Free Fire Over Atlanta by Gilbert L. Morris Page B

cut up about it. I could see that.”
    “I wouldn’t even
consider
marrying that girl.”
    “I don’t know about that, but I do know one thing.”
    “What?”
    “I know she offered you all she had and didn’t ask for much in return.”
    Drake stared at him, then shook his head. “It’s crazy, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
    Knowing Drake’s stubbornness, Rosie said no more. But as they walked on, he kept seeing the hurt look on Charlie Satterfield’s face, and he thought,
Drake’s gonna have to be careful, or he’ll hurt that girl real bad
.

8
A Proposal
    C harlie plunged on out in front of him. “Hurry up, Rosie! They can’t be far ahead.”
    They had come to the woods with a borrowed set of guaranteed possum hounds, and now that the sun was falling in the sky, Rosie was hot, sweaty, and scratched from head to toe by briars. Panting, he struggled free from the clinging vines that reached out and grabbed at him. “Wait up for me, will you, Charlie? I can’t get through this blasted brush!”
    Charlie turned and laughed when she saw him scrambling awkwardly along the path. “I’ve got to give you some lessons in possum hunting, Rosie,” she said. Placing her hands on her hips, she waited until he came up to her. She made a rather fetching picture standing there. When she pulled off her straw hat, her brown curls sprang up at once, caught in the late afternoon breeze.
    “You sure are somethin’ on a trail!” he exclaimed. He took a deep breath. “I thought I’d been on some hard trails before, but I never saw anybody that could follow a pair of coon dogs like you can.”
    His praise brought a flush to Charlie’s smooth, round cheeks. She blinked at the compliment but then put it off by saying, “I guess anybody that’s been out in the woods chasin’ possums since they were four years old, like I been, ought to learn a little somethin’.”
    Suddenly the plaintive howl of a dog sounded from up ahead. “They’ve treed him! Come on, Rosie!” She ran through the woods like a young deer.
    Rosie followed as best he could. He found her standing under a huge persimmon tree, staring up into the branches. The dogs were wild, barking and standing on their hind legs and trying to climb the tree.
    “Will you fellas shut up!” Rosie said. He leaned against the tree and wiped his brow with a red bandanna from his back pocket. “A man in my condition hadn’t ought to go around chasin’ possums through the woods in this heat!”
    Charlie turned to him. “Maybe you ought to take another one of those pills,” she suggested, her full lips curving up in a smile.
    Sensing he was being teased, Rosie stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket. “You just don’t understand a man who’s got health problems like I have,” he said. “Why, I remember just two years ago the doctor told me I didn’t have two weeks to live.”
    “Did you die?”
    “No, I didn’t die, but I thought I was going to. I had to take nearly a quart of liver medicine. Worst tastin’ stuff I ever had. Anything that tasted that bad
had
to be good, though. So it cured me all up.” He peered into the upper branches of the tree. “I think I see him up there. One of us will have to climb up and knock him out.”
    “How are you at climbing trees?” Charlie asked.
    “Not very good. It’s not good for my rheumatism.”
    “You and your rheumatism! You’re one of the strongest men I ever saw, Rosie. But I like to climb trees. Here, give me a boost up to that first branch.”
    Rosie shrugged but leaned over and picked her up bodily so that she could reach the lower limb.
    Charlie gasped. “I didn’t mean for you to
throw
me up here!” She grasped the branch, pulled herself up on it with an acrobatic motion, and grinned back down at him. “Watch out, now. When I knock him loose, you catch him before the dogs tear him
    She started upward into the foliage, and Rosie stood on the ground trying to follow her progress.