Free Desert Wind by Betty Webb Page B

way.”
    “I’ve known numerous people with Down syndrome, and most have no trouble conversing. Some live independently and even hold down jobs.”
    “The ones Jeanette and I adopted are not high-functioning, Miss Jones. Now ask me something else and leave my children alone.”
    After that, the interview degenerated. Every question I asked was answered with a noncommittal. Olmstead knew no evil, heard no evil, saw no evil, and certainly wouldn’t speak any evil. Several frustrating minutes later, I thanked him for his time and left.
    Pulling out of the parking lot, I thought back to the family photograph he’d continued looking at throughout our conversation.
    Husband. Wife. Children. Everyone smiling. Everyone happy.
    But pictures could lie.
    As I neared the part of the highway that paralleled the Virgin River, I had to slow for a long line of horseback riders ambling along at dude speed. Dusty and the blue-eyed dog led the group, while another wrangler took up the rear. Not yet ready to face the unpleasantness that was certain to come, I kept my face averted.

Chapter Seven
April, 1966: Northwestern Arizona
    The funeral for Abby’s mother was a short one, but as soon as they arrived home, Gabe insisted his wife go straight to bed. “Edna’s at peace now, girl. As for you, you need your rest.”
    Abby argued for a while, insisting she stay up and get the roast started, but she eventually gave in and let him lead her to the bedroom, old Blue trailing behind. “I know I’m letting you down, Gabe,” she said. “Half the time I can’t garden, can’t clean house, can’t even cook. What good am I?”
    As he tucked the bedspread around his hollow-eyed wife, Gabe said, “You don’t never let me down, Abby. Just having you with me is enough. You give the smile to the day.”
    The depression had hit Abby last month, right after her sixth miscarriage ended in a hysterectomy. Now she spent more days in bed than out. To everyone’s surprise, Gabe had stepped up. In addition to his already considerable ranch chores, he’d learned to garden, mop, and wash dishes. Sometimes he even put on Abby’s strawberry-patterned apron and cooked. Hell, making a roast was easy. You rubbed the meat with garlic, sprinkled on the narrow leaves of that green plant Abby grew in what she called her herb garden, and shoved it all into the oven at three hundred-fifty degrees for, say, two hours, more if it was a bigger piece of meat. Wondering how much the roast weighed, Gabe tilted his head toward the kitchen.
    “Oh, Gabe, so much death.”
    The roast could wait. Turning back to Abby, Gabe took her hand. “Your mama’s at peace now, Abby. Remember how bad she was hurting.”
    Abby squeezed his hand. “I remember.”
    Who could forget? It had maddened Gabe, seeing Edna suffer. That tough ranch woman, popping out twelve kids as if it’d been nothing, once even limping through her housework with a leg fresh broke by an ornery horse. Cancer-reduced to a moaning ragbone wreck. Ten days ago, when the pain made her scream, Gabe had knocked down her doctor when he refused to give her more drugs, claiming he didn’t want her to “become an addict.”
    “I’ll addict your ass!” Gabe had yelled, as his fist connected with the doctor’s nose.
    It took two nurses and several orderlies to pull Gabe off him, but the upshot of the deal was that Edna got her morphine. Compared to that, having to spend a couple nights in jail was a bargain. A woman like Edna, she deserved defending. Why, hadn’t she given him his Abby?
    With callused hands, he stroked his wife’s cheek. “You get some sleep, girl. I’ll take care of things around here.”
    When he started to pull his hand away, she hung on.
    “Not just Mama, Gabe. It’s everybody.” She started reciting what Gabe called her Death List, beginning with their own lost babies, moving on to two sisters, a brother—all dead in the past few years. When she started on her dying nieces and nephews,