Echoes (19 page)

"It's tempting, Dewey," Rosie declared, looking as if she meant it. "But you go on. A man needs to eat a good meal."

Arlie drank milk ineptly from a cup, managing to splash most of it down the neck of her dress, while Molly doled out healthy portions of biscuits made the day before and bacon from that morning. Lady sat nearby, watching with interest.

She finished by placing a portion on Dewey's spread napkin, ignoring his protest. "We have more than enough… Dew."

He stopped chewing long enough to capture her wrist as she moved away. His hands were blackened and coarse and his offensive odor was stronger than the stringent stench of the pig that followed the wagon with the cow. Stronger even than the oxen and their offings. How foul would it become before they reached the borders of
California?

She tried to tug her hand away but he didn't release his hold. Unbelievably, he began to tow her in like a leashed dog. Horrified she twisted her hand left and right. From the corner of her eye she saw a sudden motion as Brodie lunged to his feet. He took one step toward them before Dewey also noticed and released her.

"I saw that," Brodie said. His boyish face darkened, making his light brows stand out in stark relief. "I said I saw that."

Adam stood as well, coming to his brother's side. "What did you see?"

"He had his hands on her," Brodie said, pointing at Dewey like a two year old tattling on a bully.

Dewey shook his head from side to side, his mouth partly open, food clustered in gooey clumps at the corners. His eyes made hard black points in his lumpy face and they gleamed with meanness and deeper down, fear.

"Did not."

"Did so. I saw you. I saw you."

Adam looked back and forth from Dewey to Molly to Brodie. Molly moved to Brodie's side and set her hand on his arm. "It's fine, Brodie. I thank you for your concern, but everything is alright. Sit, finish your meal. You need to eat to keep strong."

Brodie looked at Molly with the bewildered outrage of a child whose toy had been snatched away. He had not yet matured enough to hide his injured pride, but it was the possessiveness in the gleam of his eyes that worried her.

Adam touched her elbow, drawing her attention away. He raised his brows and tilted his head to the side, looking concerned and questioning at once.

"Finish your meal, Adam," she said softly. Without looking at Dewey, she joined Rosie at the back of the wagon.

"What was that about?" Rosie asked.

"A misunderstanding, I think. Will you watch Arlie?" she asked, reaching for the soap.

"Sure. Where you off to?"

"I want to wash up before I eat."

Rosie looked a bit guilty as she glanced at her own hands. She made a soft
hurmph
sound and called to Arlie.

With relief, Molly hurried down to the creek and splashed water on her face before she scrubbed her hands. It didn't matter. She could still feel Dewey's filthy touch. He'd held her hand as if he had every right to touch her. And if he was so bold as to do so in front of the others, what might he attempt if he ever were to capture her alone?

When she returned to camp, the men and Rosie had finished eating. Silently, Molly helped Rosie pack away their things.

"I see you brung a rocker, Adam," Dewey said after he'd licked the crumbs from his napkin with noisy slurping sounds. He nodded at the rocking chair strapped in at the back of the wagon.

Adam pulled Arlie onto his lap and said, "It's Ma's. Couldn't leave it behind."

"I left everything else," Rosie exclaimed indignantly.

"Shoot, no, can't leave a rocker like that behind," Dewey agreed. "Shoot, no. That's a beaut."

"Just a chair," Brodie mumbled.

"It's a fine rocker," Rosie said back.

Dewey sat forward as if suddenly struck by a thought. "Remember, Brodie? Remember that rocker
you
made?" His face split in a gleeful smile. "Remember?"

"I made lots of rockers."

"Not like Adam, you ain't. Remember how you sat in that one and it just split right out from under you?" Dewey let loose a honk of laughter.

Rosie said, "I remember. He wanted me to sit in it first but I said, no, you go ahead and give it a try." She laughed. "Hoo, he was mad."

Adam stood and dumped the dregs of his coffee in the dirt, shifting Arlie to his hip in the same motion. Arlie grabbed for Adam's hat and tried to get the rim in his mouth. "Gimme that," Adam said, tugging it away. Arlie lunged for it again and Adam swung him to the side so that the child hung parallel to the ground with Adam's arm around his waist. Delighted, the boy kicked his feet, looking like a frog caught midair in a leap.

Grinning at his son, Adam said, "We should be moving. Daylight's wasting."

Not to be distracted from his original subject, Dewey jumped to his feet and said, "You remember, Adam? You remember that rocker? Just
crack
it went and down came Brodie like a sack a taters."

Rosie joined in with her bunny laugh as Dewey wiped the tears from his eyes.

"It wasn't that funny," Brodie said, standing as well.

"Sure it was. I near bust a gut laughing."

Dew hooted some more but Brodie obviously found nothing of humor in the story. He strode off to his horse and began tightening the cinch and adjusting his gear. At last Dewey's laughter dwindled and then died altogether. "Just went
crack
," he muttered as he carefully folded his handkerchief and put it back in his pocket. "Just like that.
Crack
."

Molly packed their dishes in the crate at the back of the wagon as Rosie took Arlie to wash. Adam appeared at her side and moved to help her with the heavy lid to the crate. "What was going on with Dewey earlier?" he asked. "Did he do something?"

She shook her head, but Dewey stepped into her line of sight at the same moment and her expression gave her away.

"You don't need to worry about him. When it's said and done, he's ugly, but he's harmless."

"Perhaps if I were a man I would agree with you. Men seem to have much less to fear than women."

He reached up and tweaked an errant strand of hair that insisted on escaping the tight bun at the back of her head. "Going soft on me already, city girl?"

She sighed, brushing the stray hairs back. "Maybe."

"Liar. I don't think there's much that really scares you, sweet Molly. Not even Dewey Yokum."

"Well, for once you are wrong. Quite a few things frighten me."

"Like what?"

Like growing old and never knowing what it feels like to be loved by a man…

He bent his knees slightly and leaned back to bring himself eye level with her. Still she didn't look up until he reached out and tilted her chin.

She tried to think of him as her sister's widower, but when he looked at her that way, she could only think of him as a man. For the hundredth, thousandth time she wondered what his relationship with Vanessa had been? Were they wildly in love? Or had they shared a moment of passion that left them trapped in wedlock with ardor a thing of the past?

"Molly," he said, his voice as soft as the light of his eyes. "You don't need to be afraid of anything as long as I'm around."

Not even of him? Not even of the way she was beginning to feel about him?

It seemed he heard her silent questions, because he leaned closer, so close that she needed only to raise herself to tiptoes to press her mouth to his, felt herself in fact shifting her weight forward without conscious decision.

"Are we going to stand around here all day?" Brodie demanded, his voice like a gunshot fired into the air.

Molly started backwards and Adam quickly stepped away. He looked flushed as he hefted the last crate into the wagon.

"Let's move out," he said.

Chapter Eighteen

The power came back on at four-twelve a.m. and the phone lines followed shortly after. Tess knew, because she'd been waiting, plug in hand, for their restoration. Her bones ached from the hours spent sleeping on the hard floor and her head hurt from the deafening confusion of her thoughts. Yesterday morning she'd begun with instant coffee and a visit from Craig. This morning, before the sun had even considered rising, she started with the worldwide web.

She spent the next two hours batting down her irritation as the painfully slow connection fed her pages minute by infuriating minute. Accustomed to LAN lines and instant gratification, Tess found the delays torture. Her initial search branched into another until at last she hit the jackpot. "Delusional" captured an astounding list of sites.

"Well if I've got it, at least I'm not alone," she murmured, adding "talks to self" to her list of symptoms.

The first page downloaded with surprising speed. A dry text of a site, it hadn't gobbled up pixels with wasted graphics. Instead, it focused on bytes of information. Words like "severe psychotic disorder," and "schizophrenia" jumped off the screen and any humor she might have found in her ridiculous quest vanished. She scanned through indicators of alcohol and drug abuse to a section titled "typical delusional tendencies."

Well, if that wasn't an oxymoron…

Delusions of God-given purpose and delusions of persecution tied for most common. Command hallucinations followed just behind. That one included hearing voices and committing acts of self-mutilation. Thinking of the bruises on her skin and the mad dash in front of Grant Weston's truck, she scrolled down. Delusions of grandeur came next. Tess felt ill as she read, "in some cases, involves the belief that the patient is a historical personality of great importance."

Tess stared at the screen, as if her absolute concentration might scramble the words and make them different. She scanned the rest of the paragraph, trying to be objective. Did it apply? Tess didn't think she was a historical person—at least not now she didn't, but Molly was someone from the past even if she wasn't an important someone. Was that simply a technicality? For all Tess knew, when these…
spells
came on, she could be walking around lifting her skirts over nonexistent puddles and talking to all the colorful characters in her make-believe world. She didn't
know
what happened to her
here
when she was
there
.

But what she read only managed to confuse her more. What had she expected? A checklist? Eight out of ten and you're certifiable? Seven or less and you're just a bit tweaked? In the end, it was frustration that decided what common sense should have insisted on long before. She couldn't diagnose her problem via the information highway. If she wanted a prognosis, she would have to seek professional help.

That settled much the way a healthy swig of sour milk might.

Behind her the sun peeped from the dark and speared the sky with a sharp golden ray. She glared at it even though inside she was glad to see it chase back the night. It was ridiculous to imagine the sunrise would bring safety—murderers preyed on their victims in the cold light of day as easily as they did the dead of night. She shifted, not liking where her thoughts had traveled. From threats to death.

The tap of the keys sounded extraordinarily loud as she logged off. Once the line disconnected, she picked up the phone and tried calling the sheriff's office again. Earlier attempts to get through had been answered by the canned voice of an electronic operator telling her that her call could not be placed. She'd spent hours flinching at every creak and groan an old house could make. Finally, she'd come to accept that even though her hands still shook and fear had taken her heart hostage, whoever had left the nasty threat had gone.

After a few rings, Deputy Ochoa answered the phone. She managed to keep her emotions in check and not cry like she felt like doing as she reported last night's intruder and vandalism. In a tone that defied the disbelief she felt, Tess told the deputy about the sound that woke her up, the barbeque fire and the picture that could have gone missing at any time, but quite possibly had been lifted while she and Caitlin slept. "I don't know when it was taken," she finished, relenting to the burn of tears in her eyes. She was afraid. Afraid for Caitlin, for Tori, for herself.

Ochoa's assurance that he and the sheriff would be right out did little to reassure her. Someone had taken her sense of security as easily as they'd lifted the picture from the table.

She hung up the phone and wiped her eyes with the shredded tissue she had clutched in her hand. Never in her life had she felt so ill-equipped to deal with her circumstances. She didn't know if she should turn tail and run or dig in and fight. She didn't know what she'd be running from. What she'd be standing up to.

With a deep breath she turned around and nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of Caitlin poised silently behind her. Sometime after the burning barbeque incident, Tess had passed out on the kitchen floor and later Caitlin must have crept in from the living room and joined her there. When she'd woken up at three a.m., Tess found the little girl asleep on a jumble of blankets between her aunt and the battered dinette table.