Free Rose's Pledge by Dianna Crawford, Sally Laity

her to eat the nasty mess.
    “See?” Straightening from the fire, he turned to her with a smug grimace. “Nothin’ to it. Course it’ll need a pinch o’ salt, an’ I’m partial to some sweetenin’. After the water boils down some, pour in some o’ that rich milk. That’s all there is to it. Mush.” He handed Rose the stir stick. “Just don’t let it get lumpy.”
    Determined to remain in the man’s good graces, Rose spoke in a casual tone. “I’ll do my best. But where might I find the salt and sugar?”
    He squinted as if his patience had reached the painful limit and stepped directly in front of her, his foul breath almost smothering her. She held her ground despite the inclination to step back from the stench. “Don’t try playin’ dumb with me so’s I’ll send ya back, gal. It ain’t gonna happen.” He kicked at another large sack. “Salt.” And the one next to it. “Sugar.” With a “humph” of disgust, he stomped away to where the Indians were rigging tarps between trees.
    Despite her intentions not to upset the trader any more than necessary, Rose gulped in dismay. Surely those flimsy bits of cloth would not constitute their only shelter for the night! The very thought made her ill. Mosquitoes had voracious appetites after dark, and already she had more bites than she could count. Each evening during the trip upriver, the trader had managed to secure food and lodging for the party at various villages along the way, so they’d been protected from insects. Tonight would be different.
    How many more nights in the open lay ahead? Small wonder that when she questioned him about their destination he’d been so vague. The man was scarcely more than a sneaky weasel. But then she was probably every bit as stupid as he thought she was. Hadn’t she gotten herself in this untenable predicament in the first place? Even convicts balked at being sent to America as indentured servants to pay their sentences. She should have thought of that before undertaking such a rash course of action. Had she saved her father from prison only to condemn herself to an even worse fate?
    As another mosquito sang in her ear, she swatted it away.
    Observing her action, the trader chuckled. “If ya ask one o’ them Injuns fer some o’ that bear grease they smear on their bodies, ya won’t have none o’ them bugs botherin’ ya.”
    Bear grease. So that accounted for the stench around them . Rose didn’t respond.

    Assorted night sounds magnified in the fading twilight around the camp, adding to Rose’s heightened anxiety as she tried to dislodge a piece of dried meat from between her teeth with her tongue. Losing a battle with persistent mosquitoes that seemed drawn to the light, she appreciated the swift bats cavorting overhead, making a meal of the loathsome insects. Across the fire from her, Mr. Smith sipped from a tin mug of steaming tea, straight from a beat-up old pot, leaves and all. She ignored his steady perusal of her, unable to envision what tasteless gruel he expected her to concoct next.
    He pointed with a grubby finger toward one of the stained tarps now stretched out about three feet above the rocky, leaf-strewn ground. The poorest excuse for a red blanket she had ever seen had been tossed beneath, apparently for her use. “Over there’s where you’ll bed down fer the night.”
    Rose slid a troubled glance from the makeshift bed to the Indians crouched around another campfire a scarce stone’s throw away.
    Smith gave a snort. “Don’t bother frettin’, little missy. Them redskins know yer my property, an’ they’ll think twice b’fore triflin’ with anything what b’longs to me.”
    Thus far the trader had shown no inclinations of a trifling nature either, but Rose dreaded having to attempt sleeping on hard ground that in all likelihood would be damp and lumpy with rocks. Far worse, that disgusting blanket quite possibly housed lice, bedbugs—or some other night-crawling vermin known only