River's End

by Nora Roberts

  in, and there was no incessant clapping or bright colors on the little TV screen. Pots simmered, Val stirred, but she kept her back to the room. There was no smile of greeting tossed over her shoulder.

  “You keep that wet dog in the mudroom, Livvy.”

  Because her voice was thick and a little rusty, Olivia recognized tears. “Go on, Shirley, go lie down now.” Olivia shooed the dog back into the mudroom, where she curled up, a sulky look in her eyes, with her chew rope.

  Olivia poured them both a glass of wine, and leaving the table unset, walked over to set her grandmother’s on the counter by the stove. “I know you’re upset. I’m sorry this is happening.”

  “It’s nothing we need to talk about. We’re having beef and barley stew tonight. I’m about ready to add the dumplings.”

  Olivia’s first instinct was to nod and get out the deep bowls. To let the subject bury itself again. But she wondered if Noah wasn’t right about at least one thing. Maybe it was just time.

  “Grandma, it’s happening whether we talk about it or not.”

  “Then there’s no point in bringing it up.” She reached for the bowl where the dough was already mixed and ready. And, reaching blindly, knocked the glass off the counter. It shattered on the floor, a shower of glass and bloodred wine.

  “Oh, what was that doing there? Don’t you know better than to set a glass on the edge of the counter? Just look at my floor.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up.” Olivia turned quickly to get the broom out of the closet and shushed the dog, who’d leaped up as if to defend the womenfolk from invaders. “Relax, Shirley, it’s broken glass not a gunshot.”

  But any amusement she felt vanished when she turned back and saw her grandmother standing, shoulders shaking, her face buried in a dish towel.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” She dropped the broom and rushed over to grab Val close.

  “I won’t deal with it again. I can’t. I told Rob to tell that young man to go. Just to pack his bags and go, but he won’t do it. He says it’s not right, and it won’t change anything anyway.”

  “I’ll make him go.” Olivia pressed her lips to Val’s hair. “I’ll send him away.”

  “No, it won’t matter. I knew that, even when I was fighting with Rob. It won’t matter. It can’t be stopped. We weren’t able to stop any of the talk or the books twenty years ago; we won’t stop it now. But I can’t open my heart to that kind of grief again.”

  She stepped back, wiping at her face. “I can’t and I won’t. So you’re to tell him not to come here asking me to talk. And I won’t have it discussed in this house.”

  “He won’t come here, Grandma. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “I shouldn’t have snapped at you about the glass. It’s just a glass.” Val pressed her fingers to her left eye, then her temple. “I’ve got a headache, that’s all. Makes my temper short. You see to those dumplings for me, Livvy. I’ll just go take some aspirin and lie down for a few minutes.”

  “All right. Grandma—”

  Val cut her off with a look. “Just put the dumplings on, Livvy. Your grandfather gets cross if we eat much later than six-thirty.”

  Just like that, Olivia thought as Val walked out of the kitchen. It was closed off, shut out. Not to be discussed. Another chest for the attic, she decided, and turned to pick up the broom.

  But this time around, the lock wasn’t going to hold.

  Just after nine, about the time Noah was debating between a couple of hours’ work or a movie break, Mike whistled his way up the walk of the beach house.

  He’d meant to get there earlier, to give Noah’s plants and flowers a good watering before full dark, but one thing had led to another. Namely one of his co-workers had challenged him to a marathon game of Mortal Kombat, which had led to dueling computers for two hours and eighteen minutes.

  But victory was its own reward, Mike thought. And to sweeten the pot, he’d called his date and asked if she’d like to meet him at Noah’s for a walk on the beach, a dip in his friend’s hot tub and whatever else struck their fancy.

  He didn’t figure Noah would mind. And he’d pay off the usage by getting up early and seeing to the gardens.

  He flipped the porch light on, then moseyed into the kitchen to see if good old Noah had any fancy wine suitable for hot tub seductions.

  He studied labels, and trusting Noah’s judgment on such details, chose one with a French-sounding name. He set it on the counter, wondering if it was supposed to breathe or not, then with a shrug, opened the refrigerator to see if Noah had any interesting food stocked.

  He was still whistling, cheerfully debating between a package of brie and a plate of sad-looking fried chicken when he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

  He straightened fast, felt a brilliant burst of pain. He staggered back, reaching up thinking he’d bashed his head on the refrigerator.

  His hand came away wet; he stared dumbly at the blood smearing his fingertips. “Oh shit,” he managed, before the second blow buckled his knees and sent him down into the dark.

  nineteen

  It was still raining when Noah’s alarm buzzed at six. He slapped at it, opened his eyes to the gloom and considered doing what any sensible man did on a rainy morning. Sleeping through it.

  But a few hours’ cozy oblivion didn’t seem worth the smirk and snippy comments Olivia would lay on him. Maybe it was pride, maybe he had something to prove to both of them, but either way, he rolled out of bed. He stumbled into the shower, which brought him up one level of consciousness, stumbled out again, then dressed for the day.

  He decided anyone planning on tromping around in the trees in the rain had to be crazy. He figured out Olivia had known it was going to rain, had probably arranged for it to rain just to pay him back for being a jerk. He groused about it all the way down to the lobby, where he found several small groups of people suited up for the day and helping themselves to the complimentary coffee and doughnuts the inn provided for early hikers.

  Most of them, Noah noted with complete bafflement, looked happy to be there.

  At seven, riding on a caffeine-and-sugar high, he felt nearly human. He drummed up enough energy to flirt with the desk clerk, then snagged one last doughnut for the road and headed out.

  He spotted Olivia immediately. She stood in the gloom, rain pattering on her bush-style hat, fog twisting around her boots and ankles as she spoke to a quartet of guests about their planned route for the morning. The dog milled around, charming head scratches and handshakes out of the early risers.

  She acknowledged Noah with a nod, then watched the group head off.

  “You set?”

  Noah took another bite of his tractor wheel. “Yeah.”

  “Let’s see.” She stood back, skimmed her measuring glance up, then down, then up again. “How long have those boots been out of the box, ace?”

  Less than an hour, Noah thought, as he’d bought them in San Francisco. “So I haven’t been hiking in a few years. Unless we’re planning on climbing the Matterhorn, I’m up for it. I’m in shape.”

  “Health-club shape.” She pressed a finger against his flat belly. “Fancy health club, too. This won’t be like your Stair-Master. Where’s your water bottle?”

  Already irritated with her, he held out a hand, cupped it and let rain pool in his palm. Olivia only shook her head. “Hold on a minute.” She turned on her heel and headed back into the lodge.

  “Is it just me,” Noah asked Shirley, “or does she browbeat everyone?” When the dog merely sat, shot the doughnut a hopeful look, Noah broke what was left in half, tossed it. Shirley caught it on the fly, gulped it whole, then belched cheerfully.

  Noah was still grinning when Olivia jogged back out with a plastic water bottle and belt loop. “You always take your own water,” Olivia began and to Noah’s surprise began to nimbly hook the bottle to his belt.

  “Thanks.”

  “I had them charge it to
your room.”

  “No, I meant for the personal service. Mom.”

  She nearly smiled. He caught the start of one in her eyes, then she shrugged and snapped her fingers for the dog, who went instantly to heel. “Let’s go.”

  She intended to start him off on the basic nature trail, the mile loop recommended for inexperienced hikers and parents with small children. To lull him into complacency, she thought with an inner smirk.

  Fog smoked along the ground, slid through the trees, tangled in the fronds of ferns. Rain pattered through it, a monotonous drum and plunk. The gloom thickened as they entered the forest, pressing down as if it had weight and turning the fog into a ghost river.

  “God what a place.” He felt suddenly small, eerily defenseless. “Can’t you just see a clawed hand coming up out of the fog, grabbing your ankle and dragging you down? You’d have time for one short scream, then the only sound would be . . . slurping.”

  “Oh, so you’ve heard about the Forest Feeder.”

  “Come on.”

  “We lose an average of fifteen hikers a year.” She lifted a shoulder in dismissal. “We try to keep it quiet. Don’t want to discourage tourists.”

  “That’s good,” Noah murmured, but gave the fog a cautious glance. “That’s very good.”

  “That was easy,” she corrected. “Very easy.” She took out a flashlight, shined it straight up. It had the effect of slicing a beam through the gloom and casting the rest into crawling shadows.

  “The overstory here is comprised of Sitka spruce, western hemlock, Douglas fir and western red cedar. Each is distinctive in the length of its needles, the shape of its cones and, of course, the pattern of its bark.”

  “Of course.”

  She ignored him. “The trees, and the profusion of epiphytes, screen out the sunlight and cause the distinctive green twilight.”

  “What’s an epiphyte?”

  “Like a parasite. Ferns, mosses, lichen. In this case they cause no real harmful effect to their hosts. You can see how they drape, form a kind of canopy in the overstory. And here, below, they carpet the ground, cover the trunks. Life and death are constantly at work here. Even without the Forest Feeder.”

  She switched off her light, pocketed it.

  She continued the lecture as they walked. He listened with half an ear to her description of the trees. Her voice was attractive, just a shade husky. He had no doubt she kept her spiel in simple terms for the layman, but she didn’t make him feel brainless.

  It was enough, Noah realized, just to look. Enough just to be there with all those shapes and shadows and the oddly appealing scent of rot. To draw in air as thick as water. He’d thought he’d be bored or at the most resigned to using this route to draw her out. Instead, he was fascinated.

  Despite the rain and fog there was a quiet green glow, an otherworldly pulse of it that highlighted thick tumbles of ferns and knotty hillocks coated with moss. Everything dripped and shimmered.

  He heard a cracking sound from above and looked up in time to see a thick branch tumble down and crash to the forest floor. “You wouldn’t want to be under one of them, would you?”

  “Widow maker,” she said with a dry smile.

  He glanced at the branch again, decided it would have knocked him flat and out cold. “Good thing for me we’re not married.”

  “Occasionally, the epiphytes absorb enough rain to weigh down the branch. Overburdened, it breaks. Down here, it’ll become part of the cycle, providing a home for something else.” She stopped abruptly, held up a hand. “Quiet,” she told him in a soft whisper and motioned for him to angle behind the wide column of a spruce.

  “What?”

  She only shook her head, pressed two fingers to his lips as if to seal them. She held them there, while he wondered how she’d react if he started to nibble. Then he heard whatever had alerted her and felt the dog quivering between them.

  Without a clue as to what to expect, he laid a hand on her shoulder in a protective move and scanned through the trees and vines toward the sound of something large in motion.

  They stepped out of the gloom, wading knee high through the river of fog. Twelve, no fifteen, he corrected, fifteen enormous elk, their racks like crowns.

  “Where are the girls?” he muttered against Olivia’s fingers and earned a quick glare.

  One let out a bellow, a deep bugling call that seemed to shake the trees. Then they slipped through the shadows and the green, their passing a rumble on the springy ground. Noah thought he caught the scent of them, something wild, then they were moving away, slowly sliding into the shadows.

  “The females,” Olivia said, “travel in herds with the younger males. More mature males, such as what we just saw, travel in smaller herds, until late summer when all bets are off and they become hostile with one another in order to cull out or keep their harem.”

  “Harem, huh?” He grinned. “Sounds like fun. So, were those Roosevelt elk?” Noah asked. “The kind you were talking about yesterday?”

  If she was surprised he’d been paying attention, and had bothered to remember, she didn’t show it. “Yes. We often see them on this trail this time of year.”

  “Then I’m glad we took it. They’re huge, a long way from Bambi and family.”

  “You can see Bambi and family, too. During rutting season there’re some high times in the forest.”

  “I’ll just bet. Why didn’t she bark? Or chase after them?” he asked, lowering a hand to Shirley’s head.

  “Training over instinct. You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” She crouched down to give Shirley a good, strong rub, then unwound the leash on her belt and hooked it to the dog’s collar.

  “What’s that for?”

  “We’re moving off MacBride land. Dogs have to be leashed on government property. We don’t like it much, do we?” she said to Shirley. “But that’s the rule. Or . . .” She straightened and looked Noah in the eye. “We can circle back if you’ve had enough.”

  “I thought we were just getting started.”

  “It’s your dime.”

  They continued on. He saw she had a compass on her belt, but she didn’t consult it. She seemed to know exactly where she was, and where she was going. She didn’t hurry, but gave him time to look, to ask questions.

  Rain sprinkled through the canopy, plopped onto the ground like the drip of a thousand leaky faucets. But the fog began to lift, thinning, tearing into swirls, creeping back into itself.

  The trail she chose began to climb and climb steeply. The light changed subtly until it was a luminous green pearled by the weak sunlight that fell through small breaks in the canopy, and in the breaks he caught glimpses of color from wildflowers, the variance of shades and textures of the green.

  “It reminds me of snorkeling.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been snorkeling in Mexico,” he told her. “You get good enough at it, you can go under for pretty decent periods and play around. The light’s odd, not green like this really, but different, and the sun will cut through the surface, angle down. Everything’s soft and full of shapes. Easy to get lost down there. Ever been snorkeling?”

  “No.”

  “You’d like it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you’re stripped down to the most basic of gear and you’re taking on a world that isn’t yours. You never know what you’ll see next. You like surprises?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Liar.” He grinned at her. “Everybody likes surprises. Besides, you’re a naturalist. The marine world might not be your forte, but you’d like it. My friend Mike and I spent two very memorable weeks in Cozumel a couple of years back.”

  “Snorkeling?”

  “Oh yeah. So what do you do for play these days?”

  “I take irritating city boys through the forest.”

  “I haven’t irritated you for at least an hour. I clocked it. Wow! There it is.”

  “What?” Thrown off, she spun aroun
d.

  “You smiled. You didn’t catch yourself that time and actually smiled at me.” He patted a hand to his heart. “Now I’m in love. Let’s get married and raise more labradors.”

  She snorted out a laugh. “There, you irritated me again. Mark your time.”