I read that I lived in a town that grew up around cattle – we were on the route the drovers used as they headed south from Montana into Texas, and these drovers were a lawless bunch, stealing steers from other herds, shooting each other in the back for the sake of a few dollars per head. The whole thing didn’t settle down until the cattle drives dried up and Ellerton got itself a train station on the main route west through the Rockies. Then haulage companies invested and Ellerton grew respectable, on the whole.
Come the end of the nineteenth century, we had three churches and five schools. We still had cattle, but they were mainly fenced in. The ranchers’ wives came into Ellerton to shop along a main street selling hats, gloves, lace for their collars and hand-made boots.
End of history lesson, but not quite. The journalist soon got back to the gory part of our past – for example, the ancient, unsolved mystery of a rape and homicide out at Foxton Ridge. My finger twitched on the mouse button as I read on.
The name of the rape victim was Marie Hunter. She’d been home alone on the remote ranch when her nearest neighbour, Peter Mentone, paid an uninvited visit. Mentone had a history as a loner and a loser – he lived below the poverty line in a wooden shack with just a few cattle and his horse for company. He must have been seriously delusional if he expected the beautiful and respectable, married Marie to return the attention he was suddenly paying.
The journalist had done his research thoroughly. He recorded how Mentone had made his move, how Marie had fought back but couldn’t stop the assault. She was left with bruises all over her body and a broken arm. So imagine the relief she felt when her husband, Robert Hunter, came home unexpectedly and caught Mentone in his kitchen raping his wife.
This is the graphic part. Court records told how Hunter broke the bolt on his own front door and crashed into the room. He saw Marie on the rug with Mentone still on top of her. He ran and grabbed the guy by the back of his jacket and swung him aside, not seeing the gun in Mentone’s belt. I guess he was blind with rage as he sent him sprawling across the room. He stooped over his wife to help her up, then he turned to deal with her attacker.
Mentone had had time to get to his feet and draw the gun. He pointed it at Hunter and shot him in the head at point-blank range.
It was an open-and-shut case. Mentone had killed his victim and fled the scene, but Marie soon identified him and the sheriff arrested him – he was hiding stupidly in his shack. He didn’t try to run or resist in any way. They had the trial and they hung Mentone within two weeks of the crime.
No one felt sorry – Robert Hunter had been well liked and his wife had been brought up by a strict protestant family in the town. She’d taught school before she married and settled down.
There was another tragedy for Marie Hunter to bear, the journalist added. Nine months after the rape and the death of her husband, she gave birth to a child – a baby girl whom she named Hester after the girl in a classic novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I was stunned by the report and sat for what seemed like an age running through the details. I got through to the end of the account for a fourth time. Mentone had raped Marie and she had his baby! Plus, Hunter had a first name – Robert. He wasn’t only Hunter the overlord with the fading angel-wing tattoo.
While I was staring out of the window working through my reaction, Brandon Rohr rode up on his Harley.
He came into the café, straight to my table. ‘Coffee,’ he called to the waitress.
‘Hey, Brandon, is this a weird coincidence or what?’ I set up the ironic defence before he could, overcoming the spooky feeling that he was stalking me. ‘Sit down, why don’t you?’
‘Darina.’ Unzipping his leather jacket, he didn’t seem in the mood to take up the challenge. ‘We don’t see you this side of town. What happened?’
‘I wanted a quiet morning to focus on a school project. It was working until you walked in through the door – thanks!’
‘I’m out of here,’ he offered. And he meant it. He picked up his keys and scraped back his chair.
‘No, stay. Drink your coffee.’ I looked more closely and dropped the stalker theory. Brandon seemed tired, minus the usual macho posturing. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Good,’ he said, walking over to the counter to save the waitress a trip. He stayed there to sip his coffee.
‘What happened to you?’ I asked. ‘How come you’re not pressing my buttons?’
‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘You were the last time we met, outside the Madisons’ place.’ This new subdued Brandon allowed me past the tough-guy image to view the Brandon that reminded me more of Phoenix – quiet and somehow vulnerable. ‘Really – did something bad happen?’
He came back to the table, turned his chair around and sat astride. ‘The cops brought Zak home,’ he told me. ‘Last night. They caught the kid setting fire to a janitor’s store at his school.’
‘That’s bad. I’m sorry.’
‘Mom went crazy. After she yelled at Zak she turned on me and said it was all down to me. Zak needed someone he could look up to and now Phoenix is gone, I’m the lousy role model he has to follow.’
‘She said that? So when did you last set fire to a janitor’s store?’ I asked. Phoenix had told me about Brandon’s past and it didn’t include arson. True, there was a jail sentence for fighting over a girl and beating the other guy to a pulp, and other angry adolescent stuff before that. But nothing since, as far as I knew.
‘You know what Mom means,’ he muttered. ‘I need to set Zak an example the way Phoenix did.’
‘So the pressure’s on. What exactly does she want you to do?’
‘Rewind ten years, wipe the exam failures, the gangs, the fights, the conviction for assault, you name it.’ The bitter tone told me he was way down in a deep hole, not even trying to climb out.
‘Seriously – what can you do?’
‘Ditch the Harley, get work, be home nights.’ Drinking the dregs of his coffee, Brandon slammed the cup down. ‘You know what she wants, Darina? She wants me to do what Phoenix did, she wants me to act like him, look like him – she wants me to be him!’
Sleep was a million miles away. I lay in my bed that night, my mind going a hundred miles per hour, flipping from one topic to another.
First, the copycat killing in Florida. I tried to stand back from my first thought of Hey, it’s the same guy! Slow right down. Run that through again. I took a deep breath and told myself that Florida was half a continent away. Crazy gunmen usually stayed local. They had their killing spree then ran home and holed up, went back to living their lives with no one even suspecting the guy who lived above the convenience store or the loner who drove the animal-feed truck – until they went out and shot more innocent people.
But then I remembered the same quick getaway technique, the identical calculating mind behind the two crazy acts. Whoever shot Summer and the Venice victims must have planned the whole thing in advance. And the white baseball cap stuck in my mind, even amongst the whirl of warring ideas.
I turned and pulled the blankets over my head, trying to stop the muscles in my legs from twitching and to get some sleep.
And what about Hunter? How could I look at him in the same way now that I’d read exactly what happened to him and Marie? There was a rape and then there was a daughter. How had Marie handled the disgrace of that back then? Had she given Mentone’s baby up for adoption? Had she lived the rest of her life hanging her head in shame?
And Hunter had a first name. He was an actual rancher with a Christian name, who died trying to save his wife from a rapist. Imagine the worst thing that could happen to a guy and it had happened to him out at Foxton more than a century ago.
I turned again, pummelled my pillow back into shape. Maybe I should turn on the light and read a magazine because I sure wasn’t going to sleep. I reached out for the lamp switch.
It was right at that moment that Phoenix appeared. My hand was stretched out, my fingers were fee
ling for the switch. A wind blew in through the open window, the drapes billowed and he stood there in a halo of silver light.
Phoenix was with me the whole night. Hunter had sent him and said he should stay until morning.
It was like a gift, all my Christmases and birthdays rolled into one, to have my Beautiful Dead boyfriend lying by my side.
‘This can’t be happening,’ I whispered. The fantastical silver light had faded – he was solid flesh, though hardly visible as we lay together. But I reached out to touch him and knew every contour of his face – smooth forehead, long lashes, full, soft lips.
‘Don’t talk,’ he sighed. ‘Hold me.’
‘What happened? Are you OK?’
‘Don’t talk.’ He kissed me and held me as if he thought someone would come, something bad would happen and I would be snatched away.
‘It’s OK,’ I breathed, stroking his thick dark hair. ‘I’m here.’ And to convince him I kissed his lips, his closed eyelids, his cheeks. I held his hands and guided them across my own face, felt them tremble as he stroked my neck. Then I arched into him and sank in the moment, letting him know how much I loved him.
We tried everything we knew not to see the dawn sun in the sky.
‘Close the curtains,’ Phoenix murmured. ‘Don’t let the light in.’
The darkness had dissolved enough for me to see his face beside me. He was lying on his stomach, head turned towards me. Folding back the blanket, I ran my hand down the smooth skin of his back and rested it over his angel-wing tattoo. ‘I love to look at you,’ I whispered back.
After a while, Phoenix raised himself and leaned on one elbow, gazing down at me. ‘You want to know why Hunter let me be here?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’
‘To warn you again not to come out to Foxton until you get more information.’
‘He already told me that!’ I pretended to push Phoenix off balance and smiled when he collapsed on to me.
‘Yeah. But he has spies everywhere. He has Donna and Iceman over here in Ellerton.’
‘Watching me?’ I knew the Beautiful Dead could be present but invisible, keeping silent watch. ‘They might at least have let me know.’
Phoenix smiled back. ‘Donna said you researched some information about a killing in Florida. She reported back to Hunter. He said the link wasn’t strong enough, then sent me here.’
‘To tell me I’d failed,’ I sighed. ‘But I’m not complaining. I’ll take you as his messenger any day!’
Phoenix cut short my kiss by sliding his fingers between our lips. ‘He didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart,’ he reminded me.
‘Because he doesn’t have one,’ I agreed. ‘I know. So why did he let you come? Did you ask him?’
‘Would it make any difference if I had?’
‘Not to Hunter. But it would to me.’ I broke free of him and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. ‘Did you beg him to let you see me? Did you tell him you couldn’t keep away a single minute longer? Tell me you did!’
‘Seriously? No – what I said was, I was worried about you.’
‘Don’t be.’ I leaned over again and tried to smooth away the frown lines on Phoenix’s forehead. ‘I’ve done this before, remember – for Jonas and Arizona.’
The frown stayed where it was. ‘This time it’s different. The guy who shot Summer didn’t aim before he fired. It was totally random. We’re not looking for a sane explanation here.’
‘So you stress about what I’m getting myself into? Me too, if I’m honest. But I’ll take good care, believe me.’
‘And if it gets too scary, you’ll tell me?’
Looking up into his blue-grey eyes, which stared so intensely and read every beat of my heart, I murmured that I would call for help whenever I needed it.
‘It won’t always be me,’ he warned. ‘But this time Hunter agreed for me to come because I explained that I also wanted to talk to you about Zak.’
I nodded slowly. ‘You heard about him starting the fire?’ I felt a small stab of disappointment that it wasn’t just for my sake that Phoenix was here in my bed.
‘Dean told me. He listened in to your conversation with Brandon.’
‘Jeez, Phoenix!’ Was there nothing that the Beautiful Dead didn’t know? ‘So what else did Dean tell you?’
‘Don’t be mad, Darina.’ He got up from the bed and went to close the curtains, throwing the room back into shadow. ‘Dean discovered there were two other kids with Zak – they were a couple of years older. It’s not an excuse for my brother, but it seems they dragged him along.’
‘Will the cops understand that?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe. If he has someone to speak up for him. Brandon can’t do it.’
‘Brandon’s in a bad place right now – but, yeah, you already know that. So your mom will look after Zak, won’t she?’
‘She’ll try. All I’m saying is, now that I’m not around, Zak needs all the help he can get.’ Phoenix sat on the bed, his back towards me, waiting for my reaction.
‘I hear you,’ I murmured. I was mesmerized by the death mark beneath his shoulder blade, the cruel reminder that we were always and for ever running out of time. I slid down from the bed and knelt beside him, resting my head in his lap. ‘When do you have to leave?’
He stroked my cheek. ‘Now,’ he said, his voice faded to almost nothing. ‘I love you, Darina. Always, even after I’m gone – always remember that.’
I planned to make it into school that day for a Summer concert rehearsal, so after Phoenix dematerialized I showered, dressed and went downstairs.
Laura and Jim were in the kitchen, getting ready to start their own working days. They both looked up, but, unlike my mom, Jim didn’t have it in him to hide his surprise. ‘What happened, Darina? How come you’re out of bed before midday?’
‘Ha-ha.’ I took my jacket off the hook by the door, making sure my keys were in the pocket.
‘You’re going to school?’ Laura checked.
‘It’s Monday, so yeah.’ They should be pleased – most Mondays lately I’d asked Laura to call in to say I was sick. But today Logan had texted me to say that Miss Jones had called a major run-through. I went into the TV room to collect my guitar, then headed out.
‘So you decided to play in the concert?’ Laura called after me. Again, she shouldn’t have stated the obvious and she should have sounded more pleased.
‘Catch you later,’ I called as I got into my zoom-zoom Brandon-mobile.
At school it was easier than I’d expected to mingle and keep a low profile. Nobody stared at me with their jaws open, saying, ‘Hey, Darina, what are you doing here?’ They just acted like I hadn’t taken any time off – even the teachers.
Logan greeted me at the main door and walked into the building with me. ‘Rehearsal is at twelve-thirty,’ he reminded me. ‘See you there.’
Hannah was in the classroom with Christian, Lucas and the techies, Parker and Ezra. She saw my guitar case and came across to talk about the ‘Red Sky’ duet we had planned.
By the start of the first class I felt as if I’d never been away.
‘Hey, Darina – good job,’ Ellerton High’s music teacher, Katie Jones, said when we got to lunchtime and I walked into rehearsal. ‘Just so you know – I put you and Hannah in as item number four on the programme, right after Logan’s guitar solo. Also, I’d like you to be a backing singer on the song after the interval. Christian’s going to sing the “Invisible” number. How do you feel about that?’
‘Cool,’ I told her. It felt good to sit and tune my guitar in the big, high-tech theatre that the school had built from its generous performing arts budget. Good too to be part of the crowd all getting together to celebrate Summer’s music.
We started the rehearsal with Logan’s solo. I liked to watch him sitting with his acoustic guitar, his whole focus on the instrument. He played well, not brilliantly, as Arizona’s dad had once pointed out to me. L
ogan’s technique was like the rest of him – solid and without too much flair, Frank Taylor had said. The guy was an expert musician so he should know. Anyway, I thought Logan did great and I clapped along with everyone else.
At the end of his piece Miss Jones moved in with her comments and Christian handed me the music for the backing vocals on ‘Invisible’. ‘Summer probably played you this track a thousand times,’ he reminded me. ‘You’ll be singing with Jordan. Are you cool with that?’
‘Totally.’ The faint flavour of sympathy in Christian’s voice made me move away, almost bumping right into Parker Simons, who was carrying a heavy spotlight stand and a coil of thick cable. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ I asked Christian over my shoulder.
Parker got out of my way and I went to join Hannah, who was sitting halfway up the tiered auditorium with her laptop. ‘Let’s find a corner to rehearse,’ I suggested.
‘Sit down. Let me finish here.’
Glancing across, I saw that she was working on improving an ad for the concert to put on the angelvoice website. Now that I thought about it, I recalled that Hannah had put herself in charge of the preconcert marketing.
‘How many tickets have we sold?’ I asked.
‘Hundreds already. I was talking to Miss Jones about extending the gig from the one we’ve planned for the Saturday morning to a second one in the afternoon.’
‘Cool.’ I sat with my feet up on the seat in front, taking in the buzz of the theatre. ‘Summer would love this,’ I murmured. The musicians, the techie guys like Parker and Ezra, the gathering together of all this talent.
‘Take a look at this.’ Hannah tilted her screen towards me and let me read some recent comments on Summer’s website.
Just bought my Summer tribute ticket – can’t wait!
Listening to Summer’s ‘Red Sky’ track – so-o-o sad!
I downloaded ‘Invisible’ and listened to it all nite long. Summer Madison rocks!