“What’s this?” Kate was staring at the wall beside the fireplace, where a message had been scrawled on the rough boards with a coal from the fire. The firelight had lit the room enough now that I could see it too.
To whoever finds this cabin, I leave
it in your stead. I wont be coming
back as I have the consumption and
am going south where the air is better.
Theres food in the cold room out back.
Jeremiah Harding
“It is Jeremiah’s cabin,” Kate said. “I wonder why he didn’t tell us the truth.”
“Probably didn’t want us to feel sorry for him.”
“Hmpff.” Kate sniffed, as if put out.
“Don’t worry, little one, it’s a guy thing,” I chuckled. “I’m gonna go look for his food storage.” I gave her a quick hug as I passed her and headed outside, the chilly air making me shiver as I wandered around, looking things over. It’s no wonder we didn’t see this place before. I stepped back and looked at the cabin. There was a layer of dirt across the roof with moss growing on it. It’s a wonder that we saw it at all, buried into the side of the hill as it was. I found a path up the hill and followed it to the back of the house, where I found an outhouse off to one side and another small door, buried in the hill on the other side.
Kate caught up to me as I pried open the heavy, wooden door. “Oh,” she sucked in a breath and held it as we stared. We could see pounds of potatoes, carrots, wild onions and camas bulbs. I grabbed Kate, picking her up and swinging her around in my exhilaration. She giggled when I set her back on the ground.
“We’re saved. Now I’ve just gotta kill some meat and we’ll have everything we need.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “I can show you how to use the guns as we hunt.”
“Okay.” I followed her back to the cabin, feeling very skeptical about my hunting abilities. We picked up our gear and carried it inside, and then I brought in more firewood from a small stack near the door. Another task I’ll need to attend right away. Damn, can’t we just call the landlord and say the furnace is broken? I really just wanted to lie down in front of the warm fireplace and do nothing for about a week.
Kate untied her rifle and the one I’d taken off the scoundrel who attacked us, lifted them free of my pack and then, handing one to me, she set off at her tireless pace. Sighing heavily, I followed along, hoping we could kill something quick and hurry back.
Chapter 12
We walked for a couple of hours, not finding any game whatsoever, when Kate suddenly stopped, sat down on a log and showed me how to load my rifle. I hadn’t known it while I walked, but her rifle had been loaded and mine hadn’t.
“What if we’d seen a deer?” I admonished her.
“You know I can shoot, John Baker.”
I did know that. I’d seen her shoot, but I still felt foolish, knowing I had been carrying around an empty rifle.
“These rifles are very dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.” She showed me how to pour in the black powder, tapping the butt of the gun on the ground to shake the powder down, then she put a ball and wadding into the muzzle and tamped it in with a ramrod. Next she pulled the hammer back to a half-cock and inserted the cap. “The ball has to be seated against the powder or it could blow up in your face. And you want to always keep it at half-cock until you’re ready to fire.”
“Yeah…um…okay.” My mind was reeling from all the information and from watching her load the gun. The steps were confusing and I didn’t know if I’d remember the correct order. Slapping a clip into a pistol, that I understood. All the steps she’d went through were pretty confusing.
“Maybe I’ll just throw these knives at the animals. I don’t trust your ancient weapons.” I picked up the small knife she’d brought and, flipping it in my hand, I threw it by the blade, watching in amazement as it stuck into a tree.
“Why didn’t you tell me you can do that,” Kate sounded as amazed as I felt.
“Lucky throw, I guess. I was just playing around.”
“You should practice this talent. You never know, it may come in handy.”
“Okay, I will.” Feeling proud of myself now, I walked over, pulled the knife from the tree and, stepping back, I flipped it in my hand again and threw it just like I did the first time. We both watched as it bounced off the tree, hitting the ground at the base of it.
“Told you, lucky throw.”
“You just need practice,” she answered.
I tried it again and again, occasionally sticking the knife into the tree, although never as well as the first throw. I tried it different ways but never really figured out what I was doing wrong. It still seemed more like chance when it actually hit the mark, but I found I was enjoying the challenge and I decided I’d stick with it.
“Let’s head back since we’re obviously not going to get any meat today,” Kate said, rising from the log and picking up the rifles.
We started back, me carrying my now loaded rifle, holding it out in front of me with both hands, like it was about to explode. Kate giggled as she watched me.
“Sorry,” I chuckled too. “These black powder guns are a lot different than the rifles I grew up with. I don’t trust them.”
We wandered along quietly for a bit, the only noise was from my too large boots as I crunched across twigs and tripped over vines. Kate seemed to move almost soundlessly through the woods. She looked almost as if she floated along silently in front of me, her long dress almost touching the ground. I knew I had a lot to learn if I was ever going to be any good at this woodsmen thing.
I was watching where I put each foot, trying to move as quietly as Kate, when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. We had scared up a rabbit from the undergrowth and Kate had brought her rifle up and fired before my mind had even registered the fact of what I was seeing. She ran ahead of me and picked the bloody rabbit up by the hind legs, holding it up in the air for me to see. That muzzle loader had put a hole through the chest of that bunny that I could damn near see through.
“I killed it, so you get to skin it,” Kate said happily.
“Holy shit, really? Can’t we just order a pizza instead?”
Kate giggled as she turned and headed back the way we had come, carrying the dead rabbit upside down by the hind legs.
We got back to the cabin and Kate showed me how to remove the guts and skin the rabbit. She held it up by the back legs while I skinned it. I had been starving all day, but now I really didn’t feel very hungry anymore.
“I’m going to go wash my hands,” I told her as she headed inside with the rabbit.
“Don’t be too long, I’m starting dinner,” she held up the carcass and I felt my stomach roll. It looked like a large, hairless, headless rat.
I hurried down to the river, where I kneeled and scrubbed my hands repeatedly. I was air drying my hands and staring into the river, trying to see my reflection and, when I looked up, I was staring into the eyes of a deer on the opposite side. She stood deathly still, staring back at me with her big, brown eyes. I hadn’t brought the rifle, but I still had the knife I’d been throwing. I slowly picked it up by the blade, never taking my eyes off the deer as I rose. And then…I wussed out. I was afraid I would do nothing more than hurt her with my small knife. I turned away, giving her one last look and headed back up the rise to the cabin.
Kate had already started a rabbit stew over the fire, using some of Jeremiah’s potatoes, carrots and onion. The smell of the stew already enveloped the small, warm room and I felt my stomach growl, my hunger quickly returning. I gave her a kiss, and then went back outside to chop enough wood for the night.
Inside the food storage building, I found an ax, a small shovel with a narrow blade and various other tools I didn’t recognize on a shelf. I picked up one with a round wooden handle and a pointed blade like an icepick. “Hm, I’ll have to ask Kate if she knows.”
I grabbed the ax and went back throu
gh the small door. There were several dead trees along the side of the hill that Jeremiah had felled, but hadn’t yet chopped. I set to work and I could feel the burn in my chest and shoulders as I swung the ax, over and over until I had at least enough wood to get us through the night. I made a few trips to the cabin, carrying as much as I could with each load. By the time I was done, Kate had dinner ready.
Chapter 13
Kate’s rabbit stew may have been the best meal of my life. My stomach had settled as I worked and I was literally starving after all the hard work and activity. She had made a big pot of stew and yet, we finished it off, sitting across from each other on the hard wooden benches
“So…What do you think?” She asked as we ate.
“About what?” I said around a mouthful of stew.
“About this cabin? What are the odds of us ending up here?”
“You’re thinking its providence?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it at all, but you’re probably right. We were going to either starve or freeze to death if we didn’t find something soon. God looks out for fools and little children. That’s what my dad always said.”
We built up the fire and turned in after dinner, both of us looking forward to sleeping in a real bed with a roof over our heads. We crawled into the bed and the softness of the mattress was unbelievable. Jeremiah had used goose and duck down to make a feather bed. I folded Kate’s small warm body up into my chest and was instantly asleep.
I woke up the next morning to the smell of baking bread and the sounds of Kate bustling about the cabin. I lay still with my eyes closed, contentedly taking in the sounds and smells. When I finally crawled out of the warm bed, I saw that, along with the baking biscuits, Kate was boiling a large pot of water over the fire. “What’s that for?”
She pointed to a large, round tub in the middle of the cabin. “I’m going to clean this cabin today and do laundry and you go do man things, but first…a bath. If you would please help me pour the hot water?”
“Sure.” I found a cloth to use as a potholder and poured the hot water into the tub for her, seeing that she had already added some cold water to make a decently hot bath.
“Now strip out of those dirty clothes,” she told me.
I looked at her to see if she was joking. She looked pretty serious, so without giving her a chance to change her mind, I stripped off my clothes and stood before her in all my nakedness.
“Now you.” I know I must have had a gleam in my eye as I watched her undress in front of me. She removed her clothes hesitantly—maybe even shyly, staring into my eyes the whole time. She had thin shoulders for such a strong girl, small perky breasts and a tiny waist. My gaze traveled all the way down and then back up to her eyes. I saw an impish sparkle in her ice-blue gaze this time.
“Into the bath,” she told me, her voice gone husky.
I turned and sat down in the small tub, crossing my legs Indian style. Even then I barely fit, but the hot water felt incredible.
Kate took a cloth and a bar of soap and proceeded to bathe me. It was a new experience for me and it was completely erotic and sensual. I closed my eyes and relaxed as she ran the cloth over me. She even washed my hair and I tilted my head back as she poured clean water over my head to rinse it. When she was done, she brought a sheet and wrapped it around me since we didn’t have towels.
I emptied the water out the door and we poured fresh for Kate. She insisted on washing her own hair; it was so long I probably would have only made a tangled mess of it. But I did bring clean water and poured it while she rinsed, then I picked up her cloth and bathed her, enjoying every minute of it. I started kissing her before I had even finished, then finally I picked her up out of the tub and carried her, still dripping, over to the bed.
After our morning’s lovemaking, I set off to chop wood and try my hand at hunting again. I whistled happily as I worked and, after I had chopped wood for about a half hour, I brought out the small knife and tried out my throwing techniques again. I threw the knife again and again at the tree I was chopping and I seemed to be improving. I was beginning to figure out how to get it to stick into the tree and I began working on my aim, trying for the same spot each time. It seemed to be a matter of balancing the knife correctly in my hand before I threw it. It seemed to work better when I held it by the blade. I practiced flipping it in my hand and catching it by the blade before throwing it. I kept at it for a while, then went back to my wood-chopping. Once I had a stack along the front wall of the cabin almost as high as the window, I quit for the day and went inside for Kate’s rifle.
“I’m gonna go kill something,” I told her jokingly, making my voice as deep and gruff as possible.
“Okay, tough guy, just be careful with that gun,” she said, kissing me lightly on the lips.
Chapter 14
Kate smiled to herself as she worked about the cabin, sweeping and dusting everything in sight. Even though she didn’t have much experience being with a man, she was sure that she and her ‘future man,’ as she thought of him, had something very special. Her heart felt as if it might burst from her chest when she thought about their passionate lovemaking, his ability to make her laugh, and even how handsome he was. He had a boyish charm that she really enjoyed and she still hoped that she could return with him in the spring to the year two-thousand and ten. The thought of seeing so far into the future excited her almost as much as John did.
“I love you, John Baker,” she said to the empty cabin. Do I dare say it to him? What if he doesn’t feel the same? Her thoughts continued on this path as she heated more water and refilled the tub for her laundry. She scrubbed their spare clothing with the bar of soap. Then, moving the two wooden benches in front of the fireplace, she draped their clothes over them to dry, her mind filled with thoughts of love. She used the water left in the tub from her laundry to scrub the stone floor, working her way slowly across the small space as she thought of John. Would she have a future with her ‘future man,’ or did destiny have a different plan in store for them? No, surely he wasn’t sent back through time for her, only to return to his own time without her. Not if she had anything to say about it!
Chapter 15
I followed the river downstream, holding the rifle out in front of me, still in the half-cocked position she’d shown me. I still didn’t trust it, but I was beginning to get used to the feel of it. The barrel length was much longer than modern rifles and it was much heavier. I had used rawhide strips to strap the two knives to my leg, but I didn’t carry the powder to reload the gun. I wasn’t sure if I’d remember how to do it correctly and I wasn’t interested in having the damn thing blow up in my face.
The knives kept slipping down my leg and I constantly had to readjust them. I tried tying the rawhide strips tighter, but then it damn near cut off my circulation. I had also tied some of the rawhide strips together, then tied one end to the rifle barrel and the other end to the stock of the gun, thus forming a sling so that I could carry it over my shoulder.
I came upon a few Canadian geese and some ducks out on the river, but I went right on by. I figured if I did scare them up, I’d probably miss with this gun and even if I got one, I didn’t want to leap into that icy water to retrieve it. I moved as quietly as I could through the woods, watching where I put each foot so as not to step on twigs or loose stones.
I had walked about two hours and then sat down to rest, leaning my back into a tree on a slight rise overlooking the river. The river was narrower here and rushing across the rocks; it made a beautiful sound and it was really the only sound out here. No traffic, no horns, no people. I relaxed and closed my eyes, setting the rifle down on the ground beside me. The sun slanted through the trees and warmed my legs where it fell across them.
I must have drifted off for a bit because, when I opened my eyes, I didn’t remember where I was at first. I stared at the river in confusion for a couple seconds, then as an image of Kate swept across my visio
n, I remembered exactly where I was.
I stood up, stretched, and figured I’d better head back. If nothing else, I’d take a shot at one of those geese I’d seen. I picked up the rifle and started around the tree, looking up the hill behind it. I was thinking to climb up out of the trees to make for easier walking, when two deer came to the edge of the hill and stopped. They were looking at the river and sniffing the air. Looked like a couple of young bucks—fork horns—my dad called them. As they began making their way down the hill, angling slightly away from me, I slowly raised the rifle to my shoulder and took aim on the closer one. I held my breath and slowly began squeezing the trigger and…nothing happened. Damn! I’d forgotten the half-cock thing. I lowered the rifle slowly and pulled the hammer back to full-cock and eased it back to my shoulder. I was afraid they were getting out of range now so I quickly squeezed off my shot. Son of a bitch! It felt like that damn gun ripped the ligaments loose in my shoulder. I saw the first deer take off out of there like his ass was on fire. The second one leaped in the air and fell down, but was on his feet and running before I could lower the gun. I took off after him, following a trail of blood through the undergrowth, my shoulder on fire from the kick of that big gun. The deer was moving upriver, out of sight of me, but there was a pretty good blood trail to follow. I tracked him for about a mile before I found him. He was down but scrambling, trying to regain his feet. I set the empty rifle down and pulled the big Bowie knife loose from where it was strapped to my leg. I jumped on that deer and rammed that knife in his neck as his head came around, trying to stick me with those short antlers. I brought the knife down, slitting his throat and severing the artery. I jumped back as the blood poured. The deer was down for good now. I wasn’t sure if I felt proud of myself or sickened by the kill. We needed the meat, I kept reminding myself. I made sure it was dead, then gutted it and, picking up the rifle, I grabbed the deer by the antlers and started dragging it toward the cabin with one hand, the rifle over my shoulder. I was out of breath in about ten paces. I stopped, staring at the deer, thinking. Finally, I unlashed the knives from my leg and, taking the rifle from my shoulder, I untied the sling I’d made. I tied the leather thongs together, then tied them around the deer’s neck. I then tied the other end of the leather straps around my waist. Now I had to carry the rifle and two knives, but it was easier than trying to drag a hundred pound dead weight with one hand. It was over a mile back to the cabin and up and down hills.
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