His eyes opened. She bent closer. “Carson, please, you have to help me.”
He moved then, but oh, so slowly. He moved until he had crawled up out of the water, and then he knelt, braced his hands on his thighs, and remained like that, head ducked against the rain, long enough for Libby to pull on his arm again. “Carson?”
He spoke without raising his head. “I’m okay. Just give me a minute.”
He didn’t look okay but she wasn’t going to argue the point. She was sure she looked pretty awful, too. She knelt beside him while the waves crashed behind them and the wind blew and the rain came down. She squinted painfully through the wet twilight, looking up and down the shoreline, and saw what she thought was a familiar landmark. She’d been here before, with Graham. She was sure of it. Hope gave her strength and she tugged again at Carson’s arm. “Come on,” she said. “If you don’t keep moving you’ll die of hypothermia. Get up. I’ll help you as much as I can, but you have to get up and get moving.”
Somehow he made it to his feet. They swayed a little in each other’s arms from the exertion, then Carson steadied and looked down at her, dull-eyed with exhaustion. “You okay?”
“Yes, and I think I know where we are,” she said. “Remember that river I pointed out to you a while ago, the river that Graham’s father lives on? Well, somehow we came ashore right beside it. There should be a path running along the riverbank. It’s not far from here to Solly’s cabin. We can take shelter there. We have to get someplace warm.”
She hoped she was right about their location. She had no idea how many rivers fed into this lake. For all she knew there were fifty, and the one she was looking at was the wrong one. Carson started out very shakily and before he’d taken five steps he went down onto his knees in a paroxysm of coughing that left him curled over in agony. She waited for it to pass, then helped him to his feet again. “Come on,” she urged. “Keep moving.”
She led him one step at a time to the place where the river fed into the lake, and there was the footpath, just as she remembered. Relief flooded through her. “This is it, Carson. We follow this trail a bit farther and we’ll come to a warm little cabin.”
What had taken just over ten minutes on that hike with Graham took almost an hour with Carson struggling behind her, fighting for every breath he drew, but he kept moving. Every step was a painful limp, every coughing spasm dropped him to his knees, but he kept moving. Up and up, following the river, until they finally reached the plateau where Solly’s cabin stood. The clearing was murky in the arctic twilight and the strong rush of the river became a sigh that faded quickly away. No lights shone from the cabin windows, but the sled dogs tethered out back roused and began to bark. “We’re here, Carson,” Libby said, her eyes stinging. “Just a few steps more.”
Awakened by the dogs, Graham’s father opened the cabin door when they were halfway across the clearing. “Solly? It’s Libby Wilson, from the lodge,” she called out. “We need your help. My friend’s been hurt.”
Solly lit the lamps while Libby helped Carson over to the bunk and set him down. The cabin was warm compared to the raw night air, but Solly took one look at them and was already building up the fire in the woodstove. Libby began stripping off Carson’s parka. She flung it aside and started on his flannel shirt.
“Stop,” he said, trying to parry her hands. “I’m okay.”
“Of course you are.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Solly, do you have any hot tea? Anything at all that’s hot, and has some sugar?” She peeled the wet flannel off one arm, then the other, and tossed the shirt to the floor. She worked the thermal top over his head and added it to the pile of wet clothing. A shiver of pain ran through her as she saw for the first time the raw scars that laced his torso from that terrible diving accident. How in God’s name had he ever survived such terrible body trauma? She reached for his belt and unbuckled it. “Forgive my familiarity, but this is no time to be modest. Lie down, tough guy, and let me have my way.”
“I’m all yours,” he muttered as his shoulders hit the mattress, and she was oh, so glad to hear those brash words, however faintly spoken.
Five minutes later his clammy wet clothing was off, he was covered with several warm wool blankets, and Libby was stirring heaping spoonfuls of sugar into a cup of strong-smelling herbal tea.
“Good stuff,” Solly had said when he handed it to her, and Libby had to refrain from making a face. If odor were any indication of the strength of the herbs, this was powerful stuff, as well. She got some of it into Carson, but he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about swallowing it down and she couldn’t blame him. She suspected that’s why he fell asleep so abruptly in the middle of her ministrations.
It wasn’t until she left his bedside and put the cup down on the table that her hands began to shake, and then her entire body. She used the last of her own strength to peel out of the orange survival suit before collapsing into a chair at the table, where she closed her eyes, leaned her elbows on the tabletop and pressed her hands to the sides of her aching head to keep it from breaking apart. She sat very still, counting her own painful heartbeats, until she heard a faint noise beside her. She raised her head out of her hands and glanced up.
Solly was holding a wadded-up clump of dried plant material in one hand. He lifted the gnarled fingers of the other to tap the side of his head, then pointed to her injured temple and extended the poultice. Libby sat up and took it from him. She tried not to wince as she pressed it against the wound, and managed a wan smile at the old man. “Thank you.”
“What happened?” he said.
“Daniel Frey didn’t want us to find the plane that sank in the lake, so he ran us over with his big wooden boat. I’m sure he thinks we both drowned, and I would have, except for Carson.”
The old man stared. Libby waited for him to say something, anything, but she was waiting in vain. “That was my father’s plane we were looking for, Solly. My father had the yellow three-legged dog, the same dog you told Graham about when he was a boy. The dog that haunted the shores of the lake. I think Frey did something to make my father’s plane crash, and that’s why I’m looking for it. To prove his guilt, and to prove that the man flying that plane was really my father.”
Solly listened, but his wizened expression never changed. He fed a few more sticks of firewood into the stove and pointed to the top bunk. “You sleep there,” he said.
Libby tried to shake her head and winced. “No. You take that bed, Solly. I better stay close to Carson. He isn’t out of the woods yet.”
For a moment she wondered if Solly could even climb into the top bunk, but the old man had not only made a remarkable recovery from the pneumonia that had nearly claimed his life, but he was far more nimble than most men his age. Within minutes of settling onto the mattress, he was fast asleep. Libby lowered her hand, laid the poultice on the table and sighed. If Solly knew anything about that plane, he was never going to tell his secrets. Like the lake, he would keep them for all of time.
She pushed wearily out of the chair, blew out the oil lamp, and checked on Carson when her eyes had adapted to the cabin’s dim interior. She slid her hand beneath the blankets that covered him to check his body temperature. The skin of his chest was warm to the touch. His breathing was shallow but steady. After seeing the extent of his injuries, the fact that he was breathing at all seemed miraculous, to say nothing of what he’d just been through. She tucked the blankets back around him and sank to the floor beside the bunk. The trembling was easing now as her own exhaustion and the warmth of the cabin pressed against her limbs and weighed her down. She let her head rest against the bunk’s mattress and drew a shaky breath.
When the rubber boat had sunk, it had taken the side-scanning sonar with it, and her last chance to find her father’s plane. She didn’t have the money to extend the search. She didn’t even have the money to pay Carson what she already owed him. She couldn’t ask him to return because the odds of finding the plane were nil. Carson would l
eave Evening Lake and return to run his salvage company in Spenard and she’d go back to her mother’s village for a while, maybe go to fish camp with Marie and spend the rest of the summer in Alaska before thinking about applying for another residency at another hospital.
Life would go on. There were worse things than remaining an illegitimate daughter. She’d lived with that label for the past twenty-eight years and she could live with it forever if she had to. She knew she was lucky in many ways, but most of all, right now Libby knew both she and Carson were lucky just to be alive.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SOMETIME BEFORE DAWN the rain stopped, the wind died, and the silence became as large as the wilderness itself, broken only by the sound of the songbirds awakening to the new day. Carson woke in that same early hour, though he didn’t come close to bursting into song like the hermit thrush that filled the surrounding woods with clear, flutelike notes of ethereal beauty. Instead he groaned as the awareness of every part of his agonized being became more and more acute. He shifted slightly, and was startled to see that Libby slept on the floor beside the bunk. She slept sitting up, leaning against his mattress, head turned to one side.
Her black hair had dried in a loose glossy tangle over her shoulders and her lashes were dark against her cheek. Not even the ugly gash over her temple or the purpling bruise gathering around it could mar her beauty.
It had been a miracle, the two of them making it to shore. A combination of the wind dying, a back eddy from the river’s current drawing them in the right direction and just plain luck. By the time his feet hit the gravelly bottom he felt as if he’d swallowed half the lake. There wasn’t an ounce of strength left in him, and he’d dragged Libby out of the water by sheer willpower, falling on top of her as he heaved her onto shore and rolling off just before the blackness came.
Pure miracle.
He was watching her sleep when Solly crawled down from the top bunk, pulled on his boots and went outside. He was still watching her when she wakened. He saw her lashes flutter against cheek, the gentle movement of her head, the sudden opening of her eyes. For a moment she gazed vacantly at the far wall, then she sat up and turned to look at him. He saw those blue eyes widen when she realized he was awake. She pulled herself up to sit on the edge of his bunk and studied him intently for a few moments more before gracing him with a tentative smile. “You look pretty good for a half-drowned salvage diver,” she said.
“You look pretty good yourself,” he replied. “And you don’t have to whisper. Solly’s already up. He went outside just before you woke.”
“What happened? I remember you throwing me out of the boat just before Frey hit us, but that’s all, until I woke up on the shore.”
“That mustang suit saved your life.”
“Oh, I think I had a little more help than that,” she said. “I’d still be out there if you hadn’t brought me in. Did Frey look for us after he sank our boat?”
“He made one pass trying to run us over, hit you, then headed back. I think he figured we’d both drown.”
“That bastard.” She whispered the words, but he could feel the scorching heat of them just the same.
“He’ll get what’s coming to him,” Carson said. “How’s your head feeling? That’s a nasty-looking gash.”
“A handful of aspirin would be nice, but I’ll live. What about you? You were in pretty rough shape last night.”
“That was last night. Look at this.” He held up his hand, stripped off the wet bandage and wiggled his fingers. “I can move ’em, and I can feel ’em.”
She took his hand in hers very gently and closed her own around it. “I’m glad. How does the rest of you feel?”
“Fighting fit.”
“Right.” She raised his hand and surprised the hell out of him when she held it to her cheek in a gesture so sweet and tender he was sure he was hallucinating. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For saving my life.” She lowered his hand and then, while he stared in absolute shock, she kissed his palm, ugly scars and all.
“I had to,” he finally managed over his wildly beating heart. “If you’d drowned, I never would’ve collected my hundred and fifty grand.”
His try for humor fell flat when her eyes flooded with tears. “Oh, Carson, forgive me. Until I saw you last night, I had no idea how badly you’d been hurt in that diving accident. All this time I’ve been pushing you to find the plane, and…” Her voice choked off.
“Don’t make a fuss,” he said, more gruffly than he intended, but dammit, there was nothing worse than an emotional woman. “Do you suppose there’s any coffee in this cabin, or is it all nasty medicinal teas?”
She shook her head and sniffed, laying his hand down to wipe her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “I don’t know. I’ll have a look. Graham’s been staying here and he likes coffee. Maybe he stashed some.”
He watched as she stirred up the coals in the woodstove, added some dry kindling and put a pot of water on to heat. She moved around the rustic cabin with the same practiced ease that she moved around the kitchen at Karen’s lodge, and no doubt around the bustling high-tech halls of a big city hospital. She was the kind of woman who would be at ease in any situation, in any environment. He heard her make a small sound of triumph as she held up a can of coffee. Within minutes the water was boiling and coffee was brewing. Did anything smell any better than hot fresh coffee?
He sat up and had to swing his bad leg over the edge of the bunk using both hands. It was pretty damn stiff after last night, but he was sure once he started moving it’d loosen up. He sat for a moment, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, and was disturbed that he couldn’t remember getting undressed. Scanning the room, he located his clothing hanging on wall pegs behind the stove, alongside the bulky mustang suit, but he had no recollection of hanging them there. “I don’t suppose you could bring me my clothes?”
Libby took them down and brought them to the bunk. “You shouldn’t be getting up. You need rest.”
“No time for that, and I have a thing or two I’d like to say to Daniel Frey before I head for Anchorage.” He forced the clumsy fingers of his lacerated hand to close on his blue jeans and do their part in getting him dressed.
“You can’t still be planning to fly out of here today?”
“Have to. My ship’s dead in the water. Remember?”
“Can’t you have someone else fly the part out there?”
“Sure,” Carson said, abandoning the blue jeans for the red thermal top. “But they wouldn’t know how to replace it. I designed and built that fuel pump myself. It’d be a mysterious gadget to anyone else.” He pulled the shirt over his head, stuffed his arms into the sleeves and dragged the waist down to hide the latticework of scars from Libby’s further scrutiny. He picked up the jeans again and tried for the second time to get his feet into the pant legs. Wished she wasn’t watching him. Using his hand to crank his bad leg up, he shimmied the jeans on, zipped them up, buttoned the waist. He looked around. “Are my socks here somewhere?”
Libby brought them over. “I really think you need to rest.”
“Don’t be put off by the scars,” Carson said, pulling on his socks. “I’m not nearly as bad off as I look.” He reached for his flannel shirt. Moving around was gradually loosening up all those tight, painful muscles. The first moments were always the worst. “That coffee smells good.”
He joined her at the table and they shared it hot, strong and black, and just as Libby was refilling their cups, Solly reentered the cabin, made himself a cup of that foul-smelling herbal tea and drank it standing by the stove.
“Thanks for letting us stay here last night,” Carson said, but got no response. The old man just gazed across the room and drank his tea, wearing that same thoughtful expression, as if he were about to impart some weighty words of wisdom, but he never spoke.
At length Libby rose and gathered their cups together. She took them to the little sink, washed
them out, then set them on the sideboard. “Solly,” she said, drying the first cup with the dish towel, “may we borrow your canoe to return to the lodge? They’ll be worried about us by now. We’ll bring it right back.”
Solly finished his tea, put his cup in the sink, then walked to a shelf and took down a small pot. He upended it into his palm and put the pot back up on the shelf. Closing his fingers around whatever the pot had held, he walked to where Libby was drying the second mug and held out his hand. Libby hesitated, then put the cup down and held her own hand out, palm up.
While Carson watched, the old man made the exchange, and Libby stared down at her palm with a frozen expression for several long moments. Then with the fingers of her other hand she lifted what looked like a long loop of thin leather. Dangling from the end of the loop was a ring of gold. She reached for the ring and held it at an angle, turning it to catch the light from the small window above the sink. She gasped aloud and he saw her expression change all at once, as though something had just caused her excruciating pain. She looked at the old man with eyes that were suddenly brimming with tears.
“Solly, where did you find this?” she said.
LIBBY COULD SCARCELY BREATHE when she realized what it was the old man had put in her hand. Inside the plain gold wedding band was an inscription that read “Marie W. to Connor Libby,” and was followed by the date of the plane crash.
It was her mother’s wedding band, the band of gold Marie Wilson had never gotten to wear. Libby felt hot and cold all at once as conflicting emotions battled within. She’d given up on the search for the plane, she’d come to terms with letting go of her father, and now she held in her hands the proof of her parents love for each other. She looked at Solly through a shimmering blur of tears and the old man gazed steadily back at her. “You know what happened to my father’s plane, don’t you?” she said. “Please, Solly, tell me what you know!”
Oh, he was so slow to answer! He stood in that stoic silence for so long that Libby was filled with a sudden sharp rage and the urge to shake the words from him. But then, finally, he began to speak.
Everything To Prove Page 21
