I didn't know where the road came out down in the valley and it would have taken me twenty minutes to get there anyway. The truck would have to do without me. But the paler light still shone, and there might be something in that. I pulled off, parked, started down the slope on foot.
The darkness and winter brush made it slow going. Wind swept through the trees, swirled leaves, shook branches. It carried on it the scent of rain. There was no moon to help me; my footing was uncertain. I could have used the flashlight, but there might be someone still down there, and getting myself noticed wasn't the point.
From the bottom of the slope across thirty feet of clearing I saw my hunch was right: the building with the lit windows was Eve's studio. The glow was gentle and even, the light diffused through the frosted glass. The door was open a few inches, throwing a rod of light across the clearing toward where I'd stopped at the edge of the woods.
I began to inch around the clearing, keeping behind the trees, to where I could approach the building from the rear. There was only the one door, but I could work my way back to it against the wall of the building, which seemed a better idea than strolling across thirty feet of empty space.
It might have been, too; or it might have worked out the same in either case. I never had time to think about that. The only thought I had, as a shadowed figure rose suddenly at the edge of my vision, pain exploded in the back of my head, and the world turned red for an instant and then softly black, was that my woodsmanship wasn't what it ought to be.
I was dreaming of a dark beach, late night, winter. Billowing sheets of rain, gray-green water folded into sludgy, pounding waves. I shivered on the wet sand; icy spray broke over me.
In the shelter of a dune was a house with golden windows. Music came softly from it. Schubert, I thought, but I wasn't sure. It would be warm inside; someone kind would be there. I tried to head toward it, but my feet wouldn't move.
I turned my back on the house, walked slowly down the beach into the cold, thick water, looking for something I knew I wouldn't find.
There was water everywhere, cold water, rushing past me, sweeping over me. I opened my eyes, saw nothing. I was lying face down in water, tasting it in the mud in my open mouth. But this wasn't the ocean, and the dream was over.
I tried to look around. A pounding in my head made it harder. There was darkness, there were trees. There was rain, lashing through the trees and darkness, racing over the ground where I was.
I was soaked through. The skin on my thighs was numb where I lay in the cold water. My scalp was tight with the cold and I felt my back trying to pull away from the heavy weight of my sodden jacket. I started to shiver.
I pushed my shoulders off the ground, to get up, but hot nausea rose in me and I collapsed back onto the leaves and twigs and icy water. I lay there, listening to my breath rasping in and out, as the dizzying pain in the back of my head faded.
I tried, very slowly, to get up again. I became aware of noise: wind shrieking through the trees, branches creaking and cracking against each other, the percussion of rain pounding the ground around me. The duller, desolate sound of the drops as they hit my jacket. My own voice, wordless and hoarse.
I made myself stand.
Water ran down my neck, oozed inside my sleeves. I shook uncontrollably. My body tried to fold in on itself, to escape the icy, burning bitterness. The wind changed directions, blasted me from the front; my eyes began to tear, but they hadn't been clear anyway.
I didn't know where I was. I didn't know where to go. I didn't know anything at all, except the agony of the cold and the dazedness I couldn't clear. Finally I took a clumsy step, then another, because movement was better than standing still and anywhere was better than here.
After a time that was not long, or maybe a thousand years, I had to rest. I leaned against a tree, tried to catch my breath. All the world was in motion. The wind screamed and the rain drummed and I was shaking and unsure. I looked up, around.
Above me, up a slope through the trees: light. Yellow light. I blinked, passed a hand over my eyes. The light was still there. Lights, maybe; or maybe that was me. But something was there and I headed for it, crashing through what I could, going around what I had to, always my eyes fixed on the light.
It was uphill and I climbed. I pushed my feet into the mud, strained against tree roots and branches. My legs were sluggish, slow to respond, as though they were only half listening.
There was a searing flash and a bone-splitting thunder crack. Negative became positive and then black again and what I'd reached for wasn't there. I slipped and fell. The pain in my head wouldn't quit, and needles of rain swept across my face as I lay listening to rushing water and the pounding of my heart.
I wanted to stop trying then, to stay where I was, to wait for the cold and the pain and the noise to end.
But there was light; I could see it. Where the light was maybe it was warm and maybe it was quiet.
Better than quiet: maybe there was music.
With a groan I rolled to my feet. Slowly, as though with glue in my veins, some steps forward; then some more.
The trees ended.
I held onto the last one, looking. The space before me was dark and full of rain, but nothing else. Nothing to hold onto; but nothing, anymore, between me and the light.
It was harder, without the trees and brush. Each step had to be sure. The ground still sloped uphill and the wind was hard. But the light was closer now, I could tell that. It was golden and square and must come from windows, from someplace warm, a house, someone's home. It had to.
And then it was gone. I blinked, stared, tried to bore through the darkness with my eyes. Maybe I was wrong about the trees. Maybe something was standing between me and the light, something I could go around.
I took some more steps; my knees became rubbery. There were no trees. There was nothing there, nothing hiding the light. It was gone.
Like a puppet whose string had been cut, I sank slowly to the ground. The water rushed past me, splattered over me, pushed by a screaming wind. As I was swallowed by darkness and cold, I was sorry that I hadn't reached the glowing house, because I'd wanted to hear the music.
Chapter 13
Silence. Warmth. A pale, gray light. Softness against my skin when I moved; but pain then, too.
Later, the gray light again, and less pain, pain that had shrunk, settled behind my left ear and in my left shoulder. There was softness everywhere, around me and under me, and warmth, and quiet.
In the gray light things came slowly into focus, soft- edged and gentle. A table; a cedar chest; a woodstove set into a fireplace between two uncurtained windows. Through the windows, rolling clouds and the blowing tops of trees.
I was lying on my right side. Heavy wool blankets wrapped me closely. A pillow was under my head, with a smooth, cool cover. I tried to stretch my stiff legs and found I couldn't: there was something in the way.
In a minute, I thought, I'd look and see what.
My mouth was cottony. My bare skin was sticky and tight with dried sweat. I could smell coffee, and the dry sting of woodsmoke in the still air.
I pushed back the blankets some, tried my legs again. They still wouldn't stretch, so I pushed back the blankets some more and tried something else: sitting up.
It was easy, if you didn't count the stiffness and the dizziness. The stiffness stayed with me, but the dizziness passed.
I looked around from my new perspective. I saw my boots, on spread newspapers by the woodstove. I was sitting on an ivory-colored couch not as long as I was tall. I knew this couch; I knew this place. Eve Colgate's house, her living room.
On the easy chair was a pile of clothes, my jeans, my shirt, my underwear, all folded and stacked as if they'd just come back from the laundry. On the cedar chest, in a big wooden bowl, some other things: my wallet, keys, cigarettes, junk from my pockets. My gun, the holster coiled beside it.