Wind River #2
Zebra
January 2017
On Sale: December 27, 2016
362 pages ISBN: 1420141767 EAN: 9781420141764 Kindle: B01DRXCGCG Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
Reese Lockhart’s stomach was tight with hunger as he
stood at the outskirts of a small Wyoming town called
Wind River. The sign indicated a population of two
thousand.
He’d gone a month without decent food. Six inches
of snow stood on the sides of the road where he’d walked
the last ten miles on 89A north. It headed toward Jackson
Hole, where he was hoping to find work.
The town, for a Monday afternoon, was pretty slow. A
couple of pickup trucks came and went, a few people
walked along the sidewalks on either side of the highway
that ran through the center of town. He halted outside
Becker’s Hay and Feed Store, an aged redbrick building
standing two stories high. The red tin roof was steep and
sunlight reflected off it, making Reese squint. Bright
lights
now hurt his eyes.
Taking a deep breath, feeling the fear of rejection once
again, he pushed open the door to the store. Would he get
yelled at by the owner? Told to get out? It was early May
and snow had fallen the night before. The sleepy town of
Wind River still had slush on its streets midday.
The place was quiet, smelled of leather, and he saw a
man in his sixties, tall, lean, and with silver hair,
sitting
behind the counter. He was sitting on a wooden stool that
was probably the same age as he was, an ancient-looking
calculator in his work-worn hands as he methodically
punched the buttons.
Girding himself, ignoring the fact he hadn’t eaten in two
days, Reese’s gaze automatically swung around the huge
establishment. A hay and feed store was something he was
familiar with. Maybe the owner wanted some part-time
help. He needed to make enough money to buy a decent
meal.
Shoving away the shame he felt over his situation, he
saw the man lift his head, wire-rim spectacles halfway
down his large nose, his blue eyes squinting at Reese as
he
approached the long wooden counter.
“Howdy, stranger. Can I help you?” the man asked.
“Maybe,” Reese said. “I’m looking for work. I saw you
have several big barns out back, and a granary. Do you
have
any openings?” Automatically, Reese tensed. He knew he
looked rough with a month’s worth of beard on his face,
and his clothes were dirty and shabby. At one time, he’d
been a Marine Corps captain commanding a company of
120 Marines. And he’d been damn good at it until—
“I’m Charlie Becker, the owner,” the man said, shifting
and thrusting his hand across the desk toward him.
“Welcome to Wind River. Who might you be?”
“Reese Lockhart,” he said, and he gripped the man’s
strong hand. He liked Charlie’s large, watery eyes
because
he saw kindness in them. Reese was very good at assessing
people. He’d kept his Marines safe and helped them
through
their professional and personal ups and downs over the
years he commanded Mike Company in Afghanistan. Charlie
was close to six feet tall, lean like a rail, and wore a
white cowboy shirt and blue jeans. Reese sensed this
older
gentleman wouldn’t throw him out of here with a curse—
or even worse, call law enforcement and accuse him of
trespassing.
The last place where he’d tried to find some work, they’d
called him a druggie and told him to get the hell out; he
smelled. While walking the last ten miles to Wind River,
Reese had stopped when he discovered a stream on the
flat,
snow-covered land, and tried to clean up the best he
could.
The temperature was near freezing as he’d gone into the
bushes, away from the busy highway, and stripped to his
waist. He’d taken handfuls of snow and scrubbed his body,
shivering, but hell, that was a small price to pay to try
to not
smell so bad. He hadn’t had a real shower in a month,
either.
“You a vet, by any chance?” Charlie asked, his eyes
narrowing speculatively upon Reese.
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