The Salt Maiden (2 page)

Sobriety sucks. It hurts like hell.

It makes my mouth taste shitty and my eyes feel like they’re melting and my brain buzz like a drunk bee. It makes me remember.

But I can fucking do it this time. No rehab, no support group, no clueless little sister taking time out from the Perfect Life to make me feel like such a screwup.

Just the desert this time. The desert and the loom.

—Entry one (undated)
Angie’s sobriety journal

Friday, June 22, 5:27
P.M.

98 Degrees Fahrenheit

“How far would you go…” As Dana Vanover’s convertible bumped along the rutted caliche road, she whispered the first line of the childhood game she’d played so many times with Angie. For years they’d finished it with questions spun from girlish fancy.

“How far would you go…to spend a Saturday in detention with all the members of
The Breakfast Club
?”

“…to sing on MTV with Cyndi Lauper?”

“How about for a date with Luke Skywalker—or better yet, Han Solo?”

But as the girls grew into women, Angie’s questions took on an intensity that made her younger sister shiver.
“You keep saying you love animals so much, but how far would
you
go to save them? What about giving Mom’s mink coat a decent burial—or are you too afraid of getting into trouble?”

When Dana had refused, Angie had gone ahead and done it, the first hint that when it came to limits she meant
to spend a lifetime testing hers. On that occasion her actions ended up getting her sent for the summer to some kind of wilderness survival camp for troubled teens, the first of many such sabbaticals away from home to “straighten her out.”

“So how far did you go this time,” Dana asked her missing sister, “to run away from everyone who ever loved you?”

As she peered across a flat expanse dotted with thorny scrub brush—and absolutely nothing else—she caught her first sight of the answer to her question:
the dead center of nowhere
.

As Devil’s Claw appeared on the horizon, she was stunned by the miserable huddle of buildings that had the nerve to call itself a town—the
only
town—in Rimrock County. Named for a hard-luck weed whose seeds, according to the Internet, clung to passersby for dear life, Devil’s Claw looked as if it was barely hanging on.

“This surely can’t be all of it,” she muttered as she drove past the beige two-story courthouse and stared at what couldn’t amount to much more than a few dozen peeling wood-frame structures. She’d read in an article she called up in
Texas Monthly
’s online archives that there were only a couple of dozen residents. Roughly twice that number lived in widely scattered shelters all around the area, bringing up the total population to around seventy-five, which made it the least-populated county in the United States.

But reading it was one thing and seeing it another. In the withering heat she didn’t see a sign of life. Not a person, not a stray dog, not a single green leaf. What in God’s name could have led Angie to this hellhole?

Since she ran out of town long before she ran out of questions, Dana turned the car around and headed back to the courthouse, where a single vehicle, a dusty station wagon, lingered. She frowned, recalling that the sheriff had told her on the phone he’d meet her here in his Suburban. But she had arrived a half hour earlier than she’d expected.

Her gaze drifted to a flicker of movement across the street
as someone adjusted the crooked blinds covering the window of a boxcar-sized white building. The Broken Spur Café, according to the hand-lettered sign above the door.

Her stomach growled for something fresher than the energy bar in her purse. Something crisp and leafy, she dared to hope. After setting the brake and shutting off the BMW, she climbed out into the searing sunlight. This would be as good a time as any to get her first glimpse of the locals. She needed a good stretch, too, after her eight-and-a-half-hour drive from Houston.

She opened a grease-stained door, and the only two men inside abruptly stopped their conversation. The first, a wiry, short man with a thatch of snowy hair and a stained apron, gestured toward her with his spatula from behind the counter.

“You’re here about your sister,” he said, while the second rasped, “Damned interferin’ hippie, that girl. Glad to see the last of her.”

Something in the voice told Dana that the customer seated at the counter in front of a pack of Camels and a half-eaten burger was actually a woman, not a man, in spite of the Clark Kent glasses and the short gray hair combed back straight and flat against her skull. The faded jeans and T-shirt offered no confirmation either, since their owner had no curves to fill them.

Stunned by their abruptness, Dana demanded, “How do you know why I’m here, and what do you know about my sister?”

“I know we’ve got one shot at this salt dome project,” said the woman, “and your
sister
’s done her damnedest to queer the deal for us. So as far as I’m concerned, good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Five minutes later Dana was back out in her idling car again, having been told, “We don’t serve a damned thing ‘green and meat-free’ in the Broken Spur,” by Abe Hooks, the owner of the area’s sole restaurant, gas pump, and store.

“Pompous redneck,” she grumbled. She had half a mind to sic her mother on him to teach him the finer points of condescension.

As if on cue, there was a ringing from the seat beside her. Bracing herself, Dana pushed a button to answer the satellite telephone her mother had rented after learning that regular cell phone reception here was spotty at best. Unthinkable that Dana should stray beyond the range of her influence.

“You’re there?” her mother asked. “Did you find out anything?”

“Not much,” Dana admitted, “but I haven’t met the sheriff yet.”

“You tell him he’d better hurry. You tell him we’re not losing that poor child.”

“You mean Nikki.” Dana had noticed that her mother never said the name, as if the
idea
of a cancer-stricken granddaughter appealed more than the individual.

“Of course I mean her. Who else? I swear, I haven’t slept a wink in days. I’m too afraid that if I close my eyes, the phone will ring, and—”

“I understand, Mom.” Dana had heard it in her nightmares, the call that would tell her she was already too late. Though Nikki was holding her own so far, germs had a way of slipping past even the most thorough precautions. “Has there been any change yet?”

“Nothing that I’ve heard about.”

In the background Dana caught the bright clink of ice cubes and the more muted coos of doves. Evidence enough that her mother was unwinding with her usual “happyhour” vodka tonic as she lay beneath her vine-draped trellis, her painted toenails pointed toward a bright blue pool.

Though she hated vodka tonics, Dana’s mouth watered at the thought of her mother’s backyard paradise in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston. As her eyes scanned dust-beige bleakness, she struggled to recall cool turquoise
framed by greenery and the sweet fragrance of the pale pink blooms of Isabel’s specially imported honeysuckle.

“I know it must be tough there waiting,” Dana allowed. “But maybe you’ll feel better hearing that I’ll be dining on filet d’Power Bar this evening. And sleeping heaven knows where.”

The nearest hotel was back in Pecos, and the thought of adding yet another hour to the nine hours she had already spent on the road depressed her. Was it possible that someone here rented rooms?

“Just try to think of this as an adventure, Dana. Let’s keep this about Nikki, dear, not you.”

Resentment prickled. Though she had been away from home only a day, Dana already missed Lynette, her fellow veterinarian and business partner, along with her Welsh corgis, Ben and Jerry. She missed the ice cream, too, along with the prospect of a big, crisp salad, a long shower, and a longer sleep in her own bed.

Movement caught her eye, a dust cloud rising in the distance and drifting steadily toward the courthouse along the rutted desert road. Other than a roadrunner chasing after something—a lizard, maybe—it was the only activity in town. Though she felt certain unseen eyes were watching from the few buildings in range, not another person stirred. Even the pair of stunted trees and the courthouse lawn had withered in the heat.

“I’d better go. The sheriff’s coming. I’ll call you if there’s anything new.”

“You be sure and mention my suggestions,” Isabel urged her.

Dana had a clear vision of herself hiking far out into the desert and dropping the expensive phone. Then her mother could sit beside her pool and issue her “suggestions” to the creosote and tarbush, though she’d probably prefer the nodding pump jacks.

“That sheriff needs to understand we’re serious—you aren’t going anywhere until you have your sister.” Isabel
took the same tone she did when calling the landscape company to complain that the oleanders weren’t clipped to her standards. “Tell him you’re staying put until he gets off his tail and finds her.”

“I’ve talked to him on the phone a couple of times, and he’s been out seriously looking for days and days—since I explained how much that loom meant to her and what’s at stake if we don’t find her.” Or, at least, he’d
told
Dana he’d been searching. Now that she’d been treated to a taste of Devil’s Claw hospitality, she began to have her doubts. Especially since she’d learned that Angie had stirred up hard feelings around town.

Not wanting to worry her mother over it, Dana focused on the positive. “Sheriff Eversole says he’s questioned practically everybody in the county, and he even got a search plane out here. I wouldn’t exactly call that sitting on his—”

“Maybe you should let him know the Huffingtons can be
extremely
generous when we’re grateful. I’m sure an elected official in a place like that could find some use for a sizable…
contribution
to his next campaign.”

“I’m a little confused,” said Dana. “Which is it you want? The browbeating or the bribery? Because I want to make sure we’re on the same page here.”

“You don’t need to be sarcastic. I just can’t stop thinking about that precious child.”

Her mother’s statement nudged at something huddled, dark and ugly, in a place Dana didn’t want to look. A thirty-one-year-old woman had no business being jealous of a sick girl, no business wondering why the same mother who had made her believe she needed to be perfect would love
this
child without reservation.

Dana told herself she should be happy her mother had progressed. But instead of saying so, she snapped, “And what about your daughter?” The daughter who couldn’t come close to meeting Isabel’s exacting standards.

“Of course I worry about Angie. But as she’s reminded us
so many times, she is a grown woman. A grown woman who has turned her back on everything I’ve tried to do.” Pain lanced through her mother’s words, pain that she had every right to, considering the way Angie had treated her each time she attempted—however misguidedly—to help.

“I know. I know, Mom. Sorry.” As Dana looked past an unpainted leaning house and straight out to the horizon, her anger leached away. “It’s just…you wouldn’t believe the distances out here, how far it is from everything we take for granted. What if she
is
lost somewhere in this country?”

But even as Dana reminded her mother of the danger to Angie, her mind wandered to the undersized six-year-old at the center of so much medical equipment. On the day they’d met, Nikki Harrison had been pale and sweaty after a round of vomiting from chemo. Her gaze, though, was so clear and bright and present that the sight froze Dana’s breath inside her lungs. In that moment the little girl
was
Angie, the way she had once looked.

How far would you go to get her back?

“I’ll bet we’ll find out anytime that your sister’s been holed up with some man or other.” Bitterness sounded in Isabel’s voice. “Until the money runs out and the party’s over.”

Dana stared at the silhouette of the white Suburban floating toward her on a shimmering cushion of heat waves. “I don’t think they do a whole lot of partying around here. But I really have to go now. I’ll call you later if there’s news.”

“Now, Dana, don’t forget to tell him—”

As a tall figure who must be Eversole slid out of the dust-caked SUV, Dana started faking static sounds. “Can’t…hear you, Mom. I think the battery’s…cutting out on me.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Eight years of higher education and you can’t even remember to recharge a simple—”

Dana switched off the phone, then killed the Beamer’s engine and climbed into the blazing heat.

A gold-and-black dog followed the sheriff out of the Suburban. A lean and rangy shepherd mix, he eyed Dana suspi
ciously, as if he’d guessed how many animals she’d stuck with needles over the past years. Or how many intact males she had neutered.

When she took a good look at Rimrock County’s freshly minted sheriff, he looked almost as leery.

“Dr. Vanover?” he asked, and stuck out a big hand.

Nodding, she took it, though Eversole wore nearly as much grime as the SUV. Except for his intense blue eyes and the sweat trails melting cleaner rivulets on his face, he might have been a figure chiseled out of sandstone.

Nicely chiseled, she thought, with the body of an athlete and strong features shaded by the brim of a sweat-stained Western hat.

“It’s Dana,” she managed before the café door across the street creaked open and Abe Hooks leaned out, wielding his spatula like a gavel. Dana’s stomach clenched when he looked past her as if she were invisible. Hooks met the sheriff’s gaze before nodding once and then disappearing back into what was clearly the real nerve center of this county.

The sheriff stared another moment at the Broken Spur before he let go of Dana’s hand and cleared his throat. “As of this afternoon the search is over. Afraid I don’t know where else to look.”

“Have you asked the locals where to—”

“I
am
a local. Born and bred here.”