“Oh? You really think so?”
Zach could not say what he thought. The compliment had gushed out of nowhere. “Sure. The way you handled yourself with that bear showed you’re not a little girl.”
“Thank you. I sure don’t feel like a girl,” Louisa agreed, although until that very moment she had never considered herself anything but.
Quiet claimed them.
Zach tried to think of something witty or interesting to say, and could not. His mind was as empty as an upended cup. Which had never happened to him before.
Louisa was content to be silent. She admired him on the sly, glad he was not one of those gabby types who could never shut up. Boys like that always set her teeth on edge. But then, she had to remind herself that Stalking Coyote wasn’t a boy. He was a man.
The wavering howl of a wolf reminded Louisa of something else. “Are we safe here? Do you reckon that silvertip will come back?”
“He’s probably miles off,” Zach said to spare her added anxiety. Based on the tales his father imparted, the griz might be watching them at that very second, waiting for them to turn in. A few years ago several trappers had been ripped to bits in their sleep by one. “We’re as safe here as anywhere else.”
“I hope so.”
Zach noted the glance she threw at the benighted woods. “You can bring your blanket around to this side of the fire, if you have a hankering to.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to punch himself in the teeth for saying them.
Louisa never hesitated. She had spread it out on the other side initially just because it was the proper thing to do. A lady did not sleep close to a man she had just met. But she had no qualms about rolling it up and moving to within a couple of feet of her benefactor. As she spread it out again, she had a thought that scared her. “Are you married, Stalking Coyote?”
Zach snorted. “Whatever gave you that notion? I’m too young to have a wife.”
“I’ve known plenty of men your age who were hitched, and had kids besides,” Louisa mentioned.
“I’ve known a few, too,” Zach responded, hoping he had not hurt her feelings. Then it hit him. She had called him a man. He sat a little straighter and squared his shoulders. “I bet when you get back to the States, the first thing you’ll do is wed some lucky fella.”
“There isn’t anyone back there who interests me in the least,” Louisa said. Then it hit her. He had said that the man who claimed her heart would be lucky. She lay on the blanket, closer to him than her father would have deemed fitting.
“A pretty lady like you will be up to elbows in suitors in no time,” Zach predicted. “Among the Shoshones, you’d have been spoken for long ago.”
Lou recalled the visit her pa and her paid to St. Louis on their trek westward. One night they had gone for a stroll and blundered onto a street of ill repute. Women in tight dresses had lined both sides, beckoning to passersby. Her father had commanded her to avert her eyes and march straight ahead, but she could not resist taking a peek. Those women had a way about them. A way of luring men like a flame lured moths. She wished now that she could be as alluring, that she knew the tricks they did to make themselves so irresistible.
Zach thought of something to say at last. “Tell me about your life.”
“It would bore you to death.”
“No. Honestly. I’d like to hear it,” Zach assured her. The wonder of it was, he was serious.
Louisa humored him. Haltingly at first, she shared details about her childhood. A childhood so ordinary there was not much to share. She had grown up in a small town in Ohio, Grinder’s Mill. Until she was five they had lived with her grandparents, her pa’s folks. Then her parents had gotten a small place of their own.
Her father worked a number of jobs, and was never satisfied with any. He was always scraping to make ends meet. Always fretting about having enough money to provide a decent life. He would go on and on about how Ma deserved better. How he would like to give her the biggest house and the finest clothes. Her mother would always say that was sweet, but she was happy with his love.
Her pa always wanted to get rich quick. But most of his attempts ended like the time he hooked up with a man from New York who was selling shares in a big company. Her father had forked over most of their savings, only to have the New Yorker disappear. The company, it turned out, did not exist.
Their quest for beaver was but the last in a long line of schemes. And it had cost him more than money. Now her mother and her father had gone to their reward, leaving her all alone in the world.
“Don’t you have kin back East?” Zach asked.
“My grandparents have long since died. My ma had a sister, but I wouldn’t know where to begin to look for her. She never wanted a thing to do with us.” Louisa shivered as a stiff gust from the northwest rustled the trees.
“Cold, are you?” Zach said. He had a spare blanket. But rather than fetch it, he stretched out on his back beside her. “I can keep you warm. If you want.” The chill did not bother him. It never did.
Louisa had never wanted anything more. She shyly pressed against his side. Their bodies barely touching, she lowered her cheek to his chest.
Zach was stunned. He had not expected her to do it. Awkwardly, almost fearfully, he draped an arm over her slim shoulder. For a long while he just lay there, dumbfounded by his own boldness. Then he said softly, “Care to hear about my life?”
She did not answer.
“It’s not all that exciting either. Unless you count when the Apaches tried to make wolf meat of us. Or when the Blackfeet took me captive. Or when we went to the Pacific Ocean.” Zach stopped. She still had not responded. “Louisa?” Looking down, he learned why.
She was sound asleep.
Zachary King squeezed her arm, gently placed his cheek against the top of her head, and smiled at the stars.
Nine
“Look! He’s doing it again, Pa.”
“So he is.”
Evelyn King had been keeping count. This made the fourth time that morning. “Why is he doing it so much? I never saw him act this way before.” It saddened her to see Blaze so upset. Yet there he was, nose to the ground, roving frantically back and forth while whining pitiably.
“I reckon he just misses your brother a lot,” Nate responded. His son and the wolf had always enjoyed an exceptional bond. “Blaze knows that Zach must have gone off somewhere, so he’s trying to pick up Zach’s scent.”
Evelyn recalled how great Blaze was at finding people. He could sniff out anyone anywhere. When she and Zach were younger, one of their favorite games had been to play hide-and-seek. One of them would go off and hide, then the other would get the wolf to hunt. Blaze always found them. Always. No matter how far they went. No matter what kind of tricks they tried.
“Blaze is confused because he can’t find where your brother’s scent leads away from the cabin,” Nate mentioned.
Evelyn knew why. “Zach was on the sorrel. So all Blaze smells is the sorrel’s scent, huh, Pa?”
“Smart girl.” Nate patted the top rail of the corral. “I’m going inside for some coffee. Are you coming?”
“In a bit,” Evelyn said. “I’d like to stay out here and play with Blaze a spell. If you don’t mind.” She remembered how she and Zach had trained Blaze to follow a scent, and wondered if it would still work. Maybe she could help the wolf. Wouldn’t Zach be surprised when Blaze came trotting up? She would give anything to see the look on his face.
Nate’s Hawken was propped against the corner of the cabin. Grasping it, he strolled to the doorway. The day was warm and pleasant, with birds singing nearby, and a soft breeze was blowing. The kind of day that made him doubly glad he lived in the wilds. “Don’t be too long. Your mother wanted some help sewing a dress.”
“I know. I’ll be along directly,” Evelyn promised. As soon as her father had gone in, she rushed to the gate, opened it, and hurried across the pen to the tack shed. On the north side of the cabin was anothe
r shed, for storing firewood.
The horses were all accustomed to her and did not act up. A few nuzzled her, seeking sugar or other treats. “Not today,” Evelyn apologized. She paused to pat her pony, then entered the shed. Saddles were lined up in a row on a bench. Bridles and such hung from the walls. The bridle she wanted had been partially split, and placed on a peg on the rear wall. It had not been used in a long time, but the last time it had been used was on the sorrel.
Eventually her pa would get around to fixing it. He had so much work to do around their home that a bridle did not rank high on his list. Especially when they had half-a-dozen spares.
Evelyn went back out. Blaze had stopped running in circles and was licking himself. “Here you go, fella,” she said, grinning. “This will help you, I bet.” But when she held the bridle to his nose and motioned, the result was not what she expected.
The wolf bent his head and sniffed a while, but did not find where Zach had ridden off.
“Drat. It should work.” Evelyn was stumped. It had always worked when she was little. She or Zach would take something the other owned, like a hat or mittens or something. When they held it to the wolf’s nose, Blaze knew which one of them he was supposed to track down. And off he would go. As simple as that.
“What’s wrong? Have you forgotten the trick we taught you?” Evelyn asked. She tried again.
Blaze sat on his haunches and looked at her expectantly. Maybe, she reasoned, he did not realize what the sorrel’s scent had to do with Zach. Or maybe the scent of so many horses hindered him from picking out the sorrel’s from all the rest.
Beckoning, Evelyn led him around to the back. Her brother had headed west, along a trail they frequently took to reach that end of the valley. She held the bridle to Blaze’s black nose, pointed at the ground, and said, “Fetch him, boy! Fetch Zach!”
Blaze lowered his head and started off.
Evelyn giggled. She had done it! Then the wolf halted and glanced back at her, seemingly confused. “What is it?” Baffled, she scratched her head. She had to think. Her pa had taught her that every problem a person faced could be solved with a little thought and a lot of common sense.
Blaze would not follow the sorrel’s scent. So either the scent on the bridle had faded, or the scent on the trail was mixed with that of her father’s bay and other horses that had gone up it recently, and the silly wolf still could not pick out the one it was supposed to.
“You can be a pain, you know that?” Evelyn scolded. She stared at the cabin, then at the corral. It wouldn’t take long to saddle her pony. She could lead Blaze off a ways, and hope he caught on later. Once he did, that fantastic nose of his would enable him to hunt her brother down in two shakes of an antelope’s tail.
She had to hurry, though. Her folks would miss her before too long. She scooted to the gate again. Since she would not be gone more than half an hour, she did not bother to go into the cabin for a parfleche of food. Or a rifle. Her parents were bound to ask what she was up to, and refuse to let her do it.
Evelyn quickly saddled her pony, led it out, closed the gate, and mounted. Blaze was marking a bush. She had always thought it so stupid, the habit wolves and coyotes and the like had of lifting their legs to pee on things. Once she had remarked about how ridiculous it was to her mother.
“That is males for you. They always do strange things.”
“Pa is a male and he doesn’t.”
Her mother had snickered. “Daughter, you will find, as you grow older, that all males do things women would never do. I love your father dearly, but he is no different from the rest.”
“What does he do that is so strange?”
“I would not know where to start.”
“But if men are so weird, why do women marry them? And live with one their whole lives through?”
“Because we are, as your pa would say, gluttons for punishment.”
Evelyn never had understood why her mother had laughed so heartily. But she had to admit her ma had a point. The longer she had been around her brother, the more she’d realized how strange males truly were.
At the first bend, Evelyn twisted. Guilt pricked her conscience. It was wrong to sneak off as she was doing, but she told herself it was for a good cause. And she would only be gone a short while. With any luck she would get back, put the pony with the rest, and traipse indoors as merrily as you please, her folks none the wiser.
Blaze padded along at the pony’s heels, tongue lolling.
Evelyn had a fair idea of where her brother had gone. Of late, when he went hunting, he was partial to a range west of their valley. To reach it, he had to cross a pass high on a mountain. Since neither her pa nor anyone else had been up that way in a coon’s age, the only fresh scent should be the sorrel’s.
It was a nice day for a ride. The bright blue sky, the sunshine, the green woods and emerald slopes were too beautiful for words. She trotted on, lost in admiration of the scenery. The antics of some chipmunks made her laugh. A young hawk soaring among the clouds made her wish she could spread her own arms and take wing.
Evelyn had guessed it would take her five minutes to reach the spot she wanted, but it was more like fifteen. The main trail continued on, and would bear to the southwest later. The Utes had used it a lot in the old days, before her pa had claimed the valley for his own. A smaller trial branched off, winding to the northwest, to the pass.
At the junction, Evelyn reined to the right. For another quarter of an hour she rode at a brisk walk. On a switch-back that gave her a magnificent view of the entire valley, she stopped and dismounted. The lake shimmered like a gigantic jewel. Tendrils of smoke curled from the cabin’s chimney, which she glimpsed among treetops.
Blaze was interested in a marmot burrow. Evelyn called him, wagged the bridle under his nose, and pointed at the base of the slope. “Fetch Zach, boy. Fetch Zach.”
The wolf tried. He roved the switchback, sniffing every square inch, finally halting where hoofprints led upward. But he did not go up. He stood staring and whining, as if unsure.
“Consarn it all. What is the matter with you?” Evelyn took a few steps past him and motioned. “This is the right way! So go! Find that idiot brother of mine! He’ll be tickled pink.”
Blaze did not move. He only looked at her and whined some more.
“Are you a wolf or a mouse?” Evelyn demanded. He was acting scared, which just couldn’t be. What did a wolf have to be scared of? She squinted at the pass, a notch in a high cliff wall. It would take her the better part of an hour to reach it. Her folks were bound to realize she was missing, and they would be mad. Her ma, in particular, would see fit to punish her for breaking the rules.
Her pa seldom disciplined her anymore. He might well be the toughest man in the Rockies, but he always treated her as if she were a princess. Even when she did wrong. It had annoyed Zach no end that when they got into trouble for spatting or whatnot, their father was always harder on him. Even when both of them were equally to blame, or she had instigated it.
Zach had complained to their ma. One day her parents had had a long talk. Afterward, her mother had always decided what Evelyn should do to make amends for misbehaving. And her mother was much stricter.
Evelyn gazed at the tendrils of smoke, mulling what to do. She was probably in trouble already. Her pa would have gone out to see what was taking her so long and found the pony missing. He would come after her on his big bay, which could cover ground twice as fast as her animal.
She turned, studying the route to the cliff. Now that she thought about it, she recalled her father had been up this way in the past week or so. Maybe that explained why Blaze was standing there like a bump on a log. If she went to the pass, the wolf should pick up the sorrel’s scent with no problem.
“The things I do for my dumb brother,” Evelyn said aloud as she climbed back into the creaking saddle. “Let’s go, Blaze.”
Up the slope they loped. She was not unduly worried about predators. Her pony mig
ht be slower than the bay, but it could still outrace most any other creature. And she had her pistol. And Blaze was there; he would protect her just as he had always done.
They had not gone far when the huge wolf stopped and whined again, louder than ever, as if to get her attention.
Evelyn slowed and gestured. “Come on, you contrary critter! You’re the one who’s been so all-fired worked up about seeing Zach again. I’m doing you a favor, you know.”
Blaze heeded, but slowly, his shaggy head roving over the large boulders that lined both sides of the narrow thread of a trail.
Evelyn clucked to her pony. It went a little farther. Then it, too, slowed. Ears pricked, it nickered. She raised the reins, but as if he were there with her, her father’s advice from long ago rang in her ears.
“Always rely on your horse. Horses can hear better than we can. They also have a better sense of smell. So when yours acts up, don’t take it for granted it’s afraid of its own shadow or a stick. Something else might be to blame. Something a whole lot worse. And the only warning you’ll have is your horse.”
To her right and left reared scattered boulders half the size of the family’s cabin. A jumbled pile on Evelyn’s right was the legacy of a rock slide long ago. Usually chipmunks would be scampering all over them, but not today.
“I don’t like this,” Evelyn declared, her hand straying to the flap of her beaded bag. She should have been more alert. She should have caught on sooner.
Suddenly Blaze growled.
Evelyn glanced at him, then in the direction he was staring. Her breath caught in her throat. From out of nowhere a tawny shape had taken form and substance, a long, sinewy creature with razor-tipped claws and teeth.
A painter, some called it. Cougar, others preferred. She liked the name her pa was partial to.
Mountain lion.
Louisa May Clark awoke slowly. She felt warm and comfortable, for the first time in many days. She was reluctant to wake up too fast. Sluggish in mind and body, she lay quietly, dreamily, half-wishing she would fall back to sleep.
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