Bone River (43 page)

Junius clapped both hands on his thighs. “Well, that’s that. Why do you think he got so angry?”

Playing games. A smile, though his eyes were cold. I forced myself steady. “Why did you take him with you tonight, Junius? What did you think to accomplish?”

“I wanted to see what kind of man he was. I wanted to see if he
would
.”

“What did you discover?”

“That he’s game for anything. That he’ll do whatever best avails him. The boy has no morality and no sentimentality, Lea. I wish you would see that.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

He sighed, and suddenly the bravado was gone, and the chill, and he was just the man I knew, the one I’d known for over twenty years. He raked his hand through his hair, and I was struck by the familiarity of the gesture—not in him, though I’d seen him do it a thousand times before, but because in that moment, Daniel’s likeness to him was pronounced. The same gesture, done the same way—were such things passed through the blood as well as eye color or build?

Junius said, “He’s wound you about with pretty talk and poetry. He’s beat me with things I could never do.”

I looked down into the bowl, my guilt so intense I could hardly breathe.

Junius sighed again. “I see my youth in him, Lea. I know I must seem an old man to you now, but there are things about him that remind me of what I used to be. I don’t know if you remember those things. I don’t know if you ever saw them. You must have thought me old already when I came here.”

He sounded sad, pensive. It broke my heart. “Junius, I don’t see you that way. I don’t.”

“You’re still young,” he said softly. “I see the way men look at you, Lea. I see the way
he
looks at you.”

I said nothing. I couldn’t give him the lie he wanted. My guilt rose so it consumed me, but I couldn’t say
He doesn’t look at me that way
when it was so obvious he did. I couldn’t say
I don’t feel his youth
when he made me feel so alive. But Junius’s sadness burrowed into me, and I hated it. I hated that he felt it, that there was a need, that it stemmed from me.

I put aside the bowl, water sloshing gently on the floor, and I went to him, holding out my hands, taking his, and he pulled me onto his lap, burying his face between my breasts, holding me tightly, as if he were afraid I would fly away if he let me go.

I
IGNORED THEM
both the next morning. Junius told me he was going up to Bruceport to pick up some things and check the mail. I was glad he was leaving, but not so glad that he meant to leave Daniel behind. “He’s milking the cow and cleaning out her stall. I’ve told him to help you cut into that mummy when he’s done,” he told me, and I knew it was a test. If I didn’t do it, he would know not to trust me. I would be the woman he’d accused me of being.

He left Lord Tom behind, who asked me, “What will you do,
okustee
?” His question echoed my thoughts, though I knew he was asking what I would do
today
, not with the rest of my life.

“I want to know where she came from,” I said to him, because it was something to distract me, a question I could possibly answer when everything else in my life felt so upended. “I want to know who she is.”

“It no longer matters,” he told me.

It did, but I was tired of explaining that. I stared out the window at the barn, thinking of Daniel out there, and I heard myself asking, “Was it Daniel you and Bibi argued over that night she came out here?”

Lord Tom looked up. His expression showed no surprise. Deliberately he finished tying a knot in the net, and then he said, “No.”

It was not what I expected. I remembered the things she’d said to Daniel, the way Lord Tom looked at him. “No? What then?”

He jerked his head toward the window. “
She
is what we argued over.”

“The mummy?”

Lord Tom nodded. Somberly, he said, “Bibi is no
tomawanos woman
,
okustee
, though she would have you believe it. She knows nothing of the spirit. She says it comes to her in
dleams
. She says it wants you to see. But she can’t know.”

I said, “What of what she says about Daniel? Do you think she and Junius are right?”

Lord Tom said, “Which one? They do not think the same thing.”

I looked up again, puzzled. “They’ve both warned me that he’s not to be trusted.”

“Have they?”

“Yes. Bibi said that I would regret he was here. And Junius doesn’t trust him at all. And you...I don’t think you like him either.”

“Perhaps you should look again.”

His answer was cryptic, but I never got the chance to ask him about it further because at that moment, the front door opened and Daniel came inside, flushed from exertion in the cold, a rush of chill air and the smell of the river. It was still raining hard—it hadn’t let up all night, and his coat was dark with wet. He glanced at Lord Tom and then at me and his expression gave nothing away as he said, “I’m done with the barn. My father said you had some use for me?”

Some use for me.
I went hot at the image those words conjured. I put aside Papa’s journal and rose, trying not to think of
anything, not even the words I spoke. “He wants me to cut into the mummy today. He thinks I could use your help.”

He looked surprised. “Cut into her? You can’t mean to.”

“If I don’t, it will be Baird who discovers what’s important about her.”

“Or that there’s nothing at all,” he said. “Leonie, she’s worth more whole.”

“Worth more?”

“I’ve told you that.”

“Oh. Yes. A curiosity museum.”

“You should consider it.”

“If I don’t cut into her, that will be her only worth,” I said bitterly. “I can’t see what it is my father thought about her. I don’t understand what he saw.”

“Whatever it was, he saw it without cutting her open,” he countered.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to do it now,” I said, a pure lie; I was feeling sick again at the thought. “Would you fetch me the saw?”

Daniel took a deep breath. “Yes, of course. As you wish.”

He turned and went back outside, down the porch steps.

Lord Tom had been watching our conversation with interest. I said, before he could tell me what he thought, “If I don’t do this, I will have failed the test.”

“Who is testing you?”

My father. Junius. The world.
It was too big to answer, so I ignored him and put on my coat and my boots. I went out onto the porch, feeling the key in my pocket. I thought of her walking through the long grass, a child on a dirt floor, love and pride and fear, her hair glinting in the sun. I felt a surge of despair—how could I do this thing?

But I pushed those things away. I knelt and unlocked the trunk. I was opening it when Daniel came striding back up the stairs, the saw in his hand. He said, “I wish you’d reconsider this.”

“If I can’t do this, I’m not the ethnologist my father meant for me to be.”

Daniel stepped up beside me. “Old promises, Lea,” he said quietly. “I thought perhaps you’d put them aside.”

I let the lid fall back. It clunked against the side of the house.

He said urgently, “I’ve been thinking. I know you love it here. I know you don’t want to leave. What if we didn’t? What if we stayed—the two of us?”

I looked up at him, frowning. “But...what about Junius?”

“What about him? We’ll tell him the truth. You said he hated this place.”

“And you think he’d just walk away?”

“It’s the noble thing to do, isn’t it?” Daniel asked tightly. “He wants to go anyway—that’s what you said, that he’s tried to go a dozen times already. Why not give him the chance? Why must you be the one making the sacrifice? He’s gained a great deal from twenty years with you. He could give you up. He
should
give you up.”

I laughed shortly. “He won’t.”

“How do you know? Perhaps he loves you enough.”

“What if he doesn’t?” I asked. “We’ve betrayed him, both of us. What if he refuses—what will you do? Overthrow him like Tiapexwasxwas?”

“Who’s that?”

“A giant who was killed by his son. But not before that son slept with his father’s wife—his own mother—first.”

Daniel said impatiently, “You’re not my damned mother, Leonie. For Christ’s sake, what are you waiting for?”

I looked down at the mummy. “I’m waiting for her,” I said softly, and then I slid my hands beneath her, meaning to lift her out. Something crumbled against my skin. Something like...dust or...no, something gritty. In confusion, I drew back my hand. It was covered with umber flakes. I stared at it for a moment, disconcerted, before I realized what it was.

Daniel said, “Lea, whatever you think you’ll discover—”

“No,” I said. I ran my hand down her arm, dislodging flakes, her skin coming off on mine. “Oh no, no, no.”

“What is it?” Daniel asked. “What’s wrong?”

I barely heard him. All I could say was “No,” and “No,” again, and my dream filled my head, drowning, my body crumbling, withering, swept away in dust, and panic had me clutching her. “No, please. Not yet. You can’t! I’m not finished. Please, I’m not finished.”

“Lea, what is it?” Daniel dropped the saw, kneeling beside me.

“She’s decaying,” I managed. I held out my stained hand to him. “Look! The water...I didn’t keep her dry enough. She’s falling apart, and I’m not finished. I need her to stay. I need her to stay.” I could not control my panic; I was trembling. “She’s dying.”

“She’s already dead.” He was soothing, reasoning. “Whatever soul was there is long gone.”

I shook my head. “It’s not.
She’s
not. I feel her all the time. I dream about her. And you...she wants you—”

“Wants me for what? I don’t know what you mean.”

“I can’t decide without her. I need her.” I was crying now. He grabbed my hand, trying to draw me close.

He looked afraid, I thought, but his voice was so calm. “She doesn’t look to be too badly damaged. Perhaps we can save her.”

I shook my head. Useless. Nothing to do. She was disintegrating and I knew it would continue. I’d seen it in my dreams. I felt it to be true. She was leaving me, and I had not done what she wanted—I still did not
know
what she wanted.

“We’ll put her back in the barn,” he insisted. “She was fine there. Perhaps it’s because she’s on the porch. The rain...”

I looked at him in dismay. “It won’t help. It’s too late. She’ll keep crumbling and crumbling—”
washed away by water, drawn down and down and down, withering and splitting, a seed pod borne away by the wind
.

My throat tightened, the dream was so strong that for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

“You’ll find a way to stop it.”

“There is no way. I’m a fool.” I touched her again, the saffron cloth, the dust of her discoloring it at the edges. I looked at him, “How could I have not seen—?” and stopped, because the look on his face surprised me. It was relief, as if a burden had been lifted from him, one that had troubled, and I frowned and said, “You’re happy about this.”

His expression shuttered. He shook his head. “No.”

I was on my feet in a single motion. “How can you be happy? This is all wrong, all of it. I don’t understand what she wants from me, and now I’ll never know.”

“Leonie, you’re not making sense.” He rose, reaching for me, his hand sliding down my arm as I tried to jerk away, his fingers catching in the bracelet at my wrist, and the fragile, worn twine snapped—not even a sound, just a feather brush of feeling, and I looked down to see it fall as if it were tumbling through water, almost floating, the charms twisting, shining pink and green, blue and silver, until it hit the porch, where it held, just barely, and I made a sound of dismay, I tore from his grasp, falling to my knees to reach for it, but I was too late. It slipped through a crack between the boards and disappeared.

“Let it go,” he whispered. “All your talismans...they mean nothing. Trust me, Lea. Let it go.” He pulled me to my feet, and I was stunned and uncertain, disbelieving, unresisting as he wrapped me in his arms. My wrist felt too bare without the bracelet, and the mummy was slipping from my grasp, all protections gone.

And then I heard, “What a tender moment. Pardon me for intruding.”

Junius.

Daniel’s arms dropped from me; he stepped away so quickly I swayed without his support, and without thinking I reached
out again, clutching his arm. I saw the way Junius noted it. His blue eyes were cold and stony. He was soaked. Beyond him, the rain poured relentlessly down.

I said, “The mummy—”

He raised a brow; my words died in my throat. Misery and regret and guilt and fear—they were all there. I could not pick one above the other.

“The mummy’s decaying,” Daniel put in. “I was only trying to comfort her.”

“How well you do it,” Junius said. “Why, it looks almost as if you’ve done it before.”

I released my hold on Daniel’s arm and said as calmly as I could, “I was upset. He was only trying to help. She got wet when the river rose and I...I didn’t see it until now. We were going to cut and...and...” I held out my hand uselessly, pointlessly, to show him the umber dust on my palms.