“Yeah…sure. I’ll do that.” She felt numb.
She was about to slide out of the seat when Bubba suddenly stuck his head over the back of it and gave her face a worried lick. It was almost more than she could take. She wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck and buried her face briefly in his silky coat, then choked out a strangled “Bye-thank you,” and hopped out of the car, slamming the door behind her. She hadn’t even turned around before she heard the Cherokee’s engine roar as Troy backed out of the parking space and drove away.
“Well, Charly,” she whispered as she fumbled to put the key in the lock and tears dripped from the end of her nose and splashed onto the backs of her hands, “you are really somethin’ else, you know that? Cool, capable,
Troy drove like a bat outta hell. It did enter his mind, as he headed up the curving mountain road, that if the right trooper happened along, Charly might wind up bailing
Just before he got to the fork where the road to Mourning Spring Park branched off the main highway, he pulled over onto the grassy verge, turned on his flashers and stopped. He had nerves jumping around in his belly like fleas on a hot rock, and thoughts and emotions chasing one another around inside his head. He knew if he could ever manage to pin one of them down he probably wouldn’t be doing what he was doing, so he didn’t even try.
He got out of the car and slammed the door, then went around to the back and got Bubba’s leash. He gave the pup a hug and rumpled his neck fur as he clipped the leash onto his collar. Then he said, “Okay, boy, let’s go find Charly!” and stood back out of his way.
Of course, ol’ Bubba was just happy to be out of the car, happy to have some new territory to investigate and mark in his usual way. Down the bank he went, Troy slippin’ and slidin’ along after him, just trying not to lose his feet. When they got to the bottom, he let the dog snuffle around some, then gave his leash a yank and said it again, “Come on boy-find Charly. Where’s Charly? Go get her-go on!”
What was he thinking of? The dog wasn’t even a tracker to begin with, and nothin’ but a pup besides. And there were enough interesting, good-smelling distractions in those woods to keep him busy all afternoon, what with squirrels and turtles, mushrooms and deer sign and no telling what all. So Troy wasn’t expecting much.
They’d been at it maybe fifteen minutes and had gone about fifty yards from where they’d started, Troy thinking it was about time to call it quits on this crazy fool idea, Bubba plowing his way into a little thicket of cedar and holly where last winter’s leaves still lay rotting in knee-deep drifts. Troy was about to call him back when the pup, instead of snuffling on to the next excitement, sat abruptly back on his haunches and turned to look at him over his shoulder.
“What is it, boy? What’d you find?”
Bubba just looked at him, tongue hangin’ out, pleased with himself. So Troy went on over and dug around in the piles of leaves, and there it was. Impossible to see because of its color-without the dog he’d never have found it in a million years.
“Good boy-good ol’ Bubba…” Troy crooned, hugging and petting the dog for all he was worth. His heart was pounding in his chest and those thoughts and emotions were still running around in his head, and he still didn’t care to try to pin any of ’em down.
Instead he tucked the little green book inside the waistband of his jeans, and he and the dog scrambled back up the bank and loped down the road to where the Cherokee was parked with its flashers still blinking away. He opened up the door, and Bubba jumped in ahead of him and wallowed across to the passenger’s side. Troy got in and started up the truck and off they went, burnin’ rubber, heading up the mountain toward the spring.
Troy was banking on the kid still being there, and he was-not sitting on the picnic table any longer, but standing over by the granite memorial, sort of leaning against it, with his arms folded on his chest, staring down at his feet and brooding. And there’s nobody does that better, Troy thought, than a twenty-year-old kid.
Cutter straightened up like a shot, though, when he saw the Cherokee, his face looking like a thundercloud, eyes shootin’ sparks. He seemed a little less sure of himself when he saw Troy was alone.
“I was just leavin’,” the boy muttered, starting past Troy with his head down.
Troy stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Not yet, you’re not.” He walked him backward until he was up against the granite monument again. “I got somethin’ to say to you first. And make no mistake, this isn’t your mama talkin’ to you now. You
Only a fool or a very stupid man would care to argue with Troy Starr when he used that tone of voice. Cutter was neither. He nodded.
Troy let out a breath. “That’s better.” He held up the diary, and the boy’s eyes fastened on it, blazing with helpless fury.
“A little while ago, your mother tried to give this to you,” Troy said in a quiet voice. “You refused to take it, and that’s your choice. I can understand you being afraid-”
“I’m not afraid!”
“Yeah, you are. And like I said, I can understand that. Sometimes it takes a lot more courage to face up to a brand-new truth than it does to hang on to a good ol’ familiar lie. Look, I can’t force you to read this. But what I am gonna do is read just one little bit of it to you, and unless you know of a way to turn off your hearing, you’re gonna listen to it. And after that…well, the rest is up to you.”
He let go of the boy’s shoulder and opened the diary. He cleared his throat. “Okay. This is what your mother wrote on April 12, 1978-that date sound familiar to you? That’s your birthday, right? Okay, you just shut up and listen…
And then he started to read. “‘Today I held my son in my arms…’”
Chapter 15
April 12, 1978
Dear Diary,
Today I held my son in my arms. I’m naming him Colin Stewart, after his daddy. I just wish his daddy could be here to see how beautiful he is. Aunt Dobie says he is here, looking down on us from Heaven, and that he will always be with us. I don’t know if I believe that-about Heaven, I mean-but if it’s true, then Colin, would you please look after our baby? Keep him safe, and see he grows up happy and strong, and make him be a good and sweet person, like you were. Because I won’t be able to. They won’t let me keep him. They let me hold him for just a little while, and then they came and took him away. They took him right out of my arms. It felt like my heart was being torn out of my chest. I’ve never hurt this bad-not even when he was being born, not even when Colin died. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t think I can stand to live here anymore.
Thought for the Day: Sometimes I think Colin is the lucky one.
April 13, 1978
Dear Diary,
Today I am leaving this God Forsaken place forever…
Troy closed the diary and thrust it against Cutter’s chest, pinning it there with his hand. “It’s yours now,” he said hoarsely. “It’s up to you.”
He didn’t wait to see if the kid was gonna take the book or not, or even look at his face; his own vision was blurring, and after all, he had a certain image to protect. He just turned around and walked back to his truck and got in it and drove away.
