Scarlet Fever (7 page)

Anne decided to change the subject. “We’re actually going to starve to death, aren’t we?” she asked, wanly. “When the canned goods are gone?”

“I’ll let you know when I’ve finished fishing.”

She made a face. “It doesn’t matter. I hate fish, anyway.”

“Then you will definitely starve to death. I, on the other hand, am extremely fond of all varieties of fish, although I will miss having tartar sauce.”

“There are no fish in there, pal,” she shouted. “Where the hell would they
come
from?”

He didn’t answer.

She trudged back to the plane and took a nap in the front seat, but an hour later, she was awakened by a tap on her shoulder. Cameron held up a string of four scrawny-looking fish, none of them more than seven or eight inches long. “Not much to show for a full afternoon’s angling, but enough to keep starvation at bay; what do you think?”

“I think you robbed the fish cradle. These don’t look big enough to be legal.”

“Then I suggest that you keep a sharp eye out for the local game warden, while I build a fire.”

“I told you, I hate fish.”

“Then you don’t have to watch me eat them,” he said cheerfully.

Minutes later, a tantalizing fragrance of cooking food drifted into the cabin. Anne wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and strolled over to the small fire, where Cameron was lifting crisply browned fish and forkfuls of wild onions from their only pan, and laying it on the two tin plates. She sat down and took the steaming plate he offered her, without comment.

She tasted the fish, and made a face.

“Well,” he said, “I never claimed to be a cook. A mighty fisherman, yes, but not a cook.”

“Are you kidding?” she breathed. “This is the most fantastic thing I’ve ever tasted in my whole life.” She shoveled another forkful of crumbling, overcooked fish into her mouth, and sighed with pleasure. “You’re amazing.”

“I thought I was a brute and a bully,” he suggested, handing her a cup of hot tea.

“You are, but you’re also a culinary genius.”

“Enjoy it,” he said. “I think the local fish and game department forgot to restock the ponds, out here. These may have been the last of a tribe of very lonely fish. The other bad news is that I had to use the next to last match to get this fire going.”

“Okay,” she said, licking the last of the delicious grease from her fingers, “tomorrow, we’ll
both
try our luck fishing. I’ll eat the damned things raw, if I have to.”

He smiled, and pushed the last scraps of burned fish onto her plate.

She shook her head. “That’s not fair. You’ve hardly eaten anything.”

“I had a big lunch,” he said. “At the office.”

* * * * *

When Anne went to bed that night, she waited until Cameron was asleep before she began inching steadily closer to him. When she was as close as she could get without waking him, she inched a bit further, and then settled in for the night, with her head tucked under his arm. Just before she fell sleep, it suddenly occurred to her that she might be— for the very first time in her life—about to fall in love.

“Just my luck,” she muttered drowsily. “Of all the men in the damned world, I had to fall for Dudley DoRight.” She yawned. “It’s
got
to be that damned red uniform.” She didn't even want to think about the bulge.

Anne awoke the next morning feeling oddly happy, and even cheerful. She knew why, but was still reluctant to admit to herself that it was her changed feeling for Geoffrey Cameron that was making her happy. She’d had similar feelings about a man before, and ended up regretting both the feelings and the man. Besides, it was fairly obvious that this
particular
man would be more than happy to never see her again. Anne sighed. The truth was that she sometimes had that effect on men. One of them had even called her a
feminazi—
right to her face. Of course, this was the same guy who couldn’t get through an hour’s discussion about women’s issues without using the word “boobs” at least a half-dozen times. The same guy who explained his theory to her—at tiresome length—that women shouldn’t get paid the same as men, because they had periods every month, and because they could always get knocked up on purpose just to collect unemployment.

“Face it, Annie
,” she thought. “
This is going to end up like all the other ones.
You scare
the shit out of the nice guys, and the domineering jerks see you as a challenge.
Every man you’ve ever been with has been too wimpy, or too controlling. You’re a thirty-four year old spinster with a chip on your shoulder, no romantic prospects, and you’re developing crows’ feet. You’ve been plucking out gray hairs for two years, now. Time to learn how to crochet,
and get a couple of cats.”

The inside of the plane was freezing, and Geoff (she had begun to think of him as Geoff, now, and not Sergeant Cameron) was in the front, apparently napping, so she allowed herself a little more time in the warm bed, and spent most of it wallowing in self-pity. Finally, weary of thinking about her future, she crawled out of her sleeping bag, stretched, and prepared to face her present— as unpromising as it seemed to be.

When she reached for the door handle, though, Cameron reached across the seat and took her wrist. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” she asked. “
Here we go again,”
she thought. “
My lord and master, telling me I can’t go to the damned bathroom without an armed escort.”

“We have company,” he said.

Anne glanced out the cracked windshield, but saw no one. “They found us!” she yelped, looking again. “So, where are they?”

He pointed toward the campsite, and Anne stared—not at the rescue team she was hoping to see, but at an enormous brown bear and three cubs.

“Bears!”

“Excellent guess,” he said. “
Ursus Horribilis,
to be exact, and family. Grizzlies, mother and children—triplets, from the look and size of them. Probably from last year.”

“But, we’re safe in here, aren’t we?” she asked nervously. “The plane is like, solid steel or something, right?”

He chuckled. “Would you like to know how many tax dollars the Canadian government spends each year, trying to devise steel buildings that can deter hungry bears?”

“Do you think she knows we’re here?”

“Probably not. The wind is in our favor. Besides, we‘re far enough away not to be a threat to her. She‘ll probably move off if she gets wind of us.”

“What do they eat, usually?”

“Bears will eat almost anything. At the moment, our guests appear to be enjoying that three pound bag of marshmallows you had in your backpack.”

“Too bad I didn’t bring Graham crackers and Hershey Bars, too,” Anne grumbled. “That’s a joke, Sarge. In the United States, we…”

“Canadians aren’t savages, Miss Wilson. We know all about S’mores.”

Anne moved closer to the side window, for a better view of the picnicking bears. “She’s kind of a pig, your mother bear. The marshmallows are the only thing sweet we have—or
had
, anyway. I hope all that sugar goes straight to her hips.”

Cameron smiled. “She’ll still be one of the most beautiful five hundred pound females on earth.”

Anne sighed. “It makes you wonder about people, doesn’t it? What kind of moron would want to shoot such a wonderful creature?”

He turned to her and smiled, again. “I believe there may be hope for you, yet, Miss Wilson.”

“If the females are that large, how big do the males get?“ she asked.

“Up to eight hundred pounds, and nine feet tall.”

“Do you think he’s around, somewhere, too? The father bear, I mean?”

Cameron shook his head. “Not if
she
can help it. That may be why she seems nervous. There may be a male around somewhere.”

“Don’t the females stay with the males, for protection?”

“The male grizzly makes a very poor husband, I’m afraid, and a worse father. His family duties appear to last only as long as his erection does.”

“I never thought of a bear having an erection,” she mused. “Have you ever seen…”

“No, I haven’t. And in any case, I wouldn’t think that would be the ideal moment to investigate, would you?”

They watched for close to an hour, while the mother grizzly and her cubs essentially decimated their remaining food supply, even ripping open a few of the expired cans.

“So much for breakfast,” she sighed. “Maybe there’s a few fish left in the lake?”

“I’ll try for a rabbit, later. I’ve seen a few tracks up on the ridge.”

“Rabbits are too cute,” she said miserably. “I don’t think I could eat a rabbit.”

He grinned. “You didn’t think you could eat fish, either.”

She groaned. “I know. And before I got here, I was a vegetarian.”

* * * * *

When rescue didn’t come after almost two weeks, and the weather kept getting colder, Anne’s anxiety got worse by the day. She could tell that Cameron was trying to remain cheerful in order to keep
her
spirits up, but with the canned food almost gone, the fish apparently a thing of the past, and rabbits rarer than he’d hoped for, she knew it was becoming harder for him every day.

“Look at the bright side,” she quipped on the thirteenth afternoon, while they were finishing off the last of the small rabbit he’d bagged the day before. “For the first time in my life, I’m actually losing weight without spending money on a gym. Roasted rabbit must be very low in calories, and I’m even beginning to like it.”

He pointed to the rabbit’s picked-over skeleton, and tried to smile “There certainly weren’t many calories in that one. I probably used more getting the fire going than we took in. I hope you’ll like raw rabbit as well as you do cooked rabbit. The two sticks thing is harder than it sounds, especially when you don’t have sticks. Wouldn’t you think with all the junk we found in the plane, there’d have been at least one box of matches?”

“Actually, I’ve read that raw food is better for you,” Anne suggested. “Even the meat is better raw. More vitamins, or something. And it tastes better, too.”

“Another lie like that, Miss Wilson, and I may have to waste some of my waning energy on spanking you. It’s been four days since you stepped out of line or called me something grossly obscene. It would be a shame to break what’s probably a record for you.”

“You told me I was a slow learner,” she said. “Maybe I’m improving.”

He chuckled. “Let’s not get our hopes up too high, shall we? It’s more likely the lack of protein that’s making you too tired to argue about every single thing.”

She hesitated, then asked the question she’d been wanting to ask.

“We could still try walking out of here, you know.”

“I’m beginning to think you
want
that spanking,” he said quietly.

“Is it really that hopeless?”

When he didn’t answer immediately, she watched his face for a moment, and asked her second question.

“It
is
possible, isn’t it? If we leave right away, while we’re still not too weak?”

“No, it’s not possible. Not both of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I can lay in enough food for you to survive on ‘til I can get back with help, I might make it on foot. With luck. And decent weather, of course.”

“Without
me
?”

“I can move faster alone, and hunt as I go. I’ll take the rifle, and leave my sidearm with you, in case you need it. But you’ll have to promise me that you’ll stay in the plane, or within a few feet of it, at most. If we’re this short of food, the bears will be, too. They’ll probably be denning up, soon, but there’s still a risk of another visit. They tend to come back to anyplace they’ve found food.”

“I won’t let you go alone,” she said firmly. “What if something happens to you?”

“It won’t.”

“Now, you’re just being arrogant,” she said. “And stupid. You’re not as young as you used to be, you know.”

He grinned. “Thank you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it’s true. Besides, you know perfectly well how accident-prone I am. What if I shoot myself in the foot, or something?”

“You’re too smart for that. And if you do anything that foolish, after I’ve taught you how to handle a loaded weapon, you’ll get the mother of all spankings— even with your foot in a cast.”

She smiled. “Just what I’ve always said. You’re a bully and a brute.”

He stood up, and looked up at the sky. “In any case, we don’t have to decide that, now. We’ve got a couple of days, yet, before it gets to that point. Right now, though, it looks like we’re in for another snow. Late tonight, probably.” He glanced down at the campfire.

“Why don’t you clear up here, and rinse out the dishes, while I reorganize in the cabin. We may be stuck inside for a day or so.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I did the dishes last night,” she said.

“Nice try, but
I
did the dishes last night. And the night before that, as I recall.”

“You know what I read?” she asked. “I read that when you get close to forty, you start losing more than 400,000 brain cells a day. Isn’t that shocking?”

“Shocking,” he agreed, as he walked away toward the plane. “Now, wash the damned dishes.”

“What about the bears?” she asked sweetly.

“They can wash their own dishes.”

* * * * *

It was more than a half an hour by the time she carried water from the lake, scoured the dishes as clean as could get them with nothing but sand, and walked back to the plane.

As she came closer, she heard noises from inside, and a moment later, several items sailed out the rear window into the snow.

Curious and mildly alarmed, she flung open the cockpit door, and stared.

There had been a miraculous transformation in their primitive living quarters.

The two damaged rear seats that had forced them to sleep in fetal positions had been pulled up from the floor and rearranged against the right side of the plane, with the wooden crate that had held the canned goods between them. In the space the seats had once occupied, Cameron had fashioned a larger sleeping area, with their sleeping bags spread out on top of eight or ten inches of the ubiquitous moss. One of the tattered wool blankets served as a cover for what looked like a very serviceable, even
comfortable
bed.