you are sheriff,” she said, “I’m glad you’re still my mom.”
People smiled and laughed and said, “Here, here!” while Joanna fought to swallow enough of the lump in her throat so she could take the expected sip of champagne.
“Thank you, Jenny,” she murmured.
When post champagne cleanup started, Joanna retreated to her desk and began the process of clearing and emptying. As she sorted and packed Joanna was struck by the oddball bits of memorabilia that had somehow wormed their way into her work space, each bringing with it a separate and sometimes bittersweet echo from the past.
Why, for instance, had she kept Jenny’s orange and green kindergarten-sized handprint on the credenza behind her desk? Why was that tiny plaster-of-paris plaque from Jenny’s Daily Vacation Bible School more important to her mother, more worthy of display, than one of Jenny’s more recent school pictures?
And what about the worn buffalo head nickel Andy had playfully dropped down her bra the night of their first date? Always lurking in the top right-hand corner of her pencil drawer, the nickel served as a talisman, one she picked up and rubbed from time to time. By now the surface designs were worn sufficiently thin that they were only vaguely visible.
And then there was the Montblanc fountain pen Milo Davis had presented to her last summer on the tenth anniversary of the day she went to work for him. When he gave it to her, she had expected to work for the Davis Insurance Agency as long as there was a Davis Insurance Agency. But then, between last summer and now, Joanna’s entire life had been thrown into a whirring blender.
She glanced up as Jim Bob Brady hobbled back to her desk and sank gratefully into a chair.
“These dogs are killing me,” he said. “Mind if I set a spell and kick off my shoes?”
“Go right ahead. You do look tired.”
Her father-in-law nodded. “I’m not nearly as young as I used to be. Just that piddly-assed little bit of tramping around out in them hills this after noon was enough to wear me out. Used to be I could go all day and not think twice about it.”
“Still nothing on Harold?”
“Not by the time I left,” Jim Bob replied. “We mostly worked the lower pastures because that’s where Ivy said she thought he’d most likely be, repairing fences and such. Tomorrow, I guess, if he’s still missing, they’ll head on up toward Juniper flats. Don’t think I’ll go on that one. Terrain’s too rough. Besides, if they haven’t found him by now…”
Jim Bob Brady left off without finishing the sentence. He leaned forward in the chair and began massaging his feet.
“You think Harold Patterson is dead then?” Joanna asked.
“Don’t you?”
Joanna nodded. “I guess so. With the weather as cold as it’s been, if he’s been out in it all this time, I suppose he’s done for.”
“Yup,” Jim Bob agreed. “Like as not he had himself a heart attack or a stroke out there in a pasture somewhere. And if it was me, I couldn’t think of a better way to go. Given my druthers, I’d do the same damn thing. Die with my boots on “I keep telling Eva Lou I don’t want none Of those doctors to get hold of me and keep me hanging on with all those goldurned tubes and ma chines when it’s time for me to go and meet my Maker.”
Abruptly straightening up, Jim Bob Brady peered sharply at Joanna over the top of his wire rimmed glasses.
“How are you doing, Joanna? You holding up all right?”
“I’m fine, Daddy Jim,” she said. “Tired. And a little apprehensive.”
“How come?”
She shrugged. “I had planned to take the next two months to study policies and procedures so I could hit the ground running. Instead, I had to go shoot off my mouth. Now I’m caught flat-footed, wearing a badge two months too early.”
“It’s not too early. You’ll be fine. Just take it as it comes, one thing at a time. And don’t let the turkeys get you down.”
“I’ll do my best,” she answered.
It was six by the time Joanna and Jenny stowed all the packed boxes in the back of the Eagle for the drive back home to the High Lonesome. During the campaign, an elderly neighbor named Clayton Rhodes had become the ranch’s self appointed man of all work, dropping by the place both mornings and evenings to see what needed doing and picking up the slack wherever there was some. After much badgering on Joanna’s part, Clayton had finally agreed to accept some token payment for his work.
When Joanna and Jenny arrived at the turnoff to the ranch, Clayton’s rattletrap Ford pickup was just clattering over the cattle guard. Never one to indulge in unnecessary conversation, the old man raised the brim of his cowboy hat with one finger, nodded in their direction, and kept right on driving.
They made their way up to and into the house through a melee of ecstatic doggy greetings. While Jenny scrambled on the floor with the two dogs, Joanna checked the answering machine. A series of blinking lights told her there were numerous messages. Joanna tried counting them but lost track after eight. She gave up and punched the Playback button.
The messages were mostly congratulatory calls, some from high-school acquaintances she hadn’t talked to since graduation. Mercifully, most required no call back.
One did. It came from Adam York, the DEA agent in charge of the Tucson office. Although York had, at one time, suspected Joanna of illicit connections to a South American drug dealer, they were now on good terms. In fact, Adam York had been one of the first people to encourage Joanna to campaign for the office of sheriff in Andy Brady’s place. She was gratified to know that he had phoned her, but she waited until after Jenny was in bed and asleep before returning his call.
