OCR Text |
Show when she had finished talking. "How long have you been conscious?" con-scious?" Nellie demanded, a hint of anger in her voice, her face suddenly sud-denly red. "Since before you decided to put a stop to my chills," he said bluntly. "Why didn't you tell me you were conscious?" she cried. "Afraid you might pull away," he said honestly. She stood up, turning her back to him, walking towards the stream, wanting to be out of his sight. She was angry, wanting to hurt him with words that she couldn't bring herself to say because they were lies, wanting to kick him in the injured leg but knowing she couldn't. She wanted to cry, but at the same time felt better than she had in years. She was confused, except for one lingering thought that seemed to overshadow everything else. She was in love with Ben Storm. (To be continued) Suddenly angry with herself and her feelings, Nellie stood up and began walking upstream. Ben would just have to be hot for a while. But she wasn't gone long, and when she returned, she took little care to make sure the wet rag stayed beneath her palm. Occasionally Oc-casionally she ran the cooling rag over the wound to shoo away the first of the spring flies, which seemed determined to get inside. While the swelling had not gone away, it didn't seem to be getting any worse. In the middle of the night, Ben's temperature finally broke. Nellie awoke with a start, not sure what had disturbed her. The cool night breeze was pushing down from the snowy mountains to the east, chilling everything in its path. Reaching over to Ben in the darkness, Nellie touched him. The skin on his chest was no longer hot and wet with perspiration, but dry and cool with goosebumps. She could feel him shivering and hear the chattering of his teeth. Pushing back her blanket, she pushed close to him, pressing her body against his in an effort to share her warmth, then pulling her blanket around the two of them. His teeth stopped chattering, then the shivering stopped. Ben seemed to be drifting into a deep, comfortable sleep. She decided she preferred the chills to the temperature. At least she could do something about the chills. The morning sun was just rising over the eastern cliffs when Nellie noticed that Ben had regained consciousness. She was bent over the fire, cooking some chunks of horse meat on pointed sticks, when she looked up to see him staring at her. "You're conscious," she said simply. "Yes," he said, "thanks to you." "Madge and I were worried about you," she said, looking back down at the meat, not understanding why she felt timid before his stare. She wished she had taken time to wash her face and brush her hair. "Where's Madge?" he asked. She told him how Madge had left in search of a doctor. "How long was I out? What happened?" Nellie told him everything - how he and one of the horses had fallen off the cliff, how Lobo had gone for help and chased off the bear, how she had tied off the severed artery and brought him back to camp on the black gelding, how he had been unconscious for nearly 40 hours. "You sure know how to cure the chills," he said matter-of-factly |