‘So whose idea is the memorial?’ I asked. I’d agreed to go without really wanting to and partly to fill the hole of Orlando’s leaving. It was either that or staying home with Zenaida, who was getting fat on sunflower seeds.
Grace drove the familiar route through town towards the lake. ‘The New Dawn people think it’s appropriate, I guess.’
‘It’s the least they can do,’ Holly muttered from the back seat. ‘But if you ask me it’s some kind of PR exercise.’
‘How do you figure that?’ Grace didn’t get it.
‘The community is under pressure. One of their Explorers dies in weird circumstances.’
‘Will you stop this!’ I shook my head and stared ahead.
‘What?’
‘Making stuff up, developing theories.’
‘Tania’s in denial,’ Holly told Grace with a patient sigh. ‘So anyway, the New Dawn people set up the memorial service to make it look as though they care.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘That’s what these boot camp places have to do. I read about it. They cover up abuse with slick PR. It’s a known fact.’ Holly’s position didn’t soften. She was sticking with her hard-line view.
‘You’re sure you want to be there?’ I asked, turning to look at her. ‘What if you see the guy with the blond hair – number 102, Jarrold?’
‘Yeah, Holly, don’t make a scene,’ Grace warned. ‘We don’t want you sharing your homicide theory with people. This is not the right time or place.’
‘So did anyone start investigating?’ I’d been out of the loop since Sunday because of Mom’s surgery. ‘Is there going to be an inquiry?’
‘Who knows?’ Holly shrugged. ‘I already called Antony Amos’s office to remind them I was a witness.’
‘And?’
‘They said thanks but no thanks. The woman – the French one – cut me dead, if you really want to know.’
‘So what about the cops?’ Grace turned off the highway and followed the rough track to the New Dawn Community. We drove through junipers and redwoods which eventually opened out to give us a clear view of the lake.
‘I called them too and they said so far they’re not directly involved. They’re waiting for the autopsy report.’
‘So you think you can handle this?’ I checked. Knowing Holly and her reaction to hitting her head against a wall, I doubted it.
‘A kid is dead,’ Grace added quietly. ‘That’s all we need to focus on right now.’
‘Sure I can handle it,’ Holly sulked, opening the car door before Grace had even finished parking. She got out and slammed the door. ‘What do you think I am?’
4
It wasn’t what I was expecting, not in a million years.
In fact, I had zero expectations because most of my mind was still on Orlando walking through the departure gate and my heart was wrung out with regrets and longing.
But here we were, walking from the car park down to the lakeside to join a group that was about to celebrate a departure of the final kind.
It turned out there were around fifty people at Conner’s memorial. Twenty or so were from Bitterroot, responding to the message on the New Dawn website that everyone from the town was welcome. The rest were staff and juvies from the community. I picked out and recognized straight away the girl called Aurelie, who’d been by Antony Amos’s side. Today she was dressed in a floaty orange skirt and long-sleeved cream top, standing next to a guy who could only be her brother, maybe even her twin, who had the same shiny, dark hair and dark eyes and that quiet way of holding himself slightly apart from those around him, who were mainly Explorers by the look of them. I mean, they didn’t have the classy look. I know I shouldn’t say that, but I just did.
For instance, there were the two girl triathletes I’d seen last Saturday – the scowling one with thick black hair who again established personal space with a hostile stare. Today she was dressed in frayed jeans and a tight white T, with plenty of silver jewellery including a couple of face piercings. She stood reluctantly with the nervy, skinny one – pretty but awkward, whose denim jacket was buttoned to her chin and whose long hair blew across her face as she stood with her back to the wind from the lake.
The moment Aurelie saw me arrive with Grace and Holly, she came to greet us. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m Aurelie Laurent, Antony’s stepdaughter. Antony will be here any moment.’
Stepdaughter. I registered this and stored it. We all smiled and felt embarrassed, mumbled hi and followed her into the crowd.
Dainty and delicate are the words to describe our guide. And charming. Charmante. You felt that right away. Huge, wide eyes gave her an alert, intelligent look, her hair was cut so well you immediately wanted to ask who was her hairdresser at the same time knowing you couldn’t afford it. Groomed, delicate, dainty, charming. And French. Some girls have it all.
‘Come and meet my twin brother,’ she invited.
Twin – first impression confirmed. Another fact for the Aurelie file.
I didn’t know about Holly and Grace, but Aurelie Laurent made me feel like a dork. That’s the only way I can describe it. Compared with her, we were hicks. We should have been playing our banjos on the back porch, chewing tobacco, spitting and eating grits. I exaggerate to make my point.
‘This is Jean-Luc.’ Aurelie began the introductions.
‘Hi, I’m Grace.’
‘Tania.’
‘Holly.’
Here we were again – Jean-Luc was another drop-dead gorgeous guy, to which one-word responses were all we could manage. His almost black hair swept across his forehead and was long enough to curl on to the collar of his blue and white striped shirt. He wore the cuffs rolled back to reveal tanned wrists, the collar turned up and the two top buttons undone.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, mirroring his sister’s perfect manners. Add ‘sophisticated’ and ‘refined’ to charming, groomed and the rest. I tried not to stare open-mouthed at this second picture of perfection.
‘Tania was just in Paris.’ Grace told him the first thing that entered her head.
She blushed, stepped back and left me and Holly in the firing line.
‘Really?’ Jean-Luc glanced from me to Holly and back again, unsure which was which.
Pay attention, monsieur.
‘This is Tania,’ Holly said quickly as she gave me a small shove.
Aurelie’s brother kept his attention on Holly. ‘Number 85,’ he recalled, fixing her with an unwavering stare. It was enough to make the stoutest heart go flip-flop, pitter-patter. ‘I heard you tried to save Conner.’
‘I did,’ Holly mumbled, her tanned face flushing. Here was her moment. I saw it all – the kick to the head, the moment of homicide. But no – Jean-Luc’s powerful gaze seemed to stun her into silence.
‘You did a brave thing,’ he told her, his dark eyes seeming to dig deep into her consciousness.
Holly swallowed and took a step backwards. All her usual bravado seemed to have deserted her.
Jean-Luc stared at her for a while longer then finally turned his attention to me. ‘Tania, when did you leave Paris?’
‘Friday.’ I was so nervous I couldn’t be sure I had my tongue under control, so I kept it short.
‘Where in Paris did you stay?’
‘Rue du Temple.’
‘And why were you there?’
‘I went to study art. Well, film actually.’
‘You saw the Picasso museum?’
I nodded.
‘A friend of my father’s is curator there.’
Wow. How do you top that?
‘Our father, Claude Laurent,’ Jean-Luc explained. ‘He is a banker there, in Paris.’
Again I was tongue-tied and Aurelie had to step in with a change of subject.
‘We wanted to hold the ceremony here, in the place where it happened. It makes us feel … connected.’
‘We’re so sad for you.’ Grace always speaks from
the heart. She’s an open book – no games, no barriers. It makes her both vulnerable and strong. ‘It’s important – we have to show we care,’ she’d told Holly and me when she was persuading us to come here.
‘Thank you, we appreciate it. Especially your bravery, Holly.’ Aurelie smiled graciously then went to mingle with other guests. At last – a recognition. Her brother, Jean-Luc, stayed to chat with me about Paris, explaining that he liked to spend part of each year there: ‘Whenever I get the time. Antony’s foundation keeps me pretty busy actually.
‘Antony’, not ‘Papa’, I noticed.
‘My job is to be the bridge between our Explorers and their families. A lot of parents ask for daily progress reports, though we don’t allow direct contact during the time kids are here. The idea of New Dawn is to open up Explorers to a completely new beginning. “To turn hearts, to walk together in the sight of the Great Creator.”’
Jean-Luc delivered the quote straight from the New Dawn manifesto, it seemed. I wondered if there could be a touch of irony in his voice but I didn’t see any sign of it in the serene expression on his face. Anyway, I was happy just to enjoy the foreign inflexions, to admire the perfect grammar. Gorgeous and smart. Incroyable.
‘So,’ Holly blundered in. ‘Your mother divorced your father then married Antony Amos?’
Too personal. I thought about giving her a dig in the ribs to make her behave, but Jean-Luc didn’t seem to mind.
‘It was ten years ago. They met while Antony was filming in Greece – an epic horror, lots of dark mazes, snakes, minotaurs. Our family owns a holiday villa on Crete. Aurelie and I were eight years old.’
‘And where—’ Holly began.
Jean-Luc read her mind. ‘Unfortunately my mother died earlier this year.’
I straight away felt bad for him and Aurelie – for their loss, and I thought of my own mom in her hospital bed.
‘Wow, I’m sorry,’ Holly said, by now totally under Jean-Luc’s charming spell.
‘She helped Antony to set up the community. She was a psychotherapist in Paris and it was her idea to give New Dawn an experiential basis. Our programme stresses assertiveness and group work, it consists of a series of tasks to challenge Explorers and bring them into harmony with the wildernesses of the world.’
The text-book speech fell fluently from his tongue – again no hint of cynicism. I bet he gave this same spiel ten times a day. And believed it, it seemed.
‘Excuse me – duty calls,’ he said next, smoothly sliding away when he saw more people coming down the track from the cabins on the hill.
He left Holly, me and Grace practically open-mouthed on the lake shore.
‘Not behaviour modification but experiential,’ Grace echoed softly. This was her field and she sounded interested.
‘A series of challenges in the wilderness,’ Holly murmured. She had that bring-it-on look in her bright-blue eyes and before we could comment she went right over to Aurelie Laurent to ask her whether New Dawn ever took volunteer helpers.
Grace threw me a puzzled glance. ‘Wow – she changed her mind!’
‘Yeah, what happened to the homicide theory?’
‘One talk with a good-looking guy and she drops it, just like that,’ Grace frowned. ‘Suddenly she loves this place enough to volunteer.’
‘Typical, huh?’ I followed the back view of Jean-Luc as he walked halfway up the hill to meet his stepfather, Antony Amos, accompanied by three more of the Explorer kids including Holly’s ex-chief suspect, Jarrold.
Blond and muscled, smooth-skinned and strong. Did he look like a guy with a guilty secret as he strode down through the trees?
I glanced up amongst the pines and experienced a stomach-wrenching flip into the past, vivid and powerful as a lightning strike.
I see Red Cloud, Red Dog, Little Wound wearing crows’ feathers in their black, braided hair. There will be no surrender. They stand at the edge of a forest with blankets around their shoulders, arms crossed. The Ogala Lakotas send war pipes to their friends, the Arapaho. Together the tribes swoop down to the South Platte in a thunder of hooves, the whole valley lights up with burning cabins and stage stations, pine trees twist and explode into flame.
‘Do not trust the enemy. In one hand they hold a peace pipe, in the other is a rifle.’
Red Cloud with his long black hair falling to his shoulders. His eyes are hooded, his mouth is a wide, thin slash across his broad face, his shoulders are strong. He says, ‘The white men have pushed the Indians back season by season until we are forced to live in a small country north of the river. And now our last hunting ground, home of the people, is to be taken from us. Our women and children will starve, but we will die fighting.’
White Ghost, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse. Names like sighs, like wind blowing across the plains. Braids and beads, headdresses made of fluttering eagle feathers, faces built out of rock, out of earth.
‘A bird, when it is on its nest, spreads its wings to cover the eggs and protect them. We will protect our wives and children.’ Sitting Bull rides bareback by the river, amongst the tipis. ‘Make a brave fight!’ he cries.
Snow comes and falls deep. Soldiers appear on the hill. A black rattle of rifles, a swoop of a thousand horses. They shoot and burn. Nothing remains but smoke and ash, smoke and ash.
Sitting Bull, Rain in the Face, Crazy Horse live on. Thousands are slain in the valley, by the river. Their blood stains the snow.
‘When I was a boy we owned the world. The sun rose and set on our land. Where are the warriors today? Where are our lands? Am I wicked because I am Lakota, because I was born where my father lived, because I would die for my people and country?’
A bearded man with a wolf-skin headdress walks with Amos out of the moonlit forest. He is half man, half wolf with a hairy jaw. Is this past, present or future?
Wolf man beckons me and leads me into thorns, I crawl after him, my clothes are ripped to shreds. His amber eyes draw me in, he breathes soft words into my ear. The grey-haired wolf howls his song.
‘Tania?’ Grace said. She tugged at my sleeve. ‘Are you OK?’
I was on the edge of a fantasy forest peopled by ghosts and nightmares, sensing danger. ‘I’m cool,’ I told her, getting a grip, shrugging the wolf man off.
Through the whole ceremony Amos kept Jarrold by his side. He stood by the water’s edge, his back to the lake, facing us. And his quiet dignity claimed our attention. Like Red Cloud talking to his warriors before battle, he made us listen.
‘Our brother, Conner, walked with us in the wilderness,’ Amos began. ‘We saw greatness in him, we saw peace.’
New Dawn kids and staff raised their arms above their heads. They gazed out over the water.
‘He sat by our fires, high on the mountain. His heart was healed.’
The Explorers raised their arms and poured out their emotions on the shore of the lake. Some of the girls wept while their leader spoke.
‘He is gone yet he remains. He’s in the trees over our heads, the rocks beneath our feet. He is every drop of water in the lake.’
‘Hey, Conner, this is Channing speaking. We’re here to say we love you.’ The mixed-race guy with the tall, rangy physique spoke softly. A low chorus of voices echoed his words.
‘We know you’re here,’ Channing murmured. ‘We know you’re at peace.’
‘Go but stay,’ Amos said. ‘Walk with us in harmony.’
The ceremony was short and simple. It ended with hugs, handshakes and tears, with smiles breaking through and a kind of quiet joy. Then we split into groups and talked amongst ourselves.
‘Are you in a hurry to leave?’ Aurelie asked Holly, her fall-coloured skirt blowing in the breeze, suggesting great legs beneath the flimsy fabric.
‘Are we?’ Holly checked.
Grace and I shook our heads.
‘So why not walk up to Trail’s End with us?’ Aurelie invited. ‘Papa’s cabin,’ she explained. ‘He’d love to talk with you about volunteering, Holly. An
d you too, Tania and Grace.’
We nodded. Shake, nod, shake, nod, like banjo-playing puppets on strings.
Anyway, we followed Aurelie, Jean-Luc, Ziegler and Amos up the track, under the trees.
What had happened to Jarrold, I wondered. I turned and saw him sitting alone on a rock, staring out across the lake.
‘So did you actually volunteer?’ Grace checked with Holly.
‘I decided I want to help out,’ she explained. ‘I can do survival skills, no problem … What?’ she protested when Grace and I looked sceptical. ‘I was a girl scout, I went to summer school – gathering berries, rubbing a couple of sticks together to make fire, boiling water. How hard can it be?’
‘But …’ Grace was tempted to bring up Holly’s old homicide theory, which had apparently been blown clean out of the water.
‘Don’t even bother,’ I warned. ‘Holly was at the ceremony and now she’s a convert.’ Amos’s words had been impressive – sincere, calm and convincing.
And his face had really and truly looked like one of the old tribal chiefs – lined and beaten by the wind, hair swept back from his noble features. If I switched off the critical part of my brain, I could see the attraction.
So we trailed on up to the New Dawn leader’s cabin, where we were caught off guard again.
‘No way do I call this a cabin,’ Grace whispered from a distance of thirty metres.
Trail’s End was way too big for a start, with wraparound porches and main windows looking over the lake towards the distant peaks of the Bitterroot Range. The porch furniture – swings, chairs and tables – were five-star quality with leather cushions and expensive ranch styling. An air-con unit stood next to the log store and the main door was open, showing a glimpse of a living room with a round table bearing the weight of a bronze statue of a bucking horse. So I agreed with Grace – this was no ordinary cabin, more the kind of ranch house you see in realtor ads, with moose heads on the wall and bear rugs on the floor.
‘Come in!’ Aurelie invited. ‘Can I get you iced tea?’
‘Yes, come in.’ Antony Amos stood in the porch. He must have been fifty-five years old, but he’d walked up the steep hill without stopping to draw breath.