Crow Mountain

by Lucy Inglis

  ‘Let me take that for you though,’ Meredith said, reaching for the diary.

  Hope jerked back.

  ‘Hope? Hope!’ Margaret Redfeather was sprinting across the tarmac as the plane’s engines wound up, badge clutched in her hand. Behind her were two security guards and what looked like a porter. They skidded to a halt, breathing hard.

  Margaret shook her head. ‘John Hart, who the hell do you think you are?’

  Hart folded his arms. ‘Just making sure Miss Cooper here doesn’t miss her flight.’

  ‘You are not border control and you have no right to do this.’ Margaret’s voice was clear and strong. ‘You can’t just deport people.’

  Hart stared at Margaret. ‘You interfere, I’ll get you fired.’

  ‘Try it. One more reason on a long list for me to find a way to kick your ass, eventually. And who knows when that day will come?’ A hint of a smile crossed her face.

  He snorted. ‘You people. You’ve been beat for a hundred and fifty years and you still can’t see it.’

  Meredith hoisted her bag a little higher on her shoulder. ‘I want to take my daughter home. She’s not thinking clearly.’

  ‘I am,’ Hope objected. She looked at the police chief, then at her mother. ‘This is about you, Mum. You’re trying to control me. I don’t want to go home.’

  Margaret turned to her, taking her shoulders. ‘Hope. You’re sixteen, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re on your own passport with a tourist visa, yes?’

  Hope nodded.

  ‘And you want to stay here. I need you to say it aloud, if that’s what you want.’

  Hope looked at her mother, at all of them. ‘I want to stay,’ she said in a level voice. She clutched her passport firmly to her chest with the diary.

  ‘Hope—’ Meredith began.

  ‘No, Mum, personal agency, remember? I’m choosing this. Me.’

  Margaret nodded, once. ‘Good enough for me. You can stay. You’ve done nothing wrong and no one can make you go.’

  ‘I say she goes,’ Hart snapped, leaning over Margaret.

  She eyed him, only an inch or so shorter, not backing down. ‘This is your life, isn’t it? Endless little abuses of your power to make yourself feel like the big man. Hating on my people, fitting up others for things they didn’t do because of some grudge you imagine you got. And that’s only the tip of it. I know, ’cause I’ve looked. Well, I’ve called Internal Affairs.’

  ‘You called IA on me?’ Chief Hart began to go purple in the face and drew back his arm, fist clenched.

  Margaret took a step away, pulling out her gun from under her black jacket, pointing it directly into his face. ‘You strike me and it’ll be the last thing you do. For a hundred and fifty years the Harts have been lying and cheating their way into Montana law enforcement. No more.’

  He spat on the tarmac at her feet. ‘Dirt-worshipping bitch. You’ve gotten above yourself with this one.’

  Margaret laughed. A wild, joyous laugh that battled the plane’s engines. ‘Call me all the names you want, shitheel, but you won’t touch me and you won’t make that girl go anywhere she doesn’t want to go.’ She turned to Hope. ‘When you’re ready, the car’s parked out front.’

  Hope looked over her shoulder at her mother, standing on the metal steps of the plane. Then she ran back to the terminal, bare feet pounding the tarmac.

  In the old convertible, more grey than silver, Hope held the diary on her lap and waited as the wiry policewoman slid into the driver’s seat. Margaret turned the engine over and pulled away from the front of the terminal. Hope felt awkward in the silence.

  ‘Thanks, and everything. Although I don’t really know what I’ll do now.’

  Margaret pulled on to the slip road from the airport. ‘The Crows are good people – they’ll make sure you have somewhere to stay. And there won’t be any trouble, that was just Chief Hart scaring your mom. I’m going to take you back to the ranch now, get you some shoes and some warmer clothes, and then I’ll take you to the hospital. OK?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You English are real polite, aren’t you?’ The corner of her mouth turned up. ‘But the best way you can thank me is by telling me what happened out there.’

  Hope opened her mouth to speak.

  ‘Wait, I think I need a cigarette. Pass me one from . . . yeah, perfect.’ Margaret put the cigarette between her lips. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, to Hope’s unspoken words. ‘It’s a filthy habit.’ She looked surprised as Hope burst out laughing. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I can’t explain.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’d better try, because it sounds as if I’m going to have to call in a favour or two and I want to know the reasons why. Start with the crash and go from there.’

  As quickly and clearly as she could, Hope began to explain about finding the diary, about the crash, and about how things had happened on the mountain. It was a long story, mixing together both the tale of Emily and Nate and that of herself and Cal, and it all came tumbling out, a story of the sort any writer would be proud. They were some distance from the town, heading out on the road to the Broken Bit by the time she finished.

  Margaret Redfeather said nothing, but paid attention to the road and smoked another cigarette.

  ‘So,’ she asked, when Hope ground to a halt, ‘what happens in the end?’

  Hope looked at the diary on her lap. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t had time to read to the end.’

  ‘Then read, Cooper.’

  A few short minutes later, Emily’s story drew to a close. ‘. . . His name is Caleb.’ Hope’s voice cracked as they approached the outskirts of Helena.

  Margaret gripped the steering wheel. ‘Hope?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The Apsáalooke. Nate’s people? That’s my tribe. We’re the Crow Nation. Rose Redfeather was the head of my family. Emily’s son is Caleb Crow. The Crows have owned that ranch since what, 1871, right?’

  ‘That’s how it began, with Nate and Emily. And the cabin.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ Margaret said. ‘I thought I knew everything there was to know about Rose. You know she’s a legend, right?’

  Hope shoved her hand under her nose, trying to stop the tears from falling. ‘No, but how can we stop what’s happening to Cal and his family?’

  ‘What if . . .’ Margaret drummed the wheel. ‘What . . . if—’

  The car leapt forward from the lights and Margaret executed a sharp U-turn as Hope clung on to the seat. ‘What?!’

  Margaret took her eyes from the road for a second to grab her phone. She put it into Hope’s hand. ‘I think we may have halted it already, just by stopping you leaving.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Think about it, Hope. It went wrong for Nate and Emily when his Crow family left. If they’d been there, the outcome would have been real different. Dial this number.’

  Putting in the number Margaret dictated, Hope heard it dial, then ring.

  ‘Put it on speaker,’ Margaret said, just as a voice answered.

  ‘Davis.’

  ‘Andrew?’

  ‘Margaret?’

  ‘Remember that favour?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man said warily.

  ‘I’m calling it in. I’m going to call out some names and I need you to look at the records and meet us at St Peter’s as soon as you can. Like, now.’ Margaret hit the accelerator and the old Mustang shot through the stop light, dust spinning in its wake.

  Back at the hospital, they ran through the ward to the ICU. A man in a suit was waiting outside the unit, a police badge displayed over the breast pocket.

  ‘I’ve been calling you back,’ he said to Margaret.

  She felt for her phone. ‘I was driving. There’s been a lot going on.’ She turned to Hope. ‘This here’s Commissioner Andrew Davis. Hope Cooper.’

  The dark-haired man offered his hand to Hope, his expression serious. They shook.

  ‘OK, I’ve been
looking, very quickly, at the history of police harassment against the Crow family by John Hart over the past decade and particularly the last couple of years,’ the commissioner said to Margaret. ‘It’s all way out of line. There are other things too, other cases, with witnesses who’ve come forward, but we don’t need to get into that now. I understand, Margaret, that you have a statement from Carrie Hart to confirm that there should be no outstanding accusation against this boy. I have no reason to disbelieve you, although we will obviously need to check this, but I can state clearly now that there are no official charges against Cal Crow and there won’t be. His record is also clean.’

  Margaret turned to the police officers still sitting outside the ICU. ‘You can go now,’ she said abruptly. ‘Cal Crow is a patient here, nothing more.’

  The commissioner showed his badge and handed the officers a piece of paper. One of them took it, surprised, getting to his feet.

  The commissioner turned to Margaret. ‘And I wanted to tell Mr and Mrs Crow in person, apologize to them on behalf of the force. They should have come forward with this a long time ago.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Margaret said, ‘I think you’ll find they ain’t complaining people.’

  Suddenly Hope felt the deep silence from within the unit. She turned and stared through the window. Then she saw Elizabeth sitting silently, tears running down her face.

  ‘I’m so sorry—’ The nurse who had been so kind began, coming out from behind the station. She put her hand on Hope’s arm.

  ‘What?’ Hope’s voice was faint. She burst into the room, even as the nurse tried to hold her back. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Hope,’ the young doctor said gently, taking her arms. ‘We’ve done all we can to stabilize him, but his vital signs went into decline just after you left.’

  ‘You have to let me talk to him. I need to speak to him – there’s things he needs to know. It doesn’t matter how many people are in the room now, does it?’ Hope said urgently as Margaret Redfeather and the commissioner came in behind her.

  Margaret nodded to Cal’s parents and pulled a key from her pocket, unfastening the handcuff from Cal’s wrist, the metal bracelet falling on to the webbed blanket.

  As they all looked on, Hope took his hand. ‘Cal? Cal, it’s me. It’s Hope. The police are here. But it’s not what you think. They’re here to tell you they know what happened. You’re in the clear!’ She rubbed his cold knuckles. ‘You have to help him now!’ Hope pleaded with the gathering medical staff who watched her, awkward and unsure. ‘Please!’

  An unwilling audience in a tiny theatre.

  She fumbled in her hip pocket with the other, pulling out the diary. Pressing her forehead to his, she touched a quick kiss to his mouth, distorted by the intubation tube, the ventilator pumping air in and out of his patched-up chest. ‘Listen. What if Emily was right, that the universe does have a system of checks and balances? What if the white horse led us on to the bridge so that we could put things right?’ She held the diary close between them, against her heart. ‘Nate and Emily didn’t get to choose, but we do. She came back to the mountain and wished for someone to inherit their story. And she wished that we’d have the time they didn’t get. So you were right, this is crazy. But it’s beautiful, and it’s only just beginning.’

  She took a deep breath, her voice breaking as the heart monitor flatlined . . .

  ‘I love you.’

  Hope sat on the hospital fire escape. In her hand, she held Elizabeth Crow’s phone. Far away, clouds gathered over the mountains. There was an afternoon storm coming.

  Behind her the door opened and Margaret Redfeather bunked down on the step, patting her pockets for a cigarette. ‘You OK?’

  Hope said nothing.

  ‘Dumb question.’ Margaret stuck the cigarette in the corner of her mouth and cracked the lighter. It flared and she breathed in quick then blew out slow. ‘This Crow–Hart mess goes back a long way. I think a lot on this, you know, Hope. I think about who we are and if we can escape our pasts. But in the end, all we can do is our best. And you did it. You really did.’

  ‘I’m not brave like you, or Rose. Or Emily.’

  ‘Yes you are, even if you don’t think it. Took real courage to stand up like that, amongst strangers in a strange place. To tell someone what you really feel.’

  Hope hugged her hollow, aching chest. ‘I’m not sure it made any difference, in the end.’

  ‘Guess we’ll never know.’ Margaret picked a shred of tobacco from her tongue, looking out towards the mountains. ‘But you know, when my tribe used to go to war we had this system—’

  ‘Coups. Like Emily won.’

  Margaret raised an eyebrow. ‘So then you know what “Redfeather” really means?’

  Hope shook her head. No, this she hadn’t learnt from Emily.

  ‘For my people, if you took a clean coup, you got an eagle feather to wear in your hair. But if you won a coup against the enemy and it cost you real bad, but you survived to fight another day, you dyed that feather red and you wore it with pride.’ Margaret ground out the tab beneath her heel and stood, putting her hand on Hope’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t you come on inside now? Everyone’s worried about you out here all alone.’

  Hope shook her head, looking at the sky. ‘No, there’s something I promised Cal I’d do.’

  For a moment, Margaret said nothing. Then, ‘You earned yourself one hell of a red feather today, Hope Cooper. Be proud. Own it.’ She walked away, throwing her final words over her shoulder. ‘And remember, call me if you need anything.’

  The fire door banged and Margaret Redfeather was gone into the stormy Montana sunset.

  Hope looked at the time on the phone in her hand and then entered the number she knew by heart but had never actually dialled. It rang for what seemed like a long time.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice said, a little blurry with sleep. Then again, after a pause. ‘Hello?’

  Hope took a deep breath. ‘Dad?’

  On finally returning to England, Hope stepped off the red-eye flight, took the Tube to Marble Arch and walked to Portman Square. There, she sat on a bench in the London rain and looked at the house where Emily had grown up, the square’s garden green and wet around her.

  She went home and, after some discussion with Meredith, she became a student at a local school. In the times Meredith worked away, Hope began staying with her father’s family in their noisy, echoing Hampstead house, which was still falling down around their ears. She had a tiny bedroom there in the eaves, with an old metal single bed and a view over the jungle-like garden. Everyone talked at once as they sat around the dinner table and they welcomed Hope into their chaotic midst as if she had been part of their lives all along.

  She helped her father learn his lines outside the kitchen door, as he strode around the yard, clutching his silver hair and a glass of wine. She watched with her half-brothers – James and Tom – three sets of elbows on the timber balcony, as her father took the stage at The Globe theatre; they visited him on the set of his detective series. She formed a tentative, honest friendship with her father’s wife, although Mags could never be a real stepmother to her. Affectionate and tactile, her father and Mags however encouraged Hope to follow her heart: she wrote continually, and sent off her work to magazines and journals as often as she could.

  Over in Montana, it had taken almost two years for Hart to be dismissed, officially, from his post. Although there was never any real chance it would get to trial, Hope had been glad to see him punished. The ex-chief still lived on the outskirts of Fort Shaw and spent a lot of time in the town bar apparently. There was nothing for him to go home to, after all, as Carrie and her mother had disappeared that summer.

  A year after her time there, Hope had received, via Margaret Redfeather, an unsigned postcard from Denver. It featured a picture of the city and across it in large yellow letters it said, ‘Hello from beautiful Denver!’ Margaret kept in touch, always, and was working full-time now with victi
ms of domestic violence. Still wearing sharp suits, still smoking untipped cigarettes, still driving her silver Mustang.

  At university, Hope studied English literature as she had planned – something Meredith had finally accepted – and made a large group of friends, although she saw Lauren and Scott often. Caleb and Elizabeth came to London for two weeks and on a Sunday morning ate ranchers’ salad outside an East London hipster café, as babies in buggies cried and dogs lay under every table and nobody cared. Caleb Crow declared himself a big fan of London, and wondered how Chuck was faring back home.

  In her final year at university, Hope had a book published. A novel, set in Montana.

  The diary accompanied her everywhere, although sometimes she did not look inside it for months. She found out all she could about Emily Howard Stanton, contacted her descendants, still living in San Francisco, and emailed them a transcript of Emily’s account of that summer. She researched Nate’s second family, and discovered the history of Little Elk’s long reign as chief, the early death of his wife Clear Water from influenza, and the extraordinary life of Rose Redfeather, who bore a daughter to an unknown father some ten years after Emily’s summer. Of Nate’s first family, Hope never found a trace.

  Cal was constantly in her thoughts. Often, she missed him so much she could barely breathe, finding herself lost and confused in a coffee shop, or reprimanded in a lecture for inattention.

  She never stayed away from Montana for long – how could she? – and the Broken Bit was another home. Then, as time passed, she realized part of her had never left the mountain above Upper St Mary Lake, and that ingenious pioneer cabin, where she and Cal had been tenants for such short, precarious days.

  Over the years, the pull to return to the cabin became stronger and stronger until it was impossible to resist . . .

  Montana. Now.

  Hope is on the porch. Before her the expanse of St Mary Lake stretches for miles in both directions. The cabin is restored, and the window replaced. On the wreck of the old corral by the wind-stunted tree sits a battered red Ford pick-up. A few deer move in and out of the treeline. The diary is at her side and she has retrieved from the dark corners of the chest a ragged eagle feather, a brittle blue and yellow bracelet, some elk teeth and a broken D-ring snaffle bit. And the possibles bag. Wild flowers carpet the meadow.