Covet

by James, Ella

  Five

  Finley

  When I awaken, curled on my side with Baby cuddled near my chest, I see sunlight streaming through the blinds into the clinic’s main room—but a glance outside reveals it’s streaking through more dark clouds. The radio confirms what I can tell by looking at the sky: more rain expected. When I step outside to urge Baby to go poo in the grass, I can feel it in the air—a kind of pause. The air feels too still between breezes, too heavy as it tosses my hair.

  Lower Lane is fairly sunken, just a muddy river lined by dripping houses. Someone drives by—Father Barnard, I believe. The tires of his Jeep spray mud. I gather Baby back inside and spend the morning feeding her and working out a sort of diaper.

  “What am I to do with you?” I smile down at her.

  She prances over to the waiting area and back to our bed, tossing her head back, as if to make me laugh. I’m doing just that when a knock sounds at the door.

  “Mmm? And who could this be?”

  Baby stands beside me as I pull the door open, revealing Anna and wee Kayti. “Well, hello there.”

  “Oh, my shoes!”

  Anna’s Mary Janes are caked in mud.

  “Oh no. It’s a river out there, and more coming, I hear.”

  “Right monsoon.”

  I smile at Kayti. “Hello, lovely.”

  “Are you going to let us in?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “What is that thing?”

  I follow Anna’s wide eyes to my fuzzy comrade. “Baby?”

  “You let a lamb into the clinic?”

  I shrug. “She’s an orphan, needed frozen milk. Did we have a well check this morning?”

  Anna laughs. “I’m supposed to be the one with mum brain, Finley!”

  “You were in the morning, before Wills and Doris?”

  She waves Kayti’s hand at me. “I need a vaccine! So the tourists don’t kill me with their horrid germs!”

  “Ugh—speaking of.”

  I roll a football from a basket in the corner across the rug. As Baby trots after it, I lead Anna and Kayti to the birth and baby room, where I tell Anna what happened with the Carnegie and check Kayti over. Well, not all of what happened. I leave out the part about his bull-sized male parts. And my own parts. I can’t bear repeating it.

  “I think he dropped a soda bottle in the tub. Some sort of bottle.”

  Anna shakes her head, frowning.

  “He was a right knob-head, that’s the primary point of my story. Spoiled, entitled, rude. The worst sort.”

  “Disappointing, but perhaps I’m not surprised,” she says. “I saw him.”

  “Meaning?” I ask as I press on Kayti’s belly.

  “Well, he is uncommonly easy on the eyes. You know how that can go to one’s head a bit at times.”

  I check under Kayti’s diaper, and then Anna re-fastens the Velcro. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Oh, c’mon. You’ve always been one of the pretty girls, Fin-Fin.”

  “Not so.” I take a bit to listen to Kayti’s heart then pull the stethoscope away from her pudgy chest and smile. “Sounds healthy to me.”

  Anna smiles. “On to the fun now?”

  I nod. While I prep the syringe, Anna asks, “Are you missing Doctor?”

  I grab a swab of numbing lotion. “I think not so terribly.”

  “That’s good. Does he call often?”

  “Every few days, unless there’s something to discuss. I’m holding up quite well, though. I know how to get along without him.” I wince. “Okay, Kayti, it’s that time. Ready to give those lungs a workout?”

  I clean her fat thigh with an alcohol wipe and rub numbing lotion over that spot.

  “I’ll make it quick, okay?”

  I do just that, but there are many tears, so many Anna rushes out with Kayti so she needn’t see my evil face longer than necessary.

  “I’m sorry, Kayti! Have a nicer day now!” I call out behind them.

  After they leave, I offer Baby another bottle and try to keep my mind away from him.

  What does it matter if he’s a lout? What has he to do with me? There is something, of course, but…that’s no matter. It’s hardly my only option.

  I think of other things, like what the night will bring for me. I didn’t check the slopes last night for wayward sheep; Baby was shivering so badly by time we neared the clinic, I felt I should stay put with her. Later, though, I’ll have to leave her somewhere—perhaps with Petunia White—and go and round them up before a mudslide gets them.

  Baby guzzles four bottles between the time that Anna leaves and Wills arrives. I draw his blood without much incident; he’s required growth hormone injections since he turned two, so he’s accustomed to needles. After he leaves, Doris hobbles in and laughs at Baby in her cloth diaper.

  “She looks more a mess than I do!”

  Doris checks out fine despite her kidney disease. I help her down the muddy steps and into one of the community Broncos, driven by her daughter, May.

  When the vehicle pulls away, I find I’m face to face with him.

  The Carnegie stands in the mud pie that is Lower Lane, wearing a blank face and a black T-shirt. His dark hair is messy, his full lips turned down. From where I stand, some twenty meters away, he looks preternaturally large—like a cowboy ready for a showdown in some Western film.

  I stare at him. Well, glare at him. Why is he taking up good space in Lower Lane? Why am I wasting my time looking at him?

  Without another moment wasted, I march back inside the clinic.

  * * *

  Declan

  After a stop at the café, confirming what I know in my bones—I’m fucked—I walk back to the house in a steady drizzle. The house that belongs to her, to Finley Evans—keeper of the clinic keys. Tristan’s one and only temporary doctor in the absence of the real one, who’s gone on some kind of trip to Capetown.

  I didn’t sleep more than half an hour last night—not just because I dropped my whole stash into the tub and had no sleeping pills. I felt like shit when she left. Not just bad, but kind of surprised that I was such a fucking dick. And not to just anybody, either. I was a fuckface to this red-haired girl who might be the girl: Finley Evans.

  It didn’t take me long to poke around the house and confirm my suspicions. The gorgeous woman I lashed out at is the grown up version of the girl with the devastated eyes and dirty face. I found her name on the backside of a faded-looking apple magnet on the ’fridge, scrawled in sloppy kid print.

  Maybe that makes sense, because when I first stepped into this place, it felt familiar, and I’m pretty sure the missing girl’s grandmother was the one who let me help her knead the bread dough that time.

  I step back into the house now, leaning back against the door for just a second before stripping off my shirt and shoes. I’m such a fucking moron. Chill-bumps pop up all over my body as I walk into the bedroom and lie face-down on the bed. Her bed.

  I cover my head with a pillow and roll onto my side, curling my arms up to my chest. My neck and face feel hot. My eyes throb slightly from behind. I draw a deep breath in and hold it.

  I can figure this shit out. I can. I rub my watery eyes. I just need to move. I think of running in the rain, but I don’t know if I can. Everything’s so fucking soggy.

  I roll out of bed and do some jumping jacks. A hundred. Then three hundred sit-ups. Two hundred push-ups. I remember a few yoga poses, so I try those. Not enough. I need to get my heart rate a lot higher to feel relief.

  I run around the house for half an hour, feeling like a fucking nut, before I sink into the tub again, rubbing at the film of dissolved pill residue around it.

  Fuck.

  I lean my head back, exhale slowly.

  My arms are underwater. I lift my hands up through the bubbles and squint at my fingertips. Water ripples all around them. I close my fists, draw them back under.

  I can run after the rain stops.

  I kill some hours playing r
eal card solitaire, sitting on a wooden stool under the awning over the back porch. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks behind the house should be a soothing one, but it makes me feel jumpy. Almost fearful.

  Back inside, I pull on a shirt and force myself to eat some eggs. When it’s five, I slide my phone into my pocket, grab an umbrella, and make my way down to the pub.

  “What can I get you?” The old man behind the counter has to raise his voice so I can hear above the rain that’s pelting the tin roof. He’s smiling, though, as if I’m not the only asshole in the bar, the one who made him set his book down and put on his apron.

  “Rusty Nail?” It’s posed as a question because I don’t know how familiar he is with mainstream drinks.

  He gives me a small smile.

  “Heavy on the scotch. Please.”

  “One Rusty Nail coming right up.”

  As he sticks an orange peel in the glass, a swell of noise punches in from behind us—low voices and a brief soundbite of driving rain. A few seconds later, all the other barstools fill up. Dude beside me takes his hat off, giving me a nod before he turns back to the guy beside him.

  “Need more hands on deck,” he’s saying. “Cannot patch the roof and mend the fence and clear the road and fill the buckets at the church all with the same four or six hands.”

  The other chuckles. “Don’t forget the good doctress.”

  “The clinic’s leaking, too, but I heard she’s out at the Patches. Sheep up there around the gulches as they do.”

  Their odd English accents are so thick I’m several seconds behind, translating in my head.

  “Tireless, Finley.”

  My chest flares at the sound of her name. “Finley?”

  They turn to me.

  “I’m…uh, I think I’m renting her house?”

  Their lined faces bend in confusion.

  “Staying there,” I correct. “At her grandmother’s house.” The older one’s eyebrows jut up. “Oh. And so you are.”

  “Is it leaking as well?” the younger asks, shaking his head.

  “Nah. It’s been okay.” My stomach tightens as I fish for information. “Is she—did I hear you say Finley is the doctor?”

  The man beside me pushes wet curls out of his face. “She does many jobs. Shepherd. Nurse. Although with the good doctor in Cape Town, I suppose she’s naturally his stand-in.” He smiles. “And the livestock doctor. Too many caps, that one. She’s got sheep stranded up the slopes. Probably a need for her here, or there will be fore the weather’s blown by. Quite a shame no shepherd’s as good as she is.”

  Something rises in my chest—a kind of brightness.

  “She needs help? Another shepherd?”

  He nods. “Two others help at times, but they’re both occupied. One ill.”

  I frown. “Does she have dogs?”

  Several men look up at me.

  “You know…herding dogs?”

  “She did,” one says, “but Heath passed on. No more to be trained.”

  I nod, and toss back half my glass. Then, with the sting of whiskey still filling my throat, I say, “I’ve done some shepherding before.”

  Six

  Finley

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  I shut my eyes and inhale slowly. When I open them again, the view is still as bleak. I’m standing on one of the higher slopes out near the Patches, looking down the valley where we grow our food, where we corral the cattle. My view is framed by the hood of my rain coat, striped by gulches shining in the moonlight. Gulches growing wider as the rain pours. It’s quite dark out, so the sheep scattered about the slopes below me are pale dots—scattered dots, because the herd has splintered…twice.

  Patch Valley didn’t have so many gulches prior to this past spring. Joe White used to take a group to work on erosion in the valleys, but he hurt his leg slipping on Upper Lane after a hail storm this past winter, and most of his former crew are feeling their years. I suppose it’s time for someone else to take over stacking stones and sand bags.

  For now, I’ve got to get these sheep into a herd again and drive them down the slopes onto the flat land at the bottom of the valley.

  Took me the better part of an hour to walk the road from the village, on the island’s northwest tip, over the Hillpiece and past Runaway Beach. The road petered out near the flat plane of the Patches, by the sea; from there I climbed the lower slopes to reach my charges.

  First, I tried to lure them down along one of the wider gulches. I rattled a bucket of feed, calling like always. But it was raining too hard; got the feed soggy so it didn’t rattle—and anyway, my wee fluffins wanted nothing to do with the gulch.

  I miss Heathcliff, my canine companion. He would have them down the slope in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

  I count heads and decide I’ll start with the two small groups off to my right—closest to the Patches, and the ocean beyond. I’ll walk the path I’m on and cut down around the outside of them. Then I’ll drive them east, toward the next small group. After that, I’ll climb up to where the gulch is narrower, drop back down, and herd that new group toward the next. I groan, realizing I’ll be doing this all night if no one comes to help.

  I asked Mayor Acton for help over the radio an hour ago, and he said he would send someone. Then my radio broke. Perhaps I’ll have help, perhaps I won’t. No more time to wait, though.

  I kick the mud off my boots and glance back up above me at my pack, wrapped in a tarp and wedged under a rock up near the Triplets—three large boulders that serve as an island landmark. Then I start down the boot-worn path, moving carefully, my heels dug in to keep from slipping.

  I’m farther downslope, picking my way over small rocks and using larger ones for balance, when I see something moving in the Patches, out beyond the scattered herd. I track the figure for a moment. Definitely human. Rather than drive the sheep solo, I turn my flashlight on and off a few times and perch on a rock to wait for help.

  I watch as my companion flashes his or her light, too. When he or she is close enough—it’s a “he,” I’m fairly certain—I analyze the person’s gait to try to discern who.

  Mike Green is long-legged, and wide up top. He’s fifteen, but the nicest boy. He’ll make a good shepherd one day. Or I suppose it could be Benny Smith. He’s a bit of a chair-dweller, but occasionally he’ll help if prodded. Mayor Acton is his uncle, so perhaps he was shook out of his chair.

  I watch my helpmate hike until he reaches a stone-scattered ridge, disappears beneath an overhanging rock, and emerges on its other side, perhaps two meters over. When I realize who it is, I nearly faint dead away.

  The Carnegie stops a few yards downhill, shielding his forehead with his large hand, so I can only see the lower half of his face: pale against the darkness, hard jaw dripping. He moves his hand, revealing wet-lashed eyes and stubble-covered cheeks, wide-boned above his hard-cut jaw. He looks like a sculpture—Michelangelo’s fine marblework.

  I look him up and down, stricken by his perfection—physically. Then I look into his somber eyes and give a sharp laugh. “How did you get lost up here?”

  “What?”

  “The village is that way.” I point back across the valley where the Patches lie.

  “I’m here to help you with the herding. Mac sent me.”

  I can’t help but guffaw. “Did he find you at the pub? How many empties were beside him?”

  His mouth tightens. “I know how to drive a herd.”

  “And I’m a Red Sox catcher.”

  “I do.” He seems serious.

  “Do you then?” I scoff. “With a nice doggie? What was it, a camp for foolish wealthy?”

  His eyes widen, just a bit. I watch his gaze dip to his boots before it rises back to mine. “Listen—” His full lips twist, pensive. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for last night.”

  “You mean when you acted like a pig that’s escaped the fences?”

  His head bows a little lower. I can see his shoulders r
ise and fall. “Yeah.”

  “What?” I cup my hand around my ear. “Can’t hear over the rain.”

  He looks up and says, “Yes.” His voice is low and hard.

  I watch as he adjusts the poncho over his head, shifts his broad shoulders, curls one of his fists. When I felt I’ve held him prostrate long enough to suit, I dismiss him with a wave. “You can go back to the village now.”

  His eyes flash, but the fire doesn’t burn. “You need help.”

  “What I need is for a ship to come and carry you away.”

  His lips press into a thin line, and then he nods once, barely. “I acted badly and I’m sorry. It was…inexcusable.”

  “And yet you’re here, seeking…forgiveness?”

  “I heard you needed help.”

  “Quite a riot that you think that’s what you’re offering.”

  His mouth tightens, and I feel the buoyance of my own mean spirit. “Do you have a crook, then?”

  His eyes roam the soaked grass around us. “I don’t, but I can find one.”

  “Try that, then. I’ll wait.” I sit back on the rock, tucking my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. I’ve been wet for so long; my skin feels plastic-y and strange. Despite my jacket hood, rain leaks in and trickles down my scalp. There’s nothing worse than being cold and wet.

  Scratch that—there is: it’s being cold and wet and stuck on a mountainside with someone you abhor.

  The Carnegie roams the path that runs horizontally across the slope, and I laugh. He’ll never find a stick up here. When he walks back toward me some five minutes later, I’m grinning in the dark. Until he holds out a crook.

  “What is that?”

  He grins, looking quite pleased with himself.

  I stand. “Very well then. Let’s see you use it.”

  “You want to help me gather, moving down into the valley?”

  “I’ll let you work solo a bit. Then I’ll come in from the far side, there by the brush.” I point to a fluffy smattering of bushes on the far side of the splintered herd, a bit downslope. While he’s working, I’ll hike up and grab my pack, move past the Triplets, and descend.