At last, the monstrosity lay on its side in the grass, splintered poles and boards scattered around it like giant toothpicks. Dust roiled for long moments after the collapse, and Hutch shut off his truck, burrowed through the wreckage to unfasten the hook so his winch-line could be wound back into place. As before, the others followed his lead.
Finally, Hutch approached the squad car, dust covered and grinning wanly at Boone, though his whole countenance was sad as he gazed briefly in the direction of the airstrip outside of town, where a helicopter would be landing soon—if they were lucky. Both Missoula and Helena were miles away, and it wasn’t as if there were a lot of choppers waiting to lift off. Furthermore, nobody knew if the boy was going to make it or not and, even if he managed to survive, there was no way things would ever be the same for young Dawson, or any of the McCulloughs.
“I’ll send a crew over to clear away the debris,” Hutch said presently, meeting Boone’s eyes again and holding his gaze. “If the mayor wants somebody’s head for this, offer him mine.”
With that, Hutch turned to walk away.
“Wait a damn minute,” Boone nearly barked, getting out of his car and walking fast to catch up with Hutch, who barely slowed his stride. “You and Kendra have a baby on the way, damn it. You can’t take the blame for this, Hutch—not all of it, anyhow—I won’t let you.”
Hutch sighed. He waved to the last of his partners-in-crime as they drove away, then rested that same hand on Boone’s shoulder. “Whatever happens,” he answered, “we know one thing for sure. The McCullough kid was the first kid to fall from that water tower, and by God, he’ll be the last one, too.”
Boone surveyed the remains of a town landmark, nodded glumly. It looked like something out of a disaster movie, that pile of boards and metal and grime, and some folks around Parable weren’t going to be happy about what had happened, but what was done was done.
And he was glad.
“I guess I’d better go break the news to the appropriate authorities,” Boone said finally, dreading the prospect. Because he was an elected county official, he didn’t have to answer to the town, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t catch three kinds of hell from old Hannibal Hale, Parable’s crusty mayor.
Hale’s great-great-grandfather had been one of the first settlers in that part of Montana, and he and some other businessmen had overseen the construction of the water tower, a ploy to bring the railroad through Parable, thus putting the place on the map. The bold move had worked, too, though the tracks, lost in grass and the rubble of time, hadn’t borne the weight of a train in fifty years.
Hutch nodded again, as though he’d read Boone’s thoughts, lifted his hand from his shoulder, and continued toward his waiting truck. His cell phone played a few bars of a country love song as he moved, and Boone saw him stop dead in his tracks as he listened to whatever the caller was saying.
“I’ll be right there,” Boone heard Hutch say. “Hold on.”
“The baby?” Boone asked.
“On its way,” Hutch replied, looking both panicked and pleased. An instant later, he was in his truck, starting the engine, backing up to turn around the rig, and speeding away.
Boone silently wished Hutch and Kendra the best possible luck, climbed into his squad car and headed for the mayor’s house on River Bend Road. Hannibal was a caustic old SOB, but he wasn’t heartless. He’d be as sorry about Dawson McCullough’s accident as anybody else, though of course the town’s potential liability would come quickly to mind.
Once he’d spoken with the mayor, Boone meant to return to the office and dig in for the duration. Folks would be calling and showing up in person, most of them asking about Patsy’s boy, but there were bound to be a few bent on reading him the riot act over the destruction of the water tower.
He glanced in his rearview mirror, taking in what remained of the monument one more time before turning his full attention to the road, and the tasks, ahead.
“Good riddance,” he said in parting.
* * *
A SLEEK SILVER jet raced along the short runway just outside of Parable and lifted off, flashing against the blue sky. Knowing the plane belonged to Casey Elder, and having spotted the ambulance parked near the one and only hangar, Tara had pulled over her SUV to the side of the highway and stopped.
Elle was in the front seat this time, having won the coin toss before they left the mall over in Three Trees, while Erin rode in the back.
“That looks just like Dad’s jet,” Erin remarked.
Tara frowned, but, alarmed as she was by the sight of the ambulance driving slowly toward the highway, she didn’t pursue the matter.
“He’s only part owner,” Elle said matter-of-factly. She glanced over at Tara, already wearing the lavender overalls she’d chosen when they’d gone shopping for chicken-tending clothes. “Why are we stopped?”
“Something’s wrong,” Tara said distractedly. Private planes came and went, but Casey, a famous singer and the new owner of the mansion Kendra had once owned, was a friend, and Tara knew she’d just wrapped up a long stretch on the road. Upon her return, she’d invited Tara, Kendra and Joslyn to lunch at her place, remarking wearily that it would take a bomb to blast her away from Parable in general and her children in particular.
The ambulance reached the road and Charlie, sitting on the passenger side, waved at Tara as they passed.
Still parked, she grabbed her purse, rummaged for her cell phone, and speed-dialed Casey’s landline.
It was a relief when Casey answered with a low-energy “Hello, Tara.” If one of Casey’s children had been injured or ill, in need of emergency medical care, she’d have been onboard that jet with them.
“I just saw your jet taking off,” Tara began, feeling awkward now. “The ambulance was there—”
“A teenage boy fell from the water tower today,” Casey explained. “They were going to send for a helicopter, but my jet was right there on the runway, and the situation was urgent, so I called my pilot and asked him to make the flight.”
Tara’s stomach did a slow backward roll, then lurched forward again. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Who— How badly was the boy hurt?”
“He’s critical,” Casey said. “I didn’t catch his name.”
Tara thanked her friend and hung up. She was shaking as she put the SUV back in gear and pulled carefully onto the highway.
“What’s going on?” Elle asked, her voice small, her eyes big.
“There’s been an accident,” Tara answered, her tone wooden.
“Did something happen to Dad?” Erin whispered, from the backseat.
“No, honey,” Tara replied quickly, trying to smile but not quite succeeding. “I’m sure your dad is fine. Once we’re home, I’ll find out the details and let you know, okay?”
“Okay,” the twins chorused, still worried.
At home, the chickens greeted Tara and the girls with hungry squawks and flapping wings. The distraction was welcome, at least from Tara’s viewpoint. For a few brief, shining moments, she didn’t think about the terrible accident Casey had mentioned on the phone.
Elle, already clad in overalls, wanted to get right down to business and start feeding chickens, gathering eggs and mucking out the chicken coop with a pitchfork. Erin, shopping bags in hand, hurried inside the house to change into the very ordinary, no-name jeans she’d chosen on the shopping expedition.
Lucy, shut up in the house while they were away from home, bounded down the steps and rushed Tara, barking for joy. The way that dog acted, a person would have thought they’d been apart for days instead of mere hours.
As always, Lucy’s enthusiastic presence and unquestioning adoration lifted Tara’s spirits. She smiled and bent to ruffle those golden silky ears in greeting. “Hello, girl,” she said fondly. “It’s good to see you again, too.”
Tara spent the next half hour showing Elle and Erin how to gather eggs—even though she’d done that first thing that same morning, there were more now,
some speckled and some brown, and a few that were almost white.
“They don’t look like the ones our housekeeper buys,” Erin remarked seriously.
Elle, meanwhile, looked around at the floor of the temporarily vacant coop, nose twitching. Clearly, her interest in shoveling manure was already waning.
“What are we supposed to do with all this poop?” she asked Tara. She looked a sight, standing there in her pastel overalls, face solemn with second thoughts.
Tara grinned at her stepdaughter. “I load it into a wheelbarrow and haul it around back—way back—behind the tractor shed. This fall, and again in the spring, I’ll till it under to season. The flower beds and the vegetable garden love the stuff.” She paused for dramatic effect, enjoying Elle’s obvious consternation. “All of which, as it happens, are in constant need of weeding and watering and lots of loving encouragement.”
The flower beds, burgeoning with colorful zinnias, gerbera daisies, fat roses dopey on sunshine and numerous other horticultural delights, would have been impossible to miss, even in the excitement of arrival and the process of settling in. It was obvious, though, that Elle hadn’t spotted the vegetable garden, a fenced area behind the rickety old barn Tara had been meaning to tear down since she’d moved onto the farm. She probably spent more of her time there than anywhere else on her property, happy to kneel in good Montana dirt and tend the rows of lettuce and beans, corn and various herbs.
“Where did you think those lovely sliced tomatoes we had at supper last night, drizzled with olive oil and buffalo cheese, came from?”
“The supermarket?” Elle asked tentatively.
Erin laughed and shook her head and went in search of the wheelbarrow, Lucy swinging her plumed tail as she followed.
“Gardening is hard work, isn’t it?” Elle asked Tara. She hadn’t moved an inch, and she was still holding the none-too-clean egg she’d taken from one of the rows of straw-filled nests lining the walls of the coop.
“Yes,” Tara replied frankly, “but it’s also good for the soul. You’ll see.”
With that, she patted her stepdaughter’s shoulder reassuringly, smiled again and went off to change into work clothes of her own—jeans, a T-shirt and the pair of ugly, hopelessly filthy boots she kept on the back porch.
Joslyn called just as she was heading back outside.
Tara grabbed her cell phone from the kitchen counter, where she’d left it on the way in, and greeted her friend with a subdued “Hello,” remembering that there had been an accident earlier that day—no doubt Joslyn was calling to tell her about that.
“Did you hear?” Joslyn asked immediately.
“About what happened at the water tower, you mean?” Tara said, as she descended the back steps and started around the side of the large farmhouse to rejoin the twins at the chicken coop.
“That, too,” Joslyn said.
“‘Too’?” Tara echoed. Good heavens, what else could have happened in or around Parable so quickly?
“Let’s talk about the happy news first,” Joslyn responded.
Tara’s heart lifted a little, and she smiled to see Elle up ahead, diligently shoveling chicken manure into the waiting wheelbarrow while Erin scattered feed on the ground for the hens and rooster to peck at. “Happy news?” she repeated, confused. “What—?”
“Kendra’s in labor,” Joslyn said. “She’s at Parable General Hospital even as we speak—Slade went over to lend Hutch some moral support, and he just called to say everything’s going well. Hutch was suiting up to go into the delivery room with her as of five minutes ago.”
Tara’s eyes misted over; she knew how excited Hutch and Kendra were over the coming of this child. They both adored their adopted daughter, Madison, regarding her as their own, but they’d traveled a long and broken road to find each other again, after bitter years apart. The new baby, conceived in the passion of renewed love, would be born—and raised—within the vast reaches of their joined hearts.
“That’s wonderful,” she whispered, feeling, and acknowledging, the tiniest twinge of jealousy. What could be better, she wondered sadly, than to love and be loved by a good man, as Kendra loved and was loved by Hutch, and to produce a child by that union?
Once, she’d fully expected to live out her life as a wife and a mother and possibly even a grandmother someday. Instead, she had married Mr. Wrong and, in the end, lost everything. She slowed her pace and instinctively gazed at her stepdaughters.
Straighten up, she told herself sternly. This isn’t about you.
“So,” Joslyn went on, “once the baby actually gets here, Slade will call me with the news and I’ll pass it on to you.”
“I’ll be waiting to hear,” Tara said softly. She’d go shopping again, as soon as she knew whether the new arrival was a boy or a girl, and buy tons of baby presents.
Joslyn sighed. “The other thing,” she began, before her voice fell away.
Between her husband Slade’s tenure as former sheriff and the fact that Opal Dennison kept house for them, Joslyn usually knew about everything that went on in Parable County.
“Casey said a teenage boy fell from the water tower?” Tara prompted, after gulping hard and stopping before she reached the twins. “She didn’t know who he was, though.”
“Dawson McCullough,” Joslyn replied sadly. “It’s touch and go, from what I’ve heard. Opal is already talking about raising money to help out with the costs—Patsy, Dawson’s mom, is a single mother, barely making ends meet.”
“No father in the picture?” Tara asked.
The twins, probably reading her expression, had stopped doing their chores to stand staring at her, their faces worried and earnest and so incredibly young.
“He’s doing time, out of state,” Joslyn said without judgment. Her own stepfather, Elliott Rossiter, had died in prison, and she knew how hard incarceration was on families.
“Let me know if I can do anything, anything at all,” Tara said, feeling ineffectual. Sure, she could write a check, say a few prayers, gather vegetables from her garden to take to the McCulloughs, but that didn’t seem like much in the face of such a tragedy.
“Of course,” Joslyn told her gently. “I’d better get off the phone—Shea and Opal just pulled in, and Boone’s boys are with them—probably means Boone’s going to be working all night, poor guy.”
Tara felt another twinge, this time of guilt, rather than envy. Boone might be obnoxious, but he was her neighbor. Just the night before, he’d brought his children to her for safekeeping, after old Zeb Winchell was found dead. Rather than ask for her help again, he must have turned to Opal this time.
For some reason that hurt.
“Talk to you soon,” she told Joslyn, ending the call and tucking the cell into the pocket of her jeans.
“You said you’d tell us what happened,” Erin reminded her, standing a little closer to Elle. “In town, I mean.”
Tara nodded. Then, as best she could, she explained about the water tower, and how teenagers and even younger kids were forever climbing the thing, and now a boy had fallen. His name was Dawson, she told them, and she didn’t know how badly he was hurt.
“Badly enough to need a jet to get him to a hospital,” Elle said. As doctor’s daughters, both girls knew how serious the situation was.
Erin nodded, her hands gripping the handles of the brimming wheelbarrow, then frowned. “Isn’t there a hospital in Parable?” she asked. “I thought we passed one today, on our way out of town.”
“There’s a hospital,” Tara confirmed, remembering that Kendra and Hutch’s baby was being born there, right then. “But it’s not equipped for the kind of care Dawson will need.”
“Oh,” said Elle.
After that, all three of them went back to work, thinking their own thoughts.
CHAPTER NINE
THINGS ARE NEVER SO BAD, Boone thought ruefully, as he drove away from Mayor Hale’s stately home a little over an hour after the disaster at the water tower, that they can
’t get worse.
Hale, a portly man in his mid-sixties, with a head of white hair that reminded Boone of Mark Twain, had been waiting on his veranda—with all that fretwork and gingerbread, the thing was too elaborate to be called a mere porch—looking as though he might bite his unlit cigar in half. Obviously, word of the incident had already reached him.
“This is what we get for depending on your department to keep Parable safe for decent people!” he’d raged, before Boone had even managed to open the front gate, let alone step through it. “Setting up a municipal police force would strain the town’s budget, but it sure as hell would have been cheaper than the multimillion-dollar lawsuit we’re probably facing now!”
The town’s lack of its own law enforcement agency, however modest, had been a sore spot with Hannibal Hale since his election, way back in the early eighties. He’d never liked being dependent on the sheriff’s department, and thus the county, but the council members had repeatedly voted to table the matter.
Too bad the mayor hadn’t been as concerned about that damnable water tower, and the threat it presented to generations of kids.
“Has there been any word about the boy’s condition?” Boone had asked evenly, fighting back the impulse to jump straight down the mayor’s throat and set him straight on a few things. He knew the old man would have made calls by then, and not just to the town’s attorneys, a citified bunch with offices over in Three Trees, but to the administrators of the most likely hospitals in Missoula and Helena, as well.
Some of the bluster had gone out of Hale at the reference to Dawson McCullough, and Boone had seen his hand tremble as he removed the cigar from between his piano-key dentures and lowered it to his side. “Spinal injuries,” he’d replied gruffly, the first signs of chagrin gathering in his wide, bulb-nosed face. He’d extracted his pocket watch and snapped open the case to check the time. “He’ll be heading into surgery right about now.”
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