When the Flood Falls - J.E. Barnard The Falls Mysteries

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with the strain, an inescapable reminder she had pushed herself too far, too hard, too soon. But this was her first time here on foot since the accident. Her first time sitting alone with the memory of Duke. Six months ago today, almost to the hour. “I’m so sorry, old friend,” she murmured to the wind-tossed grasses. “I should have left you home that night. You couldn’t keep up.” There was no answering whimper, no sense of that whitened muzzle pushing into her hand. No presence here at all. Here, if anywhere, his spirit should have lingered, waiting for her to come back. He was gone, truly and completely.

      She was groping in her jeans pockets for a tissue when the rumble of a truck engine approached. Scrambling to her feet, she whistled. The auburn plumes of two setter’s tails bobbed up among the Saskatoon berry bushes at the edge of the trees. Bright muzzles turned toward her. “Beau, stand,” she yelled, panic lending her voice power. “Boney, stand.”

      The truck rumbled closer. The dogs stood, poised and graceful, waiting for the next order. She kept her hand up to reinforce this one. Please don’t let them break now. Not here. She risked taking her eyes off them and looked over her shoulder for the vehicle. It came in a dust cloud, an old red Ford more rust than paint, and slowed to a crawl as it neared the trail crossing. Just Eddie Beal on his way home from picketing the museum. He leaned out the open window.

      “All right there?”

      “Yes, thanks.”

      “You mind them young dogs, now. Hockey jocks are back at the Wyman place.”

      Was that thrice-accursed Jarrad among them? There was no point asking Eddie. He could name every dog for miles around, but his egg customers were the only humans whose names he cared to remember. Well, and hers, though only since the museum had begun construction. If she let him get one more sentence out, he’d be on her about that again. She backed up a step, stifling a grimace as the weight on her ankle shifted. “I’d better get them home,” she said. “No sense taking chances.”

      He waved and drove on, with no sign he’d noticed her tear-streaked cheeks. Although with Eddie, you could never tell. He was an odd man any way you sliced him. She called Boney and Beau, lavished praise when they came bounding up, and was groping in her pocket for treats when her cellphone dinged. Clutching the walking stick in the crook of her elbow, she swiped the screen. Supper Lacey, read the reminder. Along with three missed calls, one voice mail, two texts. It couldn’t be coming up to five thirty already.

      Apparently it was. She had ignored the first reminder half an hour ago, sure she would get back to the house in time to tidy herself before Lacey arrived. She’d used to run the whole hillside trail in less time. Today, too strung up to remember her ankle brace, she had been hobbling by the halfway mark. A stubborn commitment to this pilgrimage had forced her onward. She looked up at the hill path and groaned. The longer, gentler way would take her the full half hour back, every step more agonizing than the last. The short way ended right across from her backyard, but the first bit was a steep uphill and needed two good hands and two strong, flexible feet. Why hadn’t she asked Eddie for a lift? If Lacey knew she was on her way, she’d surely wait. Maybe. Lacey hadn’t been eager to meet up at all. It had taken weeks of loosely disguised begging to get her here, and she might not wait for the reason behind it if she thought Dee had simply overlooked their supper date.

      If she wouldn’t help …

      Dee pushed that thought aside. Lacey would help. It was in her bones. But explaining these months of terror over the phone, especially when it might not be real, might be a by-product of the pain pills and nightmares … that was something Dee couldn’t face. Lacey just had to stay around long enough to listen. Hitting redial on the last call from McCrae, L., Dee held her breath.

      The phone’s vibration caught Lacey with the patio table halfway up the steps. She braced it against her legs to answer. Dee’s number. At last. Relief gave way to a swell of anger and a sharper voice than she intended. “So, you remembered.”

      “I’m so sorry. I did remember. I even have pineapple chicken in the oven. Are you still near my house? The thing is, well, I can’t get back.”

      “You’re blowing me off even though you already started supper?”

      “No! I mean, I really can’t get back. I took the dogs for a walk, and I guess I never told you I broke my ankle. It’s not fully healed and I walked too far, and now I just can’t make it home on foot. I’m less than a kilometre away by the trail, but almost five by the road. I hate to beg a favour if you’ve hung around waiting already, but can you please come and get me?”

      Ten minutes later, Lacey was creeping along a back road that, according to Dee’s directions, would take her around the hill. She’d have to let the dogs into the back seat. Drool and paw prints and that smell that would cling to the cheap upholstery for weeks, almost as bad as cigarette smoke. But this was what you did for old friends. The Civic bobbled over washboard gravel and once shivered as its undercarriage grazed a high spot. Didn’t Alberta believe in paving its roads? Or at least grading them. No wonder people out here drove pickups and SUVs.

      Finally, here was the white-painted rail fence Dee had mentioned. Lacey signalled and turned. This bit of gravel was marginally smoother, running parallel to the hill’s steep, treed backside. In the other direction, up a gentle rise, half a dozen opulent log homes sprawled in their own clearings, the westerly sun slanting off their many windows.

      So the land wasn’t quite as deserted as it had seemed. Good to know. Or bad, she supposed, if you were an environmentalist concerned with protecting wilderness from development. Dee would be two kilometres along, at the crossing of a marked trail. Watch for horseback riders, the sign would say.

      She spotted the sign, but couldn’t see Dee. A slash of red proved to be an Irish setter poised motionless at the road’s edge. Behind him, another sat by a dusty stump that struggled to its feet and became Dee, leaning hard on what looked like a tree branch. As Lacey stopped the car, the closest dog lifted its lip in warning. The other moved in front of Dee. No RCMP canine-handling course was needed to read their protective instinct. Rather than trigger further aggression by approaching on foot, Lacey waited in the car while her old friend hobbled forward.

      “So what happened?” Lacey asked, once the dogs were stowed in the back — so close she could feel their hot breath on her neck — and Dee had eased herself into the passenger seat.

      “I was stupid,” said Dee, fumbling with her seatbelt. “I wanted to come be with Duke where he was hit by a car last winter. Physio’s been going well so I thought I could walk this far. Didn’t think about the rough ground or the slopes. My ankle’s the size of a grapefruit already.”

      “Put it up on the dash to ease the swelling.” Lacey took her foot from the brake and set off slowly to avoid jolting Dee’s foot. Duke was dead, then. Getting hit by a car was often a faster, kinder death than many old dogs could expect, but hard on their owners. “How’d you break your ankle?”

      “Jumping into the ditch with these two lads. Duke wasn’t fast enough. This road’s usually deserted after the last commuters get home from Calgary, but that night a car blasted out of a side road, fishtailed on the gravel, and would have creamed us all if we hadn’t dived over the snowbank. And there went my ankle. Bone, tendons, and all. I yelled at the stupid car but it was long gone. Didn’t stop or even look back. When I crawled up to the road, Duke was lying there with a shattered hip.”

      “Did they catch the driver?”

      “Eventually.” Dee closed her eyes. “I couldn’t help much. Too stunned to even notice the colour or make. I was more worried about freezing to death. I’d fallen on my phone and it was toast. I couldn’t stand up, couldn’t do anything except cover Duke with my jacket and hope someone would come along soon.” She sniffed. “Soon is relative in those conditions.”

      “But somebody eventually came?” Lacey turned onto the washboard road and slowed to make the Civic jiggle as gently as possible over the corrugations.

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