BODACIOUS Page 7

  Sara marveled as she watched muscles in his forearms flex. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a hand-driven agitator before.”

  Bo continued to ignore her.

  Sara watched the ritual spellbound for several minutes before she thought and ran to get her own things. He didn’t object when she tossed her denim dress and under garments into the sudsy water with his clothes.

  She located the third bucket and trudged up and down to the creek helping him carry water to refill the rinse kettle after the first became sudsy. Bo wrung as much water as he could from the clothes and Sara helped him hang them from tree branches and a wire fence strung to keep his cows out of the yard.

  His laundry included underwear, eight T-shirts, countless dark woolen socks, six flannel shirts and six pairs of pants--probably two weeks worth of apparel, she decided.

  When the wash was finished, they emptied both kettles. Sara was ready to rest but Bo picked up his axe and strode off up the mountain, disappearing into the woods. A short time later, when she heard chopping in the distance, she darted into the cabin, straight to the utensil drawer and flung it open. The scissors were gone.

  She rummaged. He had even removed the knives and forks. She pivoted and glared over the door at the pegs which held the guns. The pegs were empty, the guns both gone.

  “Damn!”

  She looked around and spied the broom, her sole contribution to his lifestyle. She grabbed it and stripped off the hay she had so carefully tied to one end. A bare mop handle wasn’t much of a weapon, but it would have to do. She was leaving. Now. She had to. She was forging a subconscious bond with this man, an emotional attachment which seemed to be getting stronger. She didn’t want to feel comfortable here.

  Dashing outside, Sara listened. He was still chopping. She grabbed her wet denim dress and underclothing off the fence, turned the opposite direction, and plunged into the woods.

  From the sound of the motorcycle Saturday night, Sara figured Bo had driven to the ridge and then probably east. She assumed the road at the bottom of the overlook went to the little community where Cappy and Franklin lived, not the route she wanted.

  Obviously, Bo didn’t care anymore whether she left or stayed, as long as she didn’t take any of his belongings. She was certain he wouldn’t follow.

  She ran east along a footpath paralleling the ridge, away from the chopping sound.

  Vines and brambles soon claimed the path, snagging her hand-me-down denim pants. Thickets of large, thorned bushes and tree branches snared her clothing, scraped her arms and legs, reached out to slap and slash at her face. She tried to beat them back, but the mop handle was no match for the tangled undergrowth.

  The chopping was muffled to silence by the time Sara heard something move in the underbrush in front of her. And she smelled it, a sour, putrid stench, like a wet dog who’d rolled in dung.

  The faint rustling grew louder and she heard grunting. Chilling fear stopped her. Probably nothing more than a raccoon or possum foraging.

  A low tree branch shivered and the grunting grew louder. It sounded like a large animal. Tiptoeing, peering, she couldn’t see anything through the undergrowth.

  Then she heard a low growl. Tourists were warned not to feed the brown bears, native to the area. Sara held her breath, listening. Might be a puma, or a razorback hog, other natives famous for injuring, even killing the occasional interloper.

  Sara’s imagination galloped through a succession of scenarios. She retreated a step, then another and, finally, turning, dropped the broom handle and bolted, hurdling headlong through the foliage. Her lungs burned as thorned bushes and low limbs whipped and stung her.

  Run! She wheezed, willing her legs to go faster and faster.

  She bounded into the clearing, saw the familiar cabin, and dumped the armload of damp clothes in a heap at her feet. But she was not safe. Not yet.

  Gasping, she took her bearings, and breathed deeply, getting control, embarrassed by the hysteria which had stampeded her.

  Clenching her teeth, she set out again, jogging the path Bo had taken. Her body settled into a rhythm. She had one destination, the one place she would again feel safe. She would rest only when she was under Bo’s dark, silent gaze.

  Chapter Six

  Scurrying into the high woods, Sara scarcely breathed, listening for any sound. The chopping had stopped.

  Pausing to catch her breath, she put her hands on her hips, stretched and breathed deeply, inhaling a familiar scent. His pipe! She could smell his pipe. She sniffed the air and walked toward the smell of his tobacco. There was no path, only her instinct, her senses, to guide her.

  The scent of him grew more pronounced as she advanced, slowed only a little by brambles snagging her legs, vines and branches reaching out to lash at her face and arms. She burst into a clearing and stopped when she saw him.

  He was in his shirt sleeves, on his knees, his hair cascading to conceal his profile. He appeared to be baiting a small trap. He glanced sideways at her, then his eyes narrowed and he scanned the woods behind her before he looked back at her face. He regarded her closely for a moment longer before dismissing her and turning his attention back to his task.

  She felt foolish. What had she expected? She folded her arms across her stomach and walked in a tight circle to catch her breath, glancing at him from time to time.

  She wanted him hold her, but of course, that would be too much. Seeing him had to be enough.

  There were several stumps nearby, evidence of Bo’s industry in producing the firewood necessary to keep him through the winter.

  As she grew calmer, Sara strolled to a stump which had been left hip high, and leaned against it pretending a nonchalance she did not feet.

  She watched Bo set the trap. A skinned carcass, headless, a rabbit or squirrel, hung from a branch. Their supper, no doubt.

  Still ignoring her, Bo placed the trap at the base of a tree and picked up his axe. He returned to an oak at the edge of the clearing, one which was cut nearly through. Angling his broad shoulders, he gave the trunk a dozen solid whacks. The tree still standing, he tossed the axe aside, put his hands on the trunk and shoved.

  Beneath the thickness of his shirts, Sara could see muscles strain, bunching all the way down his back. His buttocks and the backs of his legs tightened with his effort. She stared, mesmerized by the man more than the tree, until the stalwart oak yielded before the man’s will, as she knew it would. Scolding, its tendrils reaching out to grasp at the undergrowth on either side, the tree seemed to groan objections as it fell.

  Without looking at Sara, Bo retrieved the axe and immediately began cutting branches.

  A little alarmed at her own electric responses to his performance, she straightened abruptly, and walked back toward the cabin. If she needed him, she could yell. He would come and vanquish any threat. Bo’s consistent indifference toward her was more reassurance than if he fawned over her.

  She smiled. She liked this odd relationship: their mutual awareness, their indifference...and this unexpected, peculiar sensation of pinpricks in startling locations in her anatomy.

  Had he been showing off, pushing the tree over with his bare hands? Didn’t most lumberjacks cut trees all the way through with a saw or an axe? She didn’t know, but she felt lighthearted. If he were showing off, it would mean he found her attractive or desirable; someone, at least, worth showing off for.

  What did she care? What difference could it possibly make if he liked her? He was nothing to her, a big, hairy, old mountain man, and a mute besides.

  Yet he stimulated her, made her feel she had influence over him. She felt like the beautiful girl who commanded King Kong. No one asked Kong’s age. Certainly no one thought him attractive. But those things didn’t matter when you were able to manipulate unplumbed power.

  She stopped walking to think. In civilized society, the people with the most money or celebrity held the power. Here, Bo was undisputed king and she, Sara Loomis, held sway over him. Whether
her influence was real or imagined, she liked thinking about it as she began walking again, a little swagger to her steps. She would not try to escape anymore until she had a plan and a proper weapon or a guide. Maybe tomorrow.

  Near a small tree laying beside the cabin, she found the handsaw Bo had abandoned there earlier. She picked it up and began cutting the spindly limbs into wood for the cook stove.

  She wondered about her weird feeling of contentment, of well-being, in this place. She shook her head. That kind of thinking was ridiculous. She needed to leave. She was a city woman, accustomed to electrical appliances and potable water summoned from taps in kitchens and bathrooms. She should be desperate to escape--and she was.

  Yet, in all honesty, she felt oddly satisfied here. What was wrong with her? An odd memory niggled at her. Patty Hearst, kidnapped eons ago, was accused of remaining with her captors, willingly.

  But that was altogether different. For one thing, Bo had not kidnapped Sara. Truthfully, he wasn’t even keeping her prisoner.

  Still, she couldn’t leave if Bo refused to take her, one part of her argued, recalling what had happened when she ventured into the woods alone.

  Not exactly a fair test, the other part of her brain prompted. Besides, if she had all that high-powered influence over him, couldn’t she just make Bo take her home? Ride her out on the motorcycle?

  Sure. She’d ask him. Insist, this time.

  She stood still, thinking. She had already asked and he had refused. Why did he refuse?

  She could get home, if she could convince him to take her to a road. She would ask him to do that. Only that.

  She put down the saw and knelt to press her ear against the ground thinking to feel vibrations from highway or road noises or machinery working nearby, something which might provide a direction for her next attempt.

  Nothing.

  She gazed heavenward, as she did several times a day. High above, sporadic jet vapor trails crisscrossed the sky. The trails were there regularly enough to indicate established air traffic lanes.

  Sara walked to the well. Again she had to pump a long time to get a steady flow of the icy water which she drank from her free hand cupped to receive it.

  Daydreaming, pacing back to the fallen sapling, she felt a rumble resonate under her feet. She dropped and pressed her ear against the ground just as it stopped.

  “Yes!” She leaped up and darted toward the overlook. “They’re here. Someone’s come for me.”

  She ran to the ridge and peered over to see the clunker pickup which had spirited her from the convenience store and brought her into the mountains. It was parked and deserted in a flat area below her vantage point.

  “No,” she whispered, turning, wondering if she could outrun whoever was coming, get to Bo.

  She risked a final look over the cliff. Cappy as there, alone, loaded with boxes and grocery sacks, stumbling over the rubble to gain the footpath which would bring him to the ridge.

  Scanning to either side of this visitor who was struggling just to reach the path, Sara relaxed. He was alone.

  What was the inept little Cappy doing here? Had he come for her? He carried two bulging burlap bags, juggled two pasteboard boxes in his arms, and stopped every few feet to reconnoiter.

  Not exactly the hero she’d been waiting for, but better than nothing. She could go with him, as long as none of the others was there. She would have to talk him into bypassing that community where those others lived. She didn’t dare risk falling back into their clutches. But she could wheedle Cappy into helping her. He had just become her new escape plan.

  Darting in and out among the boulders, Sara scurried down the footpath to the place where the rubble began.

  “Cappy, let me help you with that stuff.”

  He froze and stared with astonishment. “You s-s-still here?”

  Sara smiled, surprised that it was so good to hear another human voice. “I’ve been waiting for you to come rescue me.”

  He gazed at her with his dull eyes.

  “You are here to rescue me, aren’t you, Cappy? I’m ready. Let’s go.” She took his elbow and tried to turn him.

  He pulled away. “I thought you was d-d-dead by n-now. Where’s B-B-Bo? D’you kill Bo?”

  Her smile wilted. “No, he’s cutting down a tree. Here, put this stuff down and let’s go back to your truck.” She tried to take the sacks from him but Cappy jerked them away.

  “Don’t he keep you hobbled or n-n-nothin’?”

  She grimaced. “No. But then he didn’t know you were coming or he would have locked me up today for sure.”

  Cappy muttered, “Guess so.”

  She reached for the box and again he jerked away from her. She frowned. “What is all this stuff?”

  “S-S-Stores. We bring ‘em up ever’ m-m-month.”

  “Cappy, I thought you were my hero, come to save me. I tell you, I’m scared to death. You have to help me. Take me home.”

  “You dang sure sh-sh-should be s-s-scart a’ him.”

  “Come on, Cappy, put this stuff down and let’s go.”

  Cappy looked her up and down. She wore a cotton shirt from the pasteboard box in the shed. She wasn’t wearing her bra. His eyes paused at her ample breasts, well defined beneath the thin fabric. He wiped dark, crusted saliva off his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned, ogling her. His uneven teeth were outlined with tobacco juice. He spat off to one side and wiped his mouth again, this time with his sleeve. Sara cut her eyes trying to look as if she were flirting, but she felt like throwing up.

  “S-S-Sure, I’ll take ya.” Cappy put down the box and bags as his eyes again settled on her breasts. His breath quickened and he snorted a little laugh. She pretended not to notice the stare. Most men admired her breasts. Except Bo, of course. Bo never seemed to notice her that way at all. Sara wondered, fleetingly, why not.

  “Franklin told me what I ought to ‘a done with you,” Cappy said, interrupting her puzzling. “I told ‘em I k-k-kilt you. Don’t make me out a liar, will you not?”

  Puzzled as to how she was supposed to do that, Sara nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

  Cappy was turning to lead her back to the truck when his gaze shot to the ridge. His face froze and Sara heard Bo’s warning snarl above them. She bit her lips, shut her eyes and bowed her head, hoping Cappy would notice her affectation.

  Bo tramped down the path, picked one box up off the ground and jammed it into Sara’s arms. She saw Cappy’s chin tremble as he picked up the other box and the tow sacks and handed them to Bo.

  The box she carried was light. Sara supposed the heavy items were in the bags. Bo hoisted both sacks in one hand as if they contained feathers. He snarled at Cappy, glanced at Sara, and tossed his head, indicating she should get back to the cabin, then he began climbing.

  Cappy’s feet slipped and he danced nervously over the rocks before he stumbled and fell toward her. “’You s-s-sleeping in his b-b-bed?” He eyed Bo who was several yards up the path. Cappy stood and dusted himself, stalling.

  “The shed.” She answered in a stage whisper.

  “I’ll be back for ya.” He risked another glance at Bo and scrambled, headlong, down the rock-strewn path.

  Bo kept Sara with him the rest of the afternoon, showing her how to dig Irish potatoes and what was left of the onions. He put them in burlap bags to store in the cave behind the house.

  In the nearer part of the cave he kept sacks of pears, pecans, apples and other produce. Farther back where the air was cooler, he kept smoked meat, eggs and the milk he drew twice a day from one of the cows pastured in a gully near the cabin. The near end of the water-worn ravine was blocked by the two strands of wire which doubled as clothesline.

  Bo marked the cave’s entrance as his territory by relieving himself at the opening. Sara saw him do it once when he didn’t know she was watching. The crude ritual was disgusting, but it seemed to discourage thieving varmints.

  Excited that Cappy was coming back for her, Sara fi
dgeted as the day gave way to a chilling twilight. She should have told him not to mention her whereabouts to anyone else. If he came back in the truck by himself, she could convince him to take her back to civilization. She prayed he didn’t bring anyone else to complicate things.

  At dusk, the sky got heavy and a peculiar quiet fell over the woods around them. Sara layered on extra clothing. The wind, out of the northwest, cut through clothes and skin, chilling her to the bone.

  Lost without television or even radio weather forecasts, she studied the ominous sky and wondered. It was too early for snow. At least back home it was too early. But the air looked and felt heavy, like snow was coming.

  Bo went down to the pasture to feed his livestock, as he did twice every day, morning and night.

  To keep herself occupied, Sara walked to the cabin. She tried to concentrate on the how-to book on quilting. She was too nervous, excited at the prospect of her impending departure. Maybe she should start supper to keep herself occupied.

  Cutting up a piece of leftover venison roast, she added potatoes, onions and carrots, covered the ingredients with water, set them on the cook stove and stoked the fire.

  Going to the hutch, she took out the biscuit bowl and measured flour by handfuls, the way she had seen Bo do it, added a pinch of salt, baking powder, soda, and drippings. Bo mixed biscuits with his hands but Sara didn’t like the idea of touching the goo. She got a spoon and had just begun stirring when Bo walked into the cabin.

  As she added buttermilk, a byproduct of the butter Bo churned himself, Sara felt the man come close, closer than usual. She glanced back. He peered over her shoulder and sniffed two or three times in quick succession. She wondered if he could smell her nervousness.

  In four days, he had taught her a lot, for a man who did not speak. With his nose, he seemed able to track animals, sniff out places to set traps, or find certain roots. His knowledge went beyond things learned in school. Hadn’t it been Bo who knew to go to the cave to wait out the storm? Sara watched and learned. It didn’t take her long to figure out things had scents of their own.