by Rachel Lee
Guin woofed and Esther rose, going to let the dog out for her morning run. But Guinevere had an itinerary of her own and instead came over to make Nighthawk’s acquaintance. He greeted the dog with his palm up and Guinevere quickly decided that he was okay. She accepted a scratch behind her ears, then dashed off the porch and out into the fields.
“She loves it here,” Esther said. “So much freedom. In Seattle I had only a really tiny fenced yard for her to play in.”
Craig rose, stretched mightily, then gathered up his dishes. “I need to be getting back to work. So do you, probably. I’ll just carry these things in for you.”
Esther stayed where she was on the porch, not wanting to make him uneasy by going into the house with him. He made two trips, even though she told him just to leave things, thanked her for a great breakfast, and drove away.
The morning was suddenly quiet again, except for the harsh cry of a hawk, the whisper of the breeze and the steadily fading growl of the truck engine.
Standing at the porch rail, Esther watched the dust cloud raised by Craig’s truck as it traveled down the rutted drive to the road. Finally it vanished and the day was still and empty again.
In his absence, Esther realized what a powerful presence Craig Nighthawk was. Not even Guinevere’s eventual return filled the gap.
Strange, she thought, then headed out to her studio to paint before the morning light was gone.
In a burst of extravagance, she had replaced part of the north side of the barn’s gambrel roof with skylights, so that light poured into the barn. As long as it wasn’t raining, she always had the best light by which to paint. If the day turned gloomy, there were other tasks to fill her time, such as sketching new ideas.
Today she worked on a planned landscape of the Rocky Mountains as they appeared to her from her property. It was one of her most ambitious projects to date, intended to fill a sixty-by-forty-inch sheet of three-hundred pound stock. Contrary to her usual method of painting and then flattening the paper, which rippled from the watercolors, she had decided to stretch this piece on a frame because it was too large to flatten on her usual equipment.
After soaking the paper for several hours, she had stapled it tightly to the frame. Today it was as taut as a drumhead, and dry so she could begin sketching on it.
The sense of magical expectation that had consumed her this morning began to return, filling her with anticipation of the project ahead.
Hours later she was still working steadily when the letter carrier drove up. Esther had a mailbox out on the road like everyone else hereabouts, but Verna Wilcox had taken one look at Esther’s brace and had started delivering the mail right to the studio or house. Verna claimed it was no trouble, especially since Esther didn’t receive a whole lot of mail, mainly a flurry of bills toward the end of the month, and an occasional letter the rest of the time.
“Knock knock,” Verna called cheerily from the door of the studio.
“Hi, Verna!” Smiling, Esther turned from her work. “What have you got for me?”
“A letter from your agent.” Verna carried the white envelope to her and paused to look at the sketch which now covered two-thirds of the paper. “Oh, my, my, my, that’s going to be pretty.” At forty-five, Verna was a younger version of her mother, Velma Jansen, the dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. Both women were thin to the point of emaciation, with lined, leathery skin, and a tendency to smoke too much and speak their minds with complete freedom. “’Bout time you got around to painting a big picture.”
“They’re certainly increasing in popularity.”
“Of course. People need things to hang on the wall over the sofa.”
There was no way on earth Esther could take offense at Verna’s opinion. Art for the sake of art wasn’t important to letter carriers. Verna was practical to the last bone in her body and anything without a utilitarian purpose was a waste.
Esther tucked the letter from her agent into her pocket. “I’m finished for the day. The light’s starting to go. Do you have time to come in for a cup of tea?”
Verna glanced at her watch. “Sure thing. You’re the last stop on my route and I don’t need to get the truck back until four-thirty.”
Together they walked back to the house and into the kitchen where Verna settled at the table while Esther put the pot on to boil.
“What happened to your garden out front?” Verna asked her. “I thought you had geraniums and marigolds out there.”
“I did, but a sheep ate them.”
“A sheep?” Verna barked a laugh. “Let me guess. One of Nighthawk’s sheep?”
“A ewe he calls Cromwell.”
“Did he pay for your garden?”
“Actually, he came over just this morning and replanted it with all those new flowers.”
“He did?” Verna looked surprised. “He hasn’t exactly been the sociable sort hereabouts.”
“He seemed nice enough to me. In fact he insisted on replacing the flowers even though I told him it wasn’t necessary.”
Verna nodded slowly, taking in the information. “Well, he hasn’t had much call to be sociable around here, I guess. He used to be a truck driver, you know.”
“He mentioned that.” Esther poured boiling water into the teacups and carried them to the table. She put out three different boxes of herbal tea as well as Earl Grey and Darjeeling.
Verna selected Earl Grey and dipped the bag in and out of the water. “Well, he’s not a trucker any more, and if you want my opinion it’s because of all that time he spent in jail. Probably lost his job.”
“Jail?” Esther sat slowly as her heart skipped uncomfortably. “He’s an ex-con?”
“No! No, no, no,” Verna said swiftly. “Hell, you was here at the time. Don’t you remember? He’s the one they arrested first for raping the little Dunbar girl. Before Dud Willis confessed.”
“He was the one they arrested?” Esther felt stunned.
“You don’t remember?”
Esther shook her head. “I didn’t really pay a whole lot of attention. Well, I don’t get the newspaper, and I don’t listen to the radio or anything…”
“But didn’t you draw the picture of the kidnapper?”
“Well, yes, but they didn’t ever need to use it because the man confessed the same day that I talked to the little girl and did the drawing. The girl’s mother was upset because the drawing didn’t look at all like the man who was in jail, but I never did pay attention to who he was. By the time I got to the sheriff with the drawing, the real rapist had confessed.”
And she found herself wondering why she felt as if she needed to apologize for not keeping up to the minute on local events. In point of fact, she hated the news and avoided it as much as possible. What was the point of listening to an endless litany of pain and suffering when there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to prevent any of it?
“Well, it was Craig Nighthawk they arrested,” Verna told her. “Kept him for weeks in that jail. He turned down bail, you know.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“Because he figured people was so mad he was safer in jail.”
Esther nodded her understanding. People had been extremely enraged over Lisa Dunbar’s kidnapping and rape. Isolated though Esther was, she had picked up on it whenever she went to town for groceries. “He was probably right about that.”
“’Course he was.”
“But why did they arrest him in the first place?”
“The little girl’s clothes were found on his property. If Dud Willis hadn’t confessed, Nighthawk’d be in prison for life. Ain’t no way a jury around here was gonna let him off.”
“I guess not.” She could well imagine that the clothes would have been taken as absolute proof, especially when tempers were running high. “It must have been awful for him.”
“Reckon so. They’s still plenty of folks around here who think he had a hand in it.”
“Why? Because the clothes were on his property?”
“That’s part of it. They also figure the little girl knew what she was talking about when she said the man who hurt her had long black hair.”
Esther felt a chill snake along her spine, and she looked out the window as if seeking a reminder that the rest of the world still existed. She had no trouble believing a man could hurt a small child, but she didn’t want to believe Craig Nighthawk could.
“Well,” Verna continued, pausing to drain her cup and set it aside, “ol’ Willis confessed and never once pointed the finger anywhere else. And there wasn’t any other evidence that Nighthawk had any part in it. The sheriff believes he’s innocent and that’s good enough for me.”
But Esther wasn’t sure it was good enough for her.
Craig Nighthawk sat down to dinner that evening with his sister Paula, her husband, Enoch, and their two young children. The little girl, Mary, was five but seemed much older because of the quiet way she watched the world from her huge dark eyes. Little Billy was three, and greeted almost all of life with an irresistible belly laugh.
Paula passed a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese to him, then filled the children’s mugs with milk. The kids loved this meal, but Craig suffered through it only because it was a cost-saving measure. They simply couldn’t afford to serve meat as a main dish every day and Paula balanced the kids’ diets with eggs and milk. Still, Craig liked meat. Back in his trucking days, he’d eaten meat two or three times a day. And lately, with fish so expensive, he was beginning to dream of broiled swordfish and fried catfish.
Hell, he was even beginning to think about sacrificing Cromwell, stringy and tough though that old ewe probably was. It’d surely be a hell of a lot easier on his temper to eat her rather than deal with her.
“Did you take care of the woman’s garden?” Enoch asked him while they ate.
“Yup.”
“That damn ewe is a pain in the butt.”
“No kidding.”
“Was she happy with the new flowers?”
Craig suddenly realized that he hadn’t even asked Esther. “I don’t know.”
Paula shook her head, giving him a smile of sisterly indulgence. “That was the important thing to find out.”
Craig shrugged. “Wasn’t much I could do about it one way or another. They were the only flowers I could get and I’d already bought and paid for ’em. What was I gonna do?”
“I just don’t want to get sued,” Enoch said.
Enoch had a streak of paranoia, but that wasn’t unusual among res Indians. After you’d been kicked two or three dozen times by white folks, you got to expect it. That was one of the main reasons Craig had wanted to get his sister and her children away from there. People in Conard County were still prejudiced, but not to the degree he’d seen where he came from. Hell, there were a couple of Indian sheriff’s deputies, one of them a woman.
Which meant that those two bright and shining faces across the table from him had a chance to grow up without feeling hated and terrorized by the world at large. Unfortunately, the price of that was separation from their roots. He still hadn’t figured out how they were going to deal with that.
He would never forget his surprise as he’d traveled around the country at discovering that the whole world didn’t hate Indians. He didn’t want these kids discovering that fact with the same surprise; he wanted them to grow up believing it.
“I think we ought to slaughter that damn ewe,” Enoch said. “We couldn’t afford those flowers. That’s food off the table, and some mutton could replace it.”
“I figure it’d be like eating rubber bands.”
Paula flashed a smile but shook her head. “We don’t want to slaughter her, Enoch. She’s a good breeder. We’ll manage.” She spread her arms suddenly, as if to embrace the whole world. “Why are we complaining? Three years ago we didn’t have an indoor bathroom or central heat. Three years ago we weren’t eating any better and we had a whole lot less hope.”
Enoch looked down at his plate, then gave her a smile. “You’re right. I’m just impatient.”
“Aren’t we all,” Craig remarked. He passed his nearly untouched plate to Paula and rose. “Let the kids have seconds. I’m not hungry.”
Nor should he be, he thought as he stepped outdoors and watched the sun sag toward the mountains. He’d had that bountiful breakfast at Esther Jackson’s place this morning and he felt guilty when he thought of those two little kids inside. He’d had enough to eat today; now they should go to bed with their tummies as full as possible.
Not that they were starving. God knows, he and Paula and Enoch had all had times in their lives when they’d had nothing to eat. Those kids weren’t dining on five-star cuisine, but they had enough food. He just felt guilty because he wasn’t giving them any more.
Stupid.
Wishing for a cigarette, he rocked back on his heels and looked up into the blue sky. He’d given up smoking back when he sold his truck because it was a waste of money. What killed him was that all this time later he could still crave a cigarette as strongly as the day he’d quit.
Oh, well, no point thinking about it, he told himself. They’d pulled this ranch through more than two years, and he didn’t for a minute doubt that they would pull it through to better times. The pasture was shaping up, and he figured between the lambs his ewes would drop come April, and the profit he expected from wool next year, they ought to be doing better soon.
From where he stood on the porch watching the day dwindle, he could see other signs that this place was just getting by. He’d painted the house five years ago when he bought the place, but Wyoming winters were harsh and it was looking as if it needed another coat.
He and Enoch had done some work inside the barn, making it more useful to their needs, but the outside looked weathered and even a little dilapidated. They were going to have to do something about that before much longer or buy the paint several times over in repairs. The roof was sound, though. They’d seen to that last fall.
Around back of the house, Paula was raising an extensive vegetable garden, canning whatever they didn’t immediately need for the coming winter. Her henhouse was making more eggs than they needed, and she’d begun to sell them here and there for less than the supermarket wanted. With those proceeds she bought clothes for the children.
They were doing as well as could be expected, and considering that he owned the spread free and clear, they were doing better than most people.
So what the hell was he feeling gloomy for? Because he wasn’t driving a truck any longer?
Nah. He wasn’t drowning in self-pity. He’d done what was necessary to take care of the people he cared about, and that wasn’t something to pine over.
But for some reason today he just felt…glum. Lonely, actually, which was ridiculous considering his house was full of people, and that he generally preferred to be alone anyway. But being alone and being lonely were two different things, he guessed, and right now he was feeling lonely.
Turning to go back into the house to work on the books, he paused and looked around him.
In the evening light, the place still looked as beautiful as it had the first time he laid eyes on it. Maybe even better because back then it had been run down and left to go to pot. Now there was a lawn and a garden and signs of life everywhere, like that swing hanging from the limb of the big old cottonwood beside the house. It was a home.
For an instant, just one uneasy instant, he wondered what Esther Jackson would think of it.
Then he brushed the thought aside like an annoying fly and went inside to deal with the other part of ranching.
It wasn’t until she was about to go to bed that Esther remembered the letter from her agent. She’d shoved it into her pocket when Verna gave it to her, and later had dropped it onto her desk, meaning to get back to it after dinner.
It probably wasn’t all that important—Jo generally called when something significant was up—but now that she’d remembered it she knew she wouldn’t be able to f
orget about it until morning. As long as she was busy, she could ignore her curiosity, but not when she was trying to go to sleep.
Sighing, she pulled her flannel nightgown over her head and limped barefoot down the stairs. Without her brace on she had to be exceptionally careful because her knee and ankle were so unstable, but she leaned heavily on the railing and negotiated the steps successfully.
When she’d considered buying this house, she had hesitated because of the stairs, but everything else was so perfect that she had assured herself that one or two trips a day up and down these stairs was something she could manage. And so far she had.
With care she crossed to the small room she used as a study. The letter was waiting for her on the blotter, glowing whitely in the near-dark. She hesitated to reach for it, however, suddenly feeling strangely reluctant.
Instead she went to the window and looked out at the night. No city dweller, as she had been most of her life, could possibly imagine how dark the night was out here. Stars sprinkled the sky in breathtaking profusion, and with only their gentle light the world appeared to vanish in the black of night.
She could see the hulking shape of the tree at the corner of the house, and the dark shadow of the barn silhouetted against the star-spangled sky. She could dimly see the edge of the porch but little was visible beyond it. From a distance she heard the lonely hoot of an owl, carried on the soft sigh of the breeze.
She might have stayed there for hours, admiring the perfection of the night, except that the envelope on her desk was like a silent pressure, beckoning to her and tugging at her. Jo wasn’t one to waste paper or telephone calls. If she’d written, it was important enough to take the time.
Still feeling reluctant, she limped to the desk, taking care to balance properly on her bad leg. It was a relief to lean against the desk and know for a few minutes that she wasn’t apt to fall if she didn’t pay strict attention.
With a flick of her wrist, she turned on the desk lamp, then opened the letter. The note was brief and very much to the point.