Free High Plains Tango by Robert James Waller

women like her. Thirty-five, maybe, and a lovely tight body wrapped in designer jeans tucked into knee-high leather boots and a light pink sweater that showed her fine breasts swinging upward underneath it. Blond hair halfway down her back fastened with a gold clasp.
    Carlisle looked at her, then at the sorry suit standing next to her, and figured she arched her back and smacked her belly against some horse from a local exercise salon, early afternoons, probably, in a good motel. He remembered meeting a guy from Illinois who swore he was heading west to bring back one of these California beauties lashed like a hunter’s trophy to the fender of his car. Carlisle could hear the three of them talking, with the developer-Realtor giving a short, verbal tour of things to be.
    “Over there is where the golf course and clubhouse will go. Your lot will be on the edge of the fourteenth fairway. Allison, I understand you like to play tennis. There’ll be six courts by the clubhouse, just a short distance from the Olympic-size swimming pool. Of course, access to the entire area will be controlled by guards at the gate. And we’re bringing in a chef from London, who will make sure the clubhouse dining room serves only the best continental cuisine.”
    “Hey, Carlisle, how’s it going?” The contractor had arrived, making his rounds. “I promised the Muellers you’d have this in shape by the first of July. Gonna make it, I hope. I might have to pull you off this job for a few days to help out the knotheads working for me south of here. They dunno shit from shinola about building houses. Christ, Carlisle, they put the dormers on the wrong side on two units. And we’ve got sixteen more units just getting started over in Concord. I’d like you to do some framing over there. Just get this flooring down as fast as you can. We’ll run the carpet over it and nobody’ll know the difference. How the hell come you don’t use a nail gun like everyone else, anyway?”
    Carlisle, still on his knees, brown hair hanging over his collar, sweat dripping off the end of his nose and through his faded blue workshirt, squeezed the hammer in his hand and turned his dark eyes up at the contractor. A sparrow had flown in and landed on a two-by-six lying a few feet from him, tail flicking, leaving a small gratuity on the board.
    The salesman next door was rambling on.
    So was the contractor.
    So was Allison Whoever.
    So was the sorry suit.
    So was everybody in the entire world, it seemed to Carlisle, and as far as he could tell, they were all talking about the same thing: crap. That’s what they were talking about: crap, sparrow crap.
    “Dancing at the clubhouse on Saturdays, Allison  .  .  .”
    “Carlisle, the units over in Concord are el cheapos, so don’t worry about  .  .  .”
    “Bill, though we can’t say it openly, minorities won’t be a problem  .  .  .”
    “Allison, you’ll just love  .  .  .”
    “Carlisle, I want you to  .  .  .”
    “We’ll need room for three cars  .  .  .”
    “Get this place buttoned up, Carlisle. We need you in Concord.”
    Carlisle turned his head and stared at the floor.
Turn like a river  .  .  .
    He stood up slowly, unfastening his tool belt, and jammed the hammer into it as he walked toward his truck. The young man hired by the contractor to be Carlisle’s helper had been lugging in a crated stained-glass window, a mass-produced design Carlisle had already installed in two other houses this year.
    Walking and speaking quietly, he looked at the contractor and flipped his head toward the young man. “Let him finish it. After that he can do the framing over at Concord and move right on from there with his nail gun, all the way down the coast to Tijuana, make a big circle, and hit Bakersfield on his way back up to Vancouver.”
    The young man carrying the window looked at Carlisle, then at the contractor, his face a mixture of anxiety and confusion, waiting