Hold of the Bone

by Baxter Clare Trautman

  Some cases have no clues and must be raked, scraped, and gleaned for even one lead to start working with. Others, like Saladino’s, have an abundance that need to be sorted and winnowed. Frank takes a legal pad and rips a page out for everyone with motivation to kill Domenic Saladino. It makes her smile to think how Lewis would scowl at her scattershot, old-school approach, and how the detective would brandish her laptop—again—to show Frank her meticulously organized collection of folders and notes. And Frank would shrug—again—and reply, I don’t care how it works as long as it works. To which Lewis would whine—

  Her cell phone vibrates across the polyester bedspread and Frank catches it. “Speak of the devil.”

  “You talkin’ ill about me, LT?”

  “Nah, just lookin’ at my notes spread all over the bed.”

  “Aw, man, what I—”

  “—gotta do to get me into the twenty-first century?” Frank finishes. “I know, I know. I’m hopeless.”

  Lewis makes a disgusted sound and Frank asks what she called for.

  “What did you say the uncle’s name was that used to fight with Saladino?”

  “Hold on. Let me check.”

  Lewis seizes the opportunity to point out, “You know, if you went digital all you’d have to do is type the name in and blam.”

  “Amazing,” Frank murmurs. “Oh, wow, look. Somehow I found it. Blam. Roderick Dusi.”

  “That’s it. I had wrote down Broderick.”

  “Why you want to know?”

  “Could be something, could be nothing. What else you heard about him?”

  “Nothing beyond what Sal’s told me. But that’s not surprising. Nobody up here volunteers a goddamned thing. It’s almost like they all know who did it and nobody wants to say anything.”

  “That Saladino musta been a bad dude, so many people hatin’ on him.”

  “Should I follow up on Roderick?”

  “Nah, keep it on the down low for now. A’ight, LT. Gotta go.”

  Frank stares at the dead phone, then the legal pages all over her bed, the muted TV. Finally she gets up and parts the curtains. Across the highway, the black wall of mountain climbs into a charcoaled sky. Lights from scattered farms and ranches blink across its flanks in earthbound imitation of the stars. She drops to her knees, crossing her palms over her heart. An urge to speak wells within her, but she hasn’t words. At length she whispers, “Goodnight,” and closes the window.

  She gathers the papers into a folder, turns the TV off, then her phone. Undressing completely, she slides between the cool sheets and pulls the blanket over her head. The darkness complete, she drifts toward sleep, imagining she is held in the warm, lightless belly of the mountains.

  After a dreamless night, she wakes with a gnarly headache. Getting up and dressed, she assesses whether this is a garden-variety headache or one of the killers she occasionally gets. If she lets it go and it’s a migraine, the pain will end only when she can lie in a still, dark place and sleep. But the gift of sleep is dear and always paid for in hazy visions of blood-red battles, both ancient and new. In some, she recognizes the combatants; in others, not—yet she wakes from each dream with a disturbing sense of familiarity.

  Not wanting to take chances, Frank eats quickly at the restaurant next door and swallows a fistful of Advils. She waits over coffee for the pills to kick in and studies her to-do list. She still has Mary Saladino’s nephew to talk to and a guy the bartender mentioned that used to work at the ranch. With the headache reduced to a single, dull point behind her right eye, she pays and heads out to start knocking. By late morning she has added nothing new to her notes and is eager to get to Celadores.

  She drives slowly from town, past empty fields waiting dryly for winter, over frowsy blond hills that yield to gorse-speckled cliffs funneling into Celadores. She parks on the street near the old oak. A dented but clean Civic and a late-model Chevy pickup rest side by side under the tree. Two women wait on the sunny bench, and today one is Caucasian. Frank strolls around behind the store. Sal’s pickup is under the lacy shade of the pepper trees and, without thinking, Frank rests a hand on the hood, noting the metal is at ambient temperature. The windows are down and the key dangles from the ignition. Frank shakes her head, clearly in a different world.

  She hears footsteps and the back door of the store creaks open. Moments later, the Caucasian woman comes around but won’t meet Frank’s eye. She passes through the gate and the latch catches softly. The quiet returns. Frank squats on the running board, wishing she had one of Sal’s cigarettes. She presses the heel of her hand into her eye to ease the last bit of headache. It does nothing to blunt the dull pain, but the summer sky is lovely, the breeze sweet, and she finds herself humming an unknown tune.

  She hears the back steps, the familiar screech of the door, and moments later Sal’s last visitor passes through to the courtyard. Frank waits in the pleasant shade, humming her strange tune and swatting at flies. When the back door creaks again, Frank gets up and paces, grinding a hand into her eye. The gate opens and she stops. Sal walks toward her, plastic bags dangling from each arm.

  “You’re back.”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s wrong with your eye?”

  “Just a headache.”

  Sal dumps the bags in the bed of the pickup, then faces Frank. She lifts a palm to Frank’s head, but Frank steps away.

  “Hold still,” Sal scolds. She holds her hand about a foot in front of Frank’s face.

  “Do you get these a lot?”

  “Pretty regularly.”

  Sal’s brows scrunch.

  “What?”

  “It seems like spiritual pain. I don’t usually get that from a headache. Can you feel that?”

  Frank nods at the warm pressure emanating from Sal’s hand.

  “Close your eyes.”

  Frank feels silly but complies. The pressure becomes stronger. It’s soothing and Frank relaxes into it, listening to the wind push through the pepper trees and down the valley.

  The rough bark of an oak digs into the base of her spine. Bits of dirt and rock press into her legs crossed on the ground. She sways in front of a circle drawn in the dirt and sings a small song. Her hair is long and dark and swings in front of her face. A fly flits around her head. Behind her a lizard scrambles down the tree and crashes onto dry leaves. The sky is blue, the wind soft.

  “Better?”

  Frank opens her eyes, slightly surprised to see Sal in front of her. She touches fingers to her head. The pain has faded to a memory. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” Sal drops her hand. “I assume you’re coming up?”

  “Yes,” she answers instantly. “I’d like that.”

  Sal scrutinizes her with an intensity that almost makes Frank squirm. She kicks herself for having answered so quickly, for being so plainly eager. Sal seems to arrive at a decision. “Let’s go,” she says.

  Frank walks casually to the Honda, determined not to follow Sal like a piddling puppy. Past the gate she parks at the turnout and gets into the pickup with cool nonchalance. But her heart thumps and her cheeks are flushed. She can’t explain her excitement nor the thrumming undercurrent in her blood as the truck bounces up the road.

  Frank shouts over the engine, “Does this thing have shocks?”

  “Used to.”

  The last time Frank was in the truck, she was so overwhelmed by the ranch she hadn’t noticed the cracked dashboard or rust-rimmed windows.

  “What year is it?”

  Sal frowns. “You know I honestly can’t remember. It’s early 60s. Pete would know.”

  “She’s been around.”

  “Pete’s a great mechanic. He’s kept her running all these years.”

  “This isn’t . . . is this the truck your sister was driving?”

  “Yeah. The front end was stove in, but the engine survived relatively intact.”

  “And Pete fixed it?”

  She cocks her head. “I think he took it to a bod
y shop for the front end, but I know he took care of the mechanical repairs.”

  “Was that hard, driving it later?”

  “No. This old gal always makes me feel closer to Cass. Like I still have the best of her. She loved driving. Any excuse to go into town.”

  Deciding Sal is a captive audience, Frank asks the hard questions before she can get sidetracked by horses, storms, or snakes under her chair. “Something else I’m curious about. Was Larry Siler at your mother’s funeral?”

  “What?”

  “Larry Siler,” Frank shouts, repeating her question.

  “Larry? I don’t know.”

  “How’d he feel about Cass?”

  “He was in love with her—just like every other boy in Soledad.”

  “What came of that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How come?”

  Sal hefts a shoulder.

  “Did your father have anything to do with it?”

  “My father discouraged a lot of young men.”

  “How’d Cass take that?”

  “She’d make a fuss about it, but for the most part she was indifferent. Cass didn’t usually keep boyfriends as long as they wanted to be kept.”

  “Was she ever serious about anyone?”

  “She was fond of Pete. She knew it was inevitable they’d marry, but until then she was determined to sow every one of her wild oats.”

  “How’d your dad feel about that?”

  “It drove him crazy.” Sal smiles. “That was half the reason she did it.”

  “Did they not get along?”

  “No, I told you, they got on famously.”

  “How’d Pete feel about her going out with other guys?”

  “He was stoic, but I think it bothered him.”

  “Who was she dating when she died?”

  “She was with Pete then.”

  “No one else?”

  Sal shakes her head. The silver plait slithers across her back. At the next gate, Frank gets out to open and close it. Reclaiming the sprung seat, she says, “I talked to your daughter.”

  “I heard.”

  “She looks like you.”

  Sal shakes her head. “She’s much prettier.”

  “Younger maybe, but not much prettier.” That earns Frank a slight smile, and she is ridiculously pleased. “She tell you we knew each other?”

  “She mentioned it.”

  Straddling a deep rut, Sal says, “Where does your daughter live?”

  “In Louisiana, with her father and his people.”

  “That’s so far away.”

  “It is, but it’s okay. It’s good she’s with all of them.”

  She mentions talking to Frankie Avila at the bar, and asks, “Is he one of the people your father owed money to?”

  “He owed Frankie more than anyone.”

  “How come?”

  “Gambling debts. He and Frankie bet on everything—who would walk in the bar next, who’d win the rodeo events, the Giants, 49ers. You name it, they bet on it.”

  “Big bets?”

  “Big enough when he lost and couldn’t pay.”

  “Did that happen a lot?”

  “Fairly regularly.”

  Frank studies the rise to the ranch house, wondering why Avila hadn’t mentioned that. Sal parks at the corral. Frank is glad to see there aren’t any horses in it. Sal goes into the barn and Frank stretches in the mild sunshine, waiting to hear the four-wheeler start. But Sal comes out with halters and a feed bag.

  “Come on.” She motions around the corner. “We’ve got to catch our rides.”

  Frank groans. She trails Sal behind the barn, where four horses come trotting at a shake of the bag. She stands well away and lets Sal cut Dune and Buttons from the herd. The other horses crowd around, hoping for a shot at the feed bag, but Sal hands it to Frank.

  “You know the drill. And get a hoof pick, too, it’ll be with the brushes.”

  “I’m not picking anybody’s hooves,” Frank says, pleased again to see Sal’s smile.

  Frank grooms while Sal digs dirt from the horses hooves. They work silently until Frank thinks to ask, “How come you don’t use the quad anymore?”

  “It can’t take us where we’re going.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Up there?”

  Frank points to the western ridges. Sal nods. “All the way up there? On a horse?”

  Sal stops picking to stare at her. “I thought you wanted to go.”

  “I do. I just—”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take a shortcut. It’s not as far as it looks.”

  Sal returns to the horses hooves and Frank steals a glance at the recondite mountains. Her heart knocks into her ribs. The ride up seems far and steep, but that’s not what daunts her. She looks again at the toothy peaks and this time she is certain. The mountains are looking back.

  Chapter 26

  After a brief stop at the cabin to put away Sal’s food and get the dogs, they ride across the sloping fields to the edge of the mountains. Leaving the soft foothills behind, they enter a vertical landscape of scarp and gorge. They ride single file, and talk is difficult without raising their voices. Sal digs into a saddlebag and bends back to hand her an apple and link of chorizo. Frank stretches nervously over Buttons’ head to take them. She doesn’t realize how hungry she is until she gnaws a hunk of the cold sausage and chases it with a sweet bite of apple. When Sal leans over Dune’s neck to feed him her core, Frank warily does the same for Buttons. She wipes grease and horse slobber on her jeans, grinning at her equestrian proficiency.

  The horses labor and the dogs plod single file behind them. Sal gets off to scoop up Kook, and Frank takes advantage of the break to stand in the stirrups and stretch out her kinks. They continue. The trail narrows to a flinty path on the cliff edge, barely wider than the horses. Stubborn shrubs grab Frank’s right leg. Her left dangles over a sheer drop. Careful not to look down, she fights the urge to wheel for the relative safety of the ranch. But even if she gives in to her panic, there’s no room to turn around. She imagines Buttons spooking and rearing, her back legs sliding over the crumbly ledge, scrabbling for purchase and not getting it; imagines the plunge from the mountain, how long it would take to hit the canyon bottom, all the time she’d have to think about dying.

  Frank is dangerously near panic. Afraid Buttons will catch her fear, she forces herself to concentrate on Dune’s tail swishing in front of her. She reasons Sal wouldn’t have come this way if it wasn’t safe—after all, she is ahead of Frank. Then it dawns on her Sal might still want to kill her. Shooting her instead of the rattlesnake was a good plan—but, by Christ, this is an even better one. It would be a tragic horseback accident that no one would question. They’d never find her body. Her broken bones would litter the far, far canyon below, and coyotes would feast on them, undisturbed.

  “Here we go.” Sal is angling Dune through a pass in the cliff. He leaps onto a boulder and Sal calls, “Hang on.”

  “Aw, Jesus.” Frank wraps the reins in her fist, clutches the saddle horn, and without any prompting Buttons lunges. Somehow, miraculously, Frank hangs on. The horses squeeze through the gap out onto a small, grassy portrero. Sal stops and sips from a battered canteen. She passes it to Frank. Frank shakes her head, not sure if she could keep the water down.

  “Can we get off for a sec?”

  “We’re almost there.” Sal points to a lonely stand of pines on the ridge. “It’s just a couple minutes.” She looks Frank over.

  “Then let’s go,” Frank says through clamped teeth. She kicks Buttons past Dune. He catches up and the horses trot side by side across the wheat-colored meadow. “Do we have to go back that way?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “What happens if the horses slip?”

  “They won’t. They don’t want to fall any more than you do.”

  Frank persists, “What if there’s a rattlesnake on the trai
l? Or a mountain lion? Or whatever it is that scares a horse?”

  “You control her. Don’t panic and don’t let her panic.” She trains a judicious eye on Frank. “You spooked yourself, didn’t you? It’s easy enough to do. But Buttons is a good horse. She’s been on this trail so many times she could do it blindfolded. This would be a lot easier if you’d just relax and trust her.”

  “Easy for you to say. You ride like you’re part of the horse.”

  “Do you think I’d bring you here if I thought you’d get hurt?”

  “I don’t know.” She brings Buttons to a quick stop. “Would you?”

  Sal stops beside her. “No. I wouldn’t.”

  The horses shift their weight while the women hold each other’s gaze. For no discernible reason, Frank believes Sal. The belief springs purely from instinct, from that whispery knowing of the blood and bone.

  Frank nudges Buttons ahead. The portrero rises gently into a dappled forest of east-leaning pines. The horses step without sound onto a carpet of brown needles. Sal stops and drops from her mount. The dogs sit and pant, glad for the rest. Sal loops her reins around a branch and looks expectantly at Frank.

  “Am I supposed to get off?”

  Sal nods. “Do you need help?”

  Her legs feel like wood blocks glued to the saddle and she grumbles, “A ladder would be nice.”

  Sal moves toward her, but Frank waves her off. Squelching a very natural fear of being neither on nor off an unpredictable quarter-ton beast, she loosens her right foot from the stirrup. With a deep breath she swings an aching leg over Button’s rump and kicks her. The horse knickers but doesn’t move. Frank starts to slide off, realizing too late that her left foot is still in the stirrup. She lands awkwardly, holding to the saddle and praying Buttons won’t move as she works her foot free.

  Sal chuckles. “Give her a good scratch under her cinch or saddle. That way, she’ll start to expect something good when you get off.”

  Stifling a groan at the ache in her ass, Frank scratches the big horse with genuine appreciation. Sal feeds them each an apple. Frank starts to loop the reins around a pine, but Sal points to the dead tree in front of Dune. “Tie her there. You don’t want to get sap on the reins.”