Spider Web (33 page)

“Can’t wait,” I said, hugging him around the waist.

I called Isaac, and we agreed I’d be at the ranch by nine a.m. so we could ride up to Big Hill. He wanted to photograph me with my horse. I thought a photo of him with the hills of San Celina in the background might have the grandness that his portrait deserved.

“Dig out your old Hasselblad,” I said. “I think I want that in my photo of you.” I’d always loved that camera. It looked like a piece of modern art to me.

The ranch was quiet when I arrived. The day was cloudy with thick marine fog blowing in from the ocean. A perfect day for photos, I knew Isaac would say. He was alone in the kitchen sipping a cup of coffee.

“Where are the girls and Uncle WW?” I asked, plopping down on a stool next to him.

“Went to town. WW’s got an early doctor’s appointment.”

“I’ll saddle up Misty. Are you taking the Jeep?”

Isaac nodded. “It’s all loaded. The girls packed us a lunch.” “Bless ’em.”

Misty was my favorite mare, a stout little buckskin that stood just over fourteen hands. She was smart, quick and good in an emergency. But she also knew how to relax, seemed to understand when we were taking care of cow business and when we were just out for a pleasure ride. Not all cow ponies were good leisure horses.

“Perfect day for photos,” Isaac said, while we walked out to the barn.

I gave a small laugh.

“What did I say?” he asked, his expression perplexed.

“Nothing. Where’s Daddy?”

“He lit out of here early, before the girls were even out of their housecoats. Said he had some cows to check on.”

“His truck is gone.”

Isaac pretended to study the green hills behind me.

“You know where he is. Spill the beans, Pops.”

He looked down at me, his weathered face miserable. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“To save you any agony, I’ve seen Daddy with his girlfriend or whoever she is, so the gig is up. They were laughing it up Friday morning at Kitty’s Café in Morro Bay.”

He wiped the back of his huge hand across his forehead in a gesture of feigned relief. “I’m glad I’m not the only one carrying the burden of Ben’s secret love life now.”

“Who is she?” I opened the barn door. The scent of sweet hay, earthy horse and the buttery odor of saddle soap greeted us. It was a smell as comforting and familiar to me as Dove’s macaroni and cheese. “Where did they meet?”

“Her name is Dot Haggerty. Short for Dorothy. They’ve been seeing each other on the sly for about six months. They met at the Snaffle Bit Futurity in Reno last October.”

“I went with Daddy to the Futurity! I never saw him with any woman.”

Isaac leaned against the stall while I slipped a halter around Misty and led her to the hitching post. “How much did you and he hang out?”

“Good point.” Daddy and I enjoyed our annual trip up to the Snaffle Bit in Reno. It was one of the few times during the year when we were alone for an extended period. On the long drive, we talked, ate salty snacks, drank RC Cola, laughed and complained about the new country music. We agreed that there would never, ever be another Patsy Cline or Merle Haggard and that MoonPies and original flavor Corn-Nuts were the perfect road trip food. If Dove went to the Futurity, she usually drove with a bunch of her girlfriends.

However, once Daddy and I actually arrived in Reno, we saw each other only to wave because we both had dozens of old friends that we wanted to visit—he from his years of ranching, me from my Cal Poly and 4-H days. We always stayed in the same hotel-casino in separate rooms, often on different floors. I knew so many people attending the Futurity, I never had trouble finding a ride to the arena. Daddy could have met someone, courted her and had a wedding with a three-piece jug band and I’d probably not hear a word about it until the ride home.

“Where’s this Dot lady from?” I asked.

“She owns a little ranch with her brother outside of Reno. They run about a hundred head of red Angus. Brother never married. She’s a widow, like Ben. Has one daughter who lives in Nashville who’s a studio musician. Dot grew up in Oklahoma. Did a little trick riding back in her thirties. She designs jewelry now.”

I tilted my head and gave him a wry smile. “You sure seem to know a lot about her.”

“Ben and I talk.”

I brushed the light dusting of soil and loose hay off Misty’s back and settled the red and brown Navajo-patterned saddle pad on her back. “So, are you going to ever tell Dove about Daddy’s paramour?”

“Not on your life,” Isaac said, his eyebrows shooting up. “That’s Ben’s row to hoe.” He lifted my saddle off the wooden rack and set it easily on Misty’s back without even having to swing it up and over. For not the first time I thought about how much easier life would be if I were that tall.

“But don’t you think it would make everything easier if you told Dove and Aunt Garnet that Daddy is, apparently, doing fine in the love department? They would leave him alone and move on to improving some other lucky person’s life.”

“That’s just it, they
wouldn’t
leave him alone. They’d want to meet her, invite her for dinner, for Sunday brunch, for the weekend. They would quiz her within an inch of her life. They would want to know about her
people
all the way back to her great-great-greats. Then their friends would hear about her and then Dot and Ben would become the toast of San Celina ag society because no one ever expected Ben to date again so everyone would want to meet the woman who caught him. Ben and Dot are wisely trying to figure out if they actually have something together before they give the rest of the world time to dissect it.” It was the longest, most impassioned speech I had heard Isaac give since . . . well . . . ever.

I stared at him, hands on my hips, my mouth open. It didn’t take a genius to recognize a little of his and Dove’s courtship difficulties in that speech. Then again, my dad wasn’t a famous photographer. His and Dot’s relationship wouldn’t cause quite as big a stir, though it would surprise a good many people.

I had to admit, when I thought about Daddy actually being in a romantic relationship, my stomach felt a little queasy (seriously, what kid wants to think of their parents doing anything resembling what Gabe and I did on a regular basis?). However, I liked to think I learned something from my spoiled brat behavior when Isaac courted Dove. If it killed me, unless Dot Haggerty was some kind of black widow mankiller out to hurt him (in which case, all bets were off), I was going to be open-minded and accepting of this woman who may or may not end up being my stepmother.

I’d let Dove and Aunt Garnet be the interrogators. They would be much more competent and thorough at it than me anyway.

I pulled the cinch around Misty’s belly, checked it and stretched my legs, getting ready to mount. “What are you going to do?”

“Mind my own business. Let chips fall where they may. Take the high road. If all else fails, run for cover.”

I laughed, lifted my leg and mounted Misty. “A virtual Cobb salad of clichés, all of which fit the situation to a T.”

“Cliché number five,” he said, licking a finger and making a mark in the air.

“And I agree with all of them. Let’s go take some pictures and leave Daddy to the Honeycutt Sisters Matchmaking Service.” I touched Misty’s side with my heel. “I’m taking the long way there, so I’ll meet you at Big Hill in about an hour. I need some time to relax and think.” It would take him about twenty minutes to get there in the Jeep.

“Good, it’ll give me time to set up, check things out.”

It had been the first time I’d been out for a ride since seeing Lin Snider at the Harper Ranch last Monday, a week ago now. It felt good to be on horseback again, especially with Misty who could practically read my mind. I didn’t have to pay as close attention as I did riding Trixie. With all that had happened this week, I needed some time to decompress.

The cattle path to Big Hill was an easy one, traveled by generations of cattle to one of our higher pastures where the springtime sun caused the grass to grow deep green and thick. During roundup this was one of the first places we came hunting for cattle. The misty air deadened the sound around me, the cool weather keeping the usually buzzing insects asleep and waiting for the sun to come out. But there was plenty of other activity by squirrels and birds. I even caught a glimpse of a red fox, unusual for this time of year. A western bluebird followed Misty and me for a little ways, scolding us for riding too close to her nest.

Isaac was puttering with his equipment when I rode up. We discussed our photos and took them quicker than I thought possible. He used both his new digital and his old Nikon, using the digital as a sort of fancy Polaroid test shot. I had to admit it was fun seeing the pictures just as we took them, though the screen was small so details were hard to make out.

He took a bunch of me with Misty—both holding her reins and sitting on her back.

“I know one of these is it,” he said. “But I won’t know for sure until they are printed.”

Using his new digital camera, I took some of him sitting in the Jeep, standing with the hills in the background, his Nikon hung around his neck. Then I got a little artsy and told him to hide part of his face behind his Hasselblad. In the background there was just a hint of hills. The minute I snapped the shot, I had a feeling it was the one.

His mouth turned down at the corners, impressed, when he looked at my photo of him on the digital screen. “You have a good eye,” he said.

“I have a good teacher,” I retorted.

Once our shoot was over, we ate the lunch that Dove and Aunt Garnet had packed for us—egg salad sandwiches, pickles, carrot sticks, ranch dressing and two huge oatmeal cookies. The frozen bottles of water I’d stuck in the Jeep had melted enough for us to drink. I spread all our lunch out on an old wool army blanket next to a blue oak tree.

“How’re things going with Gabe and this sniper investigation?” Isaac asked, leaning his back against the oak tree.

I lay back on the blanket and looked up through the oak’s leafy branches.

“Oh, you know. It’s stressful. It’s . . .” I couldn’t go on. I didn’t want to lie to Isaac, but I also didn’t want to talk about Gabe’s nightmares or anything about him. What I wanted to do this afternoon was
not
think about Gabe and his past.

He scooted down, took his beat-up Panama hat, the one he liked to wear when he was working, and moved it low over his eyes. “Did I ever tell you I was in Vietnam during the war?”

I sat up and crossed my legs. “No, but I’m not surprised. You’ve been everywhere.”

He chuckled under his hat. “Not everywhere, but a darn lot of places. Anyway, Gabe and I were talking a few months back and realized that we’d been in Vietnam about the same time.”

“Wow, that’s weird.”

“Yes, quite a coincidence. We might have crossed paths, though chances are we didn’t. I was there for
National Geographic
, so the military treated me well. I ate and drank with the officers. Gabe, being a marine grunt, didn’t get my perks, though he and his buddies certainly deserved them more than I.”

“I hate that about the military, all that hierarchy stuff. I would be a horrible military wife. If someone tells me I can’t go somewhere, that’s exactly where I want to go.”

“I think God placed you exactly where you should be.”

“So, what did you photograph in Vietnam? I don’t know much about it because I was so young when the war was going on. When you and Gabe were over there, I was ten years old, learning my times tables and how to groom a steer for show at the county fair.”

He inhaled deeply, crossing his arms over his chest. Above us I could hear birds rustling, the sound of a woodpecker. Misty snorted, pawed the ground, then settled back down. “Vietnam’s a beautiful country with wonderful people. What we did to it . . . well, don’t get me started on my soapbox. I may be a bit more left-wing than most about the devastation heaped on that little country.”

“Were your photos political at all?”

“No more so than any war photography. I concentrated on the beauty of the country, the warmth and resourcefulness of the people, the incredible landscape. I was trying to show what Vietnam was like before the war as well as during the war.”

“Did you photograph any soldiers?”

“I did for another assignment, one for AP. Anyway, to answer your original question, what I loved most in Vietnam were the people and their animals. Specifically how they interacted and worked together as a team. I was thinking about compiling some of those photographs using that theme. Kind of like the photograph I just took of you and Misty. It would fit in quite well.”

He’d snapped a shot of me blowing into Misty’s nostrils and Misty fluttering her lips in response. It was our special way of greeting each other.

“Did you take photos of Vietnamese kids and their dogs?”

“It was their relationships with water buffalos I found so fascinating. Water bos, our guys called them. They’re the symbol of Vietnam, you know, and most farmers owned one. They were extremely important to their livelihood. I loved watching the kids ride them like circus elephants, making them obey as if they were pet dogs. Those long, curved horns always reminded me of handlebar mustaches. Even the bravest soldiers and marines were very cautious around the water bos. The kids were fearless and used to laugh at how scared our troops were of the water buffaloes.”

It was later, when I was pulling into my driveway, that Isaac’s words struck something in me.

Those long, curved horns always reminded me of handlebar mustaches.

I dug through my purse and found the photos I just had developed at Target. I flipped through the photos of the Memory Festival until I found the photo I took of Tessa’s photo. Next to it, only partially visible since it wasn’t the focus of my photo, was the tiny jade animal with the big, curvy horns.

A water buffalo.

CHAPTER 15