I forced a light tone into my voice. “You went absolutely crazy when you read that book the first time,” I reminded him.
He continued to peer at me quizzically.
“You wanted to go to sea that very day,” I teased. “You must have been what? Ten?”
His eyes remained very still. I felt pinned down by their dark concentration, a small, wriggling thing.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your reading,” I said to him. Then I looked at Dora, felt my earlier tumult surge again, pressed it down, said only, “Good night, Dora.”
She nodded. “Good night, Cal.”
Billy had begun to talk again by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, and for the next hour, as I sat in his study surrounded by his belongings. I heard his voice above me, speaking softly to her. The very intimacy of it worked like a steadily building charge in my blood.
It was nearly midnight when she came down the stairs again. I heard her footsteps, and darted quickly into the hallway.
She was standing at the front door, about to open it.
“You have a way with him,” I said.
“He is very vulnerable right now.”
“I know. I sometimes think that if he were to stumble, he’d break into a thousand pieces.”
She drew her coat from the peg by the door. “He’s trying to put things together again. Sort things out.”
“Things like me.”
I was very near her now, could smell her hair, her skin, all but feel her breath on my face.
“I know it must be hard for you,” she said. “The way William is.”
“You’re very good with him, Dora. I hope he knows how lucky he is.”
She seemed to catch the fire in my eyes, decided to ignore it. “He wants to visit his mother,” she told me as she reached for her scarf.
“I don’t suppose he wants me to come along.”
I felt her gaze as softly as if it were her hand upon my face. “He’ll come back to you, Cal.”
I shook my head. “It’ll never be the same, Dora.”
She drew the scarf around her throat. “Yes, it will. He has to find a way back into his life. Everyone does. After a tragedy.” She turned toward the door, started to open it but stopped when I spoke.
“He once told me that something tragic happened to you.”
She faced me. “Something tragic?”
“That you’d suffered some terrible…”
“Why would he think that?”
“Maybe he just wanted to,” I answered. “Suffering lends an air of mystery, you know.”
She looked at me uncomprehendingly. “What could be less mysterious than suffering, Cal?”
It was the saddest question I had ever heard. For once in my life, I had no ready answer.
“I guess it’s finding happiness that’s the real mystery,” I said. “Finding love.”
She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.
I followed behind her until she reached the stairs. “I hope you find it, Dora,” I told her. “Love.”
Her face was masked in darkness, impossible to read, leaving the meaning of her final words in terrible uncertainty.
I have.
Chapter Twenty
Twelve Palms was a small, sweltering town, little more than a single street, surrounded by a limitless expanse of cactus and tumbleweed. A range of mountains loomed in the distance, dark and jagged, suspended in rippling waves of heat.
There was a general store and a small hotel, both wood-framed, a barbershop with a rusted metal sign, and at the very end of the town, a tumbledown corral attached to an abandoned barn. Old cars, limned in a fine white dust, were scattered about the main street, toys in a sandbox town.
Near the end of the street, a one-story adobe building stood on a lot that would have been entirely bare were it not for a few sprigs of parched grass and a dusty palm. A storm fence glimmered in the hard sunlight, erected no doubt because the building contained, according to the weathered sign that swung languidly from two rusty lengths of chain, both the sheriff’s office and the local jail.
The sheriff was slumped in a metal chair at the front of the building. He was a short, stocky man, with slick black hair, thinning at the top, and skin so brown and leathery, it looked as if he’d been hung out in the sun.
“I’m Calvin Chase,” I said.
He took off his hat, hung it over one knee. “Charlie Vernon.” His eyes flicked over my scarecrow frame and hollow eyes. “If you’re looking for work, I don’t have any. Nobody does around here.”
“I have work,” I replied.
“Not one of them Okies, then?”
“I’m from Maine.”
“Maine? I guess you’ve got a good reason to come so far.”
“Yes, I do.”
He returned the large, western-style hat to his head, then pushed it backward with a single finger. “So, Mr. Chase, what can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a woman.”
Vernon grinned. “Ain’t we all.”
“I think she might know something about my brother’s death.”
The grin vanished. “How’d your brother die?”
“He was murdered.”
Vernon’s face remained expressionless. “Back in Maine?”
I nodded.
“And you think this woman might be out this way?”
“I don’t know where she is. But I think she might have come from this area.”
“Why’s that?”
“She had a book that came from around here. The Dayton ranch.”
His eyes narrowed. “Fred Dayton’s ranch?”
“When Lorenzo Clay owned it.”
“You know Lorenzo Clay?”
“I spoke to him. He said you might be able to help me.”
Vernon suddenly appeared more accommodating, though only slightly, not a man who would grovel before wealth and power, only one smart enough to know who had it and who didn’t.
“What was this woman’s name?”
“I don’t know. The one she used came from a magazine.”
“With no name, I don’t see how I can be of much help.”
“What can you tell me about Catherine Shay?”
A light flickered in Vernon’s eyes. “What’s Catherine Shay got to do with anything?”
“The woman I’m looking for said she was from California,” I told him. “And she had scars on her back.”
Vernon’s eyes widened. “Are you telling me you think this woman might actually be Catherine Shay?”
“I’d like to make sure she isn’t.”
“Well, I can tell you this, Mr. Chase. If this woman is Catherine Shay, you got no hope of finding her.”
“Why not?”
“Because Catherine has spent her life making sure no one knows where she is.”
I saw Dora as she so often appeared, moving quickly through the darkness, perpetually in flight. “Why?”
“Because of Adrian Cash,” Vernon answered. “The man who cut her. She’s spent her life hiding from him. So even if I knew where Catherine was, I wouldn’t tell you.” He worked to regain his earlier, more languid manner, his voice now as slow and steady as the swing of an old saloon door. “What do you actually know about Catherine anyway?”
“Only what Clay told me.”
“Which was?”
“That she was at the Dayton ranch the night the family was killed. And that she was assaulted.”
“Assaulted doesn’t begin to describe what happened to Catherine Shay,” the sheriff said. “That’s why she’s been on the run for twenty years. That’s why she’s changed her name a dozen times, roamed from coast to coast.”
I waited, said nothing, confident he would go on.
“Catherine heard everything, you see. She was in the house the whole time the others were being killed. Hiding in a little room down the hall from the kitchen. She was already on her way back to the kitchen when it started.”
I saw
a little girl step into an unlighted corridor, then stop, shrink back.
“She heard this girl say, ‘I’m hungry, do you have some food?’ That was Irene Dement. The girl Cash had been living with. After that, all hell broke loose. People being tied up. People being murdered. Catherine heard all of that.”
Then abruptly it had stopped, the last moans fading away.
“Once everybody was dead, Cash and Irene started robbing the place. They went through closets, drawers, that sort of thing. Picked up the stuff they got caught with a month later. Myra’s pearl earrings. Fred’s leather gloves. Catherine heard all that commotion too, of course.”
I felt that I was with her now, in that dark room, a little boy myself, huddled in the same inescapable blackness, locked in the same mute terror.
“They stuffed what they could in a couple of feed sacks, then they left. Catherine didn’t see them go. But she heard the screen door bang shut, heard them talking as they headed away from the house. Cash was cussing Irene, telling her what a dumb bitch she was, stuff like that. Then, nothing.”
A little girl’s voice whispered in the silence, They’re gone.
“She waited a little while, then she came out of the room,” Vernon said.
I saw her rise, walk to the door, open it softly, peer into the dark corridor.
My voice was a boy’s, Don’t go.
She looked at me, her green eyes curiously assured, They’re gone.
I was at the door now, watching her move slowly down the corridor, toward a single square of light that came from the distant kitchen. In a frantic whisper, I said, Come back. Please, come back. She turned to me, her long, blond hair shining in the light, I can’t.
“She walked straight to that kitchen,” Vernon said. “Saw what had been done to them.”
Fred Dayton, gagged, tied to a chair, head pulled back, mouth agape, eyes open, throat cut. Myra Dayton, gagged, hands behind her back, tied to the door, body slumped forward at the waist, her long, dark hair dangling toward the floor, a pool of blood soaking her feet. Sally Dayton, gagged, tied facedown across the kitchen table, throat cut, back slashed.
“It scared the daylights out of her, of course, and so, instead of going out the kitchen door, which was right in front of her, Catherine turned and ran toward the front door, fast as she could.”
I saw her streak past, a little girl in full flight, her blond hair flying wildly behind her. My own boyish warning sounded softly in the dark, Hide!
“She made it to the front door,” Vernon said. “Even got it partway open. That’s when she saw them coming back.”
I saw them too. Adrian Cash striding toward the house, Irene Dement trotting, doglike, at his side.
“Catherine didn’t know why they were coming back to the house until they got close enough for her to make out what Cash was saying:
Four plates on the table.
Somebody else is in that house.
Somebody else.
Alive.
“She knew they were coming back for her,” Vernon said. “The fourth plate, you might say.”
And so she ran, first back to the bathroom, then to the study, finally back through the living room, now racing frantically through the darkness, bumping into chairs and tables until she reached the stairs, dashed up them, and curled into a desperate ball, her eyes searching the darkness around her until the front door opened and she saw a yellow shaft of light sweep the downstairs rooms.
“They found her at the top of the stairs,” Vernon said. “That’s where it happened to her. When it was over, they left her for dead. Set the house on fire. Somehow, Catherine came to. She managed to get out, crawl all the way out into the desert. She stayed there, watching neighbors fight the fire until Tom Shay came roaring up. Then we heard this little cry and there she was, standing about a hundred yards away, naked from the waist up, covered with blood. She said, ‘Papa.’ That was all.”
Later, however, she had said considerably more.
“Catherine was a real bright little girl,” Vernon went on. “Smart as a whip. Sort of artistic in a way, liked to draw. She gave a description of Cash and Irene that had every detail you could think of.” A triumphant smile broke over his face. “That’s how the border patrol caught them. Because Catherine had given such good descriptions.”
The trial had begun in less than a month, and ended in less than a week.
“Catherine showed the jury exactly what they did to her,” Vernon said.
I saw her rise, turn her back to the jury, saw her blouse drop from her shoulders.
“You should have seen Cash when she did that,” Vernon said. “He leaped up and pointed his finger. Yelled, ‘You’re mine’ to her. ‘You’re mine.’” He drew an exhausted breath. “Far as I know, she’s still hiding from him.” He was staring at me thoughtfully, as if trying to determine if he should tell me more. “Catherine never got over it. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She’s had a rough life. You know, wandering from place to place. Always afraid.” The last revelation seemed most to pain him. “She’s had a few run-ins with the law. Stole some money here and there.”
I saw Dora’s name in the ledger books of the Sentinel, the paltry sums she’d stolen.
Vernon shrugged. “Each time, Tom tracked her down and brought her back. But she always left. Couldn’t get Cash out of her mind. Always running from him.”
“Why?” I asked. “Cash was caught, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, he was caught,” Vernon said. “But he wasn’t killed. Got life in prison. That’s what drove Catherine crazy. That he was alive, and that he’d yelled at her that way. She was just a little girl, remember.” His mouth twisted into an angry sneer. “I blame Hedda Locke for that.” He saw that the name meant nothing to me. “Cash’s lawyer. That woman charmed the jury right out of their seats. Told them what a terrible life poor Adrian had had.” His anger flashed, a leaping fury. “Got the trial transferred over to Lobo City. Even tried to make herself look older so the jury wouldn’t think she was just a kid, fresh out of law school. Wore long dark dresses. That sort of thing. Even a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.”
Chapter Twenty-one
She took off her glasses as she came into the room. “William’s getting better,” she said.
Nearly a month had passed since we’d brought him home, and all that time I’d worked to remind myself again and again that the feeling I had for Dora could never be revealed, nor acted upon, that I had no choice but keep my yearning to myself. “He’s getting stronger, yes,” I said. She took a chair near mine. “He thinks he can go back to work in a week or so.”
“Perhaps,” I said with little emphasis, working to conceal the tumult her mere presence called up in me, the way everything about her, her eyes, her voice, lit their own separate fires.
I remained silent for a time, then said, “But what if he can’t? What if he can’t ever go back to work? What if this suspiciousness never goes away?”
I related an incident of the day before, how my brother had suddenly heard our father moving about downstairs and had immediately demanded that I go down, check what he was doing.
“He seemed to think that Dad was going through his things for some reason,” I told her. “That he was looking for something. But Dad was only clearing a few things away here in the study.”
“Did you tell William that?”
“Yes.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I don’t know if he did or not. That’s why, as far as his going back to work, how can he do that? How can he ever do that if he can’t trust his own father? Not to mention me.”
“He mistrusts himself, Cal,” Dora said.
“Maybe so, but the fact is, he can’t go back to the Sentinel until he gets better.” I tapped the side of my head. “Up here.”
“That will come,” Dora said confidently.
“What if it doesn’t? What would you do?”
She looked at me quizzically.
“I me
an, do you think you could take over the paper?”
Her answer was crisp and sure. “No.”
“Why not?” I offered a faint smile. “I mean, let’s face it, Billy was never much of a manager. I’m sure you’d be a far better one.” I waved my hand over the chaos of the room he insisted that we leave untouched. “I rest my case.” I looked at her pointedly. “The fact is, Billy’s still a little boy when it comes to keeping things in order. The Sentinel included.”
Dora said nothing, but merely rose and began to gather up her things. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
I couldn’t bear to see her go, had come to dread every moment she was not in view. “Would you mind if I walked you home?” I asked.
She didn’t seem alarmed by the prospect, nor to have the slightest inkling of my feelings for her, how feverish they had become by then, a boiling tide inside me.
“All right” was all she said.
We made our way down the walkway, she close at my side, our bodies almost touching.
“By the way, did you ever get a new coat?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“You’ll need one with winter coming on.”
“The one I have will do.”
“Perhaps I could get you one,” I said tentatively. “You’ve been so good to Billy. I’d like to…”
She smiled. “That’s very nice of you, Cal, but I won’t need a coat.”
We continued on, past Port Alma’s main street, its few small lights flickering distantly behind us, then turned on to the narrow road that led to Dora’s house. The moon was full and bright, enough to light our way.
As we walked, I began to feel and hear every sight and sound to a strangely heightened degree, all my senses suddenly on point, the night wind more delicate, the whispery movement of our bodies more tender, the whole world immeasurably soft and frail, as if caught in a hushed suspension, awaiting my next move.
I felt my hand reach for Dora’s, then hesitate and draw back. It was a kind of fear I had never known before, and it seemed both anguished and infinitely thrilling.
As we neared her house, I could hear the sea churning softly in the distance.
“It’s a beautiful sound,” I said. “The sea. Especially at night.”