Rose

The girl had woken up, somewhat sleepy, but it didn't take her long to realize that she was tied to a tree in the middle of the night. Her expression distorted as Claude looked at her; now he could see her in more detail.

It was impossible to say that the girl was not physically graceful; she was somewhat tall, taller than the average girl, and her expression did not take long to warp as she saw the situation she was in.

She had long brown hair with curls at the ends; she had thin eyebrows; and her face looked somewhat angelic. She was wearing

To a white dress with brown and leather boots, the girl looked no stranger to country life. 

"Who are you? Where am I?" the girl asked in a trembling yet determined voice.

Claude looked at the girl with his blue eyes and replied. 

"Sit down and calm down..." He almost appreciated a mockery of what Claude was saying to the girl, who was already sitting down, tied up and just kidnapped, but then again, Claude had never come to this part before. 

The girl's expression obviously did not calm down and she asked Claude again. 

"A-are you going to hurt me.?" asks the girl, frightened of the situation.

"O no, no" says Claude trying to sort out his thoughts.

"Then why did you kidnap me?" asks the girl, somewhat confused, but at the same time distrustful of what this stranger is saying.

Claude sits on a nearby rock and answers the girl's doubts.

"Nothing personal; this is simple work" Claude tells her, hoping perhaps that this will calm the girl down somewhat.

It didn't have much effect, and this time he replied in a mocking tone. 

"Great, so you're just another outlaw who's against my father; congratulations; none of them had made it this far" the girl replies, rolling her eyes, she knew her father's life and wasn't a fan of it. 

"Not me, but the one who hired me" replies Claude. 

"Well, then what will you do to me?" the girl asks again. 

"Nothing; my mission is not to kill you, but rather simply to kidnap you to weaken your father".

"Mm..." Answers the girl, thinking a bit about what Claude is telling her. 

"So, Miss... what is your name?", Claude asks the girl this time. 

"What do you want to know for" replies the girl, suspicious, and who could blame her. 

"Well, can't I know something about the person I kidnapped?" says Claude. 

"My name is Rose Vutten Von" says the girl, from now on known as Rose, very proudly.

Claude is somewhat taken aback by this.

"What about yours, you two-bit bandit?", Rose now asks him with disdain.

Claude could do nothing apart from perhaps tie her tighter to the tree.

Claude swallowed his pride and only replied:

"My name is Claude, no more need to know" says Claude.

"So, how long do you plan to keep me here? What are your plans?" asks the girl, who was already annoying Claude with her questions, which he couldn't quite answer either.

"Well, the plan is simple: stay here and then go back down the way we came; after all, it was only a few days to deliver you."

The sun was already finished falling on the horizon, but the truth is that in this part of the valley, at the foot of the mountains, it was much colder than inland, which is why Claude threw his poncho in Rose's face.

"Now go back to sleep little girl" Claude says to her.

Rose moves her face to remove her poncho, and it rests on her shoulder.

"Don't throw your filthy poncho at me" Rose says to him.

"Girl, you almost forgot that the one tied to a tree is you" Claude says as he stands up from the rock and approaches Rose menacingly.

This causes Rose to recoil from her position, somewhat frightened of what this "half-man" (in Rose's words) could do to her.

Finally, after looking at Rose in a menacing manner for a few seconds, he picks up his poncho and throws it back over her to cover her up.

"So sleep" Claude says and turns away. 

Claude stands with his back to Rose, wiping the campfire from her face.

Rose, was scared, as never the truth, so she decided not to say anything. Still, still she knew that this man, no matter how much he threatened her, was not going to do anything.

On the other hand, Claude checked his wound. In the light of the fire, he saw how the wound was not going well; it was dirty, and Claude was afraid that it would get infected, so he took out his canteen with water and a semi-clean cloth, but he could not ask for more.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch..." says Claude, as he wipes the wound with water, unluckily a bottle of alcohol had been destroyed while escaping from the farm.

Claude finished removing the wound and put a new bandage on top.

Claude, when he finished with this, winced and lay down on the grass. It was time to sleep.

Claude still didn't feel the sun's rays on his face when he was awakened by a scream.

"¡¡¡¡AAAAAAAAAAAAH, HELP; HELP PLEASE!!!!!", I hear Claude shout to a female voice.

Claude stood up with his face half asleep from sleeping on the ground, and the first thing he saw was Rose with her mouth wide open, screaming.

"¡¡¡¡HEEL; HEEEEEEEEELP PLEASE!!!!" the girl continued to scream.

Claude stopped completely pouncing on Rose, putting his hand over her mouth and covering it, Claude said:

"For God's sake, shut up at once!", Claude tells her while looking from one side to the other to see if no one is coming.

When he saw that no one was coming, he pulled his hand out of Rose's mouth.

He wiped his drooling hand on the guard's stolen pants, and Rose spoke.

"That's just what I'm looking for, you forget I'm a prisoner against my will here" says Rose.

Claude, at this point, would have killed her, a cut in the jugular to make her bleed out, but he could do nothing, and now he had to be attentive if that scream did not attract anything, or in the worst case, did not attract the guards of the farm where Rose lived.

Claude stood up with a grimace of annoyance on his face and turned around. He walked over to his horse to check his condition.

Rose was looking at him, also with an annoyed look on her face.

"I have to pee" Rose said.

"Piss then" replied Claude with annoyance as he ate beef jerky.

"You're not going to give me, you're going to leave me here to rot in my feces and fear weighing as much as a feather" said Rose dramatically.

"Shut up already" Claude snapped back at her and walked over to Rose to give her food.

"A lady like me doesn't eat that crap" Rose said and refused the beef jerky.

"Mm" Claude grimaces in annoyance, an annoyed face more annoyed than before even and stood up and turned around.

Claude sat on a rock again, assessing what to do and hoping Rose wouldn't continue with her stupid comments, but he shouldn't have armed himself with those expectations that were disarmed in a second.

"I'm going to shit myself," Rose says. 

"What a tongue for a lady, in the end you lie about what you are" says Claude looking annoyed at Rose.

"And I think after being tied up for so many hours, my legs are going to be immobilized" Rose says while looking at her tied up body. 

"You know what, you bored me" Claude stands up from where he was and walks past Rose, who is now looking at him with a frightened puppy face

"w-what are you going to do" Rose says with fear in her voice.

Claude reaches towards his horse's charge and pulls out a rifle, Rose truly fears for her life, but Claude keeps the gun on his back.

"Let's go hunting," Claude says. 

"Are you going to let go of me?" asks Rose.

"yes, but you better not try anything, because I'm not slow with the revolver or the carbine" Claude says and then unties the rope that tied Rose.

Now they were facing each other after Rose stood up.

Rose felt like she was free and at the same time not, she hadn't seen this Claude guy's skills in combat, but at the same time she knew he wasn't just any bandit if he escaped from the farm guard on horseback.

"Well, do it," says Claude

"Do what?" replies Rose 

"You know, that thing you said you wanted," Claude replies. 

 Then Rose goes to the bushes; it was difficult, but she helped Claude hurry her up by pointing the rifle at her.

When the bush business was finished, Claude and Rose could leave.

Claude makes Rose take the reins of the horse, and she obeys, of course ¿with a revolver barrel pointed at her head. Who wouldn't? The one riding on top was Claude; he didn't have the gun out like before, but he had still moved it. So Rose wouldn't try anything crazy.

Rose and Claude advanced through the forest of the mountain that was going up.

"And what exactly are we going to hunt?" Rose asks.

"Pigs" Claude replies. 

"pigs...? Are you sure that-" Rose can't finish because Claude shushes her.

"Shhh" Claude says as he puts his index finger on the corner of her mouth and looks forward. 

Rose looks in the same direction where she is looking at Claude and notices that exactly as he said there were 3 pigs.

There were two smaller pigs to a very large one in the middle, the pig was dirty and ate something from the ground that Rose could not distinguish.

"Today were eat well," says Claude as he pulls his rifle from his back and points it at the pig.

The gun fires, and the birds in the trees fly out of them, while the pig falls and the others flee in terror.

Claude puts the rifle on and gets off the horse.

Rose follows him and they both approach the pig. 

The pig fell with a bullet in the head and rose approaches to claude to help him with the task of moving the pig to the horse's back. 

Claude picks up the pig, on the one hand, and Rose does it on the other, with a bit of disgust, by the way. 

Both manage to lift the horse and put it on the horse, it was a pig of about 100 kilos, and now Claude and Rose would have to walk together again. 

Rose begins the silent walk... 

When they arrive at the "camp" Claude lowers the pig into a nearly table-shaped stone and begins to slit its throat. 

"puaj" says Rose with a disgusting expression as she watches Claude slit the pig's throat. 

"Don't say that about our lunch," says Claude as he continues to cut the pig's throat. 

"Its just disguting" says Rose, as she has nothing to do. 

Claude turns around, looks at the tree, thinking that maybe... nah, then looks at the horse and for a moment thinks that... nah, now he finally looks at Rose again who is standing and tells him. 

"Stay there, just stay there while I do this and if I turn around and you're not there I'll tie you up again," says Claude. 

"Well," says Rose, resigned to follow the order

Claude spends another half hour slitting the pig's skin, removing the dirty skin he couldn't wash because he had no water.

Claude finally when he ends up with the pig turns around and now there's Rose... standing and still seeing him.

"Wow... I was pretty sure you were going to try or kill me or run," says Claude, with a bit of genuine surprise.

"No... I think my escape plans are already behind me," says Rose, resigned.

"I see" says Claude and stops saying: "We have to gather wood" Claude tells Rose and she understands.

Claude obviously didn't trust Rose to either stay alone or go to collect firewood, so there they were, Rose already had something accumulated and Claude carried the stones to make the fire well.

"So, how old are you?" asks Claude out of nowhere, as he was getting bored.

"eighteen" answers Rose, "and you?" Rose asks now

"I twenty four" says Claude as he picks up another stone.

"Hey..." starts saying Rose.

"What's up, bored with looking for wood?" asks claude.

"No... I told you my full name, but you haven't told me yours, what's your last name?" asks Rose.

"I think we have enough" claude deflects the subject

"Really?" says Rose, pretending she didn't notice.

"Yes... I think it's time to go back" Claude and Rose leave the thick forest and head back to their little camp.

Claude drops the stones and Rose the wood, it's really Claude who ends up putting everything together while Rose sits on a stone.

"Since when do you ride?" asked Rose this time

"I think you're like a 5-year-old girl who keeps asking stupid questions," says Claude as he finishes laying the stones.

"Well..." Rose stays silent and looks away.

Rose looks at the landscape seen from the mountain, very beautiful, imagines herself in a different situation, instead of being kidnapped with a cretin, she could be painting the landscape. 

Then Claude speaks

"I was 13" finally Claude responds.

Rose cheers up a little with this

"Wow, is that a good age?" asks Rose.

"No idea" answers Claude as he finishes positioning the timbers." Now you, you can even ride a horse?"asks Claude now

"Of course I know, this year I was taught" 

"I see," says Claude as he stands, he approaches the horse as he grabs a stick from the floor, at the end of the stick he ties his knife, when Claude makes sure it is securely tied, it is that he pierces the pig with the "spear" from end to end.

Now Claude approaches back towards the fire, which had expanded, and places in the ground the sticks to put the pig, were firm sticks that him nailed the earth and he tied them together, now Claude is approaching the pig.

Up to this point Rose was a little impressed with Claude's abilities. 

"I help-" Rose get up from the rock to offer her help to Claude, but Claude picks up the pig, she wasn't sure how much that pig weighed, but she was big. 

He puts it in the sticks he had put before and ready, now only the fire was missing. 

Claude takes about 10 minutes to light the fire while Rose looks the other way. 

Finally, when Claude manages to light and raise the fire, it stops. 

"Ready" says Claude 

"Now we will eat pork for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2 days" says Claude. 

"Well, it could be worse," says Rose as she watches Claude go to the stone where the pig was skin and yes, it was what she feared.

"It sells at a good price if I wash it well," says Claude as he shoves the pork leather into a backpack. 

Claude ties his backpack to the side of the horse and approaches Rose. 

"So Rose, any more questions?" says Claude, he would regret it. 

"Yes, many" says Rose as Claude sits on the grass beside Rose's rock. 

"At what age did you kill for the first time" asks Rose 

"What a question... at 15, a guy who tried to rob us, I still remember shooting him with my revolver and his brains flew out staining the grass of the cows that gave bad milk for a while" says Claude, looking at the fire and remembering those years. 

"Wow, what stories you have," says Rose 

"and when you became an outlaw," asks Rose. 

"I became an outlaw after returning from the war, many men come to this land only now, but I was born here," says Claude, recalling the bloody American civilian. 

"So you were born here? In this valley?" asks Rose, somewhat surprised 

"Exactly, now I imagine your family is not from here," says Claude, referring to Rose's surname. 

"Oh, no, no, but they've been here for years," replies Rose, thinking of the history of her old Austrian family 

"Were you born here Rose?" asks Claude now 

"Yes, I was born here, and did you have a hard time learning to ride a horse?" asks Rose. 

Claude does not respond for a second, instead, he rejoins, passes his hand over his face and settles the hat, all in a second. 

"Yes, yes, yes, the first time I fell and I was afraid to ride one for months, I looked like a little boy," says Claude as he forms the first smile to see Rose on his fleshy lips. 

Rose almost laughs at the anecdote Claude gave her.

"Did it... dificult to you?" Claude said. 

"Well... technically I still don't know how to do it right," says Rose with some shame because she had started her classes months ago. 

"But you also like to paint truth?" asks Claude. 

"Yes, I like to paint," says Rose, looking back at the beautiful landscape. 

"Do you paint or something?" asks Rose. 

"No, I don't, I'm bad enough, actually," says Claude, somewhat embarrassed because his drawings were really horrible. 

Finally, Claude stops and turns the pig. 

They keep talking for another hour about meaningless and unimportant things. 

After that hour of speaking, the pig was golden and ready to eat.