Igloo cooler just inside the door, offering Maddox a Coors, which he declined. 'I earned this one,' said Ripsbaugh, cracking it open, exploding a spray of mist and a lazy spill of foam.
He drank down half, wincing under the high sun, then caught sight of a wing flapping over the top of a dirt hillock across the lane. He handed Maddox his beer and reached back inside the shed for his spade, mounting the rise in four long strides, blade raised.
Two massive turkey vultures spread their wings, lifting off slowly away from him, hauling their ugly bodies into the hot, heavy air.
Their meal was a dead possum, which Ripsbaugh scooped and flung down the other side. Maddox eyed the blood smear on the spade as Ripsbaugh returned, taking his beer, drinking another lick and starting up the dusty road toward the front gate. 'They find anything?'
'Dogs scented a trail. Led out to the fire road through the Borderlands. Ended there.'
'It's Dill they're looking at?'
Maddox nodded. 'What do you think?'
'I'm wondering who's next if he doesn't work out for them.' They walked a few more steps in silence. 'It's not what they done to me so much. The letters they found, the cut on my arm?I understand these things. But give me a fair shake. This guy Hess, the way he went about it. How he had it all decided. Sawed off my leg without waiting for the cancer test to come back first.'
'It's not right, how they treated you.'
'I can take it. Being that I knew I was innocent, that made it all just strange. But what it did to Val. What it put her through. Once they come in that door, once they get inside your house, everything you ever said or did can and will be used against you. It was open season. And Val, she's not that strong. She's sick to death about anyone knowing her business, never mind the whole town.'
'You could sue.'
Ripsbaugh shook his head. 'Not put her through that again.'
Maddox looked at him. 'You're a good man, Kane.'
'Naw,' he said, taking another pull on the can, then crushing it in his fist, tossing it near the door of the recycling shed. 'No such thing.'
He felt Maddox looking him over, as though Maddox had decided something. 'You said something to me once about wanting to help. If I were to ask you for a favor, even if it didn't seem to make sense at the time, could you do it anyway, without saying anything to anyone else?'
Ripsbaugh hesitated with his hand on the gate latch. An unforeseen result of his persecution by Hess and the state police was that he had apparently gained some measure of Maddox's trust.
Ripsbaugh asked him, point-blank, 'Were you a cop before all this?'
Maddox's face showed nothing as he stepped through the gate. 'I'll be in touch.'
36
TRACY
AFTER DR. BOLT HAD to leave in such a hurry, Tracy sat with Rosalie in the first stall. The old cowshed closest to the house was where she and her mother stabled late-term pregnant llamas and their newborn crias. Dr. Bolt's best estimate for Rosalie was two to three weeks, but given the llama's gestation of nearly twelve months, she could deliver at any time. Restlessness and fidgeting would be the first signs of early labor.
Tracy sat on a stool in the open stall doorway, eating a tuna fish sandwich for dinner and watching the contented mother-to-be sitting on her hay bed. Rosalie's brown cameloid face looked anything but restless. Tracy marveled at how peaceful and serene she appeared, her high neck so straight and proud. How fulfilled.
Living on a farm, Tracy came up against the reality of biology every day, in such a way that it was impossible not to dwell on her own animal nature. She thought about the tiny pouch of eggs she had been assigned at birth. A humble legacy dwindling month by month. She was still young enough that she shouldn't worry, but Mithers women were known for their frugality, and squandering a precious commodity such as that was like heating an unused room or listening to a leaky faucet drip, drip, drip.
Tracy had received 'the Talk' in sign language. Never before or since had her mother seemed more deaf than at that moment. In need of a convenient visual aid, she had taken Tracy to see the giant gumball machine outside Wal-Mart on their monthly visit to Rainfield for supplies.
What would it feel like, she wondered, once that quarter was dropped into the slot? The bright pink ball spiraling down to click against her brass door.
She ignored the horn the first time. It honked twice more in succession, like a signal, and she put down her sandwich on its wax paper and closed Rosalie's stall door and went down the wood ramp. Her shadow stretched long across the chewed grass in the peachy, late-day light. Half hidden behind a handful of birches sprung up along the western fence was a parked car. A police car.
She ducked past the kitchen window in case her mother was there, then cut through the gate and ran along the fence. She tried livening up her hair with her fingers as she went, turning the corner and seeing Donny out of the car, waiting for her in the shade.
These days, it never even occurred to her to play hard to get. She ran up and kissed him and held him and rubbed his stubbled cheek. When he smiled, she kissed him again.
'Tuna fish,' he said.
She covered her mouth fast. 'Sorry!'
He shook his head, kissing the knuckles over her lips.
'This is a surprise,' she said, holding him hard. 'You look tired.'
He glanced through the peeling white tree trunks at the house. 'I only have a minute. Wanted to make sure you knew not to call me at the station.'
'Okay.'
'Too crazy there. I'm never alone anymore. Page me if you need to get in touch.'
'I will, I will. How's Pinty?'
Donny shrugged. 'He mumbled in his sleep. I tried to convince the doctor that was a good sign.'
She put her ear against his chest, not to listen but to get as close to him as possible. 'So much going on,' she said. 'So many things at once.'
'Tell me about it.'
'And now Dillon Sinclair?my God. We locked the doors last night.'
'I think everyone did.'
She pulled back just enough to look up at him, feeling something in his manner. 'What?'
'The guy doesn't have a single violent episode in his past. Four years of prison?nothing.'
'I don't know anything about him.'
'He was a magician,' said Donny, 'some local junior champion or like that. He dropped out of high school senior year and supposedly went to Boston, worked as a street performer in the subways for a while, hustling money. He was essentially homeless when they tracked him down after his father died. He had been left some properties in the center of town. But Sinclair didn't want to come back, so instead he used the rental income to relocate to Rainfield, where he started giving kids magic lessons in the back room of a music shop.'
'Oh, no,' said Tracy.
'Five kids came forward. He was convicted on only a single count.'
'Don't tell me any more.'
'I grew up on the same street as him. He was weird even then. He came over once or twice to play, right after they moved in, but it never worked. He stole my mother's cigarettes. I remember she tracked him down to a tree house behind their backyard. A nine-year-old, smoking. She didn't let me play with him anymore after that.'
'Thank you, Mrs. Maddox.'
'The guy's an authentic freak, but?'
'Are you saying you don't think it's him?'
He shrugged and looked down at her. 'What do I know?'
She slipped her arms back under his. 'That you miss me?'
'Yes,' he said, and they kissed again. She pushed his hair back from his ears. She was constantly touching his face, forever making him real, admiring this trophy she was amazed to have won.
He looked through the trees. 'Your mother,' he said.
Tracy turned. There she was, outside the cowshed with her apron on. Yes?her mother still wore an apron while cooking. She also wore a whistle in case she needed to summon Tracy, though she rarely needed to use it, Tracy being so obedient.
Tracy's anger toward her was unreasonable and an utter waste of time, so she squashed it, channeling all her energies into one more kiss. 'You call me,' she told him.
Tracy's mother had the whistle in her hand when Tracy came around the side of the house. Her worry fell away.
Her mother glanced back near the tree grove?not right at it, but in that general direction?and Tracy reminded herself that her mother was deaf but not blind.
37
DR. BOLT
DR. GARY BOLT
