Joe didn’t deny it.
“Now look where we are. You’re a guest in my home and your family is comfortable and safe for the first time in their lives.”
He felt his rage build, but was able to stanch it. He didn’t want this argument now, when he felt quite capable of wringing her neck.
“It’s interesting, is all,” she said, raising her eyebrows mockingly, “how situations can change and things that were thought and said can come back to haunt a person?”
SHERIFF MCLANAHAN WASN’T kidding. The rain had transformed everything. It wasn’t like other parts of the country, where rain could fall and soak into the soil and be smoothly channeled away. This was hardpan that received only eleven inches of rain a year, and today had already brought four. The water stood on top of the ground, forming lakes and ponds that hadn’t existed for years. Tiny draws and sloughs had turned into funnels for raging brown water.
Joe drove slowly on the highway, water spraying out from under his tires in rooster tails. The sky was mottled greenish black and the rain fell so hard he couldn’t hear the radio inside the cab of the ranch truck. He had no business going out, and especially going to Nate’s old place to feed the falcons, but he needed something to do. If he stayed at the ranch contemplating his complete failure while Missy prattled on about fat grams and social clubs, he didn’t know what he might do. Plus, he wanted to put off the talk with Sheridan and Lucy. Would Marybeth warn them? he wondered. Tell them to reassure their father, not to get angry or upset? He hoped she didn’t. The only thing he could think of that was worse than being a failure was to have his girls pity him for it.
THE ROAD TO Nate Romanowski’s old place was elevated enough that he was able to get there in four-wheel-drive high. On either side of the road, though, long lakes had formed. Ducks were actually sitting on ponds that hadn’t existed eight hours ago. And he could hear frogs. Frogs that had been hibernating deep below the surface for years were coming out, croaking.
It was amazing what renewal came with water in the mountain west. Joe just wished that somehow the rain could renew
JOE CRESTED THE last rise near Nate’s home to see that the river had not just jumped the bank, but had taken Nate’s falcon mews and was lapping at the side of his house. He had never seen the river so big, so violent. It was whitewater, and big rollers thundered through the canyon. Full-grown cottonwood trees, cattle, parts of washed-out bridges were being carried downstream. The rickety suspension footbridge across the river downstream from Nate’s home was either gone or underwater.
Joe parked above Nate’s house on a rise. There was less than an hour of light left, and he wanted to feed the birds and get out before nightfall. He climbed out and pulled on his yellow slicker. Fat raindrops popped against the rubberized canvas of his slicker as he unwrapped road-killed rabbits from a burlap bag in the bed of the truck. This was a foolish thing he was doing, he conceded. The birds could probably wait. But he had made a promise, and he would keep it.
The sound of the river was awesome in its power. He could feel the spray from it well before he got to its new edge.
He laid the rabbits out on a sandy rise so they could be seen clearly from the air. In the past, it took less than ten minutes for either the peregrine or the red-tailed hawk to see the meat. Joe never had any idea where the falcons were, or how they always knew he was there. But they did, and they came to eat.
Joe could never get used to the relationship—or more accurately, the lack of a relationship—he had with Nate’s falcons. It was something Nate had once told him about, how different and unique it was with birds of prey compared to other creatures. The cold partnership between falconer and falcon was primal and unsentimental. Quite simply, the birds never warmed up to the falconer and certainly not to Joe. To
After twenty minutes, Joe saw a dark speck dislodge from the gunmetal clouds. He stood and wiped the rain from his face and watched as the speck got larger. It was the peregrine, the ultimate killer. The red-tail appeared shortly thereafter.
The peregrine buzzed Joe twice before flaring and landing on the edge of the rise. The red-tail made two false landings, close enough to see the meat, then climbed back up into the sky and disappeared.
He looked at the peregrine closely. The bird wasn’t the least bit interested in the rabbits. And there was something else: the bird’s gullet was swelled to bursting and there were blood flecks and bits of white down on its breast. It had already eaten.
Joe squatted and looked into the falcon’s eyes, which were as impenetrable as shiny black stones.
“Who fed you?” Joe asked. “Or did you kill something yourself?” Then he thought about the red-tail. “Did you
Something made him turn and look at the stone house that had stood empty for half a year.
Fresh lengths of pine boarded up two of the windows. The front door had been replaced. And half a row of new shingles were laid out on the roof.
Despite the drumming of the rain, Joe felt his heart whump in his chest.
He called out, “Nate, where are you?”
Then he saw him. Downstream, where he’d been hiding and watching in a thick stand of reeds. The reeds were dancing around him with falling rain. Nate rose from them, naked, holding his huge .454 Casull in his right fist. Joe didn’t even want to ask.
“Have you come to kill me?” Nate called out.
“No.”
“I deserve it.”
“I know you do.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Nate said.
They stared at each other for a minute. Nate was slick with rain and his white skin was mud streaked from hiding in the bog. His long blond hair stuck to the tops of his shoulders. His eyes bored into Joe.
