CHAPTER 13 #2
The barn at four forty-five. Tack off. Water for both horses. Hay. Copper into his stall. Judy into hers. Luke's hands quiet on both of them.
Then he came to me at the barn door, and his hand came up as if to touch my face, and stopped, and dropped.
“I'm going to the fire lookout,” he said. “Reach Beau on the sat.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
He looked at the ranch gate, twelve trail-miles away, that we could no longer see from here.
“You do not go past the porch. You do not walk to the outhouse. Are we clear.”
“Clear.”
“Two hours.”
“Two hours.”
He turned. Went back to Copper. Was in the saddle again before I had swung the barn door on Judy. He nodded once. He rode out at five past five. Copper's hooves went up the ridge trail at the pace of an animal who had done that trail a thousand times.
I stood at the barn door and watched them go until I could no longer see the tan of his jacket.
I went to the cabin.
Utility hall. Field kit off the shelf. I peeled the torn denim down far enough to inspect the knee.
The skin was intact; swelling had begun over the kneecap, but the joint held and I could bend it, slowly, without a hard stop.
I wrapped a cold pack in a dish towel, held it there ten minutes, then used the elastic bandage from the kit for support.
The wedding band on my left hand caught the wrap once and I worked it clear without looking at it.
I stood.
The knee did what a bruised knee does. I let it.
I went out to the west porch. I picked up Angle of Repose off the bedside table on the way through the bedroom, and I sat down in the rocking chair with the paperback open at my lap.
Silver bookmark at page 261. Warren's letter folded once inside the back cover, dry from the summer.
The book was warm from the sun through the west window.
I did not read.
The heat mirage over the fence line to the west was doing its slow work.
The wren under the eaves did not do its three-note.
This was the first evening it had not done it since Marta had pointed it out to me my second morning at the main house.
I did not know if wrens knew about trucks at ranch gates.
I did not think they did. The absent call stayed with me.
At five-forty a jet contrail went over west to east, and unraveled slowly.
At six-ten I heard a hawk, once, far off.
At six-forty I put my thumb on my palm and made the tap once and stopped it and did not do it again.
At the tap in the kitchen the water pressure gave a small wobble when I filled a glass — well pressure at what he'd said was forty-seven percent by Thursday — and settled. I drank standing up, then returned to the porch.
At seven o'clock I heard Copper on the trail before I saw them.
Luke came into the cabin without knocking — it was his door, and I had stopped registering it as odd — and set the Winchester Model 70 on the kitchen table. Bolt open. The scent of dry gun oil came off it faintly, not the wet oil he used after firing.
He did not say hello. He did not say hi.
He went to the utility hall.
He came back with the oil kit and the jag rod and a fresh oil rag. He sat down at the kitchen table. He drew the rod. He pushed the patch through the barrel.
I stopped short of the threshold.
Dust on his throat. Dust on his forearms above the wrist. His hair had ridge-wind in it. He had not swung the door of the utility hall closed on the way back — he never did.
He worked the patch through the barrel and drew it out.
“Nevada plates,” he said, his eyes still on the work. “Rental out of Reno. Registered to a corporate LLC out of Delaware. Beau's tracing the beneficial owner. He'll have it Monday.”
I came into the kitchen.
I sat down across from him at the table. Not close. Across.
“And you think it's what.”
He worked another patch onto the jag. Pushed. Drew.
“A probe.”
“Of what.”
He did not answer with words. He looked up at me over the open bolt of the Winchester, one steady beat, gray eyes, then back down to the rod in his hand.
Thumb quiet on my opposite palm — I did not do it a second time — and I did not press.
The kitchen was still and the range clock said seven-twelve and the sun was falling behind the ridge with the drought-orange hue of a day that had been ninety-seven.
The signet ring on his left pinky was dust-dulled.
He turned it once with his thumb, without looking.
I had begun to know that gesture the way I had begun to know the girth-check I had done twice this morning — as something one of us did to make sure the small things were still in the right place.
He put a fresh patch on. Pushed it through.
“Celia.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to sleep with the Remington on your side of the bed tonight.”
I rose from the chair.
I went to the utility hall. The 870 was where it always was — pump barrel down, muzzle up, safety visible from the entry side because he had explained on our eleventh day here that a rack should let you check the safety without touching the gun.
I lifted it down. I checked the safety the way he had taught me (my thumb still remembered where the button lived; the button was where it should be).
I racked the action a half-inch to confirm the chamber was empty and let it close. Magazine full, four in the tube.
I carried it to the bedroom.
I set it against the nightstand next to Angle of Repose — muzzle up, butt on the floorboard, silver bookmark just visible at page 261 above the tape-and-gauze of my right knee under the torn denim.
I came back to the kitchen.
Luke was where I had left him. The bolt of the Winchester was still open. He drew the rod out and looked down the barrel at the light.
I was back at the doorframe.
I let the silence stand.
He kept his gaze down.