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‘No,’ he snapped back. ‘You’re my honoured guest, and I told your mother I would take care of you. Now drive that damned thing round the house. We’re going to have supper if I have to spoonfeed you all the way.’

She could see the glare in his eyes, the twitch of muscle at the corner of his mouth, and the clenched fist that he was slamming into his other palm. ‘You wish that could be, me,’ she retorted, and set her chair in motion at full speed, trying to put some distance between them.

She did, in fact, beat him to the table, but only just. Everyone else was there waiting. Even Eloise had decided to come down. Mary had arranged four folding card-tables in a row, covered them with a single white tablecloth, and set out paper plates and plastic utensils to make a banquet table for the night. A series of bug-killer lights hung around the perimeter of the patio. All of them were carrying on a desultory conversation when Katie wheeled round the corner, and then silence reigned.

Aunt Grace signalled her to the far end of the table. ‘There’s more room up here,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry to be late,’ she murmured. Nobody else besides Aunt Grace looked as if they felt any particular interest in the whole affair. Then Harry pulled out his chair at the opposite end of the table, and the conversation began again.

‘These spareribs are marvellous,’ Katie exclaimed, trying to lift herself out of the doldrums.

‘It’s all in the marinade,’ Mary acknowledged. ‘You remind me sometime and I’ll get you the recipe. It’s Mr Harry’s favourite food. With turnip greens and okra.’

Katie watched while Aunt Grace dissected the ribs with a dainty movement of her knife, and then looked down the table, where fingers had replaced utensils. In for a nickel, she told herself, and picked up the little bone and began gnawing on it.

‘Sweetest meat is closest to the bone,’ Mary claimed. ‘Barbecue never tasted this way in Charlotte, did it, Katie?’ Eubie asked. He was seated on her left, with his wife just beyond. Katie shook her head in disgust, wishing that he were on her other side so she might kick him one. If ever there was a place for a diplomat, this was it. And Eubie would never fit the bill.

‘No,’ she acknowledged, and tried to change the subject. But Amanda was not prepared to let her off the hook.

‘You must tell me how you came to meet my husband,’ she said. ‘And what strange—er—coincidence brought you to Harry’s house?’

‘Katie? You knew Eubie in Charlotte?’ Harry sounded both startled and angry.

‘Why, yes,’ she answered, hoping to smooth things over before Eubie put his big fat foot in his big fat mouth again. ‘I was in the
Big Sisters
programme—sponsoring orphan children, you know. Eubie and all the players on the Cougars came down to help work with some of our more difficult cases. I got to know them all fairly well. I would take a few of the children to the ball games, and afterwards Eubie—the players—would buy us all a meal. Win, lose, or draw, so to speak.’

‘How charming,’ Amanda commented. I wish I had brought my fur coat, Katie told herself. It’s getting so cold around here that the words have icicles on them!

‘I gather then that you were able to—handle the entire baseball team?’ Eloise, with her diamond-sharp tongue. ‘And all this time we thought you were just a dear little child!’

‘As she certainly is,’ Aunt Grace said flatly. ‘What a charming idea. And so nice of the players to give their spare time to a worthwhile cause. I congratulate you, Eubie.’

‘Yeah,’ he grunted, trying to bury himself in a fistful of rib bones.

Harry re-directed the conversation to the planned trip to the World’s Fair, and a modicum of calm descended. Aunt Grace quoted by the mile from the travel brochures she had been studying, and Mary entered an occasional counter-point. Katie did her best to disappear into the woodwork, speaking only when spoken to. But with the meal almost over, Mary brought out the strawberry shortcake and the coffee pot. It was then that Katie noticed something that so surprised her she was unable to hold her tongue.

‘You’re not wearing your engagement ring, Eloise?’ The words came out without thought. And all the other conversations around the table stopped. The little blonde woman glared at her down the length of the table, started twice to answer her, and then broke down in tears and ran from the table, upsetting her chair, and her plate of shortcake.

‘I thought you were a diplomat,’ Harry groaned as he slammed his napkin down on the table and kicked his chair back. ‘But you really suffer from Foot-In-Mouth disease, don’t you!’ He stalked into the house after Eloise.

‘Well I—but I—’ Katie snatched up her own napkin and used it to hide her tears. The words had burst out before she could think. And now he was off stalking after his lady-love. To comfort her, without a doubt. And just the thought of those strong arms of his wrapped around Eloise was enough to spoil the taste of the dinner.

She mumbled an excuse, backed her chair away from the table, and took off at full speed for the shelter of her room. She sat in her chair by the window, in the dark, and watched the whirl of stars overhead. There was the lost sound of a loon, somewhere in the distance. From the back of the house she could hear occasional laughter as the party went on without her.

Gradually, as the night rolled on into the pit of darkness, and quiet blanketed the outside world, she managed to regain control of her shattered emotions. Mechanically she turned away from the window, struggled to undress, and climbed into bed. It’s the only way, she told herself as she settled into the cool comfort of the sheets. It’s the only way. I have to get away from him—from here. Somehow or another, I have to get away. Or else I have to snatch him from Eloise, and— the dream that followed hard on her last statement was replete with scenes that caused her to squirm in her bed. Harry King, staked out over an ant-hill, with Katie Russel sitting beside him, smiling sweetly, as she poured little dippers of honey over his arrogant face. Eloise Norris, being stripped by Indian warriors as she ran the gauntlet, only to find that her improper dimensions were all padded, and her beautiful blonde hair was dyed. And then Harry King, lying in bed beside Katie, running his cool hands up over her breasts, and down across her flat stomach, until—

And so it seemed that Katie Russel was the only one in the house besides Jon who got any sleep at all that night—and she rather more than she deserved.

There
were two crows working off their frustrations outside her window. The raucous argument brought Katie up out of her bed in a hurry. The sun had not yet broken over the mountains behind the house, but there was enough light for her to see by. She struggled up, dressed quickly in a faded blue blouse and a wraparound skirt, and scrambled into her chair.

The kitchen was empty, but the coffee pot had percolated, and it’s little red eye glared at her. She snatched a mug of the warm liquid, picking up an apple from the table, and drove out the back door. The patio was a good place to stop for a sip at the coffee mug. She was in no condition to face the multitudes of her enemies, she decided. She pushed the throttle forward and drove off on to the soft wet grass, then around the side of the house, and down to the wire perimeter fence.

Two sheep were busy mowing the grass beside her. She idled along with them, down the perimeter of the plateau, inspecting the quiet valley below. The air was heavy. It seemed to hang over the valley like an invisible cloud. As far to the west as she could see, over the tops of Frozen Knob and Higgins Ridge, the thin black outline of thunderclouds were gathering. Gradually, as the sheep herded her onwards, they moved out of sight of the house, behind the tree-line of the apple orchard.

She called a halt at the point where the little plateau began to turn back into the face of the mountain behind her. The little cove lay quietly before her, everything else blacked out by the surrounding mountain. Below she could barely see the trace of the highway, outlined by its guardian trees. From one or two widely separated points there was a trail of white smoke lifting upwards into the sullen sky. Nothing moved. She watched, entranced, as the sun vaulted up over the top of Big Bald, behind her, and scattered light into the wooded coves below.

It’s almost like it might have been for primeval man, she thought. Peaceful, warm, content. Where has that earliest man gone? She relaxed in her chair, picked up her apple, and began to gnaw on her breakfast. The sheep, still clustered around her chair, clumsily settled down to ruminate.

‘So this is where you’ve got to!’ The deep bass voice was almost at the level of her ear, so close and caressing that she half-jumped out of her chair. ‘Little Bo Peep?’

‘Don’t be obtuse,’ she retorted stiffly. ‘What are you doing here?’ He bent over her shoulder, so his face blocked out her horizon. She found it impossible to control her trembling fingers. To give them something to do she jammed forward on her drive-control. The little motor below her chair spun weakly, and then stopped.

He moved around to the front of the chair and knelt beside her. ‘Why, I’ve come for my good-morning kiss,’ he said.

‘After last night’s insults?’ She tried to keep her voice cool and detached. The little tremolo that slipped in gave her away. He slid one arm around her back, and used the other hand to tilt up her chin. She struggled, but when his lips made gentle contact, she gave up. Weakly, her hands climbed his shoulders to rifle through his hair. Unconscious of what she was doing she parted her lips and tasted the sweet wild honey of him before he broke away, laughing.

‘It does seem to work,’ he chuckled. ‘Well, sometimes. Are you like this with all the men you kiss?’ His face was less than six inches away from her, and she could smell the tang of his shaving lotion. Those enormous teeth half-filed her view. Big enough to eat you with! The warning hummed through her partly paralysed mind. ‘Well?’ he repeated.

‘Well what?’ she asked feebly. My lord, she screamed at herself, it was only a little kiss. Only a little kiss! You’ve been kissed before, you fool!

‘Are you like that with all the men who kiss you?’

A tiny spark of anger restored her to normality. ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Are you like this with every woman you meet?’

She seemed to have caught him by surprise. ‘Why— no,’ he answered slowly. ‘You seem to do strange things to me, Miss Russel.’

‘Well,’ she sputtered, ‘I—I would just as soon not have you maul me anymore. I think you take advantage of the fact that I’m tied to this wheelchair!’

He looked down at her with surprise registering on his broad face. Surprise, and—doubt?

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he half-apologised. ‘It just seems to be the only time I can get close to you—when you’re out in your chair. Kissed a lot of men, I suppose?’

‘None of your business,’ she snapped. ‘And I don’t like yours,’ she sputtered at him. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, trying to obliterate the happening.

‘Ah!’ he said softly, sibilantly. She felt a thrill of alarm run through her. Why are you such a liar, she asked herself. Why deny him? Why not tell him that you like-—everything about him, including his kisses? That you—all her alarm bells went off at once. His hand had casually brushed back the hem of her skirt, and was resting on her knee. It was hard to think. She commanded her own hand to brush his off, but instead it traitorously came to a halt on top of his, and refused to function! Her startled eyes jumped from her knee to his face, but he had turned away, looking down the valley.

She was shaking so much that her teeth chattered. His grip tightened on her knee, as if to soothe. ‘Look down there,’ he said, as if unaware of what havoc his hand was causing to her shredded senses. ‘That’s the way it must have looked when my ancestors came over the mountains from Carolina, to settle in the lonely wilderness.

My people were the Over-mountain Men, you know. Scottish, Irish, poor English immigrants, with nothing of their own save a love for land.’

That did it! Lonely wilderness, love for land! Her hands smashed his away from her knee. She shifted in her chair, and smoothed her skirt back in place, her face darkened in anger. This over-proud, arrogant man! He needed taking down a peg or two!

‘Hey, what did I say?’ he enquired, with a boyish look of innocence on his face. ‘My ancestors settled this valley,’ he added. ‘I’m proud of them.’

'I'll bet you are,’ she snapped at him. ‘Your fine ancestors came over the mountains because of their love of land, all right—somebody else’s land!’ She shifted her weight again and glared at him. ‘Look, Mr King. When I attended the University of Ohio we had a professor in American History by the name of John Ross. He was a Cherokee from the Western Nation, in Oklahoma. He taught us American history from a very different viewpoint. Let me tell you about it.’

He shrugged his shoulders, apparently in agreement, so she summoned up the rest of her courage and began. ‘In the beginning, tins land was owned by a people called Paleo Indians,’ she lectured. ‘We don’t know a dam think about them, except that they used flint spearheads, and hunted the bison. Then after them came the Archaic people. There are caves in these mountains whose walls are still covered with their glyphs. We don’t know anything about them either, except that they made pottery. Whoever they were, tribes of forest Indians came into the area and displaced them, just as they had displaced the people before them. We don’t know much about the Forest people, except that they were hunters and gatherers, and might have been Algonquins. Perhaps Leni Llanape. Are you with me so far?’

‘Should I take notes?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘Will there be an examination after the lecture?’

‘Don’t be smart,’ she snapped. ‘Now, what happened next we do know something about. The Five Nations of the Iroquois came up through these valleys on their way
to
New York, and smashed the Forest people. Then, directly behind the Five Nations, came the Cherokee Nation, who seized all this land, and chased the other tribes away.’