“In bed.” He moved his legs fretfully. “My head…hurts.”
“We’ll give you something for the pain. You’ll be all right, Shane. But I need to check one more thing before I quit bothering you. Tell me how many fingers I’m holding up.” It took him a moment to make his eyes focus.
“Three.”
“Good.” Her palm moved to cover his right eye. “How many now?”
“Three again.” Then she occluded his left.
“Now how many?”
“Two.”
“Thank you. Sometimes when a person gets hit in the side of the head like you did, it can damage your eye. But you’re all right. You’ll get well, Shane. Just give it time.”
“I’m thirsty,” he whispered. John nodded to the nurse. She handed Jenny a half-full glass. She steadied his head and held the glass to his lips.
“Just a little at a time. We have to be sure it won’t make you sick,” she cautioned. Though the glass was far from full, he did not have the strength to finish it.”
“Thank you,” he breathed, exhausted.
“You’re welcome. Don’t worry about anything. Just let us help you, for a change.” He managed to bring his hand up toward her. She took it in both hers.
“Just don’t go.”
“I’ll be right here. I won’t leave you. Now Father is going to give you an injection. It’ll take your pain away, and you can sleep.” His exhausted mind withdrew into Iroquois; her words made no sense at all to him. There was a slight sting, followed by a deep pressure in the muscles of his upper arm, and then he felt himself drawn down into a whirlpool that took his consciousness with it. The last thing of which he was aware was the dark, sweet scent that clung to Jenny’s hand as she stroked his cheek.
The next few days were hellish. He was only semi-conscious, going confusedly from nightmare to nightmare, not knowing at any given time whether he was awake or dreaming, recognizing people only part of the time. The common denominator of all those days was pain. Even though he could not always distinguish the thin border between reality and his tortured phantasms, he knew when Jenny stood beside him, coaxing him to drink or merely holding his hand. There were days when he was incapable of a coherent thought, but gradually he sorted out the scrambled memories. They became clearer as the pain subsided and he no longer needed as much medication.
In the middle of one of the interminable nights, he woke by degrees from a troubled dream to find all about him dark and silent. The night felt friendly after the surrealistic corridors his mind had been wandering. He had been improving steadily, so the last few nights Jenny had begun leaving him in the care of one of the nurses. Since he did not want anyone to bother him, he lay feigning sleep as the steady tide of pain ebbed and flowed inside his head.
The tendrils of the last dream still enmeshed him, drawing him backward toward his childhood and the long, quiet nights in the sturdy North Village cabin. A pang of nostalgic loneliness pierced his chest when he thought of the peace and security he had known, lying in a pile of musk bear pelts by the banked fire, his arm slung loosely over the warm neck or flank of Lupi, the great white wolf hybrid that had been his constant companion. Laughingly Grandpère had given the dog his name: Lupi, short for Loup Garou, the French for werewolf. Shane had learned to walk clinging to Lupi’s ruff while the dog slowly circuited the cabin, occasionally plying a wet tongue over whatever parts of Shane’s anatomy he could reach.
Again the lonely ache washed through Shane. Grandpère had been the pole star of his early years, the one who had urged him onto his present path. It was Grandpère who had taught him the ways of the woods and wild creatures until he could track, shoot, hunt, and trap better than any of his full Iroquois cousins. Then Grandpère insisted he leave the mission school and go to school with the town children, and eventually walk the path of the white man. Grandpère, tall and hugely strong, a secure refuge for a small boy testing out the world. He always had a humorous anecdote or a word of encouragement or praise. Shane smiled as he remembered his grandfather laughing, his teeth strong and even as ivory piano keys.
Then the sadness gripped him again. Lupi had died just as Shane left North Village for the white school in Elk Gap, his shoulder torn by a rabid wolf. The wound was not serious, but the hydrophobia was. Shane had held the ancient, half-blind dog while Grandpère’s muzzle-loading rifle spoke once. Lupi quivered only a moment before going still in Shane’s arms, and they buried him in the soft, sweet-smelling forest duff. Shane still detoured from the trail between North Village and Thomas Wise Hand’s horse ranch to pause at the stone cairn over Lupi’s final resting place.
Then Shane had gone all the way to Ottawa, not writing because there was no one to read. When he returned, wearing the proud Red Serge of a constable, Grandpère’s opaque eyes could no longer see him. The old man’s mind remained clear until the end, when a sudden stroke ended his life at the ancient age of ninety-seven. Shane, the Iroquois warrior, had not wept until years later.
Now, in the impersonal night-darkened hospital room, he felt tears tightening his throat again. He was as much Iroquois as white—Indian by early training and white by education. Why had he elected the complicated path of the white man? Why had he not stayed in the woods? The Iroquois trail offered peace and serenity, built around immutable unwritten laws and ironclad custom. Once one accepted the surrender of total discipline, the way offered peace. Grandpère, however, had not agreed. His words had held wisdom. The way of the white man is upon us all. The railroad brought your father, after all, and the woods grow smaller every day. True, you have Indian blood and I do not, but eventually you will have to be white or you’ll be swallowed up. You’re too good for that, Shane. You’re too talented and too intelligent. So go, with my blessing. Make an old voyageur proud of you, eh?
So I went, he thought. Five long, painful years away from the forest and the river. Five years among people who looked down on me. And for what? Ah, Grandpère, how I envy you the life you had. I hope you have peace, and if your campfire is now among the stars, you can look down and see me, you and Lupi…
The ache in his chest became an acute physical pain. He stretched cautiously, trying to move only as a sleeper would, but a sharp stitch in his side made him cough and the pressure mushroomed into a blinding headache as sharp as a lance. He curled onto his left side—not the usual side he slept on—and touched the bandage, trying vainly to stroke the pain away. Then he heard the rustle of a long skirt and footsteps across the floor. Merde, he thought. The nurse knows I’m awake.
Before he became aware of anything more than the presence of another person, a familiar sweet, rich fragrance washed over him. Jenny! But why was she here at this hour of the night? A gentle hand supported his neck and shoulder against another coughing spasm that left him gasping in pain.
“Shane?” she asked quietly. He dared to open his eyes and saw her standing beside him in the gloom. He turned onto his back and forced himself to relax.
“Jenny, what are you doing here?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I relieved your nurse and came in for a while. Is anything wrong?”
“No. I was just dreaming. I do that so much lately, and it’s always so strange.”
“You will for a while. It’s usual in head injuries. Don’t let it upset you.”
“I was dreaming about my grandfather,” he said with a sigh.
“You should go back to sleep. It’s the middle of the night. If you’re hurting, I can give you more medication.”
“Not right now, please. Just talk to me for a while. If I go back to sleep right away the dream will just start all over again.” Her fingers traveled over his forearm until they found his hand. She took it in both hers. He had become used to that over the past days.
“Don’t play the stoic on me now, please. It’s bad for you. If you’re hurting, I can get you something to help.”
“Why? It’s just pain.”
“Because head injuries only heal w
ith sleep. If you don’t sleep well, you’ll just stay sick, and eventually you’ll pick up some complication like pneumonia or a kidney infection that you won’t have the strength to survive.”
“Well, then, in a few minutes? I want to stay awake for a while.”
“What were you dreaming that has you so upset?”
“Just about my grandfather.”
“Tell me about him, then,” she urged gently.
“Well…so much to tell.” Another pause and another sigh. “My great-grandfather fled Paris during the Reign of Terror. His name wasn’t LaPorte. That was just assumed after he came to Canada. The arm of the Revolution was very long. Even though they had gone clear out here, they dared not use their true identity. Grandpère, his youngest son by his second wife, was actually born here. He told me that after he was grown, his father told him their real family name was des Roches.”
Jenny’s breath came in sharply. “I remember that name from French history. He was a royal advisor. But all the texts say he and his family were executed.”
“The ones that have it right say he disappeared and was presumed to have been executed. But I have the family Bible that says different. It goes back to the mid-1600s.”
“You should show Uncle Richard. He’d be so excited.”
“I should, at that. It just never occurred to me. I will as soon as everything settles down and I’m back home. What really happened was that Claude des Roches buried himself in the woods and raised four sons in the deep forest, as voyageurs. Grandpère was his youngest son. He never learned to read, but he knew the woods better than anyone I’ve known in my life. He lived by trading with the Indians and by running trap lines. He was ninety-seven when he died, well after I joined the Northwest Mounted. He taught me so much. There was nothing about the woods he didn’t know.” He stopped briefly, not knowing which part of their relationship had affected him the most.
“So you and he were close.”
“Very. He was—incomparable. But I sometimes wonder if…” His sentence trailed into nothing as he sighed and shifted his shoulders restlessly.
“If what?”
“If it was wise of me to go to college. I might have been better off living in the woods the way he did. But he told me the old ways were fading fast and the woods were getting smaller every day.”
“He was right, you know. And you’re so intelligent and talented that not using it to help other people would be nothing short of a sin.”
“That’s very flattering, but…” Suddenly he composed himself and smiled slowly. “I can’t say that. If I hadn’t gone to school and become a police officer, chances are I’d never have met you—or if I had, I’d have been just another ignorant backwoodsman, and you’d never have given me a second thought. You’ll stay a while longer?” he asked.
“Until you feel you want to sleep. Providing you tell me more about your grandfather. Do you look like him?”
“Oh, sort of, I think. My general build is like his. He was big and broad-shouldered, too. And I believe he’s where I got curly hair. He wasn’t especially dark, but I think the fair skin and light eyes must have come from my father. I was so young when the smallpox epidemic hit that I really don’t have clear memories of my parents.”
“Who had the graphic talent?”
“My grandfather. I have a lot of drawings he made. We used to draw together. After I was about eight I started helping him illustrate some of the folk tales. Some were French and some were Iroquois, and others were just yarns he made up that got wilder with each retelling. All in all, I had a good childhood. I didn’t even realize we were poor. But then, poor is a relative thing. I had anything I really needed. I never went cold or hungry.” Jenny looked down at him. He had finally opened the firmly closed door to his past for her, if only just a crack. It was bittersweet, coming as it did after her forced capitulation to her father. But she pigeonholed that thought for a while. She had a few days before she had to say goodbye to everything she had come to love since she came to Elk Gap. The future felt like a coming storm.
“Children do fine with basic needs and someone who loves them.”
“I was lucky. I had my grandparents.”
“Was it difficult for you to go to school in Elk Gap, then?”
“Oh, I’ll say it was!” he said with a dry laugh. “I left the mission school as soon as my English was good enough to function, but for a long time I had quite an accent. It was part French and part Iroquois. There is no R sound in Iroquois, and the French one didn’t help me at all. It was at least a year before I quit saying ‘wabbit’ and meanwhile I got in enough fights that the boys finally quit teasing me about it. Then to make it worse, when I got to the Conners’ house I’d never slept in a bed or used tableware. Mavis had quite a time civilizing me.”
“Mavis is quite fond of you, you know.”
“Let’s say Mavis would mother the whole world if she could, and she does have quite a proprietary interest in me. She cleaned me up enough times when I trailed home with a bloody nose. I think I spent half my life with a nosebleed, until I was about fourteen. Someone would call me a derogatory name, and I’d pile into them. And even though I usually came out the winner, I’d have a nosebleed.”
“Oh, Shane!” Jenny laughed softly in spite of herself. “But a lot of boys get nosebleeds easily. They usually outgrow the tendency.”
“I think I just outgrew the tendency to get into fistfights. I haven’t had a nosebleed in years, but I haven’t been in a fight, either. Unless you count a couple of hockey brawls in college, and one really good donnybrook the month after I came back to Elk Gap as a police officer, my life has been pretty quiet. When I was younger I got into some real dillies, though.”
Jenny looked down at him in the gloom. While his face was gaunt and showed his ordeal, Shane was behind the grey eyes again. The ordeal of the last days had refined her feelings, and she knew that she loved Shane nearly past bearing. As she held his hand in the dark hospital room, she thought back over the past months, from the first day he had come into her life.
“Do you remember anything about that Monday of your accident?” she asked at length, changing the subject.
“Some of it,” he replied. “I remember telling you in somewhat uncouth terms that I have Iroquois blood and I don’t know if my parents were ever formally married, but the rest of it, not really.”
“Well, some of it’s best not recalled.”
“But where did the accident happen? There at the train station?”
“Yes. The horses pitched a ring-tailed hissy fit at Mr. Beaufort’s touring car, and Midnight reared up and struck you in the head. You had a big blood clot on your brain. Father removed it and saved your life, but it took you two days to wake up. I still don’t know where you found the strength. You nearly died.”
“Jenny, I had no idea. I’m sorry for what I put you through.”
“What else is a doctor for?” Even in the darkness she could see the embarrassment on his face.
“Certainly not that. Not you, anyway. Where’s Midnight, then?”
“Mr. Beaufort has him. Midnight and Brandy both took off, and his chauffeur spent the better part of the afternoon rounding them up. He’s in the Beauforts’ stable until you can come after him. Rest assured he’s receiving royal treatment.”
“He is. Adrian Beaufort is good to his animals. In fact, he’s as much of a soft heart when it comes to old pensioners as Richard is. He has teams as old as The Girls.” Shane squinted, repressing a yawn.
“Are you sleepy? We’ve been talking a long time.”
“I don’t want to sleep. I’d rather be with you,” he protested.
“It’s time for medication. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“You’ll be here?”
“I will be,” she said quietly, biting her tongue for the half-truth. Tomorrow, yes, but what about next week or the week after that? When would the sword fall? When her father decided it was time to return to New York, she wou
ld have no choice but to break Shane’s heart. It was that or let an entire hospital and all its patients founder.
The nurse had left pain medication measured out on the table next to his bed. Jenny held out the pills and a glass of water. Obediently he swallowed them; she steadied the glass while he drank.
“Thank you,” he breathed, letting her ease his head back to the pillows.
“You’re welcome, Shane.”
“I like it when you say my name,” he murmured, his voice purposely low.
“Go to sleep. I can tell you’re tired,” she replied, stroking his ragged hair where it slopped over the gauze around his forehead.
“I really am tired now,” he acquiesced, closing his eyes. Another night seemingly a century ago flashed through her mind. She had covered him with extra blankets against the cold in the North Village schoolhouse, and she had dared to stroke his hair then. It was a bittersweet interlude now, after what had happened over the last week, but she bent over him, touching her lips between his eyebrows, then kissing him full on the mouth.
“Good night. Not another word, or I’ll leave. Understand?”
With a contented smile he nodded, closing his eyes.
She watched him for a long time, her vision misted by tears she would not let herself shed. Oh, Shane, the rug has long ago been pulled out from beneath us both, she thought. You just don’t know it yet. I only wish one thing. If you’d ever declared yourself to me, if I’d known I could really depend on you, I’d have told Father to go chase himself. You have your reasons. I know that your mixed blood may be part of it. But it may be that deep down you just don’t love me enough to want to be with me for the rest of our lives. If only I knew how you truly feel. If only you had told me. If only…
Chapter Eighteen
Youth and strength stood Shane in good stead. He improved visibly every day, until within a week he could sit up in bed without dizziness or undue pain. He seemed in great spirits, but every hour that passed was one more bite out of Jenny. Then the thread that held her life together parted when her father announced he had train tickets for two days hence. It set Angus to muttering fresh curses, and the news brought Richard skittering to River Bend, up in arms. On the last day, with the minutes tearing out bits of her soul, she buried herself in Shane’s room, trying not to act gloomy. He had been entertaining her with anecdotes of his early life. She told herself grimly that these vignettes would have to warm her heart for the immediate future, until she could find a way out of her situation and come back to Canada. She also tried to memorize his face. Finally he realized something was quite wrong.
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