NOW THAT WAS EMBARRASSING

 

 

            "Me and Mill-wheel kin tie Lem in knots ary time he need it." Buck was remembering having spoken those words to Penny, even as he and Mill-wheel wrestled Lem to the ground and held him there.

            Buck had made Penny that promise right after Lem had knocked Penny against the barn wall in a quarrel over a deer that Penny had shot. Buck had reassured Penny, lest the older man have any doubt that Lem might vengefully cheat him in his share of the bear cubs.

            Sure enough, now in Jacksonville, Lem was trying exactly that. He had argued with his bearded brothers; they had beaten him rather impressively, and it hadn't made a dent in his attitude. Not wishing to injure their brother so severely that he couldn't travel, thus inconveniencing all of them, Buck and Mill-wheel had decided to physically sit on him for as long as it took, until he cooled off from his rage.

            So, they sat there, exasperated and disgusted, while Lem weakly railed at them. The clean-shaven Forrester was exhausted, bloody, bruised, disheveled...and verbally as cantankerous as ever.

            And that was their condition when they heard a gasp from nearby. All three looked up and saw a wide-eyed, astonished Oliver. He'd happened along, and now he stood aghast at the peculiar, ironic sight.

            Buck remembered that they'd wondered if they might encounter him in Jacksonville, since that was where he'd fled, in order to escape them. In fact, knowledge of that had been Lem's primary reason for going along on the trip.

            Buck and Mill-wheel each felt a flare of anger at Oliver, but then had to laugh at his comical expression. They realized that, to him, the sight of Lem in a mild version of the condition that they'd put him in a few months earlier, and clearly now rendered that way by the two of them no less, was extraordinarily shocking.

            The extreme irony held Oliver riveted and speechless.

            Lem's initial burst of rage at Oliver was quickly replaced by embarrassment, extreme humiliation, in fact. Bad enough to be in this predicament, and placed there by his own brothers, but to have Oliver of all people see him that way was insupportable.

            When Buck and Mill-wheel finished laughing, they regarded the blond mildly.

            Buck told him humorously, "We'd beat you, but we're a mite busy."

            Mill-wheel spoke in kind, "'Fraid you'll miss out this time, Oliver. Tough break."

            Lem glared fiercely at the sailor, but then subsided. "I ain't in no condition nor mood to mess with you. And stop lookin' at me! Go 'way." He turned his battered face away self-consciously.

            Oliver came out of his stuporous statue-imitation. "Lord!" he whispered shakily, obviously giddy with relief that the Forrester's bizarre circumstances meant that he was to be spared. He turned and fled before they could change their minds. He knew that, if he ever managed to calm down, he might enjoy quite a laugh.