Day 3
Catherine wakes in the morning and moves her head only enough to look over towards the fireplace. Connor is lying on his back in front of the hearth, his head towards the door, with his right hand resting on his stomach on top of the blanket. His left arm is up over his eyes, the fingers of his hand curled slightly. Holding her breath, she pushes herself up from her right side and does her best not to groan as her back once again protests her movements. Can it be that her back hurts even worse or is she just tired of being so uncomfortable? As she reaches to take her belt from the chair her hand falls on the hatchet handle. Connor must have brought it over to her after she fell asleep. Her stomach tightens and she steals another glance in the direction of his sleeping form. Slowly, she takes the walking stick and shambles to the door, doing her best to keep the stick from making noise and waking him. Once at the entrance, she stops to unroll her pant legs and lets them cover her feet. A quick glance over her shoulder reveals that Connor still appears to be asleep and she silently lifts the latch and lets herself outside. The pants do fairly well keeping her feet protected from the snow as she traverses the distance to and from the outhouse. The air is frigid and she is happy to be back inside when she is done. When she looks back from easing the door shut, Connor is rolling onto his side and watching her.
"I didn't mean to wake you." She crosses her left arm over her chest self-consciously.
"I was awake when you got up." He sits up and gestures to her snowy pant legs covering her feet.
"We need to make you some boots." Connor rubs the back of his neck, yawning, and watches from the corners of his eyes as Catherine eases herself to the floor and gingerly reaches to her ankles to reroll her pant legs, every move slow and controlled to minimize discomfort. He wishes he had thought of the salve before he left yesterday. It would have made a difference even overnight. Once Catherine pulls herself up from the floor he gets up and brings some wood inside from the small stack on the far end of the porch to restock the pile by the fireplace.
While Connor is carrying in the wood, Catherine gets a better look at the scar on his abdomen. It is worse than she thought it was. The edges are raised and puckered slightly and many stitches had once extended beyond the central rounded area in front, curving partway back onto his side. His movements do not give any indication that his injury currently affects him. The tattoos appear to have been done after his injury, the lowest line of the inking on his right side partially crossing the upper portion of his scar. The lines of the tattoo draw her eyes along his sides and up his body. His sturdy waist broadens into his chest, back and wide shoulders, layers of powerful muscles shifting under his coppery skin as he stacks the logs. Catherine is overwhelmed by how colossal he is, feeling as if she is seeing him for the first time and she suddenly dwindles to a small and frightened mouse in his presence. No one could stop a man of his size and strength.
"I am going to get some ice for water. I will be right back." He puts his jacket on over his bare torso and pulls on his boots before leaving with the bucket by the fireplace. Once he is outside, he picks up a long handled axe and heads to the frozen rivulet on the cliff. A few well placed strikes with the axe break off enough ice to fill the large bucket, which he carries back to the porch. He opens the door and watches with some amusement as Catherine, sitting on his bedroll, attempts to rekindle the fire. Her hair is pulled over her right shoulder and she is grimacing as she stabs the smoking ashes beneath a pile of wood violently with the poker in frustration.
"You do not have to do that; I will take care of it in a minute." He stoops to pick up the water pot to fill with ice.
"I have never done well being waited on." She scowls into the fireplace, refusing to meet his eyes and Connor raises his eyebrows at her as he fills the pot. When he brings it back to the fireplace, he crouches down next to her and holds his hand out for the poker. Catherine looks at it and raises her eyes to his face with a stubborn set to her mouth before sighing and handing him the poker. Connor shifts a log with it, leans close to blow on the embers and manages to get a small flame licking the wood bits in only a minute.
"Huh." Catherine mumbles tartly, miffed at her inability to start a fire effectively. Connor turns his head toward her as he sits back and a tiny smile threatens to turn up the corners of his mouth. Catherine's arms are crossed over her chest and he wonders if she is considering grabbing the poker and stabbing him with it for succeeding where she had failed. Connor gets up to hang his coat back up and kick his boots off next to the door before she sees his amusement. He picks up his shirt from where he left it the night before and pulls it on, rolling up the sleeves to his elbows. Once the fire is burning well Connor sits down next to Catherine.
"I would like to look at your foot again and put some of the salve on it. It should help the pain go away for a while."
Catherine shifts slowly to face him, tucks her right leg under her left thigh and inches her foot toward him. Connor reaches for it and slides up the wet, refolded cuff of her pants to start unwrapping her foot. She winces as some of the fabric sticks to her wound. A dark area of dried blood has seeped through the cloth along the bottom of her foot, adhering the wrap to her injury. Connor leans back to pick up a bowl and scoop out some water from the pot. He positions it in front of his crossed legs and lowers her foot into the tepid water, bandage and all. Catherine hunches forward and rests her left hand in her lap, crossing her right arm across her breasts and gripping her upper arm in her hand. She looks down at her right cuffed pant leg and hooks a finger into it nervously while her foot soaks. When Connor lifts her foot out of the water by her ankle a few minutes later, the bandage slips off the rest of the way with a gentle tug. Catherine braces both of her hands on the fur behind her as Connor gently wipes the sole of her foot with the wrap in one spot and then dries it. He cradles the back of her ankle in his right hand and it looks as if he could close his fingers completely around it if he wanted to. Long, sinewy muscles shift under the skin of his forearm as he adjusts his hand holding her foot up and contorts himself to look at her injury without lifting her leg much higher. A few more places need his attention before he appears satisfied with her foot. He pulls the softened salve from its place by the fire and dips two fingers into it, applying it generously to her slash in a soft downward dragging motion. Connor starts to gently massage the salve into her slash with his fingers and then transitions to using his thumb with his fingers wrapped around her foot so he can use more pressure. It hurts at first but in only a short time the pain relieving properties of the salve start to envelop her foot in a warm numbness. The potent scent of cloves permeates the air and her leg muscles relax. The only thing she can feel now is the pressure of Connor's warm hands on her foot as he massages it.
"Better?" Connor asks as he continues to rub her foot. As her muscles had relaxed, her knee and hip had become more mobile and her leg moves freely with each movement of his hands. He looks up from his work and at Catherine's nod, he silently rejoices that he is finally helping her feel better instead of inflicting pain on her every time he touches her. He knows she is not comfortable with his contact with her and now that he knows she is a married woman, he feels mildly guilty about how much of her body he has seen, especially the first night when she was unconscious. Her culture is not at all like his, where men and women see each other mostly naked all the time, especially in summer. Her strong will to hide her fear of him is impressive, though he sees it in the way she carries herself. A turn of her shoulder, the twitch of a muscle in her neck as she looks anywhere but his eyes, her fingers always nervously touching her clothes, the way she curls herself into as small a shape as possible even when she sleeps. The intensity of her fear waxes and wanes but usually holds steady at a high level of guarded suspicion, as if she is expecting him to suddenly turn on her and harm her. Doing his best to swallow his anger, Connor tries not to think about what those men, no, those animals, had done to her to make her this way. No woman should fear a man the way Catherine does him. It makes him wish he could shrink himself down to a more average build and height, for he knows his stature is not helping.
Connor rewraps her foot only enough to keep anything from getting into her wound and places it down. Catherine tenses, knowing he will want to treat her back even though he hasn't asked her yet. Her hand strays to the neckline of her shirt and she stares hard at the floor, weighing what matters more. She will have to take her shirt off and allow him to touch her, yet her foot feels so much better that she yearns for the same relief to her back. Connor turns toward the fire and adds another piece of wood, hunching forward and saying nothing to sway her but she catches him glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. He is waiting for her to decide. Pressing her lips together, Catherine resolutely makes her decision.
She jerkily unties the lacing at her neck and shifts onto her hip, feeling nauseous and afraid again and hating herself for it. Her fear keeps overturning her logic and making her into a prisoner of this man again and again. The buckle on the belt fights her fingers and she fumbles at it until it finally comes undone and drops loudly onto the wood floor. As her nausea increases, she slides her legs under her body until she is kneeling facing away from Connor. She bows her head for a moment and then takes a breath and crosses her arms in front of herself, gathering up the sides of her shirt in her hands.
"Catherine, you do not have to do this if you do not want to." She freezes in place, her head still bowed.
"If I don't do it now, I never will."
"It is not my goal for you to feel compelled." Catherine shakes her head.
"I am tired of being in pain, Connor, and I can't put that stuff on myself."
"That is one way of looking at it. I want you to feel better as well but not if it is going to cost you in any other way." Catherine sighs and looks over her shoulder at him, feeling the edges of her wounds crack and pull on her skin painfully as she does.
"I appreciate your concern for me. But I really do want to be able to move without pain for at least a little while. I will have to get past my fear at some point and it may as well be now." Connor admires her resolve and doesn't argue with her further.
"Whenever you are ready, then." With some effort, Catherine grasps her shirt and pulls it up over head, keeping it on her arms and bending her body over them. Connor moves closer and sits behind her. Since his treatment the previous afternoon, some of the redness between the weals has gone down but because of that, each one now stands out in vivid clarity. The smaller gashes at the intersections of the lashes have scabbed over and appear to lay fairly flat. More than likely they will still leave scars but at least they will be small. The large gash continues to plague Connor's worries. While the other welts have gone down with their swelling somewhat, this one remains raised, the edges still separated, jagged and raw. The redness surrounding these open portions is wide and angry. He decides to start with the largest gash where the deepest injuries are.
At his first touch she arches her back and winces, pressing her face into the crumpled shirt in her hands. He coats her stripes with the salve, only touching her enough to leave the salve behind on her injuries. Once he reaches the bottom of her back, he returns to the top and gently massages the salve in with one hand. He notices as it takes effect when her shoulders relax and her head drops lower as her breathing becomes smoother and deeper. When he stops and gets up, Catherine puts her shirt back over her head and pulls it down over her back. Even these movements are easier for her. Connor rubs his numb thumb and fingers over each other, unable to feel their contact, and gazes down at where Catherine has curled forward over her bent legs, her head nestled in her hands and her elbows on the floor in front of her knees. Her fingertips are just visible through her hair as they bend and relax against her head. He isn't aware of the silent tears of relief that are sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto the fur.
Connor searches through his collection of hides in the storage area and finds two fairly well matched furs from some large summer hares. The fur is thick and soft, the downy undercoat a deep tawny color accented by longer, black tipped hairs. He then selects the thicker hide of a bear, several long laces and some tools and brings them all out to the main cabin. Catherine is lying on her left side curled around his pillow, more relaxed than he has seen her while awake. Most of her hair is tossed back behind her body and her eyes are closed. She opens them as he approaches and looks up at him.
"I'm sorry I was so irritated earlier. I was… projecting intention." Connor sits down in front of her and rests the hides and tools on his lap.
"You do not need to apologize. You have no reason to trust me until you are ready."
"But you aren't like… them. I know this. In here," she touches the side of her head with her index finger. And then she places her open hand over her heart.
"In here though… it fights me." She shakes her head ruefully.
"Give it time. Your heart may never fully heal but you will learn to control its power over your life." Catherine moves her hand off her chest and pulls the pillow closer to her body for a moment. She sighs and closes her eyes. The bruised side of her face is against the pillow and aside for the pink rope burns on her wrist and the bruises on her forearm, she looks unharmed. Connor is close enough to reach out and touch her hand or her face if he dares but doing so would shatter the moment. Instead, he lifts the folded hides off his lap and sets them to his side. The tools jangle together and Catherine opens her eyes.
"I have things to make boots. I will show you how our people make our winter clothing." He lays out the hides on the floor and Catherine sits up with interest.
"I love sewing. My father found me a good teacher when I was a child. I used to make my own clothes all the time."
"Why did you stop?"
"My husband thought it was very common to not have my clothes made for me and so I stopped during our courtship." She runs her hand across the rabbit fur and pauses to slide the soft hairs between her fingertips. Connor thinks her husband seems overly concerned about money and appearances instead of the happiness of his wife. The thought makes him clench his teeth so he redirects his energy to teaching Catherine. Connor shows her how the boots are a fairly simple design that wraps and laces over her foot and lower leg. The soft fur on the inside works as insulation and an extra piece of the durable bear hide on the foot portion helps increase the wearing power of the sole. He demonstrates with the awl and teaches her how to string the ties through the holes quickly. Catherine loops her hair into a loose braid that falls over her shoulder, picks up the tools and starts working right away. Within a short time she creates a pair of fully laced boots but then she takes them apart partially and alters them to have a folded down top that shows off the fur more and a flap on the side that can be opened and closed quickly with buttons for ease of wearing. On the huge remaining portion of bear hide, she uses some ash to draft a pattern for a jacket. Fascinated, Connor watches as she crawls around the floor working the hide and tools deftly with her small hands, amused by her zeal and creativity. Her mind is focused on the project and her serious expression of concentration, punctuated by occasional scowls, makes him smile.
"I am happy that you are using these furs. I do not make myself clothes very often. I bring many of my hides back to the village with me when I return and the women of my tribe make the clothes I wear." Catherine only glances up momentarily before returning to her work.
"What about your jacket? It isn't made of hide." He glances at where his light grey jacket is hanging by the door.
"I had that made in Boston. I wanted something more versatile and I had grown used to the style of clothing I wore during the war. I tried to add some details later to reflect my heritage."
"The beaded armbands?" Connor nods.
He gathers his weapons and lays them out on the floor to clean and hone the blades, including collecting the hatchet from next to the bed.
"Tell me more about your husband's work. I used to sail frequently as the captain of a ship called Aquila, so the ship building trade interests me." Catherine presses her lips together for a moment and looks at Connor. He used to sail? Captain? What kind of Indian is the captain of a ship? She has difficulty picturing him at the wheel of a vessel. The name Aquila sounds vaguely familiar but she can't place why.
"My husband doesn't follow the trade as much as his father. Francisco prefers to work with the family finances directly. Sergio is the one who handles the business contracts and who orders the workers around. In some ways I am grateful that Francisco seems to not be interested in that side of the business. Sergio runs his business and the people working for him with a firm hand. I have often overheard complaints from his employees that he is pitiless and exacting, always greedily looking for ways to get the most money out of the least investment, and that includes being stingy with wages. I wouldn't want Francisco to be spoken of like that."
"He is a cruel man, this Sergio?"
"I suppose you could describe him that way. Hard might be a better descriptor. He has never directly been cruel to me. I just feel like he is… disapproving. I think when Francisco asks me to change things about myself it is more of an attempt to make me acceptable to his father than anything else." Catherine is quiet and stops cutting the hide for several minutes while she thinks. Connor turns his attention back to his work, hoping she will continue. She doesn't disappoint.
"Sometimes I wonder if they are just unhappy here. They came to this country for me at my father's request. Sergio complains that he can never make as much of a profit here as he could in Spain. He is continually looking for new ways to rise up in the ranks of the wealthiest society members. Francisco is always lamenting the weather being too cold, that New York is dirty and full of peasants and savage heathen Indians." She shakes her head, resuming cutting the hide.
"If he only knew the company I was keeping now. He would probably have an aneurysm. I apologize if my words offend." She raises her face towards where Connor is bent over his work. He is smirking when he looks up at her.
"You do not offend me. I have heard far worse descriptions of my lineage than that. You can tell your husband I am only half savage heathen. My father was from England. His surname was Kenway." He pauses and motions toward her with sharpening stone in his hand.
"What about you; do you like it in this land?" Catherine's face brightens.
"Yes, very much so! I miss London sometimes but I always preferred our home in the country. Here it is almost all country. The wild open spaces are so vast and when I would ride out beyond the borders of New York… I felt so incredibly liberated." Catherine's eyes are shining with her passionate description of the land. Her enthusiasm soon darkens and she frowns down at her hands. Her fingertips are red from accidental jabs from the awl.
"I suppose it was foolish of me to make a habit of doing so alone. When I was captured, I had given Anika the day off. My lady's maid. She wished to visit her family's graves and I only had a few small things to purchase and then my afternoon was free for riding. I wonder had I not been alone if I would not have been taken. Poor Anika; she is probably sick with worry. She is more like a friend and sister to me than a maid. She is only two years younger than me and I love her dearly."
"What happened to her family?"
"Small pox. If she had not been living with my father and me, she may have died too. She lost her whole family within a week, parents, older brother and younger sister… It was awful. We tried to send help but the whole district was infected and no one could get in. It was something to do with contaminated blankets being distributed to the rebel colonist army. Her brother was home visiting them from the barracks when he was sick and then they all got it."
"There were many sick and dying from that. We helped who we could and tried to burn the supplies of blankets, but too many got through." Catherine wonders if Connor had diminished the role he played in the war. He does not expand on the subject so she decides not to ask him. Connor examines the string to his bow for a time before looking back up at Catherine.
"Why do you not carry a weapon with you when you ride out?"
"I have no skill with weapons. The one time I did try to defend myself was against you and that didn't work out the way I had hoped at the time. Honestly, if I had managed to hit you, I would not have known what do next." Connor puts his tools down and waits for Catherine to look up at him from the hide edge she is poking with the awl.
"When you are able to get around without the walking stick, I will teach you how to use any weapons you would like. You should know how to defend yourself." Catherine sits up straight and stares at the array of weapons laid out in front of Connor, considering his offer.
"I would like to start with the bow. I have never even seen one before I met you." Connor is startled by the sudden change in her demeanor. A spark of something is in her eyes and he wonders what has awoken inside her.
By the time the light is fading, Catherine has created a warm grey bear hide jacket that falls to her hips, fits her well and has turned out hems on the sleeves, bottom and edge of the hood, exposing black, shaggy fur. The thick fur on the inside of the jacket makes it exceptionally warm. The roomy hood can be pulled up past her face to block the wind. At Catherine's request for buttons, Connor retrieves some large wolf teeth from storage, carefully makes holes through them and files the pointy ends so she can use them as button closures. The pearly teeth are striking against the grey and black, especially when Catherine attaches them so they graduate neatly in size. Connor quietly watches her critique her work, glad she has found something enjoyable to do while she recovers from her injuries. He gets the pot of frozen stew from the porch and sets it to warm as Catherine trims each seam painstakingly so that the fur on the outside is short and neat, making even black lines. She definitely appreciates fine work.
Catherine is glad to be done with her jacket and is happy with the outcome. Her back and foot have started to ache again and she has to move slowly. They eat dinner at the table but converse little. Catherine sits sideways in her chair to keep her back from touching the wood. She can think of little else than what it could mean if she learns to use weapons. Her husband would never approve of that but she feels strongly about wanting to learn anyway. An unexpected thought crosses her mind. What if Francisco decides she is not worthy of him any longer? Now that she has been used by multiple men… Sergio would certainly not be happy. The thought makes her afraid and she pushes it away. Maybe she can keep that from him and tell him she escaped but got injured during her flight. Her heart races and her lungs feel constricted.
Connor watches Catherine as she sits deep in thought. She has once again taken up the tense posture she had before he treated her back but he knows that can't be all that is bothering her. She was eating but now has barely touched the rest of her food and she looks distracted and worried. Abruptly, she gets up with a mumbled apology and uses her walking stick to hobble over to the door. She opens it and goes onto the porch. Through the window, Connor sees her sit on the deck and lean her arms on the lowest railing, resting her chin on her stacked forearms.
The air is frigid and Catherine welcomes the discomfort. She is unable to shake the feeling that her life has been changed irreversibly for the worse. The full implications of her abduction and abuse claw their way into her head and work at destroying any future for her with her husband. She will be thrown out on the street, a dishonor to her husband and his family. Or maybe even worse yet, she will be sequestered away, not allowed into the social sphere of her husband's life. Maybe he will take her back to Spain in disgrace. She presses both hands over her mouth and tries not to scream as her thoughts spiral downward towards despair.
Connor can just see her sitting on the porch in the darkness. She is hunched over and her shoulders are shaking. He is at a loss for what to do and has no idea what brought this on, the only indication of change he had seen at all had been her unexpected interest at wanting to learn weapons. Why that would make her cry is beyond him. Everything else she had been through, yes, but weapons training? When she continues to sit outside after she appears to have stopped weeping, he worries about her getting too cold. Making up his mind, he picks up Catherine's jacket and boots, grabs the blanket from near the fire and goes outside. She turns her head away from him when he comes out. The wind is blowing her hair around and icy particles hit his skin from the waterfall's frozen mist being tossed in the air.
"If you are not going to come inside, at least keep yourself warm. I brought you your things and a blanket." He places the items down on the porch behind her and crouches down beside her. She says nothing and refuses to face him.
"I hope I did not say or do anything to offend you. If I did, I am sorry." Her head shakes slightly.
"It's not you. I just want to be alone for a while. I need to think." Catherine's words are muffled by her elbow.
"Very well." Connor reenters the cabin and sits at the table where he can see Catherine. She turns and wipes her eyes before pulling her boots on and donning her jacket. With the blanket draped over her legs, she pulls the hood of her jacket up and hunches herself over again. Once Connor sees that she is adequately protected from the cold, he moves around the cabin restlessly organizing. He goes to the supply room and pulls out some soft and pliable scraped deer hides that Catherine could use to make herself some better clothing, since she is so good at it. He puts his hatchet on the chair by the bed and spreads out his sleeping roll in front of the fire. After a while he sits on the mat and puts some water on to boil. He makes tea and watches the fire. Over an hour goes by before he hears Catherine moving towards the door. She comes inside and sits in front of the fire next to Connor, the blanket bunched over her arm. Frozen mist melts into water droplets, decorating the fur framing her face and the hair spilling from her hood with a shining reflection of light from the fire. When she pulls her hood back, her nose, cheeks and lips are pink from the cold and her eyes are red. Connor makes her some tea and she takes it from him. She holds the warm cup to her lips and stares into the fire in silence.
After a while she takes off her boots and jacket and bends her knees to put her feet on the floor. She starts untying the wrap on her foot and while she is picking at the knot, Connor reaches for the salve. When Catherine finishes untying the wrap he takes her foot in his hands and brings it onto his lap. Her eyes look tired when she looks up at him and he wishes he could undo everything she had gone through at the hands of her captors. At least helping her physical wounds is a start and her foot already looks less irritated and the edges of the slash are flat. As he massages the salve in, a fleeting but powerful wish that she were not married passes through his mind and he immediately brushes it off. No matter how much he suspects her husband, he has no right to think of her that way. He wraps her foot again and thinks again on the scene he witnessed the day before at the cabin. The combination of her Spanish husband and the mention of a Don is just too perfect to be coincidental. He looks down at his hands resting around her ankle and over the top of her foot without really seeing them.
"Connor." Catherine's voice brings him back to the present and he raises his head up. She is looking at his face with a combination of concern and interest. She flexes her foot back slightly and he lifts his hands off her abruptly.
"I did not mean to restrain you."
"You weren't. I could have moved away any time. I was wondering what you were thinking of just now."
"Nothing that cannot wait until another time." Catherine hesitates just a moment before nodding. His face was so full of consternation that she briefly considers pressing him on the matter but changes her mind, turns her back to Connor, gathers her shirt up and holds it against the front of herself. He applies the salve to her back gently.
Connor is happy with what he sees. These wounds, too, are looking better. The softening effects of the salve have helped to reduce the irritation caused by the fabric of her shirt and the smaller marks look more pink than red and raw. The large one is still ugly but at least it isn't infected. He tugs at the back of her shirt when he has rubbed the salve into her skin and she lets it fall down over her body. It catches for a moment on her side and he takes the end of the shirt and pulls it down the rest of the way for her. Catherine turns back to face the fire, picks up her jacket and gets up with her walking stick.
"Thank you. I feel better now but I am tired."
"Get some rest." Catherine limps to the bed and puts her jacket on the chair on top of the hatchet before leaning the stick in its place and crawling under the covers. She falls asleep almost immediately. Connor suddenly feels exhausted himself and prepares for bed. He can't stop thinking about Catherine's powerful emotional reaction. Part of him wants to believe it is just her trying to deal with the trauma from her ordeal but he still can't help thinking it has something to do with his offer to train her. It seems he is not the only one holding a disturbing secret.