The Endless Forest
Page 122

Daniel was saying, “We could go to Lake in the Clouds and stay there until the business with Jemima is settled. You never have to see her if you don’t want to.”
“Tempting,” Martha said. “But hiding from my mother has never worked, and I wouldn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I have to stand up to her if I’m ever to have any peace.”
Daniel’s slow smile said that she had surprised him, or pleased him, or both. For her own part, she could only hope she could live up to the goal she had set for herself.
“And anyway, I don’t like the idea of leaving Callie to deal with it all. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“If you put it that way,” Daniel said. “It makes sense. But I should point out to you that the Bonner men will keep an eye on Callie and make sure she’s left alone.”
“I’m not so sure she wants to be alone,” Martha said.
She wondered if it was possible to explain how she felt about this, and decided that she must try.
“Everyone has abandoned her, all her life,” she said. “Her mother, Cookie, her father. Jemima. And then I went to Manhattan, and that must have been the hardest blow. She’s distrustful and with good reason. I want to try to make her understand that she can depend on me. Though I have to admit I didn’t get off to such a good start.
“I should never have spoken so quick,” Martha finished. “She was in a fragile state of mind and I should have known better. She is very angry at me. I only hope I can mend things between us.”
There was just too much to worry about, and so Martha turned her attention to the day, bright and clear with a warm breeze that lifted the hem on her skirt and made the grass dance. Deadwood and debris from the flood was everywhere, but things were already surrendering to the force of nature, disappearing under layers of moss and serving as home to countless numbers of small creatures. Now and then they caught a glimpse of the river running on its way to the sea. Just weeks ago it had roused itself to strike, an image which explained why the Mohawk called the west branch of the Sacandaga twisting snake.
Martha shifted in the saddle in an effort to find a more comfortable spot. Or a less painful one. When she saw Daniel padding the saddle before they set out, she had found herself as capable of blushing as she ever was. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that Daniel would be aware of how sore she was, but then it was his doing, after all.
In that moment she was glad the trail had narrowed and he was ahead of her, because she was red all the way to her hairline and worse still: He would know what she was thinking about if he caught sight of her face.
He sat easy and straight in the saddle. Beneath the loose linen shirt and the knives and tomahawks—such a great number of them—she could see the shape of him and the way the muscles moved. All the museums in the world and all the sculpture could not have prepared her for the reality of Daniel Bonner. She kept discovering things that took her by surprise, things that she would have asked him about if she had had the words. And the nerve.
“What are you thinking about?” He was looking back at her over his shoulder.
Your buttocks, she might have said. As round and firm and smooth as fruit. The texture of your skin. The smell of you.
His mind was somewhere else entirely. He was saying, “We’ll find a way to put Callie at ease.”
“Yes,” she answered in the most serious tone she could summon. “I know we will.”
But there was a gulf now between Callie and herself, and in truth she didn’t know if it could be breached. Callie had no interest in a family of her own and Martha was a wife; she would have a household, a garden to look after, and a husband to talk to about her day. And children. If they went on the way they had started, children would not be long in coming.
Martha wondered if it was quite normal for a new bride to be so preoccupied with sex. The subject was never far from her mind. What she had seen, and how it had felt. Especially how it felt, the things Daniel did with such focus and determination. He watched her so intently that she sometimes wondered if she was doing something wrong. Maybe the next time she would ask him straight out.
Whenever the next time might be. How long would it be before he turned to her with that expression she had already learned to recognize? And if he wasn’t turning to her, why wasn’t he, and what did it mean that she was hoping he would. Did a wife ask for her husband’s attention? She could hardly imagine it.
There were other things—important things—to worry about; she might even have been able to focus on those things for a few hours at least. If not for the fact that she was sore, and on horseback.
Just two miles out of Paradise where the road ran along the Sacandaga, Daniel came to a sudden stop for a reason that Martha couldn’t see right away. Then she followed his gaze down to the river, where two riders were watering their horses.
Seen through the trees Martha could make out very little about them, but Daniel didn’t have the same problem.
“Ethan,” he said.
“Ethan?”
“And Callie.”
“Ethan and Callie?” Like an echo, and just as empty of sensible thought. “But—”
“Here they come,” Daniel said. “We can ask them.”
At first Martha believed Daniel must be mistaken, because the young woman was unfamiliar to her. She held herself very well, which suited the plain but excellent cut of her clothes, from traveling cloak to boots.
Then she met Callie’s gaze beneath the scoop brim of her new bonnet and understood that something monumental had happened.