CHAPTER 2

The shadows cast by the Sawtooth Mountains were already creeping down the valley as Audrey Wilkenson approached the gates to El Monte. Though it was almost fourteen years since she'd first seen this spot, she could still remember the moment as clearly as if it were yesterday.

Not that the entrance to the property looked as it had back then, when she and Ted had stumbled across it. Where there had once hung only three sagging strands of barbed wire tacked to crumbling posts, with an opening blocked by a rotting wooden cattle guard, there now stood a split-rail fence, four feet high, extending off into the woods in both directions, as far as one could see from the road. The cattle guard had been replaced by a gate, double hung from two columns built of native stone, surmounted by a deeply carved wooden arch announcing the name of the ranch.

Even the forest flanking the road had changed, for during the first two years they'd been there, she and Ted had cleared out the underbrush and thinned the trees so that the most majestic now spread their limbs unfettered by the clutter of saplings that had originally crowded the landscape.

The gates stood open, for the first thing the Wilkensons had done was to sell off the cattle. They had resolved that as much of the land as possible would be allowed to revert to natural meadows and forests.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly from year to year, the land had recovered from the farming that had once taken place on it. Now all that remained in cultivation were the two small fields necessary to raise food for the horses. El Monte had become a private park, a quiet refuge not only for the Wilkensons, but for the wild animals that roamed there. The few remaining fences were no longer designed to keep anything either in or out, but solely to let hikers know where the property began and ended.

Slowing the Range Rover as she started up the winding drive toward the house, Audrey anticipated the familiar sense of well-being that always came over her whenever she came back to the ranch, no matter how short a time she had been gone. But as she made the last turn, and the comforting mass of the rambling log house came into view, that accustomed feeling of security in homecoming failed to settle over her.

Instead, she felt a vague sense of unease, as if something had gone wrong.

pulling the Rover up in front of the wide porch that fronted the house, she opened its door, dropped to the graveled ground, and slammed the door shut, leaving the keys in the ignition, as did nearly everyone in Sugarloaf. Unaccountably, she paused, staring at the house, a frown creasing her forehead as she tried to identify exactly what was bothering her. Just a feeling. Nothing was visibly wrong at all.

The house looked no different from the way it ever did, its' two low wings extending from its two-story center in a welcoming V pattern.

Shaking her head as if to toss off the uneasy feeling, she strode up the three steps to the porch, crossed it, and pushed the front door open.

"Ted? Joey?" she called. "Anybody home?"

Silence.

Which was not unusual, she told herself as she dropped her purse on the old wooden pew that sat just inside the front door. Joey was probably still off fishing, and Ted was undoubtedly in the barn, tending to the horses.

Yet the feeling that something was wrong wouldn't leave her, and her frown deepened as she toured the downstairs rooms of both wings, then started up the stairs toward the second floor. She stopped short on the third step, her intuition telling her that the second story was as empty as the first floor.

Her strange sense of apprehension growing stronger, Audrey left the house and started across the yard toward the barn, glancing at the field and the woods beyond.

The field was empty.

No sign of Ted or Joey, nor even Bill Sikes.

She paused outside the open barn door, listening to the horses moving restlessly in their stalls.

If Ted or even Joey or Sikes-weren't inside, then why were the doors standing open?

And if Ted was inside, then why wasn't he attending to the horses, calming them as he always did when something made them nervous?

Her apprehension congealing to fear, her intuition shrieking that whatever was wrong was inside the barn, she steeled her nerves, then strode through the open doors.

She saw him sprawled out on his back, his head twisted unnaturally to the right, his hair matted in a dark slime of drying blood.

"Ted?"

The single word slipped almost tentatively from her lips, her mind unwilling to accept the full meaning of what her eyes told her. Numbly, she took a step forward. "Ted!"

Suddenly she was running toward him, screaming his name, and a moment later she dropped down on the floor of the wash stall. "Ted! Ted, say something!"

As Audrey grasped her husband's shoulders, his head rolled to one side and his eyes fixed on hers. For an instant, just the tiniest moment, she felt a stab of relief.

He was all right!

He'd just fallen and hurt his head, but he was all right!

She grasped at the straw of hope, but as her eyes stared into Ted's, relief faded as quickly as it had come.

His eyes, a clear, deep blue, had gone flat.

All she could see in them was the unblinking gaze of death.

She froze, her gaze locked on her husband as she tried to understand what could have happened.

When she glanced up, her eyes fogging with tears, she saw the broken strands of leather dangling from the posts at the corners of the stall.

"No she breathed, the single word drifting almost soundlessly from her constricted throat. It couldn't have happened.

Not to Ted.

Not possibly to Ted.

He had a way with animals, the same way he had of instilling trust in any living creature, which she herself had sensed the moment she'd met him.

All he had to do was speak to an animal, or lay a gentle hand on it, and...

A wracking sob clutching at her chest, Audrey Wilkenson struggled to her feet and staggered to the door.

It seemed to take forever, and with every step, her anguish built inside her. Then she was out of the barn, and a howl of grief erupted from her, throat to shatter the quiet of the gathering evening.

Across the field, just emerging from the woods with his fishing pole slung over his right shoulder and his tackle box in his left hand, Joey Wilkenson stopped short as his mother's agonized cry rolled over him. At his knees, the German shepherd that was his constant companion laid his ears back and pressed his body against Joey's legs as if to protect his master from whatever creature had uttered the unearthly sound. A second later Audrey cried out again, this time shouting for help. Finally, Joey Wilkenson came to life.

"Go on, Stormy," he commanded the dog. "Go get her!"

Obeying his master instantly, the big dog shot forward, flying away from Joey to race across the field toward Audrey, who had sunk to her knees, her face covered with her hands as she gave in to the grief that overwhelmed her.

Only when the big dog had thrown himself onto his mother, eagerly licking her face as he tried to soothe her, did Joey break into a run, loping easily across the field with the grace of a wild animal. And as an animal would have, he stopped short when he was still a few yards away from her, a sudden wariness making him hesitate.

Joey said nothing at all as Audrey brokenly told him what had happened.

He listened in silence as he absorbed her words, and understood only one thing.

His father would never beat him again.

Though it seemed like an eternity, ordy an hour and a half had passed since Audrey Wilkenson's discovery of her husband's body. Now she sat in the tack room, staring straight ahead, the words of the people around her penetrating her consciousness in broken fragments.

"Somethin' musta spooked her .

"Don't make sense

"Sheika's not the kinda horse to . .

"Can't believe it-not Ted."

But it was Ted.

She would never forget the deathly gray of Joey's face as she'd told him what had happened, nor the dark curtain that had closed over his emotions as he listened expressionlessly to what had befallen his father. When her words finally failed her, he'd turned and started toward the barn, as if unwilling to accept the truth unless he had seen for himself what had happened.

"D-Don't," she'd whispered, her voice hoarse. "Don't go in, Joey. Find Bill Sikes." Joey had hesitated, and Audrey had managed to speak again.

"Just go get Sikes, Joey.

There's nothing you can do in there."

Her son's eyes had fixed on her, but then he'd turned away and continued walking toward the barn. Only when he was at the half-open door was Audrey finally able to drag herself once more to her feet and return to the barn to pull her oddly silent son into her arms.

"Come on," she'd whispered to him, turning him away from his father's still body. "We have to get help, Joey. We can't just stay in here."

Almost in a trance, she'd led Joey back to the house and called Bill Sikes, who was in his cabin a quarter of a mile away. The Custer County sheriff's office was located in Challis, more than seventy miles away, but the deputy's office was closer, in Sugarloaf, and the deputy, Rick Martin, like everyone in town, was a friend. Rick would know what to do.

"There's been an accident," Audrey said when Martin's voice came on the line. "It's Ted."

She couldn't remember much after that, except that within a few minutes the police car arrived, and an ambu lance, and then the yard between the house and the barn had begun to fill up as word spread through the valley of what had happened.

It was Rick Martin who had led her to the tack room, Joey's hand clutched in hers, and told her to stay there.

"I can't keep folks away from you in the house, Audrey," he said gently.

"Better if you're down here. No one'll come through unless you say the word."

Audrey nodded mutely, sank down onto the sagging leather sofa that was the tack room's main piece of furniture, and waited, Joey sitting silently next to her.

She did her best to answer questions, but was unable to tell Rick Martin any more than he'd been able to see for himself.

Half an hour ago, after they'd taken pictures from every imaginable angle, Ted's body had been placed in the ambulance and taken away.

And now, at last, Rick Martin was crouched on the floor in front of her.

"Audrey" he said, his voice barely penetrating the mist that seemed to be closing around her mind. "Can I talk to you, And?"

Talk to me? What could he possibly say? Ted's dead.

He's @ dead, and nothing can bring him back to life.

She felt a wave of panic well up in her.

What am I going to do? What am I going to do without him?

She wanted to throw herself into someone's arms-wanted to scream out the anguish she was feeling-wanted to let herself die, to give up her life to the grief that held her in an iron grip, choking her.

Help me, Ted! Please help me!

Though no sound escaped her lips, the plea echoed in her mind.

And one word emerged out of the confusion that engulfed her.

Joey.

An image of her son rose out of Audrey Wilkenson's roiling emotions, and abruptly her mind cleared.

She took a deep breath, then sat up straight, focusing on the deputy's concerned face. "What happened, Rick?" she asked, her voice calm and clear. "Do you have any idea?"

Martin shook his head. "Not really," he said. "From what I can see, he was mucking out Sheika's stall, and he must have parked the horse in the wash stall till he was done.

Something must have spooked the horse, and when Ted tried to calm her down, Sheika must have reared up, knocked him over, then come down on his head. An accident, pure and simple."

Audrey felt another wave of emotion rise up inside her, but firmly held it in check.

"What could have spooked Sheika?" she asked.

Rick Martin shrugged. "Don't know. Could have been anything, could have been nothing at all. For all I know, a rat could have run through, or an owl dropped down from the rafters. You know horses. Practically anything can do it, if it takes 'em by surprise."

Audrey's head moved in silent acceptance of the deputy's words; then: "What about Sheika? Has anyone found her yet?"

"Not yet. I got a couple of guys out looking, but she could be anywhere.

When we find her . . ." His voice trailed off, and his gaze shifted momentarily to Joey, who was still perched stiffly next to his mother.

"You'll shoot her, won't you?" Joey demanded.

Rick Martin's tongue ran nervously over his lower lip.

"I'm afraid we don't have much choice, Joey," he said.

"She-"

"She didn't do it on purpose!" Joey flared. He jumped to his feet, his dark eyes fixing angrily on the deputy, his dark hair falling over his forehead, making him look much younger than his thirteen years. "Maybe it wasn't her fault!

Maybe someone came into the barn and spooked her on purpose! You can't kill her! You can't!" Turning, he bolted out of the tack room, leaving his mother and the deputy staring helplessly after him.

"I'm sorry, Audrey," Rick Martin said into the silence that followed Joey's abrupt departure. "I didn't handle that very well."

Sighing, Audrey pulled herself to her feet. "It's all right, Rick. You know how Joey is. He's always had this thing with animals. Even when he was at his worst, he always got along with them."

"Like Ted," Rick said, then wished he could retract the words as he saw the stricken look on Audrey's face.

"I-I'm sorry, that was-!'

But Audrey shook her head. "It's all right. But it's not like Ted at all. It's different. Ted could always keep the horses calm, but with Joey it's always been something else.

Sometimes it's almost as if he can communicate with them."

Rick Martin shifted his weight uncomfortably, knowing there was nothing more he could do at the ranch right now, but not certain that Audrey should be left alone. "I got rid of everybody but Bill Sikes. Figured you can call anyone you want, but right now you don't need the place cluttered up with everyone in town." When Audrey made no reply, he went on, "Or I can call Gillie, if you'd like. I mean, I'm on shift this evening, so she could come up here and just sort of keep you company."

"That's nice of you, Rick," Audrey replied. "But I think for tonight, Joey and I might do better by ourselves."

Holding Rick's arm, she let him lead her out of the tack room and back through the barn, where she carefully avoided looking at the spot where she'd found her husband's body less than two hours earlier. Bill Sikes was still there, doing his best to settle the two horses who were still in their stalls.

"I'll take care of everything, Mrs. Wilkenson," Bill Sikes said as she passed. "You just try to get some rest, okay?

That was the hardest thing after Minnie died-tryin' to sleep."

Audrey paused, smiling at the caretaker. His weathered face made him look older than his sixty years, but his wiry body still held the strength of a man twenty years younger.

"Thank you, Bill. It'll be all right. Somehow, we'll all get through this."

"We will," Sikes assured her. "You need anything tonight, you call me.

You never know what's wandering around here at night. And I got a bad feelin' lately, like there's something' up there in the mountains, watchin' Us.

Audrey shivered even as she tried to reject Sikes's words. "I'm sure I'll be just fine," she said, lending her words more conviction than she truly felt,

"Okay," Sikes sighed, knowing it was useless to argue with her. "But you call me if you want. Anytime at all."

"I promise," Audrey said, though even as she spoke the words, she knew that she wouldn't call him.

Tonight, after Joey had gone to sleep, she would sit alone in the den that had been Ted's favorite room, trying to come to grips with what had happened and to figure out how she was going to get through the rest of her life without him.

Live without him.

It was a concept she had never considered since the moment she'd met Ted. Not even when the ... problems had begun.

Now, for the first time, she was going to have to think about it.

She had no choice.

The ten o'clock news was over. As she clicked the television in the den off, Audrey realized she hadn't heard a single word of it. Through the entire half hour, she had sat staring numbly at the screen, vaguely aware of the images of the pretty blond woman and the plastic man who were reading from the TelePrompTers, but not absorbing so much as a syllable of what they had been saying.

Exhaustion had overcome her. She swung her legs up onto the couch, closing her eyes for a moment in a vain hope that she might drift off to sleep.

But all that came were images of Ted.

Working in the forest, his shirt off, his muscular body glistening with sweat.

Galloping across the field astride Sheika, gracefully soaring over the jumps they had set up when they thought they might get serious about riding.

Sitting in the easy chair next to the sofa, a book open in his lap, as he had almost every evening since they'd built the house.

And then another image of Ted came into her mind.

An image of her husband striking her son.

It had only happened once. Just once, she told herself.

But that once was too much. She could still remember the horror and shock of it. Two years ago, almost exactly The moment Joey had come downstairs for breakfast, they had known that one of his strange moods had come over him. He was silent, barely responding even when she spoke directly to him, and after breakfast he had simply disappeared, going off with Storm to wander in the woods.

He didn't return until thirty minutes after the sun had set, by which time Audrey had been seriously worried.

That evening, Ted had taken Joey out to the barn and beaten him with his belt. It stunned Audrey, and when she saw the look in Joey's eyes when he came back to the house, her heart had nearly broken.

"I won't tolerate it anymore," Ted had told her. "@e doesn't have the right to go off without a word to either one of us, and he's been coddled about it long enough.

"But he's only a little boy!" she'd protested.

"He's not that little anymore," Ted had said, his voice taking on an unfamiliar harshness. "He's old enough to take some responsibility for his actions!"

"But to whip him . . ."

Ted's eyes had darkened. "A couple of smacks won't hurt him, Audrey."

But it hadn't been "a couple of smacks." It had been a series of angry red welts across her son's back and buttocks, which Joey had done his best to conceal from her.

Just once, she repeated to herself now, just once. But she could not still the thought that kept creeping back into her mind.

Had there been other times?

Times that she didn't know about? How many times might Ted have taken Joey out to the barn an....d Audrey forcibly banished the image from her mind, the wounds of Ted's death still too fresh. It seemed wrong even to think about the faults her almost perfect husband had exhibited during the last couple of years.

Go to bed, she told herself. If you sit here, you'll wind up crying all night, and you still have a son who needs you.

You cannot simply curl up and die, no matter how much you want to!

Determinedly, she planted her feet on the floor, then stood up - and moved swiftly around the large room, switching off the lamps and locking the outside door.

Against what?

That was something else that had only begun over the last couple of years: a sense, once in a while at night, that there was something outside the house. Something they could never quite see, could never quite be certain was even there. And yet both she and Ted had begun to lock the house up at night. Now, she followed the habit they'd both established, moving through the rooms, locking every door and latching every window.

She was at the foot of the stairs when she sensed a movement above her.

She looked up to see Joey, still dressed, starting down, Storm at his heels. "Honey? Why aren't you in bed?"

"The barn," Joey said. "The door's closed."

Audrey cocked her head in puzzlement. "It's always closed at night."

"But what about Sheika? What if she comes back?"

He was at the bottom of the stairs now, looking up at her, his dark eyes worried.

"She'll just stay in the field, sweetheart," Audrey told him. "And she might not come back tonight at all. If she was frightened, she could have run for miles."

Joey shook his head. "She'll come back," he said. "I know she will." His face set in the stubborn expression that told Audrey he was prepared to argue for hours, and she realized there was no way she could cope with a fight with her son tonight.

"All right," she said. "We'll leave it open. But we're going to make sure the stalls are locked. The last thing we need is to have the other horses gone tomorrow."

Together they went out the front door, leaving it standing open behind them. The moon was high in a cloudless sky, and a gentle breeze drifted down from the mountains above. Audrey reached out and took Joey's hand as they started toward the barn, and for the first time in months he didn't pull away from her with the self-consciousness of adolescence.

But when they were halfway across the yard, he suddenly stopped, dropped her hand and pointed.

"Look! There she is!"

Peering into the darkness, Audrey gazed across the field toward the woods. At first she saw nothing. A second later, though, something moved, and then she saw the great form of the mare move out of the shadows of the forest into the brilliance of the moonlight. She halted, and lowered her head to graze, but as Joey called out to her, she looked up, her ears pricking and her tail arching gracefully.

"Sheika?" Joey called. "Sheika! Come on, Sheika!"

With Storm trotting after him, Joey started running out toward the field.

"Joey, stop!" Audrey called after him. "If we just leave the barn open, she'll go in!"

But even as she watched, the horse shied away and disappeared into the trees.

"Get a tether, Mom," Joey yelled. "I'll keep her in sight!"

Audrey stood rooted to the spot as the surrealism of the moment whirled around her. What were they doing outside in the middle of the night, only hours after Ted had died, chasing a horse?

It was insane!

It was ridiculous!

It was And then she realized.

It was "exactly what Ted would have wanted them to be doing. She could almost hear him: You're still alive, Audrey.

And so is Joey- Go get her!

The fatigue vanishing from her body, her mind finally overcoming the shock of finding Ted's body on the floor of the wash stall, Audrey breathed deeply of the night air, then ran to the barn, pulled the door open and slipped inside. In the tack room she found a lunging tether and a flashlight, then she left the barn and strode across the field toward Joey.

She caught up with him at the edge of the forest. He was calling out to the horse, then listening carefully for any sound of the animal moving in the darkness of the woods.

His dog was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Storm?" she asked, dropping her voice, although the two of them were completely alone.

"I sent him to find Sheika," Joey replied. A moment later they heard a sharp bark from somewhere in the forest. Then the tone of Storm's bark changed as the dog began trailing the horse. "Come on," Joey cried, charging down a path that cut through dense undergrowth that had never been cleared from this part of the woods.

Audrey switched on the light, following in the direction her son had taken, though he was already out of sight as he ran toward the sound of the baying dog. Then, as Storm fell silent, Audrey broke into a trot, stopping short when she came to a fork in the trail a hundred yards farther on.

Which way had Joey gone?

She listened for the sound of Storrn's barking.

Nothing.

"Joey?" she called. "Joey, where are you?" She waited, but there was no response. For an instant she felt a twinge of panic, but quickly put it down as she remembered where she was. Though the trail branched here, it came together again a few hundred yards farther up, where it ended at a bluff that overlooked the entire Sugarloaf Valley. The fork to the right was the easier one, the one to the left a little shorter. Either way, there were no other paths leading off the trail, and the underbrush was too dense even for Joey-let alone the horse-to leave the field.

Whichever path she chose, she would eventually come upon both her son and Sheika.

Sighing, she started the climb, choosing the right fork.

She moved as fast as she could, pausing every now and then to call out to Joey and the dog, but it was as if the night had swallowed them.

She was still a hundred yards from the bluff when she began to worry.

What had happened to them?

Surely they must be able to hear her calling!

Was Joey playing some kind of morbid joke on her, tonight of all nights?

But what if he wasn't?

Her worry edging into fear, she hurried her step.

Abruptly, she stopped, sensing something close by.

Joey?

Storm?

What if it was neither?

What if it was a bear?

She froze, listening.

Silence.

She called out once more, but once again heard only the silence of the night. Though the wind soughed softly in the trees, she suddenly realized that she heard no sounds of birds rustling in their sleep, or insects chirping in the darkness.

Danger.

She sensed it all around her now, and automatically turned, instinct warning her to run down the trail and across the field to the safety of the house.

But she couldn't! Not with Joey still out here!

She pushed on, refusing to let panic overcome her, calling out every few seconds now, but still hearing nothing in reply. Then, as fatigue tugged at her, she burst out from the forest onto the bluff. Instantly, with the woods no longer enclosing her, and the full light of the moon flooding the valley below with a silver glow, her fear subsided. Any second, either Joey and Storm, or Sheika, or all three of them, would emerge from the other trailhead a hundred feet away, and then all of them would start back down.

She stepped out onto the edge of the bluff, gazing out over the valley.

At the far end, the lights of Sugarloaf village twinkled in the darkness, and here and there, dotting the valley floor, she could see the lights of the houses between El Monte and the town.

How many times had she and Ted come up here when the moon was full?

How many times had they stood here together? She froze, sensing that she was no longer alone.

"Joey?" Her son's name seemed to hang in the air for a moment, then died away into the silence.

She heard something, a faint rustling behind her.

She turned then, praying that whatever was there Would be something familiar.

Almost invisible in the deep shadows of the trailhead, a dark form was slinking toward her.

She gasped, uncertain what the strange shape might be, but sensing the peril that emanated from it.

She stepped back, instinctively putting more distance between herself and the creature.

And then it leaped, hurtling out of the darkness toward her, its menace palpable in the night.

A scream of terror rose in Audrey's throat. She lurched back, the sudden movement throwing her off balance, and realized a split-second too late that there was no longer anything beneath her boot.

She teetered for a moment, struggling to regain her footing. The scream in her throat finally broke free as she tumbled over the edge, scraped roughly against the bare stone face of the bluff, then felt herself dropping downward.

Her scream went on, only to end in sudden silence as she struck the rocks two hundred feet below.