Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Then he was free to crab-crawl until he found his partner in flight. A quarter of the way around the haystack, she was seated, tying two loaves of bread and a jug into a large lightweight wool shawl. Their latest travel rations.

She noticed his crablike approach and hefted her saw.

“The last cast. Then we see how well you can hobble.”

At least his more recent hospital garb had not been gowns but flannel pajamas, the legs snapping open along the inside and outside seams like infant wear would, he imagined.

She unsnapped the pants over the leg still in a cast. In the bright morning light she cut away that cast in about fifteen minutes.

“A quick learner,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. Randolph. So, I imagine, are you. You survived a night on the icy Himalayas with two broken legs. How will you do in the more temperate summer Alps with two half-healed legs?”

He eyed the gnarly walking sticks she had cajoled out of some upland farmer’s cottage. He hadn’t stood unassisted for as long as he could remember, but a maimed man was a dead one on this steep slope, no matter how tepid the daytime climate. He could ditch the flimsy, aluminum crutches.

He turned to face the upward slope of the meadow, took the sticks in his hands, ready to push down until he rose up. The cudgel-like canes chewed into divots of sod as he levered himself up twelve degrees, then twenty. Then forty-five. Sweat was raining off his brow and chin. His arms were shaking with strain. Sixty.

She slipped under the angle of his body to position a shoulder under one of his. Early hospital training.

Up. More. More! For a moment he tottered fully upright and almost tipped over backward. But the thick wooden cane bases dug in under his weight. He was standing, his arms and shoulders bearing most of his weight.

“Good,” she said, slapping him lightly on the iron bicep. “You’ll regain leg strength.”

Nice of her to think so.

They edged sideways down the steep meadows, his weight forcing the thick sod to give so his homemade crutches could get traction.

After an hour he was exhausted. He collapsed to the ground. They drank dark ale until it was gone. The rush of a mountain stream lured her away, to return with bottles foaming with bubbles.

He didn’t think about where they were going, or about what they were eating and drinking. This was on-the-job therapy. The mountainside was a million-dollar retraining program.

By night all his muscles were shaking, and he was moaning, whether awake or asleep. She fed him bread, some water. In the morning, she returned from another foraging expedition with sausage and cheese. He didn’t ask where, when, how. A lone beautiful woman who spoke several languages would be able to concoct a dozen stories to win sympathy and supplies.

He knew he’d never worked so hard, and was glad his arms and shoulders were strong from the shower rod chin-ups. He never complained, she never coddled.

By the second day he could get up and down by himself. By the third he was using only one cane and wanted to approach the farmhouses with her.

“That will be harder to explain,” she objected. “They’ll want to take you to the nearest village, and we’ll be discovered.”

“You mean it’ll be harder for you to cajole goodies out of these remote farmers with a man along.”

“Goodies?”

“Good food, good drink.”

“You have a point.” She pulled the untidy knot at her nape out of its tie, freeing her s houlder-length honey-blond hair. “I’ve been neglecting to appear vulnerable. I’ve simply been paying so far, after a tale of a hiker with a sprained ankle. But we’ll need fresh clothes soon and it will be good to have further inducements to help. Unless, of course, I’m dealing with a farmwife, who will be suspicious of a city-dressed hussy wandering the mountain meadows.”

He shook his head ruefully. “Say that your husband had been in a clinic recovering from an accident and you had taken me for a ride. Our car engine failed on one of the high passes. No one came by or stopped, so we had to go in search of assistance and got lost. It’s about time we took someone’s offer of a ride to a nearby village or town. Just how much money do you have on you?”

“My euros are almost gone, but limitless.” She produced a continental credit card, rather proudly. “I thought to take my wallet from my purse before we left the clinic.”

“Bury it. Whoever wanted to kill me can easily trace your credit card.”

“But . . . how will we buy food, transportation, housing?”

“We won’t buy. Let me worry about it.” He was calm, relying on skills he assumed would reappear when needed.

Her reliance on her credit card was rather endearing . . . or a clever plot to convince him she was a babe in the woods when it came to survival on the run. She was a babe in the woods, he thought, and she must have interpreted his grin correctly, because she snapped the credit card away from his fingers.

“I can hide it on my person.”