Bone River (39 page)

I was disappointed, feeling as if I stood on the edge of something, as if the answers were just out of reach, and he held at least some of them. “Yes. All right.”

He opened his mouth to say something more, but just then the door opened; a burst of cold, wet air, and I was annoyed at the interruption, ready to snap at something, when I saw it was Daniel, and at the sight of him everything left me—I was possessed purely and simply by desire. I thought,
How can I let him go?
at the same moment I felt Lord Tom watching me.

I gripped the back of the chair hard and forced a composure I did not feel and said, “Good morning.”

Daniel glanced at Lord Tom, and then gave me a short nod. “Good morning.” He took off his coat, slowly and carefully, as if he found the task of unbuttoning crucially important.

I felt Lord Tom’s gaze, piercing, as he took in Daniel, and then me, and then he said to me, “Do you remember the story of Loowit,
okustee
?”

And I knew then for certain. I knew he understood, because the story of Loowit was the story of how the Indians came to have fire, but it was more than that too. She had been the only one to have fire, and she had run from those who tried to steal it from her and gone to the great Tyee Sahale across the Bridge of the Gods and told him how cold the Indians were. He gave them fire and rewarded her daring with eternal youth and beauty, so much so that chiefs from many tribes wanted
her, and when Loowit would not choose between them there started a war which angered Sahale so that he had destroyed the Bridge to the Gods and separated the tribes from one another.

Loowit would not choose, and that refusal destroyed everything.

I swallowed hard. I pretended I didn’t understand his message. “Yes, of course I remember it.”

But Lord Tom knew me too well, and I saw that knowledge in his eyes now. “Perhaps you should draw the picture,” he said. He pushed back his chair and rose, going to the back door, easing out. I heard his footsteps on the back porch, the open and close of his door.

Daniel said, “What was that about?”

“He knows,” I said miserably. I sagged back against the sink and looked away, confused and upset.

He came into the kitchen. “He won’t say anything. Not until you do. He loves you.”

He was so perceptive. I said, “Yes, but he doesn’t like it. He disapproves.”

“Do you think so? I’m not certain of that at all.”

He stepped closer. When his hand trailed down my arm, his fingers brushing the twine of Bibi’s bracelet, I felt again that leap between us, passion and desire, that sense that he was where I belonged, and yet...I remembered also last night, my rational self, my reluctance to hurt Junius, to change my life, and when Daniel leaned in to kiss me, I turned my head away and said, “Don’t. Not here.”

“Lea, I’ve gone nearly mad waiting for you this morning. I couldn’t sleep—”

“Daniel, please.”

“He’s in the barn. Lord Tom’s in his room. Who’s to see if I kiss you?”

“I can’t—”

“You can’t
what
?” His voice was low and urgent. “What’s wrong, Lea? What have I done? Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

“No, I...I just need time. To think.”

“About what?” he demanded. “What is there to think about? I love you. You love me. Tell him and let’s be done with it.”

I shook my head; I could not meet his gaze. “I’m not so certain—”

“You’re not uncertain, you’re afraid,” he accused. “What else must be proved to you, Lea, before you see that you’re meant to be with me?”

“You don’t know,” I said. “You’re so young. You don’t know how things fade—”

“You think what’s between us will fade?”

“I don’t know. I...with Junius, it changed, and—”

“Because you don’t love him the way you love me. What has he said to you to turn you this way?”

“He hasn’t said anything.” I pressed my hand flat against his shirt, meaning to keep him at bay, but it was a mistake. He was so warm; I wanted him so much. I let my hand fall again and looked miserably away. “It’s what I know. I’m ten years older, Daniel. I know you think it doesn’t matter, but you’re just beginning your life, and—”

He laughed shortly. “And yours is ending? Is that what you’re saying? I’m telling you it’s just beginning. He doesn’t know you the way I do.”

“He does, in his way.”

Daniel bit off a curse. “You’ll wither away with him. Why don’t you see it?”

Images from my dreams. Old woman’s hands, shriveling up, crumbling—but no, it was only what I wanted to believe. It wasn’t true.

“I thought I knew what I wanted but now...please, you must understand. I’ve been with Junius twenty years.”

“It doesn’t bind you to serving twenty more,” he said bitterly. He pulled me up hard against him, saying almost desperately. “Come with me somewhere. Right now. You must know a place where we can be alone for an hour. Just...let me make love to you. Let me remind you of what we are.”

The temptation was there. To do what he wanted, to let him make the decision for me, because that was what would happen, I knew. I would go with him and the passion between us would blind me and possess me. I could not be rational when I was with him. A life with him beckoned too enticingly. But it wasn’t real. It was only a fantasy.

I whispered to him, “You’ve berated me for doing what everyone else wanted me to do, for being what my father wanted and what Junius wanted. Now you’re asking me to do what
you
want. Do you still wish me to choose for myself? Did you mean that? Or did you only mean that I should let you take their place?”

He released his hold, obviously dismayed. “No, of course not.”

“Then let me decide. Please, Daniel, just...let me decide who I want to be. You know I want you. You know if I went with you I would do whatever you wished. You would...overwhelm me. But I need to think more clearly. I love this place. There are things I don’t want to lose. I don’t want to regret it if I choose you. I can’t believe you want that either.”

He ran a hand through his hair as if to calm himself. “No, I don’t want that.” His voice was hoarse, banked desire, battened will.

“Thank you,” I said.

“But”—a deep breath—”but you can’t expect me not to fight for you, Lea. And you can’t expect me to wait forever.”

The front door opened, a stream of cold air cutting through the warmth of the kitchen. Junius. Daniel stepped back, putting space between us, composing himself so quickly that I was startled at the apparent ease of it. I was not so fast. My heart was
beating like a wild thing’s; I tried to smile as Junius came into the kitchen. He glanced at Daniel, and then at me.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, frowning. “The boy troubling you?”

“Not in the least,” I said, turning to the stove, willing my hands to stop their trembling as I poured a cup of coffee.

“The springhouse looks good,” he said. “You couldn’t tell there’d been a flood.”

I couldn’t think what to say to that, so I took a sip of coffee.

Daniel said, “You seem surprised.”

“You’re a good worker, boy, as I think I’ve said before.”

“A lifetime of practice,” Daniel said.

Junius gave him a narrow look. I felt the tension between them, with myself as the fulcrum—whether Junius knew it or not. “Well,” he said. “Something else to thank you for.” And then, before I could do or say anything, my husband’s arm snaked around my waist, pulling me to him so hard I spilled my coffee. His kiss was possessive and unyielding—I realized with dismay that he must sense my role in that tension after all. When he let me go, he said wickedly, “I’m still thinking about that greeting you gave me last night,” as if Daniel wasn’t in the room, but I knew he’d done it for Daniel’s benefit. I was afraid Daniel would say something. But when I glanced at him I saw he would not, that he was abiding by his promise to me, though his jaw had gone hard and his mouth tight.

He went to the back door, wrenching it open with an almost vicious twist, and then he was outside, coatless, hatless, letting the door slam shut behind him. I heard his boot steps on the stoop and then the short stairs to the yard.

I jerked away from Junius.

He said, “Wonder what’s wrong with him?”

“You shouldn’t have done that in front of him.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with kissing my own wife?”

“Nothing. Except that you did it to embarrass him.”

Junius gave me a careful look. “Did I? Now, why would I do that?”

I looked away. “I don’t know.”

“The two of you were talking pretty close when I came in,” he said.

“We were arguing,” I said quickly. I put down my coffee and turned away from him, to the sink. The water in the wash bucket was cold and skimmed with grease, but I scooped out a handful of soft soap and went to washing the dishes there as if nothing was wrong.

“About what?”

“About you, as it happens.” Close enough to the truth that I hoped he wouldn’t hear the lie of it.

“Me?”

“I’m trying to make him see that there’s good in you,” I said, and now I looked at him over my shoulder, mustering self-righteous anger. “It doesn’t help that you don’t make an effort to show him that yourself.”

Junius’s expression softened. He came up to me, pressing to my back, his hands on my hips. “Lea, Lea,” he said quietly. “How many times must I say it? You’re wasting your time. Let the boy go. It will never be right between us. There’s no point in trying.”

I looked down into the sink. “Well, I can’t help myself.”

He gave me a quick squeeze and stepped away, already dismissing it, letting it fall away the way he let everything go. Easy and without malice. He said, “I appreciate that you want to do this, but it’s no good attempting the impossible.”

“How do you know what’s possible if you don’t try?” I asked.

“It’s not the trying,” he told me. “It’s the knowing when to stop. The boy’s no good, Lea. It’s time you opened your eyes and saw that.”

“I think he would surprise you,” I managed.

“I think it’s you he’ll surprise,” he said.

April 23, 1854: I find myself thinking again of the 16th century’s plastica theory. Not because I believe remotely in the possibility that God first modeled creatures in stone to test them for viability before he generated life within them, and left for fossils those forms he found unworthy, but because I find myself entertaining a version of such a plastica theory when it comes to the development of man. I wonder if perhaps God, like an artist sketching the same thing over and over again until he reaches perfection, must have created the various human groups in experiment, trying out his vision of man in lesser forms before he settled on the last and best. While degenerationism explains why such a divide exists between peoples, I cannot accept the idea that God would allow his perfected man to degenerate into something low and vile. And so, God plays in the mud: his first test the ape-like Hottentots and Australian aborigines, which would have offended, and then next the clearly subhuman efforts of the Negroes and the Indians. We proceed in lightening clay and forming more perfect features and intelligence, through the
Mongols and Arctics until one reaches the clearly superior Caucasian.

And so, given this, interbreeding is so clearly an insult to God that it cannot be tolerated, even if it means ultimately that such interbreeding might elevate the lower types—because this comes at too great a cost. I have seen this for myself, that while the attributes of the upper orders can have some effect on mitigating those lamentable tendencies of the lower orders, so their blood too does tell. It is NOT erased. We must be vigilant—God could not have meant for our clearly superior faculties of compassion, mercy and charity to pollute his own efforts in creating a more perfect Being. To mix with the lower orders only results in the destruction of our own. Does a dog mate with a lion? So too should not those so clearly resembling orang-utangs mate with man. They may seem fully human, but...my experiment proves this not to be true. No matter my efforts, it persists in its constant degeneration. I fear to hope for any future, as it seems more and more obviously that such a thing defiles both man and God.

And yet those more tender aspects in my character, those attributes God must have struggled to create in his last, best order, means I cannot but strive despite my fears. Can it be a flaw to hope, when God so clearly intended such faculty, when I can be only the creature He made me?

“You’re wasting your time, sweetheart,” Junius said.

I looked up to see him bending over me. He grabbed the corner of the journal, lifting it from my hands before I knew what he was doing.

“Don’t,” I said, reaching as he dangled it beyond my grasp. “Junius, please! I’m reading that.”

He tossed it aside. It skittered across the floor, sliding to a stop beneath Daniel’s feet, where he sat in the chair by the lamp. He was reading one as well, and he glanced up. “Let her read it,” he said, leaning down to pick it up. “What are you so worried she’ll find?”

“Worried?” Junius asked. “I only dislike her spending hours on something that won’t avail her anything.”