“OPEN IT,” SAID AMY.
“Okay, okay. You can help me.” Patience took the baby, and together Mercy and Amy carefully unwrapped the gift.
It was a framed sketch of a striking nude woman with a crescent in her hair, holding a bow in one hand and a staff and a quiver of arrows in the other, standing tall against a background of full-leafed trees.
“Diana,” said Mercy.
“Goddess of the Hunt,” said Thrasher.
“And the woods and the moon and animals and new mothers and babies,” said Patience.
“She’s so beautiful,” said Amy.
“She’s so naked,” said Jade.
“Very appropriate.” Troy grinned at Mercy.
“It’s a Kenyon Cox,” said Thrasher. “Wonderful.”
“He wants me to find the other folly.”
“Sounds about right,” said Troy.
Mercy carried the sketch over to the fireplace and stood it on the mantelpiece. “Just until we can hang it properly.”
“Perfect,” said Patience. “Time for dessert.”
Over her grandmother’s triple-layered chocolate cake, they talked about everything from art and murder to the future of dairy farmers in Vermont. Mercy was content. Happy that there were so many people at her dining table, a prospect that would have mortified her even a month earlier.
“Other than interfering in our investigations,” said Thrasher, “what is it that you actually do, Ms. Carr?”
“Please call me Mercy.” The captain’s formality disconcerted her and she suspected that was purposeful on his part. Always the commanding officer. She wondered if anyone ever got the better of the man—and lived to tell about it.
“Mercy.” He turned those extraordinary blue-green eyes on her.
“I’ve been taking some time since my retirement to consider my options.”
“She helps me out at the animal hospital,” said Patience. “She’d make a fine vet. But her parents are pushing for her to finish her degree and go to law school. Join the family firm.”
“Really.” Thrasher raised an eyebrow.
Troy laughed. “The captain is not a big fan of lawyers.”
“Although your parents are lovely people,” Thrasher said.
Mercy smiled. “So far I’ve resisted that siren call.”
“It would be more productive if you worked with us rather than against us,” said the captain. “There’s a shortage of good working dogs and dog handlers.”
“We’re retired,” she said.
“Could have fooled me.”
* * *
THE LITTLE PARTY broke up. Patience packed up the dirty casserole dishes and cake pans and promised to come back the next day with new delights. Thrasher offered to drop Jade off at her grandparents’ on his way home, and Amy settled the baby down for the night. Bath, book, bed. Just like her grandmother ordered.
Mercy and Troy did the dishes and then took Elvis and Susie Bear outside. Usually she took visitors out to the back deck, but tonight she felt the need to sit out front, where she could see the flag. So much had happened over the past ten days that she felt alienated from Martinez, from the life they’d shared and the life they’d planned, from his memory and from her continued remembrance of him and what they were to each other. She didn’t want to forget him or get over him or move on with her life without him. But she had a terrible feeling that was just what she was doing.
While the dogs ran around the yard, Mercy and Troy settled onto the wide front porch. She sat in her grandfather’s white cedar rocking chair, and he sat in her grandmother’s matching one. Patience had given both of them to her when she’d moved in here. “You always need a pair,” her grandmother had told her. “One for you, and one for your guest.”
Troy was her first guest.
“Been quite a July so far,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You and Elvis make a good team.”
“We’re working on it.” She smiled as she watched Elvis bound down to the barn, Susie Bear on his heels. “He’s certainly my better half.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Oh, it’s true. All this time I’ve been so worried about taking care of him, while he’s actually been the one taking care of me.” For the first time it occurred to her that maybe that was what Martinez had intended all along.
“Dogs are like that.”
“I thought I was helping him get better.”
“You were. He is better.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Maybe it’s your turn now.”
“Maybe.” They looked out across the garden as the two dogs raced up from the barn and around the flower beds, brushing by the lavender and filling the air with its sweet scent as the sun set and the stars appeared in the dark summer sky.
“‘Blessed be the man that spares these stones,’” she quoted quietly. “‘And cursed be he that moves my bones.’”
“Shakespeare again. You said that in the woods when we found the bones.”
“Seems like a lifetime ago.” She felt like she’d lived several lifetimes since that day in the woods.
“Which play is it from?”
“It’s not from a play. It’s his epitaph,” said Mercy. “The assumption is that he wrote it. But no one knows for sure.”
“Right.”
“I was just thinking about the bones we found in the wilderness. No epitaph for him.”
“Not yet. But soon, thanks to you.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m sure Patrick O’Malley would prefer to spend eternity at home in Ireland.”
Troy stopped rocking and turned toward her. “May I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” She stopped rocking, too, but kept her eyes on the dogs.
“What’s up with all the Shakespeare?”
Mercy laughed. “Amy asked me the same thing.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her the truth. That reading his stories made me feel better about being human.”
“Pretty heavy for an eighteen-year-old.” Troy paused. “But it makes sense to me.”
He leaned back in his chair, and she followed suit. They sat there in silence for a moment, the only sound the panting of the dogs and the squeaking of the rockers and the hooting of the owls.
“So I guess tomorrow you’ll be back out looking for people lost in the wilderness.”
Troy smiled. “I’ve got patrols.”
“Right.” She smiled back. In his own way, the game warden was a rebel, just like his famous ancestor.
“So I guess tomorrow you’ll be back out looking for art lost in the wilderness.”
“Trade you,” she said.
He laughed. The man had a nice laugh.
“Martinez told me this story once about a monk who was lost in the wilderness. He came to this river too wide and wild to swim across. So he built himself a raft out of downed limbs and vine, and used it to ford the turbulent waters safely to the other bank. He continued his journey, carrying the raft with him. He carried it for a long time, until he could no longer smell the scent of water in the air. Then he put the raft down and set it on fire. After the flames burned out and nothing was left but smoke and embers, he went on his way. Ultimately he left the wilderness and went back home.”
Troy thought for a moment. “Why burn the raft? Why not leave it for the next guy who gets lost in the wilderness?”
“I asked the same questions.”
“And?”
“Sometimes you need to build your own effin’ raft.”
He laughed, and she laughed with him.
* * *
THEY SAT THERE together for a long time. Not saying anything. It seemed to Mercy that everything had been said, at least for now. Elvis and Susie Bear tired eventually, and came running back to the porch, curling up on either side of the rocking chairs.
It was a perfect warm summer night, filled with the deep sweep of starlight and silence. The sweet seesaw of the rocker lulled Mercy to sleep, and when she woke up, she found herself covered with a quilt, the handsome shepherd still at her feet. Troy and Susie Bear were gone.
Dawn was breaking, and she could see Orion rising over the horizon. Orion the hunter, beloved of Diana, goddess of the hunt, who was so distraught over his death that she turned him into the brightest constellation in the sky.
She gathered the quilt around her, and stood up. She glanced up at the flagpole, where the flag rippled gently in the slight wind from the south.
Mercy saluted. “Martinez.”
She whistled, and the shepherd hustled to his feet. As the sun rose slowly over the mountains and cast the cabin in shadow, Mercy and Elvis went inside.