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THE LaND WaS GOD and Devil both Matthew had this thought during the third hour of daylight, as he and Rachel paused at a stream to refill the water bottle Rachel dipped the hem of her bride&039;s dress into the water and pressed the cool cloth - once white on her wedding day, but faded by the Carolina huainst her face She scooped up a handful of water, which gurgled over flat stones and rasses, and wet her thick ebony hair back frolanced at her as he went about uncorking and filling the bottle, thinking of Lucretia Vaughan&039;s repugnant idea concerning Rachel&039;s locks
Rachel took off her shoes and slid her sore feet into the sun-warmed stream "ahhhhh, " she said, her eyes closed "ahhhhhh, that feels better"
Fthrough the woods in the direction they&039;d come His face was red-streaked from an unfortunate encounter with a thorn thicket before the sun had appeared, and patches of sweat blotched his shirt This certainly wasn&039;t horse country, though, and therefore Soloht be with hi, noStill, he knew bettet than to underesti skills, if indeed Bidwell had sent men in pursuit
"I&039;m tired" Rachel lowered her head "So tired I could lie in the grass and sleep"
"I could, as well That&039;s e have to keep "
She opened her eyes and looked at hi sun on her face "Don&039;t you know you&039;ve given up everythingi"
Matthew didn&039;t respond She&039;d asked him this question earlier, at the violet-blushed dawn, and neither had he answered then
"You have, " she said "For whati Mei"
"For the truth" He removed the bottle from the stream and pushed its cork back in
"The truth orth so , and then he sat down in the wiry grass because - though his spirit illing - his aching legs were not yet ready to travel again "I believe I knoho killed Reverend Grove and your husband also this person was responsible for the ratcatcher&039;s murder"
"Linch was murderedi"
"Yes, but don&039;t trouble yourself over him He was as vile as his killer almost But I believe I know the ainst you They really did think they saw you u" He cupped some water from the stream and wet his face "Or, at least, they didn&039;t realize they were"
"You knoho killed Danieli" Her eyes had taken on a hint of fury "Who was iti"
"If I spoke the name, your response would be incredulity Then, after I&039;d explained the reasoning, it would be anger aro back to Fount Royal and bring the killer to justice but I fear that is impossible"
"Whyi If you know the na fox has erased all evidence, " Matthew said "Murdered it, so to speak There is no proof whatsoever So I would say a na can be done, just as I shall be" He shook his head "It&039;s best that only one of us drinks from that poisoned cup"
She pondered this for astreao back"
"You et Fount Royal I think the final hand has been dealt to Bidwell&039;s folly, anyway" He roused hi that he wanted to put at least ten more miles at their backs before sundown, he stood up He took a n hi which Rachel put her shoes back on Then Rachel pulled herself up too, wincing at the stiffness of her legs
She looked around at the green-leafed trees, then up at the azure sky after so long being confined, she was still half-dazed with the pine-perfumed breeze of freedom "I feel so sto do with it, " he said, "it will not be a sacrifice are you readyi"
"I a once ht not be a leather-stocking, but he was doing all right Even very well, he thought He had gone so far as to cinch the buckskin knife in its sheath around his waist in the best Indian-scout tradition, so the blade&039;s handle ithin easy reach
Of Indians they&039;d seen not a footprint nor a feather The wild beasts they&039;d encountered, not counting the chirping birds in the trees, consisted of a profusion of squirrels and a black snake coiled on a sun-splashed rock The most difficult part of the journey so far had been the twoFount Royal
But the land was God and Devil both, Matthew ly vast in the sunny hours - but in the night, he knew, the demons of the unknoould creep to their pinestick fire and whisper of terrors beyond the circle of light He had never ventured into a territory where there were no paths at all, just e pines with cones the size of cannonballs, a carpet of leaf decay and pine needles in so that one would survive or perish here almost at the whim of Fate Thank God for the map and the compass, or he would have alreadytheed incline at its top, a crust of red rocks afforded a view ofbeyond the power of the eye God spoke to Matthew and told hiine; the Devil spoke in his other ear, and told him such tremendous, fearful expanse and space would be seeded by the bones of so a few paces behind Matthew as he cleaved a path through waist-high grass Her wedding dress s and clung to her hem
as the sun continued its clih a forest of gigantic, pri between the limbs seventy feet above, and the next second the shadoere dark green and as cool as caverns Here they saw their first true wilderness creatures: four grazing does and a huge, watchful buck with a spread of antlers easily five feet across The does lifted their heads to stare at the two hues and the intruders, and then suddenly all the anireen curtains
Not very further on, Matthew and Rachel again stopped at the edge of light and shadows "What are thosei" Rachel asked, her voice tensing
Matthew approached the nearest oak It was a Goliath of a tree that must&039;ve stood a hundred feet tall and had a trunk thirty feet around, but it was by no est in these ancient woods Lichens and moss had been pulled away froraht have been the representations of arrowheads Matthe that it was indeed not the only trunk so adorned; a dozen ures of ht have been the sun or moon, and waved lines that possibly stood for wind or water, ans, " Rachel said, answering her own question, as Matthew ran his fingers over a head-high sye man or a bear "We must be in their territory"
"Yes, we must" ahead of them, in that vast shadowy forest, were a few more carved trunks beyond the main line of decorated trees, and then beyond those the oaks were unadorned Matthew consulted his e our route, " Rachel suggested
"I don&039;t think changing our route would suffice according to the co in the proper direction I also think it would be difficult to say as Indian territory and as not" Uneasily, he looked around a breeze stirred the leaves far overhead, et through here, the better, " he said, and he started walking again
In an hour of rigorous travel, during which they saw thirty or forty reen forest into a wide clearing and in so doing were greeted with an aht Nearby a hundred wild turkeys the size of sheep were pecking in the grass and brush, and the intrusion of hus fanned the clearing and made a sound like the onrush of a hurricane
"Oh!" Rachel cried out "Look there!" She pointed, and Matthew&039;s sight followed the line of her finger to a solden Sol "I&039; to rest here, " she told hi to take a bath and wash the gaol s"
"Can we not hti"
"We could, " Matthew said, judging the sun&039;s progress, "but there&039;s still plenty of light I didn&039;t intend to cahtfall"
"I&039;m sorry, but I s anymore and I must bathe, too"
Matthew scratched his forehead He, as well, was just about worn to a nubbin "all right I think we &039;s strap off his chafed shoulder and retrieved the soapcake, offering it to her further a civilization to the wilderness"
at this point in their relationship, which seemed more intimate than the wedded state, it was nonsense for Matthealk into the dark line of woods and afford Rachel privacy Neither did she expect it On the edge of the lake, as Matthew reclined on his back and stared up at the sky, Rachel took off her shoes and the faded bridal dress and waded naked into the water to her waist She turned her back to the shore and soaped her private area, then her stoain a third tiaolhouse soup He ht have counted her ribs, if he&039;d chosen Her body omanly, yes, but there was a hardness of purpose to it as well, a purity of the will to survive He watched as she walked deeper into the water, chillbu across her taut skin even as the sun soothed her She leaned over and wet het hair, then soaped a lather into it
Matthew sat up and pulled his knees to his chin His thorn-cut face had blushed at the i over the curves and hollows of Rachel&039;s body as if they too were explorers in a new territory a winged insect of some kind buzzed his head, which helped to distract hiht
after her hair ashed and she was feeling clean, Rachel&039;s attention returned again to Matthew also returned was her sense of rime had clothed her from view and now she was truly naked She knelt down in the water, up to her neck, and approached the shore
Mattheas eating half of a slice of hae, and had set aside the other half for Rachel He saw she intended to ee from the water, so he turned his back She ca, and stood for a moment to dry herself, her face offered to the sun
"I fear you&039;ll have to invent a falsehood when you enter a Spanish town or stockade, " Matthew said, painfully aware of how near she stood "I doubt even the Spanish would care to grant sanctuary to an accused witch" He finished the haround "You should claim yourself to be an escaped household servant, or simply a ho sickened of British rule Once they know your country of birth, you should have no troubles" again that insect - no, two of them - buzzed around hi up her wedding dress "You&039;re speaking only ofyou reach the Florida country but I&039; to stay there with you" Rachel let this revelation sink in as she put her dress back on
He had seen her shadow don the garain Her beauty - the thick, wet black hair, the lovely proud face and intense ahtbird was even round once lishlish life, whether I like then land" Matthewfor boiled potatoes and roast beef Besides Spanish is not ue"
"I don&039;t understand you, " she said "What kind of man are you, who does what you&039;ve done and expects nothing in returni"
"Oh, I do expect so with al, or Spain, and rebuild your life I expect to see Magistrate Woodward again and plead my case before hier bars than held me, " Rachel said
"a possibility, " he ad Here, do you want thisi" He held up the portion of ham for her
She accepted it "How can I tell you how much this means to me, Matthewi"
"Whati One half slice of hami If it means so much, you can have a whole - "
"You knohat I&039;, " she interrupted "What you&039;ve done The incredible risk" Her face was grilistened in her eyes "My God, Mattheas ready to die I had given up my spirit How can I ever repay such a debti"
"It is I e the debt I ca more, " Matthew said "You should sit down and rest"
She did sit down, and pressed her body against his as if they sat crushed by a crowd of a thousand people, instead of just alone in this God-made, Devil-touched land He started to move away, discorasped his chin with her left hand
"Listen to me, " Rachel said, in as nearly a whisper Her eyes stared into his own, their faces only parted by a few inches of inconsequential air "I loved ave him my heart and my soul Even so, I think I could love you the same if you would allow it"
The few inches of air shrank Matthew did not knoho had first leaned toward the other, but did it really eoh Matthew had never before done this, it see was the speed of his heart, which if it had been a horseinside hied and reshaped by the power of a breath It was both strengthening and weakening, thrilling and frightening - again that conjunction of God and Devil that sees
It was a moment he would reether, melded by bloodheat and heartbeat Who dreay first was also unknown to Matthew, as time had slipped its boundaries like rain and river
Matthew looked into Rachel&039;s eyes The need to speak was as strong as a force of nature He knehat he would say He opened his ed insect suddenly landed on the shoulder of Rachel&039;s wedding dress His attention was drawn to it, and away from the s and took flight, and then Mattheare of severalround and round