by Becky Citra
At the present moment, the Willard girls, Esta and Iris, and Melissa Ryerson are under the care of Pat and Margaret Hunter, owners of the Double R Guest Ranch, until Melissa’s mother, Jane Ryerson, arrives from England. She is expected early tomorrow morning.
Livia Willard was last seen wearing pink shorts, a pink T-shirt and running shoes with bunnies on them. She is blond and blue-eyed. A massive search is continuing for the little girl, and the police say that at this time they have no leads. Ranch owner Pat Hunter has declined to comment.
There are two photographs on this page in the guest book: one of a young grinning couple and one of a family—a man, a woman and three girls. In the comment section beside the family picture, someone has written neatly We had a wonderful time as usual. See you next year! Joan and Wayne Willard. Underneath are the three girls’ names: Esta in perfectly formed slanting letters, Iris in slightly uneven loopy handwriting and Livia in large babyish printing.
I check the names of the girls in the newspaper article again to figure out who is who and then study the photograph. That must be Esta at the edge of the picture, a little apart from everyone else. She would have been thirteen then, like me, because the photograph was taken a year before the newspaper article. She’s tall, almost as tall as her mother, and she has dark hair and eyes. She’s frowning and looks like she’d rather be anywhere than posing for this photograph. Iris is standing in front of her mother. She has straight shoulder-length hair and a thin face with a pointed chin. She’s smiling, but her smile looks self-conscious.
Livia is beautiful. She has a mass of blond curls, a heart-shaped face and huge eyes. She is standing beside her father, holding his hand. A stuffed bear dangles from her other hand.
See you next year. I imagine Joan Willard writing that in the guest book, the girls waiting their turn to sign their names, the parents bursting with pride that Livia could print her name at three years old. The owners of the ranch must have gathered everyone together for their photograph, like they did with every visitor. Then the Willards would have piled into their car and headed back to Vancouver. For some reason I even imagine that the car was one of those old-fashioned station wagons with the wood trim.
See you next year.
According to the newspaper article, they had come back. But there wouldn’t be anything in the guest book that year. No enthusiastic We had a wonderful time.
I flip through the rest of the book to see if there are any more newspaper articles, but I don’t find anything. I don’t know how long that piece of newspaper has been hidden in the book but I feel that it is important to put it back.
I fold it carefully and then take one last look at Livia’s face before I close the book. A tiny shiver runs up my back. Children don’t go missing forever, do they? I wonder where they found her.
Four
The next day at school I have a free block last period so I go to the computer lab and google Livia Willard. Nothing comes up. I guess the story isn’t important enough, but I’m dying to know what happened to her. I type in Double R Guest Ranch. Tully has set up a website with some photos of the lake and cabins. I get a few other hits too, mostly tourism sites with directions, maps and some old guest reviews. No mention of a little girl disappearing almost sixty years ago.
Before the bell rings at the end of the school day, I type in horse training + round pen and am amazed at how much information there is. We’re supposed to have permission from a teacher to use the printer, but there’s no one around, so I print off six articles.
My cell phone vibrates. It’s Dad. Something’s come up and he can’t come to town to pick me up. I have to take the school bus. I have a note for the driver, asking him to drop me off at the ranch gate, but I didn’t think I would have to use it until tomorrow. The bell rings and I start worrying about how I’m going to find the right bus and who I’ll have to sit with. I turn off the computer and join the crowds of kids waiting outside the school.
When three buses finally pull up to the curb, I have no idea which one is mine. I hang back for a bit, trying to figure out what to do. I see a girl who’s in my PE class and who was my partner once for badminton. She was pretty nice, so I ask her if she knows which bus goes out to Gumboot Lake. She points to the last bus, and I fall in at the tail end of the line of kids pushing their way on.
There’s an empty seat right behind the bus driver. I give him my note, and he grunts that the closest he can let me off is Thurston Road. I haven’t a clue where that is, but I nod and slide into the seat. At least I don’t have to walk down the aisle with everyone staring at me. I gaze out the window, shutting out the noise, and watch the scenery slide by. The bus turns off the highway onto the gravel road. It makes lots of stops and gradually empties until it’s absolutely quiet, and I’m thinking I’m the only one left. I don’t want to turn around and look though.
Then someone flops into the seat behind me and a voice says, “Hi. You’re Thea, aren’t you?”
I don’t have much choice, so I turn around. It’s a boy from my social studies class, perched on the edge of the seat. I know him from somewhere else too, but I can’t think where. He has fairly long blond hair and he’s tanned and wearing a baseball cap. I even know his name—Van—though I’m shocked that he knows mine.
“That’s right,” I say.
“I’m Van,” he says.
“I know,” I say, and then my cheeks turn hot. “I heard your name in social studies,” I mumble.
“I thought you lived in town,” he says.
“I did. We just moved out to the Double R Guest Ranch. My dad’s working for the owner.”
“You’re getting off at my stop then.” He grins. “You’ll have to. That’s where the bus turns around.”
I feel awkward, twisted around in my seat to face him, and I’m not sure what to do next. He stands up. “It’s just around the corner.”
Van gets off the bus first, and I follow him. I know where I am now. On the left side of the road there’s a big field with a brown shed at one end, and on the other side is thick forest. Thurston Road goes off to the right. The ranch is about a quarter of a kilometer from here.
The bus turns around and rumbles away in a cloud of dust. Van jumps into the bushes and comes out a few seconds later, lifting a blue bike over the ditch. It’s kind of battered-looking and has a bent fender. I guess he doesn’t worry about it being stolen.
“I keep it stashed here,” he says. “I live at the end of the lake.”
I remember Tully telling us that there are some year-round homes farther down the lake. That makes Van sort of a neighbor.
He walks beside me, pushing the bike.
“You don’t have to walk with me,” I say.
“I like walking,” says Van.
He leans over, picks up a rock and skitters it down the road in front of us. “How do you like our school?” he says.
So he knows that I’m new; that means he must have noticed me, but that’s all it means. It’s not a big school, and new people stick out like sore thumbs.
I shrug and say, “It’s just a school.”
Van doesn’t say anything after that and I’m furious at myself. I should have at least said it’s all right. When we get to the ranch gate, he says, “See you,” and hops on his bike and pedals off fast.
I try to think where I’ve seen him before, but I can’t place him.
After I get home, I go for a swim off the end of the dock in front of our cabin. The water is warm on the surface but icy cold where my feet dangle down. I have to swim through a patch of lily pads to get out to where it’s clear. I duck right under, letting my long hair float around me, and then push it out of my eyes when I pop to the surface. I feel the sweat washing off me. I float on my back for a few minutes, staring at the blue sky, and then swim back to the dock.
A breeze has come up, ruffling the lake. I lie facedown on the smooth weathered boards, the hot sun soaking into my back. The water laps gently under the dock, making it
rock. I can hear hammering in the distance: Dad working on cabin five. It’s peaceful and a hundred times better than living in that crummy trailer.
When I’m dry, I go inside and change into shorts and a halter top. I’ve got homework, but that can wait until tonight. I grab an apple for Renegade, cut it into four pieces and head out to the barn.
Renegade’s standing in the middle of the corral, his head drooping, his tail gently swishing away flies. He lifts his head when he sees me; his dark eyes look suspicious. I climb onto the top rail and hold out a piece of apple for him. I make a clicking sound with my tongue, encouraging him to walk over and take a look. “I won’t touch you,” I say.
He doesn’t move. His gaze shifts away from me, outside the corral to the big field that slopes up to the ridge of forest and the hills in the distance. His ears are pricked forward. I try to see what he’s looking at, but there’s nothing there. And then I spot two tawny deer bounding through the long grass. I have a feeling nothing gets past Renegade.
“I bet you’d like to be out there too,” I say. “I bet you’d like to gallop across that field instead of being cooped up in here.” For a second I think about opening the gate and letting him out. I ditch that idea quickly. He’d probably never come back and I’d be in major trouble.
I fed Renegade this morning before school—hay and some oats that I found in a metal drum in the barn. Tully says he’s happy to hand over that job to me. I fill up the bathtub now with a hose that stretches from the barn and retrieve the empty grain bucket, which Renegade has kicked against the fence. As I go in and out of the corral, I keep my eye on him, but he is disinterested, still staring at the distant hills. I toss another flake of hay over the fence, drop the apples on top and wait.
I like the way Renegade smells. I like the smell of the hay, and I even like the smell of the manure stomped into the dusty ground.
I wait a little longer.
My eyes flick to the round pen at the end of the corral. Somehow I know that it’s the key to working with Renegade. If only I knew how to use it. Tonight I’m planning to read the stuff I got off the Internet.
At last Renegade drifts over to the bathtub and drinks, raising his head nervously every few seconds. Water streams from his muzzle. He stretches out his neck and nudges at a piece of apple. His lips close on it and he chews.
He is close now, so close. Only the fence is between us. I hold my breath. I could reach out and touch him. But I don’t.
Tully has a surprise at dinner. “We have our first guest,” he says.
“I thought you weren’t opening until next summer,” I say.
Tully has barbecued us each a steak and baked some potatoes, and we’re eating on the porch. Dad jumped in the lake to clean himself up after he finished working. His hair is still wet and slicked back, and he looks more relaxed than I’ve seen him for a long time.
“I’m not,” says Tully. “But this is one determined lady.”
It turns out he’s been emailing back and forth all day with some woman in England. Tully says her name is Marion Wilson and she has friends who stayed here ten years ago and highly recommended it.
“When is she coming?” I say.
“Next week,” says Tully. “I told her we weren’t set up for riding or anything. She says she just wants to relax. She doesn’t eat breakfast, wants a bag lunch and will have dinner with us. She sounds like a very nice lady.”
“What cabin are you going to put her in?” says Dad.
“I think cabin two, next to you guys.”
“How long will she stay?” I ask.
“She wasn’t sure. She wants to leave it open.”
“She’s coming here all the way from England? Weird,” I say.
“Maybe she’s going somewhere else as well.” Tully sounds excited. He told us last night that he’s always dreamed of having a guest ranch, once he got the traveling out of his bones. I’m not sure what I think. Tully already feels like family—that sounds like a cliché, but I swear it feels like we’ve known him longer than a week and a half. This woman will be a stranger. I’d way rather have the place to ourselves.
There’s something else that bothers me, but I’m not sure what it is. I’m lying in bed later, tossing and turning because it’s so muggy, when it comes to me. Tully said that Marion Wilson mentioned friends who were here ten years ago. But ten years ago the Double R wasn’t a guest ranch. I know that because there was no guest book for that period. In fact, there was a gap of about six years. Even if Marion was out by a year or two, it couldn’t be right.
Did Marion Wilson make a mistake? Or maybe there was a guest book and it just got lost. It’s probably nothing, but it niggles away at me. It’s a long time before I fall asleep.
Five
In the morning the sky is full of dark, foreboding clouds. I walk up to the end of Thurston Road. There’s no sign of Van. While I wait for the school bus, I worry about what to do if he comes. I mean, the bus is going to be empty. So if he gets on first and goes to the back, am I supposed to follow him and sit beside him, or should I sit in the seat behind the bus driver again? I hate situations like this. I never know what to do.
Van races up on his bicycle at the last minute and has just enough time to hide it in the bushes before the bus comes. I end up getting on first. I sit down in the same seat I had yesterday and Van sits across the aisle. He wants to compare social studies homework. For once I’ve got it done, and I let him copy some of my answers. “You’re a life saver,” he says, smiling, and I notice that he has a crooked front tooth.
We talk for a few minutes. The bus stops for two girls and a guy. Van gets up and moves to the back of the bus with them. He’s probably sat in the same seat all year, but I still feel a tiny bit hurt. More kids get on and they all seem to go to the back. It gets noisier and noisier. There’s a lot of laughing. A whiff of cigarette smoke drifts up the aisle. I resist the urge to turn around and see who it is. The bus driver yells, “Put it out NOW!” There’s dead silence and then a few giggles.
I pull out my book and try to read.
It’s raining hard by the afternoon. Dad’s waiting for me at the bus stop in his pickup truck. I mumble goodbye to Van, but Dad watches Van retrieve his bike, and he opens the window and says, “Why don’t you throw that in the back and I’ll give you a lift?”
“Sure,” says Van. He’s dripping by the time he slides onto the seat beside me.
It’s steamy inside the truck. “The defogger’s not working properly,” says Dad as he wipes the windshield with his sleeve. The rain is coming down in sheets now and the wipers can’t keep up.
Dad and Van chat like old friends while I sit silently. In the next few minutes I learn all kinds of things about Van: He has three sisters, all younger. His family lives in the house that Van’s dad grew up in. His dad is a logger and his mom has a fabric shop in town and teaches quilting. Van’s grandparents live with them.
We go past the Double R Ranch sign and then, after about a kilometer, Van says, “Right here.” A wooden sign hanging beside the road says The Gallaghers. Dad turns onto a narrow driveway that winds between rain-lashed trees. It’s dark out, even though it’s only four o’clock. A gray weathered house comes into view, with the lake, churned into small whitecaps, behind it. There’s a swing set, the swings blowing in the wind, and a structure made out of red plastic blocks that looks like a playhouse.
When Van gets out, rain blows inside the truck, spattering the seat. He heaves his bike out of the back, shouts “Thanks” and disappears around the side of the house.
“Nice kid,” says Dad, turning the truck around. “Is he in your grade?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Any of your classes?”
“Social studies,” I mutter. I’m tensing up. Dad doesn’t usually take an interest in my friends. In fact, I don’t think he’s ever really noticed that I don’t exactly have friends. I’ve always blamed it on him— all the moving around and changing schools. How
can you make friends when you’re only going to be around for a few months?
That’s the excuse I use, anyway. But lately I’ve been starting to panic. Maybe it’s something I’m doing. Or not doing. I tell myself I’m just out of practice. I used to have friends when we lived in the Valley.
Dad isn’t giving up. “It’s great that he lives so close.”
“Right.”
Dad looks at me sideways. “Don’t be suspicious every time someone is nice to you.”
The criticism stings and stupid tears form behind my eyes. What’s wrong with Dad? And how does he know if Van’s being nice or not?
“Drop it,” I say, my voice sharp.
I mean it. I don’t want to discuss Van. I don’t even know if I like him.
Dad lifts both hands off the wheel and says, “Sorry.”
I feel too tired to fight with Dad. I wipe the water off the seat with a rag that he keeps on the floor, and then I slide over to the window. The rain races in streaks down the glass. My thoughts turn to Renegade, wondering how he’s doing in the storm.
When we get back to the ranch, Dad says he’s going to get a bit more work done before dinner. He’s right in the middle of tearing the old cabinets out of cabin five and only stopped to come and save me from getting soaked. I put on a raincoat, pull up the hood and hurry out to the barn. Renegade is in the shelter, staring out at the rain. He’s wet, his black coat sleek, his tangled mane glistening with water drops. He’s spread his hay around and tromped it into the ground, soggy and muddy. I lift up the blue tarp covering the bales of hay. There’s a bale that I cut open this morning, the orange twine sprung to the side. I break off a flake and toss it in front of Renegade. I stay for five minutes, talking to him softly, and then go into the barn.