The Trapper

by Jenna Kernan

  She stood facing her work, hands upon her hips. “There now, that’s taking shape.” She spun a slow circle. “Where is my mattress?”

  “If you mean that ten-pound sack of feathers, it’s back at Fort Union.”

  She frowned and he fought to hold his expression somber.

  “Upon what shall I sleep?”

  “How about your bed at the fort?” They could in fact be home in less than two hours, well before sunset, due to the meandering route he’d carried them this day.

  She crossed her arms before her and cast him the now familiar stubborn expression. “We certainly will not.”

  “I use a pile of green branches and a buffalo hide.”

  “I don’t believe I have a buffalo robe.”

  “You can use mine.”

  She eyed him suspiciously.

  He laughed. “I have two.”

  “I shall use my own blanket, thank you.”

  For the next several minutes she gathered dead leaves and dry grasses. He wondered how many fleas she’d collected as well. Over the pile she draped a pristine wool blanket and a spotless white bedsheet.

  “That should serve.”

  He glanced skyward and wondered how long until the rain filled the hollow in which she’d staked her tent.

  “That’ll do.” He grinned and held out some of the rabbit.

  She accepted the rabbit shank in her bare hand and devoured the flesh to the bones. Afterward she did wipe her mouth on a fine cloth napkin and washed her face in the stream that Troy knew would soon swell to the ground on which they sat.

  Lena glanced wistfully at his remaining bit of supper but said nothing as she stood. Her brow furrowed as she glanced about. Firelight now polished her hair like a new copper kettle.

  She fingered the mole beneath her lip and he sat forward before he could stop himself, his attention riveted on her face. “Well, I had not anticipated, I mean, I don’t have a screen.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where shall I make my ablutions?”

  “Your what?”

  “Preparations to retire.”

  “What kind of preparations? Just lay down. That’s all.”

  She straightened, her face twisting in an expression of disapproval. “I need to wash and change and…” She searched the gear before her and then pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Good heavens, you left most of my toiletries behind as well.”

  “Reckon so.” He shredded a branch and polished his teeth.

  “Could you make me one of those?”

  He did and she sprinkled fine powder upon the frayed end. He extended his branch and she doused his as well. They scrubbed in silence as he enjoyed the taste of peppermint. He could get used to this. His grin allowed white foam to spill from his mouth like a rabid dog and she giggled. The sound stole his humor, replacing it with desire.

  He spit. The sooner he was free of her the better. Not just for her sake, but for his.

  She focused her pale eyes upon him.

  “What was it like where you grew up, Troy?”

  She used his first name. He liked the sound of it. What had she asked? Oh, yes, his home. “Farmland. We raised corn and goats mostly.”

  “Truly?”

  He laughed at the evident shock in her voice.

  “Did you think I lived in a teepee?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “The Cherokee called themselves the civilized people. We’ve lived beside the whites since Cortez wandered through. I even went to church on Sundays.”

  “I had no idea.”

  He smiled at the confusion that knit her brow.

  “Because of your father?”

  “Mother made us go.”

  “Really.”

  That set her back again. She had ideas about how his life must be and he was bumping up against them.

  “What is your father’s occupation?”

  “Occupation?” He laughed. “He was a dirt farmer and not a good one. Good fiddler, though. Played at weddings. He fell off his horse drunk one night.” His smile faded with the memory. “Broke his neck.”

  He died two years after Troy left for the West. His mother wrote him of the news. He should have gone home then, despite his shame. If he had known he would never have a chance to see them again, nothing could have kept him away. But he hadn’t known and had not returned. Guilt poured through him like rising groundwater.

  She pressed a hand to her heart. “How perfectly dreadful.”

  He smiled. “Perfectly.”

  “Mr. Price, I certainly did not mean to pry. You have the most startling way about you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, where I come from people spend a good deal of time covering up such indiscretions. Certainly they would not volunteer that their father drank, even if he were sitting beside them in a stupor.”

  Troy laughed at the picture her words painted. “Why not?”

  “Well it’s not done. Propriety dictates that personal matters remain private.”

  “Secrets, then.”

  “Just so. Your bluntness is rather startling. If you had asked me a similar question, I would answer quite differently.”

  “Okay, Princess, what does your pa do?”

  “Well, he is in shipping. Owns a fleet of boats. Mother says he could start his own navy. My mother is a descendent of a signer. Her people go back to before the revolution, related to Hamilton. He established the first bank, you know.”

  “Signer?”

  “Of the Constitution.”

  He smiled. His family went back far before the revolution, though no one cared.

  “That’s the one that starts, ‘We the people’ and goes with the Bill of Rights that says ‘All men are created equal?’” he asked. But they didn’t mean all men. Only white men.

  “Very good, Mr. Price. You know your history.” She beamed, obviously proud of her ancestry. “And you see? I didn’t say a thing that is not common knowledge.”

  “You also didn’t tell me nothing I didn’t already know.”

  “Exactly, let’s try another, shall we?” She thought in silence for a moment then asked. “Why did you come west?”

  “Trying to find something, I guess. I was looking for a place where a man’s character counts more than the color of his skin. Some place where I belonged.” He could not keep the hardness from cutting through his voice. “Been to the Pacific and back. There ain’t no such place.”

  “Oh my.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Why you’ve done it again. I really shouldn’t be privy to such matters.”

  “You asked.”

  He studied her pale face and huge round eyes.

  “Well, you’ve just told me something so very personal and I don’t know what to say. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable just saying you came west to hunt?”

  “If I can’t say what’s on my mind, I just won’t answer.”

  “How odd.” She fiddled with her gloves.

  “What, Lena?”

  “It’s just that I find the urge to say things that I have no right to put to voice.”

  “You set yourself a lot of rules. Got you laced up tighter than that corset. You’re in my territory now. So how about you play by my rules. You ask something I don’t want to answer, I’ll just tell you straight.” He waited but she only tugged her gloves on more tightly. “Go on.”

  “Did you ever think, well, perhaps what you seek is not a place but a person.”

  “How’s that?”

  “A person. Someone to accept you as you are. I believe a person belongs to other people, as I belong to my family. I am a part of them and they are a part of me. Do you feel that way with your family?”

  He stilled, absorbing the pain the question raised.

  “I have no family.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Illness?”

  “More like greed.”

  She frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  “You ever hear
d of Dahlonega, Georgia, in the Appalachian Mountains?”

  “I know Georgia, of course.

  “Because of the gold.”

  She dropped her gaze and he knew he was right. That was all whites knew of his families’ lands.

  “The government took our land. My tribe was forced from their homes and my family sent to Oklahoma in the dead of winter.”

  Her eyes rounded at this.

  “My sisters, Spotted Deer and Little Rabbit, died on the way.” That winter he’d spent trapping beaver, while his family marched through snow and ice. Only his mother had lived to see the godforsaken wasteland of Jackson’s treaty. Land unfit for white settlers, land without gold. But she had not lived to see the springtime. “My mother died after arrival. I didn’t hear until the following spring.”

  She pressed a hand to her mouth and tears spilled from her eyes.

  “I should never have left them.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I left over a woman.” He glared at her.

  She fingered the broach at her throat as her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is that why you were so angry about my arrival, because I am a woman?”

  He met her steady gaze and nodded.

  “But I am not that woman,” she assured. “Troy, you are my guide. Nothing more.”

  He gave her a doubtful look.

  “What happened last night, well, I choose to overlook it. We both recognize it as a dreadful mistake and agree to not have a reoccurrence.”

  Her words did not reassure.

  “You have to trust me. I will not cross the line society draws between us.”

  “I hear your words, but I remember your kiss.”

  She stiffened.

  “Will you turn back?”

  She breathed deep of the night air and squared her shoulders. “No.”

  He sighed, then stood to add more wood to the fire. At last he said, “It is time for sleep.”

  She gathered up a bundle of clothing and headed for the privacy of a two-hundred-year-old cottonwood trunk.

  “Best stamp about,” he called and watched her halt, showing wide round eyes.

  “And why is that?”

  “Snakes.”

  Her head turned slowly toward the unknown menace of the woods and then back to him.

  “Rattlesnakes,” he added.

  With infinite slowness she lowered her bundle to the ground. She would run back to him now and insist they return to the fort. He breathed a sigh of relief, then wondered why he felt so sad.

  His brow lifted in confusion as she grasped a stout stick in one hand and her belongings in the other. She swung the limb, beating the bushes and ground as she advanced. He watched with begrudging respect. The girl didn’t have an ounce of sense. But she had something more important, something he never expected to find in this fancy little filly—courage.

  She returned a very short time later, emerging like a ghost draped in flowing robes. He recognized the same lovely dress she wore at Fort Union and his stomach dropped.

  He shook his head. She actually changed for sleeping.

  He shoved his hat back on his head. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course, Mr. Price.”

  “You gonna sleep in them slippers?”

  She shook her head, apprehension blooming on her features.

  He did not want to spend the night with her. As evening closed about them he grew more anxious to send her home. Something had to be done.

  “And you gonna tie them little tent laces shut?”

  “Certainly.”

  “So how you gonna get clear if a bear wanders in?” He watched his words strike terror in her. First her eyes widened and then her neck stretched like a turtle, as she peered past the firelight into the deep shadows.

  Her voice squeaked. “Have you seen evidence of one?”

  He stood and stretched, then closed the distance between them until she stepped back.

  “There are all kinds of dangers here.” And he thought she was the most dangerous of all.

  She trembled. The urge to comfort nagged, but he pushed it back. Her tongue darted from her mouth and ran the full curve of her lower lip, pausing for just an instant on the mole.

  He twitched, resisting the notion of kissing her.

  She lifted a hand, but stopped before laying it on his chest as if remembering she could no longer touch him. He held back his disappointment.

  She glanced about. “Why would a bear venture into my tent?”

  “That tent is a trap, plus you set up on low ground and rain’s coming.”

  “I couldn’t sleep without a roof of some sort above my head.”

  “I’ll take you back to the fort, then. Without the gear, you can be tucked in tight in a few hours. Tomorrow you can paint some more Indians.”

  She scowled and her voice took on a hard authoritative edge that he hated immediately. “Mr. Price, you have made your opinions on this matter quite clear. You are paid to guide, not harangue. I will thank you to cease in this vein. I shall sleep in Mr. Thornton’s tent and that is final.”

  Far off to the south came a familiar rumble. She did not note it, instead turning toward her tent and throwing back the flap, then hesitating only a moment before crawling inside. He noticed she left both ends of the tent open. She had her escape route, but no shoes in which to run and no weapon with which to defend herself.

  But that was his job. He debated telling her to move her tent and then sighed in resignation. As she’d said, he was paid to guide, not harangue, so he turned to her belongings. He lifted her gear, hanging some parcels close to the trunks of the trees where they would stay relatively dry, others he strung from branches, keeping them above the torrent to come. He moved the animals to high ground and secured them against stampede. Finally, he rested by the fire, wrapped snug in a thick buffalo robe upon a nest of green boughs. The breeze arrived first, blowing cold. Far off he heard the rain.

  From within her tent Lena said, “How lovely, no bugs.”

  He gave a snort and curled onto his side.

  “Good night, Mr. Price.”

  “If you say so, Lena.”

  He gazed up through the canopy of cottonwood. Low clouds blocked the moonlight. The rumble came again, followed by the gentle patter of rain, first on leaves and then on canvas. Gradually, the force of the rain increased. She’d break in the storm. She had to.

  Lightning peeled across the sky, turning the clearing green for an instant. Lena’s scream came with the thunder. He expected her to flee her drooping teepee, but she stayed even when the water ran through like a river.

  For a moment he thought he heard her crying, but the sound was too faint to be certain. He lay rigid, listening.

  Any moment she’d quit. She’d climb from her wet bed and beg him to take her home. He would miss her. He admired proud women and Lena was certainly that. He knew he’d never see her like again and that was for the best.

  “Lena. Come out of there.”

  He waited, but still she did not emerge, so he threw back his own dry covers and rose, preparing to haul her out of her burrow, willing or not.

  At last, she emerged, a pale waif crawling from the opening dragging her sodden blanket and a fine linen sheet now streaked with mud. He stood three paces from her but she did not see him in the rain. She turned toward the spot where she had left her belongings. His brow knit in confusion.

  She didn’t come to him.

  The realization stung. He called to her.

  “Lena.”

  She halted, her shoulders rounded in defeat. “I believe I need a change of clothing.”

  Something was wrong with her voice. He stepped closer to where she stood trembling in the rain. The pathetic sight was just what he expected, but his reaction to it came as a complete surprise. It was as if an eagle sunk his talons into his gut and pulled. He crossed the ground that separated them before he could stop himself, cursing her all the way. Damn her for not giving up. What did h
e have to do, tie her up and haul her back like freight?

  She was a white girl whose body called him even as his mind warned against her soft pale skin. She knew better than to travel alone with an Indian. He knew better, too. Why did she lack common sense?

  “Come here.”

  He stretched out his arms and she stepped into them, taking shelter from the rain beneath his heavy buffalo robe. Her teeth chattered as the fabric of her garments soaked his buckskin.

  “I’m such a bother,” she muttered.

  He nodded, his chin brushing the wet mass of her tangled hair.

  “My tent is a miserable failure.”

  The twisting talons pulled again.

  “Next time pick high ground.”

  She nestled closer. Remorse changed to desperate desire faster than a swooping falcon. He allowed his arms to draw her in until he felt her softness melting against him like warm honey.

  He rested his chin on her head. The wild curling tangle of her hair fascinated him. She was so different than any woman in his past and as unlike him as fur from feather.

  “Ready to head home?”

  “You want me to quit.” She sniffed. “I won’t, you know.”

  “You should.”

  “Let me tell you something, Mr. Price. I have listened to my father tell me again and again that I am incapable of doing anything beyond breeding and needlepoint. I know you do not want me here, but I shall prove you wrong with the rest and achieve my aim with or without you.”

  He snorted, pushing her back until she just remained beneath his robe, but did not nestle against him like a lover. “You wouldn’t get a mile without me.” He gave her a little shake. “Why are you so stubborn?”

  Her shoulders drooped, but her voice remained determined. “It is the only way to get what I want.”

  “And just what do you want?”

  “A chance to do one thing on my own. A chance to paint.”

  “At least tell me why, Lena?”

  She straightened and he gazed down at her beautiful wet face.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Hell you don’t. Your party died, but you kept on. I tried my best to turn you home with no better luck. You come out here alone with a stranger and you faced down a lightning storm that would raise the dead. Still you won’t quit. So what’s so damned bad back there that you prefer this?”