Castle Rock (9 page)

“Jed, are you there?”

“Sure.” He started up the path.

Serena hesitated, then, feeling like a fool, followed him.

Julie made a little pirouette and her silky blue skirt swirled seductively. “Why, I can't start dancing without my favorite cowboy.”

“Dancing?” Serena asked, her voice stiff.

Julie looked past Jed, raised one perfect eyebrow. “Serena, I didn't see you there. But, of course, we should dance. Uncle Dan wouldn't want us to go moping about, draped in black. You know that.”

She did know that. Still, the boisterous sound of the music spilling out onto the patio seemed too soon and heartless. She almost said so, but Julie was holding Jed's arm now, drawing him inside.

He went without a backward glance.

A bright red flush came up in Serena's face. She stood for an instant in the French window. Jed and Julie were already dancing, her body molded to his.

Serena began to walk quickly across the room, her head high. Peter reached out as she came near. “Good heavens, where are you marching off to in such a hurry?” He smiled, his old familiar oh-so-charming smile. He was sure of himself and his appeal. For an instant, she was tempted to leave him standing there enjoying his charm all by himself. Instead, she paused then asked flatly, “Aren't you a little confused, Peter?”

“Confused?”

She tilted her head back at the dance floor. “That's your wife. Over there.”

He shrugged. “I know. But after all, Serena, we don't have to be provincial, do we?”

So that was his theme. While Julie dallied with Jed, he would find his amusement with her. That might be his plan, but she wasn't having any.

“No,” she said quietly, “we certainly don't have to be provincial.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “So we can have this dance and . . .”

Serena stepped away. “Actually, no, Peter. You see, I've promised this dance to Will,” and she turned and held out her hand to Will, who had been leaning disconsolately against the mantel.

The happiness in Will's face hurt Serena as much as anything that had happened. Before the evening was over, she danced with all of the men, except Jed. He remained close to Julie, laughing at her softly murmured jokes, bending near not to miss a word. Serena drank a little too much and knew it. It wasn't until she was in her own room, leaning back against the closed door, that she murmured, “Damn, oh damn,” and let the tears slip down unheeded.

The next morning, her head throbbed, but she was up early. Firmly, she dressed, forced down a quick and solitary breakfast, and walked through the silent first floor to Uncle Dan's office.

Now it was her office.

There was much to do. She worked furiously, sorting the letters that had come in during the past week. Some she replied to immediately. Some she put in a reply-when-possible stack. She lifted down last year's ledger. It would help to know what Uncle Dan had been doing this time last year. It would give her ideas of what she should be checking up on now. Of course she would talk to Joe Walkingstick. Joe. Not Jed.

But it was Jed who knocked on the office door about nine. He poked his head inside. “Mind if I come in?” His tone was relaxed and casual.

She smiled impersonally. “Of course not. I need to talk to you, anyway. Have you and Joe made plans to round up the new calves?”

Jed leaned against the side of the desk.

She smelled the freshness of his flannel shirt and the faint citrus scent of aftershave lotion. She stared determinedly down at the ledger.

“Yeah,” he said easily. “Joe and I thought we'd take a half-dozen hands up to the Sangre meadow Thursday. Is it okay if I draw for provisions?”

“Yes. I think it's a good time.”

“Okay. Also, I wanted to clear something with you. I talked to Julie last week and she gave me the go-ahead to attend the auction at Roswell. Joe and I went and bought a Hereford bull. We can call and cancel if you disapprove.”

“Of course not,” she said quickly. “A deal is a deal. Besides, you and Joe know what you are doing. Tell me about the bull.”

“He's a king all right. No doubt about it.” Jed pulled an auction catalogue out of his pocket and showed her the squib on Big Harry. “He'll be so good at stud we'll draw service from ranches all over the state.”

“That sounds great.”

He was getting ready to go when she asked him the question she had carried with her the last few days.

“Jed, the day I left, you told me it was a good thing I was going.”

He looked down at her, his face suddenly impassive, the easy camaraderie gone. Perhaps she should have backed off then. But she could be stubborn.

“Jed,” she continued doggedly, “you warned me not to come back. Why did you say that?”

For a dreadful moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer her at all. Finally, gruffly, he said, “Forget it, Serena.”

“No.”

She said it simply, but with a grave finality.

“Serena . . .” He grimaced. “Just be careful. That's all.” He turned and was gone before she could say another word.

Be careful.

That was a warning, too.

She sat for a long time, looking down at figures she didn't see, her mind whirling with thoughts and guesses and conjectures.

Something was wrong at Castle Rock. Jed's brusque warning was only another in a series of odd incidents—Will's drinking, Julie's attempt to get rid of her, the strange presence of the Minters. Nothing by itself was too alarming. Taken all together they didn't make up a picture or a pattern, but something had disturbed the rhythm of Castle Rock.

With Uncle Dan gone, Castle Rock and the people on it, especially Danny, were her responsibility. It was up to her to find out what was wrong and make it right.

Serena pushed back her chair. She felt stifled and oppressed in the closed office. She needed air and space and freedom. But freedom was no longer really hers, she thought, as she went by the kitchen to tell Millie where she was going.

“Will you be back for lunch, Serena?”

Serena hesitated.

“I'll pack you a lunch,” Millie said quickly.

Serena smiled gratefully. “I'd like that, Millie.”

Millie wrapped a fried chicken breast in foil, added a dill pickle, chips, crisp carrots, and two oatmeal cookies. “It's good for you to get out for a while, Serena.”

“Do you think it's all right if I miss lunch here, Millie?”

“Sure. I'll tell Julie. It won't do her any harm to help out.”

When Serena and Hurricane cantered out of sight of the hacienda, she felt a sweep of joy at getting away.

Getting away. She had never felt that way before on Castle Rock. Why did she want to get away? Impatiently, she urged Hurricane to go faster.

As they climbed, the path threaded beneath huge pines. The spicy aromatic scent and deep cool shadows delighted Serena. The path forked at Lightning Ridge. To the left, it continued to climb, a rugged sharp ascent, leading ultimately to the Anasazi cliff dwellings. The path to the right angled up, then down to Lynx Lake, where trout glided in deep, clear pools and the icy water tasted as sweet and sharp as champagne.

Sunlight dappled the ground. The high, still air rang with a quail's call and the sharp squawk of a raven. Hurricane, warm and strong, moved restlessly beneath her. She reached down, gently ruffled his mane and he made a soft sound in his throat. Hurricane loved to step carefully on the stony shore of Lynx Lake and dip his muzzle into the icy water.

Serena smiled and turned to the path on the right. She hummed as Hurricane carefully managed a steep descent. This was Castle Rock, this communion with nature. Soon the lake water glittered through the trees. She dismounted at the east end of the lake. Hurricane dropped his head and began to drink.

Serena settled on a sun-splashed rock to enjoy her lunch. Full and content, she stretched out and stared at the pale blue sky arching over the lake and the slender spruce crowding down to water's edge. This was what Castle Rock should be, infinite peace and beauty. Not a voice or footstep marred the silence. No alien presence disturbed the woods. But even this perfect Eden could not still the stirrings in Serena's mind. Sighing, she sat up and curved her arms about her knees and looked somberly at the still blue water.

Something was wrong at Castle Rock and she couldn't rest until she knew where the serpent lay.

Perhaps, she thought hopefully, her unease grew out of some unimportant imbalance. If she could trace the source of her fear, it might prove to be nothing that mattered.

What had been wrong at Castle Rock this summer?

Will, of course.

But who knew what tortured fancies drove Will? Even so, even allowing for an artist's burdened mind, Will's behavior had been extraordinary. There was his odd reaction when Uncle Dan mentioned the telephone calls from New York. Then Will's distress when he learned Julie and Peter were coming to Castle Rock. Will had always been close to Julie. Julie was the stronger of the two, making the decisions, but, if there had been any break between them, Serena didn't know about it. So Will's unhappiness at Julie's arrival was strange.

Strangest of all, of course, was Will's drunkenness the night before Uncle Dan died. That didn't make any sense. If Will often drank too much, that would be one thing. But he didn't. Some new, overwhelming, almost catastrophic pressure must be pushing on Will.

All right. Her job was clear enough. She must talk to Will as soon as possible and try to discover whether his unhappiness was partly responsible for her uncomfortable sense of something wrong at Castle Rock.

Serena took a loose rock, threw the stone high into the air, watched as it plummeted into the lake with scarcely any splash or sound. That was as much effect as the summer visitors usually had on Castle Rock. But this summer, perhaps they contributed to her sense of unease.

Take the Minters. Howard and Lou Minter.

Serena smiled wryly. Nothing about them suited the rugged and dangerous land. She pictured Howard's fleshy face and wary darting eyes, Lou's voluptuous figure and pouting mouth. They hadn't ridden a horse since their arrival. They seemed to spend their mornings sleeping and their afternoons and evenings watching TV, although he occasionally hit balls from the golf tee. Why should they have paid the stiff price it took to visit Castle Rock? If by some wild mistake, they came to vacation, surely it hadn't taken them long to realize how unsuitable it was for them. Why hadn't they left? Why did they stay on after Uncle Dan died? Surely not because they were having such a wonderful time.

Life is, of course, full of unreason, and perhaps the Minters were only a finite example of this law.

Serena pushed up from the flat boulder and stood for a moment to survey the entire purple-blue lake. She couldn't imagine the Minters up here. Now, that certainly didn't hold true for the other dudes, George VanZandt and John Morris, the coauthors of a physics text. Both of them looked as if they would be quite at home around a campfire or climbing a steep rock face. Serena wasn't sure what made her so confident of it, but she was. The only puzzle about them was the fact that they stayed on after Uncle Dan's death—and the reason might be as simple as VanZandt said, they had a deadline. Funny, though, how tanned they were to have spent hours closeted in their cabin, working on their text. Perhaps that claim was an exaggeration. As sensitive men, they wouldn't want to dwell on good times out in the sun while the family mourned.

It would be interesting, Serena thought, to look in their cabin, see the evidence of their work.

As she walked slowly toward Hurricane, Serena forced herself to consider another anomaly at Castle Rock this summer.

Would it be fair to say that nothing had been the same since he came? Jed had arrived two months ago, standing at the hacienda door, a duffel bag over his shoulder, an apologetic smile on his face. Lost, he'd said. Car trouble. Funny how well he had fitted in, how soon he became a new hand. Jed kissed her then turned and followed Julie. Jed warned her not to return to Castle Rock and, when she did, told her to be careful.

If Jed was not what he seemed, what was he?

She remembered the feel of his mouth against hers, the wild and lovely rush of desire.

Serena jumped down from the boulder. Hurricane waited for her. She gave one last longing look at the lake but she had found no peace today. She carried unease with her as a leper carries disease. Now she must go back down the mountain and whatever threat waited, face it down.

As Hurricane stepped carefully along a narrow ledge with a thirty-foot fall beneath them, Serena thought of that last lovely day when she had ridden out with Uncle Dan and Jed to Castle Rock. She and Hurricane had thundered down the trail. That reckless dash made Jed notice her. And Uncle Dan had cautioned her, not knowing he would ride to his death the next day.

Oh, Uncle Dan, she thought, if you were here you would know what to do.