Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement and let off the gas. A doe and two fawns hopped onto the road from the ditch. Shit. I jammed my foot on the brakes. They caught and the SUV skidded sideways. I steered into it, fishtailed, and overcorrected. Suddenly, the pedal met the floor, and the brakes went out. I lost sight of the doe. The wheels caught the opposite shoulder. The SUV tipped, landed on the roof, slid backwards toward the creek, and came to a scraping halt.
I hung upside down in the seat belt and caught my breath for a few moments, then ran down my body checklist out of long habit. This was a piece of cake compared with getting dumped by a galloping horse. All those falls had taught me not to panic, but to get up quickly, and secure the horse. I wasn’t hurt, but a touch disoriented—I didn’t usually land head down, feet up. In the rearview mirror, I could see water lapping along the back windows.
First, I hoped I hadn’t squished any deer. Second, I was glad I hadn’t opened the sunroof, which I’d been about to do. Third, I figured I’d better get the hell out of there because the SUV was slowly shifting farther into the creek.
Ian Anderson still blared from the speakers. The engine had stalled. I turned the key and removed it, pushed against the ceiling to lessen the pressure on the belt, unbuckled, and maneuvered myself upright. The driver’s door wouldn’t budge. It was against the embankment. I crab-walked to the passenger side, released the handle with my foot, kicked the door open, and climbed out.
I shook myself and noticed that each blade of grass appeared individually illuminated. The thousand ripples and purls of the creek mixed with bird song and the sigh of leaves moved by a breeze. The stench of oil and gas rose from the engine. It pinged, and fluid dripped somewhere.
The hyper-vigilance of adrenaline had me in its grip again. Looking at the dirty bottom of the truck with its wheels in the air made me dizzy. I pushed the strap of my purse onto my shoulder and walked away from it, fishing my phone out of my purse at the same time.
No signal down here in the little river valley.
A blue Beetle came from the direction of town. Renee. I scrambled up to the road and waved. She stopped, leaned across the seat, and rolled down the passenger window.
“Vi?”
“Renee, am I glad to see you. Can you give me a lift?”
She looked from me to the SUV. “What happened? Are you all right?” She flicked on her car’s emergency flashers, got out, and came over.
“You think he’ll be upset?” I asked, gesturing lamely toward the overturned vehicle.
“Honey, you’re looking a might peaked. You better sit down. Here.” She opened her car door. “Get in.”
I got in. She put a bottle of water in my hand.
“I’ll be right back.” She went down to look at the wreck.
I couldn’t believe Malcolm had lent me his truck when it had faulty brakes. He was the type to keep everything in good working order.
Renee returned and sat behind the steering wheel. “Let’s get you home.”
“You didn’t see any dead deer underneath it, did you?”
“Girl, did you hit your head?”
“I don’t think so.” But the temptation to bang my head against the wall had come over me all too often of late.
“Let me look at you.” She took my face in her hands. They were cool. She had long fingers that she used to gently probe my scalp, then hold my jaw and move my head. “Neck feel okay? Dizzy? Vision blurred?”
I resisted the urge to slap her hands away. “Too many questions. What about the deer?”
“What deer?” She pulled my lower lids down and peered into my eyes. “Have you been drinking or something?”
“No, I haven’t been drinking.” I removed her hands from my face. “I was going to the bank. A freaking deer family jumped in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, but…” They’d caught at first, then went out completely. Malcolm would keep his truck serviced. Could someone have…
“But what?”
“They didn’t work.”
- 30 -
“Peaked?” I asked as we drove to Winterlight. “Is that a reference to my aura?”
“You better stop that,” she said, but with a smile. “No, ‘peaked’ would be a reference to you looking whiter than even white people are supposed to look. And you’re not usually so white to begin with.”
“Um…thank you?”
“Welcome.”
“And I’m sorry I was so unpleasant about your smudging.”
“I guess it is kinda weird if you’ve never seen it before.”
“That doesn’t make it okay to be like that.”
“Forget it,” she said with a wave of her hand. “That was Malcolm’s SUV, wasn’t it?”
“He lent it to me. My truck has a dead battery.”
She shook her head and said nothing other than, “Um, um, um,” until we pulled in. “I see Dex One is here.”
I mimicked her tone. “Um-hm.”
“He’s pretty fine for a white boy, isn’t he? But then, so’s Malcolm.”
I hesitated, unsure of my footing with her. “They both seem like good guys…”
She flashed a grin full of perfect, white teeth. “I’m just messing with you. My husband was white.”
Before what, she dyed him black? “Was?”
“He passed on last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why, you didn’t make him dead, did you?” She looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if she suspected I might have had something to do with it.
“Eh…no.”
“I didn’t think so. Let’s give Mr. Goody-Gum-Shoe the news. Is Malcolm here?”
“No, he went to a client’s in the city,” I said. “Do you know what he does?”
“Something with computers. Programming, I guess.”
I had a hard time picturing him hunched over a keyboard. “He doesn’t strike me as the computer geek type.”
“Dex says he was a jock when he was in school. Baseball, football, whatever. And that sport where you do five things—pentathlon?”
“The one where you ride, shoot and…?”
“Fence, run, and swim,” she finished for me. “Yeah. Guess you have to be in good shape to do all that. He’s still got that athletic build. Keeps himself fit.”
“Athletic. Yeah. That’s what I’d call it, too.”
“Hah.” She poked me in the shoulder. “Good one, New York. Just admit it, you think he’s fine.”
There was no point denying it. An image of him after he stripped off his shirt the night before popped into my brain. “Yes, I’d have to say he’s mighty fine.”
Dex One gave Renee’s car and me getting out of it a very thorough once-over. Not the kind that expresses admiration.
“What happened?”
I looked to Renee, let her explain.
“Vi swerved to avoid Bambi and flipped Mr. Malcolm’s SUV near into the river. You got a problem with that?”
He jerked his head around and gave me a different kind of once-over. “Are you all right?”
“I think so. I had my seat belt on.”
“Don’t she look kinda pale to you?” Renee said.
He took my arm and started toward the barn. “Come inside and sit down.”
“The brakes went out.”
He stopped and turned very slowly. “Say that again.”
“She said the brakes went out,” Renee said. “You losing your hearing now too, Dex?”
He gave her a look I couldn’t read. “Have you told anyone?”
“No,” I said. “It just happened. Renee came by right after.”
“Good. I’m going to have a look. You sit tight. I’ll call Malcolm and a tow truck when I get back.”
We watched him get in his truck and drive off.
“Sit tight,” Renee spat. “Who does he think he is, anyway, telling us to sit tight? He might as well have said, ‘Now don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, darlin’, I’ll take care of ever
ything.’”
“It’s fine with me.” I went to the tack-room. This was my chance to get out of Dodge, and I wasn’t going to miss it.
She followed. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Just a little shaky.” I considered running upstairs for a shot of whipped cream or some sort of snack, but decided it could wait. “Let’s go for a ride.”
“You sure you’re up to it?”
I did a neck roll, stretched, and cracked a few joints. “Oh, yeah. The real question is how fast can you be ready?”
A little light lit behind Renee’s eyes. She ran to get Smitty, who hadn’t been badly injured after all when all the horses got out, and I grabbed Gaston.
Two minutes later, we were on a trail, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. Not quite alone, but I was fairly certain Renee was sane, she wouldn’t chat my ear off, and she wouldn’t give me the third degree. I hadn’t seen her ride, but I had a feeling she could keep up.
“Now, you want to tell me what the rush was, New York?”
I tilted my head in the general direction of the barn. “That fine piece of white flesh back there was on the job, and his job was keeping an eye on me.”
“You in some kind of trouble?”
I explained about JJ.
“Ohhhh, I see.” She shook her head. “Never did like that boy.”
“Bad aura?”
“Um,” she said with emphasis. “Bad news all the way round.”
We trotted side-by-side along a field. She was slim and had a strong leg and soft hands. Smitty mouthed the bit, but didn’t fight. They presented a pleasant picture, and Renee was a good rider. Smitty wasn’t as big as Gaston, but he was fit. She looked to be, too, though I couldn’t tell her age. She had graying hair, but her skin, which was the rich brown of a well-oiled bridle, was as smooth as mine. She could be anywhere from my age on up to fifty.
“What about Norman?” I asked.
“He was okay,” she said. “Nothing like JJ. But I worried anyway.”
We took a path into the woods that might have been a dirt road at one time, now overgrown with disuse, but still wide enough for us to ride abreast.
“Worried about Norman, or you worried when he was around?”
“Neither, exactly. I worried he wasn’t good for Winterlight, you know? He just didn’t have the kind of image I think Malcolm wants to present to the public.”
I thought of Norman’s over-the-top cowboy routine.
“I wouldn’t want anything to happen to this place,” she said.
Which meant she might know of Robert’s dilemma, but not necessarily.
“Why would anything happen to this place?”
She brought Smitty to walk, and we let the horses stretch their necks. There, Penny, I thought, I’m riding on the buckle. Happy now?
“I don’t know,” Renee said. “I just wouldn’t want to lose it.” She stroked Smitty’s neck. “He was my husband’s horse, you know. After Leroy died, I had to sell him to pay some debts. Malcolm bought him for a fair price and promised he’d keep him until I could buy him back.”
Was the man a freaking saint?
“I didn’t ride when Leroy and I first met. Took it up to please him. Loved it. He bought me a pack of lessons for my birthday last July. Then he up and had a heart attack.” She shook her head and sighed. “Not that Norman was much of an instructor. But if something happened to Winterlight…it’s my connection with Leroy, see?”
I saw. And I added Renee to my list of potential suspects. Maybe they all did it, like Murder on the Orient Express. I didn’t like being suspicious of everyone, though. And I still didn’t know what Norman had done to get himself killed in the first place. I needed to find a way to listen to that tape. Sandy would probably know if Norman had an answering machine it fit. Not that that would mean anything. Maybe she had an answering machine that took a little tape like that. Did I want to involve her? No, I decided. But I did wonder where she’d been.
I put it out of my mind. It was a glorious day, not too hot, not too cold. Gaston could feel the current of eagerness running through me and tossed his head in anticipation.
I pointed to the trail ahead. “Where does this go?”
“Never followed it to the end, but it runs like this for quite a ways. Probably goes to the river. I don’t care for water, so I don’t go down there.”
“Clear and level, no sudden ravines or sharp turns or low branches?”
She got that gleam in her eye again. “You have something you want to do, New York? Something that involves speed?”
“You read my mind.”
She smiled and dropped back a length. “Lead on, you wild white woman, lead on.”
“Yell when we get beyond the area you’re familiar with, okay?”
She nodded.
I set off in canter and after a few strides, took a glance over my shoulder to make sure she was okay. She gave me a thumbs-up, and I let Gaston flatten down into gallop. He cut loose with a few bucks, and I heard Renee whoop.
“Yeehaw,” I yelled.
I hunkered down over his neck and felt at home for the first time since coming to Winterlight. The only way it could have been better was if I’d been aboard Cali…or Wastrel. But Gaston was smooth and sure and strong. He reveled in the freedom of the full-out run just as much as I did.
We rounded several turns, went down an incline, then up again and through a small clearing. Beyond that, a log crossed the path, but we jumped it easily, and so did Renee and Smitty. She laughed. Smitty must’ve done something silly. After another minute, Gaston began to slow on his own, and I let him. We cantered, then trotted, and Renee brought Smitty alongside. They were both breathing hard, but she grinned.
“That was great, New York! Wow. Don’t know if I’ve ever galloped that long at one time before. Whew. Thanks.” She wiped a small clod of dirt off her cheek.
“Felt good, didn’t it? It’s great to just blow it out every now and then. Good for the engine, just like a car.” My head felt clearer than it had in days. I thought I’d never get out of that place.
“I think the horses liked it, too.” She rubbed Smitty’s sweaty shoulder. “Didn’t you, boy?”
We were still on the overgrown road, in dense woods, but I thought I could see it clearing up ahead.
“Do you know where we are?”
She looked around. “No, this is way past where I usually turn around. I’m not even sure we’re still on Winterlight.”
“How big is the farm, anyway? Do you know?”
“Not exactly, but it’s over five-hundred acres.”
I couldn’t imagine how big that was, or how you’d know when you had crossed the border onto someone else’s property. I’d have to ask Malcolm for a map. It was certainly big enough to get lost on. Or to hide something.
The trees thinned up ahead, and I could make out the shape of a structure of some kind.
“Looks like we might be coming to someone’s else’s ground,” Renee said. “Maybe we should go back.”
Maybe, but something drew me forward. “What direction have we been going?” I was pretty sure we’d headed south away from the barn, but we’d made so many turns since then, I’d lost track.
“Mostly south, I think, why?”
“Does that look like a trailer to you?”
She looked where I pointed.
“My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, but I think you’re right.” As we got closer, she said, “Windows are busted out, and a tree’s growing in front of the door. Looks deserted. But I’ve seen people live in worse.”
We entered the tiny clearing and rode around the trailer.
“Yeah, me too.”
The road leading away hadn’t seen traffic in years. Debris littered the area—a broken bucket half filled with water, a box spring, a gas stove, beer cans, shards of glass, bald tires, an old television missing its guts. Over in the woods to one side, a faded pickup truck up on blocks and more trash. All of it
was overgrown with grass and weeds. Yellow wildflowers bloomed inside the TV, and honeysuckle vines climbed over the truck’s bed.
The window on one short end of the trailer was intact and had a Confederate flag painted on the glass instead of a curtain.
We came full circle to the back, where the door was missing. I dismounted.
“What are you doing?” Renee asked.
“I’m just curious. Hold him a minute, will you?” I handed her Gaston’s reins.
“Good thing you’re not a cat,” she muttered.
I went up the steps and inside. A sour smell hit me first. In front of me was a tiny laundry room with a stained pair of overalls on the floor, but no appliances. I turned right and stood in the kitchen from my dream. The little white Westie wasn’t there, but he’d vanished both times when I followed him from the first room to this. I hadn’t noticed the smells when I’d been sleeping, but it was dank with mildew and felt cold. Glass and torn linoleum crunched under my feet. I went into the trailer’s living room, but it was not the one from my dreams. A painting of the ocean hung crookedly over a stained green couch whose stuffing was mostly on the carpeted floor.
I glanced down a dark hallway that must’ve led to a bathroom and a couple of bedrooms. Probably the farthest room was the one with the flag on the window. I saw no reason to explore in that direction.
Was I supposed to look for something here? Wastrel had never been in these places, only brought me to them. There wasn’t room for him inside, but what did that matter? The laws of physics didn’t apply in dreams, did they?
Because the kitchen was where the dog always led me, I returned to it. The little room had a wooden table and damp leaves on the floor. Cabinet doors gaped. Inside one, a box of baking soda lying on its side had spilled its contents long ago in a white waterfall to the green counter. Sunlight came through the window over the sink, and I could imagine a plant thriving there, a woman tending it. A woman who baked cookies. I didn’t need Renee’s abilities to know the whole place held deep sadness. I shivered and went outside.
This was JJ’s parents’ place, I was sure of it. It fit Hank’s description. Why else would I have dreamed about it? But what did it mean?
Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle Page 20