Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] (38 page)

“Even Maude?”

“
Especially
Maude,” he said, drawing her against his
chest.

She burrowed closer against him, releasing a thin little
sigh. “I heard about Clyde Bishop,” she said. “Big John said that man you
suspected was no here.”

“Greenwood,” Adrian said. “No, he’s gone. Disappeared.”

“You think he’s dead?”

Adrian snorted. “I doubt it. Off on a holiday spending his
newly acquired wealth from Pope and Talbot is more like it.”

“I’m sorry about poor Clyde. He was a kind man. He didna
deserve what happened to him.”

“No, he didn’t,” Adrian said, his eyes going over her. He
started to say something, but at that moment Eli burst through the door. Before
he could say anything, the fire bells began to clang.

“Fire!” Eli shouted. “There’s a fire in the sawdust pile behind
the mill. The wind is picking up. It looks like the fire could spread to the
mill or the blacksmith’s shop.”

Both Adrian and Maggie ran outside. Already the sky was
filled with thick, choking clouds of smoke. Adrian took off running in the
direction of the men who were forming bucket lines, desperately trying to douse
the campsite with water, before the wind-whipped flames that were already
roaring like a hungry beast could ravage the tiny camp. Leaping from tree to
tree, the flames gobbled the dry grass, racing along the gentle slopes toward
the scattering of small wooden buildings, and the larger one that housed the
mill saws.

Wind-whipped herself, Maggie began to search for the
children as her eyes began to tear. Already the smoke obscured the tops of the
trees in the background, blocking out the sun and turning the sky to a dull,
dark gray. All about her, she could hear the popping and crackling of burning
brush and trees, then one of the small wooden buildings burst like an exploding
teakettle, hurling flaming darts of burning wood into the air.

Maggie saw the children with Tom Radford, and shielding her
eyes, she ran across the camp to where they stood. “You’d best be getting
yourself and the children out of here, ma’am,” Tom said. “The way this wind is
fanning the fire, there may not be much left of the camp.”

Maggie watched Tom limp off, then she turned, herding the
children in front of her as she searched for the buggy, seeing the last of it
as it disappeared down the road that led to the house.

“The horse ran off,” Fletcher said. “How will we get home?”

“We’ll walk,” Maggie said, suddenly feeling herself whipped
around and yanked up against Adrian.

“Come with me,” he shouted, grabbing her and taking Ainsley
by the hand. “Hurry! We haven’t much time.”

“Where are you taking us?”

Clouds of smoke billowed around them. Somewhere nearby a
loud crack erupted like rifle fire. Another shower of sparks. Maggie beat at a
glowing cinder that stuck to her skirts.

“I’m taking you to the ship.”

Maggie jerked to a stop. “Please,” she said. “Adrian, please
dinna do this.”

“It isn’t what you think, Maggie. I’m not sending you away.”
He put his arms around her. “Don’t you understand I could never send you away?
You’re part of me, but the ship is the only safe place to send you. You can be
away from here before this place becomes a death trap.”

Maggie pulled up sharp. “You can’t send us away now,” she
shouted, trying to be heard over the loud roar. “Look!” she screamed. “Look
around you! If you send us away, they won’t stay,” she said, watching Adrian as
he began to look around him at the men, who already had begun to slow down,
many of them just standing there with pails in their hands, looked at Adrian,
waiting, watching, to see what he would do.

“If you put us on that ship, they won’t stay. You need them,
Adrian. And you need us. You’ll never stop this fire if they go.”

Adrian’s eyes swept over her, and for a moment she thought
he was angry with her. “I’ll be back,” he said, giving her a quick kiss. “Wait
for me over by the docks. If the fire gets worse, put yourself and the children
in that rowboat and get the hell away from land. Do you understand?”

“Aye,” Maggie said, then she watched him run across the camp
toward the area where the fire seemed the worst. The wind whipped the flames
out of control now, and it was dangerously close to the sawmill and the
blacksmith shop nearby.

Soot-streaked and soaked with water and sweat, Adrian
shouted at Maggie to get the children back. “Come on,” she said to Fletcher as
she took Barrie’s hand. She reached for Ainsley, only Ainsley was not there.
Looking up, Maggie saw Ainsley’s bright head, her curls bouncing as she ran
toward the blacksmith’s.

Maggie screamed and took off running. Hearing her, Adrian
looked up, seeing Maggie running toward the blacksmith’s. A moment later, he
saw why.

He dropped the bucket in his hands, running toward Ainsley,
reaching her just before she reached the blacksmith’s. Scooping her into his
arms, he headed toward Maggie, putting her squirming, kicking body down,
telling Maggie to get her and the other children out of there.

Taking Ainsley and Barrie by the hand, Maggie turned away,
freezing in place when she heard a piercing cry.

“Heather!” Ainsley screamed. “Heather is in there. Dinna let
Heather die.”

Dropping down in front of Ainsley, Maggie started to cry.
“What did you say?”

“Heather,” Ainsley sobbed, pointing to the smithy’s.

Adrian looked at Maggie, then at Ainsley, before his eyes
went back to the sawmill. There weren’t enough men to douse both the sawmill
and the smithy, and he had already given the order to save the mill.

His heart felt as if it were being torn from his chest. He
saw Maggie looking at Ainsley, and the way Ainsley, her face streaked with
tears and soot, looked at him in a way that said she did not understand.
“Heather,” she sobbed softly. “Heather.”

“Eli!” Adrian shouted. “Get the men over to the
blacksmith’s, and hurry!”

“The blacksmith’s?” Eli questioned with a surprised look.

“Yes, and hurry.”

“Do you realize what you’re saying, man?” Big John said,
running up to Adrian, his large frame heaving from exertion. “You pull the men
off the sawmill now and you lose it. Think, man. You can’t save both the smithy
and the mill. You have to choose between them.”

Adrian’s eyes flicked to Maggie. “I already have,” he said.
“Let the mill burn,” he shouted, running toward the blacksmith’s. “Save the
smithy’s.”

Fortunately, the building was small and the wood dry, making
it easy to douse with water. When the flames were somewhat under control, Adrian
grabbed a tarp, and dousing it in a water barrel, he wrapped it around himself
just before running into the building. Coughing from the thick smoke, he
searched the row of stalls, finding the burro. Sticking a burlap sack over her
head, Adrian led her from the stall and outside.

Ainsley ran to them, throwing her arms around Heather’s
neck. For a moment he stood there, watching her hug the small, singed burro who
picked the most god-awful times to bray.

“
Eeeeee-haaaawwwww… Eeeeeee-haaaawwwww.
”

“She’s happy,” Barrie said.

“No, she wants me to thank you,” Ainsley said.

Adrian swallowed hard. He didn’t know what to say, how to
talk to Ainsley. He glanced helplessly at Maggie.

“Why?” Maggie asked, her eyes going over to the mill, which
was now engulfed in hungry flames. She put her hand upon his arm. “Oh, Adrian,
why…when you might have saved the mill?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, looking at Ainsley, then at Maggie.
“Perhaps it’s because I’m crazy,” he said, and smiled, his voice sounding
hoarse and full of feeling. “Or maybe I realized there are some things that are
more important than money.”

Hours later, when the fire had burned itself out, Adrian
stood with Maggie and the children, looking at the smoking remains of what had
been the California Mill and Lumbering Company. There wasn’t much left now,
save the smithy, the bunkhouse, and part of the office. The medicine hut, the
cookhouse, the mill, and several outlying buildings were all gone.

Big John and Eli came to stand beside Adrian, and like him,
their arms glistened with sweat, streaked black with soot—their faces, too.

“Did you find anything?” Adrian asked Big John.

“Enough,” Big John answered. “We found Greenwood.”

“Just the bastard I want to see,” Adrian said. “Where is
he?”

“Dead.”

“Another happy bit of news,” Adrian said. “We’ll never know
who was behind this now.”

“Oh, we know, all right. Seems Greenwood’s killers were in
such a hurry, they didn’t wait around to make sure he was dead. He didn’t have
much time left, but it was enough to scribble two words on a tree stump with
his own blood.”

“What two words?”

“‘Fire’ and ‘Talbot’.”

“It’s not enough to stand up in court,” Adrian said.

“Why not?” asked Eli. “We’ve got plenty of witnesses who saw
Greenwood and what he wrote on that stump. We’ve got the stump, too.”

“Yes, and all those
witnesses
work for us. Besides,
we don’t have a thing to connect Greenwood to Pope and Talbot.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Big John said, taking
a small black notebook out of his pocket. “Seems Greenwood kept a pretty good
record of his pay from Pope and Talbot.” He opened the book and showed Adrian.
“See? Here it is, neat as you please—date, amount paid, and every blessed one
of them shows he was paid by Pope and Talbot, right up until last week.” He
closed the book. “It’s right here in black and white, and in Greenwood’s own
hand. He was working for them or they wouldn’t have been paying him.”

Big John handed the book to Adrian.

“I’ll put it in the safe in my study,” Adrian said. “At
least there’s one thing around here that’s fireproof.”

Big John looked around. “Seems like your house is about the
only thing you’ve got left,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Adrian said, his eyes on Maggie.

“I don’t understand it,” Eli said, unconscious of the look
that passed between Big John and Adrian. “If you hadn’t pulled the men off the
mill and put them to work saving the smithy’s, we could have headed the fire
off before it reached the mill.” He let his eyes roam around the blackened
remains of their camp. “I know for a fact that if we’d saved the mill, it
wouldn’t have spread to the rest of the camp.” He looked at the three remaining
buildings and shook his head. “Now you’ve lost everything.”

Adrian looked from Eli to Big John, then to Maggie. He
watched her put the children in the wagon, sending them home with Maude, before
crossing the camp yard with Molly, ready to tend to the injured who had
gathered around a small tent hastily erected to serve as a medical facility.
Most of her supplies had been burned in the fire, but her spirits were high,
and her gait as determined as ever.

As she walked, the wind whipped around her skirts, and
something about it reminded him of the first time he had seen her, standing on
the point, and Adrian couldn’t help asking himself:
Was everything lost?

He had Maggie. And he had her children as well. He realized
then that that was enough. He smiled, never taking his eyes off his wife as he
turned toward Eli and Big John. “Was there never anything in your life that was
worth risking everything for?” he asked.

He stood there, amid the charred remains of his lumber mill,
his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his face blackened and streaked with
sweat. Then he did the strangest thing. He threw back his head and laughed.

Adrian spent the rest of the day taking inventory of what
remained of the California Mill and Lumbering Company. In places, the mill
still smoldered, bits of twisted metal sticking out here and there, like the
bones of some prehistoric mammoth.

“What now?” Big John asked.

“We rebuild,” Adrian said. “We’ve got plenty of lumber.”

“You can thank your lucky stars that the new saw we ordered
was delayed. It should be here just about the time we’ve got the mill rebuilt
and are ready to install it,” Big John said. “But it’s still a shame we lost
the building.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Adrian said. “I never was too happy with
the design of that mill.” He threw one arm across Big John’s shoulders, and the
two men walked off.

“Now, let me tell you about my plans for the new one,” Adrian
said. “I thought we’d…”

The two men went into the office and their voices faded
away, but the sound of Big John’s laughter could be heard everywhere. A moment
later, another burst of laughter blended with Big John’s.

The men around camp stopped working, and some of them
scratched their heads and stared. Others were simply wondering what was going
on. But whatever they thought, there was one thing they agreed upon:

How could a man who had just watched a large chunk of his
fortune burn to the ground laugh about it?

After he arrived home, Adrian was impatient for dinner to be
over. Once the meal was finished, he was going to make love to his wife.

To kill a little time, he made his way down to the study,
passing by the salon and continuing on his way, when something drew him up
short. He whirled around and walked back to the salon, his eyes going
immediately to the place above the fireplace, the place where Katherine’s
portrait had been before he had taken it down.

Hanging there, where the space had been bare, was another
portrait, and although it wasn’t as large as the one he had painted of
Katherine, it was infinitely more dear.

He knew immediately it was Maggie’s work, for no one but she
captured the essence of her subject with such simplicity. The painting was of
him and Israel, perfect in form and balance—but what he found that drew his
attention most was the strange emotion he felt, seeing himself through her
eyes.

“It’s my way of saying thank you,” Maggie said, coming up
softly behind him.

He turned to look at her. “It’s remarkable,” he said. “I had
no idea you were doing this.” His eyes softened. “I don’t know what to say. I
can’t remember anyone ever giving me anything before.”

She laughed. “Aye, you can. Ross gave you a wife and three
children, only I ken you werena so grateful for it.”

His arms went around her. “I’m grateful now,” he said.

“Are you?”

“Do you doubt me?”

“You couldna blame me if I did. You fought it long enough.”

“But I’ve learned the way of it in time.” His hold on her
tightened and he drew her against him more firmly, his jaw resting on her head,
sending tingling vibrations through her body as he spoke. “When I think of how
close I came to losing you… If you had gotten on that ship…”

She began to laugh softly. “I wouldna have gotten on that
ship, Adrian Mackinnon. I’m far too stubborn to do that.”

He drew his head back to look at her. “Oh, you wouldn’t
have, would you?”

“No, I wouldna. The only way I would have gone was if you
carried me aboard, and you wouldna have done that,” she said, coming up on her
tiptoes to kiss him.

“And why not?” he asked, his words no more than a croak.

“Because I ken how much you loved me. You just didna know
it.”

“I know it now,” he said, kissing her back.

“Aye,” she said softly, “and I mean to see you dinna forget
it. Ever.”

The sound of shouts and running feet told them Barrie and
Fletcher were at it again.

“I ken our days of lovemaking on the floor all over the
house are finished,” she said with a slow laugh, then kissing him lightly once
more, she turned away, and going to the door, caught Fletcher by the ear, just
as he dashed by.

“Why didna you grab her?” Fletcher wailed, glaring at Barrie
as she skipped down the hall out of sight.

“You were closer,” Maggie said.

Dinner was a long time coming that night, and Adrian decided
to take a walk along the cliffs.

Israel the Faithless was nowhere in sight, so Adrian struck
out alone, following the winding path that led to the point. When he reached
the bluff that overlooked the rolling swells of water that crashed into foam
against the rocks below, he paused and stood for a moment, looking out over the
water. Then, with a sigh of resignation, he took something out of his pocket.
He opened his hand and stared down at the pouch of chewing tobacco, remembering
that Katherine had once told him that a woman for him would come along someday;
a woman who would make him forget all about chewing tobacco.

With a shake of his head, Adrian thought how wise God was to
sometimes give us, not what we want, but what we need. Then he took a step back
and hurled the pouch of tobacco off the bluff, and watched it sail out, out
over the water in a slow-descending arc, before disappearing into the deep blue
water of the Pacific.

Thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, he stared out at the
water for a spell, then turned down the path to finish his walk.

He hadn’t gone very far when he heard something behind him,
and turning, he expected to see Israel. Instead, he saw Ainsley. “This is no
place for you to be,” he said. “It’s dangerous out here. Go on back to the
house.”

The two of them stood, each one looking at the other, a
showdown of sorts.

Stubbornly, Ainsley made no move to leave.

Just as stubbornly, Adrian didn’t either.

“Go back to the house,” he said, and started off, but after
a few minutes, his curiosity got the best of him. He stopped and turned.

Ainsley stopped as well.

Adrian felt his anger rise. No matter how much she looked
like her mother, she had to learn obedience. “I’m not going to tell you again,”
he said. “Go back to the house.”

He started off again.

After a few minutes, the same thing happened. His curiosity
pecked at him until he stopped and looked. Sure as the sun was shining, there
Ainsley was, following him.

She was wearing a blue dress and a dark blue velvet coat, and
her shoes buttoned right up under it so you couldn’t see the tops. But it was
her face that held him. It was such a queer little face, he thought, a face
that was both young and old. He never thought to see such expression on a face
that was so young, for truthfully, it would have seemed too old even for a
child of ten, and Ainsley was much younger. She was an odd little creature, he
thought, with her intense eyes and her watchful, silent ways. She reminded him
of himself when he was a boy.

“I thought I told you to go back,” he said gruffly. “Don’t
you ever mind?” He turned away and started down the path that slowly angled
down to the beach.

“I want to come with you,” a soft little voice behind him
said.

His heart thudding in his chest, Adrian turned slowly. For a
long while he stood there looking at her, the little girl with the small cherub
face, and the huge blue eyes that looked back at him.

An eternity seemed to pass, and then at last he spoke.
“Well, come on, then,” he said brusquely, and turned away, walking briskly down
the path, feeling a moment later the warmth of a small hand slipping inside
his.

Adrian stopped and looked down at Ainsley; then he gave her
hand a squeeze, and the two of them walked on.