Chapter 10: Fire
"Well, hallo there." The Captain heard Maria address someone while he was still off in the woods. His heart suddenly stopped while he waited to hear a reply from whoever it was that Maria was addressing. It hadn't occurred to him that someone else might find them along this river bank, but a violent foreboding entered his soul. He had no weapon of any kind, other than a pocket knife, to keep Maria safe. When he heard no reply forthcoming, either friendly or violent, he rushed back through the woods in a panic.
It was highly unlikely to find an honest man traveling this path with them. Honest men would take the highway. It was miscreants that traveled the woods. He never should have gone so far away from the campsite leaving Maria vulnerable. He cursed his own stupidity while running through the woods ready to fight if he had to.
When he broke through the clearing, he let out the breath that he had been holding when he saw Maria standing in front of the lean-to alone. He followed her line of vision and saw the fluffy end of a bunny's tale before it disappeared under a bush.
"Good God in Heaven," the Captain stammered while bending over to catch his breath.
"Captain?" She questioned with shock for his curse, "What is the matter?"
"I thought…" he waved his hand in front of him, "I thought…" he caught himself before he could confess what his fear had been. She didn't need to know that he had thought someone had been abusing her and he had seen red at the thought. No…she didn't need to know that.
"Why didn't you kill the rabbit?" He instead hollered in accusation at her.
Maria looked at him as if he had grown a second head, and then looked back at the bunny's hiding spot.
"Kill the rabbit, sir?"
"Yes, Fraulein. We have no food. Or have you forgotten? We ate what Nikola and his wife gave us for the midday meal. We have nothing left but some crackers and half a sausage." He paced in front of her as he would have an undisciplined cadet, "And instead of procuring our chance for dinner, you conversed with it."
Maria's mouth gaped open, "But sir, I've never killed anything in my life. I wouldn't even know how to kill the rabbit."
The Captain bent down and picked up a thick stick from the ground near Maria's feet.
"You just take a stick," he slammed the makeshift club hard on the ground. A cloud of dust rose between them, "and you smash its little skull."
"Captain!" Maria exclaimed in distain. She didn't know what had gotten into him. He had been acting so strange as of late she was beginning to fear that Samara's potion hadn't had a lasting effect on his mind. First there had been the incident of him crawling around on the floor last night when she had woken him to help with Ana. She still hadn't figured out what that was all about, him mumbling something about their baby. Then there was the kiss when the baby had been born. It had taken her so by surprise that she could hardly fathom any words. Not so much in the fact that it was completely unlike him to break protocol, but in the fact that she had never- ever- been kissed by a man before.
Truth be told, she kind of liked it, although it hadn't been but a mere millionth of a second. But when his lips had touched hers butterflies had hatched in her stomach and they hadn't settled yet. All day, riding in the carriage, whenever her thigh would accidently brush up against his a rush of heat would run through her. After the first three times, she had tried her best to not let it happen again. Keeping herself so stiff that the muscles in her stomach were strung so tight that by the end of the day she thought they might rip in two.
Then there had been the teasing all day. Oh, he had teased her before, but today- today was altogether different. She didn't like that he poked fun at the horrible situation that they were in. She didn't like how her heart would beat faster whenever he put this certain lilt to his voice that hadn't been there before when he would teasingly call her his "wife". There was this hidden meaning behind it that she didn't quite understand. Oh, she knew what the reference was to, but she couldn't comprehend the meaning having had no experience in that of which it meant. And it bothered her to no end that he could play puppet master with her emotions by changing the sound of his voice just a little, or give her a look that would send blood rushing to her face.
It seemed to her that he was getting some sort of satisfaction out of driving her insane today. One minute he would be the most annoying school age boy she had ever encountered, and then he would become a gracious gentleman. Ascertaining that she hadn't been hurt after the accident, helping her from the carriage, making sure she had had enough to eat. And then just as soon as he would soften, he would harden again and start barking orders in her direction. At this point in the day she didn't know which way was up and which way was down, he had her head spinning so fast.
Now he was hollering about her not killing a rabbit. If he knew her at all, he would have known she would never kill a living creature.
"Captain," she walked carefully near him as one would do an insane asylum patient, "did you hit your head in the accident?" Her hand shook as she reached out to check his hair line for bruising. With the state that he was in, he might just bite a finger or two off, "You're acting rather…," she had just put her fingers into his hair, lifting the soft tufts in the front from his scalp when he grabbed her hand and roughly brought it back down to her side. Squeezing her fingers tight in his grasp he kept hold of her.
"Don't…" his eyes became dangerous in the way they had the night back at the villa when her hand had brushed his with the passing of the tea cup. And it scared her in the way that it didn't scare her, but intrigued her. Some distant call of nature inside of her cried out to see what would happen if the rage inside of him burst. Instinctively her other hand reached out, wanting to rile the beast out of its cage. He squeezed her captured hand harder for a moment before flinging her out of his grasp. The force of which made her step back making her wonder what in the hell she had been thinking. Everything that was happening inside of her was a mystery to her.
"I'm fine, Fraulein." He stammered just slightly on the words while running his hand through his hair. "But we need dinner."
He turned back to his collected pine boughs, picking the largest ones up, he walked towards the lean-to.
"Get the fire going and I'll fix the shelter. We'll figure out dinner once we have all of that done."
Why the man thought that she knew how to build a fire was beyond her. Yes, she had grown up in the mountains, and yes she had built many a fire in her uncle's fireplace. With matches bought from the general store. She looked around the woods-wasn't one of those anywhere in sight. So how was she going to start this fire? She had no idea and wasn't about to let the Captain know that.
She had made a great show of collecting all of the right kinds of wood for the fire. She had taken her time and collected large logs for the main part of the fire, then some smaller pieces for kindling. She had found ample dried leaves and grass for the tinder - all with the hopes that he would be preparing the final product. Now it seemed this was all on her shoulders. What to do, what to do? She would rather freeze than to let him know that she was incapable of the one task that he had given her.
Flint rock! The thought struck her by surprise. That's right, her uncle always kept a piece of flint near the fireplace in case they ran out of matches. She had never started one of the fires with it, but she saw him do it once. Filled with a new found confidence she set to search for a piece of flint. Now if only she knew what it looked like, she'd be set.
Around them they were surrounded by trees, grasslands and river. The rocks in the river would be wet, they wouldn't do. She looked across the river to the other side where the foothills of the mountains kissed the river's edge. That would be the best place to find flint rock.
Checking on the Captain, her footsteps stopped short as she found that he was hanging like a monkey from one of the trees supporting the lean-to lying branches over the top. She had seen him handsome in his regal clothes, she had found with his naval uniform on her heart would quicken in beat on first glance…and every glance she dared after that. But now his masculinity hit her like whipping wind in a summer storm-strong and fast.
Hanging there lost in his element of work, the top two buttons of his once pristine shirt undone and dirty from the foraging. This sight rooted her feet to the ground and her eyes to him. Her pulse hammered in her throat making her dizzy. Steadying herself with a hand to her brow she shook her head violently to get the sight out of her mind. My God, what was happening to her? She took a deep breath regaining her composure.
She looked again, telling herself that she was making sure that he couldn't see her while she escaped to the other side of the river, but that was just a lie. She knew it to be true when she bit her lip from the sight and an appraising sigh came out of her throat from her observations. She hadn't made the sigh. Oh no, she reasoned in her mind. It had come from the stranger that had come to live inside of her since her first day having arrived in Aigen. She had shown up when the Captain had first blown that stupid whistle he called the children with. And try as she might, Maria hadn't been able to silence her since.
When she was confident that the Captain wouldn't notice her disappearance, she chose just where in the river to cross. Right in front of the camp the water looked to be at least knee high deep from the shore. Who knew how high in the middle? She chose not to cross here. To the left and hidden by the tree line from the Captains sight, it looked like shallows. She could see the gravel almost all the way across. The water wouldn't be any higher than ankle deep, she chose to cross here. She didn't need to be coming back drenched in water causing the Captain to ask questions. She didn't want him to know that she had crossed the river at all to find a way to start the fire. Especially since knowing him, he would probably pick up two sticks and rub them together telling her how inferior she was in the art of fire building.
Lifting her skirt, she started the trek across the water. Mimicking the Captain as she went, 'Surely a mountain girl such as you Fraulein knows how to build a fire just like the cavemen could.' She was a little more than halfway across now and so lost in her mind with the teasing of the Captain she wasn't watching her footing any longer. Suddenly her feet were no longer touching solid ground. Before she knew it she was in water over her head and having to kick off the bottom of the river to get back up for air. She swam the mere two feet left to the shore. She pulled herself up and spit out the swallowed water from her mouth. Before, she had been worried about explaining to the Captain if the bottom of her skirt had gotten wet, now she was drenched from head to foot. Wonderful!
She scampered up the embankment and quickly searched the rocky shore for stones that looked like flint. Did she know what flint looked like? Nope. So she grabbed a variety in her hands and dashed back down to the river. Looking from this side, she could now see that the gravel narrowed here to a band about foot wide than widened out as it went back to their side of the river. She must have missed the narrow band by a mere inch when she fell into the water. This time, however, she paid close attention to her footing. When she reached the other side again she let out a sigh of relief to see that the Captain was still hanging from the tree. He hadn't missed her at all.
She threw her collected pile of rocks in front of her, praying that one of them was at least flint. Then she piled the tinder just where they had agreed on the fire and began to work. She remembered that her Uncle would scrape the flint with his knife piling the shavings into the tinder. She didn't have a knife, but one of the rocks had a sharp edge to it, so she used that one on one of the darker colored rocks. She rubbed as hard as she could…no shavings came off. Okay, she thought, not flint. She moved on to the next, then the next after that. After a while she gave up on rubbing shavings off and simply tried banging rocks together to get a spark. She tried combination after combination. Light colored rocks with crystals in them with flat rocks with edges. Two crystal rocks together, large ones and small ones. NOTHING HAPPENED! Except for she was now sweating profusely and her stomach muscles were in knots.
"How's it going?" She jumped to her feet when she heard the Captain behind her. How had she missed him getting out of the tree?
"Good grief!" He exclaimed when he saw her soaking wet dress, "Why are you all wet?" He quickly cast his large eyes sideways, then downward, then upward, and that's when Maria realized that the top of her dress, which was white, was completely see through. She had been so set on her task that she hadn't even given it a thought.
"I ahhh…." Think Maria, think…"I walked into a large spider web. So I washed it off in the river." She nodded her head in time with her lie. Almost congratulating herself for thinking on her feet.
"Seems a little extreme to me, don't you think?" He dared a glance at her. She crossed her arms over her chest. He chuckled deep in his throat in that way that said he knew something that she didn't. The very way that always annoyed her down her backside.
He motioned to her pile of rocks, "So? How is it going?"
She looked at the flameless tinder, "Ah fine. Almost have it done." She lied, again.
"This is a nice assortment of rocks." He reached down and picked up a chunky rock that she hadn't gotten to yet. He crumbled some built off mud and gravel from the edge its surface revealing a dark soft rock underneath. "This is a fine flint you found here, Fraulein. Good work." He handed her back the rock with a smile and a wink. Then he crossed his arms leaning back on his heals as if waiting to watch her make magic happen.
Alrighty then, she said to herself, let's not disappoint the man. She picked up her sharp edge rock and began rubbing for shavings. To her surprise some fell off this time. She got a few on the tinder then struck the two rocks together. A little spark happened and she got all excited when a piece of the tinder actually smoked a little. She started to breathe on it ferociously…but still no fire.
"Oh," the Captain reached into his pocket and took out a pocket knife. Opening the blade, he carefully handed her the instrument, "here this might help." He gave her a half apologetic smile.
"Thank you, Captain." She replied, taking the knife from him and wondering why he just didn't jump in to finish the task himself.
She repeated the process with the knife. This time she got a pretty good pile of shavings all over the tinder. When she struck the knife against the flint, larger sparks erupted but still only small puffs of smoke came out of it, even after she tried the breathing technique again. She could almost feel the Captain's smirk on her back. She let out a long frustrated sigh.
"Here Fraulein," the Captain finally said, "let me see what I can do." Finally! Maria wanted to scream. She got up from her spot in front of the fire, wiping the sweat from her brow.
The Captain knelt down, talking to himself as he picked up each and every rock inspecting and appraising it. He picked up the flint and the knife, gave a little shake to his head then threw them down. He snapped his fingers together, winking at Maria, and then dug into his other pants pocket. She almost fainted when he fished out -lighter. For the second time today the man almost brought her to curse.
"This might make it easier." He said, flipping the lighters lid, he quickly turned the flint wheel. Instantly there was flame.
"You could have told me you had a lighter."
The Captain let out a bellow laugh, "And ruin my last twenty minutes of entertainment?" Had he been watching her the entire time? "I'm still trying to figure out my favorite part though. Was it when you were banging the rocks together—that were never going to make any spark. Or when you fell into the water on your trek across the river?" He stopped building the fire for an instant and scratched his head looking back towards her from his knees, "I think it was when you fell into the river."
"Ohhh…"Maria fumed turning in a half circle pulling at her hair. The Captain chuckled then threw the kindling on the now raging tinder. What she couldn't accomplish in a half hour of time he managed to do in thirty seconds. "I hate you."
Getting up from his knees, the Captain approached her with that amused look in his eye. He grabbed her by the shoulders then whispered into her ear, "No you don't."