"I've been worried about Annabelle. She seems happy enough, and yet lately, she spends a great deal of time up near the falls where Aaron died. Is she wishing her unborn child was his, instead of Jacob's? And what would she think if she knew Jacob and Aaron fought over her, and that their scuffle caused the fall that killed Aaron? Would she hate the father of her child? Would she hate me for keeping the truth from her? I could have gone to the authorities; could have told them that Aaron's death was not quite the accident it seemed. But that would not have brought him back. Nor would it have lessened Jacob's grief. It would have served no purpose at all, except to place blame. And frankly, Jacob did enough of that himself. I wish I could get word to him, or even receive a letter from him--something to at least reassure me he's alive."
--excerpt from the private journal of Ephraim Barton
Smoky Hills Part 28
Back to Normal?
After their all-too-exciting weekend, Heero and Trowa were both happy to get back to chores around the farm on Monday. Relieved that Leon's midnight serenade seemed to have garnered no attention, they resumed their preparations for getting their permit to keep exotics as well.
One of their first activities was moving Trowa's bed from the downstairs room he'd been occupying, to an upstairs bedroom he selected. There were four bedrooms, which made choosing a bit of a chore, especially when Trowa couldn't decide between wanting to have the best view of the mountains behind the house, or having a room that overlooked the barn and surrounding area. He finally opted for the one nearest the barn, so he could listen for Leon, if the animal made noise again.
"You know," Heero pointed out as they carried pieces of the bed frame into the spacious room. "You could always put one of those baby monitors out in the barn. It'd wake you up just as quickly as hearing Leon moaning all night."
"That's okay," Trowa assured him. "I want to be where I can just look out the window to see what's going on."
"So we'll install a video system--"
Trowa sighed. "Really, Heero. I don't mind this bedroom. It's actually got the better fireplace, and whoever modernized and added baseboard heating ran extra piping through here--so it'll be warmer." He gave a teasing grin. "You know how I like to be warm. All those winters in Florida with the circus--"
"So maybe you should sell this place and buy land down south. I think Leon might prefer it--" Heero teased.
Trowa shook his head stubbornly. "Like I said, there's something about this place that feels like home. It--" He wanted to say "talks to me," but knew it would sound foolish.
Heero raised an eyebrow. "It what?"
"It's like coming home to a place you've never been before," Trowa said with a scowl. "I know that sounds stupid, but--"
"No, it doesn't," Heero said firmly. "I feel it, too. Even though Dekim Junior was your father--not mine--I feel a certain affinity for this place. I actually understand how at home it makes you feel."
Trowa smiled in relief. "Thanks."
They finished their work in comfortable silence, dropping easily back into their "pre-bone" routine, as they called it, and by mid-week, Trowa had a bedroom as cozy and complete as Heero's.
Heero was especially glad when Trowa seemed to have forgotten about his idea to have a chat with Duo about Heero's availability. Not that he didn't want Duo to know he might be interested; but he really preferred handling things like that himself. Trowa's idea of "subtle" often left much to be desired.
Fortunately for Heero, Trowa chose to put his matchmaking skills to use on a different species first. He put in a call to Catherine, asking her to keep an eye out for another lion in need of a home. He firmly believed that Leon's mental health was at stake--not to mention their safety around an irritable lion--and that providing him with a companion was the best solution.
Catherine promised to put out feelers, and in the meantime Heero and Trowa worked each morning on new caging in the barn, with Leon looking on curiously; and on the afternoons that Trowa didn't have physical therapy, they each tended to their own mental health by indulging in separate activities.
Trowa's chosen pastime was to plant himself on the couch with the trunk of journals beside him, resting his knee while patiently reading through page after page of Ephraim's rambling monologues. And Heero took leashes in hand and went running with his two big wolfhounds--in the opposite direction from where the mysterious bones had been found.
Friday turned out to be a perfectly warm and breezy afternoon, ideal for being out in the woods, and when he went for his run, Heero used his memory of the topographical maps he'd procured to help him find his way to the reservoir.
In order to reach the vast expanse of sparkling water, he had to leave Barton land and cross a road, before making his way down to the dam where he'd met the forensic people just a few nights earlier.
There was a road across the dam, bordered by sidewalks on both sides, with a small parking area at each end. According to what Heero had gleaned from his early visit to the town hall, the place drew quite a few visitors in the summer months. People came to swim in the lake below the reservoir, which was open to the public. And quite a few took walks on the trails through the State forest, enjoying picnics on the lawn of the dam, and taking advantage of the handy parking lots.
Right now, the place was deserted, and Heero and his two hounds were the only pedestrians on the sidewalk leading to a stone building in the very center of the dam. It looked almost like a medieval tower, complete with a peaked roof--though it was only a single story in height. It was, of course, locked--presumably containing the controls for whatever operating system the dam builders had installed. There was a spillway off to one side, with water cascading over it from a long winter and wet spring.
"Hm--looks like the city won't run out of drinking water any time soon," Heero commented to his furry companions. The Compensating Reservoir, as it was called, provided water to the largest city in the area--about thirty miles away.
As he scanned the area, Heero noticed that just to the north of the spillway, along the steep bank of the reservoir, there was a rock ledge that jutted out a bit. If his map recollection was correct, it would be the one called Beech Bluff.
A motion caught his eyes, and he squinted against the bright sunlight, fixing his attention on the rocky promontory.
Sure enough, there was someone up there, walking along the edge and apparently looking out across the water.
Thor nudged his hand, and Heero absently scratched the shaggy head, watching the distant figure move around up on the bluff. From that distance, he couldn't make out features--only sandy, wind-blown hair on a medium-height, slender man.
It was no one he knew--no one he'd ever seen before. But that was to be expected, since he was new to the area, and strangers used the State land on a regular basis.
"Wonder how you get up there," he mused. The map had shown the nearest access road. But it didn't illustrate a path up to that point. Of course, that didn't mean there wasn't one. If what he'd seen so far was any indication, Heero doubted half of the trails through the remote woodland area were marked.
"Well, that's a hike for another day," Heero told the dogs, turning back the way he'd come and giving the leashes a gentle tug.
Surprisingly, Thor resisted him, suddenly standing rigid, with his head raised toward the stranger on the bluff. His hackles were up, and a low growl rumbled deep in his throat.
Balder joined him, catching his brother's anxiousness, and circling to stand slightly behind and to one side of him.
"Thor!" Heero scolded, frowning at the tense dog. He followed Thor's gaze back up to the figure on the hill, marveling that the animal could even see anyone from that distance. And the wind was all wrong for Thor to have smelled something.
Thor suddenly let loose with a volley of barking, his husky voice resounding across the water and echoing from the hills on either side. Balder joined in on that, too, and Heero tugged futilely at the leashes, trying to break the dogs' concentration.
He'd have sworn he didn't take his eyes off the person on the ledge, except for flinching when the dogs burst out with their barking--but in the blink of an eye, the man was gone.
"Thor! Balder!" Heero scolded, giving a sharper yank on the leashes. "What's gotten into you?"
And then as quickly as they started, both dogs stopped, snapping out of their paroxysm of rage and turning to look quizzically at their master. Thor shook himself hard, as if he'd just come out of the water, and then nuzzled Heero's hand, even as Balder wagged his tail enthusiastically and pranced around him.
"What the heck was your problem?" Heero wondered, looking in amazement at the two dogs. He'd never seen them get excited over a stranger before. They were usually quite friendly. And it wasn't even like the man had been near enough to be considered a threat.
Heero started back along the sidewalk, and both dogs obediently followed, as though they hadn't just made a startling outburst. "Weird dogs," he muttered, glancing around as they headed back towards familiar ground.
They ended up following the road back to the house, having gone a roundabout way in their explorations, and Heero stopped to grab the mail out of the box, giving a wistful look down the road.
"Damn," he muttered. "We missed him."
~*~
Trowa looked up from his books when Heero and the dogs walked in, and then his gaze slid over to the clock. "Sheesh, you guys were gone a long time," he noted.
"And you haven't moved from your reading," Heero tossed back, taking off the leashes and letting the dogs trot away to the kitchen for a drink. He plunked himself down on an arm of the couch. "Is it that fascinating?"
"Well--I found one of Dekim Senior's journals that talks about a still out in the forest, and a root cellar and stuff. But there's also mention of kids trespassing and strangers he saw on the property." Trowa looked up from under his thick fall of auburn hair. "The timing would put it a few years back, and I thought maybe he saw something that could be useful for your investigation--"
"You mean the Smoky Hills Police investigation," Heero corrected him carefully. "I told you, I have no intention of taking over unless they bungle the job."
"But maybe you could at least offer a bit of insight. If Dekim saw something, we could certainly bring it to their attention."
Heero gave a sigh. "Did he see something?"
"Ah--I'm not sure." Trowa held up a volume with obvious water damage. There was a clump of pages stuck together, the edges rippled and stained. "Three out of four of his journals are like this."
"Useless," Heero pointed out. He laid a hand on Trowa's shoulder. "Don't feel bad. There's probably nothing in them anyway. Seriously. What are the odds the old man knew anything about a body on the property?"
"That's just it!" Trowa blurted. "He knew everything! He prowled around at night out there, y'know--sneaking up to the still to make moonshine."
"Moonshine? I thought that was Samuel's project--during Prohibition."
"Yes, but Dekim kept the 'family tradition' alive. Said he didn't like store-bought liquor. It had no body to it--no kick."
Heero chuckled. "Spoken like a true hillbilly."
"I think he was," Trowa admitted.
"I thought your ancestors were farmers."
"Ephraim was. Jacob went off to fight in the Civil War after some tragedy--something about his best friend dying in an accident. Jacob's son Samuel was raised by Ephraim, after his mother passed away during childbirth. I haven't really gotten far in Samuel's journals; I kind of skipped ahead to Dekim's, hoping there'd be something useful about more recent events."
"Looking for a confession?" teased Heero.
Trowa glared at him. "No. It's not likely he'd have been stupid enough to write that he shot a trespasser and shoved the body under a tree."
"No, it's not," Heero said in an 'I told you so' tone. "Give it a rest, Tro'. Stop trying so hard to find clues where there aren't likely to be any. When Chang gets back to us with solid data, we'll have a better chance at narrowing down the time frame. Then you can dig through the journals and look for dates that would be sure to coincide with the burial."
"I suppose so," Trowa conceded, setting aside the damaged journal. "Assuming I can ever get these pages apart."
"Shit," Heero muttered. "I forgot!"
"Forgot what?"
Heero hung his head, looking suitably sheepish. "When I ran into Duo and his roommate at the grocery store that time, I told him you'd mentioned some damaged journals. He said Winner has some experience in document restoration."
Trowa gave his brother a scathing look. "And you just now thought to tell me that?"
"Hey--in my defense, it was a passing comment, and I had other, more pressing concerns in mind--"
"Yes, like how quickly you could get into the hot mailman's pants, right?" Trowa shot back.
"No!"
"Bullshit," Trowa said with a snort. "You were so dazzled by those big, blue eyes--"
"Purple," Heero said absently, his expression going a bit unfocused.
"Huh?"
"His eyes. They're a shade of blue that almost looks purple," Heero explained. "I guess you'd call it cobalt--or indigo."
"Well aren't you the poet?" Trowa teased, his annoyance over the forgotten information slipping away at the sight of the blush beginning to creep up Heero's cheeks. "All caught up in those beautiful eyes--"
Heero jerked back to awareness, bringing his wayward thoughts under control. "The point is, it slipped my mind that Winner might be able to help with the damaged journals. Until just now, when you showed me how bad they are, I hadn't given it a lot of thought."
"You mean, even when I was drooling in the car on the way back from the post office, it never occurred to you I might like having a legitimate excuse to visit the postmaster again?"
Heero cocked an eyebrow. "You've never needed excuses before, Trowa. As I recall, you were the one dragging me out to nightclubs looking for Mister Right. Since when did you become shy about making your interest in a person known?"
"Since I fell in love at first sight," Trowa snapped. Then he clamped his mouth shut, having blurted out more than he intended.
Heero's expression changed, becoming more serious. "Love at first sight doesn't exist," he said flatly. "It's either lust or infatuation. Nothing more."
"If only it were that simple," Trowa sighed. "But what I think I feel for Quatre isn't so easily explained." He looked up at his roommate's troubled scowl. "You know how I said this house feels like home? And it felt like that from the moment we arrived?"
Heero gave a reluctant nod.
"Well, I got that same feeling when I saw Quatre at the post office," Trowa continued. "It felt like coming home."
Heero sucked in a sharp breath, his frown deepening. "You're setting yourself up for a hell of a disappointment if he's not interested, you know."
"Yeah, I know," Trowa said quietly. "Why d'you think I've been such a chicken shit about asking him out? Most guys I've ever been interested in, I had a phone number and a date scheduled before we got to last names. But I couldn't get my mouth open to ask Quatre for either--because it mattered so much. If he said 'no,' I didn't know what I'd do."
"But if you don't ask--" Heero pointed out with a shrug.
"Exactly. You see my dilemma?"
"It's hard not to," Heero conceded. He put a hand on one of the damaged journals. "So--call him up and just ask for his help with the books, why don't you? Spend a little time with him that way, and you may find the words you're looking for."
Trowa smirked at the other man. "You're the younger brother, Yuy. You aren't supposed to be so full of wise advice."
Heero shrugged one shoulder. "Well, I'm working on taking my own advice," he admitted. "I was thinking I'd offer to buy Duo a cup of coffee next time I run into him at the mailbox. I could ask him about local gossip--possible leads on the investigation. And like you said, it'd show the local thugs he's not alone. If nothing else, I can at least be his friend--for starters."
"Beating me to the punch!" Trowa accused. "I wanted to be the one to tell him we're not a couple!"
Heero smiled patiently. "Worry about telling Quatre. I'll deal with Duo--okay?"
"Sounds fair," Trowa agreed.
He set aside the journal he'd been holding and his expression sobered a bit. "By the way, I talked to Catherine again while you were gone. She heard about someone a couple of states away who's been housing a lioness rescued from a theme park that got shut down. It had to have a foot amputated, because of poor housing and care--it'd had an injury that turned septic, and they didn't get a vet in time to save it."
Heero felt Thor nudge at his elbow, his whiskers dripping from slurping at his bowl of water, and he absently scratched the big head. "Poor animal."
"Yeah," Trowa agreed, his voice tight. "At any rate, Catherine said the lioness is supposed to be very tractable--friendly even. But since she's permanently lame, no one has offered to take her in. I thought she might be a good match for Leon, and not too much of a burden, if she can be handled fairly easily."
Heero sighed, and then nodded. "Much as I think it's early to be increasing our number of exotics, if it keeps Leon quiet and calm, I'm all for it."
"The only thing is, I'd have to go with Catherine to meet the animal," Trowa told him. "The rescue people won't turn her over unless they see how I interact with her."
"Can't fault them for that," Heero admitted. "When would we have to go?"
Trowa took a deep breath. "Catherine offered to pick me up tomorrow. Early. It's a ten-hour drive."
"You?" Heero asked. "Just you?"
"Yes. It'll take a minimum of three days, and there's no one we could trust to care for Leon--so you'd have to stay here." He looked up from under his bangs, knowing his overprotective caretaker might be hard to convince.
"Does it have to be so soon?" Heero frowned in concern. "You're barely walking without crutches-- You still need them when you overdo it and get fatigued."
"I know, but mostly I'd be riding in the car. And yeah, it's kind of urgent. They're on the verge of making the decision to euthanize Sandy, if she can't be placed. Sooner would be better."
Heero's shoulders slumped a bit, but he nodded. "It's up to you, Tro'. As you pointed out, you're pretty much back on your feet."
Trowa grinned up at him. "Wow. That hadda be hard!"
"You've no idea."
The auburn-haired man stood up and gave his brother a one-armed hug. "I hope you know how much I appreciate that you took care of me--and that I understand how hard it is for you to stop."
Heero pushed him away, smirking teasingly. "Get over yourself, Barton. You think I enjoyed being your servant and nursemaid? Think again!"
Trowa laughed aloud, heading out towards the kitchen. "How about I show my appreciation by helping with dinner?"
"As if that'd be enough to pay me back," Heero said with a snort. "You still owe me, and don't you forget it."
"Whatever you say."
"Whatever?" Heero asked, smirking. "Okay then--I say that while I start dinner, you're going to put a quick call in to the local post office and set something up with Winner. How's that for starters?"
"I wasn't being literal--"
"Well I am. Call him. I'll stay out in the kitchen so you can have some privacy while you sputter and grovel." He quirked a snide smirk at Trowa. "You know you will."
As he went past his roommate, he jerked a thumb in the direction of the phone in the hallway. "The telephone directory is in the little cubby in the stand it sits on."
Trowa sighed, turning towards the aforementioned phone. "Got all the answers, don't you, Yuy? 'There's the phone.' 'There's the phone book.' Smart ass."
"That's me," came an unrepentant reply as his brother disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
Trowa walked over and looked down at the innocent telephone, trying to steel his nerves as he reached for the receiver. "Say, what time is it anyway?"
"Five-thirty," Heero called back. "Shit--that's right. The post office closed at five. Why don't you look up his home number?"
"Because I'm not that presumptuous," Trowa replied, sighing and walking into the kitchen. He wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed about the reprieve. "I'll call when I get back from the trip--how's that?"
"Sounds pretty chicken shit to me," Heero said with amusement. He turned and tossed a head of lettuce, which Trowa caught in mid-air. "Since you weaseled out of the call, I guess you can help me make dinner after all. Get to work on that, while I start on the main course."
"Slave driver," Trowa mock-grumbled. "A nice brother would take me out to dinner on a Friday night."
Heero glanced over his shoulder. "I would if there were any place worth going to around here. But since there's not, I'm going to feed you a wholesome, balanced meal. That's as 'nice' as I'm gonna get."
"Love ya too," Trowa smirked, grabbing a bowl and starting on his part of the meal.
TBC...
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