I flick Blake’s shoulder. “She’s got you there.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked her,” Libby snickers.
“Y’all done?” Blake straightens, growling at all of us.
“We are now,” Libby says firmly. “Let’s go see what’s inside.”
We follow the kids into the church.
It’s a small place, looks like it’s barely one room, but there’s a rustic charm to it.
It’s not made of the same weathered pine wood as the other buildings. Looks more like pale oak, polished to a shine that’s gone dull.
The interior rafters are carved into an arch, not just slotted up there with planks.
There’s real care in how this building was put together.
Not much left of the pews besides crumbling planks, and same with the pulpit.
But I’m wrong about the place being a single room.
There’s a small door in the back.
That’s where Andrea and Clark lead us.
Right to a tiny room I’m guessing used to be where the priest slept, but someone else has been here more recently.
The old iron bed’s been fitted with a mattress that’s definitely worn, but too modern.
The dusty equipment on the table’s not anything from the eighteen hundreds.
Little collapsing telescopes. Compasses. Microscopes.
Stacks and stacks of journals, books from the eighties about astronomy, cosmology. Even some philosophy texts. The old shit, the classics, Plato and Aristotle and the like.
Libby draws the same conclusion I do.
Judging by the crack in her voice as she whispers “Dad” and steps forward, brushing her fingertips over the top of one small journal, it hits her a lot harder than me.
She swallows like she’s got her heart up in her throat, staring down at the scattered things.
Even in the faint light trickling through the one tiny, high window up on the wall, her face goes pale.
I think we’ve had enough for one day.
“Hey,” I say, touching her arm—and giving Blake a significant look.
Blake turns to the kids. Whispering, he ushers them out of the room.
The second they’re gone, I pull Libby close.
She’s almost limp as she falls against me, but there’s nothing weak about the strength of her grip as she knots her fingers in my shirt and clings tight, clings hard, burying herself into me.
I wrap her up tight and bend over her.
“It’s okay,” I say. “If he was researching something, it makes sense he’d spend some time out here. Must’ve been before…you know. Bostrom.” I stroke my hand over her ponytail, hoping I can soothe her. “Let’s head inside. We’ve seen enough for today. I found a medical log that might be helpful later, but we need to come back with the right equipment to handle it. Gloves and plastic bags and shit.”
Her laughter is weak, forced, making her shoulders shake. “So you’re a forensic anthropologist now?”
“I Googled what not to do to ruin everything if we found anything worth preserving.” I laugh, too, but it’s tired. I pull back, grasping her hands, looking down into exhausted, worried sky-blue eyes. “Let’s head back before it gets too hot.”
“Sure,” she says, but then looks at the stack of mess on the table.
I know her mind’s got to be reeling.
* * *
We don’t get to talk more until later in the day.
The kids don’t want to leave the “cool-ass ghost town” yet, but it’s getting hot, and I’d rather not put my niece in the hospital with sunstroke.
We all mount up and head back to the ranch for lunch and some cold drinks. After hanging around and talking for a bit, Blake mounts up and takes the kids to return the horses.
Libby and I need to get to work, too. We’ve already put Frost and Plath away, but we’ve still got things to do around the ranch.
Right now, though, we’re just sitting on the back patio, taking in the day, both of us with our condensation-dotted cans of cold beer parked on the tiny table between our chairs.
The tiny table where both our hands rest, fingers interlaced so she knows I’m here.
For whenever she wants to unravel that knot between her eyebrows and spool it out, tell me what’s going on in her head.
It takes a while.
A few more pulls of beer.
“What was he doing there?” she asks, almost out of nowhere.
She sounds so quiet.
So lost.
So young, more like a confused little girl on the verge of shattering than the brassy, confident woman I know.
It’s her old man’s secret place.
She’s been holding on to her memories of him for so long, and now they’re conflicting with reality.
I capture her hand.
“Remember what that report said? The geographic formations of the area around town are probably an impact crater? Probably what drew him out there,” I say.
She tears her gaze from the horizon and looks at me, nodding mutely. I squeeze her hand and offer an encouraging smile.
“Your Dad always loved learning, right? He knows star shit, knows all about meteors and craters, and maybe he noticed the shape of the depression where the town is and realized it looked like one. What if he went out to study it?” I hold her eyes. “That’s all it has to be, Libby. It was a quiet place with stuff he enjoyed. He started messing around Ursa and the hills beyond and found that rock.”