August leaned against the dusty Power Wagon, his eyes scanning the house. “I guess everyone’s on edge, waiting for more bad news. They thought the worst about that girl. They thought it was Ruby but Ruby’s too smart.”
“Plenty of smart people get in trouble,” Kate said.
“Maybe you think it’s my fault,” he blurted.
“Why would I?”
“The police think it.”
“They don’t know what they think,” Kate sneered. “Troy walked out of the hospital past the guard.”
“That sucks,” August said. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I don’t know,” Kate hedged.
“It looks like you’re going camping.” He lifted a tarp from the ground. “If someone around here has to die, it should be me. Anyone but Ruby.”
“You have to leave now, August. This isn’t your business. This is our family’s business.” Kate gestured to the car. “If you tell anyone what you saw, I’ll be forced to go to the police and say you brought drugs into my house.”
“They weren’t mine.”
“Don’t try to deny it!”
Abandonment swept through August. He’d known Kate Ryan since he was a little boy. She’d never once been cruel. She’d treated him with acceptance and affection. Now it seemed she didn’t like him at all.
The front door to the clinic was ajar. Elaine sat behind the reception desk, a small fan blowing on her face.
“Is Dr. Tanner here?” August asked.
Elaine didn’t smile or offer one of her cordial greetings. Instead, she pointed to his office. He took Elaine’s unfriendliness as another personal affront. The whole world had turned on him.
“Can I come in, Dr. Tanner?”
A large satchel lay open on the doctor’s cot. David stood, thumbing through river maps and guidebooks.
August sighed volubly. “I’m wondering if you can give me something to sleep. I feel sick. I feel sick all the time. I think I’m going crazy. Do you think that’s possible? Of course, it’s possible. But is it happening to me? My mother wants to take me to a psychiatrist because all I do is worry about Ruby. Maybe she’s in trouble and I can’t do anything because I don’t know.”
“It’s a difficult time,” David comforted him.
August thrust his face in his hands. “It’s my fault,” he cried.
“We all feel at fault here,” he said.
“Can you give me a drug?” August finally managed.
“Elaine,” David shouted through the door.
“What?” she shouted back angrily.
“Get August an envelope of Xanax, will you?”
Elaine studied her watch. It was past her official work time. She hadn’t had a break in six hours or a vacation in eighteen months. Now the director of the clinic and the only board-certified doctor within miles was leaving on a wacko mission with a woman of unsound judgment. He’d asked Elaine to tell the police that an urgent family matter required his immediate attention. From her point of view, he’d compromised her and jeopardized the clinic.
David’s packing was almost finished. He took his pillow off the cot and his poncho from a hook behind the door. He stuffed everything into the canvas satchel.
At home he stood on his patch of yard, scattered with cactus and juniper. He drenched his two pots of roses. Across the valley, dark streaks of rain sifted from the clouds like gunpowder, stopping in mid-sky and never reaching the ground. He studied the virgas evaporating in air and a feeling of lost happiness oscillated inside him.
Behind him rumbled Kate’s car. She stopped, leaned over, smiled bravely. “Are you sure?” She was giving him a last chance to reconsider.
David’s reserve receded. His eyes opened so that Kate could peer inside them, seeing him entirely. He closed the door, and Kate swung the car around, back to the highway, and headed to Idaho.