Phantom Waltz

by Catherine Anderson

  The late afternoon and evening played out perfectly. They caught trout for supper from a nearby stream and dined like royalty by a crackling campfire. Ryan was able to find a deep place farther downstream, and just before dusk, they went down to bathe. Big problem. The instant he saw Bethany’s bare breasts bobbing so sweetly on the surface of the water, he grabbed her high in his arms, waded to the bank, and made love to her again. They were both a little chilled by the time they finally got out of the water. Ryan dried off his bride, carried her to camp, bundled her in a blanket, and sat with her in his arms by the fire until she felt warm to the touch again. Touching. For some reason, that invariably led to more, and he found himself making love to her again, this time on the blanket by the fire. He couldn’t get enough of her, and she seemed to share the feeling, always turning eagerly into his arms when he kissed her.

  “Listen,” she whispered urgently after they got settled for the night in their tent.

  Ryan cocked an ear. A moment later he heard coyotes howling.

  “Isn’t that the most beautiful sound?” she said. “Oh, Ryan, just listen. The wind whispering in the trees and whining over the ridge. The call of the coyotes to the moon. I never thought I’d hear any of it again. Never. Have you any idea how much this means to me, or what a beautiful gift you’ve given me?”

  Ryan personally felt that she was the gift, he the recipient. “I just feel lucky to have found a wife who loves it as much as I do,” he told her. “Not everyone does, you know.”

  She lay on her side, facing him. A coyote howled again. As the sound trailed to them through the mountain darkness, she pressed a kiss to his mouth. Then she sat up suddenly, shoving back the sleeping bag to smooth a hand over his bare flank. “Roll onto your back,” she whispered, “I want to make love to you while they call to the moon.”

  That was a request he couldn’t refuse. He turned onto his back. She braced one arm on the sleeping bag beneath them to support her weight. Then she bent her head to trail kisses down his chest toward the triangle of dark hair below his navel. With the light from the fire shining through the nylon wall of the tent, he could see her clearly and guessed her intent. Maybe he was impossibly old-fashioned, but this was something he’d chosen never to let another woman do, feeling it was far too intimate an act to engage in with someone he didn’t love. He’d never gone down on a woman until Bethany, either, always choosing instead to use his hand.

  His erection was as prominent as a flagpole. All it lacked was Old Glory, flapping in the wind. He smoothed a lock of dark hair back from her cheek. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to—”

  “Shush,” she whispered, and then proceeded to lap at him as she might an ice-cream cone.

  It was the most erotic experience of his life. He couldn’t say it felt all that wonderful because his shaft wasn’t as sensitive as she obviously believed. She was mimicking his technique, which didn’t quite cut it for a man. But that didn’t matter. Just seeing her love him that way nearly made him lose control.

  Ryan caught her by the chin, as pleased with her as he’d never dreamed he might be with anyone. Because she loved him so. Because she would clearly do anything, just to make him happy with her. What she failed to understand was that she was all his dreams, rolled into one, without trying.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t really know how to do it. Won’t you tell me so I can make it nice for you? With practice, I’ll get better.”

  Ryan nearly groaned. Practice. One more lap from that quick little tongue of hers, and he would embarrass himself. “I don’t know how it’s done,” he lied. He did know, of course. He had a general idea, at any rate. “No woman’s ever done that to me.”

  Even in the dim light, he saw her eyes fill with bewilderment. “Never?”

  “And you’re the first I ever kissed there,” he said, catching her around the waist to haul her higher on his chest. “That’s something special, and I saved it for you.”

  “Oh, Ryan.” She was clearly touched and found that romantic. “For a rank beginner, you’re very good at it.”

  He only smiled. “Thank you. It’s important to me to please you.”

  “So you can understand my wanting to please you.”

  “You have, honey. If you’d done it any better, I’d be finished right now and snoring. What fun would that be?”

  She grinned and relaxed her weight on his chest. What a sweet burden she was, every inch of her so soft and silken. “Liked it, did you?”

  He chuckled at the feminine purr in her voice. “So much that I couldn’t take any more.” He glanced at her mouth and folded his arms under his head. “Kiss my mouth instead.” Sensing that she wanted to be the one in control this time, and that she wanted to do things to please him, he whispered, “While you kiss me, rub the tips of your breasts over my chest.”

  She did exactly as he instructed, and when he felt her nipples turn hard, he forgot about letting her take the lead. Bethany. He grabbed her close, rolled to get on top, and made love to her to the forlorn accompaniment of the howling coyotes …

  Bethany awakened him at dawn. In the time since she’d been staying with him at the ranch, she’d stopped being cranky upon rising, but on that morning he marveled at the drastic change. After he helped her into her chair, she literally threw her arms wide to embrace the morning, tipped back her head to gaze at the treetops, and laughed with gay abandon.

  “I feel alive!” she cried. “Not just here, not just breathing. I feel so alive!”

  Her mood prevailed throughout the morning. When they were once again on the trail, she sang silly songs, reminding Ryan that she wasn’t completely perfect, after all. The girl couldn’t carry a tune for squat. He was forced to join in just to make it easier on his ears.

  “Sixty-seven bottles of beer on the wall! Sixty-seven bottles of beer! You take one down, and you pass it around, sixty—”

  “Four bottles of beer on the wall!” he inserted.

  “Huh-uh. Sixty-six!”

  Ryan was laughing when he heard a large animal tearing through the brush to the left of the trail and spotted a flash of Hereford red between the trees. Seeing cattle up here wasn’t a rare occurrence. The Rocking K herds enjoyed an open range and wandered all over these mountains, foraging. But Ryan seldom saw one at a dead run like that.

  He reined in his sorrel and listened to the crashing sounds as they grew more distant. “What the hell?”

  Bethany had stopped her horse just behind the pack animal. “I wonder what lit a fire under her?”

  Ryan frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Something tells me I should mosey over and have a look, though. A couple of weeks back, a rancher on up the highway lost two head to poachers.” He turned his gelding Bucky and rode back to hand Bethany the lead on the packhorse. “Sit tight for a minute, honey. I’ll be right back.”

  It took Ryan only a couple of minutes to ride through the trees and locate the cow’s hoofprints. Following her tracks with his gaze, he spotted a glistening patch of wetness on the low-hanging bough of a fir tree. He swung off his horse to go check it out. When he touched the feathery fir needles, fresh blood came off on his fingertips. He followed the cow’s trail on foot for a bit, and sure enough, he soon saw blood on the ground as well. The animal was badly injured.

  When Ryan got back to Bethany, he told her what he’d found. “Some idiot must have shot her,” he said. “Damn fools. If they can’t shoot straighter than that, they’ve got no business packing a rifle.”

  Bethany twisted at the waist to gaze behind them. Concern filled her eyes. “Oh, Ryan, how sad. If the poor thing’s been wounded and she doesn’t bleed to death, she’s liable to die slowly and horribly from infection or something. We can’t just leave her like that.”

  Ryan agreed. “I can track her,” he said. “It’s pretty rough terrain once you get off the trail, though. I don’t think you should go with me.”

  “No problem. I’ll just wait here.”

 
; Ryan smiled. “I think I can do better than this. There’s a pretty little meadow just a ways on up the trail. How’s about if I let you wait for me there?”

  “With food?” she asked.

  He laughed and nodded. “I suppose I can dig you out a few snacks.”

  “That sounds lovely. I could use a little rest, anyway. This way I won’t be overtired when we get to the lake.”

  A few minutes later when Ryan had her comfortably settled in her chair under a tall pine growing at the edge of the meadow, she grinned up at him. “I feel like a princess! All I lack is a soft drink and those snacks you promised me.”

  He chuckled and went to get a can of pop out of the small cooler on the packhorse, then grabbed the picnic basket, which was brimming with goodies. When he returned to set the provisions at the base of the tree, Bethany said, “Yum.” She opened the basket and plucked out the salami and cheese. “It sucks to be you. What a shame you can’t join me.”

  He unstrapped his holster from his hips and handed it down to her. “Just in case,” he said. “You know how to use a revolver, I hope.”

  She accepted the .22, her eyes dancing with devilment. “This isn’t a revolver. It’s a popgun. And, yes, I know how to use it. I can shoot an acorn off a limb at fifty yards. Is that satisfactory?”

  “With or without a rest?”

  She raised her small chin. “Without, of course. What do you think I am, a city girl or something?” She glanced around the peaceful clearing. “Why, exactly, do I need the gun? Are the squirrels up here bloodthirsty?”

  He chuckled and headed for his horse. “I was thinking more about snakes. I carry it for the occasional timber rattler.”

  She shuddered and rubbed her arms. “I detest snakes.”

  Ryan swung up on his horse, watched her rifle through the basket for a knife to slice the cheese, and then said, “Save some of that salami and cheese for me, lady. I may work up an appetite.”

  “I will.” Her expression became more serious. “I hope you find her, Ryan. Good luck.”

  “Hey, you’re lookin’ at one of the best trackers this side of the Pecos, lady. What do you think I am, some city boy?”

  She pursed her lips. “Where is the Pecos, exactly?”

  “Beats the hell out of me. But this side of it, I’m the best.” He winked at her and grinned as he checked to be sure the magazine in his rifle was loaded. “She was bleeding heavily. It’ll be fairly easy to track her. If she’s beyond help, I’ll finish her off. If not, I’ll contact Rafe and give him her location.” He patted the cell phone on his belt. “With smoke signals, of course.”

  She was laughing as he rode away. “Be careful, Tex!”

  “Not to worry.”

  Rather than meander along the trail, he decided to go as a crow flew and save time. As he wove his gelding through the brush that grew in wild profusion off the beaten path, he kept an eye out for sign, hoping to spot where the cow had been shot. She’d been running from somewhere up here, he felt sure.

  He hadn’t ridden far when the hair on his nape started to prickle. Drawing his horse to a halt, he listened and sniffed the air. The woods had gone eerily silent. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath. Ryan had been riding in these mountains on a regular basis all his life. He knew every ridge and gully like the back of his hand. When something wasn’t right, he sensed it.

  And something wasn’t right.

  At that moment, he was mightily tempted to head back to the meadow and Bethany. He couldn’t say why. A part of him thought he was being silly. But another big part of him had the willies.

  Then he smelled it. Blood. He’d straddled the top rail of a slaughter chute too many times not to recognize the scent of freshly killed cattle. He nudged Bucky forward, his ire rising. What the hell? Had some kids come up here with rifles and used their cows for target practice?

  Not far up ahead, there was a water hole—a place where the winter floodwater of Bear Creek had long since wallowed out a wide hollow in the shale and formed a small gorge that was nearly boxed off at one end. In the summer the cattle favored it as a gathering place because trees grew along the lips of the ravine, providing deep pockets of shade below on the banks of the stream.

  If some cows had bunched up in that wash, they would have been like ducks in a shooting gallery, easy to pick off with a rifle. With one end of the area almost boxed off, they wouldn’t have been able to escape quickly.

  Ryan headed straight for the spot. The scent of blood grew stronger. A lot of blood. An awful, coppery taste coated his tongue. As he crested the last rise above the water hole, he was prepared to see a number of slaughtered cows. He didn’t look forward to it, but he’d looked death in the eye so many times, he didn’t expect it to come as a shock, either.

  When he saw the carnage, bile crawled up the back of his throat.

  Dear God. The cows had bunched up in the gorge, just as he’d guessed. But it hadn’t been a sniper that killed them. Never in all his life had Ryan seen such gore. At least ten cows lay dead, some in the stream, others on the banks. The creek flowed red with blood from the mangled bodies.

  Something had mauled them.

  From a distance, Ryan couldn’t tell what kind of animal had killed them. The concentration of cougars was heavy in these mountains because of legislation that had been passed a few years ago, prohibiting the use of hunting dogs. But a cougar didn’t usually go on a killing rampage. It snapped the neck of its prey upon impact, then dragged the dead animal off somewhere to eat it.

  Ryan dismounted, tethered Bucky to a stump, and slipped his 30.06 pump-action Remington from the saddle boot. The way down to the stream was steep. He slid partway in the loose shale, barely managing to stay on his feet. Once in the gorge, he wasted no time in examining the slaughtered cows. The animal tracks he found in the soft earth near the dead cattle were unmistakably those of a bear.

  Ryan could scarcely credit his eyes. Black bears didn’t do this sort of thing. They were carnivores, yes, and occasionally killed for sustenance, but as a general rule they tended to be opportunistic creatures, more likely to dine on already dead animals, wood worms, or vegetation, such as berries. Over the years Ryan had heard of bears killing a cow now and again, but never more than one at a time, and always for food.

  Yet there was no denying the evidence. Judging by the tracks, this was a large bear. The rare renegade black bear usually turned out to be a young male. An older male seldom attacked without provocation, and a sow generally only got ornery when her cubs were threatened.

  A chill trickled down Ryan’s spine. That injured cow they’d seen running for her life through the woods had undoubtedly escaped from here. That had been no more than twenty minutes ago. This was all fresh kill, and it wasn’t the act of a hungry carnivore, attacking for food. The bear hadn’t eaten on any of the corpses. No. It had been in a killing frenzy and had slaughtered these animals for the sheer joy of it.

  The thought sent Ryan scrambling back up the bank. Bethany. He’d left her sitting in that meadow without any means of defending herself. That .22 caliber revolver would only piss off a charging bear. It certainly wouldn’t drop it.

  He was panting from exertion and in a cold sweat by the time he reached his horse. Because he knew he had to ride hard to get back to Bethany, he returned the rifle to the boot so he’d have both hands free.

  Bethany. She’d been slicing salami and cheese when he left her. A bear could smell food from well over a mile away.

  Ryan kicked Bucky hard in the flanks, urging him into a flat-out run. It was rough terrain, and Ryan knew he could very easily injure the horse, riding at such a reckless speed. But he had to. If it came to a choice between the gelding and his wife, he’d sacrifice the horse in a heart-beat.

  Please, God. The silent prayer circled dizzily through his mind. He urged Bucky to an even faster pace, terrified that the bear might circle around to the meadow. Bethany was so helpless. She couldn’t even try to run.

 
When Ryan reached the edge of the meadow, he’d never felt such relief in his life. There sat Bethany, beneath the pine right where he’d left her. She spotted him and waved. Ryan slowed his horse. She was fine, thank God. He was close enough now to pick off a bear with his rifle before it could get near her.

  As he drew closer, Bethany saw how hard his horse was blowing and called, “Did you find her? Is everything all right?”

  “No, I didn’t go after her.” Ryan scanned the hillsides that encircled the meadow. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he didn’t want to lie to her, either. “It was a bear, honey. You need to put all the food back in the containers. Seal it up tight. I don’t want any uninvited picnic guests to come calling.”

  “You saw a bear?” She looked delighted. “Way cool. Maybe we’ll spot it again. I haven’t seen a black bear in aeons.”

  “Their population has increased substantially over the last few years. They got lumped in on the bill to protect cougars and can no longer be trapped.” He drew Bucky to a stop beside Wink and the packhorse. As soon as he dismounted, he drew his rifle from the boot as a safety precaution. He sure as hell didn’t want to get caught with his guard down. “I didn’t actually see the bear. Just lots of really fresh sign.”

  When she saw him walking toward her with the rifle cradled in one arm, her smile faded. Her gaze became riveted to his. After a long moment of searching eye contact, she said, “Oh, Ryan … what is it?”

  He scanned the hillsides again. “I don’t want to scare you, honey. But this is no ordinary bear. He’s gone berserk.”

  “What?” Her voice was thin and shaky with incredulous laughter. “How do you mean? Berserk in what way?”

  Ryan shifted his gaze back to hers. “You know that cow we saw? She’d been attacked.” He gestured with his head. “About a mile east, there’s a creek ravine where the cows like to water. Steep shale walls on both sides. Not a box canyon, but almost, making it difficult for them to get out of there fast. The bear must have caught them by surprise. I didn’t take time to count heads, but I’d say at least ten are dead.”