Beth wanted to blame Levi for this terrible turn of her life, and yet she was to blame for all of it.
“I think Danny should have a say in this,” Beth said, and at the same time, Herriot’s posture shifted and caught the corner of Beth’s eye.
Divided attention, when combined with darkness, could be a deceptive thing. Her mother looked like she might agree with Beth, but before she could say so, Herriot’s growl became a disturbing snarl. As Beth turned her head, the light and shadow created illusions. She thought she saw, beyond the screen, the glassy green flicker of wild-animal eyes catching the lamp’s glow.
Her brain suggested wolf at the same time that Herriot’s hind legs launched her high onto the screen. All three people in the room turned as one to the dog. Her thick claws penetrated the lightweight mesh and shredded it like newspaper as she dropped back to the floor.
Beth shouted, lunged for the dog’s collar, and missed. Teeth bared and fur electrified, the Appenzeller leaped again and this time went through the fresh hole.
A terrible tumble of snarls and snapping jaws ensued.
A crevasse of dread opened up in Beth’s mind. In one motion, while Levi and Rose were still statues, Beth grabbed the cool handle of the oil lamp with one hand and ripped out a floppy panel of screen with her other so that the opening was large enough for her to follow. She leaned into the wall with her hip and swung her legs over the edge, screaming at the dog fight as if words alone could break it up.
As her weight shifted forward and she felt herself slipping off the wet sill toward the ground, she remembered she was barefoot.
A ground cover of chipped granite rocks bit into the balls of her feet and, on the right, cut deep. Her disruptive shouts became a cry of pain. She fell forward into a smacking belly flop on the damp ground.
Her elbow and the oil lamp hit the ground at the same time. Her fingers released the handle. The lamp tipped, and the glass globe protecting the flame shattered.
In the whoosh of flame that flared to campfire size, Beth saw the dogs unfurl from their tangled ball of mud and tails into two distinct animals that were unevenly matched. Herriot had the disadvantage of a smaller size and unrestrained boldness. Rain sizzled and raised some smoke as it hit the puddle of spilled oil, but it didn’t quell the flames.
Through the barrier of fire, Beth’s eyes met the wolf’s. The wild animal shuddered, as if shaking itself off of the encounter with Herriot, then bolted. The Appenzeller gave chase, ignoring Beth’s commands that she come back.
The porch door hit the side of the house as Levi walked out with a blanket. He approached the mess without urgency, then unfurled the blanket and dropped it on top of the small pool of flaming oil. The fuel was trapped by the boundaries of the soaked ground and would burn itself out shortly. Her brother crouched next to her body.
“You’re a drain on this family,” Levi said. “Expect me to do my best to boot you out of it.”
She lowered her forehead to the mud.
18
Without returning to the house for her shoes, Beth limped to the barn as the sky’s intense midnight blue took on the dusty denim hue of morning. The last scattered drops of rain cut paths through the mud on her face and clothes, and the oily smoke coated her nostrils.
She needed to find Garner. She needed to find Herriot. She needed to bandage her bleeding foot. Examining it in the weak light before she shoved her toes into a pair of muck boots, she realized she might need stitches.
Tending to her injury, then, was the first thing she needed to do. But she sensed her mother was fundamentally wrong about the time it would take Levi to close a deal with Sam. If Sam had accepted it within beats of her father’s last breath, Beth would assume that the two men had been in discussion behind the family’s collective back for much longer than Levi claimed. Perhaps the deal was already well underway.
Beth whistled for Hastings, slipped onto his back without a saddle, and rode out. She took him past the torn-up screen in the empty porch, past the smoky puddle of lantern oil, where the broken brass lamp was still tipped on its side. She