again.
He followed, keeping pace with ease, taking up great spaces with long sweeps of the crutches. His bulk
220
Ye Who Would Sing
dwarfed her. Towering above, he studied the wasted frame, saw the basic lines of the face and body. She’d been a great beauty once, he finally decided. Now she was like a pressed flower to a living one.
What, he wondered, had compelled her to bury herself in this wilderness? The forest kept her, but what had brought her hi the first place?
“Look,” he began, “it looks like I’m going to be here for a while.” She was watching him, and laughed at that. She was always watching him, not staring, but not looking away, either. Did she suspect something? How could she? That was nonsense. And if she did, he could dispose of her easily, quickly. The ribs and leg would scarcely interfere. He could…
“I’d like to earn my keep.” The words shocked him even as he mouthed the request
“With those ribs? Are you crazy, young man? I admit I might have thought of much the same thing, but—”
“I don’t sponge off anyone, lady—Katie. Habit.” She appeared to consider, replied, “All right. I think I know an equally stubborn soul when I see one. Heaven knows there are a lot of things I’d like to have done that this body can’t manage. I’ll show them to you and when you feel up to it, you can start in on them.”
He did, too, without really knowing why. He told himself it was to keep his mind occupied and lull any suspicions she might develop—and believed not a word of his thoughts.
He hauled equipment, rode with her in the rickety wagon to check unrecognizable components scattered the length and breadth of the valley, cut wood, repaired a rotting section of wall in the warehouse, repaired the cabin roof, tended to Freia and the colt— and tried to ignore those piercing eyes, those young-old blue eyes that never left him.