It had taken all the knowledge the Grandmother had known to save him. She bathed his body to bring down the fever and applied salves to his wounds. It was she who fought to save him, refusing to let him die, making him eat and drink … forcing him to live. It was the old Grandmother who heard his feverish whisperings and who knew how greatly he suffered through guilt. When he was well, it was she who convinced him that it was meant to happen and eased his guilt because he had been away from camp.
It was the old Grandmother who gave him a new name. “You are now Bear Who Walks Alone. Your life has changed directions beyond those you desired. You must follow its path wherever it leads, mighty Bear.”
“It was mid-summer before I had the strength to walk more than ten steps,” Bear said quietly, not elaborating on the extent of his injuries or the nearness of his own death.
“I came here and spent nearly two months building a lean-to. I was so weak it took days for me just to cut down a tree. By the time the first snow came, I had a rough shelter made, and I wintered here alone.”
“I’m so sorry,” Linsey whispered, knowing the words inadequate.
He nuzzled against her breasts. “It is over, little one. I have buried Snow, and time has a way of making the pain less.” A gentle smile crossed his lips. “She was so young and our time together so short, nothing can erase the memories I have of her. But I can’t live in the past, and she would not want me to; so I have let her go.” Linsey leaned over him and looked deeply into his dark eyes. She saw that he spoke the truth. The agony of Snow’s death would always be with him, but he had accepted his loss.
Moving slowly, allowing instinct to guide her, Linsey brought her head down to his. She caressed the scars with her lips, her touch soft against the sensitive skin. All thought of pity was also forgotten. It was skin and bone, as he had said, battle scars honorably won against a mighty opponent.
With her mouth and hands, she paid homage to a fierce warrior. Her inexperience was no barrier as she applied recently learned skills to take them both beyond the gates of reality, into the land of lovers.
The fierceness of the winter storm outside the snug cabin could not begin to compare with the fiery battle of love within.
CHAPTER TEN
The thick gray clouds filled the sky to overflowing, telling a tale for anyone willing to listen. The wilderness was unforgiving to those who did not or would not heed the warnings of nature.
Kaleb Smith was not ignoring the signs; he simply refused to obey their command to seek shelter. Hunching his coat more snugly around his neck, he was thankful for the thick leather gloves lined with soft rabbit fur that protected his hands. His lungs ached in protest of the bitterly cold air as his labored breathing made a thick white mist that gathered in tiny ice droplets from his beard.
For weeks he’d followed the trail, and now he knew it was only a matter of time before he found Jeb and Zeke. At mid-morning he’d come across the campfire they had used the night before. Cursing their carelessness in leaving live coals, he threw dirt over the smoldering embers. Wild fire spreading uncontrolled through the wilderness was something all hunters feared. Kaleb had lived through one once and had no desire to repeat the experience.
Kaleb knew that his quarry had lost their way. They had come full circle and were actually a few miles above Big Jim’s trading post. Jeb no longer took the time and effort to hide their trail, making Kaleb’s job that much easier. A child could follow the path of broken limbs, trampled grass and human waste.
Alert ears detected a noise unnatural to the quiet woods. Kaleb stopped, his eyes narrowing as he listened carefully. The few animals and birds that stayed in the area during the winter were aware of the approaching storm and had sought shelter. The only sound was the wind whistling mournfully through the leafless trees. Kaleb cocked his head slightly. The noise had come from his left, and as he listened it came again: a human voice, too far away to distinguish the words, but still identifiable. Quietly, Kaleb moved forward. It was possible that the voices were from men other than the ones he sought. If so, he would cautiously seek information and move on.
But the instinct that had sharpened and grown with each passing year in the wilderness told Kaleb that he had found his prey. He lowered his pack to the ground, hiding it out of sight in the hollow of a dead tree. Cradling his loaded rifle, he cautiously walked to the edge of a clearing.
A smile of grim satisfaction spread through the puddled creases of his face. His search was finished; … now he would have vengeance. Across the clearing, arguing loudly, Jeb and Zeke were unaware that their lives had dwindled to a few short, extremely painful days.
“But Jebby…” Zeke whined, shuffling his foot in the dirt.
“Ya ain’t gonna go back,” Jeb said firmly. “There’s a storm a’cornin’, and we’s gotta be ready for hit.”
“But hit was a purty red fox just a’waitin’ for me to let hit outta the wood, Jebby.”
Jeb snorted with disgust. “That purty red fox tweren’t nothin’ but a piece a brokin’ tree branch. If Ma a’ knowed what trouble hit was gonna cause, she’d never gived ya that knife and showed ya how to carve. Now ya won’t let me burn a piece a wood to keep us warm if’n it looks like some animal to ya.”
He raised his head and looked at the gathering clouds. “Ya do like I tolt ya. Go get us a lotta wood so we don’t have to worry none about freezin’ afore the snow stops.”
“But Jebby, hits just back down the trail a ways. I can get hit and still get some wood.”
“I said forget hit! Hit ain’t down the trail a ways; we passed hit two days back, and ya ain’t quit complainin’ ‘bout hit since.” Jeb turned and began setting up camp. The temperature had dropped steadily all afternoon, and he had started to worry about finding a good place to build a shelter. The small clearing had not seemed a likely location until he discovered a natural cave dug into the rock.
“Go get all the wood ya can find,” he ordered Zeke. “I’ll make sure there’s no animal a’nestin’ in the cave.” From his hiding place, Kaleb freed his knife from its sheath and rested his rifle against a tree. He watched as Zeke passed within sight of him and breathed a silent sigh when Zeke kept his eyes on the ground, never looking right or left.
“Poor little foxy,” Zeke mumbled as he kicked at a pine cone. “Got caught in that piece of wood and Jebby won’t let me go get ya.”
Kaleb silently followed Zeke and realized from listening to his mumblings that the other man intended to ignore his brother’s orders and go back down the trail for a particular piece of wood that had caught his fancy. Kaleb knew Zeke’s mind was slow and without Jeb to care for him he would soon die in the wilderness. Weighing the idea, he decided to let Zeke go. His death from freezing would come much quicker than the fate Kaleb had planned, but now he could put all his attention on the man he held responsible for Mary.
For almost an hour Kaleb followed Zeke. When he was sure Zeke would not return to camp, Kaleb left him and made his way back. The first few gentle flakes of snow began to fall by the time he took up his hiding place again.
Jeb had cleared the cave of debris and made a covering for the front entrance by tying four sturdy branches together and covering them with one of their blankets. It would stop the wind and snow from blowing into the cave and keep some of the heat inside. As he worked, he was unaware of time passing, and only as the falling snow thickened did he realize Zeke had not returned.
He carried their packs inside then returned to begin gathering wood. His eyes constantly scanned the area, hoping to catch sight of Zeke. Even as he considered going in search of him, the snow became a veil of white. Jeb knew if he left the cave now he might never find it again. He carried the last armload of wood inside and pulled the blanket-covered barrier into place.
“Gawdamn ya, Zeke!” Jeb swore as he lit a fire near the front of the shallow cave. “I been a’takin’ care a ya since ya tweren’t no more’n a tadpole. I protected ya when Ma’s men wanted to wop
ya ‘en she’d had too much rotgut to know what were goin’ on. Ma never had no truck with me ‘cause I knew she tweren’t nothin’ but a whore; but ya were special-like to her, and I promised I’d watch out for ya. But how em I gonna do that when ya don’t mind what I say?”
He slowly added logs to the flame. “I done tolt ya hit was gonna come a storm! I done tolt ya ya coun’t go back for that piece of wood! Now you’re out in the snow, ‘en you’re too stupid to find a place to hole up! You’re gonna freeze your gizzard for a gawdamn piece a wood!”
Jeb stared into the golden flame as he cursed the only person who had ever looked up to him or ever needed him … the only person he had ever loved. Noises were hidden beneath the building fury of the storm as the wind howled fiercely. Jeb didn’t know he was no longer alone until the covering at the front of the cave was violently thrown open.
“Zeke?” Blinded from staring into the fire, he looked up and grinned with relief. “You had me worried that you woun’t be a fmdin’ your way back here.”
When his vision cleared, the grin left his face and he found himself staring into the business end of a long rifle. As his hand moved to the knife at his hip the gun pressed firmly against his chest.
“Throw the knife, careful like, past the fire,” Kaleb said in a deadly soft voice.
Using only two fingers, Jeb tossed the knife, handle first, beyond the fire. His gaze rested briefly on his own rifle only an arm’s length away.
“What’d I ever do to you?” Jeb whined. “Why you been a trackin’ us?”
“It’s a long story.” Kaleb rested the rifle on his arm, his finger firmly on the trigger. “One you just might live long ‘nough to hear.”
“I ain’t interested in hearing no stories, old man. Say your peace and get out!”
Kaleb’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the other man. “How old do you think I am?” he asked quietly.
“What the hell do it matter how old you are?”
“Just been a thinkin’ on it, I figure how you might be nearly my age.”
Jeb snorted as he looked at Kaleb’s gray beard, badly wrinkled face and scarred head.
“You ain’t gonna believe me none, but four year back my hair tweren’t gray … it were the color of corn. Yes siree, my woman liked my yeller hair, used to run her fingers through it …” His voice drifted away at the memory of Mary’s fascination with his hair, so different from her silky black locks.
After his third winter as a longhunter, Kaleb Smith knew he had found the kind of life he’d searched for. Unlike some men who quit after the first lonely winter of solitude, Kaleb relished every day of isolation.
Raised on a farm in the Carolinas, the third of fifteen children, Kaleb had never known a moment for quiet thoughts, or had the place to indulge them. Seventeen people in a two room cabin did not allow for privacy and every minute of every day was spent in providing for their existence.
Leaving home at sixteen, Kaleb tried several occupations. After five years of slowly drifting westward he joined up with an old hunter and spent his first winter running trap lines. That spring, with his share from the sale of the furs, he bought supplies and went out on his own.
His first winter alone he ran into a small tribe of Delaware wintering not far from the abandoned cabin he had found and claimed as his own. From the time he saw the woman, barely more than a girl, he knew she was the missing thing that would make his life complete. It took two years and a winter’s worth of furs in gifts to make her his wife.
Kaleb learned a working knowledge of the Delaware language, but her name was almost impossible for him to pronounce. He renamed his sweet, gentle wife. Mary.
Eager to please her golden haired husband, Mary gave to Kaleb a gentleness he had never known. Her smallest smile gave him joy, her tender touch brought exquisite pleasure, her soft voice was a velvet whispered sigh caressing his senses.
Among the first of the many things Kaleb taught her of the white man’s ways was how to kiss. An enthusiastic pupil, it was a lesson she learned quickly and practiced frequently … with his willing cooperation. More than once her lips, soft and tender against his, invited him to delay his plans for the day. He never refused her invitation.
Mary sent him off on each journey with the taste of her bps on his. When he returned, she greeted him in the same way. She never tired of the white man’s way of showing affection. Usually she thought the Indian way of doing things was better, but she decided a kiss was something greatly missing from the Indian life.
She was gentle and eager to please, but she was stubborn too. When she thought she was in the right she would plant her feet firmly, raise her chin determinedly and not back down. Her black eyes would flash and she’d speak her own language so quickly Kaleb would have trouble following. He enjoyed these confrontations as much, if not more, than any other and on more than one occasion he had been guilty of instigating them.
Mary was his woman, his friend, his lover … his heart. And he had two short years with her.
Winter was coming and Kaleb journeyed to the nearest outpost one last time before the deep snow made the trip impossible. The round trip took ten days and was one he made two or three times a year. Mary usually travelled with him, but this year she was late in preparing for winter and decided to stay home. Kaleb felt no undue concern about leaving her alone. It was the way of the wilderness.
He kissed her goodbye and pushed his canoe away from shore. Looking back just before he rounded a bend in the river Kaleb saw her wave — it was over a year before he saw her again.
Kaleb shook his head, almost surprised to find himself in the cave. He seldom allowed his memories to run free rein anymore, but he felt Jeb deserved to know exactly why he was going to die.
“It took me a year to find her,” Kaleb said, the gentleness leaving his eyes as they turned to a chilling sky blue. “And it took her another year to die.
“She died slow, one day at a time. Her smile, her gentleness and her pride was gone by the time I got her away from that Frenchie you sold her to.” He didn’t add that he’d left the man with a lead slug between his eyes.
“She wouldn’t even let me touch her to help her into my canoe.” His hands tightened on the rifle. “Said she was dirt, a whore. She’d been raised to believe it were wrong to be with any man but her husband.
“The year it took her to die she’d talk sometime. It took a while but I pieced it together, the things you and that crazy brother of yours did to her. It nigh on to kilt me when I learnt she’d been carryin’ my babe and when you found it out you beat her until she lost it.
“And you never stopped heatin’ her. She was covered in scars. Your bastard brother even cut off one of her tits to make that pouch he carries his carvings in.
“My gentle, sweet Mary were an old woman when she died. You broke her spirit and there tweren’t nothin’ left for her to bve for.”
Jeb remembered the young Indian woman they had taken that first year after Zeke had killed the white girl they had planned to sell.
“She tweren’t nothin’ but an Injun whore!” he screamed.
“She was my wife!” Kaleb snarled. “If’n I’da found you right away affer my Mary died I’da killed you slow, make it last for days, but now I just want it done.
“You’re gonna die. For what you did to my Mary and the other women you took. You’da done it again to that little gal I took to the Bear if’en I hadn’t been there to stop it.”
“Old man you can’t do this to me!”
“Who’s gonna stop me?” he asked softly. “You know, you never did tell me how old you think I am. Mayhap I’m a little older you.
“Come summer, if’en I live that long, I’ll be thirty-four.”
Kaleb’s rifle no longer pointed at Jeb’s head. The heavy weight of it had pulled it down, but Kaleb’s finger was firm on the trigger. Jeb saw his chance and reached frantically for his own rifle. It was the move Kaleb had waited for. He let Jeb reach the weapon, pull it in
to his grasp and turn to aim.
Kaleb’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Kaleb walked away from the cave, the falling snow whispering softly past his face. For the first time in years Mary’s memory played gently through his mind. He again saw her shy smile and felt her velvet voice. His Indian wife thanked him for his revenge.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As Linsey slid quietly off the foot of the bed, Bear opened his eyes and stretched. He folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Contentment wove around him with the delicacy of a golden web, spun magically from whispered words and tender caresses.
The blizzard that began the night they’d first made love had lasted for three days, followed almost immediately by another one and yet another several days later. Winter at its worst became a time of discovery for the snowbound lovers. They learned each other as only two people alone can, speaking of their pasts, their likes and dislikes, family and friends.
And they loved.
Bear muffled a groan of pleasure at the memory. After her initial shyness was overcome, Linsey had become a passionate and adventurous lover.
Turning his head, he watched her as she crossed the room. She wore one of his flannel shirts, the hem coming down to her knees and the sleeves rolled back several times to free her hands. His eyes narrowed as he thought of the beauty that shirt covered. Her body was perfect, and he never tired of touching, tasting, or caressing it. He could feel the hardness of her nipple in his mouth and her silky legs wrapped around him. His desire grew as she bent toward the fire, and his groan was almost audible at her unknowing display. He briefly considered telling her to forget breakfast and come back to bed.
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