Lone Star Rising

OUT OF THE CORNER of his eye, Zack noted Arlen Mestor’s plodding progress as he lumbered into the restaurant. The old man shook off the rain, then ambled up on his usual stool like a grumpy grizzly bear.

“Excuse me a minute, fellas.” Zack pushed up from the table and crossed the room.

He slid up on the stool next to Arlen at the counter. “Mestor.”

“Trueblood.” The two were acquainted, but had not been on friendly terms since the night some months prior when Zack had lectured the older man about the faulty wiring in a rental house that had burned to the ground. The family was not home at the time, but the sight of a baby doll with a melted face had set Zack’s blood to boiling. Zack had already pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket. He snapped it onto the Formica in front of Arlen.

Zack tapped the card, which Mestor hadn’t acknowledged. “I’ll give you a discount if you let me do the repairs on that house Robbie Tellchick just rented from you.”

“Nattie Rose!” Mestor bellowed toward the pass-through window as if Zack hadn’t spoken. “What does a man have to do to get a cup of coffee in this joint?”

Finally, Mestor sneered at the card. “What repairs would that be?” The way his nostrils flared when he spoke reminded Zack of a snuffling pig.

“A few things here and there. Safety issues, mostly.” Zack had said the word “safety” pointedly. He knew Mestor remembered well the fire that consumed one of his rental houses, if for no other reason than the financial ones.

Nattie Rose sashayed out of the kitchen brandishing a carafe of coffee. “You want a cup up here at the counter, too, Zack?” she said as she poured Mestor’s.

“I’m fine,” Zack said mildly.

“Sugar.” Mestor tapped the counter with a stubby finger, his tone was demanding.

Nattie Rose shoved the sugar jar, which was all of a foot away, toward Mestor, and then gave him a poisonous parting look before she disappeared through the swinging door to the kitchen.

“Well,” Zack pressed, “how about it? I’ll only charge you for the materials, throw in my labor for free. You won’t have to do a thing.”

Mestor dumped a hideous amount of sugar into his coffee before he answered. “Why are you so all-fired up to work on that old house?”

“Because it needs it,” Zack answered simply. “The place is an eyesore.”

“Always poking your nose in where it don’t belong, ain’t you, Trueblood?” Mestor stirred his coffee slowly, frowning as if considering something. “I ain’t sure I want you messin’ with my property. And I’d still like to know why you even want to. It’s that pretty little pregnant lady, ain’t it?” Mestor asked the question loudly, so as to be addressing the whole restaurant.

Before Zack could answer, Mestor continued even louder. “Or should I say it’s that prime piece of land that little pregnant lady has out there by the river?”

By an act of will, Zack kept his own voice low. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but—”

“I ain’t implying nothin’. I am saying flat out that you have always wanted a piece of farmland out on the Blue River ever since your granddad lost his place. Your granddad used to tell me all the time how blessed he was to have a boy like you to take over his farm when he was gone.”

Zack stared straight ahead, the muscles in his jaw working furiously. He could imagine that conversation, all right. Mestor had probably made some ill-advised crack about Zack’s mother and her illegitimate kid, and Zack’s granddad had defended them. He wondered if that accounted for Mestor’s missing teeth.

“Well, old granddad’s gone now, and so is his farm. Am I right?” Mestor was fairly bellowing now. “And now you’re looking to replace it. But if you have some cockeyed notion that running around doing favors for the Tellchick woman will get her to sell you that land for a song, you’re nothing but a fool, boy.”

Nobody called Zack a fool, least of all a blustery out-of-shape middle-aged man who really was one. Mestor had a lived a life tainted by alcoholism, chronic foul moods and various run-ins with the law. A notorious tightwad, the man was twice divorced and made a nuisance of himself with ladies he eventually claimed were only after his money. Even the old man’s own children avoided him. He ran around town acting like he had connections with the movers and shakers, but Zack remembered his granddad saying that among that crowd Arlen Mestor stood out like a goat in a flock of sheep.

Zack slid off the stool and stood to his full height. “Arlen, you talk too much.”

“That’s because I know too much.”

When Mestor leaned toward Zack threateningly, Zack detected a whiff of alcohol. The residue from last night’s binge maybe? Or maybe Mestor had already had his first Bloody Mary of the day.

“It is no surprise to me,” Mestor went on without encouragement from anybody in particular, “that you approached the bank about taking over the loan on that farm. Seeing as how you could never afford the down payment in a million years, I expect you’ll be awful disappointed to know that Congressman Kilgore has already foreclosed on it.”

“What?” This truly was news to Zack.

“Oh, yes. I have it on good authority. Me and the congressman have been on a first-name basis for years. But you didn’t know that, did you? I expect the place will just sit there now, going fallow. If you want it, you’ll have to deal with the old man up in Washington, not some defenseless little widow.”

Sensing trouble, the two firefighters with Zack had crossed the room and positioned themselves strategically near the two men at the bar.

But Mestor didn’t seem to notice them. He was too busy running his gums. “Why, if I didn’t know firsthand how worked up and self-righteous you like to get, I’d be of a mind to even wonder about that barn fire. That’s an awful lot of gasoline to get spilt in a simple acciden—”

That’s when Zack decked Arlen Mestor.

One second the old porker was twisting sideways on the barstool, sneering at Zack, and the next he was sprawled on his fleshy backside on the diner’s green and white linoleum floor.

People at the nearby tables yelled and jumped out of the way as Mestor crawfished backward and Zack loomed over him, fists clenched for another blow.

Parson came busting through the swinging doors of the kitchen shouting, “There’ll be no fistfights in this here establishment!”

Zack’s friends restrained him from doing further damage, though it took both of them to bodily remove him from the premises.

BACK IN THE KITCHEN, Robbie stood with palms pressed on the butcher block and her downcast face burning like fire. The baby had set up a panicky little dance inside of her, reacting, no doubt, to the shot of adrenaline his mommy was feeling as well.

“You okay, sweetie?” Nattie Rose asked anxiously, her hands suspended in the act of slinging home fries onto platters.

“Oh, fine. I’m fine. Really. I mean, hearing two men coming to blows because of me. That’s cool. Kind of flattering, you know?”

“Honey, you don’t believe what Mestor just said about Zack for one instant do you?”

“Of course not.” Robbie straightened. “Nobody puts much stock in anything Mestor says.”

“Well, then.” Nattie Rose continued shoveling out home fries.

But Robbie stood stock-still, her mind still reeling with too much new information, too many new emotions. “Who is this woman he has a date with tonight?”

“Huh?” Nattie Rose stopped loading the plates and looked perplexed.

“A date. Tonight. I heard the guys talking about it earlier.”

“You mean Zack?”

“No. Mestor.” Robbie looked sideways with a sarcastic squint.

“I told you about all I know, sweetie. She’s got a lot of money, but just between you and me, not much class. Kind of a sexpot, far as I can tell. But it’s no surprise if the man isn’t exactly a monk. I mean, just look at him. What in the world does Zack’s social life have to do with…”

“Don’t you know anything else about her?” Robbie cut in sharply. “Does she have any kids or anything?”

“Why, I wouldn’t know. Let’s see.” Nattie Rose strove to cooperate. “Her name’s Lynette something or other. She’s been in here a time or two, looking for Zack, but he—”

“She lives across the river?” Robbie interrupted.