‘All Is True: The Naked Girl in the Treehouse’
Confrontation in Laramie
Chapter 11
The Stetson-clad girls in the pickup whom we’d been chasing through Laramie were suddenly back.
They must have done a u-turn and now were parked right there in the forecourt of the repair shop like they owned the place.
Their smiles were as wide as the rims of their hats, these two dusky-skinned, dark-haired young women were so super-cool we actually backed away from them, pretending to pay attention instead to the mechanic replacing our busted window on the passenger door of the car.
“Hi,” said the taller of the two.
“Hi yourself,” said David, the epitome of politeness.
“What kinda car is this?” she shouted as the mechanic banged away.
“A Plymouth,” I muttered.
“So you pilgrim boys are from Massachusetts?” The lettering about the Rolling Stones was now all broken up with the door in pieces.
“What are your names?” asked David. “I’m David. David Carpenter, he’s Thom. Thom One. We’re not pilgrims.”
“I’m Winona,” said the shorter one. “It means first-born daughter. And this is Hadi, which means stream. We’re Lakota.”
“Well, well,” said David. “Let the water run free.”
They took off their hats and lounged on the beat-up couch near the scene of our repair. They were amazingly attractive and we found ourselves at a loss for words.
“Let’s go for a ride, guys,” said Hadi. “Your car’s not near ready.” And so we sat between them on the front seat in the cab of their truck and let Hadi steer us on a spin to nowhere.
A dream catcher hung from the rear-view mirror, truly a curiosity. “The plains are filled with dreams,” explained Winona. “Good and bad. The good ones pass through the center of the hole, the bad ones get trapped in the web.”
Just one bad dream got through the web during that reconnoiter of the outer reaches of Laramie. Another pickup had come barreling past us and I couldn’t help but take note of three guys laughing along with the driver, all of whose expressions froze when they eyeballed Hadi at the wheel of her truck with two strangers seated next to her.
David caught it, too, because he swiveled his head in my direction and gave me a look. For weeks now we’d been communicating by looks to each other among strangers. It was when we felt most like two of the Rolling Stones.
The Stones, in fact, never came up in our conversation inside Hadi’s truck, kind of a heavenly relief. When we got back to the repair shop, we left them idling in her truck while we paid for the new front-side window (a week’s tips as an elevator operator in a Fifth Avenue hotel).
Before leaving the shop, I leaned against Hadi’s window and said I’d like to see her again, the most forward thing I’d done since we set out on our land voyage all those weeks ago. David was chatting up Winona, too.
Sweet. Who knew what might come of this.
We’d find out soon enough.
That evening we were cruising Laramie’s Main Street along with every young driver in town on a Saturday night. Quite frankly we were hoping to run into Winona the eldest born and Hadi the stream.
Instead, we were running into ourselves. At first it was just a tap from behind. A slight run into our rear bumper at a red light by the car behind us. Then, before the light changed, we felt ourselves being pushed ahead into cross traffic. David, at the steering wheel as usual, stood on the brake while I opened the passenger door, prepared to yell at the idiot behind. I recognized straight away the fellow who’d scowled at us during our drive with Hadi and Winona earlier. Now, he bumped us so hard the Plymouth took an involuntary lurch ahead and David got ready to step out himself and confront the guy.
But just as he unlatched his door, the car behind squealed into a curve around us. From out of the open passenger window I heard him yell the two sibilant words that have guided my life ever since. “Son of a Sioux!”
“Did he say —?” asked David.
Next week: Yes, he did.
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