‘So why does the young man play the role so well? Could he be dangerous?’
‘No,’ said Charlie, ‘none of that. He is just fantasizing. He believes he has a right to trap and hunt at will, like they used to in the old days.’
‘Role-playing?’
‘Yes, but then, aren’t we all?’
The professor roared with laughter and slapped his thighs.
‘Of course, that is what we’re all doing. He just does it brilliantly well.’
She rose.
‘Because he believes in it. The best actor of them all. You leave him to me. I’ll see he comes to no harm. Incidentally, two of the girls are already makingsheep’seyesathim.’
In the bunkhouse Ben Craig still found it odd that his companions, when they undressed for the night, stripped right down to brief shorts made of cotton, while he preferred to sleep in the usual ankle-length white underwear. After a week this led to a problem and some of the young men spoke to Charlie.
She found Craig after log-hauling detail, swinging a long-handled axe as he reduced the cords of pine to splits for the kitchen range.
‘Ben, could I ask you something?’
‘Sure, ma’am.’
‘And call me Charlie.’
‘All right, Charlie, ma’am.’
‘Ben, do you ever bathe?’
‘Bathe?’
‘Uh-huh. Strip right down and wash the body, all of it, not just the hands and face?’
‘Why sure, ma’am. Regular.’
‘Well, that’s nice to hear,
Ben. When did you last do that?’
He thought. Old Donaldson had taught him that regular bathing was necessary, but in creeks of melted snow there was no need to become addicted.
‘Why, as recently as last month.’
‘That’s what I suspected. Do you think you could do that again? Now?’
Ten minutes later she found him leading Rosebud, fully saddled, out of the stable.
‘Where are you going, Ben?’
‘To bathe, Charlie, ma’am. Like you said.’
‘But where?’
‘In the creek. Where else?’
Every day he had wandered out into the long-grassed prairie to perform the usual bodily functions. He washed face, arms and hands in the horse-trough. His teeth were kept white by an hour with the splay-ended willow twig, but he could do that as he rode.
‘Tether the horse and come with me.’