The Home Place: A Novel Read online

  “Oh, it’s been months. Vicky and I had a falling-out years ago. She didn’t trust me with personal things.” Alma shifts but keeps her hand on Maddie. The thin shoulder is tense but steady.

  “And you, Mrs. Terrebonne?”

  Maddie resettles her purse on her lap and clears her throat. “The last time I saw her was Friday. She was going to work a late shift, so she dropped off Brittany with me.”

  “A late shift? Where?” Ray asks. The question surprises Alma, who moves to Maddie’s side, to see her face better.

  “Why, at Denny’s, of course,” Maddie answers. She looks to Ray for support.

  “No, ma’am,” he says. “She lost that job a few weeks ago.”

  “But she told me . . .” Realization comes over Maddie’s face and her shoulders droop. “Oh, I see. I see.” Alma thinks back on her interactions at Denny’s. Now the use of the past tense makes more sense.

  “How did she seem when you saw her Friday?” Ray asks.

  “Energetic.” Maddie isn’t looking at Ray anymore. Her eyes have fixed somewhere on the linoleum floor. She looks embarrassed by Vicky’s lie. “She was just racing around, talking a mile a minute about some class she wants to sign up for at the college this semester. I remember thinking it was good she had so much energy, working hours like that and going to school too.”

  Ray pulls a small pad from the pocket of the jacket hanging on his chair and makes a note. “Do you know anyone she confided in? Friends?”

  “There’s her brother, Pete. He watches out for her. He ought to”—Maddie pauses and lifts her head to give Alma a heavy glance before collapsing even further into her chair—“he ought to know more than I do.”

  “Alma, you talked to Pete about what happened Saturday night, isn’t that right?”

  “Just briefly yesterday after I got in. I don’t think he knows much. Brittany called him, but he didn’t go over, like I said.”

  “Anyone else she was close to?”

  “Brittany, of course,” Alma answers, “but I don’t know how aware she was of her mother’s life. Vicky lived with Helen and Walt for four years, until she got pregnant and dropped out of high school, but she wasn’t close to them either.” Alma puts both hands on Maddie’s shoulders. “Ray—Detective Curtis—I think this is too hard on Grandma. Maybe you and I could talk more later.”

  Ray nods, but Maddie rallies and sits up straighter. “Vicky has some girlfriends from high school around town. There’s a Tonya that she mentions sometimes. Tonya Schiff. And Vicky used to spend time with her cousin Emma Townsend, before she moved to Roundup. They might still be in touch. We have so many other cousins, but I haven’t heard her talk about any of them in years. A lot of them are much older.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Terrebonne. That’s very helpful.” Ray writes down the names in a tight script before folding the pad back into his coat pocket, but Maddie hasn’t finished.

  “And then there’s this land agent who’s been harassing us. Rick Burlington. He’s been trying to get me to sign away mineral rights to the home place, near the Harmony mine. I’ve been afraid that one day Vicky might cross the wrong person. You hear stories about those coal people doing whatever it takes to get those leases. I worried for her and Brittany while they were living out there alone without a man.”

  “Without a man!” Alma can’t keep herself from scoffing. “Grandma, Vicky knows how to use the shotgun as well as I do. She can take care of herself.”

  “Not if somebody got the drop on her,” Maddie insists.

  Alma smiles at Maddie’s turn of phrase, but Ray sits back with a more serious look. “Now, that’s interesting. I’ve heard stories lately about tribal landowners being threatened when they refused to sign over mineral rights. You say Vicky had been talking to the land agent?”

  “While she lived out there, he kept showing up at the home place, she said.” Maddie leans forward, eager to tell. “He was pressuring her to come get me to sign. I guess he thought she’d have more luck with me. When that didn’t work, he came right to my house and tried to wheedle me into it! Well. I wasn’t born yesterday. I told him what he could do with that lease and to stay away from my grandchildren.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Oh, he was nice and polite sitting in my house in Billings, but I didn’t like him. He said he’d be back and I told him there was no point, and then he told me that things change and he was sure one day I’d change my mind. It wasn’t what he said, but the way he said it. There was a—a viciousness to him. But I don’t scare easy. No, sir. My grandmothers faced down worse than the likes of him.” Maddie is bracing herself on the arms of the chair, sitting bolt upright. Alma lowers her head to hide the smile of pride.

  After handing over names and phone numbers for everyone Ray wants to reach, Alma asks for the addresses where Vicky had been living and where they found her, several blocks down. It’s a street she doesn’t know well, south of Minnesota Avenue in the wrongest part of town.

  When at last they go, collecting Brittany along the way, Ray helps Maddie to the car, then goes back for a vehicle. Alma, drained as an old woman after the interview with Ray, lets the girl walk her to the car. Brittany watches her the whole way but never says a word. When she’s sitting again, Alma rests with her eyes closed for several minutes, practicing the relaxation breathing she learned in yoga. Brittany and Maddie sit there with her, without a sound, watching their breath fog the windows. At length, Ray’s police Suburban pulls into the lot and Alma gathers herself enough to put the key in the ignition.

  CHAPTER 8

  MONDAY, 9:30 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

  Alma is grateful to be heading toward the home place at last, with a police escort no less. Murray may be out there. She takes the interstate straight east, pulling into the steady traffic of semis and pickups, signaling by force of West Coast habit—nobody signals here but the professional drivers. Maddie has taken off her bright red hat and folded it in her lap. One small gloved hand rests on the door, up against the window, as she stares out onto the land with immense interest.

  Alma’s traveled this road a thousand times. Usually it makes little impression. She’ll be thinking of something else, listening to the radio, talking to someone in the car or on the phone. Once in a while, though, the texture of the place comes upon her as a physical experience. All the stories, all the history, everything she knows about every point on the landscape envelops her, and the only word that can express anything about what this place is to her is texture—like running her hands over a variegated rock face or smooth birch bark, embedding them in dough, palming handfuls of red clay mud, sinking her feet into the pebbles in the creek bed, lifting a slick live trout with both hands, lying on the rocky earth, rubbing her horse’s sweaty neck. Her body is part of the texture, made of this land and the good, sweet water, healed by the herbs, raised on the stories, grown on the plants and animals, quickened by the air. Her body knows textures here that her mind can’t hold consciously all at once.

  Maddie lived more than fifty years on the home place. Coming back to it lights and expands her like a hot air balloon taking shape. She tells stories the whole way there—homestead stories of unexpected delight, near-death, and triumph over the harshest survival conditions. The low-slung car takes the unpaved country roads more slowly than the pickups Alma remembers driving out here as a kid, though with Ray behind her she can’t speed the way she normally would, either.

  As they approach the home place, Maddie is buoyant, warmed from within. She gestures at every variation in the bare white landscape. “Look,” she says, “the Thompsons painted their whole place yellow. Doesn’t that look nice! It used to be kind of a beige, you know, just blended right in.”

  Then farther along, “Isn’t that a new fence on the Birney place? My my, what do you suppose they’re running that they need something like that?”

  She speculates on the current value of properties and who must have inherited, who must have sold out.
“They never were much use as ranchers,” she comments gently about old friends whose house now stands abandoned, “but they used to have a barbecue every summer that was the event of the year in three counties! Oh my, it was fine. Three kinds of homemade potato salad, these old German recipes, and cider from their own trees—and he was a fiddler. We young people would dance the night away.”

  Maddie comments on the quality and quantity of livestock visible from the road, the number of cow-calf pairs these big acreages can carry, and the diminished amount of forage available after recent fires, twisting in her seat to see more as they pass. Like her voluble tongue, her eyes never rest.

  The home place is just off the county road, sheltered on both sides by groves of pines and from behind by a low hill, with a dry irrigation ditch running by in front before passing under the drive in a huge steel culvert. The barns and corrals are behind and to the left, while in front of the house a large patch is fenced in—or more precisely, the antelope, deer, raccoons, and rabbits are fenced out—for a garden. When they pull around the house, they find an old maroon sedan parked in back in the only place it wouldn’t be visible from the road.

  “Do you know whose car that is?” Alma asks Maddie.

  “I’ve never seen it. I used to know all the neighbors’ cars around here.” Maddie looks around 360 degrees, owl-like, and pulls her purse closer. “You think it might be that fella Detective Curtis is looking for?” She waves at Ray pulling in behind them.

  “I’ll go see if anybody’s around. It could just be a neighbor, checking on things.”

  Alma leaves the car key in the ignition and crosses the broad porch to the back door of the house. All the curtains are shut and the blinds pulled down. Ray jogs over and steps up to the door in front of Alma. He unzips his coat and unsnaps his shoulder holster, then shrugs at Alma’s obvious surprise. “You never know.”

  Ray gestures Alma over to a place to his right where she won’t be immediately visible when the door opens. She holds out Maggie’s key. He takes it, but first opens the storm door and knocks. When he gets no response, he knocks louder.

  Something bangs inside and a shuffling noise reaches their ears. After a few minutes, a thin, long-haired man opens the door about a foot. He looks unarmed. Ray pushes the storm door open a little farther and Alma moves forward. The man could be part Hispanic, or Italian, or even some flavor of Asian—Alma’s Seattle friends might take him for native, especially out here, but she knows the difference instinctively. He wears a hooded UNLV sweatshirt and a pair of wrinkled warm-up pants. He’s barefoot and covers one foot with the other when the outdoor chill hits him.

  “God, early enough for ya?” he says, blinking in the brilliant light off the snow. “How much you want?”

  Alma stares at him. “Who are you?” she demands.

  The man shields his eyes with one hand and peers back at her. “I’m Murray, who are you? What do you want?”

  “I’m Alma Terrebonne. This is my grandmother’s house. What are you doing here?”

  Murray takes a step back from the half-open door and begins to close it, but Ray’s boot is in the way. “I got a right to be here. Vicky gave me the key.”

  Alma feels bile rise, and raw anger. She wants to shove open the door and shout You’re selling drugs! Out of my grandmother’s house! I’ll bet my ass you’ve got a meth lab in the barn! She looks Murray up and down, crosses her arms, and turns her glower to Ray. “This isn’t Vicky’s house. It’s not hers to make deals with.”

  “It ain’t none of your business,” Murray retorts in a sulky tone. “If you don’t like it, why don’t you talk to her?”

  “I would. Trouble is, my sister died yesterday. This is Detective Curtis from the Billings PD.”

  Murray’s head snaps toward Ray, whose plainclothes hadn’t triggered Murray’s cop radar. Then the police markings on the Suburban catch his eye. Full comprehension strikes, and Murray bolts. He ducks between Ray and Alma to take the back steps two at a time. Ray jumps the staircase in one bound and leg-tackles Murray. Alma pulls the door shut before following.

  “Get off me!” Murray is howling. “You split my fucking lip, you asshole!”

  “And you just ran from a lawman conducting a homicide investigation. Smart move.” Ray cuffs Murray with plastic ties, jerks him up to his bare feet, and walks him to the caged backseat of the Suburban.

  “I don’t know anything about that! I saw her alive Saturday night!” Murray isn’t fighting the march to the Suburban, but his protests are loud and frantic, directed back toward Alma as if she can change this unwelcome course of events. Ray helps him inside, locks the door, and turns back to Alma.

  “I might as well clear the place while I’m here,” he offers.

  Before Alma can answer, Maddie swings open the car door. “Who is that man?” she demands. “What was he doing in my house?”

  “Some friend of Vicky’s,” Alma replies. She moves to block Maddie from getting out of the car. “Don’t worry, Grandma. We’ll make sure there’s nobody else around. You and Brittany stay in the car where it’s warm.”

  Maddie reaches up to grab Alma’s arm with surprising force. “You have to take care of the home place,” she says. “We can’t abandon it!”

  Her delicate little grandmother is suddenly larger, stronger than Alma can remember seeing her for many years. Alma wonders if Maddie has left a bruise on her arm. “I will, Grandma,” she says, surprised at the answering strength in her own voice. “I’ll come back out and take care of it. I can spend a few days and make sure everything’s okay here, maybe find a decent tenant so that somebody’s keeping an eye on it. Don’t worry.”

  Maddie settles back into the front seat, but Brittany pops out of the back as if Alma had pushed a button. “Brittany, I said stay in the car,” Alma tells her firmly, but Brittany pauses her video game and hands back Alma’s phone with finality. She steps up to Alma’s side like she’s made a decision.

  Before any of them can make another move, the roar of gravel out on the county road draws their eyes. “Sheriff Marx,” Ray says, nodding. “I told him we were coming out. He had a domestic violence call to finish up first.” Alma remembers her mother volunteering for the Domestic Violence Crisis Center, shepherding wives and children to a safe house, digging new belongings for them out of trash bags of donations, how quietly the manless families bore it all, as if relishing the peace. The hierarchy is flatter out in the rural counties—no big-city police department like Billings or the resources of the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office, just a handful of law officers trying to cover an area the size of Connecticut.

  Sheriff Marx leaves his diesel idling and takes a good look at Murray as he strolls by Ray’s outfit. “Doesn’t surprise me,” he’s saying as he comes around the corner of the house. He’s a heavy man with eyes watery and too white, perhaps the beginning of cataracts. Just what you want in a man with a sidearm, Alma thinks, sidling closer to Brittany. “We get all kinds of drug activity going on any time a place is left alone. Power, water, and all the privacy in the world—what more could they want? Have you cleared the place?”

  “Just about to,” Ray answers. “Detective Ray Curtis. I’m the one who called.” He turns and offers his hand. Marx stops a few feet short of him and takes in Ray’s appearance, the braid that fell over his shoulder in the scuffle with Murray. Something passes across Marx’s face before it clears and he accepts the handshake. Alma wonders what kind of handshake Ray gives a man like Marx.

  Marx jogs up the steps, unholsters his Glock, and enters the house without further preliminaries, moving quickly for a man with such a big belly. Ray moves behind him, taking more time to examine the mess Murray left behind.

  Alma and Brittany step off the back porch into the kitchen together. Brittany slips her little hand into Alma’s. “I’m glad we came back here,” she says, squeezing Alma’s hand.

  Alma’s knees nearly fold with relief. “Baby!” she cries, pulling Brittany into her arms.
“I’m so glad you finally said something! Are you okay?” She puts a hand to Brittany’s face to tilt it back and look at her.

  Brittany nods. “I’m okay.”

  Alma presses an impulsive kiss to her niece’s temple and hugs her close again. “I’m so glad. I love you.” She rocks Brittany back and forth and sets her loose only when Brittany starts to wiggle. Of course this is where Brittany would take her first step out of the valley of the shadow of death. For a Terrebonne, the home place is the safe haven, the convergence of waters, the place where the beloved dead are as real as the living.

  Brittany steps farther in and starts to look around. She stacks a few empty beer cans on the kitchen table.

  “Yep, nothing here but a mess,” Marx declares, returning to the kitchen with a printed plastic bag under one arm. “And a little meth stash I bagged as evidence. You planning to stay out here?”

  Alma presses her lips together as she takes in Murray’s detritus, but she gives Marx a firm answer. “Yes.”

  “You can bolt these doors from the inside while you’re here, you know, but you’ll have to change these locks,” Marx observes. “You still got a phone hooked up out here? Cell reception’s lousy.”

  “Everything should be shut off but electricity,” Alma says. She picks up the receiver of the old black phone on the wall, just to check. Nothing.

  “I’ll call a locksmith for you,” Marx offers. “You got a gun, then?”

  “I think so. Hang on.” Alma walks through the kitchen to the big pantry and kneels in front of the back wall. She feels below the bottom shelf for the hidden latch. A panel in the beadboard opens under her fingers. From behind it, she pulls a well-oiled shotgun and a box of shells. Smiling at their weight in her hands, she kicks the panel shut and returns to the kitchen to display them to the sheriff. He nods and holsters his own gun, satisfied.

  “Okay then. We get weirdos wandering the county sometimes. Be careful by yourself. Let the neighbors know you’re around, and don’t leave anything valuable if the place is going to be empty. Times have changed.” Marx is gruff but solid, a lot like her father. It’s harder to suppress the memories here. Every time she rests her eyes some new place, there’s Dad—sitting at the kitchen table showing her and Pete how to tie flies, letting her ride the back of the tractor pulling the haying rig through the big meadow beyond the barns, or leading them out on the back steps in pajamas to watch the Perseids. Alma sets down the shells and puts a hand to her throat, where the air is oddly constricted. Marx opens the back door and gives the Mitsubishi a long look. Maddie waves at him from the front seat, and he smiles and strolls down to her.