Now and Forever

by Mary Connealy

  “I wonder . . .” Tucker picked up a fist-sized rock near his hand, but only glanced at it, not wanting to take his eyes off Shannon for very long.

  She stopped and looked back. “You wonder what?”

  “I wonder if this is coal.”

  “I suppose it could be. I know nothing about coal.”

  “I know it burns. It can be used to heat a house.”

  “Why bother when there’s so much wood around here to burn?”

  Tucker nodded. “It’s useless, I reckon.” He tossed the lump aside. Shannon went back to her exploring. Suddenly her skirts disappeared.

  “Shannon! Stop!”

  Shannon spun around and was shocked to see the cave entrance gone . . . and Tucker, too. She started back in the direction she’d come and within five paces saw the thin triangle of light with Tucker sitting up in front of it, struggling to get his good foot under him, looking like he was trying to jump to his feet and run after her.

  He saw her and dropped back with a groan of pain. She hurried over. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d wandered out of sight. There’s definitely a tunnel back there.” She frowned, worried he’d hurt his foot.

  She had to bring him along. He’d hurt himself trying to come, so she might as well cooperate. “If you lean on me and put your weight on your good foot, maybe you can walk with me. Or maybe—”

  “Let’s try it.”

  He wasn’t going to listen to her options, so why bother giving them to him? The man was determined not to let her go off exploring. And since she was a bit afraid to go, it was just as well.

  “What’s the tunnel like?” he asked.

  “Good, I think.”

  “Good is a word that can mean a lot of things,” Tucker said.

  “Well, I was standing upright with no trouble, and it’s wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side. I have no idea how long that will last.” The tunnel had an uneven floor, was dark away from the entrance, and she didn’t know where it led or if it would take them somewhere that might make it impossible to find their way back. Which would leave them to starve to death in the terrifying blackness.

  Tucker glanced around. “We need light.”

  “And how do we manage that?”

  “If coal burns, there should be some way to fire up a chunk of it to give us some light.”

  Shannon felt her heart rate increase. “If coal burns, is it possible we could start the whole inside of this cave on fire and burn ourselves to a cinder?”

  Tucker stopped studying the walls and gave her a knowing look. “I hadn’t considered that. Thank you very much, Shannon. Now I can add that to my many worries.”

  “Sorry. Bailey always said I had a lively imagination.”

  “The trouble with underground tunnels is that they can split off. We could end up leaving this cave and never finding our way back to it.”

  Shannon didn’t tell him she’d already thought of that.

  “The river is very likely a deathtrap, but it’s also our only sure way out and our only source of water. We could disappear into this tunnel and be trapped underground until we die of starvation or thirst.”

  Starvation, she’d thought of. Thirst, though . . . add that in. “You’ve got a lively imagination, too.” It made Shannon lonely for her sisters. “Tucker, you should probably just stop talking now. You’re not adding much to this except a list of worries. I wouldn’t have taken you for such a fretful man.”

  “It’s a new side of myself, I’ll admit. I think if my leg wasn’t broken and I didn’t have you to take care of, I’d probably see it as an adventure, even a thrill. A man can’t live in the mountains all his life and not like taking a few risks.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to take some risks if I’m ever going to get back to my sheep, so quit listing ways we could end up dead and let’s start down this tunnel and hope it leads somewhere.”

  Tucker nodded. “I think I’ve figured out a way to give us light, and maybe keep us from dying of thirst.” He gave Shannon a weak smile. “At least for a while.”

  “You really do go up into the mountains planning to live by your wits, don’t you?”

  “I plan on it, and I do it.” Tucker felt mighty proud of himself for thinking of the coal for a light. Shannon had done all the work and she’d had a time of it getting the coal to catch fire.

  When she’d been working on his leg, she’d broken branches off the tree and stripped off the twigs and bark, cutting the branches down to the right size for a splint. What was left over had dried and now was right here handy for the fire. Then, because Tucker had been weak from pain despite how careful she’d been, he’d lain still, and worthless, giving directions she probably didn’t need, to find the makings for fire in his pack. The matches, bits of shredded bark, and birds’ nests all wrapped tight in oilcloth.

  He’d watched her get a wood fire going. Then she’d stoked it with coal. It’d been no easy thing getting that coal to catch, but finally it had, and Shannon scooped it into his tin cup slowly, careful not to smother it, then filled the cup with the smallest chunks she could find.

  “I’m going to pack a little extra coal,” she said. The cup glowed with blue fire. “I’m hoping we can keep finding more as we walk. I don’t want to carry a single thing we don’t have to.”

  She set the burning cup aside and knelt beside him. Running a hand over his forehead, he felt sweat soaking his face. It made his stomach churn, and he knew what came next. “Can you make it, Matt? We can rest a while longer if we need to.”

  He liked that she said we, as if it wasn’t only him who was slowing them down.

  “I once hiked for two weeks up and down a mountainside in January to fetch food for Sunrise and her children. I walked through a blizzard, crossed a glacier, and brought down an elk. I butchered it, strapped the meat on my back, and fought off a pack of wolves to get home. I never once considered giving up. I don’t think a little thing like a broken leg is gonna stop me.”

  Shannon smiled, but he didn’t see any dimples. He already knew the difference in her smiles. No dimples, no real joy. She was worried and facing unknown danger. And considering he was next to useless, he didn’t blame her for wishing she had a little more help.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll need something to lean on, and you look like you’d make a good crutch.” Getting to lean on Shannon was the best part of this whole thing, though he regretted adding yet another burden to her.

  She stood. “How do we get you up?”

  “I’ll scoot over to that rock.” Tucker pointed to a rock about knee high. “I’ll boost myself up to sit on it, and then I should be able to get to my feet.”

  Nodding, Shannon stepped back. He appreciated that she let him do it rather than fuss. She seemed like a sensible kind of woman.

  It wasn’t as easy as he made it sound, yet he made it to his feet without once stomping on his broken leg.

  Shannon, meanwhile, started loading his pack—what was left of it—rigging it to strap on her back, then wrapping a pad of leather around the cup of fire.

  She ignored him completely, just left him to it.

  “Can you carry this?” She handed him the cup, as if she knew he’d want to help somehow.

  Shannon slipped an arm around his waist, and he looped his left arm across her shoulders. She looked sideways at him, drew in a long breath, and said, “Are you ready?”

  Dizzy, sick to his stomach, every inch of his body in some kind of pain, he dug around and found enough stubborn pride to keep him from giving up.

  Nodding, he said, “Let’s go.”

  Too bad pride didn’t keep him from feeling like a family of rabid wolverines was chawin’ on his ankle while a pack of wolves had their teeth sunk into his neck. His back hurt. He must have pulled every muscle in his belly, because his front hurt. It was worst where that grizz had knocked him off the trail with her paw, but it mixed in with all the other pain until it barely earned his notice. His goo
d leg didn’t feel all that good, and his . . . oh, why list it all? He hurt all over.

  “All your supplies are going to save us, Tucker.”

  He was glad Shannon was impressed.

  “I always carry a canteen of water.” Honestly he’d forgotten he had it in the haversack. Shannon had found it, which was embarrassing.

  “And I always have matches packed to stay dry. But carrying coal in what’s left of my pack and using my tin cup as a little bucket to hold a bit of fire . . . well, that was good thinking.”

  “And,” Shannon said, smiling, and this time there were dimples—causing all sorts of unruly problems for Tucker, “we don’t need to tote much coal if this whole place has it. We’ll just pick up more as we run low.”

  And if Tucker noticed the black stripes ending in the walls, going back to regular rock, he’d fill his pockets with pieces of coal. But he wasn’t going to start carrying the extra weight until he had to.

  “I can’t believe you had matches wrapped to stay dry.” Shannon really was pretty. And the way she was smiling at him right now, as if he had just settled the West and wrestled a moose and hog-tied a Rocky Mountain avalanche all at once, well, it put heart into a man. And now he had to wrap his arm around her slender shoulders and lean on her to walk, and he liked that so much he probably should be ashamed of himself.

  But he wasn’t, not one little bit.

  “A man learns to wrap things in oilcloth to keep them dry. I don’t fall in a river every day, but I sure enough wade across one or get caught in the rain from time to time. So I was ready for trouble. I think too that as we walk, the burning coal will leave behind a strong enough smell we could follow the scent back to the cave entrance if need be.”

  The coal was solving all their problems.

  “Let’s go then.” Shannon was all the crutch he needed. With her to help him stay balanced, he could hop along well enough.

  She slid her right arm around his waist. Tucker held the leather-wrapped cup out front. He’d heard a saying once about a journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step and he’d always liked that notion. He was a man who liked heading out on long journeys into the mountains and loved taking that first step. He loved the journey as much as getting to where he was going.

  This step felt a little like that. The pain about knocked him to his knees, but he’d hurt before and if he lived through this—and he fully intended to—he’d no doubt hurt again.

  A beginning. And it was a beginning that had as much to do with his arm around Shannon Wilde’s shoulders as it did with getting out of this cave. He wondered how long it’d take her to figure that out.

  5

  A hunting party.” Sunrise didn’t let up.

  That surprised Bailey. Sunrise was a cautious woman, and an Indian besides. It was unexpected that she’d approach the gathering of white men without more care.

  But she rode straight for the group, tents sent up, fire blazing. They had the look of being settled in for a while. Grass around the campsite was well-grazed, the fire big, and the ground around it tamped down from a lot of feet over many days.

  Sunrise headed straight for a man sitting at the fire, sprawled back, smoking a curved pipe. A full gray beard and white hair hanging past his shoulders, he watched her ride in with black eyes that lit with pleasure when he saw her. He jumped to his feet and rushed to catch her reins.

  “Sunrise, it’s good to see you.”

  “Have you been here long, Caleb?”

  The pleasure faded at Sunrise’s urgent tone.

  “The boys and I rendezvoused here a week ago. We’re still waiting for a few more to show up before we head farther north. What’s wrong?”

  Sunrise jerked her head at the river. “Tucker went over the cliff far north. I’ve come for his body.”

  Caleb straightened, his face solemn. “Not Tucker. No.”

  Sunrise didn’t respond.

  A man wearing a parson’s collar stood near the fire and came up beside Caleb. “Tucker fell in the Slaughter?” The grim expression and weathered face said the man was a part of this mountain life, and he knew exactly what Sunrise’s words meant.

  “I followed his tracks. He went over, and a young woman I know fell at the same time. Her sister.” Sunrise glanced at Bailey, then back at the parson.

  Caleb looked hard at Bailey and Nev beside her. Though the look was only for a moment, Bailey got the feeling the old man had seen every detail about them, including no doubt that she was a woman. She doubted Caleb had survived in these mountains by being stupid. Then he turned and shouted that Tucker had fallen. There were five men in the camp. They all gathered and listened while Sunrise told them what had happened.

  These were wild men, mountain men. And though they lived mostly alone, they knew each other, and in their solitary way they cared.

  “No one saw a body come down that river, Sunrise.” Caleb looked at Bailey again.

  She couldn’t stand for them to only speak of Tucker, although she knew if someone other than Tucker had swept past they’d know of it. “Shannon Wilde, my—” Bailey had to trip over it, but the time for lying was past—“my sister, did they see her?”

  Caleb’s eyes narrowed. A murmur went through the group of men, ages from young to old. A woman—that affected them. They cared for Tucker, their feelings were involved, but their instincts were to protect a woman. They were riled and upset and wanted to somehow help.

  Turning to Sunrise, Caleb said, “If nobody came through, there must be a way out.”

  “No way I have heard of.”

  “If it had only been one, I’d say a body snagged.”

  Bailey’s stomach twisted at the word snagged. Her sister reduced to a body, snagged on some piece of wood somewhere. She wasn’t one to cry, so she made a fist and wondered what she could punch.

  “But both of them?” Caleb shook his head. “And it’s been too long. If they haven’t come through by now, they’re not coming. In a fast-moving river like this one? No. One might get stopped but not two. They found a way out.”

  Caleb and Sunrise stared at each other. Bailey felt her own hope rising. She’d refused to give up even in the face of Sunrise’s acceptance of her son’s death. Now here was a man who looked like he wasn’t one to bother much with false hope. And he was sure as he could be that somehow, somewhere, Tucker and Shannon were alive.

  But where?

  Sunrise turned to the mouth of the river. From where they stood, Bailey saw the last falls and the ugly rocks it spilled down on, as good as spikes planted at the bottom of a trap to spear anything living that fell over the falls.

  She knew Sunrise to be telling the truth when she said no one could survive this river.

  But someone did. Her sister had proved it.

  “Where do we look?” Bailey thought of the wilderness they’d ridden through, mostly in the dark. All she’d done was follow Sunrise. She hadn’t even thought of checking over the edge of that jagged rim lining the river for the sight of her sister. Shannon might be clinging to some ledge, maybe using the last ounce of her strength even now, praying for her big sister to come.

  “Let’s go.” Bailey reined her horse. She wasn’t standing around for another minute. She kicked her mustang back the way they’d come. Since Sunrise didn’t know a person could get out, then she didn’t know one more thing about where to look than Bailey—none of the mountain men did, either. So Bailey wasn’t waiting, not even for the most knowledgeable men in the entire area.

  She noticed no one told her to stop. In fact, Nev was right on her heels. A glance back told her Sunrise was gaining on her, the same intent expression on Sunrise’s face that Bailey was sure was on her own, and beyond Sunrise, men raced to saddle up. All of them coming to search for a favorite son.

  Parson Ruskins’s head was bowed, but even that was only for a few seconds before he rushed for his horse, too.

  Bailey’s heart pounded as she faced forward and hunted for a way to get close
to the edge of this poisonous rattlesnake of a river.

  They hobbled along, and it was mighty slow going.

  Tucker tried not to put all his weight on Shannon. Once they’d left the light of the cave entrance behind, the cup of fire and the touch of each other was all they had in the world except endless dark.

  “Do you think we’re heading uphill?” Shannon liked to have talking going all the time. Tucker didn’t really blame her. He felt like the mountain was pressing down on his head and shoulders, and he didn’t mind thinking about something else.

  “I just can’t tell. I do think the air is clean.” Tucker looked at the fire again. “I don’t feel any breeze, and the fire doesn’t lean or wobble like it would if it was drawn to air, which would mean an opening close by. But it’s fresh air—I think there must be a way to the outside.”

  “How long do you think we’ve been walking?”

  She’d asked the question with such regularity that Tucker began to think he might have an answer if only he’d known what time he woke up. Because she’d asked it every ten minutes since they’d set out walking. He could have set a watch by it.

  “About two hours.” And his leg, bent back at the knee, between him and Shannon, seemed to be finding new ways to make him wish his ma had just smothered him in the cradle.

  “Do you think we’ll have to spend another night down here?”

  That was a new one. All Tucker could think of to say was, “No. How would we know when it got to be night anyway? We’ll just keep going until we get out, no matter how long that is. If we get tired, we’ll stop and rest.” Except he was afraid that if he stopped, he might never get going again.

  So he wasn’t going to stop until he saw the sky.

  And then he saw something in the meager light cast by their makeshift lantern that wasn’t the sky, but it was the next best thing. “A rat’s nest, Shannon. Look!”

  She stopped. “Where? I hate rats.”

  Tucker laughed. “I didn’t tell you that so you’d run. And I doubt there’s a rat, anyway. It looks old.” He gestured with the cup at a little gouge in the narrow tunnel. “Let’s go closer.”