Chapter Three
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She spent a fruitless but enjoyable day squirrel-hunting. By the time the sun set she had given up the chase, and she watched from her clearing, eating the rest of the nuts herself. She listened to the night for a while, watching as the various nocturnal species in the area emerged. It was getting very chilly, and she wrapped her arms about herself, burrowing into a dip in the rock.
"What the hell d'you think you're doing?"
The angry voice made her jump about a foot in the air, and she turned around quickly. It was Logan, the guy from the bar earlier. She could barely see him - he stood in the dark of the tree line. He stepped out, the moonlight illuminating him, and she revised her opinion of him rapidly. In the bar he'd been rough but unthreatening, but out here in the forest he looked downright scary. His hair was wild and pointy, and his face set in a scowl, his eyes shaded by drawn-together eyebrows. He must have moved like a cat: once again, she hadn't heard him approach. He looked like he belonged out there. "What - how did you find me?" She was unable to keep the squeak out of her voice. She reached for the glass water bottle beside her as surreptitiously as she could. It was her only weapon - beside her skin, of course.
"I know these woods. What the hell are you doing out here? You lost?" It gradually penetrated to her that he sounded at least a little concerned.
"No - no. I've got a compass. I like being out at night. Eileen knows I come out here," she added, hoping he'd take the hint.
"I ain't gonna hurt you, kid," he said, irritably. "They said you hadn't come back in yet. It's dangerous out here - don't you know that?"
"Yes!" she countered. "That's why I have the compass. I can look after myself, thank you very much."
"You shouldn't be allowed out, you know that?" He was getting more annoyed by her lack of gratitude. "What've you got for brains? Cotton wool?" He stepped nearer, and tapped her swiftly on the top of the head before she could move.
"I come out here every week! I was doing just fine until you turned up!" Marie spoke angrily, shaken up by the touch even though it was only to her hair and therefore harmless. He could just as easily have touched her skin, and her control was non-existent, given the frayed state of her nerves.
"Yeah? You stay out all night in that thing, then?" He pointed scornfully at her coat, of whose inadequacies she was suddenly hyper-aware. "You'd freeze to death."
"As a matter of fact, I was just thinking of going back," she said, sniffily. She pulled the thin coat tight about herself, pulled out her torch, checked the compass, and stalked off towards town. After a moment, she heard a huff, and he caught up with her.
They walked in silence until they got to the road. The wind through the trees soothed her ruffled spirits, and chilled her to the bone. "Um, thanks for coming looking for me," she said timidly, aware that she might have been a little rude. He grunted in reply. "But I was okay - really."
"Yeah," he said, briefly.
"You startled me," she offered in explanation. There was a long pause. "Um, you know those woods well?"
"Yeah."
"Oh." She switched off the torch, as the moonlight provided enough light on the open road to walk by. He was very difficult to talk to. "You walk so quietly. Are you - do you hunt a lot, or something?"
"Somethin' like that," he said quietly. She didn't understand the significant tone in his voice. It sounded sinister, and she decided to ignore it. She was cold, and a warm meal and bed were looking more and more appealing. "You come out here all the time?"
"Whenever I can," she said warily. He might be walking her home now, but that didn't mean she trusted him.
"You like it out here or somethin'?" He said it like it was improbable.
"Yes. Shouldn't I?"
"It's - you're just a kid. It's dangerous out here."
She was nettled again. "I can cope. I'm not as young or as dumb as you seem to think."
He shot her a sideways glance, assessing. "Maybe not," he conceded. "Why d'you like it?"
The question sounded sincere, as if he were genuinely puzzled as to why anyone would like such a wild place, so she gave it her consideration. "I don't know. It's peaceful. It's... it just appeals to me. I like knowing I'm away from people. Don't you like it?"
"Yeah. But I'm... unusual."
"You're not that unusual," she countered with a smile, and he looked sharply at her. "The woods around here are beautiful. What's not to like? Sure, they're dangerous, but so's crossing the street. You just have to take the right precautions, that's all." She looked out around her. The road at that point crossed the slope of the hill, and a screen of trees rose on the left side of the way, dropping away abruptly on their right to reveal the valley that held the small town. The moon hung heavily above. From inside the town it would be hard to see how completely they were surrounded, but out on the road it looked to her as though there was a sea of trees, with a tiny island of light in the middle. They paused simultaneously and stared out at the view. "It's worth it, to see this. Don't you think?"
Just visible against the night sky were the darker bulk of mountains, and Marie wondered just what it would be like to be up there, right at that moment, so near to the stars. "Yeah," said Logan, huskily, after a long pause. Marie came out of her trance with a violent shiver, making him look at her. "Let's get you back. You must be freezin'."
"I'll be okay," she said, hoping her teeth wouldn't chatter. Standing still on that high place had made her colder.
"Why the hell d'you wear such a useless coat?" The acerbity of his question was mitigated by the fact that, a second later, he slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around her. The warmth brought a glow to her cheeks, and they started walking again.
"Thank you. Won't you be cold?"
"Nah: Canadian."
She laughed at his answer. "I'm saving up for a new coat," she admitted, hugging his warm jacket around her. He looked like he had several thick shirts on, and they were near town, so she decided not to feel guilty. "I'm gonna get that, get some money together, and move on again."
"Move on?"
"Yeah. I'm travelling, or at least I was until I ran out of money. A rolling stone, that's me. Don't want any of that nasty moss."
"Where you headed?"
"I don't know. Just - away." She still had no definite plans, and the thought made her feel cold.
"You runnin' away from home or somethin'?"
"Just how old d'you think I am?" She didn't give him time to answer that one. "I'm not running away from home. I just decided I wanted to travel. I wanted to go places and do things before my life got mapped out in front of me."
"I think I can understand that," he said, with a wry smile.
"Yeah. Only it wasn't as easy as I thought at first. I ran out of money by the time I hit Alberta. I hitched as far as here, but by then I had to get a job or starve." Suddenly remembering his comment that she 'shouldn't be allowed out,' she hurried to explain. "I left in kind of a rush, before, but I'm a bit more prepared now."
"A rush, huh?"
"Yeah." She didn't want to explain further. Telling him about Xavier's institute was a little too specific, a little too dangerous. She didn't want anyone to know that she was a mutant. She couldn't afford to up sticks again, just yet. Come to think of it, maybe she should hold back her unruly tongue just a bit - she was getting awfully talkative with a man about whom she knew nothing more than a name. "So what about you?" He quirked an eyebrow at her. "What's your story? I've told you about me, now it's my turn to ask the questions."
"You haven't told me much," he countered.
"So tell me not much about yourself. All I know so far is your name - well, and that you know them thar woods pretty well."
He stared ahead of them. "Not much to tell."
"Yeah, right," she said, cynically. There was an air of mystery about Logan that practically screamed Dark Past, but he obviously wasn't up for sharing it with a girl he'd just met. Which was fair enough, when she thought about it. "C'mon. Just one little fact. That's all I ask."
"One little fact. Okay. I like whiskey."
Marie rolled her eyes. "Okay, I give up. Don't tell me anything."
"That was a fact," he protested. "Hey, I ain't real talkative, kid."
"No kidding." She grinned at him to show she meant it friendly-like. "But, see, it's not so hard - that was another fact."
"So now you tell me somethin' else. A fact about you."
Marie smiled to herself. "Okay. What?"
"I don't know." He thought for a moment. "How old are you?"
"That ain't a question you ask a lady," she said, her Mississippi accent coming out strongly. "But then again, I'm not a lady. I'm twenty-one."
"You don't look it."
"Thanks. I think. My turn. How old're you?"
"A lot older."
"You don't look it. Not 'a lot', anyhow. And you didn't answer the question."
"Pick somethin' else."
"Okay." He was obviously touchy about that one, and she wondered why. He didn't seem vain, for such a good-looking man; he dressed scruffily, obviously more for comfort than fashion, and his hair was wild and kind of unkempt - although that might possibly have been on purpose. And he didn't look like he was more than in his mid-thirties. She tried to come up with a more innocuous question. "What's your favourite movie?"
"I don't watch a lotta movies."
Marie sighed in exasperation. "Well, of the ones you have seen, which was your favourite?"
"Casablanca was okay."
"Casablanca? Really? I would've pegged you for more of a Clint Eastwood sort, something like that."
"I like old movies."
"Fair enough."
He shrugged, and Marie wondered if he was cold yet. "My turn. Did ya catch a squirrel?"
Marie laughed. "No. They weren't real keen to interact." She glanced at him, seeing his teeth glint. It was much darker than before, since the road had dipped down towards the town and back amongst the trees. With a start, she remembered that she didn't know this man - that he was a total stranger, and moreover one who had come out there to find her. Okay, they were walking back to town, and he'd shown no desire to kill or rape her, but she shouldn't feel so... what? To her surprise, she realised that what she was feeling was comfortable. Her brain told her she was crazy, and this sort of trusting behaviour would get her killed, but her instincts were telling her to relax, that he wasn't going to hurt her.
"What is it?" he asked, and it occurred to her that she'd been staring at him. She dropped her eyes to the road.
"Nothin'," she said, casually. "My turn. Why'd you come out here?"
"I told ya already."
"No, not really." Although she could hardly see him in the gloom, she stared levelly at him, waiting for a straight answer.
"They said you hadn't come back in. I thought maybe you'd gotten lost."
"Why were you asking about me?" Don't ask that! her brain protested loudly. But still, for no reason, she didn't feel afraid.
"I just was. I was concerned. Anyone goes walkin' hereabouts 'till late at night, I'd be concerned."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Anyone who wasn't local."
"You don't seem like the Good Samaritan type," she said. Shut up! her brain yelled.
"I ain't." His voice was irritable.
"But you still come out here, in the middle of the night-"
"It's only half nine," he interrupted.
"You come out here, concerned about me, despite the fact that it's only nine-thirty-"
"Kid, you talk too much."
"I'm just trying to figure you out."
"Yeah, well, don't." They'd reached the edge of the town now, and he stopped abruptly. "You'll be fine from here," he snapped, and turned away from the light, heading back out of town. Marie stopped, staring at him in astonishment. Was he going back out into the forest? At night? What the hell?
For a moment, she thought of calling after him, of following, but at last her sensible brain won out, and she decided it would be better to let him go. She'd obviously annoyed him with her questions, and now, as she headed for the bunkhouse, she wondered why she'd felt the need to pry. It wasn't like her to be so nosy. Something about him had made her want to know more, though. Something about his air of mystery - no, that wasn't it, or at least that wasn't it completely. He intrigued her. He'd come out to find her, and she really wanted to know why. Of course, it could simply be like he said; that he was worried because she hadn't come back in, but if he'd spoken to anyone in the kitchen then he'd have known she regularly stayed out past sunset with no harm done. Was he... was he interested in her? Well, he hadn't flirted with her, not noticeably, anyhow. He seemed to think she was merely a kid. And, yes, he was gorgeous, and yes, she'd been pleased to put him right about her age, she had to admit it.
"Don't go getting the hots for strange guys, Marie," she told herself under her breath. "No matter how nice they look when they smile." She stopped, and gazed at her reflection in the window of the shop with her coat. "You get that coat, you get some money, and you're outta here. Remember that. You're untouchable." She huffed, half laugh and half frustration. "Untouchable. Yeah. And don't you forget it."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
