Journey's End

by BJ James

  Conversation stuttered to an abrupt halt. Carl’s convulsing hand knocked over his wineglass. The dregs of red wine soaked like blood into his napkin. Cat’s shoulders stiffened. With exaggerated care, moving in slow motion, she set down a dish. A towel fluttered to the floor.

  She turned to stare.

  Then Carl.

  Then Ty.

  Merrill didn’t know, or care. Her thoughts and her attention were riveted on Casey. “There’s something you want to say.” The flesh beneath her fingers was clammy, the tendons tautly strung. “It’s something you need to tell us, isn’t it?”

  Casey nodded.

  Cat took a stumbling step toward her son, halted uncertainly. No one at the table moved. None dared. Each hardly seemed to breathe in the pall of silence as they watched, as they waited.

  “Something about the bear,” Merrill ventured. Plucking the idea from the recent conversation.

  The young, dark head dipped once.

  “Yes?”

  In response, Casey nodded again. Then, abruptly, shook his head.

  “Yes? No?” She faltered, her fingers gripping tighter over the prominent bones of his wrist.

  Never looking away from Merrill, Casey repeated the process. A nod, then a turn left and right.

  “Yes and no!” Merrill took a wild stab.

  Casey smiled. A slow twist of one corner of his mouth. The familiar smile of a Carlsen, easing only a little of the grimness from his features.

  “This is about the bear.” Merrill frowned in repetitive concentration, fearful she would go in the wrong direction and lose the thread of empathy. “About the bear, but not about the bear.”

  Casey smiled again.

  “But what?” She was stymied, with no idea where to go next.

  “Sow.” This time his reaction was pure disgust, as he remained completely unaware of the wondering look on the faces of his mother and father and Ty.

  “Not a cow.” Merrill’s mind was ranging, seeking a common ground of cognition. “A dog? A wolf? Shadow?”

  Each elicited another negative reaction.

  In sudden inspiration, she blurted, “The buffalo?”

  A curtly signaled yes. A smile.

  “The buffalo, but what about them?” She was pleading now, lost. “Tell me, Casey. Try.”

  There was nothing. No response. No common ground.

  Urgently, under the pain-filled gaze of her dinner companions, Merrill searched her mind, seeking a way or a word that would reestablish her rapport with Casey. Like a teacher calling out the week’s spelling test, she rattled words at him.

  Dogs. Houses. Fences. Fields. Traps. Hurt. Caves. Sleep. This meadow, or that. Fini Terre, or the Triple C. The list went on, striking no spark. And at last, exhausted, she felt silent.

  Cat stood as she was, frozen in place, not certain what she felt or understood. Carl’s unfathomable gaze never left his son’s face. Ty’s never turned from Merrill.

  The drip of a faucet beat a soft and steady rhythm. The light of the fire spilling over the hearth cast dancing shadows over the floor. Silence spun into feverish tension, keeping them as fiercely as bonds of irons.

  Fifteen seconds. Thirty. A minute. No one moved. No one spoke.

  No one but Merrill. “I don’t know, Casey.” she whispered. “You have to help me.”

  Casey knew what she was asking. A jerk of his head said no.

  “Please.” Her grasp loosened on his arm. Her touch grew gentle. “Not for me. Not for Ty. Not even for your mom and dad. For you.”

  In an instant that seemed longer than the minutes that had just passed. Casey didn’t respond. Then a low moan sounded in the back of his throat. The young mouth worked. A face that would be even more handsome than either of his parents for its traits of both, crumpled into a fierce mask. His lips moved stiffly, spitting out a garbled sound. A word.

  “T...tu...tow.”

  “Tow?” Merrill deciphered.

  Her effort was met with an angry blink.

  “Not tow.” She tried again, refusing to let him retreat again into silence. “Top?”

  Nothing. Not even a blink.

  Her mind racing feverishly. She wouldn’t let him go. She couldn’t Relentless, she tried again. “Two?”

  Fire leapt again into his shadowed gaze. He smiled a tired smile.

  “Two! Two bears.” Something in his look told her she was wrong. Close, but wrong. “Two buffaloes?”

  The smile became a grin, and he was beautiful.

  “Twins,” Carl whispered suddenly. “I had forgotten. One of the buffalo cows had twins in the summer. When he got out of rehab, I took Casey out to see them.”

  “Then there should have been twenty-three in the herd.” Ty’s elation at hearing Casey speak turned grim.

  Carl wasn’t listening. Neither was Cat as she rushed to take Casey in her arms. Rocking him against her breast, her face pressed into his hair. Her cheeks were dry. Tears clinging to her lashes waited to fall until Carl enfolded both mother and son in his strong embrace.

  Turning away, giving the Carlsens a private moment, Merrill sighed wearily. Softly, hopefully, to Ty she murmured, “That there were only twenty-two could be attributed to a number of things.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed gruffly, seeing her fatigue, gauging the emotional cost of the miracle she’d wrought. Touching her cheek with the back of his hand, he skimmed the sculpted curve of it, brushing a wayward tendril away, tucking it behind her ear. A touch that was little comfort for the need in him. The need to hold her, sharing his strength. But it was all he could give. All he could take.

  Merrill swayed, leaning into his caress. Her lashes drifted down, color blooming against the pallor of her cheeks like new roses in snow. Sighing again, regretting a moment of weakness, she straightened, moving away.

  Color fled again from her face, her hands folded rigidly in her lap. Beneath the practical flannel shirt, her breasts rose in one long hard effort as she struggled for composure. Then another and another, and with each she grew calmer.

  “It doesn’t have to be the bear,” she whispered, catching up the thread of lost thought.

  “No.” Ty had a little backing up of his own to do. A thought to catch. “Every lost calf doesn’t mean a bear. When there are twins, the weaker one often dies.”

  “It could have fallen behind in their wandering search for grass.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “There are streams...”

  “It might not have been able to cross,” Ty finished for her.

  “The mother could protect only one from the bear.” Ever the realist, Merrill faced a chance as likely.

  “Yeah,” Ty agreed, this time in visible concern.

  “That means he could come back.”

  “It’s possible. There was always the chance of it, Merrill. No matter what happened to the calf.”

  “Poor little baby.”

  “You’re tired.” Ty declared abruptly, scraping back his chair as he spoke. “And the Carlsens have a lot to deal with.” He was rising, his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go home, and leave them alone. Carl won’t mind if I take the snowplow and return it in the morning.”

  Ty’s voice dragged Carl’s attention from his wife and son. Releasing them he circled the table to Merrill. Taking her hand he drew her from her seat. His chiseled face was grave, his dark eyes bright with new hope. He touched her cheek, calloused fingers tender, as if she were more than precious. Bending, he brushed his lips against her forehead.

  His searching gaze looked deeply into hers, his hand tightened over her wrists. As if finding what he sought, he nodded swiftly. “Thank you.” To Ty he said, “And to you, for bringing her to us.”

  Carl would say no more.

  It was enough.

  As quietly as he could Ty guided Merrill to the door. They were shrugging into jackets and donning gloves when Catherine’s husky voice called out to Merrill. “You will come again.”

  “I...” Merrill
paused, frightened by the incredible gratitude she saw. It was too much for the little she’d done. With a tiny shake of her head she said, “I’m sorry, I don’t think...”

  “Please.” There was naked need on Cat’s face. She was a woman stripped of all pride. She would beg for her son, if she must.

  Merrill looked away, unable to bear the burden of hope.

  Ty stood at her side. Neither touching her nor speaking. Yet she knew he would be supportive in her decision.

  “You must.” Cat stood behind her son, her arms lying on his shoulder, her hands linked over his chest. A protective stance, challenging Merrill to deny her.

  “I’ve done nothing, Cat,” she said quietly. “Nothing you or Carl, or Ty, or anyone, couldn’t have done.”

  “Dear heaven, Merrill! Don’t you think we’ve tried? Don’t you think we’ve struggled and prayed for this breakthrough. All of us from doctors and therapist to friends and neighbors. Yet none of us has done what you did tonight. None of us could.”

  “It was simply that the time was right,” Merrill argued, discounting her influence.

  “The right time, the right person.” Cat was tenacious, a mother tiger fighting for her young.

  “Cat...”

  “Please.”

  The word was garbled and slurred, but not so much that it wasn’t recognizable. Merrill’s look dropped at last to Casey. He sat calmly, inert, yet with the same naked hope in eyes so like his mother’s.

  “Casey,” she began, not certain what more she meant to say, or even if there was more.

  “Please.” The word was no clearer, no less unmistakable. No less a triumph.

  Merrill was lost. Even a pathological fear of failing again, was no match for this heart wrenching persuasion. She drew a low, shuddering sigh, and as Ty’s fingers linked through hers, she smiled, weakly, and nodded. “I’ll be back.”

  “Promise.”

  Carl had moved to take his wife back into his arms. He waited for her promise as intently as Cat.

  Tynan said nothing. The pressure of his fingers twining through hers never varied as Merrill’s grasp grew hard.

  The Carlsens were no stranger to tragedy. Now in a chance encounter, she had become their light in the darkness. If they believed she could help, if Casey believed, then perhaps it would be true.

  Merrill knew she must try. To Carl, to Cat, to Casey, she vowed quietly, “I promise.”

  The Sno-Cat made quick work of the ride through moonlit fields and pastures that were, indeed, the fairyland Carl had promised. Huddled in her corner of the cab, Merrill didn’t seem to notice. And loath to disturb her thoughts. Ty didn’t call her attention to any of it. As he maneuvered the heavy machine up hills and down inclines, across creeks and through small canyons, he kept his own counsel.

  When she was ready, and if she needed him, she would reach out to him. Until then, he would wait.

  A lamp in the window welcomed them home, its light glancing off Merrill, marking the fatigue that etched itself deeply on her face. When Ty brought the vehicle to a halt before the door, she made no protest when he touched her cheek commanding, “Wait.”

  When he crossed in the beam of bright headlights, coming to her side to wrench open the door, she went willingly as he lifted her in his arms, traversing the last of the snowy yard to the house. Welcomed by its warmth, when he held her in his embrace, peeling away her hat and coat, then bent to tug off her boots to toss them aside with her gloves, she was grateful.

  There were no cries for propriety and decorum as he loosened her belt and took it away. Nor while her blouse was freed from the waist of her jeans. When he laid her on her bed, tucking the covers close about her, then knelt, looking down at her for a long while, she managed a smile.

  A smile. He would be content with that. For now.

  Leaning to her, he kissed her cheek, murmuring, “Good night, Santiago. My kind, brave Santiago.”

  Without another gesture, he left her then, moving with the quiet, familiar ease all his own. With his words echoing in her heart, she lay as she was, listening as he crossed the great room. Then to his fading footsteps as he climbed the stairs to his lair.

  Long after the house was still, long after the turmoil of her mind and the race of her heart had quieted, she lifted a palm, clasping it to her cheek, keeping the memory of his kiss.

  Seven

  “Ready?”

  Hands on her hips, her feet set in a challenging stance, Merrill glared at Ty. “This isn’t necessary, you know. I can ride to the Carlsens’ alone.”

  Ty didn’t answer as he continued pulling on his gloves. When he finished, as he reached for his hat, she caught his wrist, holding it.

  “I really can, you know,” she insisted more in concern than anger. “And you have work of your own to do.”

  “Nothing that won’t keep.” Carefully, he peeled her fingers away and lifted his hat from its peg. Setting it at a comfortable angle over his forehead, with a tug at the brim, he stood waiting.

  Merrill wasn’t ready to give in so easily. “Carl’s patrolled the creeks. Criks, he called them,” she threw in for good measure. “Along with that he’s watched the near meadows for weeks keeping tabs on the buffalo herd. In all that time, he’s found no sign of anything to be concerned about. Elk, deer, a moose.” She ticked off the list succinctly. Then added the clincher. “Cat has been riding farther and farther afield.”

  “Cat is Carl’s concern, you’re mine.” The fearless Cat’s fear of bear had reached epic proportions after Carl’s mauling. Years had done little to assuage it. That she was riding out beyond the safer fringes of their ranch, leaving Casey with Merrill while the two of them had their bi-weekly tête-à-tête, could only mean her confidence the bear was truly gone outweighed alarm.

  “Carl swears that if there were even a hint of a bear within forty miles, she wouldn’t let him out of her sight, or leave Casey alone at the house.”

  Her argument fell on deaf ears. None of what she said mattered to Ty. Arms crossed over his chest, he stubbornly refused to budge an inch from his stand. “When you’re ready, Merrill,” he said, unperturbed. “We’ll go.”

  “I won’t let you do this.” She was every bit as determined and as stubborn. “You’re stretched too thin already. Patrolling the upper meadows, seeing to the stock, spending hours at the Carlsens’ waiting for me.” She looked up at him with an accusing frown. “I hear you working into the night. Longer each night as the deadline for your book gets closer.”

  “The book’s fine, right on target. I’ve always worked longer hours toward the finish. I would if we weren’t spending time at the Carlsens’.” Taking her jacket from the wall, he held it. “It’s your decision. You go, I go. I don’t, you don’t.” The jacket hung between them, a line of contention. “Which is it to be?”

  “This is foolish, Tynan.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her accusation by so much as a flicker of an eyelash. “Go, or stay? Which is it?”

  Flashing an angry look at him, she stepped forward, then turned, slipping into the jacket. But not without tossing one last barb over her shoulder. “Valentina’s vocabulary was woefully inadequate when she said you were stubborn.”

  “She was sparing your delicate ears,” Ty responded mildly, swayed no more successfully by her frustration then her diatribe. “Certainly not my reputation.”

  “Right.” Merrill shrugged the jacket to a more comfortable fit, wondering why worry for Ty made her angry at him. It made no sense at all. Flexing her fingers inside tight gloves, she changed the subject in a tiny capitulation. “Will you take Shadow this time?”

  “I promised Casey I would.” A silent signal to the wolf brought him leaping from his place by the stove, his tail wagging his body at the exciting prospect of a run. Something akin to a grin curled the fierce mouth as he followed them from the house.

  Merrill never asked why Shadow had been denied these outings he loved. Simple deduction and common sense were all that was
needed to understand that neither Ty nor Carl wanted to risk losing the bear in a wild chase, as would happen if Shadow ran across its trail.

  Swinging into the saddle, holding Tempest to a few kicks and a crow hop or two, Merrill waited until Ty was mounted on Bogart, the big bay he favored. As the saddle creaked from the cold, and with her breath a visible vapor, she voiced her suspicions. “You won’t admit it, but you’re feeling pretty confident the bear’s trek through Fini Terre and The Triple C was an isolated incident.” Pausing a beat, she pushed her point. “You are, aren’t you?”

  “What makes you think that?” Following Tempest’s lead, Bogart tried a prancing, bowed neck hop or two that brought horse and rider around until they were facing Merrill and Tempest. Satisfied the bay had the little romp out of his system, with a tap at the gelding’s neck, Ty calmed him and returned to their conversation. “You’ve good reason for thinking so, I take it.”

  “Shadow wouldn’t be going if you weren’t convinced.” Gathering the reins tighter, she backed Tempest away. “Which means you needn’t take this time from your busy schedule.”

  Anticipating that she intended to set the surefooted mare into a gallop, leaving him behind, Ty bent forward, standing in the stirrups as he caught the end of the reins trailing from her grasp. Bringing Bogart closer, he leaned toward her until they were hip to hip and knee to knee. “There’s another reason that I’m going with you, sweetheart.”

  “Oh yeah?” He’d drawn Bogart even closer. The line of her thigh was pressed against his. No matter that he held the reins, one cluck of her tongue, a shift in the saddle, and Tempest would have moved away, giving her a little space. But she didn’t move, and she made no sound as the clean soap and smoke and leather scent of Ty drifted through the sharp, crisp air. “What would that reason be?”

  “This.” Releasing his hold on her reins, he dropped his Stetson on the pommel of his saddle only a second before tipping hers back. With the same suddenness, giving her no time to think, he crumpled the open edges of her jacket in his grasp drawing her to him. For a moment they were eye-to-eye, his cool gaze probing hers. His mouth was only a blur when his lips crinkled into a rueful smile and he whispered, “Forever this.”