The Wounded Land Read Online Free Page B

important than any question of difficulty or mortification. When she put the sedan into motion, she sent it straight down the dirt road toward the white frame house, with the dust and the sunset at her back.
    The light cast a tinge of red over the house, as if it were in the process of being transformed into something else. As she parked her car, she had to fight another surge of reluctance. She did not want to have anything to do with Thomas Covenant—not because he was a leper, but because he was something unknown and fierce, something so extravagant that even Dr. Berenford was afraid of him.
    But she had already made her commitment. Picking up the book, she left her car and went to the front door of the house, hoping to be able to finish this task before the light failed.
    She spent a moment straightening her hair. Then she knocked.
    The house was silent.
    Her shoulders throbbed with the consequences of strain. Fatigue and embarrassment made her arms feel too heavy to lift. She had to grit her teeth to make herself knock again.
    Abruptly she heard the sound of feet. They came stamping through the house toward her. She could hear anger in them.
    The front door was snatched open, and a man confronted her, a lean figure in old jeans and a T-shirt, a few inches taller than herself. About forty years old. He had an intense face. His mouth was as strict as a stone tablet; his cheeks were lined with difficulties; his eyes were like embers, capable of fire. His hair above his forehead was raddled with gray, as if he had been aged more by his thoughts than by time.
    He was exhausted. Almost automatically, she noted the redness of his orbs and eyelids, the pallor of his skin, the febrile rawness of his movements. He was either ill or under extreme stress.
    She opened her mouth to speak, got no further. He registered her presence for a second, then snapped, “Goddamn it, if I wanted visitors I’d post a sign!” and clapped the door shut in her face.
    She blinked after him momentarily while darkness gathered at her back, and her uncertainty turned to anger. Then she hit the door so hard that the wood rattled in its frame.
    He came back almost at once. His voice hurled acid at her. “Maybe you don’t speak English. I—”
    She met his glare with a mordant smile. “Aren’t you supposed to ring a bell, or something?”
    That stopped him. His eyes narrowed as he reconsidered her. When he spoke again, his words came more slowly, as if he were trying to measure the danger she represented.
    “If you know that, you don’t need any warning.”
    She nodded. “My name is Linden Avery. I’m a doctor.”
    “And you’re not afraid of lepers.”
    His sarcasm was as heavy as a bludgeon; but she matched it. “If I were afraid of sick people, I wouldn’t be a doctor.”
    His glower expressed his disbelief. But he said curtly, “I don’t need a doctor,” and started to swing the door shut again.
    “So actually,” she rasped, “you’re the one who’s afraid.”
    His face darkened. Enunciating each word as if it were a dagger, he said, “What do you want, doctor?”
    To her dismay, his controlled vehemence made her falter. For the second time in the course of the sunset, she was held by eyes that were too potent for her. His gaze shamed her. The book—her excuse for being there—was in her hand; but her hand was behind her back. She could not tell the lie Dr. Berenford had suggested to her. And she had no other answer. She could see vividly that Covenant needed help. Yet if he did not ask for it, what recourse did she have?
    But then a leap of intuition crossed her mind. Speaking before she could question herself, she said, “That old man told me to ‘Be true.’ ”
    His reaction startled her. Surprise and fear flared in his eyes. His shoulders winced; his jaw dropped. Then abruptly he had closed the door behind him. He stood before her with his face thrust hotly forward. “What old man?”
    She met his fire squarely. “He