Stony River (32 page)

The rest of the day was a slow-moving nightmare for her. She alternated between checking on the flock outside and the sick lamb in the straw, getting him to drink as often as he would. She had seen Joel give grain as a treat, so she offered him a handful from the pail, but he wouldn’t take any. Before sundown she brought in the other animals, and continued her vigil.

But as nightfall progressed, she sensed Goldthread was slipping away. He no longer drank; he was too weak to raise his head. With the lantern burning over the pen, she sat beside him as he lay barely breathing—her hand resting on his side ever so lightly to let him know she was there. And with all other possibilities exhausted, she whispered to God to please save Joel’s sheep.

And then, perhaps in answer, Joel was there, filling the doorframe. “Sevana,” he sounded puzzled, “why are you still here?”

Without moving, she said: “Oh, Joel, Goldthread’s sick, and I don’t know what to do! Maybe he ate some lupine.”

He dropped to his knees and checked over the lamb. “I don’t think it’s anything he ate. It looks like pneumonia.” He sat back on his heels and pushed the hair out of his eyes, and she saw how fatigue had drained his face of its normal vitality. “I see you’ve been giving him water, and that’s good. How long since his last drink?”

“About an hour. He won’t take anything now.”

“He’s going fast. The only way to save him is to get some nourishment down him. If he can keep up his strength, he might be able to pull out of it.” He was on his feet, rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll go mix up some mash.”

He returned from the house with a bowl of chopped apple mixed with oats and molasses, and a bottle of warm molasses milk. Sevana stood back to let him work. He covered Goldthread with an old flannel shirt to keep off the night chill, and managed to force a drink of milk down him. He looked relieved. “There’s a chance,” he said tightly. “Come on, Goldie.”

He stayed on his knees, waiting to give him some more.

“How did he get pneumonia?” Sevana knelt beside him. “He seemed fine when I let the flock out of the pen, and a few hours later he was lying down, too weak to stand.”

“I don’t know. Something as simple as the temperature change from day to night might have been too much for his weak constitution. He’s always fought an uphill battle, just because he’s a runt.”

“He’s got to make it, Joel,” Sevana said desperately. “He’s got so much to live for—such a happy life in these mountains!”

Joel looked into her white, pinched face, and realized he’d been too wrapped up with Goldthread to think of her. “One thing’s sure, Sevana—if he makes it, he’ll owe it to you. He wouldn’t have made it this far if you hadn’t been here.”

He got up and went through the rest of the sheep looking for signs of sickness—for pneumonia, he said, could go through a flock like anything; and separated out Hawthorn with a hot, dry nose.

“Not Hawthorn, too!” Sevana said in new dismay, even though Hawthorn did not look particularly unwell—and in fact acted more than pleased to be the center of attention.

“Just a mild case, so far. With a little care, hopefully he’ll hold his own.” In the other lambing pen Joel offered Hawthorn a pan of grain, a treat he gobbled greedily. “I see you haven’t lost your appetite,” Joel said to him dryly.

For the next hour they both sat wholly focused on Goldthread. There was a point when Joel was afraid they’d crossed the threshold past hope, and Sevana was crying. But Joel worked over his thin rib cage with deft fingers and succeeded in rousing the lamb from the nether state he’d slipped into. Sending Sevana on an emergency run to the house for pure molasses, he slid a dose down his throat with an eyedropper. Marvelously, it seemed to have a slight rejuvenating effect. And after another half-hour and several more doses of molasses, the miracle: Goldthread weakly swallowed a little milk from the bottle on his own. And Joel, without taking his eyes off him, said hoarsely, “I think he’s going to make it.”

It soon became even more evident, for Goldthread let out a feeble bleat to let them know he was back, and raised his head to eat a bite of mash. And Joel and Sevana had their arms around each other, rocking back and forth absurdly on their knees and laughing for joy.

That was when Sevana remembered. “Is Chantal gone?” she asked, pulling back to look over her shoulder as if she expected to see her standing there.

“Yes. She should be in Victoria by now.” Joel tucked the shirt snugly around Goldthread and sat against the partition of the pen, waiting until it was time to give him more milk. “We talked things out.”

“How did it go?” Sitting opposite him, Sevana ran her hand through the shiny straw on the floor.

“The only way it could.” With the battle for the lamb no longer demanding all his attention, he seemed to sag in body and spirit, the crisis having depleted what little reserves he had left after the emotionally trying day. He leaned his head back against the planks as he recalled the trip he’d just taken.

“I probably didn’t handle things the best way. In fact, I know I didn’t. But she was so set on us being together, I had to make her see how drastic it would be. So last night at the cabin, I said we should stop sitting on the fence about getting married, and just do it.” His eyes were coal black in the indefinite light.

Sevana’s hand crept to her throat to feel the pulse that thudded dully there.

“At first she was stunned. She said it was something she’d wanted to hear all this time, but hadn’t dared hope for. I kept right on, all enthusiasm, bringing up the practical details—pressing for it to be soon. And she started to get scared. Her husband is a very popular man, they have many mutual friends, and his family adores her. It was such a drastic thing—so selfish, so many people hurt—that when the opportunity was there for her to take, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. She asked for time to think about it. She cried on my shoulder most of the night.

“I know it wasn’t straightforward of me—but I was positive it would show her what she needed to see: that when it came down to the reality of it, she was just as unconvinced as me. The obstacles that have always been there, are still there for both of us. Undeniably there. If they weren’t, we would have been together a long time ago. I know why she got cold feet. There’s no good solution. There’s no solution at all.

“In the end, it was impossible for her to decide,” he went on in his devitalized way. “Like me, she knew the right thing to do, but couldn’t accept it because she loved me too much to shut the door on it. And she couldn’t choose the other, because she was too afraid of the consequences. So this afternoon she left it up to me. We were sitting on top of a stone picnic table in this little park. It was funny, there were petals blowing off a mock-orange bush and scattering all over us and the table and the ground. It looked like a wedding.” The irony was hard in his voice.

Sevana picked up a handful of straw and let it slide from her palm. “So what did you do?”

“I decided for us.” He looked beaten as he said it. “All along, I knew there was only one answer. It can’t work—she and I. We would live the rest of our lives in the shadow of what we had done.” He was reciting the facts monotonously, without emotion. “I told her to go back to Victoria. I said there was no room in this life for our love. And I said the only chance we had for happiness was to say goodbye right there and write no more letters, because to keep our relationship alive as we’d been doing, would only kill us slowly with the pain of it. The only hope was in time and distance, and the lessening of memory.

“And she agreed. We didn’t stick around much longer after that. It was say goodbye and leave, or it would never happen at all. So I kissed her one last time to make up for the rest of our lives, and we took our separate ways against everything in our hearts. I hope she made it to the airport okay. I couldn’t see much of the road home, myself.”

Sevana quit playing with the straw and locked her fingers in front of her. “I’m so sorry, Joel,” she said, thinking surely now that she would rather see him happy at any cost, than suffer this crushing loss. “I can only imagine how empty you must feel right now.”

“Empty, yes. I know only one thing: I will live my life alone in honor of my love for her—the love that should have been, but wasn’t allowed to be.” Until then he had been speaking hollowly, spent of all energy; but with this last thing he uttered, his eyes blazed with a fervid fire and he spoke as if taking an oath.

Sevana inwardly recoiled from his savage look as he made that declaration. But hoping to console him, she said, “At least you still have your life here—your cabin, the sheep—”

“That’s another thing,” he said, reminded. “The Province granted my summer range this year, but they won’t guarantee it after that. Times are changing. Most areas have been closed altogether. My area may soon close, they said.”

“What will you do if it does?”

“I’ll get by on fiddlemaking, maybe keep what few sheep I can pasture right here on the mountain.” He spoke as if he did not really care what happened.

He sent her to the house to sleep. He said he would stay with Goldthread and Hawthorn through the night. Although Sevana would have preferred to keep vigil with him, she sensed he needed to be alone and went without protest. But she slept no more in his comfortable bed that night, than he did out in the hay.

CHAPTER 21

Sevana emerged from Joel’s room at first dawn to find him frying pancakes. “Goldthread’s holding his own,” he said by way of greeting. “His fever’s gone; he’s going to be fine.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said, happy at once at the good news. “What about Hawthorn?”

“It never got him down. Maybe he was just putting on an act for the grain. And the others—not a sick one among them.”

“I’m so glad,” she said thankfully. Then she rubbed her eyes, childlike, for she wasn’t quite awake, and stepped out to look at the morning. The sheep were already grazing the dew-soaked grass of the promontory. Joel had once remarked that dawn was the best time of day for them—the wet grass made them an excellent breakfast. The sky was as faded as an old wildrose, the rock turrets slate-gray. But in a minute she was flying back in, crying, “Joel, come quick—the tops of the mountains are all on fire!”

Joel, who saw the sight almost every day, nevertheless came at once, and his wonder was as true as hers as they watched the unseen rays melt the outline of the slopes into liquid gold and turn their cragged faces radiant vermilion. Then, too soon, the intense color diffused as it spread down the cliffs, and the mountains took on their everyday look as the sun appeared, shining full into the land.

Back inside, Joel handed her a plate of pancakes. “Since you’re up, you get the first stack.”

When Sevana sat down, there was a flower guidebook at her place. To her questioning look, Joel explained he’d gotten it for her yesterday and hoped she would like it. She was astounded he had thought of her at all during the crisis moment of his life. But as much as the gift meant to her—incredibly, there was more. For in Joel’s mind, that was not payment enough for watching the sheep—and saving Goldthread’s life at that, he reminded her—and last night he’d gotten an idea. The wilderness might be too far away to show her, but he would take her to another high place they could drive to: Landmark Peak.

She recognized the name. “Where you met Chantal?” she asked doubtfully. “Wouldn’t it remind you—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a masked look. “Let me show off the country while I have the chance.”

“Then I’d be delighted.” She wasn’t hard to persuade.

“We’ll go day after tomorrow, if you’re free. I’m putting my summer trip on hold until Goldthread’s strong enough to travel.”

The bestowed gifts reminded her that she also had something for him. She got her sketchbook from the desk and tore out the page. “This is for you.”

Joel’s laugh rang out at first glance. “You drew my sheep!”

“I know they don’t look much like themselves,” she apologized. “But you said you wanted to see a caricature anyway.”

“Their faces might not resemble them exactly.” Joel was still chuckling, and it made her glad to see. “But for anyone who didn’t know them personally, they would think it a most professional drawing. Thanks, Sevana, I’ll keep it always.” He put it in the desk for safekeeping before he brought another stack of pancakes to the table.

“So, what did you think of Chantal?” The question was casually put toward the end of breakfast, but she noticed his eyes—shadowed from his all-night watch—focused on her face to catch the slightest reaction.

She met his gaze and said honestly the only thing that came to mind: “I thought she was even prettier than her picture.”

He nodded. “She liked you, too. She said it was nice I had someone to help me watch the sheep.”

He was forcing himself to function, to keep moving, even though his heart had been wrenched from his chest and lay among the fragrant white petals scattered over the ground in the city park. Those flowers hadn’t been for a wedding, but a wake. Now that it was over, the die cast, it was he who was regretting it, thinking he should have proposed for real, made an effort to talk her into it—shouldn’t have been so all-fired principled in letting her go. It was all he could do not to call her up and tell her he wanted her back despite everything. If he had a telephone, he would probably be making the call. Good thing he lived as he did, with the sheer bulk of miles preventing him from immediately carrying out his desire, and giving him time to get himself in hand.