Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
L isa spent as much time sleeping as she could. When she was asleep, she didn’t have any awareness of the past or the present. She was able to continue living without any of the grief. But try as she might, she couldn’t sleep forever. For one, there was a point when the eyes refused to remain shut. And two, her bladder let her know she had to take care of more pressing matters.
Pushing aside her reluctance, she threw the blankets off of her and sat up in the bed. The man had allowed her to stay fully clothed this time. That was a small blessing, she supposed. If only she still didn’t resent him for letting her continue living in this miserable existence. Just how was she supposed to face today? How was she supposed to face the rest of her life?
She put her feet on the floor and forced herself to stand up. Her hair fell in dirty, tangled waves around her. If she cared, she would have tucked her hair behind her ears, but she didn’t care. Let the hair hinder part of her vision. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
She moved toward the door, feeling as drained as she had when she stepped up to the edge of the cliff. It was a shame she hadn’t been able to step off that cliff like she was stepping on this floor.
She opened the door and scanned her surroundings. The man wasn’t anywhere in sight. She stepped outside and went to the nearest shrub. She didn’t know why she was so concerned about modesty. Innocence wasn’t something one could retrieve once it was lost. And yet, she continued on with the pretense as if she had something to protect.
Once she was finished taking care of business, she pulled up her drawers then let her dress fall down to her ankles. She didn’t know what to do next. Should she try escaping? Sure, the man claimed he wasn’t going to hurt her, but could she trust him? Plenty of men made promises they didn’t keep.
She took a tentative step out from the shrub. Everything was still quiet, save the song from a few birds. The sun seemed like it was high up enough in the sky to be early afternoon. She wasn’t one to judge the time of day from the sun, but she recalled Henry talking about it on the stagecoach shortly before clouds took over and the rain began to fall.
A stream of sunlight filtered in through the trees around her. She was tempted to step into it. Though it was May, she was chilly. The sun would probably warm her up. She shook her head. What was she thinking? She wanted to be dead. She didn’t want to live. The sun was a source of life. Still, she crossed her arms in order to help buffer herself against the chill in the shade.
She didn’t feel like returning to the cabin. She didn’t feel like running off. She didn’t feel like standing around. She didn’t feel like sitting. She didn’t feel like doing anything. She shivered. What was she doing here? Why couldn’t she just have stepped off the cliff?
She heard the sound of something moving around and turned her head in the direction of a wooden building with a single door and two small windows. It was next to a small barn and what seemed to be a chicken coop. It was similar to the cabin except it couldn’t fit half the things the cabin did. She heard a thumping sound that echoed through the air, followed a second later by a latch being set in place. The sounds came from behind the wooden building, so she was unable to see what was moving around back there. She frowned. Maybe it wasn’t safe to be out in the open like this. She swallowed, barely noticing how dry her throat was.
She glanced around her. Where could she hide? The trees in the area weren’t all that thick, and the shrub, while decent for acting as a privy, was a poor hiding place from a large animal. Where was the man? Was he in the building? Had he gone down the hillside to do something?
She heard a sound coming from the side of the building before she saw the man. Her eyes grew wide. He wore an apron to protect his clothes, and that apron was covered in blood. She let out a scream and bolted for the cabin. He stopped in his tracks and watched in shock as she flung the door open. She gave him one last look before she realized hiding in the cabin was the worst thing she could do. He lived there. She’d end up trapped if she went inside the cabin. Her only recourse was to get as far from the cabin as she could. She spun on her heel and headed down the hillside.
“Wait! It’s not what it looks like,” he called out behind her.
She ran as fast as her feet would carry her. She had no idea what he had done to the person he’d murdered, and she didn’t want to know. The only thing she cared about was making sure she wasn’t his next victim. She’d heard horrible stories of things that happened to lone women in uncivilized territory. They could be beaten. They could be taken to bed by force. They could be killed. Or all three could happen. And being a woman, she didn’t have the strength to fight back. Her only recourse was to flee. Yes, she wanted to die, but she wanted to die on her own terms.
“I cut up a wolf for food! I just finished putting its meat in the cellar,” he yelled after her.
She dodged a tree and leapt over its roots. Going downhill provided her some additional speed, but she didn’t know where she was heading. There were no end to the trees around her. When she came to this territory, she had no idea how difficult it was to navigate her surroundings when she was surrounded by a bunch of trees. All she could do was hope the town was at the bottom of this hill.
He called after her again, and this time, he sounded farther away. Had he given up his pursuit? She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he had, indeed, stopped running. He was now still, and his hands were on his hips as he watched her.
Her relief was short-lived because as soon as she looked forward, the world around her tilted sideways. She did her best to get her balance back, but days of being weak caught up to her. She fell against a tree then she collapsed on the ground. She groaned. Now the trees were all spinning around her. She felt nausea rise up within her, but she had nothing in her stomach. There was no danger of vomiting. However, she did have to take deep, even breaths to quell the nausea. The trees kept on spinning. She closed her eyes. Her head hurt, and her side hurt from landing on a tree root that was jutting up from the ground.
She couldn’t keep doing this. There was no point in running. She simply wasn’t strong enough. He was going to beat her. He was going to rape her. Then, when he was finally bored, he would kill her, cut her up, and stick her in a cellar. The nausea welled back up in her throat. If only she had stepped off the cliff when she had the chance. She heard him approaching her just as she lost consciousness.
* * *
That evening, Ashley sat in the chair and rocked himself back and forth. On the stove, he was letting a pot of soup simmer. This time, when the woman woke up, he would have soup ready for her. She needed more than water. She needed food, but he worried she’d been hungry for so long that she couldn’t handle anything substantial.
It was unfortunate she had woken up earlier that day when she had. He could only imagine what thoughts had gone through her mind when she saw him leave the cellar. If he had seen himself without knowing he’d spent the entire morning cutting up a wolf, he would have run, too.
But not all monsters looked the part. Some dressed in expensive clothes and were well manicured. Without thinking, his gaze went down to his nails which were jagged. It’d been a long time since he’d bothered to smooth them down. Though he made an attempt to shave on occasion, it was hard to care when he hadn’t had a decent haircut in years. As for his clothes… Well, one couldn’t chop down trees in their best, could they?
Once darkness fell, there was nothing to do but wait for the sun to rise. He was trapped between wanting her to wake up and wishing she wouldn’t. As long as she slept, he didn’t have to worry about what he could say to assure her that he wasn’t going to hurt her. He might have convinced her yesterday that she was safe, but he doubted she’d believe him after seeing him all covered in wolf’s blood. But while she slept, he had nothing to do but wait in a silent room, and it was difficult to block out unpleasant thoughts when all was quiet.
He caught sight of movement from the bed. He straightened up in the chair and focused on her. She let out a moan and rolled onto her back. This time he had chosen not to remove her dress and clean it, even though it had gotten mud on it from her fall outside. He could clean the blankets much easier than he could gain her trust.
When it became clear that she was coming out of sleep, he picked up a bowl then lifted the lid from the pot that was on the stove. He glanced her way to see if she had opened her eyes yet. No, she hadn’t. She was probably trying to remain asleep for a little longer. He dipped the ladle into the pot then poured soup into the bowl. He had no idea how much she would eat, or even if he could talk her into eating. But she had to be hungry. Surely, the need to live would compel her to eat.
Deciding it would be best if he wasn’t close to her when she opened her eyes, he set the bowl and spoon on the small table by the bed. Then he retreated to the chair and settled back into it.
She shifted partly to her side so that she was facing the table. After a moment, she opened her eyes. There was a split second where she seemed confused by her surroundings, but then she gasped and sat up in the bed. She stilled and put her hand to her head.
He winced on her behalf. No doubt her head ached from lack of water and food. He debated whether to speak but finally decided she might not react so strongly if she heard him before she saw him. “There’s a bowl of soup on the table next to you,” he said.
She stiffened but didn’t look up at him.
He paused. “I trap animals, so I can have food. I found a wolf in one of my traps this morning. I cut the meat and put it in the cellar. You saw me just after I secured the cellar door. I do that to keep other animals from getting to it and to keep the meat fresh.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “We’re two and a half hours from town. It’s not easy to get to a store.”
Again, she didn’t look at him.
“I have some of the meat boiling in a pot on the stove,” he went on. “Do you notice the smell?”
When she still refused to look in his direction, he let out a sigh. He didn’t know what else to say. He turned his gaze to the window that was over the cookstove. The sun had only set a half hour ago. There was a lot of night to go before it returned. He rubbed his eyes. The day had been a long one, what with all the work it took to cut and preserve the meat.
After a moment, an idea came to him. He got up from the chair.
She let out a startled cry and pulled the blankets up to her chin.
Surprised, he stopped heading for the mantle above the fireplace where he had set one of the pieces of fur from the wolf. “I take the fur from the animals I catch and make things from them. I was just going to show you one of the pelts that I’ll probably use for a coat.”
Though her expression remained skeptical, she did slightly lower the blanket.
Seeing his chance to offer tangible reassurance, he picked up the gray pelt and held it up toward the fire so she could see it. “I just cut this today. If you want, I can take it there so you can see that the edges are rough.”
She furrowed her eyebrows, and he realized she wouldn’t know the difference between a recently cut fur and one that had been cut a while ago. He set the pelt back in its place. There had to be something he could do to ease her anxiety. If she didn’t relax, she’d never eat, and if she didn’t eat, she would die.
After a moment, an idea came to him. He made his way to the knife resting on the shelf above the cookstove. He fully expected her to be afraid as soon as she saw it, and she didn’t disappoint him. She let out a scream and started to scramble out of the bed. He ran over to the door before she could leave the cabin. If she went off running in the dark, he’d never find her. Then who knew if a wild animal would attack her?
“Why do you want to hurt me?” she asked, tears in her voice as she backed up into the bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. “I haven’t done anything to you. I don’t even know you.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.” How many times did he have to say it before she believed him? “I’m going to give you this knife. You can use it to protect yourself. I don’t have a gun.” He stepped over to the very edge of the bed, placed the knife on it, then sat in the chair. “There you go. Take it.”
Her gaze went to it. She hesitated for a long moment but then leapt forward and retrieved the knife. She returned to her spot on the bed and drew the blankets back up to her chin.
Well, she had taken the knife. That was a start. Maybe now she would be more willing to eat the soup. He gestured to the bowl. “Please, eat.”
She didn’t budge from her spot. She just stared at him then pointed the knife in his direction.
He sighed. He had done all he could. Now all he could do was wait and see if she’d eat the soup. Since she kept watching him, he decided to lie down on the floor where he’d been sleeping since he brought her here. He’d be no good to either one of them if he didn’t get a good night’s sleep. Once he made himself comfortable—or as comfortable as one could get on a hard floor, he closed his eyes. Several minutes passed before he heard her finally pick up the bowl and eat.