by Debra Diaz
She went back to the wagon. Ethan held out his hand without comment; she grasped it at the wrist, and climbed back up.
“Don’t wait too long, Finney. You don’t want to be riding through these woods after dark.”
“Shouldn’t take long, Doc.”
The wagon moved forward. Traveling northwest, they witnessed the glorious descent of the sun; rays filtered through the trees, adding to the dreamlike quality of the dying day. Genny saw Ethan watching it, his face distant and solemn. They didn’t speak.
Genny clutched her shawl and tried not to shiver as the warmth disappeared with the sun. After some time Ethan seemed to observe her discomfort and, wordlessly, reached behind him and handed her his coat. She murmured her thanks and slipped it around her shoulders.
Several miles had disappeared behind them when Ethan made an effort to shake off his moodiness. He glanced at her and said lightly, “Tell me something about yourself, Mrs. Stuart. How long were you married before your husband’s — accident?”
Genny’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected this! How tired she was of lying; she didn’t know if she could lie to Ethan. Surely he would see through her in an instant!
She managed to say. “Not long.” Well, at least that was true.
“Sometimes it helps to talk about things,” he said.
When she made no reply, he asked, “Does your family still live in — where was it?”
What had she told him — Atlanta? She answered slowly, “My family and I are not close. There was a — a disagreement over the marriage. I’d rather not talk about them, if you don’t mind.”
“Genny,” he said, turning to look at her, “do they know where you are?”
“Of course,” she said quickly. Well, he had forced her into that one. Any hesitation would have been like admitting that they didn’t know, and then he might have insisted that she communicate with them, and she couldn’t do that! Her father would haul her back to Knoxville and have her marching down the aisle so fast her head would spin.
He turned his attention back to the path between the trees. It was almost dark. She began to hear a peculiar, rushing sound, like a waterfall, and in a moment realized that that was exactly what it was…the same waterfall they’d seen on the way up the mountain.
“It’s too dark to go on,” Ethan said. “We’ll stop here for the night.” He tied the reins, jumped down, and turned to assist her. She paused to gather the folds of her skirt, but he grabbed her behind the legs and shoulders and set her on the ground before she could even give a startled exclamation.
“Sorry,” he said, with a smile. “I need what’s left of the light. I’m going to look for wood for a fire. Look around for some small, dry twigs, will you?”
Genny peered apprehensively into the gloom of the forest surrounding them. They sat on top of a plateau that descended gradually into a narrow gorge, and directly opposite gushed the cascading water. She became aware of a need that had bothered her for some time and took advantage of Ethan’s absence to scurry behind a bush. Then she began picking up twigs and small branches and dropped them into a pile.
Ethan returned with an armful of small logs. “I found a tree that had fallen and already broken up,” he told her, and set to work building a fire. In a moment the wood was crackling and a wonderful warmth spread out toward Genny. She stood as close to the flames as she dared. When the smoke met her nostrils, she thought how good it smelled and realized she was ravenous. She’d thought that afternoon that she’d never feel like eating again.
“Why don’t you get the food?” Ethan said, as if reading her mind. “Throw out the stuff in the basket — it’s ruined by now. There’s some bread and pies and cake in the back — things I was taking to Mrs. Burchfield. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“What? Where are you going?”
“I intend to bathe in that waterfall, madam, so you’d better keep your maidenly gaze pointed in the other direction.”
“That water will be freezing,” she said, a little reproachfully. She didn’t want to admit that she was afraid for him to leave her. She’d heard recently about a woman who was attacked by a panther while traveling through the woods at night.
Again it was as if he could read her mind. “Stay close to the fire and you’ll be all right.” Nevertheless, he walked over to the wagon, reached under the seat and pulled out a pistol. He checked it briefly and lay it on top of a rock near her.
“I can’t use that thing!” She stared at it in awe.
“Just point it and pull the trigger.”
He began to look through his medical bag. “I thought I had some soap in here but I guess I was wrong.”
“Wait,” Genny said. She went to the wagon and opened the lid of the picnic hamper, rummaged around, and then handed him a small cake of soap. “I always carry some with me on trips.”
“Thanks.” He grinned, gave her a salute with the soap and started down the steep precipice.
“Be careful!” she called after him. What on earth would she do if he fell down there and broke his leg?
She began to do as he advised, reluctantly throwing out the fried chicken and potato salad. She silently blessed Myrtle Mae when she found a blanket rolled up in the bottom, as well as a long tablecloth. She found bread and cheese, a pound cake and a jar of peaches. She spread the tablecloth on the ground near the fire and set out the food, all the while keeping her gaze carefully averted from the waterfall. Of course, it was too dark to see anything, even if she had the audacity to cast a peek in that direction.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was growing colder; Genny could see her breath in the night air. Cautiously she placed another piece of wood on the fire. As she did so, a noisy rustling came from the woods, followed by a low growl. She gave a startled cry and leaped to her feet. She grabbed for the gun. Another rustling sound was followed by the ear-shattering report of the pistol, clutched in her shaking hands. The repercussion nearly rocked her back on her heels.
Two more shots rang through the night, one of them plowing into the dirt not far from her feet. She barely felt the boulder against the back of her legs before she went over it backward, her feet in the air, her skirt and petticoats flying up as she landed flat on her back.
Ethan raced over the top of the embankment, shirtless, his hair wet and tousled. Before she could move he had reached her side and was pulling her to her feet, his eyes scanning her as though for injuries. Very slowly and gingerly he reached to take the pistol out of her hand.
“There was something — I think it was a bear!”
“Show me where,” he said, with such calmness she began to feel ridiculous.
“There, where I threw out the food!”
“I should have told you to burn it,” he said. “Did you actually see something or just hear it?”
“I heard it. It growled, and it was moving around.”
“Probably just a possum or a coon.” But he went to the edge of the woods, looked and listened, then bent and scooped up the remnants of food, throwing them off the ledge into the rushing stream below.
“Will it come back?”
“I doubt it. It’s probably still running.”
He looked at her again, and she realized her dress was rumpled and dirty. She could only imagine what she must look like! But her dismay turned quickly to something like hilarity when she considered the sight that must have met his eyes when he appeared over the embankment. She began to laugh helplessly. He laughed, too, shaking his head.
“I don’t know who had the worst scare,” he said. “You, me, or the possum.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, clutching at her side. “But I’m sure it was me. Please don’t leave me alone again.”
“Believe me, I won’t.”
He placed the pistol back on the rock. He walked to the wagon and wiped his hands on a napkin, picked up his wet shirt where he had dropped it, and spread it out on the face of another large boulder near the fire. Rummaging in his ba
g, he pulled out another shirt, and put it on.
Genny began to assemble a sandwich of bread and cheese. “Do you always carry extra shirts with you, Doctor?” she asked, for something to say.
“As a matter of fact, yes, since my occupation is such that I never know when I may need one. I see you found the peaches. They’ll be good on the cake.”
“Not much of a supper,” she said, as he finished buttoning his shirt and sat down across from her on another of the large rocks that seemed to surround them.
He broke off a piece of bread and replied, “It’s a feast compared to what we ate in the army.”
A few moments passed while they ate, then Genny said thoughtfully, “So this is what your life was like, for four years. Camping out, eating practically nothing, fighting battles. You never talk about the war, Ethan. Geoff talks about it all the time.”
His eyes met hers in the firelight, then he looked away. He had pushed his hair back, but a stray lock had fallen across his forehead. The orange glow etched his chiseled profile against the blackness of the night.
She went on, “Geoff says he doesn’t know what the fighting was all about.”
At last Ethan said slowly, “Every man who fought had his own reasons. We didn’t own any slaves. But by the time the war started, people had stopped talking about slavery. People in the South were using words like ‘tyranny’ and ‘usurper’ against President Lincoln. People in the North were calling for ‘subjugation’ and ‘extermination’ of the states that seceded. I guess Governor Harris said it best — that the people of Tennessee would resist with all their power, and to the last extremity, any attempt on the part of the government in Washington to invade or subjugate the southern states.”
He took a long drink of water, and said, “My father didn’t like what politicians on either side were saying, but he stood with Tennessee. He was a minister. He said from the pulpit that although the Bible says we’re to submit to the authority of the government, that didn’t mean we had to sit idly by while the government tries to force things down our throat. He was all for secession, and if that meant war, so be it. That’s what got him into trouble. And that’s what killed him.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and tried to think of a way to change the subject. Obviously he didn’t like talking about the war. “I’m just glad I’m too young to remember much about it. My family didn’t really suffer much.”
“Was your father a Unionist?”
“My father was an opportunist! But it doesn’t matter. He was too old to fight anyway. Goodness, he must have been nearly forty then.”
“Ancient,” Ethan agreed, looking amused.
Unaware that she might have given offense, Genny began to slice the cake. “I wonder where Finney is?”
“I was wondering the same thing. It must have gotten dark before he finished. He might have decided to sleep in the barn and join us in the morning.”
Genny stopped in the act of handing him a piece of cake, her eyes meeting his. The thought of staying alone with him in the woods overnight — well, it was unthinkable!
“I’m sure he’ll be along,” she said, and took a hasty gulp of water.
“I may have to marry you,” he said jokingly, “to save your reputation.”
“I think not!” She stared at him indignantly. “This is 1877, after all. Women have a right to do whatever they want. We don’t need men to protect our honor.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those screaming suffragists!”
“Sir, obviously you are not sympathetic to the plight of women.”
He became serious. “I have nothing against women voting. Heaven knows most of you have more sense than a lot of men I know. But when it comes to other things … yes, you do need protection, and it’s a man’s duty to do it. The world isn’t a very nice place these days.” He paused, and said quietly, “I wish I had known my mother. I was three when she died, and I can barely remember her. But people told me about her. They said she was a great lady. And I guess because of that, I’ve always had this — deference — for women. Who knows where any of us would have been if it hadn’t been for the women, after — ” He broke off and looked away.
“After the war?”
Still not looking at her, he said, “When we came home, they treated us like heroes. We certainly didn’t feel like heroes. They made a sort of unconscious, unspoken demand on us, to rise above our defeat. And so we did. We had to.”
He stopped for a moment, staring into the fire. “But they were the real heroes. They had kept households and farms and plantations going when there was no one to help them, no money. They were there to take us in as we started home — if there was a home. They took in the sick and the wounded and shared whatever meager substance they had. Too many of them had husbands and brothers and sons who would never come back.”
A silence fell; the only sounds were the crackling of the fire and occasional rustlings in the woods. They both thought of those turbulent days. Genny had been a child when the war ended…Ethan’s young adulthood had been shaped and defined by it.
He seemed to shrug off his memories and glanced at her, smiling again. “So obviously women can do almost anything men can do. They just shouldn’t have to.”
“Well, that’s your opinion,” she said, annoyed but not knowing exactly why. She wished he hadn’t chosen now, when they were so utterly alone, to share something of so personal a nature. And she wished he wouldn’t smile at her like that because it always affected her strangely. She brushed crumbs off her hands and stood up to shake out her skirts. No sooner had she got to her feet than a high-pitched wail pierced the stillness of the woods behind them. She stumbled and nearly fell into the fire. Ethan shot up and caught her, pushing her scorched hem out of the flames with his booted foot.
Genny thought vaguely that his body must be made of steel, then all her senses seemed to coalesce together and somehow drain out of her head, leaving her mind blank and her own body dizzily swaying. Her startled eyes met his for a timeless moment.
Gently he released her, asking in a solicitous tone, “Are you all right?”
She frantically searched her mind for that crevice where her thoughts were hiding. “What — what was that?”
“You’re safe, I promise you.”
She kept staring at him. “I must have been crazy to come out here. You must think I — well, I don’t know what you think. Here we are, alone, in the middle of nowhere — ”
He stopped the spill of words with a lean finger over her lips. “Genny, stop. No wild beast is going to devour you, and neither am I. None of this is your fault. You trusted me when you agreed to come on this trip, and I’m not going to do anything to break that trust. Do you understand?”
She took an uneven breath and nodded. He glanced toward the wagon. “Why don’t you lie down now, and go to sleep? We’ll be up at dawn, and let’s hope it doesn’t start raining before we get home. I can fix a place for you in the wagon.”
She looked at the wagon, and had a vision of a wildcat or even a rabid raccoon jumping out of a tree and landing on top of her. “Maybe under the wagon,” she said shakily.
He moved away from her and busied himself by leading the horse and wagon closer to the fire, then he unhitched the horse and led it off into the darkness. There must have been a pool of water nearby, for she heard the horse drinking. She made herself gather up the food and wrap it. She felt very foolish. The cold night air was giving her a headache.
Ethan returned and scooped together loose twigs and leaves, and made a pallet of sorts underneath the wagon. At the head of the makeshift bed he laid the sack of flour and, seizing the blanket, held it out to her.
“Come here, Genny.”
She walked toward him. “Here,” she said, sniffing, “you’d better take your coat.”
“Keep it. “I’ll stay close to the fire.”
She climbed beneath the wagon, pulled the blanket over her, and lay back. The flo
ur made a surprisingly good pillow. The ground, however, proved hard and cold as a brick, in spite of her bed of leaves. But she was close enough to the fire to feel some of its warmth. She stared hard at the wooden planks over her head, wondering if there were spiders lurking in the shadows. She wouldn’t sleep a wink.
She watched Ethan as he banked the fire with rocks and laid more wood on top, then sat down in front of it, his knees drawn up and his arms folded casually on top of them. Feeling safe for the moment, she gave in to utter weariness — her eyes closed and she was fast asleep.
A sound in the woods woke her. Her eyes searched for Ethan. She could barely see him in the glow of the dying fire, stretched out on his side with only the tablecloth covering him.
She ached all over. She ought to go and put more wood on the fire, but she couldn’t force herself to move. The very thought of cold air striking her when she got up was unbearable; the temperature must have lowered thirty degrees since this morning.
She dropped off again into some dark place between sleep and wakefulness, more miserable than she’d ever been in her life. Her throat was sore. Her body began to shake. She didn’t know how much time passed when she heard the sound of more wood going into the fire and she opened her eyes to see Ethan, standing and gazing into the flames. Forgetting where she was, she tried to sit up and banged her head against the bottom of the wagon.
“Ouch,” she said dazedly, rubbing her head and immediately lying back down as a draft of cold air struck her back.
Ethan bent to look at her. His gaze sharpened and he moved swiftly toward her. She was shivering violently. He got down on one knee and reached out to place a practiced hand on her forehead, frowning.
“Genny, why didn’t you tell me?”
Her teeth chattered so that she couldn’t answer him. He said something under his breath and went back toward the fire, swept up the tablecloth, and crawled under the wagon with her.
“Roll over,” he said.
When she did, he doubled the long tablecloth and spread it on the ground so that when she rolled back she was lying on top of it. It was warm from the fire and Ethan’s body. Then, to her consternation, he lay down beside her and pulled the blanket over both of them. He told her to be still when she tried to protest and pulled her closer to him, so close that his warmth soon became her own. Gradually her chills began to abate. Ethan moved away just a little so that they lay side by side. He was either asleep or pretending to be; Genny’s tensed muscles relaxed and she fell asleep.