Judith Krantz (67 page)

Even if they never found the rocks, climbing this bitch of a mountain with Casey was a profound pleasure, Jazz decided, for amid all the hot, scrambling discomfort and itchy effort, they were together and she liked him, loved him and trusted him. She’d found the man of her life. The one and only.

Jazz and Casey sipped some water from the flask, careful not to drink it all up, and, refreshed, continued upward. The brush became thinner underfoot, and easier to walk around than through, but the number of big pebbles multiplied, so that they often found themselves slipping and sliding. Jazz used Hugh Kilkullen’s
indispensable walking stick in her right hand, and finally she had to grasp Casey’s left hand with her own left hand for safety’s sake, although it made progress slower. She couldn’t see much through the sweat rolling down her forehead into her eyes. They should have brought a rope to tie themselves together like mountain climbers, she thought, and left their hands free.

Blisters were forming under Jazz’s western riding boots, but she vowed not to think about them, using all her imagination to see herself as a sturdy, indestructible Englishwoman of a certain age, wearing what were always known as a pair of “stout boots,” an Englishwoman who wouldn’t break into a sweat under any circumstances, a hearty woman on a walking tour of the Lake District of England, strolling along easily, stick in hand, amid a rolling landscape of wide, mysterious lakes, abundant greenery, and graceful trees, with clumps of spring flowers springing up here and there along the gentle, well-marked track where hundreds of thousands had walked before, all the way back, no doubt, to the Druids. Or were the Druids Welsh? Well, they were witches and prophets and sorcerers, that she knew for sure, Jazz thought dizzily, and tripped and fell.

Casey was jerked abruptly backwards and narrowly avoided falling himself.

“Jazz, did you hurt yourself?” he asked in concern.

“No,” Jazz said, sitting on the ground, “I don’t think so. I was just going along blindly, and suddenly …” Curious, and glad to remain sitting down, she poked around, looking for the object on which she had tripped. Whatever it was, it was covered by a low pile of stones that Casey had stepped over but she had blundered straight into.

“Help me,” Jazz said in sudden excitement. Quickly she and Casey lifted a few concealing stones. Under them lay a cross made of two branches of wood that had once been a living tree, the pieces of wood
tied together with a leather thong, flecked here and there with white paint.

“It fell, it must have been stuck into that pile of stones and then it fell and got covered up by stones moving in the winter storms,” Jazz said in a stunned voice.

“But what’s it doing here?”

“I don’t know.” Jazz looked at the cross in excited puzzlement. “The legend said that there had been a shrine on the mountain, but the description on the map said nothing about a cross.” Casey sat down next to her and inspected the rough cross, as if it would yield up an answer.

“Look around,” Jazz said, pointing with her right hand. “Does that rock look something like a turtle to you?”

“Maybe—a little—from the ground. When I was walking, I didn’t notice it.”

“What about over there?” She gestured with her other hand.

“Twin points! At least I think so.”

“But where are the three Sentinel Rocks?” Jazz beseeched him, looking behind her at a particularly steep upward slope, bare of all but small stones. It was impossible to see what stood above the slope.

“Get up. We’ve got to climb higher!”

With pounding hearts they mounted the steep slope, traversing it level by level as they would have traversed a dangerous ski slope, until they reached the top, where a small, sandy plateau spread before them.

Toward the middle of the plateau, too far back to be seen from below, stood three tall, thin rocks, not one of them more than eight feet tall, sticking up from the sandy surface so that they formed a triangle, three rocks that might indeed be standing sentinel over the panorama that spread below the plateau.

“Oh!” Jazz cried out, realizing only now how much she had hoped, how much she had doubted. The plateau was quiet, isolated, yet it seemed to her that it reverberated with a great thunder, she thought she
heard a swooping of wings, she thought she felt a singing vibration that came from the heart of the mountain itself. She reached out and pressed tightly to Casey, needing the reassurance of the presence of another human being, in the face of the three rocks that had mounted guard over this land for millions of years.

For minutes they stood silently, leaning together as they greeted the Sentinel Rocks and were greeted in turn, until they felt that they had been accepted on the plateau, that they were welcome in this place. Only then did they turn to look outward, standing on the edge of the plateau with the rocks behind them. From that vantage point the Turtle Rock looked clearly like a turtle and the points of the Twin Pointed Rock were sharply defined.

“ ‘Unto the Sands of the Sea,’ ” Jazz said, looking toward the west. Far away, on the horizon, the sea and the sky melted together in a passion of blue. Closer, the natural harbor and Valencia Point were clearly visible, as was the untouched beach running the entire length of the boundary of the ranch, forming a pure break between the seaside constructions on either side.

Jazz turned and looked up behind the Sentinel Rocks, where the mile-high bare top of Portola Peak, still distant, sparkled as sunlight glanced off bits of mica. Behind it, the snow-capped peaks of the Santa Ana Range floated off in the distance.

“Look north—the view takes in half of Orange County—Bernardo may have overreached a bit there,” Casey said.

“But, Casey, he was only pledging his own land, remember? Look, south, after the Turtle Rock there’s a long, flat gully, and the land drops away steeply—you can’t see far beyond the Turtle Rock. From where we’re standing, we can see a good two-thirds of the whole ranch. Oh, Casey, Casey, nobody’s ever going to be able to change it—not with the hand of man!”

Jazz and Casey stood, hand in hand, listening to a whisper in the wind, a whisper of a promise made on a mountain that could never truly be the property
of any man, not even of the man who had made the promise, for the nature of a mountain is to limit man to his proper size. Before them lay California, a marriage of land and water, westward-facing, that could not exist anywhere else on earth.

Suddenly remembering her camera, Jazz started shooting, moving around to take in everything that lay in a circle from where she stood. Then she stood just behind the Sentinel Rocks and shot in such a way that the photographs would reveal the rocks in the foreground and the view they overlooked. Then she took shots from above of the cross lying on the ground where they had unearthed it, the cross that had led them to the Promise of the Mountain.

“We’ve got to start down, Jazz. It’s getting late,” Casey warned her suddenly.

“All right. I’m out of film anyway. There’s just one little favor … I wonder if …”

“Anything,” Casey promised, “anything.”

“Oh, darling, I knew you’d say yes!” Jazz collapsed gratefully into his arms. “Carry me down!”

“E
verything hurts,” Jazz said joyously, as she lay in a tub of steaming water with her freshly shampooed hair pulled up into a damp topknot. “The roots of my hair ache, my toenails are killing me, my knees won’t work, I can’t lift my arms, my sunblock didn’t block, I may not live till morning.”

“Jane Goodall you’re not,” Casey agreed. He’d just finished a long shower and sat companionably on the edge of the tub, wrapped in a terry cloth robe. “But you got up there and you got back.”

“No thanks to you. You said you’d do anything I asked, and then you reneged. Getting down was worse than climbing up.”

“Would you like me to scrub your back?” he offered.

“It’s not that easy to worm yourself back into my good graces.” She gave him an intimate look of reversible pique. “May I have a drop, please?”

Jazz held out the glass for more of the vodka they’d been drinking in celebration of their finding the
Sentinel Rocks. When they’d finally ridden back to the hacienda, an hour after dark, as exhausted as they were excited, they’d told Susie to go home early, and now they had the place to themselves. After the heat of the struggle up the mountain in the sun, the winter temperature had plunged abruptly just as they’d reached their horses and they’d galloped back in a chill wind. Casey had the forethought to light the fire in the living room before they went to soak away the day’s fatigue.

Neither of them felt hungry, although they had eaten nothing but sandwiches all day. They were too alight with the glory of their achievement to do anything as mundane as eating, but vodka chilled in the freezer suited the triumphant moment.

“When are you getting out of that tub?” Casey asked. “You’ve been in for a half hour.”

“When I get the strength and not a second before.” Jazz was imperious.

“Want me to help?”

“Ha, as Mr. White would say. Ha! You wouldn’t carry me down a mountain, but now you want to help me out of a tub. I suspect your motives, Casey Nelson. You want to sneak a peek. Turn your back and hand me that bath towel.”

“I’ll hold it for you.”

“I’m too modest and too ladylike to reveal myself to you without garments. Turn your back and hold it out.”

“But we’re going to get married,” Casey objected. “Why can’t I sneak a peek?”

“And close your eyes too. You might see me in the mirror. I intend to maintain my mystery. From now on we make love in the dark.”

“Not even a candle?”

“Not so much as a match.”

Casey reached into the tub and lifted Jazz out, squeaking and giggling. He clasped her to his chest while she kicked indignantly. “It’s not that I can’t carry you,” he said. “It’s just not a good idea going downhill. From now on I’ll carry you all night.”

“Let me go!”

He took a big towel and, seating her on his knee, dried her off thoroughly, as he fended off her efforts to get away. When she was dry he bundled her in another terry robe and carried her into the warm living room, deposited her in front of the fire, lay down next to her, and held her tightly.

“You’re going nowhere,” he informed her.

“That’s exactly where I want to be. More vodka?”

“Sure. Hungry yet?”

“No, I’m too thrilled. Oh, Casey, it’s very hard to be in love with a guy like you. You make me feel unworthy. I know I’m a bit of a shit, but you’re so good to me. You take care of me, you don’t pay any attention to me when I’m rotten, you know what I really want before I do. How can I ever be a good enough person to deserve such a wonderful man?”

“It won’t be easy,” Casey grinned.

“Especially when you remind me so much of …”

“Of who?”

“It’s not exactly a person … but there was this Airedale once …”

“A dog?”

“All Airedales are dogs,” Jazz said reasonably, drinking more vodka, “such a darling dog, just like you. He was without fear, he had very long legs, a dense coat, almost the color of yours, he had a good disposition, he was loyal, keen-eyed, capable, clownish, strong, and he had a mug, such a cute little mug with sort of drooping whiskers and his ears stood up so beautifully. A prize terrier, that’s what he was, a bit of a hound, but
all
dog, a
real
dog, the kind you used to have when you were a kid.”

“Gee, I never had a dog like that.”

“Neither did I. That’s why I feel so unworthy of having you. I’m not used to owning such a good dog.”

“Marriage isn’t the same as owning a dog.”

“Oh yeah? So what is it?”

“I’m still not sure. Maybe you’re right. My first
marriage was sort of like owning a bad dog and my second marriage was like owning a rare bird, and my third marriage, come to think of it, was like owning a racehorse.”

“You’ve been married before!”

“Three times.”

“Why didn’t you tell me!”

“You never asked.”

“It’s a lie!”

“Maybe … maybe not.”

“Well, I don’t care. You could have three other wives right now, this minute, and I’d still marry you.”

“I can’t scare you off?”

“Never.”

“Jazz,” he said urgently,
“when
do you—”

“Casey,” Jazz interrupted hastily, as she unpinned her topknot and let down her wet hair, “I haven’t got a towel. Can I rub my hair dry on your robe?”

“You’re welcome to try,” he said, as he realized that she’d interrupted him once more, the way she invariably interrupted him whenever he started to make specific plans for their marriage. There was probably a particular note in his voice that warned her of his intention to get down to a serious discussion that set off Jazz’s interruptive reflex, because not once, not one single time since she’d agreed to marry him, had they discussed the future in any serious way. It was as if, having agreed to marry, she’d condemned him to play house indefinitely.

Jazz was as expansive as she was elusive; she’d tell him that she’d marry him if he had three other wives, but she wouldn’t tell him if it would be this week, this year or this decade. Was it, as he’d wondered, Mike’s death? Or was she merely afraid of taking that final step, of setting the date? This best of all women—or was she a child?—had managed to stay single for thirty years. Clearly she was gunshy. She still flickered out of his fingers, as uncapturable as a rare tropical fish in a big aquarium, and they had not made a single, down-to-earth plan for their future.
They both knew—
she must know
—that they couldn’t keep on living in the hacienda forever. Maybe it was the word
when
that tipped Jazz off, Casey reflected. He’d try it another way, spring it on her without preamble.

He waited passively as Jazz used the bottom of his robe to towel her hair, a ticklish business and not an easy operation for him to endure, as she well knew. Then he pounced, holding her head between his hands.

“Question. Wedding.
When?”

“Oh, darling, not now!
My mind’s literally whirling with ideas! I have so much to think about, I just can’t concentrate on the future of two people when I’m thinking about thousands and thousands of people,” she said with a laugh that promised nothing.