by Regina Scott
Her stepfather had said little after lunch, but Cora had heard him puffing ahead of her. As they continued up the hill, he leaned more and more on the alpenstock.
The sun was behind them as the trees began to thin. Nathan turned north, and the climb grew steeper. Now they were in an area recently burned, the charred remains of giant fir crowded by the aspen and grasses rising from the ashes. The sun beat down until she thought she must be steaming like one of Mr. Longmire’s hot pools. She strained against the pack, puffing almost as much as Winston. Then the trees dropped away. Once more, she stopped and stared.
Verdant meadows stretched in every direction. In places, she could hardly see the grass, so thick were the wildflowers. White-throated lilies, blue anemones, and golden buttercups clustered next to the tall purple spikes and tufty crimson of flowers she could not name. On the edges, among stands of short alpine fir, nestled white rhododendrons. Nathan kept walking, as if the sight wasn’t one to stun. She wandered after him, bending to let her fingers graze the silky petals. Why didn’t he stop? She wanted to sit and soak it all in.
Finally he paused on a slight rise, and Winston sank down to sit, heedless of the grandeur he crushed, and heaved a sigh.
“It’s magnificent,” Cora said, gaze following the jagged snow-capped peaks of the range to the south.
“So is that,” Nathan said with a nod to the north.
She turned and gasped. Tacoma—Rainier—the mountain loomed over them, so close she might have reached out to touch the blue-white ice.
“Can’t we reach the top today?” she begged, feeling like a child wheedling for a sweet.
“Rainier is nearly fifteen thousand feet high,” he said with a smile. “You’ve traveled more than five thousand feet above sea level already, but we have a good nine thousand left to go, and it’s the most difficult. Best to rest now and head out in the morning. We won’t reach the top until the day after tomorrow, weather and the good Lord permitting.”
She looked disappointed, but Nathan couldn’t relent. He wanted her to reach the top. Safely.
“May we camp here?” Winston asked.
He’d done better than Nathan had expected on the climb up to Paradise Park. They both had. Cora stood gazing around with the wonder he felt every time he reached the flowered meadows. He could understand her desire to keep going. But he couldn’t let her take the risk. The summit might look as if it was right there for the taking, but they had a long way to go.
He nodded ahead, to where a creek tumbled down the valley. “Just a little farther. Take it slow. Waldo, walk with him. You’ll be able to see us as we go.”
“Glad to help,” Waldo said. But he gave Nathan a big wink.
“What was that for?” Cora asked as they set out side by side.
“Waldo being clever,” Nathan said, boots brushing the heavy-headed flowers. “In this case, not clever enough.” He glanced her way. “You’re walking well. No blisters? Aches?”
She moved her shoulders, then made a face. “The pack is noticeable, but my feet are fine.” She drew in a deep breath of the air, now tinged with the cool snows ahead. “Oh, Nathan, but it’s lovely here. I’m surprised someone hasn’t built a cabin, even before the area was made a protected forest.”
“It’s livable now,” he cautioned, heading for a line of alpine fir. “But come September, the snow will start piling up, and by the end of November it could be thirty feet deep or more.”
She blinked. “You’re teasing.”
“No, ma’am. Henry and his kin would vouch for me. So would the Longmires. They leave come fall. It would take a tall, strong building to withstand the winter, and you’d have to pack in enough food to last for six months.”
“Well then I suppose I’ll just have to enjoy it in the summer,” she said. “What about your cabin? How deep does it get there?”
“A few feet. Deep enough the horses and mules have to stay in the barn and neither Waldo nor I can ride for supplies for a few months. Which is why we have to make several trips between now and October to stock up.”
“And why you refused to leave anything behind when my mother requested space in the packs.”
He snorted. “She didn’t request. She ordered.”
She cast him a glance. “A trait the two of you share.”
He stopped at the edge of the trees, where charred wood and blackened rocks showed that others had camped recently. “When your mother orders you about, it’s more often for her benefit, not yours. When I give you an order, it’s for your benefit, not mine.”
She nodded. “I see the difference. I still don’t like being ordered about.”
“I don’t imagine you do,” he allowed.
A shrill whistle Nathan knew all too well trilled higher on the mountain. She turned toward the sound. “We have company, it seems. Another camping party?”
Nathan started to shake his head, but a movement behind her caught his eye. Winston had veered away from Waldo and the trail and was starting across the meadow at a clip Nathan would have thought impossible for the older banker. Another whistle, closer now, only accelerated his pace.
The fool! He had no idea what he was rushing to meet.
“Stay here,” Nathan told Cora.
She caught his arm as he passed. “Why? What’s wrong? He’s only going toward the other party.”
“That’s not a party,” Nathan said, gently removing her hand. “It’s a marmot, a fat, furry rat that can scramble up scree faster than any of us. There’s a sheer drop just beyond those trees. Winston is following that whistle to his death.”
Her eyes widened, but she stepped aside and let him go.
Waldo was already puffing in pursuit. Nathan met him just short of the timberline. “He got away from me,” he said as Nathan brushed past.
“I’ll fetch him back,” Nathan said. “Take care of Cora.” He pressed on.
Ahead, on the other side of the firs, he spotted a derby bobbing. “Winston!” he shouted. “Stop!”
The maddening whistle pierced the sunlight. What had gotten into the banker? “Winston!”
He caught up with Cora’s stepfather at the edge of the trees, inches from where the ground dropped away. The banker was seated on a rock overlooking the cliff, pack at his side, mopping his brow.
“Trickster,” he wheezed. “Did you hear him, Nathan, making fun of my slow progress with his jeering whistles? No doubt some young buck with no respect for his elders.” He shook a fist at the towering mountain. “Well, I’ll show you, sir! I will stand on the summit and whistle at you!”
“I admire your determination,” Nathan said, bending to assist him in rising. “But I doubt anyone would make fun of a man who had already climbed this far. Unless I miss my guess, that sound you heard was a whistling marmot.”
Winston frowned at him. “A what?”
“A whistling marmot—fat little beast that lives in these parts.”
Winston peered at him. “I do believe you’re making that up to appease me.”
Nathan lifted his right hand. “On my honor. As far as I’ve seen, there’s no one else in the valley but us right now. Pretty much anyone who comes this way stops at Longmire’s. Elcaine or Len would have mentioned if they’d seen a party before ours.”
The banker must have believed him at last, for he allowed Nathan to lead him back down the slope and over to where Waldo was setting up camp on a hill known as Alta Vista.
“No one else about, eh?” Winston said with a glance at the trampled dirt and the blackened wood of former campfires. He went to where Cora was erecting their tent.
“I put in a good word for you,” Waldo murmured as Nathan came to work on their tent with him. “Told her all about your best qualities.”
Nathan nearly dropped the short tent pole he’d picked up. “What qualities would those be?”
“Qualities ladies like. You’re a good provider, loyal, kind, punctual.”
“Oh, I’m sure she was impressed,” Nathan draw
led, shoving the pole deep into the ground.
“Of course she was,” Waldo agreed. “She’s clever, that one. She knows a man is worth more than the amount he has in the bank, otherwise she would have accepted Kincaid.”
Nathan glanced to where Cora was helping Winston spread the canvas over the poles. “She’s clever, all right. Clever enough to see through you and me.”
Waldo shook his head. “You know what? I think you’re scared of her.”
“I am,” Nathan said, returning to the work. “And I doubt climbing the mountain with her is going to make me feel differently.”
17
Dusk crept across the valley. The sky turned azure, then a rosy pink that glowed in the snows above them. Cora sat on the ground before the fire, sipping tea. The warmth settled inside her along with other feelings less common: satisfaction, contentment.
Peace.
From high above them, something boomed as loud as a thunderclap.
Cora shuddered. “Not more rain!”
Winston, who was sitting on her left, legs stretched to the fire, glanced up. “But there doesn’t appear to be a cloud in the sky.”
“That noise wasn’t thunder,” Nathan said from her right, large hands cradling his own cup. “That was ice breaking off a glacier.”
“Are we that close, then?” Cora asked.
He shook his head. “Miles. Gives you an idea of the power and size of them.”
“It certainly does.” She clung to the safety of her cup. Tomorrow, she’d stand on one of those glaciers. She shivered.
“Have some more stew, Miss Cora,” Waldo said, taking up the tin plate she’d set aside and adding more venison stew to it. “Enjoy the hot meal. It’s the best food we’ll have for a while. The higher we climb, the less we can carry.”
“Do I understand that water will be more difficult to boil as well?” Winston put in with one more glance to where the rose was fading into purple with the coming of night.
Waldo pursed his lips. “Well, yes and no. They say it boils at a lower temperature on the heights, but the air is so cold it can take longer just to reach that temperature.”
“We won’t be able to rely on the compass either,” Nathan added. “Near the summit, it can be off by several degrees from sea level.”
“Why is that?” Cora asked, fascinated.
“Some of the geologists say the iron in the mountain’s basalt affects the reading.”
Waldo leaned forward, brown eyes glittering in the firelight. “And others say it’s because there’s gold on the mountain.”
Winston perked up. “Is that so?”
“That’s just an old story,” Nathan scoffed.
“Henry pays for his supplies with gold nuggets on occasion,” Waldo protested. “He’s getting them from somewhere.”
“Likely from guests in his barn as payment for a good night’s sleep,” Nathan said. “I wish you’d stop repeating that story. The last thing we need is a stampede of prospectors thinking they’ll strike it rich in the snow. There’s plenty of wonders on this mountain. Gold isn’t one of them.”
“There may not be gold here,” Winston mused, “but there could be silver or even iron. Once this Panic subsides, the nation will boom again. Steel will be needed.”
“Then I’ll hope for a national park sooner than later,” Nathan said. “This land should be protected, not exploited for profit.”
Winston wisely sipped his tea and said no more on the matter.
While Waldo was rinsing the dishes in the stream with the last of the light, Nathan drew his alpenstock closer and nodded to Cora and Winston to do the same.
“I’ll give you my knife,” he said, angling his staff so they could see the bottom. “Whittle the butt to a point like this. It will dig better into the ice.”
His fingers covered most of the markings on his alpenstock, but Cora could make out a few words as he offered the knife to Winston with his free hand.
“What does it say?” she asked.
He pulled the staff closer. “It’s a Bible quotation, from First Timothy, chapter 6. ‘But godliness with contentment is great gain.’”
“Quite right,” Winston said, chipping away at his staff. “And I believe the verse before it advises against following those who mistake worldly gain for godliness.”
Cash Kincaid came to mind. So, sadly, did her mother.
The idea haunted her as she lay wrapped in her blanket in the tent with Winston that night. Her body was weary enough that it didn’t protest the packed earth surface overly much, and she only started when a glacier boomed. What was making her more uncomfortable was the idea behind that verse. Her mother, her mother’s friends, even Mimi sometimes, seemed to assume that if a man was wealthy and well-spoken, he must be of good character. Some, like Winston, certainly were. When she’d first met Cash Kincaid, she’d been as blind, supposing him a paragon for his donation to the university and his willingness to talk to her about business and industry. Now she knew he wanted something else entirely, and all his good deeds had been no more than a ruse to convince her to lower her guard.
Then there was the idea of making a profit from the mountain. She tried to imagine Longmire’s Springs and Paradise Park if men like Cash Kincaid and even Winston had their way. The flowered alpine meadows would be given over to cattle grazing. Rough-wood sluice boxes would clog the chalky streams. Short-lived boomtowns would spring up where stands of fir had once stood proud.
No, she could not wish that. Surely here, above the sights and sounds of civilization, the air, land, and all they sustained were meant to be free. On that thought, she fell asleep at last.
Waldo had the fire going when she ventured out of the tent the next morning after Winston had woken. Knowing they’d be starting their climb, she’d donned Miss Fuller’s flannel bloomers and put the heavy coat over her own blue wool bodice. The bloomers only showed a few inches below the hem, but they still felt odd against her legs. Winston immediately averted his gaze at the sight of her as she exited the tent, as if she’d appeared in her corset and stockings. Waldo didn’t appear to notice.
And Nathan . . .
Was seated on the edge of the rise, looking toward the east, for all the world as if he greeted the sunrise like an old friend. More likely he was praying again. What could he possibly ask for from God in all this wonder?
With a call of shook-shook-shook, the bluest bird she’d ever seen landed on the nearest fir. It cocked its gray-crested head and regarded her, blue feathers over its eyes raised like brows in question.
“Steller’s jay,” Waldo told her before shaking his cooking spoon at the bird. “Go on, you camp robber. You’ll get nothing from me.”
With another cackle, this one sounding rather derisive, the bird flew off.
Nathan rejoined them for a breakfast of oatmeal. He didn’t comment on her bloomers either. Perhaps she needn’t feel so conscious of them. It wasn’t as if she was the only woman to try the practical pants. Ladies who were avid cyclists had been known to favor them.
“We can leave the tents and some of our belongings here,” Nathan explained between mouthfuls. “We’ll take only what we need for the two nights at Camp Muir and the climb to the summit itself. That will minimize the weight in the packs.”
“Though we’ll need to carry some kindling for the fire,” Waldo put in. “There’s no wood at the camp. It’s above the timberline.”
After breakfast, Nathan had them bring out their packs and inspected them. Cora couldn’t help but be pleased when he approved her choices.
“And room for your coat,” he noted. “You may not need it most of today, but you’ll want it tonight and tomorrow.”
She glanced up at the mountain, standing guard over the glories of Paradise. To think that tomorrow morning she would step onto the summit. A thrill zinged through her, faster than a hummingbird in flight. She was going to do it.
They set out for Camp Muir midmorning, heading up the hill directly behind Camp
of the Clouds. As before, Nathan went first. Besides his pack, alpenstock, and canteen, he had a hatchet and knife strapped to his belt, and a coil of rope was lashed to the pack with twine. Winston followed, with Cora and Waldo at the back. The meadows accompanied them, as did the sound of the babbling brook. The air was cool, crisp, for all the sun was climbing. The bloomers made it surprisingly easy to walk up the gentle hills, even though she kept one hand on her alpenstock just in case.
“The lady who marries Nathan Hardee inherits all this,” Waldo said.
Cora glanced quickly back at him, and he gave her a grin.
“He’s made it plain this will soon be a national park,” she said, facing front again. “I don’t see how anyone inherits anything.”
“Oh, we’ll see a national park,” Waldo agreed, “but he’ll still be asked to lead parties to the summit. His wife could go as often as she liked.”
Once more, something zinged. She hitched up her pack with her free hand. “I don’t need to reach the summit more than once, Waldo.”
He chuckled. “You say that now.”
Of course she did. And she’d say it when she was finished. He couldn’t understand all she had to return to—her position at the bank, her goal to see women vote, her friends, the society she’d been raised in. Climbing the mountain was an objective, like graduating from college. Once achieved, it would be time to move on.
The way became steeper even as the landscape changed. The flowers began to disappear, until only a few bold clumps of yellow and white dotted the grass. The grass, too, grew shorter, sparser. So did the trees, until they resembled the firs her mother had cut and brought into the house for Christmas.
They stopped at one point for lunch, and Waldo offered jerky and hardtack, which she washed down with water from the canteen hanging off her pack. He hadn’t been joking, it seemed, about the food. Still, two days of jerky wasn’t much of a sacrifice to reach the summit.
She was rather enjoying the brisk climb. Even Winston was weathering it well, for she’d heard no puffing from him, and his face at lunch was a healthy pink. But as they set off once more, she was always aware of the tall man at the front, head moving from side to side, watching for any difficulties and ready to protect.
