He jammed his fingers into the hair that had grown wild. His beard, too, was shaggy and unkempt. He looked like the animal he’d been the last time he’d seen her, the last time he’d touched her with anger and frustration. He thought he’d changed. But had he? Even if he had, would she care?
Where was he last night when she was beaten? Had he been there to protect her? He remembered how shaken and horrified she’d been by Èmie’s beating. It was so inhuman to violate the natural barrier that protected a woman. What beast . . . He swallowed the rage.
Forcing his feet forward, he climbed the steps to the small stoop outside her door. Before he could decide whether to knock or walk in, the door opened and the light that poured out onto the street was mostly blocked by Mae. Her expression was as militant as her stance, but it changed to surprise mingled with disappointment.
“Well?”
She had a right to ask. Quillan had hardly deported himself in a complimentary manner since Cain’s death. He’d been so wrapped up in his own pain, his own loss. No wonder Mae questioned his intentions. He questioned them himself, but now was not the time. He had to see Carina. His voice was ragged. “How badly is she hurt?”
Mae pursed her lips, eyeing him. “Badly enough to lose your child.”
Quillan’s chest caved in with the breath rushing out. His child? Carina had been with child? He stared past Mae into the room, the realization of her words seeping deeper and deeper. How? From their last encounter? It must be, but . . . now she’d lost the baby. It was worse, far worse than he’d feared. What had the loss of her children done to his mother? To Mrs. Shepard? Would Carina ever be the same?
Why hadn’t he been there? He straightened. “Will she see me?”
“Not much of you. Doc has her dosed up, and she hasn’t wakened.” But Mae moved aside and let him enter. “I’ll be next door.”
Quillan stooped beside the bed that held his wife. Gently, he stretched out his fingers and touched the satiny thickness of her hair. Dried blood crusted the cut on her ear, and a bluish swelling distorted one temple. Her face was pale and still. No blows had hit her face. He could almost imagine she slept naturally, only her breath smelled of laudanum.
Standing, he slipped an arm under her shoulders and another beneath her knees, then lifted her as he slid in to sit on the bed, cradling her against him as he had when he’d pulled her from the mine shaft. He held her to his chest, overwhelmed with anger, grief, and condemnation. “God, oh, God. God!” His whole body tensed as he spoke through clenched teeth.
He raised his face to the ceiling. Somewhere up there, God watched. Cain, too, maybe. The old man had told him God wanted him; God had plans for him. Quillan hadn’t heard, hadn’t wanted to. Is this what it took to drive him to his knees?
He curled Carina into the fold of himself, as though he could shield her now from what she’d already suffered. “God forgive me.” He held her close with one arm and stroked her hair. When she wakened would she despise him? He despised himself.
He would give her one more chance to be free of him. No! The thought hammered inside him like a blow, a chastisement. He looked upward. “What? What do you want from me?”
But he knew. Everything. God wanted everything. Quillan buried his lips in Carina’s hair, rocking slowly forward and back. God was unrelenting in His pursuit. It was futile to resist. The fight wasn’t in him anymore.
He felt a presence as real as Carina in his arms. Lord. He knew Him. He’d known Him when he was small in the darkness of the shed after the pain. He’d known Him beside his dog’s grave. He’d known without recognizing. He knew Him now. Lord.
Tears he didn’t recall shedding dried on his face, and he held Carina, rocking, rocking her. They were alone, but not alone. She knew and trusted God. He’d known Him, too, before he was able to voice it. He’d known but rebelled. The prodigal son who’d thought he knew better how to handle his Father’s affairs.
God . . . He pressed his lips to Carina’s hair and closed his eyes, praying that the damage he’d done her wasn’t irrevocable. Let me make it right. No. Lord, you make it right. He held Carina close, knowing the grief he’d caused her. Then he thought of the baby. She’d been carrying his child, and he hadn’t known. He pressed her head to his chest. “Forgive me.” He rocked. “Forgive me.”
Carina felt the arms rocking her. Papa. She’d crawled into his lap, and he rocked her, soothing the terrible dream. Now, now, tesora mia. Don’t be afraid. Papa’s here. Papa’s here.
She hurt. Her back, her side, her legs, and deep inside her belly. She moaned. Papa, it hurts. But she wasn’t a little girl. She was a woman, and she’d lost her child. A wave of pain more piercing than her bodily wounds seized her.
No. Not my baby. The baby was her hope of winning Quillan’s love. That hope was gone now. But what did she care? He didn’t want her. He didn’t want her! Her eyes were heavy, her mouth thick and dry. If only the clouds would leave her head. She tried to push the dream away, but still the arms rocked. It wasn’t real. The pain was real.
She forced her eyes to open, saw a cotton flannel shirt, felt it against her cheek, heard the beat of a heart faintly in her ear, felt a beard against her forehead. A hand stroked her hair, and she felt safe and cherished. She swallowed, pressed her eyes closed, then murmured, “Alex.”
The rocking stopped. The hand felt heavy on her head. For a long time she stayed still; then she felt herself lifted, laid down, and covered with the warm coverlet. A breath of cold came over her, then ceased with the click of the door. She curled into a ball and slept.
Quillan walked out into the cold, as chilled inside as out. Alex. Makepeace? He reeled as he walked stiffly through the darkness. It could be. Makepeace had a table at her restaurant every night. He lived next door. In her room. Which she’d vacated. For him.
Quillan’s boots crunched on the snow. His breath was a white cloud in the lanterns hung along the street, the light pouring out of the windows in golden pools. The music from tinny pianos spilled out as well, but he wasn’t enticed. His thoughts spiraled down. Had he lost her? Would God exact even that for his disobedience?
He went to the livery and found Alan drawing slowly on his pipe and talking to Sam, who sat at his feet looking worried. He was suddenly aware of how alone Alan must be. Every night spent in a tiny room at the back of the horse stalls, his only company the animals men left in his care, and those men like himself who sometimes sat for a chat and asked after him.
Quillan felt his own loneliness growing like a void inside, sucking away his very breath. And it was his own fault. He pulled a stool up to Alan’s rocker, clenched and opened his hands, then dropped them in his lap. He met Alan’s craggy gaze. “Is Carina in love with Alex Makepeace?”
Alan raised hoary brows. “Why, boyo?”
Quillan sat in silence. Because she spoke his name when I held her.
“Ye saw her, then?”
“I saw her. She was sleeping. Laudanum. For the pain, I guess.”
“Aye, and the healin’. Sleep is what she needs, and to know you’re home.”
Quillan hung his head. “I’m not sure of that, Alan. She has reason to hate me.” Did Alan know about the baby? He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. His child was killed because he failed to protect his wife. Failed in the most basic, the most sacred of his duties. God!
“Then ye’d best be about your courtin’.”
“Courting? My wife?” It was far too late for that. Maybe God meant to free her after all. Then he remembered the inner chastisement. No! It had been almost a blow. He couldn’t think that way. But how? Court his wife? Win her love?
Alan drew on his pipe until the coals in the bowl flashed red. “Aye, courtin’, Quillan. ’Tis time ye learned the art.”
Quillan scowled. Did Alan need to rub his nose in it? No, he hadn’t courted her well. He’d done everything he could to drive her away. Why hadn’t she gone? A thought chilled him. Because of Alex Makepeace? The jealous dragon
twisted his gut. He’d let it hurt her before, then drive him away. But not this time. God help him, not this time.
Quillan stood and stalked to his wagon, reaching under the box where he kept most of his personal belongings. Fingering through the stacks of books, he found the one he sought. He’d sworn he’d never open a Bible again, not since he’d left the Shepards’ house fourteen years ago. Not since the enforced readings that had imprisoned Scriptures in his unwilling mind.
But now he dug out Cain’s Bible. He’d protested when D.C. gave it to him, knowing it was a wasted gift and the boy would cherish it far more. Now he blessed D.C.’s decision. “Daddy would want you to have it. You never know, Quillan. You might want it someday.”
Quillan recalled the book in Cain’s age-spotted hands. He held it now, not sure why he’d searched it out. Then he opened to a section he’d never read. It hadn’t been part of his expected study. In fact, Leona Shepard had spoken of it once as a dirty book that had no right in the Holy Scriptures at all.
The Song of Solomon. Quillan looked at the page. He’d never read it, didn’t know why it came to him so strongly now. But he took the book and sat on a barrel in a corner of the livery. He smelled the fodder and the animal scent, felt the breath and heat of the horses and mules. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse . . . I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved.
Quillan’s breath arrested. These words showed him more than any poetry about the depth of love. A love he’d never sensed before, never embraced even that first time he’d taken Carina into his bed. This was a holy love, a godly love, and he prayed he’d have the chance to show her.
I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. Quillan closed his eyes, picturing his wife as he’d seen her under the spring on the mountainside. His heart surged painfully. Open to me, Carina. And he heard another voice inside him. Open to me, my son.My son.
NINETEEN
What hateful seed germinates in the heart of men to find release through their tongues and fill the air with venom?
—Carina
“HOW BAD IS IT, Papa?”
“Not so bad, tesora.”
“It feels bad, Papa. It hurts.”
“Life hurts. You have to be strong. My little tigre.”
“It’s too hard. Papa? Papa?”
But he was gone, and only the pain remained. If she could open her eyes, would the pain leave her? Carina tried, but sleep would not release her. It was better. In sleep there was forgetfulness. Oblivion. Yes . . . oblivion.
At the first hint of dawn, Quillan sat up in the livery, where he’d lain unsleeping near the potbellied stove that gave the animals some relief from the cold and turned Alan’s room into an oven. It didn’t seem enough to keep the chill from Alan’s joints as he lay huddled under the blanket, breathing in staggered gasps. At least the old man had found sleep.
Quillan’s mind had whirled between condemnation and determination. Yes, he blamed himself, as Carina must also. But that wouldn’t change what happened. Nothing would change that. Not even God. But God could bring good of it. And the words he’d read in Solomon’s book had been both a balm and a promise.
Quillan no longer felt the presence of the Lord. He could almost convince himself he’d imagined it, conjured it out of his need, his dismay, his horror over what had happened to Carina. But the words he’d read stuck in his mind, and he felt such an urging it compelled him. Cain’s voice in his mind again. “If you knew God, you’ d understand those urgings.”
Maybe he didn’t understand, but he knew what he had to do. God might be the source of the good, but Quillan would have to make it happen. The source needed an instrument. He could almost hear Cain cackle. “What tickles me is how the Lord chooses His instruments. Not the high and mighty, who think they deserve it, but the lowly, the motley, the old cripples like me.”
Quillan wasn’t sure where he belonged in that list. Motley maybe. But he’d do his best anyway. He had watched Cain operate. Prayer and unflagging zeal. Like the Reverend Shepard’s.
The reverend served God in his church, but not just there. He served in his life. Available to anyone in need. Most of all in his care for his wife. Each spoonful he placed between her lips, each soothing word that eased her fears, each gentle touch served God.
Quillan had felt it himself when he did the same. He just hadn’t understood. While he thought he was making peace with Leona Shepard, was he making peace with God? Could he do so now with Carina?
He pushed the covers off and stood up from his bedroll on the floor. Alan didn’t stir. Only a dim light brightened the window, but Quillan made his way into the lean-to and washed. He took his razor and cleared the beard from his face and neck; even the mustache he removed. Then he combed and tied his hair back with a leather thong.
Carina might not care, but he’d present himself suitably. He studied the reflection a moment. How like his father was he? Stormy eyes, his mother’s diary had said. His were shot with blood and darkened with fatigue and worry. He looked more than his twenty-eight years. He felt more.
How must Carina feel? Bruised, beaten, and deserted. He had yet to know the extent of it. That was his first priority. He slipped out the back and went to Dr. Felden’s home. He banged on the door, knowing as he did that he was waking the man.
The doctor came to the door with exactly the expression Quillan expected. “Well, what is it?” he barked, then, “Quillan! You couldn’t wait for the sun? No, I suppose not. Come in, then.”
Quillan followed the doctor inside.
“I suppose you want to know about your wife. You’ve seen her?”
Quillan nodded. “How was she injured?”
“Beaten with a stick, a stout one.” The doctor slid a chair his way.
Quillan didn’t take it. “How badly?”
Dr. Felden shoved a log into the stove and put a pot of water on to heat. “Contusions. Swelling. I’m concerned about her kidneys. Took a blow high to the right side.” The doctor turned. “She lost the baby, you know.”
Yes, he knew. Now. When it was too late. “How far was she?”
The doctor frowned. “As far as your last visit, I’d say.”
Quillan looked away. She’d conceived the child in that angry union. And now the child was lost. “Is there damage?” Besides the damage to heart and soul. Would she have another child? Would she even want to try?
“Too early to tell.” The doctor raised the lid and checked the water in the coffeepot. “You want some . . .”
But Quillan had already reached the door and stepped into the brisk morning. The sky had lightened and cast a pinkish hue on the snow-covered slopes. The air was still, winter quieting Crystal as nothing else could. He found Mae in her kitchen, heaping slices of smoked venison onto a platter.
She turned when he pushed the back door open and entered. “Don’t let the draft get my hotcakes or they won’t fluff up.”
He looked at the scorched and stiff hotcakes, the blackened venison. But he wasn’t there to judge her cooking. He closed the door and approached her. “How is she, Mae?”
“Still sleeping.”
He glanced toward the door that connected Mae’s kitchen to Carina’s hall. Behind that door his wife lay beaten and in pain because he’d failed to keep her safe. What had she ever asked of him? That he stay home. That he eat her food. That he love her.
Mae flipped the row of hotcakes and set the plate near to remove them one by one. Her silence was heavy. He knew what she thought.
“Tell me what happened, Mae.”
Mae poured the pitcher of batter onto the hot griddle in circular mounds. “You know Carina. Every time she turns around, she’s landed in it again.”
Quillan’s throat tightened. Yes,
he knew that. She’d caused him trouble from the first time they met. He’d saved her life three times. How could he have thought she’d be safe without him? He hadn’t thought. He’d reacted. And run.
“She meant well. But she doesn’t understand the industry.”
His thoughts caught up to Mae. “What do you mean? What industry?”
“Mining.”
Quillan was farther out than he realized. “What does Carina have to do with mining?”
“You own a mine, don’t you? Landsakes, Quillan! Don’t you understand anything?”
Quillan raised his foot to the bench and leaned on his knee. “Start at the beginning, Mae. I knew she had this restaurant.” He waved behind him toward Carina’s dining room.
“And a fine success she is, too. She’s done you proud.”
“But the mine?”
“Oh, she and Alex Makepeace have had a time of it.”
Quillan’s stomach clutched.
“Carina thought she was doing good, seeing to the families. All those men dead and all.”
“What men dead?”
Mae turned from the stove and swiped the steam from her brow with the flesh of her forearm. “Sit down, Quillan. Have you eaten? Coffee?”
He shook his head twice.
“Well, no wonder you’re so thick.”
He didn’t want to eat. He wanted answers. But when she shoved the plate in front of him, he obeyed, hardly tasting a bite. As he ate, Mae told him about the disaster at his mine and the trouble that followed. His jaw clenched when she described Carina and Alex Makepeace collaborating. But he saw Carina in all of it.
“She went personally? To the families?”
Mae sighed. “Couldn’t have been plainer than that. Those who approved applauded her. Those who didn’t . . .”
Sweet Boundless Page 25
