A Wild Yearning (9 page)

Ty asked for some salt and water to rub on the pacer's neck.

The Hookers got down off the cart, and Elizabeth, looking wan and tired, hurried through the door. Delia was about to follow when Ty stopped her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

He looked pointedly down at her bruised, scratched, and bitten feet. "Let me see to you first."

"I can see t' myself, thank ye."

His lips tightened, but then he pulled in a deep breath and she knew he was battling his temper. She didn't enjoy making him angry, truly she didn't. But she was afraid that if she was the least bit nice to him, he'd see through her charade and guess that
he
was one of the things drawing her to Merrymeeting. And then he would pity her and her foolish dreams and she wouldn't be able bear that.

"At least now you'll have to admit that you were wrong and I was right and you're riding with me tomorrow," he stated.

"I'm not admittin' t' no such thing."

His hand slipped off her shoulder and around to cup her upthrust chin. She couldn't help shivering at the feel of his fingers brushing against her skin. He smiled at her and she wanted to burst into tears.

"What's the matter, brat?" he asked, his voice suddenly gentle. "What's got your dander up now?"

"Just leave me alone!"

She jerked away from him and banged through the dilapidated door, causing it to protest with a loud squeal of its rawhide hinges. Ty stood where he was long after the door had slammed in his face, struggling with conflicting desires—to haul the wench back by the scruff of her neck and shake some sense into her, and an equal compulsion to smother those pouting lips with his own and run his hands over those high, round breasts until he had her writhing in his arms. Instead, he did neither, but went to help Caleb Hooker unhitch the ox team, muttering to himself about women, horseflies, and other pesky creatures.

An hour later, the four of them sat at a rickety board table in the taproom while a slatternly woman passed around trenchers of stewed corn mush and noggins of rum.

Delia stared down at the food and felt her stomach rumble.

"Lord above us, I'm as hungry as sin," she said unthinkingly. She glanced up to find the others staring at her. Elizabeth looked shocked, Ty scowled, but the reverend actually laughed.

"You couldn't be any hungrier than I am," he said.

Delia laughed with him. She dug her spoon into the mush and had it halfway to her mouth when she heard the Reverend Hooker say, "For all we are about to receive, O Lord, make us thankful in Christ's name."

Cringing, Delia quickly dropped her spoon with a loud clatter. She glanced up from beneath her now respectfully lowered lids to see if anyone had noticed her mistake and discovered that, of course, Ty had. He frowned at her so fiercely that she squirmed on the bench, banging against the table and knocking over her noggin of rum. The liquid flowed like a wave across the table and splashed into Ty's lap.

"Je—" He cut the epithet off in mid-word, jumping up and rubbing with his napkin at the wet stain spreading on the crotch of his breeches. He looked up to catch Caleb grinning at him, and a blush of embarrassment spread across his high cheekbones.

He sat back down and leaned over to snarl into Delia's face. "I'll get you for that, brat."

"'Twas an accident, Ty. Truly."

"Like hell."

Delia looked down at her bowl of food. She had intended to show Ty how she could eat properly, remembering not to talk or laugh with her mouth full and chewing carefully before swallowing, but already she'd made a literal mess of things by spilling her rum into Ty's lap. She looked over at Elizabeth, who was eating her corn mush daintily, dabbing at the corners of her small mouth with her napkin after each tiny bite.

I'll never be able t' do that, Delia thought with despair. I'll never know all the ways of actin' like a proper lady, and Ty will never find anythin' good t' like about me a-tall.

Her eyes stung with humiliation and she shoved the bowl of mush away from her, uneaten.

"Dr. Savitch has warned me, my dear, that we might not find ourselves welcome by everyone in Merrymeeting," Caleb said to his wife after they had been eating for a while in silence.

Delia watched in agony as Ty turned to Elizabeth and gave her a ravishing smile. "Oh, you'll be welcome, Mrs. Hooker, never fear. I only meant the reverend shouldn't expect to pack them in the meetinghouse right off. He's going to have his work cut out with some. We've got our share of lusty trappers in The Maine."

To Delia's disgust, Elizabeth actually blushed at the word "lusty."

"Timber beasts we call them," Ty said, his lips twitching in that adorable, teasing way that twisted Delia's heart. "Most of them are crazy as loons."

Elizabeth gave Ty a simpering, little-girl look, and Delia wanted to gag. "But what of you, Dr. Savitch?" Elizabeth said. "Will you be attending the Meeting?"

Delia wondered how Ty was going to talk himself out of that one, for he didn't strike her as the churchgoing kind. He was saved by the innkeeper, who spoke out from where he stood behind the taproom's sagging plank bar. "Aye, ye'll find yersel' lots of varmints up there in The Maine."

"What sort of varmints?" Delia craned her head around to ask the shaggy-haired, weathered old man.

"Oh, wolves an' panthers, of course. An' bears. Big as a mountain arc some of them bears what roam the Maine woods. An' then there are the two-legged varmints, like pirates—"

"Pirates!" Delia turned to Ty, excitement lighting her face. "Do ye truly have honest-to-God pirates? Oh, maybe we'll run across some buried treasure!"

Ty laughed. "They prefer to call themselves privateers. And they spend their profits, they don't bury them."

"But the worst varmints are the Injuns," the innkeeper went on, a look of satisfied grimness on his beard-stubbled face.

Elizabeth Hooker sat up straight, alarm draining her already pale face. "Indians? But I thought the Indians were peaceful now. That a treaty had been signed. Caleb, you said—"

"Never been an Injun borned that cared squat for treaties," the innkeeper said.

"I heard tell that if ye're unfortunate enough t' be captured by the savages, why then they spit ye on a sharpened pole and roast ye over a slow fire. Just like a Christmas goose," Delia said, and saw Elizabeth Hooker go even whiter. She hid a smile.

"Yep, you heard that a-right," the innkeeper agreed happily, enjoying the turn the conversation had taken. "But the roastin' part—that only comes after they do other dastardly things, like tearin' at your flesh with hot irons an' slicin' off pieces of you—"

"An' then eating them afore yer very eyes!" Delia finished with relish.

Elizabeth Hooker jumped up so abruptly that the bench skidded across the floor. She pressed her hand to her mouth and fled the room, tearing up the wobbly stairs to the sleeping loft above. A door banged above their heads.

Ty stood up and Delia thought he was going to run after the reverend's wife, but instead he grabbed Delia by the arm and hauled her to her feet and out the taproom door into the front yard before she could even open her mouth to protest.

Once outside, he whipped her around to face him and Delia cringed at the fury in his eyes.

He gave her arm a rough shake. "I ought to take you out to the woodshed and shingle you proper."

"I was only carryin' on a friendly conversation with the innkeeper. 'Tisn't my fault that every little thing winds up scarin' yer precious Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth Hooker is a frightened young woman and you aren't stupid, Delia. You sensed her fears and preyed on them out of pure spite or meanness or whatever the hell it is that's motivating you to behave like a spoiled brat!"

What did he have, the insides of a clock? Delia wondered. Couldn't he see what was the matter with her? Couldn't he see she was dying with love for him, when to him she was but a nuisance? And a brat.

Her chin went down and she stared at the ground. "I'm sorry, Ty," she said softly.

He let go of her. "It's not me you should be apologizing to."

"I'll tell her I'm sorry. Later. But maybe ye should be doin' some apologizin' yersel'. T' the reverend, after the way ye been sniffin' around his wife like a breed bull."

"What!" Ty's head snapped up and his nostrils actually flared, just like a bull's, Delia thought. She would have laughed if she hadn't been so close to crying,

"Ye think it's not noticeable, the way ye were a-stickin' t' her all day like a snail t' its shell, lookin' at her all moony-eyed. It was disgustin'—"

Ty clamped her arms with a pair of strong hands, lifting her off her feet. He shoved his face into hers. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Delia. A man can be polite and friendly, even admire the looks of a woman, without wanting to bed her."

"Ye can't deny ye're lustin' after the reverend's wife."

"I
do
deny it—"

But Delia tore away from his grasp, whirling and running down the road that led out of town. She heard him call after her, but she didn't look back. Tears bathed her face. Sobs choked her throat.

She veered off the road and ran into a hillside forest of red and white pines and dark green spruce. The trees shaded the late afternoon sunlight, and it was cool beneath the ceiling of intermeshed branches. Her feet made no sound on the thick carpet of brown needles. Before long she stopped running, but she kept walking, following a deer trail.

It was beautiful in the forest. The tears dried on Delia's cheeks, and the heavy, hollow feeling left her chest. She looked in wonder around her. At a flicker drumming on a dead trunk, searching for beetles and grubs. At a soft brown butterfly with yellow circles on its wings that flitted along beside her, as if looking for company. At a bed of toadstools lined up in neat rows around a cinnamon fern, resembling a company of militiamen on parade.

She continued down the path until she found the way blocked by a blowdown caused by a past storm. She hesitated a moment. Perhaps she ought to go back; she didn't want to get lost and give Ty something else to shout at her for. Besides, as beautiful as it was, there were probably varmints in these woods, too. Panthers and bears. Wolves...

At that very moment, something rustled the brush behind her and she whirled, her heart jumping into her throat.

She peered through the heavy thicket of trees but saw nothing. It seemed in the last few minutes to have grown suddenly darker, as if something had swallowed up the sun. She decided she would definitely go back now; she didn't want to be out in these woods after nightfall.

She did an about-face and followed the deer trail back in the direction she had come... until it forked into two paths, one going left and one right.

She took the path on her right, but after a moment her steps faltered. Nothing looked familiar. No, that wasn't true. Everything looked the same; all the trees and ferns looked alike. Then a scattering of yellow flowers caught her eye. It was a bed of goldenrod. She was sure she would have remembered seeing that splash of bright gold.

She decided she must have taken the wrong trail.

She turned back, but now instead of coming to a fork with two choices, she had three paths to pick from. Suddenly, the forest seemed honeycombed with paths, all running in circles and crisscrossing one another—

The brush rustled behind her. A twig snapped in two.

Delia took off running. She leaped over a bracken fern, brushed a bough of green spruce out of her way... and stepped into space.

She saw the ground rushing up to meet her and instinctively tucked in her head so that when she landed she turned a somersault. That was what saved her life. For a huge log fell in after her and would have crushed her skull if she hadn't rolled out of its way at the last second.

As it was, the log fell across her leg and she cried out in pain. Dirt and needles and leaves rained down on her. Then all was silent.

She looked up. She could see bits of blue sky and green branches overhead. Way overhead. The hole she had fallen into had to be at least eight feet deep and still she might have been able to claw her way out if the heavy log hadn't been lying across her leg, pinning her to the ground.

"Help!"

She didn't like the way her voice echoed back at her, as if she were the only thing left in the world. The only human...

Delia strained her ears, sure she had heard that rustling sound again. Yes, there it was. She clenched her jaw shut to keep from screaming and pushed at the log. It didn't budge. The bushes rustled again, closer this time.

Then she heard breathing, heavy breathing. And a low growl.

"Oh, Lord above us..." It was a wolf. She was sure of it. Did wolves eat people? If they were hungry enough, she reasoned. She hoped this one wasn't hungry, merely curious. It would be getting dark soon. The bits of blue were fading to gray. The tree branches looked like black fingers stretching across the shadowy sky.

Dirt and leaves slithered down the side of the hole at her back. Slowly, Delia craned her neck around and looked up... into a pair of yellow, glowing eyes and a snoutful of snarling teeth.

She screamed, and the eyes and teeth disappeared. She heaved at the log, straining her arms, the cords standing out on her neck with the effort, but to no avail.