Hold of the Bone (26 page)

“Legend has it that upon the next storm the man's wife gave shelter to a doctor traveling between the lonely coast towns. The doctor was so impressed by her kindness and apparent plight that he left the woman with his horse and a bag of gold, promising to return in the spring with more. And for many years after, the doctor was true to his word, visiting every spring and every fall with gifts for the woman
and her grown children. When the doctor at last died, his journals went to a local museum, and there the curious notation was discovered that upon each of his visits to the woman's cabin, the doctor was unfailingly accompanied by a single
zopilote
following lazily overhead.

“To this day the abuelas swear that spirit vultures circle the Santa Lucias searching for lost souls, and that if you are ever in trouble you can call on
zopilote
and he will come to your aid.”

Frank claps again and sits up. “Your daughter's right. You
are
a good storyteller.” Then she asks, “Have you ever called on
zopilote
?”

Sal only smiles and drags on her cigarette. Frank admires the sprawling vista, swats at a persistent gnat.

“Do you know what
jhator
is?”

Frank shakes her head. The gnat buzzes away.

“It's the Tibetan practice of burying the dead. It literally means ‘giving alms to the birds.' The Tibetans dismember their dead and leave the bodies out for the vultures to feast on. I think it's a beautiful concept. I'd love to be returned to the world like that, when it's time. Right here. Wouldn't that be lovely?”

Frank doesn't find the idea particularly “lovely” but can see the symmetry for Sal, who seems such a part of the landscape.

Sal stands. “We should get back.”

Cicero and Kook stretch and follow her down the rocks, but Bone watches from his strip of shade. “I'm with you,” Frank confides. “I've got to get on that goddamned horse again.”

Frank regrets cursing Buttons, who has been nothing but patient with her. Sore from the waist down, she grunts and limps toward the ladder of boulders. She turns for a last look at the ocean. It's still there. It will be there, along with the rolling peaks and canyons and blue, blue sky long after she is gone. Frank turns and steps into the cleft. With a grunt and gimp to match, Bone climbs down after her.

Chapter 27

As if Sal has used all her words back at the pass, they don't speak until they are in the corral, and then it is only to murmur praise to the horses. After they are brushed and turned loose behind the barn, Sal and Frank walk to the truck. The dogs are passed out in its shade, and it occurs to Frank she has barely asked any questions about the investigation. Sal kneels and checks Cicero's feet for foxtails. Without looking at Frank, she says, “You're welcome to spend the night, if you want.”

“Really?”

Sal nods. The shadows of the barn drape round her like a mantilla and Frank glances around to see that the western half of the ranch is already twilit. Figuring Sal isn't as much generous as she is tired and reluctant to drive Frank to her car, she kicks herself for having fallen once again under the ranch's spell. She has no intention of spending the night again. The freak storm last time made the overnight stay somewhat plausible, but this time it would be impossible to justify. She searches for a reason to stay and is unable to find one, other than she wants very badly to be part of the coming dusk, to see how it steals over the rest of the ranch and creeps up on the cabin and across the yard into the trees until all the land is washed in gray and the last traces of color are swallowed by velvet night.

“I really should go.”

Sal stands and wipes her hands on her jeans. Neither woman moves toward the truck.

“Why did you come all the way up here?”

Frank shrugs, glances helplessly around her. “I have to ask you more questions.”

“You haven't asked any.”

“I know.”

“Then you may as well at least come up for dinner.”

Sal stalks behind the barn. A moment later she drives the quad around and parks by the truck. She drops the short tailgate and the dogs rise slowly, leaping one by one into the small bed. Frank glances into the cab of the truck. The keys hang in the ignition. She should drive herself to town. She's pretty sure she knows the way. Just hop in and tell Sal she'll leave the truck at the gate.

That'd be the right thing to do. Just leave.

Sal sits behind the wheel of the idling quad and Bone stands in back. Both stare at her. The mountains' shadows grope for the eastern edges of the ranch. Frank looks there, toward Soledad and the highway. Soon it will be dark and she will be shut in her hotel room, studying the star-sprinkled mountains from behind the curtains.

Swearing, but hiding a smile, she jogs to the quad and hangs on as it lurches up the meadow. They get closer to the creek and the sycamores grow in the dimming light, yet their bulk seems incorporeal. Frank lifts her nose to the air. She can smell their greenness, their sap-running life, and the smile that has been threatening busts loose. Sal stops just shy of the tree line. The dogs jump out and run across the bridge. Frank follows her hostess, pausing to peer into the unfathomable water. A bird calls plaintively. She can't see it in the graying leaves but knows the bird is seeking a roost out of the wind, safe from nocturnal hunters. If it picks a poor site or is forced to flee in the unnavigable darkness, it may well not live through the night. Frank leaves the sinuous bower, unsure where she has learned that.

Sal is in the cabin getting the dogs' food ready and tells Frank, “It's a little chilly. Do you know how to build a fire?”

“I do.”

Sal appears doubtful, but asks her to start one in the fire pit while she heats their dinner.

“Where's the wood?”

Sal points to a neat stack between the sheds.

“Are there snakes in there?”

“Possibly. Take the pieces on top.”

Frank calls Bone to her, but he is fixated on his bowl.

“Traitor,” she says.

The yard is shadowy. Frank crosses it slowly, searching for snakes. She gingerly gathers an armload of wood and totes it to the fire pit, relieved the dogs have finished eating and are prowling the yard. Frank arranges the kindling, then pokes her head into the cabin. Whatever Sal is cooking smells good. The dogs must think so too, for they push past and arrange themselves in a semi-circle around the kitchen. Watching the homey scene, Frank is overcome by another déjà vu. She clings to the doorjamb until the sensation passes.

Sal asks, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Matches?”

Sal tosses a box. Frank lights the fire just as the sun falls into the hungry ridge tops and is swallowed whole. The frisson Frank feels isn't just from the fading heat. The dogs burst through the door again, but this time she doesn't flinch. Sal sets down a plate of fresh tortillas and heavy bowls of chili verde. They sit near the fire, tucking silently into the spicy stew. The dogs lay at their feet waiting for spills.

Swabbing her bowl with a tortilla, Frank casually asks, “You ever have déjà vu?”

“Sure,” Sal answers around her spoon.

“What do you think it is?”

“I couldn't say. Maybe a thinning between worlds. A place where the edges of time overlap and bleed through.”

“Parallel universe kinda thing?”

“Maybe. Have you ever heard of universal wavefunction or Everett's many-worlds interpretation?”

“
What
?”

Sal smiles. “They're quantum mechanics theories. Remind me before you go, I've got some books you might like.”

“That's funny, my daughter's father just suggested I read some physics.” She chews thoughtfully on the last of her tortilla. “You remind me of his ex-wife.”

Sal wrinkles a brow and sets her empty bowl on the hearth. “Why?”

“She's a physicist at UCLA but also a voodoo priestess. You
know about physics and are obviously an intelligent woman, yet you're a . . .
curandera
. I don't get how either of you reconcile intelligence and blind faith.”

“It's not blind at all, we see just fine. But because you can't see what we do, you think it doesn't exist.” Sal pulls out the tobacco pouch. “Besides, physics and faith are just different routes to the same source.”

“What source is that?”

Sal shrugs. “God. The unknown.”

Frank thinks about that as she watches stars blink on in the purpling sky. The sycamore leaves stir as if to watch too. The fire dances and from the creek little frogs sing down the darkness. Bone sighs at her feet and eases into contented sleep. Frank's fingers drop to his flank. “You get to see this every night.”

“No.” Sal shakes her head. “Every night is different. The sun falls a half-second sooner or later. The wind blows cooler or warmer or not at all. The animals change their songs according to the season. Even the grass is different. Stems bent under the weight of the stars last night were eaten or trampled today. Somewhere there are new eyes seeing the night for the very first time, and somewhere another pair of eyes have closed forever. Every night is different. Brand-new. I'd hate to miss a single one.”

Frank digs her fingers into Bone's coarse fur as she understands that this night is subtly altered from the night that preceded it, and the night to come, by her very presence. It will be different by that slight degree and that difference is her home in the world, her place among the stars and sun and earth and sea. Frank flattens her palm to Bone's warmth. He lifts his head wonderingly, then drops it back to the dirt. He grunts and squirms his hip into her hand and she wonders if he wants reassurance as much as she does. She wants to talk to Sal, to hear words, but the enchantment of the gloaming is greater than her need for comfort. She remains silent and the night continues its wizardry.

Sal breaks the spell by holding out a cigarette. Frank takes it. Remembering why she is here, she sets reluctantly to work. “Why did you wait so long to file a missing persons report?”

Sal exhales a fragrant plume. “My father wasn't exactly in anyone's
good graces. We felt we'd done enough by leaving him messages that his wife was dead. When he didn't show up or call after that, I don't know what we thought. I guess, that he'd show up eventually. It wasn't unusual for him to go off on a bender, so at first we didn't think much about his absence; it was just my father being a drunk. Believe me, that wasn't odd.”

“What about weeks, or months later? Did his benders usually last that long?”

She admits they didn't.

“Wasn't anybody the least worried then?”

“We were, but I think we all assumed he'd still turn up. You have to remember that he'd fought with my mother before he left. She said she fell into the table—but he knew, and we knew, that she didn't. We thought he might have been afraid to come home, and rightly so.”

“Why? What would have happened to him?”

“He'd have had to face a lot of hurt and angry people. In light of that, you couldn't blame him for staying away.”

“Did he ever say anything to his uncle about his plans, where he was going?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“The uncle never thought it odd that he just disappeared?”

“I can't remember. I know we spoke at the funeral, but I talked to so many people that day.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“His uncle?”

Frank nods.

“It must have been my Uncle Carl's funeral. He was still alive then, but very old. I'm sure that was his last trip here.”

“And that was . . .?”

“I couldn't say. I'm awful with dates. They don't mean much living out here. Sometime in the 80s. My daughter would know.”

“Did he ever offer any ideas about where your father might have gone?”

“The whole family kicked ideas around, but there was never a way to prove anything. And that's when Aunt Ellen filed a missing persons
report, when Carl died. She was the executor of his estate. She wanted to settle it, and to do that she had my father declared legally dead.”

“How large was the estate?”

“Not enough to kill someone over, if that's what you're thinking.”

“How much?”

“I think it was around $20,000, divided between her and my father. Hardly a fortune.”

“Didn't Carl have a wife, or kids?”

“He married, but it ended badly. They never had children and he never remarried.”

“So your aunt got all of it?”

“Uh-huh.”

Sal's right—twenty grand is hardly worth killing someone over. Nonetheless, she'll have Lewis look into it.

“Did he leave you any money?”

“Oh, sure, plenty. Let's see, the money he owed at Pasquales'. At Ven a Mexico. A tab at the 101. The hardware store. And don't forget the hospital.”