Dream Country (22 page)

“I mean it—what’s he like?”

“I hope your kid has a good father,” David said. “Because I hate mine. Is that what you want to hear?”

“I don’t
want
to hear it,” Sage said kindly, “because why would I want that for you? But tell me more. I’m all ears.”

“No. Why don’t you tell me more?” David asked, using steel wool with all his might to scrub black stuff off the broiler pan. “Tell me about your two wonderful parents, one east and the other west. If they’re so fantastic, why don’t they live together?”

“Because my brother died,” Sage said. “And they couldn’t take it. It broke them up.”

“Your brother died?”

“Yes. My twin. We were three. His name was Jake.”

“Like your baby—”

“Yes. I’m naming my son after my brother. His father said I could. Ben. My son’s father’s name is Ben.”

“What if the kid’s a girl?”

“I might name her Jake, too. I like the name. I loved my brother. We never wanted to be apart. Sisters share rooms, right? Well, I wanted to share a
bed
with him—I mean it. We were buddies, buddies, buddies. Do you—”

“Have any brothers?” David asked. “Yeah, one. But I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Let’s just wash these dishes and get paid so we can feed the animals. They’re probably wondering where we are by now. Besides, I want to leave tonight.”

“Tonight? I thought we told the manager tomorrow—”

“As soon as we’re done with these,” David said. “There’s something we have to do.”

Sage nodded. She had saved some scraps of roast beef for Petal, Gelsey, and River. She wondered why David refused to talk about home, but she wasn’t mad. People sometimes kept a lot inside—that’s what her mother used to say about her father. You couldn’t make someone talk before he was ready—but you could be patient and keep listening. You never knew what you might hear.

And she wondered what he had planned for later.

He had a list. He had things to do, items to buy. Still, he kept watch for the girl. Her family was ready for her, making everything nice. Just the way a family should be: sticking together, looking after each other. He watched her mother pace the small white house; he watched her father ride the range waiting for her to arrive.

It had never been like that for him.

Home.
What a place.

There had never been people waiting, keeping the home fires burning. He had known yelling and silence—one or the other. Rarely laughter, hardly ever warmth. Not that he held a grudge. The adults had certainly had their worries. It was hard to raise kids right when you had to worry about the roof leaking and cupboards being bare and heat being turned off.

Cattle ranchers: They were the ones with happy families. They were the ones with new shingles and full pantries and hot water. Their children had new toys to play with and horses to ride. When their children cut themselves, their mothers put on Band-Aids. They wouldn’t make their kids take care of their own wounds.

The Guardian’s scar itched. Sticking his hand down the back of his jeans, he felt it with his fingertips. Raised and half-round, like a length of wire, it ran across his left buttock and down his thigh. The touch of it made tears fill his eyes. He thought of scrambling over that fence when he was little, catching his butt on that rusty nail.

The scar no longer hurt—it hadn’t for years. But just the same, scratching it with dirty fingernails, he gulped back sobs as tears rolled down his cheeks. He thought of how alone a person could be—a little boy, a grown man, it didn’t matter. Being abandoned felt the same no matter how old you were. And someone could be abandoned even when there were people all around.

He cried in the snow, because he was alone, and he always had been.

Chapter Twenty-Two

S
unlight poured through the cottage windows. Finishing her latest round of calls to police departments, Daisy sat back in the rocking chair and wondered what to do next. Suddenly she heard a whistle. Opening the door, she found James on his horse, leading Scout by the reins.

“Come on,” he said. “Get your boots on.”

Daisy hesitated, thinking of all the reasons why she shouldn’t go, each one better than the other. But James was smiling, an honest smile so full of hope it made her think of that young cowboy who’d asked her to come stay in a cabin on his ranch.

“I’ll be right there,” she said. Running inside, she pulled on her boots and jacket and grabbed sunglasses, because the snow still on the ground made the sunlight seem twice as bright.

James climbed down to help her mount. First, he put a white hat on her head:
her
hat. It was dusty with age—more gray than the pure white it once had been: the old Stetson he’d bought her that first year on the ranch. She had left it hanging on a hook in the front hall, and she felt surprised—touched—that he’d kept it all this time.

“You’ll need to keep the sun out of your eyes” was all he said.

“Thank you” was all Daisy said back.

She stuck one foot in the stirrups, and James gave her a leg-up. Scout whinnied and pranced in place. Stroking the horse’s neck, Daisy leaned over to whisper in her ear. Then James was atop Chieftain, and they headed out.

Daisy rode about ten yards behind. She knew these trails by heart, and she concentrated on their beauty, instead of thinking about why they were doing this. The questions came through anyway: Why had James asked her to go riding? Why had she said yes? Daisy pushed them back by staring at the full sweep of mountains and sky, the jagged peaks and endless blue.

Riding along the stream, she saw pines and junipers sending their roots straight into the rocks above the water. The creek tumbled over a small chute, spraying rainbows into the air. Golden grasses poked through the melting snow, waving in the breeze. Feeling warm in the sunlight, Daisy unbuttoned her jacket.

They passed beneath the Rydell Cliffs, so named because supposedly James’s grandfather had driven an entire herd of the Rydells’ sheep to their deaths from the range five hundred feet up. Daisy believed the legend; she used to come out here to find bones to use in her work. She had never liked imagining her husband’s ancestors acting with such cruelty, and she nudged Scout now, urging her into a canter.

James kicked the black horse to keep up, and they rode through open meadows toward Daisy’s favorite trail. With Scout beneath her, drinking the wind, Daisy felt her worries slip away. This was how it was to ride, the part she had loved most about living in the West: the way space would surround her and pull the thoughts from her head. Her mind dissolved in nature and the wind.

They came to a clump of aspen, and James and his horse began to climb.

“That way?” Daisy asked, surprised. Their usual route took them farther along the trail, into the mountains through the red rock canyons. James began to answer, but just as quickly Daisy realized what he was doing: He didn’t want to take her past the place where Jake had disappeared. She just nodded and kept following.

A huge cottonwood had fallen across the trail, dead leaves clinging to the branches. Years ago Daisy would have jumped it, but today she rode Scout the long way around. Hanging back, she watched James take the stallion over. Their bodies taut, his arms and the horse’s legs extended, Daisy knew she would have to carve that image someday.

James turned, the shadows of some aspen leaves falling across his face. They looked like the circle-dot pattern some shamans tattooed across their cheeks and foreheads to represent supernatural vision. Daisy squinted, but then James passed into full sunlight and the shadows disappeared.

“What is it?” he asked, riding closer.

“I just—never mind,” she said.

“You look upset.”

“The shadows on your face—they made me think of Louis . . . Is he still alive?”

“No,” James said. “He died last winter.”

Daisy nodded. It made her sad; she hadn’t heard. Louis had been a shaman, and he had believed in the cycles of nature, that burial illuminates a person’s life and brings him into contact with the spirits of those he loved. He had befriended Daisy even before Jake . . . he had helped her find the spirits in bones and feathers.
In death, we are given ever-seeing eyes,
he had told her.

James gave her a long look, as if to make sure she was all right to continue. She nodded, and they turned back to the trail. Sunlight blazed off the melting snow, as they climbed higher. At one point James began to ride slower. And slower still, until they were side by side along the gradually climbing trail.

“I don’t know this way,” Daisy said. “I don’t think we ever rode here together.”

“We’ve had some trespassers down back: I want to keep away from there . . . and anyway, I want to show you something new.”

Daisy nodded. The mountain scenery was wild and romantic, with odd-shaped peaks jutting into the sky, but she couldn’t see it. Hearing about Louis had thrown her. She couldn’t stop thinking of him; he had tried to give her peace, spiritual guidance, during the time of Jake.

James’s knee brushed hers as the horses rode side by side, and she tried to block the electricity from passing through her body. They bumped again, and the contact felt so intense, she nearly fell off her horse. She couldn’t think; she was all emotion and instinct right now.

Riding Scout had always had a strange effect on Daisy. It turned her primitive. All the “shoulds,” “shouldn’ts,” and “what-ifs” went straight out of her head. There was something about being borne by a big, warm creature up a craggy and dangerous mountain trail, being filled with the smells of sage, pine, and wind, that stripped away one thousand years of civilization.

So when James reached across the space between them to take her hand, Daisy turned into a molten river and just about poured herself all over the rock-strewn ground. His hand felt so familiar—so lean and rough and scarred. She pulled her hand away. Daisy wanted to scream:
Why?
Why had all of it—any of it—happened? Why had he abandoned her and Sage?

They moved apart, scrambling up a particularly steep part of the trail. Daisy heard the rushing water before they rounded the bend. Gnarled cedars clung to the rocks, and through their sharp needles, she saw the slender column of water pouring down. Her throat began to ache, and it spread to her heart.

Rounding the bend, they scared a pair of bison. Daisy watched them bound off the purple rock ledge and disappear into a cleft. A golden eagle had made its nest on the cliff face across the chasm; Daisy knew this was the source of some river, one of the best hunting grounds around. The eagle glared with yellow eyes, then soared in a free fall into the treetops.

Climbing off Scout, Daisy pulled herself up the rock chimney. James had gone before her, and he turned to offer a hand. Hardly winded, Daisy let him pull her up. Her heart was pounding, and she was afraid to look—not from vertigo or fear of falling, but of what she felt inside. The water flowed clear at her feet, so cold and transparent she could see every stone and twig on the pool’s bottom.

The clear waters gathered here, one last moment of serenity. Then they plunged over the precipice, three hundred feet down in water as white as snow. The red rocks were nearly vertical, and the mist rising a hundred feet from the foot was flecked with pink.

Daisy stared down, inching toward the edge. Her boot slipped, and she steadied herself by grabbing a juniper whose roots were growing straight into the rocks. She must have gotten too close, because she felt James’s arms come around her from behind. Her face was wet, from her own tears and not the spray.

“Washakie,” she said.

“Why do you say that now?”

“Remember how we taught the kids to say his name?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard him.

“I remember.”

Daisy closed her eyes. She could see her children staring up at her, holding hands, trying to pronounce the chief’s name. But they had done it easily, as if the spirit had come over them: “Washakie. Washakie.” She could hear them both, Sage and Jake.

“You’re crying,” he said, nearly touching her face. “I thought you’d think the falls were beautiful.”

“They make me think of things I’ve lost,” she said, her voice thick.

“Sage’ll be here—don’t give up on her.”

“I never will.”

“Any day now, she’ll come—”

“She’s been pining for you every day,” Daisy said. “She’s needed you all this time . . . I couldn’t let her go!”

“I’m sorry,” James said. “I wish—”

“And I’m so worried,” Daisy said, the words rushing out, spilling over James’s.

“She’s strong, she’ll be—”

“She’s pregnant!” Daisy said.

“Pregnant?” James asked, shocked. His face went pure white, and he backed away from the falls. “She’s only sixteen—”

“Sixteen,” Daisy said, “is old enough.”

They stood there saying nothing, just listening to the falls roar at their feet. Daisy looked up and saw the shock and sickness in James’s eyes.

“I was never there to protect her,” he said.

“She needed you—” Daisy said, swallowing hard. He was asking, and she wanted to tell him. All the sleepless nights she and Sage had had—Sage crying for her father and Daisy hurting for Sage. The waterfall sounded like rage: crashing, anguish, destruction.

“Did I ruin her life?”

“I don’t . . .” Daisy began, biting down on the words.

“Did I, Daisy? Tell me—”

“I don’t know yet!” she screamed. “She’s not here! I don’t know if she’s coming back!”

“It’s my fault,” he said. “It is. I know—”

“Tell me why you never saw her,” Daisy said. “Not once, not one single time, in all these years.”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t tell me?”

His face turned hard again. The lines were deep around his sage-colored eyes, and Daisy could see how much he had invested in aloneness, in keeping it all inside, in never letting another person in. She had long ago stopped wanting to shake it out of him, but the old feeling came back again.

“Tell me!” she screamed. “I’m her mother—I deserve an explanation!”

He grabbed her arms and held her so tight she felt her bones bruise. She didn’t care. His eyes were full of hate, and for a minute, she thought he was going to throw her over the falls.

“I stayed,” he said through gritted teeth, “to kill whoever it was that took our son.”

“Kill?”

“Kill, Daisy. Tear him apart.”

“But we don’t know—”

“I know,” James said.

“You can’t! The police never said anyone—there weren’t any clues—he just disappeared. James! He must have died—that’s what happened—he just—”

“We never found his body,” James yelled, without loosening his grip on her arms. “We never found him to bury!” She was too frozen to break away. The look in James’s eyes was intense, passionate, and borderline crazy.

She nodded, finally understanding exactly what he was feeling. The tears ran down her face for the only bones that really mattered, the lost body of her three-year-old son. She had heard James’s reason before—that he had stayed on the ranch for Jake. Before, it had seemed like an excuse. Standing here, a mile from where he’d disappeared, it seemed like a good idea.

Daisy felt a strange sense of peace and forgiveness come over her. Her eyes must have softened, because something happened to James. He was tall and lean, nearly a foot taller than Daisy. But suddenly he let go of her arms and he bowed his head level with her shoulder.

They stared together at the calm water pouring itself into tumult, and Daisy let James spin her around and hold her tight. Her face was crushed against his shirt, and his arms felt like iron bands around her back. They had made two children together, and both of them were lost. When she glanced up, she could see that his face was crumpled, and tears were pouring from his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Daisy,” he said, the words cracking and ripping from his throat. “You should have both your children—there was nothing I could do.”

“I never thought there was,” Daisy cried, clutching him. “I never did!”

“They’re gone,” James said, wild with disbelief.

The water fell at their feet, pulling everything out of them, taking it all away. A gold leaf swirled in the current, then disappeared over the side. Daisy heard the roar, and she knew it was the sound of sorrow.

Grieving is a learned skill; she and James had not been taught it. They both knew the dark place where prayer couldn’t enter or help. Clinging to each other at the water’s edge, the parents of Sage and Jake Tucker did what they had never done before. They cried together for what they had lost, what had been taken from them: their chance to be a family. Standing there for a long time, until the eagle returned to its nest and mistook them for a tree, the Tuckers held on.

Paul March met James in the barn. He had a handful of papers in his hand, feed and maintenance bills with checks to be signed. James had just finished putting the horses away and was filling the troughs with water.