by Laura Crum
“All this was in her post?”
“No. It was way down in the comments. More than one hundred comments down. Apparently there were people who wrote to her all the time. Sort of internet pen pals. One of them mentioned they’d heard about the murders. Kate wrote blog posts about going to the Carson Valley auction all the time. This internet buddy of hers asked her if she’d bumped off the auctioneer. And Kate wrote back that no she hadn’t, but she was worried about it. And then what I told you.”
“Oh my God,” I said.
“That’s right,” Bret agreed. “That night her house was set on fire.”
“The fire,” I began, searching for some elusive thought that was nudging me, asking to be heard. “The fire was set around midnight...” And then I remembered.
“The rider,” I said breathlessly. “Bret, remember the rider? Do you think?”
“It’s possible,” Bret said, and I could tell that he’d thought of it. “But there are so many hoofprints in this pasture that it’s impossible to tell if anyone rode through it last night.”
“Of course. But what if the rider is the murderer?” I was babbling now, talking as fast as I could as the thoughts tumbled around. “What if he rode through here and set Kate’s house on fire to silence her?”
“Because he read her blog and knew she’d seen him at the saleyard?” Blue asked.
“He may already have realized that Kate was there at the auction,” Bret pointed out. “She saw him; he might have seen her.”
“Right,” I said. “But if he was the rider, why didn’t he burn her house down the night I saw him? Before she had a chance to say anything to anyone?”
“Maybe he wasn’t sure if she’d seen him,” Bret said. “He only found out when he read her blog yesterday.”
“And maybe because Lonny was still in jail,” Blue said quietly, a question in his voice.
“Oh,” I said, the implications of this dawning on me. “Is Lonny suspected of setting this fire?” I demanded of Bret.
“No. Not yet,” he said.
“Is that detective going to go there eventually?”
“I don’t know,” Bret said. “As far as I can tell, John Green doesn’t know that Kate saw the suspect in the auction murder. He doesn’t know there might be a connection between the two crimes.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
Bret stared at the fire for a long time, swirling his drink. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I might have to. But not yet.”
“If you do tell him, this guy’s gonna try and pin the arson on Lonny. He’ll be sure Kate saw Lonny at the saleyard.”
“Maybe,” Bret agreed.
“She didn’t. She was absolutely sure that Lonny was innocent. Whoever she saw, it wasn’t Lonny.” I knew my voice was getting shrill.
“I know. But Kate’s dead, and can’t explain that.” Bret’s eyes were on the fire.
“We can’t let it happen. It would kill Lonny if he were accused of this. He’s just sinking under the weight of everything already, I can tell.”
Bret nodded. “I’m with you, Gail. I think Lonny’s innocent. I don’t want to cause him more grief. I don’t know what I’m gonna do here.”
We were all silent, the various ramifications sinking in. I could see Mac through the camper window, quietly reading his book on the bed.
I stood up. “I need to start making dinner,” I told Bret. “Want to stay?”
“No. I’d better get home. It’s an hour drive.” Bret stood up, too. “I’ve got a lot to think about.”
We said our good-byes and watched his car drive away. I turned to Blue.
“You know,” I said, “I think it’s time we went home. This is all getting too creepy. The idea that the killer is riding through this pasture at night scares the crap out of me.”
“We don’t know that,” Blue pointed out.
“Right,” I said. “I’m still creeped out. And Lonny might need a break from having company, anyway. I notice he hasn’t come around at all today. I think he needs some space and time to lick his wounds, so to speak. Blue, I just want to go home.” I didn’t bother to add my other reason for wanting to go back to the coast, feeling sure that Blue would not approve of it.
“Fine,” Blue said, agreeably enough. “It’s just a three-hour drive. We can come back if we’re needed. We’ll take off tomorrow. Still want to leave Gunner here and take Sunny home?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think so. I’ll talk to Lonny about it in the morning.”
I headed into the camper to make hamburgers and tell Mac we’d be going home the next day. He seemed quietly willing, from which I deduced that the deaths of Kate and her daughter were still upsetting him, perhaps more than we were aware.
That night at bedtime he crawled into my arms with a soft “Cuddle me, Mama.”
“Of course,” I said, holding him close. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Mac snuggled into my body, his back curving into me, not fully awake, not yet asleep. In this quiet moment we were close, connected, warm, alive, the little sparks of our spirits securely housed in our cozy, cuddled bodies, mama and child. What comfort there was in this sweet physical content.
I understood the depth of Mac’s fear of the great unknown. Death was such a mystery. I might say that our spirits would still love each other, but what did I know? Nothing but that we snuggled right now in the warmth of our two living bodies, in the gentle rise and fall of our breath. When the breath was gone and the body cold and empty, what then?
This was what Mac wanted to know, what we all wanted to know. I could hand him my belief that love would be there, but it was just my belief. A feeble, tattered rag to flutter, when he wanted and needed a sturdy staff of truth to help him cross that dark river. And I had no such thing to give him. Neither did any-one else. No living human had any true knowledge of death. All we had were our various beliefs.
Laying my cheek against his hair, I whispered, “I love you, Mac.”
It was all I had.
“I love you, too, Mama,” he murmured, more than half asleep.
I smelled the sweet smell of his breath. Our bodies breathed together. My hand found Blue’s hand, and as if he could guess my thoughts, together we wrapped our linked arms around our little boy.
Chapter 16
Home. I hadn’t known how much I’d missed it until I realized how happy I was to be there. Blue had barely parked the truck before we were scrambling out, dog, kid, and all, greeting the cats and oohing and aahing (in my case) over rosebushes newly burst into bloom.
Mac was busy petting Shadow, our youngest cat, a small black “tuxedo” female who had been given to us by our neighbors shortly after Baxter had died. Rowan, the thirteen-year-old neighbor girl, had found Shadow as an abandoned two-week-old kitten and managed to raise her. When Mac first held her she was still a scrawny little eight-week-old mite of a thing, and it constantly surprised me to see the sleek and graceful cat she’d grown into. Unlike all our other cats, who were ex-ferals, Shadow was very, very tame. She rubbed back and forth on Mac’s legs, accepting his strokes and meowing constantly.
“She’s talking to me,” Mac said. “She’s saying, ‘Where were you? Why did you leave me?’ ”
“That’s right,” I agreed. “I think she missed sleeping on the bed. But Rowan took care of her.”
Rowan had agreed to feed the cats and chickens while we were gone and keep an eye on things for me.
“Where’s Tiger?” Mac demanded.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But he’ll turn up.”
I walked to the rear of the trailer to help Blue unload the horses. First reliable Henry, then Plumber, and finally my new acquisition. As I turned Sunny loose in his corral, I had to smile.
“That bright gold color is just so cheering,” I told Blue. “He’s like a little patch of sunshine.”
“He’s aptly named,” Blue said, and smiled back at me.
Sunny
, as usual, appeared quite unperturbed by his new circumstances. He looked around his corral calmly, snuffled the ground, and had a roll in a patch of loose sand. He then sniffed Henry’s nose through the corral fence and ambled over to take a drink of water from the trough, seeming right at home.
A squawk from the chicken coop made us all turn in that direction. The seven banties in the run fluffed their feathers and clucked, pacing back and forth, anxious to be let out. We’d left them locked up while we were gone, to make it easier for Rowan to care for them. We’d lost so many lately to bobcats, coyotes, hawks, raccoons, owls...etc, that we carefully shut the chickens in every night and whenever we planned to be gone. Last month a bobcat had taken Gange, our beautiful head rooster, and we were still gun-shy.
“Shall we let them out?” Blue asked. “They’ve been cooped up a long time, and I plan to work in the vegetable garden this afternoon. I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“Okay,” I said, and Mac hurried to open the gate to the run.
The chickens burst out with much squawking and excitement, led by Rob Roy, a brilliant red rooster who had become the leader after Gange’s demise. Three hens and three younger roosters followed him, our current flock. I was hoping one of the hens would start to set soon. We needed a few replacement chickens.
Mac and Blue and I watched the banties peck around the barnyard and dust themselves in the horse corral. I could feel a smile forming on my face. I was home.
Home. I looked up the hill to where my little house sat, framed by brush and liveoaks, backed by the ridgeline. Shingled all over with untreated cedar shakes that had weathered to a rusty silver, the house was tiny, only six-hundred-fifty square feet, with a green tin roof, a big front porch, and lots of windows. Seeing it now, after being gone, I was struck forcibly by its otherworldly quality. A little fairy house in the woods.
My little fairy house. In another moment Blue, Mac, Freckles, and I were marching up the hill, Shadow trotting at our heels, still complaining. Halfway up the drive Tiger, our biggest cat, a huge tabby ex-feral, ex-tomcat, emerged from the brush, adding his voice to the chorus of meows.
“Tiger missed us, too,” Mac said.
“Yep,” I agreed. During his time with us Tiger had gone from completely and untouchably wild to tame enough to sleep on the bed, along with Freckles and Shadow. No doubt he missed his comforts.
“He’ll be happy tonight,” I said.
Mac grinned and skipped up the hill with the cats and dog behind him, joy in every animated gesture.
Blue opened the door and we all trooped down the short hall. I smelled the sweet scent of the rough-sawn knotty pine wood that paneled the interior of the house. Everything looked friendly and familiar and yet new. We’d only been gone a week, but it felt like a month.
The main room of the house, twenty by twenty feet, with a high open-beam ceiling, seemed to welcome us. Sunshine streamed through the uncurtained windows onto the primitive wool rug on the mahogany hardwood floor. The woodstove sat quiet on the gray stone hearth in one corner, as did the computer on its sleek black desk in another. The terra-cotta tile counter that ran across the far wall, broken by stainless steel sink, stove, and refrigerator, was neat and clean. All just as I’d left it. Waiting for us to come home.
I sighed with pleasure. Mac ran into the bedroom and began jumping on the bed. The cats and dog seethed around underfoot, greeting each other, rolling on the rug. Blue was carrying our bags into the hall. We were home.
* * *
Two hours later, we’d had lunch, unpacked, and settled in. It was early afternoon and Blue was weeding his beloved vegetable garden. Mac and I had wandered down to the barnyard. Mac was in the swing that hung from the oak tree. I sat in one of the two chairs by the barn and watched Sunny doze in a patch of shade. Cinders, our shyest cat, slept on the roof of the pasture shed, his favorite roost. It looked as though all three of our current felines had survived our absence.
“Can we go for a ride, Mama?” Mac asked.
“Good idea.” I was eager to see the familiar trails on the ridge across the road.
Glancing up, I spotted the landmark tree silhouetted on the skyline. An ancient skeleton of a huge Monterey pine, the landmark tree was visible from our porch and dominated the network of trails that criss-crossed the opposite ridge. It often reminded me of a totem, a symbol of the spirit of these hills. I was ready to ride by it again. And there was something else. I had an experiment to try.
“I’ll ask Papa if he wants to go,” I told Mac.
But Blue was determined to get the garden weeded. I saddled Sunny and Henry and gave Plumber a flake of hay to keep him quiet while we were gone. And Mac and I set off down our driveway and out our front gate, with Henry on the lead rope behind Sunny.
Mac was an adept rider, and Henry was absolutely reliable. I had never once “ponied” the two of them during the time we’d spent riding in Lonny’s pasture. But to reach the trails on the ridge we had to cross a very busy road, upon which the cars zipped along at fifty miles an hour. Not to mention the busses, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles. In short, crossing the road was hazardous, and I always kept Mac on the pony rope while we did it.
Sunny marched steadily down the short cul-de-sac that led past my neighbors’ places. Ahead of us the cars whizzed by. I sincerely hoped that Sunny would remain his usual unflappable self when dealing with traffic.
We reached the shoulder of the road and stood, waiting for an opportunity to cross. I had Mac keep Henry behind me, well out of harm’s way. Sunny and I, however, had to stand virtually in the bike lane in order to get a clear view of oncoming traffic. I took a hasty step backward as I saw a belching school bus approaching, followed closely by a road bike going almost the same speed as the bus. Sunny never flinched.
Despite this, I was tense as a fiddlestring. I hated crossing this road. It brought my heart to my throat every time—I recognized the very real danger it represented. Horses and traffic are a bad mix. But, to my relief, Sunny continued to stand like a rock, completely unfazed by the logging truck whistling by not ten feet from his nose. Henry, as always, stood calmly, waiting for the signal to cross. I often thought Henry ought to be canonized.
After many long minutes a gap in the traffic occurred. I could see no one coming in either direction. I clucked to Sunny and bumped his sides with my heels.
“Kick Henry up to a trot,” I told Mac.
The two horses trotted across the road, achieving the opposite shoulder before anything bore down on us. I always crossed at the trot, having discovered that if I walked I might find myself in the path of oncoming traffic by the time I crossed the center line.
“Good job,” I said to Mac, once we were off the road, and I unclipped the lead rope from Henry’s halter.
We took the trail that led into a tangled grove of liveoaks. The twisting, charcoal-marked gray trunks twined around us in sinuous shapes, graceful as the limbs of dancers. Loose brown and tan duff underfoot was dappled in the lively, mutable patterns of the shade that flickers through an oak tree. Olive green leaves rustled softly overhead. The shift from loud, angry traffic to quiet peace was startling.
The two horses paced steadily along in a rhythmic, quiet walk. I looked back to see Mac’s head turning from side to side, taking in his surroundings. The narrow ribbon of the trail wound through the trees ahead of me. We were in the woods.
Chapter 17
I could see light up ahead, and then we were in the brilliance of a small meadow, already dusty, the grass turning from silver-green to gold in the way of coastal California spring. We paced down the path, Henry following Sunny. Then up the hill into a eucalyptus grove, shadows barring and dappling the trail, leaves and sticks crunching underfoot, the tall, rustling blue gums waving their crowns high above, creaking and squeaking in the faint breeze. Hushed in the gentle gloom, we plod along, turning a corner to scramble up a steep bank, picking our way between brambles and briars. I duck for a very solid, low, overhanging
limb, looking back to be sure that Mac ducks, too.
“Watch out for the head-bonker tree,” I call, and see Mac smile and duck low over Henry’s neck.
Along a sidehill we go, stepping slowly through the small ravines, shaded by oaks, pines, and eucalyptus, moving through the soft dappled green shade. I bend Sunny carefully to skirt a crooked tree trunk that leans into the narrow trail. Finally we crest the ridge and drop over into the bright sunlight of a big meadow. The trail runs through the middle of the golden-yellow dry grass, the exact color of Sunny’s shiny neck. A yellow horse in a yellow field.
I look around as I ride. Scrubby oaks dot the meadow, mixed with the occasional ceanothus bush, covered in soft violet-blue bloom. I can smell the honey-like scent as we ride by and hear the bees buzzing on the blossoms. I see a quiet, dark shape in a shadow; a resting doe, lying under a liveoak tree. Pointing in her direction with one hand, I whisper to Mac, “Deer.”
Mac looks and nods. The doe sees us, but remains quiet, hoping we’ll go by and leave her in peace. Sunny marches steadily on, Mac and Henry right behind. The air is warm here and smells sweet. Rustles in the brush make me turn my head; Mac looks, too. That flickering motion is birds, I know. I can’t see exactly what sort. Sunny pricks his ears in that direction.
The trail lies straight ahead of us, a long, flat, sandy stretch, passing through mingled grassland and scrub, running slightly uphill.
“Can we lope, Mama?” Mac asks.
“Sure,” I say and, clucking, I boot Sunny up into his heavy, rolling lope, which reminds me of a small draft horse.
Looking over my shoulder, I see Mac loping after me on Henry, a huge smile on his face. Henry’s eye is calm, his white-striped face steady as he rocks along in a relaxed lope, his copper-colored mane flaring in the air.
“This is great,” Mac yells at me. “I want to lope forever!”
I grin back at Mac, and relax into the rhythm of the gait. The wind lifts the hair off my face and blows Sunny’s mane back across my hand. The horses snort; the saddles squeak. I glance back again to see Mac’s smiling face as he canters along.
