Falling in Love Page 7

  Oh, thank God.

  And, one more thing: Oh, my, God.

  What a hunk.

  But even objectively speaking, this was an improvement.

  It was better than sitting around all night in the dark, alone in some church, wondering if you were going to starve, freeze, bake, die of thirst…or be eaten by rats.

  She took some more dates, which went very well with the bread and the cheese.

  “Thank you.” She studied him in unabashed fashion. “Thank you, oh, handsome stranger, for rescuing me especially, and for the lovely little snack as well.”

  The floor show wasn’t bad either.

  He munched his food in an unhurried way and seemed to get it on some level, as he listened to the inflections in her tone with what looked like approval. He looked up and nodded, again with the sharp glint of intelligence and something else—something feral, as the lady wondered just how in the hell she was going to get out of this or even if she really wanted to.

  Not all that much, she decided.

  Not right now, anyways.

  Hospitality had its rules in spite of all language barriers and at least some effort had to be made. It cost nothing to be polite and patience was a virtue.

  She must find some way to repay him.

  ***

  It was dawn and the world was glorious.

  She stood, watching with interest as he prepared the horse for riding. He didn’t have a saddle, she realized. He strung the bow, and leaned it against a bush along with the arrows. Its casing, once loosely bound, now fit it snugly and there were tie-strings on the sides of it.

  Jayne had had her morning tinkle in the bushes nearby and so had he.

  The fellow beckoned towards her feet and said something. Interpreting correctly, she slipped off her sandals and handed them to him. He put them in a bag and tied the top securely. He put that down beside the bow, along with two water containers and the quilted horse-blanket they had slept on, him anyways, through the long vigil of the night. She gave him her purse and he stuck that in the bag as well.

  She might have dropped off just before true dawn, although the birds were up and there was a dim glow in the east. He slept with his arms around her, but was otherwise scrupulously polite in his silent fashion. She’d lain there blinking a lot and wondering what to do next. The half an hour or hour’s worth of fitful sleep hardly rendered her amenable to new faces and new experiences this morning. Not at first. She might brighten up after a time. She was just praying he was taking her to some nearby place where they would have a phone, and for the love of God, maybe even a real bathroom.

  The gentleman folded the larger, thinner blanket into a long rectangle and then he put that on top of the horse-blanket and smoothed them out on top of the big white stallion. Surely the evidence of that was unmistakable, hanging out there as big as a man’s arm for the world to marvel at, and then he put a long leather strap around the horse, loosely cinching it by a curved buckle of some bronze-like metal. There were rope loops for stirrups.

  He tied the bags on, and then the quiver went on the left side up front, and the bow on the right. His sword, wrapped in its own soft but close-fitting scabbard, hung down his back as usual.

  With the water bottles in place, one on each side, slung across the back of the blanket after being tied on by the necks, the man tightened up the cinch and took a look around. He said something and looked at her. She looked around. The place looked much as he must have found it. She saw a few scuffs on the ground and a place where the grass and weeds was flattened. They hadn’t forgotten anything, which she assumed was the point.

  He patted his chest.

  “Kenn’karr.”

  She smiled sweetly as there was nothing else for it.

  She patted her breast over the heart. Keep it simple, stupid.

  “Jayne.” Jayne Dickson, last known address, Apartment Nine-Seventeen…The Berkshire Building, Brooklyn, New York.

  He nodded. Turning, putting a hand on the thing’s shoulder and one foot in the loop attached to the strap. He whipped up a leg and mounted the animal in one fluid motion. It cocked its head to the left and took a long and sideways look at her.

  The man extended his arm. Taking his hand, she put a foot in the loop on top of his, gave an awkward hop, and with a strong pull from above, Jayne was quickly aboard, sitting back on the tail end of the blanket and trying to avoid banging her knees on the water-bottles which were right there. She hitched her hem up a ways, as he couldn’t see much from that angle anyway. Her legs looked pale and smooth beside the curly hair, and deeply-muscled tan of his. A little shiver of something went through her.

  There was a lurch, coming as a bit of a surprise, but she had taken a good grip on his abdominal ridges. She almost giggled at the thought, and then they were off.

  With a sudden rush of guilt, deep down in her middle, Jayne thought of the dratted condoms in a sly side compartment of her purse. She had three of them in there, almost an afterthought when packing for the trip, but one never knew. And where else would you logically put them? Three, no more and no less, three there were and there ain’t no more…

  Her gentle rescuer said something over his left shoulder.

  Not sure what he wanted, Jayne reluctantly wriggled her hips and bum so as to get in as close as possible to him. She cussed the water bottles right there, cold and damp on her thighs. That was an idea. If he said something, squeeze in tighter. Anything at all happens, squeeze in tighter…and if he puts his hand on your knee, rub up against him.

  It was a thought.

  Her knees stuck out but there was no place else to put them. He gave a grunt of approval and seemed to take a stronger grip with his knees as there were no reins and bridle. He made another cluck and the horse picked up its pace with a show of quiet, prideful eagerness.

  Kenn’karr held onto its mane loosely with his left hand.

  Clearly they had done this before.

  With the movement of the animal under them, and the proximity of her pelvic bone rubbing up against the hard ridges of his tail-end, it didn’t take long. The entire effect was stimulating, perhaps even a little bit disturbing. It was also strangely comforting as she settled into a ride of perhaps some distance. But all of this gave her something to think about, to occupy her mind.

  She’d heard of women getting off on motorcycles—at the time she thought it was just stories, but now she realized there might be some truth in it. It was an interesting sensation, what with a big strong back and all those muscles inches away. After a night in the open and laying beside a fire, his smell was of nothing much but wood-smoke and a hint of armpits.

  She kind of liked it, actually.

  It was only after she had a moment to look around, that she was stunned to realize there was not a single drop of blue water as far as the eye could see. The island, the lake, and the distant pale smudges of the lakeside villages on distant hillsides were all gone. They were on a wide expanse of arid flatlands, rising up in the far distant horizon into long fingers of hills, with a fading suggestion of blue-green to indicate that there might be trees and even water there.

  This can’t be right.

  This can’t be real.

  This wasn’t real.

  This isn’t happening to me.

  Her mind reeled, and she opened up her mouth to speak, but it was no good. No sound came out.

  Mouth open, she stared around, wild-eyed in dismay. But there was no water in sight and the truth of it was sickening. What in the blue Hades was happening here?

  Had she finally gone mad after all?

  It was all she could do just to hold on.

  The Sun Was High Overhead

  Time dragged on, four or five hours of the morning, maybe longer considering their early start. The sun was high overhead.

  The reality of it quickly became apparent and this wasn’t a dream. Even so, some of the dread had worn off.

  Any appeal due to sheer novelty the situation might on
ce have had, was gone now. The sun blazed in the sky, and while the hills had gotten much closer, much bigger now, the land between shimmered in the heat haze and the man Kenn’karr, whether rescuer or captor, she knew not which, was conserving the water for the horse.

  It was a logical explanation.

  Her upper arms ached in the biceps from holding on all frickin’ morning, and after a while her hands dropped lower and lower. Finally, she had gotten somewhat used to the horse’s odd gait, for occasionally it sped up for three or four steps on its own mysterious initiative. She settled for keeping her hands on his hips, or even grabbing onto the back of his belt. Her curling fingers were held in place by the pressure of warm muscle and skin.

  It was no time for squeamishness.

  She was just stretching her back up to her full height. They were cresting a small hillock, and she was craning around for one last disbelieving look, to reassure herself that the lake was indeed gone when a series of cries came from off to the right and a decisive kick of the man’s heels sent the horse galloping.

  It’s a good thing she was clinging to his belt, or she would have gone off the back, and his left hand came around and gave her a quick haul forwards. Jayne grabbed on for dear life, gaping off to the right, which she thought was south, to an escarpment. It was crumbling at the base and pock-marked with caves, split and opened by fissures and cracks and small dry watercourses coming in from the side. They’d been angling towards it for over an hour. There was another cliff half a mile, maybe more, to the north.

  Dull black figures, hideously painted, almost naked they were, ran along the top of the cliff and poured out of small hiding places along the boulder-strewn slope leading down from the bluff.

  “Oh, my, God!” They were all running pell-mell with weapons of various types, some had two or three slender spears clutched in their hands and what looked like throwing sticks.

  They were coming straight at them.

  They were deformed men, with long arms and short legs and they were painted like zebras, faces etched in horrible, multi-coloured masks. The first spear fell short and she said a quick expletive as the horse lowered its fine-boned head, its legs went horizontal fore and aft in one solid blur, and the thing really took flight.

  Her barbarian friend ducked low over the horse’s neck, arms wrapped around it, and all she could do was cling low to his back, gasping and half-weeping, and trying not to fall off. She thought her heart would come out of her chest. More of the attackers raced out on an angle, trying to get out in front of them, heading them off. She could see a notch in the valley wall over Kenn’karr’s shoulder up ahead of them and that was the way they all seemed to be pointed.

  She shrieked when one ran up beside them, yelling and grabbing at her and brandishing a wooden club with short wicked spikes in the end, drools of some gooey substance visible all over it…

  The big man drew his sword in a sudden motion, shrugging off her grip and she scrabbled for his belt again, her nails, short as they were, scraping flesh. Whether he noticed or cared; he made no sign and on a word the horse side-stepped. With one quick swipe going past, standing up now at full height in the primitive rope stirrups made for just this purpose, he took the arm holding the club right off at the shoulder. The tip of the horrid thing missed her right eye by inches or so it seemed and then they were past the last half-dozen of them.

  The shriek of the pursuer, still running but now clutching a bloody stump and spewing an amazing amount of bluish-green gore, was awful to hear and then the creature tripped and fell face-down in the dust. She tore her eyes from the sight.

  Their rabid cries faded off somewhere behind them. She took another look back and saw them, slowing now, but still coming on with determination.

  Her benefactor gave a triumphant shout as he twisted to look behind, and then he dropped down onto the horse’s neck again, with Jayne sobbing and cursing and trying to get some breath back in her body as she wondered what in the hell had just happened here.

  A spear landed to her left, sticking in the ground with the butt end pointing up right at her as the horse cantered by. She didn’t see that one coming.

  It must have missed her back by less than two feet, and so she stayed down until Kenn’karr sat up, took a quick look back, and then made a serious assault on the narrowing gorge ahead of them.

  He held the mane with both hands now, after she helped guide the dripping sword back into its case. She wiped the blood from her fingers on the bottom of her dress. A bit of a stain was the least of her problems.

  When they got to the top, ten or twelve minutes later, he whirled the animal aside from the trail, and the pair sat looking back down into the valley.

  There was not a sign of life, and from up here she couldn’t even see their horse’s tracks.

  “Mogg-loks.” It sounded like a curse.

  He spat on the ground and said something more, which sounded like it boded evil for someone. She quietly panted and tried to work up some spit. She grabbed at his arm and on a look from Kenn’karr, indicated the water bottles. He nodded reluctantly and took a drink from her. Shit, he’d earned it after that little episode, and so had she.

  He said something and she gave him a squeeze on the left deltoid to show she understood. She pulled the strings under the saddle belt and tied it on securely again. He nodded approval and gave her a smile of relief over his shoulder.

  He casually wiped his bloody right hand on his bare upper leg. Turning the horse, they set off again, still going at a good pace and with much of the day still before them. Their mount seemed inexhaustible, yet sweat coursed down its flanks after a while, and there was foam on the muzzle. She felt a moment of pity for working animals everywhere at the sight. Her life was sheltered in many ways. This was raw—very raw, and yet fascinating. Something weird was coming over her. It was like it was all meant to be. She’d never felt like this before, at least not in a very long time. It was to be born anew—the words echoed inside of her and she wondered just exactly what that would imply. Everything worthwhile in life had a price tag attached.

  The really valuable things couldn’t be bought at any price, not in mere money.

  She knew that much, but her guts trembled inside at the notion that she was a grown woman and finally free…she could do what she wanted. No one back home would ever know.

  Under her hands his stomach rumbled, but then so did hers. For no good reason at all, she felt incredibly lucky to be alive and to have such a remarkable experience. Maybe even a new lease on life.

  He gazed into her eyes and smiled.

  This sure as hell wasn’t Kansas anymore.

  And again, she thought of those blasted condoms; or if he’d ever even seen one before, or if Kenn’karr would have the slightest idea of what to do with one. His hands fell from the mane, the man clucked and muttered something, and the horse moved on at a measured pace.

  ***

  There was a long, tenuous flutter in her midriff as she contemplated the unthinkable, but putting things as logically as she could, that bloody lake didn’t just disappear into thin air.

  There was no explaining that part. She shoved those terrifying thoughts aside.

  Sooner or later they must get to a phone.

  In the meantime, Kenn’karr seemed like a really nice guy, and if nature didn’t take some kind of a course pretty darned soon, she might be strongly tempted to have a go, and to take matters into her own hands.

  She definitely felt that way about him. There was no denying it.

  Jayne Dickson buried her head in Kenn’karr’s back, and taking a strong deep breath, sucked in the very smell of him, squeezing him tight in a long and unrestrained hug.

  This was really living.

  Tomorrow need never come at all.

  Holed Up When the Shadows Grew Long

  They holed up when the afternoon shadows grew long.

  Kenn’Karr seemed intent on sharpening his sword with a worn black stone. They were in a c
lump of cottonwoods and there were a lot of flat stones and large rotten timbers lying around.

  The ruins of a small barn or shed hung, one end gaping wide open, over the bank of a small, clear-running stream. The rest of the farm buildings must have been long gone. It was still warm but would cool off quickly. They were out of sight, but Kenn’Karr had stopped her when she began to prepare some kind of a fire ring of rectangular stones.

  Jayne looked around. She could see that he had chosen a defensible position. After this morning, that seemed wise enough.

  “Do we need more water?”

  He glanced up, but then went back to work.

  She shrugged.

  Picking up the almost empty water bags, she sat on the lip and then dropped down to the sloping gravel river bank, where the horse was tied with a few hastily-gathered bundles of fresh grass to nibble on. That was one smart horse. The thing was being very quiet, without being spooky, but it did seem to listen. It spent a fair amount of time, looking up and all around from time to time, as if in studied contemplation of the immediate surroundings.

  It probably would let its ears do most of the work, she realized.

  Kenn’Karr was still being very cautious.

  That made sense.

  She looked for a deep pool, one where she could submerge the containers fully. There was no sense in only filling them halfway up.

  After filling them, she set them aside. Having thought all of this out beforehand, Jayne wasn’t wearing her bra or panties. She’d taken them off during a quick late-afternoon bathroom break, where Kenn’Karr’s basic shyness guaranteed her just enough time and privacy.

  The dress slipped off over her head in seconds. She put it beside her sandals, stuck in the crotch of some branches in a small tree on the bank. The water bags were on the damp grass, all in a row, right there. The sun felt good on her skin, noting it was now fully turned to tan in the dark spots.