Phoenix (7 page)

Great neighbourhood
, I thought, watching as the car I was tailing pulled up outside a derelict trailer and the four occupants stepped out. I decided to park out of sight a hundred metres back then approach on foot through some trees.

Up ahead I heard Taylor and Jacob telling Zak to relax and take it easy. ‘What’s bugging you, dude?’ Taylor wanted to know. ‘We’ve been here a hundred times. The place is a dump – no one has lived here in a long time.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Zak seemed to hang back as the driver went ahead, carrying a blue sports bag into the trailer. From behind a tree I spotted Zak still nervously checking things out.

‘Zak, you want a beer?’ Jacob called from inside.

Buying and consumption of alcohol – not one of those kids was legal, except maybe the dark-haired driver, who looked twenty, maybe twenty-one. And I worried what else might be in that bag.

‘Sure,’ Zak replied, finally following them inside.

I crept closer, only stopping when the car driver came back out carrying a can and a white plastic chair. He set down the chair and sat, legs sprawled wide, taking long swigs at his beer, giving me plenty of time to take in his round, baby face, full lips and stringy black hair.

Soon Taylor emerged, carrying a small plastic envelope. ‘Hey, Nathan, what’s the street value on this?’

‘Plenty.’ Baby Face was quick to take the packet from Taylor and stash it away in his pocket. ‘Listen, I only carry the stuff from point A to point B for my brother. I don’t go into value.’

‘So how much does Oscar pay you?’ Taylor sat on the trailer step, only to be shoved out of the way by Jacob, who threw an empty can down in the dirt and began to kick it around. Zak stayed inside – I could just make him out through the filthy window.

‘Plenty,’ the driver, Nathan, said again.

Nathan. Finally the name got through to me. Nathan. The Chevy driver was
the
kid at
the
gas station on
the
night …

So it’s a common name, but my gut feeling was that I wasn’t mistaken.

And Oscar. You don’t find too many Oscars in a town like Ellerton. The only one I knew was Oscar Thorne, the
drugs dealer who’d been sitting at a table near me in the coffee shop at the mall when my best friend Summer walked into a hail of bullets.

The driver of the Chevy was Nathan Thorne, Oscar’s younger brother. And the white powder in the packet stuffed into his shirt pocket was a Class A narcotic.

I must have been careless. The tree I hid behind left colourful bits of me on view – my blue patterned shirt, flashes of silver jewellery. Anyhow, Nathan Thorne suddenly spotted me. He stood up, tipping the chair against the trailer as I turned to run.

I sprinted back through the trees, skirting around low thorn bushes, almost tripping, lunging forward, regaining my balance and running on. Behind me, Nathan yelled at Jacob and Taylor to cut me off.

I could see my car parked on the road, maybe twenty metres away. Nathan was crashing through the undergrowth, gaining on me and I felt the way a deer must feel with hunters in pursuit – heart pounding, lungs sucking in air, my whole system flooded with fear.

Taylor and Jacob had followed orders and cut down onto the road, planning to reach my car before I did. It was neck and neck. Ten more steps, and then five – I arrived with seconds to spare, turned on the engine, sped away, making nought to sixty in four seconds flat. If Taylor
and Jacob hadn’t thrown themselves sideways, I would have driven right through them.

I pointed my car for home and left them standing – Nathan, Jacob and Taylor by the side of the road, Zak watching from among the pine trees.

Chapter 5

H
enry Jardine takes his job seriously. He truly cares about the Ellerton community and the people he serves.

That’s the reason he was waiting for me at my house after he came off duty, long after it grew dark. He was out of uniform, having coffee with Laura and Jim in the kitchen. When I came in, he stood up to greet me and take me out onto the porch.

‘It’s you I came to see,’ Henry insisted, sitting on the swing and looking up at me.

‘Why, what did I do?’

‘Relax. You’re not in any trouble. I just know there’s an issue between you and your folks and it’s been bothering me. I have a daughter your age, did you know?’

‘No.’ Even though I was dead tired, I kept up my guard.

‘She’s at school in Forest Lake, thank God.’

‘Why thank God?’

He tapped the seat. ‘Sit, Darina. I do thank Him every day that Anya isn’t a student at Ellerton High. Parents here – I can’t even imagine the stress.’

I sat down heavily then nodded.

‘And you kids. After Jonas, Arizona, Summer, Phoenix – you all must get to wondering who’s next.’

‘You missed out Logan,’ I reminded him. I don’t often speak Logan’s name because his dying and the way it happened hurts me almost as much as whenever I think about Phoenix.

‘Yeah, Logan Lavelle. Add him to the list,’ Henry sighed. ‘What I’m saying, Darina, is that it might look like your folks are taking a tough line over Foxton, but you can see why they do.’

‘Yeah, and I need another lecture.’ I closed my eyes and set the swing in motion. ‘I don’t know why you’re all so hung up on that place.’

‘Are we? Yes, I guess we are. Including you, Darina. Weren’t you up there when Logan had his accident? Yes, you were the one who drove him to the hospital. No need to say anything if that upsets you. But last fall, I hear you were on the ridge the day Arizona Taylor’s grandmother fell from her horse. And there have been other times too.’

We swung slowly to and fro – the chains creaked. ‘So? I like it up there – away from … everything.’

‘And that’s it? Because I wouldn’t like to think you were getting sucked in by the rumours, that you go ghost-hunting in that wilderness.’

‘Please!’ Suddenly my brain clicked into overdrive. I opened my eyes and slammed my foot onto the boards to stop the swing. ‘If you really want to know, I drive out to Foxton for a school history project. I’m researching the old cattle ranches of Shepherd County.’

‘Cattle ranches,’ Jardine echoed, running a forefinger down his thick moustache.

‘Before the National Forest bought up the land and planted trees, this county made money on the back of cattle grazing.’ Before I knew it, I was totally into my story, trying to convince Jardine that my interest in Foxton was legitimate.

‘That’s true,’ he agreed. ‘You wouldn’t know this but I’m ancient enough to remember the last ranchers. They were already old-timers when I knew them in the nineteen sixties and seventies, with memories going back to the early nineteen hundreds. It was a tough life, bringing in steers from those mountains. The ranchers lived rough, rode all day, slept under the stars.’

Satisfied with the way the conversation seemed to have
drifted, I set my mind on quizzing Henry. ‘So there were ranch houses in the valleys back then?’

‘Even as far out as Foxton Ridge. That’s what I told Danny Kors the day I took him out there. Log cabins and shacks, probably gone now. Nature has a way of claiming back her territory, but maybe there are still a few old barns hidden among the trees.’

‘Did you ever hear of a rancher out at Foxton by the name of Hunter Lee?’ I asked.

‘Hunter Lee. You came across him in your research?’

‘In the old newspaper archive. There was a report of a murder.’

‘Sure, it was big news way back then. Hunter and Marie Lee. Peter Mentone shot Hunter Lee dead.’

‘I read about it. They hanged Mentone.’

As things turned out, Jardine was a local-history nut himself. ‘There was a baby girl born later that year. The belief was that she was Mentone’s daughter, though Marie went to an early grave denying it.’

‘Marie died?’ I didn’t even try to disguise the shock I felt.

‘When the little girl, Hester, was ten years old. Afterwards, Hester came to live here in town with her aunt, Marie’s sister – a lady called Alice Harper, as I recall.’

‘And?’

‘Alice Harper was a good woman. She raised Hester like she was her own, sent her to school then to college. Hester trained as a school teacher.’

‘Just like her mom,’ I said.

Jardine gave me one of his close, quizzing looks. ‘You sure know your history,’ he muttered. ‘You’re certain you never stumbled across any of those old ranch buildings out there by Angel Rock?’

‘I’ve been looking but I never saw any sign,’ I swore.

‘When you do, remember to take photographs,’ the deputy sheriff told me. ‘Illustrations for your history project,’ he pointed out. ‘A photograph is as good as a thousand words any day.’

‘You don’t understand,’ I told Laura early Friday morning. For two nights I hadn’t slept and today I wasn’t eating breakfast. All I could focus on was finding Zak again, until Laura opened the mail and dropped the latest bombshell. ‘No way am I leaving Ellerton.’

‘The house is sold,’ she’d told me in a flat, final voice. There was a letter laid out on the table in front of her. ‘This is from the realtor. Finally, we found a buyer, but we have to vacate before the end of the month.’

‘You and Jim can leave. I stay.’

‘That’s not how it works. You’re still in school, you’re my responsibility, remember.’

‘I don’t want to leave town. You can’t make me.’

‘Darina …’

‘You can’t,’ I told her, getting up from the table. We were six days from Phoenix’s anniversary. This was the last thing I needed. ‘I want to stay here!’

What you want is not what you get. I ought to have learned that the day Phoenix died. The truth is, the more you want something, the more certain you are to lose it. It doesn’t stop you wanting it anyway.

Phoenix, stay with me, don’t leave me here alone.

Kim says it’s how you deal with your loss that counts.

I hold the lumpy black lava stone in my trembling palm.

‘Anger,’ Kim says. ‘Deal with it. Who are you angry with?’

‘Everyone. Myself. I’m angry with me. Phoenix wouldn’t
have gotten into a fight if it hadn’t been for me.’ The stone is
dark, rough, heavy.

‘Lay it on the table, Darina,’ she tells me. ‘Look at it long
and hard.’

Laura told me we were quitting Ellerton and I stormed out of the house. I was halfway down the drive when suddenly my wave of anger crested, broke and
rippled onto the shore. I turned back. ‘Mom, I’m sorry!’ I sobbed.

She stood waiting on the porch. She put her arms around me. ‘Baby!’

‘It hurts so much I wish I could die!’

‘Baby, baby, baby …’

Red-eyed and still shaky, I drove over to the Rohrs’ house. Too bad if Sharon was there.

It turned out she wasn’t, but Brandon was.

‘Hey, Darina, it’s been too long.’ He came out of the front door before I had a chance to knock.

I knew right away that he wasn’t about to let me in, that the atmosphere in the Rohr house was at an all-time low. ‘That cut on your face – did you go to the hospital?’

Brandon fingered the strips of dressing on his jaw then took my elbow and steered me back onto the sidewalk, where his Dyna stood gleaming in the morning sun. ‘You want a ride?’ he asked.

No wasn’t an option, so I slid onto the passenger seat behind him. Soon we were cruising through the streets, downhill past the old psychiatric hospital and the Baptist church on the road to Deer Creek. When I realized where we were headed, I got ready to deal with a thousand Phoenix memories. Phoenix sitting on a rock watching
the clear water whirl and ripple. Phoenix with his arm around my shoulder, wading into the creek. Phoenix with the wind lifting his hair back from his face, staring up at the mountains.

Brandon stopped right by the creek, overlooking a big smooth boulder in the middle of the stream – the exact spot where I’d waited for Phoenix the night he was killed. Brandon cut the engine and sat in silence, legs still straddling his shiny silver-and-black machine.

‘Why are we here?’ I asked.

I’m waiting for Phoenix as the sun goes down. I wait a
whole hour, playing a track from Summer’s CD, wondering
why didn’t he at least take out his phone and call. The sky
turns red then grey then black. Logan shows up in his white
Honda, says, ‘There’s a fight in town. A big one. Brandon’s
involved. So is Phoenix.’

‘It’s almost a year,’ Brandon said, still staring at the clear water.

‘Yeah.’
Do I need you to tell me, do I really?

‘Every day I wish I could turn back the clock.’

I got off the bike and walked down to the water’s edge. I remembered how we held the wake here, after the official funeral. Kids from Ellerton High decided to party, they said that’s the way Phoenix would have wanted it – music in the open air, a celebration.

It angered me. Nobody understood what Phoenix would have wanted except maybe me.

After he died I’d seen him in school before I knew about the Beautiful Dead, then I saw Phoenix at his own funeral, smiling down on me in a halo of shimmering light. A glimpse and he was gone.

Now Brandon joined me by the creek. For a long time after he said he wished he could turn back the clock he didn’t say anything.

‘It’s OK,’ I told him. ‘It’s been a year. You can stop doing this.’

He walked downstream. ‘Doing what?’ he asked with his back turned.

‘Taking care of me like Phoenix asked you to. You already kept your promise. Thanks.’

‘So now I walk away and you mess up?’

‘What do you mean, I mess up?’

He walked a little further. ‘You know what I mean. You see trouble and you walk right into it. Take the other day – my family can’t settle a dispute without you turning up.’

‘Hey, listen! Your dad came looking for me, not the other way around. Plus, I see why he needs something to remind him of Phoenix – I totally understand that.’

‘No, you don’t.’ Brandon turned and strode back
towards me. ‘How can you? You’re not family.’

I took a sharp breath and backed off. My foot slipped into the water.

He grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me clear.

‘I only want to help,’ I protested. ‘Let me, please!’

‘Who do you want to help – my mom, Zak, me, my dad … or yourself?’

‘I want to help Zak.’ I said, and I told him the latest about his kid brother hanging out with Miller and Stafford, and the link with Nathan Thorne and drugs.

This is what makes guys back off from Brandon Rohr – the way he slams a steel door in your face. His eyes go blank, it’s like there’s no one home.

‘Brandon, did you hear me? I said Zak is in trouble. Alcohol, drugs – it’s all there.’

He let go of my wrist, walked slowly up the bank towards his bike.

I ran after him. ‘This is serious. Are you listening to me? No way can Nathan Thorne be good news. He’s Oscar’s brother. You need to do something!’

Brandon swung his leg over the saddle and fired up the engine. ‘Didn’t you pay attention to anything I said?’ he muttered. ‘Family stuff stays with the family.’

This was running away from me fast. ‘Don’t shut me out,’ I pleaded. ‘What about the fact that Nathan was the
guy who started the fight with Phoenix? You were there, that’s what you told the cops.’

He turned the bike around, pointed it towards the track.

I ran in front of him, grabbed the handlebars. ‘You said you didn’t see who stabbed Phoenix, it all happened too fast. But I reckon you have your own theory. You think it might be Nathan!’

Brandon stared at me with his dead eyes then he swung the handlebars out of my grasp. The engine roared, the tyres kicked up dirt and he was gone.

I knew Phoenix was there, right beside me and invisible, on my long walk home.

‘Were you down by the creek with me? Did you see how Brandon reacted?’ I muttered.

Zoom – whoosh – zoom!
A steady stream of traffic raced by and my Beautiful Dead boyfriend stayed out of sight.

‘How am I going to get the whole story if your family slams the door in my face? Nathan Thorne sure isn’t the one to ask. And I don’t want to mess with his big brother either.’

How many times do you see a crazy girl walking by the side of the highway, talking to herself? Car drivers slowed down to give me a hard stare then drive on.

‘Plus, there’s Zak,’ I told Phoenix.

I hear you
, he said.
Let me think about it. Let me discuss
it with Hunter
.

I stopped at the junction, swamped by a rising tide of frustration. ‘I wish we could go somewhere to talk properly.’

Walk up the banking towards those trees
, he told me.

He was already waiting for me in the shadows, with cars whizzing by below. He looked troubled and unsure. ‘It’s a big ask – the whole story.’