Drug Lord's Gifts

***

So the plan was this:

I'd already talked my boss into this because I'd take my 3-week vacation early (in May), and doing so eased up summer vacation scheduling in the office. He'd give me two weeks extra as unpaid leave of absence—giving me five weeks total—without overextending manpower in the office.

We'd drive north to southern Idaho, across Idaho, then on into Montana.

Once in Golden Canyon, Montana, we'd take up residence in one of those 'residential hotels,' the Old West used to call boardinghouses, booking by the month. In this town of 623 population we had a choice of two hotels, a newer one that catered to transient business, the older one whose clientele consisted mostly of late career folks, pensioners and retired singles. I chose the latter, expecting we'd be out of there before gossiping neighbors got the better of us. Besides, being on an American Plan was far cheaper than eating in restaurants all the time, yet simpler than Anna and Maria trying to play cook and maid in our rooms.

I tuned up my resume', with the intent of spreading it around the Golden Canyon area, hopefully giving the appearance of intent to stay. I didn't figure there would be many job openings in the Canyon for technical contract managers, but I'd check around and if a few interviews popped up, so much the better for the image I wanted to create. I didn't have to accept; I could always return south at the end of my five weeks. But you never know in a town that size which is also the county seat. Maybe my future lay in Golden Canyon?

At our first state border crossing, the southern one into Idaho, I pulled off the road just short of the border sign.

"Okay, both of you, put your shoes on and get ready to walk."

"Why, Mattie?" Maria said from the seat to my right side in the van.

"Trying to stay legal."

She looked at me with a puzzled look that exceeded the question in her voice.

"There's this silly law in our country that says if we're not married and I take you into another state with the intent to have sex with you, I can be throw in jail—for a long time."

"Oh?"

"But the way I read it, if you and Anna walk across the border on your own, without me urging you or threatening you, then that law doesn't apply."

"Stupid law."

"No, not really the way it was intended. The stupid part is how it sometimes gets applied."

"You mean when Rudy take us to Las Vegas those times he could be in jail? And Senior Espino and his men, too?"

"I imagine so. Anything looking like prostitution."

"No, not prostitution with Senior Espino then. No money."

"Money's not necessary. Anything you might want or he gives. Anything."

"Oooh, big problem. I want what you give. Anna want what you give. We want everything you give!" With that I got a big grin.

I nodded.

"Wake up, Anna! We gonna walk to Idaho. Wake up!"

"Huh? What?" came from the back seat.

"Border coming. Maria and Anna, we walk."

"Why?"

"Silly law say if Mattie take us there and then fuck us, he go to jail."

"Estados Unidos have law like that?"

"He say so."

"Why? He fuck us all time in Nevada. It oh so nice. What different in Idaho?"

"And we gotta do this again when you cross into Montana," I said.

"Montana have stupid law, too?"

"Afraid so. But it's not really Idaho or Montana law. It's Federal Estados Unidos law."

"Then it mean if Anna and Maria come back to Nevada, same thing? Because we want sex with you?"

"Afraid so—unless we're married."

"That even more stupid. You marry me so that okay? But then can't marry Maria, so if she love you, that be bad?"

Out of the mouths of babes, as the saying goes. Or maybe that's from the mouths of innocents?

Our drive up was over 500+ miles, so we spent a very long day getting there. The mid-size van I'd bought a year or so back because my 'going to work' coupe was too small for when my girls and I went out, ate up the miles much faster than it ate gas, so we arrived in just under ten hours with a gas bill I didn't mind.

Spencer's Hotel and Boarding House looked much as I expected from the photo on its website: A late 1800s ex-overnight hotel with it's exterior not particularly well maintained. But inside, it was clean and welcoming. The pair of connecting rooms I'd booked—more on faith than knowledge—were entirely adequate for a bride and groom-to-be, with our Maid of Honor in the connecting, somewhat smaller room.

By 9:00 PM, we'd moved in and were exhausted. But first, we needed supper since we were too late for that evening's board at Spencer's.

"Ah, Mrs. Spencer," I said as we came down the stair into what sufficed as the lobby. "I'm sure we've missed supper. Please recommend some place close we should try."

"Mr. Worden, I presume?"

I nodded, then tipped my head toward the girl holding too solid a grip of my hand to be a common acquaintance. "My not too many days from now wife, Anna Sanches?"

"Oh, congratulations!"

With that, Anna held out her hand in a manner that showed off the ring I'd given her the evening we firmed up this trip.

"Beautiful ring!"

"Mattie he have it make for me. Diamond was Grandmomma Worden's"

"Nice you're keeping it in the family. I think things like that are important."

I motioned toward Maria. "And this is Maria Sanches, Anna's twin sister and her Maid-of Honor—to-be." Right then I was wishing I could put a ring on her finger, too, but the best I could do was give her a good life here in the USA, and half of my love and affection.

"So, now you know about us, what about food? We're starving, aren't we ladies?"

"Well, we have three fast food chain outfits: Taco Anytime, McDougals, and a Pizza Rio. All passable, but nothing to brag about. If you want peace, quiet, and decent food to sit down to, I'd try Harriet's Café, right in the middle of town. But hurry, she closes in an hour."

"Good, huh?"

"Well, I'm a bit prejudiced. Harriet's my best friend, but she's a good cook. If you go there, tell her I sic'd you on her, okay?"

"Sound good?" I said to my girls.

Both nodded.

"Thanks, Mrs. Spencer. See you at breakfast."

"Six-thirty to eight AM on weekdays, until nine on weekends"

"Six-thirty to nine it is tomorrow, then." I scooped my girls up and headed them toward the front entrance, hoping that gesture didn't give too much indication if how well the three of us liked each other.

***

"Good morning, Mr. Worden," Mrs. Spencer said as I herded my girls from the lobby into the oversized dining room. "Everybody here, introduce yourselves while I get another plate of pancakes and eggs from the kitchen." The fellow closest to us extracted himself from his chair, turned toward me, and held out his hand.

"Jake Owns. I'm an accountant with the County."

"Matt Worden. Up here for the month, looking to relocate. Boy, this sure is a beautiful place."

"Sure is. I came here twenty years ago as a vacation temp, and I'm still here."

"Well, meet my wife-to-be, Anna Sanchez?" They shook hands, "And this is her sister Maria, who will shortly be her Maid of Honor and my sister-in-law."

Maria shook his hand, too. Greetings all around the table prevailed until Mrs. Spencer returned with the second plate heaped with pancakes, eggs, sausages, and bacon. Well over half the roomers were employees of the County at one level or other, and split about evenly, men and women. The women steered the conversation almost immediately to wedding preparation topics, but Anna swapped ends on that.

"We sort of elope, I guess," she said. "So many things get ahead before, so we decide just get married, and heck with all rest of it."

"So this trip?"

"Matt wants relocating—if there be work here. But this trip to see if we really like well enough to be married, too."

"Oh, you will," several women said.

I was sure of that, too, but managed to hold my confirming nod in check.

"What do you do, Mr. Worden?" one of the male County employees said.

"Contract administration, usually technical contracts, because that's where my knowledge is best. I hate trying to administer a contract when I haven't a clue what's going on. It's best if I've actually done some of the work myself before."

"But what about your wedding?" one of the women said to Anna. "You'll miss out on all those memories if you don't have a real wedding."

Anna turned first to the woman, then back to me. Her worshiping expression went well with her, "We have whole full life for make memories. No need rush, just need to make for certain first."

A woman across the table caught this and said, "I'll bet on you two. I see it in your eyes."

I chuckled softly. I'd already laid all my bets on Anna and Maria. Now, if we could just keep the immigration people off the playing field, I held no doubts I'd win every bet I'd made.

"So?" another woman said. "You getting married here in Gold Canyon? I know a couple beautiful places. And the owners would consent for sure—'cause I'm related to them."

"Thank you, Ma'm. But our situation is a little different."

"Yes?"

"See, we don't want to wait for Anna's paperwork to catch up, and without that, we can't get a regular marriage license. But since Montana has the good sense to recognize Common Law marriage, we're just going to do it that way instead of waiting." I figured that eased around the rough corners of our plan pretty well.

"Common Law? I thought that only applied to business deals. Old ones, at that."

Another woman turned to her and said, "No, we had a case in court years back I remember from when I first became the stenographer. The court backed the woman claiming she and the guy were married and said they had to get a real divorce to get un-married so she could marry again."

"Huh! You learn something every day."

Anna clutched at my elbow, so I looked down at her.

"Well, our problem is getting married, not getting un-married, right Anna?" The smile I got answered that with no hesitation.

"So when's the big day?"

"Haven't decided yet, but thinking maybe two or three weekends from now."

"No ceremony, though?"

"Not required, but you can do whatever you want. I plan to take Anna out to a scenic park somewhere, look into her beautiful eyes and ask her to be my wife. If she says yes, then I'll say I take her to be my wife, and say I consent to be her husband. Anna and I and Maria sign this little notice I made up for the paper, I kiss Anna, and we go on our honeymoon."

"I think you should have some sort of ceremony," another woman said, and the man next to her nodded.

"Did you want to hang around somewhere after you got married?" I'd noticed the ring this woman still wore, yet I'd heard hints in earlier conversation she'd been widowed years before.

"Good point. We should make it short. How about we ask Mrs. Spencer to make a small cake for after supper on that Friday or Saturday night? You two get yourselves married, however you decide, we have cake and punch after supper for sort of a reception, and you two go upstairs and really celebrate being married?"

Yeah, right! Anna and I'd been celebrating for well over two years. I doubted there'd be anything truly new—except maybe a few new, sexy bits of clothing Anna and Maria had made—but the celebration part I understood and knew quite well.

"What you think, Anna?" I said looking her way. After all, isn't the wedding mainly for the bride? The groom gets his celebration in bed afterwards, right?

"If you want. I just want be married. Really married. Really married to you, Honey."

"How about it ladies?" the leader of the celebration committee took the floor. "You tell us when you decide to get married, and that evening we'll have a little reception for the bride and groom. Right here after supper."

Anna was nodding, slowly, as if she'd never expected anything like this. But her faint smile said it coasted right alongside her greatest hopes.

"What's say Anna, Honey? A week from Friday evening? Or the following Friday, if this rushes you too much."

"Just fine maybe four Friday away, not rush." She tightened her grip on my elbow, so I knew even if I changed to the up-coming Friday, I'd get no argument.

Any Friday worked out fine on another level, too: The Golden Times-Sentinel printed late Thursday and arrived in everyone's mailbox Friday morning, so our proclamation in their legal notices would easily arrive just in time.

***

We spent the interim seeing all of Golden Canyon County, and much of its bordering counties.

In the county next door's much larger county seat, I finally found a true jeweler, one being more than just a pawn shop with a Jeweler sign hung over the door. From his salvage box, he sold me an old ring with enough gold and a small diamond about the size of the one from Grandma's ring I had remodeled and given to my bride-to-be. By him remodeling this second old ring, I had something to give to Maria. The rings were near twins, but I could tell them apart and so could my ladies—which was what really mattered.

Maria really needed something to shoo away the flies she attracted at the Community Hall Saturday evening dances in Golden Canyon. I convinced both girls it was okay that Maria's diamond was ever so slightly bigger than Anna's, because she had to wait longer.

In three weeks I spread around at least two dozen resumes as we sight-saw everything within a hundred miles of Golden Canyon. I did get one call about a place looking for a used car salesman, one for someone to drive truck and operate construction heavy equipment, and another about a position to become second-in-command managing a small ready-mix concrete company. But nothing interesting enough to threaten my return home at the end of our five weeks.

Anna and Maria quickly learned the necessity of taking the dance floor passably well at the Golden Canyon Community Hall. My problem was they looked so damned good, and there was only one of me to accommodate two of them, so the one I wasn't dancing with had far more than enough other attention. I had to assert myself occasionally to get a dance, but so?

I heard Maria answer the question, who was she married to, when she held out her hand with her new ring on her finger.

"A man just like my sister's husband" (or fiancé—whichever the case was at the time). It's amazing how you can twist the English language! Usually after that, the single-men's conference in one corner or the other of the Community Center spread their attention more evenly among the other young lovelies available, so I wasn't forced to exert my husbandly influence all that much.

As it's said, 'They always saved the last dance for me.' I didn't mind having a pair of beautiful Latino women in my arms as the band played it's last gasp and we headed back to Mrs. Spencer's boardinghouse.

So, we set up our big day for Friday afternoon, our fourth weekend in Golden Canyon, then that evening for our reception. I tried to pay Mrs Spencer something extra for the cake and other preparations she made, but she was having none of that. "I never had a wedding here before. May be good for business." From the age of her normal clientele, though, I doubted she'd receive much additional business as a result, but you never can tell in a small town.

In our wanderings, Anna and Maria and I stumbled across the Golden Canyon County Museum, a couple small buildings that had once been a pioneer farmstead along the creek running past the east edge of town. The house was a cozy (meaning small) 1880's frame-inside-brick building that served as the museum's office, domestics display area, and provided a small gizmo display and hand tool area on the back porch as well. The barn and corrals, all the same vintage as the house, filled out a setting that hadn't been corrupted by late model, corrugated metal buildings. The well-thought-out part of this was they rented stall space to several town residents—one of whom lived at Mrs. Spencers—who kept horses there, so in the evenings you'd likely catch an owner out there caring for his horse. If you showed any interest, they'd likely talk your leg off and maybe even give you a ride. And during the day, if kids came to the museum with Mommy and Daddy, they found something much more interesting than rusty old stuff collected from fifty miles around Golden for the past hundred years.

"Ooh, I so scared," Anna said after our first evening out there.

"Why, Honey?" All I'd been mostly concerned about was finding a place to marry Anna and take a few marriage-like pictures to commemorate our few moments spent saying I do.

"I never touched horse before. And that man, he so ...."

"Insistent?"

"Is word I want? I so scared. He seem nice, but I still scared."

"Insistent. He'd probably never before met a woman who'd never touched a horse." I chuckled, because it might have been true.

"Ooh, I so scared," Anna mumbled as she continued shaking her head.

"Well, you did all right. You petted his horse."

"Still scared. Horse look at me. Scare me more."

"He was probably just looking to see what touched him."

"He see Anna scared, that what he see."

"You scared, too, Maria?"

"Some, yes. But I ride horse before—once."

"You do? You ... did?" Anna said.

"Long time ago, when I only maybe ten anos. Remember, Anna? Man come to Rudy one evening. Take me far out to country. I scared, but he put me on horse, then he sit on saddle behind me. Horse go, man ride behind with hands on Maria. He steer Maria. Maria steer horse."

"You thought that was fun?" I said. Maybe I could borrow Mr. Mason's horse and take Anna riding some night—maybe a bride and groom ride like that? I always did wonder where the man behind put his hands while the woman sat in the saddle ahead of him.

"Oh, it okay. He pay good," Maria said with a shrug. "He gentle. I not mind." Her voice softened as she said these last three words. I figured that was my cue.

"Maybe some honeymoon evening we come out here and see if that man will let us ride his horse. Would you like that Maria?"

"You ride behind Maria?"

"If you wish."

"Maria wish, you bet."

"And what about you, Anna. You'll either be my wife or soon will be. Would you mind?"

"Only mind if you not help me ride, too. If Maria like, Anna sure want like ... even if scared."

"Only two people to a horse. Don't want to break his poor back. So it will be only you and me, or Maria and me, or Maria and you."

"How about only me or only Maria, or only you?"

"You ladies decide, then we ride," I said with a comic twist sounding in my voice.

"We see. I be too scared, probably," Anna said.

"No, you won't. I'll be there all the time. I'll make sure that horse never even thinks a bad thought."

"You help Anna, then, yes?"

"I'll help Anna, yes."

"What you do? Oh, I scared already!"

When she said that, I astutely figured I better begin at the beginning. My theory was: things you didn't understand were the most likely to scare you. And if just having a horse look at her was scary, then I had my work cut out.

"You ever think about why Mr. Mason has a horse?"

"He like ride?"

"He could ride in his car instead."

"He like ride horse?"

"Yes. And why you think he likes riding a horse instead of his car?"

"Maybe he likes horse?"

"I think so. Otherwise, why does he go to the museum every night to feed and care for that animal?"

"He like to do."

"And the horse repays him by minding him so his ride is pleasant. And I know he gives the horse an apple every night."

"Horse eat apples? He likes apples?"

"I think you can count on it."

"Oh."

"And did you notice he brushed the horse down before he left?"

"Si."

"You think the horse might like that, too?"