Dream Country (27 page)

“I know,” she said.

“That first week here, you’d hike into the mountains to look for stones,” he remembered, “and Dad I and would try not to worry about you. You were fearless.”

“Fearless.” The word seemed wonderful but foreign. It applied to other people—her ex-husband, her father-in-law, her daughter. But not, anymore, to Daisy. She’d still hike the mountain, ride Scout up steep and narrow trails. But she was no longer fearless.

“‘She’s like a cowboy,’ I said to Dad. ‘A cowgirl,’ he corrected me. But that wasn’t right. It was too different, too rodeo-prissy or something. I thought of cowgirls in red skirts with white fringe, dancing onstage with white lariats—nothing like you.” James came around the table, placed his hands on Daisy’s shoulders.

“I’m not the white lariat type,” Daisy said.

“So you weren’t a cowboy,” James said, easing his arms around her back and pulling her up out of the chair so she was standing there looking up at him, “and you weren’t a cowgirl. You’re the cowboy girl.”

“The cowboy girl . . .” Daisy said, remembering the odd phrase, how James had said it of her and Daisy had said it of Sage.

“Do you think I still am?” Daisy said, needing to know.

“Tough enough to ride a trail, but all girl,” James said, folding Daisy in his arms.

“But not fearless,” Daisy said. Not since Jake . . .

“I know.” James held her tighter. “But being brave doesn’t mean you don’t feel afraid.” Outside, the snow began to fall. The first flakes fell hard, a sudden, fast-moving squall, obscuring everything in the window. As if he could protect Daisy from seeing, he wrapped her head and body as much as possible with his bare arms.

“I want her home,” Daisy said, the panic building in her chest. “James, I want Sage home.”

“You’re the cowboy girl,” James said, stroking her head. “And she’s your daughter. She’ll be here soon.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

L
ouisa had to give it to Alma: She didn’t look like much of anything, but she was expert when it came to caring for Dalton. She hefted him from bed to his wheelchair, his wheelchair to the living room sofa. His cast was cumbersome, covering his entire right leg, and moving him was no easy task. She worked without small talk or unnecessary questions. Watching her closely, especially when her hands were touching Dalton, Louisa saw that she was very gentle.

When Alma gave him his morning grooming, she kept one hand on his shoulder while softly washing his face or combing his hair—the way a mother might steady a child. She clipped his fingernails and toenails, taking her time and making sure not to snip a piece of skin.

Getting him ready for the day, Alma always wheeled him over to his closet, so he could pick out whichever clothes he felt like wearing. Louisa admired Alma’s patience, the way she was treating Dalton with respect. On the other hand, Louisa wouldn’t have let Alma stay if she was acting any other way.

While Dalton was sleeping in his chair and the snow was coming down hard, Louisa waited for Alma to settle down with her coffee and a book of crossword puzzles. It was time she got to know this woman—who was getting so intimate with Louisa’s sweetheart—a little better. Pouring herself a mug of coffee, she drifted over to the kitchen table.

“Dalton’s sleeping like a baby,” Louisa said.

“I wouldn’t leave him alone if he wasn’t,” Alma said defensively.

“No, I can see you’re very conscientious,” Louisa said. “Mind if I sit down?”

“No,” Alma said, although her eyes and reluctant tone showed that she probably did.

Louisa pulled out her chair, acting oblivious. She had bought a book on nutrition and Alzheimer’s, and she paged through it now. She looked for examples of people with the disease, searching for ways they differed from Dalton; she wanted the diagnosis to be wrong. She read: “a progressive loss of function in the section of the brain responsible for memory and behavior.” Her eyes focused on the word “progressive,” and she closed the book.

“Tell me about you, Alma,” she said.

“Me?” Alma asked, as if it were a foreign concept.

“How’d you get into this line of work?”

Alma shrugged. “Took care of my mother for a long time. I was good at it, doing it for free. So I figured, why not get paid?”

“That’s smart of you. A woman needs to value herself high in this world.”

“No one else will,” Alma said. “Unless you get good and lucky.”

“Like me,” Louisa said. “My Dalton treats me like a queen.” Her heart felt heavy even as she spoke. The words sounded right, but she knew that as soon as she left the table she’d start another round of searching for Dalton’s will.

“Tammy said—” Alma began, then stopped herself. “Never mind.”

“What?” Louisa asked.

“I don’t want to get too personal.”

“Go ahead, Alma. We’re practically family,” Louisa said. “Your sister being married to my nephew and all.”

“Well, she said it would just be you and the Tucker men here. She didn’t mention nothing about the daughter-in-law.”

“Daisy? What difference does Daisy being here make?”

“No difference.” Alma looked more closely at her crossword puzzle.

“Well, you must have mentioned her for a reason.”

“Just—” Alma laid the book down hard, “—she seems to have trouble with her kids. The boy getting killed, and now the girl running away. A rich girl like her, and her kids ain’t any better off than . . . anyone else’s.”

“Life’s not easier for one mother than it is for another.”

Alma thinned her lips and looked over with cynical eyes.

“Mothers have it rough,” Louisa said. “You hear about the joys and the love, you think if you have enough money for bunny wallpaper and a nice white cradle everything will turn out just fine. But you know the fairy tales? They all happen in magic castles with jewels and crowns, and those queens are just as heartbroken as the rest of us.”

“Bunny wallpaper,” Alma said. “My kids didn’t have none of that.”

“But you love them anyway, right?” Louisa asked.

“Always did.” Alma shook her head. “But they are sorely testing my patience these days.”

“Your sons?”

“One in jail, one on thin ice. He knew I was working here, he’d come drag me out with a rope. Takes after his father and does things the mean way.”

“What would he have against you working here?”

“He used to listen to his Uncle Todd tell stories about the Tucker cows and how they ruined the Rydell sheep. Guess he thinks we’d be part of a big ranching fortune if the Tuckers hadn’t been so high-handed about the land.”

“That feud is long done,” Louisa said.

“Some men like to fan the flames.”

“Todd’s one of them,” Louisa agreed. “Your sons and he are close?”

“Yep.”

“Tammy must’ve known that when she recommended you to me,” Louisa said. Something was making her feel nervous, and she wasn’t sure quite what it was. “I wonder why she suggested you work here, if it would make your family uncomfortable.”

“Tammy knew I needed the work,” Alma said. “And no one else needs to know nothing about it.”

“You didn’t tell your sons you’re working here?”

Alma shook her head. “How would I tell them? Like I said, one’s serving time for damage he did in a bar fight, and the other never comes by. He dropped out of school. He drinks, just like his father and brother, and he lives in the hills.”

“In the hills?”

“Somewhere in the Wind Rivers,” Alma said. Her eyes turned red, tears pooling on the lower lids. Two bright pink patches appeared on her cheeks. “He’s a teenager, but he thinks he’s a mountain man. One of those survivalists, you know? Thinks the whole damn world is against him. I didn’t do enough for him when he was young, so he’s gonna pay me back by living like an animal now. Sometimes I wish I’d never—”

“I’m sorry,” Louisa said. “What about your husband?”

“Never mind him.” Alma shook her head hard, as if she was angry at herself for showing such strong feelings. When she looked up, her eyes were blank again. “I take care of myself.”

Louisa stared at the salt and pepper shakers: corny, brightly colored ceramics of a boy and girl on horseback. She felt disturbed by the way Alma had wiped the intense emotions off her face as if she were a chalkboard. But something else was nagging at her, pulling from down in the pool of that morning’s memories. She had it—

“I was wondering,” Louisa began, almost as if she was going to say something about the weather, “why you said that about Daisy’s son being killed. No one knows that for sure, you know. He’s still considered missing.”

“Missing? They still look for him?” Alma asked, the bright spots on her cheeks reddening.

“Well, no. Certainly the police stopped long ago,” Louisa said.

“Because I’m sure he was killed,” Alma said quickly. “Todd was there that day. You know? He’s always told us there was no sign of any living boy, that the rescue party would have found him if he was there.”

“I sometimes forget Todd was there,” Louisa said. “That Dalton had given him ranch work that year . . . to make me happy, I guess.”

“Todd told us the whole thing,” Alma said. “How the boy must’ve gotten dragged off by a wolf or a bear. Or how he might’ve crawled into the canyon and found a secret cave. Fallen into a crevice and not been able to get out. A million things could have happened. But he’s dead. He’s got to be.”

“Tell that to James,” Louisa said. “He’s barely left the ranch in all these years, thinking his boy’s gonna come walking out.”

“He won’t.” Alma had spoken too fast and loud, and her eyes widened as if she’d shocked herself. “The family should let him rest. Sometimes you just have to give up.”

“I don’t think this family believes that.” Louisa wondered about Alma’s vehemence.

“Being a parent’s hard enough,” Alma said bitterly. “Without torturing yourself over the impossible.”

Louisa didn’t speak. She clasped her hands on the table, resting them on the Alzheimer’s book. Louisa could only imagine what Alma’s home life had been like, with one son in jail and another living out his angry fantasy as a mountain man—plenty to torture herself with.

Perhaps that’s what Alma’s outburst had been all about. On the other hand, Louisa thought, why had she seemed so adamant about Jake being dead? Outside, the snow was falling hard. That couldn’t be easy on Alma, her son living somewhere in the Wind River mountains. Watching Alma stare out the window, Louisa wondered whether he was somewhere in sight: perhaps living right up there, on one of the peaks bordering the DR Ranch; in that haunted, mysterious country. “Fanning the flames,” as Alma had said, of whatever resentment kept him going.

With snow falling, James found it hard to leave Daisy’s side in the morning. He had been spending nights at her cabin, and the sound of snow hitting the window made him want to pull her close under the quilt and stay warm in bed all day. But he made himself get up, go to work, just like all the other days. Someday soon Sage would come, and she and Daisy would leave. Or maybe they wouldn’t.

He rode along the river, scanning the range with binoculars. He needed to find his daughter, and he still wanted to learn more about whoever had left those pictures behind. His life had been filled with mysteries for many years. With Daisy waiting in the cabin down below, he told himself that if he could just find Sage for her, answer some of the old questions, maybe she would stay.

He saw the birds at three in the afternoon.

The snow had been coming down hard, but now there was a break in the weather. Patches of blue sky showed through gray-white snow clouds as he trained his glasses over the canyon land. The birds wheeled in circles with glints of sunlight shining on their black wings, and James felt his heart stop. Scavengers were common on the ranch, but seeing the birds now—while he was looking for Sage—set his teeth on edge.

Spurring his horse, he took off through foot-deep snow. Paul and some of the others were mending fences, and James flew by them without a word. He galloped roughly westward. High above, the cliff tops glowed gold with the strange mid-storm sunlight, but as he entered the canyon it became almost dark.

The vultures cawed like witches, and their black shadows fell over his face. Some had landed on something a hundred yards ahead. They were big and ugly, their folded wings giving them the appearance of humpbacked monsters. James yelled and waved his arms, scaring them off. His voice echoed around him. The birds circled up and around, their wings thundering with every flap.

This was where he had found crows on the dead wolf, where he had looked for birds to lead him to Jake. James rode over to where they’d been feeding. His head felt light, and his heart was pounding as hard as the birds’ wings.

James had found the missing steer. The animal lay out in the open, ten yards from the closest canyon wall. Obviously he had been dead for a few days now; predators had been at him. Chunks of flesh had been torn from his side; holes had been pecked in his skin. His head had been cut off.

Climbing off his horse, James crouched by the animal’s shoulders. The snow was covered with bits of black fur, and the area around its neck was stained dark with blood. James heard hoofbeats. When he looked up, he saw Paul galloping into the canyon and waved him over.

“Jesus,” Paul said.

“Did you see the birds?” James asked.

“Must have,” Paul said. “But I didn’t think anything of it. They’re out here all the time. You found the steer—”

“The birds found him last week.”

“Yeah,” Paul said, staring at the bloody neck. “Jesus.”

“Someone did this since the roundup. A fucking butcher.”

“The heads—” Paul said, and James nodded, seeing them, too. He remembered riding the range, coming upon fenceposts with four cow heads stuck on.

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” James said. Touching the ragged skin, he could see that whoever had done this had used a serrated blade: a jagged hunting knife, a rusty hacksaw. The slicing was uneven, and flecks of rust lay on the bloodstained snow.

“That’s a big steer,” Paul said. He was ranch foreman: It was his job to figure out how much money they had just lost at the market.

James was thinking about how long it would have taken someone to saw the head off a two-ton steer. The snow would have been falling, but he would have been sitting out here in the open. Someone could have passed by and seen him. The steer had been shot. James looked at the wound; although it had been pecked at by birds, the evidence of 30-30 shot was imbedded in the flesh.

“Who did it?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s got to be the same guy,” Paul said.

James looked around. Someone had taken pictures of his herd. He was killing his cattle, taunting him: Where would the head show up? Daisy talked about the land being home to spirits, but James knew this canyon had a butcher. James smelled blood and pine, and he wondered if ghosts knew how to use knives.

“Someone who hates animals,” Paul said.

“Someone who hates me,” James said.