Bud
and Liz thoroughly enjoyed Susan’s big home-cooked meal after their long, cold
days on the trail, Einar doing his best with a few bites of ham and some sips
of the thick green juice she’d made from broccoli sprouts, pineapple and
banana, wonderfully refreshing, and though it made him want more, he knew he
must be cautious. Unlike with the
largely meat diet on which they had all subsisted in the high country, there was
enough starchy food there on the table—on his own plate, even, for Susan had
served him—to send him right into a bad episode of the same unfortunate trouble
he’d encountered that winter at Liz’s when he’d eaten the entire loaf of bread
after weeks of very scant rations. Body
unable to compensate for such a rapid change from subsisting on its own protein
to largely burning carbohydrates again for fuel, things had got all unbalanced,
resulting in a crippling and progressive muscle weakness which had affected his
legs, respiratory system, even his ability to swallow, and had nearly done him
in before he’d managed to get it turned around.
Sure
didn’t need that again, especially not just then when he must be more alert and
ready than ever to meet the dangers which were all but certain to arise with
such close contact with civilization.
Would be better off, he could not help but think, simply staying as he
was, getting by on next to nothing and—he now had to admit—doing an
increasingly poor job of it, than risking such paralysis, which would surely be
worse this time than it had been the last.
Liz, while having no intention of letting him go on as he had been, also
knew the dangers of his having too much of the wrong things too soon, so did
not too strongly push the issue, simply urging him to keep at drinking the
juice and having a bite of ham here and there.
Will, for his part, seemed perfectly contented to sit on Liz’s lap and
sample bits of everything that came his way, delightedly remarking at the
newness and wonder of it all.
Full
darkness outside, blinds drawn, and though Einar wanted to have a look outside,
he dared not frame himself in one of those windows. Needed to get outside, have a look around the
place, and when Kilgore tried hard to dissuade him—the less exposure the better, sit tight her for a while, especially
with me having just brought Juni down—he immediately took that as a sign
that the tracker was working for the other side, seeking to entrap them. Of course he’d want them to sit complacently
inside, not risk the possibility that they might discover the teams which were
likely even now being put into place… Einar shook his head, scrutinized the tracker
for any sign of guilt. Not that he would
give any. He was too good for that.
You’re being ridiculous, Einar. Can trust these folks, and had better start
giving it a real honest try, or these are gonna be some mighty long days, while
you’re down here. Look at Liz. He doesn’t’ have any doubts, or no way would
she let Will crawl about like that, nearly out of her sight and definitely
beyond arms’ reach… She feels safe
here. Yeah. But she hasn’t been all the places you been,
is just glad to be amongst friends and may not be looking at the whole
picture. You’re anything but safe here,
even if Kilgore doesn’t have anything but the best of intentions. If the feds don’t yet know you’re here, they
soon will, I should think, and then it may be too late. Can’t stay here. Not much beyond the night, anyhow. But Bud’s right about tonight. Can’t be out and moving, when he’s just
returned with Juni. If they suspect him
of anything, they’ll really be watching the place now, the approaches, waiting
for people to come or go, so all you can really do now is to lie real low and wait.
He
didn’t like it, but saw no immediate way around the situation. Best let Liz relax then, catch up on her rest
and introduce Will to the civilized world of the valley for a couple of days,
the bit of it, at least, contained in Bud and Susan’s good sturdy log house… Stove was warm, Einar beginning to be warm,
as well, now that he’d been near it for a while and got some food in him, if
still rather less than the others might have liked, and next thing he knew he
was dozing, head nodding and a sudden terror seizing him when he woke, certain
he must have missed some important event, some clue as to the particular
precariousness of their situation. A
glance at Liz reassured him that either there had been no such event while he
dozed, or that she had missed it, too, no great reassurance, and he scrambled
to his feet, taking up a position against one of the great upright beams that
supported the half loft above. Liz left
Will to his play and joined him, whispering something about sleep, but that was
just about all he got out of it, words reaching him all muffled and confusing,
and sleep sounded like a very bad idea, indeed.
She insisted.
“Bud
says he’ll keep watch for a few hours so we can get some sleep. There’s a place all ready for us. Come on now, I think Will’s getting tired.”
Einar
saw no sign of this, the little one presently on the gallop from Susan to
another of her quilts which she’d laid out for his inspection, moving almost as
quickly on hands and knees as he could have done had he been upright, and it
appeared that sleep must be the last thing on his mind. Liz insisted though, and after his third time
dozing off in as many minutes—just seemed to have lost the ability to stay
awake, somehow, and though sleep still seemed like a terrible idea in this
strange and threatening place, he knew he’d not be good for much until he’d got
some—Einar consented, following Liz as she scooped up the loudly protesting
Will and headed up the stairs. Susan
followed, bringing the quilt that had so interested Will.
The
loft consisted of a large open space where Susan did her quilting, baskets of
cloth squares and bolts of material proving an almost irresistible temptation
for Will, who also stared in wonder at the black-shiny surface of an old Singer
treadle sewing machine that had belonged to Susan’s grandmother and which still
saw occasional use in her quilt making. Over to one side was a good sized room
enclosed in yellow pine paneling, top open to the slant of the roof but a door
giving it some privacy, and into this Susan led Liz and Einar. The room, cheery with the glow of a single
lamp on rough walls of yellow pine, was equipped with a bed, table and two
chairs, as well as a bookcase as high as the top of the wall, heavy laden with
volumes on everything from gardening to military history, one of many such
scattered about the house. Opposite the
bed stood a dormer window, and beneath this, back to the wall and front to the
door, and the stairs, Einar took up his position, rifle resting on his knees
and eyes wide open against the possibility of further sleep. Liz deposited Will on the bed to start his
exploration of this new place and hopefully begin settling in for sleep, joined
Einar on the floor.
“Come
sleep for a while. You have to sleep.”
“Yes,”
Susan chimed in. We’ll keep an eye on
things while you’re out.”
But
for a long time he did not leave his post at the window as Susan and Liz
watched Will and caught up on various things, curling up now and then for a
brief rest on the floor—cold, always just on the edge of shivering, but he
liked that, for he knew the shivering would wake him if he dozed for too long—but
never in the bed.
“Can’t
sleep in a bed,” he explained to Susan when she kept pressing him. “Keeps me from hearing things, feeling…vibrations
that come up through the ground, and might alert me to trouble coming. Haven’t slept in a proper bed for several
decades, and sure can’t be doing it here, in a house, where layers of wood and carpet
and such already separate me from the ground and the mattress and bed frame
would only serve to further distance me from any hope I might have of hearing
the approach of danger…but I do thank you for the offer, and maybe Lizzie…”
“Oh,
this is why you wouldn’t sleep on the air mattress when you were here before, I
guess. Down in the basement. Why I found you jammed under the storage
shelves in the basement, sleeping on bare concrete, instead.”
“Yep.”
She
left, then, assuring them once more that she and Bud would take care of the
place for the night so they could get some rest. Liz, who did like the idea of a night spent
in a proper bed but knew Einar was telling the truth about his need to have
some contact with the ground, the floor, decided not to insist that he join her
there for the night, hoping instead that he might relent only for a little
while, if he could, just long enough to thaw some of the remaining ice from his
bones. And if he fell asleep in the
process and didn’t wake until morning…well, no harm done.
“Looks
like Will’s asleep for a while, so why don’t you just come in for a little bit,
to get warm and to visit before sleep time.
It might be a good thing. And
besides, I miss your company…” And she all
but pulled him into the bed, Einar laughing and making a show of resisting as
she pulled the covers up over him and helped him off with his clothes.
“Miss
my company, do you? I’m nothing but a
sack of bones, Lizzie. Can’t imagine you
find me particularly good company in this sort of way, at the moment.”
“Oh,”
she traced his collarbone, the sharp, hollow contours of one shoulder,
everything sparse, scooped out, skeletal, “you have no idea. You are…beautiful. Your bones are beautiful, the way I can see
how everything’s assembled, how it works, fearfully and wonderfully made…”
“Ha! You’re crazy.”
“No,
I’m serious.”
“Everything’s
messed up. Nothing but scars. Scars over bone.”
“They’re
beautiful, too. They mean you lived
through it, all of it…” and she took his hands, pressed them to her lips, his
wrists where they were crisscrossed with angry purple-white scars, rope burns, some
faded, old and nearly invisible, some less so; he closed his eyes, turned away.
