rocks represented something he’d needed to say to John Carmody and never could, or something he had said and wished he hadn’t.
High over his head, a breeze whispered through the needles of the Ponderosa pines and the leaves of those stray maples and oaks that had taken root in this place long before he was born. Remington nickered contentedly, his bridle fittings jingling softly.
A kind of peace settled over Hutch.
“You were hard to love, old man,” he said very quietly.
John Carmody wasn’t actually buried under those rocks—he’d been laid to rest in the Pioneer Cemetery—but this was where Hutch came when he felt the need to make some connection with his father, whether in anger or in sorrow.
The anger had mostly passed, worn away by intermittent rock-stacking sessions following the old man’s death, but the sorrow remained, more manageable now, but still as much a part of Hutch as the land and the fabled big sky.
And that, he decided, was all right, because life was all of a piece, when you got right down to it, a jumbled mixture of good and bad and everything in between.
He turned his back to the rock pile then, folded his arms and drew the vast view into himself like a breath to the soul.
In the distance he could see the spires of Parable’s several small churches, the modest dome of the courthouse, with the flag rippling proudly at its peak. There was the river, and the streams breaking off from it, the spreading fingers of a great, shimmering hand.
His gaze wandered, finally snagged on the water tower.
Like the high meadow where he stood, that rickety old structure had meaning to him. He’d ridden bulls and broncos, ranging from mediocre to devil-mean, over the years, breaking a bone or two in the process. He’d floated some of the wildest rivers in the West, raced cars and skydived and bungee jumped, you name it, all without a flicker of fear.
And then there was the water tower.
Like most kids growing up in or around Parable, he’d climbed it once, made his way up the ancient ladder, rung by weathered rung, with his heart pounding in his ears and his throat so thick with terror that he could hardly breathe.
Reaching the flimsy walkway, some fifty feet above the ground, he’d suddenly frozen, gripping the rail while the whole structure seemed to sway like some carnival ride gone crazy. A cold sweat broke out all over him, clammy despite the heat of a summer afternoon and, just to complete his humiliation, Slade Barlow had been there.
Slade, his half brother, and at the time, sworn enemy, had dared him to make the climb in the first place. Ironically, Slade had been the one to come up that ladder and talk him down, too, since there was nobody else around just then.
Thank God.
Even now, after all his time, the memory settled into the pit of Hutch’s stomach and soured there, like something he shouldn’t have eaten.
He forced his attention away from the tower—most folks agreed that, being obsolete anyhow, the thing ought to be torn down before some darn-fool kid was seriously hurt or even killed, but nobody ever actually did anything about the idea. Maybe it was nostalgia for lost youth, maybe it was plain old inertia, but talking seemed to be as good as doing where that particular demolition project was concerned.
Hutch sighed, a little deflated, wondering what he’d expected to achieve by coming up here, approached Remington and gathered his reins before climbing back into the saddle.
He stood in the stirrups for a moment or two, stretching his legs, and then he headed for home, where no one was waiting for him.
* * *
AT NOON, KENDRA showed the mansion to the first potential client, a busy executive from San Francisco who was looking, he said, for investment opportunities. His wife, he told Kendra, had always wanted to start and run a bed-and-breakfast in a quaint little town exactly like Parable.
She’d smiled throughout, listening attentively, asking and answering questions, and finally telling the man straight out that there were already three bed-and-breakfasts in town, and they were barely staying afloat financially.
The man had nodded ruefully, thanked Kendra for her time and driven away in his rented SUV. Most likely he’d promised his wife he’d take a look, and now he’d done that and could dismiss the plan in good conscience. Instinctively she knew no offer would be forthcoming, but she wasn’t discouraged.