The Home Place: A Novel

by Carrie La Seur

  His lips come down on her neck as one hand shoves up her long underwear shirt. His head goes to her breasts and his body moves against her, going through motions they both know, automatic, a hand already pushing long underwear down her lower body and his, baring their middles. He has never been like this with her. He has never made her feel merely present, a prop in his act. She doesn’t want him, not like this, not after Chance, but she doesn’t resist him or say no. Her words to Chance a few days ago come back: Maybe I deserve it. She lets Jean-Marc take what he wants—grunting at her, oblivious to her passivity, maybe enjoying it—then push her away as he gets up to jog downstairs and clean himself in the kitchen sink.

  Her own reaction leaves her shaking more than anything Jean-Marc has done. She pulls her clothes over her bare skin, sinks into the blankets, and cries as quietly as she can, hoping Brittany can’t hear. The soul-scouring thought that carries her to sleep is: What satisfaction guilt takes in punishment.

  CHAPTER 18

  THURSDAY, 7:30 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

  When Alma awakens just before dawn and pads downstairs, Jean-Marc is sleeping on a nest of blankets next to the woodstove. She steps over him to run a hose from the sink to fill the low hip bath that resides in the pantry.

  She’s there, rinsing her hair with a dipper, when she hears Jean-Marc’s footsteps. He steps behind the curtain over the doorway, still in rumpled long johns. His face is abashed. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ll leave today.”

  Alma wants words to put some fitting end to this relationship of nearly two years that they just tore apart, but now, when she needs them, none will come. She can only nod as she reaches for the towel.

  Jean-Marc looks down with a face full of regret. “Do you love him?”

  She hurries to wrap herself in the towel. “I used to. We were high school sweethearts.”

  “But do you love him?” Jean-Marc isn’t fooled by her historical summary.

  Alma steps out of the tub, dripping, freezing, grabbing for underclothes, her sweater and jeans crammed onto a shelf. “This isn’t about him. After what I told him last night I doubt he ever wants to see me again. This is about you and me hanging on to something because it’s convenient, not because it’s right.” These are words she’s used on other boyfriends, her nuanced version of I’m just not that into you. She’s mastered this quick escape, plotted the moves and words that will create the cleanest break, not a single frying pan or set of high-end speakers gone astray when the split is complete.

  “If that’s the way you feel, I’ll get my things out of the condo.” The way he says the words—the flawless articulation—shows her how he must deal with a client who’s become troublesome and must be dismissed. There is caution, firmness, even respect, over an impenetrable professionalism, like an air lock closing.

  The condo is in her name. All their affairs are labeled. There will be no messiness in separating them. There has been genuine tenderness between them, but after last night they can hardly look at each other.

  “I’ll be back in a few days. Just leave the keys with the doorman.”

  Jean-Marc fixes her with one last resigned look and drops the curtain.

  They stop on the way to Billings to leave Brittany at the Murphys’ again, as agreed the night before. Jayne and Mae are waiting at the front door of Jayne and Ed’s house with smiles. Jean-Marc stays in the car. There’s no sign of Chance.

  Jayne insists on giving Alma at least one cup of coffee and asks about what Brittany might like for lunch. As Alma turns to leave the cozy kitchen, another question for Brittany bubbles to the surface, now that she’s talking more easily.

  “Brittany, honey, did you ever see your mom with a copy of the mineral lease Rick Burlington wants Great-Grandma to sign? Did she ever talk about that with you?”

  Before Brittany can answer, Chance stomps in the back door with a rush of cold air, tracking snow onto the mat. “Ma, I told you, you’re getting low on propane. When are you—” He stops short a few feet in front of Alma. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t see the car.”

  “We’re just headed into Billings. Jean-Marc is leaving.” Her words get smaller as she goes, like they’re disappearing down a drain. Alma gestures with a limp hand toward the front of the house, the rest of her frozen in place by Chance’s sudden apparition.

  “Nothing I said, I hope.” Chance turns away stiffly and strides over to the coffeepot. Alma looks quickly to Jayne, who busies herself rinsing coffee cups, then turns back to Brittany, who has backed up against the wall. She’s at another of her nervous mannerisms, playing with the ends of her long hair, trying not to be noticed. Alma gets that same prickly hair shirt feeling she had in the kitchen at Denny’s, like she’s about to hear things she’d rather not.

  “Brittany,” she says in a voice intended to be calm. “What is it?”

  “I didn’t know anything was wrong,” Brittany says. “Mom and Rick fought every time he came over. There was nothing funny that night.”

  “What do you mean, that night? Rick was there that night?”

  Brittany twirls a long lock of hair around her index finger and sticks the end in her mouth for a few seconds before spitting it out to answer. “Everybody else was asleep by the time he came by, trying to get Mom to promise she’d get Great-Grandma to sign, like he always did. I only called Uncle Walt and Uncle Pete because I saw Rick slip out and follow Mom.”

  Alma takes another cautious, stalking step toward Brittany. She can feel Chance tense behind her, hear his accelerated breathing as he sets down his coffee cup and turns with her toward Brittany. “You saw him follow her outside?” Alma asks.

  Brittany studies the linoleum pattern. “I just wanted them to tell him to stop bothering us. You won’t tell him I told, right?” Brittany’s eyes sneak up at Alma, then shoot down again. “Mom was afraid of Rick. She wrote it all down on those papers, and I don’t know where they went.”

  Alma turns her head and locks eyes with Chance. As the flash of realization passes between them, the sound of a big engine nears the house.

  “That’s not Dad,” Chance says and moves fast to the front window, Alma right behind him. Rick Burlington’s white pickup, getting dirtier by the day, is pulling in next to the Mitsubishi outside the front door. Chance has his keys out of his coat pocket, to open the gun locker next to the door and pull out his rifle.

  “Mrs. Murphy, please take the girls in back,” Alma directs.

  “And call the sheriff,” Chance adds as Jayne herds little Mae toward the hallway and Brittany follows, wide-eyed. “You stay inside,” he directs Alma, who’s hanging in the kitchen doorway watching Chance chamber a few bullets. The door of the back bedroom slams.

  “No,” Alma snaps, moving toward him. “She’s my sister, and this is my valley as much as it is yours. If that son of a bitch did this, I want to face him.”

  Chance scowls and lets his hand hover above the knob for a second before pulling open the front door. “Stay behind me, then,” he orders.

  Chance pushes through the storm door as Rick gets down from the pickup. Alma notices Jean-Marc spot the rifle from his place in the passenger seat of the car and lower himself slightly, like he’s not sure that Chance isn’t coming for him. But Chance’s full attention is on Rick Burlington.

  “I thought I told you last time you were here to get the hell off my land.” Chance raises his voice over the pickup’s rumble.

  Rick sighs and puts his hands up in a mocking gesture of surrender. “Murphy, like I told you on the phone, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. You think you’re going to want to stay out here when the mine comes across the Guthrie place? You realize how close the blasting is going to be? You can’t stand in the way of progress, son. Harmony is going to mine this valley from butte to butte, like manifest destiny, and the Murphys can’t stop it. Why, I just spoke to Mrs. Terrebonne yesterday, and she’s getting ready to—”

  “Threatened her, is what
you mean,” Alma rebuts, stepping up shoulder to shoulder with Chance so that Rick sees her for the first time. “Or threatened me, might be more accurate. Is that how you do business? Terrorizing old people? Is that what Vicky found out about you?”

  Rick’s smooth reactions veer off balance for a second as he takes in Alma’s words. There’s a flash of fear, then the smile and the mocking little laugh return full force. “A misunderstanding, obviously. You’ve filled your grandmother’s mind with such awful stories about me that I wish her good morning and she thinks I’ve threatened her. Harmony is a good member of the community, a good neighbor. I’m just offering Mrs. Terrebonne very good money to do what’s in her best interest.”

  “That’s not the way Vince Guthrie tells it,” says Chance, knuckles white on the rifle. Alma feels anger radiating off him like electricity. She puts a hand on his forearm to ground him but he shakes her off angrily.

  “Guthrie’s embarrassed to tell his neighbors what a great deal he got.” Rick crosses his fleshy arms across his chest. “He’s made up this story so you’ll feel sorry for him instead of being mad. Come on, I’m not such a bad guy. I’m just doing my job, for a good tax-paying company, so little Mae can go to a good school and—”

  Before Alma understands what’s happening, Chance has raised the rifle and blown out the right headlight of Rick’s pickup. The deafening crack of the shot reverberates like a tympani while safety glass tinkles to the ground like sleigh bells.

  Chance takes a menacing step toward Rick, the gun pointed down but still at his shoulder. From behind him, Alma can see that he’s gripping the gun to hide how much he’s shaking. Chance’s anger, disgust, and fear roll over her like a speedboat wake as Rick scrambles back behind the open door of the Ram. She throws a wild glance at her car, where Jean-Marc has disappeared altogether.

  “Jesus Christ! You’ll pay for that, you crazy hillbilly!” Rick shouts.

  Jayne comes running out of the house. “Stop!” she cries. “The sheriff is on his way. Just stop it, all of you!”

  “This is not over! You’ll get a bill for that, asshole!” Rick clambers into the cab and rolls down the window so he can keep shouting at them while he pulls away. His last attack is for Alma. “Don’t you try to pin your sister’s death on me, missy. That little piece of trash was just asking for what happened to her.”

  “That does it.” Chance raises the rifle again as Rick reels the pickup toward the road, spewing snow across the yard as the big tires grapple for traction.

  “No!” Alma snatches the gun away from him and slaps a hand onto the middle of his chest. “Enough! The sheriff will take care of him. It’s okay. He’s gone. It’s okay.”

  Everything—everything—that’s happened in the last few days hangs suspended between them, like they’re standing on a rope bridge over a thundering waterfall hundreds of feet below. Chance is panting as if he’s just gone a few minutes with a green saddle bronc, staring after the Ram with a panicked rage in his eyes. Alma hands off the gun to Jayne and wraps her arms around Chance. He leans heavily on her. Over Chance’s shoulder, her eyes meet Jean-Marc’s. In them, she reads anxiety tempered by compassion.

  Sheriff Marx shows up barely fifteen minutes later. Alma and Chance have gone back inside to reassure Jayne and the girls. When Marx arrives, Alma hurries to the door in time to see Jean-Marc leap from the car to intercept the lawman.

  “We had a report of a shooting,” Marx says. “Who are you?”

  “Jean-Marc Lacasse,” he begins, offering his business card with two fingers and an air of authority. “I’m an eyewitness.”

  “Oh?” Marx examines the thick card with raised eyebrows. Jean-Marc puts his hand on Marx’s shoulder and steers him toward the small pile of shattered safety glass. “Because first Mrs. Murphy called and then Burlington flagged me down on the highway just now wanting to press charges. What the hell happened? He claims Chance tried to kill him.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Jean-Marc answers in his most imperially dismissive tone. “This Burlington fellow was trespassing and we told him so, but he wouldn’t go, so Mr. Murphy—the younger Mr. Murphy, that is—fired once in the air as a warning. Burlington was so agitated that he drove into this fence post—” Jean-Marc points at a post that is indeed within the spray pattern of glass—“and broke his own headlight. If anyone should be pressing charges, it’s the Murphys. Burlington was very rude, and then he left this mess.” Jean-Marc sighs and shakes his head with an expression that conveys all his genuine bewilderment at peculiar local behavior.

  Marx looks back and forth from the glass to Jean-Marc, stumped for words.

  “Is there anything further I can help you with?” Jean-Marc prompts, snugging up his gloves.

  “I’m going to need to talk to Chance,” Marx says.

  “I’ll just fetch him,” Jean-Marc offers. He sweeps past Alma without a word and returns so quickly with Chance that Alma can’t believe they’ve had any time to review this new version of events. Chance steps outside and faces Marx.

  “I’ve got nothing to say,” he declares, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. “You heard what happened.” He gives a slight nod toward Jean-Marc. Alma sees how hunched his shoulders are, how much he dislikes blindly endorsing whatever story Jean-Marc has told.

  “So you’re confirming Mr.—ah—Mr. Lacasse’s story that Burlington knocked out his own headlight?” Marx waves the business card between them, as if it represents the palpable lie hanging in the air. Chance lets the words settle, staring at Marx, then takes two long steps backward and reenters the house without saying another word. Marx throws his hands in the air and turns to Alma.

  “What about you? Did you see what happened?” he asks.

  Alma glances at Jean-Marc, standing at attention, ready to speak whatever words will get rid of Marx. She shakes her head very slightly. “He’ll give you your statement,” she says, and follows Chance into the house, a new knot forming in her gut at Jean-Marc’s protective, generous, facile willingness to lie, and her own willingness to go along. Standing in the kitchen doorway, Chance looks back at her as she steps inside. They both look away, embarrassed at what they’ve just allowed.

  Starting toward Billings with Jean-Marc plugged into his music in the passenger seat, Alma begins to take stock of all the things she hasn’t yet told Ray Curtis, as a way of organizing her mind for the ride to come. The dark history with Walt, suspicions about who Brittany’s father is and who was responsible for Vicky’s latest pregnancy, worries about what’s happened to Walt, Vicky’s missing marked-up copy of the mineral lease, Chance’s angry accusations about Rick and the leases, and Brittany’s story about Rick being there the night Vicky died. She’ll tell Ray what few facts she has. Much of the rest is private affairs, family matters, nothing she can be sure has direct relevance to Vicky’s death—in her own mind, Alma still can’t call it murder. Yet she feels unease at the imbalance, as if she’s accusing Murray and Rick by keeping her own counsel in these other things. The family tradition of keeping secrets, protecting their own, is as real an honor code as the oath she took to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, but it’s tightening around her now like a straitjacket.

  Will Walt show himself? It’s been several days. Maybe he’s ready to come out of the woods and talk. Maybe he abandoned Helen to her fate after all these years. Alma has begun to sort relevant from irrelevant, wondering all the while if she’s qualified to make that call.

  Back on the interstate, she gets Ray on the phone.

  “Well, no word on Walt.” He knows somehow what she’s after, a reassurance that the latest stray sheep has wandered back. “It’s starting to look like something’s happened to him. It’s been over seventy-two hours with no withdrawals from any known account, no activity on any credit cards, and he didn’t take much of anything from either the house or the cabin that we can tell. If he’d run, he’d have to take something, even if it was just something to pawn. From what I can tell,
all he has are the clothes on his back. He took off from the garage and all he had out there were tools and sports equipment. At the very most he might have grabbed a fly rod or two. His pickup is at the cabin but hasn’t been touched since before it snowed on Monday. We searched the cabin and the electricity is on, a few things in the fridge that might be new, but no sign of him. It’s possible he took some camping gear from the cabin. We found a sleeping bag out there, for example, but Helen hasn’t been out there in years, so she can’t vouch for what should be there. She’s pretty sure nothing is missing from the house.”

  “So you think he disappeared in the woods?” Alma asks.

  “The only outcome that makes sense is that he’s walked into the wilderness area and gone missing, one way or another. But before I jump to conclusions, I’d very much like to see a body. It’s going on four days. If he had any camping equipment with him, he still would’ve had minimal supplies, so if he walked out of there yesterday morning at the latest, before we got there—”

  “But if you saw no tracks he would have had to leave earlier, before or during the last snow. Sunday night or Monday.”

  “We can find out when the storm came through the canyon. So even earlier. That means if he’s out there, he’s been there going on three nights in subzero temperatures. There’s nothing but thousands of acres of some of the least-used wilderness in the Lower Forty-Eight that direction. There’s nowhere to go, and nobody to find him. Unless he managed a real Houdini of a getaway, I’d say he’s lying dead somewhere. I’m sorry, but that’s how it’s looking.”

  “I see,” Alma says, her hands beginning to shake as she struggles to hold the phone and the wheel steady. Her ability to absorb the death of another family member is redlining. Jean-Marc looks up from his e-mail.