Solomon's Oak

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  “You have a dog?” Juniper asked, while Caroline rummaged through her bag for the mandatory paperwork Glory would need to sign, even to take the girl in for that single night.

  “Actually, I have three of them. Do you like dogs?”

  “Um,” she said, hauling out that polite smile again, “they’re all right as long as they’re behind a fence.”

  “They’re kenneled. I have a couple of old horses, too. Nothing to write home about, but they’re rideable. Do you ride?”

  “I’m afraid of horses.”

  “I only let them in the house at mealtimes,” Glory joked, but only Caroline laughed. “If you change your mind, there’s a fifty-pound sack of carrots in the barn. Take a few and stand at the fence. They’ll come to you.” No reaction. What had she got herself into?

  “Jeez Louise, where’s a pen when you need one?” Caroline said, pawing through her purse. “It’s like I’m carrying around my own personal black hole.”

  Glory couldn’t take her eyes off the girl. Juniper. Interesting name. What lay behind that locked-up, blank expression? What did she make of the pirates practicing their sword fight on the sod Glory had laid down especially for the wedding? When she caught Glory looking, Juniper shrugged, as if it would take a lot more than that to impress her. Juniper looked west to the grove of oaks and uncultivated land, and then east. Because the ranch was sunk down in the valley, the hills blocked the city lights. At night, the periodic glimmer of headlights on Highway 101 was all that suggested civilization was in the distance. Glory could tell Juniper was thinking about running away and wondered if she’d try. It would be a long trek to the Chevron station just off the highway, and the first place cops would look for her.

  “Caroline, I’m sure I have a pen inside,” Glory said, and then Juniper noticed the chapel.

  “Is that a church? What is she, a nun?” Juniper wheeled around to face Caroline. “Ms. Proctor, did you bring to me to a convent?”

  “Of course not,” Caroline said. “Do those even exist anymore?”

  “It’s a private wedding chapel,” Glory said. “Or a layperson’s? Shoot, I don’t even know what to call it. No nuns.” She pointed to the groom’s party, who were already drinking and laughing. “Just a wedding.”

  The girl turned to Caroline, who’d found a pen, but it was out of ink. “You said there wouldn’t be any men.”

  Caroline sighed. “First of all, Mrs. Solomon is standing right here. Talk to her instead of about her, please. And unless she’s opened a hotel in the last thirty minutes, I don’t think the men are staying.”

  “They’re not,” Glory said.

  “They better not be,” Juniper said, “or you can drive me back to the group home. I don’t care if it is Thanksgiving. You promised no men.”

  Caroline said, “For heaven’s sake, Juniper. Mrs. Solomon isn’t lying to you. Apologize for your outburst.”

  “Whatever. Sorry.”

  By now Dan would have had the girl laughing at his terrible elephant jokes. Why do elephants wear blue tennis shoes? Because it’s so hard to keep the white ones clean. How do you get an elephant in an oak tree? Sit it down on an acorn and wait fifty years. Despite Juniper’s fear of horses, he would have set her on top of bombproof Cricket and let her ride all the way up to the hilltop so she could feel all the open space around her.

  “What’s with the costumes and the dueling? Did someone forget Halloween was a month ago?” Juniper asked.

  “Believe it or not,” Glory said, “they’re pirates. I’m hosting their wedding. I cooked the food, decorated the cake, and I’ve hired some kids to serve. You’re certainly under no obligation to, but if you’re interested in earning a little money, I’m sure the servers would appreciate the help.”

  The girl stared. “How much money and would I get to keep it?”

  “Ten dollars an hour and of course.” Glory waited for the smile. It made a brief appearance, then winked out.

  “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “That’s generous of you, Glory,” Caroline said. “Say thank you, Juniper.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled.

  The three of them walked into the house and stopped at the butcher-block kitchen counter. Glory introduced everyone. “Robynn, can you find Juniper a white shirt and an apron?”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. S.” Robynn held out a full trash sack. “Mind taking this bag out to the green cans out back? Make sure you put the lid back on or the javelinas will get into it.”

  “Javelinas?”

  “Wild pigs. They’re everywhere around here.”

  “I know what they are,” Juniper said. “I didn’t think they’d be out in broad daylight. That’s all.”

  Robynn gave her a startled look. “Okay. There’re white shirts in the box on the couch. Aprons are underneath the shirts.”

  Juniper took the trash sack and went out the door. That left Caroline and Glory standing there on the old pine floor that creaked in places and had valleys from decades of traffic flow. Glory walked Caroline back out onto the porch. They looked at each other and Glory said, “Don’t you start. Those kinds of tears are catching. I can’t afford them or the headache that follows.”

  “I miss him so much, Glo,” Caroline said.

  Glory looked across the reception tables to the white oak. She’d turned down two photographers from Germany who asked to photograph it today. Sometimes the tree felt to her like a witness who’d taken the stand but then refuses to talk. She and Dan had picnicked there on nice days. “I’m getting used to it.”

  Caroline blew into a tissue. “So much bad in this world and a good man dies so young. What the heck’s the point in that?”

  “Dan would tell you God has his reasons.”

  Caroline sniffled. “I tell you what. I feel like ripping God a new one. Hey! I finally found a pen with ink in it. You know all this, but I have to say it anyway.”

  She recited the speech Glory had heard over the years. Not much had changed in the wording, or for the kids it protected. Every time she heard it, Glory felt there ought to be a license required to procreate.

  “Sign at the flags. Here’s a voucher for you to buy the poor kid some decent clothes and essentials at the nearest Target.”

  On my next workday, Glory thought. She signed the papers and handed the voucher back. “Do I need this since she won’t be here long enough to use it?”

  “It’ll be easier if you just keep it with all the papers,” Caroline said. “If it gets lost, I have to fill out eighty-five forms. If the county cut down on the paperwork, they could hire a dozen case managers.”

  “I’ve got a box full of Levi’s and T-shirts Juniper’s welcome to. So what’s her story?”

  Caroline’s cell phone rang and she held up a finger while she answered it. “What? Come on, it’s a national holiday. I haven’t even had lunch and it’s after four. All right. But you’re paying for the speeding ticket.” She pocketed the phone. “Sorry. Happy Thanksgiving, right? It is still Thanksgiving?”

  “It is. Same to you, Caroline. Guess we’re both working today. Do you ever get a vacation?”

  Caroline’s flinty laugh revealed her past with cigarettes and her present with late-night alcohol. “Let’s not even go there.”

  Glory heard Gary calling her name. “I hate to rush off like this, but I have to get back to the wedding. Could you just give me the basics?”

  “You bet. A couple years back, her only sib died. Parents divorced, Mom OD’d, and Dad couldn’t handle it so he bailed.”

  “Jeepers. That’s more than anyone deserves in a lifetime.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “What’s she got against boys?”

  “Her last placement had two wiseacre teenage boys who apparently teased her mercilessly, the little jerks.”

  “Except for my goat, all the males around here have been castrated.”

  A dark blue truck with a camper shell pulled up and out came the members of the band. They began sett
ing up amplifiers, and Glory worried they’d play that kind of head-banging music and scare the horses off their feed. Three thousand dollars, she reminded herself.

  Caroline waited for the van’s engine to turn off before she continued. “Her issues with men go deeper. After Mom died, Juniper went to live with Dad. He ‘relocated’ while she was in school. She was on the street for a while, which is apparently where she got the tattoo, and, I suspect, more trauma, but she won’t talk about it. Cops picked her up for shoplifting DVDs. That put her into the system. She’s a good kid, a little emotional, and she has a short fuse. I promised her I’d find her the best family ever. Hope I can live up to that.”

  Caroline had heard so many gruesome stories over the years that she could discuss them as offhandedly as she might a shopping list. Glory guessed it would be the only way to endure a job like hers. They hadn’t even got to the grieving part and already Glory’s skin prickled with gooseflesh. Every boy she and Dan had fostered had anger-management issues. Dan had them chopping wood and building birdhouses, but Glory didn’t think that would help Juniper. “I’ll do my best, Caroline, but without Dan to back me up, I’m not sure that’ll be enough.”

  Caroline shrugged. “One night. Just be normal. That’s what she needs.”

  “Do you have her in therapy?”

  The cell phone rang again. Caroline looked at it and sighed. “Sorry. I really have to take this.”

  “The wedding’s about to start,” Glory said. “Call me later on tonight. I’ll be up late cleaning the joint.”

  “Thanks, talk to you then.” Caroline waved good-bye, speaking into her phone as she left, already on another case.

  Glory watched her car back up, turn, and head down the driveway, dust flying up in its wake. The Solomon ranch was isolated, but you could find your way by the trees. The blue oak marked due west toward Highway 1. The fallen Engelmann oak halfway up the hill made a great lookout. Stand up on its stump on a clear day and you could see the tip of the Hacienda Hotel’s Moorish dome, designed by architect Julia Morgan. Sit there and share your sandwich with the jays and they’d hop around like avian ninjas. The land was dotted here and there with “promiscuous” oak trees—the scientific term for hybrids—and once or twice, if it weren’t for the dogs running along beside her, certain of the way home, Glory might have felt as lost as she suspected Juniper was feeling right now.

  Between Jolon and Highway 1 lay wilderness. Left wild, protected by conservation organizations, the tens of thousands of acres featured hiking trails with incredible views. Rivers and creeks wove in and out of the Santa Lucia Mountains, home to mountain lions, javelinas, and the occasional bear. Every year a few hikers got lost or injured, costing the state a bushel of money for search-and-rescue efforts. Heading east between Jolon and King City, coarse golden brush made for a year-round fire hazard, which was why the Solomons grazed goats. The land required irrigation due to the undependable rain cycles. Every rancher Glory knew had an opinion on why he should receive a bigger allotment than his neighbor. But even with all those negatives, Glory cherished each migratory bird that overwintered, the noisy flocks of Canada geese on their way south, and even the javelinas, at a distance. The nightly howls of coyotes sounded more like an anthem than a warning. Whenever she spotted a California condor, a species once near extinction that had been coaxed back, she felt proud to be a Californian. Sometimes, if humans put heart and mind into it, they could undo their mistakes. She wondered what Juniper McGuire would think if she saw one of those enormous black birds fly overhead. Glory would tell her its Latin name, Gymnogyps californianus, the scavenger that could live for half a century, feeding on carrion, picking bones clean to bleach in the sun.

  All week Glory had schooled herself on Dan’s digital camera so she could take the candid pictures, which in her opinion was the life of any wedding. While Angus and his groomsmen dipped into the wooden barrels she’d bought from a winery up north, Glory pointed and shot and let the camera collect memories. The couple was sailing to Catalina Island in the morning. She wished them a steady breeze like the one blowing through the oak’s branches just now. Surely even pirates knew marriage was the mother lode of risks.

  “Hey, Juniper,” Robynn called, and there she was, the one-night foster, covering the buffet trays with matching lids. “Come give us a hand with the plates?”

  Through the viewfinder Glory lined her up and snapped a picture. Then she focused on the oak tree. With its gnarled limbs and lobed leaves, the pirates posed beneath it looked like toy figures. Glory kept a bowl of fallen acorns on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. Before the missionaries arrived, sixty-four documented tribes had lived in this part of California, all of whom used acorn meal as a dietary staple. Three hundred and fifty years later, only a few people remained who could trace blood that far back—such as Lorna Candelaria and her husband, Juan. The cultures were long erased, the stories in fragments. Now acorns were strictly for squirrels. On horseback rides Glory sometimes pictured an Indian mother on her knees grinding the bitter meal for porridge to feed her children. Suppose she’d lost her husband early—a hunting accident, executed by the Spanish, or, like Dan, from plain old pneumonia. How had she managed? Become another man’s wife? Deep in La Cueva Pintada, the painted cave, pictographs hinted at those long-lost lives. Glory had studied the stick figures and the drawings of the sun. A California winter was bittersweet, a time for reflection. Then she snorted at herself for thinking such thoughts. The truth was like a mule: on the sunniest day it could kick your heart into pieces.

  Guests arrived. Before her, pirates streamed in for the party, dressed in jewel-tone outfits, velvet capes, swords at their sides. When an Anna’s hummingbird buzzed by her, claiming a nearby feeder, Glory stood still, hoping the tiny bird would linger, because among the Southwest Indian tribes, a hummingbird was considered good luck on a wedding day.

  At the entrance to the chapel, the Topgallant Troubadours performed a Celtic version of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.” The guitar player wore a gray kilt.

  “Aren’t you in the wrong era?” Glory asked.

  He continued playing. “Naw. I’m pretty sure pirates kidnapped Scotsmen, us bein’ so entertainin’ and all.”

  Glory did a visual sweep. The aisle cloth was unwrinkled. The minister, in his golden robe and matching miter, had bottled water with the cap already cracked and a folded handkerchief nearby for his brow. Despite the open windows, with so many candles blazing, the chapel was stuffy. The mother of the groom was dressed in a leafy green silk frock that looked Elizabethan, suggesting a lot of leeway in the pirate-costume department. Angus seated her, then escorted the mother of the bride to the front row on the other side. She still wasn’t smiling. Glory snapped pictures. She wanted to gently shake Karen’s mother by the shoulders and tell her, “Spend your smiles!”

  A movement caught her eye, and out the window she saw Juniper standing at the fence feeding the horses the miniature carrots meant for the reception. It was like watching someone burn $10 bills, but Glory couldn’t leave the chapel with the ceremony about to begin. The Topgallant Troubadours set down their instruments and lined up in the back of the chapel, singing Stan Rogers’s “Forty-five Years” a cappella.

  The guitar player in the kilt had a tender voice, and as Glory listened to him extol the rewards of second marriages and marrying late in life, his voice was so piercing she could almost believe he meant it.

  Admiral Karen emerged radiant on the arm of her dad. His eye patch was crooked, but he looked leagues happier than his wife. They were just arriving at the podium where the minister and Angus waited when one of the pirate guests stood up and yelled, “I’ll be stealin’ her from ye!” and quickly grabbed Karen. A bawdy roar broke out from the crowd, and Glory made a mental check by duel on her script.

  Chapter 2

  ANGUS LIFTED HIS sword. “It’s a fight you want, is it? When I get through with ye, ye’ll be dancin’ the hempen jig!”

  “Le
ave us or ye’ll taste steel for dinner, you bilge-sucking wharf rat!”

  His rival, dressed head to toe in black silk, ran Karen out the chapel doors onto the flagstone patio. He pushed her behind him, drew his sword, and pointed it toward Angus. “All hands hoay!” he shouted, and guests rushed outdoors. Steel met steel in a headache-inducing clash, and while the choreography of the fight was admirable, Glory felt the unmistakable vertigo that accompanied the beginning of a migraine.

  Not now, when things were just getting under way.

  “Bucko, there be no quarter in which to hide!”

  “Fish-feedin’, scurvy-ridden—” Angus stopped and wiped sweat from his forehead. “I can’t remember my line. Cue, please?”

  “Landlubber!” Admiral Karen called out, and the rival turned to her.

  “Landlubber? Now, that’s a word ta crush a man’s spirit,” the rival said. “En garde!”

  Behind the ropes, the servers stopped to watch. While the sword-fight business could have seemed silly, with the costumes and swords it was kind of thrilling and provided a multitude of opportunities for candid photography. Glory pressed the shutter button on Dan’s camera and, in the midst of all the hollering, listened for the telltale click of a picture being taken. She pressed the REVIEW button, but there were no new pictures since the wedding began. She checked her settings, switched back to picture-taking mode, and pressed the shutter again. A red light flashed instead of a green one. Dead battery? She’d let it charge all night. There was nothing she could do but run to the house for her old Nikon.

  Angus and his opponent parried, leaving divots in the green sod. Glory had to take a step back when they changed direction. She looked up to see Angus reach inside his blue velvet justaucorps coat and pull out a pistol. Admiral Karen’s mother screamed so authentically that Glory wondered if she was as surprised as Glory was. Was that a real gun? Of course not. But it was no wonder Angus hadn’t found a church to hold his wedding. Most of them frowned on the use of deadly weapons, even as a joke. Mrs. Brown had to be helped to a chair. The photos would have to wait because this whole event needed to be dialed back immediately. Real gun or not, they’d taken the fight too far, got caught up in the play, was all.