Then I stopped, my fingers suspended in midair.
I was starting to panic.
What if I actually found him?
Last summer, I flew home for a visit and went with friends up to a ski resort. We rode one of those slides, a mile-long half pipe that zigzagged across the heavily wooded mountainside. We each jumped on a short sled and were shoved forward. At first it was exhilarating. Fresh, cool mountain air, the smell of evergreen trees and grass in the meadow as you rocketed downward. The view from that high up was stunning. But something went wrong with my brakes about halfway down and it accelerated out of control, speeding faster and faster, whipping around switchbacks and thundering down straightaways. I was nearly thrown off into the rocks and stumps along the way. It was terrifying.
That same feeling crept up on me as I sat at my computer, a growing sensation of dread. The momentum of the hunt for my father had been so strong. I had hoped that here was someone—my own biological kin—who could potentially be the repository of something of value for me. Perhaps he had some traits, genes, or life experiences that could breathe life into my own existence. Could knowing him help ward off a chain of future personal failures?
What if he was just a really horrible person?
It didn’t sound like he was.
And why had he never tried to find me? Or did he? The whys tormented me.
And what if he was a really great human being?
And what kind of damage would I do to him or to his family if I found him? What if I opened up old wounds? What if family secrets spilled out of long forgotten vaults?
The unknown was terrifying.
I shivered.
I closed the lid on my laptop. My eyes burned and my stomach reminded me that I had missed dinner.
I went to the refrigerator and rummaged in the fruit drawer for an orange. My phone rang and a shock of joy ran through me as I saw Michael’s number. I swallowed hard. Don’t get your hopes up, I thought. I stiffened. Don’t allow yourself to be vulnerable. Nonetheless, I was shaking.
“Hello?” My voice sounded small.
“Hi.” It was so good to hear his voice, warm and gravelly.
“I heard you were back.” I would keep it light. Breathe, I told myself.
“I am. Yes. Hey, are you tired? There’s something I need to show you.”
“What is it?”
“Can I come over?” he asked.
Be careful. Don’t let your guard down, my inner voice said.
“Sure,” I heard myself say. The excitement of seeing him again washed away my fatigue.
Before the word was out of my mouth, the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and saw him standing on the porch. I flung open the door, letting in the crisp night air.
Even beneath a week’s worth of dark stubble, he was beautiful.
“I just got back. From Alaska,” he said, wringing his ball cap in his hands.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling short of breath.
“Jenna, I talked to Jack. He said … he said you don’t like roses much.”
I was baffled, then broke into a laugh when I caught on, the tension beginning to unwind in my body. “Did he tell you about that?”
“Jenna, I feel like an idiot. I thought maybe you weren’t done with him—that guy. Maybe you needed a little more time. I wanted to give you some space. I guess I should have asked you.”
“Yes, you should have,” I said, crossing my arms, but betrayed myself with a nervous smile.
“The truth is, I just couldn’t stand to think of losing you. I just couldn’t think about it. And I ended up thinking about it—thinking about you—every minute I was gone.” He looked into my eyes and reached to touch my hand.
“Well, just remember Zee is not in charge of my social life—Jack either, in fact.” I tried to sound stern, but I was melting at his touch. “I’m sure it would surprise them, but they don’t know everything about me.”
“Neither do I. I’m willing to learn.”
His hand was warm against my cheek.
He smiled boyishly. “Come here a minute,” he said, reaching for my hand. “You’ll need a jacket.”
He took my coat out of the closet and draped it over my shoulders. I followed him onto the porch. The lawn in front of my house was a constellation of luminaries flickering amber in the cold night. His Explorer was parked at the curb, window rolled down, and the soft sound of strings and the crystal voice of Josh Groban filled the air.
“How did you … ? This is so beautiful.”
He led me out on the lawn. “Will you dance with me?” he said. The light from the candles flickered in his eyes.
“Of course,” I said, my voice trembling.
He put his arms around me. I felt the stubble of his beard, his breath in my hair, his mouth close to my ear.
“Jenna, I’m sorry. I need you. I need you so much it scares me.”
We danced in the dim light, his arms holding me close. I buried my face in the soft fleece of his jacket, feeling our hearts beating together.
The music ended but he held me still. He sang the last refrain softly, his voice gravely. He was nowhere near the pitch. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
We stood in the soft light, in the stillness of the cool night, a peace settling around us, a peace that unfortunately was not to last.
Chapter 35
dc
Michael called the next day to ask if I could go with him down to Darby. He had to evaluate some property where they were designing a log home. He said we could get dinner there and then swing by the ranch to see Ann and Martin. Was I free? I said I was and then hung up and scrambled for phone numbers to get a sub for work.
The day passed quickly with stories from Michael about Alaska. There had been time to catch an enormous salmon and hike beside massive crystal ice floes. He’d been forced to climb a tree to avoid a bear cub when he heard the mother crashing in the brush. The scenery was like something out of a fantasy book, he said.
We walked the lot where his company was designing a three-thousand-square-foot home overlooking the Bitterroot River just south of town. You could practically hear the wheels turning as he envisioned the layout of the place.
We had lunch at the Moose Creek Barbecue in Hamilton. We ate tender pulled pork sandwiches with “Cowboy Stampede” sauce, while we sat amidst the ambiance of 1920s reprints on the walls and peanut shells scattered on the floor.
Martin and Ann were at home but Zee was studying with a friend—a reprieve of sorts from the grounding episode.
“You two coming up for homecoming next week?” Martin asked. “We plan to smoke some fish and feed some of Jack’s friends afterwards. Will you be here?”
I said we were planning on it.
After a short visit, Ann pressed a basket into my hands filled with homemade delicacies like huckleberry jam, fresh whole-wheat honey bread and canned peaches. “You look skinnier every time I see you,” she fretted.
It was after dark when we said goodbye. We drove down the lane and past the barn. We were just rounding the corner and were picking up speed when a black mound suddenly loomed ahead in the road.
“Watch out!” I cried just as Michael hit the brakes and the car skidded to a stop amid a spray of gravel.
“What is that?” he asked.
Bear? We didn’t have bear come this far down out of the mountains very often. It was bigger than a bear. It lay motionless, a smooth horn gleaming a ghostly white in the beams of the headlights.
“It’s one of the bison.” I said.
A bison, down in the road. Why was it out? They never challenged the fence. I looked along the gray line of barbed wire for a break. Was it sick? Had it been hit by a car?
My door creaked loudly in the quiet night as I stepped out into the steely cold air, straining my eyes to see what was wrong. I started when I heard a thumping noise behind me. I turned to see a wooly form crossing the road, reddened by the car’s taillights. Were the
y all out? What happened to the fence?
I walked cautiously to the downed bison, keeping in mind how dangerous a thousand-pound animal can be when wounded. But his ribs were not moving. A glazed eye glinted sightless in the starlight. Probably a young male, I thought. I reached down to touch its chestnut coat. Still warm.
Michael came up beside me. “Do you think it was hit by a car?”
There was no sign of a struggle, no damage, only one black trickle of blood coming from behind his ear.
“I … I don’t know. Shot, looks like.” But why? A bison would bring hundreds of dollars on the market. The hide alone would be well over a thousand dollars. Why leave it here? I looked around to see who could have done this.
We were close to the corral where I had met Cindy the day we ran the herd through the chute to care for them. Michael crossed the road with me to the gate. It stood open. A shaft of gold glinted off of the lock flung to one side, the shaft severed.
The moon washed the nearby sheds into an eerie whiteness. All color was seeped from the landscape; it looked flat like a two-dimensional pen and ink sketch. The rest of the bison were silhouetted against the rough lines of pasture and trees beyond. They were clumped together but moved restlessly back and forth. I wondered how many were left, if others had been shot.
“We have to close the gate before the others get out.” I shivered in my light jacket as I probed around in the darkness for the gate latch.
“I have a flashlight in my car,” Michael said. He turned just as a red pickup pulled out of the woods on the other side of the road and eased itself between us and Michael’s Explorer.
“Neighbor?” Michael said.
“I don’t remember anyone nearby having a truck like that. But wait …” The man turned and I saw his angular shape and the pale ponytail caught the light. It was the man I saw the evening I was at the river with Zee, the one who stared at me from the crowd in the Carousel.
My throat tightened. I reached for Michael’s arm.
The door on the driver’s side of the truck fell open with a screech of metal. The silhouette of a booted foot hit the road. I could swear I heard the cocking of a rifle.
“I have a really bad feeling about this,” I whispered.
Michael pulled me through the gate toward the shed. I jumped as a shot rang out once, then again. Air squealed from the tires on the Explorer.
My fingers shook as I fumbled with the latch on the shed door. I flung the door open and plunged into the blackness, into the smell of hay dust and leather.
My heart banged against my chest and my throat was dry as Michael shut the door behind us.
“Here,” I whispered and pulled Michael into a stall near the back wall. We used to play there as kids, one of my favorite hiding places.
“Do you have your phone?” Michael whispered.
I shook my head, chagrined. It was in my bag in the car. If only I had my Glock … but even then it would have been in my purse.
“What do we do?” I asked, panic rising in my voice.
A sudden hope grew in me that Elizabeth and Jack would come along soon on their way home and help us. Just as quickly fear overtook it. The thought of them coming unaware upon the man with the gun, Jordan and the baby in the back seat, shook me.
The doorknob on the shed door rattled. I felt Michael tighten his arm around me when the door crashed open, splintering in every direction.
I looked around wildly. We were trapped. The only other way out was a small window across the room. The man stood filling the doorway, his gun at the ready. The headlights from the cars flooded from behind but did not illuminate his face beneath the cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes. The long barrel of his rifle glinted in the darkness. He panned the interior of the shed. I covered my mouth to still the sound of my breath raking from my chest.
My mind raced. A diversion. On the opposite wall a row of shovels and pitchforks hung over two large aluminum garbage cans. What could I throw? I fumbled in my pockets until the heavy silver coin fell against my fingers. Lady Liberty. I had kept her there in my pocket to remind me of the lessons the old man taught. I needed her now. Shaking, I pulled the coin from the plastic packet. I touched Michael’s shoulder and pointed silently at the shovels, making a throwing motion with my hand.
“Get ready,” I mouthed in the dim light. Michael nodded
I rose up as far as I dared behind the wooden slats of the stall and threw hard. The coin sparkled as it shot through the air. It hit a small shovel with a loud bang. Unbelievably, the tool swung on its peg and fell onto the metal garbage cans with enough noise to wake the dead. The man with the gun jumped and shot, then turned and ran from the building. We heard him fall and curse on the path outside. We listened as his footsteps receded toward the truck. We waited, our hearts pounding, but the truck did not drive off.
“We have to get out of here,” Michael said. “We shouldn’t try the door.”
I pointed to the back of the building at the small window, and we crept toward it along the back wall.
We pushed against the weathered wooden frame until it gave and fell open with a crack. Michael cautiously leaned out into the darkness, then said, “Follow me.”
He pulled himself through the opening, then helped me out. As I rose to my feet, I heard a thud and a black hole in the dim light suddenly loomed before me. A black snout huffed and a tendril of smoke grew in the cold air under the moonlight. I froze. The flared nostrils and wild eyes came closer until I could feel the warmth of the bison’s breath on my face. Instinctively, I put my hand behind me to warn Michael to be still. The big animal pawed the ground. I could feel its panic, electric in the air. It turned and I saw the twisted horn. It was Lakota, the one nurtured as a baby in Cindy’s living room.
She looked at me, her eyes intense, then she calmed and suddenly wheeled and ran off, a thousand pounds whirling into motion on comparatively small hooves. I breathed a sigh of relief. Had she recognized me? With the smell of blood from the downed bison in the air, I couldn’t believe she didn’t attack.
Michael whistled softly. “That was close.”
We ran, keeping low through the deep grass in the direction of the house. When we hit the fence by the woods, we looked back in time to see the battered truck pull slowly away.
“Who was that guy?” Michael asked. “I couldn’t see his face very well.”
“He looked like the man that was watching Zee and me that day at the river. Remember, you saw him at the Carousel? But also … I can’t believe this,” I said.
“What?”
“Come on,” I said, spreading the barbed wire in the fence and leading the way through to the small field on the other side.
We ran through the pasture into the woods, tripping on roots and rocks despite the moonlight and arrived at the porch of the house just as Jack and Elizabeth and the kids were coming out.
“I thought you left,” Jack said. “Where’s your car?”
“What happened to you?” Elizabeth asked taking in our muddy clothes and the twigs in our hair.
“We need to call the cops,” I managed to gasp out. “The bison. Someone’s shot a bison.”
Martin appeared behind Jack. “What the … ?”
We hurried in the house and Elizabeth pulled out her cell phone.
“Who?” Martin demanded.
“I don’t know who he is, but I’ve seen him at the river … and in Missoula.”
“What happened to the bison?” Ann came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “Are you two all right?”
I heard Elizabeth on the phone with the sheriff. Martin disappeared and came back with his .38 rifle.
“He’s gone, Martin. He drove off,” I said, a hand raised.
Martin scowled and looked disappointed at missing the chance to plug a bison rustler.
Michael told them about hiding in the shed and how I’d thrown the coin to create a diversion so we could escape through the window.
Jack whist
led. “All those hours at Beer Pong paid off, didn’t they?”
I gave him a wry grin. We both knew the only beer I ever drank was root beer. But I had been a crack shot with darts and had beaten him many times when we were young.
Twenty minutes later, we were down at the shed by the sheriff’s car. Michael looked at the tires on his rig with chagrin.
“I have a spare, but I’ll need two,” he said.
Martin spoke up. “I think I got something for you. You can’t live on a ranch and not be prepared for a flat or two.”
The sheriff said, “I looked around when I got here. Inside the shed is clear. You say this fellow had a rifle?”
Michael and I repeated the story.
“Looks like you guys were pretty lucky.” He turned to Martin. “You got any enemies? Ex-employees? Anybody you know who would do this? Doesn’t look like theft. Just the one animal killed. I counted the seventy-five head you said would be left in that pasture, including the two I saw in the woods across the road.”
“Yeah, I’ll get those,” Martin said. He headed toward the barn for the ATV.
“You guys get a license plate number on that truck by any chance?” The sheriff pulled a pad of paper from his pocket and stroked his handlebar mustache.
I shook my head.
“B-17947, but I’m not sure about the last number,” Michael said.
I raised my eyebrows. “How d’you … ? Everything was happening so fast.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Adrenaline rush.”
“Bison are valuable animals,” the sheriff said. “Looks to me like you may have an amateur rustler on your hands. He sure made a mess of things.”
I turned to the sheriff. “Listen, I don’t want to sound paranoid, but there may be a possibility this was not about the bison. I think I saw this same man last week when I was down at the river with Zee.”
“He threaten you in some way?”
“No. When he was at the river, he was just watching us. But I had this feeling … And I saw him at the ranch in his red pick up, and again in Missoula.”
The sheriff said nothing but made some notes in his folder. I felt ridiculous, like I was somehow trying to steal the attention from what had happened. But still, why was the man at the river that day? There were no bison around? And I had that strange feeling of foreboding like he was not just there to enjoy the view. Plus, why would he be at the Carousel?
Heartbeat of the Bitterroot Page 25