Approaching the old abandoned barn on the Amboy road, he parked behind it and, at the base of a boulder, he dug with a rock until he’d uncovered the little folding shovel he’d buried there, and then the saddle and bridle. There wasn’t much left of the rotted blanket. He wiped the leather off as best he could, laid the saddle and bridle in the trunk beside his meager kit. Somewhere down the line, he’d need them. As he headed the Chevy up the shallow mountain the scene came back too vividly, the robbery, returning here in the truck with the dead convict sitting in the seat beside him, the man he had killed to save his own life and who, it turned out, had come in real handy. That day, he had driven up the hills as far as he could, leading the gray with a rope through the open window, the dead man propped in the cab beside him. Picking his spot along the canyon, he’d gotten out, tied the gray at a safe distance, and sent the truck and dead man, with the gun and a few scattered post office bills, over the edge of the ravine, a no-good convict taking the rap for the robbery.
The truck and his companion disposed of, he had moved on up the hills on horseback, buried the money, and ridden back down to the old barn. Had buried the saddle and, when the duster plane came into view, had turned the gray loose, then buried the bridle and shovel. Stepping up into the cockpit, he’d headed for Vegas. No commercial plane to fly him from the empty desert, and the small duster plane left no record. For all intents and purposes, when the post office robbery went down, Lee was already drunk and raising hell in Vegas, cursing and assaulting the Vegas cops, and was thrown in the can there. So far, his alibi had held firm.
Now, heading the Chevy up the shallow desert mountain, he thought he could make it maybe halfway before boulders made the trail impassable and he’d have to walk. Already he could see, high up to the east, the rock formation where the money was hidden.
Before he left the car he backed it around so it was headed down again, the parking brake set, the front bumper secure against a boulder. Moving on up, on foot, the sand hushed beneath his boots with an occasional soft scrape. Lizards scurried away, and once he startled a rabbit that went bounding off. Nothing chased it. Was Misto with Sammie? Would Sammie, in a dream, see him walking up the mountain, watch as he approached the tall rock and began to dig, see him bring up the stolen post office bags? What would she think, how would she judge him? That thought bothered him.
“It’s all I have,” he told her, wondering if his words would enter her dreams. “All I have, for whatever years are left.” A little cottage in Mexico, good hot Mexican food, soak up the hot sun. The money he was about to dig up, that’s all there was against an empty future.
44
IN THE DC-3, as Sammie yawned in Becky’s arms, already Morgan had drifted off, his head on Becky’s shoulder. Becky couldn’t have slept again; her stomach felt queasy from breakfast or maybe from the plane taking off, banking over the city, then lifting fast above the mountains. Below them clouds hung low between the highest peaks, then soon the plane’s shadow raced ahead over mountains mottled with snow. Snowcapped ridges tinted gold by the rising sun surrounded a deep blue lake; far ahead, long white ridges marched, jagged, primitive, stroked with gold.
Last night in the motel room Sammie, sleeping peacefully, had stirred suddenly and sat up, her rigid body silhouetted against the motel lights beyond the window. Becky couldn’t tell if she was awake or still asleep; but a darkness stood across the room slicing fear through her—a dark consciousness more alive than if they faced a human intruder.
“Leave us alone!” Sammie shouted. “Leave my daddy alone. You tried with Uncle Lee, too. You failed with both of them. Now go away. Go away from us. Go bother someone who wants to follow you.”
The authority in the child’s voice held Becky. Morgan was awake and took Becky’s hand. They didn’t speak to Sammie. This was not the kind of dream they were used to. Sammie didn’t reach out to them, frightened. She seemed quite in control, there was a new power in the child. Her strength seemed to press at the dark presence as if driving it back; it smeared and grew thin. “You couldn’t hurt Russell Dobbs,” Sammie said boldly. “You couldn’t hurt Lee or my daddy. You can’t hurt us any longer.”
Her fists gripped the covers. “You can’t direct my dreams. You never could, they never came from you! Go away from us, we are done with you!” She was not a child now, something within her seemed ageless, they could only watch as she faced down the dark that stifled the small room. The child waited silent and rigid as the spirit receded. When it vanished, she turned away—she was a child again, soft and pliant, leaning into her daddy, pulling Becky close, pressing between them until soon she slept, curled up and at peace.
They exchanged looks, but didn’t speak. At last Morgan slept, too. Only Becky lay awake, thinking about the strength they’d seen in Sammie—and then about the days to come. Home again in their own house. Morgan back in the shop he loved. Caroline with her comforting support. Anne a real part of the family now, Anne and Mariol.
With Morgan exonerated, all charges wiped from the books, would time turn back to what life was before? Would the town’s anger be wiped from the books? As cleanly as the legal charges were expunged? Would they be a real part of their community again?
She didn’t think so.
Their true friends, who had stood by them, would embrace them. But the rest of the town, that had turned so cruel, why would they be different now? She couldn’t be friends again with people who hadn’t trusted or believed in Morgan, people they could never trust again. And that was most of the town.
What kind of life would they have among people they could never again feel close to, could never respect? She and Morgan had no reason to embrace their onetime enemies. And what about Morgan’s customers? Would they return to him or would they remain distant, so business continued to falter? Caroline was doing her best to oversee the work, to make appointments, pay the bills, take care of the books on top of managing the bakery. Even bakery sales had fallen off some. And Becky’s own work? The clients she’d lost were, in her view, gone for good. She couldn’t hope there’d be new work for her. Now, this morning, heading through the sky to Georgia, were they returning not to their regained freedom, but to a new and different kind of confinement?
As if, though Brad Falon was locked away, his shadow still followed them.
She thought about California, the miles of orange groves below as they’d left the city. The open green hills, the small communities lying snugly along the sea. She thought about the way Lee had talked, over supper last night, about watching the ocean surge so close outside his cell window. Thought about the friendliness of the few people she had met, the waitresses and manager at the little motel, and about the kindness of Reginald Storm—her thoughts filled with the bright mosaic of that world, so very different from what they might find at home.
But then, looking down from the DC-3 at the dry desert of Arizona and then soon at the snow-patterned prairies of the Midwest, her thoughts turned to Lee and to where he might be headed in his mysterious odyssey. Already she missed him, she said a silent prayer for him. Give him peace, give him what he longs for in his last years. And then she thought about Misto.
Would the ghost cat know new earthly lives yet to come? But meantime, would he stay with Sammie yet for a while?
And where would he go when he must return to a new life? Into what place and what time? Must the little cat spirit start over each time as a small and ignorant kitten with only his own strong will to guide him? That seemed so cruel.