Dream Country (32 page)

“Okay,” Wayne said, laughing. “Let me draw up a draft, and I’ll run the new will out to you this week.”

“Make it Tuesday rather than Friday,” Dalton told him. “I’m not getting any younger. And listen, Wayne. There’s one more thing . . .”

Dalton lowered his voice, explaining the details. Wayne wrote everything down, repeating it word for word. He promised to be in touch with the proper tradesman, have the document drawn up to be signed along with the will.

Hanging up the phone, Dalton was ready to be shaved. He saw shadows down the hall, caught sight of Alma with someone—a young man. She was pleading with him—holding her hands out. Her family emergency, Dalton thought; she’s brought it here. The young man’s posture was familiar to Dalton: brash, arrogant, too busy to listen. He brushed her off, trying to walk away. Dalton had acted the same to many women many times.

“Young fellow!” Dalton called.

The man turned to look.

“Come here!”

“Richard . . .” Alma begged, tugging the stranger’s sleeve.

“I’m the boss around here,” Dalton said. “Come here when I call you.”

The young man stood straight and tall. Even from ten yards away, Dalton could see the sneer on his skinny face. His hair was long, brown, and dirty; he was dressed in layers of filthy woolen rags, and he was holding a gun.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Who are you?”

“Mr. Tucker,” Alma said helplessly. “This is a family matter—between me and my son.”

“I’m the Guardian,” the young man said, pushing past his mother to tower over Dalton. “That mean anything to you?”

“No, should it?”

“You’ve taken what doesn’t belong to you.” The young man looked wild, his green eyes glinting. Staring at his gun, Dalton lunged forward. Imprisoned by his chair and the cast on his leg, he couldn’t reach the intruder.

The young man laughed.

“You’re an old fool,” he said. “I could shoot you if I wanted, but why waste a good bullet?” Turning, he strode away.

“Richard!” Alma wailed, running after him.

“Get back here!” Dalton roared.

Launching himself out of the chair, Dalton tackled the stranger. His leg was on fire, but he had to defend his home and family. They rolled across the floor, the gun between them. Dalton gripped the intruder’s arms, but the man broke away. Swearing, he punched Dalton in the head.

To Sage, the rest of the trip was a blur. She had never known such pain. With an epicenter low in her torso, it radiated outward in searing, agonizing tidal waves. This was unnatural! People weren’t made to withstand such a thing! However horrendous it felt to Sage, it had to be worse for the baby inside: How could a tiny infant live through such a human earthquake? Trying to grip the door handle just for something to hold, her fingers wouldn’t even close. Attempting to say the name “Jake,” she could only manage “Aaaaarrrrrgh!”

“Hang on, there,” he said, speeding them down the road.

“I can’t. I can’t.”

“Breathe, Sage.”

“Oh, God,” Sage said through clenched teeth. She was in the middle of what Jake claimed was a contraction, and right now she was inclined to believe him. It felt like being bitten by a bear, shaken from the inside out. “Remember the bear?” she asked, spitting out the words.

“What did you say?”

Sage gritted her teeth, tears rolling down her cheeks. She couldn’t speak just now, but she was thinking of her scariest little-kid memory: Once she, her brother, and their parents had gone camping in the mountains. Their father had gone off to get water or something, and a grizzly bear had started attacking the tent. Sage had been tiny, but she still remembered the grizzly’s teeth: huge, dripping fangs coming through their tent flap. She could feel them chomping down now, right on her insides.

“Thought you said something about a bear,” he said.

I did,
Sage thought, biting down on her sleeve as the car hit a frost heave. “Aaaa!” she cried.

“Ever seen a grizzly?” he asked, talking fast as if he could distract her from the contraction. “I got attacked by one once. Almost, anyway. I barely remember, but it was a mother grizzly with her cubs. She was meaner than spit. I’m not kidding. She had claws as big as bananas. Fangs that looked like spikes.”

“I was theeeeerrrrrrre,” Sage wailed, picturing the exact same terrifying sight. Of course they would both remember it. Three-year-old twins seeing an angry grizzly bear—that would haunt their nightmares forever!

He didn’t understand, or at least he chose not to reply. He just kept driving, passing slower-moving pickup trucks. Sage had the impression of great speed, of flying down a road between mountains. She thought of Ben, wept because he wasn’t with her. Their baby was going to be born, and he should be holding her hand, brushing her hair back from her face. Like families on TV: where the father cares and the mother gets to cry—but not too much, because there is so much to be happy for.

“Oh, Ben,” she moaned.

“You calling me ‘Ben’ now?” he asked, trying to joke. “Better than ‘Jake.’ ”

The contraction passed, thudding away like horses disappearing through a distant pass. Sage gripped her belly, wondering what could possibly be happening down there. It still hurt, but not like before. In spite of the deep snow outside, she was soaked with sweat. And she couldn’t stop crying.

“My baby’s father,” she explained. “I wish he was here.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“We didn’t get to go to Lamaze classes,” she said.

“What are those?”

“Classes,” Sage said. “Where parents learn how to have babies.”

“Huh.”

“I wanted us to be together,” Sage cried, rocking in her seat. “I wanted him to be my birth coach.”

“Your what?”

“My birth coach.” Sage wept. “If these were really contractions, he’d be timing them with a watch, telling me how great I’m doing. He’s the father, he cares about the baby more than anyone but me. Oh . . .” She gritted her teeth again, feeling the epicenter starting to rumble.

“They’re really contractions,” he said solemnly. As Sage glanced over, she saw that he was concentrating almost as hard as she was, watching the road and flooring the accelerator.

“I . . . wish we were there,” Sage said. “This is happening fast. I need my father. I need him now . . .”

“We’re almost there,” he said. “Look—”

Sage blinked, through tears and increasing waves of pain, and there she saw: the gates of the DR Ranch.

Stone pillars flanked huge white gates, swung open to the world. Sage scanned the horizon for a house, but all she saw were boulders and trees. She knew the ranch was huge, but she needed home right now.

“Help,” she gasped, panicking, fumbling across the seat for something to grab.

“I’ll help,” he said.

“You can’t,” she sobbed, the contraction getting ready to dig in. “You don’t know what Lamaze is. You never even heard of a birth coach before. You don’t believe you’re Jake. I need my father!”

Still patting the seat for a handhold, Sage felt his hand. He thrust it into hers. “Squeeze. Squeeze hard.”

“Ooooh, what if we don’t make it?” Sage wailed, afraid of the contraction. It was really starting. It might be as bad as the last one, or it might be worse. But she squeezed his hand with all her might, and somehow that made things a little better. The animals were silent, Maisie and all six kittens lined up on the seatback behind her, as if they were her cheering section.

“I’ve brought you this far,” he said. “You think I’m gonna drop you here? God, Sage. Hang on, we’re—”

“Almost there?” she asked, crushing his hand.

“Not almost,” he said, hitting the gas. “We’re
there
—”

She hurt so much and felt so scared, she almost forgot to be grateful he was with her. She thought of her bear memory, wondered whether it really had been the same grizzly as his. Suddenly, somehow, it didn’t matter whether David was really Jake or just an amazing stranger. She didn’t care. He loved animals, he called good spirits, he was bringing her home. Angels came in all sorts of packages.

That’s why, when she looked at him now, she knew it was somehow going to be okay.

“I’m not going to make it,” she said.

“Sure you are—”

“Now.” She felt everything shift inside, knew that her baby was going to be born fast, right this minute. “I’m having the baby right now.”

He stopped the car and stared down. As if she had done this before, Sage was already spreading her legs when the contraction took hold.

Chapter Thirty-One

A
fter James had gotten Daisy safely to her small house, he rode out again. Shielding his eyes, he scanned the land for the kid Todd had told them about. James had found the Jackson boy’s prints in the canyon twice before, so he rode through there now.

Riding under the Rydell cliffs, James stopped to look up. He tried to picture his grandfather driving another man’s sheep to their deaths below. When spring came, the cattle loved to graze here—seemed to think the grass tasted better than anywhere else on the ranch. Those sheep bones had flavored the grass with calcium, and the cattle couldn’t seem to get enough. Dalton had been a little boy, helping his father kill the sheep. Paul’s father, Asa, had been there, too.

James sat on his horse, staring up at the rocks. They were red and craggy, forming ledges, chimneys, and chutes. As he scanned the cliff, he imagined the sheep hitting those ledges on the way down, wondering how his grandfather could have done it. He thought of his own father seeing the lambs’ eyes, hearing their screams. And just then, James Tucker saw the steer’s head.

It was impaled on a dead cedar tree, about twenty feet up the cliff. The birds were at it—he had seen them, thinking they were flying to a nest. The head, pecked half-clean by crows, gaped at the DR Ranch with hollow eye sockets. James gazed up, tracing the route the kid had taken to put it there: He had trekked the original sheep trail along the eastern side, across a narrow rock bridge, along the steep ledge to the gnarled tree. The perfect spot for a self-appointed guardian.

Shaking his head, James thought about climbing up to knock it down. Ice slicked every rock surface; it would be like trying to climb glass. He saw other things hanging up there, objects he hadn’t noticed before: a calfskin tied to a branch, two large animal skulls, a pair of longhorns, and a “No Trespassing—DR Ranch” sign that James hadn’t even noticed missing.

“Jesus Christ,” James said. The kid had put a lot of effort into his display. James wondered how many times he, Paul, or the others had ridden past here and not looked up. He thought of the bloody history of this land: tribal battles, the slaughtered sheep, now this Rydell-revenge show. Having seen the dead steer and calf, he knew the kid had a gun, and he felt exposed and uneasy, out here in the open.

His stomach ached, and he knew it wasn’t just because of his butchered livestock. He kept thinking of Daisy’s eyes, the hope and brightness he’d seen in them when he’d left her at home: “What if . . . ?” she kept asking.

Asking himself the same question, James couldn’t stand the answer. What if the boy was Jake? Staring up at the skulls and sign, James tried to imagine his son putting them there. The effort it would take to kill the animals, steal the sign, assemble the shrine: hours and hours of intense work. Fueled by hatred poured into him by Rydells, talking against Tuckers and the DR Ranch all these long years . . .

“Help!”

The word echoed down the rocks, and at first James didn’t know where it came from.

“Help, anyone!”

He heard it again: a boy’s voice, strong but frantic. Behind it, the ungodly wailing of what he first thought was a wild animal but then decided was a young girl. The recognition shot through him, primitive and powerful: The voice was his child’s.
Sage
. He kicked his horse and galloped around the sharp red promontory toward the ranch’s main drive.

He saw a familiar old black car stopped dead in the middle of the road, the windows fogged up, the front passenger door open. Heart pumping, James galloped across the frozen snow. He saw small animals—dogs and cats—cowering by the back tires. A girl’s legs protruded, and a boy stood between them, looking wildly over his shoulder. His pose was that of a doctor or a rapist. Gritting his teeth, James went for his gun.

Daisy was too excited and stirred up to sit home alone, waiting for James to return. She needed to talk to someone about Todd’s warning, about her own dawning hope. She ran up to the main house and walked into the kitchen, where she found Alma Jackson talking to a young man.

“Oh,” Daisy said, putting the brakes on her boot heels.

“Richard, go—” Alma said quickly.

The teenager froze, eyes darting around for a hiding place. But once he saw it was too late, he stared straight at Daisy.

Daisy stood still. She stared at him, her pulse racing. He was about five nine, with a thin face and a sparse reddish-brown beard. His brown hair was shaggy, but looked as if he had cut it himself recently. He wore ratty clothes that hadn’t been washed in a long time, several layers of long underwear showing under the sleeves of his brown corduroy shirt.

“He’s just leaving,” Alma said.

“He doesn’t have to.” Daisy took a step forward. “It’s cold out there.”

“Ma, I’m goin’,” he said, head down.

“I’m Daisy Tucker.” Daisy put out her hand. She told herself she’d know by his touch. Her heart was in her throat, waiting for him to extend his arm. Every heartbeat sounded like a drumroll in her ears.

The boy met her eyes. His were dark green, hard and flat. Daisy felt afraid of those eyes, but she smiled at the boy and kept her hand out. Staring at his eyes the entire time, she searched for some sign that he could be her son. She wanted the eyes to soften and smile, to show some sign of life. But they looked like nail heads in a hard face.

“Tucker,” the boy said, without shaking her hand.

“You must have been cold out there.” Daisy finally dropped her arm. “Your uncle told us you’d been camping. You’re the Guardian, aren’t you?”

“The what?”

“The Guardian. Todd told us.”

“My uncle—” he said. Confused, at least his expression changed. It didn’t soften, but it transformed, sparking those dead eyes dark with rage. He directed it at Alma, speaking into her face. “You talked to Tammy?”

“When he knocked last week, I was so shocked. I hadn’t known he was here, and to have him out in that weather,” she explained to Daisy, terrified. “I only let him stay in the basement, never the rest of the house. And only a couple times!”

“Goddamn stupid woman.” The boy shook Alma’s arm. “I told you to keep quiet. Opening your mouth to Tammy—Ma!”

Daisy moved to pull him away from Alma, but then he wheeled and walked away. His face was bright red, and she could see the cords popping out on his neck.

“Mothers worry,” Daisy said, swallowing. “That’s all she was doing.”

“Hell with that,” he said, knocking into the table as he turned toward her.

“I should know.” Daisy raised her eyes to his face, into his frightening, bleak, blank eyes. What made his eyes look that way? Daisy wanted to touch him: If there was any connection, she would feel it. “I have a son out in the mountains.”

“Mrs. Tucker . . .” Alma said, her tone pleading, beseeching. “Leave us alone. Go back to your—”

Daisy blocked Alma out, and concentrated on the boy. She tried to forget the darkness of his eyes, tried not to imagine what had happened in his life to cause such a death of spirit. Rage showed in his muscles, his posture, the tendons in his thin neck; but his eyes were dead. Daisy tried to tell herself this could be her son, her baby, that she could love him no matter what, and love could melt anything. What if, she kept thinking . . .

“My son is lost in those mountains,” Daisy said. “I think of him every day.”

“You lost him,” the boy sneered. “I know. My Uncle Todd told me the whole story.”

“It wasn’t on purpose. I wouldn’t have lost him for the world. I loved my son with my whole heart. I still do.”

“Tuckers love money and cattle,” the boy said. “Right, Ma?”

“Richard,” Alma begged.

“Rydells and Jacksons know how to take care of each other,” the boy went on. “We wouldn’t have lost a kid.”

“Richard, no.” Alma’s expression was wild, the thin skin around her eyes purplish. Standing between the boy and Daisy, she faced Daisy. “He’s just talking. I need this job—Tammy set me up, and I rightly appreciate it. He doesn’t belong here. He’s going soon. His father drinks, all the time, ruined this family. But that’s no excuse for him being here now . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“He was cold outside,” Daisy said softly. “I understand.” Then, turning back to the boy, she spoke directly to him. “Are you hungry? Wouldn’t you like something to eat?”

“Ain’t eating no Tucker food,” he snarled. “And my dad never ruined our family. Least when he’s around you don’t talk shit against us—” He shoved Alma now, jabbing his fingertips into her collarbone. “Better stop it.”

Daisy stepped forward. She couldn’t stand seeing violence against anyone, even someone she liked as little as Alma.

“Stop,” Daisy said. “Don’t hurt her.”

Touching the boy’s arm, she felt coldness. The cold ran through her like icy stream water as she got him to turn toward her. She scanned his face, looking for any sign that he could be hers. Nothing—none of his features—appeared familiar. The twins had looked so much alike at three; nothing about this boy reminded her of Sage, told her he was Jake Tucker.

“Stay out of my family business,” he said to Daisy.

“What did I do wrong?” Alma asked. “Rocked you in your cradle, sang you to sleep.”

“Wasn’t no singing I can remember. Shut up, Ma.”

“Loved you from day one.”

“You shouldn’t be here, Ma.” He pushed her again. “It’s disloyal to Uncle Todd.”

“You’re just a Jackson, not a Rydell.” Alma shook her head. “And in neither case do you have any place here. Now get yourself home before you turn out worse than your brother.” Her chin began to wobble. “Here I am in a caring profession, just trying to help a person in need—”

“What about me?” he exploded. “What about when I was in need? Cut and bleeding, and I had to fix myself. Got scars so ugly no one can stand to look—”

“I know, honey. Lord, I wish—”

“Like a snake down my backside,” he said. “Down my leg, thick and ugly because the cut never got washed out and I never got stitches. Where were you?”

“I should’ve been there.”

“Damn right,” he said. “But you had better things to do.”

“I’ve made my mistakes.” Alma spoke quietly, as if she didn’t want Daisy to hear these family stories. “I should have been there that time and others. Life with your father . . . sometimes I had to get out of there, Richard. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t go blaming him,” he said, his face twisting into a snarl. “You could’ve made a nicer home and he might’ve stayed.”

Daisy looked from Alma to the boy, and any last thought she had of his being Jake went out of her. She knew mother love when she saw it, and she saw and heard all Alma’s sorrow and grief for having failed her sons, and she suddenly knew the boy was hers. Daisy looked at the boy’s shark-flat eyes, and she shuddered.

“‘Stayed,’ ” Alma explained to Daisy. “His father was in prison half the time, drunk the other. Todd was a father figure. I let Richard get pretty attached to him, and look where it’s led.”

“Your Uncle Todd is concerned about you,” Daisy said, still trying to smile. “He told us.”

“Us?” the boy asked. “You and the rancher?”

“Yes,” Daisy said. “We want to help you, James and I—”

“Wouldn’t take your help”—the boy said, suddenly grabbing his parka and making for the door—“if I was dying.”

“Don’t die,” Alma pleaded, starting to cry, pulling at his arm.

“Don’t worry.” Richard flung her off as he stormed out of the house. “I won’t.”

Watching him go, Daisy could have felt relieved. He was mean, and he frightened her, but as the door slammed, Daisy felt her heart drop. He could have been Jake. She had wanted it to be true. As troubled as he was, she believed that if he were her son, all the injustices and cruelties of the past could be set right. That’s what love can do, Daisy believed: heal anything.

Anything at all. Hurt, sorrow, suffering, horror, loss, separation, torment—love could cure it all. She hadn’t thought it would be easy or quick; she wouldn’t expect results or returns. But Daisy Tucker was patient and steady, and she had faith in the power of love: If that boy—Richard Jackson—had turned out to be her lost son Jake, Daisy’s love would have softened those hard, hurt green eyes.

But he wasn’t Jake.