Stony River (80 page)

“I fervently hope so.”

“Is she still in the Yukon?”

“She never was in the Yukon,” Joel said, “except in my heart.”

Sevana didn’t know how long he would have continued his riddles, if she hadn’t found the courage to look into his face just then. But as her eyes locked with his, she saw written there all the things she knew so well—the ordeal of their long separation, all the days of uncertainty, and the wonder just to be together again. And then she was in his arms, her head against the steady beating of his heart—having braced herself for the worst, and caving in when there was no worst—and she was crying, “Oh Joel, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I thought you were happy, your life full of painting, and sharing it with someone who had the same love for it as you,” he answered huskily, holding her for all the times he’d wished for her and she had not been there.

“No, I never was in love with Willy, even though I tried to convince myself I should be.” She drew back to look at him. “Joel, you’re the one who’s in all my dreams. I couldn’t forget you even when I thought I had to. But I thought I would have to love you forever from a distance.”

“I know I gave you every reason to believe that,” he said, his eyes clinging to her face. “But if you still love me, you don’t have to do it from a distance anymore. Sevana, you are so entwined in my thoughts, I don’t know where reality stops and the dream begins, and I think somehow I’ve always loved you—back in eternity in some essence of our souls.”

The words took her up to a paradise where what you most long for is handed to you freely; and she found herself in the middle of the very thing she hadn’t thought possible. But at the same time, just as Joel said, it seemed it had been decreed all along, and they were just now tapping into that infinite strand.

“I began to discover it when you came up here to the Pass last summer,” Joel was saying, taking hold of both of her hands. “I left the wilderness early hoping to see you, with some half-formed notion of telling you what I was feeling. But I was still resolving things in my own mind; and when you came up to my cabin to say goodbye, I couldn’t for the life of me decide if I should speak or keep silent. And there was an east wind blowing,” he added with apparent irrelevance.

“East wind!” Her voice hinted of laughter. “I thought you weren’t superstitious.”

He flashed his old grin. “It’s not superstition. There’s plenty of evidence the east wind can cause people to behave in ways they normally wouldn’t. But that was only one small consideration adding to my doubt. Mostly it just did not seem good timing, when you had come to tell me you were off to your dreams. I couldn’t be so selfish as to ask you to stay.”

“I found out I had more dreams in my life than one,” she said quietly.

“Yes, I knew that was a possibility,” he replied. “But finding who you are and how you fit into the scheme of things is something only life can teach. I tried to tell myself it was for the best—that you were young and had so many possibilities to explore, and I should not hold you back. And then Chantal came back into my life, and I thought that was how it was going to be. But seeing you that night at your apartment turned all my theories on end.

“The whole trip to Mammoth Creek I could think of nothing but you. Those fierce dark nights, sitting by the stove listening to the wind howl, I felt a profound sense of someone missing from my life—but it was not Chantal I wanted with me, it was you…to a nearly unendurable degree. I admitted that I was in love with you, absolutely and unalterably. I didn’t think you loved me. I kept remembering how you looked at Vandalier’s in that fancy black dress, with that high-society artist friend of yours, and how perfectly matched you seemed to that life. It was at that moment, Sevana, that I thought I had lost you forever. But even so, I knew I had no right to marry someone for whom my love was not even a good imitation of what I felt for you. I figured it was my most bitter misfortune to know my mind too late.”

“Not too late,” said Sevana, as she reached up to touch his face as she had always longed to do. “You had a lifetime, because you will always own my heart.”

“A lifetime will not be long enough.” And smoothing back the blowing strands of her hair with his poor, winter-burned hands, he kissed her in the way he’d been thinking about for a long time.

All night they sat by the fire as Sevana had planned to do, but she was not afraid of wild animals now. After being apart for so long, there was not enough time for all the things they had to talk about. Joel told her he’d followed up on his appeal while in Vancouver and it was good news: the province had granted him permanent grazing rights to the area, because he had held it so many consecutive years prior to the new regulations. “They call it a grandfather clause,” he said. “Makes me feel kind of old—but I’m not complaining.”

“You look anything but old,” she declared, in open appreciation of his rugged strength. “I’m so glad they’re giving you your due. Will you buy back any of your sheep?”

“You bet I will,” he said. “If there are any left unsold. I’m going to start over. We can come up here later this summer, even if we have only a small flock. Would you like that?”

“Yes!” she cried, and then laughed because she saw he was teasing her by asking—knowing the answer as well as she. “And Joel, if by chance Mr. Ownbey tells you that five of your favorite sheep have already been sold to some strange girl who came walking out to his ranch one winter’s day—I wouldn’t be too disappointed, if I were you.”

“Just how strange was this girl?” he asked suspiciously, seeking specifics.

“Very strange,” she said gaily. “As strange as they come.”

Then they both laughed, and she assured him that what she had inferred was so. She hadn’t known when she had bought those sheep in so much doubt and self-berating, that they would be her wedding present to him. She thought how relieved Gyrfalcon would be when he found out he was coming home.

All at once she sobered in humility at how much she had unexpectedly gained. “Oh, Joel,” she said in awe, “all that I thought was lost has come back to me. We can have another summer like the one I thought was gone forever.”

“Many summers,” he said, gathering her close once more.

And head against his hard shoulder, savoring the smoky, pine-clean scent that always clung to him, Sevana thought of David saying that God had given him his best dreams and more—and knew it was true.

At that, she realized Joel didn’t know about her winter in Lethbridge, and she set to tell him what had transpired to bring her to the point she was now. When she got to the part David had played in helping her, Joel’s arm tightened around her.

“Yes, it was a long, dark winter without you, Joel,” she affirmed. “And yet good came even from that, for it was then I learned to hope that my dreams existed for a reason. And here’s the proof of it, for here I am with you—and Someone Else who walks up here.”

“And now our winters will be neither long, nor dark.” In the firelight, Joel had the look of a man whose every wish is granted.

But he surprised her by continuing seriously, “But you know, Sevana, as good as our life will be, I can’t give you the kind of life Willy can. There won’t be much profit from our small flock any time soon, I still have my father’s doctor bills to pay, and my fiddles—while keeping me well-occupied, perhaps—have never yet succeeded in making me rich.”

Sevana didn’t answer directly. “Joel, why didn’t you tell me you were famous? I talked to a craftsman in Calgary who knew all about you and your reputation.”

“Who—Dimitri? I may be known in musicians’ circles, but that’s a very small circle. And having a name doesn’t mean so much, when you consider the sheer time it takes to build one violin precludes it from ever being a lucrative profession.”

“Money or not, true art speaks for itself,” Sevana asserted. “You’ve succeeded in your craft, which is the highest goal any artist can reach. And anyway, I’m not looking for an easy life. I’ve admired your life from a distance, and now I welcome the chance to live it, too.”

“And if all we have to eat is bear meat and wild greens, will you eat them?” he asked, to test her.

“I will eat them, and even ask for seconds,” she promised with such vowlike solemnity that he had to laugh.

“I believe you,” he said, squeezing her hand. “But I will try to provide for you better than that, if I can.”

“We’ll do fine, Joel,” she declared fearlessly. “We have the land and our talent and the sheep, and we have each other.”

“And One to help us always,” Joel finished. “You’re right, Sevana. We could do no better.”

A pitchy log caught ablaze and flung up a shower of sparks, forcing them to duck the fiery embers drifting down. “I’ll finish the upstairs of my cabin so we have more room.” Joel was already busy with plans.

More sparks shot upward from the alpine firwood in a rustic fireworks display, but the shifting wind saved them that time. “Come to think of it, I have something to ask you, Sevana,” he said suddenly. “Will you consider becoming an official, permanent member of the Community of Two?”

“You mean I’ve been accepted?” she responded promptly. “I’m
in
? I thought you’d never ask.”

CHAPTER 56

Joel’s father was the first one they told. He said ever since Sevana had stopped by with the flowers, he’d been thinking he’d like a daughter-in-law just like her. Then they went to look at Sevana’s rented house. Joel approved of it as much as she did—for though small, it was solid and had a well-planned design. He said it would do nicely for his father. The claim was to be sold, and the money could be used to help make the payments. He would talk it over with him.

On the way back from Stormy Pass, Sevana had stopped at the homestead and left Fenn a note explaining that Joel was taking her to Cragmont, so he didn’t need to make a special trip to help her. But after Joel had brought her luggage from the Lodge and gone back to take his father out by the lake for some sun, Fenn appeared at the door. “Came to see the house anyway,” he explained as he stepped inside. “Hey—not a bad set-up. Everything working okay?”

She loved the new, almost shy friendliness about him, his true personality revived after a long dormancy buried underneath hardness and anger. “I think so.” She was arranging a bouquet of buttercups and heather buds she had lovingly hand-carried the whole distance from Stormy Pass. “Go ahead and look around. But my plans have changed. I’ll be here only a short time before Joel’s dad takes it over.”

“Calgary won out after all?” he asked—looking confused, as well he might.

“No, I’m sticking around this neck of the woods. But it just so happens that Joel has offered me a position as a shepherdess.”

“Don’t try to fool me,” Fenn warned gruffly, although a smile lurked in his eyes—the irrepressible happiness on her face telling him more plainly than words what was going on. “I happen to know he doesn’t have any sheep.”

“Not for long,” she caroled. “He’s going to buy some right away. And I already bought back five for him last winter. He was so surprised!” Her face lit even more, if possible, at the thought.

But Fenn hardly heard what she said, for he had thoughts of his own. “Going to be neighbors, are we?” he mused. “Well, that suits me just fine.”

In time for summer pastures Joel and Sevana were married. It was an untraditional ceremony at best—Sevana in the black dress Joel requested she wear, for that was how he’d remembered her all winter as some unobtainable vision; and Joel in his white shirt, least-faded trousers, and the heavy workboots that were the only footwear he owned. They stood at the front of the church beside the cold iron woodstove that June afternoon, Fenn and Melanie with them—seeing, Sevana said, how it was done, so they’d know for their turn. And judging from the look in their eyes, it wouldn’t be long until it was the same four people in the same place, roles reversed.

Pastor Holte, lank and bushy-haired, stood before them with an open Bible in hand, in a suitcoat a little too short for his muscular arms. He may have been the brilliant scholar of theological treatises Joel asserted he was, but he looked as though he would be equally at home splitting rails for the small post-and-pole company he operated during the week.

When it was time for the ring, Sevana accepted the tin band more happily than if it’d been solid gold. For it was she who had insisted Joel not spend money on something as unnecessary as jewelry, when they could use the money to buy more sheep and maybe even a dog. Learning her wishes, Joel made the ring himself, cutting the handle off the Community Cup and soldering it in a circle. Sevana had been deeply touched. For what better way to sanction their celebrated Community of Two?

Mr. Wilder was there in his wheelchair, looking proud and pleased despite his physical discomfort. The logging crew was there—including Trick, Pete, Milt, Clyde, Emery, and even Cleaver Dan, in clean jerseys and whiskers neatly trimmed, grinning foolishly at the unaccustomed foray into polite society; along with the stout and amiable Mr. Sutter and his equally stout and amiable wife.

Bryce Selwyn regretted that he was unable to attend, but sent a card with a lot of money in it. Willy, busy with the store, had handpainted a watercolor card with best wishes for their happiness, signed by both himself and Nicola.