Califia's Daughters (24 page)

Dian closed her eyes and felt more weak tears, these of mourning, dribble down her temples into her hair. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.” She turned on her side, and the tears came more freely, and she sobbed quietly. Robin's hand continued to smooth the damp hair from her face until Dian twitched and passed into sleep.

Robin studied the face of this unforeseen guest, a threat in so many ways, then with a sigh stood up and went to finish the day's long-delayed chores in the greenhouse.

ROBIN

Cat was quite the best conversational companion Robin had ever found. She listened attentively, rarely interrupted unless it was with some essential comment on the weather or the presence of some small mammal, and seemed as willing to listen to silence as to words. Even when her eyes drifted shut in the midst of one of Robin's monologues, she was polite enough to appear attentive.

She did not, however, much care for the presence of a large dog in her domain and had taken to spending her days in the greenhouse. Robin, in recognition of the hardship this extra human in their lives was creating, stoked the small wood-burning stove just a bit higher by way of compensation. Cat was now settled contentedly on the shelf above it, prepared to carry out her half of their conversation.

“Yes, I know,” Robin said, “the dog's a pain in the ass. You'd probably move out if I got one permanently, but I have to warn you, I'm thinking of it. Just thinking, so don't worry yet. What do you make of the woman?” Cat yawned, and Robin took up the tiny paintbrush and went to see if there were any tomato blossoms that needed fertilizing.

The greenhouse was well worth the mountain of firewood it ate up over the winter. It not only made for a start on the growing season come spring but, with some imagination, provided a year-round supply of fresh vegetables. Robin had discovered it five years before and spent an entire summer dismantling it and transporting its awkward triple-layer plastic panes across fifteen miles of countryside, then spent another three months rebuilding it against one side of the cabin. The small cast-iron stove that burned day and night had come from another abandoned homestead, and Robin had needed two weeks dragging it on a sledge (and nearly breaking a leg in the process) to bring it here. But those January salads made every step, blister, and limp worthwhile.

“Aside from the dog, I mean,” Robin resumed, head-deep with a lamp among the tomato vines, “what do you think about her? Should I be working harder to get her out of here? She really is alone—she can't have been lying about that, not as sick as she was, and I did bury her dog. And she says no one's coming to look for her, but still. Should I bundle her up and take her somewhere? She says she's headed for that village up past the sinkhole, the one where Syl lives. You remember Syl.” Cat kept an eye on the twitching vines but said nothing. “Of course you do, she brought you those fish. And, yeah, I know, Syl never said anything, so why should Dian? Still, I don't like having her here. I mean, I do like having
her
, but having anyone here, it's not safe. But, hell, it'll be a while before she's fit to travel anyway—I'm not about to kill her by strapping her onto a horse. Although that would take care of the problem, true. Cat, I really wish you were more help here.”

But Cat said nothing, and Robin was left to work it out alone.

HENCE, ALTHOUGH SHE HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN
CONQUERED BY ANY GREAT FORCE OF ARMS . . . SHE
WAS AS SOFTENED AND WEAKENED BY THE VISION . . .
AS IF SHE HAD RUN A GAUNTLET OF IRON MALLETS.

T
WENTY

T
HE FOLLOWING DAYS WERE A ROUND OF EATING AND
sleeping, Dian's strength seeping back with each cup of broth and bowl of food. She ached all over, was brushed by odd moments of queasiness or shivers, and had less strength than a newborn, but three days after the fever had broken, she sat in the chair in front of the fire for nearly an hour before Robin had to help her slump into her bed.

On the morning of the fifth day she woke to an urgent desire to be outside. Soothing and harmonious the cabin might be, but she had not seen the sky except through glass for nearly two weeks and her lungs thirsted for unheated air.

Robin had fashioned a pair of crutches to help take the strain off the torn muscles, and after breakfast Dian fit them under her arms and hobbled awkwardly out through the mudroom door and onto a wide, roofed-over porch. Robin made no attempt to help her, though Dian knew that her progress was being closely watched. Once safely out, she whistled to let Tomas know he was welcome to join her now, then pushed the door shut after him. She leaned on the armrests, feeling her face go taut against the cold, drawing in great drafts of the frigid air. The low sun on the side of her face held about as much heat as moonlight, but it was one of those brilliantly clear, biting days that follow a storm, and the ground was gloriously white after the dim warm colors of the cabin. Dian spotted a rough bench next to the door and edged the crutches cautiously over the wet boards to it, lowering herself down with gritted teeth and breathless oaths.

Gradually, one muscle at a time, she relaxed. A minute later the door opened and Robin came out. She dropped a moth-chewed blanket across Dian's knees, then buttoned her jacket (cut large, Dian noticed, to accommodate the gun she wore always) and headed out across the snowy expanse to the barn, with Tomas wading companionably after. Robin's boots squeaked deliciously in the dry powder, her breath rose in clouds, only to be obscured in a greater cloud when she pushed open the barn door and the building exhaled into the morning. She pushed the door closed again, shutting the warmth inside and Tomas out. He continued on to snuffle at the heap of snow that was the woodpile, pawing from time to time at promising areas of scent.

Dian shook out the blanket and wrapped it snugly around her, then let her head rest back against the cabin wall, only her eyes moving. Tomas reappeared with something in his mouth, something fist-size and hard—a fir cone, she saw when he tossed it into the air then plowed through the deepest available drift to pounce on it like a puppy. He had never seen snow this deep before. For that matter, neither had Dian. The hard serenity of it was oddly soothing, seated as she was with a toasty cabin at her back.

Robin's voice rose and fell inside the barn as she talked to the horses. Like Carmen, Dian thought, although the two women did not resemble each other in anything other than equine conversation and the close proximity of their skin color. If anything, Robin persisted in reminding her of Isaac, although for the life of her she couldn't have said why; Robin's posture, maybe, or her attitude of quiet certainty? And their hands. That first night, some similarity in the blunt shape of Robin's fingers had planted in Dian's fevered mind the idea that she was being rescued by her faraway lover. Something of that delusion had clung, attaching a degree of her feelings for Isaac onto Robin. The two might be brother and sister, or maybe cousins. Except that they looked nothing at all alike.

She did wonder why the woman lived out here on her own. Wondered, too, if she might have had relatives in Ashtown.

Dian retreated into the house before the weakness could catch up with her, navigating her crutches with care through the door and settling into the soft chair in front of the fire. She dozed on and off during the rest of the morning, dimly aware of Robin coming back inside, smelling of barn, and of Tomas dropping with a breathy thump onto the hearth rug. Dian extricated her foot and eyed his ribs critically. He'd put on weight since leaving the Valley, all of it muscle, and although she'd thought he was at his full height, he seemed to her a fraction taller. Not yet as big as Culum—but Dian caught herself: not as big as Culum
had been
. Still, Tomas was shaping up to be an impressive dog.

Robin's voice startled her from the kitchen corner. “Is he getting enough to eat?”

“What? Oh, sorry, didn't realize you were there. Oh, yeah, he's fine. In fact, I was just thinking that he's grown, even with the hard work of this last month.”

“Do they get much bigger than that?” Robin paused in the act of laying a bowl on the table, sounding almost apprehensive.

“Couple of inches. You saw his father.”

The dog Robin had buried had indeed seemed a great deal of deadweight, but the corpse had been in no condition to measure.

“Do you have very many of these immense creatures?”

“Six—five adults and a litter of pups, with maybe another litter by the time I get back.”

“And do they eat a cow a day?”

Dian chuckled. “Just about. We do a lot of hunting—and I have to tell you, I wish we still had your deer problem down there.”

“You're welcome to as many as you can herd south. But in the meantime, why don't you come here and help me eat this one?”

After lunch, Dian retreated to her bed and Robin to the greenhouse, but this time Dian's nap was shorter, and she rose, navigated to and from the toilet on her own, and in passing the window saw movement behind the glass. She found the door on the other side of the fireplace and stepped cautiously down into the thick bark that carpeted the glass-house floor. Robin glanced up from a cluster of tiny clay pots, fine-nosed tweezers in one hand, magnifying glass in the other.

“You want me to bring you a chair?”

“No, I'll stand for a minute, thanks. What are you doing?”

“Trying to sprout fern spores. I dabble in useful plants—some ferns have roots that are medicinal, plus I happen to like the look of them. But they're so tiny, it's like planting dust motes.”

“I'll try not to sneeze.”

Dian looked around in admiration. The greenhouses at home were utilitarian affairs ruled with an outwardly gentle but ultimately iron hand by Glenn. There, pots were arrayed in regimented lines, weeds banished before they got in the door, and mere flowers given grudging space at the coldest corners. Robin, on the other hand, had arranged this small space as if it were a natural grotto. Lettuce in various colors made a pattern beneath a tree fern, whose trunk in turn was studded with the leaf clusters of epiphytic orchids. Small purple flowers sprang from between bright spinach leaves, and up one wall grew a tower of bean vines with lavender flowers.

“How much wood does this place burn in a winter?”

“Oh, not as much as you'd think. The walls are triple-glazed and heavily caulked, and there's a foot of bark insulating the floor.”

Still, Dian noticed, that hadn't exactly answered her question. Then again, she hadn't exactly answered Robin's question about the demands of her dogs for meat either. Fair enough.

“Do you have problems getting the flowering vegetables to ignore the fact that it's winter?”

“Sure. I'd get more out of them if I could light the place, but that's beyond me. Even with the short growing season, each plant begrudges me a few tomatoes or beans before turning up its toes in disgust. Pollination is tricky—I once tried to put a hive of bees in here, but they weren't at all happy. So I just go around with my paintbrush, for those that need it.”

“I wish I could help you weed or something.”

“You can scrub and chop carrots for dinner, if you need something to do.”

“Scullery work I can do, although anything more complicated, you might rather stick to raw vegetables.”

“Not much of a cook, huh?”

“You might say that.”

“How are you at making snares?”

“Snares? Like in rabbits?”

“Like in rabbits. I have a great desire for a new fur bedcover.”

“I make absolutely first-class snares. Although I can't see me getting out to set them anytime soon.”

“You make them, I'll set them.”

“You got yourself a deal. I'll even skin them for you.”

And so it began. Dian made snares, Robin went out twice a day and brought the bodies back for Dian to skin and clean; they all ate a lot of rabbit, and the square footage of stretched skins in the barn grew.

Still, Dian found the healing excruciatingly slow. Half a dozen times a day she would peer at the soft scar tissue, poke it experimentally and twist her torso around to see the back of her leg, then limp off to ask Robin if there was no way to hurry the process. At first, Robin simply gave her packets of herbs to soak in and hauled unending buckets of hot water to the bathtub, but after a week of this, and after Dian had twice interrupted the task of moving the infinitesimal sprouts of fern spore with the aid of the tweezers, Robin laid the glass down and looked at her.

“Dian, it won't get better any faster with fussing. It was a very bad infection—you're lucky you didn't lose the leg. Why are you so jumpy, anyway? You have months to go and see that village and get home, don't you?”

“Well, yes, but . . .”

“But what?”

“But I shouldn't impose on you any longer. And I'm not even doing any work to help out—if I make any more snares you can go into the snare business, and in another week you'll have enough rabbits to carpet the house.”

“Ah. I make that two ‘buts.' My answer to the first one is this: Dian, it is rare for me to have someone to talk to besides Cat, and I find, somewhat to my surprise, that I am enjoying it. To the second I say, if you're bored with resting, find something else to do.”

“But I'm not good at anything you need! I'm a lousy cook and a worse seamstress. I can't knit. All I can do is outdoor things, and my goddamned leg will barely get me to the barn and back.”

“Will it get you to the barn and back?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then go say hello to your horse. He's forgotten what you look like.” Robin lifted the tweezers and went back to her work. Unexpectedly, the thought of Isaac returned to Dian's mind. What had he said once, about greenhouses?
When I was a child the place I lived in had a big one, a world filled with warm air and luscious plants.

“Have you ever been to Ashtown?” Dian asked idly, but at the final word the woman across from her dropped the heavy glass into the soft planting medium. With a curse as vulgar as it was unexpected, she bent over with the long tweezers to salvage the infant plants.

Dian took Robin's silence as a hint that it was time for her to leave. As she clumped through the cabin on her crutches and worked to get herself dressed for cold, she considered Robin's reaction. It had, she decided, looked very much like a flinch at the name of Ashtown.

Yet another point of similarity with Isaac.

It turned out that Dian could indeed make it to the barn on crutches. It was a lot smaller than the Valley's huge building, more of a work shed with a stall in the back—one stall and a makeshift pen to hold the three newcomers. Four horses where Robin usually had one made the interior nearly cozy, but the stack of hay overhead looked woefully inadequate to Dian; Robin would have to find a buyer for the dead woman's pair, or else turn them loose to fend for themselves.

Shelves below the hayloft explained Robin's collection of herbs. Dried branches, pots, and a hundred baskets looked like some pretty serious medicinal “dabbling” to Dian. On the other wall Robin had hung the stretched rabbit skins accumulated over recent days, and Dian went to check their condition, one at a time. Some she thought too coarse, or in too patchy a condition, to be used for anything but lining boots, but even without those, Robin would have a fine bedcover. When she had finished looking the skins over, she gave Simon's shaggy sides a thorough brush and did the same for the others, then sat down for a while, gritting her teeth until the protest in her leg had settled down.

When she let herself out of the barn, her eye caught on the chopping block near the snow-shrouded woodpile. The heavier logs and the big ax would be beyond her, but surely kindling . . . She found the cedar logs, tested the blade of the hatchet, and set about reducing a tree round into a heap of thumb-size sticks. Then came the problem of hauling the kindling to the cabin. The crutches got in the way, and even when she improvised a sling, the weight of it banging her crutch nearly had her down twice and left a trail of cleanly split sticks across the snow, but she refused to leave the fetching to Robin. The third trip over, and the third load lost, she threw the left-hand crutch in the direction of the porch and hobbled the rest of the way on the right one. To her surprise, it was more satisfactory. More painful as well, but the tidy pile of firewood was well worth the price of a few hard twinges.

She wrestled the wood through the door and arranged it in a neatly ostentatious pile near the fire, then collapsed, shaking with exhaustion, onto her bed. She didn't stir until Robin woke her for dinner; neither of them mentioned Ashtown again.

The following day, Dian conceived the idea of running a deer past the cabin porch and picking it off with an arrow. It took three days for her to coax, cajole, bully, and flatter Tomas into rounding up a small herd and flushing it in her direction, by which time her leg was nearly good enough to have done it herself, but when it actually happened, when Tomas got the idea and pounded off in the direction of the creek, the venison was no longer the point. Between them, woman and dog, they did it, and in a manner that, Dian knew, Culum himself could not have done much better.

That venison tasted sweeter than anything Dian had eaten for a long time.

         

A day or two later, Dian was sitting in front of the fire working her way through a pile of some local bark that Robin said would be best for tanning the rabbit skins. The bark chunks were hard as rocks and had to be shaved down finely with her knife into the basket in her lap—mindless work, conducive to thought, and, as usual, Dian's inner gaze turned south. Baby Will would be smiling now—assuming her dream had been just the fever—charming all. And in Meijing, Dian's white-blond foundling, Willa, would be freed of her extra toes, firmly on the road to a normal life.