Mountain Magic

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "This weather ain't gonna let up," she said. "Looks like it's settled in for a while. We better get on back, if you two are warm enough to ride now."

  "Isn't," Jon murmured. He turned his head toward her when Caitlyn agreeably echoed the word, and his eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you wearing?"

  Caitlyn looked down at her legs, encased in skintight buckskin, and shrugged. "Same thing as you and Silas. Why? Wind starts blowing in the winter, them skirts don't protect a person's legs much."

  "Jesus," Jon muttered as he dragged his eyes away.

  "Don't appreciate you swearing at me," Caitlyn said with a stamp of her moccasin-clad foot.

  "I'll do more than swear at you if you wear those things again. Looks like you outgrew them two years ago!"

  "Well, I like that," Caitlyn fumed, plopping her hands on her hips. "I hadn't been spending all my time sewing up stuff for you and Silas to wear, I might've had time to make me a new pair of britches!"

  Jon clenched his fists and held his neck rigid — so he thought. How the hell, then, did his head swivel back around to stare at her? Her blue eyes sparkled with both firelight and indignation, and snowflakes dotted her raven hair, the white emphasizing the silky blackness. Her hands were splayed on trim hips, one index finger tapping out her irritation on a buckskin-covered thigh.

  He groaned and pulled his uninjured leg under him, managing to gain his feet. When he swayed dangerously and touched his other foot to the ground with a grimace of pain, Caitlyn and Silas both hurried forward.

  "Dang it, boyo," Silas growled. "You keep it up and you're gonna be laid up all winter with that knee."

  "Like hell," Jon gritted through clenched teeth. He shoved Caitlyn away and leaned on Silas. "Go get my horse," he ordered Caitlyn.

  "Yes, sir!" she snapped sarcastically.

  She flounced over to to the horses, her hips twitching beneath the short, wolfskin jacket, and Jon's eyes unerringly following her path. Silas bit off a chuckle, and Jon tore his gaze away to glare down at the shorter man.

  "What's so damn funny?"

  "Nothin', boyo. Nothin' a 'tall."

  ****

  1

  Chapter 11

  "Ungrateful jackanapes," Caitlyn muttered two days later as she stomped out of the cabin, the water bucket dangling from her hand. She slammed the door behind her with a satisfying thunck, then paused to take a deep breath, squinting her eyes in the snowy whiteness reflected by the brilliant sun rays.

  Lordy, lordy, Jon was a danged trying patient. Wouldn't let her help prop his injured knee on a pillow. Wouldn't let her check the bandage. Wouldn't hardly even eat, unless she left his plate on the floor by the new bunk he and Silas had built along the cabin wall and retreated to the far side of the room.

  That first evening, she had broken off a few of the icicles forming beneath the eaves and carried them inside, wrapped in a linen towel. His knee had appeared grossly swollen in the brief glimpse she'd had of it before Jon caught her looking after Silas removed Jon's britches.

  Jon's roar of rage had set the tone for his attitude over the next two days. He'd grabbed the towel-wrapped ice from her hands without even a 'thank you kindly, ma'am,' then slapped it on his knee — after he insisted she turn her back, of course, before he would pull down his blanket!

  He was as snarly as a bear just out of its winter den in the springtime. Well, she'd had all she could take. From the looks of things, it would be another two or three days or so before Jon could even start to limp around, and she danged sure wasn't going to spend that long cooped up with him in that small cabin. Silas could take his turn caring for his partner tomorrow. Caitlyn intended to find something else to do.

  She'd seen a hickory tree the other day on the mountain slope. If the snow kept melting this fast, she might be able to gather the nuts the squirrels had missed.

  A drip of icy water slithered down Caitlyn's neck and she jumped away from the overhanging eaves. The icicle broke loose and fell into the snow with a soft plop, confirming the rising temperatures.

  Snow didn't usually last long in early September. Heck, they should still have at least a week or two of warm, Indian Summer days before the first snowfall that would cover the ground until spring. New snow layers would pile one on top of each other after that, until they had to cut steps up from the cabin door to reach the top. Guess she better take a look at the snowshoes stored under her bed to see if they needed any repairs.

  When she reached the lake, Caitlyn knelt and cracked the thin ice near the shore with the bucket, then dipped out a pail full. Cupping her hand, she scooped up a palm of water and sipped. The cold trickled down her throat, and she repeated the motion several times, until her thirstiness abated. Probably that ache in her throat came from holding back the words to tell Jon just what sort of an ass he was being.

  After she got to her feet, Caitlyn lifted her face to the sun for a second and closed her eyes. Hopefully it would warm up enough for her to at least get a few more baths before winter set in. She didn't really like confronting the frigid water each fall, but it was preferable to carrying a dozen buckets of water up to heat three or four times a week, so she could wash her hair.

  As Caitlyn started to reach for the water bucket, she stopped and frowned at a mark on the ground. A moccasin print. Lots larger than her own feet, too. Silas never came down here to get water — figured that was her job, she guessed. Besides, that print was even larger than Silas would have left.

  That did it. Someone was prowling around here. Probably that animal on the mountain the other day was human, too. Caitlyn gave a sigh of resignation. She wasn't stupid — she knew better than to keep something like this to herself. Whoever it was could be a danger to either her or the men.

  If the man was honorable, he'd have made his presence known, instead of skulking around and trying to hide. She studied the print, but the sun had already begun to melt it, and she didn't see anything distinctive about it. Most men's footprints had something a little different from the next man's — Mick had taught her that. Some leaned one way or the other when they walked. Some were pigeon-toed, some flat-footed. All she could determine from this half-melted print was that the man was large and heavy, probably near Jon's height and weight.

  Caitlyn nervously scanned the area around her. She didn't feel like anyone was watching her, and the horses in the corral didn't appear alert. Nevertheless, she grabbed the water bucket and headed for the cabin. She'd just have to put up with Jon's surliness until Silas got home. She wasn't about to tell Jon about the footprint first. He'd probably try to hobble over in front of the door and plant himself, so she couldn't even go to the outhouse until Silas got home.

  Caitlyn's hand went to her belt, but she hadn't slipped on the skinning knife that morning. And she'd left Dog inside, instead of calling him with her when she went to the lake. Darn that Jon, anyway. It was his fault her thoughts were too muddled to recall the cautions Mick had drilled into her over the years. Instead of remembering the safety rules for survival that morning, her mind had been gearing up to face Jon's unrelenting sullenness over his injured knee.

  Even through her pique at her carelessness, Caitlyn sensed a different atmosphere when she reentered the cabin. She glanced at Jon on her way across the room and saw him sitting up on his bunk, a somewhat less threatening look on his face. He had managed to get his trousers on, though Silas had cut the tight buckskin away from his swollen knee and Caitlyn hadn't yet sewn up the rip.

  "Should've told me you wanted to get dressed," Caitlyn said as she hefted the bucket onto a hook in the fireplace to warm. "I made you another pair of britches, along with a new shirt."

  "Thank you, Caitlyn," Jon said so softly she had to strain for the words. "And thank you for taking care of me the past couple days. I've been pretty much of a bastard, haven't I?"

  Caitlyn swung around in amazement. Was this the same patient she'd left in the bunk a few minutes ago? Had to be. It sure looked like Jon — same blond ha
ir and blue eyes. Shadow of a beard on his face, though it was just a shade darker than his hair and didn't stand out too much.

  "Uh...well, guess you've been in pain," she said. "Some folks don't tolerate pain as well as some others do."

  "I feel like a clumsy fool lately," Jon admitted. "First that knock on the head, then my knee. I'm not used to laying around and not being able to do what I want."

  "You want me to fetch one of them books you've got with you, so you can read?"

  "I've been thinking about the books, but not to read to myself. I seem to recall promising to teach you to read. Since I can't do anything else, I thought maybe this would be a good time to get started."

  "Really?" Caitlyn questioned in awe. "I'd be right proud to give it a try. 'Course, maybe I ain't...I'm not smart enough to learn. I figure reading must take a long time for a person to learn. Paw said people go to school for years and years."

  Jon laughed quietly. "Caitlyn, if anyone can learn to read, you can. You're one of the smartest women I've ever met. And learning to read isn't the reason people go to school for so long. It's all the things they can study and find out about after they do learn to read that keeps them in school."

  Caitlyn preened just a little under Jon's unexpected praise. "Oh. You mean they keep going there so they'll have peace and quiet to read more books?"

  "Sort of. But when a person can read, a whole lot of other areas of study open up to him — arithmetic, history, geography. Philosophy and languages."

  "Well, I know what most of them things are, and I can do arithmetic, 'cause Paw could do it, too, and taught me so we wouldn't be cheated on our furs. But what's this philosophy thing?"

  "I guess the simplest way to explain that is to say it's the study of knowledge down through the years."

  Caitlyn frowned and bit the inside of her cheek as she chewed over that sentence. "I see," she finally said. "If people study what others have studied and learned before them, they don't waste time relearning it all over. Then they have time to learn more new things themselves."

  "Didn't I tell you that you were smart?"

  "Reckon there's plenty of room in my mind to get smarter," Caitlyn said with a smirk of satisfaction. "Let's get to cracking."

  Long hours later, Jon glanced up from the table in surprise. He winced and massaged the small of his back while he looked around to see where Caitlyn had left the lanterns. Evening shadows were crawling through the door Caitlyn had opened to the afternoon sun a while ago, but Caitlyn was still bent over the slate Jon had found at one of the trading tents at rendezvous.

  She had soaked up knowledge like a flower opening to the sun all day, amazing even Jon with her quick capacity to learn. The abc's were a snap, and Jon recalled the wonder on her face when he told her that learning to write went hand in hand with learning to read. She rapidly tired of blocking out her letters and demanded that Jon show her how to do that other pretty writing she had seen in the rare letters some mountain men had to have read to them.

  Now she looked at Jon with her tongue still unconsciously caught between her teeth and held the slate up for him to read.

  "The mountains are beautiful," Jon read. "I love living in the mountains. Caitlyn O'Shaunessy." He leaned back in his chair and carefully stretched out his leg. "Great, Caitlyn. And every word is spelled right."

  Caitlyn's tongue disappeared back into her mouth. "Well, you didn't tell me there was all these other different parts to reading."

  "Like what?" Jon said, though his mind remained on that pink tongue tip, missing it already.

  "Like spelling the words right, too."

  "Think for a minute, Caitlyn. If words weren't spelled the same, how would anyone else read another person's writing? The words have to be spelled consistently to be understood by everyone."

  "Don't make sense sometimes, though," Caitlyn mused. "I got a certain ways to go, it's w-a-y-s. But if I want to know how much a fur weighs, it's w-e-i-g-h-s. Same sounding word, but spelled different."

  "That's because the meanings are different. Think about that for a minute, too."

  "Yeah, I guess," Caitlyn said fairly quickly. "Like too and two."

  "Makes four?" Jon asked.

  "Nope," Caitlyn said in a saucy voice. "Like two for me, and two for me, too, and none for you."

  Jon threw back his head and laughed, his chuckles continuing when he glanced back at Caitlyn. "I think we've studied enough for one day. You're already getting smarter than your teacher. Besides, no sense straining your eyes in this dim light. We ought to light the lanterns."

  Caitlyn jumped to her feet. "Oh, lordy. Look how late it is, and I haven't even started supper. Silas will be starved when he gets back, and nothing ready to eat. Wonder where he is? He's not usually so late."

  Silas stuck his head around the door jamb. "Been here for over an hour," he said. "You two was so busy you didn't even hear me come home. And I already took care of supper. Got a couple rabbits cooking over the fire I built outside here."

  "Good," Caitlyn said. "This learning business sure takes it out of a person. I feel as tired as if I'd spent the day hauling water and washing dirty clothes."

  "Awful pretty sunset out here," Silas said. "Why don't you two come on out and enjoy it with me?"

  "Sure," Jon growled. "Just let me tell my leg to carry me out there."

  Silas came on into the cabin. "I can take care of that, too, boyo. Whittled this out for you today. Let's see if it'll fit."

  Silas held out the sturdy sapling crutch to Jon. It was fairly straight, and he'd wound the rabbit furs around the fork at the top.

  "We'll have to replace them hides with something else tomorrow," Silas said. "I scraped them pretty well, but they ain't tanned. They shouldn't start smelling this soon, tho'."

  "Thanks, Silas," Jon said with a grateful smile. "This will be great. I can probably even get out to the horses and at least be able to ride."

  "Let's don't hurry it none, Jon. I'll fetch one of these chairs outside right now for you to set on."

  Jon fit the crutch under his arm and hobbled outside. He took a deep breath of air and let it out.

  "I feel like I've been cooped up in that cabin for a month instead of just two days. Damn, it feels good to be out here."

  Caitlyn stopped beside him. "Felt like at least a month to me, too," she agreed.

  Jon looked down into the twinkling blueness of her eyes. Her full lips were pursed into a kissable pout, the lower one stuck out just a hair past the upper one. Feathers of black silk surrounded her face, and her long braid hung over her shoulder, draping across one breast. His fingers itched to stroke that hair — maybe something else along with it.

  He caught his breath and resolutely pulled his gaze away, his mind warring with the new-found easiness he and Caitlyn had shared today. Faced with being penned up with her tantalizing presence in the small cabin for days on end, he had snapped at her every chance he got. At least that had made her keep her distance, such as it was in that small confine.

  "I told you I was sorry," he grumbled.

  And he had been. When she disappeared out the door that morning, her back rigid with suppressed anger, he had chastised himself royally. A grown man ought to be able to handle his sexual urges, he'd told himself, without acting like an ungentlemanly asshole. At least, he always had been able to handle them with every other woman — even Roxie. But Caitlyn's closeness had him panting like a stallion in heat.

  Just like right now. "Uh...I thought Silas was bringing me out a chair," Jon said.

  "It's right over there, boyo," Silas said with a gesture of his head. "Set it down there a couple minutes ago. You need some help settin' in it?"

  "I can help him."

  Caitlyn laid a hand on Jon's arms and his muscles tightened in protest. But he managed to shake his head, instead of shaking off her arm, though it took a lot of willpower to ignore the firm fingers and scent drifting up to his nose.

  "I can do it myself," he said firmly. "
I have to learn to manage this crutch."

  "All right." Caitlyn dropped her hand. "I'll follow, just in case you run across a piece of soft ground that won't support your weight."

  "Thanks." Then under his breath, "I think."

  He hobbled over and lowered himself into the chair. Caitlyn, thankfully, walked over to Silas as soon as he was settled. Searching for a different focus for his thoughts, Jon stared up at the sunset-lit sky.

  Fingers of violet, orange and saffron were outlined by scattered clouds. Even as he watched, the colors faded, the spires shortening, following the sun's retreating path. Further down the mountainside, golden aspen were interspersed with emerald pines, and here and there a glowing red-orange maple. The brilliance of the trees also dimmed in the loss of light.

  "Looks like we might get some more snow tonight."

  When no one commented on his observation, Jon glanced over at the fire. Caitlyn and Silas had their heads together, Caitlyn murmuring words he couldn't make out and Silas with a grim look on his face. Silas chomped once, then spit a wad of tobacco into the fire.

  "We gotta discuss this with Jon, too," he said in an undertone. "You know that as well as I do, Cat."

  "I just wanted to wait until you got back first," Caitlyn said. "You know what he's been like since we got here to the cabin. He don't want me around, let alone want to talk to me about anything. He was sort of nice today, but I figured he was just bored without anyone else to take his grumpiness out on."

  "Well, you two seemed pretty cozy when I got in. That's one reason I didn't bother you. It was sort of nice not listening to the two of you spit and sputter at each other."

  Caitlyn shrugged. "He did promise to teach me to read. Guess he remembered, and he wouldn't be much of a mountain man if he didn't keep his word."

  "He's gettin' there, Cat. He'll be a real mountain man yet."

  "What are you two talking about over there?" Jon called in a loud voice. He tried to rise to his feet, but Caitlyn hurried over and shook her head.