The rusticity of the peaked dining room at the Mountain Artists’ Retreat recalled a much earlier era. Dark wood covered the walls, wood planking covered the floor and the arched ceiling. Heavy beams bore the weight of exterior walls made of stone and glass. Two huge stone fireplaces decorated a pair of the walls. Wood tables, sofas and comfortable chairs, plus self-serve food bars, completed the room.
Even after all these years, Krystal entered it with both a sense of awe and a sense of home. She’d grown up here, she’d watched and then helped with the restoration as she grew older, and this room was as much a part of her life as the woods of the forest outside.
Once this had been a hunting lodge for those with plenty of money. Then there had been a brief stint as a ski lodge. Finally Joan Metcalfe had taken the reins and turned it into a popular retreat for artists.
Mason Cambridge, the retreat’s star writer—at least according to him—showed up for lunch in the lodge’s dining room along with a group of other writers. Krystal smothered a sigh the instant she saw him, then glanced at her mother, Joan. Joan offered an almost imperceptible shrug.
Well, hell, Krystal thought as she kept an eye on the steam table and salad bar, making sure the trays remained full. Mason, a leonine man with wild gray hair, had already gathered a small coterie of admirers around his favorite table. It sat beside one of the tall windows beyond which leafy branches tossed about in a strong breeze.
Krystal had always held the sneaking suspicion that Mason’s physical appearance was as much a matter of public relations as personal preference. Regardless, as Joan occasionally reminded her, Mason’s frequent visits to the retreat were about the best publicity they could hope for. Bestselling authors drew young, less successful types like bees to flowers.
Oddly, Mason’s followers mostly seemed to be women. Smothering a smirk, Krystal replaced a tray of sliced roast beef with a fresh one. Maybe, given Mason, it shouldn’t be a surprise at all that women were drawn to him.
The other big draw at the retreat was Davis Daniels, a successful digital artist with a collection of comics to his name as well as some advertising work. A movie poster of his resided proudly in the Smithsonian art collection, no small achievement.
There was nothing oversize about Davis, however. A quiet, slender man, he was always polite when approached, always willing to offer advice and help when other artists asked.
Krystal was glad to head his way with a roast beef sandwich just the way he liked it. She had grown fond of him over the last few visits, and when she saw he had not yet made his lunch, she decided to look after him. Time had taught her that he was pretty much an introvert.
As always, he offered her a gentle smile and a sincere thank-you for her kindness in making his lunch, which didn’t come as part of the retreat package. For an extra fee, dinners would be served by waitpersons, but only for the extra fee. Most residents chose the buffet. Well, except for Mason. Mason was an exception to every rule, even right now as he sent one of his admiring followers to get his lunch for him.
Waste of flesh, Krystal sometimes thought of him.
Forgetting about the food service for now, Krystal sat in a chair at Davis’s table and rested her chin in her hand. “How’s it going, Davis?”
He made a so-so gesture with his hand. “Nothing ever goes right the first time. I’m sure you know that.”
“What are you working on this time?”
That cracked his face into a smile. “I’m loving it. Comic art with an impressionistic twist. Just wish I had more training with impressionism.”
“If I know anything about you, you’ll have all the training you need by the time you finish it.”
He laughed. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Endless training and learning.”
Then she started to rise. “I should go so you can eat.”
“I can eat around words,” he said dryly. “Don’t run on my account.”
Krystal glanced toward the serving bars and decided none of the trays appeared to be anywhere near empty, so she settled again, leaving the work to the people who had been hired to do it.
“How’s your work coming?” Davis asked.
“I swear there must be a load of things I’m more capable of than writing a novel.”
He swallowed, dabbed his mouth and smiled. “Then why did you decide to write one?”
“I thought I had a story to tell,” she admitted.
“You had one to tell or one you wanted to tell?”
She bit her lip, hearing the suggestion of truth in his question. “I’m not sure anymore.”
He nodded, ate another bite of his sandwich. “The problem,” he said, “is turning a hobby you love into a job you’re probably not going to love as much.”
Krystal couldn’t deny that.
“Try taking a break,” he suggested. “Take the pressure off yourself for a couple of weeks. I do that as often as I can.”
Which probably wasn’t very often, Krystal thought. Davis had contracts to fulfill. She didn’t have any of her own, though she dreamed of one, so the only way to keep moving was to push herself. Not exactly a good frame of mind for taking a restful break.
Before she could reply, an unmistakable hush spread through the dining room. The clatter of silverware ceased. Even Mason Cambridge’s inevitably loud, grating voice fell silent.
Instinctively, Krystal turned to look.
And there in the front doorway stood a hulking man, one she recognized, turned into a threatening shadow by the brilliance of the day behind him. Josh Healey, a man who rarely ventured beyond his own walls. Her heart raced a bit as she wondered what had brought him out of his isolation.
He offered no introduction. He simply made a demand in a deep, angry voice.
“Who the hell maimed and put a seriously injured dog outside my stockade?”
KRYSTAL WAS THE first to move, possibly because no one else moved at all. She felt nearly as stunned as they, but she at least knew who the angry man was: Josh Healey.
“Mr. Healey,” she said, trying to sound firm and strong. “What in the world makes you think anyone here would do such a thing?”
“Who else would?” He stepped into the large room, interior light at last casting human features over him. “The guy who raises sled dogs wouldn’t have a reason. The couple who have all the horses wouldn’t either. Sorry our presence bothers your holy retreat, but none of you is going to drive us out.”
With that, he turned on his heel and marched away.
Silence followed his departure, but only briefly as a cacophony of voices rose with every kind of speculation, some with fear of the mountainous man who’d just crossed lines and walked into their quiet, safe space.
Krystal didn’t even try to reassure anyone. It was pointless. They needed to talk about what had just happened, and being creative sorts, they’d probably have invented an entire story surrounding this event by nightfall’s gathering here.
No way she could stop them, and what would she stop them with, anyway? She had absolutely no idea what had truly happened. Without facts, fiction won the day.
Joan, who’d been in the kitchen, waved her over. Krystal paused just long enough to exchange a smile with Davis, although he appeared considerably more withdrawn now. Great.
The kind of disturbance Krystal and her mother tried so hard to prevent had just occurred. One man. Apparently a badly injured dog. Who the heck would want to harm a dog, anyway, unless it was attacking? Josh was right about that.
It certainly couldn’t have been anyone among their guests. Weapons of any kind were forbidden on these grounds.
Which, Krystal supposed, probably didn’t mean much at all to anyone who was determined to bring one with them.
Shaking her head slightly, she met her mother in the kitchen doorway. Joan was a lovely woman in her fifties with salt-and-pepper hair always perfectly styled. Every few weeks two hairstylists drove up here from Conard City to take care of the guests and they always did an exquisite job on Joan.
Joan drew Krystal back into her office, away from the two cooks, who were already preparing the dinner menu.
“What just happened?” Joan demanded. “I only caught that man walking away. Everyone out there seemed upset.”
Krystal couldn’t prevent a half smile. “Not for long. The stories are already growing. Paul Bunyan, anyone?”
“Krystal!” Joan said disapprovingly, but a twinkle appeared in her blue eyes so like her daughter’s. “No. Seriously. Is that the guy from across the creek?”
“The same.”
“Well, I’m sure he never bothered to cross that creek before. What happened?”
As the moments passed since the scene, Krystal’s stomach had begun to sink and now it sank more. The shock was gone, leaving only a fear of what had happened, of where it might lead. Of a sickening disgust over the kind of person who could maim a dog. “Somebody left an injured dog outside the stockade. I gather we’re the prime suspects.”
But Joan slid right past that thought. “A hurt dog? Did someone try to kill it? My God, Krys, how could anyone be so cruel?”
Krystal could think of a few. Not every person who lived in the little town of Cash Creek Canyon or its environs was naturally kind or good. The artists’ retreat might provide a haven from the rest of the world, but beyond it, in Cash Creek proper and the wooded lands surrounding the small town, all kinds of people lived, some of whom she did her best to avoid.
Krystal knew her mother wasn’t going to be able to blow the incident off and just enjoy tonight’s yarns about it. Nor, truthfully, would she.
“I’ll see what I can find out, Mom.”
Joan’s hand gripped her forearm. “Krys, that man...”
“Hasn’t killed me yet,” she said. “You know I’ve talked to him a couple of times.”
“Not really,” Joan said dryly, forgetting her worries briefly. But she let go of Krystal’s arm. “Be careful. Maybe you should take someone with you.”
Krystal bridled. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Besides, I don’t want to make the situation any tenser. I’ll just ask what happened, okay?”
Free at last, she headed for the door and grabbed her lightweight jacket from a peg.
This time she was going to get more than a yes or no from that man.
A STORM HAD begun to move in over the mountains. Usually they would get only moderate rain, being in the mountain’s rain shadow, but today looked and smelled different.
Krystal sniffed the air, felt the growing chill and decided she’d be unlikely to get back to the lodge dry after she talked to Josh Healey. No, she’d get back to her own cabin and spend the afternoon racking her brains trying to get words onto that damn page on the screen. And she’d believed she could write a novel. Hah!
Maybe some music would help. Sometimes it seemed to focus her brain, turning into a tool she ought to use more often than she did.
But first the issue with Josh Healey. If he’d been making a serious accusation, she had to defuse it. She’d heard he had a bunch of veterans behind the walls of his “sanctuary,” but she didn’t know what that might mean. Violent types on a hair trigger? Maybe. God knew, she’d heard enough about vets coming back from the war only to commit atrocities.
They certainly must feel paranoid to have built that huge stockade fence. Paranoia reflected in Healey’s accusation just a short while ago. Once again, she wondered just what she was dealing with when she crossed the creek. Was paranoia making them dangerous?
As she walked over the stepping stones and drew closer to that stockade wall, she couldn’t escape the fear that those walls were enclosing people who were capable of unimaginable horrors. A voluntary prison?
Sheesh! She tried to shake the feeling from the base of her skull, from the back of her neck. They’d been here nearly a year, she reminded herself. They’d made as small a mark on the Cash Creek area as anyone could. No reason to fear.
Unless, maybe, they felt they were under attack.
The dog.
Healey’s accusation rode with her. These guys weren’t going to be driven away? What had he meant?
Josh Healey apparently saw her approaching. A postern door in the wall opened and he stepped out.
Once again he didn’t speak a word to her, just stood there waiting in a camo rain jacket and hood, hands hanging at his sides. His splayed and powerful legs made him look as immovable as the mountains that surrounded them.
At last, realizing she was going to have to start this conversation or stand there waiting until winter returned in a few months, she drew a deep breath. It was more like a sigh, probably because she’d visited this place and this man before. A possibly hopeless task was ahead.
“What happened?” she asked without preamble.
“I told you.”
God, she was getting sick of his taciturnity even though their meetings had been few. “Damn it,” she said impatiently, “you stomped into our lodge, made something very much like an accusation and offered no useful information!”
His head tilted a bit. His aquamarine eyes showed a glimmer of interest. “I don’t recall leaving out any salient information.”
So Paul Bunyan here was educated. And so what? “You said someone maimed a dog and dumped it outside your wall. How do you know it was dumped? Why should you think anyone at the retreat had anything to do with it?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
Now impatience and irritation were starting to boil into anger inside her. “Listen, Healey...”
But he interrupted her, his voice as level as a slab of rock. “How about you listen for a change? The dog was dumped. How do I know? Because it had clearly been injured elsewhere. Not enough blood right here. It was a message, Metcalfe.”
That poked a pin in the balloon of her anger. She blew a long breath, shoved her inky hair back from her face and regarded him.
When she came right down to it, the only reasons she had to be annoyed by this man and his stockade were her own feelings about him and this fortress he’d built. After a year, some of it noisy to be sure, she couldn’t remember a single thing anyone over here had done to bother another soul.
Letting go of her anger, she studied Healey in a different light. He’d done not one thing to earn her dislike since he’d finished building this place. Not one.
What kind of story had she been building about him during all this time? Well, it would have helped if he’d made any effort to have a civil conversation. Which was ridiculous as an accusation. Nobody was required to talk with her or anyone else. She forced herself to plunge ahead anyway.
“Why are you so sure it’s a message to you, Healey? No one around here has a thing against you.”
“You think not?” He stared past her, into the woods, into the leaden day that was steadily shrouding the trees with a gray fog. Then those disturbing aquamarine eyes settled on her again.
“The problem,” he said flatly, “is that you people think you have a right to an open book. Sorry, you don’t. What goes on inside these walls, on my property, is no one else’s business. Speculate all you want, but it’s still the private business of those who live here.”
“And that makes you think someone would want to make you leave? Because of one dog? That’s ridiculous.”
His jaw set. “What’s next, Ms. Metcalfe? Another injured animal? A dead one? All to make us look bad?”
She shook her head, wanting to deny it, but unable to escape the sense that he might be right. “How’s the dog?”
“I took him back to his owner. Alive. What did you think I’d do?”
Then Josh Healey appeared to tense as he continued speaking, his voice growing hard. “People distrust us because they don’t know us. They don’t have the right to know us.”
“But if you could explain a little...”
“I don’t have to explain anything.” Then he stabbed a finger at her. “Has it occurred to any one of you, just one of you, that these walls have been built not to keep us in, but to keep the rest of you out?”
He pivoted, heading back for the door.
She took one last chance to head this conversation in a better direction. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”
He paused, glancing over his broad shoulder. “Have we? Maybe it’s been indirect, but it’s clear to me that you think our mere presence is an invasion.”
She nearly winced at his use of the word invasion because she had been thinking of them as invaders.
He waved an arm. “Ours.” He pointed across the creek. “Yours. No reason we ever have to meet. Unless someone throws another wounded animal outside our walls.”
She looked down, acknowledging that he was right, fearing she had just received an indirect threat but unsure. This guy kept her off balance somehow, and she didn’t like it. “Okay. But why are you so sure it’s a message, Mr. Healey?”
“Why else would anyone drag that injured animal to our wall? Think about it, Ms. Metcalfe.”
Then he turned and walked back into his stockade, leaving her to wonder how she could be so wrong. Or maybe so right?
Maybe someone had a grudge against someone inside that stockade. Maybe the people inside had drawn danger to Cash Creek Canyon.
She turned to recross the stepping stones and tried not to think of someone stalking these woods seeking vengeance.
She looked around as she reached her cabin and shivered, as if the day had suddenly turned colder. The first splatters of icy rain hit her face.
The woods no longer seemed as friendly.