Better to take the sanctuary of the bedroom I shared with my husband, to hide behind closed and locked doors. A wall I could not cross and that required no effort to erect.
I rose, pushing my loosened hair back from my face, still stiff with salt. It needed to be washed, but not tonight. I said, “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”
I was tense, expecting him to make some comment, to say something suggestive, to play to my desire. He had to know it was there; it must be in my face as clearly as was his.
But he only nodded and looked back down at the journal. “Good night.”
And I was—what? Disappointed? Relieved? I didn’t know. I could not decide. The sanctuary I’d longed for seemed suddenly not a sanctuary at all. I hesitated.
He looked up again. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said, and went to the stairs. “Good night.”
Her sandaled feet shushed and crunched through the long grass, a breeze without the scent of ocean or mud, blowing her hair back from her face, drying the sweat at her temples. I felt these things at the same time I watched her from a distance, the grace of her movements, the saffron of her skirt tangling about her legs, molding to her body, wide hips, full breasts, and then falling away again.
She came closer and closer to where I stood, and I watched her come close, even as I saw myself through her eyes, my own blonde hair loose, falling over my shoulders and down my back, haloing in the sun. I put my hand to my eyes to shield the glare and saw myself do so. I felt her smile as my own. I felt her happiness, and just when she reached me, I saw myself disappear, no longer there. I was only her, inside her head, and she kept walking, and then I was myself again, watching her go.
And then I was beneath the water, flailing in a storm, swallowing salt water, trying to find the boat or its shadow but it was too dark and I was twisting and struggling and with no breath to be found, no way to save myself or fight it. I could not find the boat. I could not find him. Choking, drowning, paralyzed with cold, tangled as if in a net, pulling me down and down and down, never ending, falling into disappearing, into nothing.
You almost died, and what a waste. What a waste, what a waste, what a waste...
The salt taste of the Shoalwater was in my mouth when I blinked awake, the words still ringing in my ears. Everything was so sharp. Instead of the darkness of night I saw myself reaching for the rope and flailing, plunging into the water. Instead of the sound of the river I heard the rush of the Shoalwater hard against my ears, and my own choking. I was freezing, my skin goose-pimpled beneath a slick layer of cold sweat.
I had almost died. Another moment and I would have. I would have given in to that nothingness. There would have been no Leonie Russell, nothing of me left but a house full of relics and notebooks with half-translated Indian tales. Nothing to remember. No children—but that hadn’t been my purpose, had it? My purpose had been research and study, and yet here I was, and suddenly the sadness I’d felt in the dream, when she’d walked away, was overwhelming. Who are you? What do you want from the world?
I wrapped my arms around myself, digging my fingers into my skin, trying to gain hold of my emotions, which were so tangled I could not decide what I felt. Fear and despair and then...
Then I felt her.
One moment not there and then there the next, the way the air changes just before a storm. I stared about the room in confusion; once again her presence was so strong I expected to see her standing before me. But there was only darkness, and in it anger, the terrible menace that had frightened me once before, that raised the hair on my neck, that had me whispering in terrified panic, “What would you have of me? What do you want?”
I stared into the darkness. And what came over me then I couldn’t explain. My fear disappeared; instead I felt peace, or no...something bigger than that, something that didn’t calm or soothe, but lit a flame instead, tiny and flickering, hope and fear and anticipation all together. And in it, I heard her voice.
Live.
CHAPTER 19
THE STORM WAS over. The bright overcast of early morning lightened the curtains as I stretched, wincing at the soreness in my arms, at my waist, muscles strained, and it was a moment before I remembered what had caused it. The last vestiges of my near drowning. Then I remembered my dream, the way I’d awakened in the middle of the night, the voice I’d heard in my head.
Live.
I frowned, pushing back the blankets and rising, bare feet on the cold floor. I washed and dressed quickly. I opened my bedroom door slowly and quietly, preparing myself to see him, and then I went downstairs, into the smell of frying salt pork and coffee. Daniel was at the stove, and on the table was sliced bread and butter, the leftover dried berry buckle from last night. “Good morning,” he said, looking up from the skillet he was managing with a comical wariness.
“You’re making breakfast,” I said in surprise.
“Barely. This is about the extent of my skill.”
I smiled, going to sit as he took the salt pork off the stove and set the sizzling skillet on the table, releasing it hard, as if the pan was hot enough to burn through the towel he’d wrapped around the handle. The fat spattered a little onto the table, and he gave me a rueful grimace and sat down. “Sorry. As I told you, limited skill.”
“I’m not complaining.”
He poured a cup of coffee for me and then for himself, and speared a piece of the salt pork onto his plate. “We’ll have to wait until the water’s gone down enough in the springhouse to clean it, but that’s the only damage I can see.” He paused. “I was reading the journals last night. I couldn’t sleep.”
I looked away quickly, feeling the telltale heat in my cheeks, and when I glanced at him again, he was smiling into his plate.
“I didn’t find much,” he went on, reaching for one of the journals, opening it to a page he’d marked with a slip of paper. “Mostly lists of what he’d been collecting, and some measurements—you know he’d been measuring skulls and sending the results to Louis Agassiz?”
“Agassiz was a mentor to Papa.”
“Well, that explains it. Your father sent the results along with some theories as to what he thought about the possibility that the Shoalwater overtook a more advanced race.”
“I thought he agreed with June that they hadn’t.”
“Here he says, ‘One can see by the characteristics of the skulls, not just the width, breadth and depth, but by the prominent and regular location of various cranial bumps, that these people were well possessed of such phrenological aspects as secretiveness, destructiveness, and cunning—which is borne out by their behavior even into the present day. They are unsurpassed in trade strategy at the same time they show a lamentable tendency toward the animalistic and an unparalleled (at least in my experience) instinct to self-destruction, which needs only their obvious enslavement to alcoholic spirits to illustrate. The Shoalwater and Chinook do not exhibit obvious warlike behavior, their lack of any skull development in the more refined areas indicates an inability to evolve sufficiently to overtake a more advanced and developed culture. However, I’ve discovered that the tribes to the north have more developed cranial areas of combativeness, and such tendency is borne out by their frequent slave-raiding trips down the coast. Had an advanced culture once existed upon these shores, it would be the northern tribes who decimated them.’”
I paused in surprise. “He said that?”
Daniel tapped the page. “It’s all right here.”
I buttered a piece of bread. “What else does he say?”
“‘I was shot at today while trying to retrieve a skull. The natives are jealous of any attempt; they have become very watchful and it is perilous now. But I need the measurements to compare. Some I have found with decided bumps in the more exalted areas, which I do not understand. I had hoped for more proof otherwise. I had hoped blood would overcome...I cannot be indifferent, although I try. There is an epidemic ranging among the village now, and soon there wil
l be more skulls. I do not rejoice in it, as to see their grief is very hard—such primitive wailing and crying—but it is convenient.’” Daniel finished with a murmured, “How very practical.”
I frowned. “He thought them like children. Unable to control their emotions. He didn’t like to see such displays.”
“Even in grieving?”
I said thoughtfully, “He believed such things should be more dignified. I remember we were at a funeral once, for one of the oystermen who drowned. We barely knew him, but we went, and it was very quiet and solemn. Afterward Papa said that it was the proper way to mourn, and that I should remember it, because women especially should be contemplative and serene.”
“That sounds boring. And not the least bit like you. What did he do when you cried?”
“Oh, he didn’t like it,” I said softly. “But I think it was the comforting that distressed him more. He wasn’t very good at it.” I remembered his awkward embrace, as if he wasn’t certain what to do or was afraid of doing it the wrong way. “He tried, but he was not a demonstrative man.”
Daniel raised a brow.
I said, defending Papa, “Well, many men aren’t, are they? But I never doubted he loved me.”
“I’m certain he did,” Daniel said with a small smile. “Who wouldn’t?”
I looked away quickly, and he rose, taking dishes to the sink. He said nothing more, and I took up one of the journals, opened it, and began to read, ignoring Daniel as he continued to clean up. Soon I became lost in my father’s words, because, though many of the entries were lists, I remembered nearly every relic he mentioned; I had helped him trade for many of them. He rarely mentioned me. A few times, as in
L has learned the jargon fluently; her capacity for language is remarkable, nearly as if she was born to speak it...
and
Two salmon hooks found near the riverbed. L says one of them was very well used and therefore it must have been ‘successful’ and she thinks its owner was probably enraged to lose it. Such understanding is becoming distressingly more common.
But for the most part, it was my father’s trading that held sway here. And then, after an hour or so of reading, I came across
I have told J of the experiment. I feel he can be trusted and he has promised to be vigilant.”
I frowned. J? Junius? I looked up, searching for Daniel, who was sitting in the old chair, poring over another journal. “Junius knew about the experiment.”
He glanced up. “How do you know?”
“Papa says it here. ‘I have told J of the experiment. I feel he can be trusted and he has promised to be vigilant.’ Who else can it be but Junius?”
“What’s the date?”
I glanced back down at my father’s handwriting. “November 16, 1853. Yes, it must be June.” I did not say what troubled me more—that I had not been trustworthy, but apparently Junius had.
Daniel said, “Ask him about it when he returns.”
I glanced out the window. Encroaching darkness, just into dusk. I’d been reading for hours, and now the whole idea of Papa’s experiment was distracting—better to put the journal aside, to look for talk of the mummy when I wasn’t so busy wondering what my father had thought fit to tell my husband but not me. One more insult—and then I paused, startled at the vehemence of my thought. I closed the book and went to make supper. I was aware suddenly of the stiffness of my hair and the smell of the bay that still clung to my skin, no matter that I’d washed. A bath seemed just now the closest thing to heaven.
Daniel went out to milk the cow, and when he returned I made the simplest thing I could think to cook—salmon chowder. I needed most of the pots to heat water for the small tin tub beneath the stairs; the hot water from the reservoir on the stove would not be nearly enough. Then, when the water was ready, I spread a square of oilcloth to protect the floor, and asked Daniel to help me move the tub onto it. He did it without comment, though I was nervous expecting one, and wordlessly he helped me fill the tub with the water I’d heated and then fill the pots again to heat water for him. But when it was done, we both stood there, one on each side, staring down into the steam.
I was the first to step away. I ladled a bowl of the chowder and handed it to him, along with a spoon, and said, “You can take this to your room.”
He took it and motioned to the settee, to the mummy. “You don’t mind her watching?”
“I’ll pretend she’s sleeping,” I teased. “It should be easy enough, as her eyes are closed.”
“I’ll close mine.”
“I don’t think I can trust you,” I said.
“Probably the best course,” he admitted.
“I’ll call you when it’s your turn,” I said, pulling a towel from the trunk beneath the stairs. He started up them. I hesitated. “Daniel...”
He stopped, turning to look at me.
“You promise you won’t...”
“I won’t come down until you call me,” he agreed.
I smiled, relieved that he was making this so easy. “Thank you.”
I waited until he’d gone up the stairs and I heard the close of his door, and then I unbuttoned my bodice and slipped off my dress, a flannel petticoat, my stockings, and my chemise. I unpinned my hair, letting it fall to my waist, and then I stepped into the steaming water, slowly, closing my eyes at how luxurious it felt, how soothing sinking into it.
The tub was small; one could not uncurl in it, but it was relaxing nonetheless. I let my hands float, the abalone charms of Bibi’s bracelet bobbing gently in the slight current of my movements. I reached for the soft soap and washed carefully and slowly, and then I washed my hair, bending my head so it floated around me like seaweed, seeing a piece of sea lettuce floating in the water, translucently green, that had been caught in my hair. I cupped it in my hands, thinking of how it had got there, and I remembered my dream, and let the seaweed go again quickly, as if keeping hold of it were a danger, but it was too late. The memory was already there. The dream and the waste of my life tangled with everything else I wanted, the stories and the drawing and the way he’d carried me to the house, his hands rubbing mine, his warmth settled around me, seeping into my muscles, reviving me. And then...his kiss.
I closed my eyes. I imagined I felt his hands, his fingers tracing down my spine, a soft and even pressure, sliding through the wetness on my skin, slowly, easily, and then up again. I felt his thumbs pressing gently at the nape of my neck, massaging the base of my skull, fingers splayed over my shoulders, the faint brush of them against my collarbone. I put my own fingers at the hollow of my throat, pretending they were his, the slow caress, tracing the path of the leather thong around my neck, down and down into the valley between my breasts, pressing the tooth into my skin and then slipping lower and lower—
From upstairs came the sound of a chair drawn violently across the floor.
I started, jerking my hand away, my whole body flushing red, guilty at what I’d been imagining. I still felt the lingering touch, a tingling on my skin. My imagining had been so real I expected to see him there, kneeling beside the tub, watching me with desire in his eyes.
But no, I was alone. I was alone and in the bath and this was how it should be. I could not think of those things. I must not.
Quickly I rose from the cooling water, grabbing the towel as if I meant to hide from prying eyes when there were none. I dried in a hurry, suddenly desperate to be dressed, pulling on my chemise before I’d bound up my hair, so the muslin was wet the moment I put it on. I ignored that, wrapping my hair in the towel and taking up the clothes I’d abandoned, holding them to me as if for protection, feeling chased as I hurried up the stairs. It wasn’t until I was safe in my room that I opened the door and peeked around the edge and called, “Your turn, Daniel!” and then I shut it again before he could answer.
I pulled on my dressing gown, buttoning it and tying it, and it was only then that I felt safe again. I heard his door open and his footsteps going down the stairs
and breathed a sigh of relief. I sat at my dressing table and dried my hair and took up my brush, and I told myself I was not thinking of him downstairs in the bath, or of how his skin must glow, wet in the lamplight, or the dark gold of his hair. I was not thinking of how real his touch had been in my imaginings.
I tugged the brush almost viciously through my hair, stinging at my scalp, watching myself in the mirror, my impassive expression. How hidden away I seemed, lost even to myself, no sign of the tumult I felt, the tumult he’d caused, no sign that I lived at all.
Live.
The voice came so loud in my head that I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see her there. I dropped the brush into my lap. I heard the faint splash of water lapping against his skin—though it could not have been that. No, it could not have been. Not from downstairs, not through closed doors. But then, impossibly, I heard his soft sigh. And then I felt warm water against my fingers, moving up my hand and then my wrist, the floating of the twine and the charms as I slipped beneath the water to touch him, and he was silken and hard against my palm, unbearably hot, though it was a heat I wanted, and I curled my fingers around him and heard him gasp. I stroked him until he was throbbing and I heard his moan in my ear and my own longing rose like a wave set to drown me.
But I was alone. I was in my room, and I was alone, and this was only an imagining. It was not real.
I picked up the brush again, gripping it hard in my hand, hard enough that it bit into my palm. I would not think it. I would not feel it.
I went back to brushing my hair.
CHAPTER 20
Bone River Page 24
