Stony River (16 page)

“It works, doesn’t it?” he replied, unmoved. After refueling the faltering lantern, he sat down to sharpen his saw at the table. He didn’t put down any paper to catch the leaking bar oil, but it didn’t much matter, as the boards were already discolored by many prior instances of the same.

The twilight deepened while Sevana washed dishes. With the mist-cloaked evening hugging the cabin walls, the lanternlit kitchen was cozy—but Sevana felt restless. After hanging up her dishtowel, she stood in the open door. Rain was dripping off the roof again. The shrill call of a thrush from the timber unsettled her still more. “Do you think it will rain tomorrow, too?” she asked Fenn, who sat intent on the angled scraping of his file.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if it set in for the week,” he replied.

“The week!” she echoed dismally.

“Often does, in June. But look at the trees, Sevana,” he added impatiently. “Cedars don’t grow to ten feet in diameter just because they feel like it.”

Sevana stared at him in surprise. She had never asked herself
why
the trees were so massive there. Reluctantly she conceded that any moisture it took to grow such behemoths was worth it. Still, she felt impatient at the thought of bad weather keeping her from her work in the high pasture.

It didn’t rain constantly all week, but it rained every night and part of each day. Often the landscape was a blanket of fog. Sometimes the mist thinned enough to reveal the outline of the mountains lurking like a figure behind a veil. Only rarely did the whole range emerge into view, bearing the weight of the brooding clouds on its broad shoulders.

The inclement days passed too slowly for Sevana, who composed a detailed watercolor of the flowers in the jar, finished another picture from school, mended Fenn’s ripped work trousers and hemmed all his other ones, took short walks in the long coat, reread one of her well-read books, and tried new cooking ventures, all the while looking forward to the daily homecoming of her sibling—who would have been surprised to know how much she valued his company, unsociable as it was.

Every afternoon Fenn came home soaked to the skin despite the water-resistant canvas pants he wore on rainy days, but he never made any comment about the weather, as if it indeed was to be expected. He spent the inclement evenings by the fireplace—for it was remarkably cold, for summer—drinking beer by the light of the flames and looking so unapproachable that Sevana stayed in the kitchen, reading a war novel he’d left downstairs that she had started in desperation.

One day Fenn came home later than usual, covered with mud and smelling of diesel. He took off his clay-caked boots on the front porch and hung his muddy mackintosh out there, too. He wouldn’t have said anything, but Sevana managed to pry the story out of him: Emery had bogged the skidder down in a mudhole, and Fenn had pulled him out with the bulldozer, after wading in up to his ankles to hook up the chain.

“Oh Fenn, what would they do without you?” Sevana asked with pride—and although Fenn scoffed at the foolish praise, he couldn’t entirely escape the effect of her wholehearted admiration of him. And when she took his mackintosh and boots up to the spring and scrubbed them clean, he didn’t appear to mind that too much, either.

They ate dinner with the cedar-green evening closing in at the windows and the fragrance of the sodden forest seeping through the chinked walls to mingle with the smell of coffee and bear fat in the room. Sevana related the day’s news—notably, that she’d seen a mouse scurry across the kitchen floor, and later heard it rustling around the woodbox. Fenn said bad weather brought them into the house, but he would pick up some traps next time he was at the merc.

After going to bed, Sevana stared up at the log trusses in the ebbing twilight, listening as the rain beat steadily on the roof above, seeing in her mind the waterdrops falling over that little cabin on the foggy mountainside, falling over the great trees to water them, falling everywhere over the vast ranges. She had grown used to the sound, so that it seemed to belong there in the night, comforting in its relentless monotony. It covered other small sounds, so she didn’t hear Fenn entering her room, and opened her eyes for no conscious reason to see him standing by her bed—although it was so dark she perceived his presence rather than his actual form. As she stirred sleepily, he left the room with soft footfalls.

There was an empty whisky bottle on the counter in the morning, even though it was a weekday. She couldn’t bring herself to ask why he had been in her room—or had she dreamed it?—so she said nothing as he sat greasing his heat-dried boots in a morning ritual that had begun with the wet weather. It was his room, and he had things stored in there he might need. But he brought it up himself as he brushed the mink oil over the stiffened leather, saying he’d gotten a deer antler from there last night and hoped he hadn’t disturbed her. He proved it by sitting in his leather chair that evening, whittling the horn into a handle for his hunting knife.

She wandered into the room and sat on the half-length bench by the fireplace, feeling a desire to talk to him without knowing what to say. “This is a beautiful fur, Fenn,” she said, running her fingers over the soft pelt on the seat.

“Lynx—trapped it last winter.”

“You
trapped
it?” She withdrew her hand from the fur as if it had bitten her.

“Sure. I run a trapline along the river in winter.”

She folded her hands and tried not to think about the hapless lynx as she launched into another subject. “Do you know where Vanessa is living these days, Fenn?”

He acted annoyed at her choice of topic but answered grudgingly, “Probably still in Quebec.”

“Don’t you think it’s strange how she just walked out and never tried to see us again?” From what Bryce had told her, she knew their mother had fallen in love with someone else and had given over full custody of her two children when she’d started her new life—marrying another musician who, according to her father, had eyes staring just as far away as hers.

“Guess some people just wake up and realize they’re in the wrong life,” said Fenn, still with a complete lack of interest.

Encouraged he hadn’t walked out on her yet, Sevana said: “I don’t remember her at all. And I know we had a housekeeper for a while after she left, but I don’t remember her either. I just remember you. You always took care of me.”

“So?”

“I remember one time the neighborhood kids ganged up on me because I was the youngest, the only one not in school yet, and you called me away from them and walked me home.”

“You couldn’t prove it by me.”

“And one time I got into a patch of puncture weeds while I was playing in the vacant lot, and the burrs stuck all over the bottom of my feet so I couldn’t walk, and you carried me to the front porch and pulled them all out.”

“I remember that,” he said dryly. “You were howling a frenzy.”

“And once during a night storm, you heated up a can of chicken soup and we ate it in the kitchen while Bryce was sleeping.” A slight smile played on her face. “It’s funny what stands out in your mind, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s something so insignificant, you’re not even sure why it does.”

He didn’t answer.

She wanted to tell him that back then, she had looked up to him as if he’d invented the world, but knew he wouldn’t want to hear it. And before she could come up with anything else, he set the antler down and went out the back door—as she’d been expecting him to do for some time.

She went to her room, but hesitated at the entry as she recalled the previous night. Inspecting the door, she saw there was no way to lock it, thought about blocking it—then decided she was being too paranoid and went to bed, with the rain drumming on the roof as if it had forgotten how to stop.

The last day of the week was the coldest and wettest of all. While the clouds poured unsparingly over the dripping, saturated, too-green forest, Sevana boiled a pot of beans and made another baking of bread, which had been improving with her each attempt. As she sliced a plump brown loaf, she was thinking the hot food would warm Fenn no matter how chilled he was. Everything was ready, and she expected him to walk in the door at any time. But the afternoon went on quietly without any sign of him.

After a while she pushed the beans to the back of the stove and went outside to watch for him. The skidder must have bogged down again, she decided, and Fenn was pulling it out. No, maybe the mud was so bad the dozer had bogged down, too, and he was digging them both out by hand. But as more time elapsed, she began to be afraid that something had happened to him on his hazardous job or along the winding road home.

Finally she walked down to the main road. Waiting there a long time, she was about to give up when she saw the glare of headlights coming through the falling rain, and felt a wave of thankfulness. But when the truck stopped alongside her, it had an official symbol on the door and a man in a rigid hat looked out. “Sevana Selwyn?” he asked formally. “I’m Randall Radnor, conservation officer for the Cragmont area. I’ve been meaning to look you up.”

She had to hide her disappointment that he wasn’t Fenn. “Yes, Fenn told me you were looking for a poacher. But I haven’t seen anyone.”

He gave a nod in terse acknowledgment of her words. He sat tall in the truck seat, a rangy man with a few deep lines etched in his weather-burned face and a squint to his eyes—as if he had spent so many hours scanning the hillsides for potential lawbreakers that it came naturally to him anymore. He spoke again in a businesslike way. “All I ask is that you keep an eye out, let me know if you do see someone frequenting the area, or any unfamiliar cars parked along the road.”

She nodded absently, thinking of Fenn, hugging herself in her hooded sweatshirt against the damp cold.

“Of course, I don’t have to mention the province will pay a reward for information leading to the arrest of a poacher.” He summoned a smile to his stern face that worked against the lines set into it. He had a way of looking past her and only occasionally letting his eyes make direct contact, so that the smile was directed to a tree a bit off to the side. It seemed that being confronted with a young girl was such an unfamiliar occurrence he didn’t know quite how to conduct himself; and it put him on extra guard lest his manner be construed as taking advantage of the situation. “I appreciate the help. I’ll check in with you once in a while.”

He was ready to drive on. Sevana asked, because she had to know, “You didn’t see Fenn along the way, did you?”

“What—not home from work yet?”

“No, not yet. And I don’t have any way to call to see if something…might have happened.” Her voice dropped to a lower note.

Randall’s broad forehead wrinkled in habitual thinking lines as he considered her quandary, and expeditiously struck upon a probability that satisfied him. “How are you fixed for groceries?”

“Groceries?”

“Yes—your supplies. Are they running low?”

“Well, yes…I suppose they are.”

Randall nodded at the accurate progression of his hypothesis. “It could be that Fenn went to Cragmont after work to stock up. And it being a Saturday night, he might have stopped by the Whiskyjack Saloon.” Here the thinking man’s mind stopped and backed up, perceiving that the young visitor might not be acquainted with the local terminology. “Do you know what a Whiskyjack is?” he quizzed her sternly. In this professorial role he was able to look her directly in the eyes. “It’s a gray jay—common bird—nuisance—also called a camp-robber; they like to steal picnic food.”

He paused to let her assimilate this piece of useful information he’d courteously extended for her benefit. When she nodded, he went on: “And if Fenn
is
at the Whiskyjack, I’d advise you not to wait up for him.” He smiled dimly, implying he understood all too well how other men frittered away their time, although he himself had an absolute abhorrence of any form of frivolity.

She nodded again, because it was easier than to contradict this rather didactic and awe-inspiring man, but she was not at all convinced by his logic. Fenn could be in a ditch somewhere, or in the river, and this officer, busy sorting facts and theories into serviceable units, seemed not the least emotionally involved.

He had spent all the time he felt necessary with her. “Thanks for your help on this case, Sevana. I have a lot of ground to cover—roughly 501,011 acres—and I can’t be everywhere at once. I’ll bring by some forms for you to fill out if you do see anything.” He effected again that thin, tight-lipped smile so unnatural to his severe countenance, and drove forward in a tense, determined way, eyes fixed straight ahead and both hands gripping the wheel at the precise position for maximum driving safety.

Wondering why he was heading away from Cragmont into deeper wilds that time of night, Sevana climbed the hill and huddled on the cabin porch as the feeble daylight dwindled into a drizzly green-and-gray gloaming. Bands of fog were swept across the mountainface opposite, drifting silently through the treetops in a changing, phantasmal scene she would have appreciated if Fenn had been safely home. Later, about to abandon her vigil, she stiffened. Through the trees she’d seen a tiny pinpoint of light moving somewhere down toward the river. It lasted only a second before it disappeared. There was no sound to make her think it was a car. Was it the poacher?

She continued to watch, but it didn’t reappear. At last, exhausted by the long hours of worry, she gave up and went inside, where it was so dark she was forced to start the lantern. She never lit it unless there was no alternative, as she had never gotten used to the part where it ignited in an explosive flash. Succeeding after several skittish attempts, she put away the neglected supper—with no inclination to eat any herself—and put her head down in her arms at the table. There was nothing she could do but wait. In the quiet, she heard a mouse scrabbling in some corner.