Remembered Page 27

  Jack shook his head and went back to his task. “This’ll take me about an hour to unload, about that much more to change the wheel, and then another hour to pack everything back in. So you might want to get comfortable.”

  Véronique climbed down from the wagon, wishing she hadn’t sounded so flippant about his former occupation. That hadn’t been her intention. And she sensed she’d hurt him. “I will help you do this, and then I must take a . . . brief respite.”

  “I can get this. You go ahead and take care of business. But don’t go far.” Without looking at her, he took off his hat and tossed it up on the bench seat.

  Véronique scanned the slope leading down to the creek but saw no opportunity for privacy there. She looked above to where the mountain angled upward and chose that option instead. Trees were plentiful and boulders large enough to stand behind dotted the wooded landscape.

  Needing some therapeutic papers, she turned to retrieve her valise and found Jack already holding the papers out to her.

  Unable to look him in the eye, she took the bundle from him. “Merci beaucoup,” she whispered, then quickly crossed the narrow gulley and began her climb.

  The aspens were just beginning to leaf, and as she forged a path upward through the trees, she looked behind her on occasion, setting that perspective to memory as Jack had taught her on a previous trip. But she had little worry of getting lost on such a short climb.

  The pungent scent of musk mingled with the sweetness of the pines, and she was reminded again of how much she enjoyed spring. A ways uphill, she located a large boulder companioned by an evergreen that provided sufficient privacy. She knelt behind it.

  The sound of Jack rearranging the crates and boxes in the wagon on the road below drifted up to her, and she was thankful for the ambient noise. This was one aspect of traveling with him that she hadn’t grown comfortable with, and doubted whether she would anytime soon. He, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered by it in the least.

  “You all right?” he yelled.

  She smiled. If ever she’d been gone for any length of time, he’d always called out to her. “Oui, I am fine. . . . Merci beaucoup.”

  After a moment, she stood and adjusted her skirt, then used the extra papers to wipe her hands. She looked at the name printed on each one of the sheets. Joseph Gayetty. What kind of man would print his name on a piece of paper created for such use? She shook her head. Americans . . .

  She bent down to retie her boot and spotted a furry black-andwhite nose edging its way through the low-growing brush.

  Véronique crept back a step, resisting the urge to run or scream. She had read about the animal in the book from the library and had also seen them on her journey to Willow Springs with Bertram Colby. Though the ones they had seen then had been quite dead at the time—just as she wished this one to be.

  She slowly backed away, feeling behind her for anything in her path.

  The animal crawled out from beneath the shrub, completely black except for the white strip on its forehead that extended into a V down its back.

  It made a path straight for her.

  “Jack,” she called, increasing her backward momentum.

  Bertram Colby had said these animals, similar to those in France, came out only at night. But apparently he had been mistaken. He’d also said they were naturally afraid of humans. Again, a fact not proving true in this instance.

  Perhaps Monsieur Colby’s knowledge didn’t extend to the animals living in this part of the—

  The skunk darted for her, sending Véronique’s heart to her throat. Then he stopped and walked stiff-legged for a few paces.

  Or perhaps Monsieur Colby had been right but there was something wrong with this particular animal.

  Véronique met with a tree at her back and quickly maneuvered around it. “Jack!” She raised her voice only slightly, remembering that the book recommended “not to cry out when confronted by a skunk, as this mammal could become easily agitated.”

  The animal’s head went low, and came up sharply. He stamped his front feet and ran full out straight for her.

  Véronique started to run downhill, but a rise of boulders blocked her path. So she ran on the slope, finding it hard to keep her footing amid the rocks and low-growing branches.

  From the scurry of the skunk behind her, it was clear he was not having the same difficulty.

  “Jack!” She screamed as loudly as she could, figuring the animal had already reached an agitated state. She glanced behind her.

  The skunk was at least six or eight feet behind but was covering the ground more quickly.

  Véronique turned back and spotted the pine branch just as it caught her in the face. Her right cheek felt like someone had struck a match against it.

  “Véronique!” Jack’s voice sounded muted, far away.

  “Jack!” She pushed limbs from her path as she ran. Just ahead, she spotted what looked to be a more level path to her right, and she took it.

  Then quickly realized what a poor choice that had been.

  CHAPTER | TWENTY - EIGHT

  THE CAVE LOOMED AHEAD, the skunk loomed behind. And Véronique found neither choice appealing.

  Breathless from her run, she paused and braced her arms on her thighs. She drew in air and swallowed, trying to ease the burning in her lungs. From the tall earthen walls on either side, she guessed the entrance to the cave had been carved out by hand rather than by nature.

  The skunk crested the hill, took a few steps, and stopped.

  Véronique eyed him. Perhaps the wicked little creature was as tired as she was and had finally decided to—

  The fur on its back went stiff. The skunk turned, and raised its tail.

  Véronique put her hand over her nose and mouth and ran.

  She ducked into the cave, stopping within a few feet of the opening. Everything beyond that point was darkness.

  The pungent spray filtered in. Her eyes began to burn. Her throat tightened with the same stinging. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to ease the pain and adjust to the lesser light.

  Using the wall of the cave as a guide, she took measured steps deeper into the cavern, aware of the fading light behind her. She swallowed, and the saliva caught in her throat. Coughing, she tried to catch her breath as the fog of skunk spray grew thicker.

  She took more steps. Darkness closed around her.

  Her eyes watered, and she was unable to keep them open but for one or two seconds at a time. Her hand ran across something wet on the cave wall and she cringed. Then just as quickly, she got excited thinking it might be water. She blinked but could see nothing. She brought her hand to her face with the intention of wiping her eyes, but . . . what if it wasn’t water?

  Véronique lifted her palm to her nose but could smell nothing but skunk. With her eyes already watering, she didn’t realize she was crying until her hiccupped sobs echoed back to her.

  She took a few more steps inside the cave then leaned down to rub her eyes with her skirt. But that only worsened the sting.

  She grew disoriented. “Jack!!” Her voice echoed back to her, Jack’s name spilling over itself in decreasing waves, one atop the other. Where was he?! And why hadn’t he come to help her?

  Even that far back the stench was nauseating. Then slowly, Véro’t the lingering musk in the air. It was hernique realized it wasn! Her clothes reeked, her hair reeked—everything about her reeked. Which only encouraged her tears. Which should have helped her eyes. But it didn’t.

  “Véronique!” Pistol at the ready, Jack quickly discovered the scattered therapeutic papers and followed the trail of strewn leaves and broken branches to the first crest in the mountain.

  That’s when he smelled it.

  He pulled the kerchief from his back pocket and tied it over his mouth and nose.

  “Véronique!”

  If she’d somehow met up with this skunk, Véronique might be scared, she might be smelling something awful, but chances of anything worse were remote.
He’d seen rabid animals, but they weren’t nearly as plentiful as myth led people to believe.

  Jack ran along the slope, careful with his footing, then slowed when Véronique’s trail abruptly ended. He spotted the cave just as he heard something rustle in the brush behind him.

  The skunk crawled out, stiff-legged, and began to stamp its feet. It darted forward, veered, and stopped. Then lowered its head as though about to charge.

  That’s all Jack needed. He aimed his pistol, gauging his sight as far away from the dangerous tail end of the varmint as he could, and fired.

  The animal dropped, and Jack quickly put distance between them in case the skunk had gotten off another spray. The gunshot reverberated against the mountain walls, weakening with each returning echo.

  Sure the skunk was dead, Jack turned back to the cave and approached the entrance. “Véronique!”

  “Jack?”

  At the sound of her voice, the first thing he felt was relief. The second thing was a cold sweat. Jack peered inside the cave and was seven years old again, standing beside Billy Blakely, staring into the dark yawn of that deserted miners’ dig. Billy Blakely . . .

  Jack tried to shake off the memory, but it hung close. “Are you all right?”

  Nothing, and then a faint whimper. “I will be.”

  He had no choice, and he knew it. He clicked the lock on his pistol and shoved it into the waistband at his back, all the while staring at the entrance of the cave. The skin on his back and neck crawled. “I’m coming, just stay where you are.”

  As he took the first step, it struck him that those were the same words his father had yelled down that abandoned miner’s shaft to him, thirty-one years ago. Jack wondered if Véronique drew as much comfort from hearing his voice as he had his father’s. He doubted it, because she didn’t sound nearly as scared as he remembered being.

  He entered the cave and paused, letting his eyes adjust. The smell of skunk was strong, and his eyes watered, his throat burned. But he didn’t dare pull the kerchief any tighter. He could barely breathe as it was.

  “Véronique . . .” He waited for the echo to pass, and for his pulse, hopefully, to slow. “Can you clap your hands?”

  Seconds passed. “Oui.”

  He waited. “Would you do it, please . . . one time.”

  A single clap sounded.

  “Good. Do that . . . every few seconds.”

  A clap . . . Silence . . . Another clap . . . A slow pattern developed.

  Jack followed the sound, and with each step the rush in his ears grew louder. He forced the air in and out of his lungs—evenly spaced breaths—ignoring the pace fear wanted to set for him. He would’ve sworn he could feel the walls of the cave closing in. He stretched his arms out in front of him—then to the sides just to make sure the walls hadn’t moved.

  The clapping grew closer, and the stench grew stronger.

  A conversation he’d had with his father returned to him. It had been years after the incident, when his father had confessed to him how frightened he’d been to learn that his son had fallen down that hole. But to Jack’s young ears, when his father had called down to him that day, his father’s voice hadn’t sounded frightened at all. It had sounded of courage, and bravery, and certainty.

  The claps stopped. “Jack?”

  The echo of his name faded. “Yes, Véronique?”

  Time hung like a stilled pendulum. “Are you scared?”

  Jack stopped in his tracks, heart knocking against his ribs, barely able to breathe. And he laughed. He couldn’t help it. Scared as he was, his hands shaking as he held his arms out in front of him, he laughed. “A bit . . . are you?”

  “Not since I . . . can hear your voice.”

  Her voice was close. She was within a few feet of him now, and the smell was overwhelming. He untied his handkerchief, since it was of little worth, and shoved it into his pocket.

  She started humming. It wasn’t a tune Jack recognized, but it was beautiful. The hum didn’t echo as much as their voices had, and the way the cave turned the music back upon itself was . . . comforting.

  Jack’s hand came into contact with something that was most definitely Véronique Girard. The humming stopped. Her hands touched his chest, then fisted his shirt. Her arms came around him.

  Jack held her tight, telling himself it was more for her benefit than his. But he had a feeling they both knew better. Fuzziness crowded his head, and he knew he needed to get out. “Ready?” he whispered. He slid his hand down her arm and laced his fingers through hers.

  “Oui, but can I do something first?”

  About to say no, Jack heard her intake of breath.

  “Véronique,” she called out. When the echo had ceased, she called her name again, then spoke something in French that he didn’t understand. But the language foreign to him floated back toward them just the same.

  When the last echo had faded, she squeezed his hand. “Merci. I am ready now.”

  “What were you doing?”

  She laughed softly. “Hearing my mother’s voice.” She sniffed. “I am sorry about the smell, Jack.”

  “Not a problem.” He started to move, then suddenly didn’t know which way to turn. Yet he knew enough to know not to move without being certain. “Véronique?”

  Her hand tightened around his. “I am here.”

  Shame poured through him. He’d led hundreds of families across this country, yet he couldn’t find his way out of this cave.

  He felt the tug of her hand. She moved past him, and he didn’t need a source of light to know which part of her body had accidentally brushed against him.

  He followed, careful not to step on her heels but close enough to where there was no chance of her losing him. When the light at the mouth of the cave appeared, Jack’s breath left him in a rush. Emotion tightened his chest as he recalled the feel of his father’s arm around his boyish shoulders as they walked out of the abandoned mine together.

  But what had haunted him for the past thirty-one years, and what he would remember forever, was the sight of Billy Blakely’s father kneeling on the snow-covered ground, weeping.

  CHAPTER | TWENTY - NINE

  JACK HELD HER HAND as they trekked down the slope to the wagon. Véronique stared at his back as he led the way, so proud of him, so thankful he’d come for her. Yet she wondered what lay beneath the tears he’d quickly wiped away when they’d stepped from the cave moments ago. Whatever their cause, she had felt needed inside that dark cavern. And that was something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  They reached the wagon and she loosened her grip first. Jack let go of her hand. She blinked, still adjusting to the sun’s brightness, but even more, trying to rid her eyes of the foul musk. Her throat was raw from coughing, and she was certain her eyes were swollen from the rubbing.

  Yet what she’d experienced in that cave had felt like a gift.

  For so long she’d wanted to hear her mother’s voice again. Just one more time. And she had, in the most unexpected place. But she still wished she’d been the one to shoot that confounded skunk. Which reminded her . . .

  “Jack, I would appreciate learning how to shoot your gun.”

  He set down the crate of supplies he’d retrieved from the wagon. “Right now?” He handed her the canteen.

  She drank liberally and handed it back, matching his smile. “Not at this precise moment, but soon. Will you teach me?”

  “It’d be my pleasure, ma’am.”

  She looked down at her clothes, then down at the creek. “I do not think I can ride all day like this.”

  He shook his head. “No need for you to. I’ve still got to unload everything and fix the wheel. You’ll have plenty of time to bathe . . . if you’d like.”

  She nodded, and glanced again at the creek. He seemed to follow her gaze as it followed the shoreline for a good distance in either direction, the view of the creek unobstructed and unhindered—and completely lacking in privacy. She met his stare and a slow g
rin tipped one side of his mouth. The racaille . . . Surely he could read her thoughts, as easily as she read his.

  “I’ll create a shelter for you with this.” He grabbed a blanket from beneath the bench seat. “That way you’ll have privacy from the roadside. But if any squirrels or prairie dogs sneak up from the opposite bank, I can’t be held responsible.”

  “Merci, Jack. I appreciate this.” She reached for her satchel, then hesitated, realizing what she’d done. Or rather, hadn’t done.

  “What’s wrong?”

  On previous trips she’d at least brought along extra undergarments. The one day she’d decided to try and pack lighter . . . “I do not have a change of clothes.”

  He considered this. “Then I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice.” He grabbed the crowbar, pried open two of the crates in the back, and pulled out a miners’ shirt, followed by a pair of dungarees.

  She took a backward step. “You cannot be serious.”

  “I am, unless you want to stay wrapped in this all day.” He held the blanket up in his other hand.

  She grabbed the shirt and dungarees, making a silent vow never to travel anywhere again without a full change of clothes. And she was removing “packing light” from her vocabulary. “I have soap in my valise. And perfume.”

  Jack set her bag on the ground and opened it for her. Then wrinkled his nose when she got closer, and winked. “I hope you have lots of both.”

  Véronique stepped behind the makeshift shelter and wished there wasn’t such a steady breeze blowing down through the canyon. Not only for the comfort of bathing—she’d already checked, and the water was icy cold from the melting snows—but for the dependability of her shelter. She feared one healthy breeze would lay waste her bathing screen, along with her last shred of decency.

  She unbuttoned her shirtwaist and laid it aside. Then shed her skirt. The breeze whipped the blanket, and she was afraid she was ruined. But Jack’s stakes and ties held, and she continued disrobing, watching the opposite bank of the creek for any sign of movement.