Chapter 9: Night Creatures
"You're pulling on the reins wrong." Maria informed the Captain, who simply gave her an overt look of annoyance.
"Are you seriously trying to tell me how to drive, Fraulein?" He questioned with a sideways glance as she bounced up from the quilted seat of the small surrey they had traded for. Well, actually, she violently jolted as he purposely led their horses so that her wagon wheel would hit the small rock jutting out in the road. He chuckled on the inside as she grabbed once again for the wrought iron scrolled handle to maintain her balance. Ah…it was the little things that brought him so much pleasure…and revenge.
He could feel her stare burning holes into the side of his head, but he continued to look forward at the ass ends of the two palomino mares that he now owned thanks to the Fraulein's driving skills. After Maria's driving fiasco, Midas had found them in the fountain and struck a bargain that the Captain couldn't refuse. His surrey two seated wagon along with two mares for the Captain's busted up car. One could get them home and the other was a wasted pile of medal with a broken front axle. The Captain hadn't hesitated in making the trade. Midas was so grateful that he even threw in a homemade packed picnic that his wife had made for them.
The new plan was for them to drive the wagon the thirty miles to the next town that had a train station. They would sell the horses and wagon to that town's livery, and then take the train home. The problem was it would take them nearly two days' time to travel this way. Horse and buggy was no match for an automobile.
Not only that, but instead of traveling north back home, they were now traveling south and farther away from their destination. It seemed in Slovenia one had to go backwards in order to go forwards first. This was an inconvenience that gnawed at the Captain's insides like a parasite devouring his guts. He just wanted this all to be over with as soon as possible. He drove the horses hard for as the minutes ticked by not only was the sun setting faster than he had anticipated, but so was his countenance to keep his secret. It seemed that his conscience was having a hard time in the quiet of the travel to keep quiet of his indiscretion. Several times through the course of the day he had actually had to bite his tongue forcefully to keep the confession from spilling out of his mouth. A few times he had tasted blood from his efforts.
He checked his watch for the time. It was 6:38 and the sunlight was all but gone. There was only about an hour left of good daylight and it would be too dark to travel any further. From his estimations he thought maybe they had traveled twenty or so of the thirty miles of this leg of their journey. They hadn't passed a village in over two hours and he wasn't sure if they would come across one anytime soon.
If he went any further they would have to set up camp in complete darkness so he made a Captain's decision and turned off the dirt road that they were travelling on and headed through the woods towards the river. He would find them a camp on the river bank so that the horses could water and they could wash the dirt from the day's journey from their faces and hands. Besides, he internally joked to himself, what could be more romantic on one's honeymoon then to sleep on a river bank under a blanket of stars? Well he had thought his joke had been funny and had a good laugh from it. But when he repeated it to the Fraulein when she verbally questioned his decision to turn off of the main road all he got was a gruff, "ohhhh" out of her as she turned herself as far away from him as she could on the little surrey seat. Didn't matter…he still thought it was funny. Even more so now as he was sure steam was pouring out of her ears and the more he laughed, the more she fumed. Again it was the little things that gave him so much pleasure.
It had been years since he had spent any time in Slovene lands. As he watched the mountains rise in background to the crystal blue river with its lush green lands surrounding her edges, he wondered what had kept him away. It was a gorgeous country as far as the eye could see. There was an earthiness to it that industrialism had robbed from Salzburg, Vienna, Paris; even Aigen with its simple country side couldn't compete with the majesty of this humble place. The mountains seemed to embrace the valley offering a peaceful tranquility under their watchful snowcaps. They could hear the trickle of the river before they saw it through the mossy trees. To him it sounded tame, so that hopefully meant they were on a narrow passage of the river. If the currents were too strong, the horses wouldn't be able to water.
"Excuse me Captain," the Fraulein rudely interrupted his appraisal of the land. "But why have we turned off the main road?"
He bit back a sigh before answering her. He had thought his little joke from the first time she had asked the question had silenced her. He had forgotten what it was like to travel with a woman. Men never questioned his decisions. Women on the other hand always had nothing but questions. Well this woman anyway.
"Fraulein, first of all that," he pointed behind him through the trees at the road they could no longer see, "is not a main road. That is a dirt track that we are forced to travel since we," he turned to her for the first time and put his eyes level to hers, "no longer have a car." He internally smiled at the little annoyed smirk she gave him. "Second of all, we are losing daylight quickly. We need to set up camp before it's too dark."
"Ummm.." she looked around her scanning their surroundings, "Camp sir?" Hah, so she thought that he had been joking about sleeping under a blanket of stars.
"Surely a mountain girl such as you has no qualms about spending a night outdoors, Fraulein."
"Ahh.." her answer hung in the air as she nervously looked around the woods.
"You're scared, aren't you?" He teased as he eased the horses up along the river bank, "You, our little miss tree climbing, lake swimming, mountain girl extraordinaire," he pointed a finger into her shoulder, "are afraid of the outdoors?" He made a fake gasp and placed his hand over is heart in feign disbelief.
"I'm not afraid of the outdoors." She protested while her eyes betrayed her and continued to dart around at their surroundings.
"Then what are you afraid of?" He scratched his head, then snapped his fingers as if he had had an epiphany, "Maybe it's the creatures of the night?" She snapped her head back towards him. Her eyes were large saucers of fear, "Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Fraulein?" This time, however, her eyes didn't dart around. They stayed focused on him with a quick scan down his features. Internally he cringed- was she afraid of him? "Or is it the wolf in sheep's clothing that's got you all worked up, my dear Fraulein?" He purposely put a little flirt to his voice. When she sat silent for a moment too long he gave her a wink and licked his lips.
It was meant to irritate her. Honestly it was. However, instead he saw her breath hitch slightly and her tender lips tremble. This in turn started his heart to beat just a little faster and he struggled to swallow over the lump in his throat. He could have lost it when she brought her eyes up to meet his if he hadn't dug his nails into his palms around the horses reins. Those damn eyes were a weapon that could fall the strongest man. Blue as the rivers waters, so trusting, so completely innocent, and again with that open invitation that she was unwittingly emitting, almost sent him over the edge. Damn it! This was not going to do. As quickly as the storm erupted in his soul, he stomped it back down with a size twelve boot. All he had to do was make her angry again. It was easy to ignore her when she was angry.
"Not to worry, Baroness von Trapp," he tipped his head in regal fashion and flourished his hand as if giving her a royal salute, "your husband is here. And I vow to keep you safe from all creatures of the night." He slapped her square between the shoulders, not in a caressing way, but in the way he would have slapped one of his fellow sailors. She doubled over from his efforts and let out a loud groan from the abuse.
"Ugg.." she coughed as she got down from the carriage, her face red with anger. She went into a series of unfinished curses under her breath in his direction that made him laugh from his belly, "you…such a….piece…bas…oh..I never curse."
Darn it all, if she wasn't even more irresistible now, he didn't know what she was. His plan of getting her angry having backfired, he set to work at just ignoring her presence all together.
He started with the horses. The old mares had worked hard today and deserved to be cared for first. He released them from their harness and walked them over to the river. The bank was low where he had stopped and the horses easily drank from the shore of the river. He inspected their surroundings, finding the best spots to set up camp as well as hobble the horses for the night. He had in fact picked a prime location for they were in a small clearing about twenty feet from the tree line to the shore. There was ample grass for the horses to graze upon yet the forest gave them somewhat of a private backdrop. To the left of the clearing there were a group of young trees that had broken free from the forest and grew in a patch by themselves near the shoreline. Someone had obviously camped within those trees before for there was a broken down makeshift lean-to still erected between a group of four trees that almost made a perfect square.
When the horses were finished he hobbled them in the widest part of the grassy patch. Water from the river spilled over in the area just south of the trees pooling in a small basin. The horses would be able to graze as well as drink from their position. Then he set to work on shoring up the lean-to. The builders had used the four young trees as the main supports of the shelter and then had brought thin tree shafts to fill in the space between two of the back trees. From what he gathered as years of neglect most of the shafts had fallen to the ground. It only took the Captain a few minutes to right them back into position. The rope that had been used to secure the structure was mostly rotted at this point. But he was able to salvage enough to secure three of the five fallen shafts for the rear wall as well as two on either side. He left larger gaps than the original builders had, but he could fill them in with some pine branches as there was ample supply of those lying on the forest floor. Hopefully he would find some rather large ones to place across the top and then they wouldn't be exposed completely to the night air. It may not have had the same qualities of a five star resort, but it was better than nothing and more than he had anticipated.
He instructed Maria to gather some fire wood for the camp fire while he went deeper in the forest to collect the boughs they would need for their shelter. She hadn't said a word to him since her feet had hit the ground and he wondered if he hadn't gone too far with his teasing. Why was it he couldn't find a happy medium with her? When she was talking he only wished she would shut up for she charmed him through his skin. And when she was quiet all he wanted was to hear her voice. The woman was a darn conundrum that he just couldn't figure out.
It took him three trips back and forth in the forest to gather enough boughs for the lean-to. With each trip he watched Maria's progression with the camp fire. She had collected some small pieces of wood as well as gathered some kindling to start the fire.
"You can't put the fire there." He had informed her on his second trip back.
She glanced down at her masterpiece than back at him, "Why not?"
"Because the breeze is blowing to the east. If you put it there, the heat will be sucked away from us through the night." He pointed with a stick exactly where he wanted her to build the fire, "You have to put it here, on the North West corner. That way the breeze will fan the heat towards us."
She gave him the same look that his mother would give him when he had been an unruly child, "And the smoke. I think it's better over here on the South…whatever corner this is." She poked fun at his nautical terms, "That way the smoke won't get into our eyes."
When had this relationship turned into a democracy? Wasn't she supposed to simply listen to his command? Frau Schmidt would have, Franz would have, but no, he was stuck in the woods with Fraulein Maria- the only person in the world that questioned his every move.
They were at a standoff now. Both still holding their collective sticks and pointing them to the place they each wanted the fire. He even tried his fiercest scowl to win his point. She didn't budge. Choking on a large sigh, he resigned his position.
"How about this," He moved to the center of the front of the lean-to, "why don't we meet in the middle and place the fire here?"
She narrowed her eyes considering the treaty that he had just offered. Taking a deep breath she finally conceded to the truce, "Fine, Captain."
"Fine, Captain," he mimicked her under his breath returning into the woods for more boughs. Wasn't she the hypocrite, calling him 'Captain' after undermining his authority? This angered him to the core.
He continued collecting the pine branches with a little more gusto than before. Whipping them from the earth in strangle holds while hissing curses under his breath. That woman! She'll be the death of him. He wanted to whip her around like he was doing to the branches! He wanted to strangle her…that's not all that you want to do with her. His libido rudely interrupted his tirade.
'Shut up' he commanded his wanton soul, 'don't even go there!' Then he imagined himself strangling his own libido, trying his best to choke it out of his system. In his mind he pictured his libido, a ghostly image of himself, with his hands wrapped around the ghostly neck, shaking the lust out of himself. 'We can't have her' the sane part of his mind repeated over and over again to his lust, 'so stop thinking that way!'
He had nearly won the battle too, that is until his mind asked one simple question that he struggled to find an answer for. 'Why can't we?' The only answer he could come up with was that, 'she belongs to God'. His mind, however, had a counter to that answer that hadn't occurred to him. It came so quickly to him that his legs actually buckled from it… 'Then fight God for her.'
A/n There is much more to this chapter, but I thought that this was a good breaking point. Disclaimer:Don't own the Sound of Music