A strange lass, to be sure. Strange and stubborn. Her stubbornness would be her downfall.

Fergus walked the horse away from the cave, still leading it by the reins. The ground was far too loose after such heavy rain, and he felt safer relying on his own balance to keep his feet under him—as it was, he slid more than once in the thick mud.

She’d starve to death, no doubt. Or fall prey to a wolf or bear. Or a thief, more likely. How would she defend herself against a thief? Or, worse, a band of them?

Foolish thing. She would soon see the error of it.

Why did he still think of her?

“It matters not,” he muttered, grimacing as he made the slow, careful journey down the side of the hill. Would he ever reach the road? It seemed each step was more treacherous than the last.

The distant rumble caught his attention, as well as that of the horse. The gelding’s ears turned in the direction the crash had come from.

Then, a scream.

A woman’s scream.

He began scrambling up the hill, reins still in hand, before he had time to think twice. It could only be her screaming.

He knew she would end up in such fashion but had never dreamed it would come to pass so swiftly.

“Elspeth!” He waited for her response while still scampering up the hill. The crash was what worried him most, as it could have meant the falling of a tree. The rain-soaked earth would mean greater likelihood of such an event, the roots loosening from the soil.

Another crash, and another scream—muffled this time, but no less panicked than before. Muffled?

That was when he understood what must have happened.

Sure enough, when he reached the place he had only just left, there was hardly anything left to designate the cave’s existence thanks to mud and rock which had fallen from the hillside above it. The entrance was all but blocked from sight, and there was always the chance of even more mudslides from above.

“Elspeth!” he called out while tying the gelding a distance from the cave, ensuring the horse would not find itself trapped in anything which might continue to fall. “Are ye injured?”

“No!” she cried. “Trapped!”

“I know,” he grimaced. There was nothing to be done but dig her out. He searched about for a sturdy limb in the hopes of using it as a shovel of sorts and found one nearby.

“I am going to dig ye out!” he shouted after removing his tunic. It would be better not to ruin the thing, and he had the feeling the work he was about to put his hands to would indeed destroy it.

“Use caution!” she advised. “There could be another slide!”

“It’s grateful I am for the reminder,” he grunted as he got to work. “I might not have considered the possibility if you’d not brought it up.” He lifted a rock in both hands and tossed it aside.

“What?”

“Nothing. Stay away from the entrance and keep the mare away as well.”

“I had not intended to do otherwise,” she retorted.

“Must ye always have something to say?” he snarled as he struggled to remove the brush and mud. It seemed no matter how he worked, he never managed to make headway.

She did not respond, which he considered a blessing. Sweat broke out over his back and shoulders, dripped down the sides of his face and over his chest and caused leaves and needles to stick to his skin. It was nasty work which would only have been worse had the sun revealed itself. Luckily, the clouds were still thick and dark overhead.

It seemed a lifetime before he’d cleared enough space that he might look in at her. “Where are ye?” he asked, the question echoing.

“Here.” She waved her arms, further back in the cave.

“Are ye all right?”

“As well as can be.” Yet there was an edge to her voice.

“Are ye in pain?”

“No, I am well.”

“Ye sound as though you’re pained.”

She groaned. “I twisted my ankle while jumping back from the landslide.”

“Why could ye not simply state it?”

“Could you please help me out of here?” she demanded, rather than answer.

“Now she wishes for my help,” he snorted to himself—loud enough for her to hear, naturally.

She merely huffed in reply.

He returned to the task at hand, as he would not have left her to perish in the cave no matter how stubborn she was or how difficult to reason with. It was not in his nature to leave a person in peril, regardless of his personal feelings toward them.

And she might not have been an altogether bad sort if she might only cease her endless grumbling.

His shoulders burned, his arms ached, and yet he continued to move mud and rock away from the cave as though his life depended upon it.

It might very well have, after all, seeing as how another slide could bury him. He kept one eye on the rock face above him, watching for any shift in the earth which covered it. Please, let it hold, he prayed to no particular entity. Anyone who might be listening was welcome to assist him.

Had it only been the lass, he might have stopped partway through and helped her scramble up through the hole he’d dug. The mare complicated matters. He would no sooner leave an animal to starve to death than he would a human.

“I can help you,” Elspeth insisted as she began digging out from inside.

“You must rest your ankle,” he grunted between breaths.

“I can stand on one foot,” she insisted, and her small but capable hands began moving in the mud, matching his own efforts.

Though he was loath to admit it, she made the work easier. Pulling a rock from the mud with her on the other side to push from behind it was child’s play. He even found himself smiling at her once her face became visible.

She merely averted her eyes.

He gritted his teeth and returned to work, grunting from the effort, pushing his body past the point of exhaustion until a slim window opened at one side of the cave.

“Can ye lead the mare through?” he asked, backing away.

It took time for Elspeth to convince the horse to leave the cave, and Fergus could understand why. The poor beast was likely terrified of what might come of another attempt to exit. Yet little by little the mare began walking to the front of the cave.

“Hurry,” Fergus whispered, watching the ground above for movement.

“I know,” Elspeth hissed, then returned to crooning softly as she comforted the mare.

Finally, she appeared, and soon after the horse’s head, neck, and so on until the two of them stood outside the cave again.

Fergus released the breath he’d been holding in anticipation, bending at the waist with his palms on his knees. His back ached terribly from exertion he had not seen the likes of in too many years.

But he was realized he was happy. Not simply relieved at the lass’s safety. Genuinely happy. He dismissed it as pride in himself for having done a good deed, along with pride at what he had accomplished physically.

“Thank you,” she whispered, stroking the mare’s neck. “You did us a great service.”

“Now, ye see what I meant,” he replied, still a bit winded. And he’d always considered himself to be in top form.

Her expression of reluctant gratitude hardened to resentment, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing.

“A woman cannot so much as express gratitude without you reminding her how weak she is,” she snarled, eyes flashing fire. They might have been quite lovely eyes, wide and green, had they not looked so hard.

“I did not—”

“You seem to have forgotten how I dug as well. On an injured ankle, no less!”

“This is not a competition.”

“I merely wish to remind you that I might have freed myself if you had been too far away to assist me.”

His very bones ached, his muscles were weak. If he had stretched out right there in the mud, he believed he might have been asleep before his head touched the ground.

He was not up to the task of arguing with an impossible woman.

“Have it your way,” he relented as he wiped the mud from his bare arms, then flung it to the ground. “I’ll not be bothering ye again, lass, since you are more than capable of handling yourself in any situation the wilderness holds in store.”

She turned her gaze from him to her saddle, fingering the stitching as though it suddenly held great importance. “Very well.”

He waited for one last expression of gratitude.

It never came.

His blood boiled as he untied the gelding and led it down the hill in search of the quickest path to the river. Would that he might wash the entire experience away along with the mud.