size of the packet the postmaster’d had waiting for him, the time had been even longer.
Jefferson cared deeply for his brothers, and he was never truly out of touch. The family knew to contact the Rafter B in emergencies. Sandy would relay any messages by telephone or rider. No phone calls, no rider meant everyone was well and safe.
Tucking the packet under his arm, as the door of the truck closed, he whistled. Two clear notes sounded in the failing light, answered by a bark and the pad of racing feet. As he braced himself, a dark shape launched itself like a bullet at his chest.
Letters scattered in the dust as Jefferson went down. A massive creature blacker than the night stood over him. Gleaming teeth bared in a grin, a long, pink tongue lapped at his face.
Laughing, pushing the great dog aside, Jefferson muttered, “If that means you’re glad to see me, Satan, I hope you won’t be quite so glad next time.”
Satan barked and danced away. Normally with his sentry duty done, he was ready to play. This night, as if he would hurry his master to abandon the game by helping him to stand, the dog grabbed his hand between his teeth. The slightest pressure could have caused injury but, as with all creatures trained by Jefferson, despite his fierce look Satan was as gentle as his master.
The mock attack was a game, begun when Jefferson was new to the canyon and Satan a puppy with too much energy. Soon the dog should be taught the game was too dangerous. “Someone could misunderstand and put a bullet in your head.” Jefferson cuffed him gently in a signal to let go. “Might bend the bullet.”
Satan trotted away again in the prance common to Doberman pinschers everywhere. Stopping short, his dark eyes on his master’s face, he made a sound Jefferson interpreted as canine impatience.
“Not funny?” Rising, the human side of the conversation dusted off his clothes. Gathering the mail, he declared in an understatement, “Considering that I would miss you, tonight’s a good time to stop the game. As you obviously have.”
In the gloom settling over the canyon, he almost missed one piece of mail. Satan’s pawing interest, combined with the dull glint of its metal clasp caught his attention. Without both, the brown envelope would have blended with the shadowed Arizona dust. Perhaps to be discovered in morning light. Perhaps not.
Hefting it, he judged its weight. More than a letter, with only a blurred postmark. No return address. “What could this be?”
Satan barked and paced toward the cabin. “You’re right,” Jefferson agreed. “I should go inside and have a look.”
Normally the Doberman refused to come inside. Tonight, he slipped past Jefferson when the door opened. Rather than stretching out on the hearth as usual in his rare sorties in the cabin, he streaked through the main room to the bedroom.
“Come away, Satan,” Jefferson scolded as the dog scratched at the bedside table. “There’s nothing here.”
Nothing but a keepsake from his past, Jefferson amended as he herded the dog from the room. “Lie by the hearth,” he directed. “After I check the mail, we’ll have supper.”
Satan obeyed, instantly. Containing his agitation, he tucked his nose beneath his paws. His dark eyes were white-rimmed beneath the pupils as he tracked each move his master made.
Jefferson sat at the table. Spreading mail over it, he plucked the brown envelope from the jumble. Satan whimpered. “Hey.” Jefferson moved it left, then right. Only Satan’s eyes turned, never leaving the letter. “What about this worries you?”
Jefferson believed animals possessed unique senses, perceiving more than the human mind could begin to conceive. Some would laugh, others would scoff at the idea, but he’d seen this anticipation too often in the wilderness to not believe it.
He’d seen it before in Satan when a rattler had crawled into a stall, striking a colt. Though little more than a pup, the dog had clawed at the cabin door, waking Jefferson, demanding his attention. Then he’d torn a pair of jeans as he’d dragged his master to the barn. Because of Satan, the colt was alive. Because of Satan, Jefferson opened the envelope with trepidation.
“What the devil?” he tore open another envelope.
When he moved past the surprise of discovering one unmarked envelope inside another, he almost pitched the whole package in the trash as a joke. Recalling Satan’s reaction, he continued.
The next envelope, the last, bore a name. His name, written in a hand he knew. For one stunned moment he thought it was a cruel hoax. Next he questioned how it could be. When he drew out two sheets of paper, he knew it wasn’t. The first was newspaper. The second a plain, white sheet torn raggedly from a tablet. One line was written across the sheet in the same familiar hand.
His own hand shaking, for longer than he knew, Jefferson stared down at it, tracing each letter, each word, with his startled gaze. Catching an unsteady breath, an unforgettable fragrance filling his lungs, touching his heart, he read the written words out loud. His own words, spoken just once, long ago.
If ever you need me…
A promise made. A promise to keep. But how?
The answer lay in the second sheet. A month-old newspaper article. “‘The search for the plane of Paulo Rei has been terminated,’” he read, then read again. “‘On board were Señor Rei, his wife, the former Marissa Claire Alexandre, and her parents.’”
There was more, a detailed description of the Reis and their lives. But Jefferson’s voice stumbled to a halt. Papers fluttered to the floor. As his gaze lifted to the portrait over the mantel, he recited the only line that mattered in a lifeless voice, “‘It has been determined there could be no survivors.’”
No survivors. The words were a cry in his mind. Words that made no sense. Trying to find sanity in it, he read his own words again. A promise only Marissa would know.
But a part of him couldn’t comprehend or separate truth from fiction. Was it a charade? A ghoulish trick? Or was it real?
If it was real, why was it assumed Marissa had been on the plane? If it wasn’t she who had sent the letter, then who?
His thoughts were a whirligig, going ’round and ’round, always ending in the same place, the same thought, the same denial. No one but Marissa could have sent the letter. It had to be. It must be. For, if she hadn’t, it would mean she was dead.
“No!” Jefferson refused to believe. “I would know. The world wouldn’t feel right without Marissa.”
But how could he be sure? How could he know he wasn’t persuading himself to believe what he needed to believe?
“Satan!” The name was spoken without thought or conscious volition. But as he heard it, Jefferson knew it was the way. Rigid as stone, the dog had watched. Now he came to attention, awaiting the command that always followed his name spoken in that tone. Jefferson smiled, a humorless tilt of his lips. Recognizing the stance, he gave the expected command. “Stay.”
Certain Satan would obey, he returned to his bedroom. Opening the drawer by the bedside table, he drew out a scarf. A square of silk filled with memories.
Marissa’s scarf. A memento of a day never forgotten.
How many times had he seen her wear it? How often had he thought how pretty the bright color was lying against her nape, holding back her dark hair? Why, when he wanted to so badly, had he never dared fling it away to wrap himself in the spill of silken locks?
How could her perfume linger so long, a reminder of the day he’d lived the dream he hadn’t dared?
“The day I made love to Marissa.”
As the floodgates opened, memories he’d never allowed himself to dwell on came rushing in wistful vignettes….
Marissa riding as only Marissa could, her body moving in perfect harmony with the horse.
Marissa with a rifle in her hand,