Mabel stirred. “Be nice, Samuel. Mr. Ward is a Yankee, remember? And Yankees don’t think like regular folks.”
Simon resented being patronized. “I’m not the only one who likes the Shoshones, Mrs. Coyfield. Ask any trapper and he’ll agree. The same with the Flatheads and the Nez Perce. They’ve gone out of their way to help the white man.”
Mabel’s dark eyes twinkled. “If’n you say so, sugar. But then, we’re new to these parts. We’ve got a lot to learn.”
“That you do,” Simon stressed, garnering spiteful stares from several of the sons. Cole, in particular, was blatant about it.
Jacob Coyfield pushed his chair back and craned his neck. “Sure is a nice place you’ve got here, friend. Right cozy and warm. I bet that roof sure keeps out the rain, don’t it? Have many leaks?”
“None at all,” Simon said, thinking, What a silly question. “You don’t say? Ours back to home leaked something awful.”
“Why didn’t you fix it?”
Jacob’s flabby jowls lowered. “You mean, climb up on top and plug the holes?”
“That’d be work,” Samuel remarked.
Simon looked from one to the other. “So?”
It was Cole who answered. “Workin’ around the house is for womenfolk, Yankee. Men do the huntin’ and skinnin’ and fightin’ and such. Any fool knows that.”
“Keep your insults to yourself,” Simon bristled.
Mabel intervened again. “Now, now, Cole. There’s no call to be lookin’ down your nose at our host. Yankees have different notions about work than we do. I hear tell that their menfolk even help the womenfolk wash and dry dishes.”
Cole, Jess, Tinder, and Bo roared. Cindy Lou and Mary Beth cackled. Even Jacob and Samuel enjoyed a merry laugh.
Simon carried his plate to the counter so they would not see how angry he had become. He had met southerners before, but never any who behaved like the Coyfields. He couldn’t wait for them to leave.
Felicity wiped her hands on her apron. “How about if you ladies help me clean up while the men step outside and have a smoke?” She was anxious to get them out of her house and see them on their way, and intuition told her Simon felt the same.
“What’s wrong with smokin’ inside?” Jacob asked.
Mabel smacked him on the arm. “Where are your manners, Pa? Do as the lady wants. Me and the girls will take care of things in here. You understand? You take your business outside.”
Jacob grinned. “I savvy, Ma. Don’t you fret.” Rising, he nodded at the four bearded bears. “Didn’t you hear? Mosey your lazy hind ends outdoors.”
Simon dipped his plate in the bucket and ran a washcloth over it. The Coyfields be hanged! It didn’t make him less of a man because he helped his wife do chores. When the last of the men trudged by, he set the plate down and moved close enough to Felicity to say under his breath, “Come up with an excuse to get rid of them. Much more of this and I’ll use language you’ve never heard me use before.”
Felicity grinned, then tweaked his cheek. “They’ll be leaving soon, I’m sure,” she whispered. “Another hour won’t kill you.”
“Want to bet?”
Simon headed out. He hesitated at the gun rack, debating whether to take his rifle, then walked on without it. He might be tempted to shoot one of them.
The Coyfields were lounging at their ease, Jacob and Samuel straddling a log that bordered the flower garden.
“Be careful of my wife’s flowers,” Simon cautioned. Felicity had invested countless hours digging and planting and nurturing the sprouts.
“Flowers?” Jacob repeated, and glanced down at where his boot heel ground a fragile stem into the dirt. “Oh. Sorry, friend. Land sakes, I know how fussy women can be about plants. Ma had this rose she was powerful fond of. The cat pissed on it one day, so she shot him dead.”
Samuel was scratching an armpit. “Tell me, Yankee. How many neighbors you got hereabouts? Other than that big feller to the north.”
Simon leaned against the cabin. “You know Nate King? He’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. If not for him, Felicity and I would have died long ago.” Simon rapped on the wall. “Nate and Shakespeare McNair helped us build this cabin. To be honest, they did most of the work. It’s a wonder what those two can do. Jacks-of-all-trades, you’d call them.”
Jacob was treating himself to another mouthful of chewing tobacco. “McNair? Who’s he? Where’s he live?”
“About twenty-five miles north of Nate. Shakespeare has been in these mountains longer than anyone. They say he was here before Lewis and Clark came, that he was one of the first whites to set foot in the Rockies.”
“An old guy, then?” Jacob said, and grinned at his brother.
“You wouldn’t call him that if you saw him. He’s stronger than most men half his age and has more energy than your whole family combined. Where he gets it from is beyond me. I’ll count myself blessed if I live half as long as he has.”
“Any other folks hereabouts?” Samuel asked.
Simon wondered why the brother was suddenly so interested in how many neighbors he had. “That’s about all. It isn’t like back in the States. I doubt there are ten homesteads like ours in the entire Rockies. A couple of dozen trappers live with Indians, but they’re scattered with the tribes.”
Jacob chewed loudly. “It’s like I said it’d be, brother. White folks are as scarce as hen’s teeth in these parts.”
Cole grunted like a bear rooting for grubs. “Then what are we waitin’ for, Pa? Why don’t we get it over with? I’m mighty tired of playin’ games.”
Simon stretched. The meal had made him sluggish. A nice long nap was in order, once he disposed of his visitors. “Get what over with?” he idly asked.
“Oh, he’s just a mite too eager to settle into a place of our own,” Jacob answered, rising ponderously. Smiling, he walked up to Cole and cuffed him across the mouth. The younger man rocked on his haunches but did not lift a hand to defend himself. “How many times I got to tell you, boy? You speak when you’re told to and not before. That mouth of yours is going to get you in a heap of trouble if’n you ain’t careful.”
“Sorry, Pa,” Cole said meekly.
Samuel did not seem the least bit interested in the dispute between father and son. “Tell me, Ward. Many people besides us have stopped by your place?”
“Oh, mountain men from time to time. Maybe one a month, on average.”
“Any of ’em you know real well? Good friends, like?”
“Nate and Shakespeare are my only real friends. Oh, and Scott Kendall. I forgot about him. He has a cabin seven miles away, but right now he’s in Massachusetts. His wife likes to go back every other year or so to visit their families.”
Jacob was waddling to the log. “Wise woman. Nothing is more important than kin. To me and mine, blood is everything. We stand by one another no matter what. It’s us against the world, and we aim to come out on top.”
“I wouldn’t say the whole world is out to get you—” Simon began.
“You ain’t from the hills,” Jacob said. “You don’t know what life there is like.” He spat into the flowers. “The Coyfields have always been as close as peas in a pod. When one of us needs help, the rest are right there. When one of us is in danger, we take it as if we’re all in danger. When killin’ needs doing, we do it as a family. Why, even when we marry, we almost always marry someone from inside the clan. Mabel, in fact, is my sister.”
Simon was appalled to his core. “You married your own sister? Isn’t that against the law?”
“We don’t take no stock by man’s laws,” Jacob said, offended. “The only laws we obey are the ones we make our own selves. That’s been the Coyfield way for as long as there have been Coyfields, and it will go on being our way till the end of creation.”
Simon glanced at Cole and Jess. “Do you mean to tell me that one of them will be forced to marry Cindy Lou or Mary Beth?”
“Not hardly, mister,” Cole said tes
tily.
Jacob elaborated. “Every now and again we like to bring new blood into the line. To keep it healthy, like when raisin’ cows or some such. Cole has a hankerin’ after a lady who ain’t a Coyfield. And from what I saw, she’ll make a fine addition.”
“He has to go all the way back to Arkansas for his bride?” Simon said, amused. Hadn’t it occurred to the buffoon to ask the woman before the clan left?
Cole rose to his feet. Jacob motioned, but Cole paid him no mind. “Hell no, mister. All I got to do is walk through that door. The woman I’m fixin’ to take for my own is your wife.”
Five
Louisa May Clark was seated on a boulder beside the lake. Her knees were tucked to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, and she was in heaven. To her, the lake was gorgeous, the valley was gorgeous, the Rockies were gorgeous. The air had a tingle to it she had never noticed before. The water was bluer, the trees and grass were greener. The earth was incredibly rich; life itself was incredibly wonderful. It was as if she saw everything through whole new eyes.
Lou wasn’t fooling herself. She knew why she felt so supremely alive. Zachary King had claimed her heart, and somehow, in the bargain, heightened her senses to a level she had never experienced. She was happy and content for the first time since her mother died, and she didn’t want it to end.
But an ominous cloud loomed on her horizon. Just that morning, Winona had asked her for what had to be the fiftieth time what she intended to do with her life. Did she want to go back to St. Louis? Would she rather go to Ohio? Did she have relatives who would put her up? What, exactly, were her plans?
Lou had hedged, as usual. She had no plans other than the one her heart dictated: to marry Stalking Coyote. Beyond that, she really didn’t care. So long as she was with him, where they lived or what they did were of no consequence.
It was ironic, Lou thought. A few short weeks before she had been in misery, crushed by the loss of her father. She had been mad at the unfairness of it all, at having no one left who truly cared for her, at being thrown on her own in the middle of the vast wilderness, at being at the end of her tether with no hope for the future. Then Zach came into her life and everything changed. Just like that. One day she was in deep despair, the next she had met the man she wanted to live with for the rest of her days.
Who would have thought such a thing could happen?
Lou had learned an important lesson. A person’s life could change with the snap of a finger. Nothing was graven in stone. Fortune, romance, life itself, hung by thin threads. People were puppets, and some higher power was pulling the strings that put them in motion. A higher power that, until she met Zach, had seemed to be cruel and fickle. Now she wasn’t so sure.
The same God that had allowed her father to be brutally slain had brought Zach and her together. Was the one act meant to balance out the other? Were both mere happenstance? Random events? Or was there a purpose to all she had gone through? Was her life, as her minister in Ohio liked to say, part of some mysterious Divine Plan?
Lou had no idea. It was all too much for her to fathom. What she did know was that she loved Zach as she had never loved anyone, and the idea of losing him filled her with terror. She didn’t think she could bear it. She would rather die.
If only Zach would come out and voice his feelings. If only he would confirm how he felt and give her some idea of what he wanted to do about it.
Then, as if in answer to her plea, the object of her heartfelt desire appeared at the mouth of the trail to the cabin.
Zach smiled and waved. The sun was high in the sky, well past its apex. Hooking his thumbs in his belt, he sauntered along the rocky shore. Outwardly he put on a show of being calm but butterflies fluttered in his belly and his heart was beating as if he had just run a mile. “Howdy, Louisa. Ma told me I’d find you here.”
Lou lowered her legs. “How did the search go? Find any sign of those men?”
“Some old tracks, is all. Pa went to the pass that links our valley to the one the Wards live in. We found where two riders headed this way about a week ago. Pa figures they’ve been spying on us all that time.”
“Why? What are they up to?”
“Pa doesn’t rightly know. If they were meaning to harm us, you’d think they’d have done so by now.”
“They took a shot at your father,” Lou pointed out.
“Because he was after them.” Zach roosted on a boulder next to hers.
“Maybe if he’d let them be, they wouldn’t have tried to kill him.” He shrugged. “We just don’t know what to make of it. But Pa’s determined to find them and learn what they’re up to.”
Lou gazed at the dense woodland, wondering if the men were watching them that very minute.
“Ma’s worried about the Wards. She thinks Pa and her ought to ride over there and see if they’re all right.”
“Will we be going along?”
“I don’t know yet. I told them we’d keep an eye on our place while they’re gone. Ma doesn’t much like the idea. Pa is straddling the fence. He thinks those polecats might be after our horses, or maybe they’re waiting for a chance to break into the cabin and rob us blind.” Zach snickered. “Not that we have all that much worth stealing. A few guns and plews and clothes. Hardly worth the bother.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying here with you,” Lou said. Zach and she would be alone for the first time since they got there. Truly alone. To do whatever they pleased. Warmth gushed through her at the prospect.
“Pa said he’d let us know at supper. Ma wants to leave in the morning. Felicity and her have gotten real close, and Ma’s fretting something awful.”
“Anything else?”
Zach almost said “No.” But that would be a lie. He had come to the lake for the express purpose of airing his feelings and learning how she felt about the two of them maybe living together. The talk with his father had made him realize it was long overdue. Asking his pa to help build a cabin was putting the cart before the horse. First, he had to find out if she considered him as much a part of her life as he considered her a part of his. But when he glanced around, when he saw her sparkling eyes and smooth cheeks and cherry-red lips, he heard himself say, “Nice day, isn’t it?”
“Nicest ever.”
Zach tore his gaze from her in order to concentrate. “We get a lot of nice days like this up here.”
“My father used to call the mountains God’s footstools. They’re beautiful.”
“Not half as beautiful as you.”
“Thank you.”
“Lou—?”
“Yes?”
Zach gripped the boulder so hard, his knuckles were white. Twisting, he licked his dry lips. “We’ve grown pretty close, haven’t we?”
“You might say that.” Lou could barely hear him for the din her heart was making. Something important was about to happen. She could feel it in her blood. “I’ve never been close to anyone in the way I’ve been close to you.” Having admitted how brazen she had been, she blushed.
Instead of getting to the point, Zach stalled. “Pa used to tell me that one day I’d like kissing girls. I knew better. Girls never interested me. I was never going to kiss one. Never going to marry one. I’d have me a dog and a horse and that was all I’d need.”
“I felt pretty much the same about boys. Only, I was going to have a cat.”
“I did have a dog once. His name was Samson. Lordy, he was big. He could hold his own against panthers and bears. But Apaches killed him on a visit to Santa Fe. I was so sad, I cried and cried.” Zach smiled fondly. “About a year or so later, on an elk hunt with my pa, I stumbled on Blaze, the wolf who saved you and me from that war party when we first met. He was just a cub back then. We were always together until he took to spending more time with his own kind. And I love you.”
Lou was bending to pick up a stone to chuck into the water. “What?” She was not sure she had heard what she thought she had heard.
Zach was aghast at his stu
pidity. He had intended to lead up to it slowly, not spit it out as if it were a sour berry. What must she think? He had to own up to it, come what may. “I love you, Lou. I reckon you already know that.”
Louisa forgot about the stone. Without looking at him, she said, “I love you too, Stalking Coyote.”
Out on the lake waterfowl were making a racket. Ducks quacked and fluttered their wings. Geese honked noisily. In the forest jays squawked, sparrows chirped, and robins twittered. Squirrels were chattering, chipmunks were chittering. One moment, Zach and Lou heard all these sounds with striking clarity; the next their whole world went abruptly silent. It wasn’t that the animals stopped singing or chattering; Zach and Lou simply stopped hearing them.
Lou had ears only for Stalking Coyote. She hung on his next words with bated breath, her fingers trembling ever so slightly.
Zach felt as if a great wind were rushing through his ears. His chest was constricted and his palms were hot enough to fry eggs on. Swallowing hard, he said, “I’m probably being too forward by saying this, but I can’t abide the thought of you leaving us. Ma and Pa keep talking about you going back to the States. I’d rather you didn’t. I’d be right pleased if you’d stay here with us. With me.”
Lou shifted to face him.
“I’m not much to look at and I’m not the smartest coon who ever lived. But I’m not a lazy no-accounts who’d let his woman starve. I know how to provide for a family. I’d make a passable husband.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
Zach’s cheeks were aflame. Yes, he was asking that very thing. Only, he had to say it plain, to come right out with the question. It was on the tip of his tongue. He was that close. And suddenly, beyond her, deep in the depths of the tall trees, a two-legged shape materialized. Zach couldn’t say if it had been there all along and he had just spotted it, or the man had edged into the open for a better look-see. The instant Zach saw him, the man wheeled and ran.
“Damn!”
Lou was shocked when the apple of her desire leaped up and sprinted toward the woods. She had been sure he was about to propose, and she had girded herself to answer. Now she jumped up, exclaiming, “Stalking Coyote? What in tarnation?”
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