Near the Bone(13)

She felt her husband’s anger in the clench of his fingers around her arm.

“Don’t you dare look back at him,” William growled. “Don’t you tempt him with your wiles. I know you wanted him. You’re nothing but a whore, Martha, like all women are whores.”

Mattie didn’t protest, didn’t say that she hadn’t thought of the man that way. No matter what she said, William wouldn’t believe her.

He’s mad because the stranger thought I was William’s daughter and not his wife.

She knew William was much older than her, of course—she wasn’t certain exactly how much, but there was at least twenty years’ difference between them. His hair was more than half gray, and he had wrinkles around his eyes.

That stranger, though. He was young like me. Close to my age.

And he thought he knew me.

Mattie risked a quick look backward, wanting to see the stranger’s face one more time. He wasn’t looking at Mattie and William, though. He stared up at the cliff face, at the place where Mattie and William had come from just before they’d met the stranger.

Don’t go in the cave, she thought. The creature will catch you.

Mattie looked back just in time, for when they reached the cover of the woods again, William thrust her away roughly and turned again toward the stranger.

“I ought to shoot him right now,” William snarled, raising the rifle to his shoulder. “A man ought to know better. He ought to respect another man’s property. He oughtn’t have looked at you like that when you belong to me.”

“No, don’t!” Mattie cried, curling her hand over his arm.

“What, you don’t want me to shoot your lover? Get your hands off me, Jezebel. I have every right to kill him and you. You’re mine, Martha. Mine to let live or let die. Mine in every way. And if any other man thinks his plow will sow your fields, he will by God pay for that disrespect.”

Mattie knew William would beat her when they got home—knew because the man had glanced at her and she glanced back, knew because William felt insulted, knew because William was already angry and worried about the creature, knew because the stranger had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of these sins would be Mattie’s fault, as all the things were always her fault. The pain was coming. She knew that.

And because her punishment was inevitable she dared to defy him, to keep her hand curled around his arm just above his elbow.

She dared to say, “I don’t care about him, William, truly I don’t. I would never look at any man but you—”

“Liar,” he spat. “You’re a bitch in heat, like all women are.”

“—but if you kill him, then people will come, lots of people, they’ll come searching up the mountain to try and find him and you don’t want that, do you? You don’t want lots of people crawling all over the mountain because of the bear, that’s what you said, but if that man goes missing, then there will be even more people, there will be . . .”

She trailed off, trying to think of the right term. It was something she knew from long ago, but couldn’t quite recall.

“Search parties,” William said.

“Yes, search parties,” she said. She ought to have known that term, search parties. There was something about them that was important, important to her, but she’d forgotten. “So you shouldn’t kill him because of that. I don’t care about him at all, William, not at all, but you don’t want search parties here, do you?”

Mattie didn’t dare look anywhere except William’s face. He still had the rifle trained on the stranger. Mattie saw death in William’s eyes, a longing to pull the trigger, to avenge his insulted manhood.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. Then he abruptly dropped the muzzle toward the ground. Mattie hastily released his arm and took a step back.

“Search parties,” William said, glancing at her. She thought she saw something move across his face, something like fear, but it disappeared in an instant and Mattie decided she must be mistaken. “This has been a wasted day. There are chores to finish. I should have been out hunting stores for the winter instead of wasting my time on this bear that frightened you yesterday.”

The creature hadn’t frightened Mattie the day before—at least not right away. She’d only thought the death of the fox had been odd. But it was going to be her fault that William had wasted his time today, and she was sensible enough not to remind him that he’d decided that very morning that the bear was a threat.

That was why they’d spent the day away from their usual tasks—because of William’s decision, not hers. She didn’t remind him, either, of the creature’s strange behavior—the cave of bones, the pile of organs. She wanted to go home and forget all of it. She hadn’t shaken off the nausea completely and she wanted to lie down.

Not that William would allow her to rest, of course. Resting was for when her chores were finished. Resting only came after she’d done her nightly duty for her husband.

William stalked away from the meadow, taking huge strides. As always, he moved forward without checking to see if Mattie was behind him. He expected her to follow, and that was that.

Mattie looked back at the stranger one more time, and found he wasn’t where they’d left him. He was climbing the slope toward the caves.