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He waited for her answer, his hands shaking as he handed her the bandages.
“I guess so…”
“That should take care of the other.” He cleared his throat.
Riley stared at him for a moment. “I won’t use it all.”
“Naw, we got plenty…”
“Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.” She smiled shyly.
“Yeah…” He nodded.
Riley went behind the bushes and peeled off her shirt. She glanced down at herself and then began wrapping the bandages around her until it was snug against her. She tied it off and put her shirt back on.
When she returned, she lifted her arms and smiled. “Guess that takes care of most of it, don’t it?”
“Yeah, but come here,” he coaxed, his face still not relaxing as he spoke.
She came up to him. “What now?”
He cut himself on the arm with the knife, she gasped when she saw the blood ooze on his arm, and reached to comfort him, but when he reached inside her shirt to smear the blood on the bandage she stood very still and stared up at him. They were close enough to kiss again, but Sam knew that would take them to a place that was unwise. One of them had to use control.
“What are you doin’?” she protested, trying to wiggle away when he smeared the blood from his arm on her. He touched her bare skin once and jerked his hand out quickly as though it were burned from contact.
“Calm down. If anyone sees you bandaged, they might wonder why. Now we can say you were hurt in the tornado when a branch hit you and we had to tie your ribs up.” Sam nodded his satisfaction.
“Oh…that’s good thinkin’, Sam.” She smiled. “That would never have occurred to me. I guess I’m not big enough to worry about this, but it will give me more confidence.”
Almost as though mumbling to himself, he muttered, “You’re big enough, Riley. You’re perfect.”
But aloud, he merely said, “Yeah…I reckon it will do.” Sam agreed and turned to pick up his saddle bags and sling them over his shoulder. “We’re gonna have to walk, maybe we’ll catch up to the horse soon. I unhobbled him just before the storm and he run off like I figured he would. He won’t have gone too far, just out of the line of the storm. Nodog can sniff him out in no time for us.”
“You got a lot of faith in that dog, don’t you?”
“Well, sure I do. He’s part wolf, and he knows things…” Sam laughed.
“Sometimes I think animals have more sense than people. They instinctively know more about nature. Ever notice how things smell so good after a storm?” Riley breathed in deeply, inhaling the scent of the earth settling once more. “Kinda like God Himself cleaned the earth.”
“Reckon I’m always too busy noticing the effects of the storm, Riley,” Sam acknowledged. “I guess men don’t take the time to notice a lot of things.”
“You can actually smell the earth,” Riley said, dancing about, her boots splashing water all over.
“I guess it is cleaner.” Sam watched her from a distance away. “Shore does clear things away, don’t it?”
“How do you know so much, Sam?” Riley gasped. “I mean, about surviving and life.”
“Told you…I lived with the Indians. Indians know a lot about things ordinary people don’t know. They can teach you a lot about survival, life and how to live on the land.” Sam glanced about again. “We best be movin’ along now, it’ll be dark in another hour and harder to find the horse.”
Sam walked about the place once more, picking up odd and end things from the ground that they might need later and tying them to his saddle. Riley followed him.
“Sam…” Riley called to him as they began walking. “‘Bout in there…”
Sam stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at her. “We won’t speak of it again. You was scared, and that’s all there was to it. Truth be told, so was I. I did what I could, to take your mind off the storm, that’s all it was Riley. Don’t make no more out of it than that, you hear?”
“That how you want it, Sam?” Riley asked, staring at him now.
“That’s how I want it.” Sam cleared his throat and began walking again.
