But we been together a long time, and Major’s good company. I got a witchy friend, Rose, who travels with me from time to time. It’s her opinion that Major can follow the spirit of my words, and I ’spect she’s right.

I took a bowl from my kit and poured some water in it and let Major drink it dry. I was about to pour some more when, from deep in the woods, I heard a woman scream.

 


 

 

 

2.

 

The first scream was followed by a second, then the screamin’ stopped. I added water to Major’s bowl, and watched him drink.

“Well, she just saw Shrug, or whatever it is he’s savin’ her from,” I said. “Which means she’s still alive. Or was, ’til that last scream.”

When Major finished drinkin’ his fill, I tied him to a saplin’ and removed my kit, blankets, and saddle from his back. Then I gathered some rocks and arranged ’em to hold a coffee pot and fryin’ pan, and put some wood between ’em, and enough kindlin’ to get things goin’. The first match worked, so I filled the coffee pot with water from a canteen and put it on my rock stove. Then I pulled my rifle from the scabbard and headed out to see if I could scare up a rabbit or two.

I couldn’t.

I only tried for twenty minutes, and wouldn’t a’ given up so soon had I not heard Major’s whinny. I headed back to camp and was dumbfounded to see a tangle-haired woman spoonin’ something I took to be coffee, into my pot. She hadn’t seen or heard me yet.

I froze where I stood among the poplars, then ducked down and surveyed the scene.

She was alone, busyin’ herself with the coffee. I wondered if she’d gone through my things to get it, then realized from the smell it was her coffee. Probably got it from the huge carpetbag sittin’ on the ground, left of the fire. While I didn’t sense danger, I also never had a lone woman walk into my camp before, so I whistled the song a wood warbler makes, and got a similar response from a half mile away. The response had come from Shrug, which meant everything was as okay as it was likely to get. I stood and made some noise as I walked into camp, so as not to spook her.

“Where’s the food?” she said, lookin’ up from the coffee pot.

I had to stop where I stood a minute, caught up in her eyes. They were cornflower blue, a color I’d never seen in a person’s eyes before. She wiped her hands on her skirt, then tried to smooth her hair, gave up, and waited for me to respond.

I said, “Excuse me?”

“Wayne said you were bringing food.”

“What? Who?”

“Are you daft? He didn’t tell me you were daft.”

Her eyes had me transfixed. It felt like she was borin’ holes into my soul. She had the kind of eyes that could shame a man quickly, and get him to church when he’d rather be drinkin’. I forced my gaze lower. She had tiny, precise feet, somethin’ I’d noticed from the tracks.

“Ma’am,” I said, “If you’re talkin’ about Shrug, well, he don’t speak.”

“Shrug? Is that his surname?”

I wondered if I might be dealin’ with a crazy woman. I guess she caught the look of concern in my mind, for she eyed me carefully, and crept slowly toward her carpetbag. Probably had a gun in there she couldn’t shoot.

“Who are you, sir? Please, identify yourself at once.”

“I’m Emmett Love.”

She stopped tryin’ to get to her bag and looked confused a moment, then said, “Are there more than two of you?”

“Two of me?”

She seemed exasperated, and began speakin’ deliberately, as if to a child.