CHAPTER 8

"When are we go into town, Mom?"

MaryAnne was sitting at the desk in the den as she tried to familiarize herself with the ranch's accounting system-a process which had so far involved five calls to an increasingly impatient Charley Hawkins, who had finally sighed mightily and suggested that she simply make a list of her questions and bring them to his office the next morning.

She glanced up at Alison, who was standing in the doorway to the living room. "I'm not sure I have the time right now," she began, then caught sight of the large grandfather clock in the corner. "My God-it's already eleven!"

"You don't have to take us," Alison told her. "We can walk."

MaryAnne stared at her daughter. "Two and a half miles?" she asked. "You and Logan are going to walk two and a half miles to town, and two and a half miles backt' Back home in New Jersey, she couldn't remember either of her kids ever walking more than a few blocks. Anythin farther, and they either took a bus or begged for a ride! "It's not like at home,"

Alison said, as if she'd read her mother's mind. "It'll just be like going on a hike. And anyway, if we're going to start school tomorrow, we have to get clothes, don't we?"

Just as she had last year at this time, MaryAnne flinched at the thought of the expense of school clothes. But then she remembered: this year, things were different. For the first time, she could afford to buy the kids what they needed, without having to resent every penny the clothes might cost. Still, she hesitated. "I think I ought to be with you if you're going shopping@'

"We're not going to buy anything." Having neatly sidestepped her mother's primary objection, Alison pressed her advantage. "It'll save you a lot of time if we've already picked things out and tried them on."

Warming to the idea, Alison rushed on, building her case. "All we'll do is have them hold the stuff we pick out, and then we can all go back later this afternoon and you can decide which stuff we should buy."

Though the entire speech sounded suspiciously like something Alison had carefully rehearsed before trying it out on her, MaryAnne had to admit that it made sense. Until she remembered Joey and his strange behavior this morning. "Honey, have you noticed anything different about Joey this morning?"

Alison suddenly looked guarded. "D-Different?' she stammered, her eyes darting to the left. "What do you mean?"

Then Joey himself stepped into the doorway, his dark eyes exhibiting nothing of the chill MaryAnne had seen in them early that morning.

"We've already taken care of the horses, Aunt MaryAnne. Can't I take Alison and Logan into town) Please?"

MaryAnne studied the boy carefully. There was nothing left of the arrogance he'd exhibited toward Bill Sikes, Nothing of the coldness with which he'd told her that his father had been about to fire the handyman.

Once again, he was the appealing thirteen-year-old she'd come to know over the last few days. Whatever had happened this morning, she decided, must have been blown out of proportion in her own mind. "Well, I don't see any reason why not," she decided. "What time will you be backt'

Joey shrugged. "Three or four?"

"Fine," MaryAnne replied. "But if you're going to be later, call me.

Okay? And remember-don't buy! Just look!"

By the time the kids had left the house, MaryAnne's attention was once more focused on the account books in front of her, and though she heard Joey's voice through the open window, the words he spoke didn't penetrate her mind.

"This is gonna be great," he told Alison and Logan.

"Wait'll you see all the neat stuff they have!"

"How much farther is it?" Logan complained, coming to a stop on the trail they seemed to have been hiking along forever. When they'd started out from the house, walking into the woods and then along the creek, it had all seemed like a great adventure, but now, nearly an hour later, he was getting scared, though he'd never admit it. The woods were starting to feel like they were closing in on him, and they had crossed so many other paths that he was sure he could never find his way home. Alison grinned at him. "Afraid the big, bad wolf might get you?" she teased.

Logan felt his chin start to quiver, but before Alison could say anything else, Joey pointed through the trees.

"We're almost there, Logan, see?" He held the smaller boy up so he could peer through a gap in the heavy underbrush. "We just go a little farther, then there's a trail to the left."

Sure enough, there was the town, only a little way off.

Even if he got lost, all he'd have to do was start walking downhill and he'd be out of the woods in just a few minutes. As Joey put him back on the ground, he stuck his tongue out at Alison. "I wasn't scared," he insisted with far more conviction than he could have mustered a second before. "Come on!" Striking out ahead of the two older children, he took off down the trail, and sure enough-around the next bend was another path, winding off down the slope, just like Joey had said. Another minute and he burst out into the meadow that covered the valley floor, and ran over to the bank of Coyote Creek. "How do we get across?" he called back to Joey.

"We don't," Joey told him. "We just walk along it till we get to the cemetery. There's a bridge there."

At mention of the cemetery, the three children fell silent and their pace slowed, until finally they came to the stone wall that separated the graveyard from the meadow.

Joey climbed up onto the top of the wall, offering his hand to Alison while Logan scrambled up on his own.

Spread out before them were two acres of well-kept lawn dotted with white-bark pines, which made up the Sugarloaf cemetery. The three of them stood silently staring at the spot on the far side, close to the forest's edge, where Joey's parents had been buried the day before yesterday.

"Do you want to go visit the graves?" Alison finally asked.

Joey hesitated, then shook his head. "They wouldn't even know I was there."

"They might," Logan said.

But Joey shook his head harder. "I don't want to, okay?" His voice was harsh. As Logan recoiled from the Older boy's disapproval, and Alison flushed ' with embarrassment, Joey quickly added, "I mean, you guys are my family now, and when I'm with you, I feel good. But if I went to visit their grave . . ." His voice trailed off and he wiped his sleeve across his eyes, then fumbled in the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out a handkerchief, and blew his nose.

"Let's just go into town, okay?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he turned and started along the wall, only dropping off it when he came to the spot that was closest to the bridge across the creek. As the @ children crossed the bridge and headed along the narrow path toward the graveyard's entrance, none of them looked back at the place where Ted and Audrey Wilkenson had been buried.

"Where shall we start?" Alison asked as they came into the center of the little town a few minutes later. The shopping district occupied only two blocks, crowded with shops offering a brightly colored array of clothes, ranging from T-shirts to elaborate ski outfits, but almost everything displayed in the windows seemed calculated to attract tourists, not townspeople. "Where are the regular clothes?"

"The Mercantile," Joey told her. "And there's Conway's, too. You guys like western clothes?"

"I do!" Logan instantly declared, gathering him a scornful look from his sister.

"You don't even know what they are," Alison told him.

"I do, too!" Logan shot back. "The shirts are real fancy, with lots of snaps on them! I want a blue one!

And boots! Can I get some cowboy boots?" he asked Joey.

"We can't buy anything," Alison reminded him. "You heard what Mom said, All we're doing is looking!"

"But Joey said-!" Logan began. Alison cut him off.

"Logan, we don't even have any money! How are we going to buy anything?"

Logan's bubble of excitement began to deflate in the face of reality.

"Don't worry, Logan," Joey told the smaller boy. "We'll still get you some boots, and lots of other stuff, too." Holding Logan's hand, he started down the wooden sidewalk, with Alison scurrying to catch up. In the next block, hanging from one of the larger stores, she could see the sign identifying it as the Sugarloaf Mercantile. As they approached it, the door burst open and several boys and girls about her own age came out. They turned as if they were coming toward her, but abruptly stopped, looked at each other, seemed to make up their niinds without exchanging a word, and headed without a backward glance across the street.

Joey, who had stopped stone still as the group came out of the Mercantile, watched them go but said nothing. And yet, from the look on his face, Alison was sure he knew them. "Who are they?" she asked. "How come they went the other way?"

Joey's eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. "Just some kids," he said.

"They don't like me, that's all."

"How come?" Alison blurted.

Joey's face reddened, "They just don't," he said. "How do I know why?

Come on, let's go see what kind of clothes they have." He pushed the glass door of the Mercantile open and went inside, with Logan right behind him, but Alison hesitated, gazing across the street to where the group of kids was standing, now whispering among themselves and sneaking glances in her direction.

What is it? she wondered, What was going on?

Why wouldn't they like Joey Wilkenson? What could he possibly have done to them?

For a brief instant she was tempted to cross the street, to walk right up to them and ask. But even as the thought came into her mind, she knew she wouldn't act on it.

For she knew exactly what would happen if she did.

None of them would say anything. They would just look at her, and then turn around and walk away.

"Alison?" she heard Logan calling from inside the store.

"Come on!"

Turning away from the group across the street, Alison hurried into the store, where she found Logan and Joey examining a stack of brightly colored western shirts.

"We can buy anything we want!" Logan told her, his eyes sparkling with anticipation. "All we do is charge them!" Seeing the uncertainty cross his sister's face, he turned to Joey. "Isn't that what you said?"

Joey grinned at Alison. "It's true. We have accounts at every store in town. All we have to do is pick out what we want, and they send the bill to the ranch!"

"But Mom said@' Alison began. Joey didn't let her finish.

"Aunt MaryAnne doesn't know about the accounts. And if she says we shouldn't have bought something, we can bring it back. What's the big deal? We need school clothes, don't we?"

Alison hesitated, but then her eyes took in the massive display of merchandise spread out before her, and her resistance melted. As her fingers fell wistfully on a plaid cashmere scarf, she heard Joey speaking to her: "Buy it. It'll look terrific on you."

For the first time in her life Alison Carpenter abandoned herself to the joy of shopping.

The scarf instantly became hers and she decided she would always think of it as a gift.

A gift from Joey.

In the middle of the afternoon, MaryAnne closed the last of the ledgers on the desk, leaned back and shut her eyes.

She had done it!

She had gone over all the accounts. In the beginning the ledgers looked like nothing more than row upon row of meaningless numbers, but she had kept at it, and slowly Come to Understand just how much it cost to run the ranch.

She understood the cost of keeping the horses, and the amount of money the Wilkensons had saved by raising most of their hay, rather than buying it.

More important, she understood just how much the ranch had cost Ted and Audrey, and the fact that it had never been intended to make money.

Indeed, it had cost far more than it needed to, for the Wilkensons had spent considerable sums in rejuvenation projects, restoring once-cleared fields to their natural state and removing a culvert that had detoured the stream from its original course. That project had been particularly expensive, since it involved replacing a small forest of fully grown trees that had died when the stream had been diverted decades earlier, cutting off their water supply.

Yet no matter how much money the ranch absorbed, the books showed clearly that Ted Wilkenson's income was large enough to support it all, with sums, which heretofore had been beyond MaryAnne's wildest dreams, left over to support various conservation and environmental causes in the Sawtooth Valley area.

"Enough." she covered several pages of the yellow legal pad she had found in the desk with questions, she had already struck several of them out as her understanding of the Wilkensons' financial structure had become clearer.

I can do it, she decided. At least this part of it.

She got up from the desk, stretched, then moved through the house, automatically straightening things as she wandered through the rooms.

Going out the back door, she paused to bask in the sun for a moment, enjoying the feel of the heat on her aching muscles.

Exercise.

that's what she needed.

Maybe she should just take an hour or so and go for a long walk. She tilted her head back, surveying the soaring mountains that almost surrounded her. To the west, the stone face of Sugarloaf was just barely falling into the shadows of the afternoon, and as her eyes lingered on the ledge from which Audrey had fallen, she felt a chill go through her and quickly looked away. But there were huge granite outcroppings everywhere, and any one of them would provide a panorama of the whole valley. Surely the network of @is that led up the mountains would take her to one or another of them.

She was about to start off across the field when a loud whinnying came from the barn. Frowning, she headed across the yard, but stopped short, remembering the night of the funeral.

Another of the horses joined in the whinnying, and then from the house she heard another sound.

A dog barking.

Surely Joey had taken Storm with him when they'd gone to town? Except if the kids were going to be shoppingshe looked up to the second floor, and there was the big shepherd, his forepaws propped up On the sill Of JOey's open window. He started barking again as the commotion in the barn increased. MaryAnne ran to the back door, calling out to the dog.

From the second floor Storm's barking turned into a frantic howl, and MaryAnne suddenly understood what had happened. Hurrying upstairs, she Opened the door to Joey's room. The dog immediately bounded out, racing down the stairs. MaryAnne followed him, catching up to him in the kitchen, where the closed door had stopped him. -As soon as she opened it, he streaked across to the barn, disappearing inside.

By the time MaryAnne made it to the barn, the horses had begun calming down, but still she stopped at the door.

,Storm? Here, boy! Come on!" A second later the dog trotted up to her, his tail wagging. "What was it, boy?"

MaryAnne asked, reaching down to scratch the big dog while she peered into the gloom of the cavernous barn.

The horses were quiet now, and when neither they nor Storm showed any further signs of nervousness, MaryAnne finally stepped inside, peering into the shadowed light.

"Bill?" she called out. "@ you here?"

Nothing.

With Storm at her heels, she moved farther into the barn.

The three horses were in their stalls, each of them with its head over the door, watching her "What was it?" she asked them. "Was someone in here?"

Though neither Buck nor Fritz, the two geldings whose stalls were closest to the door, made any response, Sheika nickered softly, her ears flicking forward. MaryAnne moved farther into the barn, frowning uncertainly at the big mare and remembering how Sheika had finally come back to the barn the day after she had arrived.

That morning, when she'd first looked out the window and seen the big horse calmly grazing in the field, she hadn't known where it had come from, and surely would have stopped Joey had she known it was the mare that killed Ted. But Joey had charged outside immediately, calling out to the horse. MaryAnne had watched in stunned surprise as the big mare stayed where she was as Joey ran toward her. Only as he'd come close had she finally walked over to him, then nuzzled his neck, licked his cheek, and followed him docilely back to the barn without his even laying a hand on her bridle.

She had had to call the sheriff's office, of course. Within the hour Tony Moleno had arrived with Olivia Sherborne, the bluff middle-aged woman who was the local veterinarian.

@le the vet had examined the horse, Joey pleaded with the assistant deputy not to have her destroyed. "She didn't hurt Dad on purpose," he insisted. "She's not like that!

Something made her do it!"

Tony Moleno had said nothing until Olivia Sherbourne finished her inspection. "Well, what do you think?"

Olivia had shoved her hands deep in the hip pockets of her jeans, and met Moleno's gaze with a determined look.

"I think putting this horse down is the stupidest idea I've ever heard.

You know me, Tony! I've put down plenty of horses in my time, some of them because they were sick, but most because they were dangerous. And I never had any question it was the right thing to do. But I've known Sheika for a lot of years, and I've never known her to hurt anything.

You could poke that horse with a sharp stick, and all she'd do is look at you. I think Joey's right-something gave her a hell of a scare, and all she did was react. It was an accident, pure and simple. If you want me to, I'll go roll around under her, and you watch what happens. All she'll do is snuffle my pockets, looking for sugar!"

Tony Moleno had taken a deep breath, but Olivia Sherborne wasn't through.

"There's no law saying a horse has to be put down just because of an accident, Tony, and if you don't believe me, call Rick Martin or Charley Hawkins. It's just a custom, and with Sheika, I won't do it."

Anticipating him, she added: "And if you put her down yourself, I'll see to it that every kid in town knows that you did it, and that I was against it!"

The assistant deputy had spread his hands in submission.

"All right, Olivia. You've made your point, and you're the expert. If I wasn't going to listen to you, I wouldn't have brought you up here, would I?"

Olivia Sherborne had snorted in derision and walked back to her truck.

But as she pulled out of the yard, she'd stopped and stuck her head out the window, calling out to MaryAnne. "You have any trouble with him, you call me!

In fact, if you have any trouble with anybody, you call me! I live just down the road." Then she'd driven away, leaving Tony Moleno chuckling in the cloud of dust she'd raised.

"She means it," the deputy had told her. "Olivia's a terrific vet, and a terrific woman, but I wouldn't want to cross her. The last guy that did wound up with a black eye and a dislocated shoulder. Deserved it, too.

You couldn't have a better friend than Olivia, and there's not a soul around here who wouldn't agree with me."

"Including the man she gave the black eye to?" MaryAnne had asked.

Moleno's chuckle had turned into a roar of laughter.

"He's not around here anymore. Stayed another month, then just left. No one's heard from him since."

Though that had been the end of any talk of putting Sheika down, MaryAnne had still felt leery of the big horse. Now, in the barn, she approached the mare carefully.

"What was it, Sheika? Was there someone here?"

The horse nickered again, and stretched her head forward, and MaryAnne reached out to give it a tentative scratch. The horse's big tongue slid out, licking her arm, then she dropped her head lower, straining her nose toward MaryAnne's jeans.

"You want some sugar?" MaryAnne reached into her Pocket, Pulling out one of the lumps she'd already started taking from the sugar bowl each morning to feed to Buck and Fritz. Now Sheika gently took the sugar from her hand, her lips barely touching MaryAnne's skin. "I think Dr.

Sherbourne was right." MaryAnne said, patting the horse once more. "I really don't think you'd hurt anyone."

"Damn right I was," a voice said from the barn door.

"And my name's Olivia. Nobody calls me Dr. Sherborne, and I hope you're not going to startle"

MaryAnne spun around to see the vet silhouetted against the bright sunlight outside. "My God! You startled me!"

"Down, Storm!" Olivia commanded as the big shepherd reared up to try to lick her face. Obediently, the dog dropped back to the ground, and the vet fished a dog biscuit out of her pocket, holding it down for Storm to snatch.

"Guy, aren't you?" She strode into the barn, speaking a few words to each of the horses, then stopped in front of Sheika. "Thought I'd stop by and see how my girl's getting along." She held the big mare's head in her hand, then peeled back her lips to check her teeth. Satisfied, the vet turned to face MaryAnne. "I assume you're not having any problems, since you haven't called me."

"Actually, I'm barely getting used to the place," MaryAnne replied.

Then, remembering her conversation with Bill Sikes that morning, and Joey's words after. Sikes had left the house, she found herself telling Olivia Sherborne about it. "I'm not sure what to do," she said when she was done. "Was Ted really about to fire Bill?"

"Not that I know of," Olivia replied. "But I can't say he wasn't, either. And if Sikes wants to go, let him! There's plenty of people who could take his place, and probably do a better job. I liked Ted and Audrey a lot, but if this were my place, I'd do things differently."

MaryAnne frowned. "What's wrong with it?"

Olivia hesitated. "Well, now that you've put me on the spot I guess I'm not sure," she said. "Just more of a feeling, you know? I've just had a feeling lately something's not quite right around here."

MaryAnne felt a shiver go through her as she heard the veterinarian reiterating almost exactly what Sikes had said only this morning.

"Well, I don't mean it like he did," Olivia replied after MaryAnne repeated the handyman's words. "I'm afraid I don't buy into the idea of animals taking revenge. But there are all kinds of strange people around here. There are even a few mountain men still living up near the timberline."

"Mountain men?" MaryAnne echoed.

"Nut cases," Olivia replied. "Most of them have died off, but there are still a few left, scratching out a living God only knows how. For the most part, they're pretty harmless, but some of them are absolutely psychopathic."

Unbidden, the memory of the strange-looking man she'd seen at Ted and Audrey's funeral came into MaryAnne's mind, along with an echo of Joey's insistence that he'd seen someone in the pasture the night before the funeral. "Do any of them live around here?" she asked.

"Who knows?" Olivia replied. "They seem to live pretty much anyplace they damned well please, and do whatever they want to do." Seeing the look of worry that had come over MaryAnne's face, the veterinarian regretted her words.

"Hell, I'm just talking to hear the sound of my own voice.

I'm sure everything's just fine." Her eyes scanned the countryside, looking for something to distract MaryAnne from what she'd just said.

Then, as though she'd had a sudden inspiration: "You had a full tour of this place yet?"

MaryAnne shook her head. "I haven't had time@' "Then the time's just come," Olivia declared. "As it happens, I've got nothing better to do this afternoon than meddle in your life, so what do you say we get started?"

For the next two hours, they toured the ranch, first going through the barn and tack rooms, then each, of the other outbuildings, Olivia identifying everything they saw, even promising to teach MaryAnne how to use the tractor. Their inspection of the buildings completed, Olivia taught her how to saddle a horse, and they set off on Buck and Fritz to ride the land. After they covered the property, Olivia glanced up at the mountains toward the Coyote Creek campground. "What do you say-shall we ride up and take a look at the campsite that got torn up the other day?"

MaryAnne hesitated, then shook her head. "It's getting a little late.

I'd like to be at the ranch when the kids come home."

It was nearly four when they got back, but except for Bill Sikes, who was stacking firewood against the side of the house, the place was still deserted.

"When you get right down to it," Olivia said after they finished taking care of the horses and were settled on the front porch with glasses of wine, "I'm not sure what you need a full-time handyman for at all. If you decide to get rid of Sikes, or he just clears out-and believe me, he'll never do that-don't bother to replace him. One field, a pasture, and a barn. That's all that's left up here, and it doesn't take much work to keep them up. Between you and the kids, there shouldn't be any problem at all. And I can always lend a hand if you need it."

"I couldn't possibly ask-" MaryAnne began, but Olivia silenced her with a gesture.

"Don't tell me what you could ask and what you couldn't. We're neighbors, and that means we help each other. Besides, if it weren't for Audrey, I wouldn't be here, and I guess I feel like I owe her."

"Audrey?" MaryAnne repeated. "You mean you knew her before you came here?"

Olivia nodded, "We were friends in Sun Valley. I'm not certain we would have had much in common, except both of us were nursing broken romances." Suddenly she laughed, a great booming sound that rose from her chest, loud enough to flush a covey of quail from the brush by the creek. "I guess if I'm going to be completely honest, I'll have to admit I was kind of jealous when Ted came along.

And let me tell you, when Audrey married him a month after she met him, I had plenty to say! Told her she was just on the rebound, that she hardly knew Ted-you name it, I guess I said it."

MaryAnne chuckled ruefully. "I guess I told her all the same things. But she proved us wrong, didn't she?"

Olivia nodded, sighing. "She sure did. Anyway, after they moved up here, I started driving up to see them practically every weekend, and the longer I spent here, the more I started hating Sun Valley. So finally I just packed up and moved. Took a beating in my practice, but it's been worth it. Or it was up until Ted and Audrey died." She fell into pensive silence, her eyes taking in the ranch, and the mountains above. When she spoke again, her voice was low.

"Remember earlier, I said that lately there's been something about this place that hasn't seemed quite right?" MaryAnne nodded. "Well, I'm still not sure what it is. But there's a reason why the animals are spooking, and it seems to me we'd better find out what it is. The next time it happens, you call me. Okay?"

MaryAnne's brows rose skeptically. "In the middle of the night?"

Olivia threw back her head once again, her laughter echoing across the valley. "I get called in the middle of the night over a sick cat!" she declared. She finished her wine and stood. "Well, it's been fun, but all good things come to an end. I'd better go check my machine and see whose cattle are bloating and whose horses are colicky.

Call me if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay," MaryAnne agreed. She walked Olivia out to the truck, but just as the vet was about to climb in, MaryAnne held her back with a hand on her arm. "Olivia, could I ask you a question? About Ted and Joey?"

Olivia Sherborne seemed to tense, but the impression was so fleeting that when the vet dropped back down to the ground to face her, MaryAnne decided she had only imagined it.

"Ted and Joey?" Olivia asked. "What about them?" "I'm not sure."

MaryAnne faltered, suddenly wondering if she should have brought up the subject at all. "It's justwell, I'm wondering if there was a problem between them.

Charley Hawkins said something I thought was a little strange, then tried to pass it off as nothing. But then Rick Martin was out here asking questions the other day, andwell, I'm just wondering if you know anything about it."

Olivia hesitated just a fraction of a second too long be fore she spoke.

"I know Ted was pretty hard on Joey the last couple of years, but if you're asking me if Ted abused Joey, I'd have to say no." A sardonic smile curved her lips.

"Of course, everyone has his own definition of abuse, doesn't he? So I suppose different people would say different things about it. As far as I could tell, though, Ted was just trying to get Joey straightened out and teach him some responsibility."

The reply raised more questions in MaryAnne's mind than it answered.

"What about Audrey?" she asked. "Did she think Ted was too hard on Joey?"

For a moment MaryAnne wasn't sure the veterinarian was going to reply at all, but finally Olivia shrugged.

"There was a lot Audrey never talked to me about and a lot I never asked her." She swung up into the cab of her truck and started the engine.

"Look," she added, "don't go looking for trouble. If you do, I guarantee it'll find you first!

See you soon." She put the pickup in gear and drove off, and MaryAnne waited until she had disappeared around the first curve of the driveway before starting back to the house. But as she picked up the glasses from the table on the front porch and took them to the kitchen, with Storm trailing after her, she realized what Olivia had just told her had done nothing to ease her worries.

What had Audrey not talked about, and Olivia not asked?

Something about Joey?

Or Ted?

Or something else entirely?

Then she decided that Olivia was right-it was stupid for her to go looking for trouble. If there were anything seriously wrong with Joey, or between Joey and his father, Audrey would have talked about it with her.

Wouldn't she?

Or were there things Audrey had kept even from her childhood friend?