Fern Bush watered Sago palms and succulents in a shaded atrium off her bedroom when she heard the landline trill in the kitchen.
“Drat.” She set down the watering can, grabbed her cane, and clumped down a long hallway, slippers squeaking on shiny, reddish Saltillo clay tiles.
Forty years ago, she had fallen in love with the colorful Mexican-style floors when she and her late husband Sam had bought the rambling burnt-brick ranch house in Tucson’s Catalina Foothills area. Over time, the uninhabited desert around their place had been built up with custom homes patterned after European villas or Southwest compounds.
The answering machine blinked when she reached the kitchen. She hit the play button, a mix of guilt and anxiety hitting her as she listened to the message from Rod Stone, her investment guy. She picked up the phone but set it back down. The day before, at Stone’s urging, she had sold off her dividend mutual funds. The proceeds would take a couple of days to transfer to her bank account. Those mutual funds had averaged a paltry six percent gain in each of the past few years, far less than the investment returns Stone was promising. She was certain her departed husband would have wanted her to seek better returns.
She listened to the message again. “Mrs. Bush, this is Rod Stone. I hope you’re having a wonderful day. I wanted to touch base with you on what we talked about. If you don’t have plans for lunch, I’d like to take you out to your favorite steakhouse this afternoon. Please call me soon. Bye bye.”
She should call back, but something made her hold off. Rod was a nice guy and a successful businessman, but a bit overwhelming. When he talked finance, she always felt ignorant. She’d run out to Bashas’ for groceries and call him when she returned.
The phone rang again. She picked it up, resigning herself to lunch with Rod Stone.
Instead, she was surprised to hear her son in Albuquerque on the line. “Clark, how are things? I’m doing fine. I went to the doctor yesterday and she says I’m as healthy as a horse. No, I haven’t done anything about that investment yet. I’ve got to run some errands now.”
Fern hung up and sniffed. Her son acted as if she was feeble-minded and incompetent, always questioning her plans. What she did with her money was her business. If things went as planned, reinvesting the two hundred thou she had redeemed from the mutual funds would make life easier, keep the wolf from the door.
Most of Sam’s life insurance proceeds went to pay off the huge medical bills that had piled up after he was diagnosed with cancer. He’d died relatively young, unable to take advantage of Medicare coverage.
Fern looked around the kitchen. Everything cost more these days. What she was getting from Social Security and those crummy mutual fund returns fell short of what she needed to repair and update her big house. Property taxes and insurance kept going up. The roof was old and leaky, the air conditioner shot. The place had never been updated, and she was embarrassed to have anyone over to see her avocado-colored appliances and lumpy linoleum flooring in the kitchen, seventies-era pink bathroom tile and bathtub, and old aluminum-framed windows. Just keeping the place up was expensive, let alone the cost to redo everything. Contractors weren’t cheap. Earning a better rate of return was smart and proactive, even if she didn’t quite grasp the particulars of Rod Stone’s investments.
Sure, she could sell her big, peaceful brick house and downsize to a condo. She’d looked at a few for sale or rent. But she got a headache at the thought of being cooped up someplace where you could hear the neighbors fighting or snoring through the walls.
As soon as the redeemed mutual fund money hit her bank account, she would write a big check to Galaxy Financial, and let Rod Stone earn her better returns.
***
“You take it easy. I want to go on a little ride.” Cait said. “Not far.”
“By yourself?” Jack raised an eyebrow.
“Why not? There’s a great loop trail that goes for ten miles.” Cait pointed at a reddish pink mesa that rose like a giant tabletop out of a carpet of juniper and pinion. “That was my old stomping grounds when I was a kid.
“I just want to get on a horse again. It’s been a while. I won’t be long.” She rose from the couch, feeling guilty for leaving Jack there. But memories of the beauty of that land she’d grown up in pulled at her.
“Wish I could go too. I need to do something.” Jack said.
Ernie addressed Cait. “I’ll get Turtle ready for you. You haven’t ridden in a while, and she’s our most laid-back horse.” He looked outside at a corral where three horses munched on hay scattered just inside the fence.
“Mind if I come along?” Chris asked. “That sounds like fun.”
“Chocolate should be fine for you,” Ernie said. “He’s easy-going too.”
Cait and Jack followed her dad and brother outside. “I don’t need a saddle, just a bridle,” she said.
“You ride bareback?” Jack said. “Isn’t a horse’s backbone uncomfortable?”
“I used to ride that way a lot. It’s all about how you sit on the horse. Of course I may have lost my touch.”
“No saddle for me either,” Chris said.
Cait took a bridle off the wall of a tack shed by the corral, squeezed through the gate and approached an older dun mare with a sway back. “Hey, girl.” She let Turtle sniff her hand, then stroked the animal’s neck.
She waited as Chris readied his horse, a sturdy dark brown gelding with white blaze on its forehead.
Cait led Turtle close to the fence, stepped up on a rail and climbed onto the animal’s back. Chris placed his arms on Chocolate’s withers and sprang up unassisted.
“Show-off,” Cait laughed.
Ernie opened the corral gate. Cait’s mom stood outside the fence, holding onto Wiley’s leash.
The canine panted and strained at his lead, unhappy to be left behind. Brother and sister waved and rode off. “Back soon,” Cait called out.
She kept the reins slack and shifted around on Turtle’s back, trying to get comfortable. The horses plodded along, tails swishing and ears swiveling, tuning into their riders.
Cait breathed deeply, taking in the winter scent of dried grasses and cold earth. They rode without talking as Chris led the way up a gradual slope.
At the top of the rise they stopped to take in the view. Cait looked back at a narrow ribbon of highway running through Zuni. The southern horizon was dominated by the imposing shape of Dowa Yalanne, Corn Mountain, a massive sandstone butte dotted with ruins and prayer sites, a natural monument sacred to the pueblo people.
They continued on toward sunset-colored buttes and mesas that rolled north toward Gallup and the Navajo reservation.
“So, you’re moving to Tucson?” She urged Turtle alongside Chocolate as the track widened.
“Looks that way. I got a call this afternoon from the district ranger at Saguaro National Park, offering me a position. I accepted and told him I’m coming up to Tucson this week,” Chris said. He gently pulled the reins to signal his horse to stop. A thick channel inlay turquoise ring made by his dad glinted on his right hand.
“Never been there,” Cait said. “Maybe Jack and I could drive down too. It’d be nice for a change of pace. He needs to get his mind off things. I can’t believe all that’s happened. Feels like the world’s turned upside down.”
“You guys are welcome to stay with me in Tucson. I’d like that. They offered me a place to live inside the park.”
“Thanks, that’s a great idea,” Cait said. “I’m sure Jack will agree. I think Arizona would be a lot safer than for us than New Mexico is right now.”
She watched a hawk plummet out of the sky toward unsuspecting prey, probably a rabbit or ground squirrel. The raptor swooped by the horses and without touching the ground, snatched a small cottontail in its talons. Cait felt a twinge of empathy for the hapless creature, carted off by a silent assassin.