17
As Julia drove the wagon away from her house, Claire noticed Bronco, who was staying with Hunter Logan, peering from an upstairs window. Maybe he was wondering if Michael Collister was Wade Buxton or Vern Kirkpatrick. Poor guy: he might now have another persona non grata to watch out for.
“We’re heading through the heart of the island to get to the north shore,” Julia told them as she turned the team right to start up the hill on Fort Street. As they passed Fort Mackinac, Claire stared at the statue of Father Marquette standing alone in the middle of a grassy yard. Even in the sun and in this wider setting, her brain flashed back to that statue of the dead woman in the cemetery with the baby in her stony arms.
She shook her head to clear it. They were turning onto Huron Street, going more uphill into a heavily forested area, then onto Arch Rock Road. Wasn’t Arch Rock the site Julia had said she especially wanted them to see today?
As if Julia could read her thoughts, she said, “Wait until you see Arch Rock and the amazing staircase that climbs up the side of the cliff near it.”
“Maybe great for looking at,” Nick said. “But with my leg and Meggie being small, it sounds like the staircase should be saved for later.”
“The Arch Rock view is worth the trip,” Julia insisted. “I’ll just show the stairs to Jenna, and she can take you back there when you’re ready. There was an older staircase there for years, just log steps, dangerous and rotting with erosion under it. But it’s all been rebuilt, widened, and the view is breathtaking, my favorite place anywhere on Earth.”
“Are there flowers to pick around here?” Lexi asked. “You’re not ’sposed to pick them in the Everglades, only in gardens.”
“Let me put it this way,” Julia said, gesturing at the magnificent orange, gold and scarlet hues of the October trees on both sides of the narrow road. “Mackinac State Park, which we’re in now, is 80 percent of our island and includes all these big trees with their beautiful, colored leaves, so you can pick those off the ground. We’re proud of its being the second created of all the national parks, after the more famous Yellowstone out west. And, Meggie,” she said, looking down at her seat partner, who kept watching the two-horse team over everything else, “though the woodland flowers are gone right now, the park rangers can make you pay a fifty-dollar fine per flower if you’re caught with them. They are protected and how!”
“I think that’s real good,” Lexi said. “I’d like to be protected or somebody has to pay.”
At that, Claire’s eyes filled with tears she blinked back before Nick could see them. Out of the mouths of children...her child and yet, a ways off yet, another to come.
“Ta-da!” Julia sang out and pointed ahead after a twenty-minute drive through what became mostly dark green spruce, pine and cedar. Their lofty limbs seemed to lord it over the dense, shadowed forest floor with its thick carpet of leaves and needles. “Arch Rock ahead, but we’ll tie up here and just enjoy the view. Usually, this place is crawling with people, but not this time of year. Great—no one else in sight!”
The view of Arch Rock, framed by the autumn trees, was stunning. They climbed down from the wagon and walked slowly closer to the edge of the cliff from which to view it. They stopped and stared. Rising from supporting stone below, with the azure Lake Huron beyond, rose a huge, rough rock arch of stone with a hollowed-out center, like a massive, open gate.
“Can you believe people used to be allowed to climb all over that?” Julia asked. “Way back to Native American times when the tribes believed this was the entry door to Earth for their Great Spirit, people have been in awe. They thought Gitche Manitou would then climb the giant staircase, which has since tumbled into the sea, so they believed mankind built a staircase from this height down to the shore level. It’s a bike trail and picnic place below now, on Lake Shore Drive if you ever want to ride your bikes or even snowmobiles there—when Jack’s leg heals. This place has meant many things to many people over the centuries, including me.”
Claire noted that even Lexi was quiet at the sight.
“It’s amazing,” Nick said.
“Thanks for sharing it with us,” Claire added.
“I’ll be right back,” Julia said, suddenly sounding stuffed up. “Just give me a moment.”
Claire and Nick looked at each other as Julia walked away. Nick shrugged. Claire wondered if she was heading for the public restrooms she’d seen nearby. But no, she wasn’t going that direction.
“Hold Meggie’s hand,” Claire whispered. “I think Julia needs someone to hold hers.”
“She more or less said she wants to be alone.”
“I know. I’ll just see if she’s okay. It’s everything at once for her, being kind to us, her ex showing up, Liz leaving, her father’s situation, then Buxton and Kirkpatrick.”
“And getting ready to give me riding lessons,” Lexi put in.
Claire gave Nick the take-care-of-Lexi look and hurried after Julia. Though at first she thought she’d disappeared, she saw she had sat just a few board steps down on what must be the new staircase she’d talked about. Yes, a sign read SPRING STAIRCASE TO LAKE SHORE DRIVE.
Claire hesitated a moment as she looked down at Julia and below. The staircase was ingeniously constructed with a bolted concrete base to cling to the side of a very steep hill, really a cliff, though trees, rocks and exposed roots clung too. And yes, in spots were remnants of the much older staircase Julia had mentioned, one much cruder and narrower.
Holding on to the sturdy railing, Claire went down a few steps and halted. “I don’t want to bother you, Julia, but just want to know you’re all right.”
She didn’t look up but nodded. “Well, not really. I’m trying.” She dug into her jacket pocket, produced a tissue and blew her nose.
Claire went down a few more steps and sat three up from Julia. “You don’t have to say anything,” she added.
“Your dossier said you have a psych degree,” Julia said and blew her nose again. “Even if my life was on an even keel right now, I’d probably cry at this place. It moves me deeply, the beauty and timelessness of it, even with this fairly new staircase. I love it here when it’s not swamped with tourists, though I’m glad they come. These winding, steep steps and my life—intertwined.”
Claire avoided filling the silences with her own words or questions, a tough task, always her weakness as she wanted to reach out and help, to comfort and advise.
Arch Rock seemed so close, as if they could touch it, despite its distance. It felt to Claire as if the forest hovered behind them, both views soothing and somehow threatening. The road far below and the distant crashing waves on the edge of the lake wove a strange spell.
Julia suddenly spoke again. “Just a bit farther down, I accepted a proposal of marriage and several years later told my husband there we were going to have a child. Sadly, my mother died right here on these older steps you can see below this spot. Heart attack when she was hiking. She loved it here too.”
“I’m sorry about your mother, but the other two things—happy events, at least then, no doubt.”
“Which didn’t stay that way. Lost Michael and I’m losing Liz if I stay here, but I need to stay here. Not only because of my father or my career, but because I want to live and die here. Michael could do his consulting work from here, but he refuses. Other things—even another woman—keep him in Baltimore.” She heaved a huge sigh. “Yet I could stay here forever.”
“But he brought you roses.”
“He wants Liz in Baltimore, so needs me to help convince her to go there and not New York.”
Claire wanted to argue that she sensed it was not just Liz that had brought him, but she had no right to intrude more than she had. Still, Julia had been so kind and gracious that she’d love to give back to her. But wouldn’t that be stepping over the WITSEC line that Jace had been warned against?
“So,” Julia said, suddenly standing and leaning stiff-armed on the railing, bending slightly over to look down. Then, still without turning to face Claire, she wiped her cheeks with both hands and turned to come up the steps.
Claire stood too and went up the few stairs to the top ahead of Julia. “So,” she echoed Julia’s single word when she joined her, “you said there was one more place you wanted to show us on the way back, but you can’t top this view.”
“Nothing can, at least for me,” she repeated as they walked to where Nick and Lexi were waiting. “And maybe, as morose as I’ve been just now—and I apologize for that—we shouldn’t even make that other stop today or it might give Meggie nightmares. There’s a place called Skull Cave on the route I was going to take back, called that because a white man hiding out there from the Native Americans one night thought he felt rocks and stones of all shapes around him in the dark. When he woke in the morning, he was hiding in a cave where the Native Americans buried their dead, and those were bones and skulls.”
“Ugh. Yes, maybe Skull Cave for another day. Jack and I would love to see Meggie get up on Scout’s back if there’s time for that.”
“Great idea,” Julia said with a sniff. “Something happy. Something good.”
* * *
“I hope I’ll be riding a bike soon, but this darn leg may just have to wait for a snowmobile to get me around,” Nick told Claire after they’d covered Lexi up where she’d fallen asleep on the couch in the family room. She’d been so excited and used muscles gripping Scout’s sides so hard that she was exhausted. “And to think,” Nick went on with a sigh, “we’re all going to learn how to drive again—snowmobiles.”
“Bronco should be back by now, shouldn’t he?” Claire asked Nick as they sat like old folks in wicker rockers on the front porch of Widow’s Watch. “Nita’s been wearing out that stretch of sidewalk waiting for him. Maybe I should walk down with her to meet him or get him.”
“It’s crazy not having a cell phone or landline, but Julia warned against using either, even though we have them. The fewer trails we leave, the better off we are, even here.”
“She scared me today, Nick. I glimpsed not only a chink in her armor, but a huge hole. It’s wrong for us to think law enforcement or FBI like her are always strong and steady with no problems, like they are just here to take care of us.”
“I know. I’ve seen desperate people look at me as if I can save them from prison or bring back someone who was murdered. My mother used to look at me that way after Dad died. I was so young then and I was all she had left. But, hey, you don’t need another client begging for your psychological services today, and a nonpaying client at that. Sure, take a turn helping Nita so she quits worrying about why Bronco isn’t back. Heck’s researching info about Vern Kirkpatrick, Gina’s gone to interview at the medical center, so I’ll just be Mr. Mom with Lexi, in practice for when we’ll have two to tend.”
She leaned over the arm of her rocker and kissed him soundly, then, without even going for her purse or sunglasses, went out to Nita so they could walk up the hill to Julia’s.
* * *
Julia wasn’t in the stables. And things just didn’t seem right to Claire. Someone—Julia, of course—must have reharnessed the two horses to the wagon they took this morning. They stood stomping and snorting, impatient to be driven. Scout looked fine in his stall, but two other horses were missing because there were only six here. For one moment, Claire imagined—hoped—that Michael had come back, Julia had talked Bronco into staying awhile longer, and they’d gone for a ride. Maybe they were going to take the wagon at first, then decided to take the horses. Claire had to admit she wanted things to go well for her. Maybe they went back to that romantic spot where Julia had said he’d proposed and where she’d told him a child was on the way.
But everything that had happened today told Claire that was mere wishing. Her instincts, her intuition, her training told her something was wrong.
The house door was open and no one answered when Claire called in.
“I suppose Bronco and Hunter Logan—that’s Julia’s father’s name—could have gone for a walk,” Claire told the nervous Nita.
She had been driving Claire crazy, saying all the way she thought something was wrong. But after all they’d been through since they’d hired Nita back in Naples, no wonder she’d learned to be on edge.
“Cody! Mr. Logan!” Claire called into the kitchen and then from the bottom of the stairs. “I know the upstairs layout. Julia won’t mind. Let’s go check on them.”
Her stomach cramped with foreboding, Claire hurried upstairs, still calling for “Cody” and Mr. Logan. Strange, but she was sure she smelled cigar smoke. Julia’s father could smoke, but she hadn’t smelled that before, and the odor usually clung.
Maybe they were watching another Gene Autry movie or TV show and couldn’t hear, but all she heard was that same “Back in the Saddle Again” song playing over and over again.
Nothing amiss in the main room, but in the next with all the glass display cases, Claire saw one was open and the gun was gone, the old man’s favorite silver six-shooter he had proudly shown them.
Claire put her hand on Nita’s arm to hold her back; they both froze for a moment, listening. Cigar smoke again. Or could something be on fire? They stepped in farther.
Beyond the case with the array of cowboy boots and hats, Claire gasped and Nita screamed.
Unmoving, with videocassettes and CDs strewed around, Bronco was sprawled facedown on the floor with a puddle of blood under his head.