She leaned forward and looked out the window. The light was definite now and the old Indian was coming toward the house. He made no sign that he was surprised to see her up, but stoically went about his chores of refueling the range and the fireplace. She poured him a cup of coffee. He sat at the trestle table. When he was finished, he nodded and went out.
At the first stirrings from the bedroom Molly rose and started breakfast; first setting the table and then slicing the bacon. She was deep in thought when a hand descended on her shoulder and swung her around. Adam stood there.
His eyes searched her face and his black brows drew together, but his expression held no terror for her. Suddenly his face changed and his eyes smiled into hers.
“Did you miss me last night as much as I missed you?”
She raised one hand, then let it fall despairingly. She shrugged her shoulders and looked at him with dull eyes.
He seemed startled as though he had expected her to say or do something.
“Molly?” The silence lengthened after his voice died away. He made a grimace of displeasure.
She shrugged her shoulders again wearily and attempted to turn away. He yanked her arm and pulled her up close against him. She stood passive in his embrace. A wave of anger hit him and his mouth came down hard on hers, parting her lips and forcing her head back. His hands roamed over her, cupping her hips and holding them tightly against him. She made no protest and no response. When he lifted his head to look at her, she unhurriedly pushed herself away from him, and at that moment Patrick came into the room.
“Morning, Molly. Sleep the headache away?”
She nodded and gave him a half smile. “How many eggs, Patrick?” she asked quietly.
“However many you fix old Adam. I’m not as big as he is, but I eat as much.” If he noticed any tension between them, he was ignoring it.
Adam sat at the table and Molly poured coffee. Patrick kept up a constant chain of chatter for a while, then fell silent because he wasn’t getting much response from either of them. After serving the breakfast, Molly sat in her chair by the hearth and picked up her knitting.
Unconsciously she started to knit, then it dawned on her . . . she was knitting the sweater for Adam. Slowly she removed the needles and placed them on the table beside the chair and started unraveling the almost finished garment, rolling the yarn into a ball. She rocked as she pulled the soft wool, her fingers carefully winding the yarn. Adam came and stood over her, watching, then turned on his heel and went into his room.
Patrick brought his coffee cup and sat in the chair opposite her. She glanced at him and went on with her work. The thought drifted across her mind that this friend of Adam’s was nice and she could like him if things had been different.
I’ll never get the chance to know him now, and he’ll despise me when he can no longer use the files.
Donna came out of Molly’s room. She was wearing a white woolly robe and big fluffy lamb’s wool slippers. Her silver hair was brushed back and held with a blue ribbon. She was plainly in a bad mood.
“I’ve never been so cold in all my life,” she said crossly, coming to stand close to the fire. “Well . . . do you serve coffee or not?” Her question was directed to Molly.
She sat as if she hadn’t heard.
“I’ll get it, and don’t be such a grouch, Donna.” Patrick got up.
As he was speaking, the clock on the mantel started striking the hour. Donna turned, her face a mask of fury.
“I hate striking clocks,” she grated. “I stopped that damn thing last night and I meant for it to stay stopped!” She yanked open the glass door of the clock case, jerked off the swaying pendulum, and threw it into the blazing fire.
Molly let out a cry and rushed to get the iron poker. Frantically she raked the burning coals until she had pulled the small disc and stem out of the flames. She raked it out onto the stone hearth and looked at it, her head bent.
“That was a rotten thing to do, Donna!” Patrick was angry and it showed in his voice.
“I hate clocks and she knows it. She just started it again to spite me,” she said hatefully, not one bit put off by Patrick’s anger.
“That’s no excuse! You’re a guest here.”
“Guest? Adam’s guest, not hers. She’d poison me if she could!”
Patrick knelt down beside Molly. “I don’t know as I would blame her,” he muttered. He took the poker from Molly’s hand, returned it to the rack, and picked up the piece of metal, shifting it from one hand to the other as it cooled. “It isn’t damaged, Molly,” he said reassuringly.
Her face was white and the violet eyes, surrounded with dark circles, were bright with tears. She took the disc from him and put it in her pocket.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and sat back down in the rocker.
“I don’t know how Adam can stand this godforsaken place!” Donna hugged herself with her arms. “That bathroom is positively primitive.”
Patrick stood looking from one to the other; Molly rocking and winding the yarn, Donna prancing around the room in a temper. He had seen Molly smile only once or twice since they had been here and the relationship between her and Adam certainly wasn’t as he had been led to believe it was. As for Donna, he had seen dozens like that bitch and would never have brought her, but for her being Molly’s cousin. After seeing the difference between the two of them, it seemed strange Molly would invite her. Suddenly it hit him!
How stupid can I be? The blond bombshell is still after Adam and she thinks the country cousin is no competition! But if I’m any judge of old Adam . . .
“I suggest you get your own coffee and sit down, Donna,” he said coolly.
“You don’t have to be so nasty about it, Patrick. You may be used to living like a peasant, but I’m not!” She flounced into the kitchen and looked disgustedly at the big granite coffeepot.
Patrick stood uncertainly. He didn’t want to leave Molly at the mercy of this cat. He wasn’t sure, but something was very wrong here. Molly seemed to be in a sort of daze. She couldn’t be like this all the time—an emotionless shell of a girl! She wasn’t at all the picture he got from Robert and Aunt Flo. He wondered if he should talk to Adam about it.
Tim-Two came in the back door. Donna gave a shudder of revulsion when she saw him. He looked about the room, then walked to Adam’s door, opened it and went in, closing it behind him.
Molly could hear the murmur of voices, then what appeared to be a curse word in Adam’s voice. Tim-Two came out of the room and toward Molly, stopped in front of her, and said one word.
“Dog.”
Molly understood the urgency in the one word. Alarm filled her and she got to her feet.
“What’s the matter with Dog?” she asked shrilly.
Adam came out of the bedroom putting on his parka. He went to the gun rack, lifted out the rifle, and checked the load. Biting her lip to keep back hysteria, Molly ran after Tim-Two, grabbing her coat from the peg as she fled out the kitchen door.
Adam was shouting at her. “Stay in the house, Molly!”
Paying him no mind, she ran on and caught up with Tim-Two as he rounded the shed. She took one swift look and her steps faltered. Dog was lying in the snow behind the shed. She ran to him and dropped to her knees beside him. The impact of what had happened began to hammer in her brain. The snow was red with Dog’s blood. His eyes were rolled back in his head and he was gasping for breath.
“Dog! Dog!” Dimly Molly heard her own anguished voice.
At the sound of her voice Dog tried to lift his head and focus his eyes, but the effort was too much for him and his big head sank down on the snow.
“Don’t die. Please don’t die!” Dog opened his eyes and tried to see the owner of the dear and familiar voice.
“Don’t die, Dog,” she pleaded. “I’ll have no one!” Hiding her face in the soft fur of his neck, she talked to him beseechingly.
“Molly!” Hands were lifting her up. “You’ll always have someone. You’ll have me.” There was an agonizing note in Adam’s voice.
A great roaring noise was in her ears; she swayed and would have collapsed if the hands had not held her. About to cross the thin line into hysteria, she turned on him and jerked herself away.
“Get away from me,” she gasped, and then, with rising hysteria, “Oh, God! You’re going to kill him!”
“I’ve got to, Molly, can’t you see that?” His hands were reaching for her, trying to hold her.
A thin, shrill scream tore itself from her throat. She brought her hand up and tried to claw him. His hands held her arms pinioned to her sides.
“You’ve taken everything,” she screamed at him. “Still you’re not satisfied! You’d kill my dog! My dog, the only thing left in the world that I love and the only thing that loves me!”
Adam knew he couldn’t reach her and reason with her through her hysteria. He stood helplessly for a moment and looked at her. Her face was deathly white and the dark-rimmed eyes were bright and darted wildly about. He shoved her toward Patrick who had come up beside him.
“Get her in the house and keep her there,” he said harshly.
She burst into tearing, retching sobs and flung herself into Patrick’s arms. He scooped her up and carried her to the house. It seemed as if the dam had finally burst. The emotional stress of the last day and night was finding release in the rush of tears that spilled out of her eyes and flooded down over her cheeks.
He had just sat her down in the house and closed the door when the sound of the rifle shot reached them. Molly clutched him and he held her tightly until the hard sobs ceased shaking her.
“Molly,” he whispered in her ear. “Adam did the only humane thing to do. He put the poor beast out of his misery. He’d been in a fight with a bear, or maybe a wolf, and only managed to drag himself home. He would have been dead before night. You wouldn’t want him to lie there all day and suffer.” He tried to look into her face. “Surely you understand.”
“Well, I’ll say one thing for her,” Donna’s grating voice broke the silence of the room. “She sure knows how to play up a good scene. Good riddance, if you ask me. That dog smelled like a pigsty!”
“Shut up, Donna!” Patrick’s patience with Donna was almost at an end.
Quiet now, Molly wanted desperately to be alone. She lifted her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Thank you, Patrick.” Her voice barely reached him.
She left him and walked slowly to the door of her room. She closed it behind her and leaned her weight against it as though to keep all of them out. Her disjointed thoughts whirled around in her brain. She must leave! She must get away from these people. A sudden sense of purpose sent her limbs into action, but how could she go and where could she go? She looked at her watch—if she were to leave at once . . . but . . . supposing he saw her and tried to stop her? Supposing he . . .
Adam had come into the house. She could hear his voice and the soft purring voice of her cousin. She never wanted to see either of them again as long as she lived! It had been a cruel, bitter lesson she had learned. She would never, no never, love anything again, she vowed. She had loved her mother, she had loved her father, she had loved this house, and she had loved Dog. She had loved . . . him. They all had been taken away from her!
When Adam and Patrick were settled into their work in the study, she would leave the house. It shouldn’t be too difficult to slip out the kitchen door and walk away toward the rail lines. If she could make it to the tracks by the time the train for Anchorage passed, she would be on her way to Herb Belsile. Now that her mind was made up, there were things to be done. She changed from her jeans to heavy wool slacks and pulled on a sweater over her shirt. She lay out her fur mittens and thermal socks. She put what cash money she had and her checkbook in the pocket of her snowmobile suit and zipped it shut. She wished she dared take the snowmobile, but the noise when she started it would alert Adam.
Molly looked about the room she had always kept so tidy, and made a grimace at the disorder. Her cousin’s belongings were everywhere. Suddenly the entire weight of her wretchedness hit her and she could hardly wait to leave this room, this house, where she had been so happy and where she had felt the blackest despair.
She heard Adam and Patrick go to her father’s room, then the familiar sounds as they began their work. Hurriedly she dressed in the warm clothing she had selected and put on her snow boots. With wool stocking cap and mittens in hand, she went to the door and listened for sounds of her cousin moving about in the kitchen. She could hear music. She hoped Donna was curled up in the chair with the transistor radio. Cautiously she opened the door. With relief she saw Donna sitting in the chair with her back to the kitchen.
Molly walked softly to the back door and let herself out into the cold winter day.
W
ALKING STRAIGHT INTO
the woods from the back door Molly circled the house, and headed in the general direction of the railroad tracks. She figured she had an hour and a half to walk the two miles. There was plenty of time to reach the tracks before the train came through. She hadn’t gone far, however, until she wished she had brought her snowshoes, but they had been on the porch and she hadn’t wanted to take the risk of being seen to get them. She walked as fast as she could in the deep snow, trying to pick the places where the snow was hard enough to hold her light weight.
She passed the clearing where the helicopter landed and noticed the first small intermittent snowflakes. She looked around with worried eyes and tried to walk faster. Within fifteen minutes flakes were falling—huge, fluffy, and thick. Several times she blundered into deep drifts and floundering through them came near to exhausting herself. She dared not stop to rest and consoled herself by thinking she would rest when she got to the tracks.
Doggedly she kept going, putting one foot in front of the other. Every step was taking her farther away from the sneering face of her cousin Donna and the deceitful opportunist she had married. She had been blind, stupid, and gullible to allow him to arouse her unmanageable emotions to the point where she had asked him . . . she had actually asked him to come to bed with her! She had not thought it possible to experience such humiliation and despair as she had felt when Donna told her he had actually made bets with his friends about getting her to bed! How he would enjoy telling them that she had asked him! She would never forgive him for that or for telling Donna about her father’s will.