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The total catch was only sixty per cent of his order.
Sarah slipped into her coat and boots and left the house as he called
the Bureau to report his opinion of forecasters and demand the remainder of
his order.
With surprise, she found Ken standing just outside the doorway, his
face revealing an unbelievable awareness of the spring glory about him.
He smiled almost shyly. "Feel like going for a walk, Mom? It's a swell
morning for that."
"I'd love to, Ken. Let's go on up the hill and see what things look
like from there."
They started out together as the door opened and Commander Walker
roared at them. "We're going to have some more rain this morning if that
Weather Bureau can find enough brains to get those clouds back here. Better
not go far. Stay in range of the old house on the island. The forecasters are
probably mad enough to give it all in one bucketful. And I'll sue if they cost
me any topsoil!"
Ken laughed and waved a hand as they retreated from the house. "We'll
be all right. Don't worry about us. We like the rain."
The light in his face was a joyous thing to see, and Sarah thought
suddenly how little there had been of it, during the past years. She thought
back over the times that Rick had left them alone, and it seemed there had
been nothing of closeness or love between her and Ken. He had always pulled
away in the direction of his father's horizon-and she had pulled against
almost everything he had wanted.
They walked past the steaming barns and the low grumbling noises of the
cattle within. The meadowland underneath their feet was squashy from the rain
and she had to grasp Ken's arm to keep her feet beneath her.
He was big, like Rick, and the hardness of muscle in his arm startled
her. He seemed to have grown almost without her awareness, she thought in
panic.
"I've decided I won't go with Dad," Ken said abruptly. "I know you feel
about it. I'm not going to ask anymore. We talked about it last night. I told
him, and he said it was up to me."
She couldn't see his face, but she knew how it must look. Yet her heart
gave an involuntary leap within her. He was offering the thing she most
desired at this moment-or so it appeared.
But it was only appearance. She understood-as he didn't at this
moment-that some day he would hate her for the unspoken pressure by which she
had forced him to this decision.
"We'll talk about it more, later," she said. Her voice was hoarse and
barely audible. "We may find another answer."
They came to the low rise behind the barns and followed the base of it
towards the old creek bed, long dried up and overrun with grass. There had
once been a sizeable stream here, but a dam in the low hills beyond held back
all the water that used to flow in spring freshets. This was the fishpond
where the runoff from the hills was trapped.
Across the dry streambed was a rise on which stood the first farmhouse
of the place, now long abandoned. The stream had once run behind the house,
but one sudden spring flood had washed a new course and left the house
stranded on a tiny island between the two branches. It did not matter, for the
house had been long abandoned even then.
Now Sarah and Ken turned their steps towards it. Ken glanced at the
sky. "It looks like Grandpa is about to get all the rain he can use. I'll bet
the forecasters are so tired of his grumbling that they're really going to let
him have it."
Sarah stopped and glanced anxiously for the first time at the low gray
ceiling that was settling with furious intensity.
"We'd better get back," she said. "We'll be drenched if we get caught
out here." But already the first drops had started to fall."
"I think it's been raining quite a while over the hill there," said
Ken, nodding towards the rise that hid the fishpond. "We'd better go up to the
old house and wait it out."
It seemed the sensible thing to do. Sarah hurried on, clutching Ken's
hand for support. The bottom of the dry creek bed held three or four inches of
water already from the previous rain. They sank to ankle depth in it, and
tried to hop across on projecting rocks. Finally, they scrambled up the
opposite slope to the house. Their footsteps rattled like dry bones on the
old, weather-beaten porch.
From the moment they set foot on it, the rain spurted in torrents. It
hammered the aged roof and began to pour through holes. Ken and Sarah dodged,
clinging to each other and glancing apprehensively upward.
And Sarah found that she was laughing.
It was a strange and startling discovery. Ken was laughing with her,
and she sensed that he, too, felt that they had not laughed together for a
very long time.
They clung momentarily in this miracle of laughter, and then it slowly
died away in Ken's face. He relaxed his hold on his mother, and then it was
there between them again-the wonder and the agony of their divergent lives.
They sat down close to each other on the porch floor, their backs
against the wall. Water fell and splashed on either side of them. They watched
the sheeting rain, and listened to its roar on the roof.
Their own silence was long. Ken shifted uneasily. Sarah sensed his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]