Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [177]
She saw him on the morning of their departure, when the two of them stood among the boxes and bags in the cabin whose door stood open on the fume of Leadville and the front-lighted Sawatch. Oliver had taken Ollie into town on a last minute errand. In the litter of departure Susan and Frank looked at one another, and Susan made a wincing, regretful face. She was close to tears.
“You won’t be back,” Frank said somberly. “I feel it in my bones.”
“I think so. I hope so. Who could know for sure?”
“I suppose you’re glad to be getting away.”
“In a way. Not altogether.” She laid her hand on his wrist. “We’ll miss you, Frank. You’ve been a dear, true friend.”
As if a butterfly had alighted on his wrist and might be scared away by a movement, Frank stood still. She knew precisely what froze him there. His eyes on her face, his strained smile, made her want to hug him and rock his head against her breast.
“You know how I feel about you,” he said. “Always, from the minute I came in here and saw you in your little traveling hat. The day they hanged Jeff Oates.”
“I know,” she said. “But you mustn’t.”
“Easier said than done. You know how I feel about Oliver, too.”
“He feels the same. There’s nobody he trusts more.”
The laugh that came out of him struck her ear unpleasantly. “He should read Artemus Ward: Trust everybody, but cut the cards.’ ”
“I don’t understand.” Troubled, she started to take her hand away, but he caught it with his right hand and held it down on his left wrist.
“Nothing. Forget it. I’m just . . .” Smiling, he studied her; he shook his head and laughed. “You’re beautiful, you know? And kind. And talented. And intelligent. You’re a thoroughbred.”
“Frank . . .”
“You’re everything good I can possibly imagine in a woman.”
She tugged at her anchored hand. “You’re forgetting.”
“I’m not forgetting anything,” Frank said. “I know who you are, and who I am, and who Oliver is, and what a gentleman does in the circumstances. I know all about it, I’ve thought about it enough. But I can’t get up on my hind legs and cheer about it.”
What could she do but smile, an affectionate, shaky smile.
“Once you kissed me, by mistake,” he said. “Would you kiss me good-bye, not by mistake?”
Only for a second she hesitated. “Do you think . . . ? Yes. Yes, I will.”
She stood on tiptoe to brush his cheek with her lips, but while she was still coming up, with puckered lips, she saw something happen in his eyes, and she was grabbed hard and he was kissing her, not on the cheek, but hard and hungry on the mouth. It was a long blind time before he let her pull away.
“That wasn’t . . . fair,” she said.
“It’s little enough. I’m not made of wood.” He would not meet her eyes. He began carrying the luggage outside to be ready for the buggy.
With the skirt still against her face, Susan looked across at Oliver, his fair hair rumpled, his neck and arms burned dark, working at the table under the ornate oil lamp. She felt she owed him something, she wanted to say something that would restore them. Crossing behind him, she slipped one hand over his eyes and with the other held the skirt under his nose. “Smell. What does that smell like?”
Obediently he sniffed. “Mold?”
“Oh, mold!” She yanked it away. “It smells like Leadville, that’s what it smells like. Can you imagine? It makes me homesick. In spite of everything, I want to go back.”
Half turned in his chair, he took her outburst with complete seriousness. When