by Jodi Thomas
McCall was already a step ahead of him. “No,” she answered simply and broke into a run toward the children’s camp.
Moses and Sloan passed her within a few yards, but neither tried to stop her. Sloan broke the crest and slowed as he saw the wagons. Nothing seemed amiss. The camp seemed still asleep, or in hiding.
“I’ll circle around,” Moses said as he veered to the right.
Sloan glanced toward McCall and knew it would be useless to order her to stay out of range. She was storming in and there was nothing he could do but hope he might block any bullet meant for her. “Stay behind me!” he snapped in what he hoped was the tone of a death threat.
McCall hesitated, then nodded. She slipped her hand into her pocket, and Sloan knew without asking that she was armed.
They walked slowly toward the camp. When they were close enough to be seen clearly, Winter stepped from his hiding place and ran toward them.
Sloan handed the rifle to McCall as he went down on one knee and caught the boy as he ran full speed into Sloan’s arms.
For a moment Winter hugged Sloan so tightly he couldn’t breathe, then the boy turned him loose and stepped back.
“I killed him, I think! I didn’t mean to kill nothing, but I think I did.”
“Who?”
Winter pointed to the east. “I was keeping guard, just like I said I would. I heard something and walked to see what it was. He was lying in the grass and I shot him before I thought.”
The boy was gulping for air, fighting down fear along with adrenaline. “I just pointed and pulled the trigger. Just like you told me.”
Sloan put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, thinking that he must have been a fool to give the child his gun. The boy probably killed the first rabbit that jumped. But Winter had seemed a better choice than Alyce Wren. “What did you shoot, Winter?”
Winter faced him, eyes wide without tears. “A man. I think I shot a man.”
Sloan and McCall looked at one another over the boy’s head. Without a word they started moving in the direction Winter had pointed. Within a few steps they were running.
Moses was already kneeling in the tall grass where Winter led them. “The boy shot something or someone, all right.” Moses rubbed a drop of blood between his fingers. “Hit him, too, I’d say from the drops of blood leading off in that direction. I can’t tell if he was white or Indian, of course.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Winter whispered. “I killed him just the same.”
McCall knelt beside Winter. “No, you didn’t,” she squared his shoulders with her hands. “You shot him. He’s still alive or there’d be a body in this grass. And what you did may have saved a life. Anyone crawling up to a camp can be judged to be an enemy fair enough.”
Moses stood and balanced his huge rifle over his shoulders. “You wanta follow the blood trail, Sloan?”
Sloan nodded, then turned to McCall. “Will you stay with the wagons?” He knew better than to order her to stay. “This may take a while.”
“I will,” she answered. “Be careful.”
Sloan touched his hat in salute as he hurried after Moses, who looked like a human bloodhound hot on a fresh trail.
McCall felt Winter’s hand slide into hers as they watched the men disappear. She guessed Winter had waited until the men weren’t watching before he took her hand.
“I didn’t mean to kill anyone,” he mumbled to himself. “I only saw something crawling through the grass, and the gun went off before I thought about it.”
“Never mind.” McCall turned and started walking back to the wagons. “You didn’t hurt him badly, or he couldn’t have run away so fast.”
Winter’s huge eyes constantly looked back toward where the men had gone. He didn’t say a word. When they reached the wagons, he perched himself on one of the wagon benches and waited.
Alyce Wren’s constant grumbling made up for Winter’s silence. She talked in riddles of a race of people who’d lived on this land for thousands of years. A race half human, half wolf who roamed the open prairie since a time before any Europeans thought of this place. Alyce told of how she and her father traveled over this land years ago and talked with old men who’d seen the beings. They could outrun the wind, the old men said, and steal a man’s soul in the darkness of a moonless night.
McCall found the stories haunting, and when the day turned cloudy, Alyce’s mood darkened even more. As the sky turned from gray to black and the men still hadn’t returned, Alyce’s mind also turned to the dark side. Not even Eppie’s visit could change her mood.
So McCall built a fire, and Eppie gave Alyce the audience McCall and Winter would not.
“The half men,” Alyce Wren began, “can slither through the grass like snakes, then jump and run like a wolf, My father tried to help a woman once who’d seen one while she was pregnant. Her baby turned sideways and refused to come out. The woman died screaming.”
Eppie hugged herself and moved closer to the fire. The children around her might be curling into their beds, but Eppie’s eyes were wide with excitement.
McCall thought of screaming for Alyce to be quiet, but the old woman loved her stories. Her words twisting around sorrow or joy made a music she seemed to need to survive.
“My father didn’t believe the stories, but the people of the plains believed. I’d forgotten the tales until Winter told of shooting one of the creatures. If he killed the half man, half wolf, others will come the first dark night to get us. They’ll lift our thoughts right out of our heads and leave us senseless beasts to stumble around without being able to talk or think.”
Eppie didn’t breathe.
“Then they’ll run across the plains and scatter our minds over the horizon like smoke. We’ll only be able to see at dusk. That is, if they don’t decide to claw our eyes out.”
“Stop!” McCall could take no more. “You’ll frighten the children.”
“They can’t understand,” Alyce answered. “Only Winter, and he needs to know what to expect.”
McCall glanced over at Winter’s back. She couldn’t tell if the boy was listening to the stories or not. He hadn’t moved all day from his guard. She’d placed a plate beside him, but she couldn’t tell if he’d eaten a bite.
“She’s scaring me,” Eppie whispered. “I’m waiting until my Moses comes back before I go to our camp.”
“Won’t the brothers miss you?” McCall was surprised they hadn’t been over to check on her by now.
“No,” she laughed. “They don’t care. Maybe the half men already visited Moses’ brothers. They’re downright senseless most of the time. Last year we were hit by a flash flood in the middle of the night. Come morning, we found two of them still asleep, floating in three inches of water.”
McCall smiled and didn’t doubt the story. “You’re welcome to stay with us. We don’t have anything as comfortable as the buffalo hides that you sleep on, but we have plenty of blankets.”
As McCall reached in the wagon to get Eppie a blanket, she saw Winter jump from the bench and run into the darkness. A moment later Moses and Sloan materialized from the shadows.
Before she thought about how it might look to Alyce Wren, McCall stepped over the wagon tongue and ran toward the men. Eppie was no more than three paces behind her.
Sloan bent down and lifted Winter off the ground in a hug. “It’s all right, son,” he said as Winter hugged him. “We didn’t find anything, so you didn’t kill anyone.”
“Are you sure? Not a man or something that looked like a wolf?”
“Nothing,” Sloan laughed. “The blood only went a few drops, then the trail ended. We crossed every path for miles and found no one injured or dead.”
The boy stepped away, almost dancing. “I got to run tell the others.”
“You do that,” Sloan said as Winter almost ran into McCall, coming from the campsite.
She paused a few feet before Sloan, suddenly not knowing what to do. She was glad to see him, but running into his arms
seemed far beyond her ability.
Sloan solved the awkwardness by offering his free hand to her.
When their fingers laced, McCall fell into step beside him, silently letting him know that she was glad to have him back.
Eppie showed no such reserve with Moses. She jumped into his arms, hugging him wildly as her arms and legs wrapped around his body. He staggered a few steps and widened his stance to take the weight of his woman. She was still kissing on Moses when they entered the light of the camp.
“What did you find?” Alyce Wren asked, her eyes looking directly at Sloan.
“Nothing,” he answered, but could tell by her huff that she didn’t believe him.
“There’s something out there,” she mumbled as she crawled into the wagon to sleep. “I can feel it. I can almost smell it.” Her voice continued, even though she’d disappeared inside. “I can hear it breathing.”
Sloan raised an eyebrow at McCall, as if in silent question, but McCall only shrugged in answer.
“We best be getting back to camp.” Moses peeled Eppie off his chest. “It’s getting late.”
“You’re welcome to join our fire,” Sloan volunteered without looking at McCall.
“No, thanks,” Moses laughed. “My woman and I have a little sparking to do before we sleep.”
Eppie’s nearness to him left no doubt of what Moses was talking about. Sloan thought they’d be lucky to make it back to their fire before the sparks started flying. He glanced at McCall, but she showed no sign of understanding what the men were talking about.
She hugged Eppie and said good night while Sloan thanked Moses once more for his help. Winter gave Eppie a small medicine pouch he’d made from part of a rabbit hide. He told her it was just like his mother’s and would protect her should the night people come.
After the couple left, McCall poured Sloan the last of the coffee and handed him a plate of meat and skillet bread they’d kept warm over the coals. She moved around the children, making sure all were warm in their blankets. He was half finished eating when she finally knelt beside him.
“You really found nothing?” she whispered.
Sloan shook his head. “Nothing dead, or shot. We did find signs of a camp not far from here. It must have been an Indian camp and well-covered. I would have missed any sign of it if Moses hadn’t been with me.”
“You think Winter shot one of his people?”
“We’re all ‘one of his people,’” Sloan answered before he drank the bitter brown liquid. “If I were guessing, I’d say he shot one of his mother’s people. With luck the brave made it away without losing too much blood.”
McCall lowered her head. “He’s been so worried. And Alyce Wren hasn’t helped, filling his head with stories of half men who walk the night.”
Sloan suddenly looked very tired. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow, but tonight we’d better get some sleep. I think it best if we leave as soon as we can in the morning. If the brave did make it back to a camp somewhere, they may come looking for us.”
McCall agreed.
“Talk to me now,” Winter whispered from the shadows. “Not tomorrow, but now.”
Sloan watched the boy move around the fire. He motioned for Winter to take the empty space between McCall and himself.
Winter carried his blanket across his shoulders. “Alyce Wren says they’ll come for me in the blackness of night if I killed a half man.”
Studying Sloan carefully, McCall wondered how he would erase the boy’s fears.
Sloan stood slowly and removed his gun belt. He spread a blanket beside Winter and laid his gun between them. “Anything coming to get you, son, will have to cross me first. I’ve had a long day and I’m in no mood to be crossed.”
McCall followed his lead. She put her bedroll on the other side of Winter and laid the rifle beside her. “I’ll feel safer sleeping next to you, Winter. I might not be able to stop someone, but I’ll yell real loud if man or beast tries to get past me.”
Winter leaned back between them and smiled. All the tension of the day seemed to pass from him in a sigh and he closed his eyes.
Looking across the boy’s blanket to McCall, Sloan silently stretched his arm out. She did the same. Their fingers touched just above Winter’s head.
“Good night, General,” he said as he gripped her hand tightly, silently wishing he could pull her closer.
McCall didn’t answer, for she suddenly felt safe as well. Not even Alyce Wren’s mumblings from the wagon frightened her.
The wind blew across the land as midnight neared, howling its way up the ravines and lifting the earthy smell of dampness high in the air.
Sloan rose twice during the night to make sure the fire was strong and the children covered. Each time he passed McCall, he couldn’t help but kneel beside her as she slept.
A strand of hair crossed her cheek. Sloan carefully lifted it aside, wishing he could lean and kiss her as lightly as her hair touched her without waking her. But she’d made it plain she wanted no part of him, and if he stepped past the boundaries once more, he wasn’t sure she’d forgive him again.
Sloan smiled. Knowing her was like walking a breath away from the kill line. In the prison camps, the guards had constructed a rope barrier ten feet inside the prison walls. The inmates called it the kill line, because if anyone stepped over it, he was killed before he could reach the wall. Sometimes Sloan found himself walking the line, tempting fate by stepping as close as he could without touching the rope.
Now, in the shadows of night, he felt the same excitement with McCall. She’d be angry if she even knew he was watching her, but he couldn’t move away. Adrenaline pumped through his blood at the thought that she slept only a few inches away. He wished he could hold her and make her remember how it felt to be alive. But it had been so long since he’d thought about living, he wasn’t sure he could ever be her teacher. If she did know his dream and came willingly to his arms, he had nothing to offer her come morning.
Standing, Sloan walked to the opening between the wagons and looked out into the night. The air seemed thick with moisture, and scattered clouds blocked the stars. He thought of how McCall had changed his life, shifting his world ever so slightly until he could see a life he’d never known existed.
With her, he could almost dream of tomorrow. He could almost see himself settling down. But to what? He wasn’t sure he knew how to do anything but soldier, and that was no life for a family man. He’d hated the year of farming he’d done with his stepfather. When he’d been in the cavalry he’d enjoyed working with the horses, but being a stable boy didn’t seem like it would pay well. Besides, if he settled down it would only be a matter of time before one of the Satan’s Seven found him. Three years wasn’t enough time for the hatred to die.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Her voice drifted from just behind him.
Sloan turned slowly. She was leaning against the wagon, only inches away. The collar of her white blouse was open a few buttons, exposing her throat, and she’d pulled on a wool shawl for warmth. He thought most ladies would have had trouble traveling for days, but McCall always looked fresh and comfortable.
“I was thinking,” he answered, trying not to think about how rough and unkempt he must look next to her. He hadn’t bothered to shave in two days. “What woke you?”
“A nightmare.” She stretched, pushing her back against the wood of the wagon. “I must have listened to too many of Alyce Wren’s stories today.”
“You don’t believe in the half-man, half-wolf tale, do you?”
He’d expected her to say no, but she only shrugged.
Sloan smiled slightly. “You probably think I’m one of them, the way I grabbed you and kissed you that night. I assure you I don’t slither through the grass or howl at the moon.”
“No, I didn’t think you were one.” She looked beyond him at the clouds. “Sometimes I’m not too sure of Alyce Wren, though the way she snores almost sounds like a howl.”
Sloan agreed and lean
ed back against the wagon, so close they were almost touching. He tried to think of small talk, but he guessed he was no better at it than she seemed to be.
McCall closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she finally looked at him, there was a question in her gaze, as though she needed to ask him something but couldn’t find the words.
She took another breath and began slowly. “I married a man almost twenty years older than me,” she whispered, as if just telling a story and not her life. “He was a good man—a great man, some folks said. But he never kissed me. Not on the mouth, anyway. Not anywhere except my cheek, the way a father might kiss his child.”
Sloan found her story impossible to believe. But he said nothing.
“He’d lived alone since his school days and he didn’t like to touch people, not in public or in private. He wouldn’t even drink from the same cup as another unless he had to. Once, when cannon fire had been pounding only a few miles away for what seemed like days, I asked him to hold my hand. The look he gave me was one of disgust. As if I were showing some great weakness. I never asked again.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Sloan whispered from the shadows beside her. He closed his fingers around the wood of the wagon, fighting back the urge to touch her now. He couldn’t imagine a man married to such a woman and not touching her at every opportunity.
McCall shrugged again. “I don’t know. Maybe I just need to talk to someone. I never told anyone that about Holden before. It seemed a silly thing to complain about.”
“Did you love him?”
“Deeply,” she answered quickly. Almost too quickly. “But sometimes I wanted to matter more to him. I wanted him to just hold me like you did last night. Or take my hand until I fell asleep. Alyce Wren says folks are wrong when they say a person doesn’t miss what they don’t have. Sometimes, I think, there’s a need so deep inside a person that he longs for something all his life, even though he doesn’t know what it is.”
“And what is that need for you?” Sloan understood how she felt.
“I’d like to feel a man hold me. Hold me so tight, yesterday and tomorrow vanish. I’d like to feel like I was all that mattered when I was in his arms.”
