The pantry had a washer and dryer, a big wash sink, high windows, a lot of shelves with canned goods, bags of sugar and flour, boxes of cereal, liquor, soap and stuff, and two more doors.
Why did she need groceries?
Willis opened one of the doors to a bathroom. It was kind of like Grandma’s house in Echo Park, a tub with a shower curtain, a toilet, and a sink. Unlike Grandma’s, this bathroom had a high window.
The other door led into the kitchen. They turned through the double swinging kitchen door, crossed the living room and climbed three steps into the entry where Willis had previously hung a sheet of plywood over the front door using a thick, long piece of leather as a hinge. It had a gate latch to keep it closed.
“Oh, there you are.” Mom was sitting behind the desk in her new office, using her new computer already. She grabbed her purse and walked into the entry. She opened her purse and looked at Willis. “How much do we owe you?”
Willis stuck up his hand and shook his head, no. He pulled his straw hat from a hat rack made from animal horns and slowly turned it between his fingers, nervous, not looking straight at Mom. “I gave a list of materials for your new front door to Olen. Give him a call and he’ll have the stuff up here the next day. Only take me a day to get it made up.”
“How much will that cost?”
“I don’t know.” Willis shrugged and looked at her now. “ Olen can give you the sales slip. He runs open accounts with all the suppliers from down below.”
“I mean, for you.”
“Things work different here. My home was technically built on Potter land, so I kind of take care of this place. John Crow comes around to tend the livestock. He lives on Potter land, too. Mary Lou, the boy’s great grandmother, she used to pay us but not no more.” He twirled his hat between his fingers. “She and Jethro paid when I built the store, the church and school and such. Not no more. Not Kidro.”
“Willis . . .” She looked at him with those eyes, holding her purse open like that. “I don’t mean to be rude. This house is the finest workmanship I’ve ever seen but maybe we should just order a nice custom door somewhere and have you install it.”
Willis stopped spinning his hat, stepped closer and looked into her. “Kidro had a factory door. It wasn’t . . .” He looked out the door toward River Road. “I mean, we got things up here. Factory door won’t hold up. Tell you what, if you don’t like my workmanship, I’ll buy whatever door you want and install that instead.”
Mom gave up, the way she closed her purse. “Okay. You have a phone?”
“No, ma’am.”
“How can I get a hold of you, you know, when the truck comes?”
“I live up on the Perch.”
“The Perch?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Willis fanned his hat toward the kitchen. “Up on top of that granite dome near the waterfall. You can see it from the kitchen or from upstairs. I’ll see the truck coming. He always stops at Olen’s for cookies and coffee.”
Chapter Eight
Sheriff Phil Nason turned up the gravel road toward Jim Embry’s place with the first rays of sun touching the western rim of the valley. Sunlight reflected off the windows up on the Perch, not a cloud in the sky. It would be a hot day in a few hours, but it was cold right now, and Potter’s place wouldn’t get any sun for another two hours. Their house and barn were close to the eastern edge of the valley and the river gorge, all the trees over there. They got hot afternoons and great sunsets.
He drove in a wide circle in front of Embry’s stone and timber ranch house and rolled downhill toward his wood sided barn. The single story house had been built on a natural knoll above the gentle slope toward the valley floor. The whole long valley sloped west to east, sloping toward the river and what geologists called the hundred year floodplain. If that hundred year rain ever came, Potter’s lower meadow would become a shallow lake.
Embry’s barn stood a hundred yards down slope from his house. When their heavy oak shutters were open like now, they could see over the top of the high pitched roof of their barn down to River Road and beyond. The house was typical Willis Donner, impenetrable stone and heavy timber, exquisitely detailed and well planned.
Nason had grown up here but he had no idea what Willis thought of him or his family. The little brick house behind the jail had been their only home, not built by Willis. The house and jail had been built during the gold rush days and renovated by Nason’s father with the help of Jeff Ralston and Olen Jacobsen.
Willis hadn’t built much in the village, only the store and the church. Potters paid for those. The jail might be safe, brick walls and iron bars, but not like this. Twenty grizzly bears with rabies couldn’t get into this.
Yeah, yeah.
Nason had never worried much about what Willis thought of him, just curious.
Jim Embry worried about everything and everybody, always connected with whatever his neighbors might be doing, maybe why everybody liked him. The Embrys had always been a likeable brood, crazy as hell but harmless. Phil Nason and Jim Embry had been close friends their whole lives.
They had enlisted in the Coast Guard together and Jim had gotten married to a girl he met in Frisco on their first liberty. He'd served his four years in the Coast Guard and had moved back here, wife, twin baby boys and a big fat cat.
Willis built this place for Embry’s parents more than twenty
