Diamonds at Dawn

by Catalina Claussen

  “Why were you out here?” Chad asks.

  “I don’t know… I thought I might find something and I…”

  “Ahzi, think,” Cassie says, growing impatient.

  “Okay. Okay,” I say. It’s so cold now, and guilt is weighing on me. “I think the shaft is over there.”

  What if it’s not there? What if we never find it?

  “Come on,” Cassie says. “We have to try.”

  The edge of what I thought was the pit turns out to be a place where the land falls away from the light.

  I am trying not to panic. Deep breath.

  “Here,” Cassie says, handing her flashlight to me.

  I scan the landscape again and walk toward the rise. From up here, the light falls across the crystals easily, some lighting up blue and gold. I study the shape of things, determined to get it right this time. Chad follows his own guide. He picks his way across the silent expanse, moving just outside the reach of my beam. Cass and I gather ourselves and follow. Shoulder to shoulder now on the rim of the mine, Chad scans his light across the opening. At first we don’t see anything. And then the surface of the snow cracks.

  “Mav,” Chad calls out to him. Maverick turns toward Chad’s voice and blinks. Chad lowers the beam of his light, and Maverick appears, shivering under a small ledge. His eyes stare, glazed through the halflight. “Mav.”

  “What are you waiting for?” Cassie says, struggling to lower herself into the pit. “Toss me that blanket.” She works her way through the rocky bottom, pushing aside snowcapped brush. She presses her palms into Maverick’s cheeks, and that seems to bring him around.

  “I thought I was dreaming,” he says.

  “Help me, here,” Cassie says. “I need you to help me get this snow off you.”

  He draws back from her as she moves to brush the snow from his shoulders.

  He bends his knees in response, and his jeans shed the layer.

  “That’s great,” she says.

  Chad and I remain up on the edge of the pit, a bit confused at first, and then Chad seems to know what to do. He takes his light and scans the rim of the opening. He starts working his way around the pit, looking for an easy exit.

  “Cass,” Maverick says. “Cass, we’re not alone down here.”

  “I know, silly. It’s okay. It’s Chad and Ahzi up there. We’re gonna get you out of here.”

  “No, but…”

  “Shhh… don’t worry.”

  Then Chad calls out, “Watch your back, Cass.”

  Cassie turns, and her eyes grow big. I skirt the edge of the opening and come around to where Chad is standing. In the bottom a cougar kitten plays in the fresh snow. Cassie heeds Chad’s warning and backs into the wall next to Maverick.

  “Oh,” she says, knowing that where there’s a baby, mom is sure to be close by. Cassie looks uneasily around the pit. Chad helps, scanning the beam into all the crags. Nothing.

  “She’s dead,” Maverick says flatly. “I killed her.”

  Somehow I thought I would be satisfied to hear him say it, to hear him admit it, but seeing Náshdóítsoh’s cub alone…

  “There’s a series of footholds here,” Chad says, pulling us back to reality. He clears grasses and brush out of the way.

  Cassie keeps an eye on the cub and gets to work on Maverick. And what good am I? Paralyzed. Cassie gets Maverick on his feet. He’s shaking and pale.

  “Ahzi, send down one end of the rope.”

  I hear her, but I don’t respond. I can’t keep my eyes off the cub.

  “Ahzi,” Cassie says, losing her patience. “Come on.”

  She gives up on me as Chad lowers an end. “I’m gonna tie this under his arms.” Maverick’s movements are stiff, painful. He pushes his fingers to close around the rope.

  Cassie boosts Maverick up to the rim of the hole, and Chad takes hold of him, avoiding his bad arm. Chad works the rope from Maverick’s waist and throws the end down to Cassie. Cassie takes hold and rises out. She looks back… we all do. The cub stands in the clearing at the bottom of the pit, made small and alone in the beam of Chad’s light. It lets out a rasping mew.

  Ama? I say in the gathering dark.

  Yes, my love.

  Oh good. You’re still there. That’s Good News.

  She giggles.

  I have something for you, she says.

  For me?

  It’s a map.

  Of what?

  Close your eyes and open your hands.

  You’ll see.

  You’ll see, she says.

  (found twisted in the uppermost

  branches of a cottonwood)

  Chapter 24

  A mother always comes for her baby. Against all odds. And because Náshdóítsoh couldn’t do it on her own… well…

  Maverick won’t go. “Are we really going to leave him here?”

  He gazes down in the pit.

  “What else can we do?” Cassie pleads for reason. “You’re in no condition to…”

  “I’m not going down there,” I say.

  “Neither am I,” she says.

  “Pass me a blanket,” Chad calls.

  “What? Where are you?”

  “Down here,” he calls, his voice echoing.

  “Well, that’s mighty convenient,” Jeremiah’s voice jumps out of the darkness. The cold hard steel of it is unforgettable.

  Where did he come from?

  “I’ve been searching for this little one for a while. Fetches a pretty good price.” He cocks his rifle and aims at the cowering cub.

  Chad moves to shield it.

  “You think you’re gonna impress the ladies, do ya?”

  He slurs his speech. I panic. Chad remains steadfast.

  “You know, in the end, all women just want one thing… a place to wipe their feet.”

  What? This guy makes no sense. Then he starts to tell his story.

  “I did everything for that woman, fixing her car… taking out the trash…” And then he breaks, getting swept up in the telling of the story, his voice on the verge of tears. “And what does she do? Kicks me to the curb, calling me a drunk. Imagine that! That woman could put away a fifth of Jack Daniel’s like nobody’s business, and she’s calling me a drunk.” He lowers his rifle to point to himself and make his impassioned plea to anyone who will listen. But my guess is even God won’t listen to him. Grandma A says God doesn’t listen if you pray about dumb stuff.

  In the moments it takes for Jeremiah to remember what he is doing, I hear deft movements in the darkness above and below. I do my part and turn off my light, hoping the night will be enough to hide their escape. And it works… for the most part.

  “Now wait just a blasted second,” Jeremiah seems to be remembering the task at hand. “I ain’t no fool,” he declares. “And I wasn’t born yesterday.” The darkness shatters with a shot from his rifle. My heart races, full of uncertainty. I shrink back from the pit realizing that this is my chance to get away, but what about Cassie? Where is she? And Maverick… why did he disappear so quickly? Chad… Tell me that shot didn’t hit its target.

  I turn and stumble through the snow, charting a course sketched out by daylight. My heart pounds in my ears as I desperately trace and retrace the landscape. The only clear markers are the trees layering shadows, opaque against the blue-black. I hurtle for shelter among them. Something about the canopy lets me believe I’m safe.

  For the moment, that’s good enough. I slide down the base of a cottonwood, steadying myself to keep the leaves from quaking, and I listen. Pound, pound, my heart beats on against the silence. I strain to hear something, anything. I wait, willing my heart to slow with long, deep breaths. And still nothing.

  I dip down into the arroyo, keeping low, knowing that I can be seen easily against the snow even at dusk. I pick my way across the stones in the creek, avoiding any splashing. Where is everyone?

  I push on to Sicheii’s truck. I hope there’s an unspoken agreement to meet there. The shadow boundarie
s blur as night fades to black. In the deep dark, before the moon rises, the only light is what the snow remembers. So I try to remember, too. Sage green, copper canyon walls, made smooth with time, and creek silt in sepia. I retreat through the bottleneck, knowing the Apache is on the other side.

  I clamber through the remainder of the snowbound trail, taking cover among the mountain mahoganies and chamisa. The sharp scent of woody herbs fills the darkness in my missteps, but the path is unmistakable, illuminated in a wide ribbon of white. The trail dips down to meet the road, and the Apache is there, white on white. With one last look around, I press my thumb into the door release and pull it open quietly. I hunker down on to the floorboard, avoiding being seen, commanding my heart to slow. Breathing in and out. The thunder of it subsides. I gain control of my fear, and then I hear a throaty “Mew.”

  “Chad,” I whisper shout in the dark, full of relief and disbelief.

  “Yup,” he says. “Present.”

  “Maverick?” I breathe.

  “That’s me,” he says, shifting in the seat.

  “Cass?”

  And then there’s nothing.

  “Cass.”

  “She’s not here,” Chad says. “I wish that wasn’t true.”

  Ama?

  Yes, my love?

  Sometimes I wonder…

  What, dear one?

  Will there be room for me when I get there?

  Of course there will.

  What makes you think there wouldn’t be?

  Ummm… I don’t know.

  Yes, you do.

  No, I don’t.

  Yes, you do.

  Well, aren’t there a certain number of stars in the sky?

  No, silly. That’s just what you can see.

  (found floating in the water

  trough in Beau’s corral)

  Chapter 25

  Grandma A is the kind of woman we all hope to be, made of Sunday cinnamon rolls, fishing tackle, garden seeds, cast iron, and quilting squares held together with this crazy kind of love that is nothing short of supernatural. And when it’s dinner time on the ranch, that sacred power hour, as she likes to call it, she gets ticked if there’s any kind of interruption. So, remember, we left in the middle of it to get Maverick? Well, now we have to come back and explain that Cassie’s not with us, and—what’s worse—I have to explain it to myself.

  “What?!” she thunders.

  “Well, Jeremiah was there with his rifle, drunk, mumbling something about the one thing women want, and… and…” I hesitate, not wanting to tell her the whole truth. But if you don’t, you’ll only regret it later.

  “And what?” Grandma A is boiling, but her anger is that weird kind mixed with worry.

  “Shooting,” I say softly.

  “Shooting?!” That does it. She slams the kettle she was fixing on the stove burner, and the sound startles the bundle in Chad’s arms.

  The kitty pops his head up from the sweatshirt that’s keeping him warm and says, “Mew.”

  “I do believe you’ve lost your mind,” Grandpa Norm breathes. He was watching this whole thing unfold from the sidelines, but the baby mountain lion folded in Chad’s arms propels him into the conversation. “You better get that thing out of the house,” he says. “Its mama is gonna come for it.”

  “No, it won’t,” Maverick says. Then to respond to the question in Norm’s eyes, he says, “She’s dead.”

  “And you don’t look too far off from death yourself,” Grandma A says. “Take a seat. I’m gonna fill this kettle and get you all warmed up. Norm, call the Sheriff.”

  Sicheii observes Maverick carefully and rises to check his bandages. His movements and care push Maverick to speak.

  “I didn’t want you to worry… and I…” Maverick delivers a bundle of excuses that wind up paper-thin, and Sicheii waves it on.

  “Jeremiah? You mean Jeremiah Jones?” Grandma A pulls back to the present, hunting down facts that we all can stand on.

  “Jeremiah Jones,” Chad offers, “is a doormat.”

  “What?” Grandma A is pissed now, as if she wasn’t before.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Chad corrects himself. “Look, I’ll come out with you to find Cassie.”

  “So will I,” I volunteer. It’s the least I can do. Besides, I can’t stand waiting around here for news.

  The lion cub settles deeper in Chad’s sweatshirt.

  “I don’t think you’re going much of anywhere for a while. Someone needs a daddy,” Grandpa Norm says.

  Grandma Alice gives up on making plans. She puts hot tea in front of the guys and heads for the door. We pull on jackets and boots and stand for a moment in the glow of the front porch light. I guess the rest of it, the plan or no-plan will come after that. I mean, it just does.

  I try not to worry. I know Cassie is capable of most things in the wild, but there are times when I wonder where her head is. The snow makes matters worse.

  “Cassie will be okay,” Alice says aloud. “She’ll be okay.”

  I don’t say anything. I figure if I don’t say anything, there’s not a chance I can be wrong. I know it’s twisted logic, but it’s all I have. I put the key in the ignition and crank it.

  The tires spin and then bite ice crystals and spin again. The snow has stiffened since nightfall. Ice panes cover what were once puddles, and they crackle under the tread as we make our way back to the roadside pullout. I put the truck in park and turn out the lights. We sit for a moment. I resist the urge to look at Alice. I look out into the black as the light from our headlights fades. The snow still glows. I pull out my cell phone to find one of the long-handled flashlights. Cassie has the other one. I hand it to Alice, and suddenly it dawns on me where she is.

  “I know you have no reason to trust me… and you’re probably as scared as I am, but I think I know where Cassie is.” Everything might be lost, but there’s always Hope.

  My words seem to reel her back in from a stare cast out in the night, and she says, “What are we waiting for?”

  “Come on,” I say. I feel like we are racing against time, but the real race is against the cold. And who or what will shield us from Jeremiah and his walk with the Bottle? I push back the question and reach for Alice. The answers are not in our hands.

  “Whose idea was this anyway?” Alice huffs as she rises up out of the road and on to the trail. My tracks still cling to the path, making it easier to navigate back to Maverick’s. At least we have a heading. “And what kind of interest could Jeremiah Jones have in my Cassie?”

  I start to answer. And then because images of too many unsolved crimes flash through my mind, I don’t.

  Her questions stop. She pauses on the trail and looks up briefly. Tiny pinpricks of light spark each upon each as the stars emerge. She sighs, and we move on.

  The trail dips into the canyon. The walls stand, an opaque blind, against the murky black. The creek promises life, pushing inky ribbons of water along the sandy bed. Alice is light on her feet, undeterred as we cross the semi-frozen stream.

  “Almost there,” I promise.

  “I know,” she says.

  You know?

  She doesn’t explain.

  The canyon bottlenecks, and we emerge, two chilled figures against the white.

  Maverick’s house is strangely serene. The snow blanket, untouched, softly rolls to meet the porch. An interior light sheds enough glow to spark copper and lilac glints in the fallen snow.

  I draw Grandma A into the shadow of a mountain mahogany, hoping it’s enough to cover us, and motion for silence. The house was dark an hour ago. This kind of calm is unnerving. There’s a rustle in the upper branches of a distant cottonwood. The deep hoot of a great horned owl gives his one warning.

  I take a moment to connect the dots, surveying a safe corridor in the shrubs and shadows. Then I wait, hoping that some sound will betray if anyone’s home. But there’s nothing now—just chilled silence.

  I squeeze Alice’s hand and start out on the
path I’ve traced for us. Taking shelter in the shadows of each mahogany and chamisa, I pause. My heart pounds again. Resolved, I squeeze Alice’s hand one more time. Our target, the tree house, is so close. But suddenly, she pulls back. I duck and turn to face her, frustrated with her hesitation. She points with her free hand at something neither of us wants to see. A bloodstain is smeared in an impression on the snow, and a wide track leads to the back of the house.

  “See,” comes Jeremiah’s voice from the tree house window, “I’m pretty smart after all. He cocks his rifle and lowers it to aim at us. We are two does caught, blindsided. “I know how you think. . .” he slurs. “And I know how to use it against you. Bet yer lookin’ for Cassie.”

  I look up at him, completely at a loss for what to say next.

  “And I bet,” Grandma A enjoins, “that you’ve had too much to drink.”

  What?

  “Well, I mighta had a little somethin’,” he sniggers. “But I know how to look after number one,” he says. His aim wavers again with the passion of his speech.

  “And Lord knows you’ve had to,” Grandma A soothes him. “What with your ma and pa and all that ugliness. You’ve had a rough go of things for sure.”

  “Hey… how do you know all that?”

  “There’s not a lot that I don’t know around here,” Alice sidesteps his question. Then she says, “I remember when your ma was pregnant with you. All the ladies in the sewing circle got busy making baby quilts, knitting booties and hats.” She sighs, sinking into the memory.

  We don’t have time for this Alice!!! There’s blood on the ground!

  “And yer mama was fussing over what she might call you…” Alice goes on, oblivious to our current circumstance, gun barrel and all.