From her blanket roll, she took a small bone awl and a length of dried sinew. Then she began stitching the leather back together. Her hands moved quickly, confidently. She worked with such easy familiarity that Ran stood watching for nearly 10 minutes before realizing he had been staring. Aina looked up, caught him.
Ran immediately turned his attention somewhere else. Then there was the matter of food. Ran had put away enough supplies to carry one man through winter. Dried venison, beans, flour, a little salt, lard. It was not much, but it would have been enough for one person.
A second mouth changed the numbers. Ran never mentioned it. He simply began making his own portions smaller. On the third day, Aina looked into the bean sack. Then she looked at Ran.
She said something he did not understand and headed for the door before he could stop her. Ran nearly went after her. Instead, he watched from the doorway as she disappeared among the trees, moving carefully on the injured leg. An hour later, she returned. She held the lower edge of her blanket out in front of her like an apron, and it was filled with things she had gathered from the cold pine country.
Pinion nuts, late season dried berries Ran could not name, and a thick bundle of fresh green leaves. She spread everything across the table and began sorting it with sure, practiced hands. Ran recognized the pinion nuts. The rest might as well have come from another country. Aina picked up the green bundle.
She pointed toward the fireplace. Then she mimed dropping something into boiling water. Tea. Ran understood. She had gone into the cold timber on one good ankle, gathered food from ground he had lived beside for years without truly understanding, and returned with enough to stretch their meals for several days.
And the green plant, whatever it was, had another purpose. Medicine. Something she intended to boil. Ran looked from the herbs to Aina. For the first time since finding her in the trap, he began to realize that bringing her back to the cabin had not meant taking in someone helpless.
He had brought home someone who knew how to survive. Ran stirred the fire until the flames caught again. That afternoon they sat across from one another at the old plank table with little more than a few feet of worn wood between them. A pot of steaming tea rested near the center beside a kettle of beans that smelled better than anything Ran had managed to cook for himself in the past 6 months. Aina had taken a pinch of dried herb from a small pouch she carried and mixed it into the beans.
It was hardly enough to notice. Yet somehow it changed everything. The plain meal gained a deeper, warmer flavor Ran would never have known how to create on his own. He pointed towards the herb and tried to ask what it was called. Aina answered with a word in Apache.