by Carol Arens
Mike followed, hooting and shouting. She ran uphill, through the forest behind the cemetery, grateful that their noise covered the sound of her escape.
Without footwear she was at a disadvantage but wearing a yellow dress made her more so. She dashed between trees and had nearly reached the top of the rise when the men shouted.
They’d spotted her. How could they not, but instead of coming after her at a run, they took their time, whistling, hooting, calling her “girlie.”
Clearly, they wanted to play cat and mouse. Let them. Many a mouse slipped to safety while the cat waited in vain.
While she was hardly mouse-like, she would think like one and find a place to hide.
She dashed off, hiding behind one wide tree and then another, all the while holding her skirt close to her body. She wasn’t hidden from them but it was the most she could manage to do for now.
Since she was within their view, they would think they had her. Hopefully they would be so caught up in their fun that they would take their time.
That seemed to be true. The sound of the ruckus the men were making faded and seemed a bit farther away. She prayed that she was putting some distance between them.
When they tired of the antics, the situation would change. Two men in boots would cover the ground much more quickly than a woman in her bare feet.
Still, she did have the quicker mind. That and only that would be her salvation. If left to sheer strength the men would have her. Already she was winded, her feet sore and her side cramping.
Clutching her violin case close and glancing about, she spotted a trail of sorts, probably used by wildlife.
The path was not hidden. The men would spot her progress. But with any luck, that would keep them confident of catching her, keep them just a little bit slower than she was.
On the left side of the path there was the upslope of the hill. On the right the land sloped down, overgrown by thorny bushes.
The path itself was littered with leaves, which made the going easier on her feet, but the bushes snagged her dress and slowed her down.
Glancing back, she saw Mike charge ahead of Dimwit. As frightening as that was, it was also encouraging. He must now believe that she stood a chance of getting away.
That hope faded when she heard Mike’s footfalls narrowing the distance.
She ran faster but something sharp sliced the heel of her right foot. She went down, heard Mike laugh. With a quick backward glance she saw him rushing toward her, a glint of victory in his grin.
Blood gushed from her foot but there was no time to do anything about that.
She stood, hobbling forward, but Mike was running fast...too fast.
Suddenly he was upon her, grabbing for her hair. She threw herself to the earth to keep him from snaring it.
That made him laugh, but from her position on the ground, she spotted something. To her right was a slide of sorts, made up of leaves that disappeared into the thorny growth. There was no telling where it led or how far, but at least it was away from Mike’s grasping fists.
She launched belly-first. With her arms extended before her, and gripping her violin case, she closed her eyes. Branches ripped at her sleeves, then at her bare arms. She hit a large rock that knocked the wind out of her.
It seemed that she rolled, bumped and slid downhill for a very long time. Then, to her great shock, her face was suddenly underwater. She flailed about then sat up, chest deep in a cold stream.
As far as she could tell, she had left her pursuers behind, for the time being at least.
She stood, shaking with cold, fear and revulsion at the blood seeping from her many cuts and scrapes. But her foot was the worst of all. Pain throbbed to the beat of her heart.
She ripped a bit of lace from her petticoat and wrapped it, but still, she couldn’t walk.
“Be the mouse...be the mouse,” she muttered to keep from wailing in despair.
She might be free of her pursuers for the moment, but she had no belief that they had given up the hunt.
Beside the stream was a fallen log. She hopped on one foot toward it. All of sudden, she tumbled into a deep gouge in the earth. She hadn’t seen it because it was filled up with leaves.
By the saints, if she curled her body into a tight ball, she might fit into it. She would need more leaves for cover, but the earth was littered with them, and a few dead branches, as well.
She crawled about on her knees, wincing when the scrapes gained from her tumble down the hill shot pain up her legs. Scooping the leaves into her skirt and even down her bodice, she collected enough to be able to hide herself. As hiding places went, it wasn’t much, but she prayed it would be enough.
There was one more thing to do before she took shelter: get that miserable Mike off her trail.
She stripped off her dress, flinched when the fabric brushed the cuts on her chest and arms. And, oh, how she hated to do this, but she unwrapped her foot and squeezed the wound. She smeared the spurt of blood on the bodice.
She set the stained, shredded gown on a rock, letting the bottom half drag in the water. It wasn’t likely, but she hoped they would think she had sustained a mortal wound and floated away downstream.
Good luck, little mouse, she thought as she crawled into the hole and buried herself in leaves and sticks.
* * *
“You reckon she drowned?” she heard Dimwit ask.
Rebecca’s heart slammed against her ribs. Surely they must hear it thudding.
Mike’s boot gouged the mud at the edge of her hideout. One step backward and he would fall on top of her.
It was hard to tell how much time had passed since she had taken to her hideout. She guessed it ought to be near sundown, judging by the soft, dim light that filtered through the leaves.
“How’s a dead woman going to get out of her dress then leave it on a rock?” Mike spat a glob of spittle on her leafy cover. “Naw, she lit out.”
“Which way is what we better figure out. With all that blood she’s trailing, the predators will take notice. Wouldn’t care to lose our fortune to a bear.”
“There’s blood on this rock, here, but no place else. She must have stopped to wash,” Mike pointed out.
“Or get washed away.”
“Let’s just figure that Lady Fortune is trying to get home. That means she’s following the river north.” That was something she didn’t know. The fall had completely disoriented her. “Let’s go that way for a few miles. If we don’t get her we’ll come back and head south.”
Something tickled her nose... Something crawled across it! By closing one eye she could make out the fuzzy shape of a small creature with a lot of dark legs. She breathed, but shallowly. She squeezed her eyes shut, pretending to be anywhere else but in this hole with kidnappers above and creepy crawlers beneath.
“It’s not like she’ll get far with her foot cut up.”
“She’s real close by.” Mike chortled. “I can feel that money bursting out of our pockets right now.”
“We’re as good as rich.”
And she was as good as captured if the bug decided to explore her nostril.
Footsteps clomped noisily away. Three feet...seven it sounded now. Tiny bug feet tracked across the skin between her lip and her nose. Fifteen feet... Please let them be...twenty feet away.
The bug tested her nostril with a delicate scratch. She blew out the air in her lungs.
Praise the saints, the bug fell away from her nose. Mike’s and Dimwit’s footsteps faded into the forest.
She relaxed for the first time in...how many hours? It might not have been wise to do so but she closed her eyes, suddenly more weary than she had ever been.
It couldn’t be long until they discovered that she had not followed the stream north. They would return.
<
br /> So leaving the cold, damp hole was not an option. If she did she would leave an easy trail, for Mike and any other creature keen on the scent of blood.
Curled in a fetal position, her legs cramped, her hips ached and she twitched with the need to stretch out. And oh, her foot!
But whoever this Smothers person was—the mayor, Mike had said?—she was not going to marry him! Even more, she would not allow him to harm Grandfather. No matter how painful her joints became, she was not emerging, not for a very long time.
She forced herself to stay awake, knowing that the men would be returning. It would be a disaster to make some sort of noise or movement in her sleep to give her location away.
It was full dark before she heard them come back, cursing and at odds with each other.
They argued for a few moments. Dimwit wanted to stop the hunt, spend the night right here. Mike accurately pointed out that she could not have gotten far downstream, or anywhere else.
The discussion went on for a long time. They nearly came to blows, but they finally agreed to move on and return at daybreak if they didn’t find her...or her remains, downstream.
With the deepening night came a chill. Being so close to the stream her dugout was damp.
Sleep, she had once heard, was the enemy when one was bone-deep cold. She tried to fight drowsiness, but she must have dozed, for she awoke with a start. Something smelly was snuffling at her leaf cover. It pawed and dislodged a stick.
When the leaves shifted, she saw the bulky shape of a huge bear. She felt the heat and heard the hiss of its breath when it sniffed her covering. No doubt the beast had been drawn by the scent of her blood.
Play dead. Hadn’t she heard that somewhere, too? She lay very still and held her breath, even when a warm nose nudged her bare, lacerated shoulder.
After a long, terrifying moment, the bear moved on. She would not sleep again. No matter what, she would remain alert.
The trouble with remaining alert was that one heard every nocturnal sound. The pain of each cut and bruise was intensified.
And on top of everything, she did not have the luxury of crying over it.
But what she did have was her violin. She hugged it to her chest, grateful that in all that it had been through it had escaped with only a few scratches on the case.
The violin would save her tonight even if she could not take it out and draw the bow across the strings. What she would do was imagine the music in her head.
Fighting the urge to call up agitated notes, she let her mind summon something that reminded her of soft breezes and dragonflies floating on the warm air.
It worked for some time but then she began to hear something else.
Given the circumstances, the fear, the wounds and the shivering, she should not have been surprised to be having hallucinations.
By George, as delusions went, this one was quite pleasant.
“Rebecca!” Lantree’s voice called softly.
A cold, gentle hand cleared away the leaves from her face, then swiped them from her body.
“What the hell, Becca?”
“You are very handsome,” she whispered, because one could speak the truth to a vision and no one would be the wiser.
“And you are very battered.”
Lantree’s likeness slipped his arms beneath her and lifted her out of the hole.
She groaned because it hurt dreadfully. After being cramped for so long her joints and muscles screamed in objection to being freed.
This vision was quickly turning to a nightmare. She had to get back into her hiding place. She tried to crawl back to safety.
“Put me back,” she pleaded and tried to scramble out of her vision’s strong arms. “They’ll be returning. How long is it until dawn, Lantree?”
“It doesn’t matter, love. I’ve got you.” He hugged her close to his big solid chest. “You’re safe now.”
“From Mike and Dimwit? From the bug and the bear?”
“From everything... I’m here, I’ve got you.”
She sighed and snuggled close to her vision. “I’ve cut my foot. I’m trusting it to your care, handsome Dr. Walker.”
Well then, it must be all right to sleep now. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest. For a figment of her imagination, he was exceptionally warm and solid.
Chapter Nine
Lantree sat beside Rebecca’s bed, holding her injured foot in his lap and examining it while she slept.
Sleep was what they all needed right then. No one had gotten a wink of it since yesterday afternoon when they discovered that Rebecca was missing.
It had been an hour before dawn when he brought her home, then near dark when they finally pieced together what had happened. That had been twelve hours with everyone worried to the bone.
The bald truth was that she had behaved in a foolhardy manner, but he could not fault her for wanting to visit the family resting place.
He should have volunteered to take her. The blame for her condition lay partly on him.
It would be a long time before he forgot how he’d found her...shivering, bloody and wedged into that muddy hole in the ground. If it hadn’t been for a sideways glance, he would never have noticed the yellow dress strewn over the rock beside the stream. He would have passed by, leaving her to die of exposure more likely than not.
As it was, she had been delirious for the better part of an hour on the ride home. He’d wrapped her up in the blanket he kept on his saddle and held her in front of him, stoking her arms and her back to warm her.
The situation had been dire, but now that she was safe in bed, cleaned up and dozing soundly, he couldn’t help but smile.
Rebecca Lane, in her delirium, had been complimentary...of him in particular.
He’d discovered that she especially liked his hands because, and she had declared this with certainty, they were big and bold, but also gentle...and very warm. His former fiancée, being a petite woman and delicate to her core, had always been apprehensive about his hands. He’d never given her reason to be but now, thinking back, she’d been apprehensive about many things.
Another thing he had discovered was that Rebecca liked being able to look up at him...he was, again in her words, “A gigantic and pleasing example of manhood.”
No doubt if he teased her about it now, she would deny everything that she had said. She would because she would not remember it.
She had also been confident in his ability to care for her injuries. Her trust had ignited something inside of him. Given him a glimmer of confidence he thought had died.
“What do you think?” Hershal asked from where he had been sitting silent vigil in a chair on the other side of the bed.
Drawn back to the task at hand, he studied Rebecca’s long, shapely foot.
“The cut is deep,” he admitted. “I’ll need to make some sutures.”
“Will the pain wake her up?”
“I reckon we’ll see.” He reached for the clean needle.
He took the first stitch. The process came back to him as though he had done it only yesterday.
“I take to heart every word of the story she told us.” Hershal shook his head, his gray brows narrowed to an exclamation point. His anger was obvious. “I’d hang those low-down guttersnipes from the barn rafters by their feet if I could get away with it.”
“I believe her, too. If Mike and that other fellow are lurking about, Jeeter will find them. It goes against the grain but we’ll have to settle for handing them over to Johnson. But I reckon they’d rather face a barn rafter than Liver-Eater’s enforcement of the law.”
Rebecca moaned in her sleep when he applied the next stitch.
“If she comes to it will hurt a whole lot more.”
“It’s not even
my foot and I’m feeling green.” Hershal rose from his chair, looking stiff from sitting so long. “I’ll see you at supper.”
“I’ll be along when I can,” he answered without looking up from his task.
As soon as the door closed, Rebecca let out her breath in a rush.
“By George, this isn’t as horrible as I feared it would be.”
She bit her bottom lip. It was probably worse than she thought it would be.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Since you poked a needle and thread into my foot.”
“Sterilized catgut...and I’m sorry but it’s got to be done.”
She nodded, inhaling a shaky breath. “Let’s get on then, Doctor. Dawdling will only prolong it.”
There was no denying that he liked hearing the title she had given him. It had been some time since it had felt good.
“Only three more to go.”
“Remind me to post a notice around my neck,” she said through gritted teeth.
He felt bad about the pain he was inflicting on her. No doubt, talking was her way of getting through this.
“It will say in bold letters, ‘Rebecca Lane will not be forced into marriage.’”
“That’s fair.” He carried on the conversation in order to distract her from the next stab of the needle. “You can count on me to defend your right to remain an independent woman.”
“Thank you. If my aunt could not bind me to the butcher, that blasted thief Mike will not tie me to...to the mayor...of Coulson, was it?”
“Smothers. Don’t worry about him... There now, all finished.” He patted her ankle. “You were a model patient.”
“Thank you, Lantree.” She brushed a strand of hair away from her temple with the back of her hand. “Not only for mending all my cuts and scrapes, but for going out into the night to look for me. You are...well... What you are is my hero.”
There wasn’t much to say to that. It felt damn good to be a pretty lady’s hero.
“Get some rest. I’ll have Barstow bring you up some supper later.”
“That won’t do. I’ll come downstairs to eat.”
