CHAPTER ELEVEN

It had been several years since I’d had cause to meet with a teacher at Meridian High School.

The soft green buds of spring had given way to the leaves of early June along the branches in the groves of ash and poplar trees out front. A flag popped in the wind at the top of the flagpole, and the chain that held it aloft rang musically every time it struck the spar.

I checked in at the front office and inquired as to the whereabouts of the eleventh-grade social studies teacher named Molly Meadows. I was asked to take a seat inside the main office while I waited for the bell that signaled the end of the third period of the morning. I thumbed through the pages of a copy of Time magazine that was six months out of date. Joni Mitchell was on the cover, but the articles inside contained more depressing news than I had any interest in revisiting. When the bell finally sounded, a frazzled-looking woman behind the desk told me that I could proceed to Room 18 where Miss Meadows would be waiting for me.

I shouldered through a tidal current of teenagers rushing to their lockers, passed a clutch of cheerleaders in uniform holding court beside a trophy case, while the smell of cigarettes drifted out from underneath the door to the boys’ bathroom. I found the classroom I was seeking and knocked before I stepped inside.

“Good morning, Sheriff Dawson.”

“Miss Meadows,” I said, removed my Stetson, and took a seat in the guest chair beside her desk.

“I have this period free, so we have about forty-five minutes.”

She was conservatively dressed, a light-blue cotton blouse tucked into a knee-length skirt. She wore a pendant in the shape of what I took to be an astrological symbol on a simple silver chain encircling her neck.

“I never thanked you for your assistance at the council meeting,” she said. “That was inconsiderate of me, and I apologize.”

“It should never have been necessary. I don’t claim much tolerance for a mob.”

She smiled and suddenly appeared much younger than I recalled from that night at the Grange Hall, and seemed at odds with her slightly matronly demeanor. I judged her to be in her late twenties, with hair the color of a forest fawn and styled in a shag that brushed against the collar of her blouse.

“I remember your daughter from my class.” She hesitated and her concentration focused inward for a moment. “Laura? Yes. Laura Dawson.”

“That’s right.”

“A bright girl. Very sweet. I liked her very much.”

“She felt the same way about you.”

The room was a mélange of maps and presidential portraits, and a poster illustrating the three branches of our government. A framed copy of the Constitution had been hung at one side of the blackboard, together with the texts of all twenty-six amendments.

“Your daughter went by an unusual nickname,” she said. “Cricket?”

“I’ve called her that since the day she started crawling.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to use it. It seemed too personal somehow,” she said.

“I had expected to hear from you about the field trip you discussed,” I said. “Are you still planning to go out there before the school year ends?”

“There was a disappointing lack of support from the parents of my students. Fewer than a dozen have agreed to let their young people participate.”

“That’s unfortunate. But perhaps it’s for the best.”

The contours of her cheekbones sharpened, and she snapped her head around to meet my eyes.

“Oh, I still plan to go,” she said. “It’s more important now than ever.”

“Are you sure this is the hill you want to die on, Miss Meadows?”

She leaned her elbows on her desk and looked me over as if it were the first time she had seen me.

“This is America, Sheriff. We have a right to live the way we choose to, provided we do not impinge upon the rights of other citizens. The residents of the Rainbow Ranch have done no harm—”

“That we’re aware of.”

“Granted,” she nodded. “Nevertheless they are the embodiment of freedom. Have you visited their shops in town? Have you really seen them? They remind me of Persephone, a child of the flowers.”

“Persephone was forcibly abducted,” I said. “Carried off to the underworld, and bound over as a concubine.”

“You understand my meaning, though you pretend you don’t.”

“I cannot say I disagree with you, Miss Meadows. But I would feel better—as would the community at large—if you would allow me to escort you on your field trip. Think about your students; think about their parents. You’re putting your career on the line if anything at all should happen.”

She searched my face for signs of duplicity and found none.

“I like you, Sheriff,” she said. “Please don’t make me regret my trust in you.”

I exited the breezeway and stepped into the sunshine. The school bell rang again announcing lunch. On a grassy hummock a short distance from the outdoor benches, a pair of younger boys had caught a garden snake and were tormenting it with sticks. I strode across the lawn in their direction just as one of them snatched up the snake and tied its body in a knot. Their laughter carried on the wind as I approached, and I saw them toss the writhing body into the branches of a walnut tree.

“You find it amusing to cause pain to animals?” I said.

The boys smirked at one another before turning to address me.

“It’s just a fucking snake.”

“So it deserves your mistreatment?” I asked.

“What?”

I crossed my arms and looked from one, then to the other.

“Give it some thought,” I said. “It’s a simple question.”

“No.”

“Now I want you to experience how it feels to rescue something,” I said. “Climb your asses up that tree and set that creature loose.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

I sat down in the grass and shade and stretched out my legs. I leaned back on my elbows and looked into the branches of the tree.

“Get that snake down from there right goddamn now,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

I ate a cheeseburger and fries at the counter of Rowan Doyle’s diner in Meridian while I perused a handbill for the upcoming upcoming rodeo and county fair. I bought a couple of bottles of grape soda to go, and left a dollar as a tip on the counter.

I took my time walking back to the substation, the warmth of the sun at my back. The sky overhead was empty of clouds, but crosshatched with the gracile lines of contrails.

Snippets of music caught my attention as the noise from a car’s passing died away. A young man seated on an upturned milk crate played a steel-string guitar outside the health food store. A second one plucked the strings of a mandolin, while a barefooted girl danced in free form on the sidewalk wearing an organdy dress the color of pale yellow jessamine. They appeared neither to know or care that I watched them as they played, but the dancer slowed for a moment to smile at me before I continued on my way.

I stepped out of the fresh air and into the unventilated stillness inside the substation a few minutes later. We had repainted the dingy walls of the interior, but the place still retained a revenant odor that smelled like the husks of dead wood beetles. Two of my former cowboys—now sheriff’s deputies—were occupied at their desks. Samuel Griffin was pecking out paperwork on his Smith Corona, while Jordan Powell busied himself scooping seeds from a pomegranate that looked as though it had exploded onto a square of butcher paper.

“Your desk blotter looks like a crime scene,” I said as the door swung shut behind me.

“Afternoon, Sheriff,” Samuel said without looking up from his work.

“You want a bite of this here, Captain?” Powell asked.

Powell was the only one I allowed to address me in that manner, primarily because it had become his habit. He was still one of my best cattle ropers, having been with the Diamond D for going on ten years. Early on, Powell had begun the practice of referring to me by my former military rank, though he and I had fought in entirely different wars. I knew he meant it as a sign of respect, not affectation, and I tolerated the eccentricity for what it was.

Griffin, too, was an extraordinary cowboy, and like Powell, had seen military combat in Vietnam, though Griffin had served as a marine. He had not been with the ranch nearly as long as Powell, but he rode for the brand, and had proven his loyalty to me beyond any question. The other hands had not made it easy on him at first, having not encountered too many black cowboys before Sam Griffin came along.

“Sam, I’m going to need you to come with me tomorrow,” I said. “We’re escorting a group of high school students and their teacher on a field trip.”

He stopped typing and said, “Pardon me?”

“They’re taking a tour of the Rainbow Ranch, and we’re going along for the ride.”

“I don’t mean to second-guess you here, Sheriff. But does it really take both of us to do that?”

“I could use an extra pair of eyes,” I said.

The sound of running water made a gurgling sound in the pipes inside the wall. This was followed by the thud of something heavy being dropped on the floor upstairs.

“You boys have someone in the holding cells?”

“Leon Quinn,” Griffin said. “That’s what I’m typing this paperwork for.”

“What’d he do?”

“The usual.”

“Anybody get hurt?”

“No, sir.”

“Lankard Downing’s feelings, maybe,” Powell added.

Quinn was a frequent overnight occupant in our cages, a sad, ordinarily harmless alcoholic who sometimes caused a stir at the Cottonwood Blossom a couple of blocks away. He could grow boisterous and rude when he went on a bender, but was usually harmless, except to himself. The vicissitudes of his upbringing had been so detestable, his adult choices so debased, that the mere mention of his name had become an admonition in this town. The words “Leon Quinn” were all that a parent needed to say in order to haul in the reins on a contrary or difficult child.

I headed upstairs, and when I reached the landing at the top of the stairwell was confronted by the stale funk of body odor and whatever he had just flushed down the toilet.

“Are you doing all right, Leon?” I asked.

He was seated on the folding cot, wrestling with one of his boots.

“Sorry, Sheriff,” he said. “I was pulling my boots on and I dropped one.”

I could hear the muted mutterings of Griffin and Powell deep in conversation downstairs. I could not hear the words, but the tone had a familiar ring to it. The boys back at the ranch had taken to calling Sam Griffin “The Deacon,” owing to his penchant for engaging in spontaneous conversations that were spiritual in nature.

“You ready for me to let you out of there, Leon?”

“I thought I was, but the ceiling keeps moving around.”

“Stomp on the floor a few times when you want to go,” I said. “Somebody will come up and get you.”

Leon put his head down on the mattress and threw a forearm across his eyes. When I went back downstairs, my deputies’ conversation came to an abrupt conclusion. Outside the front window, I saw Nolan Brody pull to the curb in his dark green MGB convertible. I moved quickly out the door to head him off before he had the chance to step into the office.

He slid his sunglasses onto the top of his head and rested an elbow on the unoccupied passenger seat.

“I understand you had a meeting with Miss Meadows at the high school this morning.”

“You drove a long way just to share that tidbit of intel with me,” I said.

“I was in town meeting with a client. Anyway I am happy to know that you’re doing as I asked. I’ll expect a report when you come back.”

“Every man is entitled to his expectations,” I said. “It’s a beautiful day. Enjoy your drive home.”

“I’m curious why you’re allowing those kids up the block to panhandle.”

“They’re not panhandling; they’re playing music. Nobody’s complained to me about it.”

“I’m complaining.”

“Then go somewhere else. You don’t make your home in Meridian, Mr. Brody.”

He gazed into his rearview mirror and watched the young musicians up the block. Then he turned toward me and drew in a breath as if dealing with a petulant child.

“When I was a young boy,” he said. “I used to visit my grandparents at their cabin outside of Whistler. Beautiful there, by the way, if you haven’t been. At any rate, I befriended a young fawn, left food out for it every day. Eventually it ate right out of my hand. My grandfather warned me against doing that, told me the animal would fail to learn how to fend for itself, and never know the dangers posed to it from human interaction.”

“Sounds like you enjoyed a lovely childhood. Have a nice afternoon,” I said and turned toward the substation.

“I’m not finished yet, Sheriff. You see, as that young deer got older, he kept returning to the cabin. Over the years, he grew a fine rack on his head, and he continued to accept the food that I left out for him. One day he failed to return and even though I continued to leave things for him, he never came back. Needless to say, I was heartbroken.

“The following summer, my grandfather took me to a restaurant for dinner. Over the hearth was the mounted deer’s head. I recognized those antlers right away.”

“That’s a very distressing story,” I said. “I believe I have the business card of a clinical psychologist in the drawer of my desk. I’ll get it for you. I believe you should give her a call.”

“You know, the federal government has begun to post signs inside our national parks that warn against feeding the animals. It makes them dependent. I can see nothing wrong with those kids up the block that would prevent them from getting a proper job.”

“Is there something you’re trying to say?” I asked. “I never went to law school, so when you speak to me it sounds like nothing but word hash.”

He slid his sunglasses back into place on the bridge of his nose and stared at me.

“Thank you again for accompanying Miss Meadows and her class.”

“You can thank me by turning your car around.”

Sam Griffin was waiting by the door when I stepped back inside.

“I couldn’t help but hear your conversation,” Griffin said.

“You probably could have, but you obviously didn’t.”

“Do you mind if I say something, Sheriff Dawson?”

“Is this going to be a scriptural dialogue? I don’t believe I’m in the proper frame of mind right now.”

“No, sir,” he said. “I’d like to drop a little Thomas Jefferson on you.”

“Let ’er rip, then, Sam.”

“Mr. Jefferson said, ‘I prefer the dreams of the future to the history of the past.’”

“I take it you’re referring to the kids playing their guitars up the street?”

Griffin shrugged.

“Woe awaits a country when she sees the tears of bearded men,” I replied. “I believe it was Sir Walter Scott who said that.”