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

wafts the smell of dried grass and hot dust through the windows. Frank watches it nuzzle the bowed oak leaves.
    â€œWhat do you know about alternative medicine?”
    â€œNot much. I know some of it works.”
    Gail had used acupuncture to help alleviate the pain of the cancer coursing through her body. Frank didn’t know if the practice worked because of actual healing properties or because her lover’s belief was enough to give it a placebo effect. In the end, Frank didn’t care; it had eased Gail’s pain and that was all that mattered.
    â€œHave you ever had anyone—” Gomez makes quote marks in the air “—lay their hands on you?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œWell, that’s what Sal does. She’s like a curandera .” Gomez grins at her. “You know what that is, City Cop?”
    â€œHell, Country Cop, I work in South-Central. I probably know more curanderas than you have in your whole county. Have you ever used her?”
    â€œNo sir, not me, but a lot of people do. They swear by her.”
    Frank shrugs. “I’ve heard stranger things.”
    Gomez gives her a squinting look while a woman who looks like a raisin left in the field too long limps from the store. “Let’s go.” Gomez pushes her door, but Frank is suddenly reluctant to leave the patrol car. “That was probably her last customer,” Gomez explains.
    Frank gets out but stands next to the car. “You’re not gonna lock up?”
    The cop looks around. “What for? Come on.” She hitches her gun belt, waiting for Frank to move.
    â€œHow do you know she’s here?”
    â€œIt’s Saturday. She’s always here on Saturday.”
    â€œWhere’s her car?”
    â€œProbably around back. What’s with the Twenty Questions? You should be talking to her, not me. Let’s go.” She starts for the store but stops again when she sees Frank isn’t following. “What the hell? Are we doing this or not?”
    Frank glances at the store. The old boards shine whitely in the afternoon sun. She raises a hand to the glare, certain the store is a Rubicon and that if she crosses over she won’t be able to step back.
    Gomez glowers with hands on her ample hips. “Are you big city cops always this flaky?”
    â€œGive me a sec.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œJesus, Mary, and her husband Joe.”
    The car under the oak starts with a loud cough and Frank jumps. A young man slowly backs the old Buick from under the tree. Across the one-lane road a yellow field baseboards a dark wall of mountain. Frank’s eyes are drawn to the crooked, black ridge. She knows there is a saddle up there, a notch in the mountain that affords a 180-degree view of the western slope of the Santa Lucias, a view that falls from the stunted, ever-thirsting chaparral at the top of the slope down to somber redwood canyons cut perpendicular to the purple sea.
    â€œCity, if you don’t want to talk, I’m going home.”
    Gomez starts toward the car and Frank struggles to think clearly. From the sound of it, she can’t just drive out to Saladino’s place and knock on the door whenever she feels like it. If she’s going to talk to Saladino, it’s got to be now or never. “Alright,” she says, with more determination than she feels.
    Gomez wags her head but leads Frank up the sagging steps. The boards creak under their weight. A rusty screen door answers them. Gomez holds it open for Frank.
    Only two western windows light the store. Frank pushes the Ray-Bans onto her head, temporarily blinded by the abrupt change from light to dark. On a wooden counter the length of the room, a fan stirs pungent ghosts of old beer and pickle barrels but does nothing to cool the air. Frank is careful not to touch the counter thick with decades, maybe even centuries, of human grime and grease.
    Gomez nods at a