Part 45 (2/2)

Sylviana knew nothing of this tragedy, or of the menace to himself and others that he had since become. She saw only the obvious way that he looked at her, and the effect it had on Kalus. The man-child rose instinctively, as if she were in danger, and would have strode down the hill sword in hand to confront him. But Smith, who had seen the sudden brush-fire of his eyes, seized hold of his arm protectively.

'Easy, Kalus. That's William. We'll go down together.'

There in the depression, stiff introductions were made. Kalus, with the help of Smith beside him, managed to restrain his emotions, though making no attempt to conceal them. For his own part, William sneered at him indifferently, and continued to bathe Sylviana with mock interest and open l.u.s.t. His only reply to her question, 'Why haven't I seen you before?' was a rude:

'Him Tarzan, you Jane. Me come back tomorrow.' And he had taken some food, without asking or thanks, and made off the way he had come.

'How can you let him treat you that way?' demanded Kalus.

Since the question was directed at no one in particular, Ruth Welles replied, neither apologizing nor defending their actions. She was a tall, serious woman in her mid thirties, with pincers of brown hair surrounding a pleasant face and striking eyes, which revealed to those who knew how to look, a nature both stubborn and compa.s.sionate.

'That's just his way,' she said, 'And there are reasons for it. We've all been hurt and bereft by the War, but his pain.....

Let's just say it's much harder for him to forgive and go one, and that we're all worried about him, because we do care.'

'But he won't let anyone come close enough to help him,' added Smith. 'He storms in and out for food, occasionally takes wine or medicine along with it, and that's all we ever see of him. We helped him set up a laboratory, before we knew what it was for. We considered smas.h.i.+ng it afterward, but what can you do for someone who makes his own poison, and flaunts his own destruction?'

'Why?' asked Sylviana. 'What does he use the lab for?'

'To make LSD,' said Welles sadly. 'If there were poppies on the island, no doubt he'd make heroin as well.'

Kalus found himself breathing heavily, unable to control it. He began to pace a short distance from them, then suddenly turned and came back, his manner tense and worried.

'Maybe I am wrong to say this. Maybe I have no right. But I don't trust that one, and I don't want him near me or mine.' He looked squarely at Sylviana. 'If you have any sense left you will stay away from him, whatever you think of me. He means to hurt you, or I know nothing at all.'

But her gaze was equally unyielding. 'I will see, or befriend, whoever I d.a.m.n well please, and you have nothing to say about it.'

And she returned to her work, as if he wasn't there.

Smith released a breath, Welles shook her head, and Kataya said nothing, reproachfully. Kalus lifted the cub, forlornly lowered his forehead against it, then turned and walked away.

Chapter 45

And so a period of days ensued in which little of note seemed to happen, as is often the case when the most potent of life's forces are at work, though beneath the surface and not yet brought to fruition.

William became a more frequent visitor, and often took long walks with Sylviana. Kalus, feeling a genuine desire to work and do his share, as well as needing something to distract him, began to work the fields with Jim Smith, the botanist, his only real friend among the colonists. He still spoke to Kataya, but had told her that for a time it was best they keep some distance between them, and she had not objected. She understood, and kept a warm secret of the fact that her menstrual cycle was now a week overdue.

Under other circ.u.mstances, Kalus might have fallen in love with the rigors and lessons of farming, which taught patience and perseverance, and returned the most beautiful and honest of rewards: Life itself.

When Smith told him that by the year 2000 the smaller, family farms of America were largely a thing of the past, he thought it a greater tragedy than almost any he had heard of. And unknowingly, as Smith continued to tell him of his own childhood on the Indiana farm, of his family's hards.h.i.+ps and eventual ruin, Kalus weaved the themes of the story in and out of his own.

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