over her, feet widespread, looking around. His brow was beetled and beneath his mustache she could tell that he was gnawing on the inside of his cheek as though giving something careful consideration.
Was he weighing his options? Deciding whether or not to desert her? Or maybe he was thinking of killing her quickly and mercifully instead of letting her die of her wound.
Finally he bent down and, cupping her armpits in his palms, lifted her into a sitting position. “Take off your coat and put on that ski jacket.”
Without an argument, she let the fur coat slide from her shoulders. Using the hatchet he’d brought along, Cooper hacked down three saplings and stripped them of their branches. Silently Rusty watched as he fashioned them into an H, only placing the crossbar higher than normal. He bound the intersections with rawhide tongs, which he’d taken from the boots of the men they’d buried. Then he took her fur coat and ran a sleeve over each of the tops of the two longer poles. Rusty flinched when he stabbed through the fur and satin lining, gouging out a hole in the bottom of her precious fox coat.
He glanced up at her. “What’s the matter?”
She swallowed, realizing that he was testing her. “Nothing. The coat was a gift, that’s all.”
He watched her for a few seconds more before making a similar hole in the other side. He then ran the poles through the holes. The finished product was a crude travois. No self-respecting American Indian would have claimed it, but Rusty was impressed with his ingenuity and skill. And vastly relieved that he obviously didn’t plan to leave her behind or otherwise dispose of her.
He laid the rough contraption on the ground. Turning to her, he caught her under the knees and behind the back and lifted her. He laid her on the soft fur, then piled several pelts on top of her.
“I didn’t see any animal up there with a hide that looked like this,” she said, running her hand over a skin of short, fine wool.
“Umingmak.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s what the Inuit called the musk-ox. Means ‘the bearded one.’ It wasn’t my kill; I just bought the pelt. It’s very warm.” He tucked the wool around her and threw another pelt on top of that. “It’s up to you to stay on and keep covered.”
Standing, he wiped perspiration off his brow with the back of his hand. He winced when he grazed the bump on his temple. Rusty would have gone to bed for a week if she had sustained a blow like that; it must be killing him.
“Thank you, Cooper,” she said softly.
He froze, glanced down at her, nodded quickly, then turned and began gathering up their paraphernalia. He tossed both backpacks onto her lap, along with both rifles. “Hang on to those, too, will you?”
“Where are we going?”
“Southeast,” was his succinct reply.
“Why?”
“Sooner or later, we’ll bump into an outpost of civilization.”
“Oh.” She dreaded moving, anticipating that the journey wasn’t going to be a joyride. “May I have an aspirin please?”
He unpocketed the plastic bottle and shook two aspirin tablets into her hands.
“I can’t take them without water.”
He made an impatient scoffing sound. “It’s either dry or with brandy.”
“Brandy, please.”
He passed her one of the flasks, watching her closely. She bravely put the spout to her mouth and took a hefty swallow to wash down the aspirin tablets. She choked and sputtered. Tears filled her eyes, but with dignity and poise she returned the flask to him. “Thank you.”
His narrow lips twitched with the need to smile. “You might not have any common sense, but you’ve got guts, lady.”
And that, she thought, was as close to a compliment as she was ever likely to get from Cooper Landry. He secured the trunks of the saplings beneath his arms and moved forward, dragging the travois behind him. After having gone only a few teeth-jarring, butt-bruising yards, Rusty realized that she wasn’t going to be much better off in the travois than she would have been walking. It required all her concentration just to keep from sliding off. Her bottom would be black and blue with bruises— legacies of the rocks it encountered every grueling step of the way. She dared not even think of the satin lining of her coat being ripped to shreds by the forest debris as it was hauled over the rough ground.
It grew progressively darker and colder. A light precipitation began—snow grains she thought the meteorologists called the stuff, pellets of ice no larger than grains of salt. Her injured leg began to ache, but she would have bitten her tongue in two before she complained. She could hear Cooper’s labored breathing. He wasn’t having an easy time of it either. If it weren’t for her, he could cover three times the distance in the same amount of time.
Darkness closed in suddenly, making it perilous for them to continue over the unfamiliar terrain. He stopped in the next clearing he came to and dropped the poles of the travois. “How’re you doing?”
She didn’t think about how hungry, thirsty, and uncomfortable she was. She said, “Fine.”