And, she realized with a sudden shudder that broke through the Valium blanket, why was he standing in the doorway to her bedroom, right now?
“What are you doing?” she croaked, her voice thick with exhaustion.
He cleared his throat, spoke quietly. “I thought I heard something. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I was talking to my mother.”
“I wondered where the phone went. Here, give it to me in case somebody calls.”
Meekly, she handed it to him. But he didn’t leave her bedroom. “Is that all you wanted?” she asked.
He paused.
“Get out of my room.”
Swann didn’t respond, but simply withdrew, as if he had never really been there at all. She heard his footsteps in the hallway.
Groggy, she climbed out of bed and closed her door. She remembered closing it tight earlier, she thought, but maybe she hadn’t.
This time, she locked it.
Sunday, 3:15 A.M.
THE PREGNANT COW stood with her legs braced in the stall, her muscles quivering, her eyes wide, her breath heavy and rhythmic. It took effort for her to turn her head and look back at Jess, who sat on an upturned bucket just out of kicking range.
“Just relax, sweetie,” Jess said, hoping the calf wasn’t breech. “It’ll be all right.”
The only sound in the barn, besides the labored breathing, was the grumble-mumble sound of grass hay being chewed. There were two more pregnant cows in the barn, and Jess noticed they would look over at the laboring cow with impassive eyes, stare for a moment, then go back to eating.
The sliding door squeaked as it opened a few inches. Jess slitted his eyes at the sound. He saw a shock of blond hair, and Annie’s face peering in.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“What are you doing? You should be sleeping.”
Annie pushed the door open a few more inches and stepped in. She wore oversized pants and a hooded sweatshirt that was several sizes too big. The clothes were familiar to Jess; seeing them tripped something in him.
“I woke up and couldn’t find you,” she said. “I was afraid you’d left us. Then I looked out and saw the light out here.”
“Why do you think I’d leave?”
She shrugged. He noticed her feet were bare.
“Couldn’t you find any shoes?”
“I’m all right.”
Jess noted that the cow in labor had now swung her head around the other way, so she could see Annie.
“I’ve got a cow here about to calve any minute,” Jess said.
“What time is it?”
He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s after three in the morning,” he said.
She shivered. Jess stood up and found another empty bucket and an old Army blanket in the tack room. “Come on over here, if you want. Have a sit, Annie. You can wrap your feet in this blanket.”
Annie nodded and joined him. Despite the oversized clothing, he was again amazed at how small she was. He watched her wrap the blanket around her bare feet.
“Have you ever seen a calf being born?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen anything like that?”
“A boy down the street had a dog who had puppies,” she said. “I saw them before they had their eyes open. I thought they looked like a bunch of mice.”
“This can get pretty, um, basic,” Jess said. “You’ll have to decide how long you want to stay.”
She paused for a long time. He could see how exhausted she was. Her eyelids were at half-mast. “I’ll stay for a while.”
“It’s nice to have some company,” he said.
“You told Mr. Swann something about a fence. I didn’t understand. Was my mother there when you called?”
“We covered that. I assume she was there, but I don’t know for sure. In fact, I’m not sure I did the right thing at all.”
“What are you going to do now?”
He looked at her. “I’m going to help this cow.”
“No, I mean tomorrow. What are you going to do?”
He rubbed the gray stubble on his chin. “I guess I’ll drive into town, see if I can find out what’s going on without showing my hand.”
She was obviously confused.
“I mean, I won’t tell anyone you’re here until I can determine that it’s safe to tell someone. If the sheriff is open to it, without those ex-cops around, I could give him the word. But I’ll need to do a little groundwork first.”
“Groundwork? You talk funny,” she said.
“I’ll do some investigating,” he said patiently. “I’ll find out if it’s okay to tell the sheriff and your mother you’re here. I’m still a little confused why nobody has said anything about a man who got shot. There’s something wrong with that whole deal.”
“We saw him.”
“I know you think you did.”
“No,” she said, leaning forward on the bucket. “We saw it. I could take you there, to the exact place it happened. I could draw you a picture of the men who did it.”
“You could?”
“I can draw.”
“Then tomorrow, after breakfast, I’d like you to do just that.”
“Okay.”
After a few minutes of silence, she asked, “Do you have to do this every night?”
“I do this time of year. It’s calving season. The rest of the year I can pretty much sleep like a normal person. Unless the cows knock down a fence, or one of ’em gets sick or injured, or something like that. Ranching can be a twenty-four-hour job, Annie.”
“My mom has a job,” she said. “She works at a store. Sometimes she has to work at night, but she doesn’t have to work at four in the morning.”
Another long silence. Jess watched the cow. She was starting to dilate. A wet stream ran down one of her legs.
“Won’t be long now,” he said.
“Where is your wife?” Annie asked.
Jess snorted. “That’s to the point.”
“So where is she?”
Annie asked her questions in a matter-of-fact way. When he answered, she didn’t cluck, didn’t hang her head, didn’t feign concern. She just wanted to know what was what, why he was alone.
“She left me.” It just hung there, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like saying the words, either. In fact, it was the first time he had ever said them. “I guess she figured there wasn’t much of a future on this place, and she was probably right,” he said. “She is an ambitious woman, and when our son was gone, she didn’t have much to do. I could have changed a little more, I guess. I thought I was too old to change, and that I was still the man she married. I guess I thought wrong.”
“Where’s your son?”
“Jess Junior? He’s around,” Jess said. “He’s sick, though. Spent some time in rehab, spent some time in jail. Got mixed up with drugs, bad ones. He’s not all there anymore, is what I’m trying to say. It’s not a good story.”
Jeez, he thought. Why am I telling all of this to a little girl?
“Why didn’t you have more kids?”
“I wanted more,” Jess said. “A couple more, at least. Maybe a little girl or two. I asked her about having more, and she said she didn’t want to bring another child into this world. But she meant the ranch, I know now. She meant me.”
He realized he had said too much and turned his head away.
“You do all of this ranch stuff by yourself?”
“I do now,” Jess said. “I had to let my foreman go a couple of days ago.”
“What if you get sick or something?”
“Then things don’t get done.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s plenty fair,” he said. “Why wouldn’t it be? Folks aren’t entitled to a living.”
“It just doesn’t sound right,” she said, a little more unsure of herself.
“I’m not saying it’s right. I said it was fair.”