Child of a Rainless Year

by Lindskold, Jane

  “You were friends then?”

  “Pretty much. Sometimes we found ourselves on opposite sides of a story, especially where local politics were involved, but we were both advocates of Las Vegas, believers that she had a future, if only she could stop fighting herself.”

  I thought of the town I’d driven through on my way to Chilton’s house of the bits of history I’d heard from Domingo over our morning coffee breaks. It didn’t seem that Las Vegas had much of a future, just a past full of disappointments.

  That morning Las Vegas’s history didn’t seem pertinent to my search, so I didn’t ask any of the obvious questions. Later, I’d learn I had been wrong about this, but only later.

  “Seems to me that you must know a great deal about what was done. Could you tell me?”

  Chilton nodded, and glanced without really seeing down at the notes spread on his desk.

  “As you may have seen in the newspaper articles, Colette Bogatyr was last seen driving out of town to the northwest, in the direction of the towns of Llano and Montezuma. Now, she owned a car, but witnesses swear that she wasn’t driving that car, but a neat little one-horse, two-seater carriage she kept for tooling around the countryside. It was one of those things, like her manner of dress, that Colette had done for so long that everyone took it for granted.

  “Witnesses all agreed that she was alone. A couple said she seemed tense or anxious, didn’t pass the time of day as she usually would. Most didn’t volunteer anything of the sort. Last person who reported seeing her was a small-time farmer along the road northwest. After that, nothing.”

  I had indeed read most of this in Aunt May’s newspaper clippings, then again in the library. I envisioned the map of the area, pinpointing various locations.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. The police questioned everyone along what they figured her route would have been. They learned a few things that didn’t make it into the papers. One was that Mrs. Bogatyr often drove that particular route, and that when she did, she was almost always alone. Sometimes she had a companion with her, but never more than one.”

  I frowned. “Could she have had someone with her that day, hunkered down toward the floorboards or something?”

  “Not likely. The carriage was a light gig, meant for elegant driving, not for hauling.”

  “Was the carriage or horse ever found?”

  “Not either. The police did their best to find wheel tracks, but that time of year—late April—there’s often enough rain to make the roads hard to read. Also, back in the late fifties, the locals out that way still used wagons or burros. The tracks of your mother’s gig were just one set among many.”

  “I see. Chilton, what’s out that way that she could have been going to visit?”

  “I asked myself that. So did Chief Garcia. There were quite a few families living out that way, and then there was the Montezuma Castle itself. At that point it was being used as a seminary for training Mexican priests. Police officers were sent out to all those places, but no one except a few people who happened to be outside working in their yards would admit to having seen Mrs. Bogatyr. A certain reporter replicated the police’s efforts, but he didn’t have any better luck.”

  Chilton grinned ruefully and scratched behind his left ear. “I had dreams of breaking the story by talking to the one farmer or housewife or seminarian the police overlooked. I even skulked around, sneaking into stables and sheds, hoping to find the missing rig or the horse that had pulled it, but the fact was Chief Garcia’s men did a good job. I didn’t learn anything because there was nothing there to learn.”

  “So my mother simply vanished into thin air somewhere between Las Vegas and the town of Montezuma.”

  “Probably nothing so dramatic,” Chilton said. “She could have been overtaken by a vehicle. A truck hauling a trailer could have picked up both her and her gig. No one would have noticed the like along that road. Fact is, trucks are as common as cars. Trailers aren’t a whole lot more rare. The train ran a lot more frequently in those days. It’s possible that she got aboard.

  “Thing is, we thought of that, too. Both freight and passenger trains were checked and double-checked, and not a damn thing useful came out of all that work. Trucks were harder to check out, but an effort was made there, too. Just about everyone in the area who had a rig that could have handled both horse and carriage found themselves getting called on by the police. No traces of horse, carriage, or woman were found.”

  He held the candy tin out to me by way of commiseration. I took out something flat and multilayered that tasted faintly of cocoa.

  “Mira, maybe if the police had known sooner something could have been learned, but a trail a month old is a pretty dead trail—even today when the police can use computerized databases and a bunch of fancy forensics to help. Then, hell … The horse could have been sold weeks before. We’re close enough to the Colorado border that it could have been gotten out of state. It might even have been slaughtered and fed to the dogs. Personally, I doubt that. It was a nice animal, a four-year-old blood bay mare with a white blaze. Good for riding or driving.”

  “I remember her,” I said, startled to realize I did. “Her name was Shooting Star. I named her, because of how her blaze splashed into the white on her muzzle. She was a good horse, incredibly steady for her years. Mother would sometimes let me be put up on her. I’d ride up and down the street, proud as a princess. I’d forgotten all of that until you mentioned it.”

  Chilton nodded. “Your mother didn’t keep the mare at Phineas House, but the house next door hadn’t converted its stable into a garage. Those poor people came in for a real grilling, but nothing could be proved against them.”

  I remembered that fire had taken that house, along with all those bordering Phineas House.

  “Were they still there when the fire came?”

  Chilton looked momentarily confused. “You mean the fire that took that house out? No. They’d moved a long time before. Fact is, once you were gone and Phineas House was all shuttered up, property values tumbled in that area. They’d been sliding before, but a house that big, all closed up, didn’t do anything to encourage prospective buyers.”

  I nodded, vaguely relieved. I hadn’t really known any of the neighbors. If Mother had socialized with them, I hadn’t been included. Even so, I was glad they hadn’t been hurt—even while feeling guilty at my pleasure in Phineas House’s expanded yard.

  “So they didn’t find Shooting Star,” I said, bringing us back to the subject, “and I guess they didn’t find the carriage either.”

  “Not a trace. That would have been even easier to dispose of—and it probably was destroyed, since it would have been easier to trace. Thing is, out on the ranches, folks burned trash—what trash they didn’t pitch into a convenient ravine. Maybe a modern forensics team could learn something from the remnants of a bonfire, but not then.”

  “Was there a bonfire worth looking at?”

  Chilton shook his head. “Not really. I’m just saying that even if the police—or an ambitious and nosy reporter—had come across something, all there would have been were ashes and maybe a few bits of metal.”

  “Sounds like the police really did try,” I said. “You, too. Tell me. When did people stop looking?”

  “It wasn’t all at once,” Chilton said, “or even like the search was ever formally called off. It’s possible the file is still stuck in the back of some cabinet somewhere, though I honestly doubt it.”

  I doubted it too.

  “Mira, how serious are you about trying to find your mother?”

  “Fairly,” I said, “though I don’t really know where to begin. I hoped you might have something for me.”

  “But all I’ve given you are more dead ends.” Chilton said what I hadn’t. “Look. Let me offer you some help. I won’t deny that I’d be helping myself, too, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Go on.”

  “When you came in, I asked if anyone had
done a story about your return to town. You said no one had. Let me write that story. Late summer is a slow time for the paper, usually. I’m sure I can get permission to run a human interest piece on you—maybe even a couple. You say you’re staying in Phineas House.”

  “That’s right. I’m having Domingo Navidad help me fix it up. I haven’t thought much more about that.”

  “Great! I could do a piece on your return, another on the resurgence of interest in the old Victorians—and mention you again.”

  “And what good would that do?”

  “I’ll say that you’re interested in learning what you can about your mother—not just about her disappearance, but about her as a person. I can play the pathos of it—a grown woman, trying to learn something about the mother she barely remembers. Maybe someone will come forth.”

  “And maybe someone will run,” I said.

  “That would be information in itself,” Chilton said. “I still have connections with local law enforcement. If anyone is reported missing, I can ask to be told.

  I remembered the trustees and the care they had taken that my whereabouts be kept secret, Aunt May’s wondering if my mother might have been involved with organized crime, or something.

  “Will saying I’m looking for information about my mother be safe?”

  Chilton shrugged. “I can’t see it as being any more dangerous than your poking around, looking up semi-retired reporters.”

  “I remembered you,” I protested. “I liked you.”

  “The key word there,” Chilton said seriously, “is ‘liked.’ You remember a man from forty years ago. A lot can change in forty years.”

  I nodded somberly, suddenly chilled by the risk I might have run. Still, I thought that where Chilton O’Reilly was concerned, my memory hadn’t played me false.

  “Okay, Chilton. I’ll go for it. Find out if the Optic will run the story, then. I’ll give you a tour and an interview.”

  “Done.”

  We shook hands across the desk, made arrangements to meet again, this time at Phineas House, and shortly thereafter, I took my leave.

  9

  Sacrificial altars of carved stone and fired clay were the hallmark of priestesses, and among their uses they may have served as mortars to grind the chunks of colored ore into powder; these magical colors themselves then became body or textile paint

  —Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Ph.D., with Mona Behar,

  Warrior Women

  OUTSIDE THE LINES

  I wrote that reporter, the one from the Las Vegas Optic, but he hasn’t replied. I guess reporters have more to do than assist fictional college students. Or maybe he saw through my deception. I tried to get everything right. Went over my spelling, and tried to use some jargon. Maybe I got something wrong.

  Anyhow, I’ll try one more time. Letters do get lost in the mail. Maybe the reporter is too busy right now. Maybe he’s not able to reply until the story is older.

  Maybe I just need to leave this whole thing alone. Mira’s trustees wouldn’t have taken her from Las Vegas if they really thought Colette would be coming back. I mean, there were servants there. Couldn’t they have just hired a nanny or governess, and left Mira with her familiar school and friends?

  Funny. Mira doesn’t mention friends very often. She doesn’t mention school often, either. A Mrs. Little comes up sometimes, but it’s like Mira’s working hard on leaving the past behind her. Shouldn’t I be willing to do the same?

  But Mira has so much to concentrate on. I … I FEEL STIFLED. I started out hating Colette. Now. Honest, M. I envy her. Envy. Great dark green envy …

  What a life she had. Those clothes. The paper said she’d been seen in her horse-drawn carriage when she vanished. Says it matter-of-factly, too. There’s mentions of interviews with her servants, her groundskeeper. The one photo of the house there—too blurred to show detail, but so big and imposing. My first thought when I looked at it: “I sure wouldn’t like to be the one who keeps that clean.” Then I realized. She didn’t. She told other people to do it. She never had to pick up the newspapers Stan leaves by his chair every day. I mean, does he think there’s a newspaper fairy who picks them up? If I watch another man—mine included—act like he’s done a huge thing by picking up his plate and sticking it on the sideboard …

  Betty told me Alan thought it was great when he gave her a new electric iron for her birthday. Said how much easier it would be for her to get his collars right. I’d have strangled him with the “extra special, new, deluxe insulated cord” I swear. I think Betty wanted to but she didn’t.

  Yesterday I found myself looking at that damn cookbook my mother gave me before we got married. “Meals that Please HIM.” “Tempting Tasties for the Most Finicky Kid.” “Hearty He-Man Hot Sandwiches.” Tips on making a great impression on HIS boss, HIS family. The closest it came to anything for the bride were hints for SLIMMING. I went out, got an entire box of iced chocolate cream-filled cupcakes, and ate every one.

  I bet Colette didn’t worry about her waistline. Well. Maybe that. Those dresses didn’t look too forgiving. But I bet she didn’t worry about pleasing HIM. Whoever HE was. Mira gets really, really quiet when the subject of fathers comes up. Once she mentioned how one of her mother’s beaus used to bring her taffy. Something about how she said that … I bet Colette had more than one beau. And I bet she didn’t worry about pleasing them. I bet she expected them to please HER.

  My fingers are cramping—stupid thing to write. Note to self. Get in Stan’s files and find that copy of Mira’s birth certificate. What is her father’s name?

  Stan’s files!!! Why HIS!! Why is everything important, official HIS? I am such an idiot!

  INSIDE THE LINES

  I sat staring at this entry, wondering how I could have missed Aunt May’s unhappiness. Had she perhaps come to terms with things by the time I was adjusted enough to my new life to notice? I started leafing back through that journal, reading the entries that I’d skipped earlier because they dealt with something other than my mother and me.

  Maybe because I’d been doing so much housecleaning, the details seemed very real. The dusting, laundry, “hoovering,” the cooking, eternal cooking. Later I found an entry noting she’d decided I might as well learn to wash up after dinner: that “Mira had better get used to the idea there are no servants here.” Subsequent entries noted how often Aunt May went down and had to wash some pot over again, or get the spots off of glassware. Apparently, Uncle Stan—a man I had always thought of as easygoing—could be a domestic tyrant. The knowledge made me uncomfortable.

  I found some comfort in other of Aunt May’s entries. At least Uncle Stan didn’t think appliances were appropriate Christmas or birthday presents. He bought her jewelry or books. He always took her to dinner, and sometimes to lunch as well. They went out to movies and the occasional play. There were hints that they had a good sex life.

  Even so, Aunt May had felt imprisoned by the expectations imposed on her gender and her social class—that tier of the middle class that cares so much about what other people think. I began to see her interest in religions and odd customs as the huge rebellion it must have seemed to her.

  “Poor woman,” I said aloud, as I put the journal back in its place in the metal box. “Aunt May, wherever you are, thanks for letting me stretch my wings. I don’t think I ever realized how much you had to work against.”

  It seemed to me that there was a rippling smile in the air. When I turned out the bedside light and settled in to sleep, I felt a relief from the sorrow that had dogged me, almost unknowing, without relief, from the day the phone rang and I learned that my true mother was dead.

  Chilton O’Reilly had been right. News was slow this time of year, and the Optic was more than happy to run a couple of stories about me. We decided to start with the “return home” one, so early the following week, Chilton came over to Phineas House.

  I was in the kitchen setting up a pot of coffee when one of the painters called down from hi
s scaffold, through the open window, “Señora Mira, a car has stopped. Uno viejo está aquí.”

  “Thanks,” I called back. As I went to open the front door, I made a mental note that Chilton and I might want to discuss anything sensitive somewhere away from an open window. But then, what sensitive matter might we discuss? I pretended I didn’t know, but the question came to my lips almost as soon as we’d exchanged our greetings.

  “Tell me, Chilton,” I said, “why didn’t you answer my mother’s letter?”

  “Your mother? Mrs. Bogatyr never wrote me.”

  “Not Colette,” I said, “my adopted mother, Maybelle Fenn. Apparently, she wrote you about a year after I came to live with her, asking for details about Colette Bogatyr’s disappearance.”