“No way you could have known,” he said. “Cats are sneaky bastards, quiet and smart. You don’t know they’re hunting you until they’ve decided to attack—but mostly, they won’t, any more than a bear or Reaper. We’re not their preferred meal. This one was too ill, too hungry to be cautious.”
She wanted to believe him, he could see it in her eyes, but something held her back. He cursed the devil’s face for making her so responsible for things outside her control, but merely reached up to tug at her braid, drawing her with him as he went to inspect the corpse.
“I’ll own I’ve never seen one this big.” Gabriel bent carefully and lifted one massive paw up to examine it. “Male, doesn’t look like he lost too many fights before this one. If the quakes were scaring off smaller animals, no wonder he was desperate enough to try us. Good thing they’re solitary; would hate to think there was another around.”
“Just the thought makes me close to wetting myself,” Isobel admitted. “How are you so calm?”
Gabriel gave a choked laugh and held up his free hand, showing her the gentle tremor rocking it. “After, you’re allowed to panic. The trick is in remaining calm during an attack.”
“How do you learn to do that?”
“You don’t,” he said, letting the paw fall back to the ground. “Help me move this somewhere not here. I don’t want to move the mule tonight, if we can avoid it, and I’d rather not have a scavenger find its way in here while we’re sleeping.”
Assuming either of them slept at all that night.
Dragging the corpse out into the meadow took longer than expected, and smell lingered on their hands and clothing. Isobel had paused on their way back, plucking something from the ground and then handing him a handful of roots that, when crushed, gave off a light, greenish foam that, rubbed into his skin, made the smell fade.
“Catie used to break out in a rash from lye,” she said, wiping her own hands down. “She used to do this instead. Called it soaproot. I don’t know that this is the same plant, but it looks close enough.”
Isobel was talkative, fussy, but there was something she wasn’t telling him, her thoughts bound tight inside her head, those sharp eyes clouded in a way they hadn’t been just that morning. Gabriel was too tired to dig at it tonight, though. Isobel was a sensible girl: she would come to him in her own time, when she was ready.
They didn’t build a fire, but Isobel sketched out a circle with a charred stick and followed it with grains of salt to create a temporary boundary around their campsite, while he checked the mule’s wounds again and made sure they had enough water and grass within reach, then sorted through their supplies for a cold dinner.
“Cheese,” he said with triumph, then peeled back the cheesecloth. “Soft rind; it won’t keep long. Here, cut this into thin slices, fold it with the venison. Better if you can melt it, but still good cold.”
She looked dubiously at the combination, but her expression after the first bite was nearly blissful, and they worked their way through the meal without speaking, then settled their kits for the night, the horses and mule darker shadows against the trees.
“I’ll take first watch,” he said as she came back from performing her private acts on the far side of the horses—neither of them comfortable going farther than that, despite being reasonably certain there was no more threat nearby. “Get some sleep, Isobel.”
She removed her boots and wrapped herself in her blanket, laying her head on her pack. But he could tell that her eyes were still open.
“Gabriel?”
“Mmm?”
“If another quake hits, will the trees fall on us?”
He looked straight up, the tops of the trees lost in shadows, the only illumination coming from the coalstone dully glinting between them. “They’ve stood tall for a very long time,” he said. “Go to sleep, Isobel. We’ll be all right.”
He waited, but she only turned over, pulling her blanket over her shoulders, and soon enough he heard the quiet huffs that told him she’d fallen asleep.
He should close his eyes and try to rest, too. The mule had saved his life, but he’d still taken a blow, and everything from his collarbone to his knees ached in sympathy. And now that Isobel had raised the thought of another quake, he was reasonably certain he wouldn’t be sleeping well that night, no matter how exhausted he felt.
What he wanted was to be able to talk with someone else, someone wiser or at least more experienced. What was the point of knowing medicine folk if he couldn’t use their wisdom?
Graciendo, the old bear of the mountain, would tell him to go to sleep. Old Woman . . . Old Woman Who Never Dies would tell him to do the things he was avoiding before it soured in his heart.
Old Woman had always been the wisest, anyway.