Looking for Hannah

He carried a few items from the canoe and laid them on the ground. They included a fur wrap, a blanket and tarpaulin as well as a pouch containing dried meat and fruit. Ominuosly he also carried over his Charlesville musket.

"I don't want no shooting on my account." she told him.

He smiled. "I hope it won't come to violence Hannah, but if Casper finds us he won't be looking to shake my hand."

Aout remained wakeful and alert and she felt guilty enough to try and stay awake with him that night. She found herself thinking of Hans, her heart aching when she recalled how he had been slaughtered by the Indians while he and herself were still in the full flush of love. She'd found frontier life to be dismal and hard, but Hans had been her inspiration. Each morning since his death she'd awoken to be crushed by reality, and still missing him. She'd worked hard since in trying to engage in a new life but was always pursued by his memory. Why him? Why did Hans have to die?

With an effort she allowed her eyelids to close and she thought of happier things. Her father's farm had been the only place on earth where happiness seemed eternal; comfortabily removed from the loneliness, violence and heartbreak she had encounted on the frontier and far away from its frightful uncertainties. She imagined her family gathered around her smiling encouragement and sympathising. Her father, reliable and strong, unbroken by a full life of devotion to the land. Mistress Gimmbal, stern, capable and sad, sobbing in solitude on occasions for reasons she always refused to share. There too was brother Isaac, devout and inflexible but always affectionate; and Joshua also, dear sweet natured Joshua, the boy who had come to her like some woebegone disowned duckling, and whose spirit had flared bright on a diet of love and kindness. They were her past, and now they were the only future she had. Eventually drowsiness overcame her, and she slept.

Morning came bringing a vicious chill that cut her to the bone. The canopy of evergreen and the flimsy bark shelter Aout had built shielded her from the raw frost, but all the same she felt her feet turning into blocks of ice.

"My feet are freezing. I don't know if I can take much more of this without screaming." she wheezed through clenched teeth. "Can't we risk a fire for a while?"

"It's not the best weather for sleeping out of doors," Aout conceded, "But Casper would see the smoke of a fire coming up through the trees from five miles away." Without being asked he pulled off her shoes and rubbed the wool stockings on her feet between his hands, then for a while they sat shivering, huddled together, attempting to draw warmth from each other.

"Are we trapped?" she asked tremulously. Disappointment rather than fear would have come with an affirming answer, but she had to know the truth.