Solomon's Oak (17 page)

The Solomon horses had taught many a foster boy that practicing kindness, calmness, and thinking from the horse’s point of view made the world an easier place to understand. In the short time they’d been together, Glory thought that was happening with Juniper, but now that she knew Juniper was lying, she wasn’t sure. She figured time with the animals was the best thing for Juniper, so Glory had her ride and groom the horses daily.

She boosted her onto Cricket, then used the fence rail to pull herself onto Piper’s spotted back. He nickered a little as her feet found the stirrups and his muscles tensed. He loved going into the oak forest and could somehow tell that was where they were headed. Glory scratched his neck and smelled salt, earth, and sweet hay breath—if only she could bottle that. The dogs were already waiting by the honeysuckle-covered gate. If you didn’t know where to look, it was hard to find the latch. Glory missed on her first try, leaning down from Piper so low she nearly fell off. Before she could balance herself for a second try, Cricket nosed in and opened the latch.

“Whoa,” Juniper said. “How did you train her to do that?”

“I didn’t,” Glory said, “but that explains the times the horses have gotten out. We’d better install another latch at the bottom of the gate.”

“Horses rule.”

“Not if they get hit by a car. Remind me when we get home so I don’t forget.”

They kept the horses at a walk until they crossed the county road. Then it was down an incline into a usually dry arroyo that this year ran with a few inches of water. “Keep hold of Cricket’s reins,” Glory warned. “She’s a mudpuppy.”

“What’s that?”

“She likes to roll in it, just like a pig. I don’t want you falling or getting mashed.”

“Really, Mrs. Solomon? I didn’t know you cared.”

“Oh, I don’t care. I took you in so I could have a smart-aleck slave. As soon as we get back home, there’s a generous supper of stale bread and water waiting for you.”

“Har de har, har. Next thing you’ll tell me is Justin Timberlake called to see if I was free this weekend.”

Glory let her have the last word. “We can trot now.”

“We’re not going to gallop, though, right?”

“Not now, but someday.”

“Nope. Not ever.”

Juniper was terrified of the lope, the gait most riders adored. After a ten-minute trot, Juniper clutching the saddle horn the entire time, they reached the grand valley oak stand, a place so thick with trees that the horses could proceed only at a walk. The dogs, however, knew the terrain so well that they wove in and out of trees like ribbons, racing each other. The waning sunlight dappled their coats and Glory’s hands on the reins. The weather had definitely turned, and horse breath plumed out in front of them. The forest had its own smell, a pungent powder that lined Glory’s nose and seeped into her pores. The land was protected, but if the population continued to increase the way it had over the last twenty years, then a hundred years from now, when stories such as
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
were considered Paleolithic, there could be condominiums here. Sewage systems. The ugly gray of asphalt parking lots. She wished the Spanish had let things be.

“What are you thinking about?” Juniper asked.

“How great you’re doing on your riding. How about you?”

Juniper’s face crumpled. “That if I hurt Piper, I’d kill myself.”

“First of all, if talking about suicide is your way of kidding, stop it immediately. Say something like that in front of Lois or Caroline, you’ll be in the hospital on a 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold for a seventy-two-hour observation before you can take your next breath. And believe me, they have really lousy food. Piper’s fine.”

“But now when I go in the barn to tack him, he’ll think I’m going to hurt him.”

“Horses remember just like we do. So do dogs. But they also sense your intentions. What you did was no big deal. Look at Piper’s ears.” They were pricked forward, interested in his surroundings. “See? He’s happy. Let’s switch horses.”

“No. I’m scared of Piper. He’s so tall.”

Glory dismounted and held Piper’s reins. “Come on. You have to learn to ride all kinds of horses.”

Juniper slid down from Cricket. Piper was happy to change riders, and Cricket was happy to lead him anywhere. “Hey, where’s your right glove?” Glory asked before giving her a leg up.

“Must’ve lost it on our last ride.”

“We’ll keep a lookout. In the meantime, give me the other one.” She called Cadillac, held it to Cadillac’s nose, and said, “Find.”

“What are you doing?”

“A while back, to counteract his boredom, I taught him the rudimentary bits of tracking.”

“I didn’t know he could do that,” Juniper said.

“I’m not sure he can. We haven’t practiced it in a long while. Go on, boy. Find.”

Cadillac waited until Juniper was settled on Piper, then ran ahead, Dodge following. Glory used the opportunity to really study Juniper’s riding progress. She’d eased her death grip on the reins. Her shoulders were no longer hunched up by her ears, which meant she was relaxing a little, but not much. “Pretend you’re a sack of potatoes,” Glory told her over and over. Light brown roots peeked out from her dyed-black hair. She’d lost at least five pounds, probably from eating healthy meals, and her jeans were loose on her. She wore a flannel shirt of Dan’s, miles too big for her, from the old-clothes box. She had knotted the shirttails around her waist. For a moment it was like catching a glimpse of a child of his, and Glory regretted letting all those chances to have a baby go by. The last time Dan asked, Glory had said, “I’m just not ready.” A stupid answer she regretted every day. While he lay there dying, did he think about what he’d missed? Were the foster boys enough? Glory was afraid of being a mother. Look how crappy she was doing with Juniper. She was afraid to share her husband for one minute, even though he seemed to have an endless supply of love. She was afraid he might die and leave her with kids the same way her dad had done with her mom. She was terrified of having a daughter who’d end up like Casey, or who hung out at the minimart by the Chevron station, every day stuffed full with opportunities that could turn out fatal. Now here she was with Juniper, who’d had all those things happen to her and more. The fact remained, if she hadn’t waited, she might be riding with a part of Dan that had more life than a piece of clothing.

Then she noticed Juniper’s boots. They were Dan’s Red Wings. Which meant she’d been in Glory’s closet to get them. Juniper had large feet, but surely his size-ten boots would swim on her. Probably while Glory was talking to the florist, Juniper had gone into her room, searching for boots. She rode up beside her to give her what for. But the girl had her eyes closed and was letting Piper lead the way. She was so scared she was trembling. Glory decided the talk could wait until after their ride.

Dodge ran back and forth as they rode, checking in, then taking off at a dead run. He barked his head off, and Glory hoped that would tire him out enough that he’d sleep quietly in his kennel all night. Would Dodge ever be right for anyone? Kids made him hysterical, and excessive barking was the number two reason people left dogs at shelters. The first was failure to housebreak, and usually the owner’s fault, leaving a dog cooped up for nine hours at a time. For a long while Juniper and Glory rode without speaking, falling into the horses’ rhythm, the sun filtering through the oaks, nothing around them but the trees.

“This must be what heaven’s like,” Juniper said. “I could stay here forever.”

Glory had no idea what heaven could be like for anyone. All she knew was if heaven didn’t take dogs and horses, she wasn’t going. “It’d be great for a little while.”

“Why not forever?”

“The woods get cold at night, kiddo. And all kinds of creatures come out.”

“We could wear jackets and gloves.”

“Yes, if we could keep track of them. Speaking of, have you seen Caddy?”

She shook her head no. “Whistle. He’ll come back. He always does.”

Glory blew through her fingers, listened, and heard nothing. “We’ll give him a few more minutes, but then we need to head back. Our first traditional bride-and-groom wedding tomorrow. I’m excited, even if you aren’t.”

“I’m excited about a piece of cake. Everything else is just like watching some boring old play I’ve seen a hundred times.” She pitched her voice high. “ ‘Do you?’ ‘I do, I do.’ What a bunch of b—”

Glory pointed her finger at her. “Language.”

“I was going to say
bull pucky
.”

“Glad to hear it.” They rode a quarter mile more, to where the oaks thinned out and the road began. It was a good place to turn around because you had all those wonderful oak-filled miles to follow in the other direction. Glory whistled two, three times more, but no black-and-white bullet came flying through the trees. “Let’s stop our horses and listen,” she said.

“It’s my fault,” Juniper said. “I should have kept better track of him. What if something happened? What if he’s hurt or someone took him home because he’s such a pretty dog? What if I never see him again?”

“Caddy knows the woods. He’ll be back. Let’s keep the horses at a walk for a while, though.”

As they rode, Juniper’s head turned from one side to the other, searching. Glory wasn’t concerned—yet. If he didn’t come home tonight, then she’d worry about a coyote or mountain lion encounter. There were worse ways for a dog to go, and that was how you had to look at it or you’d go nuts.

Ten minutes later, he shot out of the trees, a dirty glove in his mouth.

“He found it!” Juniper yelled. She jumped off Piper and ran to her dog. “Good boy! It’s my glove! It has the same tag and everything. Isn’t he the smartest dog ever?”

“Smart dog,” Glory said. It looked as if the glove had been from here to the coast and back again. “Be sure to wash it when we get home. Home,” she said, and Dodge turned to follow Cadillac.

“Wait for me!” Juniper said, and all by herself pulled herself into Piper’s saddle.

As they drove across town, merging into traffic, stopping for traffic lights and Christmas-shopping pedestrians, Glory broached the subject casually. “I noticed you took Dan’s boots.”

Juniper fiddled with the radio, trying to find a station that wasn’t playing rap, which Glory outlawed, not only because of the lyrics, but because it gave her a headache. Classic rock: There they had common ground. As Janis Joplin sang “Piece of My Heart,” Glory remembered Halle belting it out into her hairbrush as if it were a microphone when Halle was the same age as Juniper was now. It was an oldie back then, so what did that make it now? An
eldie
?

“Uh-huh.”

“Dan’s boots that were in my closet.”

“So?”

“Remember, we made a rule that you need to ask before you go into my bedroom? And for permission before taking something?”

“But you had them in the box marked for Goodwill.”

“True, but that doesn’t change anything. We made a rule, you broke it.”

“But you told me to find boots! I went through the old-clothes box but there weren’t any in my size because I have elephant feet.”

“Then you should have told me. And your feet aren’t that big.”

“You were on the phone!”

“For about five minutes. You could have asked me after I hung up.”

“Maybe I did ask and you just don’t remember it.”

Here we go, Glory thought. “Tell me the truth right now and that will be the end of it.”

Juniper went silent while Glory drove down residential streets, looking for the library. Once she found the entrance, she dropped Juniper off and went in search of a parking place. Inside the library, she used what was probably the last public telephone on planet Earth to call Caroline.

“It’s stupid stuff,” Glory told her. “Making up stories about her teachers praising her, and then I get the robo-call from the school that she isn’t turning in her homework. She takes a handful of change off my dresser, and then denies it. Today she took a pair of boots from my closet.”

“Glory, I have to say that doesn’t sound like that big of an issue.”

Glory hadn’t mentioned the Percocet because she knew that would result in Juniper’s being returned to the group home. Her rationale? As Lois said, she hadn’t
taken
the Percocet.

“It sounds pretty normal to me,” Caroline continued. “You’ve been through all the standard foster-care stuff with boys. Juniper’s no different. She’s testing how far she can push the boundaries. We both know her issues go deeper than that, but an abandoned kid usually goes one of two ways. She idolizes her parent, won’t hear one bad thing said about him. Or she believes the reason he left is because she’s not good enough.”

“Couldn’t there be a third alternative? Something easier to figure out?”

Caroline laughed. “Glo, every foster kid I’ve ever known has a quirky view of the truth. And I don’t mean that Juniper’s experiences make up for lying. We both know she’s had a hell of a time and a long way to go. It’s just that lying is a tendency we see a lot. They ‘spin windies,’ as my cowpoke brother used to say. Maybe to imagine themselves as something better than they are. If I had to guess, I’d say that deep down, she believes her father left her because she could never measure up to Casey. Take that up with Lois and I bet you’ll find some answers. Meanwhile, keep it simple. Just state the obvious. Remind her she’s not to go into your room again without permission and walk away.”