“I’ll get plates out,” I said.
“I’m not hungry,” Emma said.
I anticipated a stomp to her room but she dropped into one of the broad-backed kitchen chairs, made thicker by several generations of paint, and folded her arms on the table. Her head went down onto them.
Walking like the floor was covered in hen’s eggs, I stepped gingerly to a chair and sat down.
“You okay?” I said.
“Does it look like I’m okay?”
I am so over this girl.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t see your face. I’m just going by your body language, which screams that you are not, in fact, okay. Excuse the heck out of me for asking, but I live here with you and I give a rip. Okay?”
Couldn’t have said that better myself.
Quite frankly, it felt like the Nudnik had said it, using my mouth.
Emma raised her head, eyes wide. Mine were probably even bigger.
“Sorry,” she said.
“I just—”
“I don’t know if I’m okay or not. Not yet.” She turned her head in the direction of the main house, although there were three walls between us and the nearest window. “I can’t lose Joseph,” she said. “I won’t make it if he leaves.”
“Why would he leave?”
“I don’t know that either. I need to go be in my room.” She got halfway up and stopped. “It’s not you. I just don’t know how to talk about this stuff very well.”
As her footsteps faded into her room, I put my own head down on the table.
“That makes two of us,” I whispered.
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Look for the echo of God. That's where therapy begins. #TheMercifulScar
Chapter
SEVEN
It’s Day Six and you might just now be getting the hang of this. Maybe. If nobody’s looking too close.
Nobody was, at least not Frankie that next morning as we herded the sheep out to the south pasture. Although she was as soft and patient as always, it all seemed to be done on autopilot. She was so preoccupied, I was sure I could have drowned in the water trough and she wouldn’t have noticed.
Norwich and Undie seemed to sense it, too, and it was as if they knew they needed to pick up the slack. Frankie still called commands to them, but I thought their ears perked to attention more than usual and their curved runs were leaner, more assertive.
So maybe you oughta start acting like a dog.
Acting like the shepherd sure wasn’t cutting it, so what did I have to lose?
So I watched them. And I found myself circling the rear of the flock, anticipating who was going to straggle and who was about to wander off to chomp one lone hunk of yarrow and take half the flock with her. I scampered—
Since when have you ever scampered?
Yes, I scampered to get between them and their dubious destination and stood there and stared into their vacant eyes until they baaed or burped at me and turned to join the rest of the clamorous mass.
Ya gotta wonder what they’re all talking about.
My guess was, We’re waaalking, we’re waaalking—ooh, grass—gotta have it—uh-oh, where’d everybody go?
You’re scarin’ me, Kirsten.
Scary or not, I was bordering on proud. Too bad Frankie was still too zoned in on something else to notice anything beyond the sheep basics. On the way back to the barn she told me to take the rest of the day off. I didn’t think it was a reward for good behavior, but I took it anyway.
But the minute I stepped into the empty Cloister, with its cavernous rooms, the loneliness seized my skin. Yet somehow I couldn’t cut there now, not with the ranch teeming just outside the walls—out there where everyone had a reason for being. It mocked me until I took the scissors from the first aid kit, tucked them into the pocket of the brown sweatshirt, and set off. I didn’t know where I was going. It just couldn’t be here. There was no getting out of there without Bathsheba, so it was two of us who headed west toward the Rocky Mountain front.
Listen to you sounding all geographical.
I guessed I couldn’t help picking up something from Joseph during those after-supper dialogues between Frankie and him.
The Rockies seemed to get farther away the more we walked but there were plenty of foothills between me and them. A goal took shape: get down into a valley, away from this accusing wide-open space. Then I could find release.
To go down I first had to go up, so Bathsheba and I must have hiked at least two miles, over fences—under, in her case—and up loose-stoned paths that ended abruptly and then began themselves again yards later. I looked mostly at the ground, partly because I didn’t want to fall into some hole belonging to a weasel or a gopher or a badger or a who knew what other charming animal, and partly because the endless expanse of all-seeing Montana sky above me threatened to strip me naked if I made eye contact with it.
Bathsheba fell into a rhythm of romping ahead of me, stopping to sniff the air, and prancing back to check my progress. The occasional butterfly distracted her. Make that butterfly shadow. As they fluttered over her head, she dashed after their dark reflections, nose to the ground, forehead wrinkled in confusion because there was nothing there to smell.
Yeah, this dog’s sharing a brain with a sheep.
At one point she disappeared behind a rock formation on the slope ahead. When I looked up, eyes shaded, to wait for her to reappear, I saw a stone building.
Who puts a house up here? Some nut bar?
It wasn’t actually a house. In fact, as I climbed closer to it I realized it really wasn’t a building at all but a tower of flat rocks fitted together so tightly and so magically I was sure even the wind that whipped around us couldn’t take it down. Tall and rectangular and tapering slightly at the top, it just stood there, atop a grassy hill, with a somewhat pointless split rail fence around it.
Yeah, what’s that gonna keep out?
Certainly not Bathsheba. She wriggled under the lowest rail and trotted over to investigate. I followed her.
Way to be gutsy, Kirsten. You go.
I couldn’t help being impressed by the way someone had put the stones together. The structure was sound and yet the spaces between the browns and creams and rusts allowed it to breathe. I had professors who would be profoundly impressed.
I shivered, not so much from the wind as from the distance that now gaped between me and my former life. I seemed to be doing nothing but getting farther away from everything I had ever been.
I groped in my pocket for the scissors and for an anxious moment I thought I’d lost them. When my fingers hit metal deep in the pouch I pulled them out into the light. The sky was a study in grays but still the blades took on a gleam, begging me to press them against my skin.
I sat on the rocky ground, back against the stone tower, and pushed up my sleeve. Gooseflesh spread in the chill air, forcing the hairs to attention. I turned my arm over and studied the red-yarn scar on my wrist.
Got no relief from that one, did ya?
Pain sizzled through me. That couldn’t be. Something had to let the hopelessness out. It had to. And this time there would be no one to stop me.
I opened the scissors but I paused for a minute to slow things down—the pulse pounding in my temples, the breath coming out in shallow pants, the chatter in my head—
All right, go big or stay home, then, ’cause I don’t see these weak little incisions doin’ it for ya anymore, know what I mean?
I did. All too well.
Pressing my back into the stones and holding my breath, I carefully placed the scissors higher than the veins in my wrist so there would be no accident this time. No Wes breaking through the door. No wrestling match in front of the sink. Just the blade and me—
And Bathsheba, barking and yipping like a wild thing outside the split rail fence. My hand jerked and the scissors flew from my fingers and skidded across the tilted, stony ground. I struggled to my feet and ran after
them, only to watch them tumble over a ledge of rocks, falling and glancing and falling again until I could no longer see them. Another step and I could have fallen with them.
Behind me Bathsheba was still barking, but at what, I didn’t care. I stood on the precipice and gaped across the deep valley I’d been searching for. It was too big, this mass of ridges and cliffs and petrified waterfalls of rocks that seemed to move even in their stillness. Breath sucked away by wind and fear, I forced myself to look down. The towering, craggy wall of mountain beyond me cast a dauntless shadow on a gathering of toy buildings below. The Bellwether Ranch, tiny and vulnerable.
Just like me.
With no control. Not a speck of it. And in that moment I knew there was no control, not for me, not anywhere.
I didn’t know I’d cried out until the wind snatched up my voice and carried it away to nothing.
I didn’t hear an echo, did you?
No, what I heard was Frankie’s voice, folding over the Nudnik’s like a cloak of velvet. Listen for bat kol.
I did. But there was only the frantic squealing of whatever animal Bathsheba had flushed out. And the throbbing of my heart in my throat. And the wind. Always the wind.
Bathsheba joined me, tongue lolling, and emptied the usual measure of slobber into the palm of my hand. I gave it back to her in a long smooth swipe on the top of her head. Even as I petted her, Bathsheba’s ears went on alert.
She’s hearing bat kol? Now that’s scary.
It was a helicopter she heard, wop-wop-wopping its way into view to the east as if it were heading for the ranch.
Yikes. They’ve got Search and Rescue out looking for you.
I doubted I’d even been missed. But I shoved my hands into the pockets of my sweatshirt and followed Bathsheba back down the hill.
The first person I saw when the dog and I came around the last curve in the ranch driveway was Andy.
Aka Mr. Hottie.
He was standing next to the open door of one of the beater pickup trucks, one foot already in like he was planning to go someplace. The Suburban was missing.
The plot thickens, eh?
But evidently today I was the plot, because Andy marched down the driveway as if he was on a mission and the mission was me. Even though his face glowered like Little Augie’s, I couldn’t help noticing the way his arms pumped as he charged in my direction.
The dude’s got guns, no doubt about it.
Only when he came within a few yards of me did I see the squint around his eyes. That was a what-were-you-thinking look if I’d ever seen one, and I’d seen plenty.
“Where the heck have you been?” he said. “Everybody’s looking for you.”
“I wasn’t gone that long,” I said. “You didn’t have to call out a helicopter.”
He blinked at me. Then slowly the grin spread over his face.
Nice. Very nice.
“We were about to call in the Conrad SWAT team,” he said. “Except . . . there isn’t one.”
We both looked up at the sound of gravel spraying out from tires. The Suburban rocked to a stop next to us and Frankie leaned out of the driver’s side window and scanned me from under the bill of the ever-present ball cap. To my relief, she looked relieved too.
“Okay, thank You, God,” she said. “Where did you find her, Andy?”
“She found me,” he said.
Nice save. Y’know, for a guy who’s not your type.
I did appreciate it. But something nettled at the back of my neck.
“I just went for a walk,” I said to Frankie. “You said it was free time.”
She climbed out of the car and shut the door, but not before I saw the thirty-thirty on the seat next to her.
“I’m glad you did,” she said. “But here’s the thing: you need to check in with someone before you leave. Not so we can keep tabs on you. It’s just so we’ll know when to start worrying.”
For some reason she cast a glance at Andy.
We are talking about some major subtext here.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s fair enough.”
Frankie nodded and then looked past me, eyes shaded. “Here comes the cavalry,” she said. She grinned the grin she shared with Andy.
Hoofbeats pounded as Joseph joined us on horseback, followed by Emma, who looked as if she were born to ride in her brown suede cowboy hat and her jeans tucked snugly into scuffed leather riding boots. But it wasn’t just the outfit. She sat as if the only thing keeping her from being one with the reddish, black-maned horse was the saddle.
Joseph was wearing a Western hat, too, pulled so low over his eyes I couldn’t see them. Until he put two fingers to the brim and pushed it back to reveal the glare.
This is going to be ugly.
“Kirsten,” Frankie said, “You’ve met Merton but you haven’t been introduced to Sienna.”
Nor did I want to be. Standing below their immense noses made me want to find a badger hole to crawl into.
“Emma’s on Sienna and—”
“Where were you?”
Joseph’s eyes were drilled into me, not Frankie.
That’s a first.
And, I hoped, a last.
“Up there,” I said, pointing toward the Rockies. “I found a stone tower of some kind.”
“I think she means the shepherd’s monument,” Frankie said.
“I know what she means.”
Despite the wind I was starting to sweat. “I was fine. I had Bathsheba with me.”
“Now there’s comfort.”
Frankie cleared her throat. Joseph took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. When he spoke again his voice was several degrees warmer. Which brought it up to freezing.
“You see the helicopter?”
“Yes.”
“That was the wildlife people, looking for the grizzly and her cub. Rancher reported seeing them about two miles from where you and your guard dog were taking in the scenery.”
“Oh,” I said. “So—I guess I won’t go up there again.”
Joseph dropped his hat back over his smoky hair. “You can go anywhere you want, as long as you carry a weapon with you.”
I felt my jaw drop so far I was surprised my chin didn’t bang into my chest.
“You ever shot a gun before?”
“I’ve never even held one, and I don’t—”
“Tomorrow’s your first lesson, then. Right after you take the sheep out.”
I couldn’t even get my mouth open to protest before he turned to Emma, saddle squeaking.
“You’ll join us.”
Unlike mine, Emma’s chin lifted. “You know I don’t need lessons.”
“Everybody needs a refresher from time to time.”
“No!”
Even the Nudnik froze. I may have imagined it, but I thought the wind, too, held its breath.
“I’m not sure we need to settle this now,” Frankie said.
I could see Emma swallowing as she looked away. I myself couldn’t stop looking.
Yeah, this is definitely a train wreck.
And one that included Andy. I pried my gaze away from Emma to find Andy squinting so hard at Joseph his dark eyes all but disappeared. I blinked to make sure he was the same person who ten minutes before had grinned the awkward out of me.
I think there’s about to be a showdown at the OK Corral.
But Joseph just scrubbed the back of his neck with his hand and then nodded at Emma. They wheeled the horses around and rode single file down the driveway. When I turned back to Andy and Frankie, Andy was already halfway to the main house.
Was it something I said?
Frankie lightly touched my shoulder. “You don’t like the idea of handling a gun, do you?”
I just stared at her for a second.
We’re going to be moving a little faster now. Try to keep up.
“No,” I said, “I don’t. As much of a klutz as I am, I’m liable to put a bullet through somebody. Falling off a
fence is one thing, but . . .”
Frankie tilted her head at me. “You’ve been trying to convince me you’re uncoordinated ever since you’ve been here. Keep it up and I might start to believe you.”
“You’ve seen it!” I said.
“I’ve only seen you being new at everything I’ve asked you to try. Nobody gets it the first time.” She gave me half the grin. “Or even the first ten times.”
“Emma—”
“First of all, it’s time to stop comparing yourself to Emma or anybody else for that matter. And second of all . . .” She completed the grin. “It took Emma thirty minutes to hook a sheep the first time.”
That would’ve been nice to know.
“You’re doing just fine,” Frankie said. “You walk two miles a day at least. You’re catching on with the herding.” She nodded toward Bathsheba, who was lying at my feet, head resting on the toe of my boot. “And nobody could do anything with this one until you came along.”
My throat was thickening.
You’re not going to cry, are you? There’s no crying in sheep keeping!
“It isn’t just that,” I said. “The shooting, I mean.”
Frankie waited.
That’s one of her best skills.
“It’s Joseph,” I said. “I don’t think he likes me, and I definitely don’t feel comfortable with him. I’m just saying that if he yells at me I’ll probably, I don’t know, do something stupid. Like cry.”
Like I said . . .
Frankie tucked her arm into mine and steered us toward the Cloister. “There’s nothing stupid about crying. I weep on a regular basis. As for Joseph, I have never heard him yell and he’s sixty-five years old so I don’t see him starting now.”
“He yells with his eyes,” I said. “I feel scolded every time he looks at me.”
She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. Bathsheba vaulted to the one above us and wagged most of her body and Frankie scratched her absently behind the ears. Her attention seemed to be somewhere just over my shoulder. When her gaze came back to me, it was misty.
“Joseph’s job here has always been to protect us, first and foremost,” she said. “But life hasn’t always protected him. So what you’re seeing isn’t scolding. It’s fierceness.”
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