Her stallion, Dancer, stood under the shed roof waiting for her. She wheeled his supper to a low feeding trough and dumped in the hay and oats. He nuzzled her hair and gave her kisses.
"You're spoiled," she said, sniffling and stroking his wet face, "but you're better than all the other men I know."
He yanked his head free and snorted, then turned his attention to the feeding trough.
Without warning, a sob burst from deep in her chest. Losing Jack in such a tragic way had been enough to bring tears, but now the thought of selling the animals she had sacrificed to own and protect was too much.
Dancer raised his head in her direction and snorted. She pulled a currycomb from a wooden box hanging on the side of the barn and began to brush him dry. "I don't know what made-me think coming back here was an answer to anything," she mumbled.
Now that she had made the move, now that she had done something almost impossible to undo, the facts were obvious and disappointment assailed her. "This place hasn't changed since I left here eighteen years ago," she said, moving to Dancer's opposite side. The horse's muscles rippled under her currycomb.
Indeed, Callister seemed to exist in a time warp. The same small businesses still struggled along the main street. She hadn't been in contact with many of the natives since her return, but she sensed that a siege mentality still thrived among them.
Even the same bars still operated. When she was a kid, double-digit percentages of alcoholism and unemployment ran neck and neck. She suspected that was true today.
"I just haven't been thinking straight since Billy left," she muttered. "I've made one bad decision after another. You know I'm a mess, don't you?"
The horse's head sawed up and down. Even he knew her failures. She sank to a wooden bench against the wall, leaned back and gave in to a new spate of tears.
Dancer lowered his head, gave her a gentle head bump.
She rubbed his cheek, his velvety muzzle. "How can I sell you?" She looked into his beautiful dark eyes with their spidery lashes. "What would I do without you? Who would I talk to?"
Chapter 4
Sunday morning, John came to consciousness with the previous day's incident at Rondeau's place replaying in his mind. He could still see the border collie's corpse lying in the bed of Izzy's truck and the little girl's face, swollen and red from crying, could still hear the tightly controlled anguish in Izzy's voice.
He could still feel a little tear in his heart. It had been hard to remain objective in the meeting with Art 'Dimos. John had found himself sympathizing with Izzy. He had heard a distinct snarl in Art's words when he talked about Izzy and her family. What could the old fucker have against her? She had been out of the state for years. John made a mental note to ask his mother when he saw her on her birthday.
The dog shooting was another one of those uncomfortable raw edges that came with the territory of being sheriff. He had always respected a person's privacy, had ruthlessly guarded his own, but now he had a front-row seat to the disorder in people's lives. Half the time, when duty called for him to intervene in a dispute or interfere with a citizen's determination to break the law, he felt like an interloper. He snugged a little tighter into the covers and tried to return to sleep. He slept late if possible on Sunday mornings and delayed going into the office 'til after lunch. Because Rooster had a family to go home to, he took the night patrol on Fridays and Saturdays. All he had was an empty apartment.
Last night he hadn't gotten home until after the bars closed at two a.m. A band from out of town played at the Rusty Spur Saloon. The rain and chill hadn't inhibited revelers, either local or from out of town. With Callister full of partying drunks, it had been up to him alone to see that order prevailed.
So far, he'd had few problems with drunks. When he told them to pack it in and go home, they cooperated. Not only was he bigger and in better physical shape than most of them, he had known them and their families all his life and they knew him and his. A few remembered him as a rodeo champion, which, strangely enough, seemed to carry more weight than the badge on his chest.
Outside, the cold rain continued, forecasted to last through Sunday. The town would be moving at a snail's pace today. Most people in Callister went to church on Sunday, even the ones who had partied hard on Saturday night.
Unable to drift back to sleep, he got up and pulled on sweatpants, brushed his teeth and put coffee on to drip. Then he went to the second bedroom, where he kept a Band Flex home gym he had bought used and cheap through eBay. Since moving back to Callister he had resumed an exercise regimen.
During his rodeo days, he had always worked out. Stamina and strength were important to a good performance. They made the steer-roping event safer for the roper, the horse and the calf. When he and Julie split, his equipment went on sale along with everything else and he broke the strength-building habit.
He straddled the narrow bench and began a series of reps, stretching his arms and upper body, the exercise bringing back a memory of how devoted he had once been to his rodeo career. He didn't often talk about the end of that phase of his life, but if he somehow got trapped into a conversation about it, he said aloud that the day his exercise equipment went down the road was the beginning of the end of his career.
A haunting inner voice told him the end had begun long before that, like when he and Julie began quarreling over his traveling, the cost of hauling and maintaining his rope horses, the lack of time he spent at home with her and the kids.
He could admit now to the quiet four walls of his apartment just how hard a wife with two small children on her hands must have found his traveling and rodeoing. Most of their married life, if he hadn't been gone, he had been readying to leave or returning from somewhere, racing to catch up with what had been neglected in his absence and constantly working out and practicing. Practice, practice and more practice—the foundation of a champion.
He also had to admit that even if he had been underfoot every day, the marriage probably still would have fallen apart. Julie hadn't loved him any more than he had loved her. They had little in common except two kids. Living like a monk, as he had done since he returned to Callister, had given him opportunity for introspection and he had come to terms with some truths, including who he was beyond being a relentless competitor for an elusive prize.
The sheriff's job had saved him from himself. On the whole, Callister was a good little town. Churches outnumbered bars and honest, hardworking people outnumbered drunks, just as they had when he was growing up. Being their protector was an experience he wouldn't forget.
He finished his workout ready to face the job, not unhappy with the choice he had made.
* * *
After spending the weekend in a funk of grief, worry and indecision, and at the same time nursing a fever and a cold, Isabelle awoke Monday determined to take charge of her circumstances and press toward her goal—providing a livelihood for herself and her daughter with a horse-training business. The storm that had kept her confined for several days had moved east and left behind bright, if chilly, sun and blue skies and a promise of spring. After she delivered Ava to the school bus, she had called her younger brother, Paul, and he soon arrived. Now she stood with him in front of the tall barn, studying the weathered wooden exterior.
"Lord God, Izzy. Where we gonna get the money for all this?"
From his perspective, the question might have been valid, but she had no intention of divulging her bank balance, even to the brother she loved. It was all the money she had in the world. "I'll pay for it. All I want is for you to do some of the work."
She had just ticked off the list of repairs needed to the barn's siding and the lodgepole corrals.
Paul's gaze traveled up to the barn roof, where dozens of missing shingles left gaping holes. "And where'd you get the money?"
"Don't worry about it, okay? Let's go inside. I want to show you what I want done to the stalls."
As they trekked through fledgling pasture grass toward the barn
, Paul groused, "We shoulda sold this ol' piece-o'-shit place."
The house had sat vacant since their father's death. Her brother would have camped under a pine tree before living here in the old family home. She was grateful he hadn't made an issue of selling it. Though her childhood here had been wretched, the rolling pastures were rich with good soil and ideally fenced and cross-fenced for animals. Her mom and dad may have fallen down as parents, but they had been good stewards of the land.
"I'm going back to work in June," Paul said. "I may be going up on the Clearwater, which means I won't be around to help you."
Her brother worked as a contract sawyer for logging companies around the state. Cutting down trees paid him well but, in Idaho, put him in a state of idleness half the year. She gave him a wicked-sister grin. "Hmm. Then you'll have to hammer fast, won't you?"
Paul grinned and gave the back of her hair a yank, like he used to do when they were kids. "I'll get it done for you, Izzy. You know I will."
"I know." She smiled back at him and patted his shoulder. "Because as much as you try to be a shiftless clod, I know you really aren't."
A few feet from the barn her brother stopped and stared into the dark doorway. Isabelle stopped, too, knowing cruel memories haunted him—memories of beatings with a riding crop or a belt. Fists. Anything that caused pain. The instrument depended on their father's state of drunkenness. She had been lucky. Their mother's hysterics spared her from the physical abuse of a brutal man, but a mother's outcry hadn't protected Paul. Some adult should have come to his defense, but no one ever did. "He's gone, Paul. There's nothing in there now that'll hurt you."
He shoved his hands into his pockets and strode forward in the cocky way he always assumed to hide his vulnerabilities. "Hell, I know that. I was just taking a look, that's all."
They walked through the barn's shady interior, with her pointing out repair work needed—doors to be replaced on the three stalls, reinforcement of the roof, three new stalls added opposite the three existing ones. Rusted tools of various uses and dried-to-brittle leather bridles hung on the buckled plank walls of what had been a tack room. Isabelle couldn't keep from wondering if these very objects had torn and bruised her brother's flesh. She intended to trash all of them.
She had buried most memories of her youth in the deepest part of her brain, had worked for years to accomplish the task. Now what she remembered of Paul in those years was he never cried, but he sometimes disappeared into the mountainside forest behind their home for days at a time. Neither of their parents ever went into the woods to look for him. Mom would pace the kitchen, her face drawn with worry, or sit at the kitchen table, her hands clenched into chapped and neglected knots. But she never left the house in search of her son.
At times Isabelle had gone into the forest herself, seeking out her battered little brother, carrying a cheese sandwich in a paper sack in case he was hungry. Ironic to be seeking him out again all these years later?
"If I'm going to board other people's horses," she said, "this has to be a safe place."
"You' re dreaming, Izzy. Who's gonna bring horses to train in a place like Callister?"
"I'm counting on my reputation. I'm hoping when I put out some ads and get involved with the horse clubs around Boise, people will want me to work with their animals. Billy and I always had winners. Most serious horse people know our names."
"Billy. There's an asshole for you." Paul lifted his greasy bill cap and ran a hand through his unkempt dark hair. "Bledsoes been over to see your kid since you got back?"
"They called once. I'm sure they're embarrassed by what Billy did."
"Fuckers. Bledsoes is all assholes. I never did know what you saw in one of 'em."
She knew. As a teenager, she had seen Billy as her salvation.
Paul lifted a stall door lying on the ground near their feet and leaned it against a support post. "I'm glad to help you out with the barn for a little while. Just don't ask me to do nothin' with horses."
"Carpenter work is all I want. I know you're good at it." She tugged at his forearm. "Now, come on up to the house and I'll cook you breakfast. You smell like a brewery, so I'm thinking you could use some food." They walked side by side toward the house. "You were out drinking last night?"
"A little. Me and Merle was at the Rusty Spur."
More than a little, Isabelle thought, from the yeasty smell of him and the tremor in his hands. Merle Keeton was older, but he was Paul's lifelong friend. The man was even more of a maverick than Paul and had a mean streak that made Isabelle uneasy. She hated his influence on her brother, who didn't seem to have a mind of his own. "You could come out and visit with Ava and me instead of hanging out in the bar all the time. Ava would be thrilled to get acquainted with her uncle."
"Why would your kid want to be around me when my own kids don't even like me?" He gave a sarcastic grunt. "Neither does my wife."
Isabelle looked at her brother's strong profile, so much like her own and their father's. Unlike her, Paul had their father's black-as-coal hair. Cleaned up, he was handsome. On the surface he appeared to be easygoing, but she knew him to be as edgy and reckless as a knot-headed horse that would bolt and run through a barbed wire fence to escape. She had always worried about him, more so after his wife left him. "Sherry used to worship you. I imagine she got tired of living with a thirty-two-year-old man who acts like a kid."
"Bull. She got highfalutin ideas about living in Boise. Wanted a career and all that shit."
"Paul, cashiering in a grocery store isn't a career. But it is a steady job. You ran her off."
The mares, Trixie and Polly, came over and clomped along beside them, interrupting her lecture. "You guys are just big babies," she said when Trixie snorted near her shoulder.
Paul snorted, too. "Big pains in the butt, if you ask me. They act more like dogs than horses."
In the small kitchen, Paul shrugged out of his ragged nylon jacket that showed the lining through tears at the elbows. He hung it on the back of a chair at the oak pedestal table that had sat at the same spot on the end of the kitchen for as long as Isabelle could remember.
"You been to see Aunt Margie yet? Or Nan?"
Their mother's younger sister and her daughter, Nan Gilbert, were Isabelle and Paul's closest extended family. When Isabelle had decided to return to Callister, she had called her cousin and told her. Without Isabelle's request or knowledge and before her and Ava's arrival, Paul and Nan's husband, Roger, had come out to their parents' vacant house and checked the well, the septic tank and the oil furnace. Nan had even ordered a delivery of stove oil. Roger, though he scarcely knew Isabelle, had helped Paul cut and split a cord of wood for the fireplace. Their work had made settling in much easier and confirmed in Isabelle's mind the importance of living near family. In Texas she would have had to pay someone to do all of that work. "A couple of times. They're both so busy, it's hard to catch them. And I've been busy, too."
Paul poured himself a cup of coffee, then sat down, watching as she set a cast-iron skillet on a burner of the worn-out cookstove and put bacon on to fry. Isabelle had been around Ava's age when the stove was bought. She had enough trouble cooking in a modern kitchen where everything worked, but with an old, unpredictable stove she didn't have a fighting chance. "Who'll you be working for come summer?" she asked her brother.
"Miller Logging."
"But I thought they convicted Kenny Miller of murder." The only murder that had occurred in Callister County in over half a century had been committed by the most successful citizen in the county, who also employed her brother.
"His two sisters is running his company. Good thing, 'cause there ain't nobody else in this county to work for."
"I wish you could get a job that lasts year-round." She poured coffee for herself and sat down opposite him at the table. "You've been off, what, four months?"
He sprawled in his chair. One leg thrust forward, his foot shod with a well-worn lace-up work boot, the footwear worn by log
gers and tree-fallers. "Since Thanksgiving."
Isabelle shook her head, frustrated at the lack of opportunity in a town of six hundred thirty-five people. Another fact to remind her that returning to Callister was supreme folly. "See? That's exactly what I mean."
She watched as he sipped coffee, noted his dirty black work pants, his faded and stretched waffle-knit shirt. Her brother needed some care. If she could make a difference in his life, perhaps that alone would turn out to be a good enough reason for coming back. "I'm going to Boise in a few days and buy a new washer and dryer. Then you can bring your laundry out here and I'll do it for you."
"You don't need to be washing my clothes. It ain't no big deal. When everything gets dirty, I throw it all in a trash sack and take it to that coin-op joint downtown and—"
"Paul, I want to do your laundry. Just bring it out here."
He shrugged.
"While I'm down in Boise, I'm going to try to see Sherry. When summer gets here, maybe she'll bring your girls up to spend some time with us. Ava doesn't know any of our family."
He didn't look at her, but studied the contents of his mug. He hadn't said how the breakup of his family had affected him, but Isabelle knew losing his wife and two daughters would be a never-healing wound. "You're really hung up on this family crap, ain'tcha?" he said.
"You and your kids are part of the reason I came back here. That's why I want you to straighten up. I want you to be a brother I can be proud of and the father your kids can be proud of. It'd kill me to see you end up like Pa."
Paul huddled over his coffee mug. "On my worst days, sis, I couldn't be as bad as that old sumbitch, but I don't think anybody's gonna be proud of me anytime soon."
That could be true, Isabelle thought, but she said, "I will, if you let me." She rose, put her cheek against his and hugged him. Then, before they had time to break into tears, she returned to the stove.
The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 Page 4
