When they got over to the other side, and she bent down to put her shoes on, he stood looking out across the water.
“We’re going up there,” she said, standing up, smoothing the hair away from her face. “There’s a path that leads up through the forest, and then we’ll be there.”
She looked at him.
“Where are your shoes? Have you lost them?”
He smiled.
“I must have,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. Shall we go, then?”
He must have let them fall into the stream when he clutched her, she thought.
Why had he come to her?
What was there about her?
She laid her hand on his arm.
“Yesterday was lovely,” she said. “I’ve thought about it the whole day.”
“Me too,” he said. “But not about the fox cubs so much, to tell the truth. Mainly about you.”
She turned.
“We can go a bit slower this last bit. It’s not far now, I promise.”
The path led steeply up through the spruce trees, by the side of a streambed, and ended by a small lake. That was what she’d wanted to show him. The mountains rose sheer on two sides, and a waterfall came leaping down one of them. On the opposite side was a small grassy slope, behind which the forest pressed in.
On the hottest days of summer she and the other girls would sometimes come up here. She’d never been here alone, and never imagined that she’d be bringing anyone, either, not until yesterday. She’d wanted to show him something, and this was the first thing that had come into her mind.
“Here,” she said. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
“A place,” he said.
“Did you know about it?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“It’s lovely,” he said.
“I’ve never been here at nighttime before,” she said.
They both took in the mountainside. High up it they could see how the water ran like a veil across the naked rock, several yards wide. The water ran like this, across bare rock, for several hundred yards before it came together and began to resemble a waterfall. But not entirely, for even here the stone was visible under the water. The bottom of the groove it followed was as smooth and straight as a street. It almost looked as if someone had cleared its path, for trees grew close in along the whole of the lower part. The descent was sheer for the last bit, and the water fell more than sixty feet before it struck the deep pool at the bottom.
“It’s lovely sitting over there,” she said, nodding toward the grassy slope. “The sun lingers on it in the afternoons.”
“Shall we sit down over there?” he said.
She nodded.
They went. He took off his jacket and spread it on the ground.
“Sit on this,” he said. “The grass is damp.”
She did as he said. He sat down beside her. This time there wasn’t any jug she could set between them.
She felt his thigh against her own, the warmth from it, heard his breath.
They didn’t speak.
He shifted his position slightly. The movement made her tingle inside.
“I could sit like this forever,” she said. “Here, with you.”
He turned his head to look at her.
“D’you really mean that?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
In the forest behind them the wind rose, then fell. It sounded like a sigh. Ancient trees, ancient earth, ancient mountains.
She gazed up at the sky.
“The sun will be up soon,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
There it was again between them, she thought.
She looked at him. He was staring straight ahead. Into the waterfall on the other side.
Should she put her hand on his arm?
The thought sent a shower of small shudders through her.
Flushed, she turned her head back.
Then he stood up.
She inhaled and looked up at him. He stood before her, laid his hands on her shoulders, and pressed her down. With the ground hard against her back she continued to look at him. He knelt over her.
“Are we together, you and me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
And he lifted up her dress, and she let him do it, and his eyes burned and his hands shook, and when she felt him against her, she closed her eyes and surrendered herself to him.
After that they couldn’t get enough of one another. Closely entwined they lay on the grassy slope. He lay with his head on her breast, she had hooked one leg over his, he pressed one hand against her back and the other on her bottom, she stroked his hair, they were warm and happy, and when the sun’s first rays flashed in that highland lake, they were lying on their backs side by side playing with each other’s hands as they watched the mountain above them.
The return trip must have taken four times as long as the one going up, she thought afterward. They kept stopping the whole time and embracing, kissing and caressing each other. For her this was new and strange: suddenly this man whom she’d hardly dared look at was hers. Suddenly she could put her arms around him and pull him close to her, suddenly she could kiss him on his mouth, on his neck, on his brow. Hand in hand they walked down, full of rapture and delight. He stopped and did his bird impressions for her, she laughed, for not only did he imitate their calls, but he managed in some wonderful way to resemble them. He puffed out his cheeks and turned his head warily from side to side, he was a duck sitting on her eggs. He stood on one leg with his chest stuck out, his eyes smoldering with supremacy and crowed like a cock, he waddled around with his hands on his back and his head nodding, halted and peered at her with suspicious black eyes, screaming like a crow, and finished off by rubbing himself against her like a purring dove.
They walked down beside the rapids, and when they passed above the meadow in the forest, he looked at her, and she blushed and took his hand and led him through the trees and out into the grass, where they lay down and enjoyed each other again.
Although it was bright day by the time they came out onto the mountainside by the summer farm, he went with her right to the door and kissed her there.
“How are your feet?” she asked, and squatted down, lifting one of his legs as if he were a horse.
“They’re torn to shreds!” she exclaimed.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“But, dearest,” she said, looking at him.
She could say that! But, dearest. .
“There’s a pair of shoes here that you can borrow,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
But she ran in, moistened a towel, dug out a pair of her father’s socks and the shoes from the bottom of the cupboard, came out again, washed the blood off his feet, pulled the socks onto them, placed the shoes by the side of his feet.
“There!” she said, and stood up.
“Thanks,” he said.
Was he a little embarrassed?
It looked as if he might be.
She inclined her head toward his chest.
“When will we see each other again?” she asked.
“I’ve got to go away for a couple of weeks,” he said. “So it’ll have to be when I get back.”
She straightened up.
“You’re going away?” she said.
“I don’t want to,” he said, and looked down at the hands that were holding hers. “But I must.”
“And you are coming back?”
He laughed.
“Yes, that’s definite,” he said.
“So where are you going?”
“There are one or two things I’ve got to see to. Including the market.”
“Father’s going there, too.”
“Yes, I thought he might be.”