Summer has been a busy time up here, getting projects done to improve the new place, and working on some projects for others, also, which involved a fair bit of traveling. Here is the next chapter.
Would love to see some new inside pictures of the finished yurt.
I will take some to show everyone, at some point. Very much enjoying being up here in my little round house.
Hope all of you are staying safe and not in the paths of the hurricanes.
________________________
Liz did not want to tell him, did not want to ruin things, not now, not when they were just beginning to get better, but Einar was waiting, eyes fixed on her in a most disconcerting manner—he did not often look her directly in the eye, it was simply not his way, but when he did, it was with an intensity that she found difficult to endure for long—and she could see there would be no changing the subject. Not until he had his answer.
“Yes, there is something. It was…you know I mentioned that you were out for a couple days…”
He took a half step back, towards the wall, seemed a lot more distant than that. “What about it?”
“Well, you were having a pretty rough time, and we didn’t have much choice…”
Susan stepped in. “It was me, Einar. I did it. You were wild, flailing around and hurting yourself on the furniture, the walls, you weren’t awake, couldn’t seem to hear us or be reasoned with and yes, I did restrain you. Tied you down. That’s what you’re feeling, remembering. It was an awful thing to do to you, I know, and I am sorry it had to be done. It was not Liz, it was me.”
He nodded, shuddered hard, shoved it aside, all of it, and met her eyes. No words needed. Matter closed, and when she invited him to the kitchen for some breakfast, he followed.
Einar, sitting stiffly and rather uncomfortably at the table—never had felt too much at home in such settings, much preferring to crouch beside a campfire—was willing to eat, figured he had better, the way things were feeling that day, but first, he had to know about the truck. To know what they knew, and to be sure its presence no longer posed a threat. When he asked, Bud laughed.
“Yeah, I told you we knew about the truck. Good thing, too, ‘cause you sure weren’t in any shape to tell us, falling asleep like that for two days.”
“Bud!” Susan gave him a kick under the table, but he was undeterred. Einar just glowered, remained silent.
“Yeah, lazing around instead of running security with me. Awful good thing it was just Roger on a fishing trip, that truck.”
“Fishing trip. Huh. What was he fishing for?”
“Information, sharks, mines…who knows?”
“Probably all three. Didn’t look like Roger’s truck.”
“You think he’d be foolish enough to hang around this place in his regular vehicle? Who knows where he picked that one up, but it was him, alright. I went down and watched that thing for half a day, saw him come down the ridge opposite the river, cross on a fallen tree and approach the truck real carefully. Never let him know I was there, but next day he paid us a visit up here. Didn’t like the idea of you being out there on the mountain doing who-knew-what, right out in full view of every plane that might pass over. Wanted to go haul you down, but I wouldn’t let him. Was that a mistake? Anybody see you?”
Einar wearily shook his head. “Almost, but I didn’t let them. Planes, maybe. But I was looking like any other climber. Not trying to hide. Wouldn’t have drawn any attention.”
Bud’s laughter was enough to startle the raven from his perch on the deck rail outside. “Looking like any other climber, were you? Just like any other climber? Man, you couldn’t be mistaken for anybody other than yourself from ten miles away, ground or air! Are you kidding? Good thing they aren’t looking for you out here, according to Roger. That’s the only thing that might have saved you out there. The simple fact that no one was looking.”
“It can work, sometimes. But we should be moving on from here real soon, get back up in the woods where we belong.”
“Yeah, you should! At the soonest reasonably opportunity. Sooner you start shoving some breakfast down your gullet, the sooner you’ll be ready to go. How high can I heap your plate, here?”
Shooting a skeptical glance at the piles of scrambled eggs, bacon and avocado slices lay arranged in an undeniably appetizing manner in the center of the table on several of Susan’s blue ceramic plates, Einar shook his head. Theory sounded ok, but he knew the implementation might get a little complicated. He had been choking on water only a few minutes prior, and did not want to have everyone at the table see him do the same with Susan’s wonderful breakfast. Acting preemptively to prevent Bud shoveling a pound and a half of the stuff onto his plate he speared an avocado slice, nodded his thanks when Susan added a small scoop of scrambled egg and excused himself, retreating to a hidden corner of the deck to do his eating. Liz wanted to follow, make sure he wasn’t feeding everything to the raven, but Susan shook her head, warning against such intrusion. Besides which, Will had already launched himself across the tabletop and grabbed a fistful of bacon, chomping happily away with his very few teeth and needing his mother’s immediate attention to avoid making a terrible mess of the avocados.
Sitting there in the sunshine tucked away against the redwood railing of Bud’s second story deck Einar breathed in the good food smells that rose to meet him from his plate, breathed a wordless prayer of thanks and gave the raven, ever-expectant, a lopsided grin when the bird sailed down from a nearby tree to perch heavily on his knee. “Not this time, you old buzzard. This stuff is mine.” And he tried to eat it, really did give it his best effort but he had a hard time getting down and then when through sheer mule-headed persistence he managed to push past the muscle weakness that was affecting his swallowing, the stuff just made him sick. Frustrated nearly to tears he leaned over the railing just in time, did not try again. Couldn’t stand the thought of wasting anything, least of all Susan’s very thoughtfully-prepared breakfast. Well. No big deal. He had gone without plenty of times before, had no problem doing it again. Rewarded for his patience, Muninn the raven enjoyed the remainder of Einar’s breakfast.
Back inside Einar left his empty plate on the counter and, feeling rather unsteady and not wanting just yet to join the others, went into the bathroom and borrowed a pair of scissors and one of Bud’s razors. When he came out—wearing the clean and tidily-folded striped blue and white button-down shirt he had picked up somewhere along the way in his travels and kept in case he ever had to go to town and try to “blend in”—he was beardless for the first time in almost longer than he could remember. Except that—rubbing his chin and feeling very strange, exposed—he realized that he could remember. Very clearly, in fact. It was the year he had returned from his time in Rhodesia, the week he had started the job they had recruited him for while he was still over there, his first job, he had hoped, which would not involve a desperate life-or-death fight for a lost cause. He had been wrong. Again. But hadn’t known it yet when he showed up for work that first day full of energy and optimism, first day of the rest of his life, big intel job, and he had figured he might as well look presentable. Follow regulations. It didn’t last, this attention to the finer points of rule and regulation, and no one had cared. Lots of leeway in that organization, at least in some regards. Was probably one of the reasons he had lasted as long there as he did. Well. All in the past, and—back in the present—everyone seemed to be staring at him. He shrugged, looked away, an attempt to break contact, quickly sat down in a chair in the corner.
Watching Einar, Liz could not help thinking that all he needed now was a shirt with wider stripes, and running the other way, and he would look like something straight out of a concentration camp, his eyes appearing somehow more huge and hollow in the absence of facial hair, face skeletal and old scars showing on his scalp. One of the men who, though liberated, was not at all likely to make it. She wished he might have skipped the haircut and shave.
Einar could feel her eyes on him, wanted to go back outside but was feeling pretty shaky after standing up long enough to cut his hair and shave, absurd thing, that, inexcusable, but it was reality, and he did not want them to see him fall down. So he sat, ramrod-straight in his chair, and tried his best to be invisible. Not an easy thing, not for long, as Will, who had been occupied when he entered the room with watching the raven outside, turned and saw him. The boy looked as though he was going to squeal but did not, possessing the instinct of all wild things and war-zone children to meet danger with silence, stillness, stay alive, and the little half-smile at the corner of Bud’s mouth twisted up as he watched the boy back slowly away, turned to a torrent of laughter which soon spread throughout the room, but that did not last long either, as everyone was soon hurrying to the windows to see who had tripped the driveway alarm.
