The Hummingbird's Cage (19 page)

It wasn't a hard buck, but it caught Simon just as he was leaning to the side, off-balance, and pitched him to the ground. He landed with a cry of pain.

I dismounted and ran toward him. He waved me off.

“Get the horse,” he said with a gasp.

I saw that Yas had turned to launch himself back through the brush, leaping and hurdling toward the track we'd just come from. Fleeing faster than I could possibly manage, even on Nastas.

“No!” Simon cried. “Get Tse!”

I turned in confusion toward Tse, who wasn't hurdling headlong anywhere, but standing almost motionless at the edge of the clearing. She appeared to be watching me.

I approached carefully, murmuring, unsure if she would rear up again. But this time she was her familiar gentle self. I took the reins and led her back toward Simon, who had propped himself up to a sitting position but seemed unable or unwilling to get up. I tied Tse's reins around a low branch and went to him.

“It's my leg,” he said as I knelt down. “Twisted a bit. Not broken, though.”

“Can you stand?”

“We can try,” he said.

“Here—put your arm around me.”

He slung one arm around my shoulders and pushed off with the other, and together we managed to get him back on his feet.

“Son of a—”
he muttered with a grimace.

“Can you put any weight on it?”

“Not without doing some serious damage to your eardrums,” he said.

“Hang on.”

I left him balancing on his one good leg to search the ground for a branch straight and strong enough to bear his
weight. When I found one, I helped him limp to a seat on a nearby boulder.

“Wait here,” I told him.

“I'm not going anywhere.”

I hitched a deep breath and walked deliberately to the edge of the clearing, nearest the spot we'd first seen Tse. I scanned the dark undergrowth for a flash of color, of pale skin glowing in the shank of tepid moonlight. Then I began to call Laurel's name.

I circled the clearing as I scanned and called. I heard nothing in return. When I ventured deeper into the woods, Simon called me back.

“You won't see your hand in front of your face in there,” he said. “You'll only get lost. Then we'll need two search parties.”

“You can't ride,” I said. “And I can't just stay here.”

He patted a spot beside him on the boulder. “Sit down,” he said. “Let's think this through.”

Even thinking seemed like a luxury of time I couldn't afford.

“I can't sit,” I said, gazing almost longingly at the dark woods. “I have to do something.”

“Then get me some coffee. Jessie packed some in your kit.”

I stared at him, mutinous.

“Please,” he said firmly.

Nastas was still under a tree branch I'd hitched him to, chewing on his bit. I dug around in the saddlebag and pulled out a thermos. I returned and tossed it to Simon.

“You can't understand,” I told him as he caught it. “You've never had a child.”

“True enough,” he said.

“You can't—” I stopped short.

He couldn't possibly know—the guilt, the loaded gun with a hair trigger that always seemed trained on your daughter. And all you could do was try to keep her, if not absolutely safe, at least blissfully ignorant.

“I failed her enough,” I said. “I won't fail her this time.”

“I believe you.”

“This . . .
Mountain
can't have her.”

Simon gave a slight smile. “You talk about it like it's alive.”

“I know—it's crazy.”

He didn't answer.

“How rich,” I said, suddenly deflated. “If all that time with Jim she never got a scratch, but a few months alone with her mother she ends up—”

“Here's an idea,” Simon said abruptly. “Take Tse and give her her head. Let her go wherever she wants. There's a chance she'll go back to where she left Laurel.”

“Simon, there's an even better chance she'll head right back to the warm barn. Why would she take me to Laurel?”

“You might ask her to.”

I shot him an angry look, expecting he was making light of an unspeakable situation. But even in the thin moonlight I could see he was dead serious.

*   *   *

Tse stood quietly while I readjusted the loose saddle and tightened the cinch. I lowered the stirrups to fit me. I leaned in close to where Tse could hear, but Simon, still seated on the boulder, could not.

“Come on, girl,” I whispered. “Take me to Laurel.”

I mounted up.

“I'll be back,” I called to Simon.

“I'll be here,” he said.

*   *   *

The climb began in earnest as Tse—the reins slack, no guidance from me—picked her own path up the Mountain. There were moments when, just as Simon had said, I could barely see my hand in front of my face. But Tse seemed to move as if she were on a mission.

As the way grew steeper, the trees began to thin out. They were mostly pine by then, and aspens with their slim white trunks and quavering yellow leaves. A half hour or more we climbed, till I was standing almost steadily in the stirrups and Tse was grunting from the effort. Soon her hooves began to slide out from under her.

I dismounted and led her to a young aspen, knotting the reins about its banded, chalky trunk. I patted her neck.

“I'll take it from here, old girl,” I said.

Before I left, I took the signal pistol from the saddlebag and slipped it into my pocket. I had no idea where I was headed, only that Tse had tried to get me to some fixed point on the Mountain. She hadn't tacked back and forth to make the way easier. She hadn't turned and headed for the warm barn. She'd plowed on with what looked like purpose. And so would I.

The snowpack didn't start till much higher on the peak, but the air already felt glacial. I was panting from the climb, and my lungs felt chilled, too. The effect wasn't debilitating, but oddly bracing. On the ground, thin patches of snow glistened almost preternaturally bright in the moonlight.

What had felt before, from far below in the valley, like the magnetic tug of the Mountain had become at this altitude not just a
pull
, but also a
push
. As if now there were also a wind at my back, like an unseen hand.

But this time, I wasn't resisting. Not a whit. Not if it might get me closer to Laurel.

Suddenly I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Something small and nimble darting through the trees. I turned toward the movement, and it was gone.

I held my breath and listened, and heard nothing but the rasp of aspen leaves.

Still, I'd seen something. I was sure of it.

I changed direction, heading toward the movement. It hadn't looked big enough to be a seven-year-old child, but then again, I hadn't caught a good, full-on look. And if it was a wild nocturnal creature, I expected to either flush it out or make it scurry off.

“Laurel?” I called tentatively, scanning the woods as I moved.

No response.

“Laurel!” I shouted, then paused, listening harder.

Snap
.

I swiveled at the sound, and there it was again to my right, vanishing behind a giant ponderosa pine—a flash of what looked like fur. Four legs. A tail. It might have been a large raccoon, but for what looked like patches of white on its body. White fur, maybe. Or snow crusted to the animal's hide.

Either way, I could feel the hair bristle on the back of my neck.

As I stepped toward the pine, I stripped off my gloves and
felt for the signal pistol in my pocket. I drew it out and switched off the safety.

The pine trunk was so big it would have taken two of me to wrap my arms around it. Its scaly bark was the color of oxblood in the dark and had that familiar faint scent of vanilla.

I rounded it carefully, eyes pitched toward the ground.

But there was nothing on the other side of the tree trunk. Nothing but a thin, crusty patch of snow. I knelt and looked closer. The snow was unbroken. No paw prints.

I glanced around. I had the uncanny sensation I was being led somewhere. Lured.

A copse of aspen trees, white and reedy as ghosts in the moonlight, lay up ahead, snow gleaming at their deep roots.

And there it was again among the trunks. A flash. White and dark together, in a quick, sylphlike movement.

Then it was gone.

My heart began to race, and it had nothing to do with the altitude or the thin air or the cold. Even under my wool sweater and my warm coat, the skin on my forearms was contracting painfully. My palms were so slippery with sweat, I had to rub my gun hand against my jeans to get a dry grip.

I knew—
somehow I knew
—there was something in those trees that I didn't want to see.

Just as I knew I had no choice but to see it.

This time the Mountain was no help. It neither pulled nor propelled me. It waited for me to choose to walk the thirty feet, then twenty, then ten to the stand of aspens, which clumped together almost protectively in a rough circle.

And inside that circle was a small dark shape curled on the ground, motionless.

The back was to me, so I couldn't make out the face. But I could see the hair—honey blond and splayed loose upon the snow.

My breath caught and held. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks. My mouth opened, but no sound would come.

I dropped to my knees beside Laurel and the gun fell from my hand. I reached out to stroke her soft, cold hair. Then her cheek.

And her cheek was warm.

Her skin was flushed with warmth. It felt hot against my trembling fingers.

I leaned close and saw the warm breaths puffing from her parted lips.

I moaned and gasped with relief, convulsing into dry sobs.

Between the sobs, I managed to gasp out her name again.

Laurel
.

She stirred then, and yawned.

And then I saw it. What her little body had been curled around. What her arms had been embracing as she lay fast asleep at the base of the trees.

A furred head popped up and blinked at me with brown eyes lined like Cleopatra's. It had foxlike ears, a white ruff and a lush caramel coat.

It was Tinkerbell.

Laurel
sat on the kitchen floor stroking Tinkerbell so tenderly it made me wince. Jessie had given the dog a little hook rug to lie on next to the warm stove. It was resting, eyes closed, its pretty, perfect head buried in its paws. A food dish and water bowl had been licked clean.

I sat heavily in a kitchen chair and watched them. All it had taken was three signal shots of the pistol to bring Olin and Faro, Reuben and his father right to the aspen trees. In no time at all. We'd gathered up Simon and Nastas on the ride down, and found Yas on the road, waiting right at the trailhead.

Laurel was none the worse for wear, despite a tumble from the loose saddle and a few hours in the cold. She was as unblemished, as unmarked, as the dog.

Wordlessly, Jessie brought me a cup of hot tea and squeezed my shoulder.

Olin
worked the root vegetable beds. Jessie hung laundry in the thin autumn air. The dog would trail behind one, then the other. They both spoke to it, patted it, filled a water bowl for it from an outside spigot. It licked their hands gratefully. It stretched languidly, stealing quick naps in shafts of sunlight.

For whatever reason, it never came to me. Small favors. I couldn't look at the creature without reliving that wretched afternoon behind the shed all over again—the object lesson that broke the last of me.

For everyone else, something wonderful had happened. A little dog was lost, but now was found. Laurel said it even remembered the rollover trick she'd taught it last year.

The first night, and the next, I refused Laurel's pleas to let it sleep in her room. So when she begged the third night, I
could tell by the surprise in her face that she wasn't expecting me to answer as I did:
yes
.

That night, Laurel bathed and dressed for bed. From the kitchen, I could hear the dog scramble up the stairs as Laurel took it to her room.

Hours later, when the house was dark and hushed, I dressed in jeans and a jacket and took my boots in hand. I tiptoed in stocking feet down the stairs.

In the kitchen, I eased open the catchall drawer and drew out a flashlight. Out the back door, I sat on the stoop and pulled on my boots. The moon was full now, and so bright I made my way easily to the barn, unlatched the door, slipped inside and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Nastas nickered softly. I switched on the flashlight to make my way to his stall. He nuzzled my shoulder as I saddled him, then led him outside. I latched the barn door and mounted up.

The bedroom windows of the house were still dark, the curtains drawn. I nudged Nastas to a walk to the dirt road, then reined him south at a canter toward Morro.

We cast a long, loping shadow all along the road, the air so biting it made my teeth ache. The snow on the Mountain stretched halfway down its hulking side now, so deep that the serrated ridge at the crest could barely punch through. And still that burning beacon shone. Fixed and watchful.

As we hit town, we slowed once more to a walk, Nastas's hooves falling with a dull rhythmic
clomp
. I'd never seen Morro when it wasn't bustling with life. Now all its windows were dark or shuttered, but for a few random panes still softly glowing. Many were strung with orange Halloween lights and cutouts of witches and ghosts.

At the fork at the end of town, I took the smaller secondary road on the right and nudged Nastas back into a canter.

After a mile or so, just as before, the road began to climb through thick forest before leveling out again.

It was only then that it occurred to me Simon might not be awake by the time we reached his cabin. That he was surely in bed by now and sound asleep. Why wouldn't he be? He started work early. It was already past midnight.

I reined Nastas to a halt.

I pictured myself on Simon's porch, pounding on his door in the dark, Pal raising a ruckus. Then Simon blinking at me from the doorway, groggy and confused.

And then what? Asking him if this was a nice time for a chat?

Just ahead and still out of sight was the clearing where I knew his cabin sat, with the new corral and the orchard behind, the smokehouse and the little stable. An hour ago, this had seemed like a good idea. No—a
necessity
. Now it felt more like lunacy.

Nastas stamped hard, shifting to the side. He yanked his head, trying to turn us both around. He wanted to be back in the barn, in his warm stall. At that moment, there seemed no sensible reason why he shouldn't.

I patted his neck. “Sorry, boy.”

I started to rein around, glancing one last time at the road ahead.

Wait . . .
Had that glow been there before?

It was faint and seemed to be coming from the clearing on the left. I nudged Nastas forward.

As we neared, the glow grew more distinct. Brighter.

Then, as the trees began to clear, brighter still.

We broke the tree line into the clearing, and there was Simon's cabin. And there I could see where the light was coming from.

The oil lantern on the porch was lit, casting flickering shadows over the table and chairs there.

Something stirred in one of those chairs. A slim figure rose, moved to the porch steps and paused at the top.

My heart leapt. Had Simon been expecting me?

I didn't have to guide Nastas to the porch—he moved in all on his own. I jumped down, looped the reins around the saddle horn and let him loose. I knew he wouldn't wander far.

Nearer the steps, I could make out Pal sitting at the bottom, gazing calmly in my direction as if seeing me ride up in the middle of the night was nothing out of the ordinary. I moved past him and up the stairs. Simon was still waiting at the top, now with his hand outstretched. When I was close enough, I took it.

Then I burst into tears.

I couldn't tell how long I stood there, gathered in his arms, leaning into him, my face buried in his shoulder, shaking with sobs that I was both embarrassed and relieved for him to see. He didn't ask why I was there, or why I was crying. He just kept murmuring that everything was going to be all right, his lips now warm against my temple, now brushing my cheek.

It felt so safe, so lulling, I didn't want to pull away, even after the tears had subsided. If I could have pulled some lever then, releasing us both from time and space, I would have.

When I finally did pull back, wiping at my eyes and nose, the only thing I could say was, “You're not wearing a coat.”

He shrugged. “I've got a fire going inside.”

He paused as if considering what he'd just said. Then we both laughed.

“Come on in,” he said.

This time there was no hesitation. The cabin had a great room with fireplaces on either side, one of them already lit and crackling before a deep sofa. On the opposite side was a dining table and chairs. In between was a stairway to the second floor.

Simon led me to the sofa, only the slightest hitch in his step from his fall a few days ago on the Mountain. An end table was set with a bottle of whiskey and two empty glasses.

“I was about to have a drink,” he said. “Like one?”

I don't usually drink hard liquor and was about to tell him so. Then I realized that whiskey sounded exactly like what I needed. I pulled off my jacket and threw it over the back of the sofa before taking a seat.

“A small one.”

He poured them both out, handed me the smaller, then settled in beside me.

“How's your leg?” I asked.

“Nearly good as new. How's Laurel?”

I sipped the whiskey carefully; it was bracing, not burning. “I've never seen her happier.”

“You don't look happy about that.”

It was an invitation to open up. All I had to do was take it:
No, not happy. Not happy at all. Here's why . . .

“Why are you up so late?” I asked.

He gestured in the general direction of the meadow out back. “Checking up on Pegasus. He was restless tonight.” His voice was low and familiar, perfectly pitched for firelight. “He isn't the only one.”

Another invitation. I focused on the glass gripped in my lap. “I couldn't stay at the house tonight.”

“Talk to me, Joanna. That's why you're here, isn't it?”

I drained the glass and handed it to him. “Can I have another?”

He smiled. “Irish courage, eh?”

“I'll take any kind I can get.”

The refill he returned with wasn't as small as before. I had to down half of it before I was ready to begin. Even then it wasn't soon, and in little more than a whisper.

“That dog back in Laurel's bed right now?” I said. “It didn't just run away—that's only what I told her. That dog is . . . Jim killed it with a shovel. Made me bury it in the yard. I can't . . . I can't even bear to look at it. It's ghoulish.”

I paused and glanced at him, but he said nothing.

“There's so much I don't understand,” I continued slowly. “Olin has told me a few things. The rest he said I need to figure out for myself. But I don't know the rules.” My voice began to rise. “I don't know what's real or not.
Who's
real or—”

Simon raised his hand, cutting me off. “Do you feel safe here?”

The question caught me off guard. “What?”

“Do you feel like you belong?”

I shook my head at him, still confused.

“Belonging can mean a lot of things,” he continued. “As for me, I was born not far from here, on a little ranch my father built. This is where I grew up, so I know this country. This is where I
fit
. Where I want to be. This is new terrain for you, and I don't just mean the landscape. You're bound to have questions.”

“New terrain . . .” I repeated. “Yes.”

“You don't know how you ended up here, beyond me finding you wandering around lost, holding on to Laurel for dear life. You see things you can't explain. You sense things, but don't know how.”

“Not everything,” I said. “Laurel used to tell me she could hear the dog barking on the Mountain. Even when I couldn't.”

“The dog,” he said. “What else?”

He was coaxing me, guiding me. And at once in my mind's eye I could see the Mountain—the way it loomed over me that first day at the breakfast table, and every day since, urging me to come . . .

“That was no mistake,” said Simon, and I knew he was seeing the Mountain with me, feeling its gravitation. “You were heading for it when I found you. Do you remember?”

I shook my head.

“It's got a will of its own, hasn't it?” he asked. “More intense at first. I've seen people traveling through and they're single-minded. They want to hike right to the top, and no mistake.”

“Simon, I don't want to hike to the top.”

He smiled. “You've got a will of your own, too.”

“Free will . . .” I murmured. “Really? Even here?”

“Even here. Nobody brings anything here they didn't already have. The good, the not so good. The idea, as far as I can tell, is to keep
trying
.”

“Trying what?”

“Not exactly clear on that one myself,” he said with a small chuckle. “Maybe to follow our better natures till we get it right. Or maybe it's different for each of us. But the thing to bear in mind when Morro confuses or frightens you is that it's a community like any other. And the people here, they're just
people
. And you . . . you've got time to figure things out.”

“How much time?”

He hesitated. “As long as you need to make a choice.”

“You know about that, too.”

“Yes.”

“Olin told me—‘Stay and get strong,' he said. ‘Then decide.' Simon, did you have a choice? When you first came?”

His expression shifted. There was a fixedness to it—the mask was back.

“No, Joanna,” he said finally. “Few people do.”

“This is a good place,” I said. “I feel like it fits me, too. Olin seems to think I should go back. And face my husband.”

“Did he say that?”

“Yes. Well, no—not exactly. He said I should consider this like a Place of Truth for me. To think of the things I'd done. Or failed to. And what I'd do with a second chance.”

“A second chance . . . sounds tempting.”

“You don't understand. Neither does Olin. It would mean going back to . . . a monster. Jim wasn't just a rotten husband and it wasn't just a rotten marriage.
Even here
I've had nightmares about him. Laurel, too. She dreamed he was coming for her. She was terrified.”

Simon was watching me steadily.

“Do you recall the day I found you?” he asked.

“I don't. Not everything.”

“Try. What do you remember?”

I tried to oblige him. To dig deep. Like Bree when she was remembering the trucker who had hit her head-on as she drove back from a rock concert.

“We were on the way to Albuquerque,” I said. “Running for our lives, really. Jim had threatened to kill me so many times. Even showed me how he'd do it. How he'd get away with it.” I
downed more whiskey, my hand shaking now. “I remember looking in the rearview at his police unit. The flashing lights. The siren.”

Simon shifted on the sofa. His face was averted, but I could still make out the furious cast of it.

“Why'd you stay with him?” he asked.

“God, that's a cruel question.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Don't answer it.”

But it was the obvious question, too. And now it was the bell he couldn't unring.

“Because it wasn't so bad in the beginning,” I managed finally. “Because I did love him . . . once. Because I was weak. All of the above.”

“Joanna—”

“Really, the first six months, the first year, it was great—or that's what I thought. And I wanted so much to make it work, even if I didn't have a clear idea how. I'd seen my mother fail at so many relationships, and I didn't want to live like that. Jim was like the ideal husband at first—charming, attentive, handsome. So when things started to go bad, I thought it was
me
. That I was doing something wrong. Failing somehow. I thought all I had to do was change
me
and everything would be all right again.

“By the time I realized what was really going on, it was too late. I was alone, cut off. He had me trapped and wasn't about to let go. Till death do us part . . .”

I tipped my glass in toast, but didn't drink. Simon took my free hand and held it.

“It's all right,” I assured him. “That's all over. He'll never do anything like that again. I'd kill him first.”

The words were out of my mouth before I realized they were ever in my head.