Rattlesnake

By C. Lee McKenzie

The desert town of Rattlesnake isn’t a destination. It’s a last resort. Seventeen-year-old Jonah Guthrie’s aunt sold their home in New England and fled to this place to escape the humiliation of his dad’s indictment for embezzlement and subsequent disappearance.

While their late uncle left them a house and a silver mine, the house is a shambles and the mine is defunct. They’re almost out of money, so they have no choice but to stay in Rattlesnake. And then Jonah discovers they’ve inherited something else. Her name is Catherine, and she’s been dead for over a hundred year. Now, she needs his help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight Teen
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9780369509222

C. Lee McKenzie

C. Lee McKenzie's background is linguistics with a specialty in intercultural communication. She's now a novelist who writes young adult and middle grade books. ALLIGATORS OVERHEAD, her first middle grade novel, received a sterling Kirkus review. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/c-lee-mckenzie/alligators-overhead/. Alligators Overhead is Book 1 in the Adventures of Pete and Weasel. The Great Time Lock Disaster is Book 2, and Book 3 is Some Very Messy Medieval Magic. Take a look at the Video on Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h59dYGrVQvs] It's all about fun and magic. Her Young Adult books include Sliding on the Edge (2009, Westside Books) and The Princess of Las Pulgas (2010, Westside Books). Double Negative (chosen the top ten YA in Ezid Wiki), Sudden Secrets, Not Guilty, and Shattered (Indie Book Award winner) are her most recent young adult books, published by Evernight Teen. The eBook anthology called Beware The White Rabbit (2015) includes her story called They Call Me Alice. Two & Twenty Dark Tales (2012) includes her short story, Into The Sea of Dew. Premeditated Cat is her contribution to The First Time (2011). She has dabbled in a bit of horror with Heartless in the anthology A Stitch in Crime. Specialties Intercultural communication in the classroom and on the job. Editing and writing.

Book preview

Chapter One

Jonah

1998

Blessed silence came from the backseat of the SUV. These were treasured times when Allie was into the last part of a book and close to finding out who did the crime. It was then that her chatter stopped, her questions remained unasked, and Jonah could be at one with his favorite Manga.

He didn’t read books unless a teacher assigned them, but he appreciated any of them that kept his sister quiet. These thousands of miles trapped with his nerdy sibling already seemed endless, and Allie had a way of making endless longer. She’d done that since she’d been born fifteen long years ago.

He was two when Margaret held out a pink bundle for his inspection. That moment was a shadowy collection of new smells and sounds, but the others that he shared with his sister as she turned eight, ten, twelve—those were clear. Clear and mostly miserable.

Allie spoke up from the backseat. How much farther?

Arrg! Jonah slammed his palm against his forehead, then glared over his shoulder at her. Five hundred and thirty-six!

Allie pushed her glasses high on her nose and glared back. Miles?

No! You’ve asked that question five hundred and thirty-six times.

‟You’re always hyperbolizing, Jonah. Besides, I didn’t know you could count that high."

His sister was more annoying than a mosquito at dusk. Jonah imagined how it would be to grab her book and thump her over the head with it, but he didn’t. After their last shouting match, Margaret threatened to pull his driver’s permit and rip up Allie’s book if they did more than look sideways at each other one more time on this trip. That threat came outside of Chicago when their aunt slammed the door to the motel room, and the windows shook under her force.

Without saying so, they both knew they’d pushed her to the limit. For the next few hundred miles of their trek west, neither of them said much to each other. That was one way to avoid conflict.

We’re close. Margaret pointed to a road sign. Ten miles.

Jonah shifted to face out the side window.

The late afternoon sun beat down on mile after mile that hadn’t seen water this century. They swept past the parched, hot land until Jonah’s craving for something to drink became fierce. This place looked more like Mars than Mars. It wasn’t what Jonah pictured when Great Uncle Jake called it a wide open paradise, that was for sure. Rocks grew here. Nothing else but plants with big spikes did.

Jonah licked his lips and swallowed, imagining an over-sized drink loaded with chunks of ice.

They reached the town, but it was almost as empty as the desert they’d just crossed. One dog stretched out long and lean on the sidewalk in front of a bank, tongue out, his ribs rising and falling. It was the only living thing on the street.

As they came to the last building, Margaret slowed to a stop in front.

It says general store. Let’s see if we can pick up some supplies for dinner. She reached under the seat and pulled out her canvas shopping bag.

Jonah climbed out, on the hunt for a supersized Coke, and Allie said if she didn’t go to the bathroom she was going to pee her pants.

Too much information. Jonah clapped his hands over his ears.

It’s a biological reality. What’s so—

He put distance between them. Not listening.

The store was as empty as the town, except for a clerk behind the counter who sat reading a magazine. The cover had a picture of a hunter taking aim at a buck. The man looked up, but when he saw the three of them, he didn’t hurry to stand and greet them. Instead, his eyes narrowed, unwelcoming, tracking them like a surveillance camera.

Margaret’s skin was light and freckled, but she had the hide of an alligator. His dad used to joke that the Guthrie’s survived over the centuries because there wasn’t a dirty look or a No Trespassing sign that could stop them from getting where they wanted to go. So Margaret ignored the darts of suspicion coming at her and picked out cheeses and some sliced meat from the small refrigerated compartment.

Grab some lettuce, Allie. Make sure it’s fresh. Jonah, milk. She set the items on the counter. That should be enough for tonight. We’ll be back once we’re into the house.

You fixing to settle here? The man’s voice sounded raspy as if he didn’t use it much. Removing his glasses, he blew on the lenses and wiped them with his shirttail, all the time squinting up at Margaret. He wasn’t dirty, exactly, but everything about the man was rumpled, including his expression. He looked slept in and in need of a good wash. His hair lay in thin lines across the top of his head and hung at the back of his neck like a frayed bit of fringe.

Jonah had the sudden need to scratch under his shirt, and no desire for that Coke he’d craved before entering the store.

Margaret kept her gaze steady on the clerk, saying, We’re considering it. We’ve inherited some property just out of town. She reached into her purse.

You by any chance Jake Guthrie’s kin?

Yes. Did you—

I was afraid of that. He picked up the magazine he’d put aside and held it close to his nose. Concealed behind the glossy cover, he talked into the pages. Get rid of one, and three take his place.

Excuse me?

Now would be a good time for that guy to duck. Margaret wasn’t the easy-going delicate woman a lot of people mistook her for, but even Jonah wanted to punch the jerk.

What’s our total? she asked. Or are you giving these groceries away?

The clerk slapped the magazine onto the counter, rose slowly, and rang up their purchases. Twenty twenty-five.

Wow! Allie said, checking the price marked on the cheese package.

Margaret hesitated as if she hadn’t heard the correct amount, then paid with the exact change, scooped the few food items into her canvas bag, and hurried out the door.

What was that about? Jonah kept his back to the store window, but he still felt that nasty stare through the glass.

Her jaw set, Margaret marched to the car. Small-town hospitality. We’ll find a different grocery store tomorrow, one with fresher food and better manners. And reasonable prices. She stowed the groceries next to Allie and, from the glove compartment, retrieved a well-worn envelope.

From it, she pulled out the letter tucked inside. Since the day it had arrived, she’d read it so many times that it was limp from being unfolded and refolded. It looked as tired as the Guthrie clan.

Jonah’d sent repeated silent pleas that his aunt wouldn’t do what she said she planned. Then he tried some of Allie’s strategy and used logic. Selling their house under pressure would mean they couldn’t bargain for a fair price. Besides, moving west wasn’t a good idea. They didn’t know anybody.

But she wouldn’t listen. She said after all that had happened she had no choice. He gave up actual pleading weeks before. Then movers whisked everything he owned into a green and purple van with On The Cheep stenciled along the side. While he watched his life’s possessions disappear down their tree lined street, his only thought was, if he was eighteen he could join the army.

From these directions it seems we’re almost there, Margaret said. The lawyer wrote that the house was about fifteen minutes west of town. She handed Jonah the letter. Keep an eye out for the turnoff.

I still have to pee. Allie was squirming, and ordinarily Jonah would take delight in pointing out how really out of control she looked. This was not the time.

I’ll get us there fast. Hold on, Allie. Margaret sped down the empty road, leaving the store behind, but while they didn’t say so, the uneasiness of their first Rattlesnake encounter traveled with them.

It wasn’t more than ten minutes before they came to a narrow dirt road off to the right. Slow down. I think this is it, Jonah said.

There was no street sign, and as far as Jonah could tell, this wasn’t more than a trail into the desert. They didn’t plan to hike. They planned to find Uncle Jake’s house.

Margaret pulled to the side of the road and stopped the car. She must have had the same thought because she looked at him, her forehead knotted with uncertainty. Are you sure?

He sat shaking his head. No. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

Jonah?

He held up the letter from the lawyer and pointed at the small map. First right turn about a half a mile from the city limits.

She shrugged. Okay. She turned the wheel, and as soon as they left the main road, the right tire of the SUV dipped into a pothole, jarring them so hard their seat belts tightened around their chests. She slowed to a crawl and steered to avoid the biggest holes, but still they scraped bottom.

If he hadn’t vowed to keep his mouth shut about this move, about this worst decision in a lifetime, about how his aunt was ruining his last two years in high school even more than they’d already been ruined, he’d tell her that no way were they going to find Uncle Jake’s house out here. This was the first place Jonah had ever seen that could actually be called Nowhere USA.

As they came around a curve, she braked, jolting everyone forward and shifting their luggage in the storage pod on top of the SUV.

In the distance, looming just above the hood of the van, a wooden two-story house simmered under the late desert sun. The roof dipped in the middle like an old hammock, and the building sagged to one side, seemingly too tired to stay upright much longer. At the back, almost hidden by dried weeds, was a one-room shack. It was in better shape than the house. It, at least, wasn’t about to collapse.

Margaret eased the car forward and rolled to a stop next to a pile of wooden steps that once must have led to the front door. The porch, with most of its railing missing, had fallen away from the house. None of the windows had glass, except for jagged pieces jutting from the frames. When she turned off the ignition, silence settled over them like fine dust. The only sound came from steady blasts of wind that rocked the car from side to side. Outside, the empty desert fanned out until it reached the jagged-toothed Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Well. Margaret broke the stunned silence. I guess we better take a look.

Still in shock, Jonah sat mute with a fresh wave of disbelief. His aunt was going to take a look at… He didn’t have the words to describe it. What he saw outside the car window had to be a mirage. It couldn’t be Uncle Jake’s.

Whenever his great-uncle visited in the summer, he came with one suitcase and what Dad said were a passel of tall tales about a town called Rattlesnake. Then there was a mine and the high desert that he said gave a man breathing room. He fired up every ounce of curiosity in Jonah when he leaned in close and said, There’s silver in that mine, Jonah. All we got to do is go get it. Not once did he say anything about a dilapidated house where absolutely nobody could live.

Jonah often dreamed of going west to Uncle Jake’s, but even when he’d been a kid, Jonah knew his family wouldn’t leave New Hampshire to drive thousands of miles to a place called Nevada—silver or no silver. They wouldn’t drive over the state line to Boston, but that was before Dad disappeared.

The swell of anger rose as it always did when he thought about all that had happened, and now—confronting this newest disaster—that swell threatened to drown him.

His dad had let them down again. If he’d been with them, he would have researched the property and not relied on an attorney’s word or some old paperwork from his uncle. That was his dad’s nature—carefully consider all the facts, weigh the pros and cons, add up the credits and debits before making any decision.

Shall we take a look? Margaret’s question wasn’t really a question at all, but one of her statements that she planned to act upon. She climbed out of the car and peered in at Jonah and Allie before shutting the door.

No, he wasn’t getting out.

Jonah? Margaret rapped on the window, snapping him out of his trance.

Taking his time, Jonah opened the door with the enthusiasm of a prisoner returning to his cell and followed her onto the porch.

Allie stayed in the car. For a change she had nothing to say.

When Margaret and Jonah hoisted themselves onto the warped planks, the boards shuddered and one snapped under Jonah’s weight.

Margaret grabbed his arm and steadied him. Careful. Are you okay?

Not so much. But he kept quiet, and together they picked their way across the rickety porch.

This can’t be the right place. Jonah licked his lips, and saliva mixed with dust stuck to his teeth. When the wind gusted again, he wished he’d put on his sweatshirt. A few hours ago it had been so hot they’d had the air conditioner on, but with the sun dipping low, the July air was now downright cool.

Disaster. Margaret whispered the way a person does when they don’t have enough breath to make themselves heard. Exhaustion did that. So did shock. She’d sounded the same way a few times since she’d come to live with them, so Jonah understood that this was another Guthrie catastrophe.

Inside, the room was cluttered with yellowed papers and dirty rags. A moldy mattress rested against one wall, and everything was coated with dirt and cobwebs.

The wind whipped past their heads into the window, stirring up small dusty tornadoes in the corners. The hair on Jonah’s arms prickled and—here he was sure he was losing it—because he could have sworn the house moaned. A rusty tin can rattled across the floor as if someone had nudged it with a foot.

Jonah poked his head inside the window in time to see a small mouse scurry from the can and duck under a loose floorboard.

Man, is this grim. Jonah couldn’t stop shaking, but it wasn’t from the cold now.

I’ve seen enough. Margaret did an about face. Let’s go. She steered Jonah away from the window and across the dangerous porch. Now, instead of gusts, the high-pitched wind blew steadily through cracks in the walls, setting up a thin ghostly whine. Jonah’s arms erupted in goosebumps.

We’ll have to find a place for the night. Margaret settled into the driver’s seat. This isn’t what the lawyer led me to believe. There has to be a mistake.

The mistake’s all yours. But Jonah couldn’t say that to her. She was doing the best she could. She’d inherited a lot more than a rotten piece of real estate. Him, for one. Allie, for another. A load of debt, and a missing brother to worry about. Besides, she was the last adult relative he and Allie had. They needed her.

As the car rolled away from the house, Jonah stared out the back window for what he hoped would be the last look at their inheritance.

They couldn’t stay here. Not in this lifetime. In the second-story window on the left side of the house, the figure of a girl stood looking out at them. Jonah blinked once, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Holy crap! Stop!

Margaret stomped on the brake. The front of the car dipped and the car skidded to a stop, throwing all of them forward and cinching their seat belts tight for the second time that afternoon.

Overhead, everything in the storage pod shifted. A suitcase slammed against the backseat.

Allie screamed.

II

Catherine

These visitors aren’t young rowdy boys who come to break the last of the glass in the windows or drink until sunup.

Instead, a young man peers into the kitchen, alongside a woman, her hair threaded with gray. And if I’m right, someone else is inside the car. A girl, I think.

The young man is handsome with short dark hair that curls at his forehead. He has a square jaw, one that tells me he’s a determined sort, and his eyes are a piercing blue that I’ve always admired. He’s tall—so much like Pa, who made most men look up when they talked with him. I press my hand over my heart, wishing I could feel it pulse the way I used to, wishing the young man would look my direction and smile.

The joy is that I’m not alone for a while, and for a change, I’m not wary of those who tread light-footed across my porch. If I could welcome them in for tea or warm scones from my oven, I would. I long to.

Locked as I am in this dream, time’s an endless stretch of light flowing into darkness and back again—an unbroken ribbon of what used to be snipped into minutes and hours. When there were days and nights, Pa mined and Kevin struggled to learn his letters. I baked and scrubbed the cabin the way my mother would, and I fought off exhaustion to make sure all of the chores were done. The eggs gathered. Our horse in the barn. My garden tended. I had no thoughts of loneliness then. I was always occupied with chores. Now loneliness and uncertainty crowd around me like a gaggle of nagging geese.

Since the last old miner who lived here was carried off, still as stone and shrouded in his bed sheet, I’ve craved someone to talk to, someone who might help me with my quest.

When the old man first saw me, I was certain he’d bolt for the door like so many others, but he stayed, and he talked to me. He’d been company with his tales and his talk of small matters like the leak in the roof he must fix. I didn’t care what he said. His voice was enough—that and his warmth. When he brought home that sad, sick pup and nursed it to health, I knew we would be friends. I admire kindness in people, and Jake had so much of that.

His one complaint was if I came close. You make my hands ache with your cold, girl, he’d say, but his face was sad. Sorry. If I was a young buck, I’d never say a word. He’d slowly wriggle his fingers. But the rheumatism’s got my joints in knots already.

From then on, I made it a point to keep my distance, leaning in to hear his breath only when he slept tucked inside his blankets and shielded from icy me.

The boy with blue eyes pulls back from the window, shaking his head in a way that declares he hates what he’s seeing. I’m not surprised. My home’s a disaster when I look at it through his eyes. It’s only when I go back to the time before Riggs and the Black Horse Mine that the fireplace once again crackles and warms the space. The kitchen fills with smells from my day of baking. Pa was with me and Kevin, and I had purpose, instead of this gauzy confusion all the time.

Oh no. The people are leaving. I want to call out, stop them, make them stay, but I’ve frightened so many away if they even glimpse me that I don’t try to get their attention. I quickly go to the bedroom upstairs so I can watch them until they make the bend in the road.

Please come back. Please.

Chapter Two

Margaret gripped the wheel, her knuckles white. Jonah, what in the… What was all that … that screeching about?

I saw somebody. In the window. Upstairs.

She looked at Jonah with slowly simmering irritation. If anybody’s up there, they flew. Those stairs to the second floor wouldn’t hold a feather.

I know what I saw. Jonah stared back at the house. Another gust of wind sent a ragged strip of curtain billowing out of the upstairs window. Crap! Jonah would have shot out of his seat if he hadn’t had his seat belt stretched across his chest.

That’s what you saw. A curtain. Margaret restarted the car. Watch the language, Jonah. You’re seventeen, not seventy.

Margaret was remembering Uncle Jake. That old man could cuss. It had been Jonah’s secret joy to hear his stories peppered with all the spicy words Margaret and Dad forbid their teenager to use.

She steered the SUV back up the bumpy road, avoiding the deepest holes again. I can’t drive anymore today. We’re finding a motel for the night.

Jonah kept his eyes on the second-story window. No way was he turning his back on that place until they were out of there. I know I saw somebody.

You’re tired. It was a shadow … or that curtain. Margaret stifled a yawn.

He knew what he’d seen, and it wasn’t any shadow. No curtain looked that much like a girl.

The shack grew smaller in the distance. When it finally disappeared in their dusty wake, Jonah faced forward in time to spot a sign he’d missed on the way in. Cemetery.

Jake’s house did have neighbors, but they were all dead. As they turned onto the main road, he read another sign almost hidden by a tangle of dry vine. It hadn’t been visible from the other side. Old Cemetery Road. Uncle Jake had never mentioned the name of the road he lived on, and now Jonah understood why.

Perfect. Just perfect.

They’d driven about five miles south when a spec of something that wasn’t a mound of sand or a cactus appeared on the horizon.

At first, it was just a splash of color, but as they came closer, it grew and grew until it morphed into the lumpy shape of the Cherry Blossom Motel.

Effin’ amazing. Jonah leaned forward, staring in disbelief.

It sat between two gas pumps and a gift shop. Twelve motel doors—six up and six down—were painted with Japanese cherry blossoms, a failed attempt to disguise three tacked-together, stuccoed buildings. Someone must have seen that the blossoms weren’t going to fool anyone into thinking this motel had starred reviews, so they painted the walls and the roof pink. And it wasn’t a sandy desert pink. It was hot pink. They’d come upon a huge pink whale in the middle of a desert.

Margaret tucked her hair behind each ear, then pulled to a stop. She tightened her stranglehold on the steering wheel and sat staring through the windshield.

Jonah knew she wasn’t with them at the moment, but had fled to the place she retreated to whenever she was headed toward meltdown. She’d gone there at the police station that night when their world shifted to bleak. Again when the realtor put the For Sale sign in the front yard, and that day the movers carried her antique roll top desk down the steps. When she pulled the door closed to 223 Hawthorn Street behind her, then went straight to the SUV without a glance back, her eyes had this same faraway, glazed look.

At the motel desk, the clerk didn’t know about any of what was running through his aunt’s head and kept talking. All’s I’ve got left tonight is downstairs on the back side.

Really? It was in Margaret’s voice—wonder at why anyone would choose to sleep in this place unless, like them, they didn’t have another choice.

Were there really that many people stranded just outside Rattlesnake?

The clerk took down the last key from a peg board behind the desk. "It’s got a kitchenette, one bedroom with a double, a couch