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Maisie took Lucy to and from school. The little girl loved her new school, especially when she realized that she didn’t have to be afraid to go into a classroom. The teachers were very good and conscientious, and they had a principal who backed them up if there were disciplinary issues. It was a well-run school, with small classes and good teachers, many of whom were born and raised in Catelow. Abby was grateful that her niece fitted in so well.
Things had been going so well that Abby hadn’t had a single worry. Then, one afternoon late, Hannah called to tell her that Lucy had gone out to see the other kitten and the mother cat in the barn and had vanished into thin air.
“I’m just so sorry!” Hannah said, almost in tears. “I was making a cake and I didn’t think she could get into any trouble just going out to see the mama cat and the other kitten. In fact, I had one of the cowboys keeping an eye on her, but there was an emergency and he had to leave. It’s my fault...!”
“You stop that,” Abby said, and hugged the older woman despite her own very real fears. Rural areas like this had bears and coyotes and all sorts of other predators. Also, it was Saturday and there were hunters in the woods, and Lucy wasn’t wearing bright clothing. It was a nightmare in embryo.
“I’m going out to look for her,” Abby said. “I’ve got my cell phone. I can call for help if I have to. I’m just going to get my boots on and a heavier coat.”
“I’m sorry I had to get you away from work...”
“I was working overtime for Mr. Owens on a case,” she replied with a smile. “I’d only just finished my research when you called. Now don’t worry!”
“Should we call somebody? The sheriff...” She bit her lip, having remembered too late about the difficulties that would involve.
“Not just yet,” Abby said.
“Okay then.”
ABBYGOTINTOwarm clothing and her boots, stuffed her thick hair into a knitted cap, put on her leather gloves, and went to the barn. She had one of the men saddle a gentle horse for her, because it had been a while since she’d ridden one. A horse could go places that a car couldn’t and it was easier to see tracks on the ground at the slow pace. Don organized several of the cowboys into a search party, dividing up the ranch so that they covered more ground.
It had started to snow earlier that afternoon, something that was not that unusual for autumn in Wyoming. It was just a few flurries, but that was a blessing, because Abby could see little footprints in the light snow on the ground.
She followed them into the woods, wondering why in the world the child had gone that way. The ranch sat in a valley, with a stream running through it, and just beyond was a forest thick with fir trees and birch and cottonwood trees. There was a big hill far on the other side. The woods were forbidding. There was a lot of undergrowth to get through. Abby wished she’d brought a pair of hedge-cutters with her, and that she was wearing chaps, because the going was tough. She’d ridden into an area that was thick with thorny wild berry vines—very nice in the summer, she expected, because they could pick berries and make pies and jams with them. But at the moment, they were a problem she didn’t need. And all the while she worried about Lucy. Did she have her thick coat on, was she frightened, why had she gone into the woods? Abby bit back her fear and soldiered on.
CODYBANKSWASoff duty. It was a quiet Saturday anyway, and he was enjoying the peace on the ranch he’d bought a few months ago. He loved the solitude. Mostly, he loved living in a house with no memories of Debby, his late wife. He’d lived in the past too long already, so that mourning her had become a way of life. Here, in the solitude of acres and acres of grazing land and forest, he could lose himself in nature.
Beside him was the beautiful Siberian husky that Debby had left for him with a nurse in Denver the week she died. He loved the animal dearly. It was almost six years old now, and still as active and happy as it had been as a puppy. He spoiled the dog, buying it treats, letting it sleep on the end of his bed. It was like the child he and Debby had never had. He’d wanted children very much, but Debby had been working her way up the ladder in medicine and she hadn’t really been interested in children or homemaking. He’d known that when he married her, of course, and he’d loved her with his whole heart, so it hadn’t mattered. But now, left alone at the age of thirty-six, with nobody much left in his family except for cousins, he was feeling the loneliness just a little too much. If it hadn’t been for his Anyu, his husky, he would have been alone in the world. He reached down and patted her with a big, gloved hand. She looked up at him with bright blue eyes in a laughing face surrounded by white fur with deep gray mixed in. Her name, Anyu, was an Inuit word for “snow.” It had been taught him when he was first elected sheriff, by a temporary deputy with that heritage.
He was wearing boots and his shepherd coat and his silverbelly Stetson. It felt odd to be out of uniform, because that’s what he wore most of the time. On the ranch, however, it wasn’t necessary.
He’d gone down a logging trail on property that adjoined his and the land of his great-uncle who’d just died when he heard a sound. He was lonely and thoughts of Debby and the life they’d had haunted him. He’d walked for several minutes when he stopped abruptly and scowled. That wasn’t an animal cry. It sounded like a child.
He shouted. There was an answering cry not too far away. He started toward it, through the underbrush. It was very thick. He took out his hunting knife from its leather sheath on his belt and cut some of the underbrush out of the way, mostly thick thorny berry bushes that bore fruit in the summer in great abundance.
When he got through, he found a small child caught in a veritable web of berry bushes with thorns.
“I can’t get loose,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears, her lower lip trembling. “Can you get me out, mister?”
“Of course I can. Hold on a sec. You hurt anywhere?” he asked gently.
“I’m just scratched,” she said, drawing in a sobbing breath. “It didn’t look so thick when I got into it. I was crawling after Myra, she got through, but I got stuck.”
“Myra?” he asked absently as he cut away the undergrowth and gingerly separated the thorns from the little girl’s down jacket.
“She’s our cat. She had two kittens. A big old dog scared her and she ran away, so I had to go after her. But it was such a long way...”
He smiled. “Myra’s probably sitting back home waiting for you,” he said. “Cats are crafty about getting in and out of places.”
There was a long howl. “Over here, honey,” he called.
Anyu came bounding across the pasture, stopping at his soft command when she got to the bushes. She leaned forward, sniffing the child.
“Oh, what a pretty dog!” the child exclaimed. “And it’s got blue eyes! Is it yours?”
He nodded, still concentrating on freeing her. “Her name’s Anyu. She’s six years old.”
“She’s a husky, isn’t she?” the child asked. “She’s beautiful! I wish we could have a dog. But at least we have a cat. He lives inside the house with us and sleeps on my bed with me.”
