She looked up at him. “Maybe I should have. I didn’t realize it was going to be quite so forested. The Panhandle is usually plains.”
“This is ariver, sweetheart,” he said. “Things grow around it.” He couldn’t stop his smile. “Just step where I step.” He turned around and picked his way back over to the log he’d chosen as their dinner bench, Lila Mae’s footsteps crunching behind him over the gravel and sticks and dirt. “Sit right there, baby.”
She sat where he’d been, and he went around the picnic basket, his left foot slipping as he stepped right on the edge of the slope and the ground gave way. He grunted and caught himself quickly, stutter-stepping back up to the flat ground.
“You want the blanket?” He looked at her, and she seemed so far out of her element, what with her slightly wavy hair and that pretty sundress, and the way she turned her aqua eyes on him.
“No,” she said. “I can see you were right. We don’t need it.”
No, they sure didn’t, as this was not an improved riverside picnic area. It was wild land with trees and foliage and animals that had been doing whatever they wanted for the past fifteen years.
“I’ll take it back to the UTV,” he said. “Go ahead and start eating.” He went around the back of the log this time so he wouldn’t slip down the ten feet into the river.
He put the blanket back on the backseat of the UTV and turned around and took a deep breath. This really was gorgeous country, touched by the hand of God Himself, and Trap loved the Texas Panhandle. He loved that it was plain grasses beyond the trees on the other side of the river, and here on Lila Mae’s ranch.
He loved that he could hear the call of birds in the trees and the rustling of the breeze through the leaves, and that when the wind died, the world turned utterly and completely silent.
Trap closed his eyes, just listening to nothing, as peace and comfort and calmness spread through him. A keen sense of gratitude moved through him that the Lord had placed him in this place, where he could feel close to God and close to nature, and like his soul had worth beyond even what Trap could comprehend.
Rustling sounded in the grass, and Trap’s eyes flew open, because that sound could only come from an animal. He saw nothing, though he knew there were any number of animals living underground here.
With his soul satisfied, but his stomach growling for dinner, he turned to head back toward Lila Mae. The calm silence was shattered by her scream, and Trap’s pulse got sent into a complete tizzy. He couldn’t see through the low branches of the cottonwoods, but he started to run.
“Lila Mae!” he called.
“Trap!” she screamed.
The sound of her crying filled the air, and Trap’s whole body tensed as he continued through the forest.
“What is it?” he asked, panting as he arrived at her side.
She stood, and she clutched a pizza box in front of her as tears streamed down her face. She looked north, and Trap quickly scanned the area in front of them.
He didn’t see the badger until it hissed, all of its teeth bared. Then he zeroed in on it, realizing that it had already flattened itself to the ground and looked ready to attack.
19
“It’s all right,” Trap said, his voice low. He put one hand in front of Lila Mae and then stepped slowly, moving the bulk of his body in front of her. “Stay behind me.”
“What is that?” Lila Mae asked, as she’d never seen anything like it before.
“It’s a badger,” he said. “And we must have gotten in his way.”
Lila Mae had looked over a couple of minutes ago when she’d heard rustling in the undergrowth. She’d seen the gray animal with the white stripe right down the middle of its face and over its nose and black all around its eyes. She’d jumped to her feet and cried out, and the badger had flattened itself and hissed at her like a snake. A really angry snake.
“What does he want?” she asked.
“My guess is it’s a female,” Trap said. “They have their babies in June, and they’ll still be in the den.”
Lila Mae’s fingers ached for how hard she clutched the pizza box. She’d almost thrown it at the badger, and something inside her still urged her to do that.
“She doesn’t want to fight with us,” Trap said. “Just stay still, and maybe she’ll find a way around us and back to her den.”
“How do you know where the den is?” Lila Mae asked, the tears on her face starting to dry and crack.
“I don’t,” Trap said. “But you can usually tell. It’s like an oval in the ground or the side of a hill, with a big fan of dirt spread out. Badgers are the best diggers there are.” He curled one hand backward around Lila Mae’s forearm. “I want you to turn around, sweetheart, and look behind us.”
“Why?” she whimpered.
