Chapter 4: The Black Slab

The parole officer called at eight, as she had promised.

She approved a visit to the ranch under a deputy's escort, for two hours, to collect my property.

"Don't speak to your family about the case," she said.

"I won't," I said.

"And Ms. Etcheverry?"

"Yes?"

"I watched the tent clip," she said.

"Good for you."

The sheriff sent a deputy, a young man with a fresh haircut.

He drove behind Ansel's truck for forty minutes down the valley and said nothing the entire way.

Ruby Valley opened at the south end of the county like a gate.

The mountains stood up behind it with snow already on the high peaks.

The hay meadows ran out toward them gold and cut short.

I knew every fence.

I had walked them at seventeen with a woman who didn't look at me and a man who showed me where the old ditch ran.

I had last driven this road at twenty-two, in the back of a county car.

Ansel didn't talk.

He held the wheel at ten and two and let me look.

"Are you coming up to the house?" I asked.

"The deputy says no.

"I'll wait at the cattle guard."

"Stay close."

"I'll be sitting on the bumper in plain sight," he said.

"If you want me, you wave."

The ranch house came into view, white and square above its yard, with the sheep sheds behind it.

There was no barn.

There was a black slab, thirty feet by sixty, with a brick chimney standing in the middle of it.

My father had never paid to clear it.

Five winters of rain had washed the ash into the dirt and left the slab glossy.

Grass was already growing through the cracks.

I made myself look at it from the road.

Then I turned my face to the house.

Amaia came out onto the porch in an apron with her arms already open.

"Maite," she said.

"Oh, Maite, come in, I made coffee."

"I'm only here for my things."

"I know.

"I know, I know."

She hugged me anyway, and her hair smelled of chamomile and woodsmoke.

Her left hand pressed into the middle of my back.