Solomon's Oak Page 6

  This was before the Lakeshore neighborhood, made up of old summerhouses and trailers, was razed for development. The McGuires had lived five miles away, across the highway, but even with traffic, Cadillac found his way back to Solomon’s Oak. Despite the Amber Alert, numerous search-and-rescue attempts, posters, hotlines, and television coverage, not a trace of Casey was ever found. Officially, the case remained unsolved.

  Glory remembered Casey, and her younger sister their mother called June Bug. She had a round face, dark blond hair, and braces. This Juniper had dyed black hair, a snotty voice, and a tattoo of a bluebird on her neck. “I am so sorry, Juniper. I honestly didn’t know.”

  Real tears brimmed at the corners of Juniper’s brown eyes. She looked into the fire and not at Glory, and suddenly Glory was so angry with Caroline for not prepping her that she could have slapped her.

  Four years had passed since that afternoon in 1999. Everyone presumed Casey was dead, just another innocent girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once a year, on the anniversary of her disappearance, the Herald ran an abbreviated story. Eternally fourteen years old, Casey, in a smiling school picture, beamed out from the post office bulletin board in the company of kidnappers and criminals wanted for federal offenses. Whenever Glory went to buy stamps, she saw the poster. Lorna kept a dusty basket of BRING CASEY HOME buttons on the counter at the Butterfly Creek General Store. The day after she disappeared, Lorna, Juan, and Dan had ridden horses deep into the wilderness area, searching for her. Helicopters buzzed the area for days. Casey was gone, but here was her fourteen-year-old sister, pierced, angry, and homeless. She had survived the decimation of her family, paying for it with her childhood.

  Cadillac would remember her. He understood English, read the subtlest gestures, but one of his uncanny traits was remembering people. So how could Glory tell Juniper her sister’s dog was right outside? She wouldn’t. In the morning Caroline would pick the girl up and that would be end of things. But then again, it was Glory’s fault the scar tissue had torn, so she might as well try to patch things up. For a long while she watched the embers die down.

  “Juniper,” she said, praying she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life, “I knew your sister. Nobody in this town has ever stopped looking for her, or hoping for a miracle. Come on, there’s an old friend outside who wants to see you.”

  How far back can animals remember? Behaviorists say it takes a deep sensory cue for a dog to recognize something that happened in the past. The connection relies on voice or scent. Dogs have two hundred million scent receptors in their nasal folds; humans have five million. But scent is only one of the memories the cerebrum contains, and it stands to reason that the limbic system can integrate instinct with learning. Caddy knew every arroyo where he’d once found a rabbit. Dodge peed on the same trees every time they went for a walk. Years ago, when Dan was due back from a job, their old dog Jeep, a mixed breed—“cattle dog and surprise,” Dan called him—scratched to get out, then trotted down to the mailbox to wait. He did not lie down to sleep or get distracted by the goats. He did not chase cars, which had been his one fault Glory could not break in their eleven years together. Jeep waited. Nine times out of ten, within a half hour, Dan drove up. Fifteen minutes before Dan showed up, Jeep started wagging his tail. Jeep was the reason Glory started with last-chance dogs in the first place. When he died, she had buried him under the white oak so he’d have a shady spot for all eternity.

  Then there were the Solomon horses. As two-year-olds in halter training, they were stabled at the same facility. Over time, they were sold to various people, shown in gymkhanas, had become family horses, spent time on the trail-horse circuit, then were abandoned and neglected, miles apart.

  First to come to Solomon’s Oak was Cricket, a bone-thin, red-and-white pinto mare pastured alone in a steep and rocky field that Glory and Dan passed every time they drove into town. No matter if it was pouring down rain or a hundred degrees, the horse stood at the fence, looking out onto the county road. Her owner’s property featured, among the tires and broken appliances strewn across the yard, two dead trucks and a female pit bull tethered on a chain. A circle of dirt around the dog was as wide as the chain reached. Her water source was a horse trough green with moss the dog had to climb in order to drink. Glory was all for Dan punching the man in the nose, but Dan being Dan said, “Good afternoon,” and offered the man $200 for the horse. A decent person would have given Dan the horse for nothing and been grateful that the animal was off his hands, but this guy took the $200. He refused to help transport the horse to the Solomon ranch, however, so Glory drove home to fetch the horse trailer while Dan stayed with the horse.

  She would have ridden Cricket home if her hooves weren’t so desperately deformed from neglect. It took the best horseshoer in the Central Valley three visits before he had her hooves properly trimmed to hold a shoe. While Dan drove the truck and pulled the horse trailer, Glory opened the truck’s rear window so she could keep Cricket in sight. The pit bull, already named Roadie, rode shotgun. There was no way Glory would leave that dog behind to weather the elements without even a porch for escape. So she slipped the dog’s collar off the chain and leashed her, and the dog happily went with her.

  Her nipples were so distended that Glory knew she’d been overbred. She had scars on her face, neck, and front legs. Animal neglect made Glory furious, but pit-bull fighting made her killing mad.

  “Matthew 20:28,” Dan said when the man stood in the doorway and didn’t say a word as the Solomons drove away. “ ‘Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for so many.’ ”

  A year and a half later, Kristen Donohue, the animal-shelter volunteer who called the Solomons whenever a dog was on death row, came in to work one morning to find Piper tied up outside. It was the same morning Glory was picking up a shar-pei/chow scheduled for euthanasia that turned out to be a real sweetheart and now lived on a farm in Castroville. “You looking for a second horse?” Kristen asked Glory, and the minute Glory touched Piper’s black-and-white-spotted neck, he began to whinny and lip her shoulders. After checking him for soundness, Glory had Dan bring over some tack so she could ride the horse home. The idea was to tire him out to make the transition to the paddock easier. Dan’s idea was to drive alongside her in case things didn’t go so well.

  A mile before they reached the ranch, Piper started whinnying so hard that shock waves ran up Glory’s spine. She patted his neck. “Calm down, buddy, we’re almost there. Fresh hay awaits.”

  Dan slowed the truck down until they were side by side. “He’s doing great so far. Keep good hold of the reins.”

  “Dan, I’ve been riding horses for twenty years. I think I can get this one home without a wreck.”

  “I’m just here to provide conversation,” Dan had said.

  Was there ever a moment he failed to have her back?

  They made it up the long driveway, past the white mailbox that sometimes spooked Cricket, and past the bleating goats. Five hundred feet or so from the barn, Glory halted the gelding and dismounted. Holding the reins in her right hand, she reached for the cinch buckle with her left. That was as far as she got before Piper yanked the reins out of her hands and jumped the six-foot fence. There he stood, nose to nose with a squealing Cricket. So much for Glory’s idea of keeping them separate until she could slowly introduce them. The two old horses whinnied back and forth like long-lost cousins. Dan opened the gate and eased the saddle off, then the bridle, replacing it with a breakaway halter until they were sure of Piper’s temperament.

  “Looks like we need a taller fence,” Dan said as they stood watching the horses snorting and play biting. Over and over, Piper lifted his upper lip in flehmen, that peculiar curling ability ungulates possess and horses use to take in and process scent. “He’s got a lip tattoo,” Dan said while the horses reared up and bucked a few feet just for fun. “Bet we could find out where he came from.” Glory didn’t
care about that. Witnessing this intense conversation reminded her of falling in love with her husband. It was like trying to condense your life story into five minutes so you could move on to the good stuff.

  After some digging, Dan verified the riding-school connection, fifteen years prior. From the day Piper arrived, those horses were no more than five feet from each other. Once, when Cricket colicked, Dan put her on pellet feed and confined her separately in a barn stall. When Glory went to check on her, she discovered that Piper, the food hog, had carried half his hay ration to the stall and dropped it into Cricket’s paddock.

  Glory’s last-chance dogs had to be convinced to bond with humans. They could survive in a shelter, bulk up with her, but in a home they would thrive. Glory taught Cadillac hand commands, a variety of whistles, and even played around with the rudimentary basics of search-and-rescue training. Whether she asked him to fetch a Frisbee, round up the goats, or lead the way home, she barely had time to think of the idea before he did it. Tonight she rubbed his ears and asked him to go to Juniper, who stood on the back porch, unwilling to come any further. “Hug,” Glory whispered.

  Cadillac headed for Juniper, but when he was only a couple feet away from her, without any cue, dropped down and crept on his belly, like a soldier crossing a field, relying on proximity instead of cover. When Cadillac reached Juniper, he sat for a handshake, and when that didn’t materialize, he rolled over to show her his belly and batted his paws in the air. He whimpered, sat up on his back legs, and practically wrote her an e-mail; he wanted her to touch him so badly. Glory was proud of him for waiting until the feeling was mutual. Juniper lasted a minute before she came down the porch steps and squatted down to put herself at the dog’s level. Cadillac turned over and shook himself, then began to squeal until she allowed him to come into her arms and give her a tongue bath. The moment they touched, his tail began to beat like a thresher. He yipped and licked, and the two of them stayed like that for so long that Glory had to look away. She watched moths circle the yellow porch light. She listened as the wind rushed through the great oak. Eventually, she went to Juniper and placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  Juniper looked up through her tears and said, “If only dogs could talk.”

  Chapter 3

  NOT SO MANY years back—maybe five—Glory and Dan had driven several hours and paid money to watch one of their former foster sons, Gilbert, give a horse clinic on establishing trust with abused horses. While he lived with the Solomons, Gil spent every waking minute he wasn’t in school or doing chores with their horses. When Gil had saved enough money, he and Dan attended an auction, and Gil brought home a four-year-old gelding that Glory took one look at and knew was out of its mind. They came back with a few new dents in the horse trailer, which Dan backed up to the corral, so the horse wouldn’t have anywhere to bolt except into the fenced area. It took Gil half an hour to convince the horse to back out of the trailer, and when he finally did, the first thing he did was kick in Gil’s direction. He spent the next twelve hours galloping around the corral, flinging himself itself at fences, screaming and rolling his eyes so that the whites showed.

  “Guess I’ll call him Spooky,” Gil said.

  Glory and Dan had watched that crazy horse throw that kid five times a day. Glory would have given up that first day, but Gil saw something past the rope burns, the notched ears, and the bucking. “Just one more week,” Gil, limping into the house to wash up for dinner, told Dan every night.

  When Gil turned eighteen, he found a job with a ranch up north gentling horses, and Spooky was still with him. People called him “the miracle worker” and said his ability to tame whatever a horse had to dish out was something you had to see to believe.

  That Hollywood movie about horse whispering was just a story, but Gilbert had a gift. At the clinic he promised that within two hours the bucking and rearing four-year-old mare would not only accept a saddle, but follow him around like her best friend.

  “Where’s your whip?” someone asked as he shut the corral gate.

  “No whips. No hobbles, tie-downs, and no intimidation. This horse has already been abused. I aim to establish a lifelong rapport based on kindness.”

  “This I gotta see,” the cowboy next to Glory muttered.

  “A warning,” Gil said before he began the demonstration. “Sometimes what I do here brings up emotions. It’s my belief that animals can help a human being travel to the wounds of childhood. The best part is, once you go there, you can fix things. Get on with life.”

  Dan patted Glory’s hand and smiled. Glory had been worried for Gil. You never knew what a horse’s mood would be day to day. All it took was a white trash bag flying in the wind to make Piper start stamping and snorting. Glory could tell that some of the ranchers and horse people hearing all this touchy-feely baloney were just waiting for Gil to fail. Maybe their methods to break a horse to saddle weren’t as gentle as they could be, but they worked—if you called beating a horse to tell him what you wanted successful communication. “Please let everything go okay,” Glory whispered.

  “Have a little faith,” Dan said.

  Glory had watched Gil work with Spooky for a year and a half. Just as she did with her last-chance dogs, Gil had taken his cues from the horse and, one by one, erased his fears. Spooky went from a total nutcase to a mellow, alert cow pony that couldn’t wait to load into a horse trailer to go someplace new. He could spot a snake ten feet away and would stop stock-still until the rider on his back saw that, too. Spooky was up at dawn whinnying for Gil, eager to get his day started.

  Gil had patiently stood in the center of the ring, taking small bites of a carrot with its green top still attached. The tense filly flattened her ears if Gil so much as looked her way and snapped her teeth when Gil came even a foot closer. In response, Gil walked around the fence, once with his hands by his sides, then on the next circuit he put his right hand, the one holding the carrot, against the fence, allowing it to ping against each metal rail as he passed. The noise caught the mare’s attention. After a few of his laps, she followed him, muzzle in the air, sifting through scents. Then the wind came up, blew dirt around, and she spooked. It seemed as if any progress made were lost. But the carrot and the fence had created a new memory, a pleasant one, and eventually she became curious enough to allow him an inch closer on his laps, then to reach out and touch her, first with the carrot, then with his hand. In fifteen minutes, Gil was sacking her out with a saddle blanket. When the mare shrugged off the blanket, Gil picked it up and put it on again and again. When she was good with that, he walked to the center of the ring, a carrot in one hand and the blanket in the other. Twenty minutes went by and nothing happened. Glory was sure Gil would be giving out plenty of refunds.

  Instead, the horse came to Gil. She lipped him. He gave her half a carrot. Just for a moment, he placed his arms across the mare’s back, then stepped back. They went through this routine for an hour, at the end of which Gil had his full weight across her back and the horse, though nervous, did not rear or shy when he introduced a simple rope hackamore bridle. Gilbert pulled himself up on her back, and she stood there waiting for him to tell her what to do next. Then she whinnied. Glory, who knew the language of horses, recognized the “Let’s go” whinny born of longtime relationships. She could hardly swallow for the lump in her throat, and at that moment, the crusty old cowboy standing next to her burst into tears.

  “How did you do that?’ a woman asked.

  Gil turned to the crowd and said, “Patience and gentleness. When I was sixteen years old, I’d been arrested four times, and everyone gave up on me. Best thing that ever happened to me was getting thrown into the foster-care system, because this is the method my foster father used on me. Works on dogs, too, in case you’re interested.”

  Afterward, Dan and Glory drove south, stopping at the Giant Artichoke, a touristy restaurant in Castroville, where they each ordered a bowl of artichoke soup before driving the rest of the way home. She remembe
red Gil’s grin, the mare finally calming down, the smell of the hot soup, and the side order of deep-fried chokes, but she couldn’t recall a single word of her conversation with Dan. Forgetting made her panic. Seemed as if for every day that passed since last February 28, she lost another memory of Dan for good. There was no stopping it.

  She sat on the back steps wire-brushing dirt off just-gathered eggs while Juniper McGuire slept. The girl had cried herself to sleep, one hand dangling down to reach Cadillac, who stayed by her bedside. However excruciating it was for her to see the dog, Glory knew it made Juniper feel close to her sister. Glory sat on the bed for a long while. Every time Juniper sobbed, the vein in her neck pulsed, causing the bluebird tattoo to flex its wings. Glory wondered what the tat represented to Juniper and thought of Cecil, one of their foster boys, who was a “cutter.”

  He sliced lines into his left upper arm with razors, knives, whatever was handy. His scars were four ropy, purple lines that reminded Glory of a shipwreck survivor marking time on a tree trunk, IIII days, and poised to carve the fifth slash across the other four. As part of the agreement to keep Cecil, they checked his arms daily. He had hard days and setbacks, but while he was with the Solomons, he never did escalate to five. When he turned eighteen and moved out on his own, Dan gave him a hand-carved wooden cross. “When you feel the urge to cut yourself,” Dan said, “look at that cross and think about Jesus. He already sacrificed himself, son. You don’t need to do anything but be grateful.”