The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [101]
The girl rolled on her side, facing him. She pulled her sleeping bag down and slipped her hand into his. She gave a soft squeeze and he closed his fist and held her hand tight.
“It’s almost ready,” Rayna whispered.
“What is?” he asked.
She said nothing and closed her eyes.
He wanted to lie and to tell her that he rode back and told Red he couldn’t do it. He thought that might help her not think of him as someone who could kill a friend. But then again, he still didn’t believe what Red had told him before he died. What bothered him most was that after all Red had done for them, he still couldn’t believe his story.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
“You know?”
“I couldn’t smell any gunpowder on your gloves. But he’s dead. The blood. Red hurt himself?”
“No.”
“The hunter?” she asked, in whisper he could hardly hear. “He’s coming for us.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Probably.”
“I know,” she said. “I know he is.”
She squeezed his hand back and rested her head on his shoulder. Her hair smelled clean, and he nuzzled his nose and lips against the top of her head and inhaled deeply through his nostrils. The scent of apple shampoo brought back a flash of almost foreign memories of Anna and carefree college days, cheap shampoo and long hot showers, but then the memories were gone and he only smelled Rayna.
He thought of Red again and wondered why he’d left the safety of the tank. Why he had sacrificed himself like that for them.
The girl turned her face toward his, as if she could hear the tears building at the edges of his eyes.
“Did he tell you?” she asked.
“Tell me what?”
“Where they are hiding,” she said.
“No. Rayna, I don’t think your cousins are alive. I’m sorry.”
“But they are, John. I think he told me where.”
John sat up on his elbow and from the small bits of light coming from the woodstove, he could see her white eyes. “He told you?”
She nodded. “He gave me an idea. If we’re lucky, we’ll take the sno-go there tomorrow,” she said.
“Where? What did he tell you?” John asked, suddenly feeling strange. Warm. Something that felt like hope flooded his body.
“He said I would find gold where I’m going. There’s only one place where the kids here ever went to find gold.”
“Where? Tell me where,” he whispered.
“I said I would never ask you to promise me anything,” she said.
“WILL YOU GET something for me?” Anna asked in a hoarse whisper. “There,” she said, weakly trying to pull a hand out from beneath the covers to point to the one-drawer nightstand on her side of the bed. “In the back, a plastic bag,” she wheezed, using the last bit of her energy before she collapsed on the pillows.
He pulled the drawer open and dug through the letters, photos, lotions, and massage oils. Behind all of it he found a sandwich bag, with a white plastic object inside. He held it up to the last of the evening light coming in through the frosted window.
She watched him as he opened the bag. As he began to pull it out, his hands started to tremble. He turned the thin white plastic device over and over in his hands, but he didn’t need to see the blue + to know what it was, or what it meant.
He sat beside the bed and held her.
“I wanted to wait to be sure,” she said. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her sobs turned to coughing that came from somewhere so deep inside her chest he thought she might burst in his arms.
He didn’t know why she had bothered to tell him. Or why she’d waited to tell him. Or why, when they had the chance to leave, she didn’t say something. Now it all meant nothing. It could mean nothing. He couldn’t think of it, or allow himself to be angry with her. Not now. Not ever.
The white plastic cracked inside his trembling fist.
40
When he awoke, Rayna was gone. He sat up and strained his ears to hear her outside the tent. He could hear nothing but the soft whistle of air streaming in and out of the old woman’s nostrils. The tent had become unbearably hot during the night and he had kicked off his bag and stripped down to just his underwear.
He felt