holding her hair away from her face, put it between her teeth to keep from losing it, and then dropped her head forward. It was awkward having only one hand with which to scrub, but she managed.
Finally, she lifted her head, tossing her hair away from her face as she did and then dragged herself up. It wasn’t until she was standing with the night air blowing against her skin that she realized how cold she really was, and she had yet to wash out her clothes. She took the strip of leather from her teeth and turned around. Eulis was standing on the creek bank with a blanket in his hands.
“Hurry on out,” he said, as matter of fact as if he’d asked her to hand him a spoon.
She stumbled once, then caught herself and climbed out, only to find herself immediately engulfed in a warm and surprisingly dry blanket.
“Ooh, that feels good,” she said.
Eulis grabbed her elbow.
“You need to get warm.”
“My clothes,” Letty said. “I’ve still got to wash out my clothes.”
“I’m gonna take me a bath,” Eulis said. “I’ll do it when I wash mine out.”
“Well, then… I thank you,” Letty said.
“No problem,” Eulis said, and hustled her back to the fire. “Get warm. I made up your bed in the wagon. When I come back, I’ll help you up.”
Letty didn’t know what to say. Before, she’d been the one more or less in charge, and Eulis had followed her suggestions and orders without much argument. Not only did she feel helpless, but with a broken wrist, also useless.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said, and held up her wrist.
“Need to wrap it up some,” he said briefly, then took some leather out of his pack and felt along both sides of her wrist to assure himself the break was clean and back in place. Once he was satisfied that all was as it should be, he wrapped it firmly and tied it off.
“Don’t be tryin’ to lift anything with that,” he said.
“Okay.”
“I’m gonna go take my bath now,” he muttered.
Letty nodded, but there was a pain in her heart as he turned away. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. She had to know.
“Eulis.”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“What?”
“Are you mad at me?”
If her voice hadn’t been so damned shaky, he would have been all right, but when he heard that tremble and knew she was feeling pain, he could no more ignore her than he could have quit breathing. He turned around.
“Course not. We’re partners now, aren’t we?”
“I guess.”
“All right then. Now get on back to that fire and get warm. I won’t be long.”
“Yes… okay,” Letty said, and watched him walk away.
There was a funny pain in the pit of her stomach, which she chalked up to a salt-less rabbit and a broken wrist, and sat down by the fire. She didn’t mean to, but exhaustion soon claimed her.
When Eulis came back from the creek, she was slumped over, and sound asleep.
He stood for a few moments, watching the way her nostrils flared slightly as she breathed in and out, then picked her up and carried her to the wagon, taking great care not to bump her wrist.
She settled immediately, rolled over on her other side, and fell into an even deeper sleep.
Eulis pulled the covers closer to her and tucked them under before walking away. As soon as he’d strung their wet clothes on the surrounding tree limbs, he took off his own wet pants, hung them up, as well, and then wrapped up in his blanket.
He started to lie down beneath the wagon, and then thought to check on Letty one more time. She was curled up in the blanket. When he felt on her forehead, she moaned.
He frowned. He wasn’t sure, but she might be getting a fever, and he wouldn’t know it if he was under the wagon. Hesitating briefly, he got their rifle, crawled up into the wagon and then, wrapped up in his own blanket from toe to chin, lay down beside her. He fell asleep with his hand on the gun, dreaming of stampeding buffalo, and a woman who wouldn’t quit.
Standing On The Promises
Five days had passed since the buffalo stampede. During those five days, Letty and Eulis had come closer and closer to their destination, but farther and farther apart. There was uneasiness between them that had never been there before. Letty found it difficult to look Eulis in the face when they were talking, and