Into the Wilderness (71 page)

"But
there is a dog," Elizabeth said. "Joe's dog, I mean. He was out here
when I got up this morning to start the fire."

Nathaniel
turned to her, his face puzzled. "I never saw him."

She
nodded. "A big red dog. Quite ferocious—looking, but he got up when he saw
me and wandered off into the bush."

"Did
you ask Joe about him? Or did he say anything, ask about the dog?"

Elizabeth
shook her head. "I didn't think to. Is it important?"

Nathaniel
shrugged, but he looked thoughtful. "Don't know," he said. "Just
strange that he wasn't here when I first come up. Maybe he was off hunting for
himself."

"Perhaps,"
Elizabeth agreed. It occurred to her that any dog of Joe's would have tried to
come into the shelter at night, to sleep nearby. She asked Nathaniel if this
was true, and he nodded. "That's what I was thinking," he agreed.

While
they built up a smoky fire and set the strips of meat to slow—cook over it,
Elizabeth thought it through.

"Perhaps
it was a stray," she said. "Run off from somebody else."

"Could
be."

"I
did see a dog," she snapped then, and he raised a brow.

"Hold
on, there. I never said you didn't."

"But
you're thinking it. You think I imagined the whole thing. Or that it was—that I
saw something ... unreal."

"To
tell you the truth, I hadn't been thinking along those lines. But you are,
Boots. So tell me what's on your mind."

"No,"
Elizabeth said firmly. "There's nothing to tell. There was a stray dog in
the camp in the morning, and now he's gone."

Nathaniel
looked at her for a good time.

"Come
out and say what you're thinking," Elizabeth said finally.

He
shrugged. "Robbie has a blessing."

Elizabeth
was struggling to be reasonable, and failing. "I'm not sure what relevance
that has to the topic at hand," she said, knowing how petty she sounded.

"Then
listen," Nathaniel said, and his voice went into another register, light
and with a rhythm that was not his own:

I wish ye the shelterin' o' the king o'
kings

I wish ye the shelterin' o' Jesus Christ

To ye the shelterin' spirit o' healin',

To' keep ye fro' evil deed and quarrel,

Fra' evil dog and red dog."

Elizabeth
stood up abruptly, holding her bloodied hands away from her. "It was not
an evil dog, it was a perfectly nice one, although it did smell distinctly of
skunk. Could not have been more real. Now if you've had enough fun at my
expense, I'm going to see how Joe is doing."

Nathaniel
stood up to intercept her, catching her shoulders with the heels of his hands.
"I'm sorry," he said with a half grin. "I won't tease
anymore."

She
hesitated. "I still must go look in on Joe."

"But
you'll come back?"

"Eventually,"
said Elizabeth.

* * *

They
had a tense afternoon, focused as they were on Joe and his needs, and the
chores, and getting provisions ready. Nathaniel hummed along when Joe sang the
mass, and this set Elizabeth's nerves even more on edge. She checked on Joe in
the late afternoon. He roused himself enough to drink a sip of water, but he
seemed barely to know her. Elizabeth sat watching him for a while, and then she
went out to pace the little clearing up and down, making wide curves around the
pits. Nathaniel had climbed down into one of them to pull up the stakes, which
he threw on the fire one by one.

Elizabeth
stopped suddenly, turning toward her husband. "I'd like to bathe."

He inclined
his head. "What about your foot?"

"I've
been walking on it all day without discomfort," she said. "And I
smell. Come down to the lake with me."
 

Nathaniel
shook his head. "I want to get two more of these cleaned out first,"
he said. "If we're going to leave tomorrow—”

“Are
we leaving tomorrow?" asked Elizabeth.

He
met her eye, and then nodded. "I would guess we are. And I don't think
much of leaving these for somebody to fall into."

"Nathaniel,
I know we don't have a lot of time, but please come along," she said,
trying not to wheedle but not quite succeeding. She had an urge to be away from
the clearing, but she did not like herself for it.

"You
go on ahead," Nathaniel said. "I'll follow in a bit."

She
turned almost before he had finished speaking, but turned back reluctantly.

"Perhaps
we shouldn't leave him."

"I
think he'll be fine for an hour," said Nathaniel. "I'll check in on
him before I come down."

Elizabeth
set off quickly and in just a few minutes she was standing on the lakeshore. It
was a beautiful afternoon, sunny and clear, and there was no sign of black fly
anywhere, just the squabbling of blackbirds and the melting, flute—like song of
a hermit thrush. With impatient fingers she undid her ties and stripped down to
her shift, wrinkling her nose at her own smell. Once again she wished,
fruitlessly, that she had not used the soap she had brought along so quickly.

It
had been a long, warm day but the water was still quite cold. Standing in the
lake to her knees, she undid her silver hair clasp, noting that it was already
quite tarnished and needed a good polishing; another task that would have to
wait until they could return home to Paradise, along with other chores such as
mending her shift and trimming her hair. Carefully, she wrapped the silver
clasp in her handkerchief, and tucked it under a rock on the bank.

Elizabeth
ran her fingers through her plait, hastily combing it until her hair snapped
and crackled around her all the way to her hips, and then she inhaled and
submerged herself. She pushed herself in mercilessly, feeling the gooseflesh
rise bump by bump. Under the water she opened her eyes, and came almost face to
face with a turtle, which started away with a whoosh. In a mood suddenly
euphoric and restored, she broke the surface of the water and began to swim
slowly toward the small island in the middle of the lake.

She
was tired by the time she reached it, and dragged herself up on the bank with
arms slightly trembling. There was a patch of sunlight and a small grove of
paper birches, slender as young girls, whispering among themselves in the
breeze. Elizabeth used one of them to sit against, drawing up her knees under
her chin and lifting her face to the sunlight. Her hair hung veil like around
her, the shorter strands around her face already lifting and drying in the
breeze, curling and twisting lazily. Between her breasts Joe's disk and
Nathaniel's pearl cluster felt slightly cold against her wet skin.

On
the lake there was little sign of wildlife, with the exception of the usual birds
fishing. Elizabeth had noted that there were no beaver, and she wondered why
that was. On most lakes this size they had seen evidence of them, but there
were none here at all. It occurred to her that Joe had probably chosen this
lake for that reason, as it would be of less interest to the trappers. The
thought of Joe made her think in turn of Nathaniel, and she glanced into the
forest where she knew he would appear, but saw no sign of him.

Directly
across from her was the projection of flat rock where they had been lying when
they had first heard Joe singing, and Elizabeth noted how it looked like a
stage from where she sat. It was just as this thought crossed her mind that the
dog came out of the shadows and into the sunlight.

He
was very large, even larger than she had thought him this morning. He stood in
the light, his rough coat shining deep red, his tongue lolling, and looked
toward her. He was not all that far away; she could see the rim of red in each
of his eyes, and the glint of his teeth. Elizabeth sat very still, wondering
what he would do if she should swim over to him and try to coax him back to the
clearing to prove to Nathaniel that she had not imagined him. So concentrated
was she on the animal that she didn't notice Nathaniel until he had already
stripped and entered the water.

She
stood up then, waving her arms above her head in an attempt to direct his
attention to the dog.

* * *

He
felt the cold of the water in his gut, but the sight of Elizabeth brought his
blood up warm. She stood on the bank waving at him with her arms pulled over
her head. She couldn't have any idea how she looked, how that gesture made the
wet shift strain against her. Her skin, impossibly pale, and the dark circles
of her nipples, and the darker triangle between her thighs, all this was
brought into relief as she stood there waving at him with no hint of the
turmoil she was causing. The wet fabric clung to her breasts, perfectly round.
Nathaniel concentrated on moving himself through the water because the sight of
her was too much to bear.

He
came to his feet and walked onto the bank knowing that his arousal was plain to
her; his breech clout revealed rather than hid it. He saw this in her dazed
look, her eyes half closed in anticipation already, before he ever touched her.
He heard her draw in breath, but then she looked away behind him to the far
shore, distracted. He frowned, and pulled her to him without discussion. Her
mouth was warm and she came to him willingly, pressing up against him in spite
of the cold lake water that ran off him to soak her again.

"The
red dog," she mumbled when he came up for air.

He
would have laughed, if there hadn't been the fire in him, the need to have her
now, and without delay. "Forget the godforsaken dog," he said,
lowering his head to hers again, and then lowering her to the bank.

Before
he got her shift off her he had broken two ties, but she didn't complain;
instead she reached for the thong on his hip. But there was no time for that.
He pushed her hand away, and his breech clout with it.

"Come,
come to me," he whispered to her, pulling her underneath him.

Elizabeth
looked up into Nathaniel's face, felt his breath on her skin.

There
was something of pain in his expression, in the deep lines etched on his
forehead. He was frantic with it, with the need; she had never seen him like
this before, and it excited her deeply. She cried out then, at the strength and
persistence of him, at his urgency. There was a sudden sharp pain in her lower
belly; she tensed, but it was gone before she could even gasp. But Nathaniel
wasn't. Nathaniel was still with her, murmuring to her, sweet words at her ear,
the flat of his tongue on her neck, holding himself over her with one arm, the
other hand beneath her, pulling her up to him again and again, harder and then
harder still. When she began to shudder he raised his head and watched her, a
look of fierce satisfaction on his face.

"Have
mercy," she gasped.

He
shook his head, spattering her with lake water and sweat. "I'm nowhere
near finished with you yet."

Nathaniel
knew he was pushing her, maybe too hard. He moved in her without any concern
for her comfort, focused only on the gathering tension that boiled up from the
center of him in response to her heat.

She
pulled his face to hers and kissed him, then, and he felt the first trickling
break in the dam inside her. He thrust himself deeper into her, met her tongue
with his own, and then it happened; she let go, every muscle in her first
relaxing and then flexing around him. It was the kiss, the depth and intensity
of it, that sent her over the edge. He wondered if she heard, from a place deep
inside herself, the sounds of her own surrender, but he couldn't stop to ask
her, or even to comfort her.

Nathaniel
found himself up on his knees, holding her tightly in his arms, her legs
wrapped around his waist. He had no memory of lifting her, or how they came to
this position, but her bottom was cushioned against his tensed thighs and her
arms were wound around his neck. He pulled her waist in with one arm and thrust
one last time, searching with his mouth for her ear in the wild confusion of
her hair.

"Open
to me," he whispered. "Open to me now." His release came then
with hers. It left him in long, slow ribbons, spooling endlessly into her. She
reared back with her head to look into his eyes, and he saw it there, her
awareness of each pulsing, and the power of her response.

* * *

She
was near sleep almost as soon as he lowered her to the bank, a stunned look on
her face and the deep flush that ran from her breasts to her hairline already
beginning to mottle.

Nathaniel
curled himself against her on one side, brushed her hair away from her face.

"Did
I hurt you?"

She
shook her head, and then with a visible effort, turned on her side to fit
herself to him. "Never," she said. And then, sleepily: "What got
into you?"

Nathaniel
said, "Joe died, just before I came down. In his sleep."

She
tensed for a moment. He expected tears, but she simply put her face against his
and trembled a little.