Mountain Magic

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  The nightmare had never intruded in the daylight — only in the darkest night. But now she heard the baby whimper again, upset by the tension he sensed in the woman who held him. The mother's worried shush — the whimpers growing louder.

  Caitlyn clapped her hands over her ears and gazed frenziedly around her, seeing things now that she had buried in her mind years ago. Painted faces and bronze bodies, mouths opened in shrieked shouts of triumph and blood- stained hatchets and war clubs raised high in their hands. Agonized screams echoed in her head.

  Before Jon could react, she ran for the pine tree and dove underneath. She wrapped her arms around her head and buried her face on her knees. Still the screams echoed, and now the baby screeched, an ear-splitting sound that tore at her heart.

  She had to go to him!

  But the pine branches shivered overhead. Someone was there! Caitlyn dove for deeper shelter. Arms captured her legs and dragged her backwards.

  "No!" She twisted and fought, terror crowding her mind and her own screams joining the echoes in her mind. Behind her closed eyelids, pictures flashed. A long stream of black hair, blood dripping down the bronze arm that held it high overhead. The crumpled woman's body, arms still outstretched for the baby torn from her grasp.

  The smashing sound that preceded the baby's shrieks being cut off abruptly.

  "No." Caitlyn's voice fell to a whimper. A heavy body covered hers now and she gave up fighting. "No," she whimpered again, shaking her head in the pine needles. Then a welcome blackness stole over her and she drifted gratefully into it, lying as still as death.

  Jon rose over her. "Caitlyn?" She lay with arms outflung, her fingers curled into a grasping reach. But her head was pillowed on her shoulder and her eyes closed.

  Frantically Jon grabbed her and shook her. "Caitlyn! Damn it, wake up!"

  Her arms flopped uselessly and her head wobbled on her slender neck. Almost flinging her back down, Jon ripped open her jacket and laid his ear on her chest. His own loud gasps for breath were all he could hear.

  "Caitlyn!"

  Sobbing with frustration, Jon pushed up her jacket sleeve and held his fingers on her pulse. A steady beat feathered against his touch, but Caitlyn never moved.

  Gathering her into his arms, Jon ducked out of pine branches and carried her to the fire. Her head lolled against him, her arms and legs hanging from her body as though she were entirely paralyzed and had no control over them. He hesitated, undecided whether to try to bring her back to consciousness here or take her to the cabin.

  She could lie on the sled with Little Sun, but Dog would never be able to pull the sled with the extra weight. Or, could he?

  If Dog couldn't, he didn't have any way to attach the sled to one of the horses.

  The hell with it. He'd pull that damned sled himself!

  Little Sun barely woke as Jon ordered Dog to move, laid Caitlyn beside the boy, then rearranged the furs covering them both. He quickly scooped snow over the fire to smother it, then tied the horses' lead ropes to the back of the sled.

  For a long moment, Jon stared down at Caitlyn's still figure, hands clenched at his sides and his lips moving soundlessly. Finally he grabbed the harness and slipped it over his shoulders, moving off back down the trail they had broken that morning.

  Barely halfway back to the cabin, the damned snow began falling. Jon ignored it at first, concentrating on the trail before him, counting off each travelled foot in his mind and judging how far yet he had to go. Periodically he stopped and checked to make sure Caitlyn and Little Sun were still covered — usually at the top of each particularly high rise, so he could also ease his straining muscles.

  He pulled up gasping finally, wishing like hell there was some way to have either Dog or one of the horses share the load. Either he or Caitlyn always climbed down and pushed when Dog had an especially hard pull to make. He lifted his bowed head, at last realizing just how thick the falling snow had become.

  Shrugging the harness off, Jon plowed through a drift beside the trail and checked Caitlyn and Little Sun. Caitlyn lay in the same position — eyes closed and the rise and fall of her chest nearly imperceptible.

  But Little Sun opened his eyes and pulled his arms free of the covering robe.

  "Up!" he said with a chortle.

  "No, son," Jon murmured. "You have to ride back here for now."

  Little Sun stuck out his bottom lip in a protesting pout, but he obeyed the pressure of Jon's hands when Jon tucked his arms back into the warmth. Glancing overhead, Jon pulled the buffalo skin up to cover both his passengers' heads. When he straightened, he reached around to massage his aching back for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and waded through the snow toward the harness.

  After a while, no matter how hard he squinted, Jon had problems following the trail. More and more often he stumbled into a high drift, and spent precious seconds finding the path again. But it couldn't be much farther. By his reckoning of passing time, the cabin should be less than a half-mile ahead.

  Dog appeared out of the snow and grabbed at Jon's leg with his teeth.

  "Get away," Jon said wearily. "Get."

  Dog trotted off a few steps, and Jon bent into the harness. The dog leapt forward again and grabbed his leg.

  "Damn it, Dog...."

  Dog trotted away, at an angle to the direction Jon had been heading. As soon as Jon took another step, Dog raced back and blocked the trail.

  "Move, Dog!" Jon ordered.

  Dog cocked his head away from Jon and whined.

  "What the hell is it?" Suddenly Jon realized he'd been breaking new trail for the last hundred feet. Somehow he had lost the path again. Dog was trying to get that through his head.

  "All right, boy," Jon said. "We'll go your way."

  Dog headed out again, but he stayed within Jon's sight. Almost at once the trail became easier as Jon walked along their previous path. A short while later, a large shadow loomed out of the swirling whiteness and Jon knew they had found the cabin. If not for that darned dog that Caitlyn loved to distraction....

  He shoved open the door and hauled the sled right up to the opening. There was still a measure of warmth left in the cabin, and he hastened to carry both Caitlyn and Little Sun inside, so he could shut the door and rebuild the fire. The horses could wait a few minutes, but he made sure Dog came in.

  Caitlyn lay unstirring on Jon's bunk, but when Jon closed the door, Little Sun sat up in his crib. He stood and grabbed the side, rocking it back and forth. Jon hurried over and pushed him back down, shaking a warning finger at him.

  "You stay there a minute until I get the fire going, Little Sun."

  The little lip came out again, but the boy sat still.

  Jon went to the fireplace and raked back the covering of ashes he had used to bank the fire that morning. Quickly he added small pieces of kindling, then a few larger ones. Flames burst forth and he reached for a somewhat larger piece of wood just as the crib squeaked again.

  Little Sun climbed over the railing and hung precariously for a second before dropping to the floor. Without a glance at Jon, he toddled toward Caitlyn. Scrambling up onto Jon's bunk, he squatted beside Caitlyn and reached out a pudgy hand.

  "Cat?" He patted her on the cheek again, repeating her name in a cadence. "Cat? Cat...Cat...Cat."

  Caitlyn's eyes flew open. "Reggie?" she whispered in an awestruck voice. "Reggie?"

  Suddenly she sat up and grabbed Little Sun in her arms.

  "Oh, God, Reggie," Jon heard her say. "They didn't kill you. I didn't let you die! Reggie!"

  ****

  Chapter 19

  "Caitlyn?"

  Jon approached cautiously, pausing when Caitlyn's head whipped up and she stared first at him, then around the cabin. Her arms tightened on Little Sun, and he squirmed to be let down, twisting and kicking his legs as he pushed against Caitlyn's chest. She glanced down at him, a frown creasing her face.

  "Reggie?" she whispered.

  "Down, Cat," the little
boy insisted.

  Caitlyn stroked his cheek once, then allowed him to climb from the bunk. She watched him toddle over to Jon and wrap his arms around Jon's leg.

  "Eat," Little Sun said.

  Jon chuckled softly and picked him up. After returning the small body to the crib, he gave Little Sun a piece of maple syrup candy to chew on.

  "He won't eat his supper," Caitlyn said from the bunk.

  Jon slowly walked towards her. "Are you all right, Caitlyn? Do you remember what happened?"

  "How did you get us back here?" Caitlyn asked instead of answering Jon's questions.

  "On the sled." Jon sat down on the edge of the bunk. "You know, you don't look that heavy. But if I have to pull you that far again, I'm gonna insist you go on a diet first."

  A sad hint of a smile curved Caitlyn's lips, and when Jon tentatively reached for her hand, she clenched her fingers around his. But she kept her eyes on the crib.

  "I thought he was Reggie," she said softly. "I called him Reggie, didn't I?"

  "Who is Reggie, darlin'?"

  "He was my little brother — half-brother, anyway. They...they killed all of them. Except for me. M...Mama hid with us, and when Reggie started to cry.... She couldn't get him to stop, and she moved to a different place."

  "Ah, Caitlyn. Honey." She had to be talking about the Indian massacre that Silas had told Jon of, after which Silas's old friend Mick had found Caitlyn the only survivor. Something had triggered those buried memories.

  "Caitlyn...."

  "When they found Mama and Reggie," Caitlyn interrupted, "I kept telling myself I had to go help her protect Reggie." Her nails dug into Jon's palm, but he ignored the pain. "But I knew they couldn't see me. And Mama had told me that whatever happened, I wasn't to move."

  Caitlyn finally glanced at Jon, her eyes haunted with uncertain questions. "I had to obey Mama, didn't I?"

  "Yes, darlin'," Jon said with conviction. "You had to." Recalling the story that Silas had confided to him, Jon continued, "Lord, Caitlyn, you were only around five. There wasn't anything you could do. Your mother did what she thought was right."

  "But she left me," Caitlyn said with a whimper. She dropped Jon's hand and threw herself against his chest. "She left me." She pounded one small fist against his shoulder. "I should have been with them. I should have helped take care of Reggie. I always helped take care of Reggie. Oh, Mama!"

  Jon held her tightly, waiting for the rain of grief. God, how much she had already gone through in her short life. The Indian attack that had wiped out her family. And then her adopted father and that damned grizzly.

  Caitlyn shuddered in his arms. But just as he thought she might allow her tears to fall, she pushed against him and shook her head.

  "It was a long time ago. But how could I have forgotten it all like that? When Paw came by a few days later, I couldn't even tell him my last name. I still can't remember anything that happened before...before the Blackfeet attacked. Paw said they were Blackfeet, anyway. He could read the sign."

  Suddenly Caitlyn stared across the cabin at the blanket covering the door to her room. The journal. She could read it now, maybe find out something of her background.

  Jon can help me.

  "No," Caitlyn said aloud, surprising herself with the vehemence of the word. Immediately she caught herself wondering what secrets the journal held that she didn't want revealed to anyone else.

  "Caitlyn? What's wrong?" Jon stared at her profile, seeing the slight lift of her chin and the barely perceptible thinning of her lips before she looked back at him.

  "What do you mean, 'no'?" he asked. "What don't you want to tell me?"

  "I...I'm not sure," Caitlyn replied honestly. She shuddered slightly, trying to ignore the pictures swirling faintly in the memory mists. "Jon, I really don't want to talk about this any more right now. Maybe later. Please?"

  "Just so you promise me that you'll remember I'm always here for you, darlin'. Will you remember that?"

  Caitlyn reluctantly nodded her head. Probably Jon thought he meant it, but 'always' wasn't a word she could make herself believe about their relationship right now — or any other relationship, for that matter. People left her all the time, sometimes by death and sometimes to return to the pursuit of their own lives.

  Little Sun would go with his father one day. Spirit Eagle would teach his son the Nez Perce ways — maybe find another woman to love and be a mother to his son.

  Her father had died in the raid on the trading post, along with her mother and Reggie. No, step-father, she reminded herself. That much she could recall, but no amount of searching in her mind dredged up any remembrance of her real father.

  The memory was there, though — lurking just beneath the surface of those mists. But there was another man, too — a memory she couldn't bring herself to examine, even now. He overshadowed the brighter, more loving reminisces, muddying them into a mixture of dark and light.

  And Jon. She slipped a sideways glance at him, still sitting beside her with that tender look of concern on his face. But he'd already told her that his eastern life remained a part of any future he envisioned — even to the point of wanting her to learn those fancy ways.

  Huh. Caitlyn gratefully grabbed hold of the turn her thoughts were taking away from those other shadowy memories. Jon probably wanted to teach her those fancy manners so she wouldn't embarrass him when he introduced her as the little, half-wild savage he'd found living in the wilderness.

  Jon watched the emotions play across Caitlyn's face, still a little afraid to make the wrong move around her — maybe say the wrong thing. He'd misjudged her reactions at every turn today.

  Suddenly Caitlyn fixed him with a haughty gaze. "Well, I've always been good enough to associate with anyone I came across," she told him with another tilt of her chin. "And I'm not about to kowtow to some persnickety bunch of people that think they're better than me."

  "Whoa, Caitlyn," Jon said as he spread his hands wide. "I think I missed something here. What's my offer of always being there for you got to do with me being persnickety?"

  When Caitlyn glared at him without answering, Jon recalled Silas's words about all the different women wrapped up inside what looked like just one woman.

  He thought he'd done pretty well so far recognizing Caitlyn's different personalities. Her tender mothering of Little Sun. Her pride in keeping the cabin clean, and fixing meals that he and Silas praised. Her love of the wilderness — she changed from his little homemaker into a cute little tomboy outdoors-woman as soon as she slipped into that wolfskin jacket.

  And the woman he had made love to had been someone he'd thought he would find only in his dreams.

  But this supercilious woman, glaring at him with a mixture of exasperation and disgust, hadn't appeared before.

  Yes, she has, he reminded himself when he remembered how Caitlyn had barely concealed her disdain for the awkwardness that resulted in his injured knee. And the inept shot that had landed the puma on him and the rock on his head.

  Well, that woman could go back into hiding anytime, as far as he was concerned.

  "Men," Caitlyn said, her tone of voice confirming Jon's analysis of this revived personality. "A person would think that there's just empty space up there between your ears at times. Can't you ever remember what you've said before?"

  "Now just a damn minute, Caitlyn...."

  Caitlyn slid past him and stood. "I don't guess you can remember what I've said before, either," she told him as she slipped out of her jacket and walked toward the hooks beside the door. "You watch your language around Little Sun. I don't want Spirit Eagle coming back here and finding his son talking dirty. Why, most of the Indian languages don't even have any curse words in them."

  "So now I'm a bad influence on your friend's son, huh?" Jon rose to his feet, his face darkening in anger when Caitlyn tossed him an if-the-shoe-fits look. "Just what the hell else do I have wrong with me?"

  "Hell," Little Sun said clearly.

&nbs
p; Jon swung toward the crib, black thunder still clouding his face. When Little Sun looked at Jon, his face puckered up immediately, and he dropped his piece of maple candy. His howl quickly escalated into a shriek.

  "Now look what you've done!" Caitlyn spat as she hurried to the crib. "Shhhh. Shhhh, baby," she soothed as she reached into the crib. "The nasty man didn't mean to make you cry."

  Jon's mouth dropped open. He clamped it shut with an audible snap when Caitlyn turned around with Little Sun in her arms. Caitlyn's lips were pursed in disapproval, her blue eyes flashing a warning. Little Sun glanced at him, then hurriedly stuck his thumb in his mouth and buried his head on Caitlyn's shoulder.

  "I'm going out to take care of the horses!" Jon almost shouted.

  "You do that," Caitlyn said to his back. "And don't be mean to them, either!"

  The door slammed against the wall with a thud, and swirling snow swept past Jon into the cabin. At his smothered "Shi...shoot," as he reached for the doorknob again, Caitlyn giggled under her breath. As soon as the door closed behind him, she snickered aloud, and Little Sun raised his head from her shoulder and patted a pudgy hand on her smiling mouth. His own mouth took on a gleeful grin.

  "Men," Caitlyn said with a laugh.

  "M'n," Little Sun obediently repeated.

  "Uh oh," Caitlyn chastised herself. "Guess I better watch what I say around you, too, little one. You're going to grow up into one of those nasty men some day."

  "N...natty m'n?" Little Sun asked.

  Caitlyn groaned under her breath. "Uh...nice men, Little Sun. Nice."

  "'Ice."

  "Right." She carried him over to the window and rubbed a spot free of covering frost. Outside, Jon was walking toward the lean-to.

  She shook her head at herself. What on earth was wrong with her? Jon had been the epitome of kindness to her, and she sure hadn't acted like she appreciated his concern. Epitome. Huh. She must have picked up that word somewhere in her new reading skills — skills Jon had taught her.

  "Jon." Little Sun pointed a finger. His excitement indicated that he'd already forgotten Jon's glowering face. "Jon, 'ice."