Step: A Six Sentence Story

"Watch your step," he said, steadying himself with the handle of the shovel he used as a walking stick and holding her elbow as he guided her through the stillness of the woods, thick with hickory and oak, with grapevines growing up from the brushy undergrowth and weaving a canopy from tree to tree, last fall's bed of oak leaves disguising the unevenness of the ground beneath them and crackling beneath their feet.

"Are you sure you saw mushrooms way back here?" she asked him, stumbling slightly in her impractical shoes. "And what's the hurry? You could have at least given me a chance to put on sneakers and get a bucket or something to carry mushrooms back to the house."

"See, right there!" he said to her, pointing to a spot near a pile of soft earth, and she bent to get a closer look, frowning slightly at the absurdity of him dragging her into the woods in her nice shoes to see some mushrooms that he very well could have brought back to the house to show her. 

The swish of the shovel broke through the quietness of the woods, and the impact that followed startled a few birds from their perch in the trees; after circling high above the spot where she lay, they settled back down onto their branches and watched, uninterested, as he carefully and thoughtfully moved the soft pile of earth, covering the impractical shoes last. 

Linking up with Ivy at Uncharted for Six Sentence Stories with the prompt "step."