Now and Forever

by Mary Connealy

  Bailey would know she was missing by now. She’d be searching. Sunrise was the best tracker Shannon had ever seen, and she’d help too, though Shannon had no idea if they’d realize Tucker was involved.

  They’d probably track Shannon to the cliff and figure she’d gone over, but how in the world would they track her from there? Bailey and Kylie would be sick with worry. Shannon regretted putting them through that.

  They wouldn’t give up hunting, which gave Shannon hope. If she managed to stay alive, her sisters would find her.

  Only a merciful God had seen her through, because her chance to die had come again and again. It wasn’t her day to die—there could be no other reason that she hadn’t.

  Her exhaustion made swimming impossible, but the current swept them right up against the log and they snagged.

  God again, knowing she couldn’t hang on anymore.

  The tree was mossy, the limbs in the right places to slide herself along until finally she gained entrance to that black hole, where she lay sprawled, flat on her back, feet still dangling in the water, with poor, unconscious Tucker on top of her.

  His chest rose and fell. With only shreds of meager strength, she fumbled for the whip and untied them. She pushed Tucker to lie beside her, looked overhead at a small cave, dark gray walls streaked with black, with no idea where it went or if it went anywhere.

  She needed to see to Tucker’s head wound. Bandage it, or at least make sure the bleeding had stopped. He might need stitches. She should search for wood, start a fire, bathe the cut to keep it from getting infected. Tucker still somehow had his haversack. She should go through it to see if she could find food or any other supplies.

  She needed to scout around and try to get them out of here. The crack in the wall had to lead somewhere. She had to get to her sisters or maybe to Sunrise, the Shoshone woman who considered Tucker her son, who’d take care of everything.

  Shannon forced herself to sit up. Scooting a bit, she got completely out of the water, and with an effort that was only possible because the rocks were slick, she dragged Tucker completely into the cave.

  With him all the way in the cave, she found her head spinning and her stomach threatening to empty. It might have if breakfast hadn’t been so long ago.

  Hoping to steady her head and belly, she collapsed flat beside Tucker to think about what to do next.

  And then even thinking proved to be too much work. Sleep claimed her.

  “Shannon’s missing.” Bailey Wilde slammed into her sister Kylie’s house, rifle in hand.

  Aaron Masterson, Kylie’s new husband, shot out of his chair where he’d just finished his evening meal, charging for his rifle. Kylie gave Bailey one worried look, then quit washing dishes and started loading a pack. Sunrise looked Bailey in the eye and, without saying a word aloud, asked for every detail.

  “She hasn’t tended her sheep all day.”

  Kylie gasped and moved faster.

  “I trailed her north of the house. She likes hiking, but she’s long overdue.”

  “Tucker headed north yesterday morning.” Sunrise exchanged a hard look with Bailey.

  Bailey felt the most hope since she’d seen those neglected sheep. Shannon never quit babying them. If her sheep were hungry, something was terribly wrong. But if somehow she’d found Tucker, she was in good hands.

  “Nev, saddle the horses.” Aaron started giving orders as he was prone to do. “Kylie, pack enough food for overnight on the trail.”

  “I will bring Tucker’s grulla.” Sunrise headed for the door.

  “His what?” Bailey asked, narrowing her eyes. “His grew-ya?”

  “He calls her Grew sometimes. Grulla is the color.” Sunrise shook her head impatiently. “That’s his horse. You’ve seen the gray mustang mare he rides, with the black mane and tail. It’s an unusually wise animal and a better tracker than many a man. Tucker left her with me when he went off for his walk. No one can handle her but Tucker and me.” Sunrise left the cabin.

  Neville Bassett headed after Sunrise, but the old friend of Aaron Masterson, who’d come west to kill him and when that madness passed stayed to heal, moved too slow to suit Bailey.

  She raced to the barn and had two horses saddled before he had one ready. Bailey was doing her best to trust the man, yet she caught herself watching his every move anytime she was near him.

  Sunrise came with her own pack and was working with them by the time Aaron and Kylie got there. They were on the trail ten minutes after Bailey had arrived. It had almost killed her, once she realized Shannon was in trouble, to quit trailing her and ride back for help, but she needed to. She needed Sunrise and her tracking skills. Bailey was mighty good. But she needed the best.

  As they strung out at a gallop on the trail to Shannon’s, Bailey looked at the crowd. What a houseful of people Kylie’d gotten saddled with. Bailey didn’t know how her baby sister stood it. A husband would be more than Bailey could bear, but Kylie had fallen in love, the idiot.

  And Sunrise, well, Bailey could see having Sunrise around. But to add Nev, Aaron’s loco friend, still ailing and half mad from all he’d suffered in the war. Nev had attacked Kylie, intending to kill her to punish Aaron for imagined wrongs to Nev’s family during the war. Nev had been stopped and convinced to set aside his hate.

  And then he’d moved in. Kylie was as good as running a hotel these days.

  Bailey leaned low over her mustang’s neck, not sure why Nev couldn’t toughen up and handle the horrors of war like she had. One thing’s for sure, if Nev had tried to move in with her, she’d’ve run him off with a shotgun and sent Aaron along with him. But Nev was Aaron’s childhood friend, and Kylie loved Aaron, so they were nursing the lunatic back to sanity, and it was a trying chore if ever there was one.

  Now they all joined in on the hunt, slowing Bailey and Sunrise down while they raced to save Shannon. Bailey had never been this scared in her life.

  Well, she had, but the war didn’t count. And anyway, that wasn’t something she thought about. It was all over, and Bailey had plenty to do to keep her busy. Nev oughta try getting a job. It’d give him less time to be furiously mad.

  Setting a blistering pace back to Shannon’s house, Bailey, with Sunrise right on her heels, charged for the trail Shannon had gone up.

  “She was on foot. She likes walking in the mountains.” Bailey had trouble keeping the scorn out of her voice. Shannon had too much spare time to enjoy the beauty of nature. She’d have gotten in less trouble if she’d had more chores. Work was the solution to everything, and Bailey could have kept her busy.

  “We walk now.” Sunrise swung down from the gray mare that wore no saddle and was guided by a bridle without a bit. The horse’s black mane flowed like living water, as wild and untamed as the critter itself.

  “Bailey.” Aaron’s voice snapped with command, and Bailey obeyed. It made her want to growl, but she’d been a private in the Union Army for too long. That reaction was deep-rooted.

  Once she was done turning, standing at attention, she relaxed. But her blasted brother-in-law and his officer voice always got that obedience out of her . . . at least for a second.

  “What?” Bailey asked.

  “Let Nev up there with Sunrise. He’s better on a trail than you.”

  Bailey really needed to punch someone, and it was a shame that the only one here she thought she could take was her baby sister. Even crazy Nev Bassett was a little too tall and wiry.

  Kylie really didn’t have it coming, poor kid. She looked ready to cry. Punching her wouldn’t help.

  Bailey narrowed her eyes at Nev. She didn’t like admitting it, but she trusted Aaron. “Go.”

  Nev looked at Bailey nervously and then sidled past her on the trail. The man was wise to fear her.

  Sunrise took one look at Nev, snapped, “Stay behind.” Then she moved on while leading Tucker’s mare. Nev followed. Crouching occasionally. Bailey could tell by the way he studied the ground that the man really did know tr
acking.

  “She moves steady. Come.” Sunrise strode forward. They all hurried after her. The ground wound upward and became more rugged. The aspen gave way to pine. The stony ground was impossible to pass if not for a narrow game trail. Bailey walked along it, leading the mustang, sure that Shannon came this way often. They walked for maybe an hour when the grulla stopped so suddenly Nev almost walked into it.

  Sunrise said a single word. “Tucker.”

  Bailey couldn’t stop herself. “Tucker is walking with her?”

  Scowling over her shoulder, Sunrise didn’t answer but instead moved on.

  Nev shoved his horse’s reins into Bailey’s hands and took off at an angle. A look at the trail told Bailey that Tucker had walked along here for a time. Bailey had seen him only twice. He wore moccasins that laced up to his knees, not boots like most men. And these tracks were his.

  Bailey kept up with Sunrise, glancing back to see Nev move fast for about a hundred yards, until the trail curved out of sight. Then he came back and caught and passed Aaron, who brought up the rear of their line, with Kylie and Bailey, now leading two horses, to fall in behind Sunrise again. He said a few things, speaking quietly to Sunrise, who nodded in reply.

  Bailey heard him say, “Tucker was ahead.”

  She couldn’t hear anymore. She hated being left out, but she didn’t ask them to speak up. Distracting them served no good purpose.

  Bailey’s tension deepened as the day wore down. The August days were long, but the light wouldn’t last. Shannon, missing in these mountains in the dark.

  Not that Shannon wouldn’t be okay out in the mountains. She was tough. She could handle herself. But she wouldn’t be missing unless something had happened to her.

  Bailey quit thinking about it before she made herself crazier than Nev.

  The grulla tried to leave the trail. Sunrise held it back, spoke to Nev and pointed. He split off and headed fast up a slope that Bailey, when she got to where he’d turned, wouldn’t have recognized as a trail. But she saw the moccasins. Tucker had gone uphill, while Shannon had continued on. The fact that they’d shared a trail, hours apart, meant nothing. Why was Nev even following Tucker’s tracks? Maybe Sunrise sent Nev for Tucker because she knew she needed help.

  On they went. Nev didn’t come back.

  At some point, Aaron took over leading the horses, and Bailey was grateful not to have them to drag along.

  The sun lowered until it disappeared behind a mountain, dusk thickening. Bailey’s stomach ached to think of her sister out there. The vastness of it was overwhelming. Shannon had to be at the end of these tracks. If she wasn’t, how would they ever find her?

  A shout from high above pulled Bailey’s eyes upward, to where Nev was waving a hand. He started picking his way down the mountainside, too steep to walk on. There had to be a trail, yet Bailey couldn’t see it. He really was better than she was.

  Sunrise rounded an outcropping of granite, and Bailey lost sight of her for a few seconds. When she caught up, she saw Sunrise drop to her knees with a wail like nothing Bailey had ever heard from the quiet woman. Then Bailey saw that the trail ended in a cliff. Tucker’s horse looked over the edge, its ears laid back.

  Bailey walked up and saw the prints. The claw marks of a huge bear. Grizzly.

  The ground was too churned up for Bailey to read Shannon’s prints, but with Nev on Tucker’s trail coming down and Shannon coming this way, and this bear and this cliff . . . no one had to write this story down and read it. Bailey sank to her knees and crawled to the lip of the cliff and looked down and down and down.

  To water.

  They’d fallen into the river.

  “They hit water. They probably survived.” Bailey went from utter despair to hope. It was a swoop so sudden and wonderful she was giddy.

  “Not this river. No one survives this river.” Sunrise rose from her knees. Bailey stared at the calm Shoshone woman who dealt with everything—and they’d been through a lot together—with quiet serenity. Her face was streaked with tears.

  “What do you mean ‘no one survives this river’?”

  “The Shoshone call it Slaughter River.”

  Bailey felt her lips moving at the ugliness of the name.

  Sunrise went on. “They might well say certain death. If Shannon and my Tucker fell over this cliff, and it appears they did, then they are dead.” Sunrise, a short, stout woman, looked up at Bailey, her black eyes wet, brimming over with tears. “I go where my boy’s body will be. Your Shannon will be with him.”

  “No.” Bailey barely managed that one word of denial.

  Nev reached her. In some distant way, Bailey knew Aaron and Kylie had come up behind her.

  Without another word, Sunrise took the reins of Tucker’s grulla from Aaron, turned and walked away.

  “A grizzly followed Tucker down the slope. Must have knocked him off the high trail and chased him down.” He looked at Bailey. “What happened?” He then glanced in the direction Sunrise was walking. “Where’s she going?”

  Bailey was silent. Nev looked past her.

  Aaron’s voice sounded rough with grief. “Sunrise said Shannon and Tucker went over this cliff. She said the river at the bottom isn’t one that a man can fall into, ride out, and survive.”

  The sound of Kylie weeping made Bailey want to break down, but she never did such a thing. Absolutely never.

  “No. Sunrise might be planning on searching for a body. But I refuse to accept it.” She grabbed Kylie by the arm. “I’m going with Sunrise. You go home, Kylie. There’s no use in all of us going. Tend to Shannon’s sheep until I bring her back.”

  Kylie shook her head.

  Bailey looked at Aaron. “Dead or alive, I’ll find her and bring her back. While I’m doing that, someone needs to tend our homesteads.”

  Aaron drew Kylie into his arms. “We’re needed here, Kylie. We won’t give up hope, and leaving Shannon’s home untended is giving up.”

  Kylie looked up, and after a long time she nodded. She whirled and hugged Bailey, then whispered, “Wilde women don’t give up. You go find our sister.”

  Bailey nodded, took the reins from Aaron, and rushed after Sunrise before she could break her rule about crying. She’d go find her sister, who would turn out to be the first woman ever to survive this rattlesnake of a river. And if anyone could do it, it was Shannon. And no one was more apt to help her than Matthew Tucker.

  Sunrise could just go ahead and give up hope if she wanted to, but Bailey would save that miserable feeling for when she had no other choice. For now, Bailey was going to find Shannon, dry her off, and get her back to tending those stupid sheep of hers.

  3

  For a second, Tucker thought he’d gotten away from Mama Grizz, though he was pretty sure she had her teeth sunk into his neck. He almost wished she’d rip his head off and get it over with.

  But nope. He was gonna hafta live with her gnawing. But since Tucker wasn’t the type to let a few bear teeth stop him, he forced his eyes open and stared up at . . . nothing. The inside of a bear’s mouth was pitch-black, as it turned out. Bear teeth were usually white. Maybe he was already swallowed.

  A moan beside him drew his attention. “Shannon?”

  He remembered then that she’d been with him. He turned his head, and the pain about knocked him cold. He made out a lighter shade of black, but it was where the moan had come from, so it must be Shannon beside him. The moan said she was still alive.

  How’d she get into the belly of this beast with him? Oh, yeah, the river ride. Thanks to the little woman beside him. And they’d definitely left Mama Grizz behind, so where in the world were they?

  Well, besides flat on their backs in the dark. And alive.

  Two good things, honestly. Pain meant alive, so Tucker had something to work with. He took a few seconds to check for injuries. His arms and legs seemed to be present and working, though they hurt as if on fire. Not everyone who went down that wild river could make such a statement.
Slowly, hoping to keep his very sore head on his shoulders, he moved his arms that ached like they’d been used to beat him half to death and propped himself up, and his stomach muscles screamed in protest—he almost screamed himself.

  The pain hit him from all directions, until he couldn’t pay attention to any of it. It was dark inside and out, but he had eyes that’d humble a red-tailed hawk. He peered out the mouth of some kind of cave overlooking the river.

  Somehow Shannon had gotten them ashore—he was real sure he hadn’t done it. He fumbled at his shirt, reasonably dry now. So they’d been landed for hours.

  What a woman.

  Tucker smiled as he considered all she’d done and all that was left to do to get them out of here.

  He hoped she didn’t kick up too much of a fuss when, after all she’d done to save them, Tucker took charge, because he didn’t like a fuss. He didn’t mind fighting a grizzly, scaling a thousand-foot peak just to say he’d done it, spending the winter months wading through ice-choked streams running trap lines, tracking a horse thief through six days of a howling blizzard, hunting and killing and skinning a buffalo with a Shoshone war party, then decorating his body with the buffalo’s blood, and eating its liver raw while dancing around a fire in a loincloth, but he didn’t like a fuss.

  And he was pretty sure this woman was meant for him. That’s just the way the situation struck him.

  Of course, he’d never run up against such a situation before, so he might not know what he was doing. He just knew he wanted her like he’d never wanted a woman before. He’d made an honest attempt to escape and instead was stuck with her in a black hole somewhere.

  As if God himself had cast the deciding vote.

  It’d be a sin to try to escape again.

  With a wide grin in the darkness, Tucker decided it’d be pure wrong of him to go and commit a sin.