Hold of the Bone

by Baxter Clare Trautman

  “His uncle told us he was working at a building over on Western Avenue. That they wanted to finish the framing so they could pour concrete in the morning. When we got there, it was almost dark. Only my father and another man were there. He turned when he heard us pull up, and then when he recognized the truck he broke into a big smile. Then Cass fell out of the truck—she was dead drunk—but she got up and ran over to him. She was crying and screaming that he’d killed her, our mother. He grabbed hold of her, to try and calm her down, to make sense of what she was saying. I told him that Mother was dead. At first he didn’t believe it. He kept asking, ‘What are you talking about?’

  “Cass was hysterical. She was screaming, sobbing, ‘You hit her, you killed her. You’re a murderer. You killed her.’ Then you could see it dawn on him, what had happened, and he started to shake Cass. ‘Hold on a goddamned minute,’ he said, and that was that. I literally, truly saw red. I wasn’t going to let him start hurting us the way he did our mother. There was no way I was going to let us become his new punching bags. I didn’t think at all. It just came to me in a flash that I wasn’t going to let him do that and I picked up a shovel and swung it. I just wanted to hurt him, to get him to let go of Cass. I never meant to kill him. I knew the way he fell, the way he just crumpled, that I’d done something awful.”

  Sal stares through the fire. Frank waits for her to surface from the hold of her memory.

  “Cass was rocking and moaning, ‘My God, what did you do? What did you do?’ She kept saying it over and over. Then we just sat a long time, staring at him. It was dark. And cold. And finally Cass stood up and found the shovel and started digging. I asked what she was doing, and she said no one would believe us that it was an accident, and that we had to bury him. I didn’t argue. I couldn’t.

  “We dug a hole and dragged him into it. We thought to take his wallet, but not his wedding ring. Cass built the framing out over the hole. We had to do it by the truck headlights. I was terrified sick someone was going to call about the noise and that the police would come. But they never did. Not until you.”

  Sal slumps back into her chair. Frank watches the flames of the fire rise and die, rise again, fall.

  “I’ve kept that secret for forty years.”

  “And Cass,” Frank says softly. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “No. She couldn’t stand the lie anymore.”

  She feels in her shirt. Frank tenses, but Sal’s hand comes out with the tobacco pouch. She rolls a cigarette, passes it to Frank, and makes another. Frank puts a new log on the fire. A rabbit creeps at the edge of the black-red light. The women smoke.

  “What happens now?”

  “I take you in and we get you an attorney. There’ll be an arraignment. Depending on the judge, you might be able to post bail or be released on your own recognizance.”

  “If not, I go to jail?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sal nods. She drops her cigarette into the fire and sits with her arms wrapped around her knees. The fire snaps. A jet drones many miles above. Frank wishes she were up in the blackness with only moon and stars for company. She is glad she’s turned her papers in.

  “Do we have to go tonight?”

  “No. He’s been dead forty years. I don’t think one more night’ll make a difference.”

  The fire slashes Sal’s features, reddening, then darkening the planes and hollows. In an effort to still the shifting mask, Frank breaches the distance between them, resting the back of her fingers against the lean, brown jaw. The weathered skin is soft there, much softer than Frank expected.

  “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

  “Don’t be,” Sal murmurs. “It’s right.”

  Her hand covers Frank’s, brings it to her lips. She rests it there a moment. Frank unfolds her fingers, cupping the side of Sal’s face, running her thumb over the ridge of cheekbone. Sal clings to her wrist. The fire lifts a question in her eyes. Frank answers it with a kiss. Their lips linger, touch, merge again. Frank tugs Sal to her feet and tilts her head toward the cabin. This time, she leads and Sal follows. Frank undresses Sal and guides her to the bed. She strips and lowers herself beside Sal, who lies as still and cool as the sliver of moon peeking in the window.

  Frank strokes and soothes her as if she is a spooked horse, and Sal softens beneath her. She presses into Frank’s touch, tentative at first, then eager. Frank stokes the burning hunger. She leads Sal to the edge of satiety, then backs her down, only to climb her back to the brink and keep her there, quivering but silent, until Sal breaks and floods against her, into her and upon her, and Frank lets go and falls, falls from a great wine-dark height over mountains down through fire-glowing canyons and red-breaking sea, falling down, down deep into the lightless, soundless hold of the bone.

  For a long moment, Frank is nothingness. Not thought, sensation, sight, or sound. She floats in dark and empty fullness. Slowly she surfaces to the moonlit room. Sal is motionless beside her, eyes on the ceiling. They glisten in the little light. Frank reaches, but Sal moves away. She sits on the edge of the bed. The moon holds her in silhouette. “I need to be alone.”

  She rises and finds her clothes, closes the door softly behind her. Frank falls back, needled with doubt, but she doesn’t believe that Sal is dangerous or a flight risk. To be safe, she finds her pack and feels out the Beretta. She lays it on the bedside table and tugs her clothes on. Sal can have her privacy, but Frank will keep vigil. She fluffs the pillow against the wall and leans into it. The room is cold, and she flips the bedspread over her legs. Determined to keep watch with the stars, Frank is asleep within minutes.

  Chapter 38

  “Shit!”

  Frank throws off the bedspread. Though stiff from the saddle and mantling over Sal, she is instantly on her feet, taking in the silence, the fact that it is still dark. Pulling on shoes she glances at her watch. Almost four a.m.. Frank swears again.

  The door to Sal’s room hangs wide, the bed smooth and unused. Sal isn’t in the cabin. Frank peers through the window at the fire. It has burned to a bed of coals. The chairs in front of it empty. None of the dogs are around, and she feels a prick of alarm. She opens the cabin door quietly, but it’s enough for Bone to hear. He whines urgently. Hair rises on the nape of her neck as she realizes the dogs are in the pen.

  She jogs the moon-swept ground between cabin and barn. Buttons lifts her head and nickers a soft inquiry. Dune is gone. She runs her hand along the wall where the Winchester hangs. There is only rough wood and an empty nail.

  She runs back to the cabin, slapping a light on as she enters. Only then does she see the envelopes on the table. Three, laid in a row. Addressed Pete, Cassie, and Frank. She tears her envelope open and reads the folded letter. She reads it a second time, then shuts off the light and returns to the still dark yard. The dogs whine as she paces the fire pit.

  Frank runs to the barn. She saddles Buttons and trots her across the yard to the restless dogs. She turns them loose and mounts. The five of them cross the light-bled field at a gallop. As they near the hulking foot of the mountain, Frank slows to let the dogs lead the way. She gives Buttons rein, urging her at a trot behind the dogs. The landscape is black and blacker, yet the trail gleams a lighter black between brush and rock. The dogs strain to keep ahead of Buttons, their breath pumping and ragged. Kook struggles to stay alongside but falls behind. Frank swears and reins the horse. She jumps down, scoops the heaving dog and plants him against the pommel. Buttons sidesteps, rearing her head in protest, but Frank keeps a tight hold. The horse steadies and she lifts herself into the saddle. Settling Kook in her lap, she tells the big dogs, “Go on! Go!”

  They turn and run ahead. The trail narrows into the side of a cliff and she recognizes where they are. One foot dangling the verge, the other bumping into brush, she hopes to Christ that Buttons’ night vision is as good as Sal says it is. It appears to be—until a rock clatters beneath a hoof. Buttons stumbles, quickly righting herself, and Frank al
most pisses in the saddle. Her hand is cramped white on the pommel, the other wets Kook with sweat. Suddenly Buttons pulls up short. She lifts her head and whinnies. An answering whinny comes, then the sound of hooves striking rock. The dark shapes of Cicero and Bone back toward her as the bulk of a horse materializes round the cliff face.

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  The horses stand at an impasse.

  “Go on!” Frank waves an arm at Dune. “Go on! Hyah! Git! Go!”

  Dune nickers uncertainly and steps toward her.

  “No!”

  She pushes Buttons a step forward. Caught between the two horses, Cicero tries to slink between Buttons’ legs.

  “Cicero, no!” Frank yells. “Stay!”

  Remarkably the dog stops and sits. Frank grabs a bush sprouting off the cliff and snaps off a branch. She brandishes it at Dune and forces Buttons to take a step. The dogs squirm in a tight circle.

  “Yah!” she screams. “Goddamnit, move!”

  The horse whinnies but doesn’t budge. Swearing again, she leans into the cliff and digs out a crumbly handful of rock. She hurls it in Dune’s direction, and the horse takes a faltering, backward step. She grabs another handful of rock and flings it, yelling for the dogs to go. They each make a nervous move toward Dune. Frank spurs Buttons behind them. Dune whinnies his fear and tries to come forward, but Frank screams and throws her branch. The horse hesitates, feeling his way into reverse. She yells Dune into a tentative step, then another, recalling Sal’s assurance that horses don’t want to die any more than she does.

  Dune is making slow but steady progress, until he slips. His rear end slews from the trail and his hooves clack on bare granite. She hears them drag and scrape and Dune heaving in loud, heavy grunts, but the dark mass of him continues sinking over the verge. He makes a final lunge but can’t gain the ledge. Dune falls, screaming, and Buttons echoes his scream. She dances on the skinny trail and Frank weakly kicks her, turning her reins into the cliff. Buttons takes a reluctant step, then stops and screams again. Frank jabs heels into her ribs and Buttons dances backwards.

  Vomit rises to her throat and Frank gags. “Come on, girl, please.” She kicks lightly and Buttons inches forward. “Good girl, good girl.”

  Frank strokes and clicks, urging her ahead, keeping her going. She is shaking so hard she’s afraid she’s going to fall out of the saddle. There is nothing she can do but hang on and trust. All she can do is push ahead. Her life is suddenly out of her hands, and she gets with sharp, implacable clarity that if she is meant to live, she will—and if she’s not, she won’t. It’s so dreadfully, mercifully simple she almost laughs. Her fate is as fixed as the mountains and the moon. Nothing will alter the outcome either way.

  Frank closes her eyes. She gives herself over to the beast beneath her. Her grip relaxes and the shaking slacks. Buttons picks her way doggedly. After a span of time that seems to elongate into an eon but is probably no more than a few minutes, Buttons turns into the cliff. She gathers her haunches and vaults effortlessly onto a low boulder. In a few strides they have passed through the gap and out onto the broad portrero.

  The shakes reclaim Frank. She stops and leans, retching until she is empty. Kook licks her face when she straightens back into the saddle. With a firm hold on him, she kicks Buttons into a gallop. She sees as they fly over the meadow that the trees ahead are gaining definition. Night is yielding to yet another perfect, pearly dawn. She kicks Buttons again. And once more. The mare strains beneath her, hooves punishing the mountain silence. Bone and Cicero struggle to keep up.

  As they close in on the pines, she slows to let the animals find the path. They plod while she silently curses and wills them on. The sky pinks as they enter the tall pines. Frank drops from the saddle and ties Buttons. She breaks into a jog, urging the dogs on until they get to the ladder of boulders. She lifts Kook onto the rocks and gives the big dogs a boost. They scurry up the cleft and out of sight. Cicero howls, and Frank bloodies her palms again. She pulls herself up onto the pass to see the dogs wiggling joyously around their master.

  Sal sits naked on the ledge. Her hair is loose. The Winchester lies across her thighs. Sal smiles. She is relaxed, happier than Frank has ever seen her. “I thought you might find me. You’re a good cop.”

  “Come on home, Sal. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “No. It does. The land’s yours now. I felt it go at the abuela’s. You felt it, too, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t feel anything,” she lies. “Come on. Put your clothes on. We’ll go home.”

  Sal smiles at her. “I am home.”

  “Look. We’ll get you a good lawyer. I know lots of ’em. We’ll get you off. It was an accident.”

  “It was, but lying about it for forty years wasn’t.” She shakes her head. “I can’t leave, Frank. You understand that.”

  “You won’t have to.” Frank steps toward her. “I promise we’ll get you off.”

  Sal rests a hand on the shotgun, her finger curled around the trigger. She arches a pale brow. “You can make those kinds of promises?”

  “I can. I swear it. Look, who’s to know? You could even say Cass did it, that—”

  “No. No more lying. I’m all done with that.”

  “Okay. Fair enough. But if you knew I was gonna find you, why’d you wait?” Frank indicates the gun. “Why didn’t you do it already?”

  “I had to wait for that.” Sal points her chin and Frank turns to look into the round, red eye of the sun. “I had to see it one more time.”

  Sal stands. The sun flames her body. The sky behind her is translucent. She lifts the shotgun. The barrel rests under her chin.

  “Don’t do it, Sal. Please.”

  Frank takes a step. Sal smiles and tosses the gun. Frank reaches for it, and Sal spins. She pivots slowly on one foot, a ballerina in a timeless music box. But this ballerina plants both feet on the edge of the bench and as Frank lunges, crying her name, Sal executes a perfect swan dive into the fresh, new morning sky.

  Frank staggers back. The dogs stand with their heads hanging over. There is no sound but their panting. Frank drops to her knees. One by one, the dogs leave the edge. They arrange themselves around the shallow saddle. The sun climbs and the sky ripens to its true, fat blue. Frank removes her clothes. She folds them next to Sal’s. She does not look over the edge.

  A black shape slices the azure. A second joins it. With a great flapping the birds land across from her, higher on the curving ridge. They sink into their ebony plumage and settle to the waiting.

  “Zopilote,” she whispers.

  She is small, in a hut of bent willow, caring for a younger child and a baby. Then grown to a maiden, dancing barefoot to a clamor, unaware of the elders watching, murmuring ascent. Dancing again, an older woman in a cloak of great black feathers with a soft, red-painted hide upon her head, and while her body dances her mind soars over the mountains, gathering dreams and wisdom that she may carry them to her people in their fire-bright canyons, and she is old, old, very old, plaiting reeds by a black and depthless pond, smiling at the dark watchers in the air, and she is air and earth and fire and ocean, and forever has been and will ever be.

  Bone stands over her, his breath upon her face. Her cheek is wet where he has touched it. Frank stands. She bends and feels in Sal’s shirt pocket. The pouch is there. She sits. Bits of rock and twig dig into her skin. She rolls a cigarette and smokes. The sun forges down and her skin reddens.

  When she stands, the dogs stand with her. They stretch languidly. Across the way, the featherless heads turn to watch. Frank steps to the ledge and looks down. It is a far, far drop. She stares into the fathomless brush, then west at the black canyons stretching to sea. She closes her eyes, feet side by side, toes over the edge of the warm rock. But for her heartbeat there is silence. Then a soft stirring, and silence again. She opens her eyes. Bone stands beside her, ears cocked, nub wagging.

  Frank steps back. She puts the shotgun on Sal’s clothes an
d tucks her own under her arm. She turns with a lingering look. The birds wait like twin stones. Frank lifts a hand to them. As she does, a small weight settles on her shoulder.

  “I’m here.”

  She whirls. There is only rock, a scraggly bush, and three dogs waiting to go home. Behind her the dark watchers drop from their perch. They float and turn, rising in slow circles, high over the guardian mountain and sea.

  About the Author

  Baxter Clare Trautman is a Lambda finalist for her LA Franco mystery series. She grew up half wild in the Central American tropics, moved back to the States where she continued to haunt favorite treehouses, and eventually settled in a real house on the California coast. Never far from nature, she earns her keep as a wildlife biologist, and lives in the boonies with her wife and a beloved assortment of animals. In addition to the Franco series, Trautman is also the author of Spirit of the Valley and The River Within. She welcomes you to stop by and say hello at www.baxterclare.com.

  Bywater Books

  THE MIRROR AND THE MASK

  A Jane Lawless Mystery

  Ellen Hart

  “a tale full of complex plot lines, fast-paced action, and characters skilled in deception”

  —Library Journal, Starred Review

  Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless is at a turning point. Thanks to the tanking economy she has scuppered her plans for a third restaurant, and her long-distance romance is on the skids and likely over. Opting for a big change, she takes her good friend A. J. Nolan up on his standing offer to train her as a private investigator.

  Jane’s first job seems like beginner’s luck. All she has to do is find Annie Archer’s stepfather. Jane tracks down a likely match—a man who has made a small fortune in real estate. While she’s happy to close her first case, she finds it hard to reconcile the difference between PI work—finding what people pay you to find—and uncovering the truth, especially when clues in this seemingly simple case point to more threatening family secrets than where Annie’s father has been hiding out.