The Blue Mountain Affair

Comforts

Comforts

Lane was so grateful to her father for having the foresight to put away a supplies box. That afternoon Lane had let down all her defences and enjoyed getting to know the brothers as they sorted though their newly acquired box of treasures. They all felt quite relaxed and relieved to have the few comforts that Lanes Pa had provided. Lane found five potatoes in the root cellar while checking it out with Joe. He said he wasn't surprised that it had been cleaned out of all its food already. However, he promised Lane they wouldn't starve and declared they would be eating fresh meat that night and they did. The day before Joe set a few rough traps and this afternoon when he checked them he had caught a possum. So they dined on possum roasted over a small fire and fried potatoes. And a cup of tea afterwards, it was like heaven.

Lane only wished she had something sweet to follow supper with. Her Ma used to have something sweet for her Pa most nights and she wished she could have had something like that to share with Peter and Joe, just to say thank you for all they had done for her so far. She knew it would have been a long time since they had eaten anything like a cake or crumble, and she vowed to herself to make sure they got something sweet as soon as she had her hands on the right ingredients.

Joe was keeping first watch outside the cave for a while, and Peter was going over her Pa's map of the area. Lane could hear the paper crinkling has he turned it around or flattened it out. She looked over her blanket. Peter was sitting against the wall leaning over the supply box using it as a table. His brows were furrowed and he kept playing with his beard. In the light of the flickering candle he looked like a cave man Lane had once seen a drawing of in one of her Pa's books, and he had to stifle a giggle.

"You are going to miss that thing when its gone." She remarked softly, Peter looked up, sat back and smiled at her.

"Yes I probably will, I'm not sure I will be able to think so well without it, though" he joked. Lane sat back up against the wall, and studied the man before her for a moment. He was a very self assured sort of person and smart. His mind seemed as though it were always ticking.

"Peter, how come you didn't want to stick with the other men?" Peters smile faded and he looked toward the caves roof, hopefully thinking about how to answer her question.

"It wasn't a hard decision Lane, they aren't good men with no intention to change. Joe and I want more." He answered shrugging his shoulders. "You know, we would have been free men in a few months anyway. Joe and I just wanted to quietly finish up our time and move on with life before our best years are gone. When talk of escape started getting everyone excited we knew even if we didn't go along with their plan we might be slapped with a few more years just for being part of the group that tried. We know how it works, they don't care about how we wouldn't have wanted to, guilty by association that's what it would have been. So we decided if it were going to happen we would do it our own way, on our terms. I'm not going to break out just to become someone's lackey.

"So why are you worried about running into them? Aren't you all wanting freedom, isn't that the reason one escapes something? It's not me, is it? I'm not the one making you both jumpy" again Peter just starred at the roof.

"No Lane, we um...we didn't follow through with our part of the plan, you don't need to know the details of that" He said looking at Lane again "but it helped us get away from them and it all worked out in the end." Lane looked away and pulled her blanket up to her ears, burying herself deeper into her cocoon of warmth. She heard the shuffling of papers and before she knew it Peter was sitting down against the wall next to her.

"I'm sorry Lane, I didn't mean to sound heartless. Of course it didn't work out for you." Peter reached over and rubbed Lanes arm over the blanket. Sitting up again Lane tentatively smiled at Peter.