Outside the cabin in the fresh air she felt better. The grandeur of the Oregon landscape with its thickly wooded slopes rising steeply to bare granite peaks had a healing effect, and the sky, a brilliant translucent blue, was unsullied by any trace of industrial fouling.
This was a good place to have built a settlement. She had been right to bring Dan here, to start anew. They had been warmly welcomed by the Earth Foundation settlers, who had made them part of the small community in what had been the Willow Valley Reservation a few miles from the California border on the northern shore of Goose Lake. Yet in the last two years there had been changes, disturbing changes, mainly caused by the exodus from the south. First it had been a trickle of refugees, increasing to a steady stream, seeping northward like an insidious stain. Now this part of Oregon was dotted with tiny isolated communities, and what had once been the little townships of Beatty, Bly, Adel, Plush, and Valley Falls were in danger of being swamped.
There had been other changes too, even more disturbing to Cheryl. She found it hard to define, to be precise about, but it was as if the attitude, the temper of the people was undergoing some kind of transformation. A kind of nervous brooding suspicion where previously there had been tolerance and a feeling of fellowship. The change was more psychological than anything else, she felt, convinced that it wasn't her imagination playing tricks. She likened it to a kind of subversive paranoia, slowly infiltrating the community and corrupting people's minds.
And why, for God's sake, was she sick? Surely this beautiful place, with its mountains and lakes and thousands of square miles of forests, was as healthy an environment as you could wish for--if you couldn't survive here, then nowhere on the planet was safe.
Dan was with some of the other young people over at the community center, discussing an extension to the school. By the time he returned Cheryl felt much better, had regained her color and composure, and to her relief Dan gave her a casual wave over the heads of the others, apparently noticing nothing out of the ordinary.
Watching him, she felt the stab of a familiar poignancy. He was perhaps a fraction taller than his father and not quite as broad, but it might have been the young Gavin Chase, the same shock of black hair hanging over his forehead, the same intelligent blue-gray eyes and the firm, rather stubborn mouth. It had taken a long time to absolve herself of the guilt for separating father and son. Even though Dan had never once reproached her for leaving Gavin--even though he had made the choice freely to come with her to the settlement--the knowledge that her decision had brought about the estrangement had been a heavy burden to bear. She hadn't entirely come to terms with it and knew in her heart of hearts she never would.
"What are you doing this afternoon?" Cheryl asked him. "Like to row across the lake?"
Dan looked at her oddly, then shook his head. "Sorry, Cheryl, I've already promised to go riding with Jo over by Drews Gap. We're going to have a picnic and collect some herbs."
"Just the two of you, you mean?"
"Sure," Dan said, flashing her a wide grin. "You don't mind, do you?"
"It isn't up to me to mind. I take it her parents know?"
"Yeah, they said okay." He'd lost the crisp correctness of his English accent and now spoke without the reserve that many Americans took to be standoffishness in the British character. "Anyway, I thought you had things to do this afternoon--didn't you say Tom Brannigan had called a council confab?"
"That's not until four. Never mind, you go off and enjoy yourself." Cheryl patted his shoulder and went ahead of him onto the porch. It had been a mistake to suggest a change in the routine, she realized that now. But she was afraid that time was slipping by too fast and she needed his company to reassure her that all was well. All wasn't well though. She felt queasy again at the thought and had to make a willful effort to control her panic.
