Stony River (25 page)

“Good job.” Joel was grinning, easy-natured, the person she imagined he would be without his preoccupation over Chantal. He seemed less tense than he’d been in a long while as they headed off the beach.

On the drive home, with no introduction to the subject, he asked: “How was your night alone on the homestead last night?”

Sevana felt so cornered by the point-blank question that she was tempted to wonder if he had joined the ranks of the loggers in spying on her. But to Joel, it was as obvious as any other facet of that mountain existence—having thought of her as he lay in bed last evening, knowing she was straight from the city and had never been alone as she was then, a night in her life.

Sevana, who would have been mortified for him to know the truth, made light of it with an amusing account of the mouse running across her face, adding that she felt so sorry for the creature, she wished she could save it from Fenn’s trap.

To her surprise, Joel had a ready solution to offer. He told her if she lined a bucket or box with a plastic sack, and put a slice of bread at the bottom, sooner or later the mouse would climb in to get the bread. She would then hear the rustling of the sack, and could close it up and take it away from the house to release it. He knew it worked, because he’d done it himself. Sevana brightened at the suggestion, and hoped it wouldn’t be too late to try it. Even now Fenn could be setting out his jaws of death.

But the traps were still in their package on the counter when she got home, and Fenn was drinking Old Crow and reading a paperback under the lantern. “Joel and I went to the Lakeshore Lodge for ice cream.” Still keyed up over the special night out, Sevana wanted to tell him about it, even if he was partially intoxicated. “And the girl who waited on us asked about you.”

“Who? Mel?”

“She didn’t introduce herself. But she said she used to go out with you. She was really pretty. She had golden-brown hair with some red to it—” she paused to mentally compare it to the pigments in her paintbox, “the color of yellow ochre mixed with a little burnt umber and raw sienna.” The precise identification of color had always been of great importance to her, but apparently not to Fenn, who made no reaction at all to her statements. “She asked how you were.”

Fenn remained silent.

“She acted like she misses you,” Sevana volunteered.

“She misses me.” His eyes burned with cold fire. “After what she did…and now she misses me. I’m touched.” He tilted his head back and poured a shot of whisky down his throat.

“What did she do?”

“Not much. Just went out with another guy, like I shouldn’t care. I told her she could keep right on seeing both him and me, as long as she understood the next time I saw her with him, I’d kill him.”

“Fenn!” Sevana was truly shocked. “You can get into trouble talking like that.”

“So I was drunk at the time. At least I got my point across. I haven’t seen her since.” He took another drink. “How is she?”

Sevana blinked at him. He’s sorry, she thought. He wishes he had her back, but he’s got way too much pride. “Oh—” she said, “she’s fine.”

She went upstairs to her room, running down at once for the plastic bag and slice of bread she’d forgotten. She had barely blown out her candle when the homemade trap triggered. She hadn’t expected it to work quite so quickly. There was nothing to do but hurry downstairs with the top of the bag grasped firmly in her fist, directly past Fenn who was still reading. He didn’t pay any heed. Nor did he look up when she came indoors with bare feet wet from the trek through the dewy grass, clutching the empty sack. She decided she could get away with anything, unless it had to do with his horse—in which case he would detect it even if he was unconscious.

Back in her room, remembering he was drinking, she moved the trunk in place against her door—even though she genuinely doubted he would ever cause her actual harm, even if his judgment was clouded. She kept expecting to hear him come up the stairs, but she never did before she fell asleep. Once she thought she heard the front door open and close softly. Then all was quiet.

The next morning she found the whisky bottle empty on the table, and the paperback book face-down beside it. She hid the package of mousetraps under the stairs, and rigged up a new bread trap for an inconspicuous cranny below the counter. When she heard Fenn stirring overhead, she started breakfast.

In a little while he came thudding down the steps slowly, one at a time. His hair was disheveled, his eyes lined with tiredness, his tanned face unnaturally ashen. He barely looked at her as he muttered, “Don’t make anything for me,” and went outside. She thought perhaps the whisky hadn’t done him any good.

She sat down to eat her pancakes alone, eyeing askance the distorted mask leering at her from the cover of his novel. Fenn began to hammer on the roof overhead, but soon the pounding ceased. Out the window she just caught sight of his back as he was vanishing toward the creek.

Sevana whiled away a little time, but then decided to try to find him. She knew that wherever he was, he would rather be alone—but she didn’t like being shut out of his life all the time. She crossed the lane into the woods in search of him.

She spied him easily, just up the creek from where she came out. He had sunk down on the intertwined roots of two cedars that formed a natural bench on the eroded creekbank, his head propped in his hands—and was not a study of repose to Sevana, but dejection. Her heart went out to him, and she began making her way along the bank. He didn’t look up or give any indication he heard, until she laid a hand on his shoulder. Then he looked up and was angry. “Can’t you ever leave me alone?” he snarled. “Why can’t you keep your distance?”

“I don’t want to keep my distance,” she said simply. “I don’t understand why you’ve got to be by yourself all the time. What have you got against me wanting to—”

“Go away.” He buried his face to shut her out. But she saw the tanned hands supporting his head were trembling.

“Fenn, what is it?” she asked quickly.

“It’s that cursed fever,” he said, without raising his head. “Had it this spring and it’s coming back on me.”

“What fever?”

“Drank some bad creek water. Laid me up for a week.” He rose abruptly and turned in a straight course for the house, Sevana following close behind. Once inside, he climbed the stairs even more deliberately than he’d come down them, and she saw that it cost him much effort.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked after him.

“Hell, no,” he said shortly.

Nevertheless Sevana made some tea and took it up to him, but found him asleep, stretched out on his sleeping bag with his big boots on. She put a hand on his forehead, and it was burning hot.

All day he lay there, refusing any help she offered except once to sit up and drink a little water. In the afternoon she made some vegetable soup in case he decided he was hungry. But he slept through dinner and into the evening, and when she peeked in on him at bedtime, he was sleeping still.

Halfway through the night he called out, rousing her out of a light sleep. Instantly alert, she lit her candle and hurried across the landing. “Fenn?” she called at his door. There was no answer.

She pushed the door open and peered into his room. He was sitting up in bed, hunched forward on his elbows. He had peeled off his shirt, and sweat shimmered like a fine mist on the bare skin of his shoulders. “Fenn?”

There was still no sign that he’d heard. “Fenn, are you all right?” she asked, going to his side.

He looked up at her in confusion, his eyes dark and wild in the murky light.

“Can I get you something?” she asked gently. So much beauty smoldered in the hard planes of his masculine face that she marveled at it—but she was afraid of the look in his eyes. His answer was incoherent.

She said she’d get some water, and groped down the stairs. Outside the kitchen window, the treetops were tossing against the stars in a night wind that had come up.

Fenn was still sitting up when she returned. He had lit his candle, and the feeble flame fluttered in the drafty air, sending shadows wavering around the room. He took the water she handed him, and drank it with an unsteady hand. She stood by helplessly, wishing there was something else she could do for him.

“Why haven’t you lit the lantern tonight?” he demanded as he handed the cup back.

“The lantern’s downstairs,” she said, puzzled. “Do you want me to bring it up?”

“Of course I do,” he said irritably. “Gad, Sevana, can’t you see it’s dark?” As he looked to his candle, an expression of contempt contorted his features. “Do you think that pitiful flame can hold back the whole darkness trying to get in at the window? That’s a damnable poor excuse for a light!”

Before Sevana realized what was happening, he’d seized the hapless candle and hurled it across the room. Even as she cried out, it struck the window with a sharp blow and fell to the bookshelf, the flame extinguished in mid-air.

Fenn staggered to his feet, facing the window as if it was some dreaded foe. “Now we’re done for!” he exclaimed in agitation. “The window’s broken, and the darkness is coming in!”

With a cold, uncanny feeling Sevana went to look at the window—even ran her hand over the smooth glass to be sure. “The window’s not broken,” she said slowly. She turned back to him, and a chill washed over her at the sight of his rigid stance and fixed wild stare past her toward some unseen object of his dread.

Mustering courage, she went to lay a hand on his tensed, steel-hard arm. “Fenn, listen to me,” she pleaded. “The window’s not broken. You have a fever and you’re imagining things. Everything’s all right, I promise! I’ll get the lantern for you, so you can have light all night.”

He sank down on the bed as his strength forsook him, and bowed his head. “It will do no good,” he said hoarsely, and Sevana saw his abject form trembling in the dark.

She left him in haste and made her way downstairs again, fighting back a fear blacker than the night itself. His talk was so eerie that she, too, felt that a menacing darkness was pressing around the cabin, trying to get in. She primed the lantern with shaky hands and gave it too much fuel, almost singeing her hair when it combusted.

“There,” she said as cheerfully as she could, carrying it up to his bedstand. “Now you’ll have light till the sun comes back.”

“Light!” He looked up to utter the word with such derision that she stood wary, ready to snatch away the lantern if he should make a grab for it. But he was no longer in such a wroth state. He seemed spent of energy and there was a tragic look in his face as he said wearily, “It can burn, it can burn brightly, and still the darkness will not go away.”

“It will go away when the sun comes,” Sevana insisted. “Until then, you must rest and get better. Here, let me take off your boots.” She knelt and worked loose the leather lacings, keeping her head bent to hide the tears she was blinking back. When she’d managed to pull off the tight boots, he stretched back on the bed with a quiet groan and closed his eyes.

The mountain night was cool, and Sevana feared he would catch cold lying on top of his sleeping bag without a shirt. She got the blanket from her room and spread it over him. Then she pushed the damp hair back from his forehead and felt his hot brow. He didn’t stir.

She continued to stare down at him anxiously, hoping the next time he woke, the delirium would be past. If it wasn’t—if he was still irrational in the morning—she planned to ride straightway up the trail to ask Joel what to do.

At last she turned out the lantern and crept back to her room. She huddled in bed listening to the wind wail aimlessly outside the house, caught in the valley between the ranges, nowhere to go. She couldn’t sleep for a long time.

CHAPTER 17

When Fenn came downstairs at noon pulling a clean shirt over his head, he looked haggard but said he was better. But he refused anything to eat, taking only a cup of tea as he went out to sit in the sun. “Should we let the crew know why you’re not at work?” Sevana worried.

“They’ll figure it out. They don’t expect me to drive down to camp to call in sick.”

From every indication he was composed and rational, and Sevana wondered if he even remembered his rantings of the night. She didn’t allude to them at all, but in her concern was so overly attentive—making a pretense of reading one of her books while actually keeping an anxious eye on him, and springing up to replenish his tea every time he’d taken two or three swallows—that finally he put down his book and in a voice of strained patience, asked: “Sevana, can’t you find something to do besides wait on me?”

“I could take Trapper for a ride,” she proposed, seeing an opportunity. “I’ll be more careful, Fenn. I’ll stay close to home and keep a tighter hold on him, and I’ll—”

“Go ahead,” he said irritably. “Anything for some peace.”

Elated to regain her steed, Sevana went for a ride along the river road, where in the open stretches the shallow water ran clear as topaz between banks of luxuriant bright-green grass. Fenn was still reading when she returned, so she picketed Trapper and went across the lane to give him more time alone.

She entered the cedar grove, where only a few shafts of mid-afternoon sun penetrated the thick canopy to gild the forest floor with delicate hints of gold. It was a solemn and spacious place there under the colossal trees, for not many plants could grow in that deep green shade. Only spiky swordfern fronds and glossy heart-shaped leaves of wild ginger dotted the thick black duff which had been accumulating for a hundred years. Her boots made no sound as they sank in its cushiony softness. Under one imperial old sovereign she sat on a mat of fallen cedar needles and leaned against its buttressed trunk, drinking in the primordial silence. The sense of tranquility was so pervasive, it made the trouble of last night seem distant and unreal, as if it’d never happened. She breathed in the still, humid air. There was such a richness to it, intense and intoxicating—the moist earthiness of duff, the piquancy of ginger, the exotic incense of the cedars.