Under the legal pads John finds a small stack of medical bills. They are all from M.D. Anderson Clinic in Houston, and none are stamped or cancelled by the Post Office. Carried home personally, John thinks: why? He can't make much sense of the billings codes or charges, but recognizes the scans: X-Ray, CT, MRI and PET.
Must make some decisions before the last good nap.
He realizes what nobody seems to know, or at least what nobody has bothered to tell him: Holt is dying. Yes, he thinks. Holt brought the bills home himself so Valerie, or Fargo, or whomever, wouldn't find them in the mail. They don't know. Josh doesn't know. Does anyone?
He arranges the billing statements, open, in a loose square, then shoots them with this penlight camera. Then he replaces the bills, the pads and the cards very carefully, in the same order he found them. He checks his watch and looks out the window for a moment.
The bathroom is spare and clean. Hoping for a clue to Holt's ailment, he opens the medicine cabinet, but finds nothing but over-the-counter remedies, shave gear and ChapStick.
The last room is a kitchen, which appears only partially stocked at best. In the frig, is some fruit, milk, soda and a full ice-maker bucket. There is, of course, a container of fresh-squeezed orange juice. There are crackers and a half-used loaf of bread on the counter, beside the toaster. The cabinets contain the usual condiments and spices, and, much to John's surprise a box of peanut-butter flavored Cap'n Crunch cereal. He can hardly picture Holt sitting down to a breakfast of this kind. A liquor cabinet has two fifths of Scotch and several bottles of old California wine-Zinfandels, Carignanes, Cabernets. John stands in the kitchen for a long moment, trying to acquire a sense of the man who, at least on some mornings, begins his day here. He wonders, given Carolyn's condition, does Holt make love with her?
Ten minutes later he sits at his own dining table in the cottage, watching through the big picture window as Valerie and her dog come across the meadow toward him. She is dressed in hiking boots and shorts, a blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and her red wool cap. The springers twist with patternles logic out in front of her, noses to the ground for birds. She wears a holster and pistol on her hip, slung down low like a gunfighter He decides that Valerie Anne Holt is one of the oddest women he's ever met.
John's heart leaps, then plummets. It aches. It aches to soar. It aches for company other than the dead, their murderers and their memories.
There she is, he thinks, a woman I can deny, mislead and betray.
There she is, a tool I can use.
There she is, a beautiful young woman coming to see me.
The light of her approach brings out only the darkness in his own killer's soul. He goes out to the shaded cool of the porch to welcome her. He smiles but it feels like a grimace. He watches as Boomer, Bonnie and Belle charge into the meadow and commence an assault upon the springers. Valerie stops to watch, then joins John in the shade. She smiles.
"Dad wants us to have dinner with him tonight."
"He's back?"
"Called from the jet. He'll be here by six."
"Everything okay?"
"He sounds elated. I suspect Titisi has signed on."
"That's good news."
She turns and looks back at the meadow to the dogs. Her hair is stacked up under the cap and coming loose like it always seems to be. "Whatcha been doin'?"
"Making a list of editors to call. I'm thinking I might not want to live out in that desert anymore."
"Be nice to have you closer. Help me with the dogs."
"That would be nice."
"You don't have a crush on me, do you?"
"No.
"She tries to smile, but her smile is buried by the sudden redness of her face. "Lane says you do. And that you're trustworthy as a rattlesnake. That's what this revolver here is for-rattlers."
"Thought you were going to say for me."
"Naw. I couldn't shoot the guy who saved my virginity. Not until I properly thanked him, anyway."
She pauses and looks at him with a half-grin on her face, the kind where the bottom teeth show just a little and give her a look of mischief. Then she blushes again, washing the smile away.
"Just a little crush, maybe?"
"Maybe."
She takes a deep breath. "I'm going for a walk. Wanna come?"
"Sure."
They start out around the lake. The dogs thunder past them and crash into the water, fighting over a stick. Boomer has it and all the others appear to be tearing him to shreds to get it away. The sun is warm on John's face and for a moment, the cold dead feeling inside him is in abeyance. When they reach the place where he had seen Vann, Carolyn and Pat Holt some twenty-three years ago, he tells her the story of Carlos and the cave and how her mother looked with Valerie inside.
Valerie stops. "Right here?"
"Yeah. About here is where they were. You were."
"I'm kind of moved by that."
"It's just a story."
"No. It's more. I think you're somebody. Somebody who was sent here for a reason. Sent you then, and sends you now. God, maybe, or the devil."
Her unwitting accuracy corners John into silence. He nods. "She was wearing a white dress."
"Mom always wore white. Did you see the spring in the cave?"
"I slept beside it."
"It's still there, you know. I mean, I haven't been to the cave in years, but the spring's still there or the lake wouldn't be. We should go see it sometimes. How about tomorrow afternoon? I'll pack more food and we'll call it a picnic. Sick of my cooking yet?"
"That quail was world class."
"Settled, then.
"They continue on for a while without talking. John feels the jitters leaving his nerves, replaced by the mild happiness of knowing one's body is alive, of feeling it move, of being in the company of someone it is drawn to.
He notes something shiny on the path before he even sees it. He feels his body draw up tight as he registers the shape, a shape familiar to the deep part of the human mind-a very large rattlesnake stretched out in the dirt ahead. Reflexively he reaches for Valerie but she has already stepped forward, holding her revolver with both hands, glancing quickly back at the dogs. The sound of the gun slams into John's ears, the barrel jumps and the sand explodes red around the snake's head. The serpent retracts into tight coil, rattle buzzing off, then on, then off again. The dogs blunder toward it and John tries to grab Boomer's collar.
"Don't worry, it's out of commission," says Valerie.
"I'm not so sure."
"I am."
The springers try to converge but Valerie yells them off. John's dogs obey her firm command to sit. Boomer eyes John with the pride of finding an item of such vast importance. Valerie touches the snake with her boot and it strikes, knocking its heat less stump of a neck against her ankle. It rattles again. She slide her toe under it and flips in into the bushes. It twists white in the air, then vanishes out of sight, still buzzing.
"I don't like to do that," she says. "But I lost two pups to rattlers. One died and the other one couldn't move his legs, so we had to put him down. Rattlesnakes aren't welcome on Liberty Ridge anymore."
John looks at her and sees a darkness of mood has pushed the softness from her face. It is a wholly new countenance, or that speaks of regretful obligation, of acts finished only to the soul's remorse. She looks more like her father than herself.
"Well, nice shot," he says.
"Pretty easy, if you graduate from the Liberty Ops pistol school at the age of seventeen."
"Top of the class?"
"Yes. Dogs are family to me. And I'll do anything to protect family."
Back at the cottage, John showered and dressed for dinner. He fed the dogs and had a cigarette on the porch. Just before he left, he saw the message indicator on the computer screen and keyed into his