The Cowboy's Shadow Part 2

He let the truck roll to the stop sign. The not-quite-full moon slid from behind the house. The elm had always blocked his view of moonrise. Last full moon he and Rod had unloaded the groceries at the range cabin. They had finished the cleaning early, with plenty of time to return to the ranch for a late supper.

Staying overnight had been an indulgence, a pleasure of thin air and preternatural silence. Of rustling night birds, and the glint of stars so bright that staring at them caused a quiver close to sensual.

And that night killed Rod.

Twenty-nine days, the cycle of the moon, exactly four weeks and one day since he had shoved open the creaky door. Rod had swept the floor while he cleaned out the stove. They split kindling, and carried in a pile of wood. Perhaps he should turn around, go back and tell Kyla he had opened the cabin four weeks ago. Maybe the doctor could deduce something from that information, when she talked to him in the morning.

The thought of facing Kyla in the dark...To talk privately they must stand in the front yard...not a good idea. He gunned the motor, spun around the corner, trying to imitate the movements of his skateboard. The bright lights of Main Street pulled like a magnet. Whiskey Dan's. A beer, maybe two, to help him forget the curtained ambulance that carried what was left of Rod Harris to Reno.

Drink, to obliterate the memory of the night he arrived at his newly purchased ranch with the load of heifers, to find his father waiting on the front steps, blurting unbearable news. Jenny's dead.

There was something else Whit wanted to forget, but he doubted a beer would help. No alcohol could dull an event so recent. It bulged in the front of his skull. A woman stepped through the door of the coffee shop, one glance, mere curiosity, and he had found himself floundering in eyes blue as a mountain lake.

He should be consumed by mourning, he should concentrate on Rod, and on Judith, deprived of her brother. Yet with his first glimpse of Kyla Rogers, he had wondered, "Who is she?."

"Jenny, I'm sorry." He apologized not only for the tree, but for a betrayal that loomed in the offing. If Kyla cooperated he would break a six-year-old vow.

Painful, but inevitable.

"Where's Trace?" Kyla asked, alarmed to find only Glenda at the breakfast table.

"Already out and about. He and his friends are rounding up more mothers to bake cookies and cake. It's good for them, really, and helps them face the fact that Carl's gone and will never return."

"Best to keep busy, not dwell on bad news," Kyla mused, thinking of Whit, who would keep himself busy -- and her too -- trying to find the fatal spot. Not an impossible mission, since hantavirus did not float around like the seeds of a milkweed. Not the way she had planned to spend her vacation, but if she and Whit could find the place where Rod -- and maybe Carl -- had been exposed, they could save others.

"Glenda, I met a fellow last evening, accidentally, in the coffee shop. His name's Whitaker."

"Whit. He owns Plum Sky Ranch."

"Yesterday he brought one of his cowboys to the hospital. The man died, and his symptoms sound an awful lot like Carl's."

"It's spreading!" Glenda dropped her toast and nearly knocked over her chair trying to get up. Kyla waved her down.

"If it's what I think it is, you don't catch it from another person. You get it from mice, by going into a house or barn where they live, or disturbing their nests, stirring up dust where they've defecated. Had Carl been anyplace like that, do you know?"

"The boys ride for miles on their bicycles, and plenty of old shacks -- "

"Alone? You let them ride without knowing -- "

Glenda laughed. "This isn't San Francisco, dear sister. Kids in Argentia still have freedom to wander, and parents are confident they'll stumble onto nothing worse than rattlesnakes. Ask Trace, but I don't think old houses interest him.

He's prospecting for silver. He's sure the old timers didn't find everything."

"A mine? Would Trace and Carl explore a tunnel?"

"Mark's warned them, more than once, that old mines are dangerous. And Trace is a sensible kid. I guess I can say, 'Probably not.'"

"I want to talk to Carl's doctor about this. Hantavirus infection is rare enough that many doctors never see a case."

"Dr. Chase. You'll find him in his office next to the hospital."

Kyla fished in her purse for her car keys, but reconsidered the moment she stepped into the cool morning air. A walk would do her good.

Argentia's atmosphere hummed, a faint, eternal vibration made by trucks rolling from the mine to the mill. Sunlight oozed down the slopes of the White Mountains, one brighter streak seeming to cascade from the patch of snow high on the peak. When she reached the end of Elm Street, Kyla had an un.o.bstructed view of the mountains, and could trace the ravine that carried the snowmelt. A line of green, like a seam in the mountain. The vegetation disappeared in the foothills, then reappeared as a spread of gra.s.s where the water touched the desert.

Plum Sky Ranch. Yesterday evening she had not considered why a homesteader had settled in that exact spot, but now she saw it had been inevitable. Water ruled in the desert. People could not locate farms and homesteads for the best view, or shelter from the wind, or distance from town. They lived and worked where the water bubbled from the ground. Water meant survival for humans, as it did for all animals. Every living thing headed for the trees that lined the stream - human beings, deer, mountain lions. Mice.

The doctor's office occupied a pre-fab building. Kyla sighed, regretting that the cookie-cutter products of an a.s.sembly line displaced the picturesque architecture of the mining camps. Then she recalled that Rod and Carl might have died in some carefully preserved relict of the old days of mining.

A sign at the edge of the pavement -- there was no curb -- proclaimed the offices of Augustus Chase, M.D., General Practice, and Sylvia Flores, R.N., Nurse Pract.i.tioner. The doctor's name had faded under the pounding of wind and sun. Nurse Flores' name stood out in bright green paint. Kyla concluded she was a new addition to the office. Beyond the gla.s.s door Kyla faced a beige reception room, all the vinyl-covered chairs empty. She knocked to attract the attention of a woman in a gla.s.sed-in cubicle.

"I'm not sick," Kyla said, after the woman slid open the window, "but I'd like to speak to Dr. Chase. About a patient of his, a friend of mine."

"It's Wednesday, the doctor's not in the office today." The woman flipped the pages of an appointment book. "But Ms. Flores -- "

"No, Dr. Chase."

The receptionist consulted her watch. "You might find Dr. Chase at the hospital.

He'd just about be finished with his rounds."

Kyla thanked her, stepped into the growing heat, wondering how she might locate the doctor in the hospital when she hadn't the slightest idea what Dr. Chase looked like.I'll have him paged.

At that moment, directly across the street, the door of the hospital swung open, a man stepped out and halted under the canopy while he fumbled sungla.s.ses from his shirt pocket. Middle-aged, a trifle thick in the waist, worn jeans, high-crowned hat. But he carried a white lab coat slung over his arm and a stethoscope dangled incongruously against his chambray work shirt.

"Dr. Chase?"

She could not see his eyes behind the dark gla.s.s, but from the angle of his head she judged he studied her critically. "My office is across the street," he said.

"Make an appointment if you have some complaint -- "

"I'm not looking for medical care," Kyla said hastily. "I'd like to talk to you about Carl Goulding. I'm a friend of the family, and, well, it seems to me his symptoms resemble those caused by hantavirus pulmonary syndrome."

He leaned in her direction without moving his feet, as if his boots were nailed to the walk. "What qualifies you to question a diagnosis?" he asked quietly, but she felt steel in the question...

"I'm a medical student. I just finished my first year."

"That gives you the expertise to contest my word?" Both his tone and lips sneered. "Carl Goulding was my patient, I know his history, you don't. He was a sickly boy."

But the Gouldings moved here only three months ago, Kyla wanted to say in protest. How can you be so sure of Carl's health history? But Chase's sneer made her hesitate.

"Your question, your interference, clearly demonstrates why females should not be admitted to medical school. Women are much too emotional to cope with the traumas encountered in the practice of medicine. Become a nurse and work under a competent physician." He pointed to the sign in front of his office.

"Hantavirus," Kyla said slowly. The four syllables seemed to fall like lead weights to the ground at her feet.

"Has never been found in western Nevada," Chase said with a dismissive wave.

"It's an urban disease, common in crowded slums and the homes of s.l.u.ts. Good day." He did not bother to lift his hat, and Kyla had the distinct impression that he categorized her among the s.l.u.ts. She stared at the back of the retreating work shirt and jeans. Narrow hips, but shoulders a little rounded from age. He climbed into a dusty white pickup parked at the side of his office.

Lengths of freshly cut lumber angled from the corner of the bed.

Every professional man in Nevada seemed to fall under the spell of ranching.

Perhaps a virus wafted on the desert breezes, infecting men with the disease.

Even her brother-in-law talked now and then of buying a "bit of land" and keeping horses. Dr. Chase obviously had yielded to the will-o-the-wisp, and was now discovering that maintaining the corral and exercising his horses took all his spare time. The constant work would shortly effect a cure, he would put up a sign advertising the spread was for sale, and another doctor, or dentist, or engineer would take the opportunity to exercise his fantasy.

Whit had somehow made a go of it. Probably with an inherited fortune from a city- dwelling father or grandfather.

The thought of Whit recalled Kyla to her search. Hantavirus. But Dr. Chase had just said hantavirus was an urban disease? Could that be true? She wished she had read the CDC web page more closely, instead of skimming for information that seemed relevant. She should have printed the doc.u.ment. Now she must find a computer, and go over the page more carefully. d.a.m.n Glenda's anti-computer prejudice! One couldn't go door to door, asking people if they were hooked to the Internet.

But she could ask Trace. He must have friends with computer friendly parents.

The kids, she recalled, were circulating through town, drumming up contributions of cakes and pies. The mob shouldn't be hard to spot, for in a town the size of Argentia, ten or twelve kids on bikes would be rated a gang.

She walked toward the business district, peering down each side street.

"h.e.l.lo." She stiffened at the husky voice. s.e.xy. She turned, presenting what she hoped was a disapproving face to the man accosting her.

Whit leaned out the pickup's window. One glimpse of his face told her the husky tone came from lack of sleep and grief. Pain creased a slash across his eyes.

Or, G.o.d forbid, was he sick? She jumped off the curb.

"How are you feeling?"

"Good enough to wrestle something about half way between a mountain lion and a toy poodle. How are you?"

"I need to get back on the CDC web page. There must be a computer in town, at the library or at -- " He stretched to open the pa.s.senger door.

"Hop in. But first I need a dose of caffeine. That New Guinea they serve at the coffee shop tastes better than the rotgut I perk at home."

Kyla climbed in, settled herself against the door and fastened the seatbelt.

"Next thing you know, you'll buy a coffee grinder and order gourmet beans from a catalog."

"No need for mail order. There're shops over in Bishop that sell fancy coffee."

"Bishop? But that's in California."

"State lines don't mean much out here. It's only forty miles, just right for an evening drive over the mountains. I find most everything I need there, and that means I don't need to go to Reno but once a month."

Reno. Two hundred miles each way. Living in San Francisco, Kyla realized, she was forgetting the rancher's disregard for distance. In the city, days pa.s.sed without the need to move her car. In fact, she intentionally walked, for fear of losing her parking spot. As if to reinforce the contrast between San Francisco and Argentia, Whit swung into an empty parking spot, right in front of the coffee shop. The sign in the dry cleaners' window hung at the same lopsided angle she had noted last night. Not closed for the day or evening, Kyla realized. Closed.

This morning a middle-aged woman served the coffee, and chatted with an elderly man perched on a stool at the counter.

"Two cups of New Guinea," Whit said.

"The coffee of the day's Sumatra," the woman said. "Jelly bean-almond's the flavored one, and the decaf's French roast."

"Jelly bean-almond!" Kyla exclaimed. "Coffee flavors are getting a trifle ridiculous. Next it will be bubble gum."

"That's on Friday," the woman said. "The kids like it iced with whipped cream.

They're my best customers. That is the girls are good customers. As soon as I get hooked up to the Internet the boys will come." She nodded toward the computer. "You want your jelly bean iced or hot?"

"Neither," Kyla said, a little shocked. "Sumatra."

"Business will pick up when that new resort casino goes in west of town," the man volunteered, speaking to no one in particular, while the woman filled the plastic cups.

Whit shrugged. "Just talk, as I understand it. Before they get a building permit, they'll have to prove that Fellows Canyon has water enough for all those people."

"Last night the county approved the plans," the woman said. She fetched a thin newspaper with the coffee, and placed it on the table facing Whit. Reading upside down, Kyla could make out only "Fellows Canyon Ranch" in the headlines.

"The county approved the concept," Whit said, folding the paper and shoving it aside. "What did the doctor say?"

"Flu." Kyla took a sip of coffee and almost burned her tongue. The hot plastic cup yielded under the sudden spasm of her fingers, and she put the cup down before it collapsed. Relax, she told herself. No sense getting upset at Chase's ignorance, because she could not change it. "Dr. Chase claims hantavirus is an urban disease and does not occur in western Nevada. That's why I need a computer, to check with the Center for Disease Control again. What have you found?"

"Rod's calendar. He used an X to mark his days off. On some of those days he wrote 'ranch hunting.' Sometimes there's a question mark at the bottom of the s.p.a.ce, sometimes an exclamation point, like he'd seen a place he might consider buying."

"Ranch hunting?" Kyla asked. "Could he afford -- "

"Rod's father was a developer in Southern California, who left Rod and his sister very well off at his death. Rod despised city life, and his father's obsession with tract houses and malls. He wanted a ranch, and was working for me to learn the ropes. After three years, this spring he decided he was ready to strike out on his own."

"What does his Southern California sister think of this?"

"Oh, she has her own share of the money. Judith's religious, almost like a nun.

She bought a big house in Reno, and made it into a sort of hotel, so people from little towns have a place to stay when they go see the doctor. That's important in a place as big and empty as Nevada."

Kyla nodded while she refashioned her image of Rod. Not a penniless, uneducated cowboy, but a rich man's son, with a sister devoted to caring for others.

"You said something about a diary," she said.

"Rod didn't keep a personal diary, but I found this in his truck." Whit spread two pieces of flimsy paper on the table. Ragged edges showed they had been torn from a book, and creases indicated multiple folding and refolding. "They come from a catalog of farms and ranches in Nevada and Eastern California, plus a few in Oregon and Idaho. Rod checked some, probably the ones he looked at, or planned to look at. By the way, we opened the cabin on May 5th."

"Exactly a month ago," Kyla said. "Last night I tried to pump Trace about old buildings and mine tunnels, but he'd only talk about likely outcrops. He's prospecting for silver. I learned that you don't search for new ore bodies near habitations or previously worked hillsides."

"Making a strike." Whit grimaced. "The eternal hope of desert rats." He laughed, the first time that Kyla had heard him, and the deep chuckle startled her so much she put down her coffee. "The dream never dies."

"I'll talk to Trace again tonight, casually. When an adult asks direct questions he gets defensive, like you're finding fault."

"You'll be a wonderful doctor," Whit said. "We should turn medicine over to women. They're more sensitive."

"How nice of you to say that, since about twenty minutes ago Dr. Chase informed me that women are too emotional to practice medicine. He recommended nursing under the supervision of a competent physician. Male, of course."

Whit laughed again, this time a chuckle of disbelief. "Don't take him seriously.