O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [59]
Old Banjo, who had whiled many lonely hours here with Amanda, got his nose between them. Amanda opened a saddlebag, shared with Zach a towel to clean off some, then spread a blanket.
“The beauty of it here is overwhelming,” he said.
“Old Banjo and I come up here every so often to meditate. He’s a thinking man’s horse.”
Amanda had dried herself, but her blouse remained damp and clinging. Zach stared until he had to lower his eyes.
“When Banjo was younger we’d race through the lower meadow, go off the trail, and jump the fences and ditches and climb rocks so I could shake off father’s Pinkertons. I happened on this place. The Pinkertons never found it.”
He wanted to ask her about how many boys she had lured into the glade but dared not. She wanted to tell him she had never told a boy that she loved him before this, but she dared not.
Realizing there would be pain in the words ahead, each floundered. There could be no way to make this tender. He was anchored, anchored hard to the notion that he was not going to do her harm.
“I guess we’ve got some things to figure out,” he said at last.
She nodded and watched the wildness of the moment transform itself into one tinged with dread.
Zach said the ancient Marine words: “I’ll be shipping out soon.”
“How long?”
“Another two or three weeks of classes, and then there’s no way of knowing.”
“Two or three months maybe?” she asked.
“It’s possible. The scuttlebutt is that officers and men who have done sea duty will receive landside posts. The rest of us will do a tour aboard ship.”
“How long does that last?” she asked shakily.
“Maybe a year.”
“Longer?”
“Sometimes.”
A clutch of panic seized her.
“It’s a ways off, thank God,” she said, “but my family always goes to Newport for the summer. If you’re still here, I’ll get out of Newport and come to Washington to be with you.”
“I wanted you so badly I didn’t give much thought of how love was going to fit in with the rest of my life.”
“Father has a suite at the Willard Hotel—”
“I’m lying,” Zach interrupted. “I haven’t been thinking of anything else.”
“Zach, we will have time together.”
“This is a stupid time for a stupid love that should not have started in the first stupid place, and I’m the one who pushed it . . .”
Amanda clenched her fists and shook. Zach steadied her, then withdrew his touch. She groped . . . “What about Beth and Varnik?”
“He’s done his sea duty and he’s due for a promotion to sergeant. He’ll get a post on a base.”
“What about them?” Amanda demanded.
“What the hell do they have to do with us?”
“Ten minutes ago,” she cried, “you and I said to each other the most beautiful words I’ve ever spoken or heard.”
“I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you,” he said.
“Don’t you know, I took advantage of you?” she answered. “I have been thinking as well,” she continued. “I am asking you to take me to the Constitution Ball.”
“Amanda, I’m going far away for a long time.”
“No one can force me to love anyone else.”
“I don’t want to return from overseas and fight my way into a tower, then climb the circular stairs two at a time and burst into your cell . . . and there is the skeleton of Amanda, chained to the wall in the company of tower rats.”
“The Constitution Ball is a meat market, just like Butcher’s Hill here used to be. Maybe it will take more courage to show up with me than you have.”
“I hope that when the time comes,” Zach said, “and I’m sent into battle, I’ll be my da’s son. To show courage simply for the sake of showing courage by falling on my sword would make me an idiot.”
“I have the courage to declare our love before the whole world and their meat market.”
“Can we talk about this sanely?”
“Of course,” Amanda snapped.
“My love for you is as strong as I am capable of at this moment. I don’t know how much I love you, but I know I love you enough not to let you piss your life away. Public humiliation of Horace Kerr is war by any name. Tainting your reputation for the rest of your life by gossipmongers is unacceptable. And, my arrogance would mortify the Marine Corps.”
She didn’t like the