The McKettrick Legend (16 page)

“We've all been under a strain, Hannah,” Doss reasoned. “One of us must have gotten the album out and forgotten about it.”

She looked up into his face. “Did you?” she challenged softly.

He paused, shook his head. “I know
I
didn't,” she insisted.

“Tobias, then,” Doss said.

“No,” Hannah replied. “He was too sick.”

Doss set his coffee on the table, sat astride the bench, facing her. “There's a simple explanation for this, Hannah. Some body might have come up from one of the other places, let them selves in.”

As close as the McKettricks were, they didn't go into each other's houses when no one was at home. If one of them had wanted to see the album, they'd have said so. Anyway, the aunts and uncles were all in Phoenix, their children grown and gone. The people who looked after their places wouldn't have considered snooping like this, even if they'd been interested, which seemed unlikely.

“The biscuits will burn if you don't take them out of the oven,” Hannah said, staring at the album, almost expecting it to move on its own, float through the air like a spirit medium's trumpet at a séance.

Doss got up, crossed the room and rescued the biscuits. The sausage gravy was done, warming at the back of the stove, so he retrieved one of the plates Hannah had gotten out, filled it for her and brought it to the table.

“Tobias will be hungry,” she said, thinking aloud.

“I'll see to him,” Doss answered. “Eat.”

Hannah moved the album out of the way and pulled
the plate toward her, resigned to taking her supper, even though she didn't want it. Doss brought her silver ware, then filled another plate for Tobias and took it down stairs.

When he returned, he dished up his own meal and joined Hannah at the table. She was still staring at her scram bled eggs, sausage gravy and biscuits.

“Eat,” he repeated.

She took up a fork. “There's someone here,” she said. “Some one we can't see. Someone who moves the teapot and now the album, too.”

“Let's assume, for a moment, that that's true,” Doss ruminated, tucking into his food with an energy Hannah envied. “What do you plan to do about it?”

Hannah swallowed a bite of tasteless food. “I don't know,” she answered, but it wasn't the complete truth. An idea was already brewing in her mind.

They finished their supper.

Hannah cleared the table, put the album back in its drawer in the china cabinet, and went upstairs to look in on Tobias while Doss washed the dishes.

Her son was sitting up in bed when she entered his room, his supper half-eaten and set aside on the bedside table. “The boy's not here,” he said. “I wonder if he's gone away.”

Hannah frowned. “What boy?” she asked, even though she knew.

“The one I see some times. With the funny clothes.”

Hannah stroked her boy's hair. Sat down on the edge of his bed. “Does this boy ever speak to you? Does he have a name?”

Tobias shook his head. His eyes were large in his pale face. The trip back from Indian Rock had been hard on
him, and Hannah was both worried about her son and determined not to let on.

“We mostly just look at each other. I reckon he's as surprised to see me as I am to see him.”

“Next time he shows up, will you tell me?”

Tobias bit his lower lip, then nodded. “You believe me?”

“Of course I do, Tobias.”

“Pa said he was imaginary. When we talked about it, I mean.”

Hannah sighed. “Tobias, Doss is your uncle, not your pa.”

Suddenly, Tobias's eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Why won't you let him be my pa?” he asked. “He's your husband, isn't he? If you can have a husband, why can't
I
have a pa?”

Had Tobias been older, Hannah thought, she might have explained that Doss wasn't a
real
husband, that theirs was a marriage of convenience, but he was still far too young to understand.

In point of fact, she didn't entirely understand the situation herself.

“A woman can have more than one husband,” she said cautiously. “A boy has only one father. And your father was Gabriel Angus McKettrick. I don't want you to forget that.”

“I
won't
forget,” Tobias said. “You can wash my mouth out with soap, if you want to, but I'm still going to call Uncle Doss my pa. I've got enough uncles—Jeb and Kade and Rafe, and John Henry, too. What I need is a
pa.
”

Hannah was too exhausted to argue, and she knew she wouldn't win anyhow. “So long as you promise me you will never forget who your real father is,” she said. “And
I would appreciate it if you would include your uncle David—my brother—in that list of relations you just mentioned.”

Tobias brightened and put out one small hand for a shake. “It's a deal,” he agreed. “I like Uncle David. He can spit a long way.”

“Go to sleep,” Hannah told him with a smile, reaching to turn down the wick in the lantern next to his bed.

“I didn't wash my face or brush my teeth,” he confessed, settling back on to his pillows.

“Just this once we'll pretend you did,” she said.

The lamp went out.

She kissed his forehead, found it blessedly cool and tucked the covers in close around him. “Good night, Tobias,” she said.

“Good night, Ma,” Tobias replied with a yawn.

He was probably asleep before she reached the door.

She'd hoped Doss would have turned in by the time she went down stairs, so she wouldn't have to be alone with him in the intimacy of evening, but he was right there in the kitchen, with the bathtub set out in the middle of the floor and buckets and kettles of water heating on the stove.

“I just came down to say good night,” she lied. Actually, she'd been planning to sit up awhile, pondering her plan. It wasn't much, but she was bound and determined to find out something about the strange goings-on in that house.

“You can have this bath if you want,” Doss told her. “I can always take one later.”

“You have it,” Hannah said, even though she would have loved to soak the chill out of her bones in a tub of hot water. She wondered if he was planning to share her
bed, but she'd have broken the ice on top of the horse trough and stripped bare for a dunking before asking him outright.

He simply nodded.

“Don't forget to bank the fire,” she said.

He grinned. “I never do, Hannah,” he reminded her.

She turned, blushing a little, and went back upstairs. Entering her room, the one she'd shared with Gabe, she exchanged her clothes for a night gown. She took her hair down, brushed it, plaited it into a long braid, trying all the while not to imagine Doss right down stairs, naked as the day he was born, lounging in that tub in front of the stove.

Would he join her later?

He was her legal husband, and he had every right to sleep beside her. She, on the other hand, had every right to turn him away, wedding band or none.

Would she?

She honestly didn't know, and in the end, it didn't matter.

She put out her lamp, threw back the covers on her bed and stretched out, waiting and listening.

Presently she heard Doss climb the stairs, walk along the hallway and pass her room.

His door closed moments later.

Hannah told herself she was relieved, and then cried her self into a fitful sleep.

Present Day

The roads had been plowed, and Sierra was secretly proud of the way she handled the Blazer. She'd grown up in Mexico, after all, and spent the last few years in Florida,
which precluded driving in snow. This was an accomplishment.

At the elementary school, she got Liam registered and watched as he rushed off to join his class before she could even suggest that he start slowly. His eagerness left her feeling a little bereft.

She shook that off. He had his inhaler. The school nurse had been apprised of his asthma. She had to let go.

She would be living on the Triple M for a year, per her agreement with Eve. Might as well drive around a bit, see what the town was like.

Thirty minutes later she'd seen it all.

The super market. The library. The Cattleman's Bank. Two cafés, three bars, a gas station. A dry cleaners, and the ubiquitous McDonald's. The Indian Rock Historical Society. A real estate firm. A few hundred houses, many of them old and, at the edge of town, a spanking-new office complex with the word McKettrickCo inlaid in colored stone over a gleaming set of automatic doors.

I'm sure there will be a place for you in the organization, if you want one,
she heard Eve's voice say.

Slowing the Blazer, she studied the place, imagined herself going inside, in her jeans, sweat shirt and ratty coat, her hair combed in a slap-dash method, no mirror required. Face bare of makeup. “Hi, there,” she would say to her cousin Keegan, who would no doubt be less than thrilled to see her but manage a polite greeting, anyway. “My name is Sierra and, what do you know? Turns out, I'm a McKettrick, just like you. Go figure. Oh, and by the way, my mother says you're to give me a job. Top-dollar salary and all the fringe benefits, if you don't mind.”

She smiled ruefully at the thought. “Of course, all I know how to do is serve cock tails and speak Spanish,” she might add. “No problem, I'm sure.”

She pulled up in front of the Cattleman's Bank, patted her purse, which contained a few hundred dollars in traveler's checks, all the money she had in the world, and went in to open a checking account.

“You already have one, Ms. McKettrick,” a perky young teller told her, after a few taps on her computer keyboard. The girl's eyes widened as she peered at the screen. “It's pretty substantial, too.”

Sierra frowned, momentarily puzzled. “There must be some mistake. I've only been in town a few days, and I haven't—”

And then it struck her. Eve had been up to her tricks again.

The teller turned her pivoting monitor around so Sierra could read the facts for herself. The bottom line made her catch hold of the counter with both hands, lest she faint dead away.

Two million dollars?

“Of course you'll need to sign a signature card,” the clerk said, still chipper. “Do you have two forms of personal identification?”

“I need to use your telephone,” Sierra managed to say. The floor was still at an odd tilt, and her knuckles hurt where she gripped the edge of the counter.

The teller blinked. “You don't carry a cell phone?” she marveled, in a tone usually reserved for people who think they've been abducted by aliens and subjected to a lot of very painful and explicit medical procedures.

“No,” Sierra said, trying not to hyperventilate, “I do not carry a cell phone.”

“Over there,” the teller said, pointing to a friendly looking nook marked off in brass letters as the Customer Comfort area.

Sierra made her way to the telephone, rummaged through
her purse for Eve's cell number and dialed. The operator came on and informed her the call was long distance, and there would be charges.

“Make it collect,” Sierra snapped.

One ring. Two. Eve was probably still in flight, aboard the company jet, with her phone shut off. Sierra was about to give up when, after the third ring, her mother chimed, “Eve McKettrick.”

“I have a bank account with two million dollars in it!” Sierra whispered into the receiver, bent around it like someone calling a 900 number during a church service.

“Yes, dear,” Eve said sweetly. “I know.”

“I will not accept—”

“Your trust fund?”

Sierra sucked in her breath. Almost choked on it. “My
trust fund?
”

“Yes,” Eve answered. “You also have a share in McKettrickCo, of course.”

Sierra swallowed, care fully this time. “I will not take your charity.”

“Tell it to your grandfather,” Eve responded, unruffled. “Of course, you'll need a clairvoyant to help, because he's been dead for fifteen years.”

Sierra held the receiver away from her, stared at it, jammed it to her ear again. “My grandfather left me
two million
dollars?”

“Yes,” Eve said. “We kept it safely tucked away in Switzer land, so your father wouldn't get his paws on it.”

Sierra closed her eyes.

“Sweet heart?” her mother asked, sounding concerned now. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Sierra breathed. She could have walked away from all that money. She really could have—if not for Liam.
“Why didn't you tell me about this, when you were at the house?”

“Because I knew you weren't ready to hear it, and I didn't want to waste precious time arguing.”

Sierra swallowed. “How come you can talk on a cell phone in flight?”

Eve laughed. “Because I patch the number into the phone on board the plane before takeoff,” she answered. “I'm quite the technological whiz. Any more questions?”

“Yes. What am I supposed to do with two million dollars?”

1919

B
Y THE
T
IME HANNAH CAME
down stairs, Doss had built up the fire, brewed the coffee and left for the barn, like he did every morning. She put on Gabe's old coat—there was nothing of his scent left in it now—and made a trip to the privy, then the chicken house. She was washing her hands in a basin of hot water when Doss came in from doing the chores.

“I guess I'll drive the sleigh down and look in on the widow Jessup again,” he said. “This cold snap might outlast her fire wood.”

“You'll have a good, hot break fast first,” Hannah told him. “While I'm fixing it, why don't you get some preserves from the pantry and pack them up? Mrs. Jessup especially loves those cinnamon pears and pickled crab apples I put up for Christmas.”

Doss nodded, a grin crooking one corner of his mouth in a way that made Hannah feel sweetly flustered. “How's Tobias today?”

“He's sleeping in,” she said, cracking eggs into a bowl, keeping her gaze averted with some difficulty. “And don't think for a moment you're going to take him with you. It's too cold and he's worn-out from yesterday.”

She'd thought Doss was in the pantry, but all of a
sudden his hands closed over her shoulders, startling her so that she stiffened.

He turned her around to face him. Looked straight into her eyes.

Her heart beat a little faster.

Was he about to kiss her?

Say something important?

She held her breath, hoping he would. Hoping he wouldn't.

“Before he went back to Phoenix, Uncle Jeb said we ought to help our selves to some hams from the smoke-house down at Rafe and Emmeline's place,” he said. “A side of bacon, too. That means I'll be gone a little longer than usual.”

Hannah merely nodded.

They stood, the two of them facing each other for a long moment.

Then Doss let go of Hannah's shoulders, and she turned to whip the eggs and slice bread for toasting. He found a crate and filled it with provisions for the widow Jessup.

After he'd gone, Hannah carried a plate up to Tobias, who seemed content to stay in bed with one of his many picture books.

“I'm getting worried about that boy,” Tobias told Hannah solemnly. “He ought to be back by now.”

“I'm sure you'll see him again soon,” Hannah said moderately. “Remember, you promised to let me know right away when you do.”

He nodded, looking glum.

She kissed his forehead and went out, leaving the door open so she'd hear if he called for her. What he needed most right now was rest, and good food to build his strength. When Doss got back with the bacon and hams, she'd make up a special meal.

Down stairs Hannah tidied the kitchen, washed the dishes, dried them and put them away. When that was done, she built up the fire and went to the china cabinet to open the top drawer. The album was there, where it belonged, but a little shiver went up her spine at the sight of it, just the same.

She reached past it, found the small leather-bound remembrance book Lorelei and Holt had sent her for a Christmas present. The cover was a rich shade of blue, the pages edged in shiny gold.

She hadn't written a word in the journal, hadn't even opened it. She hadn't wanted to record her grief, hadn't wanted to make it real by writing it down in dark, formal letters.

Now she had something very different in mind. She carried the remembrance book to the table, and then went to the study for a bottle of ink and a pen. The room was chilly. She rarely went there, because it always brought back memories of Gabe, sitting at the desk, reading or pondering over a ledger.

It was especially empty that day; though, strangely, it was Doss's absence Hannah felt most keenly, not Gabe's. She collected the items she needed and hurried out again.

Back in the kitchen she found a rag to wipe the pen clean. When she was finished she opened the ink and turned to the first page.

She bit her lower lip, dipped the pen, summoned up all her resolve and began to write.

Present Day

The first thing Sierra noticed when she got back to the house later that morning—with a load of groceries and a head spinning with possibilities now that she was rich—was that Travis wasn't around. The second thing was that the album Eve had brought out to show her was gone.

She'd left it on the kitchen table, and it had vanished.

She paused, holding her breath. Listening. Was there someone in the house?

No, it was empty. She didn't need to search the rooms, open closet doors, peer under beds, to know that.

Her practical side took over. She brought in the rest of the super market bags and put everything away. Put on a pot of coffee. Made a tuna salad sandwich and ate it.

Only when she'd rinsed the plate and put it in the dishwasher did she walk over to the china cabinet and open the top drawer, as Eve had done earlier that morning.

The album was back in its place.

Sierra frowned.

In visible fingers played a riff on her spine, touching every vertebra.

She closed the drawer again.

She would look at the photographs later. Combine that with the job of cataloging the ones stored in the attic.

She brought the Christmas boxes up from the basement, carried them into the living room. Care fully and methodically removed and wrapped each ornament. Some were obviously expensive, others were the handiwork of generations of children.

By the time she'd put them all away and dismantled the silk tree, it was time to drive into town and pick Liam up at school. Backing the Blazer out of the garage, she almost ran
over Travis, who had the hood up on the station wagon and was standing to one side, fiddling with one of its parts.

He leaped out of her path, grinning.

She slammed on the brakes, buzzed down the window on the passenger side. “You scared me,” she said.

Travis laughed, leaning in. “
I
scared
you?
”

“I wasn't expecting you to be standing there.”

“I wasn't expecting
you
to come shooting out of the garage at sixty-five miles an hour, either.”

Sierra smiled. “Do you always argue about everything?”

“Sure,” he said, with an affable shrug of his impressive shoulders. “Gotta stay sharp in case I ever want to practice law again. Where are you headed in such a hurry, anyway?”

“Liam's about to get out of school for the day.”

“Right,” Travis said, stepping back.

“Do you want to come along?”

Now what made her say
that?
She liked Travis Reid well enough, and certainly appreciated all he'd done to help, but he also made her poignantly uncomfortable.

He must have seen her thoughts playing out in her face. “May be another time,” he said easily. “Eve told me you were going to take down the Christmas tree. It's a big sucker, so I'll lug it back to the basement if you want.”

“That would be good. The coffee's on—help yourself.”

Travis grinned. Nodded. Stepped back from the side of the Blazer with exaggerated haste.

As she drove away, Sierra wasn't thinking about her two-million-dollar trust fund, the vanishing teapot, the piano that played itself, teleporting photo album or even Liam.

She was thinking about the hired help.

 

Peering through his new telescope at the night sky, Liam felt that familiar shiver in the air. He knew, even before he turned around to look, that the boy would be there.

And he was. Lying in the bed, staring at Liam.

“What's your name?” the boy asked.

For a moment, Liam couldn't believe his ears. He wasn't scared, but his throat got tight, just the same. He'd planned on telling the boy all about his first day at the new school, and a lot of other things, too, as soon as he showed up, but now the words got stuck and wouldn't come out.

“Mine's Tobias.”

“I'm Liam.”

“That's an odd name.”

Liam straightened his back. “Well, ‘Tobias' is pretty weird, too,” he countered.

Tobias tossed back the covers and got out of bed. He was wearing a funny flannel night gown, more suited to a girl than a boy. It reached clear past his knees. “What's that?” he asked, pointing to Liam's telescope.

Liam patiently explained the obvious. “Wanna look? You can see all the way to Saturn with this thing.”

Tobias peered through the viewer. “It's bouncing around. And it's
blue!
”

“Yep,” Liam agreed. “How come you're wearing a nightie?”

Tobias looked up. His eyes flashed, and his cheeks got red. “This,” he said, “is a night
shirt
.”

“Whatever,” Liam said.

Tobias gave him the eyeball. “Those are mighty peculiar duds,” he announced.

“Thanks a lot,” Liam said, but he wasn't mad. He figured “duds” must mean clothes. “Are you a ghost?”

“No,” Tobias said. “I'm a boy. What are you?”

“A boy,” Liam answered.

“What are you doing in my room?”

“This is
my
room. What are
you
doing here?”

Tobias grinned, poked a finger into Liam's chest, as though testing to see if it would go right through. “My ma told me to let her know first thing if I saw you again,” he said.

Liam put out his own finger and found Tobias to be as solid as he was.

“Are you going to?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Tobias said. He put his eye to the viewer again. “Is that
really
Saturn, or is this one of those moving-picture contraptions?”

1919

Hannah blew on the ink until it dried. Then she wiped the pen clean, sealed the ink bottle and closed the remembrance book.

Now that she'd written in it, she felt a little foolish, but what was done was done. She took the book back to the china cabinet and placed it care fully beneath the top cover of the family album.

She was just mounting the steps to go and check on Tobias when she realized he was talking to someone.

She couldn't make out the words, just the conversational tone of his voice. He spoke with an eager lilt she hadn't heard in a long time.

She stood absolutely still, straining to listen.

“Ma!” he yelled suddenly.

She bolted up the stairs, along the hallway, into his room.

She found him lying comfortably in bed, wide awake,
his eyes shining with an almost feverish excitement. “I saw the boy,” he said. “His name is Liam and he showed me Saturn.”

“Liam,” Hannah repeated stupidly, because anything else was quite beyond her.

“I said it was a strange name, Liam, I mean, and he said Tobias was a weird thing to be called, too.”

Hannah opened her mouth, closed it again. Twisted the hem of her apron in both hands. Her knees felt as though they'd turned to liquid, and even though she'd asked Tobias to let her know straight away if he saw the boy again, she realized she hadn't been prepared to hear it. She wished Doss were there, even though he'd probably be a hindrance, rather than a help.

“Ma?” Tobias sounded worried, and his eyes were great in his face.

She hurried to his bed, sat down on the edge of the mat tress, touched a hand to his forehead.

He squirmed away. “I'm not sick,” he protested. “I saw
Saturn.
It's blue, and it really does have rings.”

Hannah withdrew her hand, and it came to rest, fluttering, at the base of her throat.

“You don't believe me!” Tobias accused.

“I don't know
what
to believe,” Hannah admitted softly. “But I know you're not lying, Tobias.”

“I'm not seeing things, either!”

“I— It's just so strange.”

Tobias subsided a little, falling back on to his pillows with a sigh. “He told me lots of stuff, Ma,” he said, his voice small and uncertain.

Hannah took his hand, squeezed it. Tried to appear calm. “What ‘stuff,' Tobias?” she managed, after a few slow, deep breaths.

“That Saturn has moons, just like the earth does. Only, it's got four, instead of just one. One of them is covered in ice, and it might even have an ocean underneath, full of critters with no eyes.”

Hannah swallowed a slight, guttural cry of pure dismay. “What else?”

“People have boxes in their houses, and they can watch all kinds of stories on them. Folks act them out, like players on a stage.”

Tears of pure panic burned in Hannah's eyes, but she blinked them back. “You must have been dreaming, Tobias,” she said, fairly croaking the words, like a frog in a fable. “You fell asleep, and it only
seemed
real—”

“No,” Tobias said flatly. “I saw Liam. I talked to him. He said it was 2007, where he lives. I told him he was full of sheep dip—that it was 1919, and I'd get the calendar to prove it. Then
he
said if I was eight years old in 1919, I was probably dead or in a nursing home some place by 2007.” He paused. “What's a nursing home, Ma? And how could I be two places at once? A kid here, and an old man some where else?”

Dizzy, Hannah gathered her boy in both arms and held him so tightly that he struggled.

“Let me
go,
Ma,” he said. “You're fair smothering me!”

With a conscious effort, Hannah broke the embrace. Let her arms fall to her sides. “What's happening to us?” she whispered.

“I need to use the chamber pot,” Tobias announced.

Hannah stood slowly, like a sleep walker. She moved out of that room, closed the door behind her and got as far as the top of the back stairs before her legs gave out and she had to sit down.

She was still there when Doss came in, back from his
travels to the smoke house and the widow Jessup's place. As though he'd sensed her presence, he came to the foot of the steps, still in his coat and hat.