The Story Keeper (17 page)

“Off down a goat trail,” Jamie repeated, laughing. “Listen to you
 
—you sound all country already.”

She was only joking, of course, but as we said good-bye, the comment continued to nibble at my mind. I felt the past coming for me, the memories surfacing like waterlogged debris overgrown with moss and impossibly tangled. The silt of conflicting emotions covered everything having to do with family. It had been that way for as long as I could remember. By the age of eight, I’d already started to see that life on Lane’s Hill and the clockwork additions to our family weren’t
 
—couldn’t be
 
—normal. Joey was barely a year and a half old, and Mama was pregnant with another one. Daddy had come forward at the end of Sunday service to announce it to the Brethren Saints.

There’d been congratulations and pats on the back, but all I felt was a wave of despair coming my way, threatening to pull me under. Every time Mama got over nursing one baby and came back to normal, she was expecting another. When this new one showed up, we’d go through it all again.

Breed like rabbits over there in Lane’s Hill, the whole bunch of them,
I’d heard one of the mothers at the second-grade Christmas party say. I was sitting in the corner, forbidden from participating.
Can’t feed them or keep them clothed, clean, and properly immunized half the time, but they can sure make ’em. It’s primeval. That’s what it is.

I didn’t know that big word,
primeval
, but I sorted out a piece of it
 
—
evil
. My mind struggled to make sense of it.

How could she say that? How could she say that about my mama?

What did these women, these party moms, know? They lived lives of disobedience, of deadness, of eventual doom. They didn’t follow the ways of the Brethren Saints, and all who fell outside the Brethren circle were destined to burn in the fires, sooner or later.

One of the moms set a cupcake on the desk where I waited
in the corner.
Here, sweetie. Surely you can at least have a snack and some punch. I scraped off the Christmas decoration and put the punch in a plain Dixie cup, okay?

The sugary liquid swilled over my tongue, cool and tantalizing
 
—the sort of treat that came and went around our home, depending on how fortunes were, on whether Daddy had sold a coon mule or a hunting dog recently, on whether the hay had come in thick or sparse.

I watched the other kids enjoying the Christmas party, tasted the cupcake, and began to wonder again why our lives were so different
 
—how we could be right and everyone else could be wrong.

When Daddy’d announced the new baby in church, I’d looked around and thought,
Where we gonna put it?
Our trailer was bursting at the seams already, and so was the church. Pew after pew held families like our own.
Blessed are the faithful, for the Lord shall multiply their number.
Sunday after Sunday the girls of Lane’s Hill were told that godliness was in obeying the decrees of the elders,
keeping pleasant
, being meek and cooperative, and above all, growing the number of the Brethren Saints.

How that could have ever made sense to me was now beyond my comprehension, as was the fact that it still made sense to my sisters.

Pushing away the thought, I rubbed my eyes, turned back to the manuscript, and reentered Rand and Sarra’s world, opting for it rather than my own.

Chapter 16

The Story Keeper

CHAPTER SEVEN

A sound caught Rand’s ear, just audible over the noise of his own movement through the brush. He’d found a woodpile washed up along the river. Overnight, they’d burned much of what was close to the cave and scavenged the rest this morning. In their shelter, Sarra worked to protect their fire from drifting snow and driving winds that allowed them no chance of making the trip ten miles downriver until such time as the storm broke.

The rustle heightened his nerves but excited him. They’d not been resourceful enough in their use of the food the girl had given them, and she’d not come again thus far today. Save for the last few hickory nuts, they’d had nothing. He slid the pistol from his belt, listened. Something was moving quietly along the deer trail. A faint grunt traveled his way, the sound unfamiliar.

Hooves clattered against rock. A deer perhaps, but he’d mistaken the location. It was farther down the bank. He advanced several hurried steps, cocked the pistol, ran three paces more, and slid around a bush just in time to see his quarry, a scrawny-looking doe, bolting toward the water. Startled by his appearance, the doe twisted in midair and skittered down the bank.

He rushed after it, his breath coming fast now. Fresh venison for their next meal. An end to the gnawing hunger that had hounded them. The doe would give them all the meat they needed. He could fairly smell venison on a spit, roast
 
—

Something small, black, and round stopped him short at the edge of the cover. He caught a scent
 
—heavy, musky, familiar. His blood thickened, froze. Bear scat. The grunt he’d heard. He should’ve known . . .

The deer hadn’t bolted idly into the open.

His stomach leapt and sank and leapt. Blood rushed to his limbs, but he forced himself to remain within his faculties.
Carefully, silently,
he thought. The creature in the brush paused and stretched upward, its nose protruding from the snow-laden leaves, scenting the air.

A black bear. Fully grown.

Rand didn’t dare attempt to run. He’d been warned by Ira and by his own father. He froze in place, the stench choking his lungs, snowflakes touching his skin, then melting. Seconds fled, options rushing breakneck through his mind, scattering before he could focus on any one of them.

If he could reach the tumble of boulders nearby, scramble atop,
perhaps the animal would decide he wasn’t worth the trouble. At the very least, he’d be in a position to shoot more than once. It was unlikely he’d drop such a beast with one pistol shot. . . .

The bear broke the stalemate before Rand had decided on a course of action. Stumbling in its bulky balance, the creature crashed downward through brush, emitting a thunderous roar that echoed against the mountainside. The noise exploded past Rand and catapulted him to action. He did the very thing he’d been told not to do. He ran for all he was worth and didn’t look back. There was no need. He could feel his attacker breathing down his neck, hear branches splintering and pebbles tumbling. He prayed for swift feet and aimed for the leeward side of the boulders, the area not coated by ice and snow.

He might have sprouted wings just then and grown the feet of a mountain goat as well. He couldn’t have said. He was atop the boulders before his mind could register the process. Luckily, the bear did itself the misfortune of attempting to climb over a glaze of ice. It slid downward, landed, rolled, then regained its feet, roared furiously, and attempted the climb again, this time circling and batting the rock, testing its surface not three feet from Rand’s boot bottoms.

Rand sighted the pistol, steadied his hand, waited until the shot was ideal. The explosion knocked him slightly off-balance on his icy perch, so for a moment he feared he’d be joining the bear. Only when it staggered backward, wobbled like a drunken sailor, then fell, did Rand finally allow himself to sink to his haunches and double forward, letting the blood rush to his head again. Some time passed before he had regained his faculties.

“Whew.” He mopped icy moisture from his forehead, then glanced down at himself to be certain that he had, indeed, just survived his first confrontation with a black bear, without suffering so much as a scratch. Everything seemed in one piece.

“Whew!”

A bit more enthusiasm came over him then, prompted him to leave his perch and inch toward the fallen mass of fur.

He found a rock, tossed it. The bear lay motionless.

The thrill of the hunt rushed in, replacing the basic joy of survival with the ecstasy of triumph. “One shot! What a mountain man! What courage! What gumption!” He imagined the words in some eastern tabloid alongside an image of the bear. “What magnificent cunning and
 
—”

Sarra’s frantic call stopped him midsentence. He heard her running through the brush along the deer trail now.

Quickly he moved behind the kill, hid the pistol in his belt, and drew his knife from its scabbard. Bracing a boot on the bear’s belly, he struck a commanding pose.

He was waiting thusly when she burst from cover, wielding a tree branch as a club. Her breathless state and white-rimmed eyes made it clear enough that she’d assumed the worst.

He arched his chest, jutted his chin, and wiped his knife on the bear’s hide, though it was clean as a hound’s tooth, not having been used in the kill. “No need for concern. Had to wrestle down a bear, but all’s well.”

Her eyes further widened, two silver coins against her hickory
skin. Her hair blew loose in the wind, bits of snow feathering it. She’d not even grabbed up a blanket before charging to his aid. One careful step and then two, she narrowed the gap between them. “Wh-what come a yer pistol?”

“No need. He wasn’t really worth wasting a bullet. Killed him with my bare hands instead.” He thought of his sisters and how susceptible they always were to his teasing. Never was the time they didn’t fall headlong into his traps.

Sarra stopped opposite him, the carcass between them. She prodded it with the stick, frowned, a furrow carving itself in her brow. “A shot come off close enough for hearin’.” A wary glance over her shoulder showed her concern that perhaps the shot had originated from somewhere nearby, and they were not alone.

Shrugging, Rand lifted a foot down from his kill. This was the first time he’d seen her appear genuinely impressed with something he’d done. He rather liked it. His mind spun another line along the web. “Oh, that was
after
I killed this big fella. I shot the pistol to warn off the
other
bear.”

“There was two?” She wheeled now, a quick, nervous movement.

He bit back a chuckle. “There were two, just strolling together. I suppose they meant to have me for lunch. Why, the pair of them stood up on their hind legs and as much as told me so. ‘Rand Champlain,’ they said, ‘you haven’t got much meat on you, but we’re two hungry bears on this snowy day.’”

She swiveled slowly in his direction, her nostrils flaring, her lips drifting apart, hovering between a smile and a frown. Recoiling, she
eyed him from beneath dark lashes. “And what’d you clabber-mouth back at ’em?”

Sheathing the knife, he acted out the drama with his hands. “I said, ‘Fellas, I’m one hungry man and you two had best be on your way before I decide to have
you
for lunch.’ When they didn’t leave, I knew I’d have to fight them, of course.”

“A’course.” Her hands found resting places on her hips. “And what happen’t then, I’m wonderin’.” Her eyes glittered bright and acute, her lips glistening with the moisture of a salve she’d created of crushed yarrow root. Poised along the snowy riverbank, she was an image of something wild, mysterious.

He suddenly left off all thoughts of former pranks and his sisters.

“It was two against one, and they were bigger than me, but I wasn’t scared. I have to give due credit to the bears. They were quite gentlemanlike, and they came at me only one at a time
 
—the big one first. When I killed him, the little one turned tail and ran off. I sent a shot after him, just to make sure he’d cleared the area.”

She bent forward over the bear and looked more closely. “Truth be tolt?” A smile attempted to take her mouth then, but she held it from him. “Good them bears was mannersome, ain’t it?”

Rand met her gaze and grinned. She was, he realized now, the first thing that had crossed his mind when he’d faced the bear. He’d feared leaving her here. He’d wondered who would protect her if he could not.

Strangely, he’d seen the reflection of that concern when she’d burst onto the riverbank, brandishing her weapon. Perhaps she feared losing him as much as he feared losing her.

Something inside him struggled to find shape, and he had no reference points for it. Indeed, it fell upon him like a fruit collected from some heretofore unknown tree. It was unlike other things. He owned no label that would categorize it. He knew only that he could not leave this wild and dangerous country until he’d found a suitable place for Sarra. A safe place.

She met his gaze momentarily, seemed perhaps as bewildered as he. Then she stretched her hand toward the knife, her fingers brushing his along the handle. He did not resist but let her take charge of it.

“What . . . ?” No intelligible grouping of words came to his mind. The stories, spinning within him only moments ago, had flown.

Sliding the knife from the scabbard, Sarra moved over the kill, grabbing the bear’s thick hide. “The meat,” she said.

Somewhere in the distance, Rand heard what might have been the far-off baying of a hound, and at once he was reminded that his shot had undoubtedly echoed along mile upon mile of river and mountain.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sarra rose early for the wood gatherin’, letting Rand stay there asleep. Outside, the snow fluttered down yet and the cold painted smoke on her breath. There’d be no travelin’ on today. A body could freeze in such weather, and with the killin’ of the bear, they had want of nothin’ else but more tinder to keep the fire. They’d let it burn low overnight, but they’d heard no more sign of hound nor men. Nothin’ but the wind stirrin’ the high trees and groans of the heavy-burdened branches.

The mornin’ was quiet neath the tall timber, too, but some critter had come out to scratch round. ’Twasn’t big enough to worry over
 
—a rabbit or a bushy-tailed squirrel hunting nuts
 
—but somethin’ was nearby. She listened after it as she tended to herself and gathered wood. A branch of oak had come down overnight, dead enough, and she reckoned she could break it some smaller and drag it upslope to stoke the mornin’ fire.

The critter wandered into the open then. A rabbit. Wasn’t any need in killing it, so she only watched as it spotted her and hunkered low. She thought of its heart beatin’ fast, its muscles drawed up, fear skitterin’ through.

“Sssshhhh,” she whispered, moving toward it. “Git on home, little friend.” This was the thing Aginisi said to the critters that wasn’t to be took for food nor skins.

All breath in ever’thing been give by Father God, Granddaughter,
she’d say.
Not a one he ain’t mindful a. All lives be mattersome to him. Not a one oughtn’t to be mattersome to us, same way.

The rabbit held still in its place, so close now, she could’ve touched it if she’d a mind to. “Too cold for bein’ out this mornin’.” She leaned toward it, taking pleasure in the nearness, in the gentleness of the wild thing. Just a young’un. Not yet full growed. If it lived the winter, it’d mate and raise litters, come spring.

If it lived.

Its dark eye mirrored the trees and sky, a tiny world all its own. She stared into it, took in the quiet of it, the beauty.

Somethin’ moved in the tree shadow, the reflection shifting in the
rabbit’s eye. Sarra heard it then
 
—hooves strikin’, breath laborin’, the sound almost gone in the snow.

Her heart caught like the rabbit’s, and
she
was the wild thing, afraid of drawin’ breath or movin’.

She squatted lower, turned just enough to see. Horse and rider were climbin’ up the slope. He would’ve spotted her, if he’d looked her way, but instead he was watchin’ something else
 
—the track her and Rand had padded down while carrying the meat uphill to string in a tree not far off from their camp.

She knew the horse, a skewbald bay. She’d rode many a mile tossed over its withers, the saddle and the slave chain cuttin’ her in halves.

Cupping her breath, afraid even the curl of cold-smoke might pull Revi’s eye her way, she stayed where she was. Beside her, the rabbit tensed, ready for flight. If it was to bolt now, the boy would hear it and look.

Steady, little friend.
The thought was no more than a whisper in her mind.

Moments crept off as she waited, her thoughts runnin’ ahead. Up above, Rand was asleep yet, the pistol at his side. He’d have no chance against Revi. Where’d Jep and the others gone? Mayhap they’d found the cave a’ready?

She prayed it wasn’t so, closed her eyes and asked Father God to lead them off someplace else.

Revi was near past before she crept back toward cover. One step. Two. Three. She made herself quiet, small, melted in without
a sound, then took a twig and shooed the rabbit off the other way. It scampered toward the horse before wheelin’ itself round and skitterin’ toward the river.

Revi stopped his mount, spun it end for end so’s it slid and staggered in rock and snow, its mouth gapin’ and belchin’ out steam.

“You hear somethin’?” Revi’s voice echoed through the trees.

No answer come. How far away was Jep? Where were the others? Had Rand heard the voice? Had he woke?

Revi scanned the slope toward the river, then circled. Sarra closed her eyes as he passed close, castin’ off the smell of wood fire and mash whiskey and the horse’s salt lather. They’d rode hard, even in the snow.

Blood thumped in her ears as she peered through the brush, saw the horse’s white feet, smelled its breath, caught sight of its ear twitchin’ her way. The animal sidestepped, lost its footin’ over a log, and staggered a pace or two.