"My friend's bride is half Cherokee, but grew up in suburbia,'' he said as he walked in. ''She wanted a miniature English cottage. This was a toughly negotiated compromise. My friend and I wanted a miniature Chumash longhouse. But she's an architect, and she designed the cabin."
Something about this revelation made Jessie smile broadly. Kier suddenly seemed more accommodating, a man among men, not an Indian among white people. And for some reason, at this particular moment, he looked unusually desirable. It hit her hard, like a wave that gathers force as it breaks on a steep beach. Overcome with her sudden attraction to him, she consciously stifled the feeling.
"So they're going to live here for the summer?"
"Well, a month, anyway. Then they're flying to Hawaii for a couple of weeks."
Sitting on the wooden bed platform, Jessie began to muse. She didn't know why, exactly, but after a moment she laughed. When she glanced at Kier, he seemed utterly puzzled.
"It's just so… so very American. I mean, two weeks in Hawaii, an architect, a cute little dollhouse, a cabin that you two slaved to build. It's so… sweet."
She then realized he was studying her. "Well?" She wondered what was going on behind those dark eyes.
"You seem to like the idea," he replied.
To give herself time to think, she turned around and studied the room. Nearest her was a built-in double bed without a mattress, and next to it a simple table with two chairs that reminded her of Amish tastes and methods. Some containers for water that looked to be made of skins hung from the overhead beams. A lovely, rustic-looking cabinet stood against the wall. Its open face had been made from a slice off a log, complete with the bark. A couple of lanterns hung from the rafters, and two fat, wax-bearded yellow candles sat in the middle of the table. A small chest of drawers had been hauled in, and various pegs protruded from the wall for hanging clothes.
When the reality of their situation came rushing back, she felt foolish for allowing herself to be occupied with such trivial distractions. "I can't believe we're discussing this when we could easily be dead in thirty minutes. Where's the food?"
"Just a short way down the creek is the beaver pond."
"Let's go get it."
''Would you like to stay here?''
"No," she shot back, determined to do her share.
"You can help carry the food back."
''Whatever you do, I do." She said it before she could ponder what she was getting herself into.
On his way out, Kier snatched some leather squares from a peg. There was something vaguely familiar about them, but she couldn't place it.
The short walk turned out to be a brisk, fifteen-minute hike down a steep path made slick by the misty rain. The clouds had come down all around them cloaking the land, making a hazy gray of every vista. Kier announced that when they returned, they would be able to build a fire because the smoke would be invisible. For that she was grateful. If not for the gut-wrenching hunger, she would have chosen fire and sleep immediately.
At the beaver pond, Kier moved to a tree and, to her surprise, began stripping off his clothes. From his large pack she saw him pull the leather squares she had seen earlier. It was a loincloth. He hadn't worn one before and she didn't know why he would bother now. At a distance of twenty feet, she watched unabashedly while he prepared himself. She loved the hard, lean contours of his body, and she hadn't grown weary of observing him.
When he was finished, he walked toward her in nothing but the leather piece fastened with rawhide about his waist. He carried a wire snare and a pistol.
"Here." He held out the other loincloth and waited. She blinked her eyes, but otherwise stood unmoving. "After a half hour or so I'll get cold. If you're going to help, I suggest you get going."
"In that?"
Leaving it draped over her shoulder, Kier walked on. ''You can help carry the food back if you have a thing about your breasts."
"I have no thing about my breasts. They're just private, that's all. Unlike some people I don't go around with my genitals hanging out." She caught herself doing it again. "Not that there's anything wrong with them."
"You seem to have a fascination."
"That's not true. That is so silly and so male."
She watched him wade through the rushes without reply and swim toward a teepee-shaped mound of mud and sticks that she knew to be a beaver lodge. He's got to be crazy to swim in that freezing water, she thought. But to show him she could do it, she wanted to go after him. If she was going to be his equal, she had better find a way to go. Almost running, she went to a tree, where she struggled out of her clothes while watching Kier out of the corner of her eye. He disappeared under the water twice, then climbed out on top of the beaver house.
She heard silenced pistol shots in rapid succession, and the heavy thunk of. 45 slugs plowing into the mud and wood. In moments, he was pulling on something, a wire snare she assumed, to haul in a large, flopping brown mass. Two more shots and the animal stopped straggling.
Clad in her bra and loincloth, she deposited her clothes in the backpack, then went to the water's edge and stepped in, grateful that there was no ice crust. She considered that her bra, if wet, would only make her cold after she emerged. She pulled it off and tossed it on the snow. The cold water hit her ankles, then her legs, aching all the way to the bone. She gasped, but forced herself into the water, wondering all the while if the cold might do her in.
She could feel Kier's gaze even though he pretended to be busy with the beaver. As she walked briskly forward, the pond bottom felt like mush under her feet. An icy burn moved up her legs to her thighs, then to her belly. When the water was a little over waist deep, she began to swim. In less than a minute she swam the forty feet to Kier, who hauled her out atop the beaver lodge. The air actually felt warm. She crossed her arms across her chest.
He seemed to send his eyes everywhere but to her body. "Pull this to shore. Get dressed and wait for me. I'll be right behind," he said. He handed her the stick, which was still attached to the wire snare. She managed to take it in hand without moving her arms. Obviously, Kier had snared the beaver by driving the animal from its stick house. The noose was still tight around the beaver's neck.
''Okay,'' she said, jumping back in without further comment. "Oh God, oh God," she muttered through gritted teeth as she swam back.
The cold held her like a monster in its jaws, gripping and crushing all the way to her innards. It felt as though the chilly water were sucking the life from her, constricting her lungs, narrowing her vision. It frightened her. From her survival training she knew this kind of cold could incapacitate a person in minutes.
Towing the dead animal, she swam in a sidestroke, pulling with her left hand, while grasping the stick in her right. The beaver was heavy and made the going much slower, but she had only gone a few feet before she discovered that she could touch bottom. Getting a purchase with her toes, she pushed ahead quickly. At waist deep, she tried to run, pulling with all her strength. Stepping out onto the land gave Jessie one of the most triumphant feelings she could ever recall. The pleasure of it overcame the pain of the cold-something she would not have thought possible.
She pulled the dead creature to the water's edge and, still exhilarated by her success, watched Kier, who stood waist deep among leafy plants that looked a little like ivy atop the pond. Making herself ignore the cold, she reentered the water to join him. In a few seconds, she was at his side.
"What can I do?"
''Run your toe down the plant stock to the bottom. Dig in the mud with your toe and then follow a big root out 'til you come to a ball. Break it off with your… '' He grimaced in concentration as he spoke, and a white ball floated to the surface. "As I was saying