Dream Country (35 page)

“Did you give it to her?” Daisy asked. “The toy?”

He frowned harder. But after a moment, he nodded. “Yeah. So what?”

“Why did she need something to carry?” Daisy asked, her throat aching. “What is she missing?”

“I don’t know.”

“James said your father—the man who adopted you,” Daisy’s voice was soft and thin, “ran a puppy farm. Is Petal missing her puppies?”

The boy stared at the ashtray so long, Daisy thought he was hypnotizing himself. She watched him reach inside, pick up a cigarette ash, rub it on the back of his hand. She knew that if he had a needle, if he pricked his skin where the ashes were, he would have a new tattoo.

“Maybe she is,” he said after a very long time. “So what?”

Daisy’s eyes felt hot with tears, and her heart felt so heavy she wished she could lie down. She looked under the table again, saw Petal holding her stuffed animal, digging into the floor. Daisy reached out her hand, but Petal just cowered behind the boy’s legs. Then Daisy got down on her hands and knees and went under the table with her.

“Petal,” she said. “Here, girl.”

Petal whimpered.

“Here, Petal.” Daisy held out her hand.

“She doesn’t like strangers,” the boy said from above. His voice sounded nervous and curious. “She bites.”

Daisy just kept her hand steady. “I don’t think she wants to bite me.”

Petal’s eyes were wide and red with blind grief. Her toy was covered with saliva, and although she held it in her teeth, her hold on it was gentle, the way a mother dog carries its babies. Daisy remembered her first days as a mother, and she thought of Sage down the hall. But right now, her eyes were focused on the old dog behind the boy’s legs.

“You miss them,” Daisy whispered. “Don’t you?”

Petal stared, the ragged toy in her jaws.

“You miss your puppies so much, you can’t stand it,” Daisy said. “You wake up at night, and you think they’ll be there. You want to feed them, and there’s no one to feed. When you roll over, you expect to feel their warm bodies. That little toy—what is it?”

“Don’t get too close,” the boy warned. “She’ll snap at you—”

“What is that old toy?”

Daisy gazed at Petal. The two mothers crouched under the table, eye to eye. Daisy stared into those red, weeping eyes and saw herself. She wondered how long it had been since Petal had last had babies, and she knew it didn’t matter. Right now her gaze was fixed on the toy, as her heart started to pound harder.

The fabric was brown felt, and Daisy could see the place where the animal’s eyes had been. And there, on top of its head, right where a small toy cow’s horns would have been, were two tiny shreds of yellow.

“Let me see,” Daisy whispered. “Please, Petal. I won’t take it from you . . .”

Petal whimpered, getting a better grip.

“I knew a toy like that once,” Daisy said, reaching out a shaking hand.

“Don’t touch it,” the boy warned. Alarmed, he poked his head down. “She won’t let you.”

Daisy traced the ragged old cow with one finger. Petal stared at her, all the horror in her heart pouring through her gaze, meeting Daisy’s eyes. Daisy traced the seams on the cow’s ruined face, the spots where its brown button eyes had once been sewn on, the dirty yellow rags that had once been proud horns.

“Jake’s cow,” Daisy said. “When he was born, that’s what his grandfather gave him. No cute little bears or lambs or bunnies for our boy—just a stuffed cow. He loved it so much . . .”

The boy had been watching to make sure the dog didn’t bite Daisy, but now his expression changed. He no longer looked alarmed or annoyed; suddenly, his mouth was half open, and his eyes were hazy with a gathering memory.

“It was covered with mud and jelly,” Daisy said, still talking to Petal. “One of his horns was crooked—Jake had loved it right off. He’d use the horns for handles, to kiss the cow right on the face.”

Petal had stopped digging, and she lay down, the cow still in her mouth, staring hard at Daisy. Daisy’s heart was racing, and as she touched Petal’s wet toy, she brought back a flood of sensation.

“Jake’s cow,” she repeated. “After he disappeared, I looked for it. When I couldn’t find it, I knew he had to have it with him. Oh, that gave me comfort. You have no idea how glad I was to think he had his cow with him.”

The boy grunted, shuffled his feet.

“But I was like Petal,” Daisy said. “I needed to hold something until my son came home again. So I used his blanket.”

“His blanket?”

Daisy nodded, face-to-face with Petal. “His old baby blanket. Jake had slept with it every night. It smelled like him, it tasted like him. I held that blanket in my arms, and sometimes I’d wake up with it by my mouth. Oh, how I wanted my son back. I loved him more than anything in this world except his sister. I held his blanket and told myself that I was keeping it warm for him—”

The boy’s breathing had changed. He sounded almost like Petal now, as if he was holding something in his mouth, as if he could hardly take in air.

“Holding that old blanket.” Tears spilled from Daisy’s eyes as she looked from Petal to the boy. “The way I hadn’t been able to hold you. This toy was yours, wasn’t it? You gave Petal your old toy cow.”

“Yeah. But I’m not—”

“I loved you then,” Daisy said from under the table, petting Petal on her head as she gazed into the boy’s green-gold eyes, “and I’ve loved you every second since. I never stopped for a second.”

“She bites,” he said, watching Daisy scratch the pit bull’s head.

“Not even for a second,” Daisy repeated vehemently as Petal gazed on.

The boy stared at Daisy’s hand on Petal’s head, and he seemed to notice that Petal had gotten some relief from her terrible grief, that she was no longer huffing like a steam train, that—for this moment anyway—the understanding of another mother who had known loss had brought her some solace.

“Jake,” Daisy whispered, in the dark under the table.

“I think you’re wrong,” the boy said, his scowl gone.

“I don’t think I am.”

He cleared his throat, seeming to gather his thoughts together. He petted Petal, then in turn each of the other dogs. When he looked back at Daisy, his eyes were wide, hesitant, afraid. As he stared at her, gaining courage for whatever he was about to ask, he swallowed hard twice.

“Where—” he started to ask.

Daisy waited, her heart pounding.

“Where,” he asked, swallowing a third time, his voice so quiet she almost didn’t hear the question, “is that old blanket now?”

Chapter Thirty-Four

S
am Whitney, the best midwife in the West, came out to the ranch to minister to Sage. Sam was thirty-five years old, with long strawberry-blond hair and warm, crystal-blue eyes. Gentle and compassionate, Sam had interned in the inner cities of Baltimore and Salt Lake City, helping many mothers even younger than Sage. She was also a superb skier and horsewoman, and she had spent a summer punching cows on the DR Ranch. She now lived on a ranch in Dubois, and when James called her, she came instantly.

Daisy had liked Sam on sight, and when Sam asked that she and Sage be left alone, both Daisy and James trusted her enough to do so. Now, while Daisy talked to Jake, and Sage was with Sam, James stood out by the barn talking to Curt Nash.

Curt was the detective in charge. While most of his officers had fanned out to search the ranch for Richard Jackson, two had driven up to Appleton, to question June and Marshall Crane. Paul sat in Curt’s police car. Once James had checked the registration, found the black car still registered in Paul’s name, Paul had told the whole story. He had seemed almost relieved to have the truth out.

“It’s a shocker,” Curt said. “You and Paul go back a long way.”

“Our whole lives,” James said.

“You think you know a person,” Curt said, shaking his head. He was fifty-eight or so, fit and strong, a cowboy with a badge. Years ago, before he had joined the force, he had worked with Dalton and James, seeing whether he liked ranch work enough to do it fulltime. He hadn’t, but he and James had stayed friendly—until Jake’s disappearance. Then, for several months, Curt had considered James the main suspect.

“You thought you knew me,” James said. “But it didn’t stop you from thinking I’d hurt my son.”

“I’m sorry about that now,” Curt replied. “But Christ, we wanted to find him. Three years old, vanished into thin air: That’s how it looked from our seat.”

“Paul took him.” James glanced over at the police car. The sight of Paul made his skin crawl. His best friend, his ranch-brother. Paul had sat with him at his mother’s funeral. He had baby-sat the twins. He had helped him look for Jake . . .

“We’ll know more when we question the Cranes,” Curt said. “The story’s hard to swallow. That he’d put you and Daisy through hell, just ’cause his sister couldn’t have a kid.”

James stared at Paul’s profile. He had told the police that taking Jake had been almost an accident. The boy had been missing for three days. The search party had gone through the canyon twenty, thirty times, looking behind every rock, in every chasm. Just before nightfall, while the others were beating outward from the canyon, searching in ever-widening circles other parts of the ranch, Paul had decided to ride through one more time.

He had heard Jake calling for help. The voice had been tiny and scared, far away. Paul had yelled back, told Jake to keep talking. The little boy had obeyed, doing what Paul had said, reciting his ABC’s, singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” Tearing around, looking everywhere, Paul had come up empty-handed. And then he had found the cave.

The cave’s mouth was a hole one foot in diameter. Hidden behind a clump of sage, level with the ground, it angled down into the foot of the cliff. Rain had washed claw marks in the rock, and the hole had blended in. But Paul heard Jake’s voice calling from that hole, and when he’d stuck his big hand in, a little hand had grabbed it.

Pulling Jake to safety, he’d slung him on his horse. Still hanging on to his toy cow, the boy was dehydrated, banged up from knocking into rocks, his eyes swollen nearly shut. Galloping back to the ranch, Paul had had to pass his own house. He’d been charged up, knowing the Tuckers would be overjoyed, and he’d started thinking about having kids, how they made the world go around and everything in life worthwhile. Thank God Daisy and James had had Sage, one kid to love while they kept their vigil.

Unlike Paul’s sister June. She had been trying for ten years to get pregnant, and all she’d had were a string of miscarriages. Her marriage was miserable, Marshall blaming everything on her being barren. Paul had hated seeing his pretty, funny sister so disappointed with life, stuck on that puppy farm with no child to love.

Jake had passed out on the horse, and Paul had decided to transfer him into his truck—driving him the rest of the way would be easier than trying to hold an unconscious kid on horseback.

And that’s when Paul got the idea.

Jake was bloody and hurt, crying in his sleep and clutching his cow from the terror of being in the cave, and Paul got to thinking how stupid it had been of James to take him on the roundup in the first place. A three-year-old kid—sticking him on a rock and expecting him to sit still. Of course he had wandered off, exploring—what the hell had James expected?

The Tuckers, Paul thought, had always had it all. Todd Rydell was right about that—but at least he hadn’t had to live his whole life in their shadows. Paul’s dad had been loyal to Dalton, but many were the nights he’d down a few beers and tell his kids about the shit Tuckers expected Marches to eat, warn them to find their own ways while taking the Tuckers’ money.

June had left the ranch as soon as she was old enough, moved north to Appleton where Marshall’s people lived. Paul and his wife were pregnant with their first at that time, and baby-sitting the twins had shown them how great kids could be. The Tuckers had everything—they were rich, they had the ranch, they still had a daughter. They were young, and if they wanted to have more kids, they could in a heartbeat. While poor June had nothing.

So, Paul had driven Jake up to Appleton. June had taken some convincing, saying it was wrong, but Marshall had been firm: He wanted a son. Both June and Marshall knew first aid, had the rudimentary veterinary training it took to raise dogs, and they had taken the boy in and cared for him like their own from that first minute.
Loved him with all their hearts,
Paul had said. Of course, as so often happens, a year later June had a child of her own. Paul had had a twinge then, thinking he should maybe bring Jake back home.

But by then it was too late. Jake had stopped crying for his parents in the night, he had started believing Paul was his uncle, that his real name was David Crane. And Daisy was leaving James, to take her remaining child back east, away from the dangers of the DR Ranch.

“He thought he was acting for good.” Curt was looking over at Paul in the car.

“I don’t believe that.”

“What he told himself, anyway,” Curt said.

James stared at Paul. For years, he had promised himself he would kill whoever had taken Jake, and for a few minutes, he had wanted to destroy Paul. He had pounded him with his fists, and he’d nearly stabbed him with his knife. A fire had been burning for thirteen years, searing James Tucker from the inside out, and Paul had started it.

But suddenly, in one day, the fire went out. Just from helping Sage, from holding her and knowing that she was his daughter, and from looking into Jake’s eyes—those cool green eyes ringed with gold fire—just from being with his children, James had found peace beyond his understanding. He would never get those years back, but he no longer needed to kill the man who had taken them.

“He wasn’t acting for good,” James said.

“You made sure he knows that,” Curt answered.

“I’m glad.”

“Your side okay?” Curt gestured to where Paul had punched him. “Want to add assault to the charge?”

“Kidnapping is fine,” James said. “Says it all.”

“Daisy must be overjoyed.”

“Yeah.” James thought of how, just that morning, they had seen the snow geese flying over. He had asked her to marry him again, and she had said she would—when their daughter got home. Well, Sage was home, and so was Jake. Some things were beyond his wildest dreams, and he knew Daisy had magic in her she hadn’t even touched yet.

Taking one last look at the police car, James shook Curt’s hand and thanked him. Then he turned his back, and he knew he wouldn’t see Paul March again until his trial. He strode up toward the big house, where he had spent his boyhood and where his father still lived.

Every single person James loved was under that roof—right now. Daisy was there with Jake; the midwife was helping Sage say good-bye to her baby; his father was waiting with Louisa. James heard the police car’s tires catch in the snow, then pull smoothly down the ranch drive. He hadn’t known he was holding so much tension inside till it started to let go, as the sound of the tires receded and Paul was taken away.

As he headed toward the house, he began to run. He passed the barn, and he thought of Scout, Ranger, and Chieftain inside. He wondered if the kids would remember the horses, if the horses would remember the kids. As he ran faster, he began to sweat. He saw Daisy waving to him from the front porch, and as he waved back, he found it hurt to swallow.

James Tucker had been so cold for so long. He cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the lump. He thought of Daisy working with such intensity on her jewelry, talking to the spirit world through bones and gold. James had none of that—he had stopped believing years and years ago.

Daisy took a step off the porch. She reached for the sky, as if she could embrace it, and as she did, James saw her moving her hands, writing invisible words. Snow was falling, but at the same time, sunlight had broken through a crack of clouds, and it came pouring down.

James imagined that if Daisy’s words could be read from a plane or from heaven, they would tell the reader that her daughter and son were back home. Her shoulders were wide open, her slender arms loose as she brought them up and down, around and around. The sun threw gold and copper lights in her hair; her face was glowing in the sunlight, glistening in the snow.

Watching her, the woman he still thought of as his wife, James felt peace spread all through his body. Borne by a river of his blood, it started at the top of his head and traveled down. It warmed his neck and his shoulders, his biceps and his forearms, his hands, his fingers, his spine and back, his heart and organs, his groin and thighs, his calves and shins. It radiated through the tops of his feet and the soles of his feet, his heels and his toes.

James was smiling. As he watched Daisy make signs of thanks to the sky, his smile widened. James had his family back. His children were home, and he and Daisy were getting married. He felt melted inside, and for the first time he could remember—since that day the snow crushed his mother, since his best friend had stolen his three-year-old son—James Tucker wanted to say thanks.

He didn’t know how, and he didn’t really know to whom. Daisy could tell him, but he didn’t want to interrupt her long enough to call out and ask. Things weren’t perfect—they weren’t perfect at all. Sage had lost her baby, Jake didn’t know whether he wanted to stay with them or not—but they were here. His family was together for now, for today; together, they were on their way. James wouldn’t be this warm if life wasn’t about to work out okay.

So all he did—while Daisy continued to draw in the sky and the cattle grazed on grass poking up through their own hoofprints—was to tilt his head back and take the snow and sun full in his face. The sky was white, but through that one cloud the sun was bright.

“James!” Daisy called, as if she couldn’t wait another minute. “Hurry home!”

Dalton was in his wheelchair, with Louisa standing beside him, right there in their bedroom window, watching James run up the drive. Louisa had a look of warm pride on her face, as if she couldn’t believe how fast James was running, as if he were her son and she loved him like a mother.

Some things in life aren’t perfect,
James Tucker thought.
And some things are.

Staring up at heaven behind the curtain of a white sky, James searched for the words he wanted to say, and all he could think of were two, so short and so strong, straight from the spot he knew was his heart. James Tucker shouted as loud as he could, his booming voice echoing again and again off the dark red cliffs of the Wind River mountains:

“Thank you!”