by Zoë Archer
The sergeant shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Very well.” He gestured toward a small wooden box on the table. “Would you be so kind as to confirm that the items in that box are the same you found on Mr. Prescott’s body?”
Mrs. Bramfield opened the box and, as she did so, Nathan noticed her hands. At one time, they might have been a lady’s hands, slim and white. Now they were still slim, but they looked far more capable and used to hard work than any other lady’s hands. His vision, still sharper than he could ever remember, noted the calluses that thickened the skin of her fingers and lined her palms. For some reason, he found the sight arousing. A plain wedding band gleamed on her left hand.
One by one, she took items out of the box and laid them onto the table. A pocket watch. A battered book. Packets of letters. Nothing of real value. Nathan ground his teeth together. For this he had traveled hundreds of miles? Damn overzealous Mounties, taking their new responsibilities as peacekeepers too seriously. But then he watched Astrid Bramfield as she removed the dead man’s belongings from their container, and couldn’t feel that this journey had been entirely worthless.
“Yes,” she said after examining everything in the box. “These are the same items. Nothing is missing.”
“Very good.” The sergeant handed her several pieces of paper, as well as a pen and bottle of ink. “If you’ll just sign these affidavits, we can release the items into Mr. Lesperance’s custody.”
Wordlessly, she bent over the papers and signed them. The only sound in the small building was the pen’s nib scratching over the paper. As she wrote, Nathan saw that, in the pale sunlight, a few glints of silver threaded through her golden hair. But her skin was unlined and smooth. Something had marked her, changed her, and he wanted to know what.
“Please countersign the documents, Mr. Lesperance,” Williamson said when Mrs. Bramfield was done.
Nathan reached for the pen to take it from her. Doing so, his fingers grazed hers. A brush fire spread from his fingertips through his whole body at the brief contact. She drew in a shaking, startled breath. The pen fell to the table, scattering droplets of ink like dark blood across the papers.
Sergeant Williamson darted forward, quickly blotting the ink with a handkerchief. “Not to worry, not to worry,” he said with a nervous laugh. “If you like, I can have Corporal Mackenzie, our clerk, draw up some new affidavits.”
“No need,” Nathan said. At the sound of his voice, Astrid Bramfield pressed her lips together until they formed a tight line. She suddenly paced over to where a Hudson Bay blanket was tacked to the wall as a gesture toward décor, and became deeply engrossed in studying the woven pattern.
Nathan could practically see her vibrating with tension. She wore it all around her like armor. He knew she didn’t want to be at the trading post, but there seemed to be more to her sense of unease. He was unsettling her. Well, now they were even.
Intrigued, Nathan signed the documents, noting that Mrs. Bramfield’s handwriting was both feminine and bold. Astrid Anderson Bramfield. He found himself touching her name, little caring that the ink smudged on the paper and stained his fingertips. Nathan had the urge to inhale deeply over the affidavits, as if he could draw her scent up from the paper. He shook himself. What the hell had gotten into him? He must be tired. He’d been riding hard for weeks, and it had been nearly two months since he’d been with a woman. That was the only explanation that made any sense.
Once the papers were all signed, Sergeant Williamson examined them. “Everything looks to be in order. The Northwest Mounted Police will be happy to release Mr. Prescott’s belongings into your care, Mr. Lesperance.”
“Am I finished here?” Mrs. Bramfield said before Nathan could answer the sergeant.
Williamson blinked. “I believe so.”
“Good.” She picked up a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat and set it on her head. Without another word, she strode from the building, but not before stepping around Nathan as one might edge past a chained beast. Then she was gone.
For a moment, Nathan and Williamson stared at each other. A second later, Nathan was out the door and in pursuit.
He caught up with her near the corral. She was already shouldering a pack and a rifle with practiced ease, taking the muddy ground in long, quick strides. Nathan didn’t miss the way most of the men’s eyes followed her. Women were rare sights out in the wild, and trouser-clad, handsome women even more rare. Yet he had the feeling that even if the trading post yard was full of pretty women in pants, Astrid Bramfield would stand out like a star at dawn.
“Douglas Prescott’s family appreciates you giving him a decent burial,” Nathan said, easily keeping pace. “They want to give you a reward.”
She shot him a hard look but didn’t slow. “I don’t want anything.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” he murmured.
They reached the corral, and she walked briskly toward a bay mare. She threw the Indian boy watching her horse a coin. The boy said something to her in his language, glancing at Nathan, and she answered sharply. The boy scampered off.
“What did he say?” Nathan asked.
“He wanted to know what tribe you come from,” she said. “I said I didn’t know.” Without asking for any assistance, she hooked her boot into the stirrup and mounted her horse in a single, fluid movement. She tugged on some heavy rawhide gloves before taking up the reins.
“Cowichan,” he said. “Government people took me when I was small. Raised me in a school. I never knew the people of my tribe.”
Something in his tone had her looking down at him. Their eyes caught and held, and he felt it again, drawing tight between them, a heat and awareness that had a profound resonance. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her simple words held more real sympathy than anything anyone else had ever said to him.
“You could have kept Prescott’s things for yourself,” he said, gazing up at her. “People die out here all the time, and no one ever knows.”
“Those who love him would know,” she said, her words like soft fire on his flesh. “And it was for them I took Prescott’s belongings to the Mounties. They would want something of his to help them remember.”
She spoke plainly, almost without affect, but he heard it just the same, the raw hurt that throbbed just beneath the surface. She’d shown him a small piece of her heart, and he recognized it as a gift.
Looking into her eyes, into the stern beauty of her face, he dove through the surfaces of words and gestures to the woman beneath. Wounded within, a fierce need to protect herself. And beneath even that, a heart that burned white-hot, blazing its way through the world.
He understood just then that Astrid Bramfield spoke to him like a man, not a barely tamed savage or object of curiosity. The only woman to have ever truly done so. Even the Native women he knew could never place him, since he was neither entirely absorbed into the white world nor fully Indian. But this guarded woman saw him as he was, without judgment.
He placed a hand on the reins of her horse. “Don’t leave.” He truly didn’t want her to go. Nathan had a feeling that once Astrid Bramfield left this dingy little trading post, she would disappear into the wilderness and he would never see her again. The thought pained him, even though he’d met her just minutes before.
“I can’t stay.”
“Have a meal with me,” he pressed. He struggled not to seize her, pull her down from the saddle, and drag her to some shadowed corner. He clenched his jaw, fighting the urge. He was civilized, damn it, not the savage everyone thought him to be. But the compulsion was strong, growing stronger the more he thought about her leaving. He switched tactics. “It’s already growing dark. Could be dangerous.”
She said with no pride, “The dark doesn’t frighten me.”
“Not much does.”
Her jaw tightened and a flash of something—pain, regret—sparked in her eyes before she tugged the reins from his grasp. She wheeled her horse around, forcing him to step back.
“Good-bye, Mr
. Lesperance,” she said. Then she set her heels to her horse, and the animal surged forward, out of the corral. It cantered across the rough trail leading away from the trading post, taking her with it. Nathan battled the urge to grab a horse and follow. Instead, he turned and walked toward where Sergeant Williamson stood holding the box of Prescott’s things, deliberately not glancing back to try to get a final glimpse of Astrid Bramfield before she vanished. His inner beast snarled at him.
His senses were still unusually keen. Scents, sights, and sounds inundated him until he felt almost dizzy from them. The minerals in the mud. The horses’ snorting and pawing, rattling their tack. A man’s laugh, harsh and quick. And, more than ever, the persistent pull winding down from the mountains like a green surge, drawing him toward their rocky heights and shadowed gullies.
“What do you know about her?” Nathan demanded of the sergeant without preamble.
Williamson seemed more accustomed to the way Nathan spoke. He hardly blinked as he said, “Very little. She comes to the post a few times a year. Never stays overnight.”
“Tell me about her husband.”
“All anyone knows is that she’s a widow.” The sergeant shrugged. “Honestly, Mr. Lesperance, she spoke as much to you in the past fifteen minutes as she has to anyone in four years. Interested in paying court?” Williamson sounded both amused and appalled by the idea that a Native, even one as civilized as Nathan, would consider wooing a white woman. White men took Native wives, especially out in the wilderness, though few genuinely married them in the eyes of God and the law. It almost never happened the other way around, with an Indian man taking a white wife. If he’d been inclined toward marriage, which he wasn’t, Nathan’s choices would have been slim. Still, he didn’t like to be reminded of yet another way he lived on the fringes of society. The idea that a woman like Astrid Bramfield could never be his particularly stuck in his craw.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Nathan growled.
“Your guide won’t be willing to leave again so soon,” Williamson said in surprise.
“I’ll find another.” Everything about this place set Nathan on edge, unbalanced him. Victoria wasn’t anything more than a decent-sized town, its ranks swelling periodically when gold was discovered nearby, so it wasn’t wilderness itself that troubled Nathan. What unsettled him, roused the animal within, was this wilderness. And Astrid Bramfield.
“There’s no shortage of men who’d oblige,” the sergeant said, “if the price is good.”
Nathan had money in abundance, not only provided by the firm, but his own pocket. “They’ll be satisfied with my terms.”
“You can find good trail guides at the saloon.” Williamson grimaced. “It isn’t so much a saloon as it is a cramped room where they serve whiskey. Legal whiskey, of course,” he added quickly.
“Of course,” Nathan replied, dry. “Keep hold of Prescott’s belongings for a little while longer. I don’t want some drunk trapper getting curious.”
“You can handle yourself in a fight,” Williamson said.
“Getting another man’s blood on my clothes is a damned nuisance.”
After Williamson nodded, Nathan set off for the so-called saloon. He wanted to secure his return journey as soon as possible. He needed to get back to the cold, moist air of Vancouver Island. This mountain atmosphere played havoc with his senses, luring the beast inside of him with siren songs of wild freedom. He didn’t care what that damned animal wanted—he would leave here and leave her.
An hour later, Nathan had drunk some of the most throat-shredding whiskey he’d ever tasted and found himself a guide who went by the name Uncle Ned. Nathan doubted anybody would willingly claim Ned as a relative, given the guide’s preference for wolverine pelts as outerwear, complete with heads, but Ned’s skill as a guide weren’t in doubt. Even Williamson said that Nathan had made a good choice in Uncle Ned.
When Nathan emerged from the saloon, dusk had crept further over the trading post and its outbuildings. The men had grown more raucous with the approach of darkness. And there was considerable commotion surrounding a group of riders who had entered the yard around the post while Nathan had been securing a guide. One of the men had a hooded peregrine falcon perched on his glove. Not only were the riders all equipped with prime horseflesh, but also their gear was top of the line. Saddles, guns, packs. All of it excellent quality. As Nathan walked past the riders, he noted their equipment was English, likely purchased from one of London’s most esteemed outfitters. He’d seen a few examples pass through Victoria and could recognize the manufacturers.
“You,” snapped one of the men to Nathan. Like Astrid Bramfield, this man had a genteel English accent, but none of her melodiousness. He glanced around the trading post with undisguised disgust. “You guide us? Big money. Buy lots of firewater.” The man, tall and fair, jingled a pouch of coins at his waist.
“I’m not from these parts,” Nathan answered, his voice flat. “But I’d be happy to lead you straight to hell.”
The man gaped at Nathan. As he stood there in astonishment, his companion with the falcon approached.
“This Indian giving you trouble, Staunton?”
Before either Nathan or the man called Staunton spoke, the falcon let out a sudden, piercing shriek. Nathan’s sensitive hearing turned the sound to an excruciating screech, and he fought the urge to wince. Both Englishmen stared at the bird, amazed, as it continued to cry and flap its wings, struggling against its jesses as if it meant to swoop at Nathan. The men traded looks with each other, and their other two companions also took keen notice.
As did the rest of the inhabitants of the trading post. The falcon persisted in its noise, drawing the attention of everyone, including Mounties and Natives, who gawked as though Nathan and the bird were part of the same traveling carnival.
Nathan wanted to grab the bird and tear it apart. Instead, he made himself stride away. He didn’t know what had disturbed the falcon, but he wasn’t much interested in finding out. If he stayed near the Englishmen any longer, he’d wind up punching them as he had the two drunk trappers earlier, only with less delicacy. He heard the Englishmen murmuring to each other as the bird’s cries died down. With his hearing so sharp, he could have learned what the men were saying, but he didn’t care. They reminded him of some of the elite families on Victoria, touring the schools for Natives and praising the little red children for being so eager to adopt white ways. But when the red children grew up and presumed to take a place in society beside them, then they were less full of praise and more condemning. Let the Natives become carpenters or cannery workers. Respected, affluent citizens? Government officials or attorneys? No.
Nathan had spent his life challenging people like that, but his vehicle was the law. From the inside out, he’d smash apart the edifices of their prejudice, and the victory would be all the sweeter because they’d put the hammer into his hands.
Not now. All he cared about now was rinsing off some of the day’s grime, getting a hot meal, and having a decent night’s sleep. It had been a long day, an even longer journey, and tomorrow it would begin all over again. He’d forget about Astrid Bramfield. She seemed eager to forget him.
As Nathan headed toward the Mounties’ dormitory, a flash in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned, thinking he saw a woman, a redheaded woman, skulking close to the wooden wall enclosing the trading post. He saw nothing, and debated whether to investigate. Normally he would have dismissed such a suspicion. After all, anything could exist in the margins of one’s vision, even monsters and magic. But ever since he’d met Astrid Bramfield, there was no denying his senses were sharper. He started in the direction where he thought he’d seen the red-haired woman.
“Mr. Lesperance,” called Corporal Mackenzie, waving to him, “please, come and have supper with us.”
Nathan cast a look over his shoulder, where the woman had possibly been, but then cleared his head of fancies. It didn’t matter if there were passels of redheads ha
unting the trading post. He was leaving there soon, as soon as possible.
Mounties worked well with Natives. Without Native guides, they all would have been dead on the slow, far march from Winnipeg to the Northwest Territory. Tribes respected the Mounties for curbing the devastating border whiskey trade. So Nathan was welcomed at the Mounties’ table that night, the company consisting of him, Sergeant Williamson, and Corporals Mackenzie and Hastings. They ate a spread of roast elk, potatoes, and biscuits while telling stories of their adventures bringing order to the wild.
“Sounds damned wonderful,” Nathan admitted over his beer. “Getting results through brains and action.” More satisfying, in the short run, than what he tried to accomplish in Victoria.
“It is,” agreed Corporal Mackenzie. “It’s what we all signed on for. Being out in the field, tracking criminals, keeping the peace.” He grinned.
“Everyone saw how you put down Three-Tooth Jim and Gravy Dan,” said Corporal Hastings, a man hardly old enough to shave. “Maybe you should consider joining up. You’d be grand as a Mountie.”
Williamson and Nathan shared a look. The boy was too young and naive to realize that what he spoke of would likely never be accepted by headquarters at Fort Dufferin.
“Thanks, all the same,” Nathan said. “But I’ve got a life waiting for me in Victoria.” A life that seemed, at that moment, too tame. He already chafed against the restraints of society there, and no one, not a soul, knew about Nathan’s late-night restlessness, his compulsion to run. He was always careful.
“Just think about it,” pressed the young corporal. He yelped. “You kicked me, Mackenzie!”
Corporal Mackenzie rolled his eyes, and Sergeant Williamson hurriedly changed the subject. “What do you know about those Englishmen who arrived today, Hastings? The ones with the falcon.”
