Dream Country (28 page)

The will had to be in Dalton’s safe. Louisa had been resisting the temptation to look there. Checking the desk and the bureau had been one thing, but now she was about to get serious. Louisa stood in their bedroom, staring at the portrait of Rosalind. It was very old and beautiful, and it had been painted by someone famous back east. Dalton had often said the painting belonged in a museum, that when James was ready he’d donate it to the Laramie Museum of Fine Arts—she’d have liked that.

Now, with Dalton asleep in his wheelchair, all the way down the hall in the study, Louisa gazed into the portrait’s eyes. Rosalind looked back at her with arrogance and hauteur. Her chestnut-brown hair was piled high on her head; her elegant neck was long and stately. Rosalind had sharp blue eyes, like a pair of priceless, exotic sapphires. They were adversaries, old enemies, Louisa and Rosalind. For years, Louisa had slept with this long-dead snob staring down at her, and now she had the guilty feeling Rosalind was staring straight into her soul.

“What’s it to you?” Louisa asked, her own eyes flashing. “This is my house now.”

No, it’s not,
Rosalind seemed to say.
Just look inside, and I’ll prove it to you.

Dalton snored in his chair down the hall, crying out in his sleep. Alma was downstairs, getting his dinner ready. Louisa glared at Rosalind. The woman had died young—in her mid-thirties, not much older than she’d been in this portrait. Rosalind hadn’t lived with Dalton nearly as long as Louisa; she hadn’t taken care of him through illness, hadn’t had to watch him lose ground to Alzheimer’s. She hadn’t even been there when his grandson had disappeared.

“I deserve this,” Louisa whispered, touching the gold picture frame.

See what you get,
Rosalind seemed to smirk. Louisa swung her smug face right out of the way, pushing the painting aside and revealing the safe behind it. Her hands were trembling—just as if she was the thief Rosalind thought she was. Louisa blew on her fingers, trying to remember the combination.

Dalton had given it to her years ago, after he’d gotten hurt falling down a cliff.
In case anything ever happens to me,
he had said. Then he had told her the numerals 53-43-82 and a half-turn back. Taking a deep breath, Louisa dialed the combination. The heavy safe door fell open.

Inside, Louisa saw many things. Deeds, blueprints, and topographical maps for the ranch buildings and land; James’s birth certificate; gold bricks; rodeo medals; a pearl-handled Colt .45; a box of rifle shells; a satin case of Rosalind’s jewelry that Dalton hoped one day to give to Sage; and the last will and testament of Dalton Tucker.

“Oh, shit,” Louisa said, her fingers shaking so hard she couldn’t hold the paper still. She had been looking for this all month. Now she would unfold Dalton’s will and read it. She would set her mind to rest. One way or another, she would know.

It won’t change anything,
she told herself, staring at the document.
No matter what this says, I’ll love Dalton just as much. He’ll still be my knight in shining armor. I’ll still be the luckiest woman alive, and I’ll go down to the Stagecoach Friday night and stick my face right in Todd’s, singing love songs for Dalton Tucker—

“What’s that you got there?” Dalton asked.

“Oh!” Louisa jumped. He had wheeled his chair down the hall, the Oriental rug muffling the sound. “You scared me! I thought you were asleep—”

“What’s that in your hands, Louisa?”

“Why, it’s nothing . . .”

“You wanted something in the safe?”

“Just . . .” she began. “I felt like looking . . .”

“That’s my will,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Something got your curiosity going?”

“Well, with Daisy being here and all,” Louisa began. “I got to thinking about family and the future, little Sage on her way here to the ranch.”

“Goddamn it!” Dalton shouted.

Louisa stepped back, shocked. His voice reverberated through the room, and she swore it shook the prisms hanging on the hall chandelier. He wheeled his chair painfully across the room. Even though his head was only about even with her breast, Louisa felt as if he was towering over the scene.

“Goddamn it!” he yelled, even louder than the first time. He snatched the will right out of her hands, leaving them empty and trembling.

“Dalton—”

“You go there to that bar,” he said, his eyes and voice ferocious, “every Friday night. Every weekend, as long as I’ve known you, and other nights, too.”

“I know—” She wanted to add: I sing for you. But he just went on as if she hadn’t spoken, as if her next thoughts didn’t count.

“They circle around you like buzzards, their tongues hanging out. They watch your body, they want to touch you—don’t think I don’t see!”

“But I don’t want them—” she said.

“Every single one of them wants to dance with you. Friday night after Friday night—whether I’m there or not. Whether I’m by your side or here on the ranch. Before I fell—” he slapped his side, as if he could patch his brittle bones together. “I forget, but I still have feelings. I’m still a man!”

“I know,” Louisa said, her eyes filling with tears.

“I trust you,” he said, his eyes blazing. “I watch you go off to that bar, I think about those cowboys, but I trust you—no matter what!”

“Dalton—”

“And this—” He shook the document in his thin hand. “This is how you show your trust for me?”

“I have to see,” she implored.

“Have to see with your two eyes what you can’t see with your heart?” Dalton asked. “Is that it?”

“After you went to the hospital,” Louisa said, desperately wanting to explain, “Todd asked me where I would live, if something ever happened . . .”

“Todd Rydell?” Dalton asked, his tone dangerous.

“He’s my nephew. He cares about me—”

“That son of a bitch,” Dalton said. “That no-good little shit . . . you’d listen to him instead of—goddamn it, why didn’t you just ask me? Why’d you have to go poking around the safe, looking at lawyers’ papers? Aren’t I worth talking to anymore?”

“Oh, Dalton. You’re worth—”

“I’m worthless, that’s what you think. I’m an old nothing. No-good legs, no-good brain, no-good love. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“I love you,” Louisa said.

“This is how you show it.” Dalton bowed his head. Alma had heard the ruckus. She’d come bounding up the stairs, but Louisa held up a warning hand. Alma skidded to a stop in the hallway, not venturing into the room. She just stood there, frozen and listening, unsure of what to do.

“I love you,” Louisa said again.

Dalton’s head drooped lower. He was holding the will so tight, it was just a crumpled ball of heavy bond paper clutched in his hands. His shoulders shook, and Louisa knew he was crying.

“Look at me,” Louisa said. “Dalton, please . . .”

“Rosalind,” Dalton said.

Louisa’s heart sank. This was it, the horrible disease that had started the whole thing. She couldn’t trust his heart, because now he called her by his first wife’s name. Dalton was breathing hard, but his brain was dying. Louisa must have let out a sob, because Dalton looked up. His eyes were alert, stricken.

“I mean Louisa,” he said.

“I know you meant that,” she said, taking his hands.

“I said the wrong name.”

Louisa nodded. Rosalind’s portrait was staring down at them, having the last laugh, but Dalton seemed not to see it. He dropped the will in his lap, holding Louisa’s hands. His body seemed so thin, and his face was gaunt.

“I’m sorry I said the wrong name.”

“Don’t be sorry, love,” she said. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Don’t leave me, Louisa,” he said, his voice cracking, his eyes filmy with tears and cataracts.

“Never,” she whispered, laying her head on his lap. His legs were covered with a blanket, and the crumpled-up will had fallen to the floor. Louisa didn’t pick it up; she couldn’t even move. Dalton’s hand felt so good on her hair.

Wind whistled down the chimney, and snow tapped at the windows. Alma shuffled her feet in the hall; after a few minutes she retreated back downstairs. Louisa heard Daisy call hello from the kitchen door. She heard Alma and Daisy talking quietly, their voices muffled. Dalton seemed not to notice. He just sat in his chair, stroking Louisa’s hair as if the touch gave him comfort.

“Don’t leave me, Dalton.”

He didn’t reply, but just kept brushing her hair.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

D
aisy wished that feelings were linear; that once she had decided to forgive, to grow beyond the hurt and pain of the past, her emotions would cooperate and follow the same smooth path. Life would be like an anniversary card, with pictures of a sunset and sweet words of love in calligraphic script. She and James would hold hands and gaze into each other’s eyes. That
had
happened—the last few nights. Today was another story. She sat at her workbench, frozen and upset, unable to touch her work.

Outside, wet snow came slapping down. She heard the ice crystals hitting the roof. The wood she had used to stoke the fire must have been wet, because the smoke had a damp, acrid smell. Daisy didn’t care. James had kissed her that morning, his eyes bright with promise. At the time, Daisy had seemed to believe him. Hugging herself, she tried to figure out what was wrong.

She decided to do the thing that always worked best at home, when she felt depressed, dark-hearted, or even slightly off-base. Picking up the phone, she called her sister at the shop. But she reached the answering machine.

“Hello, you have reached the Cowgirl Rodeo,” came Hathaway’s voice. Daisy listened until the message ran out, then hung up. She could have tracked Hathaway down at home, but she decided not to.

Ice coated the fences and trees outside, turning them to glass. Daisy sat very still, looking out the window, afraid she herself might break.

That night, with the snowstorm covering the entire state of Wyoming, David, Sage, and the animals sought shelter in an abandoned wildlife observation station about fifty miles from the DR Ranch. The walls were thin and uninsulated, and the air inside was bone-cold and damp. The snow outside was so wet it stuck to the station as it fell, blocking all cracks and holes in the wood, forming a sort of natural insulation.

Like an igloo,
Sage thought, sticking her finger through a knothole in one board, feeling three inches of snow on the other side. The dogs and cats surrounded her, keeping her warm. Inside, her baby adjusted himself. Sage sat quietly, watching the light fade as David built a fire in the black potbellied stove.

“Dinnertime,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “Roast beef and mashed potatoes.”

“Oh, I was thinking of lobster and french fries.” She laughed. She watched him start to feed the animals, and she pulled out a package of cereal they’d brought from the truck stop. Arranging everything in front of the stove, they sat together. The sounds of hungry animals eating comforted Sage as she munched dry wheat puffs.

When everyone finished, David rolled toward his pack leaning against the wall. He pulled out his cigarettes and a pen. The kittens were purring, their full stomachs round and happy. With Maisie sleeping on her lap, Sage watched as he began to trace lines on the back of his right hand. Only then did she notice that he had taken the bandage off, from where he had punched the pervert’s teeth.

“Is your hand better?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he answered. She leaned over to look, holding his hand to see better. She saw the fading bruises, two scabs where the teeth had pierced his skin. Sage shivered, remembering how the man had touched her. She looked at David’s tattoos, and the owl’s yellow eyes seemed to blink.

“What are you drawing?” she asked, touching the pen.

“Pictures,” he said. “Want one?”

“I don’t think so.”

He began to trace tiny feathers on the back of his own hand. Then he drew a series of dots and circles. They passed the time for a while, listening to the storm outside while David drew designs on his skin. Sage leaned close, her knee touching his. The fire glowed warm and red.

“The circle,” he said quietly, drawing, “protects the dot.” Then, drawing a larger circle around the smaller. “And the circle protects the circle.”

“You like protecting things,” she said.

“Someone has to,” he replied.

“Who’s the first person you ever protected?”

“Wasn’t a person,” he said. “It was one of the dogs. Aunt Thelma—that was her name. I protected her from my ‘father.’ ”

Something about the way he pronounced the word “father” made Sage turn her head. “Why do you say it that way? As if he’s not your real father?”

“He’s not,” David said. “I’m adopted.”

“Oh.” Sage tried to imagine what that would be like. “But once people adopt you, they become your real family. Right?”

“That’s what they say.”

“It’s not true?”

“If real families treat you like shit—”

Sage thought of what they had seen at the puppy farm, where they had gotten Jamie and Maisie. Sage had wanted to rescue the little girl, and David had said she would have to make her own way. Sage had known then that he was talking about himself, that all his rescuing and tattoos and strange spirit magic had to do with whatever his own life on a different puppy farm had been like.

“What did they do to you?”

He shrugged, bending closer to his hand, seeming to concentrate as he drew circle after circle. She watched as he reached into his case for a needle and thread. He licked the thread, then coated it with black ink from a short bottle.

“What did your family do to you?” she asked again.

“Ssh,” he said. Then, “Are you going to give your baby up for adoption?”

Sage slid her hands down to her belly, cradling her baby. She was only sixteen, she had no job and no money of her own, but she knew there was no way on earth she would ever give her child to anyone, anywhere. He was hers, and she was his. “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

David frowned, but he nodded with approval. “I think . . .”

“What?”

David rolled back his left pants leg and pushed down his sock. He lifted the skin with his right hand, and with his left hand passed the needle and inked thread through it. Sage cringed, but he didn’t even flinch. He just bent down, concentrating on his work. She watched him create one wavy line. Then he drew out the thread and began the process over again until he had three lines about an inch long, one on top of the other.

“A river,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“A river ran by our house,” he said. “I used to make boats from fallen logs and imagine I could float back to my real family.”

“Stop,” Sage said, touching his skin. Dots of blood appeared where the needle had passed in and out. The skin itself was inflamed—bright red. “What do you mean, your real family? The people who gave you up?”

“I miss them,” he said, once again not seeming to hear her question. “I didn’t even know them, but I miss them.” He let out a crazy laugh, shaking his head. “You don’t get it, do you? With your two good parents in two different places?”

“I get it,” Sage said, her voice thick. “I know more about missing someone than
anyone
.” Suddenly she got something else: The tattoos were company. The pictures, the symbols, even the sensation of pain. Reaching inside her shirt, she held her necklace in her palm.

“My brother and I were in our mother’s belly at the same time,” Sage said, closing her eyes. “We were made from the same blood.”

“And you missed him when he left—”

“I felt half-gone,” Sage said.

“Half-gone,” David repeated, staring at his tattooed arm and ankle, as if he knew exactly what Sage meant. David had tattoos to fill the emptiness; now Sage had the baby growing inside her. She rocked gently, feeling his heartbeat mingle with hers.

“Where—” Sage and David began at the same time. They laughed, and Sage continued, “Where did your real family live? Wyoming?”

“Guess so. The people I grew up with—my family—hardly ever left the state, except to trade dogs in Nebraska . . .” David stared into the stove. “Half-gone . . . I know what you mean. Missing someone so bad you can’t even live right. Like Petal and her toy—missing her babies so much she went nuts.”

“You think Petal’s nuts?”

“Just half-gone,” David said. “Like me.”

“Who’re you half-gone for? Your real family?” Sage asked.

David didn’t answer. The fire sputtered, and they threw more wood on, just to keep it going. Petal lay beside them, resting her chin on her stuffed toy. Sage stared at it, trying to make out what it once had been. A teddy bear? A toy dog? The brown fabric was shredded and torn, the button eyes chewed off.

The other dogs and cats had settled in various parts of the room. Remembering how she and David had started their questions at the same time, she said, “What were you going to ask?”

“Where do you think your brother went?”

“I don’t know.” Sage felt prickles behind her neck. “Into the earth.”

“Into a cave?”

Sage tilted her head. “Why do you say that?”

David shrugged. “Those mountains are full of caves. Maybe he crawled in . . . I got lost in one once. Fell down a crack headfirst and had to get pulled out by my foot. It’s how I got this—” Pushing back his brown hair, he showed Sage a thin white scar that ran along his hairline.

“How old were you?”

“Little,” he said. “Four or five. Small enough to fit down the crack.”

Sage closed her eyes. The image was so terrible—a little boy, curious and brave, scuttling into a cave to investigate the mysteries inside. Maybe he was pretending to be a bear, a wolf, a Shoshone scout. Bright-eyed and full of mischief, then tumbling straight into a chasm of hell. She couldn’t bear to think of that happening to Jake. At least David got rescued.

“Who saved you?” she asked quietly, petting Petal.

“My uncle,” he said. “My fake uncle, I mean. My adopted mother’s brother. He hauled me out, got me stitched up.”

“That’s good,” Sage said. “That he was there.”

“Yeah. He’s pretty nice—the best part of the family. Once when my dad was making me ax a litter of puppies, he almost killed him. Punched him out, knocked him into the dirt—”

“Your father was forcing you to kill puppies?” Sage asked, horrified.

David nodded. “Yeah. That’s the kind of thing my family does. My uncle’s different, though. Real good compared to the rest of them. He said he was gonna haul me out of there, take me somewhere better. I heard him yelling. He said he was sorry he’d ever pulled me out of the cave, brought me back to the farm, if that was how they were gonna treat me.”

“Couldn’t he take you away?” Sage asked. “Couldn’t you go live with him?”

David shrugged. “He stopped coming around. He and my parents quit speaking after that.”

“Go find him,” Sage said. “Move in with him.”

Frowning, David began to draw on his skin again. Choosing a new spot on his right arm, he drew another owl. Dots, dashes, owls, and circles: the markings David seemed to like most. Sage watched, listening to the storm grow more ferocious outside.

“I saw owls in the cave,” he said. “Yellow eyes watching me.”

“Scary.”

“No, I knew they were my friends.”

“You’re a good artist,” Sage said, suddenly missing her mother. “You must have inherited that from someone in your real family.”

“Yeah, maybe. My brother can’t draw worth shit.”

“Your brother—is he from your real family, too?”

“No,” David said. “He’s theirs. Their real son. My adopted brother.”

Sage nodded. Her baby kicked inside her, and suddenly she felt strange—as if she was going to be sick. The wind howled outside, rocking the small cabin. The structure seemed to move, as if it was teetering on a cliff edge. Sage clutched Petal, Maisie, and Jamie closer, feeling afraid.

David held her hand. Without asking this time, he started to draw a bird—this time she let him. His touch sent tingles up and down her spine. Just then, a branch fell on the roof, and she jumped.

“This is just a Wyoming storm,” he said. “Don’t be scared.”

“I can’t help it.”

“We’re warm, we have food.”

The wind howled, picking up velocity. A downdraft sent sparks jumping in the stove, and David held her hand tighter.

“The baby,” Sage said. “What if something happens and we can’t get out? The wind’s scaring me—”

“We could always call for help.” David’s face was perfectly serious. He began to draw circles and dots on her hand. “You could call the spirit.”

“The messenger between realms?” she asked, trembling at the words. It was dark outside: David had told her he wouldn’t talk about this during daylight, but night had long since fallen.

“Yes.”

Panes of glass rattled in the windows. Sage felt scared by the weather, but excited by what David was saying. This reminded her of her mother: the studio filled with feathers, bones, rocks, and gold wire. Dream-catchers—netted hoops she had once hung over her infants’ cribs to catch the good dreams floating by—hung from the ceiling. Her mother was the most spiritual person Sage knew, believing in seeking spirits for their dreams, visions, and help.

“What spirit?” Sage asked.

“The bravest one,” David said. “It’s a magic name that can keep you safe. If you say it, no one can harm you.”

Again, swimming up from Sage’s memory came that word, the Shoshone name her mother used to say—she didn’t feel strange now, because this was so familiar. “What?” she whispered.