two inches above ground. At the cross section, the leaves around the stalk folded into each other to form the general shape of a triangle. Then he pulled the bulb out of the soil and sliced it in two horizontally. The core of the fatal onion twin also resembled a triangle. Similar cross-sections of the blue camas bore tidy little circles rather than three-sided designs.
“I think we ought to name these Bermuda onions,” she had said. “As a mnemonic device.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You know—the triangle?”
“Oh. Well, death camas is far more poetic, don’t you think?” he said. “And I think the real Bermuda onion growers would object.”
At this time of year, identification by slicing was unnecessary. The alluring white flowers and the egg-shaped bulbs that didn’t smell like onions were all the clues she needed.
Cat had no practical use for these plants, but she thought she should collect some. Play with it a little. It was wise to be prepared for all possible events, in and out of season, and Zigadenus venenosus wasn’t exactly available online.
Wearing her gloves, she stripped a slender aspen branch of its leaves and used it to help pry the death camas out of the earth undamaged. She hardly needed the tool; summer rains had softened the earth, and nearly all of them uprooted with ease.
Cat filled a large brown sack with a couple dozen. Surely more than she needed, but she found the gesture cathartic after such a difficult morning. Just one of these bulbs could kill a child and two could kill a man, and she was no murderer. But such a large bag did make her feel a little bit powerful.
She would need to take great care with how she labeled it, to prevent an innocent soul, even herself, in a split second of distraction from accidentally applying the meadow death camas to a tragic use. Because she was all about keeping people alive.
12
The day of the judgment was blazing hot with the heat of a classic Western. The sun was molten and broiled the earth, weighing down breezes and evaporating much of the water spray that arced over the hayfields. The air rippled above blacktop roads, and the vibration of the elements seemed audible, a low and ominous hum.
Inside the air-conditioned courthouse, the oxygen was almost too thick to breathe. Beth and her father sat next to each other, elbows touching, the only souls on a wood bench worn shiny by use. Only her father had joined her today. Her mother refused to spare the ranch anyone else for “Beth’s drama.”
It was easy for Beth to forgive her mother, who was more frightened about the outcome than anyone.
A very small audience, mostly friends whose pity had carried the Kandinskys through this trying time, heard the judge award Mr. Anthony Darling all the damages he sought. It was a devastating number, much larger than Beth could comprehend in that second when it was uttered, even greater than the number their attorney had called a “worst case.” The decision was read and received dispassionately by those in attendance, but the murmur of agreement continued to swirl around Beth’s head after the judge rose and left his seat.
There was no mercy, only judgment. No nick-of-time miracle, only the expected reality. The girl with nothing was forced to give all to the man who had everything, because she had made a grave error.
Darling passed by without looking at the Borzois. Their attorney said how disappointed he was in the outcome, gave them instructions to contact his assistant for an appointment in the coming weeks, then left abruptly, as if he’d already overspent his time with this family that had no more money to give him. The courtroom emptied.
Beth had eighteen months to pay Darling. If she didn’t, or couldn’t, the court would proceed by issuing liens against the Blazing B, forcing subdivisions and sales of land and property if necessary. It would be necessary. The two jobs she’d taken wouldn’t even skim the fat off the top of this stew.
Abel picked up the cowboy hat that sat on the seat next to him. A new frown line over his nose that matched the cleft of his chin was the only indication that he’d heard the judge’s words.
Abel was older than the fathers of Beth’s peers, nearly old enough to be her grandfather, having married Rose late in his life. The sun-sunk lines of his wide round face were deep, and his hair, which was once the