At Crawford’s Supply, the clerk asks if Oz is with the government. Oz says no. Sheasks if he’s a pet. I say no, firmly enough that she backs off. While she rings up my lye and coconut oil, I watch her hands move, and I see if I have any better luck with her. “Does the phrase ‘I’m still here. I never stopped waiting’ mean anything to you?”
Her fingers pause on the register keys. She looks at me, and something shifts behind her eyes, a flicker that might be recognition or might just be confusion. “No,” she says slowly. “Why?”
“Just wondering. That’s all.”
Oz waits by the register with perfect patience, and when she hands me the receipt, she looks at him and gives a small, reluctant nod. The faintest spark of acceptance.
Gary’s porch is the last stop. He’s sitting in his lawn chair with Captain curled in his lap, the cat’s gray-and-white fur clean. Captain sees Oz before Gary does, and his ears prick forward with interest.
Gary watches this for a long moment. Then he stands, crosses the porch, and holdsout his hand.
“Appreciate what you did,” he says. “Finding him.”
Oz takes the hand. “He was easy to find. He wanted to go home.”
Gary’s jaw tightens. He holds the handshake one beat longer than necessary, then lets go. “If you need anything. You let me know.”
“Actually,” I say. “There is something you can help us with. Does the phrase ‘I’m still here. I never stopped waiting’ mean anything to you?”
He turns the words over, searching for recognition the way he searches ridgelines for lost things. Then he shakes his head slowly. “No. Can’t say it does.”
I sigh. “Seems like nobody knows what that means.”
“You ask your grandmother yet?”
I slap my forehead.
Ofcourse. Gram, who knows everything about this town and everyone in it. Gram, who looked at Oz and didn’t flinch,who said the world is stranger than most people allow themselves to believe. Gram, who has been deflecting my questions about the ridge since I first asked.
“Gram,” I say. “Good thinking, Gary.”
“Yeah, I’m known for that.”
I quickly thank him, then Oz and I head straight for the truck.
We drive in silence for a while. The desert scrolls past, all rust and gold, with that particular quiet that only open country makes.
My brain is running the calculation.
Gram has lived here on and off for decades. She knows the histories nobody writes down, the grudges that pass between generations, the things people don’t say at town meetings.
If anyone knows who the Ridge Walker might have been waiting for all those years, it’s her.
I turn onto the road to her place. The alpaca fence appears first, weathered wood posts and wire that hasn’t been truly alpaca-proof in years.
Then the little house, and the porch, and Gram herself, sitting in her rocking chair with wool in her hands, felting something too small to see from here.
She sees the truck. She sees Oz in the passenger seat. Her hands don’t stop moving.
Barnaby notices us first. He’s at the fence before I’ve cut the engine, his long neck stretched over the wire, making that humming sound alpacas make when they’re curious.
Bartholomew remains in the shade of the hay shelter, projecting dignified disinterest.
Basil is nowhere to be seen, which means he’s found a new gap in the fence and is probably eating someone’s rosebushes.
Oz steps out of the truck and goes very still.
Barnaby hums again, louder. He stretches his neck further, nostrils flaring, and takes a long, considering sniff of the air between them.
