Chapter Nineteen

Blue Moon led Pearl and Reba to the Worthy Mine hidden in a cleft of the mountain against the foot of a butte. Brush, weeds, multi-sized pebbles and sagebrush covered the holed out entrance. The ape’s head rock jutted from the hill. Scruffy shadows like a day old beard where mountain and desert met further obstructed the view.

They saw Seth collapsed at the entrance.

Pearl slid off the horse and scooted over to him. “Is he dead?”

Blue Moon checked his pulse. “No, but he’s very weak and dehydrated.”

They revived him with wet cloths and sips of water. When he regained full consciousness, Blue Moon explained, “My family and I have been guarding this place for years. We were convinced some day family members would return.”

Seth gulped some breaths and more water.

“We’ve got to get you medical help,” Pearl said.

“No! Find Champ.”

“Champ?” Reba looked around. “What are you talking about?”

“Over the cliff.” He pointed up the hill. “But don’t let Reba go.”

A thought stabbed her. “Johnny Poe. Where’s Johnny Poe?”

Tears puddled his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I tried to save him. Something went wrong. Terribly wrong.”

Pearl stayed with Seth as Blue Moon and Reba tracked horse prints in the sand. They scoured the cliff edges for sight of horse or man. Blue Moon discovered Johnny Poe down the cliff, crashed against a boulder, body bent.

Reba screamed as she slid down, ripping against cactus and sharp, chipped rocks. “Nooo!” She cradled the lifeless head and wept. A few minutes later she felt an insistent tap on the shoulder.

“There’s a man barely alive down there.”

She pulled up from her awkward position, stomped a sleeping leg, and peered further below. Champ’s body awkwardly straddled jagged rocks. She barely heard pitiful cries of “Help!” She wiped her tears and pried herself to alertness. “What should we do?”

“He’s in a lot of pain with a number of injuries. As a rule, he shouldn’t be moved in that condition, but we can’t leave him here in the heat and elements. I have some Desert Juniper herbs for pain that might help. Meanwhile, I’ll figure out a travois of some sort.”

Reba’s mouth so dry she couldn’t swallow, she grappled to speak. “I can help. Not sure about Grandma and Seth.”

When they returned to the mine entrance, Pearl and Seth were gone, but some timbers removed left space enough to squeeze through. “They must have gone inside.” Blue Moon peered in and yelled.

Pearl called back and a lantern light appeared. “Here we are. I’m trying to keep Seth from going too far and getting lost.”

Seth stumbled forward and while everyone sipped water, Blue Moon said, “We need to push against the wall.”

“Where?” Reba asked.

Blue Moon grabbed a shovel from his saddlebag and banged against a hardened edifice inside the entrance. As the wall began to disintegrate, Pearl said, “Seth, are you sure you’re ready for what you might find?”

“That’s why I came. What is, is.” He punched the wall with a rusty pick. Every hit renewed his vigor. The years peeled away from his face and whole body, as he penetrated a possible solving a nearly eighty-year cold case mystery. Then his pick clattered metal on metal.

“Is that a steel door?” Pearl felt around the dirt caked shelf.

Blue Moon and Seth cleared away the rest of the debris.

“You hit a door knocker,” Reba said. Underneath wood she noticed a brass mail slot.

They pounded until layers of crusted dirt broke away.

Seth turned the doorknob. “Locked.”

The thick blonde wood with white faded patina more than six feet tall fell back as they all shoved. Seth handed the lantern to Pearl and turned on a flashlight. So did Blue Moon.

They began to pass through one at a time. Reba bumped into a kind of workbench stored with pottery bowls and dishes. She scanned other objects. A couple rusty open buckets and some with lids, oil wick lamps, a pickaxe, and sledge hammer. The light also illuminated two Winchester rifles next to a barrow.

“It’s a cave. Is this where your mother lived?” Reba asked Seth.

“I never saw this place before. She lived out front, outside the mine.”

“Maybe to throw off suspicion,” Blue Moon said. “Look at the rough stone rocky wall and the floor full of tailings with blue and green tints.”

“What is it?” Reba inquired.

“Turquoise,” Blue Moon said.

“Like the gem, you mean?”

“Of course. I knew this mine was here. My family has known for years. I’ve been picking out turquoise from the other route for decades.”

“But I thought this was a gold mine,” Reba said.

Seth held the cool rag against his forehead. “I’ve been ashamed to admit it, but Mama didn’t have an actual mine. That is, I didn’t know about the turquoise. Didn’t realize that part of the necklace came from her mine. I did discover she took gold Uriah Runcie brought her from other mines and recycled it as her own. And though the law was against her, most folks in Goldfield thought highly of this practice. ‘God put gold in the dirt and it belongs to him or her who digs it out,’ they said. Those who disagreed felt they owned the mines outright and what was brought out of them.”

A sweep of the lantern revealed something else. “It’s also a grave.”

“Yes, I knew that too,” Blue Moon said. “I heard the spirits call.”

Reba wanted to check on Seth and his response to this grisly unearthing but she couldn’t help gawk as she counted four skeletons. One lay prone on top a cave shelf like a catacomb. Another kneeled and stretched over this one as though grieving the loss. Two others sat at the foot, heads lurched forward, guards to the end.

“It wasn’t deadfall,” Blue Moon commented.

Reba stepped closer. “This one has a hole in the head.”

“Could be a bullet.” Pearl turned to Seth. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. That very well could be my mother.”

“But why is she here? Why couldn’t you find her when you came back?”

“I don’t know. Somebody had to move her.”

Reba placed the lantern on a shelf. “What are these wooden molds and equipment for? And over here looks like a safe and vault, like the remains of an old bank.” She tried to open it. Pearl and Blue Moon pulled too. Out spilled hundreds of twenty-dollar pieces.

“Don’t get too excited,” Seth warned. “I’m pretty sure it’s counterfeit. Mama minted bogus five, ten, and twenty gold pieces and circulated them at big occasions like Tex Rickard boxing events. The more visitors from far away places, the better. Mama and Papa spoke harsh words about it. He told her to stop, but she persisted.”

“Your mother ran quite an operation from this site,” Pearl observed.

“She was a smart business woman. But, I’m sad to say, not an honest one. She took advantage of the seclusion of the Worthy Mine.”

Reba eased by the safe and inched out of the cave room full of skeletons. She couldn’t endure the sight anymore. Her changing impressions of Eve Stroud colored her former sympathy. No wonder bad things happened to this woman, who apparently was her great-great grandmother. She opened herself and her family to all sorts of vices and evils.

Yet, Seth still loved her through the years, part of the God-given bond of a child for a parent. She fought an immersion into gloom. A bond she’d never experienced. And now she’d even lost Johnny Poe. She tried to stifle a sob.

Seth covered his eyes as he exited the room. “I knew coming back might expose my mother’s wrongdoing. That’s one reason I never returned with Maidie. It would be too much for her.” Family skeletons in a closet cave. “At least I know now where they are. And I can bury them. Next to Molly and Maidie.”

~~~~

Reba refused to leave Johnny Poe when they decided to take Champ away. And despite her fierce objections, Pearl insisted on staying too. Seth and Blue Moon fashioned a crude travois from rope and cactus tree branches for poles. After some Desert Juniper, Champ cursed them and the universe with every as-gentle-as-possible move to get him settled and down the hill.

Blue Moon promised to return with more shovels to bury Johnny Poe deep enough to keep him from carnivorous critters. “I’ll get hold of emergency services, the first chance we get,” Blue Moon said. “As soon as they arrive for your friend, we’ll return.”

“He’s no friend of ours,” Reba insisted. “You have a phone?”

“I’ll send a smoke signal.” She couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.

Seth picked one of Blue Moon’s mares to ride. The mare with the S.P. saddlebag stayed with the women. Blue Moon pulled the travois.

Reba tried to feel empathy for Champ’s howls of agony. But all she could think of was her beloved dead horse. Because of him. And Maidie’s shame and despair. Because of him. She tried to drum up a smidgeon of something positive out of this horrific scene. “At least I didn’t have to put Johnny Poe out of his misery. That would have unhinged me.”

Reba and Pearl poured water from the canteens to drench bandanas for their necks and heads and slurped the rest. The last of the sun blocker cream skimmed over exposed skin, they hunched under the sparse shade of a Joshua tree. Large, erect, evergreen arms aloft and spread wide, waving like the biblical Joshua. They guarded Johnny Poe as the men disappeared from view.

Alone together here in the desert not far away from skeletons of her newly found family members, Reba blurted out, “I want to see her.”

“Who? You mean, Hanna Jo?”

Reba nodded.

“It won’t be easy.”

“I still want to go.”

Pearl moaned either from the insufferable heat or pangs from the exploits of her errant adopted daughter. “So do I.”

Sweat streamed from Reba’s pores and drenched her clothes. “I thought you didn’t care for her anymore. You never talk about her.”

“I love her very much, as much as I love you.” Reba peered at the woman who looked every bit the age of her sixty-nine years. “The agreement Seth and I made...I could adopt Hanna Jo if I never revealed who her mother or her father was, which I assumed was Zeke.”

Reba tried to absorb every respite of coolness from the stingy shade she could by sitting still and quiet. Yet she shook. A kind of nervous tremor. Grief over Johnny Poe. For Seth. Fury against Champ.

Pearl sighed. “I admit it. I wanted to keep the Cahill Ranch from the Runcies, for a number of reasons. All the run-ins over the years. So many situations. I also wanted to protect you. There’s bad blood in that family. And I certainly did not want to spend family holidays with Champ if you married Tim.” She hesitated. “Or Don.”

Flashes of scenes of Thanksgiving and Christmas, just her and Grandma Pearl, came to mind. She added Grandpa Cole’s vibrant presence years earlier. And on occasion, the addition of Vincent. A righteous anger vented through her veins again. “But was it right for you to make that decision for me?”

Pearl rose up, unsteady on her feet.

“Where are you going? You need to stay here.”

“Over to the mare. I’ll be right back.” She staggered a bit and opened the saddlebag with the initials S.P. and slid out a leather wrapped, hand tooled journal. She hugged it to her chest and scooted down beside Reba. “I’ve been praying about the right time to show you this. For some bizarre reason, it seems the right time now.” She shuffled through the pages and stretched it out to Reba. “This is Maidie’s diary from decades ago. You can scan over the rest later. I marked the entries to read now.”

Reba reached out for the journal with her sweaty hands. Another tremor. This time of apprehension. She tried hard to brace herself for the contents. What was so traumatic that caused Pearl to tremble? Was this what impelled her to drive from Road’s End all the way to the desert? “Why don’t you read it out loud to me?”

“Sorry. I can’t.”

Reba grasped the leather. She cradled it on her arms and gently tapped the page to keep it open. With a quick scan, she noticed a gap in time between the entries. Full of trepidation, she began to read.

May 15, 1944 ... I’ve been taking care of little Donnie Runcie while Blair works the mill office. His father Champ came by to pick him up today. I’d never seen him so roaring drunk before. He asked if Seth had returned home from the barbershop and I said No. He went off with Donnie then returned an hour later alone and with a rope. He grabbed me and tied my hands behind my back before I had mind enough to know what he was doing. He was real strong and I kept saying No, No, No. He said it was the pants and perfume I was wearing that made him do it.

October 12, 1944 ... I told Champ about what I feared and asked him what he was going to do about it. He told me Zeke did it. I told him Zeke never did any such thing and never would.

November 22, 1944 ... It is the day before Thanksgiving and Zeke fell off the Runcie roof. I can’t stop crying. I want to stay in my room and never come out.

February 23, 1945 ... A baby boy was born first and real quiet. Could not get him to breathe or cry. A baby girl arrived soon after and she bawled and bawled no matter what I did, a high piercing wail, and I cried hard too until Seth took her away. Finally I got some sleep. I woke up when Champ came to my room and grabbed the good little boy who never made a sound. I yelled for him to bring him back but he stole my baby, the quiet one. I wish he could take the awful pounding in my head away too. And bring back my Zeke.

A tense, awkward silence burned the seconds, more scorched than the desert sun. In the distance storm clouds clashed. Humidity threatened to smother them. Then a smatter of sizzling rain. Reba willed her glazed eyes to focus, to read the entries again, more slowly, prodding the words to make sense. What did this have to do with her? Somehow she knew it did, but her mind rebelled. She tried to connect the dots and they scrambled into noisy static.

“Why did Champ come here?” she finally said.

“Guilt. He determined his and his father’s sins never be exposed. And I wonder…”

“Wonder what?”

“If Zeke’s fall had anything to do with Champ attempting to hide what he’d done. With Zeke alive, he could profess his innocence for Maidie’s pregnancy. With him dead, others would presume…”

What was Pearl saying? What did the journal reveal? She couldn’t think clear. Then the truth slammed her. Champ raped Maidie. Her mother was the result of that rape. And a baby boy. Champ’s my...grandfather. That makes Don...an uncle. And Tim my first cousin. She tried to speak. “That morning...after Maidie’s funeral...I saw Champ at a tombstone...near Coyote Canyon. It was marked David Daniel, February 23, 1945.”

“So that’s what he did with the twin.” Pearl pressed her lips together and clutched her hands against them.

“Why be so sentimental toward the lost son and so hard against us?”

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know the connection. And most every man has some spark of humanity. Even evildoers.”

“Did he hire the Dalton gang to try to stop Seth from coming here? Did they also blow up Seth’s house? And what about the vandalism of ours too? None of it makes any sense.”

“It doesn’t have to. Tormented men do crazy things. Plus the fact some of that gang adlibbed along the way. And Champ has not been known for having a whole lot of logic in his actions.”

They waded through their thoughts until Blue Moon and Seth returned with four wheelers and two men. When they brought out the large shovels, Reba shuddered with fresh sobs. Lord, this is too much. She had to turn away. Pearl stood silently with her as her shoulders shook. They removed saddle, blanket, harness and finally buried Johnny Poe. Reba managed a few words about her horse and concluded with, “No honest tackle brought you down. He killed you, Johnny Poe.”

She tried her best to compose herself after the makeshift funeral. They maneuvered the wall and door back in place to protect the skeletons from predators.

Seth distributed to each of them a handful of counterfeit gold coins. “I’ll ask Cal Tiggers to study the bones. We also need to bring soil and plant samples from around the scene. Although it may not make much difference, whatever he finds. But I need to know for sure these are my family members. Then the past is past.”

“What about justice?” Reba wondered aloud.

Seth leaned against her. “All will be rectified some day by the One whose judgment is just and final.”

“And full of mercy,” Pearl added.

Reba’s head throbbed. “But it’s obvious someone moved Eve’s body after Seth found her. And it’s possible he or she or they coaxed the girls into that room somehow or they ran in to be with her and refused to come out and then were locked in.”

“It’s too horrible to consider,” Pearl replied.

“Do you think Champ suspected any of this?”

“That would explain why he wanted to hide it all. Perhaps he heard his father say something.”

His father. My great-grandfather. The one who probably murdered Seth’s mother. Who was my... Reba had to shut her mind down.

~~~~

After the return to Goldfield, they found out Champ had been life-flighted by helicopter to Tonopah and then to Spokane, Washington where specialists in spinal injuries could treat him.

“Whatever his condition, I think he has some charges to face,” Jace said.

“His condition is part of the sentencing,” Pearl added.

Jace informed his mother of the skeletons at the mine and the need to transport them to a coroner, a friend of Cal Tigger’s.

“We’ll wait with you for the results, then follow you back to Road’s End,” Pearl told Seth.

Seth looked Reba straight in the eyes. “I’m not leaving,” he announced.

Pearl and Reba stood dumbfounded. Questions and objections clouded their faces.

“The house we lived in here is for sale for a not bad price and I’m going to buy it. I need to stay down here a while and finish taking care of Maidie. And Mama. And my sisters.”

They tried to protest. What more could he do? But he insisted.

“There are still questions in my mind I need to sort out. Right here. I want to spend more time at the mine, if the McKanes will allow, and dig for answers around town.”

“We’ll miss you terribly. You know that, don’t you?” Reba replied.

“I’ll miss you too. I have very little family left alive. But I knew from the beginning this would likely be a one-way ticket.”

Reba again started to argue with him, but he cut her off. “Tell the guys at the whittling bench goodbye for me. And you can use the garage and apartment and garden however you want. Or sell them. They really belong to you now anyway. And to Hanna Jo.”

“We’re going to go find her.” Reba felt fully confident of that.

“I believe you will. Give her a kiss for me.” Seth hugged Pearl as though he wouldn’t let go.

“Seth…” Reba began. The words froze in her throat.

Seth hugged her tight and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you for making this final journey with me.”

The old man seemed settled, at peace, resigned to his fate for his last days.

~~~~

Before Pearl and Reba left Goldfield they said farewell to Tucker and his family who headed back to Road’s End before them.

“Don’t spend too much time in the casinos,” Reba cautioned.

“Not to worry. Been there, done that.” Tucker waved and scooted into the driver’s seat of the orange Toyota wagon. Tucker beamed. So did Ida.

Thank you, Lord.

Ida and the boys pulled on their ice bandanas as they drove away.

Reba and Pearl paused at the Goldfield Cemetery in front of five plain white temporary cross markers with no names next to the Molly Stroud Fortress’ flat gravestone. One each for Eve, Lucina, Radene, Valmy. And Maidie. White decorative rock scattered through a pile of broken pieces of purple and turquoise glass around them.

Jace drove over to them and Abel showed off gold flakes he panned and proudly displayed a mustang adoption kit. “It includes registration card, a list of horses, a bumper sticker, a certificate, and they’ll mail me letters.”

Reba couldn’t help giving hugs and kisses for them both on their cheeks. It seemed fitting and proper after the adventures they’d shared. She wasn’t sure if she wanted more from Jace or not. Too much in her life to assimilate right now.

“I’m so sorry about Johnny Poe,” Jace whispered in Reba’s ear. “I know there will never be another horse like him for you.”

His words brought more comfort than she believed possible. But she couldn’t express it. Not at that moment. She simply nodded instead.

Irving piled out of the Volvo from the back seat. “Hey, where’s my hug?”

Reba and Pearl stretched their arms in tandem to reach around the huge young man. “Jace promised to take me all the way to Vegas. I think that’s where I belong.”

“Our prayers will be with you,” Pearl said.

“See you in Road’s End,” Jace continued. “Eventually. We’ll visit with mother first. Then we’re going home by way of Vegas and Casa Tierra. Abel and I have family to see too.” He fist bumped Irving.

“Thanks for interceding for Seth about the Worthy Mine situation.”

“Yeah. Like divine providence.” He gave her a wink.

They waved until the Volvo was out of sight.

~~~~

When they reached Desert City Mental Health Institution near Reno, Reba put on the squash blossom necklace at Pearl’s insistence. “Maybe it will jog something for Hanna Jo. I don’t know for sure. But then, we have no idea what kind of condition she’ll be in.”

Reba felt the cool, smooth stones. “I hope it doesn’t make it worse for her.”

The institution’s main entrance was way in the back. A narrow, cobbled path led to the front doors. Men of all ages played basketball in a fully fenced cement court. Dreary brick outside walls had high window slots.

Inside, linoleum floors shined. Office girls smiled while filing papers in long, endless drawers.

A woman with Dr. Joyce Castleberry nametag approached them. Not a big woman, her over-sized movements emphasized her intenseness and importance. “The prosecuting attorney represented the state. Hanna Jo was appointed a defense attorney. Neither of them had contact with her before the trial. But they allowed an unusual procedure: voluntary commitment. If she ever tried to leave before the designated time, they’d change the order to involuntary commitment. She thought it would look better on her record.”

Dr. Castleberry introduced them to Thelma, a black woman with hair dyed in gold tones and tied in long cornrows who worked at the institution. “Hanna Jo called in the middle of the night and said the police were taking her here. She was my next-door neighbor. I was allowed into the restricted hearing. They seemed to treat her fair enough, but she felt like they were sending her to prison.” She looked around. “Not too far from it. You’ll see.”

Reba felt a throb and catch in her heart as they followed Thelma down a corridor. Cold strips from ceiling fluorescent bulbs lighted the room and tiles on the floor alternated dark green, light green as her boot heels clomped down the hall that reeked of some sort of acrid chemical. Blank faces of slumped figures in a misfit of castaway chairs turned their way. Reba did a quick study on each of them, prying for recognition of her mother.

She held onto a doorjamb, trying to gain comfort from the cold metal, and leaned forward into what appeared to be the TV room. Sadness and grief haunted this place, but Reba tried to gather a warm bundle in her heart.

She fixated on someone in a recliner. The hair’s not right. Too straight and stringy. Not red enough. The eyes too dull. The face too full and bloated. This can’t be Hanna Jo. “Mom?” Reba said.

The woman didn’t move.

“Hello, Mom. I’m Reba. Reba Mae. Your daughter.” What name did she call me? She couldn’t remember. Should she talk louder?

The woman lifted her head, hair flat, frayed, faded. Glazed eyes seemed to try to pierce through a fog. For a moment, a glint of recognition, the length of a camera flash. Then the shutter closed.

Pearl touched Reba’s arm. “We can come again. Perhaps in time...”

Reba shook her head and sat down at the edge of the recliner. An air conditioner hummed. A door down the hall slammed. A gentle air draft made her shiver. She looked around the room.

A woman rocked back and forth in a straight back chair eating from a bag of cheesy puffs.

Another woman fussed at a man who switched TV channels back and forth from a children’s program to a soap opera. She smiled when she caught Reba’s eye. “Howard is our organizer of events.”

Howard had his legs crossed, one swinging like a pendulum, his eyes consumed with the screen. His mouth jerked when the woman beside him tapped his shoulder. “See our rooms, then you’ll know it’s not a party in here.” His left arm limped to the side. “Take her in your car and let her see the ducks and flowers. All we see in here is cement.” Then he turned the volume up.

Pearl nudged Hanna Jo and motioned toward the hallway. She shook her head.

Howard stood up and jaunted to the bathroom. Another man bee-lined to the TV when the bathroom door closed and messed up the channels.

“He always does that this time every day.” Howard’s couch companion squinted at the clock.

Howard returned and glared at the man. “Hey, black beard, who told you to live?”

“He’s okay,” the woman said. “He’s just pretend. He’s not real.”

A deep male deep voice intoned over the intercom: “Third and fourth floors meet at the door for smoking and outside break.”

Hanna Jo got up, held Pearl’s arm, and walked to the hall with Reba behind. An attendant led them to a private room.

Hanna Jo collapsed into a chair. Her hands and face shook. Her voice slurred. “My roommate’s always sleeping. That’s all she ever does, but she’s real nice. Her name is Betty Nielson. I call her Bumper.” She opened her eyes and stared hard at Reba and at the necklace. “That’s mine.” She reached out to grab it.

Reba held her hand as she clutched it. “You recognize it?”

“Maidie. She gave it to me.”

Reba looked at Pearl. “But Maidie gave it to me too. Did you give it back?”

She pulled away her arm and sat back. “Yes, I did. My father gave it to her.”

Reba stood very still. She sensed another possible unmasking or affirmation. She didn’t try to look at Pearl. “Your father? You mean, Cole Cahill?”

She smiled and rocked back and forth. “A very nice man. Much nicer than my father.”

Reba grasped at another detour. “You mean Zeke? Zeke Owens?”

“Zeke? No, that’s not him. They call him Champ. After the name of an airplane. When am I going to get out of here?”

So she knew. But how?

Pearl tried to explain to Hanna Jo. “The doctor told us you’re on seven day observation. After that, they prescribe a program and set a tentative release date, if you cooperate and show signs of improvement.”

Reba noticed a Band-Aid on Hanna Jo’s wrist. She gently pulled it back to reveal splotches of deep scratches and dark red stains. “What is this?”

Hanna Jo attempted a laugh. “I stole some toothpicks at the courthouse kitchen.”

Reba’s stomach churned. No signs of improvement there.

Hanna stabbed Reba with her finger. “Your daddy. How is he doing?”

My daddy? The one from a host of lovers she couldn’t identify? She tried to think of a calm, non-combative response. “I don’t know. I never met him. Did I?”

She leaned forward, a wisp of conspiracy in her eye. “Oh, yes. Michael says you know him. He lives right there in Road’s End. His name is Don. Don Runcie. Isn’t that a kick?” All hint of sparkle faded. Her lids half-closed. She rubbed the Band-Aid on her wrist. “Don’t you see? That’s why I had to run away. I didn’t know about Maidie and Champ and all of it until after I was already pregnant. Don’t you see?” Her eyes begged for understanding.

The convulsion of shock paralyzed Reba. She forced herself to overcome, to find control. She leaned toward Pearl. “Did you know that too?” She parsed and stomped on each word in a forced whisper.

Pearl shook her head. “No, I didn’t. But I should have guessed. She must have gone right to Maidie’s after I talked with her that day she turned eighteen.” She opened her arms wide and reached out to Hanna Jo. “Oh, my sweet girl. May God heal you of all you’ve endured. May he restore you.”

Hanna Jo’s head lifted, her own arms outstretched. Then they fell and her eye lens shuttered closed again. She stared past them, as though into another world. Pearl held her until an attendant ushered them out.

When they left, Reba asked the attendant about the toothpick incident.

“An oversight. We’re so sorry. Whatever you see or hear from the patients, you can be sure that we are careful. We offer everything we’ve got in order to give them the best care. In a place like this, paranoia can be a rational coping mechanism. What they believe is true usually is not.”

Reba pondered those last words as they left Desert City Mental Health Institution. Perhaps what Hanna Jo revealed in a seeming lucid moment might not be fact. But why would she say such a thing? Reba sighed in total exhaustion, weary of the stream of revelations about her family. That infected her. This last one Hanna Jo alluded to could be the worst of all.

Pearl cut through her thoughts. “Don’t you see how much God has been protecting you through the years?”

All the way home to Road’s End, Reba conversed with the God who seemed to not protect her mother and grandmother.And great-great Grandma Eve.