Part 12 (1/2)

”Well, be seeing you!” And the car surged up the sharp drop from the road,the little trailer swis.h.i.+ng along in back. Crae and Ellena watched themdisappear over the railroad.

”Well,” Crae turned and laid his fist against Ellena's cheek and pushedlightly. ”How about chow, Frau? Might as well get supper over with. Looks likewe're in for some weather.”

”Okay, boss,” Ellena's eyes were s.h.i.+ning. ”Right away, sir!” And shescurried away, calling back, ”But you'd better get the innards out of thosedenizens of the deep so I can get them in the pan.”

”Okay.” Crae moved slowly and carefully as though something might break ifhe moved fast. He squatted by the edge of the stream and clumsily began toclean the fish. When he had finished, his hands were numb from the icy snowwater and the persistent wind out of the west, but not nearly as numb as hefelt inside. He carried the fish over to the cook bench where Ellena s.h.i.+vered over the two-burner stove.

”Here you are,” he said slowly and Ellena's eyes flew to his face.

He smiled carefully. ”Make them plenty crisp and step it up!”

Ellena's smile was relieved. ”Crisp it is!”

”Where's a rag to wipe my shoes off with? Shoulda worn my waders. There'smud and water everywhere this year.”

”My old petticoat's hanging over there on the tree-if you don't mind anembroidered shoe rag.”

Crae took down the cotton half-slip with eyelet embroidery around thebottom.

”This is a rag?” he asked.

She laughed. ”It's ripped almost full length and the elastic's worn out. Goahead and use it.”

Crae worked out of his wet shoes and socks and changed into dry. Then helifted one shoe and the rag and sat hunched over himself on the log. With ahorrible despair, he felt all the old words bubbling and the scab peeling offthe hot sickness inside him. His fist tightened on the white rag until hisknuckles cracked. Desperately, he tried to change his thoughts, but thebubbling putrescence crept through his mind and poured its bitterness into hismouth and he heard himself say bitterly, ”How long were they here before I showed up?”

Ellena turned slowly from the stove, her shoulders drooping, her facedespairing.

”About a half hour.” Then she straightened and looked desperately over athim. ”No, Crae, please. Not here. Not now.”

Crae looked blindly down at the shoe he still held in one hand. He clenchedhis teeth until his jaws ached, but the words pushed through anyway-biting and venomous.

”Thirty miles from anywhere. Just have to turn my back and they comeflocking! You can't tell me you don't welcome them! You can't tell me youdon't encourage them and entice them and-” He slammed his shoe down anddropped the rag beside it. In two strides he caught her by both shoulders andshook her viciously. ”h.e.l.lamighty! You even built a fire in the tent for them!What's the matter, woman, are you slipping? You've got any number of ways totake their minds off the cold without building a fire!”

”Crae! Crae!” She whispered pleadingly.

”Don't 'Crae, Crae' me!” he backhanded her viciously across the face. Shecried out and fell sideways against the tree. Her hair caught on the roughstub of a branch as she started to slide down against the trunk. Crae grabbedone of her arms and yanked her up. Her caught hair strained her head backwardsas he lifted. And suddenly her smooth sun-tinted throat fitted Crae's twospasmed hands. For an eternity his thumbs felt the sick pounding of her pulse.Then a tear slid slowly down from one closed eye, trickling towards her ear.

Crae s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away before the tear could touch it. Ellena slid toher knees, leaving a dark strand of hair on the bark of the tree. She gotslowly to her feet. She turned without a word or look and went into the tent.

Crae slumped down on the log, his hands limp between his knees, his headhanging. He lifted his hands and looked at them incredulously, then he flungthem from him wildly, turned and shoved his face hard up against the roughtree trunk.

”Oh, G.o.d!” he thought wildly. ”I must be going crazy! I never hit herbefore. I never tried to-” He beat his doubled fists against the tree untilthe knuckles crimsoned, then he crouched again above his all-enveloping miseryuntil the sharp smell of burning food penetrated his daze. He walked blindlyover to the camp stove and yanked the smoking skillet off. He turned off thefire and dumped the curled charred fish into the garbage can and dropped theskillet on the ground.

He stood uncertain, noticing for the first time the scattered sprinkling ofrain patterning the top of the split-log table near the stove. He startedautomatically for the car to roll the windows up.

And then he saw Ellena standing just outside the tent Afraid to move orspeak, he stood watching her. She came slowly over to him. In the half-dusk hecould see the red imprint of his hand across her cheek. She looked up at himwith empty, drained eyes.

”We will go home tomorrow.” Her voice was expressionless and almost steady.”I'm leaving as soon as we get there.”

”Ellena, don't!” Crae's voice shook with pleading and despair.

Ellena's mouth quivered and tears overflowed. She dropped her sodden,crumpled Kleenex and took a fresh one from her s.h.i.+rt pocket. She carefullywiped her eyes.

”'It's better to snuff a candle . . .'” Her voice choked off and Crae felt his heart contract. They had read the book together and picked out theirfavorite quote and now she was using it to- Crae held out his hands, ”Please, Ellena, I promise-”

”Promise!” Her eyes blazed so violently that Crae stumbled back a step.”You've been trying to mend this sick thing between us with promises for toolong!” Her voice was taut with anger. ”Neither you nor I believe your promisesany more. There's not one valid reason why I should try to keep our marriagegoing by myself. You don't believe in it any more. You don't believe in me any more-if you ever did. You don't even believe in yourself! Nothing will work ifyou don't believe-” Her voice wavered and broke. She mopped her eyes carefullyagain and her voice was measured and cold as she said, ”Well leave for hometomorrow-and G.o.d have mercy on us both.”

She turned away blindly, burying her face in her two hands and stumbledinto the tent.

Crae sat down slowly on the log beside his muddy shoes. He picked up oneand fumbled for the cleaning rag. He huddled over himself, feeling as thoughlife were draining from his arms and legs, leaving them limp.

”It's all finished,” he thought hopelessly. ”It's finished and I'm finishedand this whole crazy d.a.m.n life is finished. I've done everything I know.Nothing on this earth can ever make it right between us again.”

You don't believe, you don't believe. And then a wheezy old voice whistledin his ear. Nothing works, less'n you believe it. Crae straightened up,following the faint thread of voice. Happen some day you'll want to gofis.h.i.+ng- you won't forget.

”It's crazy and screwy and a lot of hogwash,” thought Crae. ”Things likethat can't possibly exist.”

You don't believe. Nothing works, lessen- A strange compound feeling ofhope and wonder began to well up in Crae. ”Maybe, maybe,” he thoughtbreathlessly. Then- ”It will work. It's got to work!”

Eagerly intent, he went back over the incident at the store. All he couldremember at first was the rocking chair and the thick discolored lips of theold man, then a rhythm began in his mind, curling to a rhyme word at the endof each line. He heard the raspy old voice again- Happen some day you'll want to go fis.h.i.+ng, you won't forget. And the linesslowly took form.

”Make your line from her linen fair.

Take your hook from her silken hair.

A broken heart must be your share For the Grunder.”

”Why that's impossible on the face of it,” thought Crae with a pang ofdespair. ”The broken heart I've got-but the rest? Hook from her hair?” Hair?Hairpin-bobby pin. He fumbled in his s.h.i.+rt pocket. Where were they? Yesterday,upcreek when Ellena decided to put her hair in pigtails because the wind wa.s.so strong, she had given him the pins she took out. He held the slender pieceof metal in his hand for a moment then straightened it carefully between hisfingers. He slowly bent one end of it up in an approximation of a hook. Hestared at it ruefully. What a fragile thing to hang hope on.

Now for a line-her linen fair. Linen? Ellena brought nothing linen to campwith her. He fumbled with the makes.h.i.+ft hook, peering intently into the dusk,tossing the line of verse back and forth in his mind. Linen's not just cloth.Linen can be clothes. Body linen. He lifted the shoe rag. An old slip-ripped.

In a sudden frenzy of haste, he ripped the white cloth into inch widestrips and knotted them together, carefully rolling the k.n.o.bby, ravellyresults into a ball. The material was so old and thin that one strip parted ashe tested a knot and he had to tie it again. When the last strip was knotted,he struggled to fasten his improvised hook onto it. Finally, bending anotherhook at the opposite end, sticking it through the material, splitting the end,he knotted it as securely as he could. He peered at the results and laughedbitterly at the precarious makes.h.i.+ft. ”But it'll work,” he told himselffiercely. ”It'll work. I'll catch that d.a.m.n Grunder and get rid once and forall of whatever it is that's eating me!”

And for bait? Take the tears that fall from her eyes ...

Crae searched the ground under the tree beside him. There it was, thesodden, grayed blob of Kleenex Ellena had dropped. He picked it up gingerlyand felt it tatter, tear-soaked and rain-soaked, in his fingers. Remembering her tears, his hand closed convulsively over the soaked tissue. When he loosedhis fingers from it, he could see their impress in the pulp, almost as he hadseen his hand print on her cheek. He baited the hook and nearly laughed againas he struggled to keep the wad of paper in place. Closing one hand tightlyabout the hook, the other around the ball of cotton, he went to the tent door.For a long, rain-emphasized moment he listened. There was no sound frominside, so with only his heart saying it, he shaped, ”I love you,” with hismouth and turned away, upstream.

The rain was slanting icy wires now that stabbed his face and cut throughhis wet jacket. He stood on the rough foot bridge across the creek and leanedover the handrail, feeling the ragged bark pressing against his stomach. Heheld his clenched fists up before his face and stared at them.

”This is it,” he thought. ”Our last chance-My last chance.” Then he benthis head down over his hands, feeling the bite of his thumb joints into hisforehead. ”O G.o.d, make it true-make it true!”

The he loosed the hand that held the hook, tapped the soggy wad of Kleenexto make sure it was still there and lowered it cautiously toward the roaring,brawling creek, still swollen from the afternoon sun on hillside snow. Herotated the ball slowly, letting the line out. He gasped as the hook touchedthe water and he felt the current catch it and sweep it downstream. He yelledto the roaring, rain-drenched darkness, ”I believe! I believe!” And the limp,tattered line in his hand snapped taut, pulling until it cut into the flesh ofhis palm. It strained downstream, and as he looked, it took on a weirdfluorescent glow, and skipping on the black edge of the next downstream curve,the hook and bait were vivid with the same glowing.

Crae played out more of the line to ease the pressure on his palm. The linewas as tight and strong as piano wire between his fingers.

Time stopped for Crae as he leaned against the rail watching the bobbinglight on the end of the line- waiting and waiting wondering if the Grunder wascoming, if it could taste Ellena's tears across the world. Rain dripped fromthe end of his nose and whispered down past his ears.

Then out of the darkness and waiting, lightning licked across the sky andthunder thudded in giant, bone-jarring steps down from the top of Baldy. Craewinced as sudden vivid light played around him again, perilously close. But nothunder followed and he opened his eyes to a blade of light slicing cleanlythrough the foot bridge from side to side. Crae bit his lower lip as the lightresolved itself into a dazzling fin that split the waters, slit the willowsand sliced through the boulders at the bend of the creek and disappeared.