Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [80]
“On the other hand, we’ve got drug-resistant bacteria and AIDS now, so who’s to say it’s any better?”
“Good point.” He pushed his cowboy hat back on his head. “So, this didn’t tell us much. Let’s try the next one.”
“Let me see that list,” I said when we were situated back in his truck. “We should do this in a methodical way so we’re not wasting time running all over creation. Do you have a map of San Celina County?”
He nodded over at the glove compartment, and I pulled out a large, detailed map. In a half hour I had the quickest route planned for sixteen of the nineteen cemeteries.
“Three of these I’ve never heard of, and they’re not on the map,” I said.
“Deborah Schlanser, the very kind and gracious public librarian who looked them up for me, said six were inactive. A couple for quite a while.”
“That might be why they’re not on this map. They’re probably old pioneer cemeteries.”
“Maybe she could tell us where they are. There must be some record somewhere.”
“There probably is, but I say we should check the ones we can today and keep our fingers crossed that what we want is in one of them.”
“Sounds like a plan. Hope you like country-western music. That’s all my truck plays.”
“As long as it’s the old stuff.”
“My kinda girl,” he replied, putting on Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
We decided to start with the cemeteries closest to the Seven Sisters ranch then work our way north. By three o’clock we’d only investigated six with no luck. It was beginning to look like this would be more than a one-day undertaking. I had to force myself not to linger over the headstones, reading the inscriptions and wondering about the life of the person who died. The number of children’s headstones amazed me, and by the early afternoon the constant reminder of the delicate thread by which our lives dangled started depressing me. Apparently it was starting to show after our seventh cemetery when Detective Hudson found me after going through my assigned section, sitting on the open tailgate of his truck hugging Scout.
“I think we need a break,” he said. “You hungry?”
“Kinda.” I glanced around the pine-shaded cemetery we’d just traipsed through. It was northeast of Paso Robles, an old cemetery that surrounded the Estrella Adobe, one of the many old adobes scattered around San Celina County. “No McDonald’s out here. Guess we’ll have to go into Paso Robles. The Paso cemetery will probably take us a long time. It’s pretty big.”
“No need for McDonald’s. I brought lunch.” He went around to the cab and brought out a small cooler from behind the front seat. “Do you want beef or turkey?” He held up two wrapped sandwiches.
“Beef.”
He handed me the roast beef sandwich and a can of Coke, then joined me on the tailgate. Though it was in the high eighties, a light breeze blew through the stand of dusky green oaks the truck was parked under, and the air was scented with wildflowers and pines, smelling sugary and slightly burnt, reminding me of the Mexican sweet breads Elvia’s mother baked at Christmas.
We ate without talking, occasionally feeding bits of our sandwiches to Scout. It was so quiet we could hear animal life rustling in the cottonwoods and scrub brush around us. When I tossed the last bite of my sandwich to Scout, I started picking burrs off the bottoms of my Wranglers, my thoughts drifting to all the mothers who’d lost so many babies. Was it worse to have one and lose it or never to have one at all? The old poet was convinced that loving and losing was better than never loving at all, and at twenty years old I probably would have agreed with him. There were times now I wasn’t so sure.
Detective Hudson stood up, causing the pickup to raise slightly, and dusted his hands off on his thighs. “Ready to get going again?”
“Sure,” I said, giving up on the dozens of burrs. It’d been so long since I’d been out hiking this time of year, I’d forgotten about these irritating little things.
I sat inside the cab, staring out the window as Detective Hudson chattered about