12:14 A.M.
I took the photograph from my bag, turned on the reading light over my seat, and stared at it as if willing the people frozen in the frame to confide their secrets to me. Even Fenella seemed to be hiding behind her big sunglasses. The photo was not a very good one, the contrast curiously muted. Not taken by a good photographer or with a good camera. Or…
I held it up to the light, examined it more carefully. Then I turned it over, bent the metal clips that held it in the frame, removed the backing.
Slick paper with printing on the back. It wasn’t an original photo, but a clipping from a magazine. The dateline at the bottom of the page said Newsweek, February 13, 1959.
I removed the clipping and turned it over to see if there was a caption for the picture that the frame had covered. It looked as if it had been cut off. Was Newsweek online? Did the available issues go back that far? Maybe.
There was a phone in the seatback. I took out a credit card, ran it through, dialed Mick and Charlotte’s condo. Keim answered, sounding groggy. When I identified myself and asked for Mick, she said, “Shar, you’re pure hell on a gal’s beauty sleep,” and covered the receiver. Soon after, Mick growled into it.
“I know it’s late,” I said, “but consider this a challenge.”
Yawn.
“I need an article from the February 13, 1959, issue of Newsweek.” I described the photograph, told him what was on the back of it.
“I think I can get hold of it. Where can I reach you?”
“You can’t, but I’ll call you when I get to Seattle.”
“Why Seattle?”
“It seemed as good a place as any.”
“The picture you wanted,” Mick said, “was printed with an article about how well off the Indians were on the reservations. What was Fenella doing there?”
“Trying to find her roots, like me. Does the caption identify the man?”
“Yeah, I’ll read it to you. ‘Happy Fort Hall dwellers with outside friends, Fenella McCone, who is half Shoshone, and Austin DeCarlo, son of a prominent central California rancher.’”
“Any mention of him in the article?”
“Nope. Shar, this piece is a bunch of bull. I’ve been to reservations, and they’re not great places. I bet they were worse in the fifties.”
“Lots worse, according to the file you prepared for me. It’s a puff piece, that’s all.”
“You in Seattle?”
“Yes, but not for long. I called a pilot buddy who’s always ready to fly, and she agreed to take me home for the price of fuel and breakfast.”
“Why don’t I fax the article to your house, then?”
“Do that. And first thing in the morning, start a check on Austin DeCarlo.”
The box of Fenella’s papers that John had FedExed sat just inside my front door, along with a package containing some jeans I’d ordered from Lands’ End. Michelle Curley, neighbor kid and house-sitter extraordinaire, was being conscientious again. I paid her twenty-five dollars a month to take care of the cats when I wasn’t home, plus check for mail and deliveries. She earned every cent of it and often exceeded her job description: when I’d come home from San Diego, the dishes were washed and flowers from her parents’ garden brightened my sitting room.
I left the Lands’ End bag where it was, but dragged the box down the hall. Tore the article Mick had faxed from the machine in my home office, then set the coffeemaker to brewing, in spite of already having downed three cups during an airport breakfast with my pilot friend. While the machine burbled, I took a quick shower and read the article while I dried my hair. A puff piece, all right. I particularly disliked the concluding paragraphs.
Our federal government’s termination of ties to the reservation system has indeed, in the words of Senator Arthur Watkins (R-Utah), “emancipated the Indian.” Statutes calling for the preparation of final tribal rolls, distribution of assets to individuals, and the removal of Indian lands from federal trusts will give natives increased independence and self-determination.
Already this new era in reservation life is producing positive results: Interest in traditional crafts and religion is surging; tourism is at an all-time high; tribe members are looking forward to a bright and fulfilling future. No wonder our team of reporters encountered so much joy and optimism as they traveled the country last summer visiting these havens of native culture.
Joy and optimism, my ass! I had enough of a sense of history to know that the Indians had seldom had occasion for either, before or after termination. While under the auspices of the federal government, they’d waited desperately for food, clothing, and medical supplies that arrived late or not at all. They’d lived in substandard housing, been forced to convert to Christianity by missionaries of every stripe, and had their children snatched from their homes and shipped off to boarding schools designed to eradicate every trace of their traditional culture.
And then, in the 1940s and ’50s, came termination. The Indians found themselves “emancipated,” all right—of their access to the Indian Health Service and educational assistance programs. Their lands became subject to state taxation, and many tribe members were forced to sell to outsiders. State laws were extended to their territories, and they lost the right to police their own communities. The “joyful and optimistic” Indians watched their lives plunge into a downward spiral of poor health, illiteracy, and poverty.
Admittedly, the Shoshones in the photograph with Fenella looked happy, but I doubted it had anything to do with the “new era” on the rez. More likely they were just having a good time together and mugging for the photographer—perhaps laughing at the white men who had come there with their minds already made up about what they’d find.
Back in the kitchen, I realized it was going to be one of those Mondays. The coffeemaker had sprung a leak and grounds puddled the countertop. The fridge was making a familiar grinding sound, signaling that I’d soon need a new one. One of the cats—or maybe both—had attacked the garlic braid hanging from a cabinet. And now they emerged from wherever they’d been sleeping, eager for breakfast.
“Right,” I said, regarding them sternly, “the human can-and-door-opener is home.”
Allie gave me one of her adoring looks; Ralph brushed against my calves, purring. Were they strictly con artists, or actually glad to see me? I’d never know.
The livestock fed, watered, and put out to pasture, I took my coffee to the sitting room and used a paring knife to cut the yards of tape that John—who is sure the contents of any package he wraps are seriously intent on escape—had swathed it in. When I raised the lid, all that made a break for it was musty air, the smell of paper stored too long in a damp garage. I dumped out the contents and began sorting them.
A sentimental fool Fenella hadn’t been. There were no letters, photographs, or mementos. Just a great many legal documents, receipts, canceled checks, and bank statements, going back to about twenty years before her death. Again, my pack-rat father had kept the unnecessary.
At first I was tempted to toss everything into the fireplace, but then I decided to go through it anyway. A will, dividing her property between Pa and Jim. Lease on an apartment she’d rented in San Diego. High school and college diplomas. Well-worn passport. Charge-account receipts. Pay stubs from her various jobs as a bookkeeper. Checks: to the grocery, the dry cleaner, the landlord, the phone company, PG&E, and—
Saskia Hunter.
A check made out in the amount of $2,500. August of 1962. A considerable sum in those days.
I began pawing through the other checks, came up with a total of fifteen made out to Hunter, beginning in December of 1959 and each in the same amount. All were dated in either August or December, the last in December of 1966.
There was a stack of bank statements accompanying the checks. I took them to the kitchen table, poured myself more coffee, and studied the pattern of deposits. Many matched the pay stubs, but others were larger; that didn’t surprise me, since the family had always suspected Fenella of allowing her gentlemen friends to supplement her income. But several of these larger deposits stood out: in July and November of every year from 1960 to 1966, her account was credited with $2,500—which she’d turned over to Saskia Hunter a month later.
I picked up the photograph in the buffalo-bone frame and studied Hunter. Then I closed my eyes and pictured the photograph of Mary McCone that had sat in my family’s living room. Yes, what they said was true: I bore a strong resemblance to her. But I bore an even stronger one to Saskia Hunter.
My scalp prickled and I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out the features of the man next to Hunter. The wide brim of his cowboy hat shadowed them, made them difficult to define. He had a strong jaw and full lips, but that was all I could tell.
Well, I had a name for him—Austin DeCarlo—and soon Mick would start his trace. Right now I’d start my trace on Hunter.
D.O.B. April 4, 1941, Fort Hall, Idaho. She’d been seventeen when the Newsweek photo was taken. Parents: Harry and Rose Tendoy Hunter, both deceased. One of the relatives Fenella had found, then.
No record of a marriage in Bingham County. No death certificate, either. No phone listing.
Two public high schools in the vicinity. I called one and asked for the school librarian; she pulled the yearbook for 1958. Saskia Hunter had graduated in the top half of her class, and the write-up below her picture said she hoped to become a teacher.
Any record of where she had attended college? I asked. The librarian transferred me to the guidance counselor. She told me their records for the fifties were in storage.
There were a number of Hunters in the area phone directory. I started calling.
“Strange name, Saskia. If we were related, I’d remember it.”
“Never heard of her.”
“My wife and me, we just moved to Idaho.”
“Lady, in case you don’t realize it, Hunter is a common name.”
“I knew a Kia Hunter in high school. Don’t know what happened to her.”
“Kia and I are related, sort of. But I lost track of her a long time ago.”
“Miss, I got three screaming kids and I’m babysitting my sister’s mutt. This isn’t the time to be asking me stupid questions.”
End of list. Dead end. Now what?
The phone rang. Mick. “Here’s the preliminary information on Austin DeCarlo,” he said. “D.O.B. 11/22/36, Salinas. Parents: Audrey Simms and Joseph DeCarlo. Mother, housewife; father, rancher. The mother’s deceased, father still lives on the ranch near King City. It was a working cattle ranch till 1980, now most of it’s in vineyards. Austin DeCarlo owns a home in Monterey, where he has his corporate offices.”
“What kind of corporation?”
“Real estate development. DeCarlo Enterprises. They build luxury resorts. I downloaded info from their Web site.”
“Any further personal details?”
“Two marriages: Dawn Chase, in King City, 1961. Divorced 1970, no children. Anna Bastoni, in Monterey, 1971. Divorced 1989, no children.”
“Education?”
“Graduated King City High, 1953. Attended Cal Poly from ’fifty-three to ’fifty-six, no degree. That’s all I’ve got so far. I’ll fax this over to you, and keep working on it.”
“Thanks, Mick.”
“You’re welcome. By the way, you didn’t tell me what file to allocate my time to.”
“None, for now. Just keep track of the hours.”
“Ted’s not gonna like that. You’ve been gone so much lately that he’s picking more nits than usual.”
And that would be a great many nits indeed. “If he gives you any trouble, tell him to talk to me.”
The material Mick faxed gave the addresses of Austin DeCarlo’s home and office in Monterey, as well as of his father’s ranch. I dragged out my California road map and consulted it, then studied an aviation sectional for the area. It would be a quick trip by plane, but Hy had Two-seven-Tango at Tufa Lake. I supposed I could rent one, but on top of that expense I’d have the cost of a car once I got there. Besides, the lure of the open road was strong; it had been a long time since my venerable MG and I had headed south on Highway 101. I made a few calls, repacked my travel bag, and soon we were on our way.
The San Francisco Peninsula: small cities strung together, mostly indistinguishable from one another. If we didn’t check the current rate of development, California would be one border-to-border city in fifty years. San Jose: a growing metropolis that reminded me of L.A., both in sprawl and smog. Salinas: writer John Steinbeck’s hometown, and a much better place now that they’d finally decided to honor their most renowned native son. Westward on the back road from there, toward Highway 1 and Monterey.
And, maybe, Austin DeCarlo.
1:15 P.M.
The sky was clear over the cobalt expanse of Monterey Bay, where the shoreline’s protective arc makes for some of the best weather along the central coast. I drove south on Lighthouse Avenue, the wide commercial boulevard on the hill above Steinbeck’s fabled Cannery Row, looking for my side street.
Mick’s information on Austin DeCarlo was sketchy enough that I couldn’t come up with a plan on how to approach him. Taking a look at both his home and offices seemed like a good first step; then I’d phone my nephew and ask if he’d found any further details. I made a quick left turn in front of a slow-moving van and climbed uphill to Archer Street.
DeCarlo’s house was on the northeast side: white clapboard, three stories, with many windows. A huge semicircle of glass took up most of the front wall of the third story, and there was probably an identical one opposite to take advantage of the bay view. The house was an older one, and the more modern top floor didn’t fit—a remodeling job whose architect had seen the parts, rather than the whole.
As I pulled to the curb and idled there, the garage door rose and a woman came out: thin, with bleached and permed hair, dressed in baggy jeans and an oversized T-shirt imprinted with a sea otter. I shut the MG off, got out, and approached her. She pushed an interior button and stepped aside as the door started to close.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Is Mr. DeCarlo at home?”
She frowned and started to walk away. I took out my ID folder and flashed my license at her, just long enough that she could see it looked official. “Tax inquiry. I need to speak with him.”
The words erased the crease between her eyebrows, and a sly expression crept over her face. She stopped, shifting a plastic sack containing a bottle of cleaning solvent and some rags from one hand to the other. DeCarlo’s maid, and she didn’t seem at all sorry that the boss might be about to get audited.
“He’s not here,” she said.
“Is he at the office?”
“No, out of town. Last week he tells me come in and clean like always. And then he didn’t leave my money.”
“That’s too bad. D’you know where he went?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Or when he’ll be back?”
“Who knows, with him? Maybe tonight, maybe next week. He travels a lot, but this is the first time he forgot my money.” She sighed, looking up and down the street as if she hoped to spot her employer. “I was counting on it. Now I don’t even have my bus fare back to Sand City.”
Opportunity was fairly pounding on my door. “How much does he owe you?”
“Fifty dollars. Doesn’t sound like much, but I really need it.”
“How about if I give you the fifty? And drive you to Sand City?”
“What’s in it for you? You want me to rat him out?”
I smiled.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Terry—“No last name, I don’t want to lose my job”—didn’t like her employer. As we drove north on the freeway, she made that abundantly clear.
Austin DeCarlo was too rich for his own good: “All that stuff. Sound systems, TVs in every room, indoor hot tub, big wine cellar, boat, fancy cars. He must be cheating the government.”
Every week he left the house in a “god-awful mess”: “He wants to cook, he oughta clean up the pots and pans and the grease on the stove. Newspapers and magazines don’t belong on the floor. Dirty dishes, hairs in the bathroom sink. And I can’t respect a man who won’t hang up his expensive clothes.”
He behaved in an unseemly fashion for one of his age: “Women. Different ones. Young ones. All the time. And he’s gotta be pushing sixty. Disgusting!”
DeCarlo was rude, too: “He yells at me if I start vacuuming while he’s on the phone.”
Even his choice of pets was unfortunate: “Big dog. Irish setter. Goes everyplace with him. Leaves its hairs everyplace for me to clean up. Man treats that dog better than he treats most people! Hey, that’s my exit up ahead.”
“Anything else you can tell me about him?” I asked as I put on the turn signal.
“Not really. I mean, it’s not like I saw his tax forms or anything. But I’m sure he’s a cheater.”
“Why?”
“Well, he’s trying to cheat those Indians, so why wouldn’t he cheat the IRS too?”
“What Indians?”
“Up north someplace. My old boyfriend Chuck told me. He’s got Indian blood, and he said old Austin’s trying to cheat them. The Indians.”
“How?”
“Something about putting a resort on their land. I can’t remember anything more about it.”
“Can you put me in touch with Chuck?”
“Nope, he’s history. Moved away two months ago.”
“You sure you don’t remember anything else?”
“Uh… a name, maybe. Ghost? Nope, that’s not it. Spirit? Yeah, Spirit something.”
“What something?”
“Can’t remember. Hey, drop me here, would you? I don’t want you knowing where I live.”
Spirit.
The word had a familiar ring in connection with Austin DeCarlo. Maybe it was mentioned in the material Mick had supplied on DeCarlo Enterprises. I pulled the MG into the parking lot of a strip mall and took the file from the briefcase in the carrying space behind me.
The company’s Web site described it as the leading developer of exclusive resorts in the United States: Saguaro in Santa Fe; Blue Glacier in Homer, Alaska; Merlot in the Napa Valley; Mountain High outside of Boulder, Colorado; The Breakers in Neskowin, Oregon. And those were just the ones I’d heard of. Photographs showed impressive architecture, golf courses, swimming pools, restaurants, and guest bungalows. Projects were currently under construction or in the planning stages on the Hawaiian island of Lanai and St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands; in Sedona, Arizona, and Modoc County, California.
Up north someplace. Well, Modoc County was about as far north as you could get in the state, tucked up in the corner against the Oregon and Nevada borders. I’d never been there, and its only town of any size that I knew of was Alturas, whose population couldn’t be more than a few thousand.
I reached for the side pocket where I kept my AAA guide, paged to the listing. Right, there were 4,300 people in Alturas. Formerly called Dorris Bridge after the first white settler, it was the Modoc County seat and a marketing center for local ranchers. Its sole tourist attraction was a historical museum, and the guide recommended two motels, no restaurants.
I exchanged the guide for my state Thomas Guide. The majority of the county was national forest, tiny towns, and reservoirs. A large lake—Goose—extended north over the Oregon border, and there were a number of smaller lakes and rivers. Highway 395—which, if taken south, would eventually lead to Tufa Lake, near Hy’s ranch—bisected the county. To the east the Warner Mountains rose as high as 9,000 feet.
Spirit something. I scanned the map in segments, finally found it: Spirit Lake, near a small settlement called Sage Rock. A remote place for a resort, but not if you were aiming at the high-end traveler who valued isolation and privacy. Put in a world-class restaurant and golf course, an airstrip capable of accommodating good-sized jets, and you’d be in business.
But the lake wasn’t on an Indian reservation, or even near one. How could Austin DeCarlo be trying to cheat anyone?
I took out my phone and called Mick at the office. Ted, sounding annoyed, said he’d assigned him to call on a new client. “Whatever you’ve got him working on is cutting into our billable hours,” he complained.
“Let me worry about that.”
“You ought to worry. We’re looking at a rent increase come spring, and do you know what the last PG and E bill was? When’re you going to be back in the office?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So in the meantime I’m supposed to hold everything together.”
“I trust you to do that, yes.”
A long silence. “Oh, hell, I’m worried about you, is all. You haven’t been yourself since your dad died.”
He didn’t know the half of it. “Thanks for your concern. Can you hang in there a little longer?”
“I’ll hang in however long you need. Do you want me to tell Mick to call you?”
“No.” I gave him the details of what Mick should search for and asked him to pass them along. Ted was a good friend, a good employee, and—although he didn’t know it yet—I had big plans for his future.
4:05 P.M.
The land southeast of King City was softly contoured, hillocks of sunburnt grass where brown-and-white-faced cattle grazed. This was old ranching country, not much changed from the turn of the century when little valley towns such as San Ardo and Bradley were centers of commerce for people off the big spreads and small farms. I’d even passed a dilapidated barn with a still-readable advertisement for Mail Pouch Tobacco on its wall.
The DeCarlo ranch was on Cat Canyon Road, some dozen miles into the country; the dry brown grass gave way to vineyards where row after row of plants were beginning to show fall color. A hopper truck full of grapes was turning onto the road from a driveway, and I had to swing wide to avoid it. Harvesttime in the Salinas Valley.
The gate across the drive stood open, so I turned in and followed the blacktop to a cluster of metal sheds where workers, mostly Hispanic, milled about. A tall gray-haired man in Levi’s and a Western-style shirt was waving for another truck to leave. I pulled the MG to one side and got out.
As the truck departed, the tall man noticed me and started over. He was very lean, the Levi’s loose and riding low on his hips, and his unruly mane of hair gleamed in the sun. The furrows on his rawhide-tanned face told me he must be over eighty—a hearty eighty, though. Years of activity out in the elements had bred toughness and kept an agile spring in his step.
“Hello!” I called. “I’m looking for Joseph DeCarlo.”
He slowed, his demeanor wary now. “What d’you want with him?”
“To talk about a personal matter. Is he on the ranch today?”
The man stopped in front of me, his faded blue eyes squinting down at my face. He made a motion to the men behind him, and they dispersed silently and quickly—all except one, a stocky, powerfully muscled Hispanic who stood with folded arms, leaning against a pickup truck.
I said, “My name’s Sharon McCone,” and held out one of my cards.
The man nodded as if he’d known that all along. He took the card but didn’t read it, still studying me. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “You even look like her.”
“Like who?”
“As if you didn’t know. She send you?”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I’m a private investigator, here on a confidential inquiry.”
He glanced at my card, then threw his head back and gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Now don’t that just tear it! Did some snooping on your own, and you liked what you found out. Well, let me tell you this, missy: I’ve had a lot of years to think on the subject. A lot of time to plan for the day this might happen. So here’s what you’re gonna do: get off my ranch and leave my boy alone.”
His ranch. “You’re Joseph DeCarlo.”
“You know who I am.”
“I’d like to speak with you. And with your son.”
“I’ll bet you would. Trouble is, my boy and I don’t want to speak with you.”
“Why don’t we let your son decide for himself?”
“No, missy, that’s not how it works around here.”
“How does it work?”
DeCarlo stepped forward, looming over me. “It works the way I say it should.” He snapped his fingers, and the man leaning on the pickup came over. “This is Tony. He’s head of ranch security. He’s gonna escort you off my property—politely. You come back, he won’t be near as polite.”
Tony went to the MG, opened the driver’s door, and motioned for me to get in. I ignored him.
“Mr. DeCarlo, your ‘boy’ is a grown man in his sixties. D’you really think he wants his father dictating who he can and can’t speak to?”
“He does what I tell him to.”
“Always?”
His lips twitched; I’d hit a nerve. He motioned to the security man, who came over and took my arm.
I said, “I’ve an idea that your son might be interested in talking with me about Fort Hall, Idaho. And Saskia Hunter.”
Joseph DeCarlo’s face reddened. He said to Tony, “Get her out of here!”
Tony tried to take my arm, but I pushed him aside. Then I took my time about getting into the MG and driving away.
When I got to the road I turned left, rather than back the way I’d come. The pavement curved to the southeast, following the perimeter of the DeCarlo property. After nearly a mile I spotted another driveway and pulled the MG under the drooping branches of a live oak. Got out and continued on foot, keeping close to the high stone wall.
The driveway was blocked by iron gates, set into massive pillars; the gates were locked, and an intercom system next to them was the only means of getting inside—an option not open to me. Through the bars I could see the blacktop stretching along an avenue of eucalyptus to a house on top of a rise: wood and stone, massive like the pillars. An old house, dating from the 1800s.
I stepped back and studied the wall. Too high to climb easily and, besides, the wire strung along its top would be sure to trigger an alarm system. DeCarlo was a cautious man, intent on protecting what was his—including his “boy.”
I went back to my car and settled down to wait. Maybe my visit would provoke some activity.
The sun was dipping behind the coastal ridge and the shadows were lengthening. I’d been sitting here for close to an hour, during which no one had arrived at or left the ranch. I was thirsty and uncomfortable, both from sitting in the cramped car and from the speculations that crowded my mind. My stomach growled; I lusted after a bacon cheeseburger.
In Monterey I’d spotted a Jack in the Box, so I gave up the wait and headed back there.
7:51 P.M.
The offices of DeCarlo Enterprises in downtown Monterey were closed. I kept going through the business section and the tunnel under the Presidio to Lighthouse Avenue, then uphill to Archer Street. The windows of Austin DeCarlo’s house glowed softly; a Jaguar and a BMW sat in its driveway. He was home, and he had company.
I was trying to decide whether it would be wise to approach him under such circumstances when the front door opened and two couples came out, went to the cars, and drove away. Seconds later the garage door slid up and a silver Lexus backed out; as the door slid down, I started my engine and prepared to follow.
To the cross street, right on Lighthouse, through the tunnel, and a series of jogs to Franklin Street. When the Lexus cut to the curb, I idled at a stop sign, watching the driver get out: a big man whose gray hair gleamed under the streetlight as Joseph DeCarlo’s had gleamed in the late-afternoon sunlight. His son? Had to be.
Austin DeCarlo went around and opened the other door for his passenger, a thin woman with a long cascade of dark hair, dressed in a flowing tunic-and-pants suit. As they walked hand in hand along the sidewalk, I parked and went after them.
Half a block ahead, a dozen or so people stood outside a restaurant, drinking wine and talking as they waited for tables. The smells borne on the breeze brought to mind my favorite Greek eatery in San Francisco. This one was called Epsilon, obviously a popular place. DeCarlo and the woman moved through the crowd and went inside. As I came closer I saw them being seated at a window table with the other couples who had earlier come out of his house.
I watched them through the window, feeling like a waif out of some silent-film melodrama. Ever since I’d studied that Newsweek photograph, I’d suspected that Austin DeCarlo and Saskia Hunter were my birth parents, and his father’s reaction to me had more or less confirmed it. Approaching this man could change my life in ways I might not like. Perhaps knowing as much as I did was enough; I didn’t need to have actual contact with him. Besides, this was a public place; he wouldn’t appreciate me making a scene.
What do you care if he doesn’t appreciate it? The man abandoned you before your birth. Hanging back on grounds of good manners is an excuse because you’re afraid.
I pushed through the crowd and opened the restaurant’s door, waved the maitre d’ aside and went over to the window table.
“Austin DeCarlo?” I said to the gray-haired man.
He’d been studying the wine list, and when he glanced up his mouth twitched in irritation. He had his father’s strong features, but their lines were blunted by years of good living; the glaring eyes that turned up at me were the same faded blue. “Yes?” he snapped.
“My name’s Sharon McCone. I believe you knew my great-aunt, Fenella.”
His mouth sagged open and he stared at me. I stared back, at a loss for further words. After a moment he set down the wine list and ran an unsteady hand over his chin. Shook his head as if to deny what he was thinking. I remained speechless, afraid of what I’d set in motion.
The couples at the table leaned anxiously toward DeCarlo. The woman he was with touched his arm and asked, “Austin, darling, what’s the matter?”
Her voice brought him back to his surroundings. He glanced almost furtively at the other diners, then back at me. “My God,” he whispered, “you’re the image of your mother!”
Even though I’d more or less expected such a reaction, DeCarlo’s words caused a physical shock wave. Something caught in my chest and for a moment I felt as if my heart had stopped; then it began racing. I flashed hot and cold, and everything shifted—his face, the diners at his table, the rough-plastered walls, the tiled floor. I grasped the back of his chair for support.
He stood quickly, and through the riot of my emotions I heard him making excuses to his party—something about me being the daughter of an old friend, which sounded insincere to me and must have seemed the outright lie it was to them. I felt his hands grasp my shoulders none too gently as he began steering me toward the door. Saw diners at the other tables watching us with curiosity and concern. He didn’t stop till we were several storefronts away, then turned me around and peered intently at my face. Shook his head—again trying to deny who I was.
I found my voice at last. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk privately.”
“I can’t deny it,” Austin DeCarlo said. “The proof’s in your face.”
We were seated at opposite ends of the sofa in a room that took up the entire third story of his house. The semicircular windows on the north and south walls reflected us, father and daughter, our postures wary and tentative. In contrast, his Irish setter, Rupert, lay relaxed on the cushion between us.
At first DeCarlo had been downright skeptical of my story, demanding proof that I was who I claimed. I showed him my identification, the petition for adoption, and the Newsweek photograph, and then he began to internalize the fact that he was face to face with his forty-year-old daughter. Then, looking even more shaken, he went to light a fire and pour brandy.
Now I asked, “My mother—she was Saskia Hunter?”
“Yes.”
“Is she still living?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Boise, Idaho.”
“You’re in touch with her?”
“… Not really. It’s complicated.”
“How?” I raised the brandy snifter to my lips, my hand unsteady. In spite of the fire, I couldn’t get warm.
“Let me start at the beginning.” DeCarlo shifted toward me, hooking one elbow over the back of the sofa. “In 1958 I was traveling around the country with a friend. We were both sick and tired of the Valley, and my father and I hadn’t been getting along. He wanted me to learn the family business so he could retire and ranch, but I couldn’t see myself traveling from office to office to check up on how the plant-tissue analyses were going. So my friend and I bought a used Triumph and went on the road.” He smiled. “I’d like to think we were forerunners of the guys on Route Sixty-six, but I suppose in reality we were pretty naive and small-town.”
I jiggled my foot, both nervous and impatient. The last thing I needed now was a fond reminiscence about his youthful travels.
He noticed my impatience and hurried on with his story. “Anyway, after five months the car broke down in Fort Hall, Idaho, and while we were stuck there waiting for parts, I met your mother. She was seventeen—pretty, smart, and had a wild streak. Her parents didn’t want her to see me, but she’d sneak off and meet me at the auto court where my friend and I were staying. When the car was fixed, he bought out my interest and moved on. I rented a room from some friends of Kia’s and took a job in a café. Before long she moved in with me, and in the winter she got pregnant.”
“So you left her.”
He narrowed his eyes, stung by the accusatory note in my voice. “That’s not the way it was.”
“How, then?”
He made a tentative move to touch my shoulder, stopped midway. “Look, I know this isn’t easy for you. It certainly isn’t for me. Can we not make judgments just yet?”
“You mean, can I not make judgments. I’ll try. Did you love her, Austin?” I didn’t know why whether I’d been conceived in love or not should matter, but it did.
He considered for a moment. “I thought I loved Kia. I must have, because I asked her to marry me, even though we hadn’t been getting along for some time. And she must’ve loved me, because she accepted. But she was still underage, and her parents wouldn’t consent, so we decided to run off to Nevada. Then the photograph of us with Fenella McCone appeared in Newsweek.”
“Fenella was a relative of Saskia’s.”
“Distant, but she was very fond of her. I’ve always suspected she had a hand in your adoption. Kia hadn’t known her long, but she told me she knew she could always turn to her in an emergency. And I guess she did.”
“So the photograph appeared in Newsweek…”
“And my father saw it. Up till then, he had no idea I was living with Kia. I went home before Christmas, stayed a couple of weeks—which didn’t please Kia one bit—and gave him a story about working on a ranch outside of Billings, Montana. He approved of that, assumed that eventually I’d come home for good.”
“What did he do when he found out where you really were?”
“Chartered a plane and flew to Idaho, intent on dragging me home. He’s a difficult man—”
The scene at his ranch flashed through my mind. “Difficult? He’s a control freak!”
DeCarlo raised his eyebrows. “You know him?”
“I spoke with him briefly this afternoon, right before he set his security guy on me.”
“Tony? Did he hurt you?”
“No. I can take care of myself.”
He smiled faintly. “You sound like Kia. She’s one tough woman. Of course, I’m pretty tough myself. You inherited a double dose—”
“No,” I said, bristling at his laying claim to how I’d turned out, “I get that from my adoptive parents.”
DeCarlo was silent for a moment. “Did you tell my father who you are?”
“Didn’t have to. He figured it out right away. Said the same thing you did—that I look like Saskia Hunter. Anyway, he arrived on the reservation…”
“And a friend warned us in time. He loaned us his truck, and we decided to skip Nevada and go to northern California, where Kia’s favorite uncle lived. She thought he’d let us stay with him, maybe lend us some money. And he agreed to, but my father traced us, busted into his house a few days later. Kia wasn’t there, she’d gone to the store for some groceries. My father sent me home with his ranch foreman, said he’d take care of things. And… I went. I never even got to tell her good-bye.”
I frowned. “Weren’t you kind of old to be following your father’s orders?”
He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, head drooping. “Yeah, I was, but where my father’s concerned I’ve never been a strong man. Back then, in many ways, I was just a boy.”
Just a boy, in his twenties. I couldn’t relate to that. By the time I was the age he’d been when he left Saskia Hunter, I was working to pay my college tuition bills.
“So you just left Saskia to your father’s mercies,” I said.
“Her Uncle Ray was there to protect her.”
“She had to rely on an uncle, rather than the man who’d made her pregnant.”
DeCarlo closed his eyes. “Sharon, I thought you weren’t going to make judgments.”
“It’s damned hard not to. As a woman, I can empathize only too well with her predicament.” I took a deep breath, got my anger under control. “Okay, what happened when your father came back to the ranch?”
“He said he’d taken care of things by settling money on Kia, and that she’d told him she never wanted to see me again.”
“You believed that?”
He hunched his shoulders, rolled his empty snifter between his palms. “As I said before, Kia and I hadn’t been getting along. And I had no reason to doubt my father; he’d thrown money at problems my whole life.”
Problems: two human lives, my mother’s and mine. That’s all we’d been to him.
“You never tried to find her?” I asked. “Or me?” My voice was raw with hurt.
He didn’t notice; he was caught up in his own pain. “I found her a year later. She was living in Moscow, Idaho, planning to start college there in the fall. She told me she’d put you up for adoption. She was afraid if she kept you, my father might try to take you away from her.”
I pictured the expression on the old man’s face as he’d loomed over me that afternoon. “Not too damn likely! He didn’t want any half-breed granddaughter perching on his family tree. Hanging from it, maybe.”
“… He’s not that bad.”
“I’ll have to take you word for it. So that was the end? You just decided to pretend I didn’t exist?”
“I didn’t want to, but Kia was very angry with me and refused to tell me anything about the adoption.”
I drained my snifter, held it out for a refill—giving myself time to cool down. Maybe he was right; maybe I was too quick to judge. After all, he’d been frank with me, admitting to his errors and weakness. When he passed the glass back, I asked, “Do you know what happened to my mother after that?”
“She completed college and law school at the University of Idaho. Married a fellow attorney, Thomas Blackhawk. They were in private practice together in Boise, and since he died a few years ago she’s devoted her efforts to Indian causes.”
Saskia Blackhawk. The name was vaguely familiar. Maybe I’d read about her somewhere.
“Did she have other children?”
“A son and a daughter. They’re in their twenties now.”
I felt an odd twinge. My birth mother had given me up, but gone on to have other children. I had a half brother and sister who probably weren’t aware I existed. “You know a good bit about her,” I said. “Why did you follow her life and career?”
“… I thought you might initiate a search and get in touch with her.”
“You could’ve initiated a search yourself. There’re plenty of resources.”
“I know.” He shook his head wearily. “But by the time they became available, so many years had gone by…”
So many years, and here I sat with a stranger. A man who described himself as tough, but in reality was weak. A weak man who was my father, but didn’t seem like a father. Suddenly my anger drained and all I felt was empty. I needed to be alone.
When I said I had to go, DeCarlo protested. He wanted to hear about my life. He wanted me to be his houseguest. I refused, told him I’d call in the morning. Then I fled to the refuge of an impersonal room on motel row.
LISTENING…
“Is she still living?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Boise, Idaho.”
“You’re in touch with her?”
“… Not really. It’s complicated.”
That’s a significant silence. You’re either in touch or not in touch with someone. What’s complicated about that?
“Not really” implies a degree. Is he saying he’s been in touch with Saskia Hunter Blackhawk since she told him she put me up for adoption? Recently, perhaps?
About what? Me? Somehow I doubt that.
“Why did you follow her life and career?”
“… I thought you might initiate a search and get in touch with her.”
“You could’ve initiated a search yourself. There’re plenty of resources.”
“I know. But by the time they became available, so many years had gone by…”
Listen to that hesitation. He’s not being candid about his interest in Saskia. It isn’t because of me; in the next breath he all but admits he’d given up on locating me. The way his words trail off tells me he didn’t really care that much anymore.
So why keep track of Saskia? Does he still love her? No, he’s not sure he ever did. They’re connected for some other reason now. And it is complicated.