“A little,” Matt admits. “No big deal really.”
Brian looks at me. “How about Reba. Is she okay?”
“She’s in the house. She’s fine.”
“Where’s Sam?” He looks between Matt and me.
Matt didn’t say anything to his dad on the phone about how Sam saved them and then departed with the sabre-toothed cats. “We don’t know,” I say. Matt seems to turn away from any further interactions with his father. There’s something funny with him, and Becky as well; or maybe with Becky it is something else. I can’t get a read from either of them and it’s starting to irritate me. Whatever it is, I’m sure that it’s something that happened between the two of them, and it has placed a wall between them, and around them. “We’re still waiting for her.”
“Waiting?”
“Come on.” I sit in one of the wicker chairs. “Sit down and we’ll tell you what happened.” He does and we do. Well, I do anyway. Matt remains on the steps, keeping his vigil on the trailhead. I tell Brian the abridged version.
“I’ll be hot damned,” Brian says when I finish. “Didn’t I just tell you this morning about that, that she was something special . . . a spirit?”
I say nothing. We watch a couple of birds flitting about the trees.
Matt breaks the silence. “What are we going to do if she doesn’t come back?”
Brian and I exchange looks and mental shrugs. “What would you have done when you were sheriff, Brian, if you’d received a report of a sabre-toothed cat carrying off someone?”
He laughs. “Before eight years ago I’d have written it up as a mountain lion while at the same time investigating the individual who made the report. If the missing person didn’t show up eventually I’d be looking at the possibility of murder with a wild story. After the event of eight years ago, I’d still write the report as a mountain lion or a grizzly because I’m not sure that the public around here is ready for the thought of man-eating sabre-toothed cats prowling around in their back yards. That’d be like discovering that there are sharks or piranha in Flathead Lake.”
“What about the current sheriff?”
“Kind of depends on what we tell him, doesn’t it? But let’s wait and see if she shows. I’m willing to bet she does.”
“How long?” Matt asks.
“Tomorrow morning. If she hasn’t showed by daybreak, I’ll make the call. I’ll say she went out hiking with you two and that you saw a mountain lion and then got separated. You guys found your way back but Sam never showed up. Assumptions will be made and a preliminary search and rescue plan will be implemented. By Wednesday morning it will be full blown. But, like I say, I don’t think it’ll get to that.”
“You really think she’s a spirit or something?” Matt is still sitting on the step, looking out into the trees. He doesn’t turn to talk to his dad.
“What’s your conclusion, Son, based on what you saw?”
Matt says nothing for a few seconds, then, “I don’t know what I saw. At the time it seemed like something, but now, it just seems stupid.”
“You’re not questioning that you saw the sabre-toothed cats, are you?”
Before he answers, the door opens and Becky steps out. “I’m hungry.”
“That’s the only thing I’m certain of,” Matt says to his dad, and then without looking at Becky he says, “You know where the kitchen is.”
The look in her eyes would include lightning bolts directed at the side of Matt’s head, if she could. She turns to me and gives me the, “Beat the crap out of him, Daddy,” look and then goes back in with only slightly less than a door-slam.
I consider beating the crap out of him—the fact that I’d likely be on the losing end of any beating contest not withstanding—but decide instead that since I haven’t eaten since I had breakfast with Brian and family nearly a half day before, I’ll go in search of the kitchen as well. I rise from my chair, consider saying something wiseass to Matt, then decline the notion if for no other reason than I can’t think of anything. I express my desire for a meal and then leave them alone. I know Brian wants to talk privately with his son. I also see an opportunity to talk privately with Becky. I find her staring at the contents of the refrigerator.
“Finding anything good?” I ask.
She pulls out a plate of sandwich halves, leftovers from the late morning meeting. I extract two sodas. She peels back the plastic wrap and we each grab a half. She analyzes whatever is between the bread. I take no more than a glance, wanting only to quickly satisfy the growl in my pit. “You said there were four cats.”
She takes a gulp of her soda. “At first there was just one. He was all of a sudden standing on the path in front of us. Matt kept telling me to turn around and look for the second one. He said that his dad said that you said that that was the way they attacked.”
“You’d be safe betting your last dollar on it.”
“Yeah, well, he. . . you. . . whatever, was right. Before I knew it there was one behind us and one in front of us. You have no idea what it’s like to face them without turning and running.”
“Oh yes I do.”
We’re sitting on stools at the island. She’s leaning forward, her second sandwich poised halfway to her mouth. She’s on the edge of spilling more words from her mouth, words I can somehow tell that she is unsure whether to say. This is my seventeen-year-old daughter on the edge of that time when it will be impossible to guess her age for the next ten years. I also see my little six-year-old still hidden in there, who at her very first swim meet was pulled out of the water after her backstroke competition and handed a blue ribbon. She then ran over to her mother and threw her wet little body into her arms, not knowing that she not only won the race, but beat all the other girls by a good half pool length, babbling on about how easy it was. I was so excited and proud I couldn’t speak.
“What are you grinning at?” she says.
“Can’t you read my mind?”
“I don’t want to read your mind. I’ve already read . . .” She looks away and stuffs the sandwich into her mouth.
My grin drops away and the next bite of my sandwich becomes postponed. “You’ve already read what?”
“Nothing!” she says too quickly around her chewing. “I don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You’ve already read Sam’s mind. Is that what you were going to say?”
“Yes,” she says, again too quickly. There is a good minute of awkward silence before she says, “When Mom broke her back and you lost your eye, you didn’t really fall of a cliff, did you? It happened while you were running away from the sabre-toothed cats, didn’t it?”
I’m not sure what to say. The story always had been that we were escaping Sans Sanssabre and fell from a cliff.
“You lost your eye when you were being attacked by the sabre-toothed cats because Mom knocked you down and then fell on you, and then later she fell off a fence onto a log.”
“That’s pretty much it,” I say.
“That sounds fairly simple. Why the lie? Why make up something you didn’t have to?”
“We didn’t make it up. Victor Vandermill, the CEO of Sans Sanssabre did so to cover the fact that he had sabre-toothed cats and that we were trying to escape. Once we did get free, no one would have believed the truth, and the evidence either burned to the ground or escaped into the Rocky Mountains, so we just stayed with Vandermill’s story. The FBI didn’t totally believe us. They suspected that he did this to us himself, thus the reason they put protection on us for a while. We were too busy by that time recovering to really care.”
“Why did you guys stay married?”
“What you saw in Sam’s head, and in my journal by-the-way is all there was. And you’re getting too personal. That’s all in the past. And it’s none of your business.”
She goes silent, takes a bite, chews slowly and sips on her soda.
“Hey!” Matt is in the entryway looking out the front door. “You’ve got company . . . out
front.”
We look at each other with the same Price question mark on our faces. I look back to Matt and say, “Who?” but he is already gone. We slip off of our chairs and file to the front door. We step out and I hear the word drop from Becky’s mouth before I see the person she’s referring to.
“Mom!”
My throat suddenly goes dry.
Chapter 33
I have never been able to pull anything past Tanya. I didn’t when she popped in on me at Sans Sanssabre and figured out in about thirty seconds that I had fallen off the faithful wagon. I should know now that I can’t put anything past her again. So what that Aileen is still alive. I’ve done nothing more than talk to her; nor have I had any desire for more. Still, my mind, my entire being, drops into the “cover it up” mode, as though there is something that I have to cover up. Maybe I’m thinking that Aileen will never return and I’ll never have to actually face the issue. Maybe I’m thinking that if she does return, Tanya won’t recognize her. Maybe I’m thinking that I’ll be struck by lightning only seconds before she figures it out on her own. I don’t know what I’m thinking as I meet her at the bottom of the porch steps and give her a hug. I’m certain the truth is pouring out my pores like smoke off of dry ice, oozing and puddling about my feet. She says little to me, more interested in getting her arms around Becky.
“Are you okay, Reba?” she asks as they hug. I expect her voice to be heavy and demanding, angry at her running away. Instead she acts like she’s asking about a well planned and approved excursion to a local Dallas park.
“I’m fine, Mom,” Becky says firmly, and then adds, “But I’m not ready to go back.”
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s standing up to her mother. She has definitely done some changing over the last few days, actually since her senior graduation trip. But she was ready to go home and would probably already be on her way if not for her car problems. Now, suddenly, she’s not going. Obstinate?
“I’m not here to make you go home, Sweetie. I figure it’s time for a little family vacation. We can do Glacier Park or something.”
Becky’s head rotates between her mother and me. “Where’s Christi?”
“She’s with Brandi. She didn’t want to come. That age, you know.”
Brandi is Christi’s best friend. I’m surprised that Christi would have made that choice on her own because as far as I know she has not yet slipped into the it’s not cool to go anywhere with my parents age. And she would have given up tickets to a Snake Skin concert for the chance to go anywhere in Montana. . . All right, maybe she wouldn’t have done that, but I’m certain she would have considered it.
I also can tell by the look on Becky’s face that her mother’s little fib didn’t slip by her.
“Sounds like a great idea,” I say. “Becky’s car is having some problems and we need to get it into town to be looked at though. Why don’t we head on in now?”
“What’s the rush?” Tanya asks. “Nothing is probably going to be open this late, and I really want to meet Sam. I’d like to talk to this person who took my daughter into her house.”
“She’s out and won’t be back for a while.”
Tanya looks about, noting the total of four of us. “Then what are you all doing here?”
“Ah . . . Brian and I were a bit worried about Matt and Becky. They’d been out hiking all day. When we got here they’d just gotten back and had discovered that Becky’s car was dead. Matt just finished jumping it for her and we were getting ready to go into Kalispell and find a place to get the battery and alternator checked.”
She looks toward the car, still idling by itself, and then back at me. I can feel her crawling around in my mind, ripping my half truth, half lie to little pieces. I convince myself that it’s my imagination. She can’t read minds, although at times it seems like she does. I continue.
“We were going to find a good restaurant and then crash for the night. When her car was repaired we were going to start home together.” I feel Becky’s glare turn on me. I ignore it. “But I like the idea of seeing Glacier Park.”
Tanya lingers over that for a few seconds and then Brian says, “Why don’t you go on. We’ll hang around until Sam returns and let her know you were here. Leave a phone number and I’m sure she’ll call.”
Yes! Let them meet over the phone. Tanya won’t recognize the voice and Aileen won’t give herself away. “Sounds like a great idea. We could be waiting for a while. Who knows?”
“Then let’s go,” Becky says and skips down the steps, her glare and set jaw suddenly gone. I have a feeling she did a little mental digging into her mom and found another cat just as fierce as the sabre-tooth looking for a reason to pounce on someone. Now she’s doing a little preventive damage control. “I don’t think I can find my way to Kalispell so you guys had better lead me out of here. Besides, if the car dies, it may not start again and I’m going to need a jump.” Thank you, Becky. What’s it going to cost me?
I look at Tanya and give her my “I really don’t care; whatever you like” shrug which she hates because it always puts her in the decision making position, as if she isn’t the controlling influence anyway in everything affecting the Price family and household. I’m certain she’ll go—actually I’m praying so—because I’m sure she wouldn’t do whatever she did to cover her clients and then spend a second gold mine out of our savings to obtain premium priced tickets to get here as fast as she did, just to watch her daughter drive away.
And I’m right. I hardly finish my shrug before she’s halfway down the steps. She stops in front of Brian and pulls one of her business cards from her purse. “Please give this to Sam and tell her thank you for me, and to give me a call when she gets a chance.”
I don’t realize how totally stressed I’ve been until it starts peeling away. My single key on the rental agency fob is doing a happy-dance at the end of my fingers as I head for the Blazer. Once out of here I’ll do anything these two ladies want; max out the credit cards on a vacation, drive home all in the same car, even spend a couple of hours in the mall. I just hope that whatever it is, they agree to it. It’s not pretty when Tanya gets her back up, and although Becky is a lot like me, she has her mother’s back. My imagination paints a very ugly picture of my being in the middle of the two of them with raised backs.
I stand at my door until Tanya shakes Brian’s hand and then touches his arm for assurance. I don’t know if it’s ever been a conscious move on her part, but if it’s really important and it’s a man, she’ll give that flirtatious touch, usually on the upper arm, maybe add a bit of a squeeze to the muscle there. She’s a good looking woman. What man wouldn’t notice it? If you’re going to ask a man a favor, make him feel good at the same time. When we first got married, it bugged me—unless she was doing it to me. Eventually I figured out its meaning and I found it amusing. Right now I only feel the stress returning as the seconds drag by. “Let’s get going!” I want to yell, but I don’t want her to sense my eagerness. Her hand lingers longer than usual on his arm as she says something else to him, maybe giving him a little extra squeeze. Finally she is heading for her rental car, a Ford Taurus. “I’ll lead, then Becky and then you, Tanya,” I say loud enough that I’m sure they both hear me, purposefully keeping the eagerness out of my voice.
Tanya says, “Okay,” and Becky gets in and slams her door; not an “I’m angry” slam; more like there is no other way to close this door without slamming it.
I start the Blazer, back away and then pull out of the yard and start up the hill. Becky falls in behind me. Three quarters of the way up the hill I notice that Tanya hasn’t pulled out yet. I stop and wait. Becky stops. She adjusts her mirror. Tanya’s Taurus still hasn’t moved. Did the car not start? Did she lose her key? What is she doing?
Finally it backs around. The wheels turn and it pulls forward, coming up toward us. I feel an internal sigh of relief. We’ve made it. I move my foot from the brake to the gas and then accelerate to the top of
the hill, glancing back to ensure that Becky is moving and that Tanya is still catching up. Satisfied, I crest the hill, glance back just before I lose sight and then slam on my brakes. A cloud of dust rises up around me in the dead evening air, and for a few seconds I can’t see anything, can’t confirm what I fear I saw a split second before my reflexes brought the Blazer to a skidding stop. Just before the dust clears, Becky pulls up beside me, creating her own cloud of dust. She gets out and I hear her call, “Dad.” I roll down my window. I’m still waiting for the dust to clear. I look at Becky.
“I’m sorry,” she adds. “I tried to get us away. I saw it in her mind. She was already suspicious.”
Suspicious? In my mirror I watch the dust dissipate—kind of like the reverse of a very bad dream where it fades away as you think about it. This is getting clearer as I watch, and it’s not even close to a bad dream. It’s a nightmare. Tanya’s little blue rental has stopped, and standing in front of it is Samantha Sikorski, the former Aileen Bravelli and one time object of my uncontrolled desire. I feel a sudden lurch in my center and a tightness in my chest, the same that I felt briefly this morning, but now much stronger. It had gone away. I had not felt it all afternoon since returning to look for Becky. I had thought that the inevitable approaching death had somehow been averted, but now it is back and I find myself hoping that the death will be mine.
“Oh God!” I hear Becky say.
I see the look on her face and know she has suddenly felt the same as I. From the event down in Mexico on her Senior trip, I can only assume that she is able to see detail I have never been allowed. “What?”
“Oh God!” she says again, and she turns her head to look at the scene below us.
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 57