Chapter 13

Lou lay half propped on one elbow and continued to quench his thirst. Taking water in small draughts from his cupped palm, savoring every drop of moisture, he studied the skittish young woman sitting at the cook fire. She sure was a pretty young thing. Auburn hair was piled in haphazard disarray above a face with delicate features, a pert little nose, brown eyes with a touch of green to them, and a complexion like fresh cream; smooth and soft. It was a gentle face. A might dirty one at the moment, but she'd probably had a time of it with the earth quaking and all. He couldn't imagine it had seen much desert sun, yet here she was in the middle of nowhere. Give her a year in this desert and she'd have the dried out, stretched skin look of every other woman Lou'd ever seen in these parts. Only the soiled doves seemed able to keep their looks.

Lou took another drink from his palm. A fair portion of determination filled the woman's lithe movements, small boned as she was. That in contrast to the way she'd stretched her arm to keep from getting too close to him. She wasn't trusting of strangers, even one as shaky and near dead as Lou. Maybe, Lou thought, that came from being alone. She did appear to be alone. No telling for how long. But whatever circumstances had taken her men folk off, he suspected she'd taken them in stride. She was a fine bit of a woman, he decided.

Lou wondered just how long she'd been left alone. The shack looked to have had several rafters dropped and its walls well torn up by the quakes. Didn't look as if anybody had tried to fix her back up, either. Made it a fairly safe bet the lady's man had been gone since before the quake. Trying to recollect how many days it was since the earth decided to shiver its hide bunched his eyebrows, but his mind was too plum tired to figure the answer. He took another sip from the streamlet. Shaking his hand dry, Lou then slowly brought himself into a sitting position and crossed his legs. He studied the young woman's back side as she stirred the beans heating on the fire.

What kind of man could have lured a pretty, young, obviously city bred woman like her to this God forsaken canyon? Maybe she was one of those lady's who got her notions from dime novels that painted a picture of the west as an exciting adventure and any man who lived in it a daring pioneer. Looking at the slim waist and small buttocks, Lou couldn't see this little lady as anything more than plain out of place. For the life of him, he couldn't figure her going for a rustic homesteader type. But then, his own ma was probably turning in her grave. Her only son gone to outlawing, she'd have boxed his ears a good one, for sure.

His thoughts were interrupted by the young woman turning around and kneeling at his side. She was closer than she'd allowed herself earlier, holding out another plate of beans. Steam rose off the plate, carrying their aroma to his nose. Her woman scent carried to him as well. Damned if they didn't both smell mighty good.

"Would you like a cup of coffee? Won't take a moment to fix."

"That'd be right nice, mam," he responded around a mouthful of beans. Coffee. That would top things off just right. He'd have never thought camp fire beans and boiled coffee could sound like heaven.

The second plate of beans went down a bit slower. He was able to taste the rich flavor of the staple this time. Meanwhile, she just kept talking to him while she went about her business. Seemed she'd gotten past her shyness at having a stranger at her fire. Words just tumbled out, one after the other, without as much as a breath inbetween.

"Its just yesterday's reheated. I've put another pot on to boil, but you might as well have a cup of this until the other's ready."

With the woman's attention set on her coffee fixing, Lou figured to help himself to another plate of beans. It took some effort but he was able to slowly, painfully, raise himself to his feet and take a staggering step towards the girl's back.

"I don't have any sugar, so I hope you like... "

She was turning to him with a mug of strong coffee, Lou holding out his empty plate to her, when his strength plain gave out and he dropped in a heap on the ground.

"Oh my Heavens," she got out, setting the tin mug on the rim rock of the fire. In one fluid movement she closed the space between. She grabbed the plate and tossed it behind her toward the fire, her beautiful green-brown eyes deviled with concern.

Sliding her arm beneath his limp body, she carefully rolled the sick cowboy onto his back and pulled at his shoulders until she could slip her thigh beneath his head. Reaching out as far as she could, she retrieved the hot coffee and brought it carefully to his lips, allowing a small sip to reach his mouth. The liquid pooled at the back of his throat and brought him out of his faint, racked with a coughing fit. His body lifted off her lap as he gasped for breath. Then he wrapped his arms around himself attempting to still the pain his coughing brought to his ribcage.

"That's enough," Lou finally managed to get out between coughs. "There's no call to drown me."

She set the mug down in the dust, her hands now looking for something useful to do. "I was just... You fainted. I thought... Oh, dear," she flustered. She patted the back of his shirt to help clear the coffee from his throat, bringing a new gasp of pain from him.

Reflexively, she jerked her hand away. "Oh my Heavens! How could I have forgotten? Your shoulder." She gently rolled his body forward and got a close look at the blood caked shirt covering his injury. "What's wrong with it? What happened?"

"Horse threw me a few days back. Must of wandered a bit, cause when I come to my senses nothing looked familiar. Truth to tell, I ain't got the least idea where I'm at."

"Well, let me look at it."

Lou rolled himself forward on his good shoulder and off the young woman's lap. "I'd be obliged if you would."

The girl seemed content to wait patiently for Lou to free his injury for her inspection, although she did help him into a sitting position and watched while he unbuttoned the shirt. When his efforts to free his shirt tail caused his brows to crease, she reached out to gently tug his shirt loose from the waist of his denims. Her slender fingers then calmly undid the cuff button on his good side and pulled the sleeve loose from his arm. Removing the shirt from around him, she paused when the scab formed by blood and shirt began to pull. The shirt was stuck firmly to his wound. Without halting, she draped the loose side of the shirt across his uninjured shoulder and quickly fetched a wooden bucket of spring water from the fireside. She dipped a rag into the water bucket and carefully dampened the material over the wound until she could lift it free from his body without pulling at the now softened scab. It took several minutes and a couple of soakings before the two slowly parted. Lou's eyes closed at the soft touch of her hand on one shoulder as she held him, the other gently working at his wound.

"Oh my Heavens, you're a mess. I'll get some fresh cloth and clean it up a bit. Do you think you can manage to sit here without falling down again?"

"I think so," he responded. Truth to tell, Lou felt the strain of sitting. The food and water had given him a sense of false vigor, but he didn't have any more strength than a fresh dropped calf. It was a struggle just to remain upright. That didn't keep his mind from thinking, however. His cheek remembered the feel of the woman's thigh beneath him when he'd come to from his feint and his eyes followed the effortless grace with which the young woman moved across the open space to the shack's dilapidated opening. She was as out of place as a preacher in a house of whores.

"Pretty little filly to be living way out here on the side of this canyon," he reflected. "Mighty soft and pretty."

Mary went to her black leather trunk and rummaged under the two ruffle and lace dresses the girls at the orphanage had made for her trousseau, but she'd not yet had the opportunity to wear. The fact that she had seldom opened the trunk since her arrival slipped clear through her thoughts. She found her slip without too much trouble. Throwing it over her shoulder, she dipped the bucket setting beside the fireplace into the cool water of the indoor spring and hurried back to her injured guest. Since the shaking of the earth had started, the inside of the shack caused washes of foreboding. She moved quickly. She was glad to escape the tumbled down shack's oppressive air.