Keeper of the Light (26 page)

“I guess you know Olivia and I are separated.”

“Yes, she told me.” He glanced at Paul. “Do you know that’s not what she wants?”

“I know.” Paul stared at the image of a white-gowned, raven-haired woman about to take a bite from an apple. “It was completely my fault, what went wrong. Completely my doing. I felt certain when I left that it was the right thing to do, but now…I miss her sometimes, although I still have my doubts we could ever make it work again.”

“At least you have the choice. I envy you for that.” Alec gazed down at the sand for a few seconds. Then he chuckled and looked up at Paul. “I have this almost uncontrollable urge to lecture you,” he said. “You have a wife who’s pretty and smart and alive and I get the feeling you don’t realize how lucky you are and how quickly you could lose her…and I’m sorry. I don’t have any right to tell you your business.”

“Its okay,” Paul said. “I guess I’d feel the same way in your shoes.”

Alec slapped at a mosquito on his arm. “Let’s go in,” he said.

“Well, I should really get going.” Paul’s tone was unconvincing. As much as he hadn’t wanted to walk into Alec’s house earlier that evening, now he didn’t want to leave.

“Come on in for a while,” Alec said. “It’s not that late and my kids are out. I can use the company.”

“I saw pictures of your kids at Annie’s studio,” Paul said, as they walked into the house. “Your daughter looks practically identical to her.”

Alec laughed. “Not anymore. She cut off her hair and dyed it black.” He stepped into a room off the living room. “Come in here,” he said.

Paul walked into a small den. A computer rested on the desk facing the front window, and a broad work table like the one at Annie’s studio took up half the opposite wall. The walls were covered with photographs, most of them family shots, taken on the pier, on the deck of the house, on the beach. Annie looked happy in every one of them without exception, the core of her family, and Paul felt a sudden self-loathing for trying to hurt that, for playing to her weakness.

He stared at a picture of Annie’s children. Lacey and Clay. “She cut off that beautiful hair?” he asked, shaking his head.

“’Fraid so.”

Paul moved to another picture and this one gave him a start. A tanned white-haired man in tennis clothes standing next to a homely red-headed woman. “And who are these people?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

The phone on the desk rang. “Annie’s parents,” Alec answered, as he picked up the receiver. He said a few words into the phone and Paul began to feel intrusive. He waved to Alec and mouthed the word
thanks
as he headed toward the door of the den, but Alec held up a hand to stop him.

“Wait a sec,” he said, and then into the phone, “I’m leaving now.” He hung up the phone and looked at Paul. “Are you squeamish?”

“Uh…no. I don’t think so.”

“Come with me, then.” Alec picked up a set of keys from the top of his desk and started toward the door. “One of the wild horses was hit by a car near Kiss River. We might be able to use your help.”

Paul followed him outside. They stopped in the garage, where Alec unlocked a cabinet and removed what looked like a tool chest and what was most definitely a shotgun.

Paul stared at the gun. “Are you going to… Do you think you’ll have to shoot it?”

Alec looked at him, puzzled, before breaking into a smile. “With a tranquilizer dart,” he said. “I’d use an injection if the horse needs to be put down, and that will most likely be the case, if it’s not dead already by the time we get there. I haven’t seen one of them survive a run-in with a car yet.”

Paul got into the Bronco, next to Alec and the gun. “Annie told me the horses stay close to the road now that it’s more developed around Kiss River,” he said.

Alec backed the Bronco out into the street. “They think the grass has been planted just for them.” He shook his head. “There are only ten horses left. Maybe nine, after tonight. We’ve plastered the road with warning signs, but some people still get behind the wheel with their brains in neutral.”

They were quiet as they drove out of Southern Shores. What would Annie think if she could see this scene, Paul wondered, he and Alec cruising up to Kiss River like old buddies, a shotgun resting on the seat between them?

“You were starting to tell me about Annie’s parents,” Paul said.

“Oh, right.” Alec turned on the air conditioner. Nightfall had done nothing to ease the heat of the day. “Her dad’s dead now, but her mother still lives in Boston, where Annie grew up. I don’t know why I have that picture of them hanging in the den. Annie insisted we put it up, but as far as I’m concerned we could have dropped it in the sound.”

Even in the darkness, Paul could see the tension in Alec’s jaw. “She mentioned that she came from a very wealthy family,” he prompted.

Alec glanced over at him. “She said that?” He shook his head. “They had money, all right, but Annie never saw a dime of it once we were married. They cut her off.”

Paul was beginning to perspire. He turned one of the air conditioning vents toward his face. “Why would they do that?” he asked.

“My parents owned a little Irish pub in Arlington—not much of a moneymaking enterprise—and I guess the son of a bartender wasn’t good enough for their blue-blooded daughter.” Alec’s tone was quiet, confidential, and Paul could feel his hurt. “They said I was white trash.”

Paul turned his head to the window. Annie had not married Alec to please her parents. She had left Paul for a man who was no more to their liking than he had been.

“There’s the Kiss River Light,” Alec said.

Paul looked ahead of them into the black night, and in a few seconds he saw it, too.
One, one-hundred…
So familiar. So constant. So… “Oh my God,” he said.

“What?”

“What will happen to the light while they’re in the process of moving it?”

Alec smiled. “I’ve thought of that myself. Doesn’t feel too good, does it?” He turned the Bronco onto the narrow road leading out to Kiss River, and leaned forward, peering into the darkness. “There they are,” he said.

Paul spotted two women on the side of the road, waving them over with their flashlights. Alec pulled the Bronco onto the sandy shoulder. He handed the shotgun to Paul, and they got out of the car, Alec carrying the tool chest and flashlight.

The women walked over to them.

“It’s one of the colts, Alec,” the taller woman said. “He was on the ground when we called you. He’s up now, but he’s limping badly.” She pointed into the wooded area at the side of the road and Paul could make out the dark silhouette of a young horse.

Alec set the tool chest down and put his hands on his hips, assessing the situation. “Where’s the herd?” he asked.

“Across the street.” The taller woman looked at Paul. “I’m Julie,” she said.

“Paul Macelli,” Paul said.

Alec touched the second woman on the shoulder. “And this is Karen.”

“He was broadsided,” Karen said. “The guy who hit him—with a Mercedes, no less—said the colt flipped up on the hood of the car and broke the windshield. He’s got a right good gash on his left hindquarter.”

Alec looked toward the horse. “Okay, fella,” he said quietly, “let’s see you walk.”

The four of them stood waiting for some movement from the colt, but he seemed frozen in one spot. He lifted his head to look across the road, where a group of horses milled skittishly in the darkness, the light from the beacon brushing over them every few seconds. They were huge, Paul thought with a shudder. Menacing. He remembered Annie warning him to steer clear of them.
“They’re wild,”
she’d said.
“They can be nasty.”

Finally, the colt took a few tentative steps, obviously favoring his left front leg. Then he stood still, alone in the woods, neighing—
crying,
really—a sound that hurt to listen to.

Alec took the shotgun from Paul’s hand and gave him the flashlight. “Could you hold the light down here, Paul?” he asked as he knelt down to load the gun with something he took from the chest. Then he stood up. “Hold the light on him,” he said, and Paul and the women trained the beams of their flashlights on the animal’s bloody hindquarters as Alec moved quietly toward him.

Paul glanced over his shoulder at the enormous horses just across the road from where they stood. He felt somehow more exposed without Alec next to him.

Alec lifted the shotgun slowly to his shoulder and fired. The colt bucked and let out a cry. There was an answering whinny from the other side of the road, and Julie and Karen looked over at the herd.

“I’d better keep an eye on them,” Karen said, walking back toward the road. “You two can help Alec.”

There was not much to do as they waited for the tranquilizer to take effect. The three of them stood abreast, watching the frightened little colt stare back at them.

“How are you, Alec?” Julie broke the silence after a minute or two. Her question sounded loaded, one of those simple questions that took on greater meaning between old friends.

“I’m all right,” Alec said. “Hanging in there.”

After another few minutes of silence, the colt dropped abruptly to his knees, then rolled over on his side.

Alec lifted the tool chest. “Let’s see what we’ve got,” he said, as they started walking toward him.

Julie sat on the ground and pulled the colt’s head into her lap, while Paul stood above them, holding the flashlight so that Alec could see what he was doing. He glanced nervously toward the road. How was Karen going to hold those horses back if they decided to protect one of their own?

Alec ran his hands carefully over the colt’s legs, spending a long time on the leg the colt had favored. “Amazing,” he said. “Nothing’s broken. He’s going to be sore for a while, though.” He moved his hands slowly over the trunk of the horse. “No broken ribs. Hopefully no internal injuries, either. Looks like this is the worst problem.” He turned his attention to the gash. “Come a little closer with the light, Paul.”

Paul glanced across the road and reluctantly dropped to his knees. He was defenseless now. If the horses decided to stampede, the three of them were doomed.

He trained the light on the ugly wound. It was deep, and easily eight inches long. Alec washed it with a solution he took from his tool box.

“Do you have to stitch it?” Paul asked.

Alec nodded. “If it were winter, I’d let it go, but with this heat the flies are sure to get to it if I don’t.”

Paul wasn’t certain he could watch this. He hadn’t known what he was agreeing to when he’d told Alec he wasn’t squeamish.

Alec rooted around in the tool chest for another minute. Then he took the flashlight from Paul and handed it to Julie. “You’ll need to hold the edges of the wound together for me, Paul, okay?”

“Uh. You’ll have to show me how.”

Alec demonstrated, and Paul followed his example, wincing as Alec began to stitch.

“How’s your baby doing, Jule?” Alec asked, keeping his eyes on his work.

“She’s not a baby anymore,” Julie said, “which goes to show how long you’ve been out of circulation. She’s a hellion. Into everything.”

Julie talked about the little restaurant she managed, and Alec talked about Clay going off to college in another month. Paul listened to their easy conversation, their comfort with one another. Alec’s voice was so calm, so assured, despite the work he was doing on the colt, that Paul nearly forgot about the horses across the road.

“I wasn’t sure I should call you,” Julie said, after a brief silence. “I know you haven’t been working lately.”

“I’m glad you did,” Alec said.

“Well, I thought twice about it, I can tell you that. But there just isn’t anyone else I’d trust with one of these guys.” Alec glanced up at her with a smile. “This one’s going to make it, Jule.”

There was a silence as Alec continued his stitching. Paul moved his fingers along the edges of the wound to keep pace with him. The tension had left his body. The horses across the road seemed harmless as long as Alec was close by. For the first time he thought he understood. There was nothing mysterious about Annie leaving him for Alec. There had been no ulterior motive on her part, no hidden agenda, no succumbing to the demands of her parents. He could imagine her with Alec—Annie with her need to feel loved and cherished, safe and secure. Alec would have met those needs without even trying.

The pulsing light of the beacon seemed to slow, lingering on Alec’s hand for several seconds before melting back into the darkness. Then his hands stilled, suddenly, the needle poised above the wound, and Paul looked up to find Alec staring at him.

“Are you all right?” Alec asked, as the soft white light swept over them again.

“Yes,” Paul said, lowering his eyes to the horse. He wondered what Alec had seen in his face.

Okay,
he thought,
you won. She was yours, not mine. She loved you, not me. You won, Alec. Fair and square.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
OUR

It was nearly eleven by the time Alec said good-night to Paul and walked alone into his house. Lacey and Clay were still out, and the emptiness was oppressive. Even Tripod did not bother to come downstairs to greet him.

He poured iced tea into one of the green, hand-blown tumblers Julie had given Annie for her birthday a few years earlier, and carried it into the living room, where he sat down on the couch and stared at the phone. It was after eleven. Too late to call Olivia, and that was just as well. He’d become a little too dependent on those phone calls. He’d see her in the morning, anyway. She had agreed to go windsurfing with him at Rio Beach.

He lay down, stretching out along the length of the sofa, a throw pillow beneath his head. It had been a long, long time since he’d worked on an animal. It had felt good—
powerful
—to be able to make a difference, to set something
right
for a change. He had expected to find a dead horse up there. Or worse, a dying horse. He supposed that’s why he’d asked Paul to come along—to keep his mind off his jangling nerves.