Finding Home (4 page)

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Authors: Lois Greiman

BOOK: Finding Home
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“Phone calls to whom?” she asked, but as she tried to stretch a little farther, the ancient cord popped out of the jack. The receiver bobbled on her shoulder, then dropped with a soggy splash into the milk bowl. “Holy . . .” She fished around, pulled it out, and stuck the cord back into its slot. “Bradley,” she said. “Brad?” But not surprisingly, the phone was dead.
The lambs, on the other hand, were very much alive. Alive and ravenous.
C
HAPTER
4
C
asie hooked the log chain to the clavicle, mounted the ancient Farmall, and hauled the last of the rotten fencing into a pile between the cattle barn and the corncrib. She'd started work before dawn. Maybe her conversation with Bradley had precipitated this burst of outdoor cleaning. Or maybe her early efforts were due to a pair of lambs that had awakened her in the small hours of the morning. After that she'd been sleepless and restive. Clearing out the decrepit fencing felt strangely cathartic, but as she unhooked the post from the chain and drove the tractor back to the hip shed, the sun was setting and she was certain she'd be catatonic before her head hit the pillow.
Still, her mind was buzzing with a thousand unfinished chores as she dragged herself up to the house. She'd almost reached the tilted porch when she realized she'd forgotten to check Bones's water. The setting sun, round as a pumpkin and bloodred, had just dipped into the old elms. Chickasaw Creek, twisted as an ancient root, shone in the day's last gasp of sunlight. But inside the barn it was dark and silent. Casie flipped up the light switch.
There was a skitter of noise as something scrambled into hiding.
Heart pounding, Casie plastered herself against the wall. What was it? Too big for a dog, too small for a horse. Just about right for a person.
“Who's there?” Her voice sounded tight and terrified. Seconds ticked away. Possible scenarios rushed through her mind. She could run to the house, but the locks hadn't worked for ages. She could jump into Puke, but it might not start. She could call Sheriff Swanson, but she had no phone. Finally, easing off to her right, she seized a broken hoe that was propped beside the door. Gripping it in both hands, she splayed her fingers, held her breath, and tightened her hold.
“Who's there?” she asked again and searched for nerve. But her courage seemed to be AWOL. Her voice trembled, and somehow the sound of it dredged up a little anger. Life had been kind of sucky lately, and she didn't really feel like sitting back and letting it get suckier. “Come on out into the light.”
A scratch of noise sounded in the darkness. Bones flicked her ears forward and back.
“I've got a shotgun and I'm not afraid to use it,” she said and stepped forward a pace. “Come out or I'll pepper this barn full of buckshot.” She sounded like Clint Eastwood on an estrogen high.
The silence that followed stretched into forever, but just when she was about to back out of the barn and scamper for cover, a boy stepped into view. He was scrawny. His cheeks were hollow. His expression was angry, and he was holding his hands in the air as if he'd just been apprehended by a bloodthirsty vigilante.
Casie blinked in surprise. Apparently, she had never really believed there was someone there at all. “Who are you?”
The boy's jaw was set. She could see that much even in the dim lighting.
“You don't have no gun.”
An observant kid, and strangely accusatory, she thought.
“What an odd name,” she said and tried to sound relaxed, maybe even amused. She was neither.
“I wasn't doing nothin' wrong.”
She shifted her gaze right and left. The animals seemed to be fine. Al was peering hopefully over the top rail of his gate while his poultry entourage discontentedly waited for him to recline. “Then why are you sneaking around in the dark?”
He didn't answer.
She took a step toward him, hoe raised like a Louisville Slugger. But she'd never been much good at softball. She tilted her head, trying to see beneath the boy's weathered cap. “What's your name?” she asked, but he didn't respond.
“All right, then.” She had to dig to find her tough-guy persona. “Maybe the sheriff will recognize you if I give him a call,” she said and reached for her pocket as if to pull out her nonexistent cell phone, but at that moment she recognized him. “Hey, aren't you the kid who led the mare in?”
There was a moment's pause, then, “What if I am?” His tone was belligerent at best.
“You're Gil's son?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“What are you doing here?”
“I didn't steal nothin'.”
That was most likely true. After all, he probably wasn't a complete moron, she thought, and didn't bother to glance at the worthless piles of rubbish that surrounded her.
“How'd you get here?”
Bones was watching him with quick ears and soot-black eyes. “It don't matter,” he said finally.
“You didn't walk.”
He neither argued nor confirmed.
“It's four miles to your dad's farm.”
“I got a bike,” he said.
She glanced around. “Where is it then?”
It seemed difficult for him to unlock his stubborn jaw. “Hid it in the shelterbelt out back.”
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“What's your name?”
There was a silence deep enough to drown in. “Ty,” he said finally.
She stared at him, waiting.
“Tyler Roberts.”
She was tired enough to do a face plant right onto the dusty floor, but she lowered the hoe finally and searched for her last drop of human kindness. “I'll give you a ride home.”
He didn't move.
“It's too dark to bike there,” she said, but he pursed his lips and raised his stubborn chin.
“I ain't getting in no car with you.”
She paused, wondering what kind of rumors had been started about her. Maybe that she was crazy. She glanced toward the hairless goat, the bossy goose, the ugly, emaciated horse. Could be that particular rumor had some truth to it. “Can I ask why?”
“Dad says never to accept rides from no strangers.”
She couldn't quite manage to squelch her snort. “Does he recommend pawing through other people's barns in the middle of the night?” she asked, then wondered if he just might. The Gilbert Roberts she had known as a kid didn't necessarily frown on felonious behavior.
The boy's ruddy color increased, but she couldn't tell if it was caused by anger or embarrassment.
“Come on,” she said.
He didn't budge. “I told ya, I ain't goin' with ya.”
“Fine, then.” She was weary to the marrow of her soul. “Just get out of here.” She turned toward the house, but he mumbled something.
“What'd you say?”
He slouched even lower and stared out the broken window to the west as if he wished to be elsewhere. “I said, you shouldn't feed Angel that hay.”
Casie glanced toward the mare's ten-gallon head. “Her name's Angel?”
She wouldn't have thought his scowl could get any darker. Wrong again. “Gotta call her something.”
True, but
Angel?
The horse resembled a celestial being about as much as a toad looked like a ballerina.
“She's got heaves,” he added.
The mare had returned to munching contentedly.
“What?”
“It's an allergy thing. Makes 'em cough if they get dust in their lungs.”
“I'm familiar with the disorder,” she said.
His body looked as stiff as a T-post. “Then you shouldn'ta fed her that crap.”
She felt her pride prickle a little. Her equine knowledge team had been state champions back when she'd participated in 4-H events. “I haven't noticed any symptoms.”
“That's cuz she's been getting good hay.”
She raised her brows and sent a pointed glance at the mare's jutting hip bones.
“Well, she was before we started running low on bales. She looked real . . .” He paused. “Whatever. Do what you want. She's your problem now,” he said and turned away.
She ached to let him go. To see the last of him. To forget about his belligerent voice, his accusatory eyes, and his caustic body language, but she spoke nonetheless.
“Does she ride?”
He stopped, shoulders as square as a soldier's. Then he lifted his hand hastily to his cheek and turned back toward her. “ 'Course she rides. Horse that don't ride is worthless as tits on a boar.”
Ah, one of South Dakota's many charming maxims. “You didn't ride her in the auction.”
“Bony like she is?” He almost managed to hide his wince as he glanced at her sorry state. “Woulda hurt . . .” He stopped himself. “My butt don't need that kind of abuse.”
He could have saddled her, she thought, but didn't mention it. He was already pivoting toward the door at the south end of the barn.
“Can you fit her?” she asked.
“What?”
“Can you fit her? Get her in shape?”
He canted his head warily. “Not till she gets some flesh back on her.”
She paused, fighting those many lamented weaknesses, but there was a streak of damp dirt across his cheek, and how the hell was she supposed to fight that? “All right. Until then you can groom her once a day.”
“Why would I wanna do that?”
“So that I don't tell the sheriff you were sneaking around in my barn.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Go ahead and tell him if you want to.”
She watched him for a moment. “I don't want to,” she said finally. “What I do want is for you to brush Angel down once a day.”
He stared at her in silence as if trying to puzzle out some indecipherable riddle. “Why?” he asked finally, but she had already turned toward the house.
“Because I don't have time to mess with it, and she needs to get back under saddle if I'm going to get a decent price for her. A horse that don't ride is worthless as tits on a boar,” she said and left him to stare after her in perplexed silence.
C
HAPTER
5
T
he thermometer nailed above the chicken coop door was too rusty to discern the name of the seed company that had distributed it fifty years earlier, but the temperature was clear: forty-seven much anticipated degrees, a veritable heat wave for April in the Dakotas. Casie stood, resting her palms atop the wooden handles of the posthole digger, getting her breath back and letting the golden sunlight sink its ancient therapy into her soul. Winter had almost lost its icy grip on the world. Purple crocus, as fragile as unspoken dreams, bloomed in the sheltered crooks of rock. The frogs had begun their springtime chorus, and three chickens had ventured from Al's toasty back to scratch in the yard. Jack circled them, keeping them in a tight cluster with the intensity of a cobra while Angel grazed beside the barn and Tyler scraped off masses of her loose hair. It hung in the air for a moment before being swept away on a swirling zephyr.
The universe felt softly tranquil and old-world silent until the sound of an engine broke the quiet. Casie glanced up as a red car, as bright as a candy apple, maneuvered slowly down her bumpy driveway. She shifted her weight uncomfortably, wondering if it was too late to hide in the barn, but in a second the car stopped not thirty feet from where she worked. The driver disembarked.
He was tall, blond, dressed to perfection in a dark suit and snazzy tie that clashed with sharp precision with her stained jeans and holey sweatshirt.
“I'm looking for a Casie Carmichael.” He stood very erect, but managed to emit a sort of friendly confidence with no visible effort.
For a moment she considered telling him she wasn't home, but honesty was like a burr under her saddle, irritating but nearly impossible to be rid of. “I'm Casie.”
“Oh.” He smiled. It was the kind of expression that makes orthodontists proud and cheerleaders swoon. “I was expecting someone . . .” He cranked up the wattage a couple amps and took the few steps between them in long-legged strides. “. . . with more facial hair,” he said and stuck out his hand. “I'm Phil Jaegar.”
“Hello,” she said and found that she was excessively aware of the duct tape that kept the ring finger of her right glove intact.
He held her gaze and her hand for a good three seconds before drawing away and glancing toward the barn. “So this is the Lazy Windmill.”
Casie glanced, too. Tyler, surrounded by a halo of gray horsehair, had stopped grooming long enough to glower in their direction.
“You must be a good twelve miles from the nearest town,” he said and brought his smile back to focus on her like a spotlight.
She scowled a little, confused. “I guess. I—”
“Twelve point four miles from Hope Springs. Fourteen and a half from Chickasaw Creek. I checked,” he said. “It's in a good location.”
She narrowed her eyes a little. “I'm sorry.
Who
are you?”
He tilted his perfectly cropped head at her. Sunlight glistened on his frosted tips. “Didn't Ed tell you I was coming?”
“Ed?”
“I'm with Assurant Realty in Rapid City. I think I have a buyer for you.”
“A . . .” She glanced at the horse, the boy, the chickens. “A buyer?”
His smile fired up a little hotter. “I mean, they're not ready to cut a check yet or anything, but I've got some real interest. And you won't have to worry. . . .” He glanced around the yard, at the still-smoldering pile of rotting lumber she'd burned two days before, the newly planted posts. “. . . about any of this.”
“Mr. . . .” She felt oddly displaced. “What was your name again?”
His smile glistened in the hopeful sunlight. “Call me Phil,” he said, then dimmed just a little. “You haven't hired another realtor, have you?”
“No. I—”
“Good. That's great. Because I deal with these corporations all the time. I know how they work.”
“Corporations?”
“Swine's the most likely. But big dairy will probably want in, too. They're both on the lookout for this type of property.”
Facts were starting to filter in slowly as if just thawing in the spring warmth. “You're talking about confinement farming?”
“They could keep fourteen thousand cows here. And they'll pay for the privilege.”
Memories of her parents working and fighting and living on this land came at her in a rush. She suddenly felt old. As if
she
had been the one who had slaved over these acres for more years than she could remember. As if
she
had sweated blood to scrape a living from the sometimes inhospitable soil. And maybe that fatigue was reflected in her expression, because Jaegar's smile faded to a cautious grin.
“Listen, I can see I've kind of dropped a bomb on you here,” he said and touched her arm. “I thought Ed would have called you.”
“I . . .” She glanced toward the house, ridiculously aware of his hand on her sleeve. Handsome men had made her nervous ever since she was a gangly, ponytailed girl. But she wasn't that girl anymore. Now she was a gangly, ponytailed
woman
. A woman who was engaged to be married. She remembered Bradley a little belatedly and worked him urgently into the conversation, as if simply conversing with another man was a sin frowned on by the Church and the world at large. “I dropped my phone in the milk replacer while I was talking to my fiancé.”
“In the . . .” He chuckled at the mental image. “Phones. Slippery little bastards, aren't they? I suppose you have to drive halfway 'cross the state to get a new cell, huh?”
“Cell?” It took her a moment to realize his meaning. It wasn't as if she was living in the dark ages or anything. It just seemed like that sometimes. Which was yet another reason she should get back to Saint Paul. Well . . . that and Bradley, who did
not
necessarily consider conversing with the opposite sex to be a mortal sin. “Oh. Cell phone. No. It was a landline. Reception's not always real reliable out here.”
“I suppose not,” he said and glanced around as if imagining climate-controlled barns as long as her driveway. “But you won't have to worry about that anymore, either. You can leave all this for someone else to think about. I'm sure your fiancé misses you.”
“Bradley?”
He grinned. “Do you have another?”
“No. No.” She tried a smile, pushed a few stray strands of hair behind an ear. The bill of the Marlboro cap shaded her face, but she still felt flushed. “Just the one.”
Jaegar laughed. “I'm sure he'll be pleased to know that. Hey, I'm engaged, too.”
“Are you?” She felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience. As if the earth had just shifted beneath her feet, though she couldn't have said why. She
did
plan to hire a realtor, after all. She just needed a little time to get her head around the idea.
“Her name's Amber. I'll bring her by sometime, if you don't mind. I'm sure she'd love to meet you.”
Casie considered objecting, but that might seem rude. She didn't do rude.
“Listen, I can see you need some time to think about things. So I'm going to take off, give you a chance to talk to your fiancé, and your . . .” He nodded toward Tyler. “Is that your son?”
She glanced toward the boy. He stood with one chafed hand placed atop the gray's spiny withers. The stance looked strangely protective. “No. He's just a neighbor.”
“You must like kids though, huh?”
She realized suddenly that she hadn't had much of a chance to figure out whether she liked kids or not. Brad wanted to have a nice nest egg established before they even considered starting a family. “He's good with horses,” she said and remembered with an illogcal feeling of pride how he'd traveled miles in the dark just to make sure the old mare was okay. “And
they're
good for kids. Horses are. Calming,” she said, realizing it was true. “Kind.”
“Like you.”
She pulled her attention from the pair by the barn.
Jaegar smiled, almost seeming surprised by his own words. “Well . . . I'll leave you to your postholes and check back in a few days to discuss possibilities.”
Casie nodded dumbly. Then he was gone, back in his shiny Cadillac and off down the dirt drive and onto the gravel road. She blinked after him in silence.
“Who was that?”
She started as if shot, but managed to calm her expression before she turned.
Tyler was standing just a few feet behind her.
“A realtor.”
He looked as serious as death. “What for?”
“He says he has a buyer.”
The serious intensified toward angry. “You're selling the Lazy?”
“I don't want . . .” she began, then remembered she didn't have to justify her actions. “Yes.”
“What about Angel?”
She skipped her attention to the horse. The old mare lifted her head, newly cropped grass sticking from her mouth like a green bouquet. The animal was still as ugly as sin, but she'd gained a few pounds and seemed to be following their conversation with rapt attention.
“Listen, Ty,” Casie said, dragging her gaze from the horse. “I have to find a new home for her. What else can I do? I mean, I just can't—”
“
Can't
is just another way of sayin' you don't have enough grit to try.”
She opened her mouth to retaliate, but the truth was, she
didn't
want to try. She was sick to death of trying. “I know you don't understand. . . .” she began, then scowled and turned at the sound of a diesel engine. A black Ford was pulling an aluminum stock trailer down the road. She didn't recognize the pickup, but the trailer kind of looked like Monty Dickenson's. She scowled, then deepened that expression when the vehicle turned into her lane.
In a matter of seconds it had pulled up beside her. Richard Colton Dickenson stepped out from behind the steering wheel. The sleeves of his red plaid shirt were rolled up to reveal dark skin and a white cast. A belt buckle as big as a currycomb cinched his faded jeans to his nonexistent belly. He might have been favoring his right leg a little, and the bruise on his cheek could be seen as an interesting shade of puce beneath the down-slanted brim of his Stetson.
“Hey, Case.” He greeted her as if they'd seen each other every day of the week since infancy. Behind him, the trailer rattled with restive animals she couldn't quite see.
She watched him, wondering at his motives. “Dickey.”
He grinned as if amused by the cautious tone in her voice and lifted his chin toward Tyler. “Who's this?”
Dark curiosity pulled Casie's gaze toward the trailer, but she refused to be sucked in. “Tyler Roberts,” she introduced. “Dickey—”
“No kidding.” Dickenson reached past her to shake hands with the boy. “You're Gil's kid?”
Ty nodded, shook the left hand the other offered, and eyed his multicolored cheek.
Dickenson introduced himself.
“You know Dickey's family. They live just around the corner,” Casie said, but the boy didn't really seem to be listening.
“You're Colt Dickenson?” he asked instead.
“Some folks call me that.”
“You won All-Around in the Roundup.” Tyler Roberts had never looked more serious. And that was saying something.
“Yeah.” Dickenson nodded. “I got a couple lucky draws that time around.”
Casie glanced from one to the other.
Tyler pursed his lips, then nodded toward the trailer. “You got broncs in there now?”
“Well . . .” Dickenson grinned and turned, striding past the truck bed. “In a manner of speaking, I guess. I picked 'em up fifty miles south of here. Old man that owned 'em moved to Tallahassee a while back. I guess some of 'em was ridden before, but they've been roughin' it by themselves for a while now.”
“So you bought them for . . .” Casie paused, choosing words carefully in deference to Tyler's presence. He might act as tough as bull thistle, but even the hardiest weeds can be gooey inside. “For that Toby guy?” Her voice was deadpan. Her stomach was knotted.
Dickenson shrugged. “Owner just wanted to get rid of 'em. Guess they didn't fit in his daughter's town house.”
After striding closer, Casie could see that six or eight horses were loose in the trailer. They milled a little, but one dark eye continued to stare at her from between the lowest metal slats.
“There are babies?” she guessed.
“No newborns. Just a pair of coming yearlings. Couple geldings. An old stag they never got around to cutting. Few pregnant mares.”

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