Into the Wilderness
Page 148

Elizabeth struggled hard not to let her irritation get the upper hand. There was a point, she concluded, at which the only possible tool was numbness; she could not manufacture an artificial cheerfulness when she itched and hurt and smelled. But Nathaniel didn't seem to mind her mood; in fact, the more taciturn she became, the more his own dry humor rose to the surface. It was something she hadn't anticipated, and she liked him for it tremendously. It almost made up for the infernal blacklly.
Nathaniel came up behind her with his hands cupped. Elizabeth tipped her head back to look at him upside down and dissolved in a genuine smile as he smoothed pennyroyal ointment over the mass of tiny welts. Her nose wrinkled at the smell, but the relief was undeniable. She let her head rest against the hard plank of his abdomen, her plait brushing the ground. He looked down at her, all seriousness, while he wiped her face gently with a square of muslin that had once been a part of her second shift.
"If you coated yourself with this every morning you'd be better off." he said.
Elizabeth sighed softly in response. Mrs. Schuyler had given her the concoction of pine tar, castor oil, and pennyroyal before she set off with Bears, vowing that a liberal coating on face, neck, and hands would ward off any biting insect. Thus far, though, Elizabeth had preferred the black fly to the pungent stink and its deep brown color.  But she knew that unless the insects simply disappeared, she would soon have to resort to grease or ointment, or learn to live with ravaged skin. They might spend another two weeks or more living in the bush, and it was time she faced that reality.
"Do you really know where we are?" she asked, suddenly wondering.
"I do."
"Amazing. Have you never been lost, then?"
"No, I can't say that I have. Although I was mighty disoriented once for a few days."
Elizabeth laughed out loud, and reached up with both hands to pull his head down to her, where she kissed him and rubbed a tender cheek against his.
"Don't get too friendly," he said. "There's more yet to come. We got to clean out that wound. A bit of salt would do the job, or some spirits. I've got some of Axel's schnapps along."
Elizabeth thought of the jagged hole and blanched.
"Is that really necessary?" she asked.
"Aye," he said, "we best get it over with. Then we can work on making you feel better."
* * *
It was a hot, searing kind of pain that spiraled instantaneously into a great burst of color, but it didn't last long. Elizabeth bit down hard on the urge to scream; if no other lesson had been learned, Nathaniel had made it clear to her how important it was to keep their noise down to a minimum. But tears brimmed in her eyes and the world doubled and tripled. When it cleared, Nathaniel bound her wound with her third—best handkerchief dampened with Axel's schnapps, and then slipped the delinquent moccasin back on her foot. With a few deft motions he pulled her legging down and laced the moccasin over it. Elizabeth observed while he sewed the tear in the sole with the same needle he had used to fish the splinters out.
"Very handy of you," she noted, still out of sorts.
"You should be able to walk on this tomorrow.
"I intend to walk now. Can't we camp on the shore back there?" Just before her misstep, they had come past a small lake with a good protected place to settle under an outcropping of rock. At that point they had thought to walk for another three hours, but now Elizabeth was glad to have a valid excuse to go back. It had been an unusually pretty place, even for this wilderness. And since she had finally learned the basics of swimming, she took every opportunity to practice.
Nathaniel took all the packs and let her manage on her own, limping gingerly. She felt slightly silly, and looked around herself as if there might be curious neighbors watching. Instead, she caught a pair of fox cubs at play in the sun before their burrow hole, their red coats gleaming bright. They looked at her without fear, and she looked back.
Once settled, Nathaniel gathered wood for a fire. The shore was lined with a wide margin of sweet flag, and he pulled up great armfuls of the long green spikelike leaves to lay over the burning wood. The smoke that rose and filled the air would keep flying things away.
Elizabeth breathed a sigh of contentment, knowing that she should rouse herself to see to the food, but she was feeling strangely indolent. Reclining on the smooth, warm expanse of rock, she enjoyed the feel of the breeze on her inflamed face.
"I must look a sight," she said. "And you needn't bother to contradict me."
"I wouldn't dream of it, Boots."
She snorted, and liking the sound of it, snorted again. "If I had the energy I'd make you pay for that," she said, and grinned in spite of herself”
“Now you're fishing for more than compliments," he said, eyeing her with one raised brow while he shredded a long stalk of grass and tossed bits into the fire, absentmindedly.
She looked out over the lake, thought about swimming, and then lay back down lazily.
"And if I were? Isn't that my right?"
He came to sit beside her. "Aye, that it is. So what is it you want?"
She managed to look him in the eye. "A day abed with you without the need to get up and go."
Nathaniel leaned over her. "I please you, then, do I?" He wasn't smiling anymore, but there was a contented look about him.
She pushed at him a little. "You know that you do."
"Well, then, Boots, I'm glad to hear it. Because you please me mightily, too."