“Doesn’t pay to eat too much on an empty stomach, ma’am, but I can’t say I ever et better.”
Zebulon got to his feet. “Bedtime … we make an early start. You’ll have breakfast with us, Mr. Rawlings?”
“Thanky, Mr. Prescott, but sometimes I wake up and take the urge to move. By sun-up I may be long gone. Good night.”
Linus Rawlings took up his rifle and moved away from the fire, pausing to glance at the arrangement of the camp. Grudgingly, he admitted that for tenderfeet they had placed their camp wisely, and when he saw Sam Prescott settling down to stand watch, he turned his back and walked toward his canoe. Movement under a tree near the shore drew his attention, and he saw Eve kneeling there, spreading blankets over a pile of neatly cut boughs. The distinctly Indian pattern of the blankets was obvious even in the dim light. “Those look like my blankets.”
“They are.”
“Then I’m a mite confused. Whose bed would that be?”
“Yours.”
“You cut all them boughs?”
“Is it enough?” she asked anxiously. “I never made a bough bed before.” “You did right well.” He glanced at her warily. “Why? Why would you do a thing like this? You ain’t thinkin’ you’ve got to pay me for that beaver pelt?” She got to her feet, as gracefully as any Indian girl. “It ain’t … isn’t polite to ask a girl why she does things.”
“My manners ain’t much, ma’am. Had no use for them for some time now.” He placed his rifle carefully on the boughs where his hand could fall easily upon it “Thanky, ma’am, an’ good night.”
She made no move. “Are those Indian girls pretty?” “Some of them … some of the others—well, it depends on how long since you’ve seen a white girl. They get prettier an’ prettier as time goes by, seems to me.” “How long since you have seen a white girl?”
Linus was cautious. He was too experienced a trapper not to be wary, and he sensed trouble. “I ain’t quite sure where you’re headed, ma’am, but it’s gettin’ right late. Your pa might—“ “How pretty do I look to you?”
“Ain’t you bein’ a bit forward, ma’am? I mean … well, you’d be a mighty pretty girl if a man never went away at all. You’d be counted pretty wherever, but it seems to me this conversation is headed right into some mighty swampy country.” “You’re headed upriver and I’m going down. There isn’t much time to get questions answered.”
“Are you sure—dead sure—you want ‘em answered?” She was proud, he thought suddenly, very proud. It was not like her to talk so to just any man … she had gumption, all right. And she was lovely. He had scarcely dared look before, not being a forward man himself, and knowing from long experience that strangers had better be careful in their attentions to womenfolk. He shifted his feet uneasily. This thing had come upon him too fast, and he was not accustomed to judging such situations quickly. If it had been a buffalo, now, or a cougar … or any kind of a redskin … but this was a civilized white girl, and a very pretty one. “Are you sure, ma’am?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“Bein’ alone at nighttime … in the forest and all … it ain’t exactly the safest place for a girl to be. There’s something about the woods, ma’am—it stirs need in a man.”
“In a woman, too.”
He shifted his feet. This was getting out of hand. He was ready as the next man, but this here … she was a decent girl, with her folks hard by. “I’ve come a far piece, ma’am, and I’m goin’ on. You’ll likely never see me again.”
“There is a chance of that.” She looked straight into his eyes. “I would be sorry if that happened.”
He took her by the shoulders and drew her toward him. She came willingly, yet with a certain reserve that let him know this was something special, something different for her. He took her in his arms and held her close and kissed her. He kissed her thoroughly, becoming more interested as the seconds fled, but he kissed her no more thoroughly than she kissed him. She stepped back, breathless. “Glory be!”
Linus was startled to find himself a bit breathless too, and the feeling worried him. “Ma’am … seems like you’ve not done much kissing before.” “I never been kissed permanent before.”
Uneasily, he glanced toward the fire, almost wishing her father would come looking for her. Linus Rawlings had never cared for the word “permanent” and it aroused all his old-time wariness, which had been in danger of subsiding. “There’s something you shouldn’t forget. I’m headed up-river and you’re goin’ down.”
“Lovers have parted before, and they have come together again.” So it was lovers they were now? Linus hesitated, uncertain of what to say. He had a notion he should turn and run … run like a yellow-bellied coward. He should leave the bed, his blankets … even his rifle if need be.
“Ma’am—“
“Eve.”
“Eve, I been a sinful character. Deep-down, black, rock-bottom sinning. I’m headed for Pittsburgh to sin again. Can’t wait to get at it. Why, it’s likely I’ll be dead drunk for the first month and won’t even remember the fancy gals I dally with or the men I carve up out of pure cussedness—any more than I’ll remember you.”
Deep within her, Eve was sure, as sure as a girl could be, that this was her man. She was fighting now, fighting for what she wanted, for what she had always wanted. She was not at all sure her weapons were adequate, and she had little experience to guide her, but she knew the battle must be won here and now. She was acting shamelessly, she knew that, but she remembered something she had once heard a woman say: that men marry by accident, women by design, and that every man is by instinct a wanderer and will not willingly forfeit his freedom to wander.
Every woman wanted a home, protection for herself and the children she would bear … hence, whenever man and woman meet there must ever be this struggle, not so much to win the man, but to keep him after he was won. And she did not have weeks or days, not even hours … she had minutes only. “Linus, I am asking you … can’t you still feel that kiss? Or was it only me?
Do you want to forget it? Do you want to walk away?” “You make me feel like a man come face to face with a grizzly b’ar on a narrow trail. There just ain’t no ignorin’ the situation.” He stepped up to her again and she stood her ground, her face lifted, calm, secure, proud … but frightened, too.
Chapter 4
The hour before daybreak was still and cold. Zebulon Prescott eased from under the blankets so as not to wake Rebecca. He did it with the practiced skill of many years, for the habit of early rising was deeply ingrained in his being. And his wife would need rest … the travel would be hard on her, no matter how he tried to ease the way.
In trousers and undershirt, galluses hanging, he started toward the water’s edge carrying the tin washpan. The two rafts were there, as they should be, but the canoe was gone. He walked out on the raft and started to dip up water to wash, then paused as an idea came to him.
“Eve!” He straightened up as he shouted the name. Fear and astonishment mingling in his voice. He looked toward the girls’ lean-to. “Eve?” Heads lifted from under blankets, and Harvey sat up, staring toward him. Sam swung his feet from under the blankets and started to pull on his boots. Zebulon dropped the tin basin and started back toward the lean-to, fear gripping his insides. Suddenly Lilith pushed back the canvas that served as a curtain. “What is it, pa? Is anything wrong?”
“You can tell me where your sister is,” he said, anger sounding in his voice.
The flap turned back again and Eve stepped out, tossing her hair back. “Pa?
What’s wrong?”
“Well, you’re still here, anyway,” he said testily. “I was afraid you’d gone off with that—that trapper.”
“Gone?” The word had an empty sound. “He’s gone?” Her eyes went to the river. The space beside the raft was empty. The canoe was gone … Linus was gone.
“I knew you were settin’ up with him, but I told myself you were at least lookin’ at a man, even a wisp of smoke like that’n.” Tears welled into her eyes. Linus was gone. She had tried … what else could she have done? She had wished him to stay, she had tried to keep him with her. “You cryin’ for him? What’s that mean?” Prescott’s suspicions mounted. He grasped her shoulder. “Tell me,” he almost shouted, “what’s it mean?” “Nothin’, pa. Linus is gone, that’s all.”