Chapter Eighteen
“He isn’t in the hayloft,” Ruth said, jumping down the last few ladder rungs to the ground. “The hay isn’t disturbed, either—no one has been up there recently. He wasn’t up there at all today.”
Rachel and Adam had been waiting for her on the ground, and Adam’s neck prickled at Ruth’s announcement. He gazed out the barn door. It was beginning to get dark outside.
They hadn’t seen Mason since the argument a few hours ago. When he hadn’t come to the dinner table, Rachel had insisted that they go looking for him, and Adam hadn’t taken much convincing. The guilt over the things he had said to Mason was a chasm in the pit of his stomach.
Rachel had been right, of course. She had been right about all of it.
He hated that he had spoken to Mason that way. The boy’s jaw had dropped, and shock had registered in his eyes. He had positioned himself so close to Rachel, as if to protect her. Protect her.
Adam would never have harmed anyone, and it sickened him to think that Mason might have felt that way. He had to make it right—but where had the boy gone?
Rachel hugged herself as if she was cold, though it was a warm evening, and looked around the barn. “Where else could he have gone?” she asked. “Where would he go, if not there? What other places does he have?”
“None outside,” Adam said. “Not that I know of. I’d expect to find him in his room if he was angry with me.
” They already knew he wasn’t there. They’d checked, just to be sure he hadn’t snuck in a window after storming out of the house as he had, but the room had been empty and cold.
Mason’s clothes from yesterday had been strewn about the floor, his bed unmade, the room looking very lived in.
And yet, finding it empty had reinforced to Adam in a new way that Mason really wasn’t there.
They had hurried outside to check the barn.
Now the fear was mounting. It was in the tension in Ruth’s shoulders and the grit of Rachel’s jaw, and it lived in his own heart as well, threatening to paralyze him when he most needed to be engaged.
“We need to start a search,” he said. “We need to look at the whole property. Ruth, go and fetch all the ranch hands so we can divide up. Rachel, will you go back to the house, please—”
“I’m not going to sit in the house while Mason is missing!” She took a step toward him, her hands moving to her hips.
“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” he assured her.
The agitation she wore so visibly was the same feeling that had taken root inside his body—a jumpy feeling, a sense that there was something vital he really ought to be doing if only he could think what it was.
Rachel was looking around as if she expected to find the answer, occasionally reaching out to touch something.
She seemed almost unconscious of what she was doing.
A task will help her, as a matter of fact. “What I was going to ask was that you gather up as many candles as you can find. We’ll need them, wandering around the ranch in the dark. If he’s decided to take a nap under a tree, we could walk right by him and miss him completely.”
He didn’t mention that it was entirely possible that Mason would be lying on the ground, under a tree or elsewhere, for reasons far less harmless than sleep.
He didn’t want to put that idea into words—doing so would make it seem more real—and he couldn’t bring himself to add to the haunted look in Rachel’s eyes.
And even that wasn’t the worst possible outcome. What if they didn’t find him at all? The argument over the stove had been hours ago, though the scent of smoke still lingered back at the house. No one had seen Mason since then—he could be miles away by now.
He ran from his father, and his father never saw him again… and now he’s run from me. He would probably say he ran for the same reasons. I can’t lose him.
I can’t let the same thing happen here as happens to so many people I care about—I don’t love them well enough, and then they’re gone.
Ruth was on her way back, though Rachel, who had gone running up to the house, was currently nowhere to be seen. Adam walked over to Ruth and intercepted her. “Are the others coming?”
“They’re all just putting their tools away,” she said. “They’ll be along in a minute. Everyone was worried when I told them what was going on.”
Sure enough, a group of ranch hands appeared from the direction of the toolshed.
He glanced back at the house and saw that Rachel was now on her way back too, a collection of thin tapers clutched in her arms. She drew near and passed some of them to Adam and some of them to Ruth.
Then she reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a book of matches.
Handing it to Adam, she said, “I thought we would need this too.”
He nodded. “That was good thinking.” Turning to the ranch hands as they circled around, he said, “Everyone take a candle. Let’s move quickly. I’d like to get started before we lose what little daylight we have left.”
There was a buzz of conversation as everyone stepped forward and took one of the tapers. Adam lit Ruth’s candle, and she passed the light along to the man standing nearest her, who passed it to his own neighbor. One by one, as candles were ignited, they pushed back the gathering darkness.
The dark cloud in Adam’s mind seemed to recede a bit as well.
This was what he needed—something he could do, some action he could take.
He knew what his next step was now, and the step after that, which meant that he could act accordingly.
His favorite problems were the sort that had clear solutions.
He gave instructions to the assembled group, breaking up his land into portions.
Some would search inside the outbuildings.
Some would walk the horse pasture and make sure Mason wasn’t in there.
Some would go into the woods that adjoined the ranch or up to the road and look for signs of him in those places.
“What about me?” Rachel asked him, clutching his wrist. “Where should I look?”
He took her gently by the shoulders. He’d never seen her fearful like this, and she wasn’t going to like his answer much either. “I want you to stay at the house.”
“What? Adam, no, I told you…” She twisted against his grip, but he held on. “You can’t make me wait at the house while Mason is missing, Adam! I have to look for him!”
“I know I can’t make you.” He met her gaze.
Her green eyes seemed to flash—beneath her worry, there was anger.
“I know you’re going to do what you think is best. But listen to me.
What if he comes back? What if he was running away, and he comes back to the house to pick up something he left behind…
or what if he returns because he genuinely wants to?
Either way, he’s going to be very emotional, I’d think.
And he shouldn’t come home to an empty house.
Someone should be there in case that happens.
” He searched her gaze. “Can you think of anyone better suited to that? Anyone it ought to be instead of you?”
She bit her lip and looked down. Her knuckles were white on the candlestick—was she holding it particularly tightly, or was that a trick of the light? “No,” she admitted. “You’re right. I think he would feel most reassured by me right now.”
Even though she was agreeing with him, the words fractured Adam’s heart.
They were a reminder that he was the reason this was happening in the first place.
It was thanks to him that Mason had run away.
Now it was best that he just stay out of the house in case the boy came back, so he wouldn’t make him feel unsafe with his presence.
He turned away and addressed the ranch hands, unable to look at Rachel any longer. “Let’s get moving,” he shouted. “Be quick but thorough. Find him.”
***
It was after midnight when Adam made his way back to the house.
He was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other, but it wasn’t due to exhaustion.
His whole body felt like a bolt of lightning at the moment, full of so much energy that he could have screamed just to let some of it go.
The difficult thing about walking across the yard, walking back up the porch steps, was knowing that he was going in the wrong direction. This wasn’t going to bring Mason home.
He’s still out there. It’s the middle of the night and he’s still out there, and he’s all alone, and who knows what might have happened…
As if in answer to his fear, the howl of a coyote split the night, sending a shiver down Adam’s spine.
A light flickered on the porch. Rachel was waiting there with her candle, sitting in one of the wooden chairs, and she leapt to her feet and ran to meet him. “Adam! Did you…”
She broke off, taking in the look on his face. “You didn’t find him,” she breathed.
“We checked everywhere.” Adam’s voice was hoarse. “Everywhere. All the buildings. Every inch of the land. He isn’t on the ranch. He left. We’ll have to resume the search in town tomorrow, see if anyone saw him there, but…he’s not here.”
Rachel pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God.”
“There’s nothing more we can do tonight,” Adam said heavily.
“There’s no hope of finding him now. I wanted to go up the road to town and start knocking on doors, but Ruth talked me out of it…
and she’s right. In this darkness, it would be just as likely that one of the horses would be injured, and there might be bandits on the road…
we have to wait until daylight to resume the search. ”
“We should speak to the sheriff,” Rachel said, wringing her hands.
She was short of breath, even though she had been doing nothing more strenuous than sitting in a chair.
She was so upset, and for a moment that made him forget his own terror.
He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her close, reassure her that this was going to be all right, steady her until the tremor left her body.
But I don’t know that it’s going to be all right. Anything at all might have happened to Mason.
“Come sit down,” she said, taking him by the hand.
He allowed it. Her hand was small and soft in his, and for a split second he could focus on something other than his crushing guilt and the deep well of fear that Mason was already dead.
Rachel led him over to the chair beside her own.
He sat down, and she resumed her own seat.
She set the candle on the table between the two of them and angled herself slightly to face him. “It’s going to be all right,” she murmured.
He looked up at her. The candlelight flickered over her features.
Her jaw was tight, her forehead lined…she was worried.
“How can you say that?” he demanded, rubbing his palms vigorously up and down his thighs to rid himself of some nervous energy.
“You don’t know if it’s going to be all right. What if something’s happened to him?”
“I…” She cut herself off.
“You what?” The words were more aggressive than he meant them to be.
“Nothing,” she said. “Never mind. It isn’t important.”
“No, I want to know what you were going to say,” he pressed, leaning forward. “Were you going to start talking about God again? Is that it?”
She sighed. “I know that isn’t what you want to hear right now, Adam,” she murmured.
“But it is what you were going to say, isn’t it?”
“I’m not going to say it.” She looked away from him, out into the darkness. “But I won’t deny it either. I won’t deny my faith.”
Anger rose within him like a tide. “Mason is out there somewhere, and you want to sit here and talk about God? At a time like this? How can you?” He jumped to his feet and strode away from her, down to the other end of the porch.
For a long moment, nothing happened, and he thought she must have given up and gone inside.
He leaned on the porch railing, staring out into the black and pondering whether there was any point or not in going out again.
Sitting here doing nothing felt negligent.
He itched with the need to take action. But what would he do in this darkness?
His candle wouldn’t provide nearly enough light to search by.
Rachel arrived next to him and leaned against the porch railing too. For a moment, she looked out in the same direction he was looking, but then she turned so her back was to the railing and faced him.
Her hair was coming loose from its bun, thanks to the hard work of the day and the long hours of worry over Mason.
She hadn’t bothered to tidy it, and now the loose wisps fluttered in the wind.
He noticed for the first time how long her neck was, and registered too the way she held her chin high even at a time like this.
With Mason missing, possibly lost to them forever, and with Adam chastising her for her faith, she still had the same quiet strength she always had.
Is that what faith gives her? I could use some of it, if it is.
He swallowed his pride. The words felt like rocks coming up his throat, but he forced himself to say them anyway. “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have disparaged your faith. It…it does no harm.” It was the best he could offer.
“I wish I understood why you don’t feel the same comfort in God as I do,” she murmured.
He couldn’t look at her. “My father died on the mountain when I was young,” he said.
“He was logging, and there was an avalanche…” He pressed his lips together, biting back the pain that came with remembering this.
“It was a freak accident, and it was terrible. And I never understood why God would do that.” He turned to face Rachel, searching her green eyes as though they might contain the answers he had never been able to find anywhere else.
“Why would God take my father away? Why would He take a good man who was only trying to provide for his family? And why would He allow Mason to be hurt in the first place, to be harmed by his own father? Don’t say to bring him to us.
That’s not good enough. God could have given Mason a father who loved him. ”
He waited for Rachel to answer, hopeful that she would find the right thing to say. But she said nothing.
She must not know the answers to these questions any more than he did.