BODACIOUS Page 13

  Recognizing his scent, she clung to him as Bo lifted her. She held on tightly and buried her face in the hair which smelled of pipe tobacco...and leather...and pine.

  Shifting his hold, he gathered her close. She felt a tremor pass through him. As he held her, her aching body screamed objections, but she remained silent, spent, in the safety of his embrace.

  They clung to one another for a long moment. She had wished him to come, willed him there. She wanted to hold onto him until she could be certain he was real.

  Finally he knelt, lowering her, and extended her gently over the ground. She held on another moment, reluctant for him to take his head from the circle of her arms.

  When he did, she scrubbed the palm of one bound hand over her eyes and blinked furiously trying to see, but she had to content herself with the familiar aroma, the strength, the gentleness of the man. She needed neither eyesight nor the rumble which issued from his throat to identify the hands attending her so gently.

  “Thank you.” She whispered. “Oh, Bo, thank you.”

  Overcome, she wavered in and out of consciousness, aware of Franklin’s forlorn wail somewhere away from her, his misery assuring he was no longer a threat.

  Bo handled her tenderly as he cut the rope binding her arms. Coming and going, he wiped the blood from her face, washed her wrists, and wrapped them with cloth torn from pieces of the clothing he found blowing around the campsite.

  She cried out when his thick fingers brushed delicately over her ribs beneath her nightshirt’s thin fabric. Her stomach convulsed. Despite the pain, she rolled onto her hands and knees and retched.

  Vomit splattered over her hands and the ground and even into her hair which hung limp, matted with dried blood. One of Bo’s large hands held her forehead. His other arm circled her body, that hand splaying on her stomach, steadying her.

  When the heaving and gagging subsided, Bo turned her, wrapped her in Franklin’s sleeping bag, picked her up and carried her to the truck. He eased her onto the seat.

  She tried to speak but her words were only a whisper. “Battery’s dead.”

  He nodded.

  “What about me?” Franklin’s voice sounded far away, pathetic, pleading. Bo’s body stiffened but he didn’t look back. Instead, he remained outside the truck, reached inside to turn the key in the ignition and, holding the driver’s side door open, pushed it to a downgrade. As it crested the hill and started down, he hopped in, slammed the gear shift into low, and popped the clutch. The engine coughed and sputtered to life.

  * * *

  Exhausted, Sara remembered little of the trip back to Bo’s cabin, recalling only incoherent pieces of consciousness. She saw the moon, shadows, heard a hoot owl and coyotes, whose voices echoed in the distance in the chill night and sounded remarkably like Franklin’s wails. She tried not to inhale too deeply, nauseated again by the odor of the sleeping bag, which smelled like filth, and Franklin’s spittle. She shivered.

  Bo stopped the truck in the clearing below the ridge, lifted Sara out, and carried her up toward the cabin.

  Despite the cold, he propped her against the water spigot in the yard. Pumping furiously, bracing her body against his legs, he coaxed out a full bucket of water. He removed the sleeping bag and tossed it away from them before he poured the icy water over her head.

  She shrieked. The water stung the open abrasions all over her body, from the top of her head to her legs which were scraped and bleeding. But she was too weak to fight him.

  Twice more Bo retrieved and mercilessly poured the chill well water over Sara’s trembling, torn, and nearly naked body.

  The nighttime temperature was dropping and the water, cold. Just as she began to spasm, Bo carried her into the cabin.

  Holding her with one arm, he tossed a bearskin rug onto the floor in front of the fireplace, the only warmth radiating from dying embers.

  Skeptically he regarded the torn nightshirt, soaked with blood and vomit and well water, his eyes following to her panties visible beneath the gaping covering. He didn’t attempt to remove either garment.

  He secured a large piece of flannel and draped it along the floor, carefully deposited Sara on the bearskin rug beside the flannel, then walked away.

  She struggled out of the soaked shirt and panties and covered herself with the flannel. Discreetly, Bo returned with an old cotton shirt which he handed her, along with a pair of his own briefs. He picked up her discarded clothing.

  She put her arms into the shirt sleeves and overlapped the sides. “Can you save my underwear?” Her voice sounded strange. Bo regarded her thoughtfully then picked up the enamel basin and tromped out again into the night.

  She quaked and leaned close to glean every bit of heat she could from the remnants of the fire. Still shivering, using the flannel, she dried the rest of her body, then her hair.

  Inside, out of the night air and in front of the dying fire, her eyesight improved as her body temperature rose.

  It took her a while, fumbling with each button, to fasten the long-tailed shirt. She was pleased that it covered and seemed to warm her. She pressed her fingers against her wrists, then gingerly felt the top of her head, her shoulders, her ribs, her stomach. She was sore, scraped, and bruised, but nothing seemed to be broken.

  Afraid to attempt to stand, Sara crawled to the bed and pulled off the top quilt. She returned to the bearskin rug, wrapped the quilt around her, and lay in a fetal position facing the fireplace. She shivered with occasional spasms.

  Bo returned with several items of clothing from the shed. He also brought the comb he had made for her. Avoiding her eyes, he placed the comb on the mantle over the fireplace.

  He had a mixture of goo which looked like leaves and mud and which he insisted on rubbing into the open abrasions on her wrists. Sara would have objected had Bo not allowed the rest of her to remain cocooned in the quilt. The concoction smelled of mint and immediately took the burn out of her wounds.

  He handed her a glass of liquid and indicated she should drink it. His warm, sure hands lifted her to a sitting position. The beverage tasted like bicarbonate of soda. She hated the taste but he made her drink the whole glassful.

  Moments later, he poured hot water in a cup, added something, and placed it in her hands, again indicating she must drink. The warm mixture trickled down her throat and soothed her.

  Next Bo produced the enamel basin, added hot water from the kettle over the fire, put the basin on the floor beside her and handed her the wash cloth.

  She struggled to speak. “I’m dry, Bo. Warm. I don’t want to get wet again.”

  He nodded and frowned, indicating she was to wash.

  Grudgingly, Sara took the cloth. Bo went outside.

  The warm water felt good on her face and hands as she scrubbed. She removed stubborn vestiges of scaly vomit and blood from behind her ears, her neck and hair and rinsed the cloth in the basin repeatedly.

  Opening the nightshirt, she ran the warm washcloth over her throat, let it linger on her chest, then hurriedly covered herself when Bo gave his usual two-rap warning. He came in carrying an armload of firewood.

  He stoked the fire to blazing, took off his heavy coat, hung it on the peg behind the door and removed the basin and her drink cups.

  From the mantle, he handed her the handcrafted comb before he tamped tobacco into the pipe and eased into his rocking chair.

  Studying Sara, Bo laid the pipe in the ashtray on the table at his side and slid his chair forward, closer to her. He picked up the discarded flannel towel and beckoned her to sit while he rubbed her hair dry, working carefully around the sore places.

  Eventually he tossed the flannel aside, rocked back in his chair, retrieved and lighted his pipe, and watched as she coaxed the comb through new tangles.

  Finally, still wrapped in the quilt, Sara lay down in front of the fire, this time her back to it. She fixed her stare on Bo’s feet in front of her, concentrated on the sound of his chair which creaked as he rocked, and closed
her eyes.

  * * *

  He must have rocked a long time for the blazing fire had settled to a warm glow before Sara opened her eyes again and looked from Bo’s feet to his face.

  He stared at her, his expression stoic, indifferent; revealing neither sympathy nor kindness, neither remorse nor anger. She wondered what he might say if he were able to translate his thoughts to words. She suspected it was better for her that he couldn’t.

  She had put herself in Franklin’s hands. Her jeopardy was a result of her own stupidity. The little weasel had not forced her to go with him. If Bo thought of it, he would realize there were no signs of a struggle in the shed, nor had she cried out for his help. She doubted either of those facts had escaped his notice.

  But if he blamed her, why had he come to her rescue? Why hadn’t he holed up comfortably before his hearth on that chill evening and left her to her chosen fate? Certainly she was nothing to him but a constant annoyance.

  She recalled how he had held her, trembling. In those brief moments, why did he shake? Was it unspent anger at Franklin? Or was it relief at having found her?

  Bo could have killed Franklin there at the campsite. But he hadn’t, hadn’t even hit the little twit. Did Bo’s restraint reflect his understanding of her contributory behavior?

  No, it was simply characteristic of Bo, she thought, to use only the force necessary to turn the situation his way. Another man might have unleashed his anger, vented his frustration, might have beaten Franklin senseless. But Bo delivered no punitive blows. As soon as Franklin surrendered, Bo was content to let it end. There was no passion, no rage toward Franklin, no thought that Franklin had stolen something which Bo considered his.

  Obviously Bo felt no proprietary claim to her. That thought made her sad and suddenly she wanted to cry. Tears prickled behind her eyes. She gazed up at Bo’s solemn countenance and her throat ached.

  He’d taken her in, fed her, protected her, treated her gently in this primitive place where nature itself imposed constant hardships. And how had she repaid his hospitality? With hostility.

  But she’d told him she didn’t want to be here. The gathered tears began to spill. She wanted to be in Overt, in her new job, with a new apartment, in a new town with new people and challenges. He had no business keeping her here, forcing her to stay.

  But had he actually made her stay?

  No. It seemed he didn’t even want her here. She could have left. But she was afraid of the animals, of being lost in the forest, of the men who had brought her here. She was being held captive by her own cowardice.

  “I want to go home,” she murmured into the silence of the room, choking the words out in a sob.

  The fire crackled a noisy objection. As if on cue, sleet peppered the tin roof over their heads making sharp pinging noises. Bo frowned into the fire, then back at her, and pointed his thumb at the door. His face was as hard as stone. She turned her eyes from his, and struggled for control.

  “That’s why I went with him. He said he’d take me home.” She choked and fought the tears. “I want to go home.” Her breath caught. “I don’t know the way.”

  When she risked a look at him, he seemed perplexed.

  “I don’t mean right this minute. I mean tomorrow or as soon as we can ride your motorcycle. Will you take me back then?”

  He nodded, a single, definite gesture.

  A sob of relief escaped her aching throat and tears overflowed her eyes. Bo averted his gaze.

  Ignoring her, he removed his outer clothing down to his T-shirt and the lower half of his long underwear, blew out the lantern, turned down his bed and got into it.

  Some time later, struggling to be quiet, Sara coaxed her pain-racked body to a sitting position. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared into the fire, shivering with relief and regret. Finally she lay back--burrowing into the fur of the bear rug, tucking the ends of the quilt around her--and closed her eyes. When she did, however, her mind conjured vivid pictures of white fingers floating in the nighttime darkness.

  She was aware of the fire burning low and of the staccato beat of sleet dancing over the roof. She knew she wasn’t sleeping but hovered instead in kind of a dream state. In her dreams she watched those same fingers floating in the darkness, but suddenly they weren’t fingers at all but her breasts severed from her body, white, sailing like frisbees.

  A scream woke her and she sat bolt upright, straining the tender stomach muscles. The screaming came from her. Her own cries continued, interrupting her grasp of lucid thought until she willed the noise to stop. It did stop, but only when Bo’s shoulder muffled her mouth.

  On his knees beside her, his arms around her, Bo rocked her and made soft noises of reassurance.

  “Are my boobs in here?” she mumbled into his T-shirt. He sat back and looked at her, bewildered. She reached beneath the quilt and felt her body. It was sore but whole.

  Her stomach cramped. Her abdominal muscles knotted and quivered. The cold of the room intensified the muscular soreness of her overexertion to produce spasms. Her body convulsed as if she were having a seizure.

  Bo lifted her out of the quilt and carried her to his bed. Sara was not alarmed. She’d slept there before, unmolested, warm, safe.

  He tucked her in securely before he added wood to the fire. Squinting, she watched him, fascinated as usual by his easy grace, the coordination, the strength of his arms, his shoulders, his back. Dreamily she admired his tight butt, then allowed her eyes to survey the muscular ripple of thighs and calves easily discernible beneath the knit underwear as he moved.

  He came back and stood a moment beside the bed then, without looking at her or touching her, he took a giant step over her. Sliding beneath the covers, he stretched next to the wall where his body intercepted the snippets of breeze and even the occasional bit of sleet which found its way through the seams between the unsealed logs of the cabin wall.

  Sara lay with her back to him, staring into the rekindled fire. She was going home tomorrow. Bo had agreed. It would happen. At last. She knew her parents were waiting, frantic with worry. But tomorrow it would be over.

  Bo draped an arm over her. Warm, irrevocably safe, her tremors ebbed to intermittent jerks, then to an occasional flinch. She could hear or feel his heartbeat.

  In her sleep, Sara was aware of Bo’s moving. Rolling, shifting, she found herself face to face with him. He put one hand on the back of her head, the other he splayed in the small of her back, and pulled her tightly against him, smushing the side of her face to his chest.

  Secure in his arms, unable to move, and lulled by the rhythm of his heartbeat, Sara fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  Day 7: There was no dawn as the sun yielded to continuing sleet and freezing rain. In the bed behind her, Sara felt Bo stir. The fire again burned low.

  Nimbly he got out from under the covers, tucking them against her before he maneuvered over her and out. He stretched and bent from side to side. Hunkering, he stoked the fire with the last of the logs from the night before.

  Sleepily Sara followed his every movement, enjoying the agile maneuvers of such a large lithe creature.

  Bo smiled self consciously but didn’t look at her as he pulled on his woolen trousers. He waited to button and zip them until he put a flannel shirt over the T-shirt. The delay allowed him to tuck in both shirts without having to redo his pants. Efficient, Sara thought idly, and closed her eyes, suspended somewhere between sleep and waking.

  Her eyelids batted open as he tossed small pieces of wood into the cook stove, gave it a squirt of starter fluid and put a match to it. He loaded and set the coffee pot over one burner then stepped to what Sara called the larder where he stored eggs, some meat, a gallon bottle of milk and other items. A small door concealed the cupboard caged with hardware cloth at the back, exposing the contents to the outside temperatures, providing a kind of cold weather refrigerator, open to the cold air without making its contents available to
the local wildlife.

  Bo put a thick slice of ham from the larder into a black iron skillet on another burner.

  As if he were there alone, completely oblivious to the woman in his bed, he sat in his rocking chair to put on his socks and boots and stood to don his bearskin coat.

  Anticipating the blast of chill air, Sara pulled the covers tightly to her neck as Bo opened the door to the somber morning. He was going to the outhouse then down to milk the cow and feed his stock. She knew his routine, the same every day, tending the animals morning and evening. How could anyone tolerate being a farmer, taking care of dumb animals out in this awful weather?

  But, she thought, stricken with new insight, it’s a good thing this man was bent to that kind of compassion. Certainly she personally had reaped the benefits of his animal husbandry.

  She needed to go to the bathroom but she didn’t want to step out into the room, much less wend her way to the outhouse twenty yards down the path. Besides, the privy was creepy in broad daylight, a cubicle where there was neither heat nor light except that provided by the lantern carried back and forth by its itinerant occupants. On this dank, miserably chill morning, with noisy precipitation... Well, she’d put it out of her mind, at least as long as she could.

  Bo obviously had no choice as to his lifestyle. What sane man would choose this deprivation as a way of life if he had any other options?

  Yet Mrs. Johnson said Bo had appeared here on his own, had carved out this place in these mountains with his two hands. But why?

  Was it because of his disability? Surely speech was not essential to living in civilized society. Sara considered his silence more an inconvenience rather than an actual handicap.

  But Mrs. Johnson said Bo was able to speak when she first knew him. He no longer spoke, apparently not to anyone. How had that happened? Was his silence the result of a disease? A deteriorating condition of some sort? Maybe it was simply a conscious choice.

  Living alone, except for occasional contact with people like Franklin and Cappy, conversation was superfluous. Just lying in bed watching him dress, Sara could see the man didn’t indulge in wasted effort.