took him and left. Can't blame her. At least I did the kid one favour. I saved him from a life of being called Star Child.'
Jones carried Malcolm into the cabin and kicked the door shut behind them. It was warm inside. The aroma from the simmering kettle wrapped around them.
'Stew,' Jones said. 'Turnips, zucchini, tomatoes, wild onion, plantain. Care to try some?'
Malcolm bobbed his head, then winced in sudden pain.
'First we better see what we can do about that ankle. I'll clean it up for you now. By tomorrow morning this rain will stop and we'll hike into Pinyon and get it fixed up properly.'
Jones eased the boy down on to one of the cots. He brought over a basin of water and a soft cloth. Very gently he sponged the wounded ankle, keeping up a running chatter about nothing in particular.
He held the boy's leg in his strong, gentle hands and studied the torn flesh. 'Looks like you've got a little infection going there,' he said. 'I'm going to put some stuff on it now that will sting a little. I boil it down from pine bark and a few other things. It'll clean out the infection fast.
Better than iodine for sure.'
From a shelf built over the sink Jones took down a tightly corked bottle. He poured out a thick brown liquid on to a wadded cloth. The concoction smelled of pitch. He sponged it generously on the boy's wounded ankle. It did sting like fury, but Malcolm never let on that it hurt.
'That ought to get it,' Jones said. He wrapped a length of clean white cloth around Malcolm's ankle and foot. He ripped one end to make long strips and tied them in a knot.
'Too tight?'
Malcolm shook his head.
'Okay. Now how about some stew?'
'I am pretty hungry.'
'I'll bet you are.'
Jones served up the hot stew in wooden bowls along with chunks of coarse bread. To drink there was a steaming, bitter herb tea. Malcolm ate until he could hold no more. The tea, once it was down, warmed him and made him drowsy. The big man helped him ease his shattered ankle up on to the cot, and brought a fresh khaki blanket to cover him.
'Get some sleep now, son. We've got to be up early tomorrow.'
The pain in Malcolm's foot eased and gradually drained away. He relaxed, enjoying the feeling of a full belly for the first time in many days. The warmth of the cabin and the deep shadows from the dying fire, the soft splash of rain above him on the roof, all combined to lull the boy into a long, deep, untroubled sleep.
Chapter Six
For a long while after the boy had fallen asleep Jones sat in one of the chairs in the cabin and watched the dying coals. The chair of wood and woven reeds creaked and settled comfortably under his weight. Outside the rainfall softened. It would be clear in the morning. Jones frowned, thinking about the boy he had found in the trap.
In the years he had spent alone in the woods he had brushed the lives of many people with many different backgrounds. This boy was not like the others. There was something strange about him. Despite the boy's reticence, Jones could sense a danger that lurked somewhere deep inside him. Something to be feared. Something not quite natural.
The big man dug out an old corncob pipe, stuck it in his mouth unlit, and chewed meditatively on the stem. He had not smoked anything since his teenage years, but it calmed him to chew on the old pipe. It helped him sort out his thoughts.
Tragic fact: the boy's foot was destroyed. No doctor living could save it. When he awoke Jones would give him another heavy draught of the herb tea to keep him drowsy during the long trip they had to make into Pinyon. Jones was not worried about carrying the boy that far; he was confident of his own strength. But a certain amount of jostling would be unavoidable. His strength could not ease the boy's pain.
The kid had been exceedingly brave so far, but he was probably still in partial shock. When he fully realized the damage to his body, he would need a friend close by.
Jones eyes narrowed and his great shoulders bunched as he thought of the men who had set the deadly trap. He had not struck another human being in anger for more years than he could recall, but at that moment Jones would have happily ripped the trappers' limbs from their bodies.
The boy stirred in his sleep and mumbled something unintelligible. Jones got up and walked over to the cot. He lay his big hand on the boy's forehead. There was a fever, but less than it had been. Jones pulled the blanket up snug around the boy's shoulders and walked back to his chair.
The presence of the boy in his cabin brought back thoughts to Jones of his own son. Sometimes, not often, the big man let himself think about John. What he would look like now. What kind of a young man he would become.
John would now be, let's see, going on fourteen. That would put him in high school. Jesus, it was hard to think of that tiny helpless human as a gawky teenager. Probably the boy would be living with his mother in some comfortable California suburb, if Jones correctly read the direction Beverly was going. He would have an upwardly mobile stepfather who wore a three-piece suit to work and fired up the backyard barbecue on weekends. Well, what was wrong with that? What if John had stayed here? What kind of a life would he have had with a ragged hermit for a father living in the woods?
'A damn good life, that's what,' Jones muttered aloud. As he had many times in the past, Jones regretted that he had not fought to keep his son. Probably, he would have lost, but at least he would have tried. He grunted and bit down hard on the pipe-stem, consigning the doubts to their place in the closed-off attic of his mind.
He got up again and lay a big chunk of fir on the coals. In a moment little flames licked tentatively up the bark. The log was still moist, and it would burn slowly. It would probably last till morning. Jones went back to his chair and sat down, listening to the sizzle and pop as the fire probed at the pitch pockets in the log. He closed his eyes and let himself dream.
As always, his dreams were of Beverly. In his heart he had known from the start that she was not for him. Living off the land had sounded to her like an adventure. Like the six months she spent in the Peace Corps teaching Tanzanians things they had no desire to know. She never really saw it as a true life style.
She was happy enough in the commune where there were other people around to sing folksongs with while they held hands in a big circle around a campfire. Having a shopping centre with a big Safeway nearby didn't hurt, either. Jones tried it for a while, but that scene was not for him. Living in one of those hippie communes was like using somebody else's bath water.
Then as now, Jones was his own man. He did not join movements or march for causes because it was trendy. He did it because he believed. And if he stopped believing, he stopped marching. Why lock yourself into something that no longer made sense?
Now Beverly, she had grabbed on to every hip liberal cause that came around. But if her beliefs did not run as deep as his, Jones didn't give a damn. She was so achingly beautiful it still brought a lump to his throat. He had loved her blindly and uncritically from the moment he saw her sitting naked under the sun, her shining yellow hair spread like a veil down over those wonderful breasts.
Sexually, she had been everything a man could ask. Something out of an adolescent's erotic dreams. She knew instinctively where he wanted to be touched and how. She could carry him to dizzying heights of desire, then, when he thought he must surely lose his mind, she would bring on his climax, prolonging it to a point where he lay drained, spent, helpless, and happier than a man should be.
Maybe once a month now Jones would go down to the bars around Saugus and Newhall and find a willing woman. There were always a few strays hanging around the bars. He stayed away from Pinyon. Too many people knew him there. He did not want a relationship, he wanted sex. And that was what the women he met in the bars provided. But even in those momentary bursts of passion he could never stop thinking of Beverly. Most of the time he figured it was just too much trouble to hike all the way to Saugus. Then he let his right hand be his woman.
