by J. L. Salter
Scarlett tried a book again, but she was too fretful and kept reading the same paragraphs over and over. Finally, without realizing it, she dozed off.
Noise outside, in front! Very close. She jerked upright as adrenaline coursed through her body. Hurried to the door and rechecked the massive iron deadbolt was latched. Another noise. Louder.
What time was it? How long had she dozed? Why wasn’t Wilder back? Where was he?
Infuriatingly, the cabin had no visible clocks. It could be 11 p.m. or midnight. Or 2 a.m.
Something stomped on the porch. A bear? No, somebody. Deranged slasher? Her innards iced over. Some tiny portion of her brain tried to calculate how quickly she could grab the 12 gauge and aim it...and pry back those heavy, stiff hammers.
A deep voice called out, “If you’ve got that shotgun ready, put it down, Scarlett. It’s me, Cody.”
Chapter Thirteen
Not a bear...not a slasher!
Knees weakened from relief, the woman functioning as Scarlett tugged at the heavy latch.
“Open up,” he said. “It’s kinda chilly out here.”
“I’m trying.”
“Just lift the bar.”
“What bar?” She tugged. “It looks like a metal latch.”
That increased his volume. “I told you to use the wooden bar.”
“Forgot.” She grunted with the effort. “This latch is stuck.”
“There’s a slight alignment problem.” Sounded perturbed. “Pull on the door while you slide the bolt.”
“Okay,” she grunted. “I’m pulling.” One hand tugged the door as the other yanked on the balky metal slide. Suddenly, the bolt slid free, the door flung open, and Scarlett went tumbling backwards onto the cold plank flooring. “Hey!”
“Sorry,” said Wilder, trying to conceal a grin. “I was pushing from the other side.” He placed his lantern on the floor as he knelt down beside her. “Are you okay?”
“Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.” She realized she sounded like a scolding wife, but Scarlett couldn’t help herself.
“First things first.” He closed the door. “Are you okay?”
Still sprawled on the floor, she shrugged.
“Need a hand up?” He reached toward her.
After the slightest hesitation, she extended both hands and felt herself lifted as though she weighed merely forty pounds. One of her feet landed on top of his boot and she lost her balance. When Wilder pulled her toward him, they ended in a clumsy embrace. Even through the thick jacket his shoulder-holstered revolver felt hard against her cheek. He smelled like damp night air and his clothing had splashes of mud. He was still holding her. “Uh…Cody?”
“Got your footing back?”
She nodded wordlessly.
He slowly released her and eyed her up and down. “So everything’s okay?”
It was until you hugged me. Now everything felt wicky wocky. “Uh...yeah. Guess so.”
Wilder removed his hat and unbuttoned his barn coat. “Why are you so flushed?”
“I’m not.” Liar. “Just scared to death. Things were howling out there.”
“That’s why I said to keep the door barred.” He pointed to the wooden bar. “I only use the bolt when I’m in for the night.” Then he positioned the door and shoved the bolt back in place. He also situated the bar.
“What took you so long?”
He shrugged. “Told you it could be a few hours, depending on what I found.” He was muddy up to his knees and looked exhausted.
She helped him out of the jacket and watched as he put away his revolver and knife. “So what did you find?”
“Give me a second to catch my breath. I’ve hiked at least three miles down and it felt like five coming back up.” He dropped into his regular chair with a heavy groan. “Not used to all that walking. My dogs are screaming.”
“Dogs?”
He pointed to his feet as he unlaced his boots.
“Oh.” As she smiled at the image, she also filed it away, knowing she could use it some day. No idea how or where, however. “So…” She rolled her hand forward to prompt him.
“Anyhow, those places I was worried about are washed out a good bit, but it should be okay in full daylight if we’re careful. Assuming it doesn’t get any worse overnight.”
“So I’m going home.” Even as she spoke, it felt strange and empty.
“But not ‘til morning.”
She nodded. A new day.
“Where’s Beethoven?” he asked, looking around.
“I haven’t seen him since you put him in the barn.”
“Right. Forgot. He’s with Trigger. They keep each other company when I’m gone.”
“Isn’t that where chickens normally live?”
“Well Beethoven’s more than a run-of-the-mill Buff Orpington. And since he’s become a bachelor, he needs a pal.”
Wouldn’t want a birdy for a buddy. “Why did you name him after a German composer?”
“Thought I’d mentioned that. His first four crowing notes. They’ve changed a lot since he’s matured but when he was just starting out, he sounded like the beginning of the Fifth Symphony.”
She’d have to file that away, too. Though not certain why. “Want something to drink?”
“Yeah. Sounds good,” he said, struggling to remove his muddy boots.
“What do you have besides water, milk, and coffee?”
“Just some home-brewed beer.”
“In the little fridge?”
Wilder nodded.
“I’ll get it for you.”
“Bring two glasses.” He wiggled his toes in heavy wool socks. “You should taste it.”
She paused en route to the kitchen space. “Define home-brewed.”
“I buy the ingredients, then ferment it here.”
“Like a micro-brewery?”
He chuckled. “More like a microscopic brewery. I just make a few gallons at a time.”
“Does it taste like real beer?”
“It is real beer. Just no label...and a much bigger bottle.”
Turned out to be a nearly full gallon—dominating almost half a shelf of his small fridge. She lugged over the container and returned to the drain board for two glasses. “You’d better pour.”
Wilder filled the larger glass and took a noisy sip. Then he poured a few ounces into her smaller cup. “Have a taste and see if you like it. Don’t want to waste any.”
She sniffed tentatively. “Strong.”
“It has body.”
“Tell me again about that fermentation stuff.”
His eyes rolled. “I make it exactly the way it’s been brewed for at least four thousand years—the yeast ferments the grain. Taste it.”
“Beer commercials never say anything about fermenting yeast. That sounds yucky.”
“As I recall from my last exposure to TV, they talk about barley and hops. What did you imagine they do with them?”
“Never gave it any thought.”
“You mean,” he said, pointing toward her head, “as best you can remember.”
She nodded. “Right.”
He took another long draught and watched her over the top of his glass.
Another sniff. “Okay, here goes.” She took a tiny sip. “Wow. Potent.”
“Good or bad?” asked Wilder.
“Not sure. Just powerful.”
“Can’t drink beer by the teaspoon. You need a good-sized swallow.”
She wrinkled her nose. “This won’t make me go blind, will it?”
“That’s bathtub gin. This is home-brewed beer. Drink up.”
After a deep breath, she exhaled partway and drank a medium slurp.
“So, what do you think?”
“Has a little bite to it.”
“You can’t get acquainted with a beer until you take a regulation swallow.” He pantomimed with his empty hand, then nodded toward her glass.
“One more question.”
First he too
k his own swallow. “Shoot.”
“How long have you been making this and drinking it?”
“Started the spring after I moved here and I’ve brewed steady in the year since.” He must have detected her slight frown. “I don’t get drunk every night, if that’s what you’re figuring. Just one tall glass to take the edge off the day.” He made the drinking motion again. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, here goes.” And she took two medium gulps, followed by breath, then a third. Closing her eyes, she strained for the correct descriptors. “Wow. Not bad. Has a woodsy flavor that I don’t recall from store beers.”
“So your memory bank does acknowledge beer?”
“Just a general sense of it.” She took another slurp. “I don’t think I’m a beer drinker, but this is tolerably good. Seems unusually strong, though.”
Wilder had worked his own glass down about half way. “What do you picture you normally drink in your regular setting?”
“Not sure.” She raised her glass again. “Probably sweet tea. Maybe an occasional glass of wine.”
“So you’re not one of those socialites on the cocktail party circuit?”
“Goodness no.” Another medium swallow. “At least I don’t think so. My gut says I’d hate those phony parties.”
“Lots of people who hate them go anyway.” He pointed vaguely down Hardscrabble’s west slope toward the valley. “In many circles, it’s mandatory.”
Funny how thirsty she’d been. “I hope I’m not in one of those circles. Don’t think I am.”
He appraised her at length, then took another long draught. “Somehow I tend to agree—you don’t seem the type who’d bend to that kind of pressure.”
Even after only those few gulps, the woman they both knew as Scarlett began to feel a slight buzz. “What type do I seem like, Cody?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Possibly a bit solitary, like me, but with a small group of close friends...and they’re the ones you can really relax around.”
“Sounds lovely. And I have a feeling that fits me.” Another sip, more than medium. “If it doesn’t, that’s what I plan to work toward when I get back to…”
“Civilization?”
“I was going to say wherever I came from. But, yeah, I suppose wherever it is, it’s certainly got more amenities than…” Her hand moved lazily about the perimeter of the cabin.
He nodded.
Her buzz had intensified and the room seemed to be moving slightly. “That’s not a criticism, Cody. In fact, I kind of like it here. Well, that’s to say, you’ve been wonderfully accommodating to help me get...uh, comfortable.”
“Yet, if you had your druthers…”
“I’m sure I’d rather be back wherever.”
“Perfectly normal, Scarlett. That’s where I started out—back wherever. But I realized one day that I was tired of wherever and wanted to live out in nowhere.”
“You picked a lovely slice of nowhere.” Her eyes blinked slowly shut and opened abruptly.
“I think so too.” He leaned forward and pointed to her glass. “And I believe you’ve had enough beer.”
She gripped it with both hands. “I was just getting started. Besides, it’s nearly empty.”
“I know. But you might not be used to my potency.”
“Isn’t this the normal strength?”
“Uh, closer to triple.” Gently, he extracted the glass from her hands. “I brew mine up to about thirteen per cent alcohol. The stuff you see in grocery stores is probably between three and five per cent.”
“Guess I thought it was all the same.” She almost nodded off. “How do you rev it up that high?”
“By adding either sugar or malt. I prefer sugar...it’s easier.”
She hadn’t stopped him from confiscating her drink, but the why puzzled her—in that hazy sense of someone who drank too much too quickly. Gazing out the dark window, she observed, “Seems to me it would be lonely up here.”
“It has been, since Maggie’s been gone.”
That name again. Scarlett still couldn’t guess how to respond and hadn’t known this brawny mountain man long enough to ask which significant other Maggie was. Leaning against one arm of the loveseat, she tucked her socked feet under the adjacent empty cushion.
Wilder watched intently.
Her words came out slowly, it seemed to her, though not by particular design. “Cody, do you have any friends?”
“Oh, sure.” He drained his own glass and eyed the scant remaining contents of hers. “I stay in contact with Constable Wyatt, the game warden, Digger at the hardware store, plus the butcher and grocer.” He squinted to help his memory. “Oh, plus Doretta, who works with tourists, and Maylene at the post office.”
Some of those names seemed vaguely familiar. “So you do get mail?”
“Maylene holds mine down in the town.”
Scarlett stretched languidly. “So how often do you get it?” Then, realizing how that sounded, she giggled.
Wilder seemed to ignore her slip. “I try to go down at least once a month.”
“When was your last time?”
He peered at her in a strange manner. “Are we still talking about mail?”
She giggled again and her face felt warm.
He shrugged and glanced toward the small wall calendar. “Whenever the last full moon was.”
She looked through the window but saw nothing besides blackness. “Why do you care about the moon cycle?”
“More light...in case it takes longer to get down the mountain or back up.”
“Oh, okay. Makes sense.” Not very romantic though. “So, besides Doretta and that postal lady, do you have any other female friends in the little town down there?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
Scarlett blushed the color of her temporary name. “Just curious. Handsome, muscular mountain man, lonely up in his isolated cabin…I’d think you also have a craving for, um, female companionship.”
He nodded slowly.
“So you don’t plan to reply?”
Cody shook his head.
“In other words, none of my business.”
Smiling, he nodded. “It’s been a long day, Scarlett. We’ll need an early start tomorrow, so let’s get to bed early.”
She gave him a funny look, but he appeared not to notice.
After checking on the stove, Wilder placed something on the bed. “Here’s a clean T-shirt to sleep in, if you want it.” Then he plumped up his own pillow and began squeezing into the loveseat.
“Shouldn’t you be in the bed?”
He grinned. “Might be kinda crowded.”
Her face heated. “I meant…”
“I know what you meant. Good night, Scarlett.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sunday morning
Cody stood near the bed that held the woman he knew only as Scarlett and wondered why it felt so natural seeing her there. The thin blanket hugged the curve of her back and bottom and he struggled to avert his eyes as she began moving. “Good morning.” He pointed toward the coffee pot on the wood burning stove.
Having slipped through the only loose board in the barn wall, Beethoven was on the front porch, alternately crowing and pecking impatiently at the window.
Scarlett looked slightly hung over, but surely that wasn’t possible after less than a quarter pint of his beer—even at triple strength. As she sat up in bed, the covers fell and revealed significant detail of her attractive upper body. If he obeyed instinct, he would stare and hope more skin would show above the loose neck of the borrowed T-shirt...but he forced himself to focus on her face. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and glanced discreetly toward the curtained-off toilet.
“I’ll just go get a few pieces of wood from the porch box.” He gallantly exited.
When he returned, with Beethoven zipping in right behind, Cody dropped the wood noisily and nodded toward the sunlight streaming through his single east-facing window. It took the sun a bit longer
to peek over the mountaintop at an adequate angle to the cabin, than it did to reach folks in the valley below. “Weather break has held. The road will still be a mess, but it’s a lot safer in daylight.” He noticed she’d gotten dressed already. “So if you don’t mind a little mud, we can head down toward town this morning.”
Her face brightened. “That would be wonderful. Do I have time for a sh…?” She reached up to her stringy, un-combed hair. “Oh, never mind, I remember now.”
“You wouldn’t want a shower before we hike in the mud, anyway.”
Beethoven waddled over to investigate her walking shoes, which she hadn’t put on since Cody removed them Friday night. He had wiped off some of the mud, but they were still a mess.
She tucked her feet back from Beethoven. “Some people shower because it’s expected. I must be one of them.”
“Just sayin’ there’s not much point in cleaning up, then getting all sweaty and muddy again on our way down Hardscrabble. Assuming we make it through, you can shower when you get into Boar Mount.”
A frown creased her otherwise lovely forehead. “How long will it take to get there?”
“At Trigger’s walking pace, which is all we could risk on that incline in the mud, seventeen miles should take maybe three hours or so.”
“Gosh, that’s a lot different than twenty minutes to zip to the convenience store.”
“Which store did you usually visit?” He studied her closely.
She screwed up her face. “Don’t remember...but it isn’t far. I think I know somebody who worked there.”
“Any idea who?”
“Not any more.”
Cody smiled. “It’ll come back. And pretty soon we’ll find out who’s been looking for you.”
Her right hand covered her left ring finger reflexively. It was clear what she was wondering.
“If you’re married and he realizes you’re missing, I guarantee he’ll be out searching for you.”
“You can’t know that.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
