False Dawn (25 page)

She remained silent the next day as they climbed through thick undergrowth that tangled itself between the red pines. Her face was blank and she would not look at him. She spoke only once, and that was to point out the rutted and broken bits of mud which dead-ended at an old landslide.

“What do you think? That it’s the valley?” Evan asked with ill-concealed excitement.

She shrugged, saying something indifferent while she wished she could touch him without hating herself. Her self-imposed isolation was taking a toll on her, one she was unwilling to recognize. She was able to say, “It could be,” before the words stopped again.

“I think it is.” He watched her, trying to inspire hope in her although he lacked it in himself; he was thinking of the long climb over the slide which might end in disappointment.

“And if it isn’t?” Her years of loneliness were in that question.

“Then we keep trying until we find it, Thea. It’s all we can do.”

“Like Gold Lake?” She welcomed her bitterness.

“Probably not, but enough for safety and a respite.”

“Until the Pirates come?”

“Oh, Thea.” He reached out his hand in comfort but she shied away, stepping well out of reach. He dropped his hand. “We’d better get going.”

It was dusk when they reached the other side of the landslide. Away in the gloom, surrounded by snowy slopes like cupped hands, lay the valley. At one side three large buildings reared up, unkempt but untouched, with most windows intact and no sign of fire or deliberate attack. The steep slopes were dotted with houses ranging from mere cabins to substantial homes. From one of the buildings at the far end of the valley there rose a series of flimsy towers, wrapped now in broken and rusted cable from which bits of wood dangled. In the radiant afterglow they could see enough to know that this valley had survived in isolation, hidden and secret, safe from the horror all around it. Winter and a landslide had protected it.

“Well, Thea,” Even said as they walked toward the center of the valley. The snow was marked with a few animal tracks, but there were no human footprints in the soft drifts. The valley floor was wide and fairly flat, easy to walk on. Evan indicated the houses on the valley floor and on the lower slopes, picking them out with the weak beam of his flashlight. “It’s up to you to choose. Where do you want to live?”

As they went further, they could see that time and winter had taken a toll. Some of the houses had caved in under the weight of the snowfall ,some were leaning precariously, their perches on the mountain no longer supporting them, and a few others, better located and built with forethought, stood intact and waiting. At last the thread of light picked out a house, an octagonal one with a high railed porch that squatted on the side of the mountain. Instead of great panes of glass, which many of the houses had once boasted, this sensible wooden house had only high, narrow windows at each angle of the octagon. Two chimneys, which stuck up from the sharply sloping roof, promised wood stoves, and one pipe above the frosting of snow was of accordion plastic, unruptured in spite of temperature changes and severe weather.

“That one,” Thea said, starting away toward the octagonal house.

“There are larger ones around,” Evan said, offering her the chance for room and luxury.

“They’d just be harder to heat, and easier to break into,” she said bluntly, and continued through the crusty slush on the valley floor. She watched the house as she walked, as if it were a lighthouse, marking safe harbor in the middle of a storm.

Evan knew she was right. There was no longer a place in the world for luxury. He made his way steadily through the silent valley, following Thea to the octagonal house on the side of the mountain.

9

The octagonal house was well and thoroughly locked. It took some time to find the garage door, which was still partly buried under the snow, and then even more time to loosen the lock so that they could lift the door enough to squeeze under it. From the garage it was an easy matter to take the lower door off its hinges and to climb up into the house itself.

Thea was the first one up the stairs, and found herself in a room that took up half the octagon. There was, as she thought there would be, a large, partly open fireplace, with wood neatly stacked near it. No drafts chased them round the room; the flue was closed. Whoever had planned and built the house left little to chance, and Thea was impressed. To one side of the fireplace there were stairs leading to the second floor, and at the back of the stove, in the other half of the octagon, was an ample kitchen, again with a wood-burning stove, and next to it, standing in its antique glory, was an ancient twenty-gallon water heater, one that was filled by the sink pipes and heated by the warmth in the lighted stove.

“That’s incredible!” Evan said when he saw the water heater. “Those things haven’t been in common use for about eighty years. I wonder where they found it?”

“I don’t care,” said Thea, “as long as it works.”

A search of the pantry off the kitchen revealed well-stocked shelves and safely sealed bins of flour, rice, and beans, all carefully labeled. There was even a large jar of honey, now crystallized with age, but keeping its amber color offering the rare promise of sweetness. A spice rack hung on the wall, its fifteen neat bottles stopped with cork. Beneath it a coffee grinder waited.

The unoccupied, musty smell hung in each room of the house, a sad, neglected scent, as if the house were in mourning. This odor permeated everything, giving a staleness to the rooms, making the big throw pillows in the living room seem flat, the kitchen less friendly, the upstairs like an attic. Thea put aside her caution and opened two of the windows in the small bedroom above the kitchen.

While Thea explored, Evan got a fire going, and after two or three determined belches of smoke, the chimney began to draw properly as Evan adjusted the draft of the flue. The fire leaped merrily and began to banish the dark of twilight.

When the house was warmer, Evan left the living room for the kitchen to fire up the stove there and prepare their evening meal. He was delighted to find enough canned goods to let him turn out what seemed to them a sumptuous meal. He had taken canned chicken, thinking as he did that he had not eaten chicken for a long time, though he had seen a few. To this he added canned peaches, mace, and allspice. The aroma was dizzying. When he had set this in the oven he opened cans of Boston brown bread and string beans, heating them in separate pots of bright enamel. To complete the celebration, he also made a kind of hot chocolate from powdered milk, sugar, and baking chocolate. There were also five bottles of brandy, but these he set aside for later, when they might need the warmth more than they did now.

When they had eaten they sat for a few minutes, saying little, while the large, scented candles fought the somber darkness.

“Do you want a bath?” Evan said as he gathered the plates into a pile.

“I want some sleep.” She was staring into the dregs of her chocolate.

“I’m tired.”

“Maybe in the morning, then?” He rose, carrying the plates to the sink.

“We don’t even know if the water works or not.” But she got to her feet and joined him at the sink.

He turned the tap and a trickle of rust-colored water ran out. “Not much,” he allowed, “Maybe I can fix it. There’s a pump out back …”

“Try in the morning. When you’re rested.”

Upstairs they found fresh linen in cedar chests, with lightweight acrylic-filled comforters that were wonderfully warm. After a brief debate Thea took the smaller room because it was warmer, although Evan suspected that the real reason for her choice was that she did not want to sleep in the double bed. Certainly the bunk beds in the smaller room were more closed, less exposed, than the big bed in the second room.

“It was a good dinner, Evan,” she said, very sleepy, as if the contentment of the meal had released a spring in her.

“It was,” he agreed awkwardly.

“We used to have chicken at Camminsky Creek, sometimes. I’d forgotten how it tasted. That smell. Nothing else smells like roasting chicken. It was like being back in my mother’s kitchen.”

“I know. There’re more cans of it, at least a couple dozen of them. And maybe four gallons of broth. The people who lived here before must have thought they’d get snowed in all the time. There’s enough food for three months for maybe four people down there in the pantry.”

“Three months.”

He laughed. “We don’t have to worry yet. Even if we stay longer than that, there are other houses. We can get things from them.”

“We start tomorrow,” she said, turning into her room. “We can make an inventory, for later.”

“All right,” he said to the closed door. “Tomorrow.”

Thea awoke slowly the next morning, and for a moment of panic, could not remember where she was, or what had become of Evan. But as she touched the soft comforter and smelled the friendly aroma of something cooking, she felt all of the previous day come back to her, flooding her mind. She wanted to shout, or cry, or run, to show how she felt rather than fight to find the words. But she did none of these things. She pulled the comforter more tightly around her, and with more care than was necessary she climbed out of bed and hesitantly started down the stairs. She was barefoot, thinking that she had rarely dared to move anywhere without shoes, hut that here she was safe, and could move around in a comforter, unarmed, unshod. And she did not want to wear her grimy, stinking clothes. The comforter was nicer, cleaner.

“Good morning,” Evan called as he saw her. “There’s breakfast in about ten minutes, but you’ll want a bath first.” He gave her an encouraging smile, carefully keeping his distance. “There’s hot water, I fixed the pipes, and the bathroom is waiting. I’ve put out soap and towels for you. Go on, Thea. I had mine earlier.” By the looks of him, he had scrubbed himself with laundry brushes, for his skin glowed and his hair hung damply around his face. His beard was newly trimmed and even his fingernails were clean. “Have a good soak. I’ll make sure the water stays hot.”

Unspeaking, pleasantly apprehensive, Thea went into the bathroom and looked skeptically at the tub. It was large and bright red, standing on gilded claw feet. Obviously this was the one room where the otherwise austere owners had given their fancy free rein. The sink was also red, and above it a broad mirror was fogged and showing the path of water drops, left over from Evan’s use of the room. A few sandy hairs were still in the sink, and Thea found this almost disturbing, as if they were sharing something too close. The room embarrassed her; she had never seen anything like it before. In all the places she had wandered the bathing was Spartan in its simplicity. Now this, and the little reminder of Evan’s presence made her shy and awkward.

Gingerly she went to the tub and looked at the handles. Then, very slowly, as if she were afraid the whole thing might explode, she turned the handle of the tub marked hot.

Water and a warm cloud of steam gushed out, making a happy splashing sound as it cascaded into the red tub. Belatedly she realized she had not put in the plug, and she tried to stop the water, scalding her hands in the attempt. She let out a little shriek.

In the next moment Evan was at the door. “Are you all right, Thea?” he asked with quick concern.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said miserably, turning to the door. “Help me. I don’t remember how these things work.”

He nodded and came into the room. Following her pointing finger, he went to the tub and pulled the hot-water handle, shutting it off. The gushing stopped. Then he picked up the plug from the soap dish. He held it out to her, but she would not take it. He put it in place for her and turned on the taps again. The tub began to fill. “How warm do you want it?” he asked, careful not to look at her. It was getting terribly difficult to keep his distance from her, particularly now that they were safe for a while, and had time to learn to know each other.

“Warm?” she ventured, still rationing herself by the number of buckets of hot water it would take to fill a tub like that, as she had done as a child.

Evan adjusted the handles to a comfortably hot level and watched while the water rose. When it was deep enough, he turned the water off and stepped back. “That ought to do it,” he said, and left the room abruptly.

It had been more than nineteen years since Thea had had her last hot bath in a proper tub. She could vaguely remember the house outside Sacramento with the shiny appliances and cool rooms that defied the heavy heat of high summer with purring efficiency. At Camminsky Creek they had still had tubs and hot baths, but those were filled by the bucket from water boiled on the stove in huge pots.

She sank into the steaming water, the unfamiliar warmth feeling almost evil with satisfaction. She had been cold for so long that now it hurt to be warm: this was a forbidden pleasure, to use so much water and heat just to wash more comfortably. She stretched out, feeling the filth leave her and the knotted tension in her muscles release its grip on her. The soap smelled sweet and it spread softly over her, unlike the grainy stuff she had washed with so often, when she could wash at all.

Thirty minutes later, she came out of the bathroom at last, wrapped in the engulfing towel Evan had put on the rack for her. She felt like another person, one who had always lived in a warm house and took hot baths and ate chicken for dinner. Her hair clung in tendrils around her face, her skin was pale coral, and she moved easily. The first suggestion of a smile hung at the corner of her mouth.

“Breakfast is ready,” he said, presenting her with muffins and jam, some canned fruit, and condensed milk to take the place of cream. There was even coffee, a thing he had not tasted for years and which she had never known.

“Do you like it?” Evan asked when she frowned at the bitterness.

“Not yet,” she said, determination in the line of her jaw. “But I will. I will.”

“You don’t have to like it. I found some tea. You can have that,” he said as he refilled the mug.

“Oh, yes I do have to like it,” she said, closing the subject.