Free Traces of Mercy by Jr. Michael Landon

clothes on the branch—and then strode closer to the pond.
    “You there!” He was walking so quickly toward the water that she backstroked a few feet, being careful to stay fully submerged. “You’re trespassing on private property! Come out of there right now.”
    “Rand! That would be indecent!” Cora protested in a mortified voice.
    “Oh,” he said. “Right. My apologies for being so insensitive, Cora. Turn around.”
    Cora spun where she stood so that her back was to the pond. Mercy kept treading water. Rand braced his hands on his hips. “Now get out!”
    Her heart hammered in her chest, but she didn’t move an inch toward the shore. Would there ever be a time when someone wasn’t telling her what to do, what to say, how to dress, or how to feel?
    Rand drew a small pistol from the waistband of his pants. “I have no patience for this today,” he said. He aimed at the pond. “Out!”
    At the sight of the gun, Mercy gasped—and sucked in enough water to make her feel as if her lungs were going to explode.
    “Come on now … don’t make me shoot you!”
    She was coughing, gagging … struggling just to keep her chin above the pond while she tried to get some air.
    Rand leveled the small pistol in her general direction, then fired off a shot that missed her by a couple of yards. He squeezed off one more shot that zipped into the water behind her.
    Still choking, she started swimming hard for the shore until her feet found purchase in the silt. As she rose up out of the water, her cotton chemise and drawers plastered themselves to her body and left nothing to the imagination of the shocked man. Apparently hearing her companion’s gasp, the woman looked over her shoulder.
    “Oh my good Lord,” Cora sang out in a scandalized tone. “Rand! Rand … are you seeing this?”
     
    Rand was indeed seeing it. The interloper in his pond wasn’t a man—but a woman. A woman who stood doubled over in her less-than-modest attire, choking and coughing and sputtering. She shoved her wet hair from around her face and finally straightened up to glare at him.
    “I didn’t know,” Rand said. “You didn’t say anything! Why didn’t you say anything?!”
    The woman took a breath and then coughed as she started toward the horse. “I was choking while you were shooting at me,” she said in a scratchy voice. “I couldn’t speak!”
    He watched her hurry quickly toward the clothes draped over the tree branch and pull them free. Without preamble and without giving him or Cora another glance, she made quick work of stepping into the trousers.
    “I swear, Rand, she’s nothing but a river urchin who doesn’t know enough to dress as a woman!” Cora said snippily. “She probably lives under a bush somewhere.”
    The young woman threw a bruising glare at Cora.
    “I live in a house with the Little Sisters of Hope,” she said with a trace of the South in her voice. “ Not under a bush.” She shrugged into the wool shirt, not bothering to even button it before she gathered the horse’s rope in her hand.
    “I would think an apology would be in order,” Cora said loudly. “You were trespassing, and you did parade around half-naked in front of complete strangers!”
    The young woman seemed to have no intention of apologizing to anyone. She grabbed the mane of the horse and tried to haul herself up onto his back—but couldn’t manage it.
    Rand started toward her. “Let me …”
    She shot him a look that stopped him in his tracks. “I can manage,” she said.
    She tried again to hoist herself onto the bare back of her horse but slid off before she had success.
    “Oh, for pity’s sake,” Cora muttered.
    Color rose in the woman’s cheeks as she led the horse right next to the buggy, climbed onto the frame, and then jumped onto his back.
    She looked at Rand and Cora. “I wasn’t trespassing. I was swimming,” she said. “Good-bye.” With a small jab into the horse’s side with her bare heels, she was