Below the Tree Line Page 2

  “Oh, I dunno, Jeremy.” Felicity stepped back, shaking her head. “Dogs that have been used for that require far more know-how than I have.”

  “He didn’t fight. He’s what they call born cold. Such dogs won’t fight, even if put in the ring with another dog going after them. They just lie on their backs and let the other animal tear them to bits.”

  “Jeremy, you’re making me sick.” She pressed her hand against her stomach.

  “The rescue group got to Shadow first. He was in a holding place, with about fifty other animals. It doesn’t look like he’d been held for very long, but that’s only a guess.”

  Felicity peered in at the little dog. “He doesn’t look like anything anyone would pick for fighting.”

  “That may be what saved him. But when he’s upset, if someone comes to Loretta’s house, he goes wild.”

  “So you think he’d be a good guard dog?” She stepped back to focus on Jeremy.

  “Loretta does.” Jeremy pulled the dog out of the crate and gently placed him on the ground. The four black legs trembled and almost collapsed. Felicity bent over and began petting Shadow, running her hands along his back and down his legs and over his stomach. And then she held her hands still, right along his sides. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers deep into the dog’s coat. The spindly, wobbling legs stilled, his breathing slowed, and the animal grew calm. After a moment, she opened her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Through it all, Jeremy watched, his brow furrowing. “Well?”

  “He’s healthy. I guess it’s okay.”

  “I’ve never seen you lay hands on a farm animal before.” His smile was both affectionate and skeptical.

  Felicity looked up at him, her hands resting on the dog’s back. She looked down at them and turned them over, palms up. “Yes, I can tell. They heat up when I sense illness. Anyway, he’s fine.” She stood up and leaned over to rub the dog’s head.

  Shadow sat between them, looking from one to the other and then along the driveway. Felicity couldn’t tell if the smells from the barn and sheep were new to him or if the dog was merely absorbed in figuring out the new humans. Jeremy lifted the carrier and deposited the plastic and metal crate in the back of her blue Toyota Tacoma pickup, then clipped a leash to Shadow’s collar and handed it to Felicity.

  She gave a gentle tug and took a few steps. “Let’s see how he is on this thing, since he’s probably going to have to be on one for a while.” They walked down the driveway toward the road, the dog trotting between them, looking both alert and doubtful. They could hear cars in the distance. At this early hour, barely seven o’clock in the morning, the only traffic was a few commuters taking a shortcut to the old highway. The rhythm of life slowed considerably in this part of the world.

  Felicity watched the dog sniffing his way ahead, not sure if he should be interested in the squirrels watching him with a bored look or the rustling near the stone wall. He seemed too timid to chase anything and she let her attention relax. She was relieved that he was as calm as he seemed, so far.

  “Looks like you’re getting a visitor.” Jeremy nodded toward the small gray sedan turning toward Felicity’s driveway, but instead of making the turn, it swung wide along the entrance and veered back into the center of the road. The sedan crossed back and forth along an invisible center line, slowing down and speeding up again.

  “Who is that?” Felicity asked.

  “It looks like Clarissa Jenkins’s car. She runs the shelter where Loretta volunteers. Why is she coming to see you? Do you know her?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe Loretta told her I was getting Shadow today.”

  “You sure are popular right now. First someone tries to break in, and now you have strangers coming by first thing in the morning.” Jeremy watched the car swerve again. “Whatever she wants, she shouldn’t be driving.” He pulled out his cell as the car disappeared down the road. Felicity listened to his call into the police department. Before he could finish, however, they heard what sounded like a car smashing through trees. They glanced at each other, and both took off running.

  Jeremy reached the car first, folds of steel crushed between two trees, the hood popped, the undercarriage caught on boulders. The woman driver’s body rested against a deployed airbag, with her face turned to the window. Blood ran from her temple down the side of her head.

  “She veered off to miss a raccoon or a squirrel. I couldn’t see.” A young boy stood on the opposite shoulder, looking stunned. His bicycle lay on its side, the back wheel still spinning.

  “Just stay over there,” Jeremy called out to him. He reached in through the open driver’s side window and grabbed the steering wheel. For a moment he lost his balance, but he recovered and leaned through the window. He laid his fingertips on the woman’s neck and then turned his head so his ear was close to her mouth. After a moment he turned to Felicity and shook his head.

  Felicity felt the leash tugging on her wrist. The little dog jumped from one spot to another, whining and struggling as he sank into the leaves or a rotten tree limb broke under his sudden weight. Felicity reached for him and pulled him away from the car, but the whining continued.

  “He recognizes her, Jeremy, and it’s making him crazy.” She knelt down and tried to soothe the dog. He rested his muzzle on her shoulder, but his gaze was fixed on the body in the car, and the whining, though softer, filled her ears.

  Jeremy stepped back and stared at the car. “The police should be here soon.” He looked across the road. “Is that boy all right?”

  Felicity turned to the boy still squatting on the shoulder by his bicycle. “I’d better make sure he’s okay.” She had to struggle to get the dog away from the car and across the street, and immediately the boy knelt down to hug Shadow. She heard the sound of a siren in the distance.

  “Are you okay?” Felicity asked. “Were you hit?” She looked him over quickly but saw no sign that he’d been struck. His bike was on the ground but looked undamaged. “Do you need the ambulance?”

  The boy, not yet a teenager, shook his head. For all his trendy appearance, with a Mohawk haircut and ripped jeans, he was a scared child. He pulled the dog closer, and when Shadow nuzzled him, both grew calmer. “She just came over the hill at me and then she swerved into the trees.” The boy looked across the road, and then quickly looked up at Felicity. “Is she okay?”

  “I’m more worried about you,” Felicity said. “You’re Pat Holyoake’s boy, Nathan.”

  The boy nodded. Hearing his name seemed to draw him back into himself. He wrapped his arms around the dog and hugged tighter. Shadow whimpered and rested against him. She felt a rush of gratitude for the dog’s unexpected appearance in her life, just when she needed him. She had no way to tell young Nathan that Clarissa Jenkins couldn’t possibly have survived, not with the injuries she could see, to say nothing of those she couldn’t.

  Three

  The day after the accident, Felicity was still unsettled. She’d watched the EMTs carry off Clarissa Jenkins and made her statement to the police. Chief Algren thanked her and Jeremy and sent them on their way. But the experience left her feeling strangely unnerved, and she kept hoping the young boy was faring better. She turned to work for comfort.

  She spent Tuesday morning inspecting the back part of the farmhouse. If an intruder really did think he (or she) could find a way in, the least obvious site was the rear wall, where an old porch had been winterized years ago and then turned into a storeroom over a cold room off the cellar. This was the least-used part of the house. But it was where she’d found evidence of activity, near the laundry pole, so it was where she went to work. She cleared away twigs and leaves near the foundation, reattached some of the storm windows, and fixed the lock on the kitchen door, aligning the hasp and tightening screws. She dug into the deteriorating stonework and added a bag of cement to her list of items for the hardware store. Des
pite the poor condition of the foundation, she found it hard to believe anyone thought he could pull out stonework and tunnel a way in. Still, that’s what it looked like. As an extra precaution, she cleared away some of the plantings she’d allowed to grow out of control, just so no one had a place to hide. Perhaps if the house looked like someone was resisting, the attacker would go away.

  The extra work put her behind schedule, so she postponed a training lesson for Shadow and decided to take the dog along on her errands. She lined the cab floor with an old army blanket for him and loaded the empty crate into the back of the truck, just in case. She wasn’t really afraid the dog would figure out how to escape the carrier, jump out, and bolt, more that he’d fall out and run off in terror. Before she could get the dog into the front seat, however, a small yellow sedan pulled into the driveway and parked behind her pickup. A woman climbed out. Shadow stared at her, his ears up and his nose quivering.

  “Felicity O’Brien?” The woman introduced herself as Sasha Glover. Perhaps in her mid-twenties, she was a pretty blonde in stone-washed jeans and a striped red-and-white boatneck jersey under a quilted red jacket. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

  Felicity smiled as she extended her hand.

  “I wanted to thank you.” Sasha was polite and formal, but her chin quivered as she spoke. “For being there at the end with Clarissa.” She paused, but when Felicity looked confused, she continued. “She was a second cousin. Actually, my mom’s cousin, but we were pretty close.”

  Felicity never wanted to take credit for something she hadn’t done, but she held her tongue as she listened to the words of gratitude. She hoped no one would ever tell Sasha that the cousin she was so fond of died alone. She should never lose that tiny bit of comfort. Felicity looked for a way to move on to something less painful. “We thought Clarissa might be coming to see me.”

  “We?”

  “My friend Jeremy Colson was here. He’d just brought me a dog to foster.”

  “Is that the dog?” Sasha leaned forward to get a better look. “That looks like one of Clarissa’s shelter dogs. Is it Shadow?” Through the window the two women could see the animal, with his snout resting on the back of the driver’s side seat, staring at them, looking mournful as only a Lab can look.

  “That’s him. He’s adorable but still very frightened.” Felicity turned back to Sasha. “Loretta probably told her I had the dog. Perhaps that was why she was coming here to my place.”

  “She told you she was coming?” Sasha looked hopeful and took a step toward her, as if Felicity had solved a problem.

  “No, but she started to turn into my driveway, and then it looked like she changed her mind. Do you know why she might have come here?”

  “No, but I knew she meant to.” Sasha looked lost, as if Felicity had given the wrong answer to an important question. “She told me she wanted to talk to you first, and then she said we’d talk.” Sasha seemed doubly disappointed. “She had something to tell me but she was waiting till she talked to you. Now I guess I’ll never know.”

  Felicity gave her head a quick shake. “I can’t think of anything either.” Every time she looked at Sasha, she heard the sound of the crash and saw Clarissa’s blood-soaked hair matted to the side of her head. She shut her eyes to dispel the unwelcome image. When she opened them and looked at Sasha again, Felicity felt a surge of compassion for the young cousin.“I heard she’d just gotten engaged. Jeremy mentioned it.”

  “Yeah,” Sasha began. “We knew she was seeing someone, but she didn’t tell me who it was.” She frowned and pursed her lips.

  “The police will want to notify him also.” Felicity waited for Sasha to say something, but instead the woman gazed around at the fencing and barn. “Was the relationship not working out?”

  Sasha turned back to her. “I’m not sure. We’d planned on getting together later this week. She said she had a couple things to tell me.” She perked up at this memory. “We were wicked close.” Then she relaxed and continued looking around the farm. “You have a nice place.”

  “Thank you.” Felicity was surprised at the change in the conversation. “Would you like to see the sheep?”

  “I have to get to work, but I’d love to sometime. Clarissa said you inherited your place. She knew all about the old farms around here. Your family has had this place for generations. Lots of trees and vegetables.” Sasha scanned the fields ahead, the paddock with the sheep, the barn with its wide-open doors, as though checking items off on a mental list. “I know nothing about farming.”

  “You don’t have to unless you’re planning on taking it up. Are you?” Felicity was surprised at the young woman’s comments about Tall Tree Farm, but she understood grief. After losing her mother when she was barely an adult, she had struggled to understand her place in the world, and she’d learned the hard way that life in a city apartment was not for her. That was almost twenty years ago, but the memory was still vivid. She felt it again as she studied Sasha, who in her heels and beringed fingers surely viewed life differently. She’d definitely fit in an urban world.

  Sasha gave her a startled look and grinned. “Me? Farming?” She shook her head. “Oh, no. But Clarissa told me you’re doing that CSA gardening. What is that?”

  “CSA is community supported agriculture. It’s a fancy term for buying produce from your local farmer.”

  “That’s good flow. I like that.” Sasha nodded, a smile warming her expression. “Clarissa and I used to talk about how the old farms grew and then were cut up, but not here so much, and how it’s been pretty quiet here all the time. She wanted me to know that.”

  “She wanted you to know about the history of farms in this area?”

  Sasha nodded, her initial reticence fading. “She said there’s a history here, a special value, that no one knows about. The land around here has been spared what happens when people find out about a small town with land.” Sasha glanced at Felicity and then looked away, as though she’d said too much. “That’s one of the things Clarissa liked to talk about.”

  “It’s nice to hear our area is being appreciated.” Felicity felt deeply touched to hear this young stranger talk about the values her cousin had passed on. “This area has always been mostly poor. We had the period of the mills, but we were never as large as other towns and the population here never grew much. The farms pretty much remained intact, even if they were small. This is the most rural part of the state.”

  Sasha began to chew her lower lip. “Clarissa thought it was important to understand the land. She talked about that a lot. I drive by farms all the time but I never gave it any thought until Clarissa started talking about it. She wanted me to understand how she felt about things.”

  “You’ll miss her,” Felicity said.

  “Yeah.” Sasha rested her hand on the fender of the blue pickup and studied the mournful dog in the window as she steadied her feelings. She watched the sheep in the distance and took in the pile of kindling and the wood-splitting tools left near the side of the house. She seemed to be working something out for herself. A passing car tore the silence and broke the spell.

  Felicity ran her finger over her watch crystal, rubbing the flat surface. If she delayed much longer, her father would be going into lunch and then she wouldn’t have a chance to talk to him in private, when he was more likely to reminisce. But she liked Sasha, and liked hearing her talk. The woman had forged a bond with a cousin very different from her, and now it was broken. She’d feel the loss acutely. There was nothing Felicity could say that would lessen the pain, but perhaps there was something she could do.

  “Have you got a minute?” she asked. “Come with me. I want to show you something special. You’ve got a minute, haven’t you?”

  “Well, I guess … ”

  Felicity led the way past the house and into the woods. The air cooled in the shade of the pine trees, then warmed when they passed through a patch
of sunshine. “The winter has been so mild and the spring started so early that a lot of the wildflowers are coming up much sooner than normal. But this one regularly comes up in April. I always feel better about life when I see it.” The two women crouched to walk beneath branches and through the undergrowth. “Watch where you step, Sasha.” And then she knelt down and pointed.

  Sasha stood behind her and leaned over. “Omigod, what is it?”

  “It’s a lady’s slipper. Pink.”

  “What’s it doing here?” Sasha slowly knelt down and leaned on her hand, to get closer.

  “It’s a wildflower, a kind of orchid,” Felicity said. “Haven’t you seen one before?”

  Sasha shook her head. In the silence the two women admired the softly rounded pink-and-white flower dangling on its stem. The bird chatter picked up again and the wind continued its path, carrying the fragrance of pine trees.

  “Not many people know they’re here. But when you do, you have to be careful because it’s so easy to step on them. When I was a little girl my parents used to bring me out here to show me when they first came up. My mom used to tell me a story about them. According to folklore, these flowers represent the footprints of an Indian woman who ran through the snow looking for medicine to save her tribe. She ran until she collapsed and died, her feet bloody and frozen. The lady’s slippers grew where her feet touched the ground.”

  “Oh, that’s so sad.” Sasha screwed up her face in sympathy. “And so beautiful.”

  “My parents always warned me to step carefully. I used to walk past them on tiptoe, afraid even my tiny feet might damage the ground where they grew. Whenever I come here I feel just like I did as a little girl.”