When he finished, Carson carefully placed the woman’s hand on her stomach and picked up the other one. Her left hand was less damaged than the right and his efforts didn’t disturb her restless sleep. He set the little hand down atop its mate and repositioned himself near the runaway’s feet.
The damage was much more severe here—the cuts more numerous and much deeper. Carson wet the cloth again. The water had grown hot enough to make touching it unpleasant but he didn’t let that deter him. He picked up the woman’s right foot, braced it against his thighs, and began to clean the abused sole.
Never quite waking, the woman tossed and tried to turn in response to his efforts. The hem of her dress slipped higher on her legs showing an expanse of brown thigh that distracted Carson from his task and made his blood surge. He forgot her lacerated foot in the nigh overpowering urge to touch her—to run his fingers up that smooth flesh and discover for himself the differences between man and woman.
He took a deep breath, shaking his head to help him resist the impulse. It would be so easy. He was already holding her foot, massaging the tortured flesh with the thumbs of both hands. All he had to do was shift his ministrations to her calf, then work his way up past her battered knees. He could pretend he was still cleaning her as he slipped higher—pushing the hem of the dress above him as he went.
His flesh turned to iron beneath his rope belt. His heart pounded. He could feel the blood pulsing in his throat. His fingers itched to begin the journey, but he held them in place cleaning the woman’s legitimate wounds—and no more.
Her foot bled more freely than her hands had. The cuts ran deeper. A sharp wooden splinter had penetrated the skin just south of the toes. He worked at it for a minute trying to wiggle it out with his fingers before finally drawing his knife to use the sharp end like a needle.
A subtle change in the woman’s breathing alerted Carson that she had awakened. He looked at her face and found frightened eyes peering up at him from the pallet. Her gaze embarrassed him. Of course she was frightened. She was a woman in a strange man’s bed and he held a knife in his hand. He wanted to put her at ease, but didn’t know what to say.
He settled for grunting, “Gotta splinter here.” His voice came out deeper than he intended—fogged from disuse. When the woman didn’t answer him, he tightened his grip on her foot and touched the cold steel tip of his knife to the infected flesh.
The woman hissed and kicked her foot free of Carson’s hand. He didn’t fight with her—letting her go to prove he meant no harm. She scooted further away from him until she banged her head and shoulder against the wall of his shack.
Carson waited for her to realize he hadn’t harmed her.
She touched her foot without ever taking her eyes off him and puss and blood coated her finger tips. She brought her hand close to her face before glancing ever so briefly at the fluid.
Carson wiped his blade on the leg of his pants and sheathed the knife. He got up slowly and walked to the other side of his tiny shack to give the woman as much space as possible. Then he sat down again so that she could feel safer still.
She continued to stare at him with big doe eyes—still frightened despite his efforts to calm her.
“You want water?” Carson asked.
He advanced slowly to the bucket beside the fire and scooped out a cupful of liquid. Then he set the cup down about half way between them before returning to the far wall and sitting back down.
The woman stretched out to snag the cup without ever taking her eyes off of Carson. She tentatively took a single sip, and then greedily swallowed the entire contents of the cup.
Carson gestured toward the bucket and the woman crawled forward and drank again, quickly refilling the cup to drink a third time.
“Whoa,” Carson told her. His voice began to function better. “You have to slow down. If you drink too much too quick, you’ll get sick.”
The woman didn’t listen to him, filling the cup a fourth time. Carson stood up and she scooted back away from him until her back pressed firmly against the wall of the shack again.
Carson edged forward toward the cook pot. The soup was nowhere near done but he scooped out a bowlful of its contents anyway and eased forward to set it near the woman’s feet. He backed away again and watched as she hungrily devoured its contents.
The food seemed to calm her a little—not that it was enough to fill her belly. Carson sat back against the wall and watched her approach the little fire again. She scooped out another cup of water, drank it, and then refilled the soup bowl, all the while warily watching him.
When she finished the second bowl, she slipped back against the far wall and resumed staring at him.
Normally Carson was quite content with silence, but normally he was by himself. Having a strange woman in his home upset his calm demeanor. He wanted to hear her voice, wanted further evidence that she was real and he wasn’t imagining this. “That foot can’t heal ‘til we get that splinter out,” he told her.
The woman’s hand reflexively lowered to the infected sole of her foot. “How’d I get here?” she asked.
Carson shivered at the soft tones of her voice. It was all real. A poor runaway slave girl sat on the dirt floor of his home. “I found you,” he told her. “Buzzards led me to you. I carried you back here on my burro. You want more food?”
“Yes.”
Carson got back to his feet and eased forward, extending his arm ahead of him to reach for the bowl. The slave woman gave it to him, careful not to let their fingers touch as she handed it to him.
Carson turned his back on her and refilled the bowl from the pot. When he finished he saw that most of the food parts of the soup were gone and the water bucket was near empty.
He handed the bowl back to the woman. “I’ll go refill the water bucket. When I get back we can take another look at that foot.”
He picked up the bucket without waiting for a response and crossed to the door of his shack. He paused. “You got a name, girl?”
“Delilah.”
“Pretty,” he said. He tried to remember where he’d heard that name but couldn’t recall. He guessed it must have been in the bible. His mother used to read it to him on Sundays in place of going to church.
He stepped out the door and returned to his seep hole.
Chapter Two
The Sodbuster
As soon as the man left, Delilah cursed herself. “Stupid girl! Why’d you have to give him your real name? You just made it easier for the Colonel to find you!”
She looked around the little hovel for a way to defend herself. This man was dirt poor. She’d lived better as a slave in Arkansas. There was no possible way that he would forego turning her in for the reward.
She saw the rifle hanging above the shack’s only door and tried to stand to retrieve it. The pain in her swollen right foot was so great that she collapsed again, sprawling across the dirt floor. Tears poured from her eyes. She had to move quickly. She had no idea how long he would be gone.
She forced herself to her hands and knees and crawled to the rickety door. The long gun was just a few feet above her head. Midway up the door were hooks to hold a board which would bar the door from opening. She planted her good left foot firmly beneath her and caught hold of one of the hooks with her hand. Then she hauled herself into a standing position and reached for the rifle.
The door pulled open, startling Delilah and causing her to lose her precarious balance. With reflexes a rattlesnake would envy, the man dropped the bucket and caught her, pulling her tight against him so she wouldn’t hit the ground. Her throat constricted with fear. His lean body felt hard and strong against her flesh while her own muscles felt so very weak. She could hear his heart pounding in his chest.
“You shouldn’t be up,” he said.
His gruff voice reminded Delilah that she was not safe with this man. She tried to straighten up and he relaxed his hold to permit this. His hands took no liberties with her body. He just eased his grip and allowed her to take responsibility for her own weight again.
A flash of pain shot up her injured foot the moment it touched the earth. A small cry escaped her lips and she dropped right back into the man’s arms. This time he was less accommodating of her feelings. He scooped her up and carried her like a small child back to his pallet. There he laid her down on the blanket, leaving her to tug her smock down more firmly over her legs as he backed away.
“If we fix that foot, you’ll be walking in a day or two,” he said.
Delilah wanted to ask him why he cared, but then she realized it would help him if she could walk when he brought her back to the Colonel for his reward.
“It will hurt a mite,” the man told her, “but it’s the only way you’re ever gonna walk again.”
Delilah pulled her injured foot into her lap and examined its sole. The swollen flesh beneath the toes was dark with infection and an oozing wound at the center of the pain. No wonder she couldn’t stand on it—just looking at it hurt. Touching it with her fingers made her eyes tear.
The man drew his knife drawing Delilah’s eyes back to him. “It’s an Arkansas Toothpick,” he said. “Sharp blade—it won’t take long to cut the splinter out.”
Delilah cringed at the thought. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. She looked again at the oozing sore. Even in the dim light of the fire, she could see the end of a bramble peaking out of her flesh. He was right, she realized. It had to come out.
She met the man’s blue eyes and extended her hand. “Could I do it?” she asked. She didn’t want to dig through her tender flesh with that blade but surely it would be better than letting someone else do it.
“Best if I do it for you,” the man said. “I’ve a steady hand.”
Delilah’s eyes settled on the knife again. The man and his little hovel were both filthy, but that blade gleamed in the firelight. He took better care of it than he did himself.
“Roll over on your stomach,” the man said.
She hesitated. She couldn’t let him do it without watching, could she?
“Go on!” he said. For the first time she heard impatience in his voice. She reacted to the tone without thinking, rolling on to her stomach and extending her leg straight out behind her.
“Good!” the man said. He placed his shin on the back of her ankle just above her heel and let his weight come to bear. Then he pressed down on the uninfected part of her foot, just below the heel to lock her in place.
Almost before Delilah knew what was happening he pressed the knife into her tortured flesh.
She screamed. “Lordy! No! Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”
He dug about inside her foot without apparent concern for her agony. Delilah thrashed back and forth, trying to dislodge him. Her free foot caught him a sharp kick across the cheek knocking him to the side and letting her pull the injured limb tight up against her body. Blood welled in the cut, almost drowning the piece of bramble that his efforts had pulled mostly free.
The man was back up and in her face, pushing her down and grabbing hold of the foot with both hands. “Stay still!” he told her. He trapped the injured foot with one hand against his chest and held it there. Looking back over her shoulder, Delilah could see him pinching with the fingers of his free hand, trying to grip the mighty bramble that had caused all of this pain.
He let her go. “Here it is,” he said. “It’s an awful little thing to cause so much trouble.”
He handed the bit of wood to Delilah. She couldn’t believe it. Inside her foot it felt six inches long. Outside, it wasn’t half as long as her thumbnail. “Is that all of it?” she asked.
“Think so,” the man told her. “Let’s take another look.”
Before acting on his suggestion, he got the bucket from the door. Some of the water had sloshed out when he dropped it but most was still in the container. He carried it back over to her, dipped some out with his hand and splashed it on her feverish foot. The cool liquid felt good, but it hurt when he wiped the blood away with his fingers.
“You’re not screaming,” the man said. “I think we got it all.”
He let go of her. “Why don’t you get some rest? I’ve got work to do.”
Delilah watched the man stand and walk toward the door. She didn’t know what to make of him. He hadn’t touched her yet—not really. Now he appeared to be leaving her alone. “Mister,” she called out before she could stop herself. “You got a name?”
The man paused to look at her, the intensity of his stare unsettling Delilah. “Carson,” he grunted, then turned and left the shack.
Chapter Three
Yearning
Carson’s heart pounded in his chest as he walked away from his home toward the barn. The woman had asked him his name. He’d held her in his arms—carried her cradled against his chest. He never remembered feeling this excited. He wished he could turn around right now, go back to her, and discover what it meant to be with a woman. He wanted to feel her again, crush her against his body, and explore her flesh with his hands. She was twenty feet away. Why couldn’t he turn around and go make her understand he was a man?
The answer to that question gleamed as vividly in his memory as the tantalizing feel of her soft breast against his chest. She’d been frightened of him when she first woke up—absolutely terrified he’d take advantage of her weakness—and Carson would do anything not to bring that fear back into her beautiful eyes. She was all alone like him, but worse than that, he knew that men had to be looking for her. No wealthy southern planter was going to let a fine looking filly like that escape his herd.
Carson entered the barn and pulled the door closed. This building was better built than his house—sturdier and larger. In the winter, he slept here with his burro and his chickens, now he leaned his back against the door and tried to catch his breath in the deep shadows. He couldn’t believe there was a woman in his house—a beautiful dark-skinned gift from God staying under his roof. He couldn’t seem to make his pulse stop pounding. He’d had her in his arms! Why hadn’t he done something about it? He could have run his hand over her rear when he set her down or at the very least innocently run his fingers up her leg.