She developed confidence in Kier's theory about Tillman's willingness to pull back only after they had traveled miles without incident. When they doubled back, there was no one following. Below the snow line now, Kier took them down then up and over a high ridge and down into a different drainage.
They walked beside a beautiful stream in the afternoon sun. To her amazement it made her forget her weariness and her hunger.
'The whisperings of the mountain are like laughter-nourishment for the soul, Grandfather says.'
Jessie's senses began to catch the special feeling of this wild place. They traveled a river trail worn smooth in the verdigris granite. Around them echoed the many sounds of moving water: its murmurs, its bright tones like loose change, its pelting drumbeat, and in the distance, its cavalcade roar.
She felt the intrigue of the forest for the first time. Angled shafts of sun met the trees' hefty, gnarled old arms ending in hands of feathery, green-needled leaves. The chilly breath of the woodland on a winter afternoon left this world of light and shadow tinted with the sparkling wet of fresh rain.
On one side of them, there was a six-foot drop to rushing water; on the other, the firs grew thick, overhanging the ancient pathway.
'Watch your step.' He offered a hand as if she were a porcelain princess.
She smiled, feeling foolish for enjoying the man's peculiar chivalry when they had such a sobering obligation.
'Moccasins, mules, and hard heels have worn these trails in the rock for hundreds of years,' Kier half whispered, catching her eye, making it hard for her to concentrate on the history.
She wanted to stop and talk. Actually she wanted to be close to him, but the fear of being ambushed and the need to press on kept them going.
Running over bedrock ledges into shimmering pools in a series of cascades, the river became a foaming roar in this part of the canyon-known as Spirit Gate. At the end of the cascades was a pool, surrounded by lichen and moss-covered rock, and ringed with old-growth fir, hemlock, and cedar. Jessie tilted back her head, awestruck by the timeless immensity of it all.
They stood on a gray-white rock beyond the reach of the spray from the last cascade, where a small clear pool mirrored the mountain. They stopped for a moment to drink.
Kier pointed at tracks in the mud. 'Those are otter,' he explained. He pointed farther away to the water's edge. 'Those are coon.'
All around the soft dirt told the story of the passing little feet.
'I'm chilled.' She moved against him, feeling slightly bold. She let her gaze wander across the mountain. One lone fir grew crooked, high up, out of what seemed to be a smooth rock face. Wanting Kier's touch, Jessie felt a kinship to the solitary tree.
After a time, a gentle hand rested on her near shoulder.
'This hasn't changed for thousands of years, I suppose,' she said, pulling his arm around her and leaning into his ribs.
'What hasn't changed, the scenery or the other?' he said.
'Well, both, but I guess at the moment I'm thinking more of the other.'
The creek took them to the bottom of Mill Valley to the Wintoon River, but at a point far above the Donahues' or Kier's cabin. Quickly they darted across the Mill Valley Road, over a still-snowy ridge, and down into an area where they had not yet been-a place Tillman was unlikely to search for them.
At the far side of the ridge, Kier stopped and listened. They were in a dense forest.
'There's a cabin that's mostly hidden in the trees. We can approach it without being seen.'
The owner was known as Indian Lady Margaret, Kier told Jessie, as they neared the dwelling. Her husband had been a successful fisherman, both on the river and in the ocean. Full of youthful energy at seventy, Indian Lady Margaret still kept the summer place that she and her husband had long ago built on the side of the mountain. It sat far away from any public road at the end of a jeep track in a tiny, natural meadow left to the sun by the conifer forest. As they approached the back of the cabin, Jessie could see that its walls were built entirely of stone; from the outside it appeared solidly enticing.
All one room, it was nevertheless a good deal larger than the now-destroyed honeymoon cabin. Kier knew right where to find the key and promised that its owner would heartily approve of their use of the place. In minutes, they had a fire going in the stove. Among the luxuries of this cabin was a feather bed and running water that flowed by gravity from a spring higher on the mountain. It took only a little doing to prepare their leftover food. Kier said Margaret wouldn't mind if they borrowed a canned ham that Jessie favored over reheated beaver tail.
For light they had kerosene lanterns. Not as bright as a normal array of electric bulbs, the lanterns bathed the cabin in a soft yellow glow. The rock walls would have been positively chic in a downtown New York restaurant-here they made good protection. The furniture consisted of a rocker with layers of blanket tacked on for padding, an old but serviceable sofa flanked by two handmade tables, and a five-board kitchen table with four rustic chairs.
Kier and Jessie still had enough energy left to speculate during dinner about the airplane and their adversary's machinations.
After dinner, Kier rigged sheets around a large bathtub in the corner. Using water that had been heating since before dinner, he made her a shallow bath. Almost falling asleep, he threatened to assist her in order to get his turn. Although they both talked of sleep with real eagerness, they were running on adrenaline and could not turn their drowsiness into the will to crawl in bed. Giving up on sleep for the moment, they sat down for a dessert of canned peaches.
'How the hell did he get a piece of you to clone?' she asked.
''I had my jaw wired together at the clinic. It was three years ago. They put me to sleep. They could have done anything.'
'Oh.' After taking another bite of peach, she continued. 'Why are you so aloof? With women, I mean.'
'How did we get from cloning to…?'
'Biology to love? I think for most men that's the natural sequence of events, except maybe they don't usually get to the second part. So don't change the subject. We're on aloof now.'
'Maybe I'm not altogether sure.'
'But you admit it?'
He nodded.
'Of course, you're sure. You've had years to think about it. You are introspective. You can't fool me with those terse Tilokisms of yours. Tell me. I want to know.'
'I suppose my dad dying the way he did, coated me with emotional veneer. I suppose if I am numb I wouldn't know, after all these years, that there is anything but numb.'
'I don't agree. I think you understand stir the oatmeal as a no-risk deal. To understand that, you've got to understand the possibility of something else.'
Kier shrugged and touched her face. She didn't pull away.
'At this point I nod and you talk,' he said.
She laughed hard.
'You're attractive when you're demanding telephones.'
'You think you can sidetrack me with secret eyes?' she asked. 'What do you take me for?'
'Who gets the bed?' Kier asked, abruptly sliding back his chair slightly as if to stand up.
'You. I can fit on the couch,' she said.
As before, Kier wore only jockey shorts, she his T-shirt with her panties, while the rest of their clothes dried. She glanced at him as she sipped the cup of instant coffee they had borrowed along with the ham and peaches. She wasn't going to badger him any further. She was tired of badgering men. This time Kier did not try to make love to her with his gaze. He sat circling his coffee mug with a finger.
'Well, we should sleep for a few hours before I take off.'
'Meeting's not until nine a.m. the day after tomorrow.'
'I'm arriving before daybreak.'
'Really. And why are we arriving before daylight?'
'I am arriving before daybreak to take Tillman hostage. It's the only way to find out what is going on.'
This engendered a thirty-minute argument in which neither of them made a single new point.
'Well, at least you can't win the debate by locking me in a hole,' she said finally.
