In Plain Sight

24

WHEN BUD PULLED INTO THE RANCH YARD, HE splashed through a small lake that had not been there that morning and parked the one-ton in his massive barn.

Joe saw Marybeth’s van in there also. She was home early. As he entered the house through the back door they used to access their new living quarters, Marybeth looked up, saw his face, and sat down quickly as if her legs had given out on her.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Let’s go into the bedroom and shut the door,” she said.

HE TOLD MARYBETH he’d been fired, and her reaction was worse than he anticipated: stunned silence. He would have preferred that she yelled at him, or cried, or locked herself in their room. Instead, she simply stared at him and whispered, “What are we going to do now, Joe?”

“We’ll figure something out,” he said, lamely.

“I guess we knew this would happen.”

“Yes.”

“When do we tell the girls?” Marybeth asked. “What do we tell them.”

“The truth,” he said. That would be the hardest part. No, it wouldn’t. The hardest part would be that Sheridan and Lucy would expect him to say not to worry, that he would take care of them as he always had. But he couldn’t tell them that and look them in the eye.

DINNER THAT EVENING was one of the worst Joe could remember. They sat at the big dining room table with Missy and Bud. Missy’s cook, a Latina named Maria, had made fried chicken and the pieces steamed in a big bowl in the middle of the table. Bud ate as if he were starved. Missy picked at a breast that had been skinned and was made specially for her. Joe had no appetite, even though it was his favorite meal. When he had been employed, that is. Marybeth was silent. Sheridan spent dinnertime looking from her mom to her dad and back again, trying to figure out what was happening. Lucy was oblivious.

The rain roared against the roof and sang down the downspouts. Bud said a half-dozen times how happy he was that it was raining.

AFTER THE DISHES were cleared, Joe asked Bud if he could borrow a ranch pickup.

“Where are you going?” Missy said. Now that they were under her roof, Missy felt entitled to ask questions like that.

“I’ve got birds to feed,” Joe said.

“Have you looked outside?” Missy said with an expression clearly meant to convey that he was an idiot.

“Why? Is something happening?” Joe said. He really didn’t have the patience to deal with his mother-in-law tonight.

Marybeth shot him a cautionary look. Sheridan stifled a smile.

“I hope Bud doesn’t have to come out and rescue you again if you get stuck,” Missy said, and turned away.

“I don’t mind,” Bud said. “I kind of like driving around in the rain. It makes me feel good.”

“I’ll try not to get stuck again,” Joe said as he headed to the mudroom for his still-damp boots and coat. Marybeth followed him there.

“Sheridan knows something is up.”

“I know,” Joe said, wincing as he pulled on a wet boot.

“Maybe when you get home we can talk to the girls.”

Joe sighed. “I guess.” He’d been putting it off all night.

“Joe, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

He looked up. “Yes, honey, it is.”

“My business is doing well.”

“Thank God for that,” Joe said, standing, jamming his foot into a boot to seat it. “Thank God for your business, or we’d be out on the street.”

“Joe . . .”

He looked up at her and his eyes flashed. “I brought it on myself, I know that. I could have played things differently. I could have compromised a little more.”

She shook her head slowly. “No you couldn’t, Joe.”

He clammed up. Anything he said now would make things worse, he knew. His insides ached. How could she possibly know how it felt for a man to lose his job, lose the means of taking care of his family? He kept pushing the crushing reality of it aside so that he was only contemplating the little things: that he would no longer wear the red shirt, that he would no longer carry a badge and a gun, that he would no longer perch on hillsides watching deer and antelope and elk. That he would no longer bring home a monthly paycheck.

“Be careful,” she said, taking his face in her hands and kissing him. “I worry about you when you’re like this.”

He tried to smile but he knew it looked like a pained snarl.

“I’ve got to get out for a while” was all he managed to say. God, he was grateful she was his wife.

Missy swept in behind Marybeth and stood there with her eyes sparkling above a pursed mouth. “This is interesting, isn’t it?”

“What are you referring to?”

She opened her arms toward the window of the mudroom, a gesture designed to take in the whole ranch. “Three years ago, I was camped out on your couch in that horrible little hovel you made my daughter and my grandchildren live in. And you wanted me out.”

Joe didn’t deny it.

“Now look where we are. You’re a guest in my home and your family is comfortable and safe for the first time in their lives.”

He felt his rage build, but was able to stanch it. He didn’t want this argument now, when he felt quite capable of wringing her neck.

“It’s interesting, is all,” she said, raising her eyebrows mockingly, “how situations can change and things that were thought and said can come back to haunt a person?”

SHERIFF MCLANAHAN WASN’T kidding. The rain had transformed everything. It wasn’t like other parts of the country, where rain could fall and soak into the soil and be smoothly channeled away. This was hardpan that received only eleven inches of rain a year, and today had already brought four. The water stood on top of the ground, forming lakes and ponds that hadn’t existed for years. Tiny draws and sloughs had turned into funnels for raging brown water.

Joe drove slowly on the highway, water spraying out from under his tires in rooster tails. The sky was mottled greenish black and the rain fell so hard he couldn’t hear the radio inside the cab of the ranch truck. He had no business going out, and especially going to Nate’s old place to feed the falcons, but he needed something to do. If he stayed at the ranch contemplating his complete failure while Missy prattled on about fat grams and social clubs, he didn’t know what he might do. Plus, he wanted to put off the talk with Sheridan and Lucy. Would Marybeth warn them? he wondered. Tell them to reassure their father, not to get angry or upset? He hoped she didn’t. The only thing he could think of that was worse than being a failure was to have his girls pity him for it.

THE ROAD TO Nate Romanowski’s old place was elevated enough that he was able to get there in four-wheel-drive high. On either side of the road, though, long lakes had formed. Ducks were actually sitting on ponds that hadn’t existed eight hours ago. And he could hear frogs. Frogs that had been hibernating deep below the surface for years were coming out, croaking.

It was amazing what renewal came with water in the mountain west. Joe just wished that somehow the rain could renew him.

JOE CRESTED THE last rise near Nate’s home to see that the river had not just jumped the bank, but had taken Nate’s falcon mews and was lapping at the side of his house. He had never seen the river so big, so violent. It was whitewater, and big rollers thundered through the canyon. Full-grown cottonwood trees, cattle, parts of washed-out bridges were being carried downstream. The rickety suspension footbridge across the river downstream from Nate’s home was either gone or underwater.

Joe parked above Nate’s house on a rise. There was less than an hour of light left, and he wanted to feed the birds and get out before nightfall. He climbed out and pulled on his yellow slicker. Fat raindrops popped against the rubberized canvas of his slicker as he unwrapped road-killed rabbits from a burlap bag in the bed of the truck. This was a foolish thing he was doing, he conceded. The birds could probably wait. But he had made a promise, and he would keep it.

The sound of the river was awesome in its power. He could feel the spray from it well before he got to its new edge.

He laid the rabbits out on a sandy rise so they could be seen clearly from the air. In the past, it took less than ten minutes for either the peregrine or the red-tailed hawk to see the meat. Joe never had any idea where the falcons were, or how they always knew he was there. But they did, and they came to eat.

Joe could never get used to the relationship—or more accurately, the lack of a relationship—he had with Nate’s falcons. It was something Nate had once told him about, how different and unique it was with birds of prey compared to other creatures. The cold partnership between falconer and falcon was primal and unsentimental. Quite simply, the birds never warmed up to the falconer and certainly not to Joe. To anyone. Raptors weren’t like dogs, or horses, or even cats. They didn’t pretend to like humans, or show even a flicker of affection. They simply coexisted with people, using them to obtain food and shelter but never actually giving back anything but their own ability to hunt and kill. The falcon could fly away at any time and never come back. There was nothing a falconer could do to retrieve a bird. It was a relationship based on mutual self-interest and a kind of unfeeling trust.

After twenty minutes, Joe saw a dark speck dislodge from the gunmetal clouds. He stood and wiped the rain from his face and watched as the speck got larger. It was the peregrine, the ultimate killer. The red-tail appeared shortly thereafter.

The peregrine buzzed Joe twice before flaring and landing on the edge of the rise. The red-tail made two false landings, close enough to see the meat, then climbed back up into the sky and disappeared.

He looked at the peregrine closely. The bird wasn’t the least bit interested in the rabbits. And there was something else: the bird’s gullet was swelled to bursting and there were blood flecks and bits of white down on its breast. It had already eaten.

Joe squatted and looked into the falcon’s eyes, which were as impenetrable as shiny black stones.

“Who fed you?” Joe asked. “Or did you kill something yourself?” Then he thought about the red-tail. “Did you both make a kill?”

Something made him turn and look at the stone house that had stood empty for half a year.

Fresh lengths of pine boarded up two of the windows. The front door had been replaced. And half a row of new shingles were laid out on the roof.

Despite the drumming of the rain, Joe felt his heart whump in his chest.

He called out, “Nate, where are you?”

Then he saw him. Downstream, where he’d been hiding and watching in a thick stand of reeds. The reeds were dancing around him with falling rain. Nate rose from them, naked, holding his huge .454 Casull in his right fist. Joe didn’t even want to ask.

“Have you come to kill me?” Nate called out.

“No.”

“I deserve it.”

“I know you do.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Nate said.

They stared at each other for a minute. Nate was slick with rain and his white skin was mud streaked from hiding in the bog. His long blond hair stuck to the tops of his shoulders. His eyes bored into Joe.

Nate had once vowed to protect Joe’s family. Joe had promised to keep Nate’s birds fed. Despite everything that had happened, both had lived up to their obligations, something greater than mere friendship.

Joe said, “Why don’t you put on some clothes?”