by Sandra Brown
“I’m leaving you, Ezzy. I’m leaving you to the damn ghosts I’ve had to share you with.” She began to cry.
“Cora—”
“No, don’t say anything. We’ve talked about it a thousand times. Those talks don’t do any good. We’ve fought about it, too, but fighting hasn’t solved anything either.”
“It’s this prison escape. Carl’s in the news and that’s brought it all back. Soon as he’s caught—”
“No, Ezzy. When he was sentenced to prison in Arkansas, you told me that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. For years you’ve been promising me that you would give it up, that you would forget about it. Yet here you are, retired and free to enjoy yourself. Free to enjoy me,” she said, her voice cracking. “But you’re not enjoying anything. You’re miserable. You’re mired in the past, and that’s your choice. But it’s not mine. So, as the kids nowadays say, I’m outta here.”
He tried to keep his voice calm. “You can’t mean that.”
“Oh, yes I can.” She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her housecoat and stood up. “I’ve loved you since the night we met. I’ll love you as I draw my last breath. But I’m not going to live with you any longer, Ezzy. I refuse to stand by while this thing eats away at you until there’s nothing left. I’ve watched it haunt you, but damned if I’ll watch it kill you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Delray hadn’t spoken a word since discovering the dead cows.
He came slowly to his feet. He removed his dozer cap and used it to dust off the knee of his pants leg, on which he had been kneeling. He swiped his shirtsleeve across his sweating forehead, then stared out across the pasture, lost in thought, silent.
Finally Jack asked, “What do you make of it, Delray?”
“Well, they’re dead,” he replied, stating the obvious.
“I mean, any ideas on what killed them?”
Corbett replaced his cap, then turned and looked across at Jack. “A few. None of them good.”
Jack shifted from one foot to the other, feeling uncomfortable. It was hard to look innocent under such an accusatory stare. “Coyote, you think? Or bobcat?” Jack was groping to find a feasible explanation for the three carcasses growing stiff in the morning heat. But he didn’t believe this was an animal attack. There wasn’t a mark on the cattle, no bites or wounds. A hungry predator would have killed one cow and eaten his fill, leaving behind a bloody mess for the buzzards to pick clean. Instead the remains of the Herefords were seemingly untouched.
As though reading his thoughts, Delray said, “It wasn’t a four-legged animal that got them.”
His point, clearly, was that a two-legged animal was responsible. Jack wanted to disclaim the subtle accusation but decided it would be better if he said nothing. To declare his innocence before he was even accused would make him look all the more guilty. He ventured another guess. “Disease?”
“Maybe,” Corbett said. “I won’t know till the vet takes a look.”
“If it is disease, shouldn’t we be moving the rest of the herd into another pasture?”
Corbett nodded in his laconic fashion. “I’ll start on that. You go up to the house and call the vet. Ask Anna to give you the phone number.”
“I’ll be glad to stay here and start moving—”
“Do as I ask, please,” Corbett said, interrupting his protest and brooking no argument.
“All right. I’ll leave the truck with you and go on foot.”
Jack made his way across the uneven ground to Corbett’s pickup, which they’d left parked just inside the pasture gate. He conscientiously latched the gate behind himself. When he reached the road, he broke into a jog. By the time he had covered the half mile to the house, he was drenched with sweat.
But he barely noticed. His mind was still on the dead cows and Corbett’s hard, suspicious stare. He had sworn to Corbett that he wouldn’t steal from him, or harm his family. He hadn’t made a specific promise that he wouldn’t endanger his herd. Maybe he should have.
At the front door of the house, he depressed the button that not only rang chimes but also lit several lights in the house to alert Anna that someone was there. Sixty seconds elapsed, but no one came. He tested the door. It was unlocked. He let himself in. “David?”
Getting no response but hearing the TV, he followed the sound into a large living area, which he had glimpsed from the center hallway two nights before. The decor was bright, cheery, and inviting. Magazines were neatly stacked on end tables. Cushy pillows accented every chair. A bowl of green apples was on the coffee table. On the TV screen Gomer Pyle smiled sappily while getting a stern dressing-down from the Sarge. The dialogue was captioned at the bottom of the picture.
David was asleep on the sofa.
Jack didn’t see or hear Anna.
He was about to wake David up and ask him to go get his mother when he reconsidered. Did the boy really need to hear about dead cows?
Retreating into the hallway, Jack moved from room to room on the lower floor, checking first the office where Anna’s computer was, then the kitchen, and finally the utility room, where the washing machine was in a spin cycle.
He retraced his steps back to the entry. At the foot of the stairs, he paused. Maybe he should try the bell again. She might see the light this time. Or maybe he should awaken David after all.
Yes, he should.
But he didn’t. He started upstairs.
Until now it hadn’t occurred to him how dangerous it was for Anna to be alone in the house. How would she know if someone broke in? She wouldn’t. Not until it was too late.
He passed a bathroom. The door was open and the room was unoccupied. Farther along the hall, he poked his head into a bedroom that was obviously David’s. He spotted the mentioned Dallas Cowboys poster on the closet door and the book about dinosaurs on the nightstand.
The next open door he came to led into a narrow staircase, which obviously went up to the attic. “Anna?” He called her name before he could stop himself. Habits die hard.
He went up the stairs, pausing one step short of the top one. She was there in the attic, sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back to him, fiddling with something in her lap. The as yet unidentified object had her undivided attention.
She thought she was alone, and that made Jack uneasy. It was unfair of him to creep up on her like this. It was even more unfair to look at her when she was unaware of being watched.
But she was a sight worth looking at. Her tank top hugged her torso, which was slender enough to show ribs. Strands of hair lay against the back of her neck where her skin was a couple shades lighter than her arms and shoulders, which had been exposed to the sun. There was a narrow strip of exposed skin across the small of her back between the hem of her top and the waistband of her shorts. Jack looked at that patch of skin for longer than his conscience was comfortable with.
Removing his straw cowboy hat, he loudly cleared his throat before once again remembering that no sound would alert her to his presence. David had told him that she didn’t like people sneaking up on her, but Jack saw no way to avoid it. She would get some warning if he took the last step up, making sure that his tread was firm enough to create a vibration she would feel.
But he must have stepped a little too firmly.
Because she nearly jumped out of her skin.
The sudden flash of light blinded him.
He recoiled, staggered backward, and would have tumbled ass over elbows down the enclosed staircase if he hadn’t put out his hand just in time to grab the door frame and break his fall.
She had shot him!
That was his first thought. He ran a quick mental check of all his parts. But he experienced no searing pain, no sting, no sensation of a dull blow, which is what those who knew had told him getting shot felt like. Blinking his eyes clear, he glanced down his front but didn’t see any blood.
“What the…?”
He looked up at her. She was standing now, facing him, holding a camera in one hand and a flash
attachment in the other. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. “You scared the shit out of me with that thing!”
She set the photography equipment on the floor and started signing. While he couldn’t tell what she was saying, he got the gist of it from her angry facial expressions.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” he said, holding up both hands. She stopped signing, but her chest rose and fell in supreme agitation. In all fairness, she’d been just as startled by his appearance as he had been by the flash of light.
“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
She signed something that he couldn’t interpret, but he recognized David’s name on her moving lips. “David is downstairs asleep.” She continued to eye him warily. “Look, if I scared you, I’m sorry, but you scared me, too. I’m still seeing purple flying saucers.”
Not quite catching the last, she tilted her head quizzically.
“Never mind,” he muttered. Speaking more distinctly, he said, “Delray sent me. I need the vet’s phone number. Vet,” he repeated, spelling it out with his fingers, glad that he’d been practicing the manual alphabet. Then he held his hand to the side of his head, thumb near his ear, little finger at his mouth, the sign for telephone used and understood anywhere in the world.
Again her expression conveyed more than her signing.
“What’s wrong?” he said, guessing. She nodded. “We found three dead cows in the pasture this morning. Delray needs to know what killed them.”
The urgency of the situation didn’t escape her. She brushed past him and rushed down the staircase. He followed, pausing only long enough to retrieve his hat, which he’d dropped when he stumbled backward. By the time he caught up with her, she was already on the ground floor, in the kitchen, thumbing through a personal telephone directory.
“Thanks,” he said as she extended it to him and pointed at an entry. He dialed the number. While the telephone on the other end was ringing, he and Anna watched each other. His scrutiny must have made her nervous. Self-consciously, she tugged on the bottom of her tank top. Her hand made a pass against her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear. Then she seemed not to know what to do with her arms and hands, finally deciding to let them hang at her sides.
“Animal clinic.”
“Uh, yeah, hi. I’m calling for Mr. Corbett.”
“Delray?”
“That’s right. Is Dr. Andersen in? We’ve got some dead cows out here.”
The receptionist put him on hold while she summoned the veterinarian.
Jack said to Anna, “I knew it was you who took those pictures. And I knew it was you in the one with the fence.”
She shook her head slightly, pretending not to understand what he said.
But he knew differently.
* * *
Late in the evening, Anna climbed the stairs to the attic for the second time. Before today, it had been months since she had been up there, and then only to exchange seasonal clothes.
She liked tidiness, but Delray demanded it. Consequently, the attic was as orderly as the rest of the house. Christmas decorations were boxed and labeled. Woolens were zipped into moth-proof bags. Dean Corbett’s athletic equipment—several footballs and a scarred helmet, gloves and bats, a deflated basketball, a tennis racket—were neatly arranged on metal shelving. Tarnished trophies dating back to his grade-school days were lined up as precisely as toy soldiers. His jerseys from various teams had been washed and folded and placed in boxes. Keepsakes belonging to Mary were likewise stored in boxes with the contents listed on the airtight lids.
There were no keepsakes of Delray’s first wife and her two sons.
Anna wasn’t a pack rat. After her parents died, she had kept only a few personal items. The majority of their things she had divided among several charities. Her wedding dress was stored in a special box, but only one other crate in the attic belonged to her. It contained her photographic equipment.
Her camera and the flash attachment were lying on the floor where she had left them when Jack Sawyer had surprised her this morning. The black bag beside them contained optional, interchangeable lenses and other accessories.
Since showing her photographs to Jack Sawyer, she’d been unable to get them off her mind. After years of pretending that she was no longer interested in photography and of divorcing herself from the photos she had taken, the moment she’d looked at those pictures a feeling not unlike homesickness had come over her. She hadn’t realized how much she missed her avocation until she was reminded of it. Now she was filled with a yearning to handle the camera equipment again.
So this morning, when she’d discovered David napping in front of the television, she had gone to the attic for a few precious moments alone. That stolen time had been abruptly cut short by the emergency in the pasture.
For the remainder of the day, she hadn’t had a spare moment to herself. After speaking to the veterinarian by telephone, Jack Sawyer had left to rejoin Delray. Although he had made the taunting remarks about her photographs, she could sense his preoccupation with the dead cattle. When Delray failed to show up for his noon meal, she’d packed enough lunch for two and drove it out to the pasture.
She was unsure how David would react to seeing the carcasses, but he appeared more curious than upset. It wasn’t like having one of the horses die. He saw them every day, sometimes fed them by hand. They had names. He had no personal relationship with the herd.
But Delray had been very upset. He thanked her for the lunch, but his manner was brusque. If she hadn’t offered a sandwich to Jack Sawyer, he would have gone without food. Delray was unaware of everyone and everything except Dr. Andersen, who was busy examining the carcasses.
She’d taken David home before the trailer arrived to haul off the dead cattle. Delray didn’t return to the house until suppertime. He seemed very tired. He was irritable and curt. She took the hint and didn’t try to draw him into conversation. She also advised David to leave Grandpa alone. As soon as they finished the meal, Delray went upstairs to his bedroom.
Now that David was down for the night and she had some time to herself, she had come back to the attic on the pretext of returning her camera to the shelf where it had resided for six years.
She picked it up off the floor, thinking that it felt heavier in her hands than she remembered. She examined it, turning it this way and that. She blew a speck of dust off the lens, then raised the viewfinder to her eye.
It was too dark in the attic to see much, but she fiddled with the aperture and focus rings. She set the ASA as though the camera had film in it, then raised it to her eye again and depressed the shutter.
It felt so good, so right. She depressed it again.
Should she—could she—resume her photography? Once her passion, she hadn’t indulged it since before Dean died. When he was sick, she had little time to do anything except nurse him. She hadn’t resented him for the demands his illness had made on her. She had chosen to care for him and wouldn’t trade anything for the time they had spent together.
But unquestionably her photography had been sacrificed, first to caring for him, then to parenting David. By the time David was more self-sufficient, she was out of the habit and out of practice. Now so much time had passed that she probably had forgotten everything she ever knew about the art and science of photography. The technology had changed. To resume, she would be starting from scratch as a rank amateur.
But acknowledging the challenge didn’t dampen her excitement. Merely holding the camera between her hands made her heart beat faster. It wouldn’t be easy, but she could study the new technology. She could learn about new products and techniques. Being deaf limited her, but only as much as she would let it. Deafness could be her motivator, not her hindrance.
If nothing else, she should be taking more than just random snapshots of David. Her son would make a wonderful subject. She could experiment with different lenses and lighting. She could perfect the style she had been cultivating wh
en she left off.
With practice, she might branch out beyond David and start photographing other subjects. Other people. Not pretty people, necessarily. Interesting people. People with flaws and imperfections. People whose faces had character.
Jack Sawyer’s, for instance. His face would make a good photographic subject. Made of tissue and bone, it was a landscape all the same, shaped by plains and ridges and crevices. Weather-beaten and windswept. Aged yet ageless. Telling stories without speaking a word.
Words that were wasted because they couldn’t be heard anyway.
Anna had learned the meanings of words. She had an unusually broad vocabulary and was very good at translating her thoughts into the written and spoken language she had been taught by loving parents and excellent teachers. Her communication skills were exemplary for a person with profound deafness.
But she didn’t think in a language. Like a silent movie, she relied on visual images for her impressions of situations and places and people. For that reason, when she thought about Jack Sawyer’s face, it conjured up a vivid image in her mind.
Feeling slightly uncomfortable with the intensity of that image, she quickly repacked the camera equipment in its customized carrying case. But she didn’t replace it on the shelf. She took it with her when she left the attic.
* * *
It was stifling hot in the barn. Even with the doors open at both ends of the building, there was no air moving inside. Jack had taken this unpleasant chore upon himself, partially because the air-conditioning unit in the trailer was louder than a propeller airplane. He could only tolerate it when he was dead tired and on the verge of sleep. So he’d just as soon be outside.
Second, he was mucking out the horse stalls in the hope of staying in Delray’s good graces.
He hadn’t seen much of Corbett after the vet removed the carcasses. Corbett had spent the long afternoon on the tractor mowing the pasture that would later be harvested for hay. Jack had kept himself busy doing other chores.
They had spoken only once. Late in the afternoon, as Corbett was parking the tractor behind the barn, Jack approached him. “When do you expect to hear from the vet?”