"I don't believe you."
"Whether you believe me or not, Madeline, I know Kyle is my son." Two steps took him to stand behind her, not touching, for the rage within made him afraid to lay a hand on her. "I want him."
"No!" Her gasp was as ghostly as a bat's wings in the night. "You wouldn't take him away from me?"
"Wouldn't I?" Her face was twisted with pain, but he couldn't let it affect his decision. "He's my son, and nobody's going to keep me from being a father to him." Even as he spoke the words, he was amazed yet again at his primitive need to know his son.
"I still don't believe you." Desperation and denial.
"I can prove it."
"How?" Incredulity and more denial.
"Ever heard of genetic testing? It's a simple process to take a small sample, look at the DNA, and tell that I'm one of Kyle's parents. Beyond doubt." He couldn't prevent a smug tone from creeping into his voice. Geneticists were doing incredible things. Proving paternity was only a small part of the miracles they passed before breakfast.
"Sample? Of Kyle's blood?"
"More likely of tissue. I'm not sure."
"You'd need my permission. What if I won't give it?" Now her voice and her stance were stubborn, but the denial was still there.
"I'll get a court order." He gave himself a mental reminder to call Wils tomorrow. Even if she stopped fighting him on this, he needed legal advice.
Her shoulders slumped. She refused to look him in the eye, hunching one shoulder and staring at the ground. For a moment she gnawed her lip. "Will you give me time?" she said. "I need to think about this."
He wanted to say no, because he wanted his son to know him. "Yes. I've got to go to Minnesota tomorrow. I'll be back late in the week." He hoped. The project in Minnesota sounded like one of those that dragged on three times as long as expected. "You have until then." He went to his car, had his hand on the door handle when she spoke, finally.
"Erik?"
"Yes?"
"What about Ginger? If Kyle is your son, she's your daughter."
Erik stared at her. Bitterly he heard again his mother's words, words he'd tried so hard to forget.
I'll never forgive you, Erik. Never. You should have taken care of her. It was your responsibility.
Even now, so many years later, he cried out, in his mind, I tried, Ma. I tried. But she was too big, and the water was so swift.
But his mother hadn't heard. In her grief and her anger, she'd raved on. There's not a man in the world can be trusted to take care of a woman. You're just like him, just like your father. With no thought for the females you're responsible for. Oh, God! Why didn't he take you with him? Why didn't you go?
Knowing his own limitations, and hating them, Erik could not turn to look back at Madeline. "I just want my son," he repeated.
What would he do with a girl? He could no more be a father to her than he could fly.
* * * *
Erik kept his voice low as he hunched over the pay phone in the concourse at O'Hare. Despite the sound made by hundreds of travelers, he wanted to be certain he wasn't overheard. At least four other members of the EA team were in the Chicago airport, waiting for the flight to Duluth. The way his luck had been running lately, they were in the adjacent phone booths. "Wils? Where have you been, man?"
"In court. We're finally going after Lithops Petrochemical." Wilson Bates's deep voice held a strong note of satisfaction.
"All right! Nail 'em to the wall." Erik knew how long and how hard Wils's law firm had been working to put together a case against a major contributor to a toxic dump. "How'd you finally get them into court?"
"A little, tiny loophole. One of their legal staff missed it and it gave us an opening." Wils sighed. "The bad news is that this case is likely to drag on for months."
"Think of all that lovely money," Erik said, grinning. For years Wils had worked for peanuts trying to save the world. With the birth of his fifth child, he'd decided to be practical. Now he was a junior partner in a prestigious firm specializing in environmental law. "You ought to make enough from this to guarantee college for all of your rug rats."
"Fat chance. Have you any idea of the cost of braces these days?" His voice faded briefly and Erik heard him say something to someone at his end. "Look, buddy, I've got about ten minutes before I have to be back in court. What can I do for you?"
"I may have to prove a boy is my son. Can I get a court order for genetic testing?"
"What the hell?"
"Wils, don't ask questions. Just tell me: is a court likely to go along with what I want?"
"I'm an environmental lawyer. How should I know?" Again his voice faded. This time Erik heard a woman's voice in the background, sounding urgent. "Okay, I'll be right there. Look, pal, I can't give you an answer right now. Can I get back to you?"
Quickly Erik gave him the name and number of the hotel where he would be staying for the next few days. "All I need is a name, Wils. I don't have a clue who to call for this, but I know I need legal advice."
"I'll have some names for you by tomorrow. And buddy?"
"Yeah?"
"I want all the details. You hear me? All of them."
A quick glance at his watch told him he'd better get a move on. They were probably boarding his flight right now. "You'll get 'em. That's a promise." He hung up, but stayed in the enclosure for a few seconds, leaning his head against the cool plastic of the pay phone.
God! It's all so damn complicated.
* * * *
"This is a new one on me, Linnie, but I'll say right now that you'll have to let him have the children tested." Her lawyer looked genuinely distressed. "Unless there's no possible reason he could be their father?"
"No," she said wearily, "it's possible." She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the expression on his face. Another childhood friend of Jesse's, he had to be disappointed in her. Had to believe she'd cared so little about Jesse to have slept with another man so soon.
"Were there witnesses? Or is it his word against yours?"
"Witnesses? What on earth are you suggesting?"
He raised his hands, palms out. "I'm not suggesting anything, Linnie, except that you may not have been a willing participant."
For just one reckless moment she actually considered it.
"No." The word came out a defeated sigh. "No, I knew what I was doing." Shaking her head, wondering yet again at her foolish and desperate attempt to escape a pain that had still been as fresh as the day Jesse died. "Or at least, I thought I did."
"Well, then, Linnie, I'm afraid you have no choice. As long as you're willing to admit having been intimate with him, he'll win."
"Thanks, then. I guess the only thing left is for me to tell the children."
"Don't do that!" He came around his desk and knelt before her. "Not until you know he's their father." Dabbing at her tears with his handkerchief, the lawyer said, "It could be the donor, you know."
"But--"
"Linnie, promise me you won't say anything. Not yet. It could jeopardize any case you might have."
"Case?"
"Once he's proved he's their father, he could challenge you for custody."
"No!" She grabbed his hands. "It wouldn't do him any good, would it?"
"I'd like to say it wouldn't," he said, "but yes. It could."
"I can't believe it. Erik would never...."
"Linnie, we don't know what Erik will do. He seemed like a nice enough fellow, but we're talking here about some pretty primitive emotions. People do the damnedest things when their kids are concerned."
Madeline remembered the implacable expression on Erik's face when he accused her of concealing the twins from him. She believed him to be a decent, honorable man, but she'd seen he was also a man of stronger, more complex passions than she'd suspected.
Would he believe she'd never intentionally kept his children from him? Or would he take revenge on her for doing so?
* * * *
"What's this?" Erik looked at the envelope the messenger had just handed him.
"Don't know, sir. Sign here, please." He thrust a clipboard under Erik's nose.
Impatiently Erik scribbled his initials. He was already running late. He'd just have to pay the premium on an empty gas tank, because there wasn't time to fill up before he turned the rental car in at the airport. Ripping the envelope open, he pulled its contents free and unfolded the thick stack of papers.
A summons! Quickly he skimmed down the top sheet. "Ferrous County vs. The National Wetlands Trust." The date was day after tomorrow. What the hell?
He tossed his jacket and briefcase onto the borrowed desk. Somebody had better have some answers, and fast. He had a plane to catch.
Fifteen minutes later a secretary was canceling his flight and Erik was closeted with the rest of the project team and a lawyer. "The county is fighting us? You've got to be kidding?"
"Not exactly," the project manager said. A lawyer with a background in land use planning, she was one of the best Erik had ever worked with.
"According to their counsel, they foresee a legal challenge and want to shortcut it up front. By having a judge rule on the validity of the county's claim, they'll have it on record that there is a conflict between recreational development on the old Blackstone Mine property and preserving the swamp. They aren't asking for a judgment on whether the development will affect the swamp, just on the existence of a use conflict."
"Do you really need me?" There was one more flight he could catch and still get to Boise tonight.
"You're our prime witness, Erik. We need to show that there's evidence of a subsurface flow between the pit and the swamp."
"I don't know that for sure."
"But you have some evidence that points that way, don't you?"
He'd just spent three days going over old well records and other historical documents. "Yeah, there's evidence. I couldn't swear to it, though."
"You won't need to. Just tell the judge what could happen to the swamp if the pit were flooded and a connection did exist."
"That I can do." He could paint a graphic picture of what happens to a swamp when the water level rises and it becomes a lake. He'd seen enough silvery skeletons of trees standing in deep and stagnant water where once highly productive ecosystems had existed.
Damn! He'd wanted to get back to Garnet Falls tonight. He wanted to see his son.
Difficult as it was for him to admit, he wanted to see Madeline.
* * * *
"Why don't you marry him?"
Madeline stared at her cousin. Jon was usually a very serious person, little given to joking. "Excuse me?"
Jon pushed his platter aside, having left nothing of the sixteen-ounce rib steak dinner he'd ordered but the bone and a parsley sprig. Madeline was still toying with her lady's sirloin, a delicious steak but one that seemed to swell in her mouth as she chewed it.
"Ordinarily I'd be the last person to come off sounding moralistic, Linnie, but this time I feel like quoting the old saw about lying in the bed you made." He waved to Sandy, who was making the rounds with a pot of coffee.
"You've got a lot a nerve," Madeline snapped, just before Sandy filled their cups. She smiled her thanks and waited until her friend was back behind the lunch counter. "With your past, I figured you'd be sympathetic."
"Sympathetic, yes. God knows there's nobody better'n me to know how easy it is to give in to self-destructive appetites."
Jon's eyes grew shadowed, and Madeline knew he was remembering the years after his return from the Army. He'd nearly destroyed himself seeking forgetfulness of the atrocities he'd witnessed in one of the incessant Central American revolutions.
"Our situations aren't exactly the same," he said, looking at her from under his dark brows. "I was trying to forget. You were trying to replace."
"That's not true! I was...I was...." She could not finish the sentence for the tears that threatened to choke her. Wordlessly she looked at Jon, wanting him to read her explanation in her face. Her eyes burned, just before her vision blurred.
"Let's get outta here," Jon said, pulling her to her feet. He tossed a couple of bills on the table and dragged her after him, ignoring greetings from several people sitting at tables between their booth and the door.
Once on the sidewalk, Jon put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her hard against his side. "Linnie, what else were you doing if you weren't trying to find Jesse? Or someone who could take Jesse's place?"
Biting her lips, she tried to give his accusation careful consideration. "Put that way, you make me sound really sick," she said, not liking what she saw of herself.
"I didn't mean to," he said. "I don't think that's particularly bad, or even all that uncommon. When your whole world falls apart, it's natural for you to want to find something that will help you put it back together."
"Erik accused me of using him."
"We all use each other, sometimes."
"But if I did, it was, well, selfish. Dishonest. It was...."
"It was human, Linnie. You were hurting and he helped you feel better. Sometimes that's excuse enough."
"Not this time." She wondered if there was any reason good enough to excuse her to herself. She had used Erik, even though she had not consciously chosen to do so.
"Hey, that's enough beating yourself for what's already done. When I said that about accepting the consequences, all I meant was that you should make the best of a bad situation."
They turned onto Adams and the sounds of town faded behind them. The light of the gibbous moon filtered through the tall pines and maples lining the residential street. Jon's muted tenor voice seemed almost disembodied, as long as she kept her face tilted down and her eyes on the sidewalk.
"You said I should marry him. How does that qualify for sleeping in the bed I've made for myself?"
"Looks to me as if you've got two problems," he said. "One is that, come hell or high water, Erik Solomon is gonna lay his claim to your kids."
"To Kyle," she corrected, again feeling pain for Ginger, who wasn't wanted by her own father.
"Your kids," Jon reiterated, and Madeline knew that Erik would claim both of the children, or neither. Jon would see to that.
"Since your lawyer said you'd have to let 'em be tested to make sure Erik's their pa, let's just assume he is. That means you can either voluntarily give Erik custody for part of the time, or fight him to keep 'em all to yourself. Do you want to drag those tykes through the courts like that?"
"Oh, God, no!" She hadn't really given much thought to what a legal battle for their custody would do to the twins. She hadn't gotten that far. It had taken her this long to really assimilate the fact that Erik could very well be their father, and not some anonymous donor whose name was locked in the clinic's records.
"Then it looks to me like your best bet is to let him be a father to 'em. The likeliest way to do that is to marry him."
It wasn't the first time she'd considered the possibility, just the first time she'd done so seriously. Marry Erik Solomon? Share her life with him and not be alone any longer? Go to bed at night knowing he'd be there when she woke every morning to his sleepy kisses?
"I'll think about it," she said, knowing she was already sold, though still doubtful it would ever be more than a dream. He didn't even want both his children, let alone her in the bargain.
"You do that little thing."
They walked on, alone in the night, accompanied by soft voices from front porches and open living rooms, by swooping bats hunting among the trees and slinking cats bent on their own adventures. Madeline knew every crack in the sidewalk, every shadowy lilac bush or drooping willow that made the sidewalk seem a mysterious, dangerous place. She'd walked this way so many times, day and night, summer and winter, that its sights and sounds and impressions were a part of her.
They took the shortcut across the grade school lawn to Idaho Street. It was darker here, with the grade school on one side and the park on the other. Wally Blanchett had asked for street lights, but so far the city council had turned down his request. There'd never been any kind of incident here, in this darkest corner of Garnet Falls, and the single light at the park restrooms shone among the trees, keeping the night from being pitch-black.
Marry Erik Solomon? She'd buried the impossible notion for weeks, but now she could bring it out and examine it. Except for his irrational--and, she had to believe, temporary--rejection of Ginger, she found him everything she could want in a husband. She liked his sense of humor, his sensitivity. Erik was the only man she'd ever worked with who could help her cross a fallen log without making her feel like a helpless child. He'd given her a hand with the same matter-of-fact attitude he had demonstrated when helping Harry Lindholm up the courthouse steps or hoisting lumber out of the back of a pickup.
She liked his looks. Blond was too mundane a word for the molten gold of his hair in sunlight, and if his eyes were merely brown, she was the Queen of England. There might be a couple of models on Em's beefcake calendar who were better built than Erik, but they lacked his masculine sensuality, his aura of competence.
"Jon," she said, as they stopped at her front gate, "I just thought of something awful."
"What's that," he said, pushing the gate open and shuddering when it gave its usual rusty squeal. "Remind me to oil this damn thing, will you?"
"I can do it."
"You've been sayin' that for months. I'll take care of it."
Madeline had her key in the front door when Jon said, "What awful thing did you think of?"
"What if Erik doesn't want to marry me?"
"He will, Linnie." He patted her shoulder and, with a gentle push, moved her inside. Just as he pulled the front door shut, she thought she heard him say, "I'll see to it."
"Jon, wait!"
But his high-heeled boots were thudding across her porch. She leaned against the front door. Surely Jon wouldn't... No, he wouldn't.
He didn't even own a shotgun.
Again that night she fought with her pillow, but this time only memories kept her from sleep. One evening, after they'd exhausted themselves trying to anticipate every possible complication of the Trace Pickett concert, she and Erik had sat at her kitchen table, sipping herbal tea and trying to unwind. She'd asked him about his family.
"My sister, Gail, drowned when I was eight," Erik had said, sounding as if the words hurt his throat. "Afterward, my mother burned all photographs of her, cleared the house of every trace of her."
"Oh, Erik, I'm sorry," Madeline said, laying one hand on his arm. If she hadn't had so many photos of Jesse, those first months after losing him, she didn't think she would have survived. And how Erik must still hurt, if this was his most vivid memory of his youth.
"My mother was...emotional." He stopped for a moment, as if wondering how to explain his childhood. "My dad divorced her when I was just a baby and moved to the West Coast. I don't know if she changed after that, or if she'd always been, well, incapable of relating to people." He wiped a hand across his mouth and Madeline wept inside for a lonely little boy in a house devoid of love.
"She didn't like boys." The words seemed to burst from his mouth by accident, yet she could see the pain they caused. "I can remember." He paused until his voice sounded more normal. "I can remember how, whenever I'd misbehave, she'd say...." He stopped as his voice broke again. Then he swallowed, twice, and she saw him pull himself together.
"She'd ask why I couldn't have been a girl." With a swift chop of his hand, he cut off Madeline's expression of pity. "Then she'd say that if our father was here he'd know how to handle me. How could anyone expect, she'd say, a gentle, civilized woman to be able to understand a savage little boy like me."
"Oh, Erik, no!" She had reached out to touch his hand, but he had pulled it out of her reach.
"Oh, yes! But don't feel sorry for me. My mother made me what I am. She showed me how undisciplined I was, how irresponsible. Her inability to do anything with me forced me to take charge of my own life." He plainly rejected the warmth and tenderness she wanted to share with him. "I'd never have gotten to where I am today without her influence."
Madeline couldn't help but wonder if he believed her incapable of dealing with Kyle--and himself incapable of being a good father to a girl-child. Surely he was intelligent enough to realize that his mother had been more than simply "emotional." She had been seriously deranged.
Could she overcome the poison his mother had poured into his young mind, or was he beyond redemption? Madeline wanted to believe she could, because she no longer could imagine life without him.
* * * *
Jace Pierson was bored. His best friend had gone to visit his grandma and grandpa, and his buddies on the soccer team were gone to Scout camp. His pa was mowing hay. All the hired men were either haying or busy with other chores.
If he was fourteen, Pa would let him drive tractor. He thought he was old enough now--some of his classmates drove tractors on their places, and even trucks, sometimes.
To make matters worse, the littles kept following him around, bugging him to play with them.
What he really wanted to do was go camping with Pa. But he'd asked, and had been put off with a promise to go when the hay was in and the new pond up on Elderberry Creek was finished.
"You know what I heard in town?" Denny said.
Even his just-younger brother was better company than nobody at all. As long as Abby and the twins didn't find them, they could lay here on the hill back of the barn all morning in peace. Given time, he'd figure out something fun for them to do. He always could. Ma said what he couldn't think of hadn't been thought yet. "What?"
"Old Man Zenger is gonna sell Wounded Bear Meadow to some people who are gonna plow it up and build houses on it."
"Huh?" Jace sat up. "I don't believe you. Aunt Linnie said that fella from Washington is gonna buy it and make it a place where nobody can hunt."
"You know that old Charlie Bittenbusch?" Denny turned over on his stomach and faced Jace.
Jace nodded.
"Well, he was talking to those old guys who always sit on the courthouse steps--you know who I mean?"
Again Jace nodded.
"Charlie said those people who want to build those condoms on the Zenger place said they wanted it all or they wasn't going to buy any of it. So Old Man Zenger is gonna sell 'em the meadow 'cause his wife won't spend another winter up here freezin' to death."
"Yeah. Old people don't like to be cold." Jace remembered their grandmother Caswell, who'd lived with them until she died when he was nine. She'd worn long johns all winter and two sweaters, most days.
"Anyhow, Charlie Bittenbusch said the conshum...consorm...those guys who want to buy the Z-Bar-Z are gonna give Old Man Zenger until the end of the month to decide. And he laughed at how they'd show that environmental fella that there's better things to do with land than give it to the bats and bunnies."
"Pa says we gotta start saving places like the meadow or there's not gonna be any wildlife when we're grown up." Jace believed what his father had told him, because Pa had sounded so serious, not like his usual teasing way. He couldn't imagine not having deer around the haystacks in the winter, or pheasants and chukkar waking him with their calls on summer mornings. But Pa said all that would be gone, if people like Charlie Bittenbusch had their way.
"Yeah, well, that ain't what Ol' Charlie says." Denny sounded real disgusted. "He says we gotta get some of that tourist money that goes on up to McCall and keep it here. He says we need to have amities to offer the people who buy those condoms so they'll spend lots of money in Sunset County."
"I sure would like to see Wounded Bear Meadow," Jace said, "while it's still there. Aunt Linnie says it's the prettiest place this side of heaven."
"Yeah, me too." Denny rolled over onto his back and shaded his eyes.
"How long do you figure it'd take us to ride up there?" Jace wondered aloud. An idea was forming in his mind. "We could go over Skunk Ridge, up behind the line shack. Wounded Bear Creek's the next one over. If we followed it upstream, we'd get to the meadow, sooner or later." He had a general idea where the meadow was, and didn't doubt his ability to get there.
"That'd take us all day." Denny didn't sound like he was arguing. "Then we'd have to come back."
"Yeah." All day to get there. Another day to get back. "Yeah!" It would work! "Look, Denny, you remember when Pa said I was almost old enough to go up to the line shack alone?"
"Last winter," his brother agreed.
"Well, I'm older now. So I'm old enough."
"I don't know," Denny said, sounding really doubtful.
"I do. Besides, what could happen? We've been up there a zillion times, and the worst thing that's happened was when the mice got into our food." It was beginning to sound like a grand adventure, and he was more determined than ever to go.
"Yeah, but Pa was with us."
Jace jumped to his feet. "He's busy haying." Starting down the hill, he looked back over his shoulder. "Are you comin' or what?"
"I'm comin'," Denny said, still sounding unsure.
They ran down the hill and across the wide driveway between the barn and the house. From the barn, Abby's and the twins' high voices told Jace they were at their never-ending game of saving the world. At breakfast they'd decided it was Ginger's day to be Catwoman. Just as they reached the house, Ma came out the back door.
"Hi, guys," she said. "I'm glad you're here." She set a covered dish on the passenger seat of the station wagon. "Ellen Greyhawk broke her arm this morning and I'm going over to take care of the babies while she goes to the clinic."
Jace drew a deep breath. "Ma, can we...?"
"Jace, you're in charge until your pa comes in. Keep the littles out of mischief. There's roast beef and ham in the 'fridge for lunch. I'll be home by five." She climbed into the car and pulled the door shut.
"Ma!" Jace could just see all his plans falling apart. "Wait a minute!"
She rolled down the window, looking impatient. "Denny, you help your brother, now. I've got to go. They're waiting for me." The engine caught.
"Can we go for a ride, Ma?" At least he wanted permission to take the horses out, a rule Pa was immovable about.
"As long as you take the littles," she said as she drove out the driveway.
Well, hell! Jace kicked at a big piece of gravel. They might as well stay home. Who wanted an adventure with three little kids tagging along?
* * * *
"Well, can you get a message to him?" Madeline drummed her fingers on her desk. She hated to make personal calls from the office, but this was an emergency.
Even more, she hated to be calling Erik. The less contact with him she had, the better she'd like it.
Liar! She would give her right arm--and maybe more than that of herself--to have him here right now.
She needed someone to reassure her that her entire life wasn't falling to pieces. Twice today someone had asked her how come Jethro had changed his mind. The first time it happened, she'd simply denied it. The second, she'd been just as quick with her denial, but she'd wondered. Was there something she didn't know?
Calling the Z-Bar-Z hadn't helped. The hand who answered the phone didn't know when Jethro would be back from his fishing trip. He'd decided to stay an extra week. He might call home sometime this week, but if he didn't, no one would worry too much. They were gettin' the hay in, and everything else was goin' just fine.
Ordinarily she wouldn't have worried. Jethro's summer fishing trips to the Three Forks area of Montana were as much of a local institution as the Social. It was the only vacation he ever took. But did his extended absence this summer mean he was avoiding questions? Had he really decided the money Charlie and his sleazy buddies were offering was more important than his word?
She couldn't believe it. Unless his wife had talked him into it. That woman could convince a bat to fly at high noon, when she wanted something bad enough.
"Tell him Jethro Zenger may have changed his mind. Tell him...."
She worried the tip of her nose. "Just tell Erik to call me, as soon as possible." Reciting her home and office numbers, she listened as the voice on the other end made it clear she didn't have the faintest idea of what she was doing. With a sigh, Madeline hung up, certain Erik would get a garbled message, if he got one at all.
Should she leave a message on his answering machine at his apartment? No. That wouldn't do any good. By the time he got back to Garnet Falls, it would be too late.
The rest of the afternoon dragged by. Erik didn't call, nor did he that evening. If only she had some idea of where he was, but she wasn't even sure whether it was Minnesota or Wisconsin. Never having been east of the Rocky Mountains, she found all those states in the middle of the country confusingly alike.
Thunder grumbled across the sky as she was preparing for bed. Another summer storm. They'd been lucky to get through the Fourth without one, considering how they seemed to blow up more often than not when the weather got this hot. She lay awake, listening, and wondering if what she planned to do was right.
She really believed it would be best for the twins, but would it be best for her? For Erik?
* * * *
Once free of the courtroom, Erik tried to call his Washington office. Getting a busy signal, he then dialed Madeline's home number. No answer. Nor was there one at the Zenger Ranch. Jethro must still be fishing. Frustrated he dialed Wils Bates's number.
An answering machine thanked him for calling and invited him to leave a message. He did. It was short, succinct, and profane.
One more try. He waited through several rings before Walt Thomlinson answered. After giving a quick rundown on the progress of the hearing, Erik asked about messages.
"Let me see." Walt always took the message log home at night, since so many NWT staff people were in the field all day. "Erik? There doesn't seem to be anything here."
"Nothing?" He couldn't believe that he'd had no calls. That hadn't happened in his memory.
"Not a thing." Erik could almost hear him grimace. "I even had to show the temp who came in today how to use the phone."
"Damn it, Walt, you'd think we could get competent help!" Erik said, irritated out of all proportion and aware he was being unreasonable. "Well, if anything was really important, they'll call back, I guess."
"How'd the hearing go today?" Walt said. "Will you be done this week?"
"I doubt it, considering tomorrow's Friday." He realized he was snarling. "Hey, look, Walt. Don't mind me. I've got some things going on in my life right now that aren't a hell of a lot of fun."
"Well, let me know if I can help."
"Thanks, but I'm going to have to straighten this out by myself," Erik told him, appreciating his associate's concern. "Look, I'll check my answering machine. Maybe she...they called there." Impatiently he cut the connection and dialed his apartment in Garnet Falls.
The only message on the tape was from Charlie Bittenbusch. The last person in the world he wanted to speak to.
* * * *
Ginger lay in her sleeping bag, wishing she was home in her own bed instead of high in the mountains. The thunder stalked closer, only a slow count of eight between the last flash and its sound. That meant it was just a little over a mile away--close enough to be dangerous.
She pulled the bag over her head, knowing it wouldn't shut out the sound, but feeling a little more secure when she couldn't see the bright flashes, even through her closed eyelids.
It wouldn't be so bad if they were in the line shack. It sat in a sheltering stand of pine, all taller than it was. Lightning wouldn't strike it, according to what Uncle Jon had told her. It only struck the highest point around.
She hoped the tree under which they slept wasn't the tallest one in this particular piece of forest.
This was one of Jace's ideas she wished she hadn't been so ready to go along with. She couldn't believe she'd even helped him convince Denny that they should sleep out under the stars, instead of staying in the line shack and going on in the morning.
It had sounded like such a great idea, to go see Wounded Bear Meadow before they built a parking lot on it. That was what Uncle Jon said developers did--after they built a fancy hotel people had to drive their cars to. She didn't think that was so bad. When she grew up she was going to have lots of cars. She'd need a parking lot all her own. And a race track, for her Indy racer.
If there was a road up to Wounded Bear Meadow, she wouldn't be lying here waiting to be struck by lightning.
Tomorrow morning, she'd tell Jace she wanted to go home. Abby already did--she'd cried a little before she went to sleep--and Kyle kept worrying about what Uncle Jon would do to them. He hated to be scolded, especially the way Uncle Jon did, with eyes that looked right into you and a voice that made you want to shiver.
The thunder was closer. She just knew it was.
Wounded Bear Meadow might be the neatest place in the whole world, but she'd trade in a minute for her own bed back in town.