Stony River (26 page)

Whenever she visited that old, old grove, Sevana had a feeling that something besides herself was present there, something she could tap into—almost. It was right beyond her fingertips: a sense of things momentous and profound. And it left her meditative, as if she had come in contact with age-old riddles and was on the brink of solving them. After a while, feeling quieted and in some way reassured, she went on to Avalanche Creek.

As the river, so also the creek had been dropping toward its summer levels, and the rocks that had emerged from the water formed a path of stepping stones, inviting her to follow. In a flash she was out on them, leaping from one to the next. There were enough rocks she didn’t have to resort to the bank at all. Up the creek she went—trying to guess just by sight which stones were stable enough to step on and which ones would tip beneath her weight. Usually she was right; a few times she was not, and split-second corrective actions were required.

Her rocky avenue ended at a deep pool where no stones at all showed above the surface. The only way to continue was by the bank—and it was so thickly vegetated as to appear impassable. It was a little creepy there, too, in those junglelike woods, where a dozen wild animals could be milling unseen amid the leafy foliage. She almost turned back, but an intriguing glimpse of open grass ahead made her decide to investigate.

Plunging into the thicket she struggled along, climbed over a log, and swam again in greenery. When she broke through a head-high patch of bracken and coneflower into the opening, she bit back a scream. Joel was sitting on a log not twenty feet away, steadily regarding her with his black eyes. Beyond him, the flock rested on the grassy bank beside a quiet pool.

“Afternoon, Sevana,” Joel said calmly, as if accustomed to seeing people materialize out of thin air.

“Afternoon,” she managed to spit out after the first shock of surprise. She went to drop down on the log beside him. “Funny,” she said in mock ruefulness, “I thought I was miles from anyone, and here I come out on a whole flock of sheep.”

He chuckled. “Once in a while I bring them down to water when it’s hot.”

“How do you get them here?”

“There’s a trail from the turnaround.”

“Oh, there is?”

“I take it you came up the creek.”

“Yes—on the rocks.”

“I see you fell in.”

“Only once,” she said sanctimoniously. “Some of the stones aren’t as stable as they look.”

“And when one starts to tilt, all you can do is leap to the next one and hope it’s not unstable, too,” he said with a grin, proving he was no stranger to the sport. He closed his book and laid it on the log. It was his Bible, the only book she’d ever seen him read.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” she apologized.

“I can read anytime,” he said, unconcerned. But unexpectedly he added, “I just read something about the high mountains.”

“What was it?” She was interested at once.

He took the book again and found the place, reading aloud a stanza which seemed taken from an archaic poem:

“‘For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind,

and declareth unto man what is his thought,

that maketh the morning darkness,

and treadeth upon the high places of the earth,

The Lord, The God of hosts, is His name.’”

He looked up. “That’s something, isn’t it—to think of God walking on these high mountains? You know, I always thought there was something different about the high country you could find nowhere else. Perhaps that’s why—because God Himself is up there, walking that very land.”

She shivered as if some unfelt breeze had brushed her. “Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “There are things you become aware of when you live here long enough. Whispers and echoes behind the land and animals and water. It didn’t happen all at once. But being out here—I started to listen, after a while.”

“Listen to what?” she asked, taking him literally.

“To what you can hear in the silence.”

Sevana remembered the tangible hush in the cedar grove, and thought she could understand what he was saying—at least in part. There
was
something in the stillness that was speaking to you, if you just knew how to listen.

“Trouble is, sometimes I don’t want to hear what it’s saying anymore,” he admitted—and for a passing instant the pain was back in his face, clear and unhidden from her. He shook his head as if bewildered. “And it’s never a good thing when you’re no longer interested in hearing the truth.” He closed the book. “I thought I would see you in the pasture this morning,” he remarked in a different tone.

“No, not today,” she answered gravely. “Oh Joel, Fenn’s been sick. He’s had such a fever.” Glad for the chance to tell him, she poured out the whole improbable tale.

Joel looked disturbed as she described the incident of the candle and Fenn’s irrational talk. “Hard to know what to think,” he said. “Guess you could blame it on a fever…” But he sounded doubtful.

“Do you think he’ll be all right?” She asked it so anxiously that Joel suddenly laid a hand on her back, as if regretting his words.

“Don’t worry, Sevana,” he said heartily. “It takes more than bad water to get a mountainman down, and Fenn’s tough as they come.”

“Oh, I hope so!” She held back a sigh. “I should start home. Fenn would probably prefer if I stayed away longer, but I don’t like being gone from him too long at one time.”

“I’m surprised you care, the way he treats you,” Joel said with a bluntness he didn’t try to hide.

“I can’t help but care.” She noticed how gracefully the cedar fans of the opposite bank hung over the sparkling water, almost touching it with their fringed tips. “I’m not saying the way he acts doesn’t bother me. But I’ve had kind of a daydream I guess, that he and I could have each other to count on, and I haven’t completely given it up. I’d rather have him for my family, than nobody at all.”

“I can understand that, Sevana,” Joel said—and she remembered he had even less family than she did. “And I hope it turns out for you as you wish. But in the meantime, as long as I’m up the mountain you must never feel that you’re alone. You won’t forget that, will you?”

“I could not forget it,” she said gratefully.

When she stood to go, he also rose. “I’ll be down later tonight to see how things are going—make sure you aren’t having any more trouble with Fenn,” he told her.

At his willingness to share her fear and trouble, her feeling of worry eased perceptibly. “Oh, thank you,” she breathed.

He grasped her shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie, as if he wished to impart encouragement to her. Then she was forging into the underwood with a much lighter heart for home.

As she went, Joel called after her, “Don’t go too far down the creek, Sevana!”

She looked back laughingly, but as she went on she was wondering what he meant. Too far! It seemed a peculiar thing to say. Was he only joking—or was there a reason he had said it? The question stayed with her as she picked her way over the rocks. At the place where she would have left the creek for home, she kept going to see what might lie ahead.

After a short distance the channel began to narrow. Some of the rocks became large boulders. The water’s bubbling changed to a deeper, more resonant sound. And climbing up on a boulder for a better look, she saw that the stream disappeared out of view ahead.

Cautious now, she sprang to the bank, went a few more paces, and stopped at the sight. As she had begun to suspect, the creek dropped there over a vertical rock face into a deep draw, streaming down in a moon-white ribbon to a churning pool far below. All this time, she hadn’t known the waterfall was there.

Excited over the discovery, she ran home to tell Fenn. She burst through the front door, then froze in her tracks. He was at the table with his head in his arms, and didn’t stir at the sound of her entrance. Wishing she hadn’t barged in so heedlessly, she began backing for the door. But before she reached it, he sat up, a disoriented look in his blue eyes as he focused them on her.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, very contrite.

“That’s all right,” he said a little hazily. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep. Kind of dozed off.”

“How do you feel?”

“All right.” He yawned, stretched his arms.

“I can heat up some soup.”

“Okay.” He was still in a daze.

While Sevana lit the fire and set the pot on the stove, he sat gazing out the window, his hair rumpled and a shadow of whiskers on his face. There was a vulnerable, boyish look on his face in place of the defensive look she was used to. She was drawn by it and uneasy over it at the same time, fearing he was still under the effects of the fever.

“Had a funny dream,” he mused.

“Did you?” She wanted to stare at him, but made herself go on stirring the soup instead.

“This log was rolling down the hill, just rolling and rolling—and then the hill was gone and the log was in the blue sky, rolling over and over like it had no weight.” He gave a laugh, shook his head. “Kind of strange what a fever will do to your head.” He was still boyish.

She smiled at him. He seemed sensible enough to her. And she could scarcely believe the change in him. But she didn’t acknowledge it in any way, for fear it would vanish if she did.

He ate the soup she set before him. Then she brought him tea, but after drinking a little of it he asked for cold water instead. She risked laying a hand on his forehead. “You’re hot,” she informed him. “You’re still not over it. You should go to bed.”

He drank the water and then, for a wonder, went upstairs at her word. He was sleeping when she checked on him later, and his forehead no longer felt so feverish.

True to his promise Joel rode into the yard before sundown, after spending the afternoon wondering what Sevana had gotten into by staying the summer there. It was not the first such contemplation he had entertained, but this one the more serious because of last night’s incident. Her description of Fenn’s irrationality disturbed him more than he’d let on. He didn’t relish the thought of her alone in the house with a madman! He had his own theories for at least some of Fenn’s aberrations, and none of them set his mind any easier about her. He felt a neighborly duty to watch out for her, to be in part the brother Fenn wasn’t—but that was difficult when he lived so far away and wasn’t welcome at Fenn’s house. Sometimes he wanted to urge her to leave, but that seemed cruel when she had no place to go. All he could see to do, realistically, was hope for the best, keep an eye out for her, and hold her in his prayers.

For yes, he was praying again, after avoiding it since his last rendezvous with Chantal. He had done some soul-searching after he’d said all those inexcusable things to Sevana, had been shocked at what had come out of his mouth. It was true he felt at odds with the One whose dictates he dearly wished to ignore. But he was convinced he couldn’t disregard them, despite what he craved, and it was this certainty that caused him to know the door was still open for him to do right. And even though he felt devastated by his own strong desire, he had come to the place where he could sit on the front step with his hands locked between his knees, and ask help from the One above to get through the struggle he faced without failing Him or anyone else. If it was a half-hearted request at best, for he wanted the exact opposite of what he was asking, at least he had gathered the internal fortitude to say the words.

Sevana went out to meet him on the path. Even with the news that Fenn had improved, Joel offered to stay in their barn that night to be nearby in case she needed him. But though touched he would trouble himself to that extent for her, Sevana didn’t deem it necessary to ask it of him. They talked a while longer—Sevana remembering to tell him of her success with the homemade trap: she had whisked three mice outside already, with Fenn none the wiser. She had thought Joel would go up the hill then, but he said he wanted to see the river while he was so close, and invited her along.

“But Fenn—” she hesitated.

“We won’t be long.”

So Sevana let Joel boost her onto his horse and transport her to the river on the same game trail she always took. At the leaning cedar he insisted she take the rock, while he chose a seat in the stretch of lush grass—over which Flint had already flicked his ears in pleased approval and begun to graze. “I thought this was my own private hideaway when I discovered it,” Sevana said. “But it’s yours, too, isn’t it?”

“I guess you could say so—even though I don’t get down here as much as I’d like. It’s a good place for thinking. And painting,” he added with a smile, always conscious she saw the world through different eyes than most. “Are you going to?”

“It’s my next project,” she said, finding it strange how well he understood.