Mikhail was tempted to ask if the man understood snow, or that the canyon that led to this peaceful little valley would be impassable with the smallest bit of it. Did he understand how precarious a position they were in by staying in the wilderness even a day longer than necessary?
But he’d learned long ago that fewer words often had more impact than more words. So all he said was, “Dawn.”
Then he stalked off toward the camp.
5
Mikhail Amos was the most unnerving man she’d ever met. Bryony trudged back to the fire, where she intended to fry up the roots she’d dug up earlier that day and the bit of jerky Heath and Richard had brought back with them. It wouldn’t be the tastiest thing they’d ever eaten, but at least they’d all get a little meat.
As for Mr. Amos, up until about twenty minutes ago, she’d thought him admirable. She’d read the series of newspaper articles he’d written two years ago. The articles had talked about his explorations of Alaska, and they’d been riveting.
In fact, she’d liked them so much that she’d gone to the library and dug out another article from several years earlier, written by a man who’d been on one of Mr. Amos’s expeditions. In it, he described Mr. Amos saving him from a grizzly attack. She’d thought her heart would pound straight out of her chest as she read it.
Her search had also yielded a book that described a harrowing expedition ten years ago near Skagway, where Mr. Amos had been assisting another guide. But the guide ended up dying in a bear attack, and Mr. Amos had to get the rest of the team out of the wilderness before winter. He hadn’t succeeded. Mr. Amos and the book’s author had been the only ones to survive the journey.
The book had left her with a heavy feeling in her chest, but also a sense of awe about Mr. Amos himself. He seemed to have an innate understanding of the wilderness, and everyone said he was the best guide in all of Alaska.
But nothing she read had indicated that the famous Alaskan explorer barely spoke, had golden eyes that appeared cold and hard, or walked through the woods as stealthily as a mountain lion stalking its prey.
Well, now that she thought about it, the survivor of the grizzly attack had said something about Mr. Amos moving through the woods as swiftly as a predator, but she had thought that a good thing when she’d read it. In person, it made the man appear downright?—
“What are you doing?”
She jumped at the sound of the voice, then looked over her shoulder to find that the man she’d been stewing about had appeared out of nowhere. Probably because he moved through the woods like a predator.
Drat. Why were those words from the article sticking in her mind?
“Well?” he asked, staring at the wooden cutting board she’d just wiped off. “What are you up to?”
“Making dinner.”
“With what food?”
Bryony reached into the deep pockets of her coat and pulled out the roots she’d dug up just before finding Mr. Amos spying on their campsite. Flecks of drying dirt sprinkled across the cutting board, and she sighed. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, coming back to camp instead of going to the stream to wash the roots.
No, that wasn’t true. She knew exactly what she’d been thinking. That she wanted to get away from those all-knowing eyes, from the man who seemed to think a million thoughts but never voiced a single one of them.
Now she’d need to wash the cutting board because of it.
“Is that all you’ve been eating?” Mr. Amos asked.
Bryony wanted to press her lips shut and tell him to leave her alone, but there was almost something soft about how he said it.
She looked up and found no softness in his face, though. Instead, his features were set in an unreadable mask, and those eerie golden eyes were boring into her.
It caused every muscle in her back to stiffen. “Why?”
“Here.” He swung his pack down from his shoulders. The pack looked heavy enough, she half wondered why he’d been carrying it around the camp and hadn’t set it down the first chance he got. But he didn’t seem to have any trouble moving it off his back.
He rummaged in one of the pockets and pulled out a small wooden box, which he opened to reveal three biscuits wrapped in a cloth napkin with some pemmican beside it.
He set the box atop the cutting board. “You need to eat.”
Was it that obvious? Just how gaunt did she look to the stranger? She shoved the thought aside and stared down at the food, which of course caused her stomach to growl. But she forced her hand to stay by her side. “Thank you for the offer, Mr. Amos, but I can’t eat this. We haven’t much food left in the camp, and you’re going to need it to keep up your own strength.”
He nudged the box closer. “We’ll have food aplenty once I catch fish for dinner tonight.”
His voice was kinder than she’d expected, though the serious lines of his face still gave no indication he felt the least bit of compassion.
