Part Two, Chapter Thirty-One

The days grew shorter and a cold wind came in over the mountains. Poplars exploded into color as the rest of the land turned dull. Late fall and winter were always bleak times in a savage land that supported green, growing things only reluctantly. The last of the harvest was brought in and the pantry and storage rooms were piled high with goods to last the family and animals through the winter. Carina and Amalia siphoned off a bit of their store and had Will drive it up to the Torres family.

They were flattered when the family offered to give them another alpaca out of next spring's crias. "You're going to end up with a whole herd at this rate," Amalia told her sister.

Carina settled in for the winter. She no longer went out on random calls, keeping to pre-scheduled appointments or waiting for people to seek her out. She took Will under her wing and began teaching him what she knew about animals. Sometimes Diana rode over and joined in the lessons. The two growing children made a charming pair as they bent their heads over a hen or mixed remedies for worms, mites or thrush. They smelled different liniments and tried to guess the ingredients, and they raced each other to see who could file down a goat's hooves the fastest, bickering genially over whose animal was more docile and whether the winner had an unfair advantage.

Tasha was as busy as she could be helping Amalia can apples and distill herbs. She reveled in the smells and colors of fall, and Amalia learned to trust her around the stove. She was, in spite of her youth, a sensible girl, grateful to have a home and determined to prove herself worthy of its advantages. Sometimes she trotted after Amalia when she went to check the fences and irrigation lines. But as the weather turned colder, she stayed indoors more often, where she could practice her reading, do a bit of mending, or crochet items for market.

Market! The more the autumn dragged on, the more eager Donovan was to get away to town— any town. He had planned to go at the beginning of November, but a problem with the wagon kept him at home making repairs instead. Often while he was mulching a field or doing maintenance on equipment, he would pause and look up at the glorious November sky and think that if the weather didn't hold or if a jennet got sick and he couldn't make the trip to Higdon after Thanksgiving, he would go mad.

Without being quite sure how it had happened, he had found himself in the role of paterfamilias, and he didn't like it. Even when he was in the Guard and his hours were rarely his own, his spirit had always been free. But something had changed. The monotony of farm chores weighed on him, as did the constant sense that he had to set a good example for the children. It wasn't that he didn't want to live a moral life. It was the necessity of it that burdened him and made him feel like he was being shoved under water, deprived of the air he needed to breathe.

And then there was Amalia. For all that he admired her, he didn't want to be tied down to her. In his frustration, all her virtues became faults. Her intelligence was arrogance. Her high standards were rigidity. Her endless capacity for labor, mannishness. No matter that since his return from Jonasville, she had tried to be more feminine. She dressed for dinner now and always wore a ribbon in her hair, which had grown down to her shoulders since Donovan's first arrival on the farm. She spent more time in the kitchen, where she could turn out remarkable desserts with very little effort. She made a point of asking Donovan's opinion on matters, and even when she ignored his advice, she at least gave all appearance of considering it seriously. Donovan was unmoved. Amalia had become the person who stood in the way of what he desired.

He wanted to speak to Carina, to ask if there weren't some other way, but she had been unapproachable all season. First the veterinary calls, then the lessons for Will and Diana...would she ever settle down and be the same woman he used to talk to for hours? They had once had so much in common, and now they were strangers living in the same house. Sometimes he found himself staring at her over the dinner table or from across the living room while the women knitted and the children had their lessons, and he would be so overwhelmed that he had to walk away, lest he give in to the temptation to either kiss her passionately or grab her by the shoulders and shake and shake.

As Thanksgiving approached, Donovan found himself on fire with an almost electric anticipation. Once the holiday was past, he could load the wagon and get away from the press of responsibility and these two maddening women. He would make good trades in town, but he would also drink, steal, gamble and whore until he got it out of his system. Maybe then he would be able to face farm life again. And if he couldn’t, well, he had his papers. He could go to a federal town and blend in with the mourners. He could go to a wild town that was off the federal charts and lie low. He could become an outlaw, or join the Underground and seek adventure. Or he could simply find himself another valley and another farm, one without two attractive widows to ensnare him.

When the problem of what to have for Thanksgiving came up again, his first impulse was to offer to go to market, where surely there would be turkeys for sale. Amalia had different ideas. "Will says he knows a little about quail hunting. Maybe—"

"I don't want to try that again. How about I just go find you a turkey, like last year?"

"What, go steal one from a group of crazy supremacists? We don't need a turkey that bad. You were eager to do quail last year, so I thought..."

"Maybe you shouldn't have."

Amalia walked away, hurt and puzzled. Donovan felt so bad that he tracked Will down while he was doing the evening milking.

"I know how to hunt quail. It ain't easy without a dog, but with two of us, I bet we can do it. The trick is to have one person flush them out and watch where they fall, while the other person just concentrates on shooting them."

The day before Thanksgiving, they got up before dawn, loaded their gear and headed out as the sun was starting to rise. They reached a good spot just as it was becoming light enough to see. Hunting the small birds tried their patience, and they missed several of them as they dropped, but by late afternoon their bags were full and they headed home across the fallow fields.

The women were excited, but although Carina would eat animal flesh, she couldn't bear to clean or dress it, so that task fell to Amalia. After Donovan washed up, and with Amalia still out back cleaning quail with Will, he approached Carina. She was working alone in the kitchen, making a pumpkin pie. He came up behind her and put a hand on the back of her waist.

"Don't," she said, moving away under the pretext of reaching for a bowl.

"You push me away like Catalunia never happened."

"It happened in another reality. This is now."

"We have the power to change it, you know."

"Maybe this is what I want." Carina picked up a wooden spoon. "You're free to change your reality however you want, but you can't change mine."

"I'm not free to do anything. It's fix this, feed that, check the other, and always be a good example to the children."

"It's a little more than you bargained for, isn't it?"

"Yes," he said, relieved that someone had noticed.

"You were never meant for this kind of life. We talk about it sometimes. We understand."

"We?"

"Me and my sister."

"Your sister doesn't understand anything. She would tie me wrist and ankle to this place if she could."

Carina shook her head. "No she wouldn't." She looked out the window, checking that Amalia wasn't on her way back yet. "She only holds on because she knows she'll have to let you go someday. When the time comes, she won't try to keep you here. She'll probably pretend she doesn't care in the least."

"What will you do? Will you keep pretending you don't care?"

"I don't care," Carina said, turning away.

"You're lying." He put his arms around her and could feel the rapid beating of her heart. "Is there nothing you..."

"Please." She pulled away and was silent for a moment. Long enough for Tasha to come bursting in from the bedroom, where she had been looking for a lost ribbon.

"Found it! Will you put it in my hair now?" While Carina bent over the girl's hair, Tasha stared up at Donovan with curious eyes. "Are you helping make dinner?"

"Actually," Carina said, "He was going to go down to storage for me because I'm out of sugar."

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