Fletcher's Woman (12 page)

Rachel's eyes were fogged with dreams and her cheeks flushed from the sheer daring of her heroine's exploits when she realized that she wasn't alone in the study and looked up into the kind face of Reverend Hollister.

“Excuse me,” he said, his eyes bright with gentle amusement. “I seem to have interrupted something very absorbing.”

Embarrassed, Rachel closed the book on one index finger and smiled. “Please,” she said, lamenting the obvious warmth in her cheeks. “Sit down.”

The reverend sank into the chair opposite Rachel's with the unthinking grace of a frequent, welcome guest. She knew, instinctively, that this man was the best—and possibly, with the exception of Molly Brady, the only—friend Griffin Fletcher had.

The silence was awkward, and Rachel broke it deliberately. “I'm afraid Dr. Fletcher is out,” she said, unconsciously assuming
the gracious, educated vernacular of the well-placed young lady she'd been reading about.

He seemed quietly uncomfortable, even hesitant. “Actually, Miss McKinnon, I came to see you.” The soft blue eyes were averted, and the refined voice fell away in distracted silence.

Rachel wanted to reach out and grab the man by his shabby collar and shake him. Instead, she prodded. “Yes?”

Now he seemed charged with tension. Seeing dozens of conflicting emotions battling in his manner, Rachel was startled when he stood up and turned his strong, narrow back to her. “Miss McKinnon, there is simply no delicate way to phrase this. It is most important that you leave Providence as soon as you can.”

Rachel, watching in stunned silence as the preacher turned to face her, trembled at the fierce sincerity flashing in his azure eyes.

He sighed, examined the ceiling for a moment, and then went on. “Miss McKinnon—”

Rachel was suddenly very conscious of her shabby, horrible dress, her notorious mother, and her improper presence in Dr. Fletcher's house. A lump ached in her throat, and her stomach twisted painfully within her. “Rachel,” she said. “Please, call me Rachel.”

The reverend sat down again, his discerning eyes sad now, rather than fierce. “Rachel,” he complied. “My name is Winfield, though Griffin has long since shortened that to ‘Field.'”

Rachel nodded slightly. “Field,” she said, testing the name, tasting strength and honor in it. “I-I'm not like my mother, if that's why you want me to go away,” she said.

Compassion played in his face like silent music, and his voice carried a gentle reprimand. “Rachel, your mother was admirable in many ways. While I certainly didn't approve of her—vocation—I did regard her as a valued friend.”

Rachel lowered her eyes for a moment, then forced them back to Field's face. “You know, I don't feel very welcome here. All anyone ever talks about is how fast I should be sent away.”

Field's hand crossed the narrow space between the two chairs to grasp Rachel's. “Please, don't feel shunned.” Suddenly, he bolted to his feet again, pacing back and forth along the edge of the hearth in his agitation. “I probably shouldn't have come here, shouldn't have said anything. . . .”

Rachel sat up very straight, the book forgotten in her lap. “Field, what
did
you come here to say?”

The tall man ceased his furious movement and looked down at Rachel with what appeared to be sincere concern. “You've met Mr. Wilkes,” he stated. “And, of course, you've made Griffin's acquaintance. Rachel, in the name of heaven, don't get caught between those two!”

Rachel's astonishment was equaled only by her confusion. “Between them?” she echoed.

Field was pacing again. “I've made a disaster of this, I can see that!” he muttered, shaking his head in such comical frustration that Rachel laughed.

“You make me sound like an irresistible prize, Field! Are you actually saying that Jonas and Griffin might come to blows over me?”

Hollister seemed to relax a little, in the face of Rachel's explosive amusement, even though high color surged from his neck to his cheekbones. He sat down once again, and when he met Rachel's slightly blurred gaze, his face was suddenly stem.

“It might be more tragic than that, Rachel. Jonas Wilkes wants you—that is an established fact. And my very practiced intuition tells me that Griffin finds you just as appealing.”

Rachel looked down at her oversized dress and her secondhand shoes and gave way to the burst of wild amusement this prospect inspired.

Field sighed impatiently and fell back into his chair, clearly waiting for the unsettling laughter to stop. When it ebbed, he snapped, “Believe me, Rachel, if you knew just how delicate the peace between those two men really is, you wouldn't laugh.”

Rachel was sobered by the force of his sincerity, outwardly at least. Inwardly, some part of her went on laughing. “Reverend Hollister—Field—I really think—”

“You'd
best
think!” interrupted Field Hollister, his knuckles whitening on the arms of the leather chair he sat in. “You are a very lovely young woman. Neither Jonas or Griffin lacks the wit to see that.”

Rachel was certain that she'd never heard anything more ridiculous in her life, but the high romance of the idea was too delicious to thrust quickly aside. For a long moment, she savored it.

When she spoke again, her voice was dignified. “I have no intention of leaving Providence,” she said. “My mother left me
some money and her building, and I intend to make full use of both.”

Field gaped, his face suddenly as white as his immaculate clerical collar.

Valiantly, Rachel suppressed another bout of unrestrained laughter. Except for a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, her face was composed. “I gave you an unfortunate impression,” she said, borrowing more of the lofty words she'd read in the novel. “I don't mean to follow my mother's craft—I'm starting a boardinghouse. My father and I will live there and, I imagine, a lot of the women from Tent Town, too.”

Field Hollister recovered himself with admirable grace. “I see,” he said, and then he cleared his throat and blushed to his ears.

He was a dear man, and Rachel wanted to reassure him. “Field, please don't worry about Mr. Wilkes and Dr. Fletcher anymore. Why, look at me! I'm a sawyer's daughter. I don't have nice clothes, or a fine education, or a beautiful face. What would men like that see in me?”

Field Hollister was gazing off into space, seeing something awesome, it seemed, at a great distance. He stood up, at last, and visibly wrenched himself back to the spacious, book-crammed study. “God save the innocent,” he muttered.

Rachel opened the book she'd been reading and traced the inscription on the flyleaf with one finger. “Field, who is Louisa G. Fletcher?” she dared.

He sighed. “She was Griffin's mother,” he answered, distractedly.

Wild relief swept through Rachel's heart. “What was she like?”

Field smiled, remembering. “She was beautiful, practical and, like her son, not inclined toward idle conversation.” Then, after adding a cordial, if somewhat crisp, farewell, he left.

Rachel opened the book that had so fascinated her before the reverend's visit and read the same paragraph three times in succession. The words wafted into her mind, and then dissipated, like so much smoke.

In frustration, she closed the book and set it sharply aside. Suddenly, her own life was much more absorbing.

•   •   •

The midday sun was bright in the sky as Griffin rode into Jonas's base camp. A few men were straggling in and out of the
mess shack but most, he knew, were hard at work farther up the mountain.

Griffin's throat tightened against a persistent memory as he dismounted and tethered his horse to a railing in front of the cookhouse. The scent of pitch, the whistling, deadly fell of a giant tree, his father's broken body being carried into camp—all of it came back to him, as it always did.

Jack Swenson, the cook, appeared in the shack's doorway, clasping a mottled pot in the crook of one arm and stirring his concoction with determined motions. “What in hell brings you way up here, Doc? Ain't been no accidents today.”

Perversely, Griffin allowed himself a quick glance at the contents of Swenson's cooking kettle. He regretted the indulgence immediately. “I understand you have a man named McKinnon in camp—a sawyer.”

Swenson hooted with disdain and spat a stream of tobacco into the dirt. “McKinnon ain't no sawyer now, Doc. He's givin' orders as of this mornin'.”

The thought made Griffin uneasy. Why would Jonas hire the man as a sawyer, and then promote him after only one day?

“Where is he?”

“Can't think what you'd want with him,” Swenson countered, watching Griffin with open contempt. “He ain't sick.”

Griffin sighed, removed his hat, and ran the sleeve of his sweat-dampened shirt across his gritty forehead. The old man had never forgiven him for choosing medical school over his father's timber interests, he suspected. Maybe, in some ways he'd never forgiven himself. “Where's McKinnon?” he pressed.

Swenson's stubborn, stubbly jaw jutted out a little. “Ain't seen him.”

Griffin swore under his breath.

Swenson's grizzled face cracked in an unnerving grin. “Maybe you got some o' Fletch in you after all, Boy. Been some of us wonderin' if you was really who your mama claimed you was.”

Griffin closed his eyes, counted methodically. When his reason returned, he spoke in careful, measured tones. “Unless you want a throat full of that pig slop you're stirring, Swenson, you'd better shut up.”

The old man shoved the kettle and accompanying wooden spoon into the arms of a bewildered lumberjack and hobbled across the porch, bristling. “You think you can take old Swen, Little Fletch?”

Griffin rolled his eyes. “You know damned well I can, you stupid old bastard.”

Swenson edged cautiously down the sagging cookhouse steps, into the glaring sun. “You just roll up them linen sleeves, then, and give it a try!”

“Oh, shit,” groaned Griffin.

“You scared of me, Little Fletch?”

A snicker rose from the small, gathering crowd of lumberjacks drawn by the discussion.

Griffin removed one of his cuff links, and then the other. Then, playing the game, he rolled up his sleeves.
Are you watching, Pa?
he thought.
After all these years, I still can't set foot on this mountain without some old-timer forcing me to prove I'm your son.

“Okay, Swenson,” he said aloud. “Who stands in for you this time?”

Right on schedule, one of the new men stepped forward. The others had seen the ritual before, but they did an admirable job of keeping straight faces.

The rube was a head taller than Griffin, with a barrel chest and a look of outraged honor in his eyes.

Griffin nearly laughed aloud. “You fighting the old man's battles these days?”

Sunlight caught in the lumberman's fiery red hair. He searched the faces of the other men with affronted disbelief. “I sure as hell ain't gonna stand around and watch a man half his age kick shit out of him!” he vowed, heroically.

Griffin beckoned with the fingers of both hands. “Come on, Greenhorn. Swen isn't going to let it rest until it happens.”

The man looked uneasy and more than a little stung. “Who you callin' ‘Greenhorn,' anyway?”

“You,” Griffin replied, grinning.

To the delight of the onlookers, Greenhorn advanced ominously. His first blow landed in Griffin's midsection like the kick of an ox, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He was outmatched, but then, that was part of the ceremony.

The second blow was as obvious as an arriving train, and Griffin sidestepped it. He debated letting the spectacle go on for a while; God knew the life in camp was dull and the men needed the entertainment.

The digression had been a mistake. Greenhorn's right fist made bone-grinding contact with Griffin's jaw, sending explosive
pain through his head, down his neck, into his shoulder blades. His mind went blank, and the deadly dance began.

Suddenly, Griffin Fletcher was not a man, but a boy. He was not in a lumber camp, but on board one of the ships in which his father owned an interest, sailing the run between San Francisco and Seattle.

There, on the slippery, shifting deck, La Ferrier urged him on, chanting the deadly principles, taunting him until his body and spirit became one force. And Griffin Fletcher's booted feet became weapons more formidable than his hands could ever have been.

When Griffin came back inside himself, the victim of Swenson's lust for diversion was lying still on the ground, one side of his head glistening with congealing blood. Only the motion of his enormous chest indicated that he was alive.

Griffin staggered a little, and a bucketful of ice-cold water plunged into his face, dispelling the last of his dazed confusion.

The bucket wielder had young eyes, but his beard and hair were gray. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed, “Where did you learn to fight like a Frenchie?”

Griffin couldn't answer. Instead, he took a fresh look at what he'd done to Swenson's innocent rescuer and reeled, stumbling, around the side of a tool wagon. There, he retched convulsively long after his stomach was empty.

The bearded man watched him the whole time. When it was over, he shoved a bucketful of water into Griffin's hands.

Griffin filled his mouth, spat, and poured the remainder of the well water over his pounding head. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “Thanks.”

The blue eyes were watchful, but not wary. A calloused hand was extended. “Name's McKinnon.”

Griffin's laugh burned in his throat. It began as a rumbling, tortured chuckle and grew to an anguished roar. “Fletcher,” he managed, after a long time. “Griffin Fletcher.”

•   •   •

It was dark outside, and Rachel didn't like the way Molly Brady kept leaving the table to stand at the kitchen window and peer out toward the barn. Who was she watching for? Dr. Fletcher? Or was it the vanished Indian woman, Fawn Nighthorse?