CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lenny laughed so loud and so hard she was sure Patrick would wake up. But he didn’t. “Begin as you mean to go on.” Lenny slapped his thigh and started laughing again.
She had no idea what the joke was. “You can wake him up and take him with you if you want.” She wasn’t sure if she wanted Patrick to stay or not. Maybe it was better if she let him choose.
“Nuh huh. If you stay, he stays too. I won’t leave you here by yourself. Not in your condition. Even if you say you feel better. Jenna would have my head on a plate. And I’d deserve it.”
Lenny shuffled his feet for all the world like those young brother-in-laws of his. And then he reached into his hip pocket and brought out a small phone. “Just in case you have an emergency while you’re up here. This is my satellite phone. The one they call me on if there’s a fire.” Lenny was captain of the volunteer fire department.
She put her hands behind her back. “We don’t need that. We’ll be fine. And if there’s a fire, folks will need to get a hold of you.”
“I’ll just have to stay within range of the cell towers so they can get me on my mobile. But there’s no cell service up here. It’ll be safer if you can call for help or a drive down mountain when you want one. Go on, take it. In case there’s an emergency.”
Heather watched Lenny drive slowly off. His satellite phone was in her back pocket. She took the duffel into the house and opened it. It contained clean, dry clothes. Her own jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt and underwear were in a shopping sack. The rest of the things didn’t look like the fancy duds Patrick usually wore. They looked like Lenny’s second-best working clothes.
But Patrick’s watch was underneath inside one of a pair of soggy loafers. She took the shoes outside and stuffed them with leaves to hold their shape and set them on a stump to dry. When she went back into the house she tucked the satellite phone in the back of Aunt Marlene’s junk drawer.
* * *
He woke up from a dream in which he was snuggled up with his new wife. But Heather was missing from their cozy nest, and he was tangled up not with her plump and vigorous legs, but with the sheets. When he sat up she wasn’t far away. She looked up from her book but she didn’t smile.
“Bathroom?”
She pointed to a door beside the kitchen. “You’re in luck, there’s a commode in the lean-to.”
There was. The chemical toilet shared the space with a humming generator. Someone had put a shallow, enamel basin of water beside the toilet. There was a ragged towel hanging on the back of the door. Despite its holes and frayed hems, it smelled clean. He washed up and rearranged his toga before he went back out.
“Supper’s almost ready,” she said. She pointed to a black duffel bag. “Lenny brought you some clothes.”
“I can be ready to go in a moment,” he responded.
“He’s already gone home.”
“You should’ve woken me.” He tried to keep from snapping. “When is he coming back?”
She shrugged and went back to her book.
“Didn’t you ask?”
“I’m not in any hurry. If you want to fight about it – and it sure sounds like you do – put your clothes on first.”
He took his dismissal as graciously as he could. He would’ve slammed the door to the lean-to, but the humid forest air had made it swell, and while it would shut, slamming it was out of the question. The clothes in the duffel weren’t his. They weren’t Zeke’s either.
The big plaid shirt was too long in the sleeves, and the tail hung way past his ass. But at least it fit across the shoulders. He had a feeling he had done some growing after his jaunt through the woods in bear. His chest which had only needed a touchup at the salon was now covered in thick black hair.
He scratched himself. He had never spent more than a few minutes in bear in his life. Apparently nearly twenty-four hours of bear shifting had changed him physically. It seemed to have done something to his mind as well. He just had to figure out what.
He had to roll up Lenny’s jeans. They were old and soft and stained. His nose had told him that they belonged to Lenny Benoit. Same for the heavy socks. Dressed like a shoeless mountain man he went back out to have that fight with Heather.
She was busy at the stove. Two big trout sizzled in a huge frying pan. She didn’t turn her head to look at him. “Are you thirsty?”
He was. “I am.”
“There’s water, pop, or beer. None of it’s cold.” There was no apology in her voice.
“Where’d you get the water from?”
“Creek.”
“Did you boil it?” Because although he had drunk his fill of river water while he was in bear, he wasn’t so sure his human stomach could handle it.
This time she didn’t turn around to look at him. “I’m not half as stupid as you think I am. Not even a quarter. Of course, it’s boiled.” She used her spatula to point at a plastic jug.
“Thank you.”
“Glasses are in that cupboard.”
“Thank you.” He poured water. Drank it. “You want to tell me what’s got your dander up? And why you stranded us up here in the backwoods?”
“In a minute. You go make the bed. These fish are nearly done. We can talk while we are eating supper.” She turned her back on him again.
It didn’t take long to make up the bed. Two sheets and a blanket were all there was. The fish smelled wonderful. His stomach growled. “Mind if I look around?”
“Not much to look at. But you go right ahead.”
Besides the lean-to there was a single small bedroom. Two bare three-tier bunks with their skinny mattresses rolled up, a bookshelf with the ancient rejects of several generations of readers, and a rickety dresser were all there was in that room. The dresser drawers were empty.
He found a narrow closet in the hall. A broom, a mop and another pail like the two by the kitchen counters. A plastic tub on the single shelf contained the kind of raggedy towels that in his family were reserved to wipe your dog’s feet. He put the lid back on.
The living room he had already seen. There was nothing wrong with the construction of the cabin. Compared to those rotting raccoon hutches he had checked out, this was high living Yakima Ridge style. “Can I do anything?” he asked, not really expecting to be given a chore.
“You can lay the table. Use your same glass. That’s mine over there. Cutlery is in this drawer.” Heather pointed with her spatula to the drawer by her hip.
“Smells good.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was stiff. And she smelled not ripe and welcoming as she had when they had made love, but scared and unhappy.
Shift on a stick. His little wife was afraid of him. Not so scared that she was backing down from a fight. But scared enough that she didn’t want to have one. And if that wasn’t a working definition of courage, he didn’t know what was. “Do we get napkins?”
“Nope. Not unless you want to go find some leaves.”
“And we can’t even wipe our hands on our clothes – these are the only ones I’ve got.”
As he had intended, that made her laugh. “This will be ready in a moment. In the meantime, your watch is over by the bed on that little shelf. Your shoes are out on the stump drying.”
His handmade Italian loafers would never be the same again. Their thin soles were coming unstitched from the uppers. The right one was missing its tassel. They had never been intended for a walk anywhere but city sidewalks, let alone on the kinds of trails he had subjected them to. But he supposed they were better than no shoes at all.
They had dried into a funny shape. But not as funny as they would have if someone had not stuffed the toes with leaves. Lenny’s socks were great, heavy working-men’s socks. The loafers wouldn’t go on over them. He carried the shoes into the house and looked around for someplace to put them where they wouldn’t trip over them.
“Put them in the duffel and put the duffel in the bedroom.” As an afterthought she added, “Please.”
* * *
The fish was good. Flaky and delicate. The purslane she had found by the river had delicately flavored the trout. Of course the reason the fish was so delicious was because they had been alive moments before they were put in the pan.
Patrick was hungry. He was trying to be dainty. But it was obvious that he was hungry. She reminded herself that he had slept through lunch and might not have eaten since the day before. It would be better if they had their quarrel after his belly was full. He would be less irritable. And what she had to say was bound to irritate him.
He had laid the table so they were facing one another from opposite ends. It was a long harvest table, out of some old Dupré farmhouse, intended for a group of large muscular bears to sit around. There was a six-foot span between them. It seemed like a safe distance. But she would still wait until he slowed down. She looked up from her own plate to see his eyes were on her.
“I’m glad to see you have an appetite,” he said.
“It’s the fresh air. I feel much better up here. Like I can breathe again.” She knew she wasn’t doing a good job of explaining. She went back to eating her canned peas and pan-fried fish.
“You have better color too.”
More personal remarks. “So do you.”
He chuckled. “It must be Lenny’s clothes.”
“It was kind of him to bring you some.”
“Yes, it was.” He took the entire backbone out of the trout and laid it on the edge of his plate. He fished a few tiny bones out of the flesh and looked up at her again. “You finish your supper. I’m not going to ruin your appetite by squabbling at the dinner table.”
Was he trying to get the upper hand by being the magnanimous grown-up, or was he just trying to be polite? She nodded at him. She didn’t think she was going to be able to finish her plate, but she had managed to eat much more than she had in a long time. When she set her knife and fork down on one side of her plate, he still hadn’t spoken.
“There’s dessert,” she said. “And I can make coffee.”
“I didn’t see a fridge.” It was a question.
“Nope. No fridge. Uncle Bobby and Aunt Marlene usually bring up a couple of coolers of frozen things. But Logan and Elijah didn’t bless us with one.”
He grinned at her. Big white teeth in a wide mouth. She was willing to bet he wasn’t used sitting at the dinner table with two days’ stubble on his chin. “I wasn’t complaining, I was asking if I could eat the rest of your trout.”
“I’m done.” She got up and passed him her plate.
“Thank you. I don’t say I have never been this hungry, but I do seem to have worked up quite an appetite.” His eyes flicked towards the bed.
“Taking bear is always a big energy drain.” Even to her own ears, she sounded prim.
He grunted. Or maybe he laughed. “This is very good. What’s for dessert?”
“Blackberries and evaporated milk.”
“Sounds like you’re used to living off the land.”
“Evaporated milk is not living off the land.”
“I have no objection to the judicious use of the products of civilization – in moderation, of course.”
Was that some sort of a joke? Or was he just using his twenty-dollar words to make her feel small?
He must’ve read her mind because he tried another smile. “That was my idea of a wisecrack. I’ve eaten my share of K-rations. This supper is much better than I had hoped for. You’re a good cook.”
It wasn’t much as praise went. But she must’ve been starved for some, because she felt warmed all the way through. She remembered that he was in the Colorado National Guard and must be used to roughing it at least occasionally. “We’ll have to carry the bones all the way out to the road. Otherwise we will attract wild animals.”
“I’ve never seen so many raccoons as I did last night. It sure seemed that all you people do is build them houses. There must’ve been twenty in that house up by the waterfall.”
She nodded. “It’s been empty a long time. These woods are full of all kinds of critters. Coyotes, mountain lions, and bears. I don’t mean bear shifters. I mean real bears that will eat you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Trash is to be removed from the immediate vicinity.” He winked at her.
She didn’t know why, but she giggled. And he seemed to like that because he nodded approvingly and was smiling as he finished up her supper.