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She became suddenly aware of Laird sitting some little distance away, looking around at the homestead, too. He pricked up his ears and flared his nostrils at the trees in the direction of the spring and then toward the barn. Soon, he’d follow her to the barn for milking.
But a minute later, he got to his feet and paced across her field of vision. He opened his mouth and panted. Ellen saw the saliva glistening off his sharp fangs. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad dog after all. They’d grown accustomed to each other since Elliot left them alone together. She didn’t mind depending on him as much as she used to.
She almost jumped out of her skin when he started growling. She almost didn’t recognize the rumbling sound until it grew louder. Then she realized it came from deep inside his chest. By the time she looked at him, he was facing her, growling and slathering in her face.
Ellen jumped to her feet, her back slammed against the wall behind her in her effort to get away from him. Laird stood in front of her, his feet planted wide apart and his lips curled back in a menacing snarl. All her fears about him came true in that moment. He embodied the fiend from her most terrifying nightmares.
So all Elliot’s assurances about his dog were nothing but wishful thinking. Laird might be part St. Bernard but underneath his thin veneer of domesticity, he was pure wolf in his heart. Ellen suspected as much all along, and now Laird proved her right.
“Laird! Laird!” she called, but he didn’t hear her. He didn’t seem aware of her voice at all. All sensibility that he belonged to human beings vanished from him, and he was once more as wild as his ancestors ever were. He snarled and slobbered and snapped at her. Finally, she gathered all her courage to tear herself away from that wall and run for the door.
In her last desperate dash, Laird lunged at her. With one terrible growl, he seized the hem of her dress and tore the back out of it. Ellen screamed, but the wrenching tear of the fabric slowed Laird just enough to allow her to escape into the house. Laird stumbled backwards with the cloth in his mouth. Ellen didn’t stop. She slammed the door in Laird’s face.
Inside the house, she threw herself into the nearest chair and gasped for breath between terrified sobs. Oh, where was Elliot when she really needed him? Why did he have to go off and leave her alone with that monster? How had Laird managed to wait until Elliot wasn’t around before he took leave of his senses?
What had happened to Laird? Why had he turned so suddenly? Had he gone mad? Had he waited until Ellen lowered her guard before he vented his jealousy at her for stealing his master away from him?
And now here she was, trapped in the house with him outside. Well, it couldn’t last. He would give up his mania and come lay down on the hearth the way he always did. She turned to the skillet on the fire.
She used the last sticks of firewood in the basket to cook her supper, and then she banked the coals to keep them until morning. But she didn’t have any water to wash up with. She didn’t have any water at all.
She looked out the window. Laird sat in the yard by the barn yard fence, surveying the area with his usual air of placid indifference—until he saw Ellen in the window. Then he rolled back his black lips and growled at her. She pulled the shutters closed and fastened them from the inside.
The window closed off all the remaining light from outside, leaving the house in darkness. Now she realized just how alone she was without Laird there in his usual spot, watching her. She almost wished he was—but Laird the way he was before, before he went stark raving mad.
Could that be the reason he acted so strangely? Maybe a sick animal bit him, and the sickness affected his thinking. Maybe he really was foaming mad. What would Elliot say when he arrived home and found his dog altered beyond recognition?
Then again, when would Elliot arrive home? Was she just supposed to sit here in the house and wait with that hellhound outside, ready to rip her to pieces if she set foot outside? The whole proposition didn’t bear thinking about.
So she didn’t think about it anymore. She went to bed. There was nothing else to do. Laird would be fine in the morning. She would get out of bed, rake up the coals for the fire, and go out for her wood and water the way she always did. He would go with her to milk the cows....
All of a sudden, she realized she hadn’t milked the cows. They would be standing in the barn with their udders full to bursting. And there was nothing she could do about it now, now that Laird wouldn’t let her out of the house.
She pushed the problem out of her mind and got into bed. Elliot would be home tomorrow. That’s what he said anyway. What if he didn’t come for another day or two? She might die of thirst in this wretched hovel before he came. Or Laird might go on a fever-induced rampage. Elliot said that wild animals were waiting to break into the house. Laird might break in and kill her in her sleep. Elliot would come home and find his mail-order bride dead.
Ellen squeezed her eyes tight against the darkness. She couldn’t allow herself to lie here, dreading all the nightmarish possibilities. She had to sleep. Everything would be back to normal in the morning.
