Gil

Our playful water game continues for some time, until at last Evie peters out. She rolls over breathless to float on her back, and I join her. Side by side we float together, looking up at the cloudless sky. A dragonfly comes to hover just over our heads and I study his belly thoughtfully. Then much higher overhead, an eagle flies by. I watch it through half lidded eyes, lost deep in my own thoughts.

Alex was right last night when he said I’d never let a woman get close to me before; right when he said I was afraid of intimacy, of being vulnerable. Until now it seemed like a reckless idea. Letting my guard down, opening myself up to potential hurts and attacks, it could only mean trouble. But that caution, that impenetrable guard, it crumpled like paper the moment Evie walked into my life.   

I’ve never met a girl like her before, I muse as we let the gentle waves carry us where they will. I’ve never been with someone who could match my pace, my fierce energy so effortlessly. I’ve never been with someone I related to so easily, or trusted so completely.  

I’ve thought this from the beginning, that she is a kindred spirit. Evie doesn’t just match me, she outmatches me, always one step ahead, leaving me scrambling to catch up. She is fleeting, as ephemeral as a dream. And yet I would capture this fairy, and keep her close to me. Forever, if she’d let me. But perhaps it’s still too soon for me to be thinking such thoughts.

Having our fill of the water, we make our way leisurely back to shore. At my insistence she dry herself properly, Evie strips off her sodden clothes to reveal her chemise which doesn’t quite cover her midriff, and a pair of bloomers. The fabric is dark so it isn’t see-through, for which I’m grateful, since I can easily guess what the sight of that woman’s naked body would do to my head. Even having this much revealed is tempting me more than I like to admit.

She’s self-conscious at first, but I’m careful not to stare or act awkwardly, so eventually she relaxes.

“I’m hungry,” she declares after she’s got her outer layer drying on a branch. “I’ll catch us a fish; go build a fire.”

“Catch a fish with what?” I ask, but she only twinkles at me mischievously.

“Stay back from the water. Your shadow will scare them. And don’t make any noise if you can help it.”

“But you said to make a fire.”

“Back,” she orders sharply, and she wades back into the water. She moves slowly, very slowly, walking a certain direction with unbelievable patience. Don’t tell me, this changeling, she doesn’t actually mean to catch a fish with her bare hands?

I’d like to stay and watch, but I’ve been given a job to do. Moving thirty feet back from the water’s edge, I begin preparations for building a fire. Like Evie I carry flint with me wherever I go, and there’s tinder and driftwood to be found in abundance. Getting everything prepared, I continue to watch her out of the corner of my eye as she puts her hand in the water to let her fingers dangle slowly.

She’s moving even less now, and I sense her absolute concentration as she nears her target.

She’s beautiful, I think, mesmerized by her silhouette against the sparkling water. A huntress stalking her prey, there’s something almost animal about her, something feline and wild. I think I’m falling for her all over again.   

With a sudden motion, she grasps the fish, lifting it out of the water and throwing it to the bank.

“Catch it, Gil!”

I’m already running. Reaching the shore, I pounce on the fish before it can flop back into the water.

“Got it!”

Evie’s splashing toward me, beaming with satisfaction. “What do you think? He big enough for the two of us?”

The smallmouth bass in my hands must be twenty inches long and at least four pounds.

“I think it’ll do,” I answer with a grin.

I dispatch and clean the fish with my dagger while Evie sets up two forked branches on either side of the fire. Getting the bass on a spit, Evie even pulls out a small bag of salt from her pack to season the fish.

“Alright, I’ll admit it,” I say as we dry ourselves in the sun while we wait for the fish to cook, “you’re more than capable of surviving out here on your own.”

“Did you doubt me?” she asks with a sideways smirk.

“I wouldn’t say I doubted you. But I didn’t expect you’d be this incredible.”

“I’m glad you think so,” she says, looking satisfied as she leans back on her palms and tips her head back, letting the sun warm her chest. “If I have your approval, I’m sure I can do it.”

“I didn’t say you had my approval,” I say, doing my best not to stare at her midriff. “I’m just acknowledging you could probably pull it off.”

“What’s not to approve of?”

“You being alone out here,” I say seriously.

“I’m fine by myself. Better than being surrounded by people who hate my guts.”

“You say that, but you’d be crying even for Yelena’s company after being snowed in, confined in that tiny dark cave for three months straight. I don’t doubt you’ll be able to gather enough stores, but what are you going to do with yourself all winter long, stuck in solitary confinement?”

“I… hadn’t thought of that.”

“And what about predators? You’re equipped to take out small game, but if you hit a bear with that slingshot, you’ll only tick it off. What will you do if one attacks you?”

“I’ll climb a tree.”

“Bears climb trees too.”

“I’ll climb higher,” she says stubbornly.

“And if you fall out of the tree and break your leg? What then? Who will hear when you cry for help? You’d die out here all alone, of starvation or gangrene, you’ll end as food for the scavengers.”

“Quit looking down on me,” she snaps. “Just because I’m a woman, you think I can’t—”

“It’s not about being a man or a woman,” I cut her off a bit sharply. “It’s about being on your own. It’s too dangerous to be out here alone, period.”

“Then what do you suggest I—” she cuts herself off this time, her whole body suddenly rigid with tension. Her rust colored eyes go wide as she looks off into the trees behind me.

I spin instinctively, peering through the trees. I see nothing, but I trust her senses too completely to hesitate. I dash for my gun propped against the tree and press the butt of the rifle to my shoulder, pointing it in the direction Evie’s watching.

I see it now, the tawny hide of a mountain lion creeping low along the forest floor. She’s scented our fish, and come to investigate.

That’s a big animal. With only a single bullet, and my other rounds in my coat pocket hanging off of the tree twelve feet away, I’m hesitant to take a shot and risk wounding her. But I can’t let her get close to Evie.

“Move along!” I use a big voice to frighten the creature, but she seems undaunted. Usually mountain lions are elusive, uninterested in a challenge when they can easily hunt less aggressive prey. But from the way she’s moving I can see this cat is older, limping slightly, and as she steps into the clearing I see she has one cloudy eye. She hasn’t caught any prey with that bum leg for a while, this one. She’s hungry.

“Get outta here!”

She’s looking for an easy meal. She came smelling fish, but now she’s found two squishy humans, she’s not about to let us go.

Without a sound she leaps forward. I take the shot. The report echoes off the side of the mountain. The cat falls straight to the dirt with a bullet between her eyes, silent and still.

Lowering my gun, I turn to Evie. She stands shakily and goes straight to my arms.

I’m a little surprised to feel her shaking with silent tears. I thought she’d be made of sterner stuff than this. Is it trauma from the gunshot, I wonder, or fear for our narrow escape? Or is it—

“What am I going to do, Gil? Where else am I supposed to go? I know it’s dangerous out here; I’m not an idiot… But what else am I supposed to do?”

I can sense the desperation that drove her out here in the first place welling over. I can feel the fear that’s crushing her into a corner, and it ignites a powerful protective instinct in me.

“There’s nowhere for me,” she cries. “Nowhere.”

“I’ll make a place for you,” I promise her, holding her against my bare chest. “I’ll make it so no one ever hurts you again. So trust me and go back to your family.”

“But they—”

“Trust me,” I urge her, and she shudders faintly.

“…My cave,” she says a bit sadly, and I grip her just a little tighter.

“It’ll be here when we feel like coming back to it.”