The Man and The Outlaw

Chapter Nineteen

They went about two, three hundred yards, the trees thickening the further into the forest they got and found a clearing just big enough for their bedrolls and their horses. Walker tied the animals to nearby trees while Clara set out their blankets. There was a chill in the air that let them know it was going to be a cold night without a fire to get warm by, but Clara would gladly accept the fate of frost bite over Todd finding them any day.
Walker took his boots off and sat down on his bedroll, glancing around idly without a fire to tend to. The dark around them was thick, the moon above casting sparse light through the trees that surrounded them. Clara felt him watching her as she fiddled with her own boots and then changed her socks out for a clean, dry pair. She looked up and caught his eye.
"Thanks for coming to get me in Driscoll. I don't know if I actually said it earlier, but I mean it. I never would've made it out without you," she told him in a solemn voice.
He shrugged at her casually and smiled, scratching at a spot behind his right ear. "I couldn't let them have you. I...I guess I might have missed you if you were gone for good."
Clara smiled back at him and felt her cheeks redden slightly. She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders as she began to shiver from the chilly night air and dropped her gaze from his. Walker got to his feet, barefooted, picked up his own blanket and brought it over to her. He placed it over her shoulders atop her own and wrapped it for her. She felt herself lean ever so slightly into his hands as they smoothed the blanket across her back and arms.
"What about you?" she objected, mentally acknowledging that the new warmth felt all but amazing.
Walker sat back down on his bedroll, much closer to the edge nearest Clara than before, and gave another one of his easy shrugs.
"I'm not cold," he replied plainly.
They sat criss-cross, facing one another in the moonlight. An owl hooted somewhere further into the forest and one of their horses huffed quietly as it slept. Walker had taken off his hat, it now rested upside down a few feet away, and his hair was matted to his forehead. Clara was reminded of the first night they'd camped together on the way to Spencer. His hair had been a mess then too, but it was different now to her, more endearing. She stifled a laugh at the thought.
He raised his eyebrows at her, the corners of his mouth tilting up as he wanted to join her in giggling. "What's funny?"
She gestured to the top of his head and chuckled, "You've got hat hair is all."
He quickly began to run his hands over his head but without a mirror he kept missing the most matted parts. Clara laughed harder and leaned forward, grabbing his hands to stop them.
"Let me do it," she said, and she ran her fingers through his hair until it looked presentable again. He sat still, his eyes tilted up at her arms, half a smile on his lips. When she was satisfied, maybe a little past that actually, she sat back again and observed her work.
"How do I look?" He stuck his chin out and gave her a Wanted poster pose.
"You look great," she told him, and she meant it. He was rather handsome in the moonlight and, realizing how awful she must look after a few days of hard travel, Clara dropped her gaze and brushed her own hair from her face.
Walker tilted his head at her, still smiling that half smile.
"At least now, I look like I deserve traveling with somebody like you, huh?"
Clara shook her head and chuckled again. "Oh no, nothing like that. Somebody like me, well I'm just plain an—"
"Beautiful," he interrupted her. "You're beautiful, Clara."
She met his eyes for a second, so serious and full of gentle wanting, but looked away quickly and scoffed nervously. She didn't believe him, not really. No one was beautiful after being kidnapped for a day and a half, especially, she knew, not her.
"You know what I don't get?" She asked, changing the subject as Walker was about to say something more.
"What's that?"
"By now, you know how dangerous this all is. If Todd catches us—"
"He won't catch us."
"—if he does, he'll kill us both. You have to know that and still you...well, why don't you leave? Why risk your life for me? Again?"
There was an answer she hoped was true, but not one she wanted him to say out loud, not yet. It was such a new thing to her, strange, full of doubt, and yet, beautiful like Walker had said. Warm. Filling. Holy.
Walker seemed almost amused by the question and for a moment, she thought he would say exactly what she was not yet ready to hear. Her heart thudded hard in her chest. Her stomach felt full of butterflies. But then, he lay back onto his bedroll, feet still pointed towards her and looked up at the sky above them. She followed his gaze and could see brilliant stars through the treetops, twinkling down on them.
"Some things are worth the risk," he said quietly, more to the sky than to her. "For some things, you've just got to put your life on the line. If you don't, well, that's worse than death if you ask me."
He sat up again suddenly and when he looked at her, his eyes were bright and full of that eerie green reflection from earlier. She felt almost like she was looking at a stranger's eyes but then a warmth emitted from them that felt all too familiar and she relaxed.
"You're worth dying for, Clara. What you stand for, who you are, how I...how you make others feel, it's just right. A woman like you is what men ought to die for because without women like you, there ain't no reason to live at all."
Clara swallowed hard to fight the knot that had formed in her throat by his words. She didn't know what he saw in her to make him say things like that. She was just a girl trying to do right by her father, trying her best not to die by the hand of a world that seemed determined to destroy her at times. She didn't know what to say.
Walker didn't seem to be looking for a reply. In fact, he was preparing himself to say more. He licked his lips anxiously and gave a quick glance at the ground beneath him before forcing his eyes back up to hers. Clara still had not found words.
"Now, I-I've got to tell you something, okay?" He began to fidget slightly, and his hands clenched and unclenched in his lap. Clara nodded for him to go on. She was ready now to hear it. Everything he'd just said had confirmed it for her.
"I...I don't know how to...how to say it. You see...it's just...well, Clara, I...I..."
There was a loud crash to their right and both their heads jerked in that direction, Walker dropping immediately into silence. It could've been anything out there in the dark. Clara's blood had run cold, and she shivered again despite the extra blanket.
"What do you reckon that was?" she whispered.
Walker was already grabbing his gun and throwing his boots back on without bothering to add socks.
"I'll check it out," he told her, and he disappeared into the trees at a stealthy jog before she could protest.
Clara, now completely on edge and convinced Todd would emerge from the trees at any moment, had all but forgotten that Walker was about to tell her something important. It was pushed from her mind by the sudden heightening of danger, and she didn't think she'd be able to sleep at all that night.
As it was, she was still so thoroughly exhausted by her ordeal with Pa and his children that, by the time Walker got back, she'd fallen asleep with her pistol gripped tightly in her hand. The disturbance had been nothing more than an old, dead tree giving up the ghost and plummeting to the ground some hundred yards from them.
Walker crept up beside her, knelt, and took the gun gently from her hand, lingering ever so slightly with his fingers against hers. He'd left many things unsaid that night, things he was dying to confess to her, but she needed rest and he was sure another opportunity would present itself tomorrow. He just hoped that he would find the same courage then as he had felt sitting with her in the moonlight.