I'd heard tales of insularity and occasional hostility toward strangers from east of the hills, I'd had no direct experience with it, nor had I had any real personal contact with the residents.
I drove out that day on a country road that crested White's Hill beyond Fairfax. The topography was softly rolling, with frequent outcroppings of gray rock that rose like cairns from the sun-bleached grass. Gnarled live oak clustered in the gullies or stood lone and wind-bent on the hillsides. At Olema the road crossed Coast Highway One and continued toward Inverness.
The highway skirted the marshland at the southeast end of Tomales Bay. Although it had been sunny and warm in what I thought of as Marin proper, fog hung still and thick above the tule grass; it lurked in the hollows of the heavily forested hills, and I caught the smell of woodsmoke from the fireplaces of homes that were occasionally visible through the foliage. Buckeye trees were in full pink bloom, and wildflowers and white anise grew along the sides of the road. Buildings appeared here and there-a grocery, a pottery studio, the ubiquitous antique stores and real-estate offices. A sign indicated a salt-marsh wildlife refuge; when I looked toward it, I saw a trio of white long-necked cranes standing placidly among the reeds.
After a few miles I reached Inverness itself: a post office that shared a pale blue Victorian building with a pizza parlor; the Czech restaurant and a couple of other small eateries; a few shops that seemed mainly designed to cater to the tourist trade; a Chevron station. I pulled into the station, got out of the MG, and located a man in a heavy plaid jacket who was staring glumly under the hood of a beat-up Toyota. There were cables attached to the car's battery, but the meter on the recharging machine indicated nothing was happening. The man turned away with a discouraged shrug and saw me.
'Help you, ma'am?'
'I hope so.' I held out a piece of paper on which I'd written Libby Ross's address. 'Can you tell me how to get here?'
He studied it, frowning. 'Don't go much by house numbers out there. Who're you looking for?'
'Libby Ross.'
He smiled; from the way it touched his eyes, I could tell he liked the woman. 'What you want is Moon Ridge Stables. Stay on the main road here, follow it along the water and up the hill past the sign for the Seashore. A ways beyond that the road'll fork; you keep to the right-that's Pierce Point. Libby's place is just this side of Abbotts Lagoon- four, maybe four and a half miles. Big place down in the hollow, with cypress all around it.'
'What is it-a riding stable?'
'Sort of. Libby rents horses to tourists, leads pack trips to the Seashore.' His expression sharpened with small- town curiosity. 'Guess you don't know her personal.'
'Not yet. Thanks for the directions.' I smiled at him and went back to the MG.
As instructed, I continued along the road. It hugged the shore of the bay, where there were cottages with long docks extending out into the gray, choppy water. I saw a motel, a yacht club, a barbecue restaurant, and a rather bizarre house with turrets that reminded me of a Greek Orthodox church. Then the road began to wind uphill through a conifer forest; I swerved sharply coming around a curve, to avoid a pair of joggers. Shortly after the sign for the Point Reyes National Seashore appeared, the road forked; Pierce Point veered to the right, toward McClure's Beach.
Within a mile the countryside flattened to dairy graze. Cows stood in clumps or stared stupidly at the road through the fences. Vegetation became sparser-mainly yellow gorse and flowering thistles. The land stretched toward Wuffs that overlooked the distant sea and bay, its barrenness broken only by clusters of ranch buildings. Although I encountered a few bicyclists and several other cars, the desolation overwhelmed me, flattening my spirits; I wondered what this place would be like in the dark of a moonless night.
When I'd traveled a little under four miles, I came to a sharp bend in the road and caught my first unobstructed view of the Pacific, breakers crashing onto a sand beach. A backwater extended inland, cut off now at low tide. Its motionless surface mirrored the somber sky. Abbotts Lagoon, I supposed.
I came out of the hairpin turn and pulled into an overlook. Below me the land dropped away steeply, then sloped gently to the lagoon. Tucked into a hollow between two cypress-covered knolls was a collection of buildings-white, and small as toys from this vantage. I drove about twenty yards further before I spotted a weathered sign for the Moon Ridge Stables. A rutted dirt driveway led away through the pastureland.
I followed it, avoiding the deeper potholes. As I neared the first grove of cypress I saw a long, low house tucked under them, its paint mostly scoured off by the elements. The drive continued through more pastureland, and then I came to a paddock where a half dozen motley-looking horses huddled by an empty feed rack; beyond it was a weathered barn and various other outbuildings. Two heavily bundled riders straddled a pair of pintos directly in front of the barn door, and a woman squatted beside one, checking the saddle girth. When she heard my car, she glanced over her shoulder at it, then went on with what she was doing. All I could make out about her was longish curly dark blond hair.
I brought the MG to a stop next to the paddock's rail fence. When I got out, the wind buffeted me, strong and bitterly cold even in this protected place. The woman straightened, wiping her palms on the thighs of her faded jeans. After a few words with her, the riders started off toward a bridle path that snaked under the trees in the direction of the lagoon.
The woman turned and came toward me, moving in a long, athletic stride. She was tall and rangy, with a generous mouth and startling violet eyes. Although she was only in her forties, her skin was as weathered as the paint on the barn, but the lines and furrows gave an odd attractiveness to what otherwise would have been a plain face.
'Hello,' she called in a husky voice. 'What can I do for you?'
I moved around the MG. 'I'm looking for Libby Heikkinen Ross.'
The woman slowed, a wariness entering her eyes. 'That's me.'
'You the owner?' I gestured around us.
'Owner and sole employee, unless you count my worthless stepson and the kid who cleans out the stalls.' Her tone was friendly but guarded. She stopped, folding her arms across the front of her blue down jacket.
I went up to her and handed her one of my cards. She studied it, then said flatly, 'Is this about Dick?'
'Dick?'
'My stepson, the useless little bastard.'
'No.' A sudden blast of cold air rushed down from the knoll behind us, whipping my jacket open. 'Is there someplace warmer where we can talk?'
She nodded curtly and led me toward the barn. There was a shed attached to one side of it-a tack room. Saddles rested on pegs along three walls, bridles and halters hanging from hooks above them. Each was labeled with an individual horse's name: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Moliere. Ross obviously had a literary bent.
A bench ran along the wall next to the door, a wooden desk wedged into the corner. Ross scooped a pile of saddle blankets from the bench and motioned for me to sit. A tortoiseshell cat that had been sleeping behind the blankets looked up in mild annoyance.
As I sat, Ross took the desk chair for herself, propping her sneakered feet on the blotter. The tortoiseshell recognized a cat lover and jumped into my lap. It curled into a ball, the purr motor starting immediately. I stroked it, feeling vaguely ill at ease-unwilling to awaken the old feeling of comfort that a cat in the lap engenders.
Ross said, 'So what is it?'
'Do you know a man named Perry Hilderly?'
Her reaction was totally unlike Goodhue's or Grant's. Surprise spread across her face, mingled with a bittersweet pleasure. 'Yes,' she said eagerly. 'What about him?'
'He died last month.'
The pleased expression faded. '… I didn't know that. How?'
'He was killed by a sniper, in San Francisco. Haven't you seen anything about the random shootings in the papers or on TV?'
She shook her head. 'I don't have a TV, and I don't take a paper. Suppose that sounds strange in this day and age, but when I came out here I wanted to keep the rest of the world at bay. So far, I've pretty much succeeded.'
'Why is that?'
She didn't say anything at first, merely studied her fingernails, which were filed nearly to the quick. Finally she shrugged. 'There's nothing but pain in the world. My husband and I built ourselves a safe cocoon here on the ranch.
