* frontierbound : samuel silas.
‘When it matters’…to Samuel’s mind it matters a hell of a lot more frequently than the loquacious Miss Ross judges it to, still he is not going to debate the matter with her, he’s already learned that this child clearly has an answer for everything.
He watches as she stands beside the tree, stretching out her back in a way that suggests to him she is in some kind of pain.
“Ain’t you never ridden a pony for more than an hour?” He laughs in disbelief, and while he does not intend for it to sound cruel or mocking, there is still a hint of it because thus far Mattie has made him feel like the less worldly of the two, despite the decades between them.
Standing up with a huff, he grabs her wrist and roughly tugs her forward.
“Christ almighty…come here.”
Now standing on flat ground, he releases his grip and immediately encourages her to copy his movements. “Arms up, right to the sky, reach ‘em up then out then bend and try n’ touch your toes…like this.”
Amusingly, when trying to touch his toes, Sam staggers to the side, but it’s only the liquor and his still uncured hangover that causes the imbalance.
“Now sit on the ground, cross your legs and crawl forward with your hands until you feel like somethin’s gonna give, gonna pop.”
A rough instruction but one Sam knows will help to stretch out the youngers back.
“Then go fill up this canteen at the river.”
This, of course, isn’t part of the lesson, Sam’s just feeling lazy and needs a drink of something other than gut-rot whiskey.
Somewhere, underneath the huffing and the stretching, Mattie can hear her mother’s scold in her mind’s eye. Her voice had a habit of going with her no matter how far she ventured from home, and on this occasion it was tutting and nagging about how a girl her age ought to not have many aches and pains. Mother hadn’t spent much time in a saddle as far as she knew, and she found herself thinking that like it would chase the judgement from it.
“I have never had to before. I have ridden on the back of a donkey for a few short minutes, but never for hours on end.”
There had never been much need of it either. She helped her mother where she could and what she hadn’t spent with her had been spent handling her father’s books and finances. She was very good with numbers and knew her way around a word or two, unbeknownst to her at the chagrin of any who came across her. When he tugs, Mattie has little choice but to follow.
For a long moment, she watches him with amusement. She would feel silly if she tried it, but with it only being the two of them this far outside of civilisation, she decides to trust his judgement. When she reaches her arms up, she feels the bones between her shoulders crack, and when she stoops to bend, her lower back does too. It provides a little relief from its ache. It helps enough that she moves to do the final position. She will not be sure that it’s worked until she stands up.
For a long moment, the girl looks at the offered canteen, and then back to Samuel with the purse of her lips. “I will not. I am not here to fetch water, but if you are that thirsty, you might use the walk down to the river to sober up a little before we head off again.”
