Sweet Sarah Ross. Julie Tetel

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter Four

      When the night gave a hint of surrendering to a new day, Powell stopped at a small tree-filled hollow he had found tucked in the shadows of the barren plains. Sarah’s leaden spirits lightened at the sight of a spring lazing in the middle of the hollow and ringed by rocks glowing white in the moonlight. Her thirst was stronger than her exhaustion, so she slipped down the rocky slope to splash her face and drink her fill. When she returned to what would be their campsite, Powell had heaped several arm-fuls of leaves beneath a tree, spread the half petticoat out upon them and offered her a bed. Without waiting for her thanks, he began to fashion his own bed of leaves about ten feet away from her.

      She lay down on her back, sure she would never move again. It was a merciful torture to be lying there with every muscle in her body throbbing and quivering. She was only vaguely aware when Powell left the campsite, but she was acutely aware when he returned, for he seemed to be moving about far too busily for a man who had just trudged God knew how many miles on wounded feet.

      “What are you doing?” she asked.

      “Gathering wood to build a fire.”

      She felt a faint stirring of hope. “You have meat to cook?”

      “I wish,” he said. “No, it’s rather that we have company.”

      She groaned when she rose up on an elbow. “Company?” she echoed weakly.

      “The prairie wolf. The one with the cropped ear.”

      She groaned again when she sank back down onto her bed of leaves. “Let’s kill it and eat it.”

      “That might not be so easy. Nor so wise.”

      “I know it might not be easy, but why might it not be wise?”

      He began to stack the wood to build his fire about five feet away from her. He paused at length before answering, “I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

      Her only feeling at the moment was of bare-boned existence. Breathing in. Breathing out. Body stinging with pain top to toe. Stinging, too, with the will to live. She worked sluggishly through the implications of his statement. “So, if it wouldn’t be wise to kill it, you must think it’s useful to us somehow.”

      “Wolves have been known to stalk a man or an animal for miles, so I’m not saying he’s not out for our blood. It’s just that…” He trailed off.

      “Did you know it was following us all night?”

      “No. I sensed at different times that we weren’t alone, but he’s a clever one and didn’t show himself. He could have easily made a move on us at almost any point, but he’s kept his distance. Even now it was only by chance that I happened to catch a glimpse of the silhouette of his ear in the fading moonlight before he ducked into the bushes on the ridge opposite the hollow.”

      “What’s the fire for, then?”

      “To keep him at bay.”

      “Just in case he was thinking of us as dinner, as I was happy to consider him?”

      “Let’s just say that he might be waiting until we’re in a worse way than we are now before going in for the kill. After all, he has to rustle his grub as easily as he can with the least risk to himself.”

      “If he has to wait until we’re in worse shape than we are now,” she said wearily, “then he must be in a pretty bad way himself.”

      Powell brought the fire to life. “Exactly what I was thinking, Miss Harris.”

      That revived her a bit. She raised herself back up on one elbow and saw that he sat squatted, balanced on his heels, and was tending the fire with a stick. She said, “That’s my fourth good idea. The first and second were for the trousers, the third for the razor.”

      He looked up and met her glance. “Keeping score?”

      “With a hungry prairie wolf stalking us, Mr. Powell, I’d like you to think that I’m more useful alive than as wolf bait.” She smiled faintly. “Not that I want to give you any bad ideas.”

      The flickering light from the flames licked the sharpedged planes of his face and blued the unkempt black curls that spun around his head. Something about the way his eyes narrowed as they rested on her suggested that he was enjoying a private joke. His expression riled her enough to shake off her tiredness.

      “Although,” she said, rising laboriously to her feet, “it seems you already arrived at that idea on your own.”

      She moved toward the fire, plopped down across from him so that she was looking at him through the flames. Her bonnet was still tied around her neck, but hanging down her back. She picked apart the knot in the ties and pulled the bonnet off. After folding it in her lap, she attempted to finger-groom the tangles of her hair, which felt as wild and untended to her as the surrounding landscape. Her scalp was beginning to itch. She had a vision of paradise, and it was a hot, scented bath and a luxurious shampoo.

      “So how do you do it?” she asked, nodding toward the flames. “Make a fire, that is.”

      His lips curved up in the barest suggestion of a smile. “So that you’ll know how to make one after you’ve thrown me to the wolf?”

      The suggestion took her aback. “You think I’m capable of that?”

      Noting her surprise, he replied, “Well now, it seems I’ve given you a bad idea. But it might have been one that would have come to you eventually, given the right set СКАЧАТЬ