Scarlet Fever Read Online Free PDF Page B

citizen, born in Scotland,” he shouted back. “Call me a Brit again and you’ll sleep outside in the snow, tonight— after I blister your insolent backside. Keep walking.”
    The ground was uneven, hard, and strewn with rocks, and by the time Anne reached the base of the hill, her back had begun to twinge. Her shoulder ached, and the ball of her right foot felt like it was on fire. She had gone no more than seventy-five yards—still well short of the trees. She staggered back, and stood before him wheezing slightly. “See? Nothing to it, Sarge.”
    He stood up stiffly, placed one hand on her good shoulder to turn her around, and laid a swift, hard smack across the seat of her jeans. Anne yelped in surprise and pain, and grabbed the offended region with both hands.
    “Consider that a warning, Miss Wilson,” he said pleasantly. “Next time you lie to me, I’ll take my belt to your backside.”
    “That hurt, damn it!” she shrieked. “And I wasn’t lying. Why can’t we at least try to make it?”
    “In the shape we’re both in, we’d be lucky to make it twenty miles, let alone two hundred. We’ll give it until tomorrow morning, and then decide. If we both seem all right, and if that storm doesn’t make things worse, we’ll reevaluate our situation.” He glanced up at the sky, again. “For now, though, we’re not going anywhere. It’s going to start snowing, soon. We’ll stay with the plane, and wait for them to find us.”
    “And what if they don’t find us?” she inquired sullenly. “Whoever they are?”
    He sighed. “Then whichever of us is still alive at the end will be forced to dine on the other. I recommend starting with a haunch. I read somewhere that the human haunch is quite flavorful, similar to a nice rack of lamb.”
    “Terrific” she snarled. “You can’t fly an airplane, or fix one. You don’t know shit about reading maps or predicting the weather, and you’re a lousy doctor. And now, I find out that I’m stranded in the fucking frozen wilderness with a would-be comedian.”
    He sighed. “Make yourself useful, and gather a few armfuls of that moss,” he ordered.
    “What for?”
    “It makes a quite comfortable mattress, in sufficient quantities. And insulates against the cold, as well.”
    Anne sneered. “I’ll bet you read that in The Call of the Wild .”
    He smiled. “The Boy Scout manual, actually. Be sure to shake the dirt clods from the roots.”
    Anne scowled. “You’re kidding, right? We’re looking at freezing to death, and you’re worried about housekeeping?”
    “Tidiness is good for morale,” he explained, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a grin. “There’s no need to start living like savages so early in the game.”
    Anne wandered around for close to half an hour, collecting armfuls of the dusty brown moss, and dumping each batch in a pile not far the plane. But when her foot began to throb, and her shoulders ache, she gave up the search and ducked behind a rocky outcropping to rest. After a quick peek from her hiding lace, to check on the Sergeant’s whereabouts, she dropped the pile of moss she was carrying, crawled up onto a large boulder, and pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes and a book of matches from her shirt pocket.
    The first four matches she tried were extinguished instantly by the wind that whipped around the rocks. On the fifth try, she turned her back to the wind and cupped her hands around the matchbook, protecting the tiny flame until she could light one badly bent cigarette.
    She had taken two long, delicious drags on the first cigarette of the day when Geoffrey Cameron reached over her shoulder, plucked the cigarette from her lips, and ground it out under the heel of his tall brown boot.
    “You might have mentioned that you had matches with you,” he said, taking the matchbook from her pocket. He opened it, and shook his head. “So much for a fire, tonight. There’s only two left.” He stuck the mostly empty matchbook in the