"You wouldn't, would you?" she pleaded.
"No," Jon said with a sigh. She was getting to know him too well and it hadn't even been a full day yet. "But I want to know why he thought what he did. Please ask him, Caitlyn."
The please did it. She couldn't deny him when he asked so sweetly. Caitlyn turned to the Indian man and spoke a few words, the blush heightening on her face when he replied.
"Caitlyn," Jon prodded after the Indian man fell silent.
"He...he said only the young and in...in...well, there isn't a word for it in Sioux, but he means in love. He said only those in love enjoy feelings like we share."
"Did you tell him we weren't married?"
"No."
"Tell him."
Caitlyn spoke again and the man replied with a smile on his face, speaking far more words than he had in his previous comments.
Caitlyn knew it wouldn't be any use to try to avoid telling Jon what the Sioux had said, so she took a deep breath.
"He says if we aren't married now, we soon should be," she translated, the thought of lying to Jon never once crossing her mind. "He said we shouldn't ignore what we got — that it's rare to find it and he's only had it once, with his first wife. She died two years ago, and all he's got left now's his twelve-year-old daughter from her. He was remembering his wife when the dog tried to grab the scraps, and he kicked it without thinking. He's sorry now that he did it, and he wants me to have the dog to remind me that lo...love has...has many faces."
"Wonder what he means by that?"
"Jon, boyo! I been lookin' all over rendezvous for you and Cat! What you doin' standin' there talkin' to Reach for the Moon? And look what I found over there. Someone dropped a whole pile of stuff."
Jon groaned and turned toward Silas, disappointed somewhat at the interruption. He heard Caitlyn give a relieved sigh beside him and knew her own feelings were just the opposite.
"That's mine and Caitlyn's stuff," Jon told Silas. "I laid it down while we came over here to get this dog."
"Dog, huh?" Silas mused. "Good idear, Jon, my boyo. We can build a sled an' the dog can help us haul in the furs this winter when the snow's too deep for our horses. Soon's that there dog grows a bit, that is."
Silas knelt and reached out a hand to the dog, but it curled itself against Caitlyn's leg and drew back its lips. When Jon dropped down and held his hand out, the dog actually snapped at it.
"Now, look here, damn it...!"
"Leave him alone, Jon," Caitlyn said as she joined them on the ground and wrapped her arms around the dog. It stuck out its tongue and gave her a slurpy lick on the face.
"You be careful of that animal, Caitlyn," Jon growled. "Maybe we should give it back."
"You already promised you wouldn't, Jon," Caitlyn said as she rose to her feet and took a firm grip on the rope.
The dog cast a worshipful glance at her and lifted a paw. As Caitlyn gripped the dog's paw, then patted it on the head, Silas walked over and clapped Reach for the Moon on the back.
"What you been up to, you old varmit?" he asked in English.
"Same as always," the Sioux replied quietly in the same language, his voice pitched too low to reach Caitlyn and Jon. "You know, fussing and fighting with my daughter. Searching for another woman just maybe half as good as Spring Breeze. Thought I might have found one for a second." He cast a sly glance at Caitlyn. "Just like always, though, the one's worth anything are already taken."
"'Pears that way, don't it?" Silas agreed.
"We need to talk, Swift Feet," Reach for the Moon said even more softly. "Come. We will smoke in my wigwam."
They both glanced over to see Caitlyn and Jon wandering away, the dog happily trotting at Caitlyn's side and Jon's arms again filled.
"Reckon we might's well," Silas said with a snicker. "Those two don't look like they'd 'preciate any company right now." Silas stepped aside and allowed Reach for the Moon to enter the wigwam first, since it was the Indian man's house, ducking to follow him inside.
They settled on each side of the smoldering fire and Reach for the Moon lit an long-stemmed pipe with an ember from the fire. He puffed until the makings in the pipe glowed, then blew smoke in each of the four directions before handing the pipe to Silas.
Silas's eyes narrowed as he realized the Indian man had gone through the more formal ceremony of appeasing the spirits, rather than just the normal lighting of the pipe and smoking between old friends. Blowing the smoke to the four winds meant Reach for the Moon had something mighty important to discuss, but Silas held his tongue while he took his own puff from the pipe, politely waiting until the Sioux opened the conversation.
They passed the pipe back and forth two more times before Reach for the Moon spoke.
"There is one here who seeks someone else, a woman he is searching for. It is not our way, or the way of the white mountain men, to seek information on another's past. This man acts like his questions have no reason, yet different ears think this is not so."
"What sort of feller is this man?" Silas asked.
"He is one who speaks from two sides of his mouth. He wears clothes like yours, chews and spits his tobacco instead of smoking it. He drinks the whiskey, but pays for it in coin, not furs. He eats what we do, but uses not his knife and fingers. He has a strange thing with prongs that he carries his food to his mouth with after he cuts it."
"Sounds like some sort of fancy pants easterner."
"He speaks that different way sometimes. But other times, when he drinks, he sounds like the one the grizzly bear killed in the last season of the shining leaves — Mad Mick."
"Irish, huh? Ol' Mick was Irish. Well, there's a couple Irish clerks with the British companies at rendezvous. Couldn't really stop the British comin' down from Canada when they found out what ol' Ashley had it in his mind to do, and helps keep the prices down a little bit, them competin' with the Americans. Ol' Mick wasn't the only Irish mountain man out here, neither. But why's it matter to this other feller whether people thinks he's Irish or American?"
"It should not," Reach for the Moon agreed. "Unless his reason for being among us is to do with where he comes from. If he thinks to seem American, not Irish, places more secret about him. But even the white mountain men know our ways — that it is not done — to ask what a man has been before. Or a woman."
"What's his name? And has anyone figured out who the woman he's lookin' for is?"
"He answers to William Hogan, not Bill, as a mountain man would call himself. He likes to talk of the Blackfeet and how fierce they are — how they are a tribe that will never lay down their weapons for even long enough to trade with the whites a month in the summer. Many times he repeats a story to different people of an attack the Blackfeet made on a post far north of here — how the people were tortured to death. And that he has heard there was a small child there, whose body was never found."
"Cat," Silas said angrily. "He's lookin' for Cat. What the hell's he want with her?"
"A man such as this Hogan could not have something honorable in mind," Reach for the Moon said. "Or he would be truthful about his reasons for seeking her."
The Sioux knocked the pipe against a stone ringing the fire, dislodging the tobacco ashes. "The one called Mad Mick saved my daughter's life many summers ago," he said. "She wandered from the wigwam and found a puma's den. The young ones were to her playthings, but the mother returned. The shot Mick made across the valley did not seem thinkable, yet it killed the puma. I would protect the daughter Mick loved, as he did mine."
Silas nodded his head and stood. "I understand. And Ol' Mick was a good pard to me, too. I spent a few Christmases with them, when Cat was younger."
"You should not seek this man out here, Swift Feet. If he does not find Mick's daughter, perhaps he will leave."
"Yeah, no sense causin' a ruckus at rendezvous. Somebody's liable to get hurt. I think we better get our tradin' done and head on back into the mountains before this here rendezvous's over. We can get an early s
tart on scoutin' out where we want our lines to run. Seems a shame to miss all the fun, but there'll be another rendezvous next year."
"You take her with you, then?"
"Yep. Maybe we'll head up to Mick's old cabin. Since he didn't trap there last year, should be good pickin's. And Cat said somethin' herself 'bout wishin' she could go back there."
Silas paused at the flap in the wigwam. "Thanks, Reach for the Moon. I wish you favorable winds for huntin' and warm moccasins in the winter."
"You are welcome to share my cooking pot when you like, Swift Feet. That is," he added with a laugh, "if you are not afraid my daughter's food will sit hard on your stomach. She is not the cook her mother was."
"You'll find someone to replace Spring Breeze some day, ol' pard. Well, maybe not replace her, but you're too good a man for these women to let run loose for long. Bet you're beatin' them off with a stick at times."
"It is my daughter who carries the stick," Reach for the Moon said, a wry twist to his mouth. "She does not feel the coldness of the blankets at night yet."
"'Round twelve, ain't she, if I 'member right. She looks anythin' like her ma, you're gonna need more than your own stick soon. Probably a club, or more likely that there buff'ler gun you skinned me out of a while back."
Reach for the Moon threw back his head and laughed. "You should not try to show how you earned your name with a belly full of whiskey, Swift Feet. Or perhaps it takes a pack of howling Blackfeet at your heels to make your feet fly."
Silas scratched his beard and chuckled. "Don't reckon I wanna find out which one it is," he admitted. "You take care of yourself 'til we run across one another again."
"And you, my friend."
****
Chapter 7
"Where's Cat?" Silas demanded.
Jon lowered his tin cup. One more draught of doctored whiskey would surely dull his senses enough to search out some feminine companionship — physical, naturally. Drinking first always worked back in Richmond, and it was getting close enough to dark that the women should be open for business — not that daylight really seemed to matter, from what he'd seen so far of rendezvous.
"She's back at camp," he told Silas. "I left her sorting through all that stuff she got this morning and told her that she better not step one foot away from our lean-to."
"Gol'damn it, Jon! Sometimes I swear your brains have all leaked down into your big toe! Come on!"
One of the pack mules tethered near camp let out a bray and the dog stood up with a growl, eyes trained on the brush and hackles on his neck erect. Caitlyn sprang to her feet, the wicked-looking knife Jon had won from Tall Man in her hand. She curled her other fingers around the whet stone.
"Who's there?" she demanded.
The rustling in the brush escalated, followed by a thud and a grunt of pain — a human grunt. Someone spat an angry oath and a dull thunk sounded. A second later, footsteps pounded away from the campsite, branches crackling and bush tops quivering along the path whoever was running away took.
But she still wasn't alone. The dog remained at her side, lips drawn back in a snarl and nose quivering. Mick had taught Caitlyn to do the same — use not only her ears and eyes, but also her nose, as the dog was doing, to protect herself from danger. Always alert, he counseled, even when enjoying yourself. And she had seen that man in the vicinity of too many wigwams when she had stopped to examine the trade goods.
Caitlyn lifted the knife and clenched her fingers tighter as she sniffed the air. Tanned leather and smoke could mean the man was either white or Indian. Bear grease probably meant the latter, since usually only Indians used it on their hair. The man she had seen was white.
"Come on out of there and show yourself, or else get the hell away from here like that other one did," she snarled in an attempt to cover up her fright. "This knife'll gut a human just as easy as an animal!"
The brush didn't even rustle this time as the tall, well-proportioned young Indian warrior stepped into camp. A wry smile quirked lips set in a darkly handsome face, and he slipped his tomahawk into the leather band holding his loincloth against a flat stomach. Instead of leaping at the warrior, the dog wagged its tail and walked over to curl up by the fire.
"I am not so foolish that I would match weapons against you, Little Wind. Even my tongue is no match for yours."
"Spirit Eagle! What are you doing here?" Caitlyn dropped the knife to her side and and hurried over to the warrior. "Tall Man's here. If he finds out you're at rendezvous...."
"No one else has seen me, Little Wind. I only came because I heard of your father's death. I felt a need to tell you how my heart bleeds for you and see for myself that you are all right. But the one in the brush there, he did not have concern for you in his heart."
"Who was it? Did you know him? There's been a man following me. I guess it was me, anyway. Thought it might be Jon that he was interested in at first, but since he showed up here when I was alone, I figure that settles it."
"I did not know him. He is not a man who has been among us before. And he would not have been any longer, had not my tomahawk brushed a dead limb when I raised it. He was a white man, and he had strength in his body and evil in his eyes."
"You're hurt. Sit down and let me put a cold cloth on that bruise on your face."
"I cannot stay, Little Wind."
"Just for another second. Sit."
Caitlyn tucked the whetstone into the dress pocket and took Spirit Eagle's arm to lead him over to the dead log. She pushed against his broad, bare chest, and Spirit Eagle gave a sigh and sat. After laying the knife beside him, Caitlyn grabbed the bath sheet she had washed out earlier and hung on a nearby limb to dry. She carried it over to one of the water buckets and dunked it in.
"This ain't...isn't as cold as it was when Jon brought it in a while ago," Caitlyn said as she folded the wet corner of the bath sheet and held it against Spirit Eagle's face. "But maybe it'll help the swelling. Any of your teeth feel loose?"
"No. His blow glanced off."
"Left a darned deep bruise for glancing off. Color skin you got, it takes a mighty powerful punch from a man's fist to leave a bruise this dark."
"It was not his fist. He kicked, and he wore white man's boots."
"Kicked?" Caitlyn held the cloth in place and shook her head. "Dirty fighter, huh?"
"You must be careful of this one, Little Wind, if indeed it was you he was after and not just an unprotected woman to vent his lust on. How is it you come to be here alone?"
Caitlyn bristled and dropped her hand from the bath sheet. It fell on Spirit Eagle's shoulder and he left it lay as he watched Caitlyn prop her hands on her hips and glare at him.
"I can take care of myself! Darn it, I can ride just as well as you and throw a knife better! I haven't shot a rifle since Paw died — that awful grizzly broke his — but I'm just as good a shot as he was!"
"Sometimes evil cannot be fought with weapons, Little Wind," Spirit Eagle told her as he rose from the log. "You...."
Spirit Eagle's head came up and he stared over Caitlyn's head. "Someone comes. I must go."
"Wait!" Caitlyn grabbed his arm. "Don't leave mad at me. We've been friends too long. I'm sorry I mouthed off like that."
Spirit Eagle stroked her cheek tenderly and his brown eyes softened. "We will always be friends, Little Wind. We have fought with our tongues before."
"Yeah, and more than that at times," Caitlyn said with a small laugh. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek just as two figures topped the rise beyond the campsite. "You take care of that there bruise, and the rest of yourself, too."
Spirit Eagle wrapped the bath sheet around Caitlyn's neck and gave her a brief hug. He silently melded into the brush, but Jon's charge down the rise toward the camp was anything but quiet and the dog leapt up again, barking furiously.
"Oh, lordy, now what?" Caitlyn grabbed the rope and raced over to loop it around the dog's neck. She gripped the rope tightly as she unconsciously braced herself for another c
onfrontation with Jon.
Jon passed Caitlyn with a roar of rage and barely a glance. The look, though, however brief, fired Caitlyn's anger and Silas skidded to a stop, raising his hand in an attempted peaceful gesture when she turned on him.
"Whoa, Cat. Man wouldn't need a flint to start a fire right now. All he'd have to do is hold a piece of kindlin' in front of your eyes."
"What the hell're the two of you doin', bustin' in here like somethin's on fire!? Scarin' off my friend! Hush now!" Caitlyn dropped a hand to the dog's head and the animal immediately quieted and curled at her feet.
"Hell, Cat, I tried to stop Jon when I saw it was Spirit Eagle with you. Was like tryin' to stop a wounded buff'ler bull. Guess it was partly my fault for lambastin' Jon for leavin' you alone all the way back here."
"Serves both of you right, you was worried a bit. Going off to enjoy yourselves and 'specting me to stay here and do all the work. Be another year before I get a chance to see anyone except you two, and you promised I could go see Sky Woman again."
Silas sat down on the upturned log and shook his head. "She's gone, Cat. Her and Tall Man both. Seems funny, 'cause all the rest of the Nez Perce are still here. Cat, was there anyone else came by here while we was gone?"
Caitlyn stared at him for a brief second, then shuttered her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. "No one I saw," she said truthfully.
Silas's face told her that he didn't really believe her, but Caitlyn bit back any further explanation. Lordy, they were already smothering her. What if she told them about the man following her — probably the same one Spirit Eagle ran off? They'd even start escorting her to relieve herself. And she'd be darned if she hung her bare backside over a log while Jon stood nearby!
"I couldn't find him," Jon said angrily as he strode over to Caitlyn. "Who the hell was he? And what the hell are you doing, entertaining men here in camp while we're gone?"
Caitlyn's head snapped up and she faced him defiantly. "He was a friend of mine, and you darned sure wouldn't've been able to find him, he didn't want to be found! You got a long ways to go before you can track a man smart as him!"
Mountain Magic Page 8
