Darkthaw (13 page)

Right now, it's different. The dark woods and the crashing falls, my bare legs in the heavy air and him standing there with his crossed arms and dark eyes on my face.

It all feels a mite out of control.

I swallow. I can see he feels it, too.

He's nervous.

The underbrush rustles. I glance at the woods, expecting to see someone from the group, ruining the moment . . . No one appears. The noise goes silent.

Kane lets his arms fall to his sides and steps forward again. We're so close now I can feel the heat coming off his bare skin.

“It'll be cold.”

“I know.”

“Can't wear your tunic if you don't want to answer questions.”

I know this, too. I can't show back up at camp with wet clothes that need drying. To answer him, I pull the leather strip from my plait, gather my hair in a knot on the top of my head, and rewrap the tie to keep it in place.

He reaches forward and brushes a stray hair from my cheek. “All right, then.”

The water is cold; it sends little slivers of pain up my legs, through my core, into a spot in my neck, below my jaw, where it throbs. I gasp but keep wading, stepping careful on the small stones beneath the water.

“You in?” Kane is standing with his back to me. I felt foolish about asking, but he didn't raise an eyebrow—only nodded and turned around.

I hesitate when the water reaches the tops of my thighs. My bad foot is numb now, but the rest of me feels the ice shooting around in my blood. The next few steps are going to hurt; I've bathed in the river before. Best to get it over with quick. I tighten my arms across my breasts, take a breath, and plunge to my waist. A shriek escapes me. “Yes!”

He's shucked off his leggings; I can hear him splash into the water behind me. The skin on my bare back prickles as he wades near. And he's beside me. I keep my arms clamped firm and risk a glance. He's waist-deep—the murky water blurs him below the surface, and his chest is tensed in the cold.

“We have to stay in this pool—that current looks pretty strong.” He nods at the water. “It's warmer if you get all the way in.”

He reaches out. I let him take my elbow and guide me deeper. The pebble-caked riverbed becomes soft sand and drops so that the water laps below my collarbone. I shiver deep. The cabbage moths in my stomach have ice shards for wings. I'm frozen right through; he must be, too. And yet . . . I can feel heat coming off of him, searing into me.

He turns me to him. I let my arms drop away, feeling a new shock as the water hits all of me at once. I reach up and grasp the back of his neck. His hands find the small of my back, pulling me close and closer, his eyes locked on mine, his lips parted like he's barely breathing. He stops, his mouth hovering a whisper away.

He closes his eyes tight, as if pained, and dips his head, pressing his forehead into my neck, breathing deep. He grips my waist, and his voice is low, smoke and honey. “Almighty, Em.” It's like a curse and a prayer at once.

His thumbs graze the hollows of my hips, setting me to trembling like the trees on the bank. His lips brush my neck and whisper up to my mouth.

He kisses me. Soft, nervous; like we've never kissed. Like the sweetest, freshest breath of air. A small sound escapes the back of my throat, and his fingers respond, tightening on my frozen skin. The kiss becomes sure, insistent.

Desire rushes through me, humming like a thousand bees, stealing my thoughts. I press into him, feel his heart beating hard and fast. The falls crash behind us, and all I can feel is him, his hot breath, his soft skin—

Rebecca and that unborn baby surface in my mind, slamming sense into me.

I grab his forearms and pull back.

His dark eyes are fire as he sucks in a deep breath, searching my face. My tongue grazes my bottom lip, tasting him there . . . But I force a small shake of my head.

“We shouldn't—”

“I know,” he says.

My heart is beating out triple time. He pulls away from me, lacing his hands behind his neck as if they're safest there. The curve of his chest heaves with another breath, and I have to look away. The sun is up higher now, and the mist is near burnt off the river.

When I look back, his brow is furrowed. “What is it?” I ask.

“Just wondering if you've got it yet,” he says.

“Got what?”

He frowns, like I should know what. “Swimming.”

A laugh bursts from me. “Think I'll need to practice a bit.”

He smiles—that smile that lights everything, warms everything—and grabs me up in his arms, swinging me about in a wide arc, my bare skin cutting through the silk water like a scythe through soft wheat. When he sets me down, we're twined together, his arms tight around my back. I am a thousand years away from uncertainty and fear. And this is enough.

The falls roar.

ALL MORNING I'M LIGHT AS AIR.

Isi's scowl doesn't needle at me like it usually does. He rides far ahead, our only rifle clutched in his hand. I walk beside Matisa, resisting the urge to look on Kane too long, knowing my cheeks will bloom a telltale red. Matisa says nothing, but her small smile is knowing. I avoid Sister Violet altogether.

Still don't have that tincture, but I don't notice my foot. I'm back at the river with Kane, ice and fire shooting through my body, sweet air filling my lungs. Waterfall roaring in my mind, his skin burning into mine, arms wrapped so tight around me it felt like we were one.

Even with everything else upside down, that moment felt like an answer to what I've been wondering. It felt like the start of our new life. Out here.

I smile, content.

When we stop to let the horses drink in the afternoon, Matisa says we're still at least a day away from the crossing.
Most of us aren't used to walking so much in a day, and we're dragging.

I fight a niggle of impatience, telling myself not to be like Isi. Deep down, though, I can't wait to be free of Charlie and his kin. Rebecca is getting some color in her cheeks but seems more labored with that unborn child by the hour. She and Josiah ride Isi's horse; Kane's brothers now ride Dottie, the rest of us walk, painful slow.

Getting rid of Charlie means we'll also be leaving Violet and the boys, but the thought doesn't put me in a panic like before. The moment at the waterfall felt like it sealed something between Kane and me, something he won't break for anything. Nishwa will get home safe and Sister Violet will head east and Kane and I will go to Matisa's people. Together.

The earth swells upward, emptying us from the rocky forest onto a sweeping grassy plain that skirts the river. In the distance, a line of trees promises the start of a new forest—and shelter. But here, the wind bites at us with no hills or trees to break its howl. We press forward until the forest is far behind—a blur on the north horizon. By late afternoon, we still haven't reached the forest to the south. These plains won't do for setting up camp, and it's clear by the frustrated look on Matisa's face that she thought we'd be well back into the forest by this time.

The sun is disappearing, splashing orange and red through the clouds on the horizon, when Matisa points to some coulees in the distance. It's the closest thing to shelter we can reach.

As we get close, Isi stops us. There's a flare on the horizon, below the first level of hills. We file in next to him,
Dottie nickering soft beneath Kane's little brothers. Daniel reaches out a hand to pat her neck.

“She's nervous,” he tells me, pleased he can tell.

I frown. Don't like the idea of Dottie being nervous.

Andre passes his shotgun and pouch to Isi and swings his pack from his back. He digs through it and finds his spyglass.

“What is it?” asks Sister Violet.

Andre gazes through the spyglass.
“Je ne sais pas,”
he says, shaking his head and handing it to Kane for a look.

Kane squints through the scope. “A campfire, mayhap. We're too far to see for sure.” His eyes catch mine, and I forget my worry over Dottie for an instant. The wind picks up, whipping my hair into my face.

“We need to get to the bottom of these hills,” Matisa says. We press forward.

The land swells and the sun becomes a soft haze on the horizon as we wind our way toward shelter. When we get to the bottom of the first small hill, Isi holds up a hand for us to stop again.

“The big coulees are next, but we're almost on top of whatever was making that flare,” he says.

“You sure?” Kane asks.

“It was right over this next ridge.”

“Better to see what it is now than chance camping next to it in the dark,” Sister Violet says, “and it finding us.”

“Dark already,” Andre mutters.

“Should we send a lookout?” Kane asks.

Nobody knows what the best thing to do is anymore. I
feel a hand slip into mine and look down. Daniel has left Dottie's back.

“I think it's best to stick together,” Matisa says.

We go.

Soon, we can smell burning, but it's a strange smoke. Woodsmoke, sure, but also something underneath the good, familiar smell of charred timber—something acrid and sweet. And a sound . . . high-pitched, not human. Like a lamb bleating.

I look at Matisa. Her nostrils flare, and her eyes widen enough for me to know she's nervous.

“Stay close, Daniel,” I say, squeezing his hand.

We traverse the side of the steep-walled coulee and climb up the bank. Nestled before a small grove of trees is a homestead.

Ablaze.

“What on earth?” Sister Violet says.

We get closer, moving slow along the flats toward the cabin. Huge tongues of red and orange lap the sides of the shack, devour the roof. The horses stop in their tracks, nickering. I pace ahead, my mind trying to make sense of the scene. Giant flames gut the shack and cast long shadows along the darkening banks.

I can't look away from the door.

Nailed to it, two limbs extended frame to frame, is a charred figure, near unrecognizable but for the bright whites of his teeth against the orange flame. A man.

Blackened body, mouth open in a mask of terror.

The air roars, but there's a dead calm to it all. Like an
invisible curtain has been thrown over the scene, thickening the air, slowing time. It's not the man screaming. It's coming from somewhere else . . .

Andre steps forward. My eyes snap away to see him shuffle ahead in a daze, staring up at the orange glow.

“Stay back!” Isi barks, but Andre's walking like he hasn't heard.

I dream of a cabin. On a river . . .

“Horse!” Daniel's voice pierces the air.

My eyes shift from the door. There's a horse trapped in a paddock to the side of the cabin. It rears and tosses its head, its high-pitched scream cutting over the roar of the flame.

Kane shouts something. It all sounds so far away.

Daniel drops my hand and darts forward. That's a bad idea—I want to tell him so, but my mind is working slow. The heat on my face, those two shadows, big and small, framed by the orange glare.

Sister Violet stumbles forward to retrieve Daniel. She holds out her hand, grasping for Daniel's little one. She's near caught hold—

The world splits apart.

A hailstorm of loud bangs bursts over the roar of the fire, echoing around in my sluggish brain.

Gunshots.

“Get down!” Kane's voice.

And in that moment Andre is ripped to shreds.

A dozen bullets pepper his chest, a dozen more his face and hands. He jerks backward in a spray of blood and flesh. It's loud, so loud, and his body is like an ash tree dancing on the wind. He pitches to the earth.

Fire in my head. Like the flames are eating up my mind—

Matisa's scream comes from behind, snapping me to. Daniel is staring back at me with wide, terrified eyes. I scramble forward, shoving past Sister Violet, and dive on top of him.

He hits the ground hard as I fall, as I try to cover his little body with my own.

More screams. More gunfire coming from Almighty knows where—how can there be so many bullets at once? There must be dozens—no,
hundreds
—of shooters in the woods. I clap my hands to my ears and look up.

Sister Violet stands stuck in place, her mouth open in a silent scream. A pool of crimson is spreading beneath her breasts, down her tunic to her
ceinture
. More bullets tear through her, tossing her this way and that, riddling her, spinning her to one side.

She drops to her knees and turns a nightmare face toward me: one side the perfect remains of Kane's ma—lined corner of her mouth and dark eye wide open in disbelief—the other side blown clean off, a bloody pulp with glistening cheekbone shining through.

I can't breathe.

She topples to the ground.

And now: riders. Men on horseback appear from the woods to the right, screaming across the homestead flats toward us like the deathwinds of
La Prise
.