Ten years of habit are hard to break. Even after almost two full months, her sleeping body had yet to adjust to the changed circumstances of her life.
When autumn chill penetrated the bedroom or when late-night dreams changed to terrifying nightmares, force of habit still sent Joanna scurrying toward Andy’s side of the bed. Her cold or frightened body still sought comfort and refuge in the spot where his fading scent lingered in the lumpy down of what had once been his pillow.
With a sigh, and knowing now she wouldn’t go back to sleep, Joanna crawled out of bed. She pulled on her heavy terry-cloth robe and went out to the kitchen, where she heated water and made herself a cup of instant cocoa. Not the old-fashioned made from-scratch kind that Jim Bob Brady favored, but a close enough substitute to help shake off the chill.
Carrying the steaming mug with her, Joanna made her way into the darkened living room. It wasn’t necessary to turn on any lights. She knew the way.
Sitting down on the couch, she dragged one of Eva Lou’s heavy, hand-crocheted afghans over her icy feet. Moments later, Sadie, the big bluetick hound, emerged from Jenny’s bedroom and thrust her warm, smooth muzzle into Joanna’s lap.
“I didn’t mean to wake you, girl,” Joanna apologized, patting the dog’s seemingly hollow head.
It no longer disturbed her to find herself speaking aloud to the dog. In the preceding weeks, Sadie had given more than her share of late-night comfort to a grieving Joanna Brady. Tigger-an ugly and improbable mixture of pit bull and golden retriever, had been adopted by Jenny in the aftermath of his previous owner’s death. Tigger stuck with Jenny no matter what, while Sadie was more evenhanded about sharing herself. Even pawed, Joanna thought, smiling at the self correction.
With a sigh, Sadie flopped down on the floor near Joanna’s feet, and the woman was grateful for the creature’s company. It made the early-morning house seem less silent and alien. In the old days, she might have turned on the radio, tuned in some far-off countrywestern station. She didn’t do that anymore, didn’t make that mistake. Those songs were all about couples, about relationships. The words always hurt too much and made her own loneliness that much worse.
So Joanna sat listening to her empty house, grateful for Sadie’s jowl-flapping snores. No matter how hard she tried, Joanna couldn’t escape the sense that the house was practically empty. And it wasn’t just because of Jenny’s continuing subdued silences, either. The small house seemed deserted and eerily abandoned because Andrew Brady wasn’t in it. And would never be again.
When he was alive, there had been times when he had been away overnight, either at work or out of town on a trip. Occasionally, he had been gone for several days at a time. Joanna and Jenny had stayed on High Lonesome Ranch by themselves back then, but it hadn’t been a problem. In those days, the ranch hadn’t lived up to its name. It had never seemed lonesome or empty because always there was the expectation that Andy would come back eventually, and the house would once more ring with noise and laughter.
But now, with no such expectation, the High Lonesome was lonesome indeed. At times Joanna considered locking the front and back doors, slap ping a For Sale sign on the front gate, and simply walking away. For good. After all, she and Andy had bought the house expecting to be there together, not alone. She thought about leaving, but she didn’t do it.
of course, the scavengers had come out in force. Two different real estate agents from Tucson sleazy developer types who were evidently both avid followers of the obituary pages-had showed up on her doorstep within minutes of the funeral, offering to buy the High Lonesome for some ridiculously low figure.
From what they said about “taking the place off your hands” it was clear neither one of them had any idea that the insurance she and Andy had purchased over the years had left her with the mortgage paid in full and with a good deal of financial security besides. Joanna Brady sure as hell didn’t have to give High Lonesome Ranch away, but she wasn’t at all certain she wanted to keep it, either.
For one thing, located seven miles from town and two miles off the nearest paved road, the house on High Lonesome Ranch was, as one might expect, very isolated. Clayton Rhodes, her nearest neighbor, was a toothless, hard-of-hearing octogenarian who lived a good mile away. Bill and Charlene Harris were another mile beyond the Rhodes’ place. If there was trouble, if lightning ever did strike, a mile or two was a long way to go for help. What happened to Andy had already proved that.
When that thought crossed her mind, Joanna’s first instinct was to turn on the light, pick up the phone, and call Adam York back that very minute to see if he had anything to add to the advice he had given her the night before. She was tempted to call again, but she didn’t.
What stopped her was the vision of herself, Joanna Brady, the candidate stomping all over hell and gone, asking the eighty thousand residents of Cochise County to vote for her. She had won the election, by God. More people had written her name in the blank for sheriff than had chosen Frank Montoya and Al Freeman put together.
Those people hadn’t all voted for her because she was Hank Lathrop’s poor orphaned daughter or because she was Deputy Andrew Brady’s poor shattered widow, either. Sympathy stretched only so far. Voters had chosen Joanna Brady because they thought she was the right person for the job And now, as the duly sworn sheriff of the whole damn county, she’d better not go ducking for cover at the first sign of trouble. Besides, Adam York had already told her what to do.
Joanna got up from the couch then, once more disturbing the sleeping Sadie. Leaving the dog b hind, she again made her way through the house in the dark, returning this time to her bedroom, where she switched on the light. She made straight for Andy’s rolltop desk and unlocked the drawer where she kept her new 9-mm Colt 2000 semi automatic, one she had bought for herself from part of Andy’s life-insurance proceeds. She had told herself at the time that she was buying it for protection; that living alone as she did, she needed the weapon regardless of whether or not she won the election. But now that she had won…
Handling the gun with the kind of careful respect it deserved, she carried it out to the kitchen.
There, after mixing herself yet another cup of cocoa, she took a seat at the breakfast nook. Meticulously, she dismantled the weapon, cleaned it, and painstakingly put it back together. She had splurged and allowed herself the luxury of the wooden-handled First Edition model because she liked the smooth feel of it in her hand. The gun was new, and it was hers. It wasn’t something that had been handed down to her by either her father or her husband.
Finished with the cleaning, Joanna dressed warmly and went outside into the cold November morning. If the cattle were surprised to be awakened and fed long before daybreak, they voiced no objection. By the time the shadowy tops of the Chiricahua Mountains to the east were dusted with a soft lavender glow, all ten head of cattle were in the corral contentedly munching hay. That was when Joanna took her holstered Colt and retreated to the back pasture for a session of target practice.
