The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine (11 page)

“Actually I thought how smooth and joltless your ride would be.” The third corner dropped free, and he moved over to the last.

Carina wanted to retort. His steady purpose brought back too clearly his execution of her wagon. She’d dreamed of it last night, only she’d been on the wagon plunging over the side with Nonna’s rocker and Mamma’s dishes and . . . She closed her eyes and heard the pallet come loose. One pole scratched across the frozen ground, then Quillan must have lifted it. She looked and saw him carry it to the stoop and lean it against the front wall of her house like a sign:
Invalid here
.

Then she noticed how he’d tied it all together and padded it thickly. Three blankets lay folded across Jock’s back. Her anger withered. She ran her fingers across Jock’s chest as she passed under his neck and stepped up to the porch. Quillan leaned his hip against the post.

She took one step up and then another. He held a hand out, and she threaded her fingers with his.

Father Antoine rounded the corner. “Are we ready?”

She looked from Quillan to the priest. “Ready?”

“To see the cave.” He looked from her to her husband.

Quillan had planned it all. Her transportation, the priest’s chance to see Wolf ’s paintings, their chance to see the mine again. She swallowed past the tightening in her throat. She was the rogue this time. Dropping her head with a sigh, she said, “Quillan was just attaching the litter. We’re following the creek up.”

The corners of his mouth deepened, but Quillan said nothing as he took the litter from the wall and carried it back to the horses. Father Antoine caught the other end and helped fasten it in place between Quillan’s blacks. Carina swallowed her pride and stepped onto Quillan’s folded hands for a boost up, then lay down on the litter. Quillan tucked the blankets tightly over her. His fingers squeezed hers a moment. Sam whined, but Quillan shut him into the house, then he and Father Antoine each took charge of a horse and started up on foot.

She closed her eyes so that if anyone saw her she wouldn’t know. The
clop-clop
of the horses’ hooves on the frozen street changed to thudding as they neared the creek and started up. The snow was deeper. It would be harder to plod through. Carina felt selfish. She pulled the blanket higher over her shoulder and settled into the rhythmic swaying. If Quillan would have just let her ride . . . But he was resolute.

No matter that her strength had returned, that her back hardly ached. The word of a doctor meant more than her obvious improvement. Yet, part of her appreciated the care. He had gone to great lengths to ensure her comfort.

She watched the sleek black muscles of Jack’s shoulders, then gazed a little higher at the cold blue sky. She was glad for the blankets. The sun was shining, and Quillan and Father Antoine were no doubt warmer walking. But lying still, she would have been chilled. Quillan had thought of everything. What had caused her outburst?

Changeable. The doctor thought her changeable? Had warned Quillan? Beh! She tugged the blanket to her chin. Didn’t she have reason? She caught Father Antoine glancing over Jack’s back. Could he read her thoughts?

He dutifully held Jack’s reins, but she knew it was to Quillan Jack responded, and to Jock, his twin. She remembered too well trying to control Jack separately. And landing in the creek for her trouble. And Quillan trying not to laugh—though not hard enough. Oh! And there again a glance from the priest.

She raised her head from the cocoon of blankets. “Èmie said you’ve been busy, Father.”

“Four weddings, one last rites, and one baptism,” he said. “And that was only yesterday.”

She couldn’t accustom herself to his gaunt smile. He needed “feeding up,” as Nonna would say. Carina’s chest tightened. Soon she would see Nonna. And Mamma and Papa, elegant Papa. But most of all old Giuseppe. She pressed her cheek into the woolly mat again. How thoughtful for Quillan to have attached it. She felt like a lamb pressed to a ewe’s belly. She could smell the musky scent of lanolin in the fleece. He was a good man, her husband. She warmed at the thought.

It took an hour and more to reach the circular shelf outside the Rose Legacy mine. The burned-out foundation was buried in snow, nothing more than a vague outline. But the mine gaped as though surprised to see them climbing up through the snow, and roots formed eyes above the tunnel mouth.

Quillan brought his team to a halt, and Carina sat up. The ride had been as smooth and joltless as he’d predicted. He walked around Jock’s rump as she slid toward the edge. Then he gripped her waist and swung her down.

“Thank you.” She smoothed her coat.

He untied the coils of rope from Jock’s side and hung them over his shoulder.

“Did you bring lanterns?” she asked.

“Miners’ candles. In my pack.” He gave her a hand over the snow. It dwindled to a thin coat of powder immediately inside the tunnel.

Carina felt a quiver of excitement. This was the first time she would go down to the cave without Alex. Yet it felt so right with Quillan. He’d saved her from the mineshaft before she even knew there was a cave beneath. The cave had been Alex’s discovery. The painted chamber had been hers.

Quillan emptied a large lumpy bag of fodder and grain onto the ground for the horses. Carina watched them nose it eagerly. They wouldn’t wander far on this steep snowy slope. Quillan unfastened the litter and leaned it inside the tunnel, tossing the blankets at its foot. He wouldn’t leave the horses encumbered. That was the first good thing she’d noticed about him, how he cared for his animals.

Inside the tunnel, Quillan shrugged off his pack. He took out tin candle holders with a flap of metal at one edge to keep a draft away. He affixed one candle and handed it to Carina. The acrid smell of the match caught her breath, then the flame grabbed the wick and stretched upward, its thin light dancing across the low ceiling.

“We’ll just use one until we’re down.” Quillan picked up a coil of rope and started working it into a harness. When he finished the knots and twists, he held it open for her to step into.

Carina handed the candle to Father Antoine. She had not thought to wear the pair of pants that she occasionally wore, and the rope harness caught her skirts up awkwardly. But it was dim and both men discreet in their gaze. She took the few steps to the edge of the shaft and looked down. Before God healed her fear of heights, the sight would have set her head spinning, her stomach surging to her throat. It was intimidating even now.

She clung to the rope as Quillan lowered her, using the spikes he’d attached to the beam as a pulley. Just the way Alex had let her down that first time when she’d sensed the darkness like a hostile force. She felt safe today with Quillan and Father Antoine, however. She reached the ledge, which had been the floor of Wolf ’s shaft, then gathering herself, swung into the hole where he’d broken through the roof of the limestone cave.

This was the worst part of the descent, dangling helplessly in the vast darkness of the first chamber. With no light at all she could hardly sense her downward motion. Maybe she was just hanging there in the void. She smelled the musty bodies of bats. Then her feet hit ground and slid on the pungent, slimy guano. She climbed out of the harness and tugged. She wouldn’t yell and set the bats off in a cloud.

To her immediate left plunged a subterranean well. She knew it was there but could see nothing. Alex had sent her down with a candle in her pocket. Quillan had not thought to. He was not as accustomed to the underground as a mining engineer. Now, though she knew the cave held nothing evil, the darkness preyed on her mind. Her ears fixed on the soft
plink-plink
of water dripping somewhere. And the mouth of Wolf ’s chamber moaned. She would never forget that sound.

She heard someone, Father Antoine she guessed, directly above her and stepped aside. He landed with a grunt, and called, “I’m down.”

Carina put a hand to his arm at the flutter overhead, but his words must not have been enough to frighten the bats en masse. “Bats,” she said and felt him look up, though they were in pitch darkness. How ingrained their habits. “Step this way, Father. There’s a well to your left. Did you bring a light?”

“Yes.” He fumbled in his pockets, and she wondered if his mind felt muffled, like hers.

The end of the rope brushed the floor with Quillan’s descent. She caught the end and held it firm. Soon she heard him straining and stepped out of his way. The snick of a match sounded loudly in the chamber, and she watched the tiny flame lick the candlewick. It caught easily.

Quillan landed and tugged the handle of a holder from his pocket. “Forgot to give you this.”

She took it and lit the candle from Father Antoine’s. Quillan lit his, as well, then all three held them out at arm’s length and circled slowly. The light glanced over the closest stalactites, stalagmites, and a narrow sheet of tawny flowstone, only hinting at the size of the cavern.

Father Antoine said, “Wolf painted this?”

“Not this one.” Quillan pointed his light away in the direction of the painted chamber. “It’s over that way.”

He started, and Carina followed closely with Father Antoine behind her. They felt the floor rise, and the men needed to duck their heads as they entered the narrow cave tunnel. Suddenly the floor dropped, and they entered the small chamber. It was the third time Carina had been there, but as her candle illuminated the pictures around her, she felt the same trembling emotion. Wolf ’s saga could not leave her unmoved.

She glanced at Quillan. He had fixed immediately on the final picture in the circular mural, where Wolf stood with his son raised over his head. Father Antoine circled slowly, studying each new image with a grim countenance. She knew well what he was feeling. He’d been a part of Wolf ’s life.

Wolf had told him of the slaughter of his family, shown him the scars of being a white slave among the tribes. But it was not the same as seeing the images Wolf had transferred from his mind. Without speaking, Carina joined Quillan and laced her fingers with his.

He kept his gaze to the wall. “I remember this.” He spoke so low, she wasn’t certain she’d heard.

“Remember?”

He nodded. “Impossible, I know.” The opening in the teardrop-shaped ceiling moaned softly. He looked up. “That, too.” His hand tightened its hold on hers. “The first time I heard that, I recognized it. That sound has been in my dreams all my life.”

“But, Quillan . . .”

“I know. I was only an infant. But I’m sure Wolf brought me here.” The candlelight flickered across his face.

“And this scene . . .” He stepped closer to the wall. “Carina, I remember it.”

“Not impossible.” Father Antoine joined them. “The mind is a tome, holding every image, every word. If you did see it, even in those early months before Rose sacrificed her good for yours, then surely it’s locked away somewhere.”

Quillan returned his gaze to the image on the wall. “I’ve always remembered easily. Words. Pictures.”

Father Antoine asked, “Words spoken or written?”

“Both. But mainly written. When I was young I thought everyone did.” His face hardened. “Then I learned otherwise.”

Carina guessed it was a painful memory. He had so many of those. Quillan turned now, and together they circled the chamber, reading Wolf ’s life on the walls. Like his son, Wolf ’s life had not been easy. A fierce defensiveness rose up in her for Quillan. He may have had a joyless youth, but no more. She would make him happy.

He looked down, and she thought he had read her thoughts, but then she realized she was squeezing the blood from his fingers. She relaxed her grip. When they had completed the circle and stood once again at the final painting, Quillan asked, “Why would he show me this?”

Both Carina and the priest knew the question was much deeper. Why would Wolf take his infant son into the cave and show him his deepest secret when he couldn’t bear to have the baby near? When Quillan’s cries set off memories too painful, too present to bear? When Wolf ’s madness made Rose give their child to another to raise?

Father Antoine said, “Perhaps his mind was like yours, Quillan. He didn’t read or write, but he remembered. How else could he depict those early scenes with such detail? He couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time.”

Quillan frowned. Carina bit her lip. Had Wolf passed on a gift to Quillan? Or a curse?

“Maybe,” Father said softly, “he knew you would remember.”

Quillan drew a slow breath. “I’ve asked Alex Makepeace to help me seal this off. I don’t want others—”

“Quite right.” The priest circled the cave with his eyes. “Wolf ’s borne enough.”

His words brought a low rumbling. Some trick of wind through the angled opening above? It grew, and now Carina felt it in the ground. Did the earth shake? But no. It was like the flood, something rushing, crashing above them. Quillan tugged her as snow powder gushed through the small opening like sugar from a sack.

“Avalanche!” And he turned and rushed down the tunnel to the main cavern and the rope.

Carina’s candle fluttered as she hurried after her husband. The bats beat the ceiling with their wings and swirled like a dark cloud above. But they must sense that their exit through Wolf ’s chamber was shut off. Quillan shimmied up the rope through the bats, his candle doused. Father Antoine joined Carina, holding the end of the rope with the harness swishing the floor. Quillan disappeared into darkness. She wondered if she should put on the harness, but the rope hung limp once he reached the top. Had he forgotten them?

Father Antoine took the rope firmly. “I’ll go next and bring you up.”

She didn’t want to be left down there. What was wrong with Quillan, to rush up and abandon them? Father Antoine pushed back his sleeves and started to climb. He wasn’t as swift, moving like an inchworm on the rope. But he doggedly climbed. Now there was only her candle lit, and she lost the priest in the dimness.

She was alone in the cave with the bats. What was happening? Could it really be an avalanche? The rope jerked and she caught it, climbed into the harness, and blew out her candle.