Come Sundown

by Nora Roberts

  Bodine pulled straight up.

  “I faced it head-on,” Alice said. “I looked in my head and I told Pete.”

  “Pete’s the artist. The one Bob Tate brought here today.” Cora slipped an arm around Alice’s shoulders. “Alice has been waiting to tell you.”

  “How do you feel about it?” Callen asked her.

  “I’m glad it’s over. It hurt.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “I had to stop, and start and stop and start. I’m glad it’s over. You have to look at it. We have one, and Bobby said everybody should look at it in case they know Sir. Ma?”

  “I’ll go get it.”

  “I like being outside. I like—” Alice stopped, tapped a finger to her lips.

  “What is it?” Bodine asked.

  “I keep wanting to say things over and over. I’m trying not to. I like being outside,” she said carefully, “maybe because I had to be inside for so long. Coming out whenever I want makes me feel good.”

  Now she pressed her lips tight as Cora came out with the sketch.

  “This is Sir. It doesn’t look exactly right, but I can’t explain better. His hair got gray like mine did, and his beard—sometimes he had it, sometimes he didn’t. But most times he did. And his face got old like mine. This is how he looks, as best I can explain, now.”

  Bodine studied the sketch.

  Were his eyes truly crazy, or did Alice only see them that way? In the sketch they had a wild, fierce look about them. The hair hung thin, unkempt, straggly. A grizzled beard covered the lower half of a thin, hard face. The mouth made a cruel, compressed line.

  “Do you know him?” Alice demanded. “Do you know who he is? Bobby says he has a real name, not Sir. A real one.”

  “I don’t think I do.” Bodine looked up at Callen.

  “I don’t, but we know what he looks like now. It’ll help find him and stop him.” Because he knew he could, he stepped up, hugged her. “You did really good, Alice.”

  On a sigh, she rested her head on his chest a moment before stepping back. “He’s not as tall as you, but taller than Bobby. That’s what I told Pete. His arms are strong. He has big hands, harder than Rory’s or yours. He has a scar on his palm. This one.” She tapped her left, slashed a line across it. “And one here, like that.” She drew a curve on her left hip. “He’s got a mark—”

  She looked at her mother.

  “Birthmark.”

  “A birthmark here.” She touched her right outer thigh. “Like a smear. I said I’d remember when he locked me up, I said I’d remember when I got away. And I did remember. I remembered. Can we go see Sundown now? I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

  “Sure we can. Did you keep an eye on him for me today?”

  “I went out this morning, and I went out after I helped draw the face. I gave him a carrot, and one for Leo with the pretty blue eyes, too, and I brushed him and sang him a song.”

  “He sure likes when you sing. So do I. Maybe you can sing for us again when we see how he’s doing.”

  He offered Alice his arm, made her grin.

  “I can see her coming back, more and more,” Cora told Bodine. “And today I watched her suffer through memories and fears. He looks like a monster. He looks like a monster and he had my girl all those years.”

  “He’ll never have her again. Nana, he’ll never touch her again.”

  “I don’t believe in vengeance. The war took my husband, the boy I loved, the father of my babies. And I grieved, but I never felt hate in my heart. I feel it now. I feel it every day now. My girl’s home, and coming back, and under the joy of that, I feel such hate, Bodine. It’s black and it’s bright, that hate.”

  “Nana, I don’t think you’d be human if you didn’t. I don’t know if them finding him and locking him away for the rest of his miserable life will ease that for you.”

  “I don’t know, either.” Cora let out a long sigh. “I have to remember to look at her, to see her as she is, as she’s coming back, and be grateful. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to cut his balls off with a rusty knife and hear him scream.”

  After shaking herself, Cora arched her eyebrows at Bodine. “That’s not something most people would smile at.”

  “Most people aren’t me.”

  “Oh, well. I’m going to put this ugly thing away.” She took back the sketch. “Do you want to ask Cal to dinner?”

  “Actually he asked me. I’ve got a couple of take-home dinners in the truck. We’re going to watch a movie in the shack.”

  “Now I’ve got something to smile about.”

  “I’m just going to run up, grab the movie we’re watching, and a couple bags of microwave popcorn from the pantry.”

  “Don’t forget your toothbrush,” Cora called out.

  “Honestly, Nana.” On a laugh, Bodine looked back. “Think who you’re talking to. I’ve had a spare over there for weeks.”

  * * *

  While Bodine ran upstairs, Callen checked Sundown’s wound. Alice stroked the horse and sang “Jolene.”

  “You sure can sing,” Callen said when she finished.

  “I sang with Reenie, and I sang to my Rory, and I sang to myself. I couldn’t have a radio or records or a TV. Rory—Reenie’s Rory—gave me a … It’s little and has songs on it and you can put things in your ears and listen.”

  “An iPod.”

  “Yes! It’s the nicest present. Rory is so good, he’s such a good boy. The iPod is like magic. It has lots and lots of music, and I can listen to it when I can’t sleep.”

  “Are you having trouble sleeping, Miss Alice?”

  “Only sometimes now, not so much as before. And the music takes away the bad dreams. Even in the bad dreams I can’t see him like he was when I got in the truck. I can’t see him clear that way anymore. Was the truck blue, or was it red? I shouldn’t have gotten in. I saw the snakes.”

  “In the truck? He had snakes in the truck?”

  “Not real ones. The picture. The sticker thing. He’s a sovereign citizen, a true patriot, and true patriots will rise up and overthrow the corrupt federalists. They’ll take our country back.”

  “Did you tell the sheriff about the sticker?”

  “Did I? I think. Maybe. True patriots will revolt because the tree of liberty needs to be watered with blood to bring the country back to the people, under God. A man needs sons to protect the land. I only gave him one that lived. One’s not enough to fight and work and protect. I think he had more.”

  “More sons?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. More wives. Do you think I can sit on Sundown soon?”

  “We’ll ask Doc Bickers. Miss Alice, can you tell me why you think he had more wives?”

  He prepared to back off. He could see the jerky way her hands moved, hear the anxiety in her voice. But she pressed her face to Sundown’s.

  “He said I didn’t hear anything but the wind. I didn’t hear calling or crying or yelling. I imagined it, and shut up about it.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Sundown’s almost better. You’re almost better, too. You didn’t limp today. Some things get better.”

  “You’re a lot better yourself, Miss Alice.”

  “I’m better, things are better. I can go outside whenever I want to. Ma’s teaching me how to crochet a sweater now. I heard his truck that night, I heard it. I wasn’t sleeping. He took the baby away, he took my next baby away and the next. He took poor little Benjamin who went to heaven away, and I wasn’t sleeping because I hurt inside and outside and in my head and in my heart.”

  Desperately sorry, Callen brushed a hand over her hand, laid it on her shoulder. She reached up, gripped it hard. “I heard the truck come back, and I was afraid, so afraid he’d come in and take his marital rights. And I heard the scream. It wasn’t the wind, it wasn’t an owl or a coyote. It wasn’t the first time, but I heard it so clear that time, once, twice. I did. And I heard him, too. Shouting, cursing. And he didn’t come for his m
arital rights that night or the next or the next.”

  “Were you in the house or the cellar?”

  “The house. It was night, it was dark out my window. And once after, not the next or the next, but after, in the day. In the light, I heard calling. Help, help, help! I think. I couldn’t hear it very well, but I heard. Then I didn’t hear it anymore. But the crying once. I heard crying sometimes when I worked in the garden. Maybe it was the babies crying for me. I had to stop hearing the crying because I couldn’t get to the babies. It’s how I went crazy, I guess.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  She stepped back, smiled. “A little bit. I think I was more crazy then. I had to be or I’d have killed myself.”

  He went with his heart, with his gut, and framed her face with his hands, kissed her softly on the mouth. “You may be a little bit crazy, but you’re still the sanest person I know.”

  Her eyes teared up even as she laughed. “You must know a lot of crazy people.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  When she left him, singing to herself, he pulled out his phone to call the sheriff. There might be more women locked up in some cellar being driven mad.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It took the best part of a week, with a delay of a solid day of soaking rain, but on a soft April evening, Callen saddled Sundown for what he billed as the Big Reveal.

  “Maybe everybody shouldn’t watch yet.”

  He turned, studied Alice in her new boots and buff-colored hat, her jeans and bright pink shirt. She’d added a brown leather vest he suspected was Bodine’s.

  “You sure look a picture.”

  She ducked her head, but he caught the smile.

  “I’m going to be right with you,” he reminded her. “But if you want to wait—”

  “No, it’s silly. I make myself silly. But you’ll be with me.”

  “Every step. You ready?”

  She gave a nod, put her foot in his hands for the boost. When she settled in the saddle, she let out a long, happy sigh. “It feels so good, like it did the first time. Not the first time ever, but since. Since you helped me sit on Sundown.”

  “Do you want the reins?”

  “Not yet. Not yet. Most everybody’s seen me sit on him now, and you walk me on him. You can just walk me on him, okay?”

  He led her at a slow clip-clop toward the doors of the stables. “I used to ride so fast, so far.”

  “You will again when you want.”

  He led her out after a long workday where the Big Reveal included steaks on the grill, cornbread and beer, and a family who’d come together for something as simple, and as monumental, as a middle-aged woman sitting on the back of a horse.

  Most of the ranch hands had gathered as well, and broke into applause.

  Chase held the paddock gate open, closed it again behind them. Callen led them around in a full circle.

  “We can just walk like this,” he said to Alice. “You tell me if you’re ready or you’re not. It’s all up to you.”

  “I’m not used to everybody looking at me,” she confided. “My chest hurts some.”

  “That could be you feeling the pride in mine.”

  “You say nice things. I feel good when you talk to me. My Benjamin went to heaven, but maybe if he didn’t he’d be like you.”

  The onlookers sat on the fence, or stood with a boot perched on a rung. She knew the faces, knew the names. But still, they all watched her.

  “They’re proud of you, too.”

  “Proud of me.” She murmured that as well, as if letting it slide into her mind. “And happy to see Sundown’s well again.”

  “That’s right. You helped him get better.”

  “I helped. I can do it. I can do it, but you’ll stay with me?”

  “You know I will.” He handed her the reins. “You go on and take a ride, Miss Alice.”

  She felt the leather in her hands, old memories and new ones, the feel of a good horse under her, the frisky spring breeze over her face. Sundown stood absolutely still until she nudged him into a walk.

  Callen stayed close, but she rode. And it made her proud. It made her remember being young and safe and free. It brought that bubbling up inside her she knew now was happiness.

  She looked down at Callen. “Can I?”

  “Just let him know.”

  When she moved into a trot, all on her own, she heard the clapping, even some cheers. But she paid little attention to that. She was free.

  “You didn’t say anything about her learning to trot,” Bodine said.

  Callen just shrugged, stood by the fence. “You don’t have to know everything.”

  When she stopped, face flushed, in front of the fence, she looked for Callen’s nod. She took off her hat, held it high over her head as Sundown bowed.

  When Callen helped her dismount, she threw her arms around Sundown’s neck, then around Callen’s waist. “Can I ride again tomorrow?”

  “You can ride any and every day you want.”

  “Alice, I took a video.” Rory held up his phone. “A movie of you riding.”

  “A movie! I want to see.”

  When she rushed over to Rory, Callen turned to Bodine and her mother. “I’d like to take her on an easy trail ride. When she’s ready, I think Rosie would be a good ride for her. She’s gentle and bright.”

  “I don’t know if she’d ride away from the ranch,” Maureen began.

  “She would with Callen,” Bodine put in. “Or Rory. Maybe with me. And Rosie’s a good choice when she’s ready to get up on a horse that’s not Sundown.”

  “I’d want to talk to Celia first, and Ma.”

  “Reenie, come see! I’m a movie star!”

  “She’s just being careful.” Bodine swung over the fence. “At this point Nana would let Alice ride to the moon and back if it put that happy look on her face. Mom’s trying to balance that out.”

  “It’s no problem. You might want to talk to the doctor about having her work with the horses here, then over at the BAC.”

  “The BAC?”

  “An hour here and there, with me. I read up on some therapies, and a lot use animals. It’s horses for Alice, though she likes the dogs, too. She grooms Sundown as if he’s going to a beauty pageant. She could handle more of that.”

  “Maybe.” Her mind hadn’t gone there, but now that it had, she saw the benefits. “Maybe it would do her good to do some work, outside, in the stables. She’s been helping Clem in the kitchen. You’ve got a brain, Skinner.”

  She gave him a friendly poke in the ribs.

  “Sometimes I even use it.”

  “The work makes her feel useful, and feeling useful makes her feel normal. You should talk to Dad about it. See how she does here, then we’ll talk about her spending a little time at the BAC, if she wants.”

  Alice obviously enjoyed the evening. She talked to her mother about the sweater she’d started, and, surprisingly, to Hec about the horses, watched Rory’s little video countless times.

  For himself, Callen bided his time. Under starlight with Chase slipping off to Jessica’s, and Rory to a date with Chelsea, he sat with Sam on the front porch.

  Cigars and whisky equaled a good way to end the day.

  “You put in a lot of time with Alice,” Sam said after a long stretch of easy silence.

  “She put in a lot of time with me.”