Stony River (40 page)

Just as the flowers were unfamiliar, so Sevana did not recognize the misshapen trees sparsely punctuating the ridgetops, until Joel said they were whitebark pines. Some were alive, their yellow-green needles meager on irregular limbs. More were dead and barkless, their gaunt, moss-dotted branches pointing out in contorted angles as if petrified while tossing in some eternal storm. Joel said they were few and rarely found, for they could survive only at the highest elevations. Sevana was silent as she contemplated their twisted forms. There was a noble character to those lone, weatherbeaten monarchs.

She walked up to the barren ridgetop, and stopped at the edge of a talus slope that fell away before her. A small asymmetrical lake lay in the fold of the hanging valley below, while jagged minarets imposed the horizon. The sunlight was cool and dazzling, the air thin and fresh, the sky so close she felt she was almost in it. With all her heart, she wanted to stay until it was familiar to her—until she had seen everything Joel had seen, and knew everything he knew about it.

A squat little animal scurried over the scree below her, carrying an oversized bunch of leafy shrubs in its mouth. Even though it was already out of view, she called to Joel where he stood a bit distant of her keeping an eye on the sheep. “Was that a pika?”

“Yes.” He came over to see if he could spot it. “Keep watching—maybe he’ll sing for you.”

Soon the pika emerged from under the rocks without his greenery, his round furry form navigating the rockfield as nimbly as if his path wasn’t strewn with daunting obstacles. He reappeared in the middle of the scree, darted to the top of a rock, and sat there on all fours looking around him with a grand air. Then he pointed his nose in the air and emitted a loud squeaky chirp, his round ears going flat against his head.

Sevana clapped a hand over her mouth in mirth, and Joel chuckled. “Not unlike a coyote howling at the moon.”

After the pika had announced its general opinion to the world in that one convulsive chirrup, he dove under the rocks again, scuttling through the unseen labyrinth, and was soon observed at the side of the rockfield shearing off some beargrass with his teeth.

“What do you think he meant when he squeaked like that? Was he talking to another pika, or announcing his territory like the hawk?” Sevana asked.

“From what I’ve seen, it’s just a general expression of satisfaction that all is well,” Joel observed. “I think he’s singing because he loves his high world, loves his rockpile, loves his shrubs and grass, and knows he is wise to store them away so he doesn’t have to be afraid of cold days coming.”

Sevana took a seat on a quartz boulder. “Joel, what’s it like to live here day after day, and see these things no one else ever does?”

He came to sit on the same slab, for there was room for two and more. “I think you might find it some different than you imagine.”

“Then tell me,” she implored. “I can’t know unless you do.”

“I can try.” He paused, considering how to explain it to someone who had never experienced it before. “The air is so light—you feel energized and your mind is clear. I don’t think it’s any myth the mountain air is good for you. And you can watch the sun and moon and stars and clouds in their endless variations, day and night. But for all the fascination of this alpine life, there’s a solitude that’s absolute—a starkness of being in a land that has nothing to do with you. The beauty is before your eyes, but when you put out your hand, you touch only inhospitable rock. And the land is harsh and does nothing to receive you, and to be here is to know only hardship. You’re never allowed to forget you’re the only living thing up here not naturally adapted to surviving the extreme environment, and you keenly sense your own frailty. But if you stay—if you learn to live in the land on its own terms—you come to count on it for what it is. And when you leave, you think you will welcome the shelter and comfort of being home again—and instead, Sevana, you wish yourself back.”

She had to smile at his words, spoken with fervor, but at the same time she glanced over her shoulder, for the breeze was suddenly colder and something seemed wrong with the sun. The top of Old Stormy was hidden in a cloud where no cloud had been minutes before, and fog was swirling in from nowhere, blotting out the blue of the sky.

“Doesn’t look good, does it?” Joel said soberly. “I’d say we’re in for a storm shortly.”

All Sevana’s musings scattered like dry leaves to a wind, and she jumped to her feet in alarm. “I’ve got to get back!” she cried. “I can’t be delayed if I’m to be home by dark.” She started running down the slope.

In a few strides Joel caught up and walked alongside her, keeping her pace easily as she scrabbled frantically over the rocky ground. “You can’t go back now,” he declared. “If it storms, you’d be caught in it for sure. You’ll just have to wait and see what comes of it.”

“I can’t,” she said, slipping on a loose piece of shale and nearly falling before she saved herself. “I don’t have time. If it storms, I’ll just have to ride through it.” She was making a straight line for Trapper, but Joel arrested her by taking hold of her arm.

“I can’t let you go.” Resolution hardened his features to an unfamiliar degree. “It isn’t safe. You might be in the forest when trees start falling, or out in the open when lightning is striking, or the clouds might settle in so closely you can’t find your way. It happens like that in these high places. Storms up here have twice the fury.”

“I’ve got to try,” she said, twisting to get out of his grip. But when she didn’t succeed, she stopped and looked up at him pleadingly. “Please, Joel, I
must
be home before Fenn. He’ll come home and find me gone and his horse gone—and what will he think?”

“Sevana, listen to reason,” Joel said kindly. “How would I know you ever got home? What if you didn’t? It’s a risk even in good weather, but I’d be a fool to let you try it in a storm. Fenn will wonder where you are, but at least you will be safe. If he knew, he would tell you to wait out the storm himself.”

She looked at the ground. She had to admit what he said made sense. Besides, she was convinced she had no choice in the matter. He had made up his mind, and nothing she did or said would change it.

“Let’s get the sheep down to camp,” he said—and as if he still didn’t trust her, he untied Trapper and led him along. Sevana followed at a distance, eyeing his back skeptically, not liking to have lost the argument even if he was right.

In the shelter of the saddle, Joel tethered Trapper and brought the sheep into a tight circle as fog was sweeping down from the heights. Through the rising wind he called to Sevana to take cover in the tent. She did so, crouching near the front, and waited for Joel to follow.

But Joel didn’t come, and Sevana had to weather that storm by herself. Lightning flashed through the canvas walls, and thunder reverberated off the upslopes until it sounded as if the mountains themselves were falling down. Finally, when only the rain continued, pelting hard on the roof, Joel stepped in. “Nothing like a good downpour to keep the pastures green,” he said cheerfully, hunting through a saddlebag for a dry shirt. He stood looking out the tent flap while he buttoned it on.

Sevana didn’t reply. She had been busy calculating the time she was losing—time lost when she had none to spare. She knew if she left now, she would be caught in the woods after nightfall. But surely Trapper could find the last mile or so in the dark. Animals were good that way. In any case, she would rather risk traveling by night than stay till morning and face Fenn’s wrath. Impatiently she waited for the rain to let up so she could go home.

After the raindrops had diminished to a drizzle on the tent roof, they went outside. The sheep were huddled in an unfamiliar landscape of gloom and drifting fog. The day seemed later than it was. There was no use trying to go home until the fog lifted, either, Sevana knew. A thought almost took her breath away. What if it set in for the night—or even for days? There was no way to let Fenn know where she was. For the first time she saw how truly impetuous she had been. She hadn’t considered the full seriousness of her undertaking; all she’d been able to think of was the land she wanted to see. Now she felt cornered, no way to correct her mistakes. She was trapped in the mountains—far from home where she was supposed to be.

Joel brought his overcoat, and she didn’t protest as he helped her into it. She hadn’t realized until then that she was shivering. Silently she followed as he took the sheep back up to their feeding ground.

CHAPTER 26

Huddled in Joel’s big coat, strands of hair whipping about her face, Sevana sat on a rock and dully bore the wind. Joel sat with his back to the wind, too, his eyes ever on the sheep. He said he had to keep a closer lookout up there—it was not uncommon to see grizzlies any time of day. With the revolver at his side, Sevana felt no fear of seeing one, but it made her even more uneasy about the trip back. All the time her impulsiveness mounted higher before her. She was eager to get home and right her wrongs; she would not attempt such a feat again. Would the fog never lift? She hid her face in her hands with a moan.

“What’s wrong, Sevana?” asked Joel.

“I’ve got to get back!” she said, raising anguished eyes to him. “How long before the fog clears?”

“It’s beginning to lift even now. But by my life, Sevana, you’re not going home tonight.”

“Why not?” She regarded him in surprise. “Trapper can go the last little bit in the dark. You ride Flint at night sometimes,” she added defensively, to strengthen her case.

“When there’s no room for error is not a good time for a first attempt,” he retorted. “And what of the wild animals that roam freely at night? I’m sorry, Sevana, but you’ll have to wait for morning.”

Sevana hung her head and reluctantly abandoned her last hope of getting home before Fenn. She pictured his fury when he came home and discovered Trapper missing. But maybe he would get back so late, he would just assume she’d put the horse in the barn and was in bed herself, and wouldn’t discover the truth until morning. At least then he wouldn’t have as much time to worry.

In any event, she knew she had lost her riding privileges this time for good. But the summer was more than half over anyway. And on the bright side, she got to spend extra time with Joel, whom she may never have a chance to be with again. That thought allowed her to lift her eyes to the mountaintops emerging from the mists—appearing even taller and more otherworldly than when their entire forms were visible—and be glad of where she was again.

In late afternoon they went back to camp, and Joel kindled a fire. Sevana stood close to it. Even though the sky had broken open, with only the residue of harmless clouds remaining, the wind was much colder than six thousand feet lower at the homestead. She shivered even through the thick wool, then realized Joel was still in his shirtsleeves. It wasn’t fair for him to go without his coat for her. “I shouldn’t have kept your coat for so long,” she apologized, unbuttoning it.

But Joel wouldn’t take it back. “Keep the coat, Sevana—I’m not cold. This is but a summer evening, and nothing like the ones to follow.”

He set a pan of stream-water in the fire and took his axe in search of more wood. Sevana went with him, helping to gather broken branches and pieces of long-fallen trees scoured smooth as driftwood by years of wind and snow. When they had piled a good supply beside the fire ring, Joel poured yellow cornmeal into the steaming water and stirred it until it was thick.

They sat on the stout log near the fire and ate the hot mush in tin cups while shadow overtook their end of the saddle. Even without butter, the cornmeal tasted rich and sweet in that cold, comfortless land. Sevana contributed a cheese sandwich, a bunch of small garden carrots, and a bag of cookies to the meal. Biting off a crisp carrot, Joel admitted he got tired of his monotonous dry-food diet. He couldn’t leave the sheep long enough to hike the half-mile down to the lake for fresh fish, and there weren’t any berries that high except bitter dwarf whortleberries the size of peppercorns.

Afterward, Joel washed the few dishes in the cooking pan and put a coffee pot full of stream water in the fire, in a set routine that left Sevana nothing to do. When he went to look over the flock, she wandered off by herself, though keeping within sight of camp.

The wind whistled through the coarse grass and heather with the harsh cutting sound of a whirling lariat. It swept her along, so she began to run irresistibly toward the open skyline—and she ran until she reached the overlook of the basin that held the lopsided lake.

On that heathered prospect she stopped, with the wind buffeting her as if determined to push her over the brink. She shrank further into the recesses of the coat, but she didn’t take her eyes from the view. The lake was glowing a glorious saffron color in the strong, clear rays that shone from the west in the freshly washed sky, so that the lake and the broken clouds seemed drenched with warm butterscotch glazing. The flinty rocks beyond the lake also shone honey-amber as the sun was leaving them, and the ground where she stood basked in the reflected light.

Oh, it was a wild land! The vista blurred as tears trickled from her eyes. She was in the midst of the very country that had called to her so often; and yet being here did not answer the old questions, and instead inspired new ones.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into Joel’s face. She hadn’t heard him over the wind. She had no time to wipe the tears away, and knew that all the turbulent emotions were written there plain for him to see.