Neither did I.
But it was clear I got my point across.
I rose to my feet then slammed my fist down hard into the table, making the bowl of stew shake and him flinch.
Everyone looked over at us.
I left the table, his stew spilled everywhere, and walked back to Hanne.
She quickly looked away and pretended not to have been a witness to the altercation.
I moved back to the pile of wood I had deposited. “Which one?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Krull leave the table and his food behind and head back to the line of cabins.
She hesitated before she came to my side, clearly distraught by the possible repercussions that might come her way. Her mind was elsewhere as she stared at the wood, unable to think at all.
“Look at me.”
It took her a second to obey, to bring those potent blue eyes to mine.
“He’s my problem, not yours.”
She swallowed as her eyes drifted away. Then she gave a slight nod.
I moved one of the logs with my foot. “I need dimensions. What do you think?”
She examined the pile before she squatted down, clearly thinking it through. She rolled away a few of the logs, like they were disqualified from the selection. “No knots. No broken branches. No twists.” She finally picked one. “This is good. And it should be from here to—” She put one hand on the log then scooted down to another part of the log “—about here. We’llneed to carve the center, make the handle in the middle, and then the tips of the bow should be about this far apart.” She showed me the gap between her fingers. “Then we’ll need to bend the wings, but I don’t know how to do that. And make notches in the wood where the string will be secured. It’s a start…”
“It is.” I grabbed the log and carried it to a table so I could get to work. I’d have to cut to the center where the wood was softer and more malleable and then carve from there. “I’ll start now.” With every movement, my arm ached more and more, like the pain had seeped into all my muscles under the skin. But I silenced my own protests and dealt with it.
I must have given some indication of my pain when I picked up the log because she asked, “Have your wounds healed?”
I brushed off the question and grabbed the axe from the ground. “Yes.”
“Can I see?”
I returned to the table and hesitated at the question. Then I looked up and met her gaze. “I said they’ve healed.” The matter was settled, and that was her cue to let it go.
But her eyes flicked back and forth between mine, that grit the fuel to her bravery. “Then show me.”
I stared her down, irritated that she’d called my bluff but also enamored with the thickness of her spine. I grabbed my left sleeve and hiked it up, showing the slightly pink skin from the bites of the coyotes, mostly healed. Then I yanked it back down again, concealing my right arm from her in the hope she would drop her interrogation.
She did.
“This will take a while.” I moved to the edge of the table and prepared to hack the edges away.
She stayed. “Can I help?” She moved to the opposite end of the table and gripped the log with both hands, keeping it in place so it wouldn’t roll from side to side.
I could ask one of the guys to assist, but I didn’t. “Hold it still.”
8
HANNE
Now that I’d begun the garden and harvested another round of vegetables to add to the stew, the general animosity from the group seemed to have faded. But still, no one spoke to me. Once our relationship had been born in silence, it seemed impossible to change. I was still an outsider, but at least I wasn’t an unwanted outsider anymore.
I went to breakfast after I woke up and carried my bowl of stew to the table where Morco had been working. The wood had been carved to a slender length where the wings of the bow were located, and there was a noticeable handle in the center to grip. He must have worked on this after I’d gone to sleep, continued to carve it until it was perfect, the edge slightly curved to hold the string.
Now, we just needed to make it bend.
