Dream Country (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

T
he afternoon of Daisy’s arrival, James had been checking water holes when he came upon a dead calf. Buzzards circled overhead; two black crows perched on its head. Dismounting, James had gone to check—expecting to find teeth and claw marks. Instead he found a bullet hole in the calf’s back, the letter X carved on its side.

“What do you make of this?” Paul March asked, crouching down beside him.

“I don’t know.” James stared down at the calf.

“Some sick jerk off the highway?”

“Someone sick, that’s for sure,” James said. His ranch land lay in a notch of the Wind River mountains. It slanted west, but a narrow pass led eastward to the Indian reservation. Tourists passed by on the so-called highway—a two-lane road running toward Dubois—and James knew Paul was referring to them.

James hoped a stranger had done this, but he didn’t know. Bad blood ran thick and deep around here. In past generations, grandfathers and great-grandfathers had killed each other over grazing rights. Paul’s great-uncle had taken a bullet in the side, trying to protect the land from the sheepherding Rydells. Sheep ate faster than cows—they’d uncover a whole hillside in less than a year—and that had caused a near-war long ago.

“This look like a warning to you?” James asked.

“That’s what I was thinking myself,” Paul replied.

“Killing a calf’s one thing,” James said slowly. “Cutting it up’s another.”

“It was left here to be found, that’s for sure. Different from the other times, though.”

“Not different enough,” James said grimly. He had hoped the bad things had stopped; they hadn’t happened in months.

James studied the range and the hills. This was the trail he rode most often, through the pass leading toward home. All the local cowboys knew he came this way. Just around the hill, in the red canyon, was the spot where Jake had disappeared. And today Daisy was arriving from the East. Whoever had killed the calf might have known that, might not; it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

One morning nearly a year ago, James had ridden down the long slope and found a grisly sight: a cow head stuck on a fence pole. Three riders, Paul among them, had come galloping across the range and told him they’d found three more. All together, four cows had been slaughtered.

Last July, someone had poisoned the water tank. It was nearly a quarter acre in size, crystal clear and calm. Twenty head of cattle had drunk from it, taken sick. Eleven had died before nightfall, and James had had to have the others put down. Town, county, and state police had investigated that one.

Suspicions in both cases had ranged from antibeef people to folks with grudges against the Tuckers. That made a long list. Their family dated back a hundred and fifty years here, and they’d been fighting off rustlers ever since. People wanted their land for sheep, gold, cattle, and now subdivisions, and the Tuckers had always held on. There were people who whispered about retribution, about payback, who said the Tuckers deserved everything bad they got. James thought about Daisy being here, Sage on her way, and he felt his muscles tighten.

“Where’s Todd Rydell?” he asked.

“Where is he?” Paul sounded confused. “Working, I guess.”

“Still driving a truck?”

Paul nodded. “Think so. Last I heard he was delivering packages for one of those freight companies. Couldn’t make it on a horse, had to get himself a truck. He was the sorriest cowboy I ever saw. But you’re not figuring him for this, are you?”

“I don’t know what I’m figuring.” James didn’t like coincidences, and it bothered him that someone would butcher a calf the day Daisy was due in. He knew that Todd carried a resentment over the way he had been questioned about Jake, that he held against all Tuckers the fact that they still had the ranch while his family had lost their land, that he was still ashamed about the time James had caught him spying through a window at Daisy.

“Todd’s not vicious,” Paul said.

“He likes a grievance, though,” James told him. “He sticks it in the bank, hoards it like the family fortune.”

“That is his family fortune,” Paul said. “The only Rydell living on a ranch these days is Louisa, and it’s your ranch she’s living on.”

“Take a look at him next time you’re downtown,” James said. “That’s all.”

“I’ll do that.” Paul stood beside the calf, looking down at it. He was marking the spot, James knew—in case of later trouble, or just because he wanted to keep good track of what happened where on the DR Ranch. Then Paul raised his eyes to James, shading them against the sun. “Seen Daisy yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Gonna?”

“Don’t see how I can avoid it,” James said. “Seeing as how she’s staying on the ranch.”

“Huh.” Paul scuffed his boot in the dust.

“You seem mighty curious about me seeing Daisy,” James said. “Guess I wonder what makes that so.”

Paul frowned. He squinted into the sun, which made him frown harder. Spitting behind him, he turned back to look down at the young calf. His expression was—fleetingly—one of sorrow, as if he was seeing a dead child instead. When he glanced back at James his eyes were hard, but his voice was soft.

“Could just be that I care,” he said.

“About Daisy.”

“About all of you.”

Two weatherbeaten cowboys standing over a dead cow, talking about “caring.” James wanted to smile, treat it like a joke, but he couldn’t. All he could do was nod his thanks, because he knew Paul meant it.

James had that in mind a few hours later when he galloped through the notch toward the stone house. The DR Ranch sprawled among cottonwoods and chaparral, but the big house, a series of smaller houses, a huge old barn, and the water tanks were centrally located.

Louisa had told him she was putting Daisy in the white cottage, a fact that had stopped James cold. He had thought about suggesting somewhere different to Louisa, but he’d held his tongue. Daisy had probably done a better job of setting the past to rest than he had.

The sun had slipped behind the mountains, and all the lights of the ranch were coming on. James felt the evening chill in his bones: There had already been frost two mornings this week. He rode toward the corral to leave his horse, but then he changed his mind and circled around back.

Not much happened in this part of the ranch, behind the main house. Louisa had her gardens here—vegetables and flowers. Right now she was growing pumpkins and squash, and they glistened as orange as the rising moon. James scanned the flowerbeds for something to pick, and that’s how he knew he was heading to see Daisy. But everything was frostbitten, dead and brown.

James heard his horse’s hooves clopping on the hard earth, sounding as loud as gunfire. His own heart was beating just as hard. Twelve years was a long time: They’d been apart over twice as long as they’d been together. Unsure about what he was doing, he steered his horse down toward the narrow river. The harvest moon shimmered between two peaks, lighting his way.

Looking over his shoulder toward the white cottage, he saw her. James pulled on the reins, stopping in the shadows. The big bay lowered his head, and James let him drink from the river. Daisy came out the doorway to stand on her porch, moving as gracefully as a deer. Her brown hair looked coppery in the moonlight; as she gripped the porch rail, tipping her head back to gaze at the moon, her face and throat had the luster of a pearl.

Oh, that posture: James knew it well. Holding the rail, her forearms were braced and taut—as if she might fall off the world itself, as if she were steering toward something better. She stared up at the moon, tilting toward it, her neck curved back, watching it with all her might. Her body looked full and beautiful under her pale robe, and James had to sit deeper in his saddle just to keep watching.

Now she reached out. Her index finger pointed, as if she could direct the moon to do what she wanted it to. Daisy had magic inside her, James knew. He didn’t doubt she could command many things from nature; you only had to look at her jewelry, at the things she did with rocks and bone, to see that it was true. And James knew her well enough, even after all this time, to imagine what she was telling the moon right now.

Light Sage’s way.
Wherever she is, however dark her path might be, show her the way home. James closed his eyes, and as if the words he imagined Daisy saying were a prayer, he said them along with her.
Hold her in your hands, in your light. Keep her days long and her nights short. Ease her way. Bring her safely home to us.

Daisy’s arm fell to her side. She gazed at the moon for another few seconds. Then the intensity went out of her. She seemed to shrink in on herself, and he heard her crying. James wanted to jump down from his horse, go to her and hold her. Of course she wasn’t his to hold. She hadn’t been for a long time.

Daisy hesitated in the doorway. She seemed to be looking at something marked in the boards, and James knew what it was. He watched her, the way she raised her hand, traced the wood with her fingertips. His heart beat harder, and he had the feeling she had to know he was there. His horse felt it, too: Raising his head from the stream, he perked his ears and let out a whinny. When Daisy turned, peering into the night, James felt her eyes pass across his body. He shivered as if she’d actually touched him, but he couldn’t move out of the shadows.

Again she touched the door. The little cottage was old, one of the original ranch buildings. It had served as a one-room schoolhouse, a potting shed, and James’s mother’s music studio. Built one hundred years before James had built the log cabin for his family, its walls held a lot of secrets. James knew his share of them, and so did Daisy.

She paused, holding the doorframe, staring up at the moon again. Her eyes swept the black mountains, the dark cedars. An owl called from across the river, low and long. Daisy seemed to listen, and then she cupped her hands around her mouth. Right away, James knew what was coming.

“Washakie!” she called, as loud as any animal on the range or in the hills, the cry like lightning through James’s veins.

“Washakie,” James said back, in a voice too low for her to hear, the word ringing in his bones.

When Daisy went inside, she closed the door behind her. She must have thrown dry branches on the fire, because suddenly sparks flew up the chimney and melted with the smoke. Then she closed the curtains and turned off the lights. James watched until the house was dark, and then he gave his horse a kick and headed for home.

He had pitched his tent near the ranch buildings, just to watch for the young girl. A lady had arrived: pretty and sexy, but no young thing. She had Tucker in a stir, the way he was snapping at everyone, riding home hours earlier than his usual pattern. Especially given the destruction that had been visited on the old DR Ranch.

Mothers and fathers. Sheep and cows.

The world turned differently here than anywhere else. He felt drawn to this place. He marked his brown leather belt with another notch. The DR herd was a little smaller tonight, and that notch proved it. His knife had done its work—cutting cowhide, making belt leather—and now it was time for the whetstone.

Drawing out the stone, he slicked it with spit and oil. The blade flashed in light from the kerosene stove, and he began to slice it back and forth across the stone. He enjoyed the rhythm, and he liked the sound.
Sssh, ssssh,
it went. A real cowboy lullaby.

His gun gleamed on the tent floor, dark, dangerous steel. He liked looking at it. The tent enclosed him, and he felt very safe here. He was armed, protecting himself. If anyone attacked him, they’d get a big surprise.

Washakie.
The name reminded him of something. Wasn’t there a legend, some Shoshone chief . . . ? Didn’t matter, he thought, shaking his head like a dog trying to get rid of a burr.

Her voice rang in his ears. Jesus, he hated mournful women. Women who took care of themselves, coddling their own hurt feelings while everyone else suffered. Men were out, trying to protect what was rightfully theirs—their family’s—while the women cried at home.

Happy families, home on the range.

Chapter Thirteen

D
aisy woke up at first light the next morning. Her cabin was one small room, and as she lay in bed, she could see mountain peaks out the windows on all four sides. The gray sky was streaked with high thin clouds, and flocks of geese flew in dark V’s down from the north. Very slowly, she put her feet on the cold floor and looked around.

In daylight, the room looked exactly as she remembered it. The walls were rough and silvery, covered with old barn board. A bearskin rug lay on the floor in front of the stone fireplace, and bright Shoshone blankets covered the old armchair and sofa. Shivering, she opened her suitcase and pulled on clean clothes. She craved a cup of coffee, and although the room had a small kitchen at one end, she didn’t want to stay there one minute longer than she had to. Louisa would have a pot brewing up at the big house.

Coffee and more: Daisy walked up the sage trail, around the corral, through the kitchen door, to find Louisa cooking away. A fire crackled in the kitchen hearth and coffee perked on the back burner. Louisa stood at the stove, sexy even at breakfast, wearing a satin nightdress as she fried eggs in bacon fat.

“Look who smelled breakfast cooking!” Louisa said, smiling without turning from the stove. “She’s up early, same as ever.”

“‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true,’ ” Dalton said. He sat at the big table, already dressed for range work in his chaps and wool jacket. At the sight of him, Daisy felt a lump in her throat. He looked so old!

“Dalton,” she began. Her eyes filled with tears. She hadn’t known what to expect, but looking at him in his usual spot at the head of the table, she realized she still considered him her father-in-law: The divorce was between her and James. Quickly crossing the large room, she kissed his wrinkled cheek. “How are you—” she started to ask, but he interrupted.

“What’s keeping James?” he asked, setting down his coffee mug to look into her eyes.

“James?” she asked, confused.

“Eat your eggs,” Louisa said, pushing a plate in front of him. “They’re nice and hot, the bacon’s crispy, I buttered your toast, all you have to do is eat. What’ll you have, Daisy?”

“Toast,” Daisy said. “I’ll get it myself.”

“You’d better wait for James.” Dalton reached for a crock of huckleberry preserves. “You know how he likes to have his meals with you no matter what. Once we were out stringing fence, and he wanted to leave a hole the size of a bear in order to get home for dinner. I had to—”

“That was a long time ago,” Daisy said quickly, wondering why Dalton wanted to remind her of those old, happy days.

“Long time ago?” Dalton chuckled. “Yesterday, today, tomorrow. ’T’sall the same when it comes to you snow geese.”

“Snow geese?” Daisy was pouring a cup of coffee, but Dalton’s use of the old nickname made her spill all over the counter. Louisa hustled over with a dish towel, and she began mopping the coffee up. She reached for Daisy’s wrist, giving it a gentle shake. Daisy met her eyes, but the confusion welling up inside made her look away. Was Dalton trying to be cruel?

Snow geese . . . “Madly in love and mated for life, just like snow geese,” Dalton used to say about Daisy and James. Daisy had loved the comparison. She’d watch the pairs that came to the ranch every year, how they’d stay together season after season. She and James had married in January, under the first moon of the year, the time of snow. And Dalton’s friend Louis Shoulderblade, a Shoshone shaman, had told her that geese take love seriously and want to build a nest with only one other . . . that was how Daisy had seen life
before
. . .

“Where is he?” Dalton asked now, his mouth full of toast. “One of the kids sick?”

“The kids—” Daisy slammed down her cup as she turned around.

Louisa had her face in her hands. Dalton held a half-bitten piece of toast, his blue eyes filmed with worry. Daisy’s anger suddenly washed away, replaced by concern.

Age wrinkled the old man’s face and clouded his eyes; it had obviously transported his heart back to a time when they were all together, when Daisy and James were the snow geese. Old age had stolen over him.

“‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true . . .’ ” Dalton began singing the old song again. Daisy looked down, waiting for her toast to pop up. Louisa sat with a plate of food in front of her, untouched and pushed away. She sipped her coffee and drummed her fingers, the worry lines deep between her brows.

“When did it start?” Daisy asked as they were cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

“Started two years ago.” Louisa swirled coffee mugs through the soapy water. “Thereabouts.”

“He seemed to think—” Daisy began.

“Sometimes he’s sharp as an eagle,” Louisa said, as if she hadn’t heard. “Remembers every single detail about some rodeo ten years ago, things I never noticed in the first place. He has a pair of eyes on him, Daisy . . . sees everything. Recalls stories from his childhood, from the days when his daddy and mine were at each other’s throats . . .”

“But today . . .” Daisy said.

“Today he got a little mixed up,” Louisa said. “Seeing you and all. I told him you were coming, of course, and he understands about Sage running away, but seeing you . . .” She placed a dish in the drainer, and Daisy dried it.

“Seeing him, too,” Daisy said. “It makes the years slip away.”

“The years slip away for Dalton all the time,” Louisa said, staring out the window. Her eyes looked hard and set as she watched a hawk fly over the field in wide circles. “It doesn’t change who he is or how I feel about him.”

“No, I know that,” Daisy said, unsettled by Louisa’s expression.

“His son questions my motives,” Louisa said.

“Hmm.” Daisy was careful not to say too much, thinking
he always has.
James had lost his mother young, and he hadn’t liked or trusted Louisa from the start.

“Snow geese,” Louisa said, trying to laugh. “I used to be so jealous when Dalton’d call you that. As if you and James were the only lovers here! I grew up around those Shoshone stories. Oh, I know about the totem of snow geese—the symbol of fertility and marital fidelity. How they soar together in pairs and cover great distances, how they belong together . . .”

Daisy’s stomach clenched as she thought of James, of the distance they had covered, of their abrupt end. The kitchen reminded her of a thousand breakfasts together, and as she closed her eyes she felt the hot tears.

“We only thought we belonged together,” Daisy said. “Look what happened.”

“Fate was cruel to you and James. But you know, I thought you belonged together anyway. I wish you had never left.”

“I did what I thought was right. I didn’t want to raise my daughter on the same ranch where my son—”

“I know that,” Louisa said quickly. “I’m in no position to criticize, and I don’t. But I’ve missed you, Daisy. It’s not easy, being the only woman with two Tucker men. Having you here balanced things out.”

“I missed my own mother so much,” Daisy said, wiping her eyes. “You got me dressed on my wedding day. You were my mother-in-law, my children’s grandmother. Sage still thinks of you that way.”

“Snow geese don’t need paperwork.” Louisa tried to smile, but her voice sounded bitter. “They don’t need marriage certificates to prove they’re together for life. So I guess I can be Sage’s grandmother without marrying her grandfather.”

“Yes,” Daisy said, holding the sound of her daughter’s name close in her heart and mind.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Louisa said.

The DR barn was deep and cavernous, and as Daisy walked through, barn swallows flew in crisscross patterns through the darkness. The horses whinnied at her approach, and her heart was pumping—she knew so many of them! There were Ranger, Chiquita, and Piccolo. Stopping by each stall, Daisy touched her head to theirs, said hello, caressed their velvety muzzles. Their eyes were so wide and alert—did they recognize her, too?

“Hi, boy,” she said to Ranger. “You’re the biggest one here, same as ever. Why aren’t you out with the cowboys?” The enormous bay tossed his head, looking down, as if her question shamed him. He had always been James’s horse—his favorite by far. Daisy saw the white whiskers around his mouth, the dry skin behind his ears. He was still the largest horse here, but he had aged. It made her sad to see, but grateful at the same time, as she realized she hadn’t expected to see him—or any of the old horses—at all.

She greeted some new horses, ones she had never met before. A black barn cat leapt down from a rafter and a mouse squealed from under the hay. A flurry of bats swept through the shadows. Daisy jumped, as if the air was full of ghosts. Her heart racing, she paused to breathe. She wanted fresh air and open spaces. She wanted to chase this nightmare away—this visit to the past, the emptiness where Sage should be.

Her years back east had taken away her confidence as a rider, but right now she wanted—more than anything—to get up on a horse and gallop into the hills. Years ago, James had kept some gentle horses for her and the children. Silver Star, she remembered, and . . .

“Scout!” she said out loud.

Could it be? The yellow quarter horse stood in the same stall, midway down the row. Her coat looked matted and dusty, as if she hadn’t been properly brushed in a long time. She faced into the corner, head down.

“Scout . . .” Daisy tried to whisper, but her voice wouldn’t work. Scout had been Daisy’s horse. She had held Daisy’s children on her bare back and walked them through silvery fields of sage. A glossy palomino, she had made Daisy proud to ride her. Broad and strong, she had carried her down steep mountain trails, across icy rivers, over narrow rock bridges. Scout had brought her home from trail rides and night rides and camping trips and roundups. Daisy had brushed and curried her, the way James had taught her to care for the horses they loved.

But this animal looked uncared for. Her white mane and tail were brown with barn dust. Her head drooped with weariness, and Daisy took it for dejection. How could James have let her get like this? Or was it another horse entirely—a different palomino in Scout’s old stall?

“Scout,” Daisy said quietly, holding her hand through the bars. “Hey, Scout. It’s me. Remember me?”

Most of the horses had stand stalls—narrow cubicles just big enough to hold a horse standing up. But the family horses had box stalls, large enough for them to move around in. This old mare stood where she was, frozen in place.

“Washakie,” Daisy whispered.

Was it her imagination or had the old horse moved her head? She gave a half-look over her left shoulder, then turned back to the corner. Daisy peered into the dusty gloom, looked for signs of the horse she had known. She found her voice, and it grew stronger. “Remember the river? How we used to follow it into the mountains? You loved it the colder it got, when the snow would melt . . .”

Daisy held her breath, reaching deeper into the stall. She kept talking . . . “Remember me? Remember us? Me and Jake and Sage? James would be up on Ranger . . . remember your friend Ranger? Washakie, Scout. Washakie . . .”

Just saying the name made Daisy’s heart stronger. She kept talking, reminding the old horse of high trails and bright skies, wildflowers growing through the snow, blue ice on red rocks.

The horse moved her feet. Daisy heard her hooves shuffling through the hay. They connected with the wood floor, and the mare began to turn around. Her head was down, as if gravity made it too hard to look up. She lumbered across the big stall, clopping quietly. Daisy’s hand trembled as she held it out. The mare began to raise her neck and smell Daisy’s hand, and Daisy felt warm breath on her fingers. Then Scout lifted her head and looked Daisy straight in the eye.

“It’s you . . .” Daisy whispered, her throat thick.

The white forelock hung across her face. Daisy’s eyes flooded as she reached out to brush it away. The mare’s eyes were dark brown pools. They stared back at Daisy with wisdom and love and recognition. Tossing her head gently, Scout let out a long, low whinny. Daisy unlatched the creaking stall door. The brass rails and hinges had been left unpolished for a long time.