She woke up before dawn to the sound of loons calling in the distance. James had placed her on a woven mat against the wall of the largest of the Indian houses, and with her back to the cedar planking, she heard his low voice just outside.
Her eyes were swollen from crying. Her head hurt when she straightened up, but still she managed to find the mat-covered doorway and step out into the terraced street.
James stood only a few yards away. With that quiet voice, he spoke with a young native man, and Ravenna watched as the Indian passed something to James, something small that fit easily into his pocket. The young man raised his hand to his lips; he tipped back his head, as if tossing down a strong drink, and James nodded in understanding.
Watching them struggle with these words and gestures, she was certain James was trying to extract some knowledge of Paul’s whereabouts. He must know something, she thought with hope, and picking her way with blistered feet to James’s side, forgotten was the misery of the Nimpkish River. She’d think only of Paul’s dream and Paul’s survival, for what had he told her? I tried callin’ out to you, cried out your name.
Without hesitation, she went up to James and put her arms around his waist. She looked up into his dark face, fully expecting to see evidence of some news, some clue that Paul had been found alive.
Yet when she met his eyes, she wasn’t prepared for what she saw: hopelessness, complete resignation.
“They’ve gone to all the villages,” he said softly. “There’s no word of him. There’s nothing more we can do for him, Love.”
She froze against his side. “That’s it? You’re just going to leave him out there bleeding to death?”
James slipped his hand around her shoulder. “This boy thinks,” and he paused, rubbed at his brow wearily, “Ravenna, you know how I’ve asked to see the guns in every village? They all know I can mend them, every Indian we’ve met, and this boy thinks that…that I was the target of the attack.”
“What does that have to do with anything? Why won’t you look for him?”
“Because if he’s survived, they’ll only kill him. He can’t repair their guns, and if he gets away, he’ll starve before he reaches us, you know that.” James hesitated. “Love, he’s too badly wounded. You have to believe that.”
With these words, she turned toward the eyes of the native youth, so surreal and gentle and exotically dark. No matter how concerned the young man might have seemed, Ravenna couldn’t bring herself to see the truth.
But James was talking again. “Ravenna, this boy will take us to Nootka, where we can gain passage on a trading vessel—”
“You’d go with him?” She nearly choked on the words. The young man started to say something in his own language, but Ravenna pulled loose from James’s grasp. “You think he’s helping us? He’s the one who did it, can’t you see that? He knows where Paul is, he’s lying to you! He’s lying—” And she beat her fists against the young man; well and beyond rationality now, she threw her weight into him, crying out in the silence of the morning, her words turning to shrieks and then to miserable wailing.
The young man only stood there quietly.
Eventually James restrained her. When Ravenna saw the way he looked at her, the nausea crept back into her consciousness, and the awful truth of Paul’s death only became stronger when the last flicker of self-control disappeared from James’s face.
Staring down at his boots, she lost command of her senses. She sank to the ground at James’s feet, seeing nothing but the agony of life without Paul. Is James going to talk you out of feelin’ responsible when you think of how you told me I wouldn’t be killed? Is James gonna be with you night and day, holdin’ back the darkness, keepin’ you from topping yourself? Can he take the place of me, make you feel like I make you feel?
With the memory of his voice, her sobs grew until she’d bent with the force of them, her arms wrapped around James’s knees.
He didn’t stoop to pick her up. He didn’t bend down to hold her close. He only spoke gently as the young Indian walked away. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered above her. “Paul would have wanted you to know that.”