From what his mother had said — I still couldn’t think of her as my grandmother — it sounded as if that was exactly what he’d done. Gone up there to hide. What else could you call it, when he’d discarded his father’s last name and taken that of his maternal grandmother’s family? Clearly he’d taken some pains to hide who he was, where he had come from.
I had no idea how he’d react when I came knocking at his door….
* * *
Although I’d had grand plans for getting up early and driving out to Cameron around nine, my body had different ideas. Between the moving stress and the sex and those tiny little people inside me who needed every spare ounce of energy I had, I crashed hard that night, and didn’t even wake up until it was almost eight-thirty. And then there was hardly any food in the house, and of course here we couldn’t just stroll out the back door and be in downtown Flagstaff, with plenty of places to get something to eat. We ended up showering and getting dressed, and then finally making it to breakfast at the country club around ten-thirty. Thank goodness it was a Sunday, a day when people liked to brunch, so we didn’t need to worry about it being too late to get some actual breakfast food.
How they knew we were members, I really didn’t know — some seamless behind-the-scenes magic of their own, I supposed. But no one challenged us as we gave our names, and after a short wait we were shown to a table next to the window, where we could look down at a putting green and the calm blue of a manmade lake.
“So are you going to take up golf?” I inquired with a grin, after watching Connor gaze out the window at a group taking their turns on the green.
“God, no,” he said with such vehemence that I knew he didn’t find my question amusing in the slightest. “That’s Lucas’ thing, not mine. Can you really imagine me in khakis and a polo shirt?”
“Um, no,” I replied. Since we were coming here to eat, he’d actually tucked his shirt in, but Connor wasn’t exactly what you’d call buttoned-down when it came to his clothes. Jeans all the time, long-sleeved henleys in the winter, short-sleeved ones in the summer. In fact, the only time I’d ever seen him wear actual trousers was at Damon’s funeral.
A waiter came up and asked what we’d like, and I ordered a glass of cranberry juice and Connor some mineral water, since he knew better than to drink any coffee around me. Afterward he said, “So, from here it’ll take us about an hour to get out to Cameron. It might be kind of busy, since it’s the weekend and that’s one route you can take to get to the Grand Canyon.”
“Have you been there a lot? To Cameron, I mean.”
“Couple of times when I was driving someplace else. It’s not exactly what you’d call a destination.” He hesitated, fingers playing nervously with the edge of the napkin in his lap. “It’s Navajo territory, so we need to be respectful and understand that they’re allowing us to be on their land.”
“I get it,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I did, not completely. The Navajo nation truly was another country embedded within our own.
Connor went on, “I looked the address up on Google maps, and it’s a little bit outside Cameron itself, up in a canyon. You can only get there by a dirt road. From what I could tell, it looks like a little compound…there are several buildings, and what looked like a small solar array. Makes sense, because otherwise it’s hard to get power out to a place like that.” Another one of those pauses, and then he looked me directly in the eye and said, “You’ll need to prepare yourself.”
“I know,” I told him. “He may not be there at all, or he may slam the door in my face. I get it.”
“That’s not what I meant. There’s a lot of poverty on the reservation. No one’s living out there in a McMansion, you know? It can be kind of a shock, if you aren’t used to it.”
My first impulse was to say I didn’t care about any of that. I just wanted to see my father. But I realized that I’d never really witnessed that kind of need before. Oh, sure, I knew a lot of people who were far from rich. But there was poor, and then there was poor.
“It’s okay,” I said at length. “I mean, you know more about it than I do, but I promise not to gawk like a tourist or flip out because my father isn’t living in a split-level ranch house or something.”
“Do they even have split-level ranch houses in Jerome?” he asked with a grin.
“No, but they do in Cottonwood, and that’s where most of the people I went to high school with live.”
Connor nodded, and then the waiter came by with our drinks and took our food orders. We both got omelettes, his the sort of thing Sydney would call “heart attack on a plate” — two kinds of cheese, bacon, sausage — while I decided to be conservative and have tomatoes and black olives and feta cheese. After the waiter left, I added, “I appreciate you trying to prepare me, Connor, and honestly, I’m not sure what to expect. I mean, just because the private investigator found someone who sounds like he’s the right person — right name, right age — it doesn’t mean he’ll really turn out to be who we’re looking for. Did Lucas say that the P.I. had actually even seen my father?”
“No. He asked around, and finally got it from one of the women who works at the trading post. Traded a couple of six-packs for the information.”
At that revelation, I raised my eyebrows, and he added, “They don’t sell alcohol on the reservation. From Cameron, you have to drive down to Flagstaff to buy booze, and it’s actually illegal to bring it onto Navajo land. I guess the P.I. thought it was worth the risk, since they really don’t have enough reservation cops to enforce the law. So the woman who told him about your father wasn’t quite as much of a cheap date as you might be thinking…and Lester was taking a risk, too, although I think the worst that would have happened is that the beer would have been confiscated.”
This was all news to me, but up until a few months ago, I’d never thought I’d have a chance to explore Wilcox territory, which overlapped with the land the Navajo nation called their own. Well, at least if we did end up eating at the trading post, I wouldn’t have to worry about watching people chug beer and wine around me while I was stuck with water or herbal tea.
Our food came soon after that, and I focused on eating. It had been a long time since the cheese and crackers we’d eaten around eight the night before, since there wasn’t much else available. Yes, we’d brought over the food from Connor’s apartment and stocked the enormous Sub-Zero refrigerator in the new kitchen, but most of what we had were the components to make meals, not any ready-made dinners, and I was really not up to cooking by the time we finally stopped organizing and putting away things. Maybe it was time to revisit the policy I’d adopted from my Aunt Rachel of not having any processed food in the house. It might not have been the healthiest thing ever, but it sure was convenient.
At any rate, I shoveled in that omelette at a rate that probably wasn’t very ladylike, but at least it silenced the raging monster in my stomach. Connor seemed to understand, not eating quite as quickly — and also not protesting when I snagged one of his pieces of toast, since I finished so much sooner than he did.
“Eating for three!” I chirped as he gave me the side-eye.
At that he could only shake his head. Maybe he understood that I was trying to act normal, to pretend there was nothing unusual about this pregnancy, so I wouldn’t drive myself crazy wondering how this was all going to play out, whether I’d make it to the twins’ first birthday, or whether I’d fall down the stairs the day after we brought them home from the hospital, or one of seemingly a hundred gruesome scenarios my mind had begun to conjure up. None of that was helping, of course, so instead I tried to think about the drive to Cameron, and the person we were going out there to see. I didn’t see any way how Andre Wilcox…or Bedonie, I supposed…could be any more dreadful than his mother, but…could he?
“Can we stop by the house before we hit the road?” I asked Connor as the waiter came by with the check. Without even looking at it, Connor handed over his credit card, then replied,
>
“Sure. Want to primp?”
“I want to brush my teeth. I don’t want to go meet my father with feta cheese breath.”
“Understandable.”
I did brush my teeth when we went back to the house…and applied some eyeshadow and eyeliner, which I hardly ever did, and then decided to change my top and slip the concho belt Connor had bought me around my hips. Before I got pregnant, I’d been wearing it on the last hole before the conchos started, but today I had to slip the buckle a few notches over. At this rate, I’d be lucky to get another month or so of wear out of it before I had to pack it away with all my non-pregnancy jeans and everything else I couldn’t fit into.
Well, at least it still fits now, I told myself, and regarded my reflection solemnly. Would my father see some of himself in me — the green eyes, the cheekbones, the oval face — or would he only see my mother’s straight nose and wide mouth, her arched brows, and claim that he wasn’t my father at all?
“You look beautiful,” Connor said from behind me, and I jumped.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on a person like that.”
“I wasn’t sneaking. You’re just not used to how this house is set up. Anyway, you’re beautiful, and your father is going to be proud of you.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head — lightly, so he wouldn’t mess up my hair. “Now let’s get going.”
I knew I couldn’t delay our departure any longer, so I nodded and followed him downstairs, then out that amazing covered walkway to the garage. What would it be like in the winter, to have this sheltered path shielding us from the snow? If the property looked like fairyland now, I could only imagine what it must be like in December or January, the ground a smooth blanket of white, the trees looking as if they’d been swirled with pale frosting.
If, of course, I made it that long.
No, that was silly. Of course I’d make it to December — I was due on the 11th, although the doctor had warned me that the date wasn’t set in stone, especially for a first pregnancy, and even more so for twins. But it seemed pretty clear that I’d still be around in December. January? That was an entirely different story.
Well, I’d just have to make sure the curse was broken by then.
Oh, yeah. Easy peasy.
I got in the passenger side of Connor’s FJ. We could’ve taken my car, which also had four-wheel drive, but the Cruiser was bigger and sturdier, and Connor knew it better. If we ended up having to take rough roads, it made more sense to be in the vehicle he was most familiar with.
It was a beautiful early June day, the sun bright, not a cloud in the sky. Here in Flagstaff it was just comfortably warm, enough that you could wear sandals and a short-sleeved shirt and be just fine. Of course it was a good deal warmer back in Jerome, although I hadn’t a clue about where we were headed. Maybe I should’ve thrown my jean jacket in the back, just to be safe, since I knew it could get pretty cold at night here, even in June.
June…why was that tickling at my brain?
Then I got it. I shifted in my seat and shot Connor an accusing glare. “I just realized it’s June, and you told me once that your birthday was in June. If you let me miss it, I’ll never forgive you.”
He shot me a startled look, then relaxed slightly and smiled. “No worries on that front. It’s the twenty-first.”
Wait…what? “You mean your birthday is on the solstice, too?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t find that just a little bit of a coincidence?”
“Angela, pretty much everything to do with us is a weird coincidence. I’m kind of just rolling with it at this point.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. Still, it had to mean something, didn’t it? That we should have been born on the two most significant dates in the sun’s calendar? Something in Connor’s expression told me I shouldn’t push it too much, so I only said, “Well, I’m glad it’s still a few weeks off yet. That gives me some time to shop.”
He gave me a mock-worried glance. “Don’t go overboard. Please. I really don’t need anything.”
“Really?” I inquired. “Nothing? Not even me wrapped in a red silk teddy?”
“Oh, okay,” he said, relenting. “That might be one birthday present I’d be all right with.”
There wasn’t much I could do except chuckle and shake my head. Yes, I’d definitely spring the lingerie on him, but maybe some new paintbrushes, too, and his wallet was so beat-up it looked like he’d backed the FJ over it a few times. For all I knew, maybe he had.
And so I distracted myself as we jogged east on the I-40 for a few miles, then got off at Highway 89, which led all the way to Page and the Grand Canyon. Not that we intended to go that far, as Cameron was a lot closer. We passed the mall and headed north, climbing through residential neighborhoods before beginning to drop down into the dry, dusty valley where Cameron was located.
It was hotter there, too; I watched the outside temperature reading on the dashboard rise from the comfortable eighty-two it had been in Flagstaff up into the low nineties, then rise even more. By the time we were nearing the trading post, it was almost a hundred degrees outside. I really wasn’t looking forward to getting out of the FJ’s powerful air conditioning.
We didn’t stop, though, but turned west on Highway 64, going slowly because, although the crews weren’t working on Sunday, the road was carved up by what looked like a massive construction project. Out here there wasn’t a lot of vegetation, except some trees clustered around the trading post and what Connor pointed out as the Little Colorado River. Off the road I saw small settlements, a few houses clustered together, all small and consisting of a single story, some of them mobile homes, a lot of them surrounded by collections of broken-down-looking vehicles.
As Connor had warned me, none of this appeared very promising. I sat quietly in the passenger seat as we drove a few miles down Highway 64. Then Connor slowed and pulled off on a dirt road that wasn’t even marked.
“Good thing you looked this up on Google maps, huh?” I said.
He gave me a quick, tight smile but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I also programmed it into my GPS, just in case. But it looks like I found the turn-off okay.”
On this side of the highway there was a series of steep hills with shadowy canyons in between. It looked like we were headed toward one of those, and I peered through the dust swirling up from the FJ’s tires to see that we were approaching another one of those meager little compounds, this one with two one-story houses, both painted a light sand color, an outbuilding that looked as if it might have been made of adobe, the pale cylindrical shape of a propane tank, and, incongruously, an array of shiny solar panels. Up toward the canyon there seemed to be one more building, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. A stable, maybe?
There were two vehicles parked under the shade of a large oak tree, one a battered white pickup truck, the other a Jeep even older than my Aunt Rachel’s, maybe twenty years or more.
My heart seemed to stutter and then resume a normal rhythm. Had that Jeep once been new and shiny, carrying my father to his assignation with my mother in California?
Only one way to find out.
Connor pulled up on the far side of the pickup and then put the FJ in park. Although we must have made a good deal of noise coming up here — and brought a conspicuous dust cloud with us — no one had emerged from either of the houses to see who was trespassing on their property. Maybe they were out, but then why were both vehicles here?
“You ready?” Connor asked, reaching up to turn off the engine.
Not really, but of course I couldn’t tell him that, not after making him drive all the way out here. I swallowed. “Sure. Let’s do this.”
He pulled the key from the ignition, and I reached over to open the door. A blast of dry desert heat hit me, and I had to fight the urge to cough, feeling as if I’d just swallowed half the dust particles we’d stirred up as we entered the property. I did wave a hand in front of my face to ward off
a few flies that descended almost as soon as I moved two feet away from the SUV.
Both of the houses looked roughly the same, paint peeling in places, a chaotic assortment of potted succulents clustering around their front doors. Off past them I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a small garden, carefully covered with shade cloth. They’d certainly need it out here.
Since I really didn’t know where I was going, I angled toward the house that was slightly closer to us. Connor followed a pace or two behind me, the sound of his hiking boots on the gravelly dirt a welcome sound. Once again I had to thank the Goddess for bringing him to me. I knew I could never have done this without him.
When we were a few yards away from the nearer house, the door to the other one opened, and a tall man stepped out onto the uncovered front stoop, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the pitiless sun. He wore a loose white linen shirt with an old-fashioned band collar, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing sun-browned forearms. His hair was long and dark, pulled back into a ponytail, but when I got closer, I saw that his eyes weren’t dark to match, but hazel, their green-gold unexpected against the warm brown of his skin.
My breath caught, and it wasn’t just because of the dust and the oppressive heat. The man stood there watching me for a second or two, and then he smiled, teeth flashing.
“Come in. We’ve been expecting you.”
* * *
The house was cramped, but cooler than I had expected, thanks to a swamp cooler going at full blast. As Connor and I entered, I saw an old, old Navajo man sitting in a worn leather chair tucked into a corner. The furniture was minimal — that chair, a cracked leather sofa, a plain wooden chair with a woven rush seat and the remnants of red paint on its surface.
I found my voice. “You were expecting us?”
Another smile, and this time I was looking for the Wilcox resemblance and saw it immediately, in the sculpted bones of his face and the strong, elegant nose. He could have probably passed for Connor’s uncle…if Connor had one, of course.
Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3) Page 20
