“You did fine. I’m not one to talk, after the carrying on I did.”
“When?”
“Klondike. Winter of ’98.”
He pulled his gold hair back and she saw that the tops of his ears were missing, the sides misshapen, scarred over. That’s why he wore his hair long. “Hollered a bloody blue streak, my partner said.”
He smiled, and she returned it. “I wish I’d have heard that.”
His grin broadened. “I’m sure you do.” He reminded her of Sidney and his teasing, just then.
“Mr. Hart — I’ve not yet expressed my gratitude.”
Another frown. “You don’t need to be grateful. You need to get well.”
What a strange man he was. He stood. He was going to leave her side; she had to ask now. She touched his sleeve with her swaddled hand. He turned.
“Will —” she began, stopped. No tears, she told herself. Steady voice. But she had to know. And she had the impression that this man, for all his faults, wouldn’t lie. “Mr. Hart, do you think I’ll ever leave this place?”
His eyes grew warm, though his voice got even more gruff. “What’s your given name?” he asked.
“Olana,” she whispered.
“Olana, listen.” He stretched her name a little longer than she had. “It ain’t time to worry yet,” he told her.
She bit her lip and nodded quickly.
He yanked the covers up to her chin. “Now rest. I’ve got my own work to do. Ain’t running a winter resort.”
Her mouth formed an involuntary smile. “Mr. Hart?”
“Yes?”
“You should rest yourself. You look terrible.”
Damn the woman. Matthew kicked his chair back against the stone hearth and opened his grandmother’s book. He doubted he’d find anything about the discreet care of a spoiled socialite. Still, he pulled on his spectacles, and found his way through her compilation of remedies for generations of his family.
Did Olana Whittaker have to combine her fussing, her infuriating, misplaced modesty with the courage it took to look at her injuries, to ask calmly about the possibility of her own death? She’d sensed his fear, he was sure. He had to work harder to rid himself of it. She was young, strong. She would survive. Still, his eyes scanned the words he’d read many times before:
Gangrene: affected parts will turn blue-gray, remain swollen and paralyzed, with no sensation. When areas turn black, they are dead and putrefying. Amputate.
She couldn’t feel her breasts. What if they blackened? Matthew drew a long, even breath and thought of the words his grandmother used so often — “Ain’t time to worry yet.”
He watched his patient sleep. The first days, she’d cry out loud. It had kept him awake to her needs. Now her sleep was deeper, and her face was letting go of its suffering. Once again it became the face against the red wood’s glow, the face that made him forget who she was and want her. Brainless. Dangerous. But did she have to tell him to rest? He closed his eyes.
He was a child again in his dream, walking at the tall woman’s heels. No, not a child exactly, it was after the massacre at Conner’s Ridge, the court martial, but before his uncles turned on him. What was he, twelve? His father had so mixed him up about his age he had trouble figuring it. No matter, the dream soothed. Watch. They stood behind the grayed clapboard house, he and this new woman, his grandmother. The warm Pacific breeze chased her wondrous silver hair from its bonds. She turned on him sharply.
“What are you looking at?” she scolded.
“Your hair. It’s resplendent.”
She tilted her head, frowned. “Can you spell that word?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t think.” She handed him a stick. “Write.”
He began his marks slowly in the sandy soil, suddenly nervous. Would she send him away if he couldn’t spell
resplendent
?
“If you can’t spell it, you can’t say it, that’s what I tell my boys,” she was saying. “You can’t be any different. ’Course, now they only growl at me, so I wonder about my injunction. But you can’t be any different.”
She opened her hand when he was finished, and took the stick. “Had any schoolin’, Matthew Hart?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, it looks all right to me. Who taught you your letters?”
“Mama.”
There. He’d said something right. A pleased look made her even more beautiful. “Well, I’m glad she was good for something.”
“And, Gran?”
More pleasure. Because he used the name he’d longed to but hadn’t dared call her?
“Hmmn?”
“Mama had the same injunction.”
“Can you spell —”
“Yes’m!”
“Well, so can I. Watch!”
She finished the letters with a sweeping arc in the sand, then leapt off her feet in delight. She leapt like a girl, and he imagined her the girl she once was, leaping into the air when finding gold in her claim along the American River. No, not imagined. Saw it. Saw her at the river, its banks piled high with diggings.
That had been the first of his visions of his grandmother in her youth. The force, the reality of it made him shake all over. Annie Smithers held him once it was over, made him tell it, tell the other times like it. Then she’d called him gifted, not peculiar, which was what he’d been in his father’s world. Annie began remaking him as the hero of his own life that day. Then she’d pushed him toward the barnyard.
“Pick out a fat one, so’s I can get some meat on your bones.”
A fat one. Chicken. Strength. That was the dream’s message, Matthew realized as he woke feeling whole and refreshed. Olana Whittaker needed strength. One of his hens would have to go before her time. Matthew righted his chair, rolled up his sleeves, and reached for the ax in the corner. Women. Always women pushing him, he thought in a mixture of annoyance and amusement, as he slipped out the door.
Later, the woman in his bed moved, moaning softly while he dropped the spoonfuls of batter into the pot and replaced the lid.
Olana. What kind of a name was that? It had a smooth, exotic sound. He stood over her, wiping his hands on the floury cloth.
“Hmmm … Marcel,” she called out with a lover’s intimacy, “that smells wonderful! What is it?”
“I ain’t Marcel,” he said. “But that’s chicken and dumplings on the hearth.”
He fixed the bandages on her fingers so she could fist the spoon, lock it with her thumb. She ate with a relish that made him wish he could cook anything else from scratch. Then she put down the spoon defiantly.
“You keep telling me there’s plenty. But I shall not touch another morsel until you begin, Mr. Hart.”
“Begin?”
“Eating!”
He loaded his plate absently and joined her. The pleasure she took in the food delighted him. He felt a weight lifting from his chest as he answered her questions about how he’d prepared the chicken, put together the batter. It was marvelous, she proclaimed. It was as simple as cooking gets, he insisted, hearing his grandmother’s tone in his voice.
Her injuries faded from prominence. Without her fashionable guises, Olana Whittaker’s animated innocence sparkled. She seemed younger than he’d first assumed. Was she yet twenty? He watched the way her wild, tangled hair framed her face and was framed again by the pillow. What in hell are you looking at her hair for, he chastised himself; she’s trying to scratch her palms with the spoon’s handle.
“Stop that!” he yelled.
“The itching, Mr. Hart! I must! It’s maddening!”
Her cheeks bloomed crimson. She turned away, pressing one side of her face into the pillow. He couldn’t stop looking at her struggle to maintain her dignity.
“It’s a good sign, the itching,” he tried.
She would not look at him.
He left, returning from his back room with a tin of sheep grease. “Hands,” he ordered. He massaged the grease into her open palms.
“That smells horrid. It’s spoiled my appetite.”
He took the almost emptied plate from her lap. It looked more like hearty eating had spoiled her appetite. He felt only barely polite enough not to voice his thought out loud. “Your palms itching any more?” he demanded instead.
“No,” she admitted.
He dropped the tin on the table beside her bed and went about his cleaning up.
Her fragile voice returned, beaming out soft and warm like the yellow light of the oil lamp. “Might I try and walk soon, Mr. Hart?”
“After the blisters go down.”
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know!” She started, bit her lip. Shit. He didn’t mean to yell. She faced the window, buried herself deeper in the covers. Farrell was right. He wasn’t decent company after the first snow. He approached the bed, flinging the dishrag over his shoulder. Even that made her wince. Good Lord, was she afraid of him?
“You want to come outside? See where you are?”
She turned. It was the last thing she wanted, he surmised from the panic in her eyes. “Yes, all right,” she whispered.
He brought her another layer of his clothes, letting her swollen fingers help with the largest buttons. He wound her head and neck in scarfs and put a deerskin robe around her shoulders. The heft of her was still light, lighter than that day he’d found her in the storm. But she had the strength to circle his neck with her arms.
It was a day of crystal clarity. He couldn’t think about how high the drifts were, about how long it would take him to dig out. He could only stare at the fractured prisms of color beaming through the sequoias. She stared too. Matthew felt her cling tighter suddenly as a wood mouse scampered by his boots, grass stems in its tiny mouth.
“What’s that?”
“Pika. He’s in a hurry to dry his winter food. Looks like you weren’t the only one caught off guard by the storm.”
Her attention was diverted skyward.
“Clark’s nutcracker,” he told her as she shielded her eyes to watch the black and white bird. It tilted its head, stared down at her before continuing to peck at the pinecone’s seeds. Her head tilted in response. The bird flew to a lower branch and started pecking at another pinecone, then tilted his head again.
“I’ve kept you out long enough.”
When he turned back to his dwelling, her arms dropped from his neck. It was just as he wanted her to see it, snow shining in the afternoon sun, smoke curling from the stone chimney in warm contrast. So much snow, would she recognize …?
“Mr. Hart. You live in a tree,” she whispered.
“Yep.” He walked closer to the downed giant, caught in some upheaval perhaps hundreds of years before. He’d worked a summer through, carving it out, building the stone chimney and hearth, the pine board front. He was proud of the place. How did she see it? She only stared. Well, what did he expect? And what did it matter, what she thought? Damned woman. He held her close and ducked through the low doorway.
When he slipped her back into his bed she cried out. A burst, mixing pain and joy.
“What is it?” he demanded.
She colored up pink, even as her gauzed fingers stretched out, gripping the front of his shirt. “I … feel them, Mr. Hart.”
“What?”
She colored deeper. “You know, my … bosom. Warm. Like when my hands, then my feet first came back. Yes. Warm pain.” Tears traveled down her cheeks. But she was smiling.
“Both?”
“Yes.”
“Well. Well, good.”
No gangrene. No more wondering if she could survive his knife. If he could even cut her. The flush of relief that coursed
through his system left him lightheaded, without speech. He tried to escape her eyes, glistening now. Their dark luminance called him closer. Didn’t they? The tips of his fingers brushed against her wild hair, grateful. He was grateful to it for saving her face. He just wanted to touch it that way, grateful. Soft. Christ. Women were so soft.
Her eyes did not narrow in indignation, but got wider, curious, childlike. And she was still holding his shirt. Let go. Let go of me, now, he wanted to tell her, but had not yet found his voice. He lowered his head, felt her wet lashes against his cheek. It hurt, his cheek, where she’d kicked him. He smiled. She was strong, would get stronger. Lower. His lips touched hers. His hands crushed her cascading hair, finding, cushioning her neck as he delved deeper into the recesses of her mouth. She tasted of the chicken, the biscuits, forgotten springs.
Her eyes went wild, she didn’t know enough to breathe. What was he doing? He broke away, pulled himself back. She stared at him, her ripe mouth still open, her face flushed.
“I — I’m sorry.”
What in hell. Didn’t she know how damned beautiful she was, he thought suddenly, angrily. She sensed it, her shining eyes got even wider. He backed away from the bed, yanked his coat so hard from the nail that it ripped, and went out among his trees.