Killer's Prey

by Rachel Lee

  “This is crazy,” she said as they rode out across some open rangeland, past a handful of cattle and sheep amicably grazing in close proximity, “but I smell snow.”

  “Amazing nose you have there,” he said. “It snowed higher up the mountains last night, and there’s a possibility that later we might see some.”

  “Really?”

  He glanced at her as she rode beside him. “Really.” He smiled. “It won’t be much, but if you look over there—” he pointed west to the mountain peaks “—you can see a dark fringe of clouds. They’re supposed to reach us this evening.”

  “That would be nice. I like snow.”

  “I would assume so, since you moved to Minnesota.”

  She gave a little laugh. “Warm climates never called to me. What about the sheep and cattle?”

  “I’ve sold off everything ready for market and I’m down to mostly yearlings and breeding stock. If you’re still here in the spring, you’ll see us get really, really busy. But they winter pretty well. We bring them in close. And you see the hay bales? We feed them all winter long.”

  “That must be a lot of work.”

  “Not as much now that I have help.”

  It seemed overwhelming to her, most likely because she wasn’t familiar with any of it. Still, since he managed to keep Al pretty busy, he must have had his hands full after his parents retired.

  “Why did Beth leave?” The question popped out of her before she knew it was coming. Quickly, she added, “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  He rode silently beside her for several minutes. The trees slowly surrounded them, and a clear trail guided them. “We fought all the time. She claimed I wasn’t the man she thought I was. I was damn sure she wasn’t the woman I thought she was. Somebody told me that marriages fail because roles, and thus expectations, change.”

  “That’s true.” She had learned all about that in the course of her studies. “It’s most commonly seen in couples that live together first. They’re essentially still dating, but the day they get married all of a sudden one is husband and the other wife, with all the baggage that may entail for a couple. Expectations change.”

  “Well, something certainly changed for us. The honeymoon didn’t last long, and being a rancher’s wife didn’t seem to be at all what she expected. I get it. It’s a lonely life out here unless you’re really into the work and solitude. She wasn’t. Note to self—don’t marry a townie if you’re a rancher.”

  A quiet laugh escaped Nora. “That might not always be true.”

  “Probably not, but it was in this case. If it’s hard in these days when we have cars to get around in and phones to talk on, what must it have been like in the days where you had to travel on horseback or in a wagon? When you could only have a conversation with someone who didn’t live on the ranch once a week or once a month? Less often in the winter. Anyway, I worked longer hours than she probably appreciated, and I wasn’t as keen on heading into town to go dancing or take in a movie as she would have liked. Even going out to dinner at Maude’s meant I had to be able to get away. So I can see her side of it.”

  “Apparently. But what about you?”

  “I was raised to this life. I knew what it would be like, and by the time I’d been out of high school a couple of years, I’d adapted. I didn’t expect to climb on a bus every day and spend my time with a whole bunch of people anymore.”

  “Do you regret that?”

  “Not at all. Animals are often better company than people.”

  She wouldn’t argue with that.

  “But,” he said, “you made a life of dealing with people and their problems. Do you miss it?”

  Surprisingly, she had to think hard about that. “Maybe not,” she said finally. “Maybe not. I don’t think I want to be a counselor any longer.”

  “Why not? Because of that guy?”

  “No, because it’s hard not to bring the pain home with you, especially when you’re working with children. They’re so defenseless and vulnerable in so many ways. I was supposed to keep my emotional distance, but I wasn’t good at that part. I seemed to identify with most of my patients.”

  “I wonder why,” he muttered.

  “What?” She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly, or exactly what he’d meant if she had.

  “Doesn’t matter. Just carrying on a conversation with myself. One of the hazards of being alone so much.”

  “Being a cop must take care of some of that.”

  “Not always for the best.” He flashed her a sudden grin. “You should read our blotter sometime. ‘Assisted man who could not unlock front door. Directed him to correct house and cited for public intoxication.’”

  She laughed. The sound rolled out of her easily for the first time in forever. “That’s Conard City.”

  “That’s any small town. Anyway, I don’t see too many things that give me a distaste for people, except domestics. Those are always upsetting, often infuriating.”

  He fell silent, and she watched his face darken a bit. She returned her attention to the trail ahead of them, to the surrounding furs and occasional aspens, which had lost most of their golden leaves. Either he was remembering something unpleasant, or he was afraid of following the conversation about being a cop any further. Given how she had initially reacted to him and his car, she could understand.

  But that brought her back to the question she had been wondering if she should ask. “Jake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What do you think my father meant when we were leaving and he yelled that man was going to come after me? Did he know?”

  “I don’t know how he could have. We’d only just found out ourselves that he’d ditched his leash. And we weren’t passing it around widely. Probably an empty threat.”

  “I hope so. Not that it makes any difference. I’m sure he’s going to come for me.”

  He drew rein and reached out to grip Daisy’s bridle, halting her, as well. “Why? Yes, we’re concerned about it, but why are you so sure?”

  “I have only a hazy memory of everything that happened that night. But I remember one thing so clearly because it reminded me of my father. He must have said again and again, ‘How dare you defy me?’”

  “So he was hung up on defiance?”

  “That seemed to be at least part of it. Yes. And what’s more defiant than surviving when he meant for me to be dead?”

  He swore quietly and released the bridle. When he urged his mount forward, Daisy fell in beside him. “We were hoping he’d just skip out.”

  He fell silent, but she filled in the blanks of what he wasn’t saying anyway. He was abandoning that hope, one she hadn’t shared since she’d learned the news. That man would come. Only God knew when, but he’d come for her.

  Jake seemed to have developed an instinct for when she began to tire, because a short while later he suggested they take a break before heading back. He chose a lovely glade with a stream tumbling through it, probably engorged with the recent snowfall at higher elevations.

  He pulled a rolled blanket off the back of his saddle and spread it on an area clear of everything except pine needles and drying grasses. She still needed his help dismounting, mostly because Daisy, for all she was the gentlest horse in the world, was also a very big horse. She’d gotten used to the grip of Jake’s hands around her waist as he helped her slide down. Panic no longer struck her.

  She only realized how much she needed the break, though, when she felt her thighs quivering. Sinking gratefully onto the blanket, she looked around, admiring the peaceful beauty that wrapped them. An owl hooted, as if wakened from slumber, and at a distance she could hear something moving through the woods. Probably deer or antelope.

  But mostly she filled herself with the rich aromas of loam and pine and even the running water. Decay and life commingled into scents that identified the woods even with her eyes closed. Pine sap dripped golden down some of the tree trunks, occasionally glimmering in an errant sun
beam.

  “This is a piece of heaven,” she remarked.

  “I always think so.” He joined her on the blanket, sitting cross-legged.

  “Right now,” she said, “I could imagine building a lean-to and staying here forever.”

  “Until the winter settles in,” he said with light humor. “A cabin would be a whole lot better. Feeling like withdrawing from the human race?”

  “I’ve felt that way more than once,” she said, letting the painful honesty slip past her usual guard. “Often as a child. Then lately.”

  He nodded. “I’m not surprised. I’m sorry, Nora.”

  “For what?”

  “For not being more aware of what you must have been going through when we were younger.”

  She shook her head a little. “Kids are born with empathy, you know. Really. Then they get into groups and other things become more important. They create in groups and out groups and everything changes. It’s normal.”

  “Maybe, but not fun when you’re the one in the out group.”

  “You tried to protect me when you saw it happening.”

  “That was little enough. And what I did later...”

  She bit her lip and averted her face. “Someday maybe you can tell me why. I know I was out of line...”

  “You weren’t out of line. I was.” He spoke firmly. “Of that there is no question. The question is what got into me. I’m still not sure. But all those things I said? They weren’t true. I was fighting something inside me, not you at all. That much I am sure of.”

  She looked at him then, drinking in his strong features, enhanced by the past decade, thinking that time had only made him much more attractive. But he was not for the likes of her. That was clear.

  Then she caught herself. Falling into old thought patterns, she realized. Running mental audiotapes that had been instilled in her by others. It was one of the first things you did in therapy: catch those tapes when they popped up, and shut them down. Don’t let them run on and on about how worthless you were, how ugly you were and all the rest. She had eventually learned to stand fast against her father’s voice in her head, but she seemed to have slipped again.

  Maybe it was partly the attack. Maybe partly coming home again. Like taking the cork out of a bottle. But she’d been a therapist long enough to know that some things had to be fought forever. One trigger could set them all off again, and she’d had more than one.

  She sighed quietly, the sound lost in the rustling of the trees and the song of the stream. “In a way, I’m glad I came back here. I guess I wasn’t finished with this place.”

  “Do you want to be finished with it?”

  “With my father, at least. Sometimes I think of him as an evil genie who just keeps popping up out of the bottle. He managed that feat even when I was far away.”

  “Some things are pretty much indelible.”

  “He seems to be. He accused me of killing my mother, you know.”

  For a long time, Jake didn’t respond. Then he said, his voice taut, “I seem to remember she committed suicide.”

  “She did. But it was my fault because I wasn’t there to look after her and make her life easier.”

  All of sudden Jake was beside her, and without warning, his arm draped heavily around her shoulder. He pulled her close, and after an instant, instinctive resistance, she yielded and leaned into his side. God, he smelled so good and felt so strong beside her. And it was heaven to be held again and yet feel safety. It had been so long.

  “Did it ever occur to that man that he might have been the reason? Or that there was no reason at all other than that she got too depressed to take it anymore? Life with him must have been a real grind.”

  “He got a dishwasher,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Mom wanted a dishwasher for years. He didn’t get one for her. Too expensive, he said. Waste of money. After all, there were two women in the house to wash up. But he’s got one now.”

  Jake swore.

  “I know,” she answered. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.”

  “It speaks volumes, doesn’t it? But trust me, Nora, she didn’t kill herself because you weren’t there. She’d probably been working up to it for a long time. You can’t blame yourself for her decision.”

  “I know all that. I’m a counselor, remember?” She sighed again and leaned her head on his shoulder. “It was our last big fight, right after her funeral.”

  “Did that man ever take responsibility for anything?”

  “Sure,” she said bitterly. “The state of our souls. His business. What more was there?”

  “Plenty. Like the happiness of his family. Did he miss that part? His duty to care for you well, not just judgmentally?”

  She shook her head a little. “I don’t know. He’s a hard man. I’ve never seen any other side of him.”

  “I’m certainly not old enough to remember any more than you do. Do you remember your grandparents?”

  “Only a little. They were gone by the time I was seven or so.”

  “So you have no idea if they raised him that way.”

  “What difference does it make? Every parent makes decisions about how to raise a child. I’ve seen plenty of them decide to do things differently because they felt their parents made serious mistakes. But everyone decides for themselves. I’d never raise my kids the way I was raised. If I ever have any.”

  “I honestly don’t think you have it in you to raise a child the way you were raised.”

  “How can you say that?” She tilted her head to see his face.

  “Because you know that pain and it didn’t harden you. You wouldn’t do that to anyone else.”

  She liked his confidence in her, but as she thought it over, she knew he was right. She would never treat a child, any child, the way she had been treated. “There’s one disadvantage to becoming a counselor,” she remarked.

  “What’s that?”

  “You know how many things are abusive that aren’t intuitively obvious. I treated a lot of abused kids, and you’d be surprised how often the abuse wasn’t even intentional. People just didn’t realize the impact they were having on their kids.”

  He fell silent, thinking she assumed, then said, “I guess I can see how that would happen. Simply not understanding would be enough.”

  “Exactly. Sometimes I wonder if my father has any capacity for understanding. For putting himself in someone else’s position.”

  “Do me a favor?” he asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t make any excuses for that man. Please.”

  “I’m not. I’m just wondering.”

  “Wondering is okay. Excusing him isn’t. One of the things about life is that we’re supposed to learn. As far as I can tell, he never learned. He had ample opportunity to figure out that he must be doing something wrong when you left and then when your mother died. Instead he’s blaming everyone but himself. That’s not productive. He should at least be asking himself some questions.”

  The thought of her father ever questioning himself might have made her laugh if it hadn’t been so unamusing. “He’s always right.”

  “Yup. So it seems.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve been keeping as much of a distance as I could for years now. I honestly never guessed just how badly treated you were, though.”

  “Baggy long dresses and thick tights hide the bruises,” she said in a burst of weary bitterness.

  He swore with quiet fury. “Nora, if anyone had guessed...”

  “Why would anyone? What’s in the family stays in the family. I learned that very early.”

  His arm tightened around her shoulders. “I just wish someone had guessed.”

  “Maybe they did, but a guess isn’t good enough to act on. He had plenty of ways of dealing with me, though, ways that wouldn’t leave marks. Have you ever had to kneel on rice for an hour?”

  She heard his teeth
grind. “No,” he said shortly. “What else?”

  “Tabasco sauce on the tongue. Oh, there were all kinds of ways. At the time I thought it was happening to everyone. I thought I must deserve it. It’s only in retrospect I understand how bad it was.”

  She had just told him more than she’d told anyone except the therapist she had been required to see during her training. Surprise filled her, that she had been able to voice all this to him. Then she realized she didn’t want to go any further. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure. Anything you like. Horses, ranching, how you like working at the library?”

  That brightened her mood a bit. “I never thought I’d get into being an archivist, but I’m loving going through all the old papers people have donated. There’s some fascinating stuff in there. Old newspaper clippings, diaries, wills, divorce papers. It’s like putting a big puzzle together.”

  “By the time you get done you’ll know this county better than Miss Emma, and she was always a font of knowledge on local history.”

  “I doubt that I’ll reach her level of expertise, but it’s really absorbing. I never knew that there were once range wars here, for example. Or that the gold-mining boom created so much trouble.”

  “Claim jumping?”

  “Some of that, yes, but a lot of fighting. It sounds like it was a rough place to try to live up there. I’m surprised anyone brought a family to a place like that.”

  “Maybe standards were different then.”

  “Sort of like the ones I was raised with, maybe.” That made her pause. “Maybe that was it exactly. Women and children were chattel. Possessions. Property.”

  “I can’t imagine thinking of another human being that way. But I get it. That’s how they grew up back then.”

  “Yeah.” She fell silent for a few seconds. “I’ve been reading this one woman’s diary. You know how you mentioned that it must have been hard out on these ranches in the days before cars? It was. This woman’s diary is like reading a descent into insanity. All alone, cut off from other women, raising nine kids, losing three in infancy, working dawn till bedtime, getting old fast, turning as much as she could over to her daughters as soon as they got big enough to help, and it still wasn’t enough. I’m not sure what got to her most, the unceasing work or the unending loneliness.”