213
WITH FRIENDS LIKE. THESE . ..
Caitland tried to sit up again, found it was still all he could do to turn his head toward her.
“You went out hi that storm by yourself?” She nodded, watching him, “You live here along?” Again the nod. “And you hauled me all the way—several kilometers—up here, and have been watching me for two days?”
“Yes.”
Caitland’s mind was calibrated according to a certain scale of values. Within that scale decisions on any matter came easy. None of this fit anywhere, however.
“Why?” he finally asked.
She smiled a patronizing smile that he ordinarily wouldn’t have taken from anyone.
“Because you were dying, stupid, and that struck me as a waste. I don’t know anything about your mind yet except that it doesn’t include much on bad weather navigation, but you’re fairly young and you’ve got an excellent body, still. And mine, mine’s about shot. So I saw some possibilities. Not that I wouldn’t have done the same for you if you’d been smaller than me and twenty kilos lighter. I’m just being honest with you, whoever you are.”
“So where’s the catch?” he wondered suspiciously. She’d been ladling something into a large bowl from the big kettle. Now she brought it over.
“In your pants, most probably, idiot. I might have expected a thank-you. No, not now. Drink this.”
Caitland’s temper dissolved at the first whiff of the bowl’s contents. It was hot, and the first swallow of the soup-stew seared his insides like molten lead. But he finished it and asked for more.
By the fourth bowl he felt transformed, was even able to sit up slightly, carefully. He considered the situation.