asked if she would like to help him bring the rest of the horses up from the stables to the higher pasture. In response to her delighted affirmative, he swept her out of my arms and set her in front of him on the gray's high horned saddle, wrapping her snugly in the folds of the slicker.
'I'll bring her back to the ranch house when we finish,' Shorty promised. 'They're going to be awhile.'
I was sure Marsha Rothman wouldn't approve of the wet horsy odor that was going to permeate Jennifer's private-school pinafore, but that was just too damn bad. Helping Shorty move horses would be a whole lot better for Jennifer Rothman than sitting abandoned in the ranch house while grown-ups finished sorting out the ugly aftermath of her brother's death.
By the time I returned Dolores' umbrella to the milk can, it was time to go into afternoon Group. People were already filtering into the various meeting rooms, and I hurried to mine.
I'm not sure what was originally scheduled to happen in Group that afternoon, but it turned out to be a serious and subdued discussion of life and death. If nothing else, Joey Rothman's death had reminded all of us of our own mortality and underscored the importance of making the most of whatever time each of us had left.
Burton Joe's private meeting with Karen and the kids seemed to have had a salutary effect on both Karen and Kelly. I don't know what he told my daughter. Maybe he spilled the beans about Michelle Owens' condition. At any rate, I was back in their good graces for the time being. As we left the room for mid-afternoon break, Kelly caught up with me by the door and gave me a quick hug, one I returned gratefully.
It was still raining outside. Sunny goddamned Arizona.
We hurried to the dining room for coffee and iced tea. With a mixture of sadness and relief I noticed that Jennifer Rothman wasn't back on the couch beside the fireplace. With any kind of luck, her parents had taken her home.
Bringing my coffee with me, I went out on the front patio to watch the falling rain. While standing there, I glanced curiously down the trail toward my darkened cabin, trying to ascertain whether or not the Yavapai County Sheriff's department had completed its search. There was nothing to see one way or the other, no sign of life or investigative activity. The lights in the cabin were off, and no vehicles of any kind were visible in front of or behind it.
Before we could reconvene in our various groups, Calvin Crenshaw rang the dinner bell and summoned everyone back to the dining room. Once more in a time of crisis Louise Crenshaw was not in evidence, and once more Calvin was thrust into the limelight.
'We've just had a call from Yavapai County Flood Control,' he said quickly, once the group was silent. 'The river's expected to crest at one and a half feet over flood. We need volunteers to help sandbag the Rojases' mobile home. Otherwise it could be washed off its footings.'
Which is how, in the last few hours of daylight on the day Joey Rothman died, I found myself, along with several other able-bodied volunteers from Ironwood Ranch's collection of misfits, slogging knee-deep through icy water and mud, filling sandbags with shovels full of wet sand, and heaving the bags in a stack along the base of Shorty and Dolores Rojas' double-wide mobile home.
It was cold, backbreaking, hard labor, but it was also exhilarating to be out in the open again, to be exerting physical effort, to be using muscles I'd forgotten I owned for a change instead of sitting around endlessly talking. When we finished the job, it was almost time for dinner. There was just enough time to grab a quick shower before rushing off to dinner and the in-town AA and Al-Anon meetings that make up Ironwood Ranch's unvaried Tuesday night and Thursday night agenda.
Hurrying back to the cabin, I paused on the porch long enough to strip off my wet shoes and make sure there was no crime scene tape that would still keep me from entering. Seeing none, I slipped inside, shedding dripping shirt and jacket as I went.
The cabin, the last one in the row, was farthest away from the main ranch house. It was also a long way from the hot water heater. Consequently, it usually took some time to coax a reluctant stream of hot water out of the shower head.
Bearing this in mind, I stepped into the bathroom long enough to turn on the faucet and begin warming the water before I went back out to empty my pockets at the dresser. I did all this without bothering to turn on a light. With my pockets empty, I stripped off my sodden pants and tossed them on the floor somewhere in the general direction of the outside door.
And that's when I heard the snake. Even over the rush of water in the shower, the chilling sound of the rattlesnake's rattle was unmistakable.
With a sinking clutch in my gut I recognized it as a sound I had learned from watching hundreds of Saturday afternoon serials and westerns as a kid, first at the old Baghdad Theater and later at the Bay in Ballard. When I threw the pants toward the door, I must have unintentionally scored a direct hit.
I froze, squinting my eyes at the murky darkness. Fortunately, the pissed-off rattlesnake continued to sound its ominous warning. I was exceedingly grateful it did so. Armed with infrared sensors, the snake knew my every movement, all the while remaining totally invisible to me. If the rattling ever stopped, I'd have no way of knowing where he was.
Waves of goose bumps surged up and down my legs. My pulse pounded in my temples. I listened desperately over the noisy rushing of my own blood, trying to pinpoint the exact location of that bone-chilling rattle.
It had to be coming from somewhere near the door. If that was the case, I was lucky as hell that I hadn't stepped on the damn thing when I came inside. But now I was trapped. And in the dark. Not only was the snake beside the door, so was the light switch.
Holding my breath, I took one cautious step backward, dreading the feeling of snake's fangs sinking deep into the naked flesh of my leg or ankle. When nothing happened, I tried another step. The rattle stopped for only for a moment, then it began again in what seemed like a slightly different position.
I took another backward step, wondering how far it could possibly be-not inches, not feet, but miles-before I reached the relative safety of the bathroom.
Two more cautious steps and I felt the welcome cool of the tiled bathroom floor beneath my feet. Sick with relief, I sprang backward and slammed the door shut. Quickly I turned on the light and then looked down at what seemed suddenly to be an immense crack beneath the door. It may have been irrational, but all the same, I plugged it with a bath towel just in case the snake might be able to squash itself flat and somehow squeeze under the door to come after me.
While I stood there shaking with relief and resting my head on the door, I watched the towel for any sign of movement. Seeing none, I finally pulled myself together enough to turn off the water and take stock of the situation. The ringing of last-call dinner bell greeted my ears. By now everyone would have gone up to the dining room except for a few flood-fighting stragglers like me who might possibly still be showering.
I tried to think. I may have been safe in the bathroom, but it was a hollow victory at best. I was still trapped. I still couldn't get out. Yelling wouldn't help. Once they left for dinner and the meetings, no other clients would be within earshot for hours. The trip into Wickenburg usually lasted until around ten, unless…
A sudden thought spilled over me like a bucket of icy water. Unless they noticed I was missing and sent someone to find me.
What if they sent Kelly or Scott? I thought with my heart sinking. What if one of my own unsuspecting kids walked directly into the snake? I wouldn't be able to see them coming in time, wouldn't be able to warn them.
I had to get out! Somehow I had to do it, but I'd be damned if I was going to open that bathroom door.
I looked at the shower. A combination tub and shower. Five feet above the bottom of the tub was a window, a discreet frosted jalousie window. Small, and tough to get to, but maybe I could make it work.
Adrenaline is wonderful. It surged through me, giving me a strength I didn't know I had. I'm reminded of the five-foot-two grandmother from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who single-handedly lifted a 327-cubic-inch GMC engine off her husband's legs when it fell on him in their garage. That dame didn't have anything on me.
Wrapping my hands in towels, I opened the window and managed to punch out the three tiers of glass. Then, amazed that I was able to do it, I pried the window frame loose from its moorings. I tried yelling for help through the open window, but as I had expected, it was useless. By then every last straggler had gone to the dining room. The Rojas mobile home was much closer at hand than the ranch house, but yelling for Shorty wouldn't work either. The roaring of the bloated river blanked out every other sound.
Standing there with my escape hatch open, I realized suddenly that I had another serious problem-I was buck naked. All my clothes were in the other room along with the snake.
