Читать книгу An Accidental Family - Darlene Graham - Страница 11

THE “ROAD” THAT CLIMBED to Rainey Chapman’s Gran’s house was hardly worthy of such a name. Seth had made it his business to become familiar with every dark, twisting backwoods track in Le Flore County, but he’d never been near the rocky rutted lane that Rainey directed him to, rising to the south off the highway out of Wister. This road was buried deeper in the Winding Stair than even the roughest logging trail.

Despite the light of a full moon and the fact that Rainey assured him she had been here many times, they missed the turn. Seth was forced to switch on the deer lights mounted high on the cab of his Silverado pickup. He’d been driving with only the fog lights out on the highway, and for good reason. Anyone sitting up on a ridge with a set of high-powered binoculars could spot headlights after they left the main road. When Rainey found the turnout on the second pass, Seth slammed on his brakes, turned, and they bumped onto a narrow gravel path that veered sharply upward in the dense underbrush.

“I warned you, it’s bad,” Rainey said.

“Cool!” Dillon shouted from the rear seat of Seth’s double cab pickup.

The boys were crammed shoulder to shoulder, with Aaron and Maddy, predictably silent, looking increasingly anxious. But Dillon was acting loud and boastful enough to make up for the other two.

“I wish I could drive this road,” he shouted in Seth’s ear. Seth knew the boy was masking some serious anxiety.

“I wish you could, too,” he replied dryly as the pickup bucked up the steep, rocky path. He switched off the high beams.

“Are you crazy?” Rainey clutched the darkened dash as if she could hold them onto the side of the mountain that way. “This trail skirts a hundred-foot dropoff!”

Even by moonlight, Seth could make out the grim downturn of her delicate mouth.

“Unfortunately, the Slaughters know every high point for miles. They could be watching for us right now. You can spot headlights from quite a distance out here. It wouldn’t take them long to pin down our location. They know the roads out here as well as I do.”

“Well, you didn’t know about this particular road,” Rainey challenged.

“This doesn’t exactly qualify as a—”

“Road.” Dillon finished Seth’s sentence as the truck jostled over a sizable slab of buried sandstone. “This is more like a roller coaster!” The boy leaned forward in the seat like a kid on a carnival ride.

“It would be stupid to lead the Slaughters right to us.” Seth glanced at Rainey and downshifted. “No headlights.”

“I hope you know—ugh!—” Rainey clutched the dash tighter as the pickup bounced down off the slab of rock “—what you’re doing.”

He hoped so, too. He hoped he was doing the right thing by these vulnerable boys and this delicate woman. He flicked a glance at her, then concentrated on his driving. Rainey Chapman was way, way different from the women he was used to.

The pickup jolted over another mound of rock. “Yee-haw!” Dillon yelled. “Ride ’em, cowboy!”

“Dillon,” Rainey snapped. “Be quiet. Officer Whitman is driving.”

The boy sat back in a pout, but when the truck bucked again, his cracking young voice erupted, high with excitement. “I’m tellin’ ya, Sheriff! I could handle this dude!”

Seth glanced in the rearview mirror and could see that the boy’s bravado was phony as a three-dollar bill. The other two looked plainly terrified.

Dillon’s expression became defiant when he caught Seth studying him in the mirror. “I can handle a stick shift good as anybody.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Seth downshifted as the tires skidded and ground in the rocky ruts. “But right at the moment—” he shifted one more time “— I’d appreciate it if you’d settle down, pardner.” Dillon answered with a resentful squint.

Seth turned his attention back to the treacherous road. “How long does this go on?” he asked Rainey.

“Eight miles.”

The place was beyond remote. When they started to climb the narrow track of Granny Grace’s rocky drive, Seth spotted the profile of a tiny log cottage tucked high up in the trees. Perched on stilts at the peak of a sheer rocky incline that looked out over a valley, the structure appeared to list to one side, looking like some long-forgotten fairy cottage punctuated by several sagging, steep-pitched gables. All of the tall windows were dark.

“We aren’t gonna stay here, are we?” Dillon grumbled. “This place looks creepy.”

“’Fraid so,” Seth said dryly. “For now this is home sweet home.”

“Home sweet home,” Dillon echoed sarcastically, as he signed something presumably derogatory to Maddy.

A cacophony of barking broke out as they pulled into the gravel clearing and up to a rickety-looking wooden staircase that rose to the dark house. Before Seth had even braked to a stop a couple of mixed mutts came barreling out from under the stilts.

A light winked on inside the house, followed by a weak bulb flicking awake next to the door on the screened-in front porch.

Seth leaned forward to peer up through the windshield. “So. You want to go up alone and explain things first?”

“No. You guys can come on, but stay behind me. Those stairs can be tricky in spots.”

“I hate dogs,” Dillon shouted above the barking. “If one of ’em comes near me, I’ll kick his teeth in, I swear.”

“You will do no such thing. The dogs know me,” Rainey explained. “They’ll be fine as long as you behave yourself.”

The animals had charged the pickup, scratching at Seth’s shiny door handles. “Whoa, now,” he said.

Rainey rolled down the window and shouted, “Quiet!” When the dogs quieted and touched paws to the ground, she turned to the boys. “These dogs aren’t vicious.” She got out and threw the passenger seat forward and signaled for the two mute boys to get out of the back seat. “You, Dillon, will be nice to my gran and to her dogs.”

“Or what?” The boy slumped in the seat defiantly.

“Or you’ll answer to me.” Seth had come around the rear of the truck. “Come on now.”

“Who’s out there?” a reedy female voice called.

Rainey turned, leaving the door ajar. She stepped into the ray of the fog beams. “It’s me, Gran.”

“Rainey? Honey? Is that really you?”

“Yes, Gran. It’s really me.”

“Lord Almighty, child. I sure wasn’t expecting you in the middle of the night.”

“I know, Gran. I’m sorry for just showing up this way. It’s sort of an emergency.”

The screen door creaked and a woman appeared under the faint globe of light. In its glow, Seth could make out a tiny stick figure in a pale robe, with a long gray braid trailing over one shoulder. “An emergency?” she said. “Well, come on up, then. All of you.”

As the crew climbed rickety, rotting steps to the screened-in porch, the dogs took up a fresh round of barking.

“Killer! Butch!” the tiny woman hollered. “Hush up!” The dogs trotted up the steps to her side and she said “Stay,” pointing one finger at the ground. She braced her feet wide and waited…clutching a shotgun across her middle.

As Seth’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was gratified to see that the old house had a high upstairs addition that jutted out well above the treetops. He could see the glass of a large window winking in the moonlight, but it was facing east. He would need a place with a clear view of the road at night.

He followed Rainey and the boys up several flights of crude steps that twisted and turned toward the porch, while the little old woman held the shotgun like Moses’s staff. Several times Rainey pointed out rotting places in the steps, warning, “Careful. Be careful.”

When he got to the landing at the top, Seth found himself staring at the business end of the shotgun. “Who’s this strappin’ fella?” Gran said with a jerk of the barrel.

“Gran—” Rainey began with a note of exasperation.

“Ma’am,” Seth interrupted. “You can put the gun down. I’m with the Tenikah police.” He stepped around the boys so she could see the reflection of his badge in the weak light.

The old woman flicked on the safety and the shotgun disappeared into the folds of her robe. “Cain’t be too cautious these days. Grace Chapman.” She thrust out a knobby hand and Seth gently clasped it.

“Seth Whitman,” he said.

“Whitman? A cop? You related to that cop that was killed out near the Rune Stones some years back?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He kept his eyes off Rainey, who stood hovering near the boys in the porch shadows. He didn’t want to see the look on her face if she added two and two. He didn’t want anybody’s pity over Lane’s death. It was long past. There was nothing he could do about it now except avenge it. And that was exactly what he intended to do.

Gran turned on Rainey. “You look awful, girl. Is everything all right?”

“Not exactly.” Rainey sighed.

“What are you doing here with the law at this ungodly hour? And who are these youngsters?”

While Rainey introduced the boys and explained that they were her charges from Big Cedar Camp, and what had happened, Seth took stock of Rainey’s Granny Grace.

The old lady was pretty much what he had expected. In his police work, he had often encountered elderly women exactly like her, tucked back into these hills. They tended gardens they’d scratched out in their beloved rocky soil, they babied paltry livestock, they fashioned stunning quilts from the scraps of their lives, and they basically preferred to be left alone.

The ones he’d seen in Tenikah rolled their decrepit cars into town once or twice a week to attend church, visit the post office or buy provisions. They reported trouble to the police like faithful little tattletales, appearing at the station to shout into the microphone in the glass security window. So-and-so was burning leaves despite the burn ban, or a newspaper stand lay facedown in the creek with the cash box pried open, or one of old man Goodner’s cows was loose out on the highway again. As the junior officer on the force, Seth often had to follow up on all this nonsense.

“Land sakes! That’s awful!” Gran said when Rainey reached a stopping place. “Come inside then, all of you.”

“Ma’am?” Seth halted their progress. “What’s behind your place?”

Granny turned. “The house sits at the top of the ridge. The backside drops off into the river.”

The place might actually work. When he got everybody settled, Seth decided he’d walk the perimeter, check for a lookout.

The two women continued to talk nonstop as Seth and the boys followed the tiny lady inside the house. She lit an antique oil lantern and set it in the middle of a round kitchen table with a red-checked oilcloth spread on it.

Seth felt as if he’d stepped back in time. The boys, he could see, were stunned by these unusual surroundings, or maybe they were just too tired to care. Likely none of them had ever seen a place like this, except in the movies. Even Dillon seemed subdued, taking in the cluttered room with wide-eyed fascination.

But Seth had been in houses like Grace’s plenty of times, though never one quite this solidly frozen in time. The kitchen where the six of them stood in an awkward ring, softly lit by the glow of the lantern, was little more than a box lined with crooked white cabinets yellowing with age. Clean but dented pans were stacked on an actual wood-burning, cast-iron cook-stove. A home-sewn feedsack curtain concealed the guts of a huge enamel sink where bunches of enormous carrots with the green tops still attached lay at an angle. All manner of dried herbs lined the narrow windowsill, tied in neat bundles or propped up in tiny colored-glass medicine bottles.

Covering every inch of wall space were animal skins and American flags, crosses and family photos, postcards from trips to far-flung places like Eureka Springs, Arkansas. A small refrigerator, run off the gas-powered generator, Seth assumed, was plastered with all manner of cheap magnets. Some were frames with tiny pictures of a little girl in them. Rainey? A bowl of fresh peaches ripened in the corner of the counter next to a large bin that was stamped Bread.

It looked like the kind of place that had produced meal after hearty meal for decades and didn’t know how to stop. In fact, Seth imagined there were cookies resting under the embroidered dish towel that covered a plate in the corner.

“So, we have to have a place to hide the boys,” Rainey said, finishing up her story, “We have to keep them safe until Seth can catch those men. I hate to put you in a fix, Gran, but I couldn’t think of anyplace else to go. I hope you can help us.”

“You know you can always come to me if you’ve got trouble, honey,” Gran said. “I bet you boys are hungry as horses.”

She reached for the towel-covered plate and folded back the corner. Sure enough. Cookies.

“Sit down, then, and eat.” Gran encouraged them with a sweeping gesture and the boys tumbled into the dinette chairs. “You should eat, too, Rainey,” she said, eyeing her granddaughter’s slender frame. “Looks like you’re still not eating enough to amount to a hill of beans. You look plumb peaked, matter of fact.”

“I’m just tired, Gran. It’s been a long night.”

Rainey leaned her hips against the counter edge and Seth positioned himself at a distance, one shoulder propped against the doorjamb.

“You’re welcome,” Gran chirped as she passed the boys the cookies, “you’re very welcome,” even though none the three had uttered a word of thanks.

When Granny held the platter out to Seth he said, “None for me, thanks.” He was impatient to get everybody settled in so he could check over the place and begin his watch.

While the boys ate greedily, Grace poured milk into cut-glass tumblers, then seated herself in the last chair. She and Rainey resumed a carefully worded interchange, back and forth, about the boys, about their various histories, their various problems, about what had happened out there in the woods to land them all up here.

While the women talked, Seth laid his plans. He’d go into town tomorrow, before the sun was up, so there’d be no chance of Lonnie and Nelson tracing his departure from here. There were questions to ask, discrepancies to clear up. The name Howard gnawed at him.

Even as he mulled over the situation, his thoughts, and his eyes, kept straying back to Rainey Chapman. The woman was a surprise. Not because of her stunning good looks. The surprise was how he felt in her presence.

In his days as a rodeo champion he’d grown accustomed to women hanging around. And cops, he’d quickly discovered, had to practically beat ’em off with a stick. Women from as far away as Muskogee and Tulsa seemed to gravitate to him. Nice woman with pretty hair and soft voices. Interesting, smart, independent women. Reporters. Politicians. Teachers. Nurses. Other cops. All of them were, as far as Seth was concerned, attractive. As he and Lane used to say, “pretty little things.” But none of them had that spark, that something unique enough to hold his heart. He supposed that was because none of them knew the real Seth. He’d never told a single one of them the truth about what tortured him, what kept him awake nights. And he wasn’t of a mind to share.

Deep down inside, he harbored the conviction that getting all tangled up with a woman, telling her the truth about what drove him, might even require him to change. What woman would want a man who was driven by vengeance? But Seth had no intention of giving up his quest. Certainly not now, when he was within striking distance.

But even so, as he watched Rainey’s movements in the cozy glow of the lantern, he felt the kind of keyed-up fascination that he thought he had left behind with his youth. Not since KayAnn, in fact, had Seth seen a woman this gorgeous. But KayAnn was trouble. Unlike his brother, Seth had had the sense to resist KayAnn’s blatantly female charms. And every time he tried to talk sense to Lane, they’d ended up fighting about it, until finally the subject of KayAnn Rawls became sorely off-limits. Only when he’d read the diary he found in Lane’s things after his death did Seth begin to understand his brother’s obsessive protectiveness of KayAnn. And only now, looking at Rainey Chapman, could he imagine feeling the same way himself.

He refocused his mind on the problem. Before this woman had “turned into his hand” up on Purney’s Mountain, he reminded himself ruefully, he had been within inches of realizing a seven-year-old goal—eradicating the Slaughters from the face of the earth.

And it had been a very long seven years.

When his uncle Tack had stopped Seth in the midst of settling atop a big Brahma in the loading chute at Bullnanza, Seth had been a reckless and cocky twenty-two-year-old bull rider, and nothing like his brother. Back then, he had lived a life that was as wild and selfish as the devil. That very night he had been about to take the big prize.