Two Alone (9 page)

When the father and son had moved out of earshot, he bent over her and whispered, "Don't be shy of using that knife." She looked up at him with alarm. "Just in case these Good Samaritans turn on us." He laid the crutches across her lap and picked her up in his arms.

The Gawrylows were already well up the side of the ravine.
H
e started after them, keeping one eye on them and the other
mi
the treacherously steep incline. If he fell, Rusty would go with
him
. She had put up a brave front, bur he knew her leg must be
c
ausing her considerable discomfort.

"Do you really think we'll be rescued tomorrow, Cooper?"

"Looks like there's a good chance. If we make it to the river
and
if a boat of some kind happens by." He was breathing with difficulty. Sweat had popped out on his forehead. His jaw was with determination.

"You need a shave." The remark came from nowhere, but it
in
dicated to them both how carefully she'd been studying his face. Without moving
his head, he
cast his eyes down toward her. Embarrassed, she looked away and murmured, "Sorry I'm so heavy." "Hardl
y
. Your clothes weigh more than you do." That comment reminded them that he knew just how much
of
her was clothing and how much was flesh and bone. He'd seen
her
without any clothes, hadn't he? Rusty decided that if all their t
con
versations were going to result in awkwardness, it was safer not to engage in conversation at all.

Besides, by this time they had reached
t
he top of the ravine.
Qu
inn
was biting off a chaw of tobacco. Reuben had removed
th
e
stocking cap and was fanning himself with i
t
. His dark hair was greasily plastered to his head.

Co
oper set Rusty down. Wordlessly Quinn offered him the brick of tobacco. Rusty was grateful when, with a shake of his
head
, Cooper turned it down.

"We'll wait unt
il you're rested," Quinn said. C
ooper looked down at Rusty. Her face was pale with fatigue.
Her
leg was probably hurting. The moist wind had picked up,
mak
ing the temperature noticeably colder. No doubt she needed to take it slow and easy, but all things considered, the sooner he got her under a roof, fed, and lying down, the better.

"No need to wait. Let
’
s go," he said tersely.

He pulled Rusty to her feet and propped her up on her crutches. He noticed her wince with pain, but steeled himself against compassion and indicated to their hosts that they were ready to proceed.

At least the remaining distance to the cabin was level ground. By the time they reached it, however, Rusty's strength was totally spent, She collapsed on the sagging porch like a rag doll.

"Let's get the woman inside," Quinn said as he pushed open the door.

The rickety door was attached to its frame by leather hinges. The interior of the cabin looked as uninviting as an animal's lair. Rusty eyed the opening with trepidation and a sense of dread. Then and there she decided that there were worse things than being exposed to the outdoors.

Cooper remained expressionless as he scooped her into his arms and carried her into the gloomy interior. The small windows were so blackened by grime that they let in little light. A dim, smoky
fire
gave off meager illumination, but what Rusty and Cooper saw would have been better left hidden in darkness.

The cabin was filthy. It stank of wet wool, rancid grease, and unwashed men. The only merit it had was that it was warm. Cooper carried Rusty toward the stone he
arth and set her down in a cush
ion less
, straight-backed chair. He upended an aluminum bucket and propped the foot of her injured leg on it. He stirred the fire with an iron poker. The desultory flames showed new life when he
added
sticks of firewood from the wooden box on the hearth.

The Gawrylows stamped in. Reuben closed the door behind them, deepening the darkness inside. In spite of the warmth
t
he fire was now giving off, Rusty shivered and shrank deeper into her coat.

"You must be hungry." Quinn went to the wood-burning stove in one corner. He lifted the lid on a simmering pot and peered inside. "Stew smells done. Want some?"

Rusty was on the verge of refusing but Cooper answered for both of them. "Yes, please. Got any coffee?"

"Sure. Reuben, start a pot of coffee co boiling."

The younger man hadn't stopped scaring at Rusty since he'd dunk in and dropped Cooper's and her belongings just inside
the
door.

Cooper followed Reuben's gawking stare back to Rusty. He wished to hell the firelight didn't shine through her hair, making
it
shimmer. Pale and drawn as her face was, her eyes looked huge, vulnerable, female. To the young man, who apparen
tl
y lived
a
lone in this wilderness with his father, a woman wouldn't even
ha
ve
to be pretty to be enticing. Rusty must have embodied his wildest fantasies.

With his bare hand, Reuben reached
into a metal canister of coff
ee and tossed a handful into an enamel po
t
. He filled the pot with water from the pump in the dry sink and set it on
t
he
s
tove to boil. Within a few minutes Rusty and Cooper were handed plates filled with an unidentifiable stew. She was sure
s
h
e
was better off not knowing what meat was in it, so she re
frai
ned from asking. She chewed and swallowed quickly. It was at least hot and filling. The coffee was so strong that she
g
rimaced as she swallowed, but she drank most of it.

While they ate, Cooper and she had a captivated audience. The older man's stare was more subtle than his son's, but possibly more observant. His deep-set eyes didn't miss a single move they made.

He broke a long silence by asking, "You married?"

"Yes," Cooper lied easily. "Five years."

Rusty swallowed the last bite she'd taken, hoping that the Gawrylows didn't notice how difficult it was to get down. She was glad Cooper had taken
t
he initiative to answer. She didn't think she could have uttered a word.

"Kids?"

This time Cooper got tongue-tied, so it was left to Rusty to say "No," hoping that that answer was satisfactory to her "husband." She planned on asking him later why he had lied, but for now she would play along. His wariness was out of proportion, she thought; but she would still rather all
y
herself with him than with the Gawrylows.

Cooper finished eating and set his plate and cup aside. He glanced around the cabin. "You don't have a transmitter, do you? A ham radio?"

"No."

"Have you heard any airplanes flying over lately?"

"I haven't. Reuben?" Gawrylow nudged his gawking son in the knee. The younger man dragged his eyes away from Rusty. "Planes?" he asked stupidly.

"We crashed two days ago," Cooper explained. "They're
boun
d
to
have figured that out by now. I thought there might have been search planes out looking for survivors."

I
haven't heard any planes," Reuben said abruptly and returned his unwavering attention to Rusty.

"How can you stand to live so far away from everything?" she asked. Such self-imposed isolation dismayed her. She couldn't imagine doing without the amenities a city had to offer, particu
larly
by choice. Even rural living would be tolerable if one could get to a city every now and then. But to deliberately sever all
contact
s
with civilization—

"We walk to the river and hitch a ride to Yellowknife twice a
year
,"
Quinn told them, "Once in April and once in October.
We
stay for a few days, sell a few pelts, buy what supplies we'll need, and hitch a ride back. That's all the dealings we want with the outside world."

"But why?" Rusty asked.

"
I
got a bellyful of towns and people.
I
lived in Edmonton,
wo
rked on a freight dock. One day the boss accused me of stealing."

"Were
you?"

Rusty was amazed at Cooper's audacity, but the old man
didn
't seem to take offense at the blunt question. He merely
cac
kled and spat a stringy wad of tobacco juice into the fireplace.

"It was easier to disappear than to go to cour
t
and prove my
innocence,"
he said evasively. "Reuben's mother was dead. He
and
I just up and left. Took nothing with us but what money
had and the clothes on our backs."

"
H
ow long ago was this?"

"Ten years. We drifted for a while, then gradually migrated h
er
e.
We liked it. We stayed." He shrugged. "We've never felt
t
he urge
t
o go back."

H
e concluded his story. Rusty had finished ea
t
ing, but the
G
awrylows seemed content to continue staring at Cooper and her.

"If you'll excuse us," Cooper said after an awkward silence,
I
’
d
like to check my wife's injury."

Those
t
wo words,
my
wife's
,
seemed to come easily to his lips, hut they jangled with falsehood in Rusty's ears. She wondered i
f
the Gawrylows were convinced that they were a couple.

Quinn carried their plates to the sink where he pumped water over them. "Reuben, do your chores."

The young man seemed inclined to argue, but his father shot him a baleful, challenging glance. He shuffled toward the door, pulling on his coat and cap as he went. Quinn went out onto the porch and began stacking firewood against the wall of the cabin.

Rusty leaned close to Cooper where he knelt in front of her. "What do you think?"

"About what?"

"About them," she replied with asperity. He pinched the hem of her slacks between his fingers and sliced a knee-high tear in them with his knife. She reacted angrily. "Why'd you do that? This is my last pair of slacks. I won't have any clothes left by the time you get through cutting them to shreds."

He raised his head. His eyes were hard. "Would you rather take them off and give Reuben an eyeful of those nothing-to-them panties you wear?"

She opened her mouth, but discovered that she had no proper comeback, so she fell silent while he unwrapped her bandages and checked her stitched wound. It seemed to have suffered no ill effects as a result of her hike. But it was sore again. Lying to him about it was useless since she was grimacing by the time he finished rewrapping it.

"Hurt?"

"A little, yes," she admitted.

"Stay off it for the rest of the day. Either sit here or lie on the pallet I'm about to make."

"Pallet? What about the beds?" She glanced across the room to where two beds stood against adjacent walls. "Don't you think they'll offer me one?"

He laughed. "I'm sure Reuben would love for you to join him
in
his. But unless you want lice, I'd advise you to stay out of it."

She jerked her leg back. Cooper just couldn't be nice, could he? They were comrades because they had to be, but they wer
e
not—no, definitely not—friends.

It seemed to take forever for bedtime to arrive. Early in the evening they shared another meal with the Gawrylows. Their discussion about the extensive hike to the Mackenzie River carried over long after they were finished eating.

"There's no path to follow. It's rugged terrain, so it
’
s a full day's walk," Quinn told them.

"We'll leave as soon as it's light enough." Cooper hadn't let Rusty out of his sight. He'd kept an eagle eye on her all afternoon. Now, as she sat in the straight-backed chair, he sat beside her on the floor, a proprietary arm draped over her
t
high. "We won't need to pack much. I don't plan to take everything—only what's absolutely necessary."

Quinn asked, "What about the woman?"

Rus
ty
f
elt Cooper's biceps contract against her leg. "What about her?"

"She'll slow us down."

"I'll stay here
with her, Pa," Reuben offered gallantly.

"No." Cooper's response was as sharp as a jab made with a
hat
pin. "She goes. I don't care how slow we have to travel."

"It's all the same to us," Quinn said with his characteristic
shr
ug, "but I thought you were in a hurry to contact your friends
an
d family. They must be worried about you."

Rusty glanced down at the t
op of Coopers head. "Cooper?" H
e looked up at her. "I don't mind staying here alone. If you can cover more ground without me hobbling along, it only makes sense, doesn't it? You could call my father as soon as you
g
et to a telephone. He'll send someone to pick me up. This could
a
ll be over by tomorrow night."

He regarded her wistful expression. She
'd
go along and bear up under the
hardships
stoically
if
he insisted. But it wouldn't be easy
fo
r
her to cover fifteen miles of forested ground even if she weren't injured. Through no fault of her own, she would cause them endless delays that might necessitate making camp for a night.

Still, he didn'
t
like the idea of being separated from her. No matter how feisty she was, she couldn't effectively defend herself. In this environment she was as helpless as a butterfly. He wasn't being sentimental, he assured himself. It was just that she had
sur
vived this long against incredible odds; he would hate for
any
thing to happen to her now that rescue was a probability
instead of a pipe dream.

H
is hand folded around her knee protectively. "Let's wait
a
nd see how you feel in the morning." The next
several hours crawled by. Rusty didn't know how the
G
awrylows maintained their sanity. There was nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to listen to or to look at—except each other. And when that became boring, they all stared at the sputtering kerosene lamp that put our more smelly black smoke than light.

One would expect these hermits to ply them with a million questions about the outside world, but the Gawrylows showed a marked absence of in
t
erest in anything that was going on beyond their boundaries.

Feeling grimy and unwashed, Rusty timidly asked for a bowl of water. Reuben stumbled over his own long feet while fetching it for her and slopped some of it in her lap before successfully setting it down.

She pushed the sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows and washed her face and hands with the
bar of soap Cooper had permit
ted her to bring along. She would have liked to savor the luxurious feeling of cupping handful after handful of water over her face, but three pairs of eyes were focused on her. When Cooper thrust one of his own T-shirts into her wet hands, she accepted it regretfully and dried her face.

Picking up her hairbrush, she began pulling it through her hair, which was not only dirtier than it had been in her life, but also matted and tangled. She was just beginning to work all the snarls out when Cooper jerked the brush out of her hands and said bossily, "That's enough."

She rounded on him, ready to protest, but his stony face stopped her. He'd been behaving strangely all day—more so than usual. She wanted to ask what the hell was wrong with him, why he was so edgy, but wisely decided that now wasn't an opportune time for an argument.

She did, however, show her irri
t
ation by angrily snatching her hairbrush back and repacking it in her precious bag of toiletries.
T
hey were her only reminders that somewhere in the world hot
water
,
cream rinse, perfume, bubble bath and hand lotion were
s
till realities.

A
t
last, they all settled down for the night. She slept with
Co
oper
a
s
she
had the past two nights. Lying curled on her side,
her
injured leg the uppermost, she faced
t
he fire. Beneath her was the pallet Cooper had made using the pelts they'd carried wi
t
h them. He had tactfully declined to use the bedding Quinn had offered them.

Cooper didn't curve his body around hers as he had been
do
ing.
He lay on his back tensely, never completely relaxed, and ever watchful.

"Stop twitching," she whispered after abou
t half an hour.
"What's your problem?"

"Shut up and go to sleep."

"Why don't you?"

"
I can
’
t.

"Why?"

"When we get out of here I'll explain it to you."

"Explain it to me now." "I shouldn
't
have to. Read the signs."

"Does it have anything to do with why you
t
old them we
w
ere
married?" "It has everything to do with that."

She pondered that for a moment, "I'll admit that they're
k
i
n
da spooky, the way they keep staring at us. But I'm sure they're only curious. Besides, they're sound asleep now." The chorus of loud snores should have been his assurance that the Gawrylows were harmlessly asleep.

"Right," he said dryly, "and so should you be. Nighty-night."

Exasperated with him, she rolled back onto her side. Eventually she sank into a deep sleep. It was mercilessly short-lived. It seemed only minutes after her eyes closed that Cooper was nudging her awake. She groaned in protest, but remembering that today was the day her ordeal would come to an end, she sat up.

The cabin was still in total darkness, although she could se
e
the shadowy ou
tl
ines of Cooper and the Gawrylows moving about. Quinn was at the stove brewing coffee and stirring the pot of stew. It must never run out but he continually added to
,
she thought, hoping that she didn't return home with a case o
f
ptomaine poisoning.

Cooper knelt beside her. "How do you feel?"

"Cold," she replied, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. Even though she hadn't slept in his embrace, his body hear had kept her warm throughout the night. He was better than any electric blanket she'd ever slept with.

"I meant health-wise. How do
e
s your leg feel?"

"Stiff, but not as sore as yesterday."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Get up and move around on it. Let's give it a test run."

He helped her to her feet. Once she had slipped her coat on
and
propped herself on her crutches, they went outside so she
could
have some privacy; the Gawrylows cabin didn't have
indoor
plumbing.

When she emerged from the outhouse, the rising sun had turned the overcast sky a watery gray. That light only emphasi
z
ed her wa
ri
ness. Cooper could tell that the effort of leaving
the
cabin to go to the bathroom had taxed her. Her hard breathing created clouds of vapor around her head.

He cursed beneath his breath. "What?" she asked him anxiously.

"You'll never make it, Rusty. Not in days." Hands on hips,
he
expelled his frustration in a gust of ghostly white breath and
s
aid,
"What the hell am I going to do with you?"

He didn't soften the question with any degree of tenderness
or
compassion. His inflection intimated that he'd far rather no
t
be b
othered with her at all.

"Well, I'm sorry to inconvenience you further, Mr. Landry.
Why
don't you bait a bear trap with me? Then you can jog all
the
way to that damn river."

He stepped forward and put his face close to hers. "Look, Pol
lya
nna,
you're apparently too naive to see it, but there's
a
lot more
at
stake here than just getting to the river."

"Not as far as I'm concerned," she shot back. "If you
s
prouted wings and flew there, it couldn't be fast enough for
me
.
I want to get out of here, away from you, and back home where
I
belong."

His stern lip all but disappeared beneath his mustache. "All right, then." He spun around and stamped back toward the
c
abin. "I'll get there much faster without having you tagging al
o
ng. You'll stay here."

"Fine," she called after him.

Then, setting her own chin as stubbornly as his, she made her
halt
ing progress up
t
he incline toward
t
he cabin.
The men were
i
n the mids
t
of an argument by the time she reached
t
h
e
door, which Cooper, in his haste or anger, had left ajar. Turning sideways and using her elbows, she maneuvered her way inside.

"Be reasonable, Gawrylow," Cooper was saying. "Reuben is twenty or so years younger than you. I want to move fast. He goes with me. You stay with my... my wife.
I
can't leave her here alone."

"But, Pa—" Reuben whined.

'He's right, Reuben. You'll move much faster than I could
.
If
you're lucky, you might reach the river by midafternoon."

The plan wasn't
t
o Reuben's liking at all. He gave Rusty one-last, hungry glance,
t
hen ambled out, muttering under his breath. Cooper didn't appear much happier. He drew Rusty aside and handed her the flare gun, cur
tl
y instructing her
on how to use it.

"Think you can manage that?"

"I'm not an idiot."

He seemed prone to argue, but changed his mind. "If you hear an airplane, get outside as fast as you can and fire the flare straight up."

"Why aren't you taking it with you?"

The flare gun had been within Cooper's reach since they left the wreckage. "Because the roof of the cabin would be easier to spot than two men on foot. Keep this with you, too." Before she knew what he was about, he pulled the waistband of her slacks away from her body and slid the sheathed skinning knife inside. The smooth leather was cold against the naked skin of her abdomen. She gasped and sucked in her breath. He smiled at her startled reac
t
ion. "That should keep you mindful of where i
t
is at all times."

"Why should I be mindful of that?"

He stared into her eyes for a long moment. "Hopefully you'll never have to know why."

She returned his stare. Up until that moment, she hadn't
re
alized how much she hated the thought of his leaving her behind. She had put up a courageous front, but the idea of
co
vering miles of wilderness on crutches had been overwhelming. In a way she was glad he had opted to go without her. But now
t
hat he was actually leaving, she wanted to cling to him and beg him not to.

She didn't, of course. He had li
tt
le enough respect for her as it was. He though
t
she was a peered, pampered, city girl. Obviously
h
e was right, because at that moment, she was sorely dreading the hours she would have to spend until he came back for her.