Page 6 of Cowboy in Colorado

One building on my right has a sign hanging over the steps up to the boardwalk that says “General Store.” Okay, I imagine if I’m going to find a bottle of Perrier anywhere it’ll be in there, and maybe there’s a restroom too. I slide my phone out of my purse and glance at it—no service; no Wi-Fi, either.

My three-inch Louboutin heels sink into the dirt as I step out of my car. I should’ve worn the boots. But these shoes are just too damn sexy and sophisticated to not wear, so I wore them. Plus, the boots don’t go with my outfit.

So, whatever. I can wear heels in any situation. I’ve sprinted after a subway train in three-inch heels, for crap’s sake, so I can manage some dirt.

I make my way up onto the boardwalk and under the relative shade of the overhang, and for a second I almost expect to hear the theme song from that classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti western to echo through the town—you know the one, the whistle,doo-doo-doo…DOO DOO DOO.

Okay, whatever.

Never mind.

I enter the general store where it’s significantly cooler, but still not air-conditioned. There are shelves filling the interior of the store, waist-high, stocked with dry goods and household items—everything from ketchup and pickles and soda to Windex and paper towel and can openers. There’s a bank of grocery store-style coolers along one entire wall, running the length of the building, containing perishable items like milk and juice and meat and cheese and frozen items, and then opposite that is a long counter, the front of which is lined with magazines and candy and cell phone charger cords; along the wall behind the counter is the liquor and cigarettes. There’s an ancient cash register from before I was born, a newer credit card machine, and under the scratched and foggy plastic covering the countertop are ads for hunting and fishing licenses, the numbers for tow truck drivers, plumbers, electricians, a massage therapist named Candy, nail technicians, and a section of newspaper from theRocky Mountain News. I skim the article, and it is a write-up of local ranchers named the Audens who have been ranching the same land since the early eighteen hundreds. They still ranch the old way, with horses rather than vehicles.

There’s no sign of anyone, and the only sound is an oscillating fan near the cash register stirring the hot, still air, and judging by the amount of dust on it, the fan was probably old when Ronald Reagan was president.

“Hello?” I call out. “Is there anyone here?”

No answer.

I head for the coolers, and find the beverages; it’s all soda, beer, and bottles of malt liquor, sports drinks…no Perrier. No sparkling water of any kind—just the skinny, plastic bottles of Crystal Mountain.

Ugh. I take a bottle of water back to the register. “Hello?” I call out, louder than last time. “Anyone?”

There’s a door in the back corner, one of those industrial kitchen two-way hinge doors. I head for it, grumbling under my breath about the abysmal service in backwater villages like this. I nudge the door open inward, sticking my head through the opening.

“Hello?” I call out again.

I hear a noise—snurk-snort—sniff…sigh.I push all the way in and let the door close behind me. I see a dilapidated metal desk covered with papers and folders and piles of receipts and a clipboard with its jaw stuffed open with a pile of papers several inches thick, all of this populated with coffee mugs and empty soda bottles and cans, crumpled chip bags and jerky wrappers. A pair of enormous, mud-caked cowboy boots rest on top of a pile of newspapers, leaving dirt and dried mud smeared and mounded on the newspapers. The owner of the boots is, legitimately, the largest human being I’ve ever seen my life, and he is fast asleep. His legs seem to be as long as I am tall, thick as hundred-year-old oak trees, and the jeans—as dirty as the boots—are unbuttoned at the waist. His belly is gargantuan, jiggling with each snort and snuffle and snore, graying chest hairs poke up out of the unbuttoned opening of his red polo that bulges over his chest and is stretched around shoulders you could build strip malls on. His hair is graying brown and long and shaggy and greasy, and his beard is the same, draped over his chest to mingle with his chest hair.

He is perched precariously, tipped back in a wheeled office chair, which is easily as old as the fan out front, and nearly as old as the hills around us. One wrong move, and he’s going over backward—and judging by the state of the wooden plank flooring back here, he may very well crash straight through.

How to wake him up without startling him?

I try being timid and quiet at first: “Hello? Sir?”

Nothing.

“Hello?” I try again, louder.

Nada.

I knock on the door, and try using my authoritative snap. “Sir. Wake up!”

Nothing.

It’s then that I notice the earthenware jug—the thing is straight out of an old western movie, a stereotypical moonshine jug. There’s a cork stopper on the floor, and his right hand is resting on the jug, a finger still stuck in the handle.

So…I’m getting nowhere with this one.

I groan, and exit the back room—only to see an older woman standing at the counter, wearing mom jeans stuffed into knee-high black rubber boots and a ratty gray T-shirt—she has a pile of items on the counter. Using a notepad and pen, and one of those calculators with the paper tape roll, she’s writing on the pad, entering numbers in the calculator. She is clearly itemizing and tabulating her items. Once she’s finished, she digs a wad of cash out of her jeans pocket, counts out a few bills, reaches over the counter and rings up the total—upside down and with practiced ease—then stuffs her bills into the drawer, withdraws her change, closes the drawer, and then shoves her items into a large canvas bag she’d brought with her.

It’s only when she’s getting ready to leave that she notices me; her eyes rake over me once, and I feel thoroughly vetted and judged in that glance.

“You the Beemer out front?” she says in a husky smoker’s voice.

I nod. “Yes. I was hoping to purchase a bottle of water, but I couldn’t find the proprietor.”

She laughs. “Proprietor. Funny.” She gestures at the door I just came out of. “Ol’ Clancy won’t be upright any time soon. You gotta catch him in the morning if you want ’im to be any damned good.”