The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [197]
He squinted and managed to make out: Dear you (I cannot write your name for fear somebody else might find this), I have been coming to this cavern every day in hopes of finding you here, and I have prepared this bed for you, bringing each time I came a blanket or two, and these pillows, one for you, one I hope for me, this bed for us, when you come here. You will come here, won’t you? I know you will, it is just a matter of time, but as I write these words two weeks have passed since I came to Stay More and began to wait for you, and you have not come. This is the place that Latha said you would come to. I hope. Please come. If you are reading these words, it means you are here, and it means I will soon be with you. Lie still. Be here. The trees will sing for you until I join you. With all my love, The Lady. And there was a P.S.: Your new harmonica is under this bed.
How could this be? Although Nail had had only the rising and setting sun as his compass, and had known that he was pointed in the right direction, he had a good idea of how far Newton County was from Little Rock, and there was simply no way he could already have reached it; he had to be still somewhere in Pope County, northeastern Pope County by his calculation, with maybe fifty miles, three or four days’ travel, separating him from Stay More.
But now he groped beneath the pile of blankets and quilts until his hand touched metal, and he withdrew the harmonica: an M. Hohner Marine Band Tremolo Echo, identical to the one he’d had for years and had destroyed to make a dagger. He raised it to his mouth and kissed it, and then he began to play it, and he played it through the dark hours of the night until the trees, roused from their slumber, joined their voices to his music.
Then was it morning? Or did she appear with a lantern? Or was it neither morning nor lantern but her own light, the light that emanated from her goodness? He opened his eyes, realizing he had not slept but having no idea how long he had lain with his eyes closed: he opened his eyes and there she was, kneeling beside the bed she had made for him. She was smiling but also frowning: she was shocked at his appearance, at the blood on his face from the bear’s clawing him mixed with the red of the berry juice and his two-week growth of beard.
You made it! she said. But are you all right?
“I reckon not,” he said. “I must be real bad sick, ’cause I don’t have the least idee how I managed to git here.”
She felt his brow. You’re real cold, she said. Cold as death.
“Yeah, I’ve been either too cold or too hot or too wet for quite a spell.” These words came out almost like stuttering, because of the chattering of his teeth and the trembling of his body.
Before he could protest that he looked awful and smelled worse, she climbed beneath the covers with him and held him tight and attempted to warm him. The thick quilts and coverlets piled atop them imprisoned her body heat and divided it with him, but that was not enough for both of them: she became cold herself. Together they trembled for a long time until each of them removed or parted enough of their clothing to make contact and penetration possible, and the pleasure of the contact and the penetration was so great as to make them oblivious to any cold or sickness or loneliness, and they continued it even beyond the point where they ceased being too cold and became too hot, beyond that to the point where they were both drenched