“No, Sheriff, this isn’t about the bed and breakfast hassle, over.”
“Well, then? Over.”
“Mordecai stopped me this morning at the Copper Penny and said that Chuck’s mail box is full. He thinks maybe something’s happened to him. I’m on my way over the hill to Reno to testify in the Paulson trial. Can you go by and check it out? I know it’s just down the road from your place, over,” the deputy said.
“Sure, I’ll go by,” Quentin said. “Over.”
“Thanks, Quentin. Did you see that light the other night?”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“My brother over in Indian Valley said he heard an explosion too,” the deputy said.
“Yeah, I think everyone in the county saw it,” Quentin said. “I think it was another meth lab. Someone will find what’s left of the building before too long.”
“Well, they wanted to get high, and I guess they did. Ten-four.”
Quentin sped up, deciding to check in on his daughter before he drove over to the Phelps place. No doubt it was nothing; Chuck had probably just gone to San Francisco to visit his sister. Still, he could be hurt . . . better check. That light was strange. Strange, too, that they hadn’t had any report of a blown house or outbuilding yet.
Halfway up the road, he realized the pain had gone. The deep one, the one that had been screwed into his chest the day he walked back from the hospital cafeteria and saw his daughters running toward him. Marie had been on the phone the day before with her parents and seemed to be stronger, not weaker; and, then, when he’d gone to have breakfast, she’d died. Gone.
He stopped the car. He’d had the incredible pain for two years, gotten used to moving through his life with it. The pine trees overhead had grown together reaching over the road, forming a canopy. Motes of snow drifted down through the canopy of pines.
It’s gone.
Quentin looked out on the west paddock that ran all the way down to the county road. It was empty, forlorn-looking in winter. He saw a small snow dust devil kick up and dance across the paddock.
Marie, no matter what happens with this girl, it won’t be the same. I swear it.
“Daddy. What’s wrong?”
Quentin had walked up to the barn after checking the house for his younger daughter, but she’d already left for school. Lacy, his older daughter, was leading her black Arabian stallion out from the barn. Red-faced from mucking out cold stalls, the twenty-three year old looked radiant. Her long blond hair was done up with a big tortoise shell clip in the back. She looked exactly like her mother had when Quentin first met her while away at college. He couldn’t speak. It was as if his dead wife were standing there looking at him, back from the dead.
“What’s wrong, Daddy? You okay?”
He pushed his cowboy hat back on his head. She’d never seen him look like that before, like a lost little boy.
“Hi, sweetheart.” He was going to say something about her looking so much like her mother, but he stopped himself.
“Daddy, I think Salvation has picked up something.” The stallion was puffing, steam coming from his muzzle because of the cold. Lacy turned the horse around and walked him back toward the barn so that her father could watch the horse’s gate.
Marie, God … look at what we made together. He walked out to where his daughter had stopped in front of the barn. He put his arm around her and pulled her to him.
“God, I love you two so much. Do you know that?” he said out loud, hugging her.
“Daddy, you’re acting weird. What do you think, is it bad?”
“You bet I’m weird.” He took the black nylon hackamore from her and walked the animal toward the barn door, watching it over his shoulder. He could see that the horse was limping. He stopped and turned the animal around. At the same time he moved down along the horse’s flank, dropping the hackamore’s single bridle onto the snow.
“Is it bad, Dad?”
Quentin moved to the rear and reached down to pick up the game hoof. He tucked it between his legs. The horse stiffened when he lifted it, then tried to pull the hoof out of Quentin’s hand, almost hitting him in the face.
“Whoa.” He used his car keys to push muck out from the hoof’s center. “He’s picked up a thorn. That’s all.” He let the hoof drop and wiped his shit-and-mud covered hand and keys on his clean jeans.
“Should we call Robin?” Robin was the new vet in Timberline, and he knew his daughter had a crush on him. She was finding any reason she could to have him up to the ranch. He was about to tell her that no, they couldn’t afford to have the vet in, but didn’t, despite the fact that Colliers had been doctoring horses since they’d come to the Sierras. He could have pulled the thorn out himself.
“Yeah, go ahead and call him. Sharon left already, I guess. I wanted to take her to school this morning,” he said. Quentin turned and walked the horse back to his daughter and handed her the bridle.
“I heard a motorcycle early,” Lacy said.
They both looked at each other. The motorcycle meant that the biker Sharon had been dating had come to the ranch. Quentin hated bikers. The foothills were full of them, having come with the meth labs. The idea that his daughter, a high school student, was seeing one appalled them both.
“She’s mad at me,” he said. “I told her she was wasting her time with those kinds of people. I think she’s doing it just to get me mad at her.”
“Probably,” Lacy said.
“I think you better go back to school,” he said. He tucked his shirt in nervously. “I think whatever reason you have for taking the semester off isn’t good enough. You worked too hard to get into medical school to leave like that. Your mother would have wanted you to go back. That’s all she talked about, you know, before.”
“Let’s talk about it later. How’d it go this morning, Romeo?” Lacy said.
“Good.”
“Did she call you tall, dark, and handsome?”
“You’ll like her,” Quentin said.
“I’m sure I will. We’re about the same age!”
“No, you aren’t,” he said. “She’s coming over tomorrow night for dinner. What should I make?”
“Oh my God!” His daughter laughed. “We said date, not bring her home. And if you marry her, I’m not going to call her mother. She’s—how old? Thirty something. It’s weird!”
“Very funny. I wanted you guys to meet her. I thought I’d cook my best dish.”
“Daddy, do me one favor, please. Do not make that woman sit through your venison stew. It’s awful. Really awful!”
It was snowing again. Little bits of snow were clinging to his daughter’s black Patagonia jacket that he’d bought her for that Christmas. Her blond hair covered the collar.
“I think Sharon needed your mom more than you did. Maybe because you were older,” Quentin said.
Lacy picked up the bridle. The horse lowered his head and munched a bit of snow. “I try to be like Mom was. I mean for Sharon. But I don’t think it’s working. She just pushes me away,” Lacy said. “She’s going out with a real low-life, I saw him this morning. He’s so ... creepy looking.”
“Like a bucket of—” Quentin stopped himself from swearing in front of his daughter. “Why?” he asked.
“I think she’s doing it to get your attention, that’s all.”
“Well, she’s got it. Keep trying to break through, okay?” He smiled at her. “I have to go to work.”
“I’m glad you’re dating,” his daughter said unexpectedly. Lacy turned the horse around and started up the road toward the barn in the snow. She seemed completely un-crackable, completely beautiful. She had her mother’s power and confidence, he thought, watching her.