The Wanderer's Denial
/
“So I was wondering,” the Wanderer said. “Do you think we could share our supper tonight?”
The girl didn’t answer right away, swinging her leg over to dismount. She fingered her star-shaped crystal, muscle twitching in her jaw, and looked beyond him.
The Wanderer went numb when the girl walked to her tent, shocked that she would continue to slight him.
Then she pulled the necklace over her head and dropped the pendant inside.
“All right,” she said, turning to face him. “I suppose we can. I’ll need an hour to get the bird ready.”
The Wanderer was too stunned to do anything other than go to the pit. To his surprise, they worked well together, falling into each other’s rhythm with ease.
The girl had the pheasant dressed and lined along the spit by the time the fire was ready. She laid it between the prongs and placed one of her pans underneath to catch the droppings, while the Wanderer made up his hash. His mouth watered when he poured the fat over his dish, stirring it in with his spoon and inhaling the savory wafting from the skillet.
Tonight, his hash would be perfect.
“I think the pheasant is done.”
The sound of her voice startled him.
He looked up, surprised the evening dusk was growing darker and the girl already pulled the spit from the fire. Without a word, he gestured for her to hand the pheasant over. He tore the meat to shreds, mixing it all into the hash until it was moist, then loaded a mound on each plate. The aroma made his head swim, but the Wanderer knew it was only a hint of the tastes and textures to come.
Rubbing his palms briskly and hovering them over his plate, he closed his eyes to give thanks, a blessing ritual he hadn’t done in months. He opened his eyes to the girl staring at him, her fork dangling from her fingers.
“Did your grandfather teach you that?”
“Yes, he did.”
“So tell me about him,” she murmured. “He was a bard, right?”
“Why should you care?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she shrugged. “Just a mention of him got the Lawmen out of here.”
“Are you going to tell me what brought them here looking for you?”
“I’d rather hear about your grandfather instead.”
“Was it because you crossed the border illegally?”
“It could be for lots of reasons.”
“Give me one.”
The girl shook her head and took her first bite.
The Wanderer was gratified when she closed her eyes and sighed deeply, but hunger pulled his attention to his own plate. The supper was better than he expected, the meat tender and the hash softened, the infusion of herbs stronger with the base of animal fat. He chewed until he no longer distinguished one flavor from another. When he took his next mouthful he moaned, amused to see the girl scowling at him.
“I take it you prefer silence while eating.”
“I don’t care how much noise you make,” she retorted. “But are you going to talk about your grandfather or not?”
“Why do you want to know about him?”
The girl didn’t answer right away, eating until her supper was half finished. Then she turned towards the Wanderer again.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess he sounds like an interesting topic of conversation.”
Although her voice held the casual tone of boredom, the Wanderer narrowed his eyes. He even set his plate down and peered at her.
“Well if you’re going to be like that,” he said. “Tell me why the Lawmen showed up and I’ll entertain you with stories about my grandfather.”
“Forget it,” she snorted. “I didn’t ask you to lie for me.”
“I know you didn’t. But-”
“But nothing. I don’t owe you an explanation.”
The rest of the meal they finished in silence.
The Wanderer had to exert himself to eat slowly, for his relish had diminished. He couldn’t stop thinking that this strange girl who had refused to speak to him for the past month had now shown interest in the Bard.
The lure was irresistible.
“So what do you want me to tell you?”
“Whatever you wish to share,” she said. “Did he teach you how to cook?”
“Not really. He taught me how to forage.”
At first, the Wanderer found talking to her difficult.
Her inscrutable expression implied indifference, stemming the flow of his memories and making his speech come in hesitant bursts. Eventually her face relaxed, and the girl fixed her gaze on him and unlocked his past.
After that, the Wanderer lost himself in stories of the Bard. He even smiled as he described how strict his grandfather had been in the woods, refusing to let him gather alone until he’d made no mistakes for a year. Growing up, he’d always been frustrated with the Bard’s exacting standards. But later, he would be grateful. He could always feed himself when he had nothing, the marks of nourishment and poison similar all over the world.
“You learned that much during visits?” she asked.
“I grew up with him.”
His throat tightened and the Wanderer stopped talking.
The girl frowned, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, she held up her empty plate.
“Supper was quite good,” she said. “If your grandfather didn’t teach you, how did you learn to cook?”
The Wanderer was relieved the past rushed back so easily. He opened up again to the vivid images in his mind, returning to the nights for stories when he taught himself how to pair herbs and spices through his sense of smell. He could hear the logs crackling, his back warm from the flames of the past, the Bard’s voice ringing through the cabin. Drifting in the sea of those memories, he murmured the adage his grandfather had repeated as the years passed.
“Follow your heart.”
“What!”
The girl’s voice had taken on a jagged quality. The sharp point of one word pierced the images from the past and those memories dissolved.
The Wanderer was pulled back to the present, to the woods of No Man’s Land and the lingering aroma of supper, to the fading light of a dying fire and his neighbor.
She seemed feverish with her cheeks flushed.
“What did you just say?”
“That was something he liked to end his stories with,” he replied. “A lesson of sorts. I don’t understand why that would upset you.”
“Just what was your grandfather trying to teach you, Wanderer?”
He paused, taken aback by her sudden insolence.
“My grandfather cherished love more than anything,” he said. “He always claimed that everything in life that truly mattered always came back to love.”
“I’m sure that’s very nice,” the girl snapped. “But so what?”
“So he made up these stories about this Ella Bandita, a woman who destroyed men with too much pride by stealing that which they never valued. Hence, he finished his stories with ‘follow your heart.’ So we’d grow up and live in a way that honors love.”
“What was it these men didn’t value?”
“Their hearts.”
The girl covered her mouth, but not before he saw the corners twitching. Then her shoulders started to shake, a sign she was helpless against the fit of laughter coming on.
The Wanderer watched the girl try to resist the pull of mirth until she couldn’t hold back any longer. But the Wanderer was still stunned when she collapsed, her entire body quaking as she laughed.
Minutes passed and she didn’t stop.
Then his confusion mounted to rage.
For the first time in his life, the Wanderer was tempted to hit a woman. But as the girl howled and rolled on the ground, it was all he could do to restrain himself. Staring at the girl gripping her stomach, the Wanderer felt something burst in his heart, an emotion he didn’t recognize. The sentiment was violent but not impulsive; it had a lingering quality, an enduring relentlessness.
The girl stopped laughing as soon as she saw his face. She even pulled up and moved away from him.
“Did you ask me about my grandfather just to mock him?”
“Wanderer, I’m not mocking your grandfather,” she replied. “I’m mocking you.”
“You’re going to have to explain what you found so funny. Because I can’t see it.”
“Look upon the obvious and you might. You certainly didn’t learn your lessons well.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.
“If you’ve been taught all your life to follow your heart, then this is the last place you should be. Yet here you are. And you insist on staying.”
She chortled and shook her head.
“You have a place to go, Wanderer. So what are you doing here?”
“I have my reasons,” he retorted. “Why should you mind anyway? I don’t want anything from you.”
“Don’t be such a hypocrite. I know what you want.”
A hard edge came into her voice. But the glint of knowing in her eyes still made his heart beat faster, the air teasing along his flesh just as it had the day he had first seen her. A delicious quiver shot up his spine and made him restless.
“You don’t seem troubled by that.”
The girl chuckled. Her eyes glittered when gazed at him, her large teeth gleaming.
“That’s because I want something from you too, Wanderer.”
Her voice grew soft, a rumbling whisper that made the heat rise from the depths of his belly and the hairs prickle on the back of his neck.
The Wanderer wondered if the girl could see inside his darkness, knowing the desires he dared not think about. Then the vision of a hungry wolf bitch stalking prey came to his mind.
“And the longer you stay,” she said. “The more likely I’ll take it.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it is? Maybe I’ll give it to you.”
“I’d really like to spare you, Wanderer. But you’re exhausting my good intentions.”