“Close your eyes, stretch, capture the world through other senses,” he had said. “Paint what you taste and smell and hear not only what you see.”
“You paint your way. I’ll paint mine,” she had told him. But she could no longer paint her way, nor could she paint landscapes in muted color tones. Not anymore. Not since the crash.
Her eyes closed, and she chewed on the end of her pencil.
Stretch and capture the world through sight and sound and smell.
She opened her eyes and watched the activity on the river. On the opposite bank, an army officer and his command waited for their turn to cross. On her side, the south side, prospectors and pioneers heading west lined up their rigs and waited. What was she not seeing?
She closed her eyes again. The faces of the men flashed one by one in her mind. John, the boys, Henry, Cullen. They all held the same subtle fear. While tension reflected across their taut faces, the fear they tried to hide from themselves and each other clouded their eyes.
She looked down at her journal. In the top corner of the page, she drew an eyeball. Then she concentrated on blocking out the hype and hooey and catch-me-if-you-can laughter. Underneath the discordant surface sounds, she discovered the fragile, melodious song of a wren.
Kit sketched a bird next to the eyeball then focused on the overpowering smells in the air—coffee cooking in fire-blackened pots and bacon frying in cast iron skillets. She sniffed again for the elusive smell she knew had to be there. Breathing deeply through her nose, she caught a whiff, a faint whiff of sweet-scented verbena.
The sights, the sounds, the smells all simmered together in her mind, and then as if her graphite drawing pencil had a mind of its own, it slid across the textured paper, pulling timbre and melodic details from her imagination. Her hand glided with the fluidity of a symphony conductor’s baton.
After an hour of drawing and blending and sculpting shapes out of light and shadow, she set the pencils and erasers aside. Tears streamed down her face as she gaped at the finished drawing. Although the sketch included only shades of gray, there was a level of realism and depth she had never mastered.
From one side of the page to the other a rope bridge dangled inches above a river flaunting white-capped waves. One-half of the bridge bore frayed ropes and rotten planks. The other half had a solid wood floor and triple-knotted ropes.
In the top corner, she had reworked the non-descript bird she had originally drawn into a house wren perching on the side of a nest built into a broken limb’s crotch suspended precariously above the river.
Dying verbena covered the ground and merged into river waves. On the far bank, the verbena rose from a calm body of water and crept in full bloom up the slope.
At the bottom of the page, she’d drawn a man with a two-sided face. Horror blazed in the shadowed eye on one side, and warmth in the other. Captured in the center of both eyes were reflections of herself that she hadn’t consciously drawn. Blood drained from her face, stealing the energy that had fueled her imagination.
“Mrs. MacKlenna, are you ill?”
The sound of Cullen’s voice yanked her with the force of bungee cord recoil. She closed her journal and after a moment’s pause to gain composure, she said, “I’ve heard that the pain of losing loved ones lessens with time. But I don’t believe that, do you?” She squeezed her hands into tight fists. Her nails left half-moon prints in her palms.
He sat beside her and folded his legs Indian-style. Her pencils lay on the ground between them. He scooped them up and rolled them across his palm. As he studied the Prismacolor Turquoise Drawing Pencil imprints, a chill settled uncomfortably along her spine.
“Never seen pencils like these. Especially the one that looks like a beaver attacked it.”
She raked the pencils together like pickup sticks. No point in lying, so she didn’t say anything.
“I’d like to see your drawing, if you’ve a mind to share it.”
She rolled in the corner of her lip and held it between her teeth while she tapped her fingernails on the journal. “Maybe someday.”
“Then someday, I’ll ask again.”
They sat quietly watching people, but after a couple of minutes the silence made her fidget. She pointed toward the ferry. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“The ferry?”
Even though she wasn’t looking directly at him, she was sure his gaze never left her face.
“Best option we’ve got. If the wagon wheels are well seated in the center there shouldn’t be a problem.”
He picked up a pebble, held the stone in the crook of his finger, and tossed it side arm, low, and parallel to the water. It sank.
A soft laugh relaxed her shoulders. “Don’t you need a calm body of water to skip rocks?”
“I’ll have you know,” he said, lips twitching, “I was a rock-skipping champion when I was a lad.”
“I don’t doubt that.” A peal of laughter rolled out. When it subsided she said, “I needed that. You knew it though, didn’t’ you?”
“No ma’am, I was only skipping rocks.”
“In a turbulent body of water?”
He raised his shoulders in a what-can-I-say shrug. “Occasionally, you do things knowing your efforts might not get you what you want.”
“Why would you do that?”
He threw another stone, and it too sank. “I represented a man I knew was guilty of murder. As a lawyer, I wanted to win the case. As a law-abiding citizen, I wanted him to spend the rest of his life in jail or hang. But I did my job, and he walked away with a not-guilty verdict. Next day the victim’s family shot him dead.”
“What happened to them?”
“Law looked the other way.” He made the statement matter-of-factly, but the regret was evident in his visibly tightened lips.
“Vigilante justice.”
“Not sure the killing made the hurting ones feel better.” He turned and captured her face again with his gaze. “Which brings us back to your original question: Does a person ever recover from grief? I’ll start out by saying
no
and finish with what I hope you’ll remember.”
His stoic expression gave no hint of his thoughts. He seemed to be going through a mental exercise preparing for what he was about to say. She imagined he did the same exercise before starting a trial, much as Scott had done before he performed surgery.
“The summer before I turned twelve—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “—my sister and I were swimming in a loch near our house in the Highlands. My father had tied a swinging rope to a tree. He told us to swing out and drop away from the bank because the roots could catch us. What he said made an impression on me. I can’t say the same for my risk-taking sister.
“I swung out, dropped, swam back to shore. Kristen climbed on the rope, swung out, dangling with a one-handed hold. Her hand slipped and she dropped too close to shore.” His voice broke.
Kit knew the memory had swallowed him whole.
“I waited for her to come back to the surface, but she didn’t. I yelled for my father then I dove in after her, swimming faster than I ever had, but I was too late.” The words burst out in an explosion of breath that sounded like he’d held it inside his lungs for years.
“Roots entangled her foot. I couldn’t get her loose. I tried, but I couldn’t. I swam up for air.” He gulped in a gasping breath.
Kit knew his mind swam in the dark water of the loch that had defeated a twelve-year old. She knew because she often swam in a similar kind of dark water.
“I waved to father then dove again. He reached us and sent me back up for air. I took a deep breath and swam back toward the bottom. By then he was coming up with Kristen in his arms. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes. I should have saved her, but I’d waited too long.”
Kit touched his arm and felt him shudder. She yearned to hold him, to let him know it wasn’t his fault. But she offered only words that he’d probably heard a thousand times. “You were a child. The accident wasn’t your fault.” How many times had she heard the same words spoken to her in the midst of her grief and guilt?
“Kristen was a wee lass and my responsibility. Her death
was
my fault.” He planted his elbows on his knees and dug his thumbs into his eye sockets. “You don’t get over that. You try to outrun the pain, but you can’t shake loose from the roots that tie you up in knots. Eventually, the hurt becomes who you are. You learn to live with it. My mother told me if we didn’t love the people we lose it wouldn’t hurt so much. I’ve learned one thing for sure in thirty years. Loving comes with risks. You make choices based on how much risk you’re willing to take.”
“Cullen,”
Henry hollered from the far side of the ferry. “Need your help.”
Cullen cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Be right there.” He unfolded his legs and stood.
Kit watched his pulse beat in his neck. Hers, not surprisingly, mirrored his.
His slow smile appeared as a warning. “Always know what you’re willing to risk, lass. And, if you decide to jump, stay clear of the roots.”
Chapter Ten
WITHOUT A WATCH, Kit relied on her stomach to tell the hour. Telling time based on the position of the sun was like finding her way around a Super Walmart without aisle signs. Tate abandoned her for some canine pursuit that probably involved food while she stayed put at the riverbank to watch people, one tall person in particular. After Cullen’s heartfelt confession, she understood his over-protectiveness. She couldn’t make any guarantees, but she’d try to be more tolerant.
Unable to shake loose of the images of a frightened Scottish lad frantically ripping out roots to save his entangled sister, Kit opened her journal and fell into another drawing frenzy. She drew a grown-up, rain-soaked, and bleeding Cullen stuck in thick twining vines, hacking at tendrils with the ragged edge of a sheared-off piece of plank fence.
“Mrs. MacKlenna.” Adam’s voice calling from over her shoulder barely provoked a ripple in her artistic trance. The pencil swept across the page.
“Mrs. MacKlenna?” He touched her shoulder with an impersonal tap. “Mrs. MacKlenna.” He tapped again and finally broke through the spell.
She set down her pencils and curled and uncurled her drawing hand, releasing the tension. “Are we next?” Her voice sounded disconnected as if it hadn’t yet caught up with her body.
“Yes ma’am. I thought you might want to stow supplies. They’ll get jostled when we hoist the wagon down the slope.”
“Have I told you lately how much I appreciate your help?”
He blushed. “No ma’am, but you don’t have to tell me nothin’. I’m just doing my job.”
“You do much more than I hired you to do. Look for a bonus when we get to Fort Laramie.”
He straightened, squaring his shoulders. “Yes ma’am.”
Kit closed her journal and gathered her pencils. Then, after disentangling from yards of fabric, she dug her boots into the sandy soil and pulled herself to her feet without tripping over her dress hem.
The wagon had nothing that need stowing away. Her minimalist lifestyle created a clutter-free environment, the complete opposite of home with books stacked floor to ceiling, a collection of guitars, paper airplanes, and stacks of dirty clothes. Little black dresses and business suits hung in a walk-in closet she rarely visited.
If her wagon crashed into the water, the airtight trunk holding the money and paramedic supplies she pilfered from the farm clinic would float. If she tumbled into the water wearing boots and a heavy dress, she wouldn’t.
She changed into a lightweight skirt over a pair of trousers, and switched from boots to moccasins. If she went into the water, she could ditch the skirt and the slippers.
Within a few minutes, she returned to her spot on the riverbank and watched the Springers drive their wagon onto the ferry. The family climbed down and stood alongside the rig as two strong men on the gunwales thrust long poles against the river’s bottom. The ferry slowly left the dock. When the boat was about twenty-five from the bank, a rope attached to the opposite shore broke loose.
“Watch out,”
men yelled from both sides of the river.
“Straighten it out. Come on, you can do it.” Kit was too far away to be heard by anyone close enough to help.
The two polemen frantically thrust their poles into the water, but the ferry jerked in the current. The motion sent the wagon rolling forward, forcing the right front wheel off the edge. The unbalanced boat shifted with a violent jolt and knocked the passengers to the deck. A small child rolled into the water.
Mrs. Springer screamed, “Somebody get my boy.”
“Throw me a rope.” Mr. Springer tied one end of a rope around his waist. The other end was tied to one of the ferry’s support posts. He dove beneath the surface, popped up, looked around, then dove again. Although men lined both banks, they were unable to do anything more than knit their fingers and watch with wide-eyed terror.
“Get my boy.”
The mother ran along the length of the ferry, waving her arms high over her head, screaming in a pitiful, high-pitched wail.
A small arm reached above the surface, Kit marked the spot in her mind as she kicked off her moccasins and dropped her skirt. Snippets from rescue training flashed through her head.
Rescue rule number one—never jeopardize yourself.
Rescue rule number two—never attempt anything you haven’t done before
.
She plunged into the frigid river, ignoring both. Hypothermia would come quickly
.
Long, determined strokes moved her against the current. When she reached the spot below where she had last seen the child, she stopped, and treaded water. He broke through the surface to the left, sputtering. Tiny fingers clawed the air, trying to climb an invisible ladder to safety. Then the current dragged him under again.
Kit dove.
Where was he?
She shot back to the surface. There. A red plaid shirt. With a big gulp of breath, she dove again and snatched at a shadow in the murky water. Her fingers hooked the shirt. She drew the child under her arm and kicked to the surface with the current swirling around them. Without fins, her legs already ached. One strained arm wrapped under the boy’s chin, and with the other, she angled toward shore, not more than fifteen yards. Panic threatened her, but she could make it. Couldn’t she? Two lives were at stake.