Wrangler (Sheppard’s Shadow #3)

Chapter 3

William read the paper of the little town he was in and decided that they needed something to spice things up. There were four articles about the local football team going to state with a record of five and zero. He didn’t have a clue what that meant, even after reading the thing twice. There weren’t even any comics in the stupid paper but a sudoku that he didn’t understand at all.

Putting the paper aside, glad that they were giving the little paper away rather than charging for it, he leaned back in his chair and watched his wife. Christ, he’d said this before a thousand times to himself. How did he get so fucking lucky in finding her as his life partner?

“I was just thinking about something. What if we were to order out pizzas, and then after eating, we go and find our kids.” William asked Patsy why did she want to do that so soon. “Because we’re going to get caught again, and I have no desire to be locked up in the county jail with no means of getting out. We’re down to our last few hundred dollars now. If they make us pay for this room out of our cash, we’re going to be struggling to get back home with them. Or, and I just thought of this. We find someone to sell the boy to here and then we’d have more money for going home. I bet that in a town this small, there are all kinds of perverts wanting a boy for their pleasure.”

“What about Amber? You still have your sights on her prostituting herself for us? I don’t see her doing that, I don’t. We’d have to beat her pretty bad in order to make her do it even the one time. And that isn’t going to make her look desirable to anyone that wants a bit of her.” She told him she had her ways. “Good luck with that one, then. She’s more stubborn than you are at times, I think.”

“Thank you for that. And I do have something that I can hang over her head. We’ll threaten the boy. She’s stupidly loyal to him. We’ll tell her that either she does this or we’ll make Junior do it. She’d do anything for him. The sap.” William asked her about selling the boy. “We’ll still do that. So long as we do it after she gets in so deep that she won’t want to leave the profession. I can see her loving it, too. Mark my words, William, she’s going to be making us a lot of money.”

He didn’t think that his daughter, though they would make her do it anyway, he just didn’t see her doing more than she’d have to, and prostituting for them wasn’t going to be at the top of the list. He had a feeling that as broke as they’d been, his children, she’d never resorted to that once. Not even to pimp out her brother. Patsy had been right on one thing, Amber was stupidly loyal to that boy. No, he didn’t see her doing that and liking it as well. William had a feeling that she’d kill them if they tried. That’s why he was leaving that part up to Patsy. It would be her that got the shit knocked out of her this time.

It was about a year ago now that he’d tangled with Amber. He thought that by taking Junior away from her in the middle of the night, they’d be able to convince her to do just about anything they wanted. However, he didn’t count on her being a mama bear protecting him. Christ, oh mighty, she nearly tore his head off before he was able to get away. He had to have stitches in his face to make sure that he wasn’t one of them ugly people that just didn’t care what they looked like. She’d caused him to have five broken ribs too when she came up outta that bed that night.

The kids had been hiding in one of the planes that had been put out of service for a while by then. William knew where she was and that she was living good in the place. Once he figured out that they had heat and food, it pissed him off a bit. So, like any good parent, he decided that he and Patsy should have a part of the plane, and they didn’t see eye to eye about that.

But he needed money. He and Patsy liked to gamble, and buying those scratch-off tickets had put them behind a bit. So he hatched himself a plan to take the boy and then move in with Amber. She could go on cooking and cleaning up after them. They thought that was the way that it should have been. But he also knew that the boy was prime meat for some perverts, and getting the money with a place to live was a win-win for all of them. Christ, Amber didn’t think so, apparently.

The boy had been sleeping in the back of the plane, and Amber was right smack in the middle. He’d gone in before while they were out and had drugged up all the bottled water they had. It was mind-numbing work, putting drugs in the whole case of water, but he got it done and was looking forward to being able to have himself a good night’s sleep in the belly of that monster they were living in.

Amber had come right out of her sleep with a bat in her hand and had beaten him to the point where he couldn’t move for nearly a month. She didn’t even hold back when he told her who he was, either. Just walloped on his head and shoulders like she meant to kill him. If not for the boy dragging her away, he might well have died that night, and it would have been years before anyone came across his body.

“I asked you a question.” He looked at Patsy, nearly crying out when he thought that she was coming after him with a bat. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve been groaning for the last ten minutes.”

“I was thinking about that night that Amber nearly popped my head off my shoulders.” She told him that had scared her too. “Yeah? You didn’t tell me that you were there too. Did she hit you with that thing?” William smiled, knowing that she would be pissed off by him asking her.

“You know damn good, and well, I wasn’t there, but I was barely able to get you back to our place before you keeled over. And the blood all over you. I don’t know what we would have done if not for the man at the vet’s office. He told me that he had to put nearly three hundred stitches in you.” The number got bigger every time she told the story. While he didn’t know how many they’d stitched into him, he knew it wasn’t nearly three hundred. “You were laid up for about a month after that. And they never did go back to that plane, either. Made it so we couldn’t either, didn’t they?”

Amber had told someone that they were on the plane and they were run off that very night. No, they didn’t go back to the plane they’d been in, and none of the others either, as far as he could remember. He didn’t know who she told, but they had all the doors shut with some kind of liquid metal that he couldn’t tear open for anything. Damned kids.

“What is it you wanted to ask me? I was thinking, and I don’t care for what I was thinking on. So you go on and distract me again, and I’ll feel better.” She asked him if he was sure that the kids were here. “I am. I told you that I had me a buddy that let me look at the recordings of who got on which plane. He told me about the glitch that happened when they disappeared for a bit, but they came here. Didn’t I tell you that it was going to be easy for us to find them? I have friends in high places, I tell you. Very high places.”

He didn’t. He didn’t have any friends at all. It had cost him nearly five hundred dollars to get the ten minutes that he’d needed to find his kids. Rollin had told him that he had to pay upfront, too, and that had him digging into their emergency stash instead of being able to put him off until they came back with the kids. No one trusted anymore. Not for a damned thing. It didn’t cost him no more than a few minutes to see where the kids had gone when he’d had a bead on them near the takeoff place they’d been standing. They were with a couple too, not that he knew them but he did wonder for a minute if they were getting anything from them too. Then, nothing more about them.

“Well, you can bet that sooner or later, someone is going to get fussy about this card we’re using. And when they do, we’re going to be out on our asses again.” He just smiled at his wife and told her that it would be hard for them to get into trouble this time. “What did you do? I have a feeling that I’m going to love it.”

“You are. The kids, they’re providing us with a place to stay. I saw that show about identity theft, and I decided that since I know their social numbers, I’d fill out an application in their name. Amber, she might not know it, but she got us a goodly amount on a VISA so that we can live like high hogs. I got one for Junior, too, but I’m saving that one for later.” She asked him why later. “I thought maybe we’d use his number and get us a card to do some traveling. You know, see the world? It’s been a while since the two of us have had any kind of vacation. People don’t realize just how hard it is to not work and eat, too. I was actually thinking about writing a book on all the things that we’ve figured out.”

The two of them talked about the book. He even had Patsy take notes on the things that they’d figured out on their own. He knew as well as she did that they’d not write it. Even if they were given an ungodly amount of money to do it, they were just too lazy to do something like that. It would seem like work and the two of them didn’t work unless they had to. Which there was never a circumstance where it was work or die. Nope. They didn’t cotton to working at all if they could get out of it.

They were going to have dinner out tonight. Pizzas were just too mundane for them when they had money to spend. But they were limited in where to go tonight without a car. The town had three pizza joints, a burger place a fast-food sub place, and that was about it. The place didn’t even have a big grocery store either, but a little bitty one that hardly carried anything that he liked. None of it seemed to be anything that either of them wanted to partake of.

“I know. We’ll get one of those rides into town. What’s it called? You know where they pick you up and cart you around. What is it?” William told her what he thought it was called. “No, I don’t think it’s called an Ugg. Those are fancy boots. Remember when I had me a pair of them? Boy, oh boy, were they warm. And I’d like to have another pair of them, too, if we find somewhere to get them.” Patsy looked at him, confused. “What was we talking about?”

“I don’t remember either.” They talked about going into town, which reminded them of what they were talking about. “We must be getting old if we can’t even hold a conversation about rides for more than a minute, don’t you think?” She told him that he might be old, but she wasn’t. “You’re older than me, Patsy, remember that?”

“Like you’re that much younger. What is it, ten days or something like that? I tell you what, someday I’m going to be…I’m going to be…where was I going with that?” He told her that she was going to have to be tested again if she kept forgetting shit. “Both of us are getting to that point. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Patsy had been forgetting things a great deal lately. Even little things like programs they’d be watching on television. If a commercial came up, then she’d not know what it was they’d been watching. Him, too, but he wasn’t vocal about it. It worried him, not just a little bit, either. She started crying and talking about her mother again.

“My momma, she had that disease. You know what it is, the forgetfulness one.” He asked her if it was dementia. “Yeah, that’s it. She couldn’t remember if she was going to the bathroom or coming out until she shit herself. I don’t want that. You just kill me off if it gets that bad.”

He wouldn’t, not for all the money in the world, but he could tell her that, and with her having a forgetfulness problem, she’d never know that he hadn’t done it. No siree. He couldn’t kill her off for nothing. She was his better half. Hell, she was more than half of him. But he did worry about them a bit more of late.

“I’m going to start telling you things when I remember them. You know where I’m going. And I’ll do the same for you. So we don’t forget where we’re headed. This right here is what my momma didn’t have. Someone to look over her.” They both knew why, too. Because they’d shoved her in a nursing home and forgot about her. “You think my momma died from that Alzheimer shit? I ain’t thought about her in a long time. Maybe she’s gotten better by now.”

“She died. I told you that about fifteen years ago.” She nodded and asked him if he was sure that she’d died. “I’m sure. I told you, too. Honey, don’t be fretting so much. We’ll be just fine and dandy once we have money from the kids. You’ll see. They’ll want to take care of us in our golden years.”

William had a sudden thought that it was doubtful that their kids would want to take care of them at all. More than likely, they’d do the same to them as they’d done to Patsy’s mother. Shove her into the cheapest nursing home they could find and forget about them. That made him sad a little. To think that his own kids wouldn’t have—

“We’ll need to find us a place to stay where people are around. That way, if we wander off or something, they can guide us back home. Do you suppose we should have thought of that before? To have some friends around?” He said that it was much too late for them to be making lasting friendships now. “I suppose you’re right. Do you want to go out for dinner tonight? I don’t know how we’ll get there, but it might be fun for us.”

“Excellent idea, my dear.” It was, too. They’d have to find them a way to get there and back but he knew that it would cheer them both up. “Isn’t there some kind of ride thing where people will come and get you and take you home? What’s it called? You remember? Ugg or something, right?”

~*~

Amber was walking to the shop with her brother when she thought about all the things that were going on at their home right now. Mostly, it was just natural stuff, she supposed, that one did to a home. Making things decorated for the fall season with pretty pillows and such.

Also, it was the harvest season, and she and Wills had been sent out to find someone selling sugar. She had suggested the grocery store, and when she did, the little people, Pancake in charge of them all decided that they’d need to buy things from the store so that people, humans they called them, didn’t get suspicious about them suddenly having a lot of jellies and jams. She loved their energy.

“Do you care if I get me some potato chips, Amber?” She looked at him and asked him if the faeries had made him some. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I explained it all that well. The ones that they made me were as big as my head and had sprinkles on them. Blue told me that everything tastes better with sprinkles on it. I just agreed with him. So, can I have some real chips?”

She stopped walking and looked at him. “They put sprinkles on chips? Were they cookie chips or something?” He told her that they were regular chips but huge and covered on both sides with pink and yellow sprinkles. “That’s just…I was going to say gross, but that’s not fair because I’ve never tried them. How are they?”

“You got it right. It’s just gross.” She okayed him to get some chips, making sure that he got a couple of different flavors so that he could show them what he wanted next time. “I’m going to get some salsa chips too. That might be fun to try and make them understand what they are and salsa. I love having them around—”

When he suddenly stopped speaking, she pulled him to her and looked around. They had the faeries with them, so she wasn’t really worried about them getting hurt, but it wasn’t like her to allow the little people to get hurt, either. She saw her parents just as they entered the candle store across the street.

“Go inside and stay there.” Wills nodded but didn’t leave her. “I promise you; I’m not going to be doing anything stupid. I’m just watching to see if they come toward us.”

“Nobody will tell them anything.” She’d heard that as well. That the townspeople wouldn’t tell where they were staying nor would they mention seeing any strangers in town either. “Amber, come inside with me. We can see them from in there.”

“I’m going to.” Wills started pulling her toward the door when she wanted to keep an eye on the other couple. After a few minutes of being in the grocery store with her brother, she saw their parents coming out of the other shop. This time, however, they were being pushed out with a broom. “I wonder what that’s about.”

“They got them a credit card that they’re using with your name on it.” Amber looked at the clerk who was at the window with her. “They were in here the other day trying to get them something to grill out on their deck. Had them about five hundred dollars worth of steaks and wieners. I was surprised to see that they could get all that stuff in one cart what with the grill being as big as a cow. Is that there, your parents, honey?”

Nodding, she asked the clerk, Betty, how they had gotten a credit card with her name on it. Nodding as she rang out the next person in line telling her how her son, just twenty years old, had come in to buy some beer the other night. Amber decided that she wasn’t going to trust Betty with any kind of secret. She didn’t seem to understand privacy. Or maybe she did and just didn’t think that it applied to her for whatever reason.

“It’s in your name, all right but they’re calling you Amber Lynn, all one word and the last name of Damon. They even spelled your middle name wrong. There ain’t no ‘g’ in Lynn, is there?” She told her not that she could remember. “I didn’t think so. The missus was going on about how they were going to go out to dinner on their daughter’s dime, and I caught them stealing, too. Harold, my boss, he kicked them out without all the fixings that they had in their cart.”

“You think they’re using one that Wrangler gave you, Amber?” She told Wills that she wouldn’t think so but would ask him when he came home tonight. “I don’t see him letting them charge up stuff. Do you? I mean, he might, but I don’t know that he likes them any more than we do.”

Weston joined her in the little store and asked her if she was all right. After Betty explained about the credit card that had her name on it, he winked at her. She asked him if Wrangler would have given it to them.

“I told him what was going on and asked him about the card. He said he didn’t do it and wouldn’t unless you said it was all right to do. More than likely what happened is that they used your name and social security number to get one with your credit.” She asked if that was legal. “No. Not at all. But I know a lot of people that will do that. Use their kid’s names and socials to get their cable turned on after failing to keep it on with high bills and it being turned off. Also, I know that you have good credit, so that more than likely gave them a high credit limit, too.”

“Great. Just what I need. A terrible credit score.” Weston pointed out that it wouldn’t hurt her as they would take care of it for her. “What about the other people they’ve done this to? I’m sure that they have, aren’t you?”

“More than likely.” She asked him if he was buying something, changing the subject from her embarrassing parents. “I’m here to get sugar for the jams that the faeries are making today.”

“I’m helping you. And so you know, the faeries told us that you might be in trouble here, and I was the closest one to come to you. Wrangler is on his way, too.” She said that she had it under control. “I know that. So will Wrangler. But it’s fun to be the knight in shining armor for our newest sister.”

“You’re just trying to get brownie points, and I don’t understand why.” He kissed her on the cheek, and she looked up at him. “What was that for? You guys seemed to have some kind of kissing disease. You all keep going around kissing near strangers.”

“It’s a burden that I’m happy to have.” When she saw her parents again, they were standing outside the hotel that she knew they were staying in. “The good news is we can get them for using a credit card that isn’t in their name. It doesn’t matter if you’re their daughter. You simply need to press changes and that will be the end of them for a little while. They’ll spend some time in jail, and I doubt very much they can get their bail money. Because…you won’t pay it, will you?”

“No. Goodness, no.” She looked around for her brother and found him with a cart full of chips. After explaining the reason to Weston, then Wrangler, the two of them got a big kick out of it. And while Weston thought that the sweet, salty taste might be good, Wrangler said it wasn’t anything that he wanted to try. And put a couple of more bags of pretzels in the cart as well.

Weston checked them out. She nearly forgot what they had come here for. Picking the five pounds of sugar in bulk, they put all the groceries in his truck. When he took Wills home with him, she felt a huge burden being lifted from her shoulders.

The police came to find her, and she was suddenly standing in front of her parents. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she wasn’t terrified of them. Her dad, William, she decided she was going to call him from now on, asked her what she was doing there.

“I live here.” He said that she wasn’t going to be living here all that long to not get comfy. “Oh, but I’m very comfy. I have a nice home, money, and a husband who dotes on me and my little brother. It’s nice to have someone to love you, I believe. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You’ve never loved anyone but yourself for a long time.”

“I love your mother. And we’d be sitting pretty if you were to just up and do what we want you to do. I will tell you this, missy, you’re not going to press charges either. I will have you beaten if you think that’s going to be something that we’re going to be fine with.” She said that she was actually going to press charges on not just them having one of her credit cards but also the fraudulent way that they’d acquired it.” He claimed that it wasn’t in any way fraudulent if he was her father. “It is. And since I know that you’ve done it to Wills as well, I’m going to enjoy pressing charges on both of you.”

“Whatever you think right now is going to come back and bite you in the ass, little girl. I’m your father, and this is your mother and I demand that you back off before I have to take you out to the woodshed like I should have done a long time ago.” She reminded him that he didn’t have anything to hold over her, but she had plenty to hold over him. “Like what? This credit card thing? Not going to stick. I’ll just tell them that you gave me permission and now that—did you say that you had a husband? Christ, oh mighty Amber, how the hell am I supposed to sell you off if I have to give him a part of the money that I’ll be making.”

“You won’t be selling her off, is how that is going to work. And if you come near her again, I’m going to tear your throat out.” She could have kissed Wrangler when he spoke up. He didn’t stand in front of her either but beside her. She thought that with him by her side, she could conquer anything, including her parents. “You’re not going to be able to do anything with Wills either. He’s my son now, and there is jack shit you can do about it.”

“He’s my son, you moron. Where do you get off saying shit like that to me? I know he’s my kid. And stop calling him Wills. His name is Junior. I hate that name. And this one here is my kid, too. And since I know for a fact that she didn’t ask me for permission to marry, then it’s voided.”

She didn’t know what to think when Wrangler threw back his head and laughed. Taking her hand into his, he kissed the back of it and showed them the ring that she had on. William’s eyes got as big as quarters, and she could just imagine the dollar signs that were going off in his head.

“You give me that there babble, and I’ll not have to bother you no more at least for the time being. You’ll not be pressing charges either on account of me being your father. I hate to have to keep repeating myself, but I am, you know.” She told him to fuck off. “Why, you little piece of shit. That’s the least you can do with all the trouble that you’ve caused me. Not to mention how you’ve made your poor dear mother suffer.”

Patsy started sobbing like she’d been poked with something sharp. But there were no tears and she had to really make herself heard over the train that was going through town. Amber rolled her eyes, telling her to shut up. That went over as well as she had expected.

“You’ve hurt me to the core. I hope you know that. I think you should be ashamed of yourself for the way that you’ve—”

“You have got to be kidding. What do you mean, how we’ve treated you? That is what you were going to say, isn’t it? How we’ve done you wrong?” She laughed. “You’ve never been there for us unless it’s to have your hand out wanting something from us. You’ve taken the very food from our mouths when we did live at home. Not to mention how you’ve beaten both of us until we were nearly dead. Then left us there to be picked over by the rats that we were forced to live with because of the two of you thinking that because you sired us, that you had every right to treat us in any way that you wished. I hope that Wrangler and I have a million children. And they will never know the things about you that you’ve done to us. Never will they go to bed hungry because you decided that we weren’t worthy of sitting at the same table as you were. And I will tell them every day, several times a day, how much I love them. Have you ever once done that for Wills and I? No, I’m thinking you haven’t. I’m finished with the two of you. As of right this moment, you’re dead to me and Wills.”

She turned and left them standing there with the police. She could hear William yelling at her to come back here that she’d taken his ring. But she continued walking until she was at the house that she shared with Wrangler. When she turned to see where he was, she fell into his arms when he told her that he had her.