At the moment he cut through the wire, the now free end snapped back from the spool, releasing the tension. From the opposite end he could see the whole line erupt as though a steel snake with razor fangs was coming toward him. The catastrophe seemed to be occurring in slow motion, but he couldn't move fast enough to avoid the coils of wire as they closed over him with a mind of their own.
Within moments what had seemed a simple job had ensnared him in several loops of wire, their sharp barbs cutting through and ripping his shirt and threatening to impale him even further if he moved. He had a moment of panic at the thought of being bound by wire, trapped in an ignominious position until someone came to cut him free. He could see Curly's face now and hear the man chortle over his ignorance. He wasn't about to let that happen.
Hobo came out from the woods, took one look at Phillip's situation and sat to watch. Phillip didn't know if the dog's expression denoted disgust or concern, and he was grateful he couldn't ask.
When the wire had suddenly enveloped him, Phillip had dropped the cutting pliers. Now he had to stoop painfully to retrieve them. The unwieldy tool felt awkward in his hand, even more so as he had to lever his wrist into position to cut through the wire twisted around torso and arms. It caused him more pain than he'd expected and a bit of maneuvering, but he finally managed to cut himself free of the entangling barbs.
Breathing heavily, he waited a moment before he had the courage to look down to examine his flesh for damage. The shirt had been ripped beyond future repair, but none of the gashes from the wire seemed to be deep enough to cause him major blood loss. He hurt. Between this and the previous day on horseback, he hurt more places than he'd known he had, but he had suffered no serious harm.
He walked the line back to the old post and saw how the aging wood had allowed the staple to pull out, freeing the wire for its vicious rebound. Cursing himself for stupidity, for being a dude and for ever thinking he could do this job, he sat down on the ground and shakily lit a cigarette.
When he'd finished his smoke, had run out of words and names, he stood up. Smiling grimly, he began again to measure wire. He would not return to the ranch house to face the scorn of Helene and Curly and the disappointment of Amos. If it took 'til dark, he would see this stretch of fence built. No piece of inanimate barbed wire was going to beat him, not if it took every drop of blood in his body.
And it just might.
Late in returning from town, Helene found herself unwillingly looking down the hill at the bunkhouse. She saw the old truck parked beside it and lights on inside, but no sign of Phillip.
"Want me to go down and invite him up for supper?" Amos asked.
She shook her head. "He's perfectly capable of seeing we're home. You said you told him he could eat with us." She and Amos carried in four sacks of groceries.
As Helene put away staples, she considered her day in town. The newspaper had been less than excited at the prospect of hiring her as even a part-time feature writer, but the editor had finally agreed to look at a couple of sample pieces. Now all she had to do was decide who she should interview, write the pieces and... Her mind stopped working at that point. Who could she interview?
Helene had read a lot of articles and books when editing. She knew good when she saw it. Now was her turn to try and create it originally. She had written essays for college but not much since.
Her aunt’s journal popped into her mind. She hadn’t realized she had kept one at all. If there were more than the one that had her name in the front, she hadn’t seen them. Perhaps they had been destroyed or maybe she had written this for a specific reason. She would look at it when she had time to seriously think about the words.
She washed a head of lettuce, unpackaged the steaks she'd set out to thaw earlier and set the oven for broil. Between tasks, she found her eyes wandering back to the bunkhouse again and again. She'd expected Phillip to appear as soon as they'd gotten home.
As she and Amos ate the simple meal, she again wondered where Phillip was, but she angrily told Amos she didn't want him to go after him. If Phillip was expecting an invitation to dinner at her table, he'd wait a long time. His steak could just go cold. Maybe he hoped she’d beg him to eat with them. Well that wouldn’t happen.
"He didn't get no breakfast," Amos reminded her, a concerned expression on his face.
"That was his decision."
"What if the boy's sick."
Helene scoffed at that. "He's not a boy, and he's not sick. He's just playing games. He wants me to go begging, and I won't do it."
Amos shook his head but retreated to the living room after dinner to watch some television.
Helene stood at the sink, rinsing the last of the dishes. Hobo lay by the stove, his eyes watchfully on her whenever she moved. She glanced over at him. "Well, do you think I should take his food down there too?" she asked. The dog stared back at her but offered no opinions.
Finally, Helene could stand it no longer. She couldn’t let him go hungry. She found a tray from the cupboard, heated back up the steak which wouldn’t be as good as it should have been—whose fault was that--set it and the salad on the tray with a towel over them, and opening the backdoor as soundlessly as possible, slipped into the darkness, not letting Hobo follow her. She didn't want him to give away her presence. She would just peek through the window. If Phillip was eating something he’d brought with him, she would go right back up the hill with no one the wiser that she’d been down there.
Looking through the window at first she didn't see him, and when she did, she couldn't hold back the gasp. He was lying sprawled on his bunk, a torn, bloody shirt only barely covering his chest, his eyes closed.
She pushed through the door. "Dear God, Phillip," she cried putting the tray down on a dresser, "what have you done to yourself?"
His eyes opened slowly, narrowing when he saw her standing over him. "Nothing," he growled. "Go back to the house, Helene."
"I will not. You're hurt. What on earth happened?" It looked as though he'd tangled with a cougar and come out on the losing end. A nasty scratch above his left eye was the least of the injuries, and yet it was the one that drew her attention.
Phillip threw his arm over his eyes. "I don't want to hear it," he muttered.
"What?"
"I told you so."
She stared at him with disbelief. "How could you think I'd say that?"
"Because you did." He grimaced as he shifted on the narrow bed.
"Can you make it up to the house?"
"What are you talking about?" He lifted his arm from his eyes. "You didn't think I was on my deathbed did you? Or maybe that's what you were hoping?"
Blond hair was tousled over his forehead, giving him an endearing little boy look, somehow oddly at variance with the bristly, square jaw and hard look in his blue eyes.
"Let me help you up then," she ordered. "At the house I have antibiotic ointment, and you need to eat something. You didn't eat all day, did you?" she asked, conveniently forgetting her recent argument that if he hadn't, it was his own fault.
Sitting on the edge of his bunk, he was reminded again of the sore muscles from the horseback ride. It seemed this business of ranching was harder on the body than even he had imagined.
"I'm fine where I am," he said.
"Why didn't you come to the house for dinner then?"
He saw then the tray she’d set down. “You brought me dinner?”
“Well, it’s not as good as it would have been but yes. Why didn’t you come to the house tonight?”
"I didn't want to have to face the questions," he admitted, knowing it sounded like an immature answer but unable to think of a fitting lie that she might believe.
"Phillip--what happened to you?"
He stood up, looking down at her. "I did the fencing. The patch doesn't look like much, but it'll keep the cattle in." There was a note of pride in his voice that she didn't think she'd ever heard.
"Barbed wire did this?" she asked, finally understanding what had happened. She'd seen her uncle come in with cuts from working with the unwieldy stuff, and he was experienced.
"I know it looks messy, but none of this amounts to much. I'm fine, and I don't need you to play nursemaid."
"You are coming up to the house right now, or I'm calling an ambulance."
He glared at her. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Watch me."
"All right, all right. I'll go up, but you're making too much over this." He didn't know how he felt about that, about having her baby him, seeing her amber eyes large with concern. He'd never had anyone worry much about his hurts, and it was a new experience, not necessarily a pleasant one.
At the kitchen, she pressed him into a chair. "Sit here. I'll get the supplies." Hobo came over to check on him, then resumed his position by the stove.
Phillip reached for a cigarette but remembered in time her injunction against smoking in the house. He had almost convinced himself to leave the kitchen when she returned with a first-aid kit and Amos in tow.
"What happened, son?" Amos asked, his brow creased with concern.
Phillip smiled grimly, trying not to flinch as Helene began working what was left of his shirt off his shoulders. "I guess you might say I literally threw myself into my work."
Amos snorted. "You got cut up some, that's for sure."
"I feel like an idiot. Ouch!"
Helene stopped. "Your shirt is stuck to your back and lower arm. I may have to soak it off."
Amos shook his head. "It was my fault. I should've never sent you out alone."
That stung almost as much as the slow pulling away of fabric from still tender wounds.
"I don't mean you done bad, son. Heck, I remember the first time I worked barbed wire, I reckon every man does. It's touchy stuff. I should've sent Curly out with you."
"I'm fine," Phillip said, his breath hissing out as the last of the shirt came free.
"We can go out and finish the job tomorrow," Amos said.
"It's done." Phillip grimaced as Helene began washing his shoulders and back to clean off the blood.
"Finished it?"
"It might not be pretty, but..." He gritted his teeth as she found one of the deeper gouges. "I got it done, and I'd like to see the cow that can get out through it."
Amos laughed his pleasure obvious in his voice. "All right then."
Helene tried to work carefully, but she knew she was hurting Phillip and hated it. She was also dangerously aware of his muscular torso. It brought back the memories she had been trying to suppress of seeing him naked. Catching her own breath, she tried to concentrate on the job at hand instead of her body's treacherous reaction to the masculine sinew under her fingers.
"This will hurt," she warned as she opened the bottle of antiseptic.
He braced himself against the pain. When she had finished, she gently dried the skin. Her hands soothed him, almost seemed to take away the pain as she applied an ointment. She lightly pressed gauze dressings over the three deepest wounds on his chest and arm, securing them with adhesive tape.
Studying his face Helene cringed involuntarily. Swallowing, she tilted his chin to better view the gouge that had just missed his eye. Looking into those cool blue eyes was almost too much for her nerves.