Chapter 10Hildy and I spent most of the afternoon gathering lush pine branches that would make pretty comfortable beds for six of us. As for the seventh, well, I didn’t much care about Lillegard. The bastard could make do with the culls.
The rifle was never out of my reach, and Hildy carried the canteen.
Every now and then, the ground would tremble, and we’d look at each other nervously. We spoke of this and that to distract ourselves from their increasing frequency.
“Did you always want to be a sailor, Nick?”
“Yep. I wanted that so bad that I ran away from home when I was fifteen.”
“That wasn’t too smart, if you’ll excuse me for saying so?”
“You’re right, honey.” I found myself falling into the habit of calling her that, like Smitty did. She seemed comforted by it. She’d become very
