Near the Bone by Christina Henry (ebook reader color screen txt) 📗

dangerous up here this time of year, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. The weather can turn in a second, and there are a good many bears, and they can be aggressive.”

The stranger gave William a half smile that did not reach his eyes. “Thanks for your concern, but I’ve had plenty of experience. What are you and your daughter doing up on the mountain so late in the season?”

He glanced at Mattie, who quickly turned her gaze to the ground. The stranger had dark curly hair that peeked out from under his knit cap. She saw that just before she looked away.

Mattie felt William swell up beside her, his anger a palpable thing.

“She is not my daughter. She is my wife,” he said through his bottom teeth.

If William had spoken to her like that, Mattie would have shrunk away, because that tone was a warning of what would come next. But the strange man didn’t seem to feel the danger, because when Mattie dared look up again, she found him watching her curiously.

He seemed to take in their clothing for the first time, for he asked, “Are you Amish or something?”

“No,” William said, and Mattie thought, Oh, stranger, please run away, can’t you tell that my husband is about to explode and when he does he will hurt you, he will hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before.

The stranger then looked from William to Mattie and back again, and said, in a very skeptical tone, “Your wife?”

He didn’t wait for William to respond but instead addressed Mattie directly. “Do I know you? You look so familiar.”

Mattie froze, because William had said not to talk to the stranger, but the stranger had asked her a question and if she didn’t answer, it would be rude. William might punish her later for being rude but he also might punish her if she talked to the stranger. Her jaw felt stuck in place, paralyzed by indecision.

“You don’t know her,” William said, shifting so the stranger could no longer see Mattie’s face. “We aren’t from this area.”

This was a lie, of course, a bald-faced lie. Mattie knew William didn’t want the man to know they lived on the mountain.

“What high school did you go to?” the man persisted, trying to see around William’s shoulder. “Your face—”

“You should move on from here as soon as possible,” William said, and something about the way he shifted the rifle in his arms made the stranger go still. “There are bears.”

“Bears,” the stranger repeated, his voice flat.

Mattie didn’t need to see his face to know he didn’t believe William.

“Let’s go,” William said to Mattie, grabbing her arm and pulling her away.

She felt her husband’s anger in the clench of his fingers around her arm.

“Don’t you dare look back at him,” William growled. “Don’t you tempt him with your wiles. I know you wanted him. You’re nothing but a whore, Martha, like all women are whores.”

Mattie didn’t protest, didn’t say that she hadn’t thought of the man that way. No matter what she said, William wouldn’t believe her.

He’s mad because the stranger thought I was William’s daughter and not his wife.

She knew William was much older than her, of course—she wasn’t certain exactly how much, but there was at least twenty years’ difference between them. His hair was more than half gray, and he had wrinkles around his eyes.

That stranger, though. He was young like me. Close to my age.

And he thought he knew me.

Mattie risked a quick look backward, wanting to see the stranger’s face one more time. He wasn’t looking at Mattie and William, though. He stared up at the cliff face, at the place where Mattie and William had come from just before they’d met the stranger.

Don’t go in the cave, she thought. The creature will catch you.

Mattie looked back just in time, for when they reached the cover of the woods again, William thrust her away roughly and turned again toward the stranger.

“I ought to shoot him right now,” William snarled, raising the rifle to his shoulder. “A man ought to know better. He ought to respect another man’s property. He oughtn’t have looked at you like that when you belong to me.”

“No, don’t!” Mattie cried, curling her hand over his arm.

“What, you don’t want me to shoot your lover? Get your hands off me, Jezebel. I have every right to kill him and you. You’re mine, Martha. Mine to let live or let die. Mine in every way. And if any other man thinks his plow will sow your fields, he will by God pay for that disrespect.”

Mattie knew William would beat her when they got home—knew because the man had glanced at her and she glanced back, knew because William felt insulted, knew because William was already angry and worried about the creature, knew because the stranger had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of these sins would be Mattie’s fault, as all the things were always her fault. The pain was coming. She knew that.

And because her punishment was inevitable she dared to defy him, to keep her hand curled around his arm just above his elbow.

She dared to say, “I don’t care about him, William, truly I don’t. I would never look at any man but you—”

“Liar,” he spat. “You’re a bitch in heat, like all women are.”

“—but if you kill him, then people will come, lots of people, they’ll come searching up the mountain to try and find him and you don’t want that, do you? You don’t want lots of people crawling all over the mountain because of the bear, that’s what you said, but if that man goes missing, then there will be even more people, there will be . . .”

She trailed off, trying to think of the right term. It was something she knew from long ago, but couldn’t quite recall.

“Search parties,” William said.

“Yes, search parties,” she said. She ought to have known that term, search parties. There was something about