Once again she struck out, but when she didn’t reach the trail after a short time, she stopped and looked up helplessly at the trees imprisoning her. The rain lashed her relentlessly. Drenched and shivering, she took refuge behind a stout lodgepole trunk. Then she heard a splintering crash and felt a ground-shaking thud beneath her feet, and knew with an answering thud of her heart that a tree had gone down not far away. She hung her head. This was her own fault, she was well aware. Fenn had known enough to keep his horse—and his gun—off the mountain tonight, but she had gone on heedless, headlong.
After a time, she noticed the wind wasn’t battering quite so fiercely. The rain was falling almost straight down instead of being hurtled sideways against the mountainside. She could see a few yards ahead. She started out again and found the trail almost at once.
In relief she resumed her way as quickly as she could distinguish it in the failing light. She shivered until her middle hurt, and her jaw ached from clamping her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her wet shirt felt icy. She kept on doggedly, hoping she could make it home before there was no light at all. Then she heard hoofbeats and turned to see a shadowy figure riding horseback down the trail.
“Hello!” Joel’s face emerged out of the dusk as he brought Flint to a standstill. “Bad night to be out. You all right?”
“I’m—fine,” she declared, shaking so from cold she could hardly talk. “Just—a—little—wet—”
“And nearly frozen,” he finished for her. Reaching for her hand, he pulled her up in front of him.
“But Joel—you’ve got company—Chantal’s at your cabin—”
“I know.” He opened his overcoat and wrapped it around her, so it enclosed them both. “She told me you came up.”
“You left her there alone, when she came all this way to see you?”
“She wasn’t the one out in the storm. I had to satisfy myself you made it home—and it’s a good thing I did.” They started down the trail at a fair clip.
“I’m sorry, Joel,” she said meekly. “I wanted to help, but I’ve only made extra trouble for you.”
“No trouble,” he said gruffly. “You did me a favor. Where’d you find the little vagabond, anyway?”
“Right by our spring.” They passed the turnaround where a silver coupe stood out as an alien object, bright among the shadows. “Were you surprised to see Chantal?” she asked, even though she knew the answer well enough.
“Yes, I was. She even built a fire and cooked dinner while she was waiting for me.” He sounded so pleased that Sevana refused herself the satisfaction of setting the record straight. “We were going to meet tomorrow, but her flight was changed to an earlier one—and since she couldn’t call me, she rented a car and drove out here. I was planning to meet her in Nelson,” he said again, unnecessarily. “I could have met her today if I’d known.” The pause he lapsed into had something of an agitated air to it. “Well, that’s how it goes when your phone and your mailbox are two hours away.” For the first time his natural humor showed through. “Out here, no news isn’t good news—it’s just no news.”
She sensed the uneasiness in his banter, and he didn’t keep her guessing as to its cause. “Sevana, I know how this looks to you—her staying here like this. But I didn’t plan it this way. I’m trying to keep it all on the level; I want to do the right thing.”
“I know, Joel.” She wanted to set his mind at ease. “I stayed at your house once, too, you know. You just need to talk things out, and you’re losing time because of me. I tried to bring Brook up to you, but he was stubborn and wouldn’t come.” Her teeth were clacking, and even inside the thick wool she couldn’t get warm.
“That sounds like him,” Joel said grimly. He gathered the coat more tightly around her and bent his head so the brim of his leather hat protected her more thoroughly from the rain. “Dry clothes and hot tea for you when you get home, do you hear?”
With his capable arms sheltering her, Sevana had a rare sense of invulnerability—safe from anything and everything. He was so near, she could feel the warmth of his body and smell the soap on his skin. To be so secure and protected was a luxurious feeling for someone used to depending only on herself, and she wished it could last for more than just those few minutes. But already Joel was saying: “Almost there now.” A few stars peeked out in the troubled sky. “Here’s the homestead.” He added, “Well, I made it down the mountain tonight, but it’s a little dark to be visiting the river.”
“Brook’s in the barn,” she told him. But Joel rode straight to the front steps, lifted her down, marched her across the porch and swept her inside, hand on her back.
Fenn looked up from his book as they entered, and Sevana’s spirits sank when she saw the bottle in front of him. More and more, he was drinking even when it wasn’t a Saturday night.
“Evening, Fenn.” Joel stopped just inside the door. “Stoke up the stove, will you? She’s badly chilled.”
“Chilled?” Fenn repeated scornfully. “Of course she is. Anyone would be, out running around on a night like this. But it was her choice to go, against all sense.” He glared at Sevana, who stood bedraggled and wet-haired, eyes large and dark in her pale face. “Still seem like such a good idea to go up the mountain tonight?” he disparaged her.
“No,” she said, downcast. “You’re right, Fenn, I shouldn’t have gone.”
“Never mind,” Joel said briskly. “Nothing a hot fire and dry clothes won’t mend.” He stared meaningfully at Fenn, who roused himself grudgingly, as if aware Joel wouldn’t leave until he saw that Sevana would be cared for. Taking a heavy stick of fir from the woodbox, he straightened to address him across the room. “You want your sheep, it’s in the barn.”
“So I heard.” Joel’s voice was just as measured. He turned to Sevana, not satisfied to leave her in such uncharitable company, but seeing little recourse. “You have a good night,” he said to her privately.
“Thanks for coming after me, Joel,” she said. “And I forgot, with the storm and everything—but I meant to offer to watch the sheep while you get your permit tomorrow, if you’re still going.”
“I have to go,” he replied. “And if you could watch them for me, I would feel much easier about them.”
“I’ll plan on it.”
Fenn banged the stove shut.
“Thanks, Sevana, I appreciate it.” Joel started for the door, but then turned back to Fenn who stood waiting for him to leave. His earth-brown eyes held Fenn’s glacial-blue ones as if he and Fenn were the only two people in the room. “You take good care of her, or you’ll have me to answer to,” he warned him in hard tones.
Fenn gave a short, contemptuous laugh. “If you’re so concerned about her, why don’t you take her home and look after her yourself?”
“Don’t tempt me,” snapped Joel. “I don’t think you know how lucky you are to have a sister like her.”
“Sure I do.” Fenn swayed a little as he took a step closer to him. They stood shoulder to shoulder, neither having the advantage. “About as lucky as I am to have a neighbor like you.”
Sevana stepped between them. “I’ll go with you to the barn,” she said to Joel, afraid Fenn might take a swing at him in his inebriated state.
“No, you won’t,” Joel replied. “I want you out of those wet clothes right now.”
At his stern tone, Sevana turned her back on both of them and went upstairs. She heard the door close as Joel left.
When she came down in dry clothes, Fenn had already extinguished the lantern and gone to his room. She stood at the kitchen window with an anxious eye on the stars, afraid that another storm would come to put them out. But when sufficient time had elapsed for Joel to get home and none had, she fixed a cup of cocoa with an easier mind, working by starlight to avoid dealing with the lantern.
She sat at the table with hot drink in hand, her thoughts still following Joel up on the mountain. This was the night he was going to tell Chantal they had to break it off. But would h
e be able to do it, with those impossibly alluring eyes drawing him into their spell, and the two of them alone behind the cloaking spruce boughs with the rest of the world far away?
She realized the cup was burning her fingers and set it down. Out the window a golden glow had appeared behind the ridgeline, silhouetting the sawtooth edge of distant forest. It was funny to be living in a place where the mountains were so tall the moon couldn’t even shine, she mused. And yet, even though she had only been there from one full moon to the next, it was already hard to remember life any other way.
She looked around the kitchen, seeing more from memory than vision its crude axe-nicked logs and splintery boards. The cookstove was lost in shadow—only the silver wire handle gleamed, and a tiny gap in the stovepipe seam glowed orange. The warm, smoky smell of the room was somehow comforting and peaceful to her, and she thought she would always remember what it was like to live there. Yes, it was funny how that life on a rough homestead in a little-known river valley had become so familiar, it was starting to feel as if it was her life.
A residual shiver sent a tremor through her body, and she stepped to the stove. She was getting bewitched, she told herself. She had become mesmerized with that slow, single-focus existence—just as anyone who stares at something long enough without interruption becomes enthralled. She was even beginning to act like a local—building that fire for Chantal a little smugly, as though she hadn’t had her own struggles with it just a month ago. Then, too, there was her subconscious reaction to Joel’s strong arms around her, a security she admittedly desired for herself…exactly as if she wasn’t a short-term guest there, and Chantal didn’t hold his heart, and he wasn’t about to leave the neighborhood for the rest of the summer. It would do her good to get back to the outside world and her true course in life. It wouldn’t be long.
After she went to bed, she was being lulled to sleep by the river’s refrain through the open window—more muted than when she’d first come, as if over the weeks the watery orchestra had been instructed to fade to sotto voce—when she heard the front door shut and footsteps crossing the floor. Distinctly awake now, she sat up uncertainly. Was someone in the house? Should she call Fenn?
There were footfalls on the stairs. It was the sound of Fenn’s heavy boots. “Fenn, is that you?” she called as they reached the landing.
“Who else?” he shot back, and slammed his door.
She lay down again. All the time she had thought Fenn was in his room, he had been outside. Why had he been out in the night for the past hour—when he had to get up so early for work next day? She felt the old fear resurfacing. She desperately wanted to believe in his innocence; but she couldn’t keep from wondering all over again if the person Randall Radnor was looking for so diligently and methodically, was no further away than the step across the landing.
CHAPTER 20
Sevana stirred the steaming wheat cereal around in her bowl. “You startled me when you came in so late last night.”
“Hmm.” Fenn’s face never had a healthy color after a night of drinking.
“I thought you had gone to bed.”
“I was just making sure Joel didn’t help himself to anything but his precious sheep,” he said deprecatingly.
“You can’t be serious,” she flared, stunned by the audacity of his insult. “Joel is one of the finest, most honest men on the face of the earth, and you would accuse him of stealing your horse?”
Fenn didn’t answer. She looked at him and saw he probably hadn’t meant the outrageous thing he’d said—had only said it because he wasn’t about to tell her what he’d really been doing. But that only made it worse. She set down her piece of stovetop toast which tasted even drier than before in her mouth.
Fenn was still eating when Mr. Sutter came, so Sevana invited him in and poured him a cup of coffee. She found him good-natured and talkative—quite different from Fenn’s oppressive morning silences. Nor did he demonstrate the thickheadedness Fenn was so swift to accuse him of. She didn’t see how Fenn could have such a hard time getting along with such an easygoing person. He even complimented Fenn by saying he wouldn’t want to look at a sale without him, since he was so good at seeing all the factors involved and so sharp on contracts. She wished that Fenn would return the effort to be friendly, and his eyes wouldn’t be so cold when he looked at him.
As they were going out the door, Mr. Sutter apologized to Sevana for taking her brother away, and promised to bring him back next afternoon. And he gave one more helpless look back, as if there was something else he’d say to her if he had the opportunity. Fenn went out after him, swinging in aloof strides to the blue-and-white truck with the air of a man free and answerable to no one. No, Sevana thought, Fenn was not the kind of man to work for anybody but himself.
As soon as they had driven away, Sevana went out to Fenn’s truck. There was something she had to prove to herself. She climbed in back and flung open the lid of his metal tool chest. Wrenches and sockets and metal files stared back at her. Like one possessed she dug into its depths, leaving nothing in its place. Not one furry pelt lay within, not one trap, not a single gunnysack. Sevana closed the lid in triumph. She’d like to invite Mr. Radnor to have a look in that toolbox! She kept hunting. She looked under the chains and cables. She looked under the spare tire. Then she looked up front under the seat. She pulled the seat forward and looked behind it. And there, resting between an empty canteen and a pair of pitch-covered work gloves, was a small brown fur.
Sevana’s knees went weak. She reached out a hand and withdrew the pelt in horror. It couldn’t be true, but there it was. Randall had been right in his insinuations. Fenn was smuggling furs for the poacher. She stood dazed, clutching the pathetic little fur with both hands—and might have remained there a long time, too heartbroken to move, except for someone driving into the yard just then. Her first thought was that Mr. Radnor had caught her red-handed with the evidence. She shoved the fur under the seat and slammed the door, whirled white-faced to see Joel walking to her from his truck.
“Hi there, Sevana,” he began, until he saw her look. “Wait a minute, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Fenn. He’s—” She had to stop. She would cry right in front of him if she said the words.
At the sight of her stubbornly clamped mouth and the silent misery of her eyes, Joel took her by the shoulders kindly but firmly. “What is it? Tell me!”
“He’s in trouble,” she got out, forcing control. “Mr. Radnor thinks he’s been smuggling furs—and I found one in his truck.”
Joel frowned. “Fenn smuggling furs? You must be mistaken.”
“No, it’s true,” she gulped. “He’s having a hard time paying off the place. He needs the money.” She swallowed again, her whole body trembling with the repressed anguish.
“Sevana, show me this fur,” Joel said decisively.
She brought out the silky-soft brown pelt.
Joel gave it no more than a glance before he said, “Sevana, this isn’t otter, it’s marten.”
“Fenn’s smuggling marten?”
“No, no, he’s not smuggling anything. This is a marten pelt he trapped last winter; you can tell by its thick fur. I don’t know why it’s in his truck—maybe it fell behind the seat when he was taking his furs in to sell—but I assure you it’s nothing illegal.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” Sevana said it both to Joel and all the powers above. “Oh, Joel, I’ve been so afraid—and he was out again last night…” She stopped, aware he had more on his mind than her own small affairs. “Are you off to get your permit?” she asked in a different voice. He looked better dressed than usual, in a coarse light shirt that darkened his weather-tanned skin, and trousers not faded or patched.
“Yes. I left the sheep and Flint in the corral. If you want to go up, you can let them graze in front of the cabin until you’re tired of it, then lock them in the barn. Be sure you allow yourself plenty of time to get home while there’s still daylight. I won’t be home until
late.”
For the first time Sevana noticed Chantal’s platinum coupe waiting on the road. She took a deliberate step back from Joel. “I’ll watch them,” she promised. “And I’ll try to be as good a sheepherder as you.”
“Of that I have no doubt.” His eyes rested on hers in his warm way. “Thanks, Sevana. I’ll try to think of some way to repay the favor.” He returned to his truck.
Chantal had gotten out of the car. Wearing an ice-white top and designer jeans, she picked her way over the ground in spike heels without looking the least bit awkward. Sevana watched her meet Joel and say something. From her distance, Sevana tried to guess just by seeing them together what they had decided—but her overruling thought after all, was to wonder how Chantal had made it down the trail in those shoes. She must have changed at the car—unless Joel had volunteered to carry her down the mountain. Chantal smiled and waved to Sevana, the picture of well-mannered friendliness, and returned to her car to follow Joel down the road.
Sevana set up the hill, still speculating on the decision they had reached. She hoped Joel had stayed resolute to what he knew he had to do—until she thought how hurt he would be, and wavered in her opinion. Sometimes, despite everything, she just wanted to have this dream he wanted so much, come true for him.
She let the flock out to feed, and after horsing around with rambunctious Hawthorn and Blazingstar for a while, sat on the cabin porch to sketch the sheep as they grazed. She had drawn them several times now for practice, and it was beginning to pay off in more realistic copies. They were fully recognizable as sheep, although their faces wore expressions not typically seen in real life—some looking as if they had eaten too many sour sorrel leaves, some giddy beyond any bliss a sheep could naturally expect, and some downright wild-eyed, as though alarmed at the prospect of being so immortalized. She decided she would leave it on Joel’s desk for a laugh.
She ate her sack lunch and then made a few changes to the paper, re-drawing Glacier’s eyes so he less resembled a mad bull. The sun had grown hot and the sheep were finding shady places to graze when she noticed Goldthread was not eating with the others, but lying in a little heap in the grass. Something in the way he lay told her he was not resting, but was sick or hurt. Her heart gave a lurch, and she felt dizzy with fear as she cast aside her tablet and hastened to his side. “Oh, little Goldthread,” she crooned, “what’s wrong?”
Stony River Page 23