"So," Bron clarified, "you think that cows can fly?"
Mike smiled, almost a laugh, as if Bron had just been suckered in by a joke.
"No. I think someone killed it," Mike said. "Sometimes kids will shoot up an animal just for fan. Or maybe a bow-hunter shot it, then cut his arrow out. It doesn't look like an animal kill."
Bron couldn't imagine a person doing something like this for sport.
"What about a skinwalker?" Bron suggested.
Mike shrugged, as if that was a possibility. But now that Bron was thinking about creepy humans, he couldn't help but think of others.
Could it be that old man, Bron wondered, the one who chased us? Is this some kind of a sick warning?
Mike sat for another twenty minutes, shoulders sagging, face dejected.
Bron realized something. "You loved that calf. He was a nice one."
"You got that right."
They were spending a lot of time just looking. "How much is a calf like that worth?" Bron asked.
"Hard to say," Mike admitted. "Some people, they'd have turned him into a steer and put him in a feeder lot. Let him grow a little, and he'd be worth maybe $800. They're the kind of ranchers who slaughter ten thousand head a year, and they don't see what kind of calf they're looking at. It's all just meat to them.
"But when I look at a calf, I look at it as a breeder. That calf had a pedigree that goes back four hundred years. I was raising him to be a prize bull. I don't raise my animals for meat. I don't want to kill ten thousand a year. I just want one calf, one calf, that's perfect."
"So he was worth like what, a million dollars?"
"Probably," Mike said. "The right calf, with good breeding fees, can bring in three or four million dollars over its lifetime. Maybe more."
The air went out of Bron's lungs. He hadn't imagined that he was looking at millions of dollars of dead meat.
"I'm so sorry, Mike," Bron said. "I had no idea."
Mike shrugged. "It's all just speculation. That calf might not have turned out. It happens to ranchers. Calves die."
They'd been sitting now for forty minutes, and suddenly Mike turned and peered at Bron, stared at him thoughtfully for a minute.
Down in the valley below, Bron heard a calf moo plaintively.
"Okay," Mike said. "I'm ready to go."
"Leave?" Bron asked. "Don't you want to search the ground for clues or something? Or should we call the police?"
Mike shrugged. "I don't see any clues, but I think I learned what I was supposed to."
"What's that?" Bron asked.
Mike fought to explain. "When other people look at calves, they just see meat. When I look at them, I see potential. Some ranchers, you can put a prize baby bull in front of them, and they think steaks. But I make my living by seeing a calf for what it will become...."
Bron nodded.
"Olivia, on the other hand, sees kids the same way. She spots human potential.
"When school starts, she's in heaven, checking out the new students. She'll come home on Wednesday after the auditions are over, and I'll ask her, 'Did you find any new stars?' And she knows, man, she just knows."
"So you two are a lot alike?" Bron asked.
"I guess so," Mike said. "Except I'm a giant, and she's more like a pixie." He laughed, then gave Bron an appraising look. "She likes you. She says you're a keeper, and she's desperate to have you. She wants to adopt. So I'm thinking, I'm going to trust her on this. Is that all right with you?"
Bron had never had two people who wanted to adopt him before, at least not that he could remember. On the one occasion that it had happened, social services had immediately taken him from the home. After all these years, he couldn't believe that this would happen, and he couldn't really even hope that it would happen. He didn't feel ready for this.
"I guess," Bron replied.
Mike said, "The way I see it, the calf I prized the most just died up here last night, on this altar. God took it away from me, and gave me something else in return."
Down in the valley, a calf mooed again, and Mike raised his hand to his mouth and mooed in return. All through the forest below, calves suddenly began to bawl, from every corner of the woods.
Mike smiled.
"Got to say 'hi' to my calves. Excuse me."
Mike trundled downhill, and Bron crept near the dead calf. He really couldn't see any bite wounds or bullet holes. He carefully kept searching the ground for tracks, but there was absolutely nothing.
When he looked downhill a few minutes later, Mike was there with his Oreo Cookie Cattle. Two dozen calves surrounded him, licking him, just wanting to get petted, and more were walking in from the woods in every direction.
Bron went down to him, and the calves shied away.
"You drive the ATVfor me, little brother," Mike said. "I'll lead the calves."
"Little brother?" Bron asked.
"Hey, I'm only thirty," Mike explained. "I wasn't fathering no kids when I was thirteen. Besides, I always wanted a little brother."
So Bron figured out how to drive the ATV as Mike led the calves, like the Pied Piper of cattle. When they reached the upper pasture, Mike urged the calves out into the fields, then watched.
He came and crouched beside the ATV. In the mountains, a gun fired once, twice.
"You about ready for breakfast?" Bron asked.
"Shhhh..." Mike urged, tilting his ear. There was only silence. After fifteen seconds, he said, "I was listening for a third shot. If a hunter or hiker gets lost or injured, they call for help by firing three times, slowly."
When it became clear that no more shots would be fired, Mike squeezed Bron's shoulder. "It's got to be eight by now. Olivia will have breakfast."
Chapter 9
Music Lessons
"The oldest tales say that the gods sang rather than spoke. Such things are forgotten now, but it was once said that 'In the beginning, God sang, Let there be light!"'
— Olivia Hernandez
While Mike and Bron had made their rounds, Olivia took her plates from the CRV. She scraped her registration tags off and glued them onto her spare set of stolen plates, and attached them to the Honda.
She hadn't been stopped by a policeman in years, so she hoped that her luck would hold.
Mike hadn't had time to fix the window, but he'd get to it soon. He was handy that way, able to repair anything that broke. It came from growing up in poverty, living with parents who knew how to "make do."
While Mike and Bron were gone, she went online and ordered a computer and an iPhone. The phone she had overnighted, so Bron would get it in time for school. She realized that if she worked things right, she wouldn't have to go into town for weeks. She could buy her produce at the market in Santa Clara, eat meat out of their freezer.
She'd keep a low profile.
So she plotted and worried about what the Draghouls might do. One of them was dead. That might actually be a good thing—having one less Draghoul in the world. She wanted them all dead.
If I had any guts at all, she thought, I'd go confront them. I'd put a bullet in each and every one of them. Finding them wouldn't be too hard. They'll be holed up in the nicest hotel in town.
But she could never confront them.
There were some things her mind just couldn't wrap around, and killing was one.
Dying was the other. Logically, she knew that she had made some dangerous choices—falling in love with Mike, teaching at a school. She'd always feared that the enemy might catch her.
But just as a smoker always imagines that it will be the other guy who gets cancer, Olivia had never really confronted the truth: that she was living too close to the edge.
Right now, she felt as if she were walking in a canyon, and an avalanche was poised to slide on top of her—rocks and dirt by the ton.
She fought back her fear until it felt manageable, then went in the house and made breakfast for "the boys."
Neither spoke for a bit. She knew that Mike was anx
ious. He had a breeder coming in from Australia at nine, and a lot was riding on this visit. Anyone who flew eight thousand miles to look at Mike's cattle was nearly sold already. The question was, what would he want to buy, and could Mike part with it?
They were halfway through breakfast when Mike said, "You should probably take the truck into town, pick out a car."
By that, she surmised that their talk had gone well.
"You sure?" she asked. He knew that her savings were running low. "You don't want to come?"
"I trust you," he said.
She looked to Bron. He seemed anxious. "Okay."
A few moments later, the Australian knocked on the door, and Mike went to talk with him, both as excited as boys out catching lizards.
Olivia took Bron to Saint George, and there picked out a used Toyota Corolla with tinted glass, a sunroof, and an upgraded sound system.
Olivia paid a couple thousand down, and financed another fourteen.
When she threw the keys to Bron, he stared in surprise.
"Follow me home?" she asked.
"But, don't you want this one?" Bron asked.
Olivia smiled. "You're old enough for your own car. Just take good care of it. It's the only ride you've got. But it's a Toyota. It ought to last you for the next twenty years."
Bron's hands tightened on the keys, and he just stared into Olivia's eyes. She knew that he wasn't used to people giving him things—anything—much less a car.
"What about gas?" Bron asked. "I'll have to get a job."
"Your job is to go to school and prepare well for the rest of your life. Let me worry about the gas."
She figured with the extra money that they got for taking care of Bron, she could make the car payments—and more.
Bron stood staring at her for a long moment, and then asked, as if the question were being painfully extruded from him, "Olivia, are you my real mother?"
She knew what he was asking. Did you give birth to me? Did you give me up? What the hell is going on?
"I'm not your birth mother," Olivia said. "But that won't matter. You'll see."
Mist filled her eyes, and she drove home in tears, watching every few seconds to make sure that Bron was still following her.
That afternoon when they got home, Mike was still dickering with the Australian out by the back fence.
Probably talking about feed mixes or some such nonsense. She wondered what the Australian wanted—a bull, breeder cows, bull semen, calves?
He might want to buy the whole darned ranch, she thought hopefully. She'd heard once that Australia had more millionaires per capita than any other country in the world. The breeder had never even given Mike a hint about what he was after.
She made a stir-fry with mixed vegetables, pine nuts, and chicken breast, then added a little glaze from a sweet Asian sauce. It took less than thirty minutes to prepare, and it went well with a little imported Japanese rice.
She set the table, went into the living room, and found Bron watching television. The news would be coming on in three minutes.
"Time to eat," she told Bron, flipping off the tube.
Just as they sat down, Mike came in, having said his goodbyes to the breeder, who was driving off.
"So?" Olivia asked for his report.
"I made a quarter of a million today on stud fees," he said, smiling weakly
Olivia breathed a sigh of relief. She'd spent a lot of money in the last couple of days. The stud fees would almost give them enough to keep the ranch running for the year. "Haven't the Australians heard that there's a recession on?"
Mike shrugged. "That was with recession prices. I should have made half a million, but I gave him a good deal."
She studied him, to see how he felt about that. Relieved, she decided, and secretly happy.
"You are my wise giant," she said, "and a masterful rancher."
"And you are my Fairy Queen!" he replied, "bold and majestic." Olivia looked to Bron, whose face was red with embarrassment. "You can say it, Bron," Mike told him. "Gross!" he exclaimed.
Mike laughed. "You'd better get used to it, Little Brother. You're going to hear that kind of fluff all the time."
Bron hadn't failed to notice that Olivia had turned off the news. He wanted to learn what he could about their attackers. But Olivia didn't want to know.
So they sat down for dinner, and when Bron was nearly finished, he kept the conversation on a safe subject. He asked Olivia, "So those clubs that I have to audition for next week. Can you help me get ready?"
Olivia glanced to Mike. He threw his hands in the air and shrugged. "I guess I can fix dinner for a couple of days."
She kissed his cheek, turned to Bron. "Get your guitar."
Bron went to his room, pulled it from its case, and found that it somehow felt more familiar than ever before. He'd dreamt last night that Olivia was making him play, hour after hour. He'd grown more comfortable with it in his sleep.
For the rest of the evening, they worked on the guitar. He'd never had a formal lesson.
His scant knowledge came from watching kids on YouTube, and downloading chords off the internet.
He was amazed at how much he'd learned from Olivia's one lesson. As he put his fingers to the strings, everything clicked, and music flowed from him.
Olivia smiled. "Wow, you are a fast learner!"
Bron felt his chest swell, and a fierce dream was suddenly born in him: the hope of playing like this all the time—perhaps even becoming a professional.
So Olivia began grounding him in music theory, telling how musicians create resonance in their listener's minds, and then do changeups to create interesting variations.
He spent a lot of time biting his lip and clutching the neck of the guitar too tightly.
Olivia taught him "House of the Rising Sun," an old song that he'd never heard before. The basic melody was simple, but it had a guitar solo in the middle that begged for wicked interpretations.
She tried to get him to sing along, but his voice shook so badly that he wanted to give up.
Olivia encouraged him to keep working until after midnight, and then called for a rest.
"Well," Bron asked when they were done. "Do you think I'll have a shot?"
"You've still got a few bad playing habits, but work with me. Passion and practice, those are the ingredients for artistic success."
"What about talent?" Bron always wondered if he had that elusive quality that everyone said was so necessary. Sure, he thought, talent is easy to see in a pro, but what about someone who's only starting?
"All great art comes from the same place," Olivia said, "the human heart. A painting, a song, a dance. It's as if the heart longs to communicate so clearly, so perfectly, that words and expressions won't do. So the artist's feelings force themselves out through some other medium. That's the kind of passion I'm talking about. And when you practice any art, it's that passion that drives you toward perfection. It makes you stay up an hour later to work on your voice, or rise an hour earlier to play an instrument. When people witness that combination of practice and passion, too often they confuse it for 'talent.' Some things you'll find that you do a little easier than others, but the truth is, talent is mainly just sweat."
"I only have a couple of days till the auditions," Bron said. "Most of these students that I'll be up against have studied for years."
"It will be all right," Olivia said. "There's a reason why I got hired at Tuacahn. For each department, they get hundreds of applications every year, and they take only the best. Give me a couple days. Together we'll work miracles...."
The house had grown quiet. Mike was already in his bedroom. Bron said softly, "Have you heard any more about those guys that were chasing us?"
Olivia smiled secretively. "Let's not talk about it. Tonight we sleep." She kissed his forehead and sent him to his room.
In bed, Mike was lying awake, smiling. Olivia lay down beside him. Mike whispered, "That kid sucks, compared to you."
&nb
sp; "Give him time," Olivia said. "I can teach him."
"You're good," Mike argued, "but face it, he's not like you. He doesn't see sounds as colors, or imagine songs to have three-dimensional shapes, or write papers on how Beethoven's Fifth is a perfect musical conversion of a fractal equation."
Olivia sighed. "Maybe not, but not everyone has to see music in order to make it. There's music inside him, wanting to get out. He can't sight-read yet, but that will come. Even when he strums, though, he has perfect rhythm."
"So buy him some drums," Mike suggested.
"When he sings, his pitch isn't bad," Olivia argued. "He just needs to learn to really listen to his own voice, and then correct, until he learns how to shape pure notes." Mike looked at her, bemused. "You really think you can teach this kid?"
"I know I can."
Mike suggested, "Maybe it would help if he made a pact with the devil."
Chapter 10
A Breed Apart
"'Bron was never deceived by beauty. That is hard to remember, considering how close he became to his father. How could one love a killer? How could an entire nation bow down to Hitler? Some have sought to excuse Bron because he was young and gullible, but the truth is far more complex. Bron was never deceived by appearances."
— Olivia Hernandez
Bron woke that morning feeling refreshed and relaxed. Apparently there was some sort of tradition of having big Sunday breakfasts, so Olivia got up and made waffles with bacon in them, smothered in fresh blueberries, with whipped cream on top.
The concoction tasted better than it sounded, and apparently it was one of Mike's favorites, so he ate a mountain of them. Bron planned to go to his room and practice his music, but just as soon as breakfast was done, the doorbell rang.
Mike looked at Olivia, and she peered back at Mike. Apparently they didn't get many visitors. "Sunday tourists," Mike suggested, "come to feed the cows?"
He went to the door, but it wasn't tourists. He shouted, "Hey, Olivia, the Mercers are here."
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