"You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when Miss Mattie sashayed into camp," he said, wincing as Tom, the closest thing Paradise Bar had to a doctor these days, poked at the puckered pink flesh of his healing gut wound. "She sure did go pale as a frog’s underbelly when she first laid eyes on us." Tom rocked the hat back on his bandaged head. "Well, what do ye expect, with all the lass has been through? First that Harrison devil terrorizin’ the camp and then bein’ kidnapped by the Injuns. ‘Tis a wonder she can hold her hands steady enough ta tie her own bonnet." Swede, almost as good as new except for the extra navel Harrison had carved him, scratched gingerly at his stitches. As a point of fact, Mattie didn’’t tie her own bonnet. Actually, she didn’t wear a bonnet at all. She’d taken to pulling her hair back into a long tail like the Injuns and wearing moccasins. And even though Granny had offered to make some bone buttons for her, she’d refused, preferring to keep the rawhide laces on her dress.
