Patrick awoke early again Thursday morning. He had obviously slept well and not been frightened by nightmares. Unfortunately, I had not been as lucky. I dreamed of Carl Cranston, tracking the entire search in my sleep, knowing I’d find him dead. As I tracked, I became more and more despondent and, oddly, the sadder I became the more often Rusty was with me. Rusty hadn’t been on the real search. Why would he be in the dream version? Because, admit it Cass, he’s always been there when you were sad or hurt. We shared a bond and sadness deepened it. After I thought about it the dream seemed more comforting than troubling. Rusty was there. He would always be there.
The temperature hovered around ten degrees and the wind blew relentlessly. Clouds scudded across the sky and ominous, heavy storm clouds gathered on the horizon to the north. Last night when we listened to the news we should have waited for the weather forecast, too.
“We need to do some serious stalking today, Pat. Today’s your last chance to stalk the deer. You have to go home tomorrow.”
“But I don’t want to go home.”
“Oh come on, admit it, you miss your mom, dad and Wyatt. You’ll be glad to be back in your familiar house with all the things you like around you. I bet you even miss your mom’s vegetables.”
“I can still not want to go home. Why can’t you move closer to the ranch?”
“Because Rusty’s job is here. We’re settled here. You can visit any time your parents let you, just like I can visit the ranch whenever I want.”
“But you never want to.”
“That’s not true. I’d like to visit the ranch more often, but there are people counting on me here. It might not be a job, but it’s a responsibility. Let’s get you some breakfast and then we’ll see if the deer show up.”
“Can I go talk to the deer?”
“Go get your coat and I’ll go out with you. I don’t trust that mountain lion to stay away.”
“Okay, but you have to be peaceful, respectful and talk gently.”
“I will.”
We put on our coats and gloves and then went out to the edge of the yard where Patrick knelt down in the grass to invite the deer to breakfast at our house. The wind whipped our hair around and crept up under our coats which made me wonder how long we’d be able to continue stalking out there. I wondered if Patrick had made the deer any promises about the mountain lion not showing up or if he had given the mountain lion a good silent scolding. It was hard to tell, but he went through his little ritual and seemed to feel better for it.
I made omelets for breakfast, filling them with cheese, bell peppers, onions and ham. I was determined to give Patrick three nutritious meals today. We would stalk deer, bake Christmas goodies then make our moccasins and, hopefully, stalk deer again in the afternoon. No trouble today. It would be nice and peaceful in our comfy, toasty warm house.
By six o’clock when the deer still hadn’t shown up, I couldn’t blame them one bit. The wind howled around the house and through the junipers. I hoped nobody was out in this weather because if I had to track them down there would be no tracks left to follow. We made a batch of Christmas candy. Patrick measured out the ingredients and I explained again how measuring was math. We determined how many total cups of ingredients we had added, a quarter cup of this and two thirds of a cup of that. He didn’t seem to notice that fractions were difficult to understand. They were just parts of something. Parts of cups were easy to figure out. And so we made candy by using math and then we rolled the dough into little balls. Patrick dipped them in chocolate candy coating and we set them out on a piece of waxed paper to harden. Every ten minutes or so he checked for deer.
“The deer are probably hunkered down out of the wind,” I told him and he agreed.
We brought out the leather and I traced around his foot to figure out the right size to cut the soles of his moccasins.
“My feet aren’t that big, he said, watching me cut way beyond the traced lines.”
“We need to allow space for the stitching. If I cut it on the line they will turn out too small.”
I used the sole to calculate the other pieces of the shoe and then drew them on the leather with a pencil and cut them out.
“Leather is really thick. You can’t push a needle through it so you need to poke sewing holes all the way around the sole.”
I gave him a block of wood, a nail and a hammer, and he went to work driving the nail through the leather every eighth of an inch. When he tired of the task he would check on the deer and I took over, aware it was tedious, hard work for a six-year-old to hammer that many tiny holes. And that was just for the sole. He had to do more for the other pieces, too. The further along we got, the more frequently he checked for deer. Every time he checked for deer, the fiercer the wind howled.
“Can I go out just to look for them?” Pat asked.
I glanced out the sliding glass door at the trees thrashing in the wind and thought of the freezing temperature outside. It made me want to light a fire instead of venturing out there, but I gave in anyway. I insisted Pat pull the hood up on his coat and I tied it down around his ears. I wore my search and rescue coat and when we were finally bundled up enough I opened the back door. The wind whipped inside, lifting the curtains and sending a chill down my back.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I just want to go look. Even if the deer don’t come, I want to tell them that I like them and I would like to see them again. I understand if they can’t come in this weather.”
Poor kid came all this way to stalk deer, and look what happened. Okay, so I’d go out there with him.
The yard was swept clean. There were no leaves to rake. They were long gone. A tumbleweed rolled by at fifty miles an hour. I leaned down, “Hold my hand. That wind is really strong. I don’t want you blowing away.”
We crept out into the yard and I instantly froze. I was used to cold weather, but this wind had a way of reaching through the layers. Threatening clouds were closing in. I followed Patrick, hand in hand. He led the way out into the yard, looking, looking, sensing. He didn’t walk to the edge of the yard and kneel as I had expected, but appeared to have something else in mind. He watched the ground and so I watched it too. I didn’t expect to see anything. I thought the wind would have erased any signs of deer. Patrick bent down.
“Sharp means new, right?”
“Right,” I said, kneeling down. The tracks were rounded on top from the wind, but the tips of them were sharp and distinct. I hadn’t even bothered looking for them, yet Pat did, as though he had been expecting them. He followed the tracks but didn’t have to go far. The tracks ambled a little bit but led around the barn. There, huddled out of the wind, were three does, all curled up and sleeping with their backs to the barn.
I gave Pat the go ahead signal and his eyes shone with admiration. I guessed it was for the deer and this gift that they had given to him on his last day here. They had come out in this dreadful weather and waited for him. He went forward on silent feet, crouched low. When he was about ten feet away, a doe awoke, suddenly alert. He froze, staring at the doe eye to eye. Had he dashed forward he probably could have touched a sleeping doe, but he had respect for them and that wasn’t in his plan. He wasn’t going to take advantage of them. He simply accepted the gift of their presence without intruding.
As we stood there, a fine snow began falling, blowing in sideways from the north. I forced myself to relax. Shivering was not permitted when stalking deer. I don’t know how long Pat stood there. I was a Popsicle by the time he broke eye contact, and the doe quickly rose to her feet. When she moved, the other does awoke with a start and suddenly Pat had three deer towering over him. He didn’t get scared, though. He knelt down on the freezing ground and thanked them for coming then quietly backed away. I hoped they would settle back down again because I wanted them to remain sheltered. If I thought they would go in the barn, I’d have opened the door for them, but knew the odor of machinery and woodworking would prevent them from entering.
When Pat had backed away from the deer and joined me again we quietly returned to the house.
“That was so cool!” he exclaimed once we were indoors shedding coats.
“That was cool!” I agreed. “I’m glad we went out there. We might have missed them completely today if we’d only watched from the house.”
The snowflakes were bigger now, still blowing in from the north. I lit some logs in the fireplace, then turned on the TV and searched for a news station. We had never watched much TV in our home when I was younger as the ranch was too busy for television. I had to give it some thought before remembering our TV set had been kept in an extra bedroom with a couch and bookshelves. I had a small library in there of field guides and survival books. My sister had a small collection of romance novels. My mother had read quite a few of the novels but her section of the shelves contained mostly cookbooks. My dad’s books were in his office where I would invade one small section of maps, but other than that I avoided his bookshelves. His books lined the wall behind his desk from corner to corner. He encouraged me to read maps, but the rest of his office was intimidating, and behind the desk was forbidden territory.
Rusty had a TV, but before we met he’d been a workaholic. I wasn’t sure what happened after our meeting. His work habits changed dramatically, but our time at home rarely involved TV. We kept tabs on the Dodgers and sometimes when I felt lonely I turned on the TV for background noise. But I bet the TV was lonelier than I was. It was neglected and deprived of normal TV activities. No sitcoms, no soaps… here we go, the weather. Patrick plunked down on the couch.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Seeing how much snow might fall. Think we can build a snowman before we drive you back home?”
“We can try!”
I was more worried about the going home part since the weather forecast was not encouraging. A huge storm had come down the coast from the arctic, dumping snow on everything from Redding to Atascadero. That was ranch land and the storm was now moving south. We were only seeing the beginning of it. Even Joshua Hills might receive a measureable amount of snow. The entire time I’d lived in town I’d only seen a few short flurries. One of the things I’d hoped for when we bought our home in the foothills was more weather. I love storms. I love to hear thunder rolling and I love the way fog creeps in silently. The tapping of rain never fails to draw me to a window, and falling snow was better than a good movie. I stood by the window and saw there was already a dusting of snow in the yard. I felt a pang of guilt and began pulling on my coat and gloves again.
“Where are you going?” Pat asked, knowing I didn’t want to be outside in the wind.
“It’s going to be hard for the birds to find food. I’m going to go fill up the feeders so when it is calm enough for them to come out, they can eat. Stay here. The wind is blowing like crazy and I can’t hold onto you and fill the feeders at the same time.”
I stepped outside and instantly wished for the warmth of the den. I bent my head into the wind and ducked down to keep the wind from stinging my eyes. I went around to the feeders and poured several scoops of seed into the two feeders, then filled the platform feeder with peanuts. I flung a scoop of seed on the ground, knowing the junkos and quail preferred ground feeding. I put the scoop back in the bin and snuck out to the barn. The deer had settled back down, sheltered from the snow. Again I wished they would go in the barn. I went to the big doors and pulled one open. It was stiff pulling against the wind. The door shoved me into the dark, calm and relatively warm interior. I sniffed around wondering how much it smelled of man and machinery to a deer. Maybe if I opened the back door the deer would feel better about entering, knowing they were out of sight of the house. I opened the door that bent south and held on for dear life as it opened all the way. Pushing the door that opened north was another matter. I pushed as hard as I could until it was firmly against the back wall of the barn, then stopped a minute to rest before going back to the house. I stood there looking into the barn, trying to think like a deer when the barn door hit me broadside. It felt like being hit by a train. I noticed the sparkly white crystals of snow falling as I hit the ground in slow motion and then everything was snowy, my vision first, then my senses.
Patrick told me later what had happened. He’d waited for a while inside the house, just like I told him to. He knew I had no desire to be out in the storm for such a long time. After looking out the windows and seeing the full feeders, he watched the clock and looked out the windows again before putting on his coat and venturing into the storm to find me. Once outside, he was unable to walk in the wind. It nearly blew him away and he crawled through the snow to get back to the house. He was crying when he got through to Rusty. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what and he couldn’t go out. What should he do? What could he do? Rusty kept him on the phone as he quickly drove home. The closer he got to the foothills the fiercer the storm grew. Big flakes sliced the air and the roads became slick, and then snowy and then deeper.
People in southern California don’t know how to drive in snow but they don’t seem to know it. They drive the same no matter what the weather is like. The speed limits are fast and the drivers drive faster, even in the snow. Rusty saw cars off the road, the drivers victims of their own carelessness. He rushed home talking to Patrick, trying to calm them both as the fear rose and the storm clamped down.
By the time Rusty got home, he had the whole story and there wasn’t much to it. Aunt Cassidy went out to feed the birds… an hour ago. Rusty tried telling Patrick all the things that could have happened, but it didn’t work.
Walking around the yard things looked normal, just snowy. The wind howled. The snow continued to slice through the property. The feeders remained full. The deer had fled, scared away by the slamming of the barn door. The barn doors facing the house were closed. The yard held no hints, no footprints, no sign of my being there. Rusty didn’t even know that the barn had back doors since he wasn’t familiar with barn construction. He didn’t know how handy it was having doors opening in both directions. He only knew I was nowhere to be seen and it was awfully cold.
I was lucky. When the door slammed shut it had knocked me into the barn, out of the wind and the snow. I came to wondering if I was freezing to death because I could have sworn my bones felt frozen. My first thoughts were of Patrick. How long had I been gone? I tried getting up but was too cold and too numb. I crawled to the front doors of the barn and pushed. The door swung open about a foot before the wind pushed back slamming it closed again with a loud bang. I pulled myself up again, determined to reach the house. I took a tentative step and, although I couldn’t feel my feet, I didn’t fall over either. I walked wooden-legged out the back door of the barn, then felt my way numbly down the side of the building, slipping awkwardly on the slick snow. Snowflakes plastered themselves to every square inch of me, clinging to my eyelashes, coating me with a thin, frosty layer of snow. I staggered to the sliding back door of the house, but was unable to open it. Was it locked? I hadn’t locked it. It couldn’t be locked from the outside. Patrick?
I felt myself starting to fade again. The snow swirling all around seemed to me like the snow on a TV screen. I couldn’t make sense of it. I leaned against the sliding glass door just as it was opened from the inside. I tumbled in, landing in a limp, wet pile at Rusty’s feet. Snowflakes whipped up into the air and settled around me melting into the carpet in the family room.
Rusty stood there for a second, shock registering in every movement. Patrick stood in the den echoing Rusty’s fear.
A quick trip to the couch. He brushed the snow off my face. He started peeling off layers. My coat. Everything was cold and damp.
“What’re you doing?” Pat asked.
“She needs warmth and her clothes are all wet from the snow.”
Patrick thought for a minute and then disappeared down the hall. Rusty peeled off my gloves cupping my frozen fingers in his hands and blowing into them. He finally decided dryness was more important than the fire, carried me to the bedroom and closed the door. He stripped off the rest of my clothes and bundled me up in the comforter on the bed.
There was a tentative knock. “Uncle Rusty?”
“Patrick, just find something to do for a little while. Go turn on the TV.”
“I got the dry clothes out of the dryer. They’re still warm.”
Surprise crossed Rusty’s face and he pulled the basket into the room. He dumped the warm laundry under the comforter, then went to his dresser drawer and dumped its contents of t-shirts and underwear into the basket.
“Here Pat, go put these in the dryer. That was good thinking.”
“I put a sleeping bag in there. I’ll dry these next.” Again, a look of surprise.
Rusty pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He quickly selected a number from the address book and hit call. After a second, “Wilson, you’ve gotta help me… Hell, no… Turn that thing off. I need real help. It’s Cass… I don’t know… She was outside in the storm for an hour or more… I’m trying… I don’t know what happened… sort of… No, I don’t think it’s life threatening. I just don’t know what the danger signs are… You can’t get up here. It’s snowing too hard. We’ve got an inch of snow and it’s not letting up.”
The clothes were cooling off again and I started shivering. My toes burned. My fingers burned. My nose burned. I was trying to figure out if my ears burned. I curled up in a little ball. Rusty noted the movement.
“Cassidy? Babe, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I c-can hear everything. W-what happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell us that.”
“The barn.”
“What about the barn?”
“I was standing there one second and, and I don’t know.”
“Did you pass out?”
“No, it was hard and big. Knocked me across the barn. The door. The door blew shut.” Gradually the pieces were coming together.
“Are you getting any of this?” Rusty asked Landon.
“The door knocked me flat.”
He ruffled my hair checking for bumps.
“This reminds me of when I got run over by a racehorse. Felt like a bulldozer. The fastest bulldozer in the west. Wham!”
“Landon wants to know how long you were out there,” Rusty said.
“I don’t know. Ask Patrick.”
“It was at least an hour,” he said into the phone. “Patrick got worried first, and then he called me and I drove up from the station, so it had to be at least an hour… He’s our nephew. Cassidy was supposed to help him stalk deer. Yeah,” he said gazing into my eyes, “her eyes seem okay. Neither one seems to be dilated.”
He flipped the phone closed.
“Come on, babe, Landon needs more information. He said to get you into warm clothes, get you up and around, find something warm to drink. Patrick needs to see you. He’s worried. Sooo… clothes first.”
He started sorting through the mess of clothing on top of me, but it was mostly his own laundry. He went to the closet, found a thermal shirt and lounge pants. Something comfortable. I didn’t want to move. My hands and feet burned from the cold. He ran his hands over my skin trying to determine if I was back to a normal body temperature. Under his touch, I was heating up real quick. I wasn’t getting the look though. I guess I couldn’t really expect his mind to be on sex under the circumstances, especially with Patrick in the house. He pulled the shirt over my head and tried sticking my hands through the sleeves. I jerked my hands back. Any contact with my hands felt like pins and needles. The pants were easier, but standing was difficult. The skin on my feet was still recovering from the fire and now it was frozen too. There was no way I would be able to stand on my feet. Rusty pulled all the laundry to the other side of the bed and stood back, reassessing the situation. He seemed to feel better about it because he went to the bedroom door and opened it. Patrick ran down the hall.
“I kept the fire going,” he reported. “The sleeping bag is warm. I’ve got hot water on the stove.”
“You used the stove?” Rusty asked.
“My mom taught me how to make hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches. Want me to make grilled cheese sandwiches?”
“Have you had lunch yet?” Rusty asked him.
“No, all this started right before lunch time.”
“You’re sure you know how to do it?”
“Yeah.”
“Go ahead and give it a try. We’ll be out there in a minute to help. Can you get the sleeping bag first?”
Pat turned and made a run for the dryer while Rusty examined my hands and feet. He started massaging my feet, but it hurt like crazy. He worked his way up my ankle and my calf. Mmm, that was better. Back down to my feet.
Patrick ran in with the sleeping bag and I wrapped up in it, luxuriating in the warmth.
“Okay, we’re off to the den. Come on.”
He offered me a hand up but my hands burned and I couldn’t even hold onto the sleeping bag. I rolled out of bed and nearly screamed when my feet hit the floor. It felt like walking on stinging nettles, but I toughened up inside and stepped forward.
Cass, you’re turning into a wimp, I thought as Rusty lifted me up and I wrapped my arms and legs around his torso. He buried his face in my dirty, damp hair and carried me out to the den. He sat on the coffee table, rubbing my feet, and I sat on the couch trying not to cry. But at the same time, it was homey and comfortable and the sleeping bag felt warm. Patrick was busy in the kitchen and eventually came in sloshing hot chocolate. Rusty took the cup from him.
“Can we have a hot pad to go with it?” he asked and Patrick ran back to the kitchen. Rusty wrapped the warm cup up in the hot pad and handed it to me. My fingers didn’t want to bend, but I managed to drink as I watched the fire and Rusty rubbed the needle jabs out of my feet. I started relaxing as my feet eventually stopped hurting and returned to normal. I handed the empty mug to Rusty and fell asleep to the smell of grilled cheese sandwiches burning in the kitchen. Rusty went to supervise. I roused when he came back and began rubbing my hands. They were a normal temperature but still felt stiff. I tried to ignore him, but simply couldn’t. Having Rusty close was hard to ignore, even if he was just worriedly rubbing my fingers.
“I have to call Wilson back. So, tell me, what happened. Are we keeping all the fingers and toes? Are you back in the world of the living?”
I told him about going out to feed the birds and worrying about the deer, then about the barn.
“I didn’t even know we had a back door on the barn,” he said. “I walked around out there looking for you and calling your name, but I didn’t think to walk around the barn. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ve had worse happen to me. A knock on the head isn’t going to kill me.”
“Maybe not, but an hour laying in a freezing cold barn could have. What if Patrick hadn’t called? What if he’d tried to go after you?”
“I did try,” Patrick said, “but I couldn’t.” He bowed his head in shame. “The wind was too strong.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Pat. You did everything a kid could be expected to do, and you did a great job. You used your head and thought of ways to help even before I did. We’re proud of you and you should be proud of yourself, too,” Rusty said. “Are we ready to call Jesse and tell her every road between here and the ranch is closed until the storm ends? We already have three inches of snow and it’s still coming down. It’s worse to the north and inland, so there’s no way we can take Patrick home tomorrow.”
Somehow Patrick managed to look pleased and disappointed at the same time. There was just something about the ranch, especially Christmas at the ranch, that was special. He really wanted to be home for Christmas.
“Pat, we’ll keep an eye on the news and try tomorrow. But do you know what it means if you don’t get to go home tomorrow?”
“It means I gotta spend Christmas here.”
“No, it means you will have to go to San Diego with us on Saturday.”
“San Diego?” he wailed. “How will Santa Claus know where I am if I’m in San Diego?”
Good question, I thought, although we had our gift for him. Santa may have a hard time coming up with surprises at the last minute, especially for a kid who didn’t play with toys. I didn’t even know if one of us could drive into town to shop. Rusty and I looked at each other. Then I took a big risk.
“Pat, Santa Claus knows where the kids are. He doesn’t have to be told. No matter where you are, Santa Claus will find you.”
He didn’t seem convinced, and now his disappointment was definitely showing.
Rusty disappeared to call Landon back while I continued talking to Patrick.
“Pat, Christmas isn’t just opening presents, it’s also about what you give, and you are a very generous boy. You have a sharp mind and willing heart. I could tell that just from today. Tell me, what did you ask Santa Claus for?”
“I asked him to send deer to the ranch, just like he sends them to your house. And I asked him for roller blades and for, for a baby cousin, and for everybody to be together.”
“That’s all?” I asked, swallowing a big lump in my throat. “Pat, the baby cousin is entirely out of Santa’s hands. He doesn’t control things like that. And it looks like the whole family won’t be together for Christmas this year. Even if we took you home, we’d have to go to San Diego on Saturday.”
“I know,” he said sadly.
“I think Santa can handle the roller blades. But, what are you going to do with roller blades at the ranch? It’s all dirt.”
“Not the porch on the ranch house. It’s big and it goes halfway around the house. I could learn on that and Ricky lives in town. I could skate at his house.”
Sounded good to me. I was glad to find out what he really wanted and I made a mental note to check his shoe size later.
“Lookit the snow!” he said with admiration. “I’ve never seen so much snow before. Can we build a snowman?”
“If the wind settles down and we can get my coat dried out, we can definitely build a snowman. If we use the snow from the side yard then the deer will be able to eat the grass, too.”
“Can I put your coat in the dryer?”
“It probably won’t hurt it to be in there for a little while.”
He dashed off and pretty soon I heard the rumble of the clothes dryer humming in the background.
“I think I managed to convince Wilson you would live to see another search,” Rusty said as he walked in. “Where’s Patrick?”
“I told him we could build a snowman if the wind settled down and our coats were dry enough to wear. So now he is drying my coat.”
“I’ve been thinking. If we have to take him to San Diego then we need to do some serious shopping. That’s your department,” he said in a serious tone of voice. “I have tomorrow off to take Patrick home, but he could come with me to the station and I can show him around while you shop. Are you going to be up for an intense day of Christmas shopping?”
“I need ideas more than anything. I’ve got a short list of things to look for but I don’t know what kind of Christmas he’s used to.”
“He knows not to expect it to be the same. How are those fingers feeling?”
“I don’t know, hand me something to feel and we can test them out.”
“Mmmm,” he said contemplating. “Need a test subject? I’ll let you know how good they are feeling.”
I laughed at his suggestion and he looked back at me wearing his mischievous smile.
“I need to pack. If I don’t pack, we can’t use our bed tonight.”
Standing in the doorway of the bedroom we noted the mountain of clothing covering the bed. Okay, first things first, all the laundry needed to be rewashed. If I’d picked up that much dirt lying in the barn I could only imagine what my coat must look like. The dryer. ARG! In the laundry room I opened the dryer to find it coated with half dried mud. The coat was mostly dry, but dirty from tumbling around with dirt, sticks and dried grass. He’s only six, I told myself. He’s only six. It will wash off. I got a bucket of warm water and a rag and began washing the inside of the dryer.
“What are you doing, Aunt Cassidy?” Pat asked innocently.
“You aren’t supposed to put dirty things in the dryer. Only clean clothes go in here.”
“But you said…”
“I know, Pat, but I didn’t realize how dirty my coat was when I told you to use the dryer. I just need to wash it, then wash all the clothes on the bed before I start packing. While I am at it I might as well wash your dirty clothes, too. Can you put them in a pile for me?”
After cleaning out the dryer and sorting the laundry it looked more like a week’s worth of clothes which had to be washed, dried and packed by morning. I shook my coat out the back door then passed by Rusty as I headed for the washroom.
“Cass, do you think every time you nearly die that you need to do extra to prove you’re still alive? Relax.”
“That’s easy for you to say, but I have to get three people ready to spend five days in San Diego by morning.”
“We aren’t going anywhere until Saturday. The whole inland part of California is snowbound.”
“Then I have more time but there are also more things to do. I promised Pat we’d build a snowman, and we have to go to town.”
He sighed. “Okay, tell me what I can do and then we’ll get everything done.”
“It’s mostly all of the laundry and I’m the one who has to do it.”
“There must be something.”
“Okay, go get the suitcases. I’ll start packing. Maybe I can cut back to only the necessary laundry.”
“That’s what I mean, you’re always trying to do everything, even when it’s not necessary. I’m sure we have five days worth of clothes somewhere around here.”
In my frustration I replied, “It’s not just a matter of finding five sets of clothes. It’s finding a beach set, a mall set, the right clothes for Christmas dinner and then something for goofing off around town. I need a set for tracking with Chase. Every activity requires a change of clothes. I can’t wear a pantsuit to see Cody and I refuse to wear shorts with a tank top to see Sandy. Maybe you can, but I won’t because there are certain things that will be expected of me. And what about Pat? We can’t just take him along. It’s rude to drop in with unexpected guests.”
“Not at my house,” Rusty pointed out.
“I can’t just force them to take in another person. I need to call them and make sure it’s okay first.”
“Okay, so call them,” Rusty said nonchalantly as though it was the easiest thing in the world. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was easy, but it didn’t feel easy to me. I’d wait to see what tomorrow would bring. We packed and as it turned out I really only had to do two loads of laundry, and that was mostly because Patrick was almost out of clothes and because I wouldn’t wash lights and darks together.
Friday morning brought more snow. The storm had come to a halt right on top of us and the snow was now fluttering down lazily in huge delicate flakes. I looked out the window and there were six inches on the ground and three more inches on the north side of everything in sight. That made nine inches or did the three inches count?
Rusty turned on the TV. North was impossible. South was doable if we took the Jeep, and headed for the coast ASAP. I was hoping we wouldn’t need the winch, but I was glad we had one just in case. West was safe but there was no way of traveling anywhere north or east. Sigh, time to call Bev. Then Jesse.
Bev answered the phone on the fourth ring. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Bev, this is Cassidy,” I said. She might be my mother-in-law, but so far we hadn’t spoken on the phone much.
“Well, hello dear! How are you and Rusty? I do hope you’re coming for Christmas.”
“That is what I was calling about. I have my nephew here and we were supposed to take him home today but the roads are all blocked. So… I was wondering… if you’d mind if he came with us to San Diego.”
A long pause. Uh oh, I was afraid of this kind of reaction, which was why I felt it best to call first.
“You’re bringing a child with you?”
“Only if it’s okay. He’s a very polite, well behaved boy. You won’t have any trouble out of him. He…”
“Cassidy! That’s the most wonderful Christmas present you could give us this year! We haven’t had a child in the house for years! It’ll be more Christmasy with a child here. I can’t wait.”
“You’re sure you won’t mind?”
“Mind? I’m thrilled! Bill and Cody will be, too. You wouldn’t think it, but Cody’s great with children. He’s like a big kid himself and the kids at the beach just flock to him.”
I could believe that, particularly twelve-year-old girls.
“Tell me all about him so I can go shopping!”
“That really isn’t necessary,” I insisted. “He doesn’t expect any gifts.”
“Nonsense, a kid’s got to have presents to open.”
“We’ll bring some along, besides, this isn’t exactly your everyday six- year-old. He doesn’t play with toys much. He lives on a ranch and he takes after me. So he likes to get out in the hills to track and stalk animals. It’s not a personality type that is easy to shop for but don’t worry, he is very easy to please.”
“And what is your nephew’s name?”
“Patrick. He was the ring bearer at our wedding.”
“Oh yes! Darling boy. He kept his tux on longer than any kid I’ve ever seen in a wedding. Usually you see their image changing as they walk back down the aisle.”
“And you’re sure you don’t mind if he comes with us?”
“No! I can’t wait! It’ll be like having grandkids!”
Oh, great. Just what we needed: parents wanting grandkids.
My sister was next. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey Cass! When do you think you can be here?”
“Umm, well, have you seen the news? How much snow is up there?”
“Oh, it’s beautiful! You were right, the inflatable snowmen fit right in. We have a few inches of snow on the ground. The ranch looks so different in the snow! You won’t believe it when you see it!”
“There’s one problem with that. I won’t be seeing it. Jesse, the storm went south and it’s been dumping snow on every highway between here and there. It’s been snowing for two days and we have six inches of snow here. Rusty says there’s no way to get up there and we are due in San Diego tomorrow.”
There was silence on the line. How can you tell a sad silence from a happy silence? Rusty’s worried silence was particularly recognizable. I could tell Jesse was almost in tears, but she hadn’t said a word.
“Pat’s not coming home today? Not coming home for Christmas? He’s never been gone for Christmas! He can’t be gone for Christmas! He’s only six! Six-year-olds have to be home for Christmas! It’s a rule! If they aren’t home for Christmas their moms…”
“Jesse, he’ll get Christmas. Don’t worry. I already called Rusty’s mom. She’s thrilled to have a kid coming for Christmas. She can’t wait and she’ll spoil him rotten.”
“But I wanted to spoil him rotten. It’s my job! I’m his mom! You can’t understand because you’re not a mom.”
“And I’m not superman either. I can’t clear the roads and make the storm go away. All I can do is say I’m sorry and promise to take lots of pictures. I’ll make sure he has plenty of presents and, really, he’ll get two Christmases out of it; one in San Diego and another when he gets home. We’ll drive straight from San Diego to your house. I’ll get him home as soon as the roads are safe. We have to stay in San Diego through Tuesday, and then he’ll be home Wednesday, I promise.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“Jess, I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you talk to him right now, you’ll get him all upset about it, too. You need to hang up, go have a good cry, calm down, get used to the idea, and then call us back. I’ll keep my cell phone on me. I promised Pat we’d make a snowman today.”
“It’s no fair. You get to play with him in his first real snowfall. It’s no fair.”
“Jess, you sound more like a six-year-old than Patrick does. You’ll feel better after you think it through, and I’ll talk to you later.”
She sniffed, “Okay.” And we said our goodbyes.
Golly, I never expected such a strong a reaction from her! I knew Jesse would be disappointed but I never expected her to whine and carry on. What did motherhood do to a once perfectly reasonable woman?
As soon as I turned around to track down my guys, the phone rang.
“Put him on a plane,” Jesse demanded.
“You want him to fly through a snowstorm to an airport you can’t even drive to? Jesse, hang up the phone, turn on the weather channel and see for yourself.”
“You’re mean!” she cried as she hung up the phone.
Rusty stood before me bundled up in a coat, gloves and scarf. A scarf? Rusty in a scarf? I’d known him for over a year and I’d never seen him wear a scarf. He looked rather dashing and comfy, and it made me want to throw snowballs at him.
“Jesse wasn’t too happy about the news,” he observed.
“That’s an understatement! She was as crushed as your mom was thrilled. You’ve got to do something to stop her. She’s going to go nuts.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wants to buy Pat Christmas presents. I told her he didn’t need or expect a gift and that we’d be bringing some for him.”
Rusty just grinned. “Oh, let her have some fun. Let’s go build a snowman. You know this is our first real snowfall together, too. You got to see lots of snow last winter but I didn’t get to see any of it. I was either stuck in an office in town or out in the desert wind. I never saw one snowflake all year.”
“I need to find my cold weather gear. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
In the bedroom I pulled on long johns, heavy socks, a t-shirt, a flannel shirt, snow pants and finally my coat. I was glad I was used to moving in all these layers. I had to dress like this for snow rescues. There had been many snow rescues last year, but they involved me mostly for training purposes. They usually didn’t need a tracker when there was snow. They’d call me if they needed me, but the other teams got called more often. I put on all the gear because I still felt cold in the house. I even found my snowshoes. I didn’t need them in the yard, but wondered if Patrick would like to try them. I grabbed a camera on my way out and found the guys working on the base of the snowman. I took a picture of Patrick rolling the ball through the snow. Rusty took over when the ball became too heavy to push. It might be cold out, but it warmed my heart to see Rusty out there playing in the snow with Patrick. It just felt right and he looked so comfortable. I tried to pin the feeling down and realized it was very much the way I was while tracking. It seemed to me that Rusty was a natural born mentor. Whether it involved work, play or even sitting beside a bedridden person, Rusty was there, supporting, and effortlessly giving it his all without even trying. And now he was playing and I was enjoying every minute of it.
“Come on, Cass!” he called.
I waded out through the snow. “Look what I’ve got, Patrick!”
“What are they?”
“Snowshoes! Want to try them? I wear them for snow rescues. They let you walk on top of the snow.”
“Cool!”
Rusty pulled him out of the snow and placed him on top of the snowshoes while I strapped them to his feet.
“Don’t walk yet!” I warned. “You can’t take normal steps. You have to shuffle. Do you ever scoot your feet on the carpet to build up static electricity so you can sneak up and shock someone?”
“Not any more. Wyatt gave me a bloody nose.”
“Well, walk like that in the snowshoes.”
He started scooting across the snow, scooping up snow with the tips.
“Raise the tips a little more and sort of scoot and jog at the same time.”
When Patrick shuffled across the snow Shadow got excited. A sheep on the run! He started running around, trying to herd Patrick but the snow was too deep for Shadow to keep up so he gave up the chase. Shadow brought his black head up out of the snow and had a pile of snow on his nose. I quickly snapped a picture and then took one of Patrick snowshoeing. Patrick stepped on the tip of his snowshoe and tripped, landing in a heap in the snow. Rusty retrieved him.
I took note of where the snowman’s body had ended up and tried to push it further. It was too heavy.
“The base is big enough,” Rusty said. “If we make it bigger it’s going to be hard to lift the other balls up on top of it.”
“But it needs to be about ten feet further,” I explained. “What’s the use of building a snowman if it’s not visible from the road?”
He grinned again. I’d do anything to see Rusty smile like that. His job was so serious that sometimes he had trouble grinning. It warmed my heart that today he’d be free to grin all he wanted.
“Okay, help me push,” he said leaning into the huge snowball, like I could add much power to his two hundred plus pounds. I calculated that moving the ball ten feet had added at least ten pounds of snow to it. But our snowman would look cute from the road. We wouldn’t be here to see it, but at least other people would. Our snowman would greet Hazel and Wally as they drove into town. We called Patrick over to start the second ball of snow and then, when it got too heavy for Patrick, I handed Rusty the camera and took over. I pushed it towards the larger ball but it stopped and wouldn’t budge before I got halfway there, so Rusty took over.
“Come on everybody, I need some help,” he called as he hefted the big ball of snow up onto the base. We grabbed handfuls of snow and pressed it into the seam between the two balls sealing them together. Then we patted and smoothed the snow so the snowman would be nice and round.
Patrick was just about able to make the head all by himself, but he didn’t want to put the head on right away.
“We need to decide what kind of a man our snowman is,” he insisted.
“What kind of a snowman do you want him to be?” I asked him.
“How about a policeman?”
“How do you make a snow policeman?” Rusty asked.
“Maybe a snow cowboy?” Patrick suggested.
“And exactly how do you make a snow cowboy?” I asked.
“We could put a cowboy hat on him and tie a bandana around his neck.”
“Your cowboy hat is for dressing up. You’re not putting it on a snowman that is going to turn into a puddle.”
“We can make a hat. Do you have a piece of cardboard?”
“Yeah, how are you going to make a hat out of a piece of cardboard?”
“With scissors.”
He seemed to have something in mind so I found a piece of cardboard and a pair of scissors and let him get to work. He cut a brim out of the cardboard and then cut off the top of the snowman’s head so it would look like the hat was tilted a little. He placed the brim on the head and bent the edges so they curled a little. Then he packed snow on top of it to make the crown of the hat.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think he needs a face,” I suggested.
“What kind of a face? A nice face? A mean face?”
“I think when you find things to make a face out of he’ll develop his own personality.”
Rusty lifted the snowball carefully to the top and we sealed the two snowballs together and then smoothed them like the first two. Patrick ran up with two sprigs from the junipers, two rocks that he found in the barn, and a pinecone. Rusty lifted him up so he could put the face on the snowman. Bushy eyebrows and bulbous nose and piercing eyes. Patrick laughed with delight at his creation.
“He looks like Old Frank! Old Frank, the snowman, was a creaky, grouchy soul…” he sang, making up his own version of the “Frosty the Snowman” song.
“Pat, that’s not very nice.”
“Aw, okay, but it still looks like Old Frank. Do you have a bandana?”
“Yeah, I think he’ll need two though.”
I went inside and found two red bandanas and we made them into a necktie for our Old Frank snowman. Patrick made him a nametag and we took his picture, then took more shots with us all standing around our Old Frank snowman. Jesse would like these pictures for her scrapbooking hobby. Patrick’s first snow and I was able to share it. He marveled at it and played in it and tried to catch snowflakes on his tongue. It was glorious watching him, and I felt sorry for Jesse having missed it. She would have enjoyed this too, so to make up for her loss I took lots of pictures.
“Okay, it’s my turn to try the snowshoes,” Rusty announced.
“You’ve never tried snowshoes?”
“No, the only use these have ever seen is on rescues.”
Rusty strapped on the snowshoes and went shuffling off around the side of the house. I picked up some snow and formed it into a loose snowball so I could clobber him with it when he came around the house. Instead, a snowball whacked me on the shoulder from behind.
“Ha ha! I snuck up on you!” he yelled jubilantly. Rusty had been trying for over a year to sneak up on me, and was successful simply because I’d been playing and not paying attention. He took off around the house again while I ran in the other direction. The snow was still falling and sticking to our hats, shoulders and hair. We all looked like one big frosty family and I thought to myself, you know, Cass, if this was the storm of the century, then your kids have missed it. They may never see snow like this because you were selfish and didn’t want to share your personal time. You didn’t want the responsibility and so they’ve missed it. But there are lots of things they haven’t missed. You can still enjoy lots of things with a family if you can just quit being selfish. Open your eyes and see what you’re missing.
“Cass!” I heard in the distance, it was Rusty. I followed his voice until I found him out in the junipers head first in a snow bank. I’d never have guessed there would be a snow bank out here large enough to swallow up Rusty but here it was, his snow shoed feet sticking up out of it. First I laughed at him. Then I took his picture. Then I started digging him out. His face appeared all red from the cold and he was mad at himself but the grin was still there. He pulled me down into the snow and planted a big kiss on me, lingering.
“Ewe, mush!” yelled Patrick and quickly lunged for the camera. “Do it again!” he said. “Mom will love this.”
Rusty kissed me again while Patrick took a quick picture of us. He then ran up to Rusty and announced, “Tag, you’re it!” before running away. Rusty scrambled to his feet and took off after him, shuffling through the snow. They were about evenly matched, Rusty forced to shuffle, Pat struggling to wade through nearly knee-deep snow. I jogged after the two of them. When I caught up with them, I reminded them that we still had to make a trip into town that day.
“Where are we going in town?” Pat asked.
“We thought you’d like to go to the police station, while I do a little last minute shopping.”
We had to creep along in the Jeep, watching carefully for the turns in the road. Everybody on Lost Hills Road seemed to be staying indoors, waiting for the snow to melt. We couldn’t afford to do that. Santa Claus was needed in San Diego. It was important; important enough for four-wheel drive and a slow trek to town. As we came down out of the foothills the snow was shallower and we were able to drive more easily. We came to more traveled roads and by the time we’d reached town the streets were nearly bare. I dropped off the guys at the station and then took off with a list of stores and the quickest shopping trip I could manage. Roller blades first, binoculars, a field guide to animal tracks, another bird book, and a couple of children’s books about birds and forest animals. I found a simple wooden bird feeder kit, a big Lego construction set, a backgammon board and dominoes. He wouldn’t even think about math as he played and they weren’t kiddy games. Even I would play with the Legos. I thought I could count on Rusty’s family to provide Wyatt with a second Christmas. Patrick would open up the toys and politely thank everybody for them and then when he got home Wyatt would be the one playing with them.
The stores were crowded and the lines were long. Every time I got tied up in a long line I worried about the guys, bored stiff at the police station, reduced to playing Solitaire on Rusty’s computer. After my last stop, I stashed all the bags out of sight and drove to the station. I found Rusty and Patrick both in Rusty’s office, but they weren’t bored. Schroeder and Kent Jacobsen were with them, too. Patrick was sitting on top of Rusty’s desk cross-legged, coloring in a book, and Jacobsen was telling stories which hopefully weren’t about me. I knocked lightly then peeked in the window like I always did and Patrick looked up expectantly. I opened the door and joined the group.
“Aunt Cassidy, I got to color in Uncle Rusty’s special coloring book!”
“He has a special coloring book? What’s special about it? It looks like an ordinary book to me.”
“It isn’t. It’s a reminder book.”
I had a feeling I was about to learn something rather significant. I felt alarm bells go off, but not frightening ones. Oh, man, how can I explain it? I have this propensity for seeing the odd in amongst the normal. It helps me spot kidnappers in restaurants. Mostly it is a pain in the butt. I don’t like seeing bad guys everywhere I go. But it also helps when I track, and on rare occasions I see a simple comment as something it is not. A reminder book. That phrase stood out. I pushed aside my racing thoughts and returned to the situation at hand.
“Can I see?” I asked.
Patrick handed over the book willingly, proud that he had a chance to add a picture to Rusty’s reminder book. I looked at Patrick’s page.
“You did a really great job on your picture!” I praised. “You stayed in the lines and everything!”
“I’m not finished yet. I need to shade it so you can see the shapes of stuff. Look at the other pages.”
I browsed through the book. Some pages were scribbles, some were sloppy and a few pages were only colored in black. The black pages spoke volumes. I saw neat pages, and some that were half-finished. Each page was signed, either by a parent or the child. Only a first name and a date. Reuben, July 16, 2006. Marshal, with a star next to his name, July 23, 2005.
“And look what Uncle Rusty gave me,” he said, handing me a small object. It was a Matchbox car, a police car. “He has a whole drawer full of them, but I liked the police car to remind me of my trip.”
I don’t know what I must have looked like at that moment, putting two and two together, doing emotional math in my head, but Schroeder and Jacobsen excused themselves hastily and left.
Rusty loved kids. I thought of the other desks up and down the hall. Did they have Matchbox cars, coloring books and old, used up crayons in their desk drawers, too? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t sure how to get a handle on my feelings, so I started the only way I could.
“Who’s Reuben?” I asked.
“Let me see the book,” Rusty said. He flipped to Reuben’s page, a picture of a toy airplane and a hangar made out of blocks. Rusty studied the picture for a few seconds and handed the book to Patrick so he could finish his picture.
“Reuben was a little Mexican boy who came in with his mom. His mother had finally decided she would press charges against an abusive boyfriend. I had the case because the boyfriend also sold drugs and tended to steal large, valuable objects from people’s homes. Reuben didn’t like the guy. And he didn’t want to sit in a stuffy office and listen to his mom talk about the guy. So he colored that page and then went home with a red racecar. Sometimes when parents talk their kids get bored.”
“What about the dark pages?”
“I don’t look at the dark pages much, only when I’m tempted to quit. Then I get sad and buckle down and get back to work again. It’s a reminder book. Some things, dark things, I need reminders of, too. Sometimes I want pleasant reminders. Patrick is making me one of those right now.”
My face felt flush from my pent up emotions. Usually when I felt like this a good run took care of it, or a bout with the punching bag but that wasn’t an option for me at the moment. So I just reminded them, “We need to get home before dark. We could barely see the road in the light.”
“Can I take it home to finish it?” Patrick asked.
“Sure,” Rusty answered, “I’m not going to be back for a while anyway. Did you want to color in one of the other books, too? It’s going to be a long drive to San Diego.”
He opened a drawer and took out three more reminder books. Patrick chose a harder book about the coast of California. He read the captions aloud as we drove home.
“Show Aunt Cassidy the middle page of that book,” Rusty said as he drove.
Patrick handed me the book and I looked at the picture. Jade, December 3, 2006. It was a beach scene with the sun shining and gulls circling over a pounding surf. Umbrellas dotted the shoreline in the distance. She’d also drawn in a mom and a girl walking down the beach. On the hills way in the background she colored in a bright orange fire, not enough to scare anybody, just serving as a reminder.
“Terry Brooks borrowed the book when she questioned Jade,” Rusty explained.
“Looks like they talked for a long time,” I observed.
“To me the page looks hopeful.”
I studied the picture; the fire had been drawn in the distance. The colors were bright and cheerful. He was right, it did look hopeful.
“A pleasant reminder and a reminder about you, too. I was glad to have that picture in my book.”
We had to slow down again as we drove up into the foothills. The snow had stopped falling, but the road was still hidden under a blanket of snow. There were tire treads from a few other cars that had tried to leave after we had passed earlier.
We stomped our way into the house, met a hyper Shadow, and started shedding clothes. Everybody except Patrick.
“Can I go see if the deer came?” he asked.
I started putting my coat back on.
“I’ll go,” said Rusty. “You have things you need to do.”
He was right, I did and I needed to start dinner. I also had to bring in the gifts, wrap them and hide them in some way to bring them down to San Diego without Patrick noticing. Getting anything past Patrick was going to be tough. Fortunately, he hadn’t asked for a bicycle. I put meat in the microwave to defrost then put on my coat and brought the gifts in and stashed them in our closet. I’d never had a walk-in closet before. They sure were handy for times like these.
I had just set all the bags down when Patrick ran in and announced behind me, “Aunt Cassidy! The deer are in the barn! They went in! I went to see if they were lying beside the barn and we tracked them to the back door. One deer went and it took her a long time to decide to go in. You can see her tracks full of snow where she stood there a long time deciding. If you go out there you can see that each deer took long enough to follow that the snow covered up the first deer’s tracks. I bet we can figure out who the brave one is if we go in there,” he said with a mischievous look in his eye.
“You don’t want to scare them. Let them be nice and warm in there. I’m glad they went in. It was worth getting clobbered by the barn door if they will shelter there.”
I closed the door behind me and went to the kitchen to start dinner while Patrick finished his picture in Rusty’s reminder book. He signed and dated it. As things simmered in the kitchen I took time to look through the book. I wondered what stories Rusty had hidden away about the many people he had spoken with at work. Had he really dealt with so many kids? He had four coloring books in his drawer. Were they all as full as this one? This one had pages dating back four years. How many Matchbox cars had he given away? My big tough detective husband collected kid’s crayon pictures and handed out toy cars. It was a revelation to me.
“Cassidy, you look like you just discovered I’d been having an affair or something. Why so serious?”
“You love kids,” I observed simply.
“Yeah, I do,” he replied wrapping me in that hug I’d grown to love so much. I slipped my hands under his coat and snuggled in, checking my emotions.
“You want a family,” I continued cautiously.
“Maybe. Do you?” He was treading on thin ice and he knew it.
“Rusty, this is something we should have discussed before we were married. This is serious. I don’t know. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I get selfish, and sometimes the job just looks too big to handle.”
“That’s good enough for me. You just see things realistically. For now you’re enough like a kid that I get the best of both worlds. I have a twelve-year-old throwing snowballs at me in play and I get a twenty-six-year-old hot babe to play with at night all wrapped up in one luscious package. And if, for some reason, we never have kids, every now and then I’ll just borrow someone else’s.”
“You don’t make faces and silly noises whenever you get near a baby, do you?”
“Not every time. Only if they flirt with me. One-year-old girls can be terrible flirts.”
“I can’t believe I’ve known you this long and I’ve never seen you make goo goo eyes at a baby in a restaurant.”
“I was very careful for a very long time. I was worried about scaring you off, pushing too hard. You’d stand up to drug dealers and stalkers, but you wouldn’t stand up to your own feelings. I wanted your feelings to be right. I wanted you to be comfortable with them, not something I pushed for. Admit it, if I’d played peek-a-boo with a baby in a restaurant you’d have thought I was nuts.”
“Well, not nuts, maybe, but it would have seemed awfully strange. Some people I can picture doing that easily. I bet Kelly does and Victor, too, because he’s a dad. Some guys just don’t seem like the peek-a-boo type.”
“You’d be surprised. I can play a mean game of peek-a-boo,” he said with a wink.
“I bet you can.”
The phone rang and I picked it up on my way back to the kitchen. It was Chase.