<br/>Her curtsy stirred him.  It changed everything that he had expected when he walked into this place.  This wasn't one of those strings of trading posts up the trail to Oregon - where husbands drove in alone to get a sack of beans for his family and instead got an hour with a whore.  That Eve didn't address him with an impatient gruff - an unpolished leer at his billfold, set Del at unease.  He was, once more, uncertain where he'd found himself and more importantly - embarrassed that he should walk into the company of a lady in this condition.  Like a man was not to know of pregnancy, a woman was not to know of war.<br/><br/>He straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat.  Eyes darting from one side to the other as if there was some place he could excuse himself to, but she was already standing before him.  "Ma'm…" he said, culled.  A hand went up to draw off his cap and he held it at his belly.<br/><br/>Her hand rose out for his and he held out his for a second.  His palm, wide and his fingers long, their tips stubbed and filthy.  Black with gun powder and it was gruesome and harsh.  He did not take her hand with his.  Instead his fingers curled back into a fist and he dropped it at his side with a bow of his head, "You must forgive me, I have found myself deposited unexpected into your company."<br/><br/>And indeed the man stank.  It was a frightful sort of stench that bespoke someone who had not bathed in weeks… months?  The further anyone should look into Del, the more they would discover something that would offend.  The big man attempted to shy back from the scrutiny, with an even more sincere dip of his head.  "I fear I am dead.  Is this not… the end?" he said, looking up at her with an absolution in his gaze that seemed like he had already made up his mind.<br/><br/>He would not know Arabian Jasmine but he knew Confederate Jasmine (star jasmine).  The smell hung on the air as mysterious as it had come and it only added to his assumption.  Indeed this must be the end.  Yet, she was taking his arm.  The wool of his jacket had a certain texture that she would be better not thinking too deep about.  She'd feel the tension in that man's arm, a kind of reluctance to go on.<br/><br/>"What do you mean, without Time?" He said, a brief tremble in his otherwise deep tone.  A new dread displacing what had previously been known.  Fearful as any should be of death, now it was death with uncertainty and she would discover that he was not so eager to walk with her.