The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(70)

But there was a part of me that didn’t trust it. A part that knew better.

And she wasn’t wrong.

Late one afternoon I stepped out back to call Laurel in for supper. I heard nothing in return but the cluck of hens and sheets snapping on the line.

It was a peculiar, yawning silence, and I could feel the skin on my arms prickling to gooseflesh.

I called again.

Olin appeared in the open barn door, wiping his hands on a red bandanna. He was alone. He latched the door behind him and headed toward the house.

The sun was close to setting, shadows slanting low.

My heart skipped a beat. An alarm was clanging in my brain.

“Where’s Laurel?” I demanded. “Not with you?”

Olin shook his head. “Not for a good while. Said she was headin’ inside to help with supper.”

I swallowed hard. “When was that?”

“Oh, nigh on a couple hours.”

I swiveled and started to round the house at a fast clip, scouting the landscape for signs of her. Not by the creek. Not in the fields. She wouldn’t have gone so far as the foothills, would she?

I turned one corner, then another, till I’d nearly circled the house, calling her name over and over.

Jessie swept through the front door onto the porch. “Somethin’ wrong?” she asked.

I turned and stared, incapable of speech.

Wrong?

There were lots of reasons a curious seven-year-old might slip off and disappear for a while. None of them meant a thing to me in that cold-blooded moment.

By then, Jim had finally shrunk down from monster-sized to something more manageable—a toothless jackal prowling the perimeter. I could go entire days without his name, his face invading my thoughts. Weeks without sitting sentinel on the porch, watching the road.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I ran up the porch steps, pushing past Jessie into the house. I took the stairs by twos up to the second floor and Laurel’s room at the end of the hall. Empty. I ran to mine. Empty, too. The bathroom, Jessie and Olin’s room, back downstairs to the den, the kitchen, calling Laurel’s name in a ragged voice.

I pulled up in the middle of the living room, my heart thumping so hard it made my chest ache. Jessie was back inside by then, watching me gravely as I began to tick off Laurel’s movements like a trail of bread crumbs that would end with her smiling up at me as I reached the last one.

“She came home from school . . . then with Olin in the fields . . . then heading inside . . .”

Then what? Then Jim intercepted her? Bundled her up, threw her in his Expedition? Drove back to Wheeler? Daring me to come get her?

Is that even possible?

Laurel’s nightmare came back to me: He’s coming . . . He’s coming . . . Daddy . . .

Olin was inside now, too.

“I need your truck keys,” I said, brushing past him to the cabinet where he kept his ammunition. I slid open a drawer and grabbed two boxes of shotgun shells.

“What on earth?” Jessie murmured.

“I’ll need your 12-gauge, too.”

I didn’t wait for permission. The shotgun was still mounted on the far wall of his den, next to the pair of Winchesters and the antique carbine. I took it down, broke open the breech, mastered my trembling hands long enough to slide a cartridge into each barrel, then snapped it to.

Olin was watching from the doorway. “Keep the safety on.”

“Not for long,” I said, pocketing the boxes of shells.

He followed me as I made for the barn and his truck sitting inside. It might be old, but it sure as hell would get me three miles over the break of hills and thirty miles due west.

In the barn, I opened the driver’s door and slid the shotgun behind the seat. Finally I turned to Olin, my hand out for the keys.

But Olin was looking toward the far wall of the barn, at the row of horse stalls. They were empty—the horses were still pastured outside.

“Hold on . . .” he said, moving away.

“Olin, there’s no time to waste,” I said.

“Hold on now,” he repeated, more firmly this time.

Then he was standing by the tack, eyeing bridles, halters, reins, martingales hanging from wall hooks, leather saddles slung side by side over a broad beam.

“Olin,” I barked.

“Her saddle’s gone,” he said. “Looks like she tacked up.”

He turned and left the barn, making for the pasture. I followed, and we both stared at the three horses grazing there.