This was a lie, of course, a bald-faced lie. Mattie knew William didn’t want the man to know they lived on the mountain.
“What high school did you go to?” the man persisted, trying to see around William’s shoulder. “Your face—”
“You should move on from here as soon as possible,” William said, and something about the way he shifted the rifle in his arms made the stranger go still. “There are bears.”
“Bears,” the stranger repeated, his voice flat.
Mattie didn’t need to see his face to know he didn’t believe William.
“Let’s go,” William said to Mattie, grabbing her arm and pulling her away.
She felt her husband’s anger in the clench of his fingers around her arm.
“Don’t you dare look back at him,” William growled. “Don’t you tempt him with your wiles. I know you wanted him. You’re nothing but a whore, Martha, like all women are whores.”
Mattie didn’t protest, didn’t say that she hadn’t thought of the man that way. No matter what she said, William wouldn’t believe her.
He’s mad because the stranger thought I was William’s daughter and not his wife.
She knew William was much older than her, of course—she wasn’t certain exactly how much, but there was at least twenty years’ difference between them. His hair was more than half gray, and he had wrinkles around his eyes.
That stranger, though. He was young like me. Close to my age.
And he thought he knew me.
Mattie risked a quick look backward, wanting to see the stranger’s face one more time. He wasn’t looking at Mattie and William, though. He stared up at the cliff face, at the place where Mattie and William had come from just before they’d met the stranger.
Don’t go in the cave, she thought. The creature will catch you.
Mattie looked back just in time, for when they reached the cover of the woods again, William thrust her away roughly and turned again toward the stranger.
“I ought to shoot him right now,” William snarled, raising the rifle to his shoulder. “A man ought to know better. He ought to respect another man’s property. He oughtn’t have looked at you like that when you belong to me.”
“No, don’t!” Mattie cried, curling her hand over his arm.
“What, you don’t want me to shoot your lover? Get your hands off me, Jezebel. I have every right to kill him and you. You’re mine, Martha. Mine to let live or let die. Mine in every way. And if any other man thinks his plow will sow your fields, he will by God pay for that disrespect.”
Mattie knew William would beat her when they got home—knew because the man had glanced at her and she glanced back, knew because William felt insulted, knew because William was already angry and worried about the creature, knew because the stranger had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of these sins would be Mattie’s fault, as all the things were always her fault. The pain was coming. She knew that.
And because her punishment was inevitable she dared to defy him, to keep her hand curled around his arm just above his elbow.
She dared to say, “I don’t care about him, William, truly I don’t. I would never look at any man but you—”
“Liar,” he spat. “You’re a bitch in heat, like all women are.”
“—but if you kill him, then people will come, lots of people, they’ll come searching up the mountain to try and find him and you don’t want that, do you? You don’t want lots of people crawling all over the mountain because of the bear, that’s what you said, but if that man goes missing, then there will be even more people, there will be . . .”
She trailed off, trying to think of the right term. It was something she knew from long ago, but couldn’t quite recall.
“Search parties,” William said.
“Yes, search parties,” she said. She ought to have known that term, search parties. There was something about them that was important, important to her, but she’d forgotten. “So you shouldn’t kill him because of that. I don’t care about him at all, William, not at all, but you don’t want search parties here, do you?”
Mattie didn’t dare look anywhere except William’s face. He still had the rifle trained on the stranger. Mattie saw death in William’s eyes, a longing to pull the trigger, to avenge his insulted manhood.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. Then he abruptly dropped the muzzle toward the ground. Mattie hastily released his arm and took a step back.