House of Mercy (7 page)

“No it doesn’t. Any ‘decent’ person wouldn’t put you on the street before you had a job or a bed to sleep in. What’s your name?”

“Lorena. He said the Blazing B was a sure thing.”

“You got that right. Lorena, I’m Beth.” She slapped the vinyl bench seat next to her. “Get in.”

Lorena ran around the hood of the truck and did as she was told. Beth started a three-point turn on the lane before the girl had closed the door, and headed back toward the Hub. She couldn’t predict exactly how this might go, but already she was formulating a proposal in her mind, and she had at least three truths already at work in her favor:

Her father would never turn away someone in need.

Her mother could use some help around the house.

The lawsuit hanging over their heads wouldn’t have anything to do with it.

Beth had hoped to speak to her father alone, but when she arrived at the Hub, the entire workforce was gathered at the equipment and supply sheds loading up trucks for a marathon day of fence repairs. While the cows are away, the cowboys can’t afford to play, her father often said. On a ranch the size of the Blazing B, the fence repairs went on all summer, whenever the weather and other duties allowed, and the men respected this job. Each one of them had experienced the unhappy task of making emergency repairs during January blizzards. Consequently, their summer efforts were of the highest quality.

The men from the bunkhouse were already divided into teams, one led by the father-son pair of Dr. Roy and Jacob, the other by Pastor Eric and Emory. Generally, Abel teamed up with their most challenging associates, two marines who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Jacob always found an excuse to pull Danny onto his team, and Levi preferred to work alone, though he rarely got what he wished. Together the men would knock out several hundred yards of dry rotted posts and rusty tangled wires before the sun set.

Beth had no choice but to barge into the group. There would be no private moment with her parents this morning, and she couldn’t just leave Lorena here. She parked and indicated that the girl should follow her over to a shining black beast of a truck, an unaffordable thing that Levi had purchased for himself against his parents’ advice. Her father, her brothers, and Jacob—dear Jacob, whom she had robbed—were discussing the fence lines on a large map.

“Don’t let the testosterone worry you,” Beth said as they approached. “They’re all sweeties. All except for Levi, but you can ignore him.”

Lorena carried her backpack in front of her like a shield.

“Dad,” Beth called. “I’ve got someone here who could use a place to stay for a bit.”

Abel looked up from the map. “Do you now? Hi, young lady. I’m Abel.” He reached out to shake Lorena’s hand, and she was forced to lower her defense. “These are my sons, Levi and Danny, and my good man Jacob.”

“Look what the Blazing Bethesda dragged in,” Levi said.

“I’m Lorena,” the girl whispered to Abel.

“What’d you have in mind, Beth?” her father asked.

“Mom will have no trouble putting her to work.”

“You know we can’t take minors, honey.”

“She’s eighteen. Right? Can you prove it?”

“I think . . . I think . . .” Lorena fumbled with the zipper on her backpack and withdrew a brown envelope. “They gave me these documents. That’s all I have. I didn’t even ask what was in it.”

“Let’s have a look,” Abel instructed. Lorena gave the packet to him.

“Her birthday kinda wrecked the arrangements she had with her foster family,” Beth said.

“Well that’s just wrong,” Jacob said.

Beth thanked him as best she was able with her eyes. “That’s what I think.”

“Felonious,” Danny said. He tipped his hat up at Lorena and flashed a smile. Jacob smacked down the brim and shoved him off toward the shed to fetch a toolbox.

Levi said, “We’ve got processes in place for this kind of thing. And women just don’t fit into it.”

“Your mother and sister do just fine,” Abel said as he flipped through the paperwork. “You ever worked on a ranch before, Lorena?”

She shook her head.

“You graduate high school?”

No again. “But not because I can’t learn,” she said. “And I’m the hardest worker you’ll ever meet.”

“No.” Levi had folded the fence map and now let it slap against the hood of the John Deere. “This isn’t some charity we run here.”

“Sure it is,” Abel said. “What would you call it, Jacob?”

“The best church in town,” Jacob said.

“We’ve got fifteen people to feed, near five hundred cows to bring in, and more than six thousand thirsty acres to keep well oiled. We got a pool rider to pay and grazing permits to renew. We got alfalfa to harvest and winter feed supplements to stock up on. And we got a dragon breathing fire at our back door, thanks to my little sister. Who the heck is going to pay for one more expense?”

“Well, your little sister just took two jobs. That’s worth something.”

“That’s worth squat.”

“In a few months, maybe you’ll be right. But today, we have what we need to help a girl out. Why wouldn’t I do that?” Abel stuffed the papers back into the envelope and handed them back to Lorena.

“This is a do-or-die kind of bad season we’re in, Dad. We can’t take in everyone who knocks on the door.”

“We don’t.”

“I swear we could be operating in the black if we just used a better model than this.”

At Levi’s raised voice, several of the other men turned to look. Rose arrived with a truck full of brimming water containers that would be sent out with each team. Abel waved her over as Jacob left them to distribute the water.

“Rose, honey, I think our Beth has brought you someone who will be of great help around the house.”

“That would be something, wouldn’t it?” She wiped her brow with her long cotton sleeve and introduced herself to Lorena.

“Would that work for you?” Abel asked his wife.

“We could give it a go. I’d be grateful. Can you cook?”

At this, Lorena brightened. “Love to.”

“You’re not even going to run a background on her?” Levi protested.

“There’s plenty of time for all that,” Abel said.

“We’ve all gone nuts.”

Beth saw Jacob smirk at a distance. He slid two five-gallon jugs off the tailgate and carried one in each hand to the other vehicles.

“How long’ll this be for?” Rose asked.

“Long as it’s working, I guess,” her husband answered. “Until you can land a real job,” he said to Lorena. “But we got rules, and you have to follow them.”

“I’ll do anything. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Rule number one: you may not apply for a real job until after you have secured your GED. Ergo, you have any free time—and trust me, Rose is a good woman, but she’s stingy with stuff like that—you’ll be working on getting that diploma. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Rule number two: no drinking, no drugs. You can dance all you want, but that’s as loose as it gets around here.”

“That’s just fine.”

Levi stalked off at this point.

“Rule number three: church on Sundays, ten sharp. If we miss church, church comes to us.” Abel pointed at Pastor Eric, who took his hand off a post-hole digger to wave.

Wally was passing by the group with a bale of razor wire in his gloved hands. He saw Lorena and nodded. “Howdy. I’m sure we’ve met before, so I hope you’ll forgive me for not remembering the name that goes with your lovely face.”

“It’s Lorena,” Beth provided.

Wally hesitated. “And you’re the one who rides Hastings?”

“Yes! That was great. Name’s Beth.”

He beamed at her. “Beth, that’s right. The good girl. You’re going to help me find my lockbox,” he said.

“It’s still missing?”

“Sad to say. That wolf, he’s crafty like a fox.”

The mention of the wolf was like cold fingers on Beth’s neck. She collected herself by whispering to the teenager as he moved on past them: “Wally’s harmless, just forgetful. He loves fence-repair days. He gets to dig.”

“Which leads me to rule number four,” Rose said. She shielded her eyes from the mounting sun. “Don’t go anywhere away from the house by yourself. We are a ranch for men, after all, and your being here will be something new for all of us. C’mon now, and I’ll show you the house.” She glanced at the backpack. “Is that all you’ve got? Good, then. I’ll have to think up a place for you to sleep.”

“She can stay with me,” Beth said.

Rose shrugged. “That’d be fine.”

“If you don’t mind sharing a bed,” Beth said to the girl.

“I don’t. Of course I don’t. It sure beats the floor. And I sleep small.”

Abel chuckled. “I don’t know what that means, but I can guarantee you’ll be sleeping hard. This is no resort we’re running, much as Levi would prefer that approach.”

Lorena grabbed his outstretched hand in both of hers and pumped it up and down. “I can’t thank you enough.” Then she jogged away. Rose was already climbing back into her vehicle.

“Your shoes,” Beth called out. “You won’t last a day in those. See if you can find something in my closet.”

Her mother waved acknowledgment. She’d have Lorena all set up and sweeping the floors before the hour was out.

“Well that was easy enough,” Abel said. “Let’s get on with it, men. Where’d my map go?”

Beth watched Rose and Lorena drive back toward the Borzoi house and wondered why she felt a gnawing regret in the back of her stomach. Usually she felt joy—excitement, hope, peace, a dozen other positive emotions—whenever a new associate came onto the ranch. But in this moment she felt strangely like she’d been cast off.

The truck crested the slight rise and then descended the back side of the hill, out of sight.

“It’s not going to happen,” Jacob said, beside her startlingly close. Water droplets had spotted his leather work boots. His hair tended to curl up around his ears underneath the rim of his dusty hat, which sat low on his brow and accentuated how wide set his clear-blue eyes were. His laugh lines and crows’ feet were prematurely deep but made him look kinder rather than older. His close-cut mustache and beard was his only flaw, Beth thought. It covered a dimple to the left of his mouth and made him look more country singer than cowboy.

Whenever Jacob sang, the cows bellowed their protest.

“What’s not going to happen?” she asked.

“You, getting replaced.”

“Everyone’s dispensable. But that’s not what I was thinking about.” She didn’t in fact remember exactly what she’d been thinking about. At the moment, her mind was consumed with a terrible guilt about his silver-plated saddle, and the knowledge that she would never, ever have the character to confess her crime before it came to light.

“No one’s dispensable,” he said. “But I don’t think anyone’s as generous as you.”

“My father—far more.”

“He’s never shared his bed with an associate.”

Beth laughed. “No, his calling’s a little higher than mine.”

“No calling’s higher or lower than anyone else’s. We all do what we can with what we’ve got.”

She turned to him, intending to say that she’d been overly generous with things that were not hers to give, and the cost of her generosity might be more than anyone here could afford. This was why she was losing her place at the Blazing B. This was why she had to leave the ranch to work two jobs, and why her mother could so easily take another young woman into the house. Already Beth had been moved out into the margins of the family’s life.

“Well, my bed’s all I’ve got these days. And Lorena doesn’t have one. Anyone would share it.”

He shook his head. “If you say so,” he conceded. “See you around.”

His praise sat in her stomach like too many helpings of rich dessert.

6

O
n the afternoon that the black clouds rolled over the mountain ridge and poured down into Burnt Rock like an avalanche in summer, Garner Remke was balanced precariously on a ladder in his basement, because he was replacing a high-output fluorescent light tube in one of his heat lamps. It was to his credit that he’d unplugged the fixture before beginning work on it, because at the moment that the tube connected with the contact plate, the thunderstorm passed over his house.

This high in the Rocky Mountains there was little difference between an electrical storm that passed over one’s house and one that shot directly through it. The light he had been using to illuminate his work sizzled and then sputtered out.

Burnt Rock was an inhospitable location to be sure, a high-altitude mining town that no longer had an operating mine and was more capable of sustaining tourists than trees. Gardens were out of the question. And yet Garner had converted the basement of his home into a climate-controlled environment capable of growing a host of healing herbs. Many people relied on Garner’s Garden, Inc.: the residents of Burnt Rock, the tourists who discovered him on a summer’s day, and the enthusiasts who shopped his quality blends on the Web. They could be assured that his nettle leaf or spearmint or lavender or fennel or chamomile or any one of dozens of other helpful, healthful plants was of the highest quality. Though not all of them were entirely legal.