Wood smoke and fresh-baked bread heralded her proximity to home, and she picked up her step despite the exhaustion in her bones. A hot meal with fresh bread would hit the spot, especially when served by Clara Stapleton. Callie smiled, grabbed the horse’s bridle and urged it to greater speed. She wondered what Clara had done all day. Clara would be sure to regale Callie with her exploits as soon as they sat down to dinner. Garden and baking, o’ course. The day-to-day chores rarely changed. What intrigued Callie was Clara’s voice as she spoke about her day, her thoughts and her new discoveries as she roamed the homestead.
Callie had no reason to announce her arrival. Clara would have heard the horse and known she was home. Instead, Callie led the packhorse across the yard, past the veritable greenery of Clara’s garden, and opened the smokehouse door. The trapline had been a mess of sprung traps and rotting carcasses. She’d hunted a couple of marmots and a willow ptarmigan but hadn’t brought home much else. The rendering of her kills wouldn’t take long.
“Need some help with that?”
“Naw, it ain’t…” Callie turned. Her words trailed off as she stared.
Clara stood proud in a pair of trousers, a shirt, and her jacket. She held her arms out from her sides, a wild grin on her face as she spun around. “How do I look?”
Callie gaped. Her brain refused to function. She worked her mouth in an attempt to answer but couldn’t find her voice.
The satisfaction faded from Clara’s face as she pursed her lips. “You look like a fish.”
Callie snapped her mouth shut. Her mind finally gave the correct commands, and she said, “Why are you dressed like that?”
“Well, I certainly can’t join you on the trapline in a dress, silly.” The smile returned. Clara twirled in place once more. “I altered some of Jasper’s clothes while you were away. What do you think?”
Callie forced herself to examine Clara from head to toe. It almost seemed indecent to see her dressed so. Is that how people see me? Indecent? She didn’t know how to feel about that, but it would explain how people had treated her all her life. Obstinate ire brewed as she considered all the slights and outright venom she’d received from people since she’d started dressing in men’s clothes. Oblivious to the thought processes of her detractors, she’d only ever felt hurt that no one had deemed her worthy of friendship. Now she experienced the immediate knee-jerk judgment that the general public bestowed upon those who didn’t follow societal rules, Callie’s sadness transformed into anger. Who gives a damn how a woman dresses so long as she’s comfortable with herself? Why do we have to wear all that frippery? To appeal to folk who aren’t even in our skins and don’t know our private thoughts and feelings? That’s bullshit.
“Callie?”
Startled out of her fury, Callie blinked. Clara’s initial joy had begun to fade, probably due to Callie’s angry look. Clara’s eyes darkened, and by the tilt of Clara’s eyebrows Callie knew it wasn’t anger but unhappiness painting itself across that beautiful face. She stepped forward and touched Clara’s upper arm. “You look fine.”
Clara peered at her to ascertain whether she was being truthful. A slow smile broke through the clouds and her eyes began to show more blue. “Really?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Callie rubbed Clara’s arm and released her. She stepped back and made a circle around Clara to tug lightly on the jacket and straighten the shirt collar. “It looks like they were made for you.”
Shoulders sagging, Clara laughed. “Do you think so?” She held out her arms and studied her alterations. “I’ll be honest—I used some of your clothes as a measure.” Abruptly, as if the thought had just occurred to her, Clara stared at Callie. “Do you think Jasper would mind?”
Her concern for the feelings of a man she’d never met—a man who had meant everything to Callie—caused a wave of affection to flood Callie’s soul. She took Clara’s hands in her own and held her fingers between them. “He wouldn’t mind none at all. I think he’d support you just as he supported me all these years.”
Clara’s smile was tremulous.
Callie’s concentration narrowed down to those full lips. The touches between them had increased daily since the brawl in Skagway, but this was the first time she’d fully instigated the intimacy and the first time it didn’t involve Clara caring for Callie’s injuries. What does she taste like? Clara’s tongue darted out to wet those wonderful lips.
The horse interrupted Callie’s thoughts with a snort, a reminder that she stood in the yard with her kills and a horse to put up, holding the hands of her brother’s promised. She dropped Clara’s hands as if they were hot brands. She unconsciously wiped her fingers on her trousers and backed away.
Clara seemed taken aback by the abrupt change in atmosphere, swayed in place. A slight indentation between her eyes indicated a frown that didn’t quite make it to the rest of her face.
“I’ve got to take care of this.” Callie gestured vaguely at the packhorse. “Put the horse up.”
“I’ll take care of the horse.” Clara’s expression cleared and she smiled.
Pleased that she hadn’t offended her friend, Callie returned it. “Thanks.”
“That’s what partners do for each other.” With Callie’s help, Clara pulled the bags off the horse and led it across the yard to the shed.
Callie looked after her. Partners? Is that what we’re becoming? She shook her head to dislodge the idea. Work first, think later. Faintly euphoric despite her tumultuous emotions and physical exhaustion, she prepared to skin her catch.
Chapter Sixteen
“Oh, this is impossible!”
Callie looked up from the snare she was setting.
Clara knelt a few feet away, attempting to set up a secondary snare of her own. She’d sat back on her heels, the wire looped in her fingers. “For the life of me I cannot set this trigger properly.”
“It’s all right. It took me months to get it down.” Callie abandoned her work to help Clara. She studied the layout of the trap. “There’s your problem.” She took up the trigger, a small stick with a notch cut into it. “A deeper angle here won’t be amiss.” She pulled out her knife, and swiftly cut a more pronounced slant into the wood. “Now it’ll sit together better but still be touchy enough to catch your prey.” She handed the stick back to Clara who examined the adjustment.
“Should all triggers be that angle?”
Callie shook her head. “Trapping’s an art form. You gotta figure out where to place a snare and use the natural environment you’re given to set it. Sometimes you have to build it from the ground up with stakes. Other times you don’t need anything but the foliage already there.”
The answer didn’t appease Clara. She held the snare for a moment before returning to the task of setting it.
Callie turned to her trap with a sympathetic smile. She remembered the same frustrations when Jasper had taught her how to work a trapline. It might take a few months, but she had faith that Clara’s strong love of the outdoors and delicate control of her hands would go far in making Clara an adept trapper. Anyone who stitched the way she could had the ability to finesse a wire snare. Once she learned everything about the wildlife—identifying their prints and runs, understanding which traps and snares to utilize according to prey and environment—she’d be a force of nature. Callie could then help her set up her own trapline, one she’d run on her own just like Jasper had done.
The thought of Clara out in the wilderness alone worried her but she set it aside. Unable to do anything else all week, Callie had been teaching Clara how to shoot her new rifle. She’d discovered that Clara was a crack shot with a marksman’s eye. Clara could hit damned near anything to which she’d set her mind. Callie carried both a rifle and a pistol when she was on the line; she’d have to look into a pistol for Clara. Jasper’s was much too heavy for the smaller woman to use with any comfort, and it was a necessary tool in the bush. In some cases, the pistol at the hip could mean the difference between life and death. A
charging grizzly didn’t leave much time to unsling a rifle and take aim.
In her mind, she heard the roar of the bear as it bore down on Jasper. She shivered with the memory.
“Got it!” Clara exclaimed.
Glad for the distraction, Callie examined Clara’s work. “Very good. Keep that up and you’ll be running your own trapline in no time.” She patted Clara’s shoulder.
Clara glowed with the praise. She carefully scooted away and stood, shouldering her pack. “Where to next?”
“South and west.” Callie picked up her pack as well. “I’ve got some leg traps laid out over there, mostly fox and hare trails. We’ll see if any have been sprung, and I’ll teach you how to set one.” She led the way through the underbrush, in constant search for evidence of predators and potential snare-worthy trails.
“This is actually rather entertaining.” Clara kept up with ease. “Much better than being stuck in a stuffy old cabin all day.”
Callie laughed. “You won’t think that come winter. That stuffy cabin will be nice and warm while you freeze your hind end off out here.”
“A point in your favor.” They continued in silence for several minutes. “You and Jasper weren’t both gone at the same time, were you? I seem to recollect you saying something about alternating days…”
“Yes, though that depended more on the weather than anything. Most days we’d go out at the same time, but that didn’t mean one of us wouldn’t arrive home earlier than the other.” Callie pushed through a stand of saplings, holding their branches aside for Clara. “Leaving a critter trapped for more than a day ain’t humane. Some days we’d be out for most the day and others only a couple of hours.”
“So who took care of the homestead if you were both away?”
Callie cast an impish grin back at her companion. “To hear you tell it, we didn’t.”
Clara leveled Callie a stern look.
Chuckling, Callie turned back to the trail. “It depended on who got home first. Most days we left a pot of something bubbling on the stove. Perpetual Stew, we called it.” She recalled the many evenings that she and Jasper recounted tales of the trail as they shoveled stew and hardtack biscuits into their mouths. “We’d add whatever meat we’d caught, toss in wild or dried vegetables, add more water and let it go on and on.”
“Was it edible?”
“Edible enough. Not as good as your cooking, though.” The compliment caused Clara’s skin to redden, a sight that Callie found most provocative. She stumbled over a root and cursed as she caught herself. Heat infused her cheeks as she forced her mind back to where she planted her feet.
“Though I don’t doubt such a lifestyle worked for you and your brother, I can’t do the same.” Clara grunted as she climbed over a deadfall. “How did you split the chores?”
Callie shrugged. “Whoever thought of it did it, I reckon.”
“Hence the reason there was dust three inches thick upon my arrival.” Clara’s said wryly.
“Exactly.” Callie said. “Neither of us was much for household tasks.” She pointed. “There’s our next stop, and I can see we already have something.” As they neared the sprung trap, she indicated others in the area. “Watch your step.” She approached the fox and dispatched it with her rifle. “From the look of it, he just got here yesterday. Had he been here longer, he’d probably have chewed his paw off. See where he’s already started?” She showed Clara the telltale teeth marks of a desperate animal. “That’s why we’d go out most days. The noise and blood smell is one of the reasons why some days you don’t find much on the line. It scares other critters away.”
She looked at Clara to ascertain her level of queasiness. When Callie had begun trapping, she’d felt squeamish about the butchery, having never killed anything beyond the occasional chicken in Oregon. Clara had done a wonderful job to overcome Callie’s unfavorable preconceptions about her past; butchering wasn’t a task with which many city people had experience. Clara’s complexion was pale, but the set of her shoulders and jaw indicated she wanted to continue the lesson.
“Now we’ll release and field dress him. Field dressing is important when it comes to preserving the meat and hide. We’ve got to open him up and remove his innards, else the meat will go bad faster and poison the skin.” Callie proceeded to put words to action as she deftly sliced the fox open from sternum to sex and divested it of its inner organs. “If we’re hunting predators, we can use some of this to bait the trap once we’ve reset it. If not, we want to discard it away from the trail so as not to spook other animals.”
She continued through the process, showing Clara how to reset a foot trap. After she sprang it, she oversaw Clara’s attempt, instructing her in the safe use of traps. “These smaller ones, now…they’ll break a finger easy, so you’ve got to be careful.”
“Don’t you have bigger ones back at the cabin?” Clara frowned. “Hanging outside on the porch, right?”
“Yeah. Those are for larger animals. Bear and wolf, for instance. We don’t pull those out unless we see scat or tracks. Don’t want a bear loose on your trapline. And those traps will break your leg if you step in ’em. They can kill you, sure as shooting, if you’re not careful.” Callie tied the fox carcass to her pack and pointed out the animal’s prints and scat. Soon the area had been cleaned up and the traps reset and camouflaged. They continued on their way to the next traps along the line.
Clara picked up the threads of their earlier conversation. “While I do enjoy most housework, I’ll need your assistance with it should I run my own trapline. You know that, yes?”
Callie had enjoyed the cessation of household chores. “Yeah, I understand.”
“And my level of cleanliness is…um…much higher than yours.”
A smile teased the edges of Callie’s lips at Clara’s tentative tone. “I reckon,” she allowed, drawing it out.
“If we’re to be partners at home as well as on the trapline, then we’ll have to work together toward a common goal.” Clara took a deep audible breath. “Would you be willing to consider taking over the occasional cooking or cleaning duty?”
Callie considered a more realistic life with Clara, one where they worked side by side, not only to survive but also to flourish. Her cautious thoughts were met with pleasure rather than dissonance. Jasper had requested a wife, and Callie had gotten one instead. No, not a wife. Like Clara said, a partner. So she’d have to cook and clean more than she liked, but they’d both reap the benefits of working together.
“I’ll warn you now. My cooking ain’t much. You’ll be lucky to get anything better than Perpetual Stew.”
Clara’s laugh was musical. “No worries. When I allow you near the stove I’ll happily suffer the consequences.”
Callie felt a sharp twinge in her ribs as she twisted to bypass a mountain ash shrub. The reminder of her injuries dissipated her whimsical thoughts. There was still the issue of Jamie Perkins and his threats of violence. Would it be right to accede to this domestic contract between them when he was out there, waiting for any sign of weakness? Clara’s arguments to remain had hit Callie with all the strength of a freight train when she was at her weakest physically. If Callie agreed to this now, Clara would share in the danger of Perkins’s threat.
Do I have a choice? As she’d noted many times since Clara’s arrival, the woman was a law unto herself when she set her mind. Arguing hadn’t change it, nor had abandoning her in Skagway. Callie stopped and turned to face Clara. “What about Perkins?”
Clara cocked her head. “We can’t let him scare us away. This is your land, your home.”
“And yours,” Callie blurted. She received a quick smile as reward.
“And we’re partners.” Clara grasped one of Callie’s hands. “We’ll deal with him together. We’re stronger together than we are apart.”
Still troubled, Callie nevertheless allowed Clara’s words to soothe her. “It won’t be easy. He’s an opinionated ass with a lot of dangerous friends.”
> “We’ve got friends too.” She shook Callie’s hand when Callie evinced disbelief. “We do! And let’s be honest, we’re far smarter and prettier than Jamie Perkins and his fellows will ever be.”
A snort of reluctant laughter disrupted Callie’s worries. “If only it were that easy.”
“It is.” Clara released her. “You’re concerned he’ll have his men surround the cabin. What if we put out those bear traps? That would be both unexpected and an excellent defense.”
Callie was amazed at how cutthroat this young high society woman was. Her dismay held a begrudging note of awe rather than disgust, and her thoughts furiously chased each other as she considered more strategic defensive moves they could make to protect themselves.
Oblivious to Callie’s shock, Clara continued. “Perkins doesn’t have a thimbleful of our intelligence. With a little forethought, we’ll drive him clear back to Skagway if he tries anything.” Clara laughed aloud. “We may even send him packing all the way to San Francisco.”
The thought of Jamie Perkins running with his tail between his legs all the way to California was a fine one. Callie shared Clara’s laughter although privately, she doubted the reality of the idea.
“Now, where to next, teacher?”
Callie accepted the change of topic and led Clara down the trail to the next set of traps. She pushed Perkins from her mind. She only had one other concern, and it left a sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach. What happens when Clara finds a husband in Skagway?
* * *
Clara put the finishing touches on the fox carcass. She’d done her best to follow Callie’s instructions and examples, but Clara still thought her fox skin seemed too thin in some places. At least she hadn’t gouged any holes into it this time.
Alaskan Bride Page 16
