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Overview
CLAIRE COLLIER IS AN AUTHOR and university professor who has just retired to live on the family ranch with the goal of finishing her fourth book while caring for her brother, James, who has been stricken by Alzheimer's disease.
When Claire's husband dies suddenly, her life is thrown into upheaval. As Alzheimer's threatens to take over her own brain, a dangerous, masked man moves about the Kansas countryside, haunted by painful memories and pent-up revenge that lead him on a path of brutalizing innocent people and killing animals-even raping a young girl. Meanwhile, despite the obstacles that line her journey of grief, Claire manages to send her book to the publisher and stays close to her brother through his devastating illness. But the horrifying events taking place in the countryside dredge up unspeakable memories from nearly fifty years ago and, as Claire begins drowning in the darkness of depression, she must seek help through counseling and medication.
Just as Claire makes a choice she thinks puts her back in control, she suddenly realizes the attacker is out to get her.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781450224307 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 05/27/2010 |
| Pages: | 284 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
All Stubborned Up
By Nancy Larsen-Sanders
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Nancy Larsen-SandersAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-2430-7
Chapter One
Grayson
The first streak of morning sun pierced a cloud and entered a tangle of wild roses growing on the highest bank of the pasture pond. Light glinted off the sharp points of a myriad of thorns protecting the nestled pink blossoms and caught Grayson's attention. He rode his horse near the pond and watched the sun's rays ferret out crevasses that spidered the dam's face. Saddle leather creaked as he twisted, looking about, his hand lightly touching the stock of his rifle.
Nothing was out of the ordinary. But where was Ausie? He hadn't seen him since the creek bed. How could he protect the dog from another rabid skunk if he didn't know where he had gone?
Every morning, Grayson's habit was to go out at six or earlier, for he liked an early morning ride. It was his main exercise of the day, a time to clear his head of the night's dream hangovers, to breathe in the scents of buffalo grass and currant and plum blossoms in season, and to put his eyes and brain to work, taking in aspects of surroundings that might figure in his writing later. He always anticipated the ride, thrived on it, and then rode back to the house with its laptop, books and files, and air-conditioning. His habit was to ride along the barbed wire fence surrounding the pasture. His routine was also to check the creek bed, making certain no calf was hiding in the shade, with the scours or whatever, commiserating with itself.
He liked to dismount by the creek and sit on the biggest eroded cottonwood root he could find, stretch his legs, and just think about things. His health had been worse this past year. He told Claire he would be facing his destiny soon. "I'm destined to join those gone before." Grayson worked at subsiding his mind's activity to a rhythm and pace that matched his diseased body.
Near the same big cottonwood roots was where the Australian shepherd had had his confrontation last summer with a skunk-a rabid skunk. Grayson had watched Ausie snoop under the creek bank where spring flooding had washed out the soil, leaving an overhang, cave-like. The dog backed out fast, followed by a skunk. Grayson knew immediately something was wrong with the little animal. The skunk didn't do the usual protective stance in order to cut loose with a spray that would have tormented the dog's eyes and nose. Ausie took advantage of the skunk's lapse in procedure and turned to run-but the little legs raced after him.
The dog and skunk circled once in the creek bed before Grayson got his wits together and figured out what was going on. He got onto his horse, called the dog to him, and galloped to the house for his rifle. He killed the skunk on the first shot, bagged the stinking mess in a couple of trash bags, and delivered it to the vet. Weeks later, Grayson's supposition was verified, and he rode with a gun on his saddle now. Rabies was not something to ignore.
"Hi," he said, clicking his tongue and gently slapping the reins on Horatio's neck. Grayson guided the horse up an abrupt rise, convinced he would find a certain missing cow leaning over the barbed wire fence, straining to reach whatever tidbit of greenness was in the shallow road ditch. He tolerated that ornery cow, known for pushing and pushing against the fence wires until they sagged or broke, because she produced excellent calves.
The Hereford was right where he had thought she would be, but he hadn't expected to see a man in the ditch, about to swing a wooden baseball bat at the cow's head.
"Hey, what the devil you doing?" Grayson rode closer to the fence and pulled the rifle from the saddle scabbard.
The man jumped back and waved his bat around to maintain his balance in the rough ditch. One foot twisted on a big clump of dirt left by a road grader, the other slid off a flat hunk of yellow limestone.
"Nothing," the guy said. "I wasn't doing nothing. I saw the cow pressing her neck against those barbs and thought I'd scare her off. She could hurt herself." His eyes were dark, hard to read.
"Hell," Grayson said, "I'm no dummy. You were about to hit her."
The man was a not-so-big fellow with rough looks, a four-inch bald strip on the top of his head, along with a mix of gray and black hair sticking out on the sides. He was so greasy he looked like he'd just had a lube job. He displayed a scruffy growth of whiskers and arms festooned with tattoos-some kind of talon scratching toward his wrists. He could clean up decent enough. What he needed was a bath with a chlorinated cleanser and a wire brush.
A black pickup truck was parked on the road. Grayson thought he knew every person in the county, but this SOB he'd never seen before. He demanded, "What are you up to? How come you're out here? Barely dawn, and I didn't see any headlights or hear you drive up. Should I know you?"
"Naw," the fellow said. "Just traveling through. I like to get off interstate and use the back roads. Get a better sense of the country that way." He added, "I've never been in western Kansas before."
Grayson asked, "You need a baseball bat during your travels?" His tense hands leveled the rifle on the saddle horn.
"I've been seeing wheat, lots of plowed ground, and a few pastures. Your grassland is big."
"You see in the dark?"
The man made a sound, maybe a laugh. "You got a nice herd of cows. You raise anything else?"
Grayson didn't respond. The morning light had increased, and he concentrated on studying the scrawny SOB some more. He had deep, age-gouged lines along either side of his cheeks and jaws. He wasn't young-sixties, if he was a day-dressed in grubby jeans and a faded black T-shirt, the front sporting a print of an ugly face with horns. He wore sneakers.
"You ought to wear boots around here. Rattlesnakes." That disturbed the guy, and he shifted the bat into club position. He looked about the weedy ditch.
"What were you going to do to this cow, mister?"
"You raise horses. I saw young ones."
"You know, you're a pretty evasive guy when answering questions." Grayson shifted the gun, holding it upright. He twitched his trigger finger for effect.
The guy backed a few steps closer to his truck and then asked, "Got a dog? Chickens?"
"You doing a survey?" Grayson slapped his bridle reins at the cow, making her move away from the fence.
"Just interested. I see rooftops down the road to the south. Someone live there? Another rancher?"
"Why do you want to know?"
The creep said, "Just curious. I can't figure things out. There's a house over east that looks just like yours. Log cabin-style, fancy log cabins-with lots of windows-both of them. How come?"
"My brother-in-law's construction company built his house. We liked the design so much that he didn't mind when we wanted to copy it."
"He an older guy with white hair? Another guy that looks like an Indian lives with him?"
"Why do you want to know?" Grayson was worked up now, and a trickle of sweat ran down his back. In fact, he wasn't feeling so good-heartburn, maybe-and the guy was aggravating him. He watched the fellow take the top off a milkweed with his bat. "Why do you want to know all this stuff?" he asked again.
"No reason."
Wouldn't you think the guy would answer something? What was-Grayson felt a pain in his jaw. Was the guy making him clench his teeth that much? He'd better relax.
The stranger was using his bat on the top of a yucca plant, sending blossoms here and there. That wasn't necessary. Their June flowers gave relief to the bleakness of the road ditch. Just as Grayson was about to say something, the guy stopped and leaned on the bat. He asked, "You lived here all your life?" His eyes kept shifting about, never meeting Grayson's.
"About two years." Grayson's arm hurt. He thought about the bottle of nitroglycerin in his breast pocket, along with his cell phone. He shoved the rifle into the scabbard and began to rub his arm.
The fellow moved closer to the fence. He eyed Grayson. "Where'd you live before?"
"Lawrence. KU." Grayson felt more sweat, all over his body. What the devil ... a pain in his chest, a pain that made him bow his head and clutch the saddle horn.
"Professor, I'll bet. I suppose you made a lot of money. Your wife, too, I'll bet."
Grayson felt nauseous and tried to reach his jacket pocket, but his hand, his entire arm, was a dead weight. "Say," he said. "I'm not feeling so good. Got a pill bottle in my pocket. Would you help?"
The fellow's snooping eyes seemed to shut down, and he swung about, headed for his pickup. "Gotta go." He revved the engine and, without a glance back at Grayson, took off, a spray of dirt spitting out behind each rear wheel.
Exhaust fumes didn't make Grayson feel any better. Finally, the pain eased some. Why was the guy unwilling to help someone in distress?
He felt better, but maybe he'd sit by James's pond. The place never failed to relax him. His hand worked now, and with rein and knee pressure, he guided Horatio to the pond. He'd sit in the grass or stretch out, rest, and watch for the fish James claimed were in the water. He slid down the side of the horse and dropped onto the grass. Another pain hit his chest, a rip-roaring one that put lightning in his head. He gasped for air-a heart attack.
Nate had told him the diabetes and his pancreas would get him-only if his heart didn't. Claire had been upset. "What do you mean?" She had been shrill, in a way Grayson had never heard before. "Is his heart that bad?"
"The diabetes has put a big strain on his heart," Nate had said.
Claire had cried, and Grayson had pulled her against him, right there in the doctor's examining room.
He lay in the grass, thorns on a wild rosebush snagging his face, his feet straddling a small yucca. An anvil sat on his chest, just the way he remembered his dad had described before he died. He reached under his jacket lapel and found the pill bottle in his shirt pocket-he couldn't seem to hang onto it. Maybe if he pried off the lid, he could get a pill to his mouth. The lid came off, but Grayson's shaking hand spilled the contents into his pocket. Between two fingers he grasped a pill.
He got the pill close to his mouth but lost his hold on its smallness. The pill rolled off his chin.
Increased pain caused Grayson to clutch at his shirt. Maybe he could hold onto his cell phone ... call Claire. No. She was asleep from her migraine. John Long River ... no way. No way was he going to have John call for an ambulance. Sweat ran into his eyes.
He knew what the future held. He wasn't going to stir everybody up just to get him to the hospital. His body was worn out from the wear and tear of the diabetes he'd had since he was a kid. Even Claire recognized that. If he called for help, he'd die on the way to the hospital, a ridiculous siren shrilling in his ears. Or he'd get there and be bedridden and worthless to everyone.
Claire and he had planned for their deaths. He had provided well for her and the twins ... oh, those wonderful girls ... a grandfather's dream ... shoot, he had wanted to help Claire and John see James through that hideous Alzheimer's.
Grayson grunted with pain. His Claire. She always said she wanted them to be together when one of them was dying ... never wanted either of them to be alone. Claire, beautiful, sassy Claire. As if she hadn't had enough pain in life. He was going to cause more. She was tough ... she knew how much he loved her. That would keep her going.
The sun was in his eyes, and he didn't have the strength to put up his hand to pull down his hat brim. He closed his eyes, still able to picture the reflection of the cottonwood tree in the pond water. The breeze was drying some of his sweat. That was good. Was that the sound of a fish? The sweet perfume of the roses ... kind of like Claire when she was dressed to go somewhere special.
A warm, furry body whimpered and pressed against his side. Ausie snuggled his head on Grayson's upper arm. The dog's breath, combined with increasing morning breezes, caressed his neck.
The horse mouthed his pant leg, clear up to his knee, and he imagined the animal's velvety-soft lips and the trail of slobber from chewing the spring grass.
Chapter Two
John with James
John Long River and James Mueller were in their barn, studying the bales stacked high on the back wall like Pueblo apartments under a cliff ledge. The early morning heat brought out the sweetness of dry clover, and John removed his straw hat and swiped a shirtsleeve over his sweaty forehead. His long hair was off his face, held in two braids, and he pushed back some loose strands. He had moved six bales to the end of a flatbed trailer, preparing to add them to the stack.
"Dad gum it!" James swatted his thigh with his hat. "That flatbed should be full. There are only six bales when there ought to be a slew of them." Ever since John had tried to start the job, James had been arguing, claiming the trailer was almost empty because someone had stolen a bunch of bales.
"You're confusing the issue, John Long River, moving those bales like that." James stomped his foot, and a shock of white hair flopped onto his forehead. The old man had beads of moisture on his upper lip. He threw his straw hat onto the alfalfa-littered floor.
"James, I'm unloading the last few bales from this flatbed. Last night, you and me moved a whole bunch of bales from this trailer and put them in that stack there. We quit with six to go. Look at your muscles. Use them to move the rest of these bales." He squeezed James's upper arm. "You're eighty-one and your muscles are better than mine, but you've got to keep using them." John didn't expect James to help him. He just wanted his old friend to stay near him.
James's eyes shifted about, almost wildly. He peered into a shadowy corner. "I'm gonna get the bastards or my name isn't James Johann Mueller. There'll be hell to pay."
Back when his brain was working better, James was the one who had proclaimed, "Alzheimer's is like the green slime that grows on a non-aerated pond, bigger and bigger, until it coats and sucks up anything it touches. Ever watch a horse shove it out of the way before he drinks? A horse knows. Slime's about the rottenest stuff there is. That's Alzheimer's."
Now he stared at John, his eyes like pieces of dense glass. "Some guys-maybe you-took a bunch." He stepped in fresh horse manure, and it crept up his boot heels. In the good past, he would have avoided the mess.
John put his arm around James's shoulder and kept up soothing talk. "I didn't steal bales. Too much steam isn't good for your heart. Remember, I'm your friend. A longtime friend, since we were young men." He was calm, preparing to review information that sometimes helped James's brain get on the right track. "We're good friends, and we've lived on this ranch since 1988. This is our dream ranch. You're having to live with Alzheimer's disease-"
"I don't have Alzheimer's, you son of a bitch, damnitall."
That could hurt, if John were to let it. He didn't. He spoke gently, "James, you've got Alzheimer's, or you'd never call me a name like that. You don't call me or anyone else names, remember? It's not your nature. It's the Alzheimer's that's twisting my heart right now, just watching you." James looked bewildered, an expression that made his face almost unrecognizable, but John could tell he was calmer and listening. "I'll give you a minute."
John went outside to catch a breeze and take a breather. Looking back, he saw that James sat on a bale, withdrawn after his tirade. God help the old man. John felt a familiar ache of emotion in his throat.
He relieved himself. Seeing the urine spatters on the ground made him think of rain. He checked about for weather. Nothing was there but sun glare that watered his eyes and a dust devil that kicked up a tornadic shape of dirt, twisting in the hoof-powdered corral. A horse drank at the stock tank, and chickens took dust baths in their pen. A half mile away was the Collier ranch. Grayson was riding, and Claire was asleep with her migraine.
Earlier, John had saddled two mares because he wanted to take James for a ride. James had muttered, "I'm not going to ride no damn camel."
That had disappointed John. He had never ridden before coming to the ranch with James, and it had become a satisfying habit. The horses dozed patiently in their stalls, waiting for the old man to get in the right frame of mind.
John turned about. Where was James?
James was his responsibility-he had left him sitting on a bale.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from All Stubborned Up by Nancy Larsen-Sanders Copyright © 2010 by Nancy Larsen-Sanders. Excerpted by permission.
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