Wild and Free

by Vella Munn

  Dean was staring up at her. “Such as?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, really.” Calley shrugged. “I mean, when you were five, could anyone look at you and say you were going to spend your life trying to save grizzly bears or walk through a deserted Indian village in Alaska?”

  “Probably not,” Dean said softly. “I don’t imagine your parents had any inkling that you’d be out here, either.”

  Calley laughed. In her mind’s eye was the picture of a small child skipping beside her father as he walked from the house to the barn before dawn on Thanksgiving Day. In the house her mother and grandmother and two aunts were stuffing the turkey and baking pies, but even at that age Calley would rather be outside helping her father feed cattle than watching the activities in the kitchen. “Oh, I think my father had a pretty good idea that they’d never turn me into a farm wife.”

  “What about another kind of wife?”

  Even though it was personal, Calley didn’t shy away from Dean’s question. He never pushed her further or faster than she wanted to go when it came to opening up about herself. As a consequence, she knew she could speak around him and not wind up revealing more than she had intended to. “That hasn’t happened yet. Maybe someday.”

  “It’ll happen, Calley. You’re a beautiful young woman.”

  Calley had been called beautiful before, but the word had never taken on that special meaning. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she said softly. “Even with women’s lib, a woman’s chances on the marriage market are still tied to her looks.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No.” Calley sat back down beside Dean. She felt philosophical and hoped he wouldn’t mind her mood. “You didn’t say anything wrong. I was just making an observation on our society. A woman has to be attractive, and a man has to have money before they can call the shots. Or at least that’s the message we’re given. I just wish—I guess I wish we weren’t so obsessed with the externals or material wealth.”

  “More like the Eskimos. Women with strong teeth for chewing hide were the prized ones.”

  Calley laughed and bared her teeth. “Given that criteria, I should have a half-dozen whale hunters vying for my hand. No cavities.”

  Dean took her hand for the second time since they’d come into camp. “You’ll get married when you’re ready to, Calley. You don’t need to be Mrs. anyone to give your life definition. You’re capable of doing that on your own.”

  “Thank you.” Calley rested her head on Dean’s shoulder. She could smell baking bread and wood smoke and pine. She could tell Dean that she appreciated his vote of confidence. “I think I got that from my father. He shaped me in so many ways. He always told me I could be whoever and whatever I wanted. He said the only limits were the ones I placed on myself.”

  “Your father’s a wise man.” Dean turned his head so that his lips were touching her hair. “I’d like to meet him someday.”

  “He’d like you.”

  Calley hadn’t changed her mind by the next morning. They’d spent the most relaxed evening since they’d met talking about everything and nothing, working in tandem to fix the rest of dinner and prepare for the next day’s activities. Although once again Dean spent the night in his own tent, Calley didn’t feel as if he’d left her. He’d awakened her once during the night with another nightmare, but by now Calley understood that it was one part of himself he wasn’t ready to share with her.

  Today they were traveling together. Yesterday they’d come across fresh bear droppings and had hopes that this bear wasn’t the same one they’d tranquilized. An hour out of camp, Dean touched Calley’s shoulder and cocked his head at an eagle perched high overhead. Although she couldn’t see them, Calley could hear smaller birds calling a warning to each other. “It sounds like a zoo around here,” Calley said. “I love watching when the smaller birds gang up on one of the big ones. If there’s enough of them, they can get an eagle on the run. I talked to a hunting guide once. He agreed that the woods feel different when there’s a bear in it.”

  “Nothing else moves.”

  Calley acknowledged a shiver running down her spine. It wasn’t that she was afraid; rather, something in Dean’s tone had touched deep-running nerves. “The forest is silent,” she continued. “There’s a sense. A presence.”

  “There is for those who know how to listen to it,” Dean said as they started moving again. “Too many people go into the woods with no idea what they’re doing.”

  “That’s when Search and Rescue gets called into service.” Calley laughed before telling Dean about a group of Boy Scouts who’d become lost on the fringes of her parents’ ranch. It took two dozen volunteers and a helicopter to locate the boys and their embarrassed scoutmaster huddled in a cabin used by ranchers during roundups. “They could have followed one of the fence lines for a couple of miles to a telephone, but one of the boys had broken his leg, and the scoutmaster was afraid to leave him alone with the other kids long enough to go for help. That little outing of theirs wound up costing thousands. I don’t know who paid the bill for that one.”

  “Sometimes it can’t be helped. There are times when the best woodsman needs help.”

  “I know that,” Calley said seriously. “I’m just saying that this poor guy had almost no survival training. They’re just lucky they weren’t far from civilization.”

  Dean acknowledged her logic with a grunt but didn’t pick up the threads of the conversation. Calley guessed that he was lost in thoughts of his own. She didn’t attempt to break through those thoughts with unnecessary conversation. A few minutes later they topped a rise and reached for their binoculars. Ahead of them stretched several miles of high valley land. Only a few snags from an old forest fire remained of what had once been a lush timber stand, but already new growth carpeted the ground. Calley was pleased to see a large number of seedlings reaching for sunlight.

  Through the powerful binoculars Calley made out a couple of grazing deer and a movement close to the ground that was probably some kind of rodent. When Dean pointed at a spot to her left about a half mile away, Calley zeroed in on the unmistakable shape of a lean, long-limbed coyote.

  “I don’t think she’s alone,” Calley whispered a minute later. “Look behind her in the bushes.”

  Dean grunted. “Pups. I can’t tell if she has two or three.”

  “Three. They look about half grown. Dean, take a close look at them. I don’t think the pups are full-blooded.”

  “You’re right.” Dean inched closer to Calley, his voice low. “They’re darker than the female, and their hind quarters are too solid to be pure wolf.”

  It was Calley’s turn to grunt. “Something tells me a dog got to her. What do you think? German shepherd?”

  “Probably,” Dean observed. “I was just thinking it’s a good thing the dog was the male. Can you imagine what the owner’s reaction would have been if his bitch had given birth to a litter of half coyotes?”

  Calley shared an amused glance with Dean. “That happened more than once when I was growing up. Of course, as kids we thought it was pretty neat to have a half coyote for a pet. One of our dogs even had a litter that looked suspiciously wolflike. The pups were pretty aggressive.”

  “What happened to them?” Dean asked.

  Calley shrugged her shoulders. “That was one of those things my father never talked about. One day the pups were around, and the next they’d disappeared.”

  “So much for the romance of farm life.” When their eyes touched this time, they stayed locked. “Farm kids grow up fast, don’t they?”

  Calley continued to look deep into Dean’s eyes. When she was little, death on a ranch upset her, but as she grew older, she came to understand and accept what had to be. “In the ways that count, I think they do,” she said softly. “We might not know about the fads that consume city kids, but I think we grow up with a better understanding of life’s greater plan. I admit I floundered for a while when I was at college. I had no idea t
hat most of my classmates viewed college as a place to come for parties, dates, that sort of thing. Oh, yes, I did some of that, but it really didn’t interest me. I guess—” Calley smiled. “I guess I escaped the early indoctrination they went through. I was too set in my ways when the temptation came.”

  “I’m glad you were.” Dean forced himself to concentrate on the view through his binoculars, but his mind stayed with the young woman kneeling beside him. There was nothing artificial about Calley. No part of her that would choose a comfortable city existence over what she was doing now. She was, he knew, a great deal like Waina. And yet she wasn’t.

  “Dean!” Calley hissed. “Look at the coyote. She’s stalking the deer, isn’t she?”

  “She’s giving it a shot.” Without giving himself time to think about it, Dean slid his arm around Calley’s shoulder.

  If they were going to see one of nature’s harshest lessons, he wanted to give her something of himself to fall back on. He didn’t care that she’d seen her share of deaths on the ranch. He didn’t care that she didn’t need him protecting her. “There must be a fawn somewhere,” he whispered against her hair. “No coyote’s going to take on a healthy full-grown deer.”

  “Scavengers. Opportunists.” Calley’s whisper seemed muffled. It wasn’t until Dean tore his gaze from the coyote’s slow glide through the brush that he realized Calley had rested her head on his shoulder. But she wasn’t burying her face in his neck. She was watching the drama taking place below them.

  “That sounds like a rancher’s daughter,” Dean said with what self-control remained. He should have learned his lesson the night of the storm. Touching Calley wasn’t a wise thing to do.

  “I don’t hate them. They have their place in nature’s plan. Dean, I think the big doe there has spotted the coyote.”

  Dean agreed. The doe had been feeding a few minutes ago, but now her head was up, legs spread. Her tail twitched an alarm, but she didn’t back off as the determined coyote inched closer. Only one thing would keep the doe from taking flight to save her life. “Where’s the fawn?”

  Calley shrugged but didn’t answer. As long as the fawn remained motionless, even the most powerful binoculars wouldn’t locate the well-camouflaged youngster. “That’s a big doe,” Calley whispered instead. “Did you see the scars on her? She’s been through her share of battles.”

  Damn! Dean didn’t want Calley to see death today. But she wouldn’t be out here if she needed protection from such things. “The fawn must be pretty young, or maybe it’s injured,” Dean speculated. “I don’t know why it isn’t up and running.”

  It didn’t have to. In the end it was the doe who put an end to the distant drama. As Dean and Calley watched, the coyote continued its slow glide through the brush. Occasionally it turned its head toward the doe, but it was clear that its destination was a clump of tall grasses close to where the doe had been feeding. The doe lowered her head in order to follow the coyote’s movements and backed off, her tail twitching furiously.

  The three half-grown mixed-breed pups slunk along behind their mother, adding to what the doe had to keep her eyes on. When the coyote was within a dozen yards of the tall grass, the doe pawed at the ground, obviously highly agitated. Then, with a violent shake of the head, the gentle, graceful, soft-eyed creature charged the coyote. The hunter-turned-hunted whirled, teeth bared, muscled body hugging the ground as it backed off. Dean heard Calley suck in a startled breath of air, but there wasn’t time for him to take his eyes off the action.

  The first time she charged, the doe stopped short of the coyote, but when the doglike creature stopped running, the doe backed off a few feet and then charged again. This time the coyote turned tail completely, its body propelled by churning legs. Although the doe was intent on the adult predator, the three cubs tore off in opposite directions.

  “Look. Dean, there’s the fawn!” As Calley pointed, Dean saw the newborn spring to its spindly legs and stare after its mother. From its unsteady stance, Dean guessed that the fawn probably had been born that morning.

  “That’s one for the good guys,” Dean said with a laugh. “There’s nothing like a little mother instinct to even the odds.”

  “I’m just glad it was a coyote and not a wolf pack,” Calley breathed. “Stay where you are, little fellow. Mama will be back for you.”

  Although the large mule doe was obviously still agitated, she soon returned to her fawn and started licking it, all the while keeping an eye on the direction in which the coyotes had fled. “That would have been one for the camera,” Dean observed. “Too bad they were so far away.” He gave Calley a brief squeeze and with that motion remembered that his arm had been around her the entire time. He should let her go. There was no longer anything he needed to cushion her against. But she was warming his side, stirring something familiar deep inside him. He wondered if she felt the same thing.

  Slowly Calley rose to her feet. She looked down at Dean, her binoculars dangling from her fingers. Her mouth had softened; Dean wondered if she had anything but him on her mind. Finally, she licked her lips. “We have a long way to go.”

  “I know.” That should have been his line. As they started down the slope that would take them across the burned area, Dean struggled to regain his equilibrium. There was electricity in her; they could both be burned.

  There was no way he could tell himself that spending much more time alone in the wilderness with Calley wasn’t dangerous. From now on he would have to be on guard against himself. There were men, he knew, who would have already explored the limits of their relationship, and a few years ago he might have done the same. But Waina had taught him so much about patience.

  She was no longer part of his life, but her lessons remained. She’d said it only once, while they were waiting for their first glimpse of a polar bear on an ice-choked sea. “You must learn to wait, Dean. You grew up in a society that takes life fast. But there’s another pace. A pace that has meant survival for generations of my people.”

  Dean was a different person now that Waina had touched his life. He no longer needed to take life fast. If something was growing between him and Calley, it would come in its own time.

  The next three hours paled in comparison to the drama earlier, but Calley didn’t mind. She’d never worried for the doe’s safety, but her relief at seeing that the newborn wouldn’t be sacrificed to feed the half-grown half-breeds played over and over in her mind. Everything, she believed, deserved a chance at life. They might not succeed, but no one should be snuffed out without first experiencing that precious quality. She wondered if Dean had been aware of how tightly he’d held her while the doe was protecting her fawn and whether that contact would take them back to the place they’d been the night of the storm.

  Calley didn’t regret their kiss that night, nor did she regret his touching her a few hours ago. She’d learned some cruel lessons about the substance of love through Mike, but that didn’t mean she’d been so deeply wounded that she never wanted to love again. What she had learned was that the next time she would not go into anything blind.

  Trail mix, a combination of nuts and raisins, and a couple of apples constituted lunch. They changed direction from north to northeast, opting for a more rolling terrain after the steep mountains they’d climbed earlier. Calley let Dean break trail. For the most part she kept her eyes on the country to her left and right, but occasionally they caught on the strong outline of his back, and her ears blocked out the sounds of birds so she could listen to his easy breathing. She was thinking about his slightly bowed legs when Dean abruptly stopped. Calley flattened her hand against his back to stop herself from running into him.

  He turned toward her, eyes flashing a warning. Calley rocked back on her heels and cocked her head to one side, listening.

  Nothing.

  She heard nothing. And that wasn’t right.

  Her mouth formed the question, but Calley was too wise to speak. Dean’s nostrils flared, and for a half second Call
ey saw something in his eyes that tore through her senses.

  Fear. Dean was afraid of something out there.

  Chapter Five

  The forest was quiet. Too quiet. It seemed to Calley that a moment ago the air had been alive with the sound of birds, but maybe her mind had been on Dean longer than she thought it had. There was an eerie quality to the faint hum of the wind in the evergreens; Calley’s spine prickled in response.

  Grizzly. Nothing else could bring the wilderness to its knees.

  Where? Calley mouthed. Dean shook his head. She lowered her gaze to his hands; they were knotted into white-knuckled fists. A veil now covered the emotion that had been in his eyes a minute before, but his hands still gave him away. The tranquilizing gun slung over his shoulder was not nearly powerful enough or fast acting enough to stop a grizzly at close range. Calley had known that even before she ventured into the Flathead country, but still the stark reality of their vulnerability shook her. They were in heavy brush, which meant a determined grizzly could be upon them before they knew it.

  Dean pointed toward an ancient evergreen with a top seeming to touch the sky. Calley understood. While Dean waited, she scrambled into the lower branches and started to hoist herself higher. Below, she could hear Dean’s breathing. A few minutes ago it was slow and regular; now it was being triggered by an emotion he might be able to control but not conquer. The sound was almost a twin of the one he made during his nightmares. She had to fight against fear herself; his emotion was almost strong enough to suck her into it with him.

  Calley didn’t stop climbing until she was close to a hundred feet into the tree. She settled herself on a branch, wrapped her arms around the trunk and leaned to one side for a better view of their surroundings. When Dean joined her, she brought her binoculars to her eyes and scanned what she could of the thick underbrush. The forest was still too quiet, their breathing muffling the sound of the wind.