Chapter Text
April,**, 1976
The first time she saw him was through the lens of her camera. Maxine and her two friends, Alice and Linda, had pulled over to the side of the road so that she could get a shot of the cows being herded across the road. She hadn’t meant to get any of the cowboys in the shot- she didn’t think it was right taking photos of strangers without their permission- but when he’d come riding into view on his black horse, wearing a black cowboy hat and a white T-shirt with the sleeves hacked off, Maxine couldn’t help herself. She took the picture and as she lowered her camera she caught him staring at her.
His dark eyes met hers, and she could tell he knew what she’d done by the stern expression he wore. Maxine couldn’t tell if her heart was fluttering or pounding, but as she dropped back into the seat she said, “Drive.”
Linda didn’t need to be told twice. She hit the gas hard enough to scare the cows and scatter the few that had wandered too close to the convertible. They heard one of the cowboys yell something at them, it might have been a curse, but the girls didn’t look back.
“Are you okay, Maxine?” Alice asked, turning in her seat to look at her.
“Yeah, fine.” Maxine risked a glance back. They were far away from the herd now. “Did you see the way he looked at me?”
“Yeah, we did,” Linda chimed in. “Alice, I thought you said people were friendly around here.”
“Most of them,” Alice amended. “At least my cousins are nice people. And everyone has that ‘western hospitality’ mindset.”
“That looked more hostile to me. Maybe we shouldn’t have come. Did you see that look he gave Maxine? And- Maxine, why are you smiling?!”
Maxine looked up at her friends a little shocked, not realizing she had been smiling to herself like an idiot. “What?”
“You’re still smiling. Are you hysterical?” Linda said, accusingly.
“No,” Maxine replied, simply. “I just…”
“You just what?”
Maxine shook her head, unable to stop smiling. “Did you see the way he looked at me?”
Linda moaned.
*
“This is Darton?” Linda asked, pulling into town.
“That’s what the sign said,” Maxine replied, but they both were looking at Alice.
“It’s grown since I was last here,” Alice admitted. “They only had one gas station before, now there’s two.”
“Wow,” Linda said, mockingly. “It's a regular metropolis.”
Alice scowled and Maxine laughed. “Let’s just go to the motel already,” Alice said. “It’ll be dark soon.”
There were a total of three cars in the Darton Valley Motel parking lot.
“Do you two want to go check in while I refill the tank?” Maxine asked. They had made an agreement to take turns driving, but Maxine had spent the last few hours cramped in the backseat with their luggage, while Linda drove and Alice flipped through the radio stations. The most ridiculous part was that it was Maxine’s car.
“Yeah, you do that, just go to the one on the north side,” Linda said. “I noticed it's better lit.”
Linda and Alice pulled out one suitcase each and grabbed their purses, saying they’d take the rest of the luggage in after they got the key. Once in the driver seat, Maxine stretched her legs, and then adjusted the seat. Her legs were much shorter than Linda’s. She drove down to the gas station and stood looking at a magazine while someone pumped the gas for her. She wasn’t used to that, but she didn’t mind at all. When the time came to pay Maxine looked around.
“You don’t have an ATM, here?” she asked.
“Is that a type of gun?” the old man said, skeptically.
“No,” Maxine replied, trying not to look worried. She wasn’t sure the cash in her purse would cover the gas. “It’s like a machine you get money from.”
The man laughed. “Young lady, if I had one of those, I wouldn’t need this job.”
Maxine would have laughed if she wasn’t inwardly panicking about how to pay him. “Um, well, I don’t have enough on me, right now anyway. Is it alright if I run to where I’m staying and get some more? I’ll be quick about it. And I’ll leave the car here,” she stammered out before the man could interrupt her.
“Oh, well, that’s all right. Where are you staying?”
“At the motel down the road,” Maxine replied. She normally didn’t tell strangers where she was staying but it wasn’t like there were many other inns or motels in town. In fact she was pretty sure she was staying at the only one.
“That’s almost a mile one way, and it’s getting dark,” the old man said grimly. “We ain’t got a lot of crime ‘round here, but we do got some rowdy boys, and I’d hate to hear of them bothering you. Why don’t you drive down there and then come back with the money? You look honest enough.”
Maxine was shocked. Someone would have made a fuss where she had come from. She wanted to smile at the man and thank him, but her father’s words came back to her. “No one does anything for free. Everybody wants something from somebody.” There was more of what he said, but that was the only thing Maxine wanted to remember.
“Thank you,” she replied, and then added quickly. “I’ll be right back.” She hopped in her car and headed back to the motel. Once she got there however, she faced a rather unpredictable delay. Linda and Alice had already checked into the motel, and now wanted her to stay until they brought all the luggage in.
“We’ll just be a second,” Linda said.
A second quickly turned into almost twenty minutes, and Maxine was getting anxious to get back.
“Oh, he’s going to think I’m a thief,” she moaned.
“Alright, you can go,” Linda said. “But hurry back, we still haven’t eaten.”
“We passed a ‘Jack in the Box’ on the way in. Wanna eat there?” Alice asked.
“Is there anything better?”
“Well, there might be. I can ask the lady at the counter-”
Maxine didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. As soon as she got her ‘go ahead’, she grabbed her purse and was out the door. It was already dark by the time she got to the gas station, but the lights were illuminating the entire station, giving it an almost welcoming feel.
“Sorry, it took me so long,” she said, hopping out of the car.
“It’s alright, young lady,” the man said, as she handed him the money. “I’ll get your change.”
“Thanks.” Maxine waited, leaning against her car with her arms crossed. It was getting cold out, and she had forgotten her jacket. She wasn’t the only one there though. There was a blue truck at the furthest pump, and a couple of guys waiting for the old man to come back out. Maxine overheard some of their conversation.
“Yeah, man, I think the store ‘s closed by now. Sorry, we couldn’t get back in time.”
If the other guy replied, Maxine couldn’t hear him.
“Hey, maybe tomorrow we can stop in real quick. You know before we go- what is it?”
They both suddenly became quiet, and Maxine felt like someone was staring at her. She glanced over quickly and felt a shiver run up her back, but this time it wasn’t from the cold.
Both guys were looking at her. One was much shorter than the other, with an old brown cowboy hat, and a dirty tan colored t-shirt. But he wasn’t the one Maxine locked eyes with. For the second time that day Maxine found herself staring into the dark eyes of the cowboy that rode the black horse. His face was shaded even more so by the lights above, but she was able to get a better look at him.
Maxine had seen men with gentle eyes and soft faces. This man had none of that. In two words he looked sharp and harsh. He just stared at her with what could be called a blank expression, but it felt too much like a glare. Maxine just stared back, feeling too much like a deer in the headlights.
She wasn’t sure what finally urged her to move, but when she did, not a thing could stop her, not even the old man. She heard him call about her change, while she started the car. “Keep it!” was all she shouted as she put the car in gear and sped off. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. She passed the motel and kept on driving.
*
“Where were you?” Linda said, opening the door and ushering in a very cold Maxine.
“Sorry, ‘mom’,” she replied, sarcastically. “I was getting food.”
“You got ‘Jack in the Box’, didn’t you?”
“It was easy to find.”
Alice looked up from her book and asked, “Why didn’t you come back here? We could have gone together.”
Maxine set the food down. “Cause I wasn’t sure if I was being followed.”
“What?!” her friends exclaimed in unison.
“It’s no big deal,” Maxine added. “I was just being paranoid.”
“Alice, I thought you said this town was safe?”
“It is safe,” Alice argued. “My aunt and uncle have lived here for over thirty years and have never had a problem.”
Maxine sat down with her burger and fries while her friends argued.
“We shouldn’t have come,” Linda said, looking about the room, as if she was going to pack everything in an instant and take them all far away.
“You didn’t have to,” Alice argued. “I’m just here to see my cousins.”
“Yes, but this is our final spring break. Oh, we should have gone to Hawaii with Maxine’s family.”
Her mouth was full so Maxine shook her head fiercely. She wanted to have fun on her final spring break. She swallowed. “It’s not everyone in this town. I’m pretty sure it was the same guy from before.”
“Are you sure?” “The Indian?!” They both shouted at once.
“Yeah, him,” Maxine said, before taking a sip of her soda. She took her time about it. “Besides, it wasn't like he was following me. He just kind of… stared at me.”
“Like in a creepy way, or in an angry way?” Alice asked cautiously.
Maxine took another bite of her burger. She chewed slowly, really thinking about the stranger’s hard gaze. Finally, she swallowed, and took another sip of her soda, still thinking about it. “I don’t know,” she replied. Both her friends groaned, so she added, “He was just sort of looking at me. Not mean or anything, just really, really intense.”
There was a long moment of silence. Maxine had moved to sit on the bed to eat her fries when Linda said-
“You know, those Indians used to kidnap girls like you.”
“Linda!” Alice shouted. “Why would you tell her that?” Then she turned to Maxine. “Don’t worry, that was over a hundred years ago. No one does that now.”
Maxine popped another fry into her mouth. “I know,” she replied. It was like her friends forgot she was a history major. They probably did. Linda and Alice tended to treat her like the toddler of the group, even around their other friends and at parties. Maxine kept quietly munching her fries. Maybe she was the toddler of the group. Even her siblings and their father treated her like she was much younger than she was. ‘Keep an eye on Maxine’, ‘Honey, don’t wander off’, ‘Are you sure you want to wear that?’, ‘Here, let me help you’, and worst of all, ‘Are you sure about that university? It’s so far from home’.
She sipped her soda, trying to wash down the feeling of inadequacy. Linda and Alice were still arguing about whether they should stay or leave. The reasons Alice gave for staying made the most sense. It was a small town, and a lot less dangerous than the city they lived in. Meanwhile, Linda stuck to her guns about the bad feeling she had, most of it tied to the stranger they encountered.
It got Maxine thinking about him again. He had been tall, and she wondered if she even came up to his shoulders. His shoulders were broad and muscular, as well as his arms, and she assumed the rest of his body. She bit her lip. She had seen muscular men before, but his arms looked even better with his dark skin all sweaty, from working in the sun all day. She moved the straw of her soda to her lips but didn’t drink. His dark, piercing eyes had made her feel so small. A smile touched her lips. But he had remembered her, meaning she wasn't as small as she felt.
Linda was still arguing that strangers, especially men, were dangerous, and that they shouldn’t be stupid. Maxine thought her friend was right. Men could be dangerous, whether they knew them or not. The thought of being kidnapped honestly scared Maxine, but her thoughts still entertained the idea. She thought of the stranger breaking down the door, picking her up, and carrying her off, and she bit her straw. Why did she not hate the idea? If it was anyone else, even someone she knew, she would have fought them off, or at least tried to. But if it was the man she had seen twice and didn’t know his name… The idea of him doing that excited her to the point she was almost afraid of herself.
“I’d let him do it too,” she thought.
“Let who do what?!” Linda cried.
Maxine looked at her startled friends. Had she said that out loud?
“Maxine, honey, you’re not talking about that man still, are you?” Alice asked. She had worry in her eyes.
Maxine thought for a moment and then nodded. No sense lying.
“And what would you let him do, again?” her friend asked hesitantly.
A mischievous smile touched Maxine’s face. “Anything,” she said, falling back on the bed and giggling like a middle schooler, while her friends groaned loudly.