Louisa Rawlings (18 page)

“I told you. It goes on that way for miles. That’s why they call it the Opalescent River.”

“But what is it?”

“I always called it the shiny rocks. But Mr. Heyson gave it a funny name when he took some samples yesterday. Lab…lab…labradorite, I think he said.”

Drew chuckled. “Leave it to George Heyson to take the romance out of everything! Is that all you were doing? Looking at rocks?”

She sat up and wrapped her arms around her bent knees. “I told you last week I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You also told me you didn’t want me to kiss you anymore. But I don’t believe it. I think you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Why should I do that?”

He laughed. “Because you’re stubborn. And you can’t let on that you want to change your mind.”

She leaned forward and stared into the river, unwilling to look at him. She’d never felt so miserable in all her life. He’d made it clear often enough. He was too poor to marry. And even if—by some wonderful miracle—he did marry her, he’d hate her soon enough, because it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to paint. He wanted to go to Paris. He didn’t want a wife.

She thought, You’re daft, Marcy Tompkins, for even hoping. Marriage. Marriage, indeed! When any fool could see it was all a game to him—the kisses, and the teasing, and the jokes about helping her to find a husband. And she’d made it worse by telling him her idiotic plan.

He was still playing with the labradorite crystal. “It really does look like an opal. It reminds me of your eyes. Blue, then green. And flashing with every change of color.”

“That’s what my father always said.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Do you live in Long Lake with your father?”

“No.”

“Mother?”

She gulped. Grief had a way of catching a body unawares. “I live with Uncle Jack,” she said softly.

“Your parents?”

“Both…dead. An accident.”

“Marcy. I’m so sorry.”

She felt herself beginning to quiver. She shook her head, fighting off the tears. “It was more than eight months ago. You’d think by now…”

“Marcy.” He reached out and touched her cheek.

She bit her lip. “Sometimes, I feel so frightened,” she whispered. “So alone.” She felt a surge of anger. “Sometimes I
hate
these mountains!”

He smiled tenderly. “I’d like to kiss your tears away.”

She struggled back from the edge of the black abyss of her fears. She sniffled and wiped her sleeve against her cheeks. “Tarnation! I should have known that’s all you think about!”

He grinned. “What else?”

She flopped onto her stomach, her face close to a patch of shining clubmoss. “Look. I always thought they looked like little trees close up.”

He lay down beside her, peering intently at the bright green plants. “So they do.”

“I used to play with them when I was younger. The little pods. Here. If you lift the top of one ever so carefully, you can shake out the seeds.”

“And the little men, who live among the little trees, will think it’s snowing,” he said solemnly.

She giggled and rolled over onto her back. “I never thought of that.”

He leaned over her, his blue eyes warm on her face. On her lips. “Marcy…” He kissed her softly, then deepened his kiss, his chest pressing against her heaving bosom.

No. No. How could she let him kiss her—and the memory of her parents still fresh in her mind? I have to leave the mountains! she thought. I
can’t
think of him. It’s hopeless. She felt as though her brain would explode with the tangled thoughts and longings that crowded in. A great sob rumbled up from her chest. She pushed him roughly from her, feeling overwhelmed by her grief. “Don’t
do
that!” she cried, bursting into tears. “I don’t want you to do that anymore!”

He sat up, bewildered, and searched her face. “No you don’t, do you?” he said at last, frowning. The eyes had become blue ice, cold and distant. He rose to his feet. “My mistake. I seem to have…misread… It won’t happen again. I’ll see you back at camp.” He turned about and moved purposefully toward the path that ran along the river.

Marcy curled herself into a tight ball, sobbing out her unhappy confusion until there were no more tears left.

Chapter Five

“Are you sure you have enough wood for the week, Gramps?” Nat Stanton pushed the wicker wheelchair toward the small cot and bent to pick up the frail old man.

“Consarn you, boy, get your hands off me! I’m not completely helpless!”

Nat stepped back, watching in concern as the old man struggled out of the wheelchair, leaning heavily on his right arm and leg. His lined face reddened with the effort. He managed at last to fall across the bed, face-downward; after a moment’s rest he rolled over and dragged himself to a sitting position, readjusting his useless left arm and leg with his right hand. Nat shook his head. Stubborn old codger, he thought. “The wood, Gramps. Will it last you?”

The clear gray eyes that stared at Nat were astonishingly young under their shaggy white brows. “Why in thunderation not? It’s August, not December!”

“I just don’t want to find you eating cold mush by the time I come back next Sunday.”

“I’ll manage. I’ve eaten cold mush many a time when my body was still whole, and it didn’t kill me! Many’s the time I’d be out trapping and didn’t have food at all! I don’t know why you make such a fuss, boy. I’ve got my books and my pipe. It’s enough.”

“I wish I could get you to move closer to town. I’m sure there’s someone in Ingles who could…”

“Hell, boy! There’s no one in Ingles—or any other fool town—who’s worth a tinker’s damn!” He peered through the small window at the horse that waited outside. “’Course if it’s a question of the time it takes you to get here…”

“Don’t be daft.”

“The cost of the train ride and renting a horse…?”

“Dammit, Gramps, you know that’s not it at all! I worry about you! I don’t like to be up there at MacCurdyville all week wondering how you’re getting on.”

“You worry too much. You’d probably be better off if I was dead.”

“Christ, Gramps! What a thing to say.”

“You’d be out west now if it weren’t for me and my stroke.” The old man pounded the bed. “Damn this useless body of mine!”

Nat walked to the window, stared out at the small clearing among the trees. He thought, Would I feel more free, out west somewhere riding the plains? Or had the dream of going west after the war been only an escape? Eight years since the war.
Eight years
. And still he had nightmares. Of the black-edged letter from the War Department telling him about Dad. Of stumbling across the bloody field of Gettysburg and finding Jed and Pete side by side—brothers together in death as they had been in life. He’d barely made it to the end of the war after that without losing his mind. Those last two years had been a blur of hatred—of senseless battles that took his comrades, of killing.

Yes. The west had seemed an escape. He had wanted to run away, to live out his days on some isolated mountaintop. And then Gramps had had his stroke, and duty—and something else (the need to cling to the last remnants of family?)—had kept him here.

He’d no longer had the heart to be the teacher he’d planned to be. There was still too much anger and bitterness in him. He’d sought work that taxed his body, exhausted his strength, so that at night, falling into bed, he’d sleep without dreams.

“Are you sorry you didn’t go west, boy?”

Nat turned and shook his head. “No. Someone has to stay. I hate what’s happening, how the Wilderness is being torn up. But without industry, the towns would die.” He clenched his fist. “And, by God, if I can make enough money, maybe I’ll have the power to change things!”

“You’re getting on as clerk for old man Bradford?”

Nat paced the room. “It’s not the job for me. I’m used to working up a sweat, dealing with the men. Not counting sacks of flour or flattering a banker. But I have the feeling Bradford will put me in Clegg’s position when he retires. He’s taking me down to Saratoga with him on Sunday night. For a few weeks of business. Some deal with a banker. He wants me to be there.”

“Does that mean I won’t see you next Sunday?”

“Of course not. Bradford’s railroad car will pick me up at Ingles on Sunday night, after our visit. And while I’m at Saratoga, I’ll still arrange to come up to see you.”

“That’s a long haul. I don’t like to see you taxing yourself for me.”

Nat smiled mockingly. “In a pig’s eye, you don’t! I wouldn’t dare suggest that I could have someone else look in on you, bring you supplies, while I’m in Saratoga!”

The old man chuckled, clearly pleased with himself. “Hand me my pipe, boy. By the way, what about Bradford’s filly? You don’t talk much about her.”

“She’s fine to work with. Quick, smart as a whip, able as a man. More suited to the job than I am. But sometimes I can’t figure her out.”

The old man cackled. “What’s to figure out with a woman? You kiss ’em often enough, and give ’em a smack on the tail if they don’t behave!”

Nat laughed. “I think she’d have a fit if I so much as touched her hand.”

“She sounds like a cold bitch.”

“No. Sometimes I think it’s because she’s a rich girl, looking down her nose at me. And then I see a look on her face, and damned if I don’t think she’s afraid of me. That’s the thing of it. There’s something inside her that’s so gentle. And fragile.” He sighed. “She has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said softly.

“You’re not sweet on her, are you, boy?”

“Good God! I’m not even sure I
like
her! She always manages to rile me up, and then I lose my temper, and pretty soon we’re quarrelling.” He frowned. “I get so damned tired of the battles. One way or another, I always seem to be fighting a war.”

“Will you ever find peace, Nat?” The old man’s voice was gentle.

Nat rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I hope to God I do,” he said hoarsely. “I’m getting older, Gramps. I’ll be thirty-one in November. I feel as if I’ve lost my youth in the war, and there’s no time to get it back.”

“Hell, boy. What you need is a wife. You ought to marry and settle down. A good woman under the covers keeps a man young!”

“I haven’t found the right girl yet.” He picked up his hat. “I’ll see you next Sunday.” He kissed his grandfather on the forehead and went out to his waiting horse. He found himself suddenly whistling.

It was odd, but the only thing he could think about at that very moment was the blue-violet of Willough’s eyes.

“Mr. Collins, do you want a sample of this fern?” Holding her knife poised above the luxuriant growth, Marcy looked up at Ed Collins.

He grunted his assent and continued to peer thoughtfully at the young maple tree before him. He ran his fingers along the bark and rubbed his chin. He looks like a schoolmaster, thought Marcy, resisting the urge to giggle. They had spent half the day tramping through the brush, while Mr. Collins had made a great show of his knowledge of “woodland lore,” as he called it. What a silly ass, she thought. She cut off a frond of the fern and popped it into the special envelope he had given her, then stuffed the envelope into his knapsack, which lay on the ground. He cleared his throat. She knew what was coming. Another lecture on some plant that she had grown up with, while she forced herself to smile and pretend it was all new to her, so he wouldn’t take offense. He was a paying customer, after all. Still, she was glad she’d never made a try for him when she’d first dreamed up her harebrained scheme. She didn’t know how he was in the city, but in the woods he was less than useless.

She sighed. She regretted the whole stupid affair. Not that she didn’t still feel the aching need to leave the mountains. But the silly business about catching a rich husband, and then telling Drew about it… She sighed again, gulping back her tears. Drew. Cold and indifferent. He had drawn away from her since that day at the Opalescent River, when she’d cried. She longed for the devil-may-care Drew she had grown used to. The Drew she had laughed with.

Don’t be a fool, Marcy, she thought. It was just as well that they’d reached this pass. There was only a little more than a week remaining of the Marshalls’ expedition. It would be easier to forget Drew if they spent these last few days as strangers. She had even managed to talk Alonzo into taking Drew out fishing while she tramped the woods with Collins.

“Look at this, Marcy,” said Collins pompously. He tapped at the bark of the maple tree. “Look at these peculiar marks. Like torn spots, but quite regular in size and shape. A disease, no doubt, that has attacked the maple. I’ve seen carbuncles like these on a crabapple tree. Perhaps we ought to take a sample of the bark.”

Oh, bosh! she thought. Paying customer or not, she couldn’t listen to any more twaddle! “It’s squirrels,” she said dryly.

“
Squirrels
?”

“In the spring they like the maple sap. They chew through a bit of the bark, then scoot down a ways and lick up the sap as it flows. They use their front teeth to gnaw—that’s why all the cuts look the same.”

“Oh.” He laughed sheepishly. “I guess you figure us all for fools. Though I suppose Lewis is familiar with this.”