THE HAND OF GOD

PART EIGHT:

She had no idea what she'd said that would make him laugh like that, but she found she enjoyed the sound of it. She couldn't remember when she'd heard a man laugh so full-out and hearty. 

"I like your laugh," she said honestly.

He hadn't expected her to say that, either. Her openness was unique in his experience. His grin settled again into a frank study of her face. "You are a different sort of woman, LizzieBess."

"Different from whom?"

"From all them others. Ain't none of them like you at all."

"Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Right now you got me thinkin' it's a good thing."

She smiled slightly, then tipped her head down to tend to his ankle. "Then I'm glad," she whispered, rewrapping it with utmost care. Setting his foot down on the pallet, she covered it with the blanket, looking at him again. "Is it in you, Benjamin, to rest here no matter how you think it may be for me?"

She said the damndest things, one after the other. "In me? To let you go hungry, to take your one place to sleep?"

She nodded.

He licked his lips thoughtfully. "It's what's always been in me, LizzieBess. It's how I am. Nothin' new to that at all."

"All right, then. It should be no struggle for you to mend."

Damn the woman! Didn't she know she'd taken the thing and just made it a struggle? He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. Struggling was not in his repertoire. He avoided it entirely by walking above it as though invisible planks had been laid just for him over the heads of the rest of those in the world. And if struggle came in some form, he simply smiled his way out of it. If that didn't work, a well-placed bullet almost always did. Frowning now, he lay back. "You got anything else to eat?" he asked grumpily.

"No," she replied simply, standing. "I'm going now for more firewood. We've used up my pile near the door."

Silently he watched her pick up the shawl and slip it over her head. A blast of cold air came in

as she opened the door, then she was gone. He put his palms, one atop the other, over his eyes. Damn woman! Suddenly he jerked his hands away from his face, staring at his wrists. He'd felt for a moment there like his chains were back on, felt like he'd been captured and was being taken somewhere he didn't want to go. She had that affect on him somehow. He couldn't put

it into clear thought just how, but he knew if he hung around, Ben Wade would be in trouble.

"DAMN!" he said loudly, sitting up, looking back at the door. He had to piss and the pot was broken. What was there he could use? He seriously considered her all-purpose basin for a while as the number of containers in the small room was quite limited, but then he wondered if he could make it to the door. He managed with some scowling effort to get his sock on over the wrappings she bound around his foot. His boots lay in a far corner of the room away from the door. Too much effort. Teeth clenched, he struggled to his feet, balancing only on his left. Now what? Looking around, he spotted what must pass for a broom leaning against the wall near the bed. The business end was near worn to a nubbin, but it still had a long handle, so he grabbed for it, nearly toppling over. Steadying himself now that he had the thing in his grip, he took a step. Red-hot spikes of pain shot up his leg no matter how little he tried to bear his weight on

his right foot. He worked out a method of completely supporting himself with the broom while he took a small step with his left foot. It was less than ten small steps to the door, but by the
time he got there, he was near worn to a nubbin himself.

Opening the door, he closed his eyes against the wind. When he opened them again he saw a feeble winter sun shining through the rising ground fog. Snow was melting a bit, and it had warmed just enough so that the air was damp and heavy with the thick mist it created. He

tried to peer through it, looking for some sign of Elizabeth but the world around him was absolutely silent as though it had been packed in cotton wool. Bracing with a hand on the wall,
he turned to one side, trying to take a couple of steps away from the doorway before relieving himself. The whole process seemed to take forever and he failed to find taking a piss while standing on one leg amusing. Reassembling himself was even harder and he'd just gotten everything tucked back into place when she came up behind him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her arms full of small pieces of twisty wood.

He whipped around so quickly he forgot about his foot, which folded under his weight, and he went down on his face. The wood tumbled from her arms and she dashed to kneel beside him. "Benjamin!"

He lay there silently a moment, trying to adjust both to fresh pain and to his complete and utter loss of dignity. His silence frightened her and she began to touch his hair, to try and turn his face.

"Murmpfht!" he spluttered at last, turning his head himself so he could breathe.

"What were you doing?" she asked again.

He spat snowy mud out of his mouth. "Goddamn pisspot was broken!"  He rolled onto his side, staring at her while little globs of dirty snow began to drip off his eyebrows.

She reached out, wiping the snow away before it got in his eyes. "Oh, Benjamin," she said, her voice almost a whisper. "What am I to do with you?"

He tipped his head down, looking up at her through his lashes. "Wash me again, I guess."

Her eyes moved down the length of him. "You are dirty, sure enough. I bet when you were a

boy you drove your mother crazy."

An odd look washed over his face and the sparkle that had come into his eyes was gone as quickly as it had come. "Can you help me up?" he said, his voice suddenly rough.

He leaned on her all the way back to the bed and when he was lying down again, remained quiet. "Are you in much pain?" she asked.

"No," he said, but closed his eyes.

Elizabeth gathered more snow and melted it by the fire, her eyes on him the whole time. Without a word herself, she knelt beside him and began to wash his face. He grimaced once, as though a woman's tender touch somehow hurt, but then lay still. She was moved by his silent immobility under her hands. She had no idea where he'd come from, where he was going. He was simply... here. "A stranger and a pilgrim in the land," she quoted.

"Who?" he asked, cracking open one lid just a little.

"You," she said.

He closed the lid. "A stranger, yes. Hardly a pilgrim."

"Sometimes we are pilgrims when we don't even know we are."

"I'd know it."

She didn't reply, just began to wash down his neck, smiling quietly as he tipped his chin up for her. Finishing his neck, she set about unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt. His hand

came up, grabbing her wrist, and when she looked, startled, in his face she saw his eyes intense on her.

"Don't!" he growled.

"But there's mud...," she began.

"Don't," he repeated. The touch of her fingers brushing over his chest had aroused him... considerably. "You have no idea what you're doin'." He released her wrist and rolled on his

side toward the wall. "No idea."

Kneeling there, she stared at the broad black expanse of the back he presented to her, effective as a stone wall. "Benj...," she started, then sighed and got to her feet. Her meager gatherings

of wood still lay where she'd dropped them and she went out to get them. The fire was very low.

He heard the door close after her and let out a long, slow breath.

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