This Side of Heaven

by Karen Robards

  With the snow clouding her vision she did not see the hollow in the rock until he pulled her into it. Not a true cave, no more than ten feet deep and perhaps eight feet wide, it looked as if a giant had taken a bite out of the cliff and then set it back down. Matt stepped inside it and pulled her in after him. The sudden discontinuance of stinging snow hitting her face and wind whistling in her ears was a blessed relief.

  “We’ll have to stay here until it stops.” Matt was no longer shouting as he tested the depth of the leaves on the ground. Caroline, shivering in her blanket, turned to look at him. Snow glistened on the brim of his hat and beaded the dark fur of his coat. His eyes were very blue in the shadowy darkness of the cave.

  “We’ll freeze,” she protested, but he shook his head.

  “You stay in here out of the wind, and I’ll get what we need,” he told her and then strode back out into the curtain of whirling white. Clearly he meant to gather what they needed to set up camp, and he could use her help. Not that he would appreciate it, of course, but at the moment she doubted that he would take the time necessary to hog-tie her, which was what he would have to do to prevent her from doing her share. Setting her jaw in anticipation of his reaction to her disobedience, she nevertheless pulled the blanket closer and followed him out into the storm.

  Though the horse, with Matt beside it, was less than a dozen feet away, it was hard to make out more than a dark blur. Matt, she thought, was not even aware of her approach until she reached his side. The look he gave her was narrow-eyed, but he did not waste his breath with words that the wind would prevent her hearing. Instead he quickly filled her arms with bundles stripped from the horse and turned her back to deposit them in the cave. He came behind her, bearing jugs and bags and the horse’s tack. The bulk of this he dropped in an untidy pile just inside the entrance, though the jugs received more careful treatment. He straightened, his frost-rimmed brows meeting over the bridge of his nose as he scowled at Caroline.

  “I told you to stay in here out of the wind, and I meant it,” he said sharply. “I’m dressed for the weather, where you’re not, and I’ll get what’s needed done a lot quicker if I’m not worrying about you. If you want something to do, go through our supplies to see what we’ve got. In an hour or less, we’ll be stuck here for the duration, so I’ve no time to argue.”

  With that he turned and went back out into the crystalline whirlwind. Caroline watched him go, then turned back to do as he’d told her. His words made sense. She was scantily dressed for such numbing weather, and despite its warmth the blanket was in danger of growing damp from melting snow. Sliding it from her shoulders, Caroline shook it out, then rewrapped herself. She began inventorying and arranging their supplies.

  An hour later the opening to the hollow was blocked with branches of scrub pine, dragged there by Matt and set in place against the outcropping of rock that formed their roof. A goodly supply of fallen branches for firewood was piled just inside this makeshift wall. An opening perhaps two feet wide had been left on its right side for the fire that would provide them with necessary warmth.

  Matt knelt there, carefully arranging limbs, scrub, and tinder. When he opened his musket to sprinkle gunpowder over the whole, then disassembled the snaphance to procure a makeshift but functional flint and steel, Caroline could bear it no longer. He was deathly afraid of fire, as she well knew, though of course he was happily ignorant of her knowledge. She had been watching him covertly for some time, noting the increasing grimness of the set of his jaw, the determination in his eyes. But she thought that his fingers as he got ready to click the cumbersome fire starter together were not quite steady, and she could not even for the sake of his male pride keep her tongue between her teeth.

  “I’ll do that, if you please,” she said briskly, moving toward him. Her words emerged as white puffs of smoke in the frosty air. Even in their newly cozy shelter, the heat of the fire was sorely needed.

  Matt looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. But she noted that he stopped what he was doing, grateful, she suspected, for the slightest excuse for delay.

  “Do what?”

  “Start the fire. You may go out and see to the poor horse, if you want something to do.”

  “I loosed it. He’ll fare better than we would, and probably even find his way home. But why should you wish to start the fire?”

  “Starting fires is something at which I have a particular skill. ’Tis not fair that you’re the only one who gets to show competence.” She held out her hands for the flint and steel as she spoke.

  But instead of meekly passing them to her, as Caroline thought he might now that he had a graceful way out of an abhorrent task, he stood up, stretching to his full height, which with his hat on was just an inch or so short of the roof, and eyed her narrowly.

  “So you know about that, do you?” he said, clearly finding the notion displeasing. “Mary has been talking out of turn again, I suppose. If ever a man was loose-tongued, it must be James Mathieson!”

  From the tight-lipped way Matt lingered over his brother’s name, Caroline suspected that, were the maligned James present, he’d be in for a good trimming, if nothing worse.

  “Now there you’re wrong,” she said, and while he was distracted she removed the snaphance from his hands and dropped to her knees to start the fire. Clicking flint and steel together, she made only a few tries before sparks fell on the tinder. Then, helped by a quick infusion of air as she leaned close and puffed, the tinder and surrounding scrub burst into flame.

  As the fire crackled with growing strength, Caroline set the snaphance carefully by the cock wall and got to her feet. Matt had retreated to a distance of perhaps a yard. His cheeks were flushed, though the color could as easily have been from the cold as from embarrassment, and his eyes were wary.

  Least said, soonest mended, Caroline thought, as warmth began to creep into their little haven. She eyed the assembled foodstuffs with interest.

  “Was it Daniel?” Matt asked. The hat cast a handy shadow over his face that kept her from reading too much in his expression.

  “No.” Knowing that he would hate it if he were to discover in what precise fashion she had come by her knowledge, Caroline was not more forthcoming. Instead she bent to pick up some strips of dried meat that had been among the foodstuffs the Corchaugs had pressed on them. Her mouth started to water as the smoked aroma reached her nostrils. Next on the order of necessities was supper, she decided.

  “Is this rabbit, do you suppose, or venison?” she turned to ask Matt, holding up the meat strips.

  He looked both thoughtful and grim, but his eyes flickered with a glint of what she thought might be amusement at her question.

  “Probably dog.”

  “Dog!” Horrified, Caroline dropped the meat as if it had burned her. Although she would never be one of Raleigh’s unqualified champions, the thought of eating him or his canine brethren was abhorrent to her.

  “The Indians consider it a delicacy.” Matt retrieved the meat strips and set them carefully back with the other provisions. “Don’t be too quick to turn up your nose at it. We may be glad of it before we reach home again.”

  “And when do you think that will be?” Caroline turned back to scoop up a fat smoked sausage, which Matt had brought with him from home. With the Indians’ bread and what was left of the apples, it would make a substantial meal.

  “When the snow stops.”

  She started to move nearer the fire, meaning to settle into the circle of its warmth while she sliced bread and meat for eating. Matt reached out to curl a hand around her arm through her blanket.

  Caroline looked up at him inquiringly. Her head did not reach his chin, though she was tall for a woman, and the hand that held her arm was large and strong enough to break her in half had he a mind to do it. But his grip was gentle enough. Only his eyes were hard and, she thought, defensive, as he stared at her from beneath the sheltering brim of his hat.

  “Are you going to tell me how y
ou discovered that I have an—aversion—to fire, or are you going to let me guess the night away?” There was irony in his voice as well as a grittiness that she thought might serve to cover shame.

  Caroline looked up at him, hesitated, and sighed. “Let me do this—’twill only take a minute, and I am too famished to wait much longer—and I’ll tell you all about it. Though I warn you that you’re probably not going to like what you hear.”

  “There’s little doubt of that,” Matt muttered. As she quickly cut up the food he kicked the leaves into a pile against the right wall of their shelter—not too near the fire, Caroline noted as she watched with half an eye—and spread the horse’s blanket over it. Then he picked up one of the stone jugs and set it close to the fire.

  “To warm,” he said as he caught her eye upon him.

  “Rum?” she asked, cocking her head at him. Her disapproving tone made him smile.

  “Aye.”

  “I didn’t think Puritans drank rum.”

  “Puritans have many vices, my poppet, that I pray you continue to remain unaware of.”

  Caroline passed him his food and stood up, and they both retired to the makeshift seat he had fashioned. With their backs settled against the wall, they ate for a bit, and then Matt leaned his shoulder into the rock and looked at her.

  “So?” he asked.

  Caroline finished the last of her bread and sausage and picked up an apple. Taking a healthy bite, she chewed and swallowed before she answered.

  “While you were out of your head with fever after the tree fell on you, you had a—bad dream,” she said reluctantly. “From it I gathered that you were afraid of fire.”

  She would have left it there, but he would not let it rest.

  “A bad dream?” he prodded. “What did I do, spell out chapter and verse for you in my sleep?”

  Caroline started to take another bite of her apple, but he reached over and removed the fruit from her hand. She looked at it with a degree of longing, but a glance at Matt’s face drove the thought of further sustenance from her head. His eyes were shuttered, his face closed, as if he would seal himself off from her. Caroline was reminded of him as he had been when they had first met, all flinty and aloof, and she could not bear to have him retreat from her again.

  “Daniel told me of how Elizabeth set fire to the barn, and how you were burned rescuing her,” she said clearly, her eyes fixed on his face so that she saw him flinch as if from a blow. “He did so because I had caused the fire to be built up in your bedroom, and when you awoke and saw it you panicked and began to scream.”

  At that Matt’s eyes flashed to her, their color so opaque a blue as to look like midnight velvet. His jaw tightened, and the dark color that rose to stain his cheekbones was, she was sure, caused by shame at her knowledge of what he saw as his weakness.

  “And so you have pitied me, and thought to shield me tonight by offering to build the fire.” There was a harshness to his voice that made Caroline want to cringe at the hurt it strove to hide. She turned more fully to face him, her legs curling beneath her under the all-concealing blanket, her eyes earnest as they met his.

  “I have not pitied you, Matt,” she said. “I have understood.”

  When she freed a hand from the blanket and lifted it, meaning from sheer instinct to touch the scar on his face, he pulled back from her, then got abruptly to his feet.

  “I don’t want your ‘understanding,’ ” he said tightly, his lips so compressed that tiny circles of white stood out at the corners of his mouth.

  “Matt …” she began, starting to rise herself, but he was already walking away from her. “Where are you going?” she called after him when it became clear that he would leave their shelter. Her tone was high-pitched with concern.

  “To take a walk.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, saw that she was getting to her feet. “Don’t worry, Caroline, I’ll be back.”

  With that he moved aside some branches and stepped out into the snow.

  38

  He was not gone long, although to Caroline, standing in the center of their shelter waiting alone, it seemed a great while indeed. When he returned, stamping snow from his feet and removing his hat to shake the feathery flakes from it, she felt a wave of relief. Of course she knew that Matt wasn’t in the least self-destructive by nature, that he was a tough, mature man able to weather the vicissitudes of life with fortitude, but still she had worried because she knew better than most how painful were scars.

  “How is it outside?” she asked as she helped him brush the melting crystals from his coat, because she did not want to say anything that was too emotionally charged.

  “Bad. A blizzard, the first of the year,” he answered, replacing the branches to block out the soft howling of the wind and the quiet rustle of heavily falling snow. From his tone, and his expression as he turned back to her, she knew she had done the right thing in keeping her remark impersonal. The shuttered look was back, and she sensed that he had closed himself off from her deliberately.

  “You mean there will be more of this?” she asked, aghast. Somehow the snowstorm had seemed like a freak happening, falling as it did when calamity after calamity was heaping on her head.

  “ ’Tis a mite early for such a heavy fall, but snow is the customary condition in Connecticut Colony from October to February.”

  “So what do we do all winter?” Such extremes of weather were foreign to Caroline’s experience, and the idea of them appalled her.

  “Stay inside out of the snow when it can be done, and work through it when it can’t,” he answered with a shrug.

  At the thought of enduring months of being housebound, penned in as surely as a beaver in a trap by days upon days of snow, Caroline’s opinion of the New World, never exalted, sank to a new low.

  “You’re cold,” he said as he saw that she shivered. Despite the fire, the air inside the hollow was chilly enough so that her nose had reddened with it.

  “Not overmuch,” she responded, but even as she denied it her teeth began to chatter. Clenching her jaw, she controlled the betraying sound, but it was too late. Cursing himself for a blind fool, Matt made her lie down on the horse blanket and removed his coat to place it over her.

  “But you’ll freeze,” Caroline protested, starting to sit up.

  “Lie down.” He knelt beside her and pushed her back. “Had I thought, I would have given it to you earlier. Believe me, I’m well able to withstand this degree of cold.”

  He was wearing shirt, breeches, and wool jerkin beneath the coat. Caroline saw that he would not argue with her over the matter, so she subsided meekly enough. Indeed, the heavy fur did bring with it a welcome degree of warmth. But that, she thought, lingered from his body and did not come from the fur at all.

  When he had finished settling her, she had a saddlebag for a pillow and the animal skins he had brought as barter for her safety spread out on top of the coat. He would have doffed his jerkin as well, to put over her. But at that Caroline sat up, dislodging all his careful coverings, and told him vehemently that if he did so she would refuse so much as the blanket the Indians gave her and would sit out in the cold until she froze solid.

  So he left the jerkin on, and indeed he did not seem to feel the cold as he moved about the shelter. Caroline, lying on her side, watched him quietly, feeling curiously content. Despite the fact that they were far from home, stranded in a makeshift shelter in the midst of a raging blizzard, the hollow with its curtain of branches and the fire burning brightly at its entrance seemed a cocoon of safety.

  She must have dozed, because presently her eyes opened again and she discovered Matt slumped against the wall not far from where she lay. His eyes were fixed broodingly on the opposite wall. One knee was drawn up almost to his chest while his lame leg stretched out stiffly before him. His arms rested on his bent knee. By his side was the jug, and as she watched he reached down, hefted it by its handle, and took a long swallow.

  “Are you not coming to be
d?”

  Her question, voiced without warning out of the stillness of the firelit darkness, startled him into choking on his rum. Recovering, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and turned to look at her.

  “No.”

  “You mean to sit there all night.” Mild sarcasm laced the words. It had grown colder inside the shelter, though warm as she was beneath the heaped coverings, she had not at first realized it. But her words were punctuated by little puffs of frost, and she guessed that, rum or not, he had to be feeling the cold.

  “Aye.”

  “And why, pray?” His monosyllabic responses irritated her into sitting up and glaring at him. His eyes swept her, noting no doubt her disheveled hair that had escaped its pins entirely and cascaded over her shoulders and the hodgepodge of coverings in a blue-black tumble of silk, the sleep-flushed state of her face, and the wide somnolence of her eyes.

  “Why not?” he answered obliquely as he took another swig of rum.

  “Are you jug-bitten or just foolish?” Caroline came out of the coverings entirely, ire warming her as she marched over to him and stood, arms akimbo, scowling down at him.

  “I’m not drunk. Go back to bed—you’ll freeze,” he muttered, his eyes running up her body from her slender legs, bare to the knee save for her shoes and thin stockings, to the swell of her hips, her waist, the curve of her breasts, all encased in gray homespun, then to the pale beauty of her neck and face framed by the inky spill of her hair. His eyes flickered. He averted his gaze and took another swallow from the jug.