“I couldn’t sleep, either,” she said. “I can’t help thinking this is all some big, elaborate game, and we’re pieces the players would gladly sacrifice. Not a good feeling.”
“No.”
She looked back over her shoulder at me. “So since we both can’t sleep, why don’t you come out for a swim?”
“Not much of a swimmer.”
“Oh, come on. Those feet of yours could use it, if nothing else. Do it for me.”
“I’ll pass.”
She stood up in the knee-deep water, hands at her side, unashamed. Her short red hair swept back from her face. The moon cast highlights on her straight shoulders, the tops of her breasts and the sides of her hips. The rest of her body glowed pale gray against the sparkling river.
I’d seen plenty of naked women, but never one who seemed so naked, exposing not just her skin but some aspect of herself hidden far beneath her tough-girl personality. That was it, I realized: she was a girl now, untested and untouched in the ways of adult women. It had nothing to do with physical virginity and everything to do with a heart filled with things that had long ago been driven from my own.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said.
“I’m already pretty surprised.”
“It’s the only thing you’ve ever asked me for.”
She turned her back to me. There was, indeed, a tattoo of a dancing girl across her shoulder blades, the legs extending down her spine. “Worth the wait?”
“I dunno. Can you make it dance?”
“Not sober, I can’t.” She faced me again. “So,” she said after a moment. “What do you think?”
“Nice ink.”
“And the canvas?”
I bit my lip. The rest of the evening played out before me now; I’d undress and join her in the river, we’d make love until the cold water drove us out, then we’d return to the fire and continue until we fell asleep. And tomorrow everything would be different.
“The canvas is nice,” I said. “But I really only know about ancient art.”
She walked toward me, making little bow waves with her shins. “Some of the modern stuff can be pretty exciting.”
“My taste is for the classics.”
She stepped out of the water in front of me, shining and soft and very, very desirable. Even though she was tall for a girl, she had to tilt her head up to see me with those big guileless eyes, unashamed of anything in her life. Then she smiled. “Even the classics were new once.”
I took the deepest breath I’d managed in years. She put her hand on my chest, stepped closer and gazed into my eyes. “Care for a little art appreciation?” she said softly, then tiptoed so she could kiss me.
I let her, but I didn’t respond. She settled back on her heels and scowled. “What?” she asked, in her old voice.
I couldn’t look at her. I mumbled, “I’m not really up for this right now.”
She grabbed me around the waist and pulled her body tight against mine. Her smile returned. “That’s not true,” she said in a soft growl.
“Hey, it’s nothing personal, he always gets up a half-hour before I do.” Instantly I regretted it. Even in the moonlight-maybe because of the moonlight-I saw tears fill her eyes. She strode quickly back to the water’s edge and stopped, her back to me, arms wrapped around her sides. Her voice did not weaken. “You’re a jackass, LaCrosse. And you just missed your chance.”
With that she splashed back into the water and swam away downstream. I sighed. I had no idea at the time whether I’d been noble or idiotic.
Now, though, I know.
FIFTEEN
The second marker was another horse head silhouette on a rock face. To reach it Cathy and I traveled a fairly tortuous route along a narrow canyon ledge shadowed by mocking crows and silent, watchful buzzards. Once, as we negotiated a sharp turn, we surprised a wildcat, or rather it surprised us. I almost lost my balance and tumbled to the forest below, but Cathy caught me, the cat scrambled up out of sight, and we continued on without incident. The map did not indicate the path’s increasing danger, and I wondered what other important information it omitted.
This second horse image was formed of shiny black obsidian inside a wall of whitish slate, a reverse image of the first. Cathy also discovered that, if you stood in the right spot, a tiny chink reflected the sun so that the beast appeared to have one glowing, vaguely malevolent eye. This one also looked like a natural formation, but it seemed unlikely that two such identical mineral deposits would be found within a day’s walk of each other. We consulted the map again and set out for the third and final marker.
Cathy never spoke of that night by the stream. She came back to camp fully dressed, went to sleep without a word and awoke at dawn just like always. She acted as if nothing unusual had happened, and I did the same. I couldn’t believe she was letting me off the hook so easily, and kept waiting for the blow I knew must be coming. But it never did.
Back in the present I murmured, “Easy, sweetheart,” to the horse as we reached the remains of the third marker. I’d taken an alternate route around the mountain’s base to avoid the treacherous ledge. “Nothing’s gonna gitcha.” Her hooves clacked nervously against the rocky ground, and she repeatedly tossed her big head. I didn’t understand why this one bothered her more than the other two, but I finally gave in and led her down the slope a ways before I returned to look more closely.
When we first found it thirteen years earlier, the third marker had been a relief carving of a woman on horseback, done in the style of Delavan, far to the east. That puzzled me then, although I later learned the explanation. Hidden in a crevice like a shrine, it would’ve been invisible had Cathy’s map not been accurate and precise about its location. Once we found it, we knew our destination was near.
But now that marker had been utterly obliterated. Someone had thoroughly chiseled the image out of its rock home and left a shallow, ragged crater. I could imagine how difficult carving it must have been in that narrow, tight space; getting both the tools and the elbow room to destroy it so completely must have been equally hard. Obviously none of Epona’s people could have done it, but who else would hate it so much?
The area outside the crevice shrine provided a spectacular view of the mountains ahead. In the distance the tallest peaks, including Mount Ogachic itself, sported snowcaps testifying to their height. Nearer, the low ones cut jaggedly into the sky, so close together it seemed impossible anyone would travel, let alone live, here.
Our old trail showed no sign of recent use. For all I knew, I was the first person to travel it since I used it to leave after the encounter with Epona. Here in the thin, dry air change came slowly; what changes waited in the hidden valley below?
I was putting off the inevitable, but it seemed the right moment for reflection. I needed to make sure my head was on straight before I made the final part of the journey. I knew what I’d left in the valley ahead; I was less sure what I’d find now, or how I’d feel about it.
My horse took me away from the shrine with all the alacrity the terrain allowed. We headed down into the complex series of passes and gullies that had once deposited Cathy and me at the doorstep of the Queen of Horses.
O UR TRIP BACK then took quite a bit longer because we were on foot. Following the map, we descended from the mountains, emerged at last onto a tall, narrow ridge and stopped, breathless from both the exertion and the sight that greeted us.
Below us stretched a small valley completely encircled by ridges and peaks. Unlike the rest of the Ogachic range or the land around Poy Sippi, this valley was alive with verdant foliage. Meadows and forests alternated on the rolling hills, and a network of small ponds and streams twinkled in the sunlight. It was so awash in trees and grass that it reminded me of the old stories of the Summerlands where folks waited between lives. “Wow,” I said.