gone.
There was one traffic light in Silk, perpetually blinking yellow, never red. “The bank’s a branch of Pacheeta Farmers and Merchants,” she said. “Up ahead is the farmers’ co-op where I buy feed, and here’s our Sonic, the only fast food in town.”
“How’s the food?”
“Anything I don’t cook tastes great to me. And their cherry limeade is outstanding.”
Outside the little town the speed limit rose again. She urged Red Ryder up to sixty, its top speed, and the shimmy magically disappeared. The gas gauge jittered on a quarter of a tank; she would have to fill up in Pacheeta.
Her companion cleared his throat and segued into his job interview. “Did you have a chance to look at the résumé I sent?”
“I did, and it’s impressive. But that doesn’t tell me about your work ethic, or whether you’d have trouble being bossed by a woman.”
“Depends,” he said. “How bossy are you?”
“Huh. I’m supposed to ask the questions.”
“I see,” he said, and smiled.
“Frankly, with your background and work history, it makes me wonder why you’d want a job out here, which most people consider the middle of nowhere. You could make more money working for the USDA or even the state, in some environmental capacity.”
“That’s what I was doing in Amarillo, at the county level. Believe me, the pay wasn’t that great.” His gaze traveled across the land in front of them, from horizon to horizon. “I need more space, and I love this country. I came from Oklahoma originally.”
“So you’re not employed now?”
“I quit my job last week. For personal reasons,” he added. “I didn’t get fired.”
“Are these personal reasons going to follow you to the next job?” She glanced sideways and saw a muscle in his jaw tighten.
“My marriage is on the rocks. My wife just took a job she likes in Amarillo and she doesn’t want to move. We’re going to try separating for a while.”
He set his mouth in a way that let her know that’s all the personal information he cared to discuss. Fair enough. But a shaky marriage could mean that he’d be here just long enough to become helpful and then hightail it back to his wife.
The trouble was, the only other person who’d shown any interest in the job was not somebody she wanted on the place. She wouldn’t admit it aloud, but sometimes it was eerie living out there by herself after Monte left. And some of the work simply required more physical strength than she had. She was five-seven and strong, but even now she was nursing a strained shoulder from hefting sacks of feed into the back of the truck. She would reserve judgment about Jace Rainwater. If he could help her out of this eagle mess, that was a definite mark in his favor.
“Okay. Your turn to ask questions,” she said.
“Tell me about the ranch.”
“Twelve hundred and eighty acres, more or less. Small by ranching standards. Dad had to sell a piece of it a few years back. What’s left is about two square miles, though it isn’t square because of the river. I inherited it when my father died and my sister didn’t want anything to do with it.” She had a quick flash of Anna at the oak table in the kitchen, signing over her rights to Marik the day after their father’s funeral. Neither of them knew then that the ranch was immersed in debt.
“My sister’s five years older and escaped to California right after high school. I stayed here with Dad and helped him run the place along with Monte, the previous manager.” In those years they’d all assumed she would take over the ranch someday. But that had changed after she went off to college and fell in lust.
“Anna’s husband is a producer in L.A. and makes a ton of money. She said I deserved the ranch because I always loved the land.” Her smile twisted. “She thought she was doing me a favor.” Her sister’s jewelry alone could pay off most of the ranch’s debts, but Marik would never tell her that.
“I didn’t know how much trouble Dad was in until I moved back and took over,” she said. “The cattle market went to hell a few years back and he’d made some bad decisions. I had to sell off most of the herd to pay a note that was overdue. I was hanging on by a thread when Great Plains Power & Light came out here and proposed leasing the ridge for a wind farm. I studied the concept and really liked what they were doing. It seemed like a good use of the land, not to mention keeping me out of bankruptcy, so I signed a fifty-year lease. Monte and I thought Dad would approve.”
“The wind farm was what attracted me to the job,” Rainwater said. “I’ve always thought we ought to find a way to harness all this wind energy. It wasn’t the railroad that settled this part of the West—it was the windmill. If windmills can provide water for cattle and homes, why not electricity?”
“Why not, indeed.”
“But you still run cattle?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s a working ranch, just not a profitable one. I’m slowly building up the herd again, but I can’t manage more cattle until I have some help.” She shrugged. “I paint pictures, too, and during the leanest times I started selling a few to help pay the bills. There’s a big landscape I did of Silk Mountain hanging in the local bank.”
“My mom encouraged me to paint when I was a kid,” he said. “The kitchen, the living room, the barn…”
Marik laughed. “I do some of that, too.”
They’d gone another mile before he spoke again. He cleared his throat first, and she heard the hesitation in his voice.
“I have a son,” he said. “If you hired me, I would want to make sure it was okay for Zane to spend some time with me here. Mostly weekends, maybe longer in the summer.” He looked out across the fields beside the road, as if the thought of his son made him sad. “He’s a quiet kid, not rowdy.”
Maybe that had something to do with his wanting the job—a good place in the country for his son. Marik smiled. “I like kids. I was teaching school before Dad died and I came back here. As long as it didn’t interfere with your work, I’d have no problem with your son coming to visit. How old is Zane?”
“He’s eight.”
The same age as my daughter. She squinted toward the road ahead and waited out a sensation like her insides turning over.
Somebody else’s daughter.
Chapter Three
A July morning, eight years and seven months ago…From the right seat of the single-engine Cessna, Marik looked out across a bluestem pasture beyond the runway of a country airport. The bleached tips of the grass rippled like an ocean in the Oklahoma wind. The pasture looked solid enough to walk on, but looks were deceiving; the thigh-high grass could conceal a coyote or a newborn calf, or even a person. She imagined lying down in the grass, hiding from the ache that filled her spongy stomach.
A clear sky umbrellaed the landscape. Far to the southwest, toward the ranch, a few clouds hugged the horizon. She leaned back on the padded seat and watched her father on the tarmac, going through his preflight checks. He examined the gas sumps for water, lifted the cowling and checked the oil stick. She’d done it with him dozens of times, but today she had no desire to copilot, or to be in charge of anything. She was just a passenger, sore and tired, going home without a baby in her arms.
She closed her eyes and saw a tiny face, ruddy with frowning, the puffy eyes squinted shut. My daughter, she had thought, trying on the phrase like an unfamiliar wrap. But not for long.
The alarming red imprint of forceps just behind the temple. No harm, the nurse said, perfectly normal for a first delivery. The mark would go away.
The only thing beautiful about a newborn, she thought, is the fact of its