Sudden Independents - By Ted Hill Page 0,15
breath.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. What’re you doing?”
Scout pulled in a deep breath through his nose before speaking. “Just sitting here, looking at the stars. You can join me if you want.”
She sat close beside him. It was nice. Her presence radiated a warm energy that refreshed his sleepy mind.
He smiled at her. “Was it tough being on your own?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you, being all alone for as long as you were. I have a hard time just being out by myself for a week. Then I get back to town around people again and it’s hard adjusting to them and all the noise.”
“I wasn’t alone, silly. My tree was with me the whole time, and there was a family of robins upstairs, and a squirrel would come by to chat. The wind brought me news from around the world and when the raindrops fell, I listened to them patter about all the neat places they had visited.” She smiled into the night sky. “The stars are really pretty, aren’t they?”
“Uh, yeah.” Scout worried that she’d bonked her head when Hunter flipped the bike. He locked onto an eerie feeling though; maybe she wasn’t making her story up. And then he remembered she was a little kid. Of course she was making it up.
Another question crossed his mind. “So was Hunter the first person you ever met?” Scout gave himself a mental pat on the back. She couldn’t avoid that one with a vague answer.
The corners of her mouth dropped and she brought her knees to her chest and wrapped them up in her arms. “No. I’ve known lots of people, but that was long ago in a different time and place. Those people have all passed on. I was a much different person then with a very different life.”
Scout crinkled his brow. “Catherine, you don’t sound like a six-year-old girl.”
“Well who said I was six? It’s not appropriate to talk about a girl’s age, you know.”
The night breeze rolled through the prairie grass and broke upon their backs. Then the wind disappeared again, leaving behind the steady sound of the creek.
“I guess I’m confused,” Scout said. “It’s not every day we come across someone your, uh… size out in the middle of nowhere. Were you traveling with your friends when you got separated?”
“No, we were separated ages ago.” She stood and regarded the sky. “But I have new friends now.”
Scout nodded and rose up beside her. He decided to put the questions away; someone in town would get her to talk and crack open the answers. “That’s right, you have us,” he said simply. “Let’s get back to the fire. I should check on Hunter, and you need more sleep.”
She hugged him. “I love you, Scout.”
Her affection caught him off guard. He offered her an awkward pat on the back.
She released him without a struggle and cocked her head at an angle as though measuring him for a new winter coat.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You really don’t believe anymore?”
Scout crossed his arms, feeling exposed. “I don’t know what to believe in.”
Catherine bent down and collected the water bottles. “I’ll just have to fix that, won’t I?”
“What are you talking about?”
Catherine smiled. “Let’s go check on Hunter.” She skipped ahead, leaving him standing there befuddled.
Along the way Scout gathered more sizable sticks under the branches of slumbering elm trees to feed the fire’s hunger back at camp. When he added them, the coals brightened and soon the flames popped and snapped over the new wood. Hunter hadn’t budged from the spot where he’d landed.
“He was making a funny noise earlier,” Catherine said. “That’s what woke me up.”
“Yeah, funny’s one way to put it.”
She knelt and placed her hand on Hunter’s head. Scout smiled at her concern. Maybe she was feeling for his temperature.
“I think I got his arm set right,” Scout said, consoling any fears she might possess. “Now it’s just going to take time for him to heal.”
Catherine laid her hands on the splint. “You did very well.”
Scout rushed forward in a surge of panic. “Be careful, you might mess up the set.”
“Don’t worry, silly. I’m just going to heal him so you believe again.”
She seemed careful about not moving or placing any pressure on Hunter’s arm and that decreased Scout’s anxiety. He shook his head. Catherine was laying hands like an evangelist performing miracle nonsense. He plunked his tired bottom by the fire and felt the crush of drowsiness the moment he was settled.
His head