Read Online Hold of the Bone by Baxter Clare Trautman - Free Book Online

foot off the brake.
    â€œThey were twins?”
    â€œUm-huh.”
    â€œMust have been rough.”
    â€œI reckon.”
    â€œAny chance of getting the accident report?”
    â€œNope. This is CHP jurisdiction and they throw all their reports out after a couple years.”
    A truck speeds around the next corner, slowing when the driver sees the patrol car. Gomez lifts a finger off the wheel in a country wave.
    â€œAsshole,” she grumbles, as the truck passes.
    â€œWho is it?”
    â€œPete Mazetti. He drives like his balls are on fire.”
    â€œMazetti as in the Mazetti Ranch?”
    â€œThe one and only.”
    â€œHe must know the road pretty well.”
    â€œHe does, but folks driving through to Carmel don’t. In summer this is Blood Alley.”
    â€œI’ll stick to domestics and drive-bys.”
    Gomez agrees, “I’d pay to never see another head-on.”
    The talk turns back to work. Frank lets it, aware that Gomez has again evaded explanation of Saladino. She settles for finding out herself but hopes Saladino’s eccentricities are limited to something as innocuous as a peg leg or bad case of Tourette’s.
    They twist along the two-lane, parallel to the mountains. Nodding toward the high ridge, Frank asks, “You ever been up there?”
    Gomez looks where Frank does. She shakes her head. “I’m happy down here.”
    â€œYou scared of ’em?” Frank teases.
    Gomez scowls and crouches over the wheel. “You hear stories about them.”
    â€œWhat kind of stories?”
    â€œOld-timers say there’s spirits up there. That the mountains are alive. I believe it. I mean, just look at ’em.”
    Frank does. Despite the noonday sun, the vertical flanks of the mountain appear almost black, as if the trees have grabbed and gobbled the light. Suddenly Gomez takes a curve and they are pointed straight into the heart of the mountains. Frank cannot look away. The more she stares, the more she feels the mountains are staring back.

Chapter 10
    Southwest of Salinas, in a canyon tucked beneath the watchful gaze of the Santa Lucia range, is the tiny town of Celadores. All that’s left of the original stagecoach stop is a general store selling beer, tobacco, and sundry non-perishables. The town is rarely mentioned on maps. But for the few families remaining in the surrounding ranchos , Celadores is no longer a destination. Except on Saturday mornings. Then, in the slanting light from the friendly hills to the east, dusty cars and trucks drive up quietly to the silver-boarded store. The drivers park randomly on the side of the road or in the sprawling shadow of an oak old enough to have shaded the conquistadors. One by one, metal doors squeal open. Usually a woman gets out, an older woman, and usually she is a Mexican woman from one of the nearby farming towns. Sometimes they come from Salinas or as far south as King City, but more often than not the women are local. Sometimes their men drop them off and drive quickly away, other times they get out and stretch, resigned to waiting until the women have concluded their mysterious business.
    On this Saturday it is late in the day and the light spills from the west. There is only one car left in front of the store, resting nose-in to the oak like a weary beast of burden. Slowly, so as not to raise dust, Gomez pulls the squad car off the road. She checks her watch and glances at the empty bench in front of the tilted store. “Looks like she’s about done.”
    â€œShe run the store?”
    â€œNo, Sal does her business in back.”
    â€œWhat kind of business?”
    â€œWell—” Gomez drums her fingers on the side-view “—that’s the interesting part.”
    It’s taken the cop this long to come around to why Saladino’s such a character, so Frank stays quiet. The sun warms her lap and bees feed in a patch of mustard near the car. A breeze