Chapter 59
Miracles of all Kinds
"Elizabeth, are you okay?" Jack gently tried to get her attention, but in the end, he had to shake her shoulders for her to notice him. She had her eyes closed and then slowly opened them. All at once, she saw him holding her arms,looking at her with tears in his eyes.
"Jack, what happened?" Her voice was shaky and full of uncertainty. She wasn't sure if she relieved that they seemed to be alright or if she was still scared of what might have happened.
"Well when the mother bear reared up, Scout decided to run over and started to bark up a storm. They circled each other for a few minutes while Scout growled and the bear roared at each other. The cub saw Scout run over, so he came over too. The mother bear saw that her cub was over near her, so she roared up once more, left and her cub followed right behind her. I guess you could say that Scout saved the day."
"Did he...her voice wobbled. Did he suffer much?" She started to cry, how she loved her little puppy. Suddenly she heard a bark behind them a little ways off, and Elizabeth looked at him in question.
"Oh sweetheart, don't cry, Scout is just fine, he's over there. When both the bears ran away and weren't looking, I grabbed him so he wouldn't follow them."
"But he let out one final bark and then everything was silent, I thought..." Elizabeth interrupted.
" Well my love, he barked one more time after them as they were walking away. I just so happened to have some rope with me, so he's tied up over there. You don't remember any of this do you?" He looked at her with concern and she just shook her head.
"When I closed my eyes, I started to feel dizzy so I sat down and I guess that I tuned everything out that was going on around me. Hearing another bark, she turned, Can we go get Scout please?" He smiled, took her hand and guided her about 500 feet away. As soon as Scout saw her, he started to jump up pleading to be untied.
"Ok buddy, hold on there, we'll untie you." Jack finally got him untied, her puppy came running at Elizabeth. He was so excited that he almost knocked her over.
"Well hi there buddy! I missed you so much. Tears streamed down her face while she clung to her puppy. Thank you so much for saving our lives." She was rewarded with countless kiss, and all 3 of them started to walk back to the camp.
"Elizabeth, I need to apologize to you. With all that was going on, I didn't think to stop and check on you. I know that sounds horrible, but I immediately thought that I needed to get Scout. I knew if I tied him up, we had a much better shot at the bear leaving. After I got ahold of him, the bear left, but I wasn't sure if she was just playing, lurking and ready to come back. So, as I led him away, I glanced over at you, I could clearly see you breathing." He hung his head" I thought that you might just be scared and in shock, so seeing you with your eyes closed, still sitting there didn't seem unusual to me. I thought the less noise we made the better. So, I thought you were just trying to shut out what was happening and I'm so very sorry. You are and always will be my #1 priority, and I should have demonstrated how much I care in this situation. I regret that more that you know, I just hope that one day you can forgive me." Jack kept walking, but she stopped.
"Jack look at me." He slowly stopped and turned towards her." I know that what happened today was out of our control, and you did everything that you could. You did what you thought was right and it all worked out is fine and I bet that Rip is just waking up from his afternoon nap." They both started walking again and she reached for his hand. When they got back to their camp, as predicted, Rip came waddling out of Elizabeth's tent still half asleep.
"Did you still want to do something this afternoon or did you just want to stay around camp? I know this afternoon was alot to digest." They both sat around the fire. It wasn't cold enough for a fire yet, but they sat around on the logs and just wanted to talk.
"Would you mind terribly if we just stayed here? I'm kind of still shaken up by what all happened today." She grabbed hold of Scout, scratched his head, while he laid his head on her lap. He looked up at her with droopy eyes, just waiting for permission to take a nap. After all, he earned it.
"Of course not. You're probably still in shock, so we'll just stay here. I brought something for dinner that will be fun, just look what I brought, I hope that you like these." he went over to where they kept their food and brought over some hot dogs. "Have you ever cooked a hot dog over an open fire before?" Elizabeth shook her head "Here, let me show you." He got 2 sticks,got his knife out and sharpened them. He then showed her how to stick a hot dog on and then put it over the fire. After they were cooked, he brought them over with some buns to put them in.
"Oh my this is really good! Thank you for showing me how, This has been one of a kind of trip." she laughed. It was nice to get away for spring break, that was so nice of you to bring me along." Jack just smiled.
"I'm glad that you had a good time. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go home tomorrow. Hey, as soon as you're ready, I want to show you something. When I was on the train coming home, I did some drawings of what I want the house and ranch to look like." He almost slipped and said "our" ranch again. He was excited for Elizabeth to see his plans. He wanted her to spend the rest of her life on the ranch with him, as his wife.
"I would love to see them. Everything is all cleaned from dinner, may I see them now?" She was so anxious to see how Jack's ranch looked, he had saved up for it for so long. He pulled out a few pieces of paper with drawings of the ranch. Of course, they were outstanding due to Jack's talent of drawing. Looking at them, the vison of Jack's ranch came to life. The front door of the house brought you into the living room with a big fireplace to the left and a nice, large kitchen off to the right. As you walked into the living room, straight ahead down the hall was a bathroom and a room that he would use for his office. In the hall, was the set of stairs that led upstairs. At the end of the hall upstairs was another bathroom and 2 bedrooms on each side of the hall. One of the bedrooms was bigger than the other 3 because it would be the master bedroom.
"Jack, this house is gorgeous." Elizabeth told him
"I was hoping that you would like. The one main thing that I'm going to absolutely do is to make sure that it will all be made out of logs. I want it to look like a cabin. See out here will be the barn." He wasn't sure but he thought that he saw her smile.
"Well Jack, this has been some day,but I'm beat. I think that I'm going to head off to bed. I'll see you tomorrow and I can't wait to get home."
"Me either, I'm anxious to get back to town and talk to Lee about the lumber for the house and barn, so that I can get started right away. As for right now my love, let's get some sleep, it's been a long day." He walked her over to her tent, gave her a kiss that she could dream about.
"Goodnight my love, I can't wait to make you my wife. Those were his thoughts as he fell asleep.
