One More Knight

caused. This was the first time in his recollection where the truth was both too complicated for words and too important for silence.

“Hey,” he said gruffly, “come on over here.” Not knowing what else to do, he reached for her, put his arms around her and pulled her against him. She came stiffly at first, until he growled, “Pretend I’m a big ol’ St. Bernard dog.” Then she gave a moist, uncertain laugh but snuggled close, and he eased them both down on the blanket so that her head was pillowed on his chest in the nest just below his shoulder. When her hand began to rove across his chest, heading south, he corraled it gently and held it cradled right over his rapidly beating heart.

“Look up there,” he said thickly. “It’s clearing off-look at the stars.”

“Lord,” she said in a wondering tone, “you really are a Boy Scout.”

“No, ma’am,” he growled, “not hardly.”

He kept staring up at the stars, trying to think of a way to explain it to her. For some reason all he could think of was a cartoon movie he’d seen while he was growing up-Peter Pan, it was-and there’d been this crocodile that had bitten off Captain Hook’s hand, along with a clock that for some reason never seemed to run down, and then followed him around the rest of his life trying to get at the rest of him.

“What’s funny?” Charly mumbled.

“Nothin’.” How in the hell was he supposed to tell her that he reminded himself of a crocodile, and she of Captain Hook?

But it was the truth. He knew he didn’t have Charly, no matter what she’d just said. All he had was just a little bitty piece of her. And dammit, he wanted the rest-the whole Charly, every last bit of her. Because the taste of her he’d already had was part of him now, like that ticking clock in the ol’ croc’s belly. She was inside him, part of him, and he wasn’t going to ever be able to get her out of his system or his consciousness again.

“Problem is,” he said after a long, long time, heaving a sigh, “I’m in love with you.”

Save for some soft breathing, there was no reply. Her head felt heavy on his chest. Troy raised his head in order to look, then lay back again, while his heart pounded in his throat. She was sound asleep.

Chapter 12

December 5, 1977

Dear Diary,

Well, I finally did it. I told the judge. Aunt Dobie made me. Well, I could have told her it was a big mistake. What I should have done is just left town while I had the chance. Funny thing, it seemed like he was madder at Aunt Dobie than he was at me. I heard them yelling at each other for a long time after he sent me to my room (isn’t that funny? Here I am Pregnant, and he sends me to my room, like I’m a child!)

Anyway, of course the first thing he asked me was who’s the father. Naturally he thinks it’s Richie. You should have seen his face when I told him it wasn’t! Now he really thinks I’m a slut-big deal, on top of everything else, right?

By the way, Richie called me a slut the other day. I didn’t know he had such a mean mouth. I’m glad I found out his true nature, though. I don’t know how he found out-not from me, that’s for sure! Besides Colin, I only told Kelly Grace, and she promised me she wouldn’t tell a soul. I should have known better. She probably told Bobby, and he told Richie, and so I’m sure the whole town is in on my big secret by now.

Thought for the Day: I’m sure glad I didn’t sleep with Richie.

PS I think I just felt the baby move!!

He woke up in Eden. Or maybe a Walt Disney movie-he’d been thinking of both, he remembered, just before falling asleep with Charly wrapped in his arms and her head cradled trustingly on his chest.

His arms were empty, now. So was the place across his legs where Bubba like to sprawl whenever he got the chance. The nearby sounds of rustlings and cracklings eased any concerns he might have had about that, so he saw no reason to deny himself the luxury of a slow and peaceful awakening.

Though it was already getting too warm where he lay, dappled by sunlight slanted through the branches of ancient trees. The air smelled of the life cycle of growing things-of new shoots pushing through sun-warmed soil, of flowers and ripening fruit, and of dead leaves slowly returning to the earth from which they’d come. He thought again, fleetingly, of circles.

A pair of cardinals flitted across his line of vision, chasing each other. Somewhere in the distance a mourning dove was calling. And all around him, permeating all his senses…water. He could hear it tinkling, trickling, whispering, feel it on his skin, see it swirling like gold dust in the shafts of sunlight, smell it, even taste it, cool and brassy on his tongue.

He sat up, and the breath left his body on whispered words of awe, “Oh, man…”

Straight ahead and on his right, cliffs of black limestone rose into the pale blue sky, their faces glistening with moisture that looked eerily, from this distance, like a woman’s tears. Water seemed to spring from the rock itself, seeping from nooks and crannies where sword ferns and wild primroses flourished, cascading down over ledges and outcroppings festooned with vine tendrils and carpeted with the lush emerald green of moss. At the base of the cliffs the water splashed and trickled into a dark green pool, from the banks of which rhododendrons reached up… and up toward the cliff heights with flower-laden branches thick as arms, like virgin priestesses offering bouquets to their gods.

Troy was a Georgia boy born and raised, and he was used to red clay soil and woods filled with deer and possum and wild turkeys. But this…well, he’d seen places like it in South America and Africa, but he’d sure never expected to run into such a sight in northern Alabama.

“Good morning,” Charly called to him softly, “welcome to Mourning Spring.”

He saw her, now, standing barefooted in the shallow stream where the spring water emptied out of the pool and ran away to disappear into a culvert they’d driven across in darkness the night before. It sure did look to Troy like she was wearing his boxers again, although how she could have managed to sneak a pair out of the motel room without him noticing was beyond him, and was doing kind of a delicate little do-si-do with Bubba, who was wallowing around and trying his best to use her for a maypole. Of course, being a Lab, any form of water the pup could manage to get himself into, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven, so he was being even more enthusiastic than usual.

Troy got up and went over to her, telling himself it was to see if she needed any help with the dog, but mainly because he had a sudden and profound hunger for the warmth and the smell and the feel of her. He stopped on the edge of the bank, close enough to see that it wasn’t his boxers she was wearing after all, since not even in the wildest days of his youth had he ever owned a pair with pictures of Tweety Bird on them. Nor, in his best recollection, a T-shirt bearing the portrait of a bad-dispositioned Puddy Tat. He had to admit, though, that on her they looked pretty damn cute.

“Mornin’,” he said. And when she remained stubbornly out of his reach, in a voice husky with ripening desire, “This place sure is somethin’.”

“I guess it is.” She said it with the indifference of a home-towner as she switched the leash from one hand to the other, while Bubba wallowed around behind her, plowing through the stream with his nose in the water. “Anyway, it’s how the town got its name. If you look at it just right, it sort of looks like a woman crying.”

“Yeah,” said Troy, “I saw that.” He just wished to goodness she’d get out of that water, because otherwise in about a minute he was going to have to take his shoes and socks off and go in after her.

“Anyway,” she went on, sounding like a tour guide at a national park, “it’s supposed to have been an Indian campsite at one time. Supposedly there wasn’t a spring here, then, but there was water down below, in the creek. According to legend, one day there was a huge massacre on this spot, and the village was pretty much wiped out. And when that happened, the ground shook and tears began to pour from the rocks. So they say. Thus the name- Mourning Spring.”