Bone River (8 page)

But I could not forget him now, nor my part in why he was here. I felt him as a punishment I deserved when he said in a tight, quiet voice, “All right. Why not?”

And I could not help hearing Lord Tom’s words.
Bad luck.

Daniel was hard-edged, cautious, and in this he was a mirror of his father. They barely spoke to each other as we went into the house, but Daniel wasn’t speaking to me either; I saw the way he looked at me, and I knew that he had named me a villain too. I could not disagree with him.

He paused just inside the door, glancing about, calculating in a way that made me think Junius was right about him. I saw him take in the frayed settees and the organ in the corner that only Junius played, the pile of Indian baskets, the crowded whatnot full of carved argillite figures, masks, rattles, and coiled strings of hiaqua.

“These are all Indian relics?” he asked.

Junius nodded.

“So you really are a collector.”

“I told you we were ethnologists,” I said.

Daniel put aside the bag he carried and picked up a bowl, turning it in his hands. “Do you make much of a living being an ethnologist?”

“It’s not the money that matters, but knowledge,” I said.

“So they’re not worth anything?”

“To the right person they are.”

“Museums, you mean?”

I nodded. “And other collectors. But most of what’s here I keep just because I like it.”

Daniel set the bowl down again and looked at Junius. “Of all the jobs Mama told me you had—and lost—I don’t recall collecting being one of them.”

“Things change.” Junius crossed the room to the kitchen, grabbing a cup, pouring coffee.

Daniel threw a quick glance at me. “Yes they do.”

Quickly, I said, “Your father was an ethnologist before we met.”

“Was he?” He didn’t bother to hide his skepticism.

“He’s one of the best,” I said defensively.

Daniel said, “Really? Is he famous?”

Junius glanced up quickly. “I will be. As soon as they see that mummy.”

No mention of me, of course, but he was only trying to impress his son, who seemed impervious to being impressed.

The tension in the room was unbearable; I could not imagine living with it for long. But neither did I know exactly how to ease it. Uncomfortably, I said to Daniel, “I’ll show you to your room.”

I led him to the stairs, nervous, and he followed me slowly, looking at everything, and I was suddenly aware of my poor housekeeping, by the relics covered with dust and the dirty stairs, because lately, I’d had little time to keep things neat—not that it was something I had ever thought much about in any event. No other visitor had ever inspired in me this self-consciousness.

We reached the top of the stairs. “There’s our room,” I said, gesturing to it, “and the storage room. Yours is at the end of the hall.” I led him to my father’s old room, standing back for him to go inside, which he did, and I felt him there as an invasion.
He
is your stepson, Leonie
, I reminded myself, trying to ignore how uncomfortable he made me.

He stood in the middle of the small room, looking around at the narrow bed, the shelf of journals, the dresser littered with relics and the window that looked out on Shoalwater Bay.

“I hope this will do,” I said.

He nodded. “It’s fine.”

“I—I’ll leave you then. I’m going to make supper. Come down when you like.”

I stepped away and hurried down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, Junius stood there, nursing his coffee. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Junius said, “Regrets already?”

“Not at all.”

“Liar.” He put his coffee down and reached for me, pulling me close, nuzzling his face in my hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him, sweetheart. I just—”

I pushed away.

“Lea, I stopped thinking about him a long time ago. I think I almost...forgot about him.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“It was a life that didn’t feel like mine anymore.”

“And no doubt it was easier to almost forget.”

He smiled slightly and reached for me again. “Maybe. I didn’t want the past to spoil things. I thought he’d be better off without me. I think he was.”

I felt how convenient that was, another way to make things easy, to justify his abandonment, but I said nothing. I felt sick and angry as I swatted his hand away and went to the stove. “Well, he’s here now. You’ll take him to the whacks with you tomorrow?”

Junius gave me a grim look. “If you insist. But don’t expect me to make it back alive.”

I didn’t laugh, and Junius didn’t smile.

T
HE QUERQUELIN GURGLED
and rushed beside me. I knew this landscape, but the colors were all wrong, muted and off, as if I walked in a yellow mist, and I knew what was wrong was my fault, and that I had to fix it but I felt half-blind, as if the strange colors were affecting me, too, and I knew I had to find it before I couldn’t see at all. I must find it. I must...and as my panic grew I became aware of the cries of the gulls, louder and louder, so loud they were all I could hear, and then the birds were swirling around me, a cloud of them, a maelstrom, dipping so close I felt the brush of their wings and saw their angry yellow eyes, their open, wicked beaks. I ran, trying to escape them, flailing at them, panicked and terrified, and then I tripped, falling hard to the ground, covering my head to save myself from the birds.

And then it was silent. A silence so loud and huge it was more terrifying than the furious cries of the gulls. I felt something beneath my hand, something smooth and fine, saffron-colored cloth. There she was. The answer I’d been searching for, the thing that would put everything right. She was sleeping, one arm crooked beneath a softly rounded cheek, but as I looked at her she opened her eyes, staring right at me, and her gaze was dark and fathomless and
terrifying. I scrambled away, screaming, though no sound came out. I’d done it wrong. I’d done it wrong and I could not take it back or get away as she began to wither, her body lifting and twisting as if in the hand of some invisible giant, shriveling, and I knew that if I didn’t run I would be next. I would be next and yet I couldn’t move or run or scream or—

I started awake, my heart racing. It took a moment for me to realize where I was—in my room, with Junius beside me, and dawn lightening the curtains. Gradually, my heartbeat slowed, but the horror of the dream didn’t ease. I felt her watching me; I saw that dark, terrifyingly fathomless eye.

She was tired of waiting.

I slipped from bed, trying not to wake Junius. He stirred, turned over, fell back to sleep, and I dressed quickly. I left my hair in its thick braid trailing down my back. I crept from our bedroom, into the hallway, down the stairs. I took up my notebook from the table along with a pencil, and grabbed the key to the trunk from the basket by the door. I put on my coat, hat, and gloves, and went out into the damp, cool morning. The horizon was a pale light, a fog hovering over the bay, the soft brush of a yellowish mist. I felt the fear and panic from my dream, and I could not keep from glancing over my shoulder as I hurried from the porch to the barn.

I felt a rush of impatience when I saw Edna there, waiting to be milked, something I could not ignore though I wanted to. The dream gathered, anxious, waiting, as I finished the chore and loosed the cow to graze. I felt that horror still; I was half-afraid and urgent as I unlocked the trunk and lifted the lid. At last. At last I was with her.

And then the dream left me, just that quickly. At the sight of her I could no longer remember why I’d been impatient, or the fear that had dogged my every thought since I’d awakened. Slowly, I lifted her from the trunk, laying her on the makeshift table. I forgot everything but my need to discover the truth of her,
that same feeling I’d had in the dream, that she was the answer, that if I could find her in time I could save myself.

The thought surprised me. I could only stare at her, motionless, disconcerted. For weeks I’d wanted nothing more than to be right here, but now that I was, I felt at a sudden loss. I was so ill equipped for this. I wasn’t certain what to do, how to go about it. I tried to think of Papa, of the rigorous course of study he’d crammed into my head. I would have to draw her, of course, but before that...Skull measurements, I remembered. Morton’s
Crania Americana,
the measurement of brain capacity. But no...this was no skull to fill with lead shot, and now it was all about craniometry anyway. Agassiz’s eight types, a cephalic index...The words leaped around in my head, confusing. I could not remember the categories, or even how to measure, so instead I satisfied myself by looking, noting my every observation in the notebook: where the skin was cracked or tearing, the number of teeth and their locations, discolorations. Drawing and observing was something I
could
do. I was so completely caught up in it that when I heard the movement at the doorway I jumped, nearly dropping the notebook.

It was Junius. “Here you are. When did you come out here?”

I realized how light the day was beyond him. “Near dawn.”

“Didn’t you hear Leach shouting? Schooner’s coming in. Get your gear. We’ve got to get going.”

The schooner from San Francisco was in Bruceport to buy oysters. There hadn’t been one in weeks, and we’d all been waiting. It needed all of us to load the sloop and get there in time—first come, first served, and a late arrival meant perhaps not selling at all. The day I’d planned with the mummy would not happen after all.

Disappointment overwhelmed me, along with the sharp memory of her unflinching, terrifying gaze, demanding my presence, my study. I couldn’t go. She wanted me here. But no, that was ridiculous. She couldn’t
want
anything, and I couldn’t stay. Junius and Lord Tom needed me.

I said to Junius, “I’ll be there in a moment,” and he went out again, and I turned back to the mummy, thinking I’d take just one more moment. One more look here, at the scraped elbow, and then her clasped hand—

“Leonie, what the hell are you doing?”

I whirled around.

Junius again, furious now. “We’re waiting for you. What the hell’s taking you so long?”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Get your gear.” He was thin-lipped as he stalked over to me. I stood there like a stone. He jerked his head at me. “Go on. I’ll put it away. You’re costing us time. Hurry up. Lord Tom and the boy are at the sloop.”

The boy.
It took me a moment to remember who that was. Daniel. Junius’s son. I’d forgotten all about him. I felt caught in a haze, caught in her orbit and my dream, and nothing felt real but the barn. It wasn’t until I walked out that the feeling cleared, that I remembered myself. The oysters. The schooner. We were already late. There was no time to do more than grab my oystering boots and my hat and the heavier leather gloves and then race out to where Lord Tom and Daniel were waiting by the plunger.

Lord Tom frowned. Daniel did little more than nod a good morning. He huddled, his hands in his coat pockets and his hat pulled down hard, his face more finely sculpted now in the harshness of the morning light, or perhaps only because he was cold.

Lord Tom turned to the plunger, and I realized that Junius was already behind me, having rushed from the barn. “Let’s go,” he said, and within only a few moments, the four of us were on our way.

Bruceport was maybe three miles away by land, but no one went anywhere by land, because the way was all hilled forest and salt marsh and tidal sloughs that were full of water when the tide was in, and thick viscous mud when it was out. Impossible to cross, and Daniel had been lucky—it wasn’t uncommon for
those who tried to get stuck and sometimes drown when the tide came in. This morning the bay was gray and touched bright here and there with reflections from the ever-changing shadows of the sky. The sloop was crowded with the four of us. We’d be sitting on top of each other once the oysters were aboard, but the more hands there were the more quickly we could load, and I knew by the set to Junius’s face that I had cost us; we needed those extra minutes.

Junius sat aft to manage the rudder and the mainsail and the jib, and Lord Tom sat to his right. Which meant there was only one seat left, for Daniel and me to share. He leaned away as far from me as he could, his face tight with distaste. Whatever charm I’d seen in him was nowhere in evidence.

I tried to ignore it, to make myself smile despite my rapidly growing distrust. He was my stepson, and I owed him. “Do you know how to sail?”

He didn’t look at me, but pulled his collar up further over his chin. “No.”

“Junius, you should teach him.”

My husband stared at the sail. “What for, Lea? I doubt he’ll have much use of it in San Francisco.”

“You never know. It’s a useful enough skill,” I insisted. “What do you think, Daniel?”

Daniel said, “I think it would be a waste of time for everyone.”

I went quiet then. There was no point, especially if neither was going to try.

Gulls swooped and cawed, and I shuddered, remembering my dream, and felt Daniel’s quick glance, which I ignored. I put the dream behind me—for now, I had to think about oysters, not mummies or finding answers or the strange and unwelcome sense that there was something wrong that I must fix, and she was the key to that. None of it made sense. It wasn’t rational; it wasn’t real.