Sins of Summer (17 page)

James opened his saddlebag and took out a couple of packages. He tossed one to Wiley.

“McHenry happened to have your favorite on hand.” He untied the other package. “Have a candy stick, Sis.” He placed one on
the table in front of her as he passed on his way to the doorway leading to the hall. A second or two later they heard his
footsteps going up the stairs.

Afraid to look at Ben, afraid of his reaction to James going up to see Odette, Dory began clearing the table of the supper
dishes. Her back felt as though it had a steel pipe run through it. Her head thudded and her stomach was churning.

James stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching Odette and Jeanmarie. He was surprised to see that Odette was up, dressed,
sitting in a chair and reading to Jeanmarie, who was cuddled in her lap. Her voice was soft, sometimes a mere whisper, and
the words came hesitantly at times.

Honey-colored hair hung down over her shoulders and curled slightly. Her body was slim, her breasts generous. A slight rosiness
tinged her cheeks.

James became aware that she was looking at him, her eyebrows arched in surprise. He couldn’t make up his mind if her eyes
were sky-blue or the color of a mountain lake.

He made a motion for her to continue, then stepped into the room and sat down on the end of the bunkbed. She looked back down
at the book, and after a slight hesitation, she began to read again. At first her voice quivered and she stumbled over the
words. After a few lines her voice steadied, and, unaware that Jeanmarie had fallen asleep, she continued to read the story
about a fairy princess.

She is remarkable, James thought. A soft, sweet, courageous woman.
She was reading and couldn’t even hear her own voice.
He feared she would look up, catch him watching her and stop reading. But she didn’t. When she finished the story, she closed
the book and placed it on the floor beside the chair. She looked down at Jeanmarie’s red curly head resting against her shoulder
and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead before she shifted her gaze to the man sitting on the bunk.

Fragments of light shone in the incredible blue of her eyes. The corners of her lips lifted in a half-smile as she gestured
to the sleeping child. James felt as if he were suspended in time and space and almost feared that if he closed his eyes,
she would disappear. The silence was deep as they looked at each other without any awkwardness.

He wanted to tell her that it gave him much pleasure to hear her voice, but he didn’t know how.

“I’ll be back.”

She nodded that she understood him and he left the room. He returned quickly with a copy of his favorite book,
The Deerslayer
by James Fenimore Cooper.

Kneeling beside her, he opened the book to the first page and placed it in her lap.

“Will you read to me?” his lips moved silently.

“You don’t read?”

He shook his head. “Not very well. Too slow.” Which was true. He’d had more important things to do at that time of his life
than to sit in a school and learn to read and write. He knew enough to get by, but that was all.

“Practice. You go fast.”

“Read it to me… sometime,” he urged and smiled. He could almost feel her warm gaze on his mouth.

“Sometime.” She handed the book back to him.

“You keep it,” he said and placed it on the floor beside the other book. He stood. “Let me take the little mop-head. You must
be tired.”

“Jeanmarie’s not a mop-head,” Odette said, and ran her fingers through the child’s red curls.

James was so delighted to be talking to her that he wanted to keep her talking.

“Then what is she?”

“Ah… let me see.” Odette tilted her head from side to side, her lips pursed. “Jeanmarie is a little strawberry top.’

“That’s good. How about little red bird?”

“That’s good too.” Odette laughed. It was a soft little sound.

James lifted the child from her arms and placed her on the bunk.

“Take off shoes, James.”

When Odette’s voice came from behind him, it washed over him like a warm spring rain. It gave him such pleasure that he closed
his eyes for an instant before he turned his head and nodded to her.

After covering the child, he again knelt beside Odette and placed the packet in her lap. Her eyes brightened with pleasure
as she watched him unwrap the candy.

“For you and Jeanmarie.” James’s lips formed the words without sound. He stuck the end of one of the candy sticks in her mouth.
She responded by sticking one in his mouth.

He smiled deep into her eyes. The smile she gave him in return was one of startling girlish sweetness, warm with the glow
of complete trust.

His heart soared like a bird in flight.

The silence in the kitchen was as deep as a well. It went on and on, broken only by the small noises made by clinking dishes
as Dory washed them and put them in the pan to be scalded with the water in the teakettle.

“Thank ’ee for supper, Dory.” Wiley put his hat on and went to the door.

“Welcome, Wiley. See you in the morning.”

Dory was acutely aware that she and Ben were alone. When he got to his feet, she held her breath for fear that he would follow
Wiley to the bunkhouse. He went to the stove, picked up the teakettle and poured the boiling water over the dishes in the
rinse pan.

“You don’t need to do that,” Dory said when he reached for the drying towel. His nearness caused her heart to thump painfully.

“You think I can’t wipe dishes? I have washed and wiped a barn full of dishes in my day. When I was just a tad I was cook’s
helper in a timber camp. We cooked for twenty men, three times a day.”

“How old were you?”

“I was eight or nine.”

“That’s awfully young. Didn’t you go to school?”

“Not much.” Ben slipped a fork beneath the edge of a plate to lift it out of the hot water. “Jehoshaphat! That water’s hot!”

“Usually by the time I finish washing and am ready to dry, the water has cooled.”

They worked in silence, and gradually Dory’s heart returned to its natural rhythm.

“I don’t understand why James is so worried about me and Jeanmarie being here alone. Heavens! Papa’s been gone almost six
years and I’ve been here alone most of the time. Besides, I’d never let anyone in the house I didn’t know.”

“If a man wanted in, he’d get in even with Wiley out there riding shotgun. Then again, the man doing this could be someone
you know or have seen around.”

“No one I know would do such a terrible thing,” she said with conviction, and slid a cup down into the hot water.

“Don’t be too sure. Crazy people don’t always look crazy. I betcha a nickel he won’t have a wild look or run around in the
woods dressed in an animal skin.”

“How do you know so much about it, Mr. Smarty?” She threw him a teasing grin.

“Well, Miss Smarty. I saw a man once who had killed five women. He was a quiet, skinny farmer who went to church every Sunday
with his mother. All the women he killed had blond hair. He cut them up and buried them behind his barn. He might never have
been caught, but his dog dug one of them up and carried an arm up to the church yard to chew on while he waited for his master.”

“Glory be!” Shudders shook Dory’s shoulders. “That gives me goose-bumps. What did they do to him?”

“Hung him.”

“I don’t want to hear any more about that. I won’t sleep a wink tonight.”

“I didn’t tell you that to scare you. Just be careful. You and Odette stay together, even when you go to the necessary. Wiley
will keep an eye out in the daytime. I’ll come back here at night as long as Odette and I are here.”

I wish you didn’t have to go. Oh, I’ll he so lonesome when you’re gone.

They finished the dishes in silence, both occupied with their own thoughts. When the last dish was dried and stacked on the
counter, Ben hung up the towel. Dory emptied the rinse water into the dishpan. Ben carried it to the end of the porch and
threw the water out into the yard. While Dory wiped the pan and hung it on the end of the washbench, she worked up the courage
to say what she wanted to say.

“There’s more coffee. It should be about the way you like it. It’s been on the stove since morning.”

“Is it strong enough yet to float a railroad spike?”

“Pretty close to it.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t kick me out after you got me to do all that work.”

“All
that work?” she said teasingly. Relief that he was going to stay made her almost giddy. “I was going to reward you with half
my candy stick.”

“In that case, I’ll get the coffee.”

“Laws! You don’t have to wait on me.”

“Sit.” He put his hand on the top of her head and pushed her down onto the chair.

Dory prayed for a miracle that would keep him and Odette here at least for a few more weeks. She watched him, wanting to remember
every detail of the time they spent together, to hold it in her heart to bring out and enjoy again and again after he was
gone.

“You’ve given me the biggest,” Ben protested when Dory placed a piece of the candy beside his coffee cup.

“You’re bigger than I am, and… you’re company.” Her voice was light. A teasing smile played upon her mouth until a dimple
appeared in her right cheek. She sucked on the candy stick, still smiling.

“Being big paid off this time.”

His light eyes held hers: he touched the edge of the cup to his smiling mouth and took a swallow.

“Two more days and it’ll float a horseshoe.” His eyes were twinkling with introspective humor. It was an expression that would
never leave her mind.

They sat and looked at each other. There was no tension no hurry to talk. They were content to sit together. Ben sensed that
there was something she wanted to say and waited with that infinite patience he had. Dory couldn’t gather her thoughts and
was unable to form a plan on how to approach the subject.

Looking into Dory’s eyes, Ben could almost ignore the nagging worry about Odette and James. James had gone upstairs to give
Jeanmarie the candy. After all, Ben reasoned, this was his home and he could go where he pleased. It worried him that Odette
might be flattered by the attention of a man like James and misjudge his intentions. From that standpoint it was good that
they would be leaving soon. Even if they stayed in the area, it wasn’t likely they would see much of the Callahans. Somehow,
though, that thought didn’t appeal to him as much as it would have a week ago.

Dory fidgeted. She looked at him and away. Minutes passed and she didn’t speak. He decided to help her.

“Something is bothering you, Dory. You can’t decide if you want to tell me or not.” His gaze was intense, and her heart began
to beat quickly, like a trapped bird’s.

“I want to tell you. I’ve got to decide something before James leaves.” Then, after a pause. “You heard James say he wanted
me to go to the Malones’.”

“Yes, I heard that… and wondered about it.”

“He saw Chip Malone today in Spencer. James and Mr. Malone have talked from time to time.”

“And you?”

“I haven’t been around him that much. When I was small, I was always with my mother, and he avoided us if he could. Mama would
go out of her way to speak to him. Oh—but it’s a long story.”

“I have the time if you have.” The smile had left his eyes. She seemed utterly vulnerable to him, undefended.

Dory drew a quivering breath and told him about her mother having been raised in the Malone home and how she had defied the
man who had been like a father to her and married George Callahan rather than Chip Malone. She explained that her mother and
father had loved each other very much and that her mother had died after a difficult pregnancy that had resulted in a stillborn
child. Her father had died a few years later.

“I had been going to boarding school down in Coeur d’Alene for six months out of the year and finished the spring before Papa
died. It was lonesome being here alone. James was away most of the time and the only people I saw for weeks at a time were
Wiley and Louis and Milo. My brothers were not as bad then as they are now, but they made no bones about hating me.

“Mick Malone was about my age. I met him at school. Sometimes we laughed about our families feuding like the families in a
Shakespeare play. He would call me Juliet and I’d call him Romeo. One day after Papa died I saw Mick at the store in Spencer.
He told me he had made something for me. We arranged to meet about a mile from here where a little flat-bottomed creek comes
down from the mountain.

“Mick was afraid of Indians, but I wasn’t. We’ve lived here a long time and have never been bothered at all. Papa always said
that if we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone. Poor Mick. He was afraid of everything, his father most of all, because
he believed that he was a disappointment to him. Mick was small and thin and had the reddest hair you ever saw. He wanted
to make beautiful jewelry out of the rocks he found. He called them agates. Chip ridiculed him and let the men make fun of
him. I will never forgive him for that.

“The present was a silver bracelet Mick had made from one of his mother’s silver spoons. He had hammered it flat and etched
it with a floral design. It’s beautiful. Mick had the makings of a wonderful artist.

“That summer we met six times. He told me about his father and how Chip would hold James up as an example because by the time
James was twelve he was doing everything from riding the rafts to high-climbing. Mick liked art and reading, while James hated
school and did as little as possible. One day Mick came to our meeting place with a bruised face and cut lips. A bully had
jumped him and Chip had just stood there and let the boy beat him. I think that hurt Mick most of all. He was so heartsick
he cried. We held each other and comforted each other… and it… just happened. We both knew it was wrong, but it… just happened,”
she said again.

“Understand that I’m not apologizing for what I did. Because of that, something wonderful happened to me. I got Jeanmarie.
How could I be sorry?