brother would encourage her to find someone to accompany her. Once the workload of the community increased in summer, with watering and fertilizing, her excursions were not so noticeable. And Gus found ways to absent himself too. Because he worked for many but for no one in particular, it could always be assumed that he was off on a job that took him away from Walhachin.
Within the box canyonâs walls, wild baldhip roses and drifts of cinquefoil. Hawks nested at the cliff top and floated over the lovers like angels, their harsh call either blessing or warning. And once they woke from a brief nap to see the tracks of a rattlesnake that had passed close to their sleeping bodies, its scribble in the earth a text as mysterious as Sanskrit. And once after they had been absent from the canyon for some weeks, the stripped body of a deer that a cougar or a bear had brought to the canyon in secrecy for a long meal for itself and its young. All the flesh was gone; the ribs looked like the frame of a small boat, beached and ruined. Gus used his knife to remove the lower jaw from the skull, wanting it as a talisman to pack in his rucksack once the call came to travel overseas. He washed it in the little creek, rubbing at the remains of connective tissue with sand to scour the bone clean. One of the teeth was loose in its socket, ground down by the animalâs diet of leaves and grass.
NINE
Late September 1914
A young woman dozed on a blanket under a tree in an orchard of apple-laden trees, her body cooler now that sheâd loosened her bodice, removed her stockings. In the orchard it seemed as though everything might go on as usualâthe apples picked, Wagoners, Jonathans, Spitzenbergs, Wealthys, and Rome Beauties finally come to maturity, loaded into bushel baskets, taken by cart to Pennies. Whatever happened in the distant world, the dogs would still bark as coyotes sidled too close to the chicken coops, sheets billowing in the wind, raising their cotton hems to the sky. Sage would release its scent to the brief rain, and oh, if she watched long enough, Gus might still ride between the trees to take her in his arm and murmur into her hair. Her face was hot. It was certain she carried a child.
Floraâs workbasket was at her side and she took out a piece of linen, one of a set of a dozen napkins she had hemstitched and was now embroidering with a monogram in fine whitework, her initial F and the A for Augustus, married to the second A for the surname they would share once he came back to her. He had been gone a month, to Quebec with his regiment, which had been dissolved almost immediately upon arrival; most of the men had been absorbed into the 5th Battalion, but Gus had been invited to join men from a detachment of Rocky Mountain Rangers from Kamloops whom heâd known for a few years. There was also a connection, Flora was not quite certain of its details, with the Victoria Fusiliers, who were also part of this first British Columbia Regiment, the 7th Battalion.
She would not panic. Everyone said the war would not, could not, last long. George had gone too, leaving the house in her care and a detailed list of responsibilities to be divided among her, Mary, and the Chinese men who would be helping with the orchard. George had some concern about the flume but felt that enough able-bodied men, too old perhaps to go to war but certainly capable of maintaining the irrigation system, would ensure the continuity of water. For herself, Flora was willing to work hard, though how long she could depend on her energy and strength was a worry. Mary was pregnant again and came to work on her horse, her modest bulge usually concealed by an apron or the work pinafores that Flora left hanging for her behind the kitchen door.
The summer had gone on forever; that was how it seemed now. The flats above the river rippled with heat, and the willows along its banks trilled with kingbirds. Because of the settlementâs altitude,
Within the box canyonâs walls, wild baldhip roses and drifts of cinquefoil. Hawks nested at the cliff top and floated over the lovers like angels, their harsh call either blessing or warning. And once they woke from a brief nap to see the tracks of a rattlesnake that had passed close to their sleeping bodies, its scribble in the earth a text as mysterious as Sanskrit. And once after they had been absent from the canyon for some weeks, the stripped body of a deer that a cougar or a bear had brought to the canyon in secrecy for a long meal for itself and its young. All the flesh was gone; the ribs looked like the frame of a small boat, beached and ruined. Gus used his knife to remove the lower jaw from the skull, wanting it as a talisman to pack in his rucksack once the call came to travel overseas. He washed it in the little creek, rubbing at the remains of connective tissue with sand to scour the bone clean. One of the teeth was loose in its socket, ground down by the animalâs diet of leaves and grass.
NINE
Late September 1914
A young woman dozed on a blanket under a tree in an orchard of apple-laden trees, her body cooler now that sheâd loosened her bodice, removed her stockings. In the orchard it seemed as though everything might go on as usualâthe apples picked, Wagoners, Jonathans, Spitzenbergs, Wealthys, and Rome Beauties finally come to maturity, loaded into bushel baskets, taken by cart to Pennies. Whatever happened in the distant world, the dogs would still bark as coyotes sidled too close to the chicken coops, sheets billowing in the wind, raising their cotton hems to the sky. Sage would release its scent to the brief rain, and oh, if she watched long enough, Gus might still ride between the trees to take her in his arm and murmur into her hair. Her face was hot. It was certain she carried a child.
Floraâs workbasket was at her side and she took out a piece of linen, one of a set of a dozen napkins she had hemstitched and was now embroidering with a monogram in fine whitework, her initial F and the A for Augustus, married to the second A for the surname they would share once he came back to her. He had been gone a month, to Quebec with his regiment, which had been dissolved almost immediately upon arrival; most of the men had been absorbed into the 5th Battalion, but Gus had been invited to join men from a detachment of Rocky Mountain Rangers from Kamloops whom heâd known for a few years. There was also a connection, Flora was not quite certain of its details, with the Victoria Fusiliers, who were also part of this first British Columbia Regiment, the 7th Battalion.
She would not panic. Everyone said the war would not, could not, last long. George had gone too, leaving the house in her care and a detailed list of responsibilities to be divided among her, Mary, and the Chinese men who would be helping with the orchard. George had some concern about the flume but felt that enough able-bodied men, too old perhaps to go to war but certainly capable of maintaining the irrigation system, would ensure the continuity of water. For herself, Flora was willing to work hard, though how long she could depend on her energy and strength was a worry. Mary was pregnant again and came to work on her horse, her modest bulge usually concealed by an apron or the work pinafores that Flora left hanging for her behind the kitchen door.
The summer had gone on forever; that was how it seemed now. The flats above the river rippled with heat, and the willows along its banks trilled with kingbirds. Because of the settlementâs altitude,
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