Only there wasn’t. Whatever he’d been doing at her door the morning Quillan left, he hadn’t returned. How could he? Even that didn’t matter as it had. Though day passed into day, she felt almost cheerful. She certainly felt stronger, her natural vigor returning. She could feel it. Or was it Quillan’s love that healed and sustained her, the words he’d spoken at last?
She refused to dwell on his absence and focused instead on his confession. Yes, he loved her. And that thought kept her heart singing. That and the efforts of her dear friends. This afternoon her room had been invaded by one party after another. By the time Dr. Felden assessed her progress, she was almost punchy. She wasn’t surprised when he ordered quiet for the rest of the evening.
And that was all right, too. She’d found a new and deeper solace in her time alone. Before it had chafed and frightened her to do nothing. Her forced quiescence had changed that, especially the day Quillan had spent silently with her. That had been special, though she hadn’t seen it at the time. How many things she missed until after, when she could look back on them.
It had snowed two days after Quillan left, and she guessed he wouldn’t be back soon. The road would be impassable with fresh powdered snow. It was one thing to come from Leadville over snowpack, another altogether to take Mosquito Pass after a storm. She prayed he wouldn’t be impetuous enough to try. No, he knew that road too well and wouldn’t risk his team.
She looked at the table where he’d sat only days ago engrossed in Cain’s Bible and writing in his journal. She wished he’d left it. With his words, she would have felt him close. But she almost felt him anyway. Though they couldn’t speak or see each other, she knew he was thinking of her as she thought of him almost incessantly. His shadowed face when they’d first met on the road. His mocking smile. His earnest smile. His eyes, gray orbs with charcoal rims. His hair worn long like his father’s had been, though Quillan had never known his father.
The mystery of Wolf and Rose had drawn her, compelled her. In spite of Quillan’s fury, she’d delved into their story and learned oh so much more than she’d expected. Though she’d never laid eyes on Quillan’s parents, she loved them. And loved him better for it. Ah, Signore.
A knock came at the door between her room and the hall to Mae’s kitchen.
“Come in.” Carina smoothed the blankets over her knees. She had dressed that morning in a soft flannel dress of Èmie’s that did nothing for her figure but did not require a corset. She was just too glad to be out of her nightgown and sat atop the covers.
Èmie peeked around the door, her long, plain face breaking into a smile. “Good, you’re awake still. I’ve brought someone.” She pushed the door wide.
Carina cried, “Father Antoine!” Another friend whom she’d wondered if she would see again. The priest followed Èmie into the room, smiling. He seemed to have found a peace Carina had not seen him possess since his brother Henri’s death.
“Where have you been? I’ve asked and asked. Èmie didn’t know or wasn’t saying, and I was ready to give up and believe you had abandoned us.”
“I’ve been a hermit.”
“Truly?”
He nodded.
“And you won’t get any more from him than that.” Èmie pulled a chair from the table and placed it near the bed for her uncle, then took the second for herself.
“I may need the seclusion again someday, and I don’t want well-meaning people stomping up to find me.” He said it with a mischievous grin. He had lost weight, a substantial amount, though he had little extra to lose. Where his muscles before had been those of a vigorous man, he was now lean, almost gaunt. Yet he didn’t seem diminished in vigor.
“Well, sit and tell me everything else.” Carina’s joy in seeing him washed away all of Dr. Felden’s advice. Besides, she’d slept enough these last days to make the very thought tedious.
Father Antoine spread his hands. “What’s there to tell? I questioned my purpose, and God, in His mercy, restored my vision.”
“How?”
“Prayer and silence.”
Had he said that a few days ago, she would have scoffed, but her own spirit had been quickened lately by those very things, though not to the degree he must have practiced. He’d been gone months alone somewhere with God. On the mountain, surely. He’d given that much away with his “stomping up” comment. His only appearance had been to perform Èmie and Robert’s wedding, and then he had vanished again. And that must prove Èmie knew where to find him. But Carina understood her silence.
“And peace?” she asked softly. “Have you found peace about Henri?”
His smile gentled. There was sadness, yes, but not despair. “I believe he is with God. Beyond that?” He shrugged. “Now tell me how you are. Mae and Èmie told me what happened, but I want to know what’s happening here.” He touched his chest over his heart.
Unexpectedly, tears sprang to her eyes. Why now, when she was so content? “Do you know about the baby?” She glanced briefly at Èmie, then back to the priest.
He nodded.
She pressed her own heart. “Then you know how I am here. But God gives me strength.”
“And Quillan?”
She sank back with a soft laugh. “Quillan is healing, too.” She suddenly sprang up. “Father, you must see something!”
“What?”
Carina glanced at Èmie.
Èmie said, “Do you want me to leave?”
Carina searched her friend’s face, such a dear face, so trusted. “No. But I don’t want anyone else to know.” She turned to the priest. “For Wolf ’s sake.” If anyone cared about safeguarding Wolf ’s memory, it was Father Antoine.
He wrinkled his brow. “What is it, Carina?”
“A cave. Under the shaft in the Rose Legacy. Wolf painted it all, Father. His whole life. It’s very sad, but also . . . triumphant. I don’t know. I think seeing it helped Quillan, though it must have been terrible, too. I want you to see it, Father. You cared so.”
The priest fingered the heavy cross that hung at his waist. “A painted cave.” He smiled slowly. “That would be Wolf.”
“But you understand why no one else can know? It’s very ugly, some of it. It could easily be mistaken.”
“No one will know from me.”
“Nor me,” Èmie murmured. “Though I wondered what you and Alex Makepeace had found up there.”
“Alex Makepeace?” The priest looked from one to the other.
Realizing Father Antoine had been gone most of the time since her marriage, Carina said, “He is Quillan’s mine engineer. And my friend.” She chose her words carefully. “We found the cave together.”
“That explains your grim faces.” Èmie folded her hands. “I did wonder.”
“Do you think others did as well?”
Èmie shrugged.
Carina turned to the priest. “I think it should be sealed off after Quillan and I leave.”
“And where are you going?”
“He’s taking me home, Father.” She couldn’t hide the emotion in that thought.
“To your family.”
“Yes.” Her voice lost some of its strength.
“And they know? About your marriage?”
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it and shook her head. “I tried so many times to write, to tell them everything. Now I think it best I just go to them.”
He cocked his head. “I’ve never taken you for a coward, Carina.”
“You don’t know Mamma.”
“I’ll pray for you and Quillan both.” He smoothed his cassock. “And now I must let you sleep.”
“Will you see the cave?”
The priest nodded. “I’ll see it.” He stopped at the door and moved his hand in blessing. “Good night, Carina.”
Èmie stood, too, but Carina called her back. “Will you stay a moment?”
Èmie took her uncle’s chair beside the bed. “So you really are leaving?”
“I have to, Èmie.”
Èmie sighed. “I thought you and Quillan could be happy here. I guess this was too much for you.” She reached out and touched the paling bruise on Carina’s wrist.
“Even without this, Èmie, I need to see my family. I need to be near them. I was crazy to think otherwise. I love you and Mae, but . . .”
Èmie squeezed her hand. “I understand.”
Covering Èmie’s hand with her own, Carina drew her closer. “I want you to have the restaurant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this, all of this.” Carina waved her hand to indicate the extent of her property.
“But, Carina . . .” Èmie shook her head, overwhelmed.
Carina shook her. “You don’t want it? After all you’ve learned and mastered?”
“I . . . of course, but . . .”
“Is it Robert? Won’t he want you to continue? At least until he’s successful?”
“It won’t be the same without you, Carina. I can’t be you.”
Carina spread her hands. “It will be yours. Whatever you make it.”
Èmie sat very still. Then, “You’re kind, Carina. I know what this restaurant means to you, the good you’ve done with it. I’d be honored to carry on. I’ll speak to Robert.”
Carina squeezed her hand. “There’s room to add a clinic on the other side by Fletchers.”
Èmie grinned. “So there is.”
Carina folded her hands together. “Signore, you know my friend Èmie of whom I’ve spoken many times before. I want her to have this restaurant, so would you kindly arrange it with her husband who’s not too sure yet what he is or should be doing?”
Èmie laughed. “That’s not fair, Carina. Even a doctor can be bitten with the mining bug.”
“Oh, sì.” Carina waved her hand. “And maybe he’ll think twice about risking his life when he has the skills to save others.”
“He already is.”
“Then take this gift; add a clinic. If your cooking is bad, he’ll have the treatment.”
They laughed until Èmie suddenly threw her arms around Carina’s neck. “You’ve changed my life.”
Carina squeezed her back, too emotional to answer. It would not be easy to let go. As much as she wanted to go home, needed to, it would not be easy to let go.
SIX
Take heed before you give your heart, for given once, ’tis ere more lost.
And though it beats within your breast, each steadfast beat now bears a cost.
—Quillan
QUILLAN ENTERED THE SHOP for the third time. Since there was still no reply from D.C., he would mark the day with another gift. This shop was down the street from the Italian market where he’d purchased Carina’s supplies, but it was full of feminine fripperies. He vaguely recalled her pausing outside its window the one time they went to Fairplay together.
The first day of this trip he’d purchased a lace collar, the next a parasol, though it was definitely not parasol weather. He finagled a good price because of that. The third day he chose a different shop and bought a box of hand-decorated velum stationery. But today he was back to the first shop. He went straight to the glass case and eyed what he already knew he would purchase even though it was priced at a usurer’s cost.
The clerk noticed him immediately. “So you’ve decided on it?”
Quillan frowned. Not even an offer to budge on the extravagant price. “Thought maybe you’d come to your senses and were ready to charge a realistic fee for a nice but certainly not irreplaceable item.”
The man smiled. “Don’t you think she’s worth it?”
Quillan glared. “She’s worth it, but the pin’s not.”
The clerk shrugged his beefy shoulders. “It’s what it is.” He knew he had Quillan trapped, and Quillan resented it. He’d looked in the other shops. There were trinkets plenty, but none so perfect for Carina as the amethyst stickpin in the case before him.
“All right, package it.” Quillan pulled out his money, wishing he could wipe the grin off the storekeeper’s face.
The man leaned close with a conspiratorial whisper. “Bitten bad, are you?”
Quillan didn’t answer.
“Hoping to get somewhere with this one, I’d wager.” He showed yellowed teeth the shape of stalactites.
Quillan said, “It’s for my wife.”
“Oh.” The clerk tapped his nose. “Never hurts to lay it on thick.”
He wrapped the pin in tissue and handed it over.
Quillan snatched it. If any more days passed, he’d do his shopping elsewhere. But he knew Carina would love the things he’d purchased. If only D.C. would answer the telegram and the weather would clear. He went outside and looked into the sky, gray with more impending snow.
“Two things, Lord. A telegram and a blue sky.” He brought his gaze down to a bearded man watching him. Was it so foolish to stand in the street and pray? Quillan tipped his hat, and the man walked past. Quillan went to the telegraph office.
The clerk looked up. “Nothing yet.”
Quillan thanked him and went back out. What could be taking D.C. so long to answer? Was he upset Quillan would even consider selling? Couldn’t he understand the position they were in? He went back to the hotel to secure Carina’s gift in his pack with the others. The parasol, of course, stood in the corner.
Quillan walked over, picked it up, and opened it. He looked up through the ecru lace and imagined Carina standing beneath it. He closed it abruptly, before the longing for her became painful. He tore a sheet of paper from his journal and found his fountain pen, which he’d filled with ink from an eyedropper the night before. With it, he now wrote a letter to his foster father. Reverend Shepard would be ecstatic to know he was at last seeking the Lord’s wisdom.
Quillan also inquired after his wife, Leona. He pictured her curled in her bed like a skeletal infant, bawling and picking at the covers. The image evoked a wrenching sympathy. Was she still alive? Frequently insanity left its victims physically tenacious, though she’d seemed so frail.
He would likely not receive a reply before he left the area with Carina. He wrote as much to the reverend. Then he thanked him for the years of care he’d been given in their home. He might never see the man again, and he wanted his foster father to know his gratitude, though those years had been the most painful of his life.
Setting the letter aside, Quillan took out his journal. He’d filled three pages with Scripture verses that had spoken to him in his reading, his own ramblings that had followed, and some poems he’d written to share with Carina. His most recent he read now.
Without you time escapes its rule and lingers overlong,
Yet were I there with you, my love, t’would skip and bound and leap.
The distance stills the hands of time, the days the hours prolong,
As one by one the minutes put the sun and moon to sleep.
But time, it cannot halt for long without the Lord take heed,
And God will spin it soon, my love, and set the earth aright,
Then to your waiting arms I’ll run with haste and all due speed,
To set the stars adance again to brighten up your night.
Time had once had no hold on him. But now it seemed a force he battled daily. It’s only that I miss her, Lord.
It is good for the heart to hunger. This time Quillan didn’t wonder at the words. He’d grown accustomed to the answers coming to his mind. And he knew they were the Lord, especially when they weren’t what he wanted to hear.
But he governed himself, using the time to write in his journal, long stretches of still time he’d never allowed himself before. Mae was right; it was something he should learn, though patience and peace were slow in coming.
It seemed a blessing straight from heaven when on the eighth day, the telegraph clerk reached into a cubby behind him and held out D.C.’s reply. Quillan paid the man and hurried out to the street. He unfolded the paper and found the text.
Sorry delay. On retreat. Sell
mine. Treasure in heaven. D.C.
Quillan clutched the paper to his chest, picturing Cain’s scapegrace son. From the sound of it, he’d matured, and his faith still upheld him. He’d make a fine preacher. Quillan wished he could tell him he’d found his own faith. Wished he could have found it before old Cain was killed. But he supposed Cain knew somehow. Maybe there was some portal through which Cain watched them both, knew that even if hard times were not behind them, at least they were on the right path.
He folded the telegram. Now he would take Carina home. He closed his eyes in silent gratitude, his sense of purpose keen. He went to the Italian market and purchased items they could stock in the wagon for their trip: jars of olives, dried spicy sausage called pepperoni and another named Genoa salami. Both beat jerky by a long shot. He bought her semolina flour and olive oil, a string of garlic, and pickled anchovies.
He carried the crate to the wagon, then loaded the other gifts he’d amassed for her. He gave his horses one last lookover. Jack and Jock, his leaders, were well rested and fresher from an eight-day rest than they’d been in years. His wheelers, Socrates and Homer, he’d leased to a driver for two short trips, but they were strong Clydesdale blood and were fresh enough after two days’ rest to make the trip over the pass—supposing the weather held and the trip was indeed short. Quillan worried a little that the recent snow might have reached a depth and softness that would make the road a nightmare. But whatever the case, he was going.
Carina felt good to be out of bed and dressed in her blue chintz shirtwaist and full linen skirts. Her corset was tied, but bearably, and Nonna’s shawl warmed her shoulders. Ah, to stand and walk. It was ten days since Quillan had left her door, and her concern had risen. But it was out of her hands. So what good was fretting?
But fret she did. She walked to the table where he had sat and studied. She sat in the chair he had used. She took out her own journal, flipped to a new page, and wrote her frustration, her fears, her longing. Then she closed the journal. Signore, have mercy. Per piacere, Signore. Have I not learned patience? She rushed on before she could hear an answer to that. You know I am trusting you. Is it so much to—She jumped at the knock on the door and hurried to open it.
The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine Page 6
