Julie Tetel - Sweet Sarah Ross

At one moment while the man-beast was involved in scraping out the rabbit skin, she was troubled enough to say, “I can’t understand why my family hasn’t returned to look for me. That is, if they escaped, which it seems they did. They should be worried about me, no?”

“They’re probably thankful you weren’t on hand during the attack yesterday afternoon. If they haven’t come back for you, it’s because they’re not able to come back for you.”

“Which makes me worried about them, then.”

“Of course.”

His response to her concern had been reasonable. No gushing sympathy. No unrealistic assurances of her family’s well-being, either. But he had offered her a kind of fellow understanding nonetheless, and she was inclined to judge the man-beast the better for it. She had too much to do, however, to dwell on her slightly improved opinion of her partner in misfortune.

In the course of her afternoon’s work, she didn’t encounter any wild animals, so she didn’t have occasion to chip away at her stones, although she was aware at odd times during the day of being watched. However, whenever she looked about her, she saw nothing. No Indians. No prairie wolves. She kept the rocks with her, and when she smoothed them in her palms, her jumping nerves steadied.

The afternoon was spent, and so were her energies. She went one last time to the river, removed her bonnet and splashed water on her face. Heedless of the fact that her hair was tumbling around her shoulders, hairpins askew, she returned to the glade and plopped down on the ground at the base of her tree. She was happy to empty her mind and stare into the lengthening evening shadows.

When the faintest twinklings could be seen in the sky through the leafy arches in the trees, the rude, inconsiderate man-beast tossed two rabbit skins into her lap and said, “It’s time to move on.”

Powell rose to his full height, tested his weight first on one sole, then the other. His feet were still torn and sore, but the covering of wet rabbit hide made it easier to stand on them. He flexed his knees and felt the ache of muscles in his calves from the awkward way he had walked trying to spare his feet over the last few days. Still, his condition was no longer bad enough to warrant the risk of playing the role of sitting duck another day.

The trousers were a definite inconvenience. The Widower Reynolds had evidently been a much shorter man than he, for the pant legs reached only to his midcalf. The suspenders did not adjust and were, therefore, unusable. The trousers were too short in the crotch, too, but the waist was snug enough so that he didn’t have to waste one of the precious strips of petticoat cloth as a belt. If the beautiful idiot hadn’t been with him, he would have preferred to go naked. However, since she was with him, something about keeping to the conventions of dress seemed like a good idea.

He had already packed up the sack he had made from one half of her petticoat. It now held the suspenders, the torn shawl, the strips of cloth retrieved from the traps, and the beautiful idiot’s shoes. Her scissors he carried in one of his back pockets. He had already dismantled the rocks he had used for the two fires he had made, the one for the tree frogs, the other for the jackrabbits, which he had built a few feet away from the first. He had scattered twigs and leaves over the warm ground where the fires had been and had disposed of the jackrabbit remains. All day long he had been rescaling the map of the territory in his head to fit the proportions of crossing it on foot. He had charted their course.

He figured they were ready to go.

When he took his first tentative steps toward the riverside edge of the trees, he became aware that the beautiful idiot had not moved. He looked over his shoulder and repeated, “It’s time to move on.”

She remained seated and motionless at the base of the tree. The twilight silvered the golden hair that was swirling about her heart-shaped face and shoulders like a fallen halo. The soft half-light paled her rosy skin, giving it the texture of flower petals. Her big brown eyes were luminous with a feisty mix of emotions, and her pretty lips were set in a line oddly expressive of seduction and obstinance at once. She had crossed her arms under full breasts and crossed her legs at their shapely ankles. Her feet peeped out from under the flounces of her petticoat and overskirt. The moccasins lay untouched in her lap where he had tossed them.

“You cannot be serious,” she stated in that falsely pleasant voice that grated on his nerves.

It took him a moment to absorb the impact of that statement, then another moment to suppress the desire to strangle her. He shifted the sack on his back and demanded, “Are you always like this, or only when survival is at stake?”

“Always like what, sir?”

Why mince words? “Always idiotic.” He saw the flash in her eyes shift from seductive obstinance to outright anger. “We’ve done fine for the day here, but I’ve no desire to linger longer and make myself easy prey for either man or animal. And I’m assuming you see the advantage of traveling at night, so that I don’t have to spell it out for you.”

“No, you don’t have to spell it out for me, but I’d like to point out that I’m the one who’s been working all day while you’ve been sitting around.”

He gave her a very deliberate once-over. “You look like a healthy woman, and the amount of ‘work’ you did is nothing compared to the physical demands that will be put on both of us tonight—which is why I gave you half an hour to rest. We need to move, and the time is now.”

She didn’t budge.

It would take only one more idiotic word from her for him to leave her here to her own devices. Let her die, for all he cared. But then he thought of her scissors in his pocket, the valuable cloth in his hands and the fact that she had fetched him water more than once today, and he realized that it wouldn’t be fair to leave her. But when was life ever fair? Besides which, it was her choice, after all, to stay or come. You could lead a horse to water…and all that.

He turned to go.

“I need my shoes,” she said. “I don’t see them lying about, so I’m guessing that you have them in the half of my petticoat that you have slung over your shoulder.”

“Wear the moccasins I made you.”

“I want my shoes.”

“Moccasins don’t leave the same footprints as white man’s shoes, and I had to cut up the laces of your ankle boots to make four ties for our two pairs.” He saw her lift the rabbit skins and examine the ties. He saw her jaw drop. He cut off whatever idiotic thing was going to come out of her pretty mouth by saying swiftly, “They’ll fit you perfectly. I measured them against your shoes. Now, let’s go!”

He slipped through the trees and stepped out onto the riverbank, half hoping she wouldn’t follow him.

No such luck, but, then again, that was just his luck. He hadn’t gone ten paces before she was behind him, asking, “Where are we going?”

“To deliver you to your family.” He added, with feeling, “And without delay.”

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” When she caught up with him, she said, “You know, we might get along much better if you would explain yourself to me instead of making me out to be an…an idiot! And I could think of you less as a man-beast and in a more kindly manner if I had a name to call you.”

At that he stopped in his tracks and looked down at her. She was looking up at him, her beautiful eyes wide and almost beseeching, but not quite. Her practiced social smile held a hint of something else that he wasn’t willing to examine just yet. Instead, he pinned his thoughts on the incredible idea that she had called him a man-beast, and he almost laughed. Good God, she was an irritating woman, but she had a way of diverting his attention from the pain in his feet. He’d grant her that much.