18
Without returning to the house for her shoes, Beth limped to the barn as the sky’s intense midnight blue took on the dusty denim hue of morning. The last scattered drops of rain cut paths through the mud on her face and clothes, and the oily smoke coated her nostrils.
She needed to find Garner. She needed to find Herriot. She needed to bandage her bleeding foot. Examining it in the weak light before she shoved her toes into a pair of muck boots, she realized she might need stitches.
Tending to her injury, then, was the first thing she needed to do. But she sensed her mother was fundamentally wrong about the time it would take Levi to close a deal with Sam. If Sam had accepted it within beats of her father’s last breath, Beth would assume that the two men had been in discussion behind the family’s collective back for much longer than Levi claimed. Perhaps the deal was already well underway.
Beth whistled for Hastings, slipped onto his back without a saddle, and rode out. She took him past the torn-up screen in the empty porch, past the smoky puddle of lantern oil, where the broken brass lamp was still tipped on its side. She went directly to the Hub house, to Jacob and his father, Dr. Roy.
She had loved the Hub until the day she stole that saddle. It was as honest a place as any on the ranch, and she herself was no longer honest.
By the time she arrived and slid off Hastings’ smooth back, blood had collected, thick and sticky, in the toe of the muck boot. She tried to walk normally up the steps to the front door, thinking the pressure would help staunch the flow. It was nearly five o’clock, guessing by the color of the sky. Everyone should be up.
Jacob opened the door before she reached it, fully dressed and alert, but sleep and sorrow still pulled at the soft skin under his eyes. He waited for her to speak.
“Got a first-aid kit?” she asked.
Less than a minute later she was sitting on the rim of an old bathtub and rinsing her injury under warm water gushing from the spigot. Her pajama bottoms and tank top were covered in mud, which also colored the tips of her long hair. At this point, only her hands and feet were clean. A slippery bar of gray soap decorated with bloody bubbles danced at the drain under the pressure of the water.
Jacob entered with the kit she’d asked for and leaned over her to set it in the dry part of the tub. In the close quarters, the width of his shoulders shielded her from the loss of her father, the risk to her dog, the greed of her brother, the grief pouring off her mother and Danny. For a fleeting moment, Beth felt protected.
Jacob straightened up and shoved his hands into his pockets. Beth flipped the box open and grabbed the bottle of peroxide, which she poured over the gash. The resulting bubbles were fierce.
“You’ll need stitches,” he said.
She set the bottle on the lip of the tub, then rifled the white metal box for a butterfly bandage. “Nah. I have a healer’s touch, remember?”
“Even healers need their tools.”
She nodded noncommittally. “I need to find Herriot.”
“I sent Emory out to have a look at her tracks.”
“Should be plenty. All that rain.” She feared that Emory would instead discover Herriot’s mangled body. “You don’t think that—”
“Herriot’s the smartest dog we’ve got. She’s fine.”
“It was a wolf she went after,” Beth said. “A wolf. She’s an idiot.”
“Probably a coyote. She’s big enough to handle one of those.”
“I saw them,” she whispered. “It wasn’t a fair match.”
Mud smeared Jacob’s white T-shirt sleeve where she’d gripped his shoulder for support as she hopped into the house. Except for that handprint he’d be a model for a laundry detergent commercial. Next to him, Beth felt small and filthy. She focused on applying pressure to the cut.
“Well, let’s wait and see what Emory thinks,” Jacob said.
A new voice said, “Emory thinks we ought to let the wolves have the run of the place.” Beth twisted on her perch and saw Dr. Roy at the bathroom door. The man handed a stained cup of coffee to Jacob and set a second one on the back of the toilet tank, where she could reach it.
“Better the mythical wolves than that Sam Johnson,” Jacob said to his father.
Beth shot a glance at Jacob. “How’d you know about that?”
“Sam crashed the ranchers’ coffee klatch yesterday,” Jacob explained.
“He didn’t crash it,” Roy said. His teeth were stained from coffee, but his smile was so disarming as to make a person look past the imperfect hygiene. “Levi invited him to be there.”
“He did?”
“No need to worry, Beth,” Dr. Roy said. “We were polite. I didn’t even do anything worse than to spit once in his coffee cup. Yours there, I put a little cream and sugar.”
“I love you too, Dr. Roy.”
“You should have been calling me just Roy a long time now, hon.”
Beth shot a glance at Jacob, looking for explanation. He’d never objected to Dr. Roy before. Jacob was staring at the oily swirls floating on top of his black brew. Probably, she thought, it was the man’s way of offering his condolences.
Dr. Roy said, “That’s some cut there.”
“It’ll be fine once I get it clean.” She washed it with soap a second time, then splashed another shot of peroxide on it.
“Better dump those boots. They’ll never be the same.”
“Levi didn’t tell us about his proposal until just a few minutes ago,” she said, eying the cut. The bleeding just wasn’t going to stop.
“Well, that explains why we didn’t hear it from Rose,” Jacob said to his dad.
Beth glanced up. “Nothing is beneath my big brother, is it? I don’t even think his timing was an accident. Dad hasn’t been gone two days. We haven’t even buried him yet.”
After a long silence Jacob said, “I’ll be there to help dig the gravesite later this morning. Okay if I bring Wally with me?”
“I’d love that. Thanks.” It would be such a relief not to be alone with Levi for that job. She noticed how tense her shoulders and neck were. “How did Emory and Pastor Eric take the news?”
The men sipped their coffee in unison. After a pause, Jacob said, “Eric stuck to his routine for the day, didn’t say anything.”
“He stacked the hay bales three different ways,” Dr. Roy said over his coffee cup.
“I guess that’s Pastor Eric’s response to everything,” Beth observed. “Work harder, work longer.”
“Pretty much.”
“And Emory?”
“Emory smoked two packs of cigarettes.”
“That’s not good. Thanks for not saying anything to Mom.”
Dr. Roy said, “I had a strong hunch things weren’t as they seemed. I think the others did too.”
“It’s really important the associates don’t hear about this,” she said.
“They haven’t yet,” Jacob said.
“Let’s keep it that way for now. A resort here would change everything. For the worse,” Beth muttered. “Except that we could probably guarantee the four of you jobs for life. The others . . .” She sighed.
Jacob said, “I think Eric and Emory were of a mind to escape that kind of living.”
“What kind?”
“The kind where everything’s guaranteed. Where the guarantees cost a lot.”
“And you?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to find my own place.”
The announcement was crushing. He was more than capable of managing his own place, but she couldn’t imagine him leaving them now. And she couldn’t imagine trying to stop him.
“Well, this is all my fault,” she said. “I did it, I’ll have to undo it. Let me handle Levi.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, hon,” Dr. Roy said.
His gentleness was like a hug from her father, a kindness that softened her.
“I tipped over the first domino,” she said.
Roy shrugged. “I’d say dominoes have been falling all across this land since long before you were ever born. Who’s to say which one was first? Besides, who knows what you really set in motion, little Beth? Tiles are still clickety-clacking all over the place. Make no judgment till they come to rest. There might be some good out of it yet.”
Beth couldn’t imagine any good greater than the awfulness of her father’s death. But she hadn’t come here for argument.
“Do you know a Garner Remke?” she asked Roy.
“Sure, I remember Garner. Mean old bear in real estate down in the valley. Made his fortune years before that, in California I think. Died awhile back, didn’t he?”
“You tell me.”
“How can I?”
“Because no one else will. Is he my grandfather?”
Dr. Roy’s eyebrows both went up. “I didn’t realize your mother felt so strongly about this as to keep that a secret from you.”
“But is he?” she demanded.
“Yes. Rose’s father.”
“Honestly, is he alive?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Why do you need to?”
“My dad said I ought to go find him.”
“Aahhh.” Dr. Roy nodded and let the steam of his coffee rise into his fading gray eyes.
“I know he and Mom had a falling out, and that he’s rich. Or was.”
“Rich enough to try to buy her love for your dad,” Dr. Roy said.
“He tried to pay her not to marry?” Jacob said.
“Tried to send her to Europe, to some top-notch medical school.”
“Med school? Mom wanted to be a doctor?” How had Beth reached the age of twenty-two without knowing this? Beth had wanted to be a vet since she was ten years old. It hurt that her mother hadn’t tapped this shared connection.
“Garner wanted her to be a doctor. At least, that’s how Abel told it. Rose wanted to be a rancher’s wife. Well, Abel’s wife. She picked him over her father’s money.”
“I can’t believe he’d try to pay her out of a marriage. That’s insulting, ancient thinking.”
“Oh, I think the idea appeals to every girl’s father now and then. It wouldn’t have been beneath Abel, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”
“No, I’ve just never had anyone for him to object to,” she joked.
“Good girl. You keep it that way. Watch out for horse thieves like this young man here.” He kicked at Jacob’s knee with a stock-inged foot.
Peroxide bubbles dripped off the side of her foot into the drain.
Quite late, Beth registered Roy’s innuendo that Jacob was a “horse thief ” she needed to keep an eye on. What was that supposed to mean? Jacob was leaning against the wall and looking up at the cracked plastic in the light fixture over the sink, inscrutable.
“If you had to find out whether Garner is still alive, where would you start your search?” she asked Dr. Roy. But she was looking at Jacob, squeezing the skin of her foot and wishing it would stop bleeding already.
“Do a title search, maybe? Find out what properties he owned back in the day, see if he still owns them. Someone down at the courthouse can tell you how to do that, I suppose. You know anything about that, son?”
Jacob snapped out of whatever thoughts were preoccupying him. “I’ll go fetch your shoes,” he said to Beth. He turned toward the doorway.
“Please don’t go,” Beth said.
The men bumped into each other at the door, awkwardly responding to Beth’s request without understanding it. A slop of cooling coffee splashed over Jacob’s hand and onto the floor. He shook his fingers free of the dripping.
She had meant that she hoped he wouldn’t leave the Blazing B now. She wanted him to stay, just as he’d stayed after he graduated from college though he could have gone anywhere. She needed him, and even Dr. Roy, to stay here. She needed these trustworthy men to guide her through the additional terrible losses that lay ahead. She imagined Jacob standing by her, holding Levi at arm’s length with scorpions and whatever else was needed to protect her and Danny.
Beth felt the ten years’ difference in their ages as if she were twelve all over again.
“I meant, before you get my shoes, do you have any Super Glue? It’ll hold better than a bandage,” she said.
“Jacob, get this girl to the hospital.”
“They’ll just glue it there,” Beth protested. “I can do it myself in less time.”
“Whatever happened to good old-fashioned stitches?” Jacob asked.
“Progress.”
A cut from a rock would be so simple for God to heal. She didn’t understand anything.
“Won’t it get infected?”
“It’ll be fine. I need to get back to the house. I need to be with Danny.”
Jacob bent again over her shoulder, but this time reached out to take hold of her foot, wrapping his hand atop hers. His palm was warm and his fingers were firm as he turned her ankle to see the cut on the ball under her toes.
Beth turned her head away from the closeness of his beard. Inexplicably, tears poked the back of her eyes.
“Do you have any glue or not?”
“Emory’s got some.”
“Go get it then. Please.”
He didn’t let go right away, and she felt an unexpected impatience toward him rising up in her throat. He should just do what she wanted him to do—what she needed him to do. Stay with me. Protect me. Love me.
She shouldn’t have to ask for everything.
He released her foot, and her skin felt instantly cold. He left the bathroom, and the chill of his departure raced over her back.
Beth, feeling Dr. Roy’s eyes on her, reached up and turned off the water.