The Wounded Land Read Online Free PDF

agony or madness.
    It had come from Covenant’s house.
    In an instant, Linden stood beside the car, waiting for the cry to be repeated.
    She heard nothing. Lights shone from some of the windows; but no shadows moved. No sounds of violence betrayed the night. She I stood poised to race to the house. Her ears searched the air. But the dark held its breath. The scream did not come again.
    For a long moment, indecision held her. Confront Covenant—demand answers? Or leave? She had met his hostility. What right did she have—?Every right, if he were torturing some woman. But how could she be sure? Dr. Berenford had called it a medical problem.
    Dr. Berenford—
    Spitting curses, she jumped back into her car, stamped down on the accelerator, and sped away in a rattle of dust and gravel.
    Two minutes later, she was back in town. But then she had to slow down so that she could watch for street signs.
    When she arrived at the Chief of Staff’s house, all she could see was an outline against the night sky. Its front frowned as if this, too, were a place where secrets were kept. But she did not hesitate. Striding up the steps, she pounded on the front door.
    That door led to a screened veranda like a neutral zone between the dwelling itself and the outside world. As she knocked, the porch lights came on. Dr. Berenford opened the inner door, closed it behind him, then crossed the veranda to admit her.
    He smiled a welcome; but his eyes evaded hers as if he had reason to be frightened; and she could see his pulse beating in the pouches below their sockets.
    â€œDr. Berenford,” she said grimly.
    â€œPlease.” He made a gesture of appeal. “Julius.”
    â€œDr. Berenford.” She was not sure that she wanted this man’s friendship. “Who is she?”
    His gaze flinched. “She?”
    â€œThe woman who screamed.”
    He seemed unable to lift his eyes to her face. In a tired voice, he murmured, “He didn’t tell you anything.”
    â€œNo.”
    Dr. Berenford considered for a moment, then motioned her toward two rocking chairs at one end of the veranda. “Please sit down. It’s cooler out here.” His attention seemed to wander. “This heat wave can’t last forever.”
    â€œDoctor!” she lashed at him. “He’s torturing that woman.”
    â€œNo, he isn’t.” Suddenly the older man was angry. “You get that out of your head right now. He’s doing everything he can for her. Whatever’s torturing her, it isn’t him.”
    Linden held his glare, measuring his candor until she felt sure that he was Thomas Covenant’s friend, whether or not he was hers. Then she said flatly, “Tell me.”
    By degrees, his expression recovered its habitual irony. “Won’t you sit down?”
    Brusquely she moved down the porch, seated herself to one of the rockers. At once, he turned off the lights, and darkness came pouring through the screens. “I think better in the dark.” Before her eyes adjusted, she heard the chair beside her squeak as he sat down.
    For a time, the only sounds were the soft protest of his chair and the stridulation of the crickets. Then he said abruptly, “Some things I’m not going to tell you. Some I can’t—some I won’t. But I got you into this. I owe you a few answers.”
    After that, he spoke like the voice of the night; and she listened in a state of suspension—half concentrating, as she would have concentrated on a patient describing symptoms, half musing on the image of the gaunt vivid man who had said with such astonishment and pain,
Why you?
    â€œEleven years ago, Thomas Covenant was a writer with one bestseller, a lovely wife named Joan, and an infant son, Roger. He hates that novel—calls it inane—but his wife and son he still loves. Orthinks he does. Personally I doubt it. He’s an intensely loyal man. What he calls love, I call