Dream Country (14 page)

She held the old horse in her arms. She reached around her broad neck and rested her head against Scout’s. The horse quivered under her skin, as if she was coming alive again. Daisy’s tears were nothing new to her. Daisy had cried into her mane the first night Jake hadn’t come home, and every night afterward. Scout knew her scent and voice, and she knew her tears.

Daisy led Scout into the barn. She wanted to groom her, untangle her beautiful mane and comb the dust from her coat, but both Daisy and the horse needed something else first, something more. Walking her through the wide doors, Daisy blinked at the bright light of day—and so did Scout. They stood by the corral, and Daisy used the split-rail fence to mount her.

Facing into the wind, Daisy began to ride. She hadn’t been on a horse in twelve years, not once since she’d gone back east. She had been afraid of the thought, certain she would need a saddle and bridle and someone helping her through the paces. Any woman incompetent enough to lose a child needed reins and stirrups and holding on to. But Scout saw it differently.

The old horse was taking it slow. She moved like a riverboat, rocking back and forth across the clear water. Daisy tangled her fingers in her long mane, letting her carry her. She stumbled once, nearly tossing Daisy over her head. But Daisy held on. Scout felt familiar, her gait slow and cautious.

Daisy and Scout rode past the barn and the bunkhouse, into the back pasture. The field was gold and brown. White clouds scudded through a steel-gray sky. A flock of starlings swooped down like a black cape, then flew away again. Daisy clutched the horse, afraid she might be spooked, but she just kept steadily on.

Scout was carrying her into the hills. Daisy nearly pulled back—James was out there, and she wasn’t ready to see him. She wanted to be near the telephone in case Detective LaRosa called, near the ranch gates for the moment when Sage would come walking through. But something made her let go inside, give up her tension and worry, just let the old horse carry her where she wanted to go.

Looking around, she surveyed the ranch in broad daylight. Some of the buildings and fences needed paint. A tree had fallen in the near pasture and hadn’t been cleared. The children’s playground had been cleared away—no swings, no jungle gym, no slide.

A few snow flurries started to fall, and Scout tossed her head. Moving onto the gravel-strewn trail, she faltered as her back right hoof caught on a rock. Daisy patted her neck, and she stopped to steady herself. Whispering encouragement, Daisy felt the horse shake herself off. Her muscles tightened and shook, and when she started off again, it was with new confidence and strength.

“Good girl,” Daisy said.

Scout trusted her. Daisy could feel it in the mare’s gait, her sureness of foot. And she trusted Scout: She felt it in her heart, in the way she was riding her up into the low hills, into the big sky. Many things on the ranch had changed, but not that. Daisy’s fingers were cold. Her heart beat steadily now, and she leaned down to hold her arms alongside the horse’s neck and feel her warmth through her body. Closing her eyes, she rode her horse. Her horse.

Sage had a flat tire. She was somewhere over the Nebraska state line. Storm clouds were gathering, and her bike had a flat tire. There were no two ways about it. She had tried using her portable pump, and the tire had inflated, but only for a few seconds. Then
tssssssss
—the air escaped again.

Last night, after hours on the road, the bakery truck had driven to a hospital, and when the driver had gone inside to drop off his last load of rolls, Sage had wriggled out from under the bread trays. Stuffing her backpack with a box of day-old cupcakes, she had hauled her bicycle out from its hiding place and coasted down the metal ramp.

She had locked her bike to a rack and gone inside. The hospital had been bright and warm, and Sage had felt safe there.

The hospital seemed to have several types of rest rooms: visitor bathrooms in every corridor, patient bathrooms adjoining every two rooms on the ward, and large shower rooms for disabled patients. Slipping into an unoccupied shower room, she took off her clothes and took a long shower, drying off with paper towels from a wall dispenser.

Feeling a hundred times better, Sage had wandered through the halls. In the hospital cafeteria she had counted out three dollars of her precious money and dined sumptuously on beef stew, noodles, and Jell-O.

Trying to find the ground floor, she had pushed the wrong button and emerged in the basement by mistake. It felt warm, and she heard the throb of washing machines. Following the hum, she had found the hospital laundry. Dirty linens were piled in canvas carts. Looking around, Sage saw no one. She’d stopped one of the dryers, pulled the load of towels into an empty cart.

The white towels were hot and fluffy. Sage climbed in, falling asleep before they had started to cool. Her dreams had been full of parents and babies, walls of glass between them. She was the parent and then she was the baby. Either way, in her dream, she was going to be taken care of.

But now she was back on this lonely road. Somewhere between the hospital and here, she must have ridden over a nail. She could stick her finger through the tear in the rubber, even if it was getting too dark to see. She had been riding along back roads, and now storm clouds were gathering. On the outskirts of a small town, she had followed the signs pointing west for Wayne.

This wasn’t a main road, and there weren’t any stores around. She had dreaded this moment, but she had known it might someday come: To get to Wyoming, to reach her father, she was going to have to hitchhike.

The traffic passing by was sparse. Sage laid her bike on the side of the road, hiding it under a low juniper bush. She felt a lump in her throat: Her mother had given her half the money to buy the bicycle—a brand-new green Trek—for Christmas when she was thirteen. The rest Sage had earned from baby-sitting and snow-shoveling. She dreaded leaving it behind; her mother had held her hands over Sage’s on the handlebars and blessed all her future rides: “Ride safely, my love,” she had said. “Smooth roads, low hills, no bumps . . . and always come home.”

“Always come home,” Sage said out loud, into the cold Nebraska air, her eyes bright with tears.

A battered old car drove by, and Sage just watched it go. Crouching beside her bike, she reached under her jacket and touched the amulet her mother had made her. At least she had her necklace. Her fingers traced the boy’s face, then the girl’s. Leaving her bike was the hardest thing she had done since riding away from Ben. In some ways, it felt even harder.

Rising unsteadily to her feet, she looked around. The sun had completely disappeared into a bank of dark clouds. Pine trees stood along the horizon like hostile sentries. Sage shivered, planting her feet firmly in the dust. Her bike, her fallen friend—her childhood—lay under the prickly bush.
Always come home,
she thought.

Her baby kicked. She felt it, just a tickle under her ribs. He needed food and shelter, and Sage was going to give it to him.
Are we there yet?
she could almost hear him ask.

“We’ll be there soon,” Sage said out loud, seeing headlights in the distance. The road was long and flat, the car a long way away. Taking a deep breath, she stuck out her thumb. The cold air stung it. The car got closer and Sage felt her chest shrink. Her baby jostled her a second time. “We’re almost there,” Sage said.

Chapter Fourteen

N
early a full day now. That’s how long Daisy had been on the ranch, and still James hadn’t talked to her. Wasn’t for lack of effort, either: He had set himself a slew of jobs as far from the houses as possible. With the temperature dropping and snowflakes falling, he’d ridden up to the north promontory to survey his herd.

The range looked cold and bleak, a thousand shades of gray. Last week’s rains had brought relief from the drought, and now it looked as if Dalton’s prediction was going to come true: Winter would be early and hard. Cows huddled in clusters, grazing on brown grass. He’d be shipping five hundred head of cattle soon, and he and Paul would have to start driving them to the big sorting corrals. He tried to count the calves he saw, but his mind couldn’t stay focused enough.

Daisy was here.

James could feel her in the air. It was as if she had flown into Wyoming on her own wings, stirred up the atmosphere all around him. He hadn’t seen her since last night, when he’d stayed in the shadows like some spying voyeur. But he could feel her presence—all up and down his spine, under his hat, in his hands. He could hear her voice, the way she’d yelled that word into the night—primal, yearning, bloodcurdling, full of rage and resentment and desire. James knew, because he carried the same stuff inside himself.

He had told Paul he was riding the perimeter, searching for traces of whoever had killed that calf. So far they’d turned up a few things—beer cans, a stomped-out campfire, boot prints in the dirt along the sandstone ridge. James wanted to catch the bastard who’d done it and rip him apart.

Most of the time he controlled his rage, but Daisy’s presence had stirred him back up. If he could catch one bad man and make him pay, he’d be free of something. He could keep the fire at bay. For whatever had been done to his boy. For the turns his life had taken. He tried to breathe. But his chest was so tight, not even a big Wyoming sky could dissolve the knot. He kicked his horse, once, twice. They took off down the chute, a living landslide. Rocks dislodged and rolled away. He kicked again, needing more speed. Maybe they’d slip off the cliff, maybe they’d soar into the gorge.

James glanced down at the black mane of his horse—Chieftain, the animal’s name was. He’d named him himself four years ago in honor of an old secret, but he never really thought of horses by name anymore. Not for a long time. They helped him get the job done, that was about it. Louisa had told him Daisy had been shocked about Scout, her old palomino, that she had spent over an hour this afternoon grooming the burrs from her mane and tail. It had been years since James had stopped to show his horses the same gentleness he’d once shown his family.

Down to earth again, James flew on Chieftain across the flat land. This ground held all the secrets of the universe, clues to every mystery, bones with stories to tell. James galloped his horse so hard they drank the sky.

As he entered the red rock canyon, James’s eyes were blazing. His skin was still on fire, and his heart was pounding. This was where it had happened, where his boy had disappeared. James had to see. He had to check. Just in case, just in case . . . Jake’s mother was here. She was on the ranch, in the house where it all began. He had to look with his own two eyes, just to reassure himself . . .

He swept the area with his gaze. Sagebrush grew from rock crevices, and ribbons of amber and jasper ran through the dark red canyon walls. Under clouds, the canyon was dark as dusk. Shadows fell across hard ground.

A pebble dislodged from the west rim above, making him jump. It clattered off the eroded cliff, setting more pebbles loose.

“Who’s up there?” James yelled.

He stared up the water-cut rock, shifting his eyes over every shape. The canyon was deep and silent, leading to a labyrinth of endless smaller canyons and crevices. James gazed at every boulder on the rim, watching for movement. Under his Stetson, the hair on his head tingled. The black shadows looked alive.

Keeping to the rocks, to the canyon wall, he thought he heard something moving on the rimrock. He had the feeling of being watched. Another pebble fell, then more silence. Someone was walking up above. Using stealth, not moving freely, trying to get away without James seeing. Staring up, James looked for a way to climb. Stunted cedars and junipers grew straight out of the rocks—he could use them for handholds, wedge his feet into the cracks.

“Show yourself!” he yelled. He felt crazed, the way he had in the first year after Jake’s disappearance. He had come here constantly, searching every crevice. Back then he had felt the presence of humans in the canyon, and he had seen ghosts swirling through the air.

Another stone fell, and a crow hopped to the edge of the rim. It cawed loudly, like a giant sawing chains. James looked up and wondered whether that was what he had heard. The crow swooped down, flying around the corner into the next crevice. James nudged his horse with one knee, and the animal walked on.

Bones from a kill lay against a rock pile. Mouth dry, James rode closer. This was western life: finding dead rabbits, elk, cows. Crows eating the dead. But discovering it here in this spot made him nervous. Bending down to check, he saw the bones bleached nearly white, yet still connected by fur. Gray fur with rusty brown glints. A wolf: James stared down at the skull, saw the fangs. Something bigger had gotten him—a grizzly, maybe.

Slowly dismounting, he crouched by the dead thing. The stench was gone—more crows and buzzards and other wolves had been here before him. He could have left the carcass alone. Ordinarily he would have. But something made him take out his knife and slice away a piece of the pelt. Then he cut off the animal’s left front paw—the bones and claws nude of fur and gristle—and a section of its spine. He was glad it was an animal of prey. As he worked, he thought of the wolf’s fierce spirit. The sensation of being watched from above was gone.

He heard the clamor of wings and looked up. A flock of geese was pointing south, pairs and pairs and pairs. Sometimes seeing the migrations made him feel lonely and left behind, but not today. That was because Daisy was nearby.

He sheathed his knife. He thought of a place down the Wind River, Crowheart Butte, where a century and a half ago the Shoshone and Crow chiefs had fought in single-handed combat to the death. Two fierce and brutal warriors ripping each other to shreds over land rights—the old Wyoming story. When Chief Washakie won, he’d honored the bravery of his dead enemy by cutting out his heart and eating it.

Daisy had called his name last night. She had always loved the story of the chiefs, the myth of gaining strength from other creatures—from respecting your enemy enough to eat his heart. It had given her courage many nights in the wild, including the time the grizzly had nearly attacked her and the twins in their tent. She had taught the word to their children, to say out loud whenever they were scared of the dark. James knew that Daisy’s bone ghosts, her jewelry and artwork, came from the same deep belief that powerful spirits lived on.

And so, with the echoes of his own voice still murmuring through the empty canyon, James opened his saddlebag and stuck the wolf bones and fur inside. A peace offering, he thought, and for the moment the fire was out. His rage was gone, taken by the wind and the thought of Washakie. Chieftain drank from a narrow stream of clear, cold water.

James looked around. It was hard to believe these canyon walls contained the source of his family’s torment. It looked so peaceful now. The stream trickled over golden rocks. The horse drank his fill. James could breathe without thinking he was about to die. The echoes of his voice blended into the tops of cedar trees rustling in the autumn wind. The crows cawed. And snow flurries fell upon the ground where Jake Tucker had once waited for his father to take him home.

The fires were starting up again.

Kick, kick. One pebble, then another.

Tucker looked up, and the Guardian stepped back from the cliff edge. That’s how he had started to think of himself: the Guardian of what should have belonged to him and his family all along.

“Show yourself,” the rancher had called.

Show this, the Guardian thought, giving him the finger. Two feet back from the edge was a rock. A big, round, wheel-sized rock, nothing like the pebbles. While the rancher busied himself cutting the foot off a stupid dead wolf, the Guardian dislodged the large rock with the toe of his boot.

New boots, they were. He’d bought them at a store in Lander. They had cost over a hundred dollars, and he couldn’t remember ever having anything this nice before. When he was growing up, his clothes had been hand-me-downs. His boots had always been worn by someone else. That’s why, when he kicked the toe under that rock, he had stopped himself from pushing it right over the cliff.

He’d scuffed his toe.

“Motherfucker,” he swore, bending down to spit on the scratched leather, rub the scratches out with his thumb. By the time he cleaned the spot, Tucker had moved along. The Guardian breathed harder. He could have really gotten his licks in that time: sent the rock tumbling, scared the living hell out of the cowman.

Too late.

He packed up his camera, knife, stove, and gun, and moved on.

Sage had gotten picked up by a woman driving home from work, a truckdriver delivering chickens, and a life insurance salesman in a Ford. Ten cars passed by for every one that stopped. The three people who’d picked her up had seemed friendly, but shy. They hadn’t said much except that Nebraska winters were hard.

Only the salesman had been weird. He wore a suit, for one thing, which struck Sage as a little pretentious—considering the only places around seemed populated by people in jeans, corduroys, or overalls. He also dyed his hair—Sage could tell by how the unusual shade of cordovan failed to blend with the stripes of white along his part and temples. It seemed so sad and vain, she didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him.

But then, talking about the coming winter, how snow in Nebraska was denser than that in any other state, all confusion was removed: He was driving with his hand over his crotch. The instant Sage saw that, she’d jumped in her seat. This was one of the perverts her mother had always warned her about!
Oh, God,
she thought. Checking the door handle, she yanked so hard it flew open at full speed. A friendly little bell started dinging, a built-in reminder to close the car door after carrying in the groceries or something. The man had been more shocked than Sage, and she’d told him to let her out at the next mile marker—right in the middle of nowhere—saying her father was meeting her there in ten minutes.

And there she’d been standing for the last ten minutes. Eight o’clock and no cars in sight. Across a rutted field occupied by a falling-down red barn, she saw a parallel road. Cars were zooming happily along
that
road. Watching them from a quarter-mile away, Sage imagined them filled with happy families on their way home to dinner. She could almost hear their loving voices, smell the good food.

Sage’s breath came out in white clouds. The sky had been dark all day, threatening to rain or snow. Her feet were cold and her hands were numb. A car approached, and she tensed up so badly—afraid it was the creep—the baby gave her a double kick straight to the bladder. Oh, God, she had to pee.

Luckily, the car—a non-Ford—passed by. Looking around for a bush or a tree, Sage spotted a row of poplars near the falling-down barn. There was a rusty old car there, too. Things to hide behind. She started off, but immediately she knew she wouldn’t make it that far. Now she was glad of the dark. Standing on the side of the road, so exposed she might as well be naked, she squatted in the dust. She heard the pee hitting the tar.

She fumbled for tissue in her pockets, trying to keep her balance. When would life be simple again?

She was midway through air-drying—her calves cramping from the prolonged squat—when she heard a car.
Wouldn’t the pervert just love this?
she thought as she struggled to stand. Oh, why had she ever started this trip? She saw herself, as if from above—pregnant, alone, hitchhiking, going to the bathroom on the side of the road . . . Her father probably wouldn’t even want her. He’d send her home to Silver Bay, tell her mother to keep her.