by Mark Henry
Maggie had insisted on three windows in the bedroom when they built their small log home in the shadow of the Bitterroots. Ever a practical man, Trap was sure two windows would be enough, but like most times, he’d let his wife have her way. This summer had proven hotter that normal, and he’d ended up glad she’d cajoled him into that particular luxury. The night before had been so hot, they’d left all the windows open to try and catch a little of the smoky cross-breeze. It seemed a better choice to choke to death on cool, smoky air than bake in confined hot air with the smoke settled out of it.
It would be miserable again when the sun finally poked over the mountain east of O’Shannon’s two-room cabin. Most of the fires had slept with the night, and though their smell still lingered, the air was slightly less congested. The cool shadows out the side window, nearest Trap, were green instead of gray, and he managed to take in a full breath of air without coughing. The day would be another scorcher, but with morning’s chilly breath still lingering in the cabin, he was happy to have a warm bed and an even warmer wife to sidle up against.
Maggie was still asleep, facing away from him, her airy cotton gown bunched above her hips. Her knees were drawn up toward her belly. One bronze arm ran down in front of her, hand resting between her thighs, the other flung back above her head in careless abandon. Even as she slept, there was something feral about this woman that moved Trap like nothing else. She was still the same fierce creature he’d met when she was only fourteen—older now, with a little more meat on her bones—but just as wild.
Maggie had always been hot-natured. Even in winter conditions that left Trap’s teeth chattering, she’d preferred to keep the tent wall rolled up a hair or the window cracked enough to ensure a steady draft.
Her side of the sheet was pushed down to a crumpled pile at her feet, and though the night’s chill still lingered in the air, thick tresses of long, black hair sweated to the pillow ticking. She breathed the heavy breaths of exhausted sleep, belly rising and falling deeply with the slow, even rhythm of her soft purr.
They’d been up well past three in the morning playing midwife to the newest spotted mare while she gave birth to her first foal. It was a difficult delivery. Trap knew horses and he was no quitter, but twice, he’d sworn the mare was done for and started for his gun.
Maggie was a different story. A horse was not just important to the Nez Percé culture. It represented the culture itself, and saving one was worth all efforts. She’d refused to give up.
Prayers and mournful songs, helped heavenward by smoke from a bundle of burning sweetgrass from her medicine bag, had filled the dry night air.
The gods Maggie prayed to were a lot like Trap’s father’s God, who said somewhere or another in His Bible that a good deal of work had to be sprinkled in with your praying.
Maggie had prayed and sang and prayed some more, eventually working her small hand into the birth canal. As much communication as manipulation, whatever magic she’d done had worked.
Just before three A.M., two tiny hooves and a brown nose appeared under the mare’s tail. She gave a moaning push and a dandy, spotted mule colt came sloshing out with a gush and a plop into the smoky world.
The coming of a new foal was always a magical event, and the O’Shannons had lingered for a time without talking, arm in arm, marveling at the beauty of it. Once the new baby was nursing well, they’d come inside and collapsed.
Now, Trap coughed quietly and rested a hand on the soft skin above his wife’s hip where it melted into her belly. He wasn’t sure of the time, but the smoke hanging lazily in the shaft of window light told him the fires were awake again. His grumbling stomach said it was late morning. He didn’t care. He wasn’t in the Army anymore. Wriggling closer, he nestled against the furnace of Maggie’s body. His face buried in the dense tangle of her hair, Trap took a deep breath, drawing in the earthy aroma of ritual sweetgrass smoke that lingered there with the thousand other assorted Maggie-smells that held him together like glue.
He reckoned serenely to himself how retirement—or at least this change in job—had a lot of things going for it.
Maggie stirred. Though she faced away from him, Trap could tell she’d opened her eyes.
“You make coffee?” she said, the rhythm of her breath remaining slow and constant. “I can’t smell any coffee.”
For three decades, Maggie Sundown O’Shannon of the Wallowa Nez Percé had proven herself a devoted wife and mother, but since moving to their small homestead, Trap had spoiled her a little by making their morning coffee himself.
Trap snuggled closer and nuzzled the half-moon bite scar on the side of her neck, just below her ear. “Why would I want coffee when I can drink in the smell of my wife?”
Maggie’s lips smacked as she woke up slowly. She stretched her head back with a groan, rubbing her thick hair against Trap’s cheek. Bits of hay from the ordeal with the mare the night before still hid among the strands. “This old woman’s smell will not warm and wake you like some good, hot coffee.”
“Oh, I don’t know, old woman. I think your smells are waking me just fine.” He pressed closer to her, his breath heavy against her ear.
Slowly, she rolled over to face him. “Mmm, I can tell.”
She didn’t bother with her gown—a fact that Trap considered a promising sign. Fully awake now, she slid a leg over the top of his, drawing him closer with the crook of her heel. Soft, familiar fingers brushed a wisp of salt-and-pepper hair out of his face. He sighed when she touched him on the end of his nose.
“It’s not too hot yet.” She winked. “I still want coffee, but I suppose it can wait a . . .”
Maggie stopped suddenly, and rose up on one elbow to look toward the east window.
“What is it?” Trap had learned over time to trust his wife’s instincts even above his own.
“The horses,” she said softly, craning her neck toward the window. She caressed Trap’s shoulder over the puckered knife scar. “Our new mother is speaking.”
“To who?”
“A visitor.” Maggie withdrew her hand, letting it slide teasingly down his bare chest, stopping at his belly. “Someone’s coming on a horse she doesn’t know.”
Trap threw back the sheet and gave his wife’s bare rump a frustrated swat.
“It better be someone important. I hate to leave this behind.”
Maggie snorted, but left the sheet where it was.
“Tell them we’re not buying then, and come back to bed with me before the day heats up.”
Trap heard the horses nicker, and scrambled to his feet. No matter where they went, there were always a sizable number of folks who didn’t take too kindly to Indians, or him being married to one. It was a funny notion, considering his own lineage, but he had his father’s thick shadow of a beard and smallish nose. That was enough to pass for white among most folks. Nobody had said anything to him yet about Maggie, no more than a buzzing whisper or two at the store, but the feelings were there and he knew it, seething and simmering just below the surface. He’d learned over the years to take no chances when it came to uninvited visitors.
Hopping up and down, half-naked, on one foot, he tried to pull his britches up without falling back on the bed. Maggie chuckled at his little dance. The teasing sparkle of mischief in her dark eyes didn’t help matters at all.
“You don’t look like an old man right now.” She pulled her battered Winchester off the pegs on the wall beside her while she watched. The fact she could shoot the little .44-40 better than most men had added to Trap’s confidence on more than one occasion.
He winked back at his wife. He’d be hard pressed to find anything more beautiful than his stocky little bride bathed in the yellow swath of window light, holding a rifle and wearing her thin cotton gown—the hem of which had now fallen down to her knees, to Trap’s chagrin. Britches finally buttoned, he abandoned the idea of a shirt and yanked up his canvas suspenders. Clopping hoofbeats passed the front door on their way to the barn. He c
raned his head toward the open window, listening for a moment.
“Two horses.” He scooped up the long rifle that leaned against the wall on his side of the bed. Apart from the bed and a clay washbasin on a chest of drawers, the two rifles were the only furnishing in the room.
Maggie held up two fingers and nodded, agreeing with his assessment.
“I’ve a mind to shoot whoever I find out there,” he said, giving his wife one last dispirited look before he stepped into the front room and eased open the heavy wooden door.
The bright light of morning hit Trap in the eyes like a punch in the beak, a sharp contrast to the cool atmosphere inside the cabin. He squinted to watch the tail of a tall sorrel round the corner in back of his log barn across the stump-strewn yard.
“Help you?” He kept the gun inside the shadow of the doorway, out of sight but within easy reach. There was a hard, uninviting edge to his voice. Maggie watched with her rifle through the east window of the bedroom.
It was already hot outside. So hot it seemed if a man looked at the same spot of parched grass too long, a flame would jump up to meet him. The smell of burning pine pitch hung heavy in the thickening air. Soon the cabin would be hot as well—much too hot to suit Maggie. Trap let the frustration slip out in his voice.
“What can I do for you?” he yelled toward the barn.
“Pa?” A horse snorted and the hollow thump of hooves grew louder as two riders wheeled and came trotting around the barn to the front porch. The O’Shannons’ son, Blake, rode a red-freckled leopard Appaloosa they’d given him the year before. A lanky sorrel gelding followed. The sight of the man riding it brought tears to Trap’s eyes.
Blake O’Shannon trotted his blocky, pink-nosed gelding up to his father and dismounted. At twenty-four, he stood ramrod straight and just under six feet tall—a trait he’d inherited from his mother’s Nez Percé side of the family, along with her black-coffee eyes and the thick head of hair that he kept short, above his ears. He took off a gray, flat-brimmed hat and leather gloves to shake Trap’s hand. A shiny silver star decorated the left breast of his light blue shirt. The badge was something Trap hadn’t seen before. He gave his son a curious look, but didn’t mention it.
“Look who I brought to see you.” The young man beamed.
“Ky Roman.” The elder O’Shannon shook his head and rubbed the rest of the sleep out of his twinkling eyes. “Lord have mercy, I haven’t seen you since . . . How long has it been?” There was much hand-clasping and backslapping between words.
“Twelve years, give or take,” the tall man said with a wide, easy grin. He wore a brown bowler hat and a natty pinstripe suit of matching color. “It was before I left for Cuba.”
“Thought you’d be surprised.” Blake looked quizzically at his father. “What were you doing in the house at this time of day? You feeling sick?”
The front door to the house fairly exploded off its hinges and a barefooted Maggie ran out to give her son a crushing hug that knocked the hat out of his hands. Though they saw him several times a month, an only son could never visit enough to suit her. Once she released her son, she smiled at Ky and took his hand with both of hers, kissing him softly on the cheeks. Blake ducked his head, kicking at the dirt with the toe of his boot when he saw his mother still wore her nightgown and realized his father had no shirt on.
Roman noticed his embarrassment, and nudged the young man’s shoulder. “You think this is bad, kid, you should have seen them when they were youngsters.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes and shook a bronze finger at Ky. “You were a youngster yourself if I remember, Hezekiah.” She sighed softly, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Is Irene with you?”
Roman shook his head. “I fear she had a lengthy list of commitments to her women’s group back home. She did tell me to say hello to you, and warned me to bring back all your news.”
Maggie let her head tilt to one side, her eyes glistening. “I do miss her. How is she these days?”
“Beautiful and pious as ever. She still drags me to church every time the doors open whether I need it or not.”
“I’m sure she knows what’s best,” Maggie said, patting the back of Roman’s hand.
He chuckled. “So is she.”
Maggie sighed, smoothing the front of her thin gown. “I suppose I should go and put on some clothes. Welcome to our home, Hezekiah Roman.”
She turned to go back in the house, then stopped to ponder her son’s face for a moment. “Something serious vexes this boy,” she said over her shoulder to Trap. Her hand held Blake’s cheek for a time, then slipped slowly off as she walked to the front door.
Trap watched her disappear into the cooler interior of the cabin, and hoped he was the only one who noticed the teasing wink she gave him before the door swung shut.
“How are you getting along, Ky?” O’Shannon leaned his rifle against the log wall and gave his friend a proper looking over. He’d grown a bit older in the space of twelve years. They both had.
Roman was made for the Army, with piercing gray eyes and a no-nonsense military bearing that made him look a decade older than his peers. Had he not been in command, the rest of the unit would have still respected him as their elder even though he was only five years older than Trap. The mainstay of his mystique came from the creed by which he lived.
“When it comes to what’s right, gentlemen, never pause—Proceed,” he’d often tell his men. When the lines got fuzzy to everyone else, Captain Ky Roman always seemed able to tell the difference.
He’d trimmed back his already tame mustache so it was no more than a whisper of the one he used to wear; just a thin silver line under his hawkish nose to match the silver in his hair. The added gray and the extra pound or two around his middle only added to his natural surety, and gave him the dignified air of an honest politician—if there was such a thing. There was an aura—Maggie called it a smell—that fairly flowed from Roman’s presence. He was the kind of man other men naturally trusted and followed.
“You hear Geronimo passed over last year?” Roman asked.
Trap took a deep breath and pensively toed the dirt.
“Goyathlay.” He whispered the warrior’s Apache name reverently. Of course he’d heard about the death of their old adversary. It was big news across the entire country. Still, it came at him hard every time he thought about it. Trap had wished the ruthless, old killer dead dozens of times—cursed the ground he’d walked on. Then, he’d seen a photograph of the deflated war leader posing in some kind of Plains Indian feather getup like some sort of sideshow attraction. All the starch was completely gone from the once-proud man.
Now, each time Trap heard the name Geronimo, he could no longer think of the times they’d skirmished in the sweltering deserts and mountain country of the fierce Chiricahua. He could only ponder on the dispirited eyes of the withered old man in the photographs. It was better for some people to die in battle, but Trap tried to keep such thoughts out of his mind. He was, after all, an old warrior himself.
“Heard you got sick with the Rough Riders.” Trap leaned against a rough-cut porch pillar and used it to scratch his back while he spoke. He was already beginning to sweat, even without a shirt.
Roman shrugged. “A lot of us did. Turned out to be fortuitous I went, though. Roosevelt has more energy than anyone I ever saw. Bowl right over you if you let him, but he’s a friendly sort and got to know some of us quite well. It never hurts to have a friend in the White House. Old Teedie got me the marshal’s appointment in Arizona after he got elected.”
“I heard. Sure appreciate you helping Blake get on as a tracker with the federal boys up here. He’s a good man, but with his mama and me as his breeding stock, a fellow needs a little extra boost to get a good job in these parts.” Trap thumped the badge on Blake’s chest with a forefinger. “What’s this all about anyway? Since when they let you pin on the star?”
The fact that anyone with as much Indian blood as Blake O’Shannon wo
uld be allowed to wear a badge when he was barred from a good many establishments in Montana was a little hard for Trap to believe. Tracking for the marshals was one thing. Everyone expected an Indian to know how to track. Pinning a badge on one, that was another matter.
“I deputized him, Trap,” said Roman.
O’Shannon brimmed with a thousand things he wanted to ask his old commander, but bit his tongue knowing the man would get to most of them in his precise, methodical way. Instead of quizzing the captain, he turned an eye back toward his son.
“You all right? You know your mama. If she says you’re vexed, you best just go on ahead and consider yourself vexed.”
“Big things going on, Pa.” Blake was not normally the fidgeting sort of person, but he twisted the stained cowhide gloves back and forth in his hands. “Think I might be in over my head here.”
“Sounds serious.” Trap scooped up the rifle and took a deep breath. All his life, he’d preferred to be busy while he worked important things through in his head. Digging a ditch, sharpening a knife, or feeding horses; it didn’t matter. His brain worked better when it was lubricated with a fair amount of elbow grease. “Follow me, boys, and let’s talk. I got a new mama out here who deserves a little grain.”
While the scoop of oats hissed into a wooden feed bunk, Ky Roman put his boot on the bottom rail of the fence and leaned across the top.
“Truth is, Trap, I’d intended to come look in on you next week when my business was done in Spokane. Blake knew I was there and sent word yesterday for help. Shortly after I got his call, I received a wire from President Taft.”
“The President Taft?” Trap bent to step between the fence rails, and began to rub the spotted mule colt while its mother munched oats. He’d met a number of important men in his life and was not easily impressed; though it was a curious thing such an important man would be calling on Ky in Spokane.
