Hold of the Bone

by Baxter Clare Trautman

“That’s right.” Sal smiles. “I’m surprised she remembered. At any rate, every spring the Esselen burned around the oak trees to get rid of bugs that might otherwise infest the acorn crop that was a goodly part of their diet.

  “One spring the men went out and set the fires as usual, but the wind shifted halfway through the burn and started blowing back to the camp, where all the women and children were. The girl who would eventually become Angelo’s mother-in-law was the first to see the smoke bending toward the camp. She heard the men shouting, trying to contain it, and when she realized it was out of control she ran around the camp and gathered everyone and herded them here. The fire overran the camp not long after she got everyone into the cave. Some of the men died, but everyone in the cave lived, and for as long as the people were alive they left gifts here—deer, quail, baskets of acorns, whatever they had. The girl became the leader of her clan, and legend has it that when the Spaniards began rounding up the Esselen for slave labor, she fled into the mountains with the last of her people.”

  Sal contemplates the far, dark chine of mountain. “Some say they all turned into great birds and flew away. Others say they’re up there still.”

  A chill courses through Frank. She can’t take her eyes from the ridges. Sal scratches a match and Frank leans to the flame.

  “How long have you been seeing all this?”

  “Not long. Seems to have started about the time we found your father.”

  Sal nods as if that makes sense. They smoke and study the land below.

  “Did you see this when you touched me?”

  “Not quite.”

  “But you’re not surprised.”

  “No. Down there,” Sal waves in the general direction of civilization, “people have forgotten how things are. They’ve created a new normal and think it’s real because it’s all they know. The things that happen here happen down there too, but here they’re concentrated. This is where the last of the rough old gods live—the gods people down there only remember in half-buried dreams.” Sal grinds her cigarette carefully into the dirt. “Do you know what retro-cognition is?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s the ability to see the past. I’ve always been more clairvoyant, but Cass had a great talent for past sight.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Clairvoyance is seeing the present.”

  “You can’t do both?”

  “You can, but usually one is dominant.”

  A breeze riffles the tough manzanita leaves and tickles Frank’s cheek. She looks reluctantly at her watch. “I hate to, but I have to get going.”

  Frank steps onto the ledge, crossing fearlessly and without effort. The dogs crawl through the thorny cover and are waiting when she comes out onto the trail. She follows them down the hill and Sal trails behind. At the bottom, Frank starts for the bridge, but Sal stops her.

  “Just one more thing.”

  “I really have to go.”

  “I know. It’ll just take a second.”

  In the cabin, Sal picks books from the shelves and hands them to Frank.

  “Whoa. That’s plenty.”

  She piles more into Frank’s laden arms. “I don’t expect you to read them cover to cover. Just skim the interesting parts.”

  “Okay, okay. I can barely carry ’em all.”

  Sal adds one more. “There. That ought to keep you busy.”

  “For a decade or so.”

  Sal helps her carry them across the bridge. Frank wants to stop and study the water, but she’s already lost enough time on the ranch. The dogs load into the quad, and when they get to the ranch Pete is bent under the hood of the truck, a quart of oil in hand.

  He gives Frank a suspicious eye and asks Sal, “Everything alright?”

  “Fine. Lieutenant Franco’s just leaving.”

  To Frank he says, “I’m assuming this is the last we’re gonna see of you.”

  Her smile is chilly. “You know what they say about assuming.”

  “Big city cop like you might not know it, but Sal’s a busy woman. It’d be best if—”

  “Pete,” Sal breaks in brusquely. “It’s fine. Is the truck alright?”

  He slams the hood and stalks to the house.

  Frank mutters, “I hope that’s a yes.”

  The dogs jump from the quad to the pickup. They lean over the side of the bed as Sal drives, and Frank keeps a worried eye on her side-view mirror. They hit a rut and the dogs scramble for footing. “They ever fall out?” she shouts.

  Sal nods. “Once. That’s how they learn not to.”

  They drive without speaking the rest of the way. There are probably questions Frank should be asking, but she wants to absorb as much of the mountains as she can. When Sal pulls up next to the dusted Honda, she leaves the engine idling. Frank reaches and turns it off. Except for the shrill alarm of squirrels, the silence is sudden and deep.

  “Pete seems awfully possessive.”

  “He doesn’t know you. He thinks you’re bothering me.”

  “Am I?”

  “No.”

  “Do you sleep together?”

  Sal sucks in a small, alarmed breath, but recovers quickly. “No.”

  “Never?”

  The question hangs in the cab. Sal gets out and drops the tailgate. The dogs leap out to chase a squirrel into its hole. Frank joins Sal against the back of the truck. Cicero and Bone take turns digging for the squirrel, but Kook trots back to them and Sal picks a dried stalk out of his tail. Her brown fingers work the stem into a row of knots.

  “You know most of this. Pete and Cass dated in high school. She never went steady with anyone, never wanted to be tied down to one beau. Pete was her fallback guy, always there when she needed him or wanted him. He loved her. He proposed after our father disappeared, but she turned him down. Then a year after she died, he married Linda Seelig. I think she always felt like he’d settled for second best. But they got on well. Linda was old Salinas, a farmer’s daughter. She was a good match for Pete. They were better friends than lovers. I used to spend a lot of time at the house. Linda and I would plant a big garden every year. If it grew, we planted it. Okra, eggplant, raspberries, strawberries. Everything.”

  Sal smiles. “We kept the orchards up back then, too, and Linda and I would spend all summer pickling, drying, canning. Come fall, the shelves in the pantry would be sagging with all the food we’d put up. It was hard work, sweating over a stove in the middle of summer, but we had fun.” Sal lifts Kook onto the bed and picks stickers from his fur. “She was only forty-six when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought it for a couple years, but the cancer eventually won.”

  Frank nods.

  “There was a night after she died, Pete opened a bottle of plum wine that we’d made. It was warm and sweet and tasted just like the summer we made it, and we drank the whole bottle. The next thing I knew, we were in bed. Their bed. It was awkward and embarrassing, but I think it was a way for both of us to feel like part of her. That summer Linda and I made the wine was the last time we were close, until she was diagnosed.” She teases a bur from Kooks’ foot.

  “What pushed you apart?”

  Sal straightens and looks toward the ranch as if she can see it. “I did. We were pickling cucumbers. It was hot, but there was a breeze from the window over the sink. We were standing in front of it, and Linda’s hair had fallen across her face and I pushed it back so she could catch the breeze. Then I kissed her.” Sal takes a deep breath and crosses her arms. “She laughed and asked, ‘What was that for?’ I told her it was because I loved her. And I kissed her again, but she pushed me away, very politely, saying we had to get finished so she could start dinner. She acted like nothing had happened and we never mentioned it again.”

  “Did Pete know?”

  “I don’t think so. He knew things had cooled between Linda and me but I never told him why, and I doubt she did.”

  Frank nods. They watch the dogs, buried up to their chests in th
e hole they’ve dug.

  “But he still carries a torch for you.”

  “No, we’re just old friends. More like brother and sister.” Shoving off the truck, she says, “Don’t forget your books.”

  “Right.”

  Sal helps her load them into the car and Frank says, “Thanks. I’ll bring ’em back.”

  “No need.”

  “I’d like to.”

  Frank shuts the trunk and moves to the door, but she can’t make herself open it.

  “Something happens to me here. Every intention I have to question you vanishes—poof. I don’t know any more about you than when I first started.”

  “You know a lot more.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Sal tips her head toward the mountains, the direction of the ranch. “You know all that, and that’s all you need to know.”

  “That’s not what I came here for.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She calls the dogs and turns the truck around.

  Frank watches the pickup until it rounds a curve and the dust has settled onto the empty road.

  Chapter 29

  At a truck stop north of San Luis Obispo, Frank gets coffee and a piece of ollalaberry pie. She eats it standing over the trunk, looking at her books. She brings a couple up front with her and riffles through them on the long drive home. In Oxnard traffic a truck behind her has to honk to get her to look up from A Natural History of Big Sur, and in Thousand Oaks she almost rams into the back of a BMW while thumbing through a pictorial history of the Salinas Valley. Finally home, she lugs the books inside and stacks them reverently by the bed. Over the next few days she plumbs the geology and geography of the Santa Lucia range, delves into the histories of the area (human as well as natural), then moves on to the daunting physics and philosophy texts.

  On Wednesday Caroline spends the night, and as they lie in bed reading she glances at the title in Frank’s hand. “Seriously? Quantum mechanics?”

  With a sheepish grin, Frank defends, “It’s complicated but fascinating.”

  “Since when? I’ve never known you to read anything deeper than The Da Vinci Code.”

  “I didn’t know you thought I was so shallow.”

  “Not at all. I just never knew you were interested in—” Caroline laughs. “I don’t even know what morphic resonance is.”

  Frank loves the creases at the corner of Caroline’s eyes. She traces them with a fingertip, moves down the line of her jaw to lift her chin for a kiss. “Let’s forget about physics.”

  She lays the book down and sets about her seduction. It is not a repeat of their last wild abandon, but rather a slow, amiable satisfaction of desire. It is pleasant and distracting, but when they turn the lights out Frank can’t sleep. The bed is too soft, the room too close. Switching from side to side doesn’t help. Neither does pushing the covers off. The bedspread slides to the floor and gives her an idea. She tiptoes to the guest room. Taking the bedspread from there, she unlocks the patio doors and steps into the city night. Cocooning herself, she lies on the chaise lounge and searches for stars. The city lights eclipse most of them, but she finds the brightest and wanders between them. She wonders if Sal is sleeping outside, and if she looks up at the soft black night and sees the same stars, only sharper and closer. Frank shuts her eyes, pretending Sal sleeps nearby and that the murmur of the freeway is the lullaby of creek and wind.

  “Frank.”

  She comes awake with Caroline’s face blotting the stars.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Why didn’t you go into the guest room?”

  “I don’t know. What time is it?”

  “It’s five. Your alarm just went off.”

  Caroline stalks into the house. Frank showers quietly, but Caroline is sitting up when she comes into the bedroom. “Frank, is something wrong?”

  “No. Why?”

  “It just seems that half the time you’re not here and when you are here, it’s like you’re somewhere else.”

  The somber mountains bloom in her heart. The sky hugs them, lucid and endlessly blue. Frank sits next to her girlfriend.

  “You’re right. It’s this case. My mind’s always in Soledad. Probably will be until I nail it shut.”

  “What if you don’t?”

  “Oh, I will. Don’t you worry about that. Look, I know I’ve been impossible. I’m sorry. Cops are horrible girlfriends.”

  “Not always,” Caroline kisses Frank’s forehead just as her phone rings. Caroline picks it up and makes a face. “I should talk.” She answers, then promises to be at the hospital within an hour.

  Before she leaves, Frank warns, “I might have to go up again this weekend.”

  “You just got back.”

  “I know. Just trying to tie up loose ends before they unravel any farther. Then I can be done with it.”

  But Frank dreads the case being closed and harbors the nasty hope it will go cold so she can keep making follow-up visits to the ranch. She makes it a point to corner her boss as soon as she comes in and asks if she can cover the weekend.

  “Again?”

  “You sound like my girlfriend.”

  “I think I feel like your girlfriend. I just wonder which one of us likes this less.”

  “Toss-up probably.”

  After decades of manipulating suspects and witnesses, lying comes as easily to Frank as blinking. She doesn’t like doing it to Pintar, yet does so with only a twinge of guilt.

  “I found a couple more people I have to talk to.”

  Describing the tangled leads and how she plans to tease them apart, Frank decides she’s not lying as much as telling a partial truth. Pintar remains skeptical.

  “What about the rest of your workload? I still don’t have a schedule forecast, and unless I’m mistaken,” she makes a point of looking through the papers on her desk, “I haven’t had any 60-days from you in a month.”

  “I’ve got ’em,” Frank fibs again. “They’ll be on your desk tomorrow morning.”

  Pintar purses her lips.

  “Last trip. I promise.”

  Her boss sighs. “Alright. But only if everything’s on my desk by the time I come in tomorrow, wrapped up and tied with a bow.”

  “Deal.”

  Back in her office, Frank lets out the breath she’s been holding. Even the promise that this will be her last trip isn’t enough to tamp her enthusiasm. Seconds later Lewis lumbers in.

  “Got a minute?”

  “Of course. Sit.”

  Lewis settles heavily onto the old Swiss modern couch that is modern in name only. The vinyl is cracked and duct-taped in places, the thin metal arms flaking to bare steel, but the couch doesn’t take up much space and has given Frank many hours of desperately snatched sleep.

  “What’s up?”

  “I don’t know.” She flaps a beefy hand. “This Saladino thing startin’ to look like a real whodunit.”

  Tilting back in her chair, Frank grins and laces her hands behind her head. “Body that old, you didn’t expect anything less, did ya?”

  “No,” Lewis pouts. “But still.”

  “Girl, you givin’ up on me?”

  “Nah, I ain’t givin’ up. You know better ’an that. Just we got off to such a hot start and I hate to see it fizzlin’ out.”

  “It ain’t fizzling, just settling. Go work some other cases. Let this one simmer down.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah, just tired. Baby thing gettin’ to me, frustrated I can’t go up there, work it myself ’stead a you having to do it all.” She heaves off the couch and the metal squeaks back into place. “I been checkin’ provenance on the uncle’s house where Saladino stayed at. Hattie Saladino was the wife. She died in ’92 and left the house to her niece, Gail Hendry. I tracked Hendry down to an assisted living over to Silver City. I’mma head over there, see if she got anything to say. You w
anna come?”

  “Nah.” She nods at the messy desk. “I promised Pintar I’d take care of all this. And don’t sweat it about me going to Soledad. I’m digging it. Nice change a pace, and I need that. I’m gettin’ stale.”

  “You ain’t stale, LT. You still the best in the game. You want, I can go up wit’ you and see it fresh, maybe shake somethin’ outta the tree?”

  Frank instinctively lies, “Ain’t much to shake right now. You’re welcome to go, but I think you’d be wasting your time.”

  Lewis is visibly relieved. “You probably right.”

  “Hey. It’s not over yet. I’mma keep workin’ it there. You keep workin’ it here. If nothing comes up, we’ll just let it ride a little bit. How’s Halliday coming?”

  She encourages Lewis on the progress of other cases, and when the big cop finally leaves her office, the tiny room seems to expand. Frank’s hands remain locked behind her head. She’s lied to her best cop; there’s plenty to shake on the Saladino tree. But she won’t give Lewis the mountains or cabin, Sal or Bone, the creek, the sycamores, even the old store. None of it.

  Frank gets up and closes the door. She finds the white card in her wallet and dials the number on it. She is relieved when Marguerite answers, and Frank tells her everything—flying over the dark mountains, seeing trails that aren’t there but are, passing out at Sal’s, the fire at the cave—all of it. “They’re like—what’s that word when part of a painting’s drawn over another?”

  “Pentimento?”

  “That’s it. The visions are like little flashes of history, like what used to be on the land is still there and bleeds through sometimes, and even though you can’t always see it, it’s still there.” Frank pauses. “Do you remember telling me I’d have guides, or helpers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can a place be a guide?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “And what happens if I can’t get to that place as much as I want to?”

  She hears Marguerite thinking. “Help takes many forms. As much as we’d like it to remain the same, to look the same every time, energy like that is tremendously fluid. It’s dynamic and constantly shifting from one form to another, depending on our needs.”

  “What if I need that place?”