Season of Storm

by Alexandra Sellers

  The cynicism in his tone was almost cruel.

  "Is that how you look at it?" she asked in disapproving surprise.

  "That's how it is, Miss St. John," he said coolly. "There are fast-buck artists in the moral-conscience business, too. Whether they realize it or not."

  "And you would know, of course,!"

  The dark eyes considered her. "Why do you think so?"

  "Why were you going to kidnap my father?" Smith countered.

  "Ah, of course. We'll get to that," he said. "Here, sit down." He indicated the leather chair behind the desk. When she had sunk into it, Johnny Winterhawk pushed the map to one side, hiked one leg up onto the desk and sat looking down at her.

  "Both the federal and provincial governments ignore native land-claim rights in this country every day," he began. "Our only real hope lay in the fact that lumbering in the area would destroy the salmon spawning grounds of Cat Bite River, which is my people's traditional fishing ground, as well as damage the wildlife habitat of Cat Bite Valley, which is our traditional hunting ground. This is an argument that is harder for government to ignore. Eventually, the provincial government announced the setting up of a commission of inquiry."

  That was an achievement, she knew; commissions weren't set up every day. She wondered why her father hadn't mentioned it to her.

  "What did the commission decide?" she asked, although it was a foregone conclusion: if they were kidnapping her father, the decision had gone against them.

  With a sudden clarity she understood why Johnny Winterhawk had refused her offer of money: the ransom he was seeking was worth a lot more to him than a few hundred thousand, or even a few million dollars.

  "The inquiry is still in progress," he said. "The commission is holding public hearings that begin tomorrow."

  Smith wrinkled her brow as a faint memory jogged. "Is my father scheduled to appear at that hearing?"

  "Yes, he is," said Johnny Winterhawk. "So am I."

  "I don't understand this," Smith said. "What exactly were you hoping to achieve by kidnapping my father now?"

  Johnny Winterhawk sighed. "We weren't kidnapping him. We were hoping to frighten him."

  Seven

  "Frighten him?" Smith sat up with such a violent start the chair slapped forward and almost threw her across Johnny Winterhawk's lap in front of her. But she sat back with an equally violent jerk before he had time to do more than touch her shoulders in a brief firm clasp. "Frighten him?" she repeated, outraged.

  "Or reason with him. There was no other way to speak to him. We couldn't get access, he wouldn't see us."

  She was too angry to remain still. Shaken, she shoved back the chair and got to her feet. Her eyes were now almost on a level with his, but her anger was so violent she couldn't look at him.

  "What did you hope to gain?" she demanded fiercely, her eyes on the map, on the desk, on the floor—anywhere but on him, because she was afraid of the force of her own fury. Her hands were tense, her fingers extended like upturned raven's claws. "You got your inquiry, you got your time, what else did you want? Frighten him? You nearly killed him! For all we know, you did kill him!"

  When she looked at him he was watching her, his hooded eyes grave. "Why?" she demanded. "Why did you do that to my father?"

  Johnny Winterhawk breathed once and stood up, moving around the other side of the desk away from her. The sun slanted through greenery and glowed on the warm wood of the floor, and on his black-clad thighs and chest and his sleek black hair as he crossed the room. He stopped and stared out the window, his hands in his pockets.

  He said, "We knew that your father was going to move an outfit into the northern part of Cat Bite Valley, up by Salmontail Lake, as quietly as possible, and begin logging operations as early as next week. We were hoping to convince him last night that he should wait until the inquiry had issued its report before he did any logging in the area."

  Shulamith stared across the room at him. "What on earth do you mean?" she asked, amazed. "Surely you got a temporary injunction against St. John's to prevent any lumbering in the area till the inquiry delivered its verdict?" If they hadn't done that, she didn't think much of their organization.

  Johnny Winterhawk shook his head. "The Supreme Court of British Columbia refused to grant us an injunction," he said. "The appeals court heard the appeal this week, but it's reserved its decision. If the appeals court upholds the earlier decision then the Chopa are in limbo and legally your father can do anything he damn pleases."

  In some perhaps naive way, Smith had faith in the justice system. She was not blind to it faults and errors, but she believed in the country's urge to justice. What she was hearing from Johnny Winterhawk now shook her.

  "The Supreme Court refused to grant a temporary injunction even though the government had appointed a commission of inquiry?" she repeated. Some basic sense of security began to crumble; she felt as though the world had shifted a little under her feet. "But that's impossible!"

  "Is it?" Johnny Winterhawk asked quietly. Hands in his pockets, he was gazing out over the sea. Below them on the cliffside she could just catch a glimpse of the cedar wall of the kitchen; at a different angle, below through the trees, she could see a small cove with a sand beach.

  "But..." she stammered, trying to remember the arguments of environmentalists and native groups that she had heard in the past. "But if logging operations are even begun in the area, the salmon spawning grounds will be destroyed," she managed. "Won't they?"

  "Of course."

  "So then, whatever the commission recommended after that would be pointless. The decision will have been made...by my father, really." It was impossible.

  Johnny Winterhawk said nothing. And suddenly in the silence she believed it.

  "Doesn't it make you angry?" she asked, a frown settling on her brow as an unfamiliar outrage flickered into life in her.

  He laughed, throwing his head back and showing his teeth. His hair fell back and then forward over his forehead as he turned from the window to look at her. His dark gaze was frank and steady.

  "Yes, I'm angry," he said. "But it's futile to get angry over the predictable or the inevitable, and what happened in the courts was both."

  "Was it?" Smith wondered suddenly if she'd been living in a cloister all her life. Between learning the ropes at St. John Forest Products and doing her father's business entertaining she had had little time for getting involved in social issues. She had somehow assumed that other people were looking after social progress, slowly, perhaps, but surely. And yet this man thought that rank injustice was inevitable from the courts of the country, and he was the sort of man whose word, in other circumstances, she would have accepted at face value. Well, maybe that only showed how wrong her judgment of people could be.

  She said dryly, "And after all this you want me to believe that you weren't trying to kidnap my father?" And had taken her as second best. It was obvious. On the spur of the moment he had decided to use her to blackmail her father and force him to stop the logging in Cat Bite Valley.

  She wondered what her father would do. He was a man who didn't like to be challenged. Kidnap and be damned might well be his reaction.

  "He doesn't love me, you know," she said, not knowing why she said it.

  "He's a fool, then," commented Johnny Winterhawk, looking at her as though he understood more than she had said aloud. "You're a daughter any man should be proud of."

  Smith blinked and swallowed and dropped her eyes. She couldn't understand where the well of emotion that engulfed her had come from.

  "I kidnapped you, fool that I am," Johnny Winterhawk said, "for the reason I told you earlier. Because I thought you recognized me when you pulled my mask off, and the last thing we need when I'm due to testify before the Cartier Commission is a charge of breaking and entering or attempted extortion being laid against me. First, because we would lose credibility, and second, because it would be difficult for me to testify before the commission from a cell in O
akalla prison."

  Smith looked at him. He must think she was very naive. "There is such a thing as bail," she told him. "And I'm sure a man like you would get bail."

  Johnny Winterhawk laughed again. "Would I?"

  What did that mean? "You're a well-known architect," she said. "And you seem to own enough property."

  "I'm an Indian, too," he said.

  "No," she said levelly, "please don't tell me the statistics about how Indians are treated before the courts. I don't believe that the system is that bad. Anyway, you're very different from the general run—" She broke off, appalled by what she had been going to say.

  "Of no-good Indian?" Winterhawk finished for her. She was silent.

  "That's different, of course." A dreadful sarcasm threaded his voice. "Of course, the fact that Indians are all lazy and shiftless means it's justice that Indians make up sixty-two percent of the prison population in areas where we make up only twenty percent of the general population, doesn't it? And it's only fair that the suicide rate among my people is six times the national average. After all, what can you expect of worthless—"

  "All right!" she shouted, to drown out that scathing voice. "All right, I'm sorry! I'm an unconscious racist and you've found me out!" She drew in a shaky breath. "I'm also tired and I've been kidnapped and I've been through enough in a day to last anyone a lifetime and if I have to listen to any more I'll go crazy!"

  She was trying to keep her voice calm, but it had climbed to a panicked squeak. She stopped and took a deep breath. "Please, when are you going to let me go?"

  He wasn't going to let her go at all. Smith could see it in his eyes.

  "Please," she begged, "my father is ill—maybe terribly ill. Please don't keep me here."

  There was a pause while they looked at each other across the sun-filled room. Then Johnny Winterhawk spoke.

  "I'm sorry you're here at all," he said flatly. "But there's a lot more than your father's health riding on this. My people are fighting a battle for their way of life and for their lives. It's a losing battle before it even begins." His voice and his face showed he was implacable. "Your temporary peace of mind is not important in the scheme of things, Miss St. John. Nor is my comfort. I don't want you here, either, but here you are going to stay until this thing is over."

  Eight

  "Lumber baron Cordwainer St. John was admitted to the Royal Georgia Hospital in the early hours of the morning, after his second heart attack in a few weeks. His condition is said to be stable. He is the president and CEO of St. John Forest Products."

  The report hadn't changed since the noon newscast. It was the next-to-last item on the afternoon news, and when it was over, Smith leaned back and gazed at Johnny Winterhawk, who sat behind his desk in silence.

  "They keep saying the same thing," she said. He had made her stay with him all day, mostly in his study while he worked. She was trying to focus on a novel.

  "What the hell does 'stable condition' mean?" she muttered.

  "It means he isn't better and he isn't worse," Johnny Winterhawk replied.

  "Isn't better and isn't worse than what? We haven't had any real news out of that thing all day."

  They were in the kitchen making supper together when all that changed.

  "Police were called to the bedside of lumber baron Cordwainer St. John at the Royal Georgia Hospital late this afternoon," was the first thing they heard, and Smith dropped her knife and rushed to bend over the radio. Johnny Winterhawk followed.

  "The president of St. John Forest Products, who was rushed to the hospital early this morning suffering from a heart attack," the announcer said, "has informed police that he was awakened in the early hours of the morning by five masked men, when he suffered a heart attack and lost consciousness. He regained consciousness as he was being put into an ambulance, but did not remember anything of the circumstances surrounding his attack until late in the day. His daughter, Shulamith St. John, an executive of St. John Forest Products, is missing, he told police. An RCMP spokesman said that they are looking into the possibility that she may have been kidnapped. No ransom demand has been received."

  As a slow-talking officer made a brief statement Smith and Johnny Winterhawk stared at each other over the radio. Winterhawk cursed briefly under his breath, and she reached out and gripped his wrist.

  "Let me go," she pleaded in a low, intense voice. "Let me go now and I'll lie, I won't tell them anything, I promise. I'll say I was away—"

  "No," he interrupted firmly. He broke her grip and turned away.

  "Can't you see you're just making it worse?" she begged, following him back to the counter where he calmly picked up his knife and continued to chop an onion. "I could tell them I went out, that I wasn't there when it happened. They would never find you."

  "Unless you told them how," Winterhawk said dryly, looking sideways at her.

  "But I wouldn't! That's what I'm telling you, that I wouldn't! And you—"

  "Why not?"

  The abrupt question startled her. "What?" she asked.

  "Why not?" he repeated in a reasonable tone. He turned to face her. "If I let you go I have no hold over you. What's to prevent your telling the police the truth as soon as you're free?"

  Smith paused only momentarily. "I would give you my word," she said.

  He laughed. "What loyalty do you owe me that would make you inclined to keep your word?"

  "Well, I...."

  In the silence that fell after her voice trailed away Johnny Winterhawk turned back to the counter and resumed chopping.

  He was right. There would be no reason for her not to tell the police the truth. He couldn't let her go now. But then....

  Smith drew in a small frightened breath as she saw the truth. "But when can you let me go?" she asked. "When can you ever let me go?"

  Johnny Winterhawk crossed to the very modern stove console and scraped the chopped onion into a frying pan. It sizzled and spat into the silence, and Shulamith's voice climbed a notch toward panic.

  "Kidnapping is a criminal offence." She pursued the thought to its relentless conclusion, her heart thumping in her ears. "No matter when you let me go my testimony could put you in prison. So if you don't trust my word, you can't ever let me go. You have to keep me here forever—or kill me." His back to her, Johnny Winterhawk stirred the onions in silence. "Have you thought of that?" she demanded shrilly.

  "Yes," he said, "I've thought of it."

  "What are you going to do?" Her high voice was painful even to her own ears. "Have you decided what you're going to do?"

  He didn't answer, and with a strange, unfamiliar little snap her panic turned to rage. For the second time she flung herself bodily at him, emotion driving her beyond reason.

  "Answer me!" she demanded.

  Johnny Winterhawk whirled, and with a loud crash the frying pan sailed to the floor, spilling a mess of onions and melted butter as it went. Ignoring it, he caught her by one wrist and reached for the other, but this time his strength did not outweigh her angry litheness. She dragged and twisted against his firm grasp, trying to pull him off balance, and aimed for his head with her flailing free hand.

  Like a practised boxer, he swung his upper body easily backward, allowing her to move across the floor, but not letting go her wrist.

  "Stop it," he said in a gentle, low-voiced command, and even when he moved his head to dodge her swinging blows, his dark eyes never left hers.

  "Damn you, damn you!" she cried. "You're going to kill me, and you haven't got the guts to admit it!"

  Her bare foot came in contact with a thick patch of hot butter and onion, and her feet shot out from under her so suddenly that she was flat on the floor before she knew it, with Johnny Winterhawk coming down on top of her.

  He managed to break his fall a little, letting go her wrist to land with a hand at each side of her head, but still his body was full-length along hers, and suddenly Smith was breathless with terror.

  "Get away from me!" she
screeched.

  "Stop it," Johnny Winterhawk answered her, in the same low voice as before. She tried to twist away from him, then stopped on a hiss of pain.

  Her long hair was tangled all around her, fanning out on the floor under his hands; she couldn't move her head without tearing her scalp. She gritted her teeth and hung onto reason with a superhuman effort.

  "Will you please get off me?" she said with forced calm. "You're pulling my hair."

  Johnny Winterhawk raised a hand to straighten her hair, lifting the long silky amber strands away from her eyes and face. His strong fingers were gentle and soothing along her cheeks and forehead, and across her just-parted lips. His dark eyes looked deep into hers as her breath shuddered in her throat.

  Then it was not his fingers but his thumb that was against her lips, and his touch was no longer gentle. Shulamith's pulse began to pound in her temples. She swallowed convulsively, then her lips parted again, and she heard her own breath hiss between them. She waited, watching him, hypnotized by the dark flame in his eyes, as certain as if it were written in letters of fire that Johnny Winterhawk wanted to fight the compelling magnetism that was alive between them, that he was trying to force himself to let her go.

  "Damn it," Johnny Winterhawk breathed hoarsely, and his mouth came down and covered hers.

  Smith closed her eyes to reeling darkness, and her small competent hand closed convulsively against his chest into the thick warmth of his sweater. Suddenly the kiss was all she had ever wanted out of life, and the small involuntary moan of need she heard came from her own throat.

  The sound of it seemed to ignite something in him. His body leaped against hers, and he gathered her to him, one arm sliding under her head, his hand clenching tightly around her upper arm.