some were specifically for animals with pens running the length of the building in four long rows with two aisles to walk. Thefloors were dirt. The smells were intense and bad. In the chicken and rabbit building, it was also incredibly dusty and hot with feathers, fur and shavings in the air.
Ranch life and town life mingled for the week. It seemed that night we joined everyone in the entire county. And maybe some from the next. Wranglers blended with Carhartts. Baseball hats and Stetsons. I dressed somewhere in the middle with jeans and sneakers with a pink tank top. The dust kicked up with your every step so I learned the hard way years ago to skip flip-flops or sandals. Your feet got filthy dirty and covered in all kinds of animal poop bits. I had a serious thing about animal poop.
The sun tilted over the Tobacco Roots, the evening still warm. I had my hair up in a ponytail to keep my neck cool. I’d joined Goldie, Paul and the boys at seven after the heat of the day had passed and the boys had burned off most of their energy on rides. We had a little time to kill before the derby.
I kissed everyone and we started our meandering, checking out the animals. “I want to see the cows,” Bobby said. “Some kids get to have one as a pet. I want one, too.”
“Those are farm kids with lots of land. Where would you put your cow?” Goldie asked.
“In the back yard.”
“There’d be lots of cow poop. Everywhere!” Zach added.
I didn’t want to share with Bobby what happened to the ‘pets’ once they grew big enough to eat so I decided to distract. “Let’s go check out the horse auction.” I pointed to the building nearest us.
“Yeah!”
The boys ran ahead, Goldie following as best she could in her gold toned pumps. They didn’t go well with the dust and uneven ground, but they definitely matched her black Capri pants and tank top that had been attacked by the Bedazzler.
“I delivered Joann Jastrebski’s baby yesterday. A boy,” Paul said. I’d been friends with Joann in college and kept in touch through social media and every once in a while, saw her around town.
“That’s great.” I was excited for other people to have babies, but it had been a hard time for me when I had Bobby. A three-year-old and a newborn without a dad. By that point, Nate had lived in Hamburg and a few months away from being dead. But even with the joy of a new baby, I had been heartbroken for what could have been.
Paul touched my shoulder and gave me a smile. A knowing one. What I liked most about him was his ability to understand, to have an entire conversation with just a brief touch or eye contact. He, too, remembered what his son had done to me.
The horse auction was in full swing when we took our seats on the bleachers. The stands circled the room and looked down on a center ring with a packed dirt floor. Plenty of people were there to buy, sell or just watch the action. Obviously, I had no plans to buy a horse so I fell under thewatchcategory. After my unusual and graphic lesson the day before, I’d seen more horses in two days than I had in my entire life.
Horse sex didn’t appear to be the main attraction, at least. In fact, it all looked fairly boring. Someone rode a horse around the pen, slow and fast, for those interested in buying to see what they’d get while the auctioneer did his fast-talking routine. I couldn’t tell what made one horse better than another, but they seemed to sell for all kinds of prices. From several hundred dollars on up. Paul took the boys to stand down at the fence for a close-up view. Zach and Bobby stood on the bottom rail and Paul stood between them as they talked and pointed at various things.
Goldie and I sat quietly and watched first one horse, then another go up for sale. As the third horse came in, the announcer called, “This quarter horse is from the Rocking Double D ranch.”My stomach lurched when I saw Drake Dexter ride his horse around the ring. He was definitely at home in a saddle, that was for sure. He wore jeans and boots and the same hat from the other day. Today’s shirt was navy blue and the sleeves were rolled up to show his strong, tan forearms. Out of all the people in the audience he had to hone in on me as if he had some kind of weird ESP-type skill. His eyes met mine and he tipped his hat, old fashioned style.
“Well, well,” Goldie said, looking the man over.