“Yum,” Chloe said. “Did Ben give you that?”
“Mm-hmm. This is a good part of the show, Mom.”
Chloe knew how to take a hint. Grinning, she left the child to his movie. She found Nan sitting in her rocker in the family room. This evening, instead of crocheting, she was intent on putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
“Sorry I conked for so long. I hope Jeremy didn’t take up too much of your time this afternoon, learning to crochet.”
“All I have is time.” Nan’s busy hands went still, and she sat back in her chair. “I haven’t had a child around in years. It was fun.”
Chloe moved toward the love seat, planning to chat with Nan until it was time to start supper. Halfway there, she glimpsed movement through the window and looked out to see Ben walking up the tree-studded hill behind the house. He carried a cooler, a large water jug, a black satchel, and what appeared to be a sack of grain over one shoulder. It looked to her as if he was following a well-beaten trail.
“My goodness. Ben’s taking enough stuff with him.” Chloe stepped to the window to gaze after him. “What kind of work is he off to do?”
From behind her, Nan said, “Perhaps you should follow him and find out.”
Chloe sent her a questioning look.
“You know him as Ben Longtree,” the older woman said. “But that isn’t who he really is.”
Chloe’s skin chilled. “What do you mean?”
Nan stared blankly at the puzzle for a moment. “Just what I said. That isn’t who he really is. Not all that there is, anyway.”
Chloe searched Nan’s face, wondering if she was having one of her spells. “I’m sorry?”
“My son is a quarter Shoshone,” she said softly, “a direct descendent of Lion Claw, a great medicine man and chief.”
Chloe had never heard of Lion Claw.
“Sometimes,” Nan went on, “when it comes to a man’s heart, one fourth of something equals a whole, and one half amounts to nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. It took me years to understand. When my son was a very small boy, his paternal grandfather, a full-blooded Shoshone, gave him a Shoshone name. It is the way of the Shoshone people to give children names that reflect their destiny, and Ben’s Shoshone name is He Who Walks With Mountain Lions.” She glanced pointedly at Methuselah, who had come in from the bedroom to lie on his pallet in front of the hearth. “Everything isn’t always as it seems, Chloe. Ben’s father, Hap, was half Shoshone, but for reasons I won’t get into, he denied his blood in his early twenties and spent the rest of his life angry and bitter, trying to deny his birthright. Ben was a glaring reminder to him that a man can never escape the blood that flows in his veins.”
She ran her fingertips over the loose puzzle pieces. “Life is like this, made up of so many little parts. Some of us can fit them together just right, and the picture comes out perfect. Others of us fumble about, trying to make sense of the jumble, and we never quite succeed.”
Chloe had felt that way a few times herself, and she understood exactly what Nan meant. “All we can do is our best.”
“Sometimes our best isn’t good enough. I know you’ve looked at me and wondered at my weakness for staying with Ben’s father, who by all accounts was a terrible man. What you don’t know, Chloe, is that my Hap was once like Ben—as beautiful within as he was without.”
Chloe moved from the window. “What happened to change him, Nan?”
“A miracle gone awry. A young man’s yearning to help someone he loved that backfired in a terrible way. Hap was sensitive, just as Ben is, but he lacked Ben’s strength. He tried to escape what to him was unbearable by drinking, and the drink turned him mean.” The expression in Nan’s eyes when she met Chloe’s gaze was filled with sadness. “Occasionally, in a sober moment, he would look at me, and I’d see the old Hap, peeking out at me like a frightened child who’d lost his way. That was why I couldn’t go, Chloe. I had to stay, just in case he finally found his way back to me. I put up with his anger—and with his drunkenness—and with his women, not because I was weak, but because I loved the man under all the ugliness. I thought he was worth saving.”
Chloe understood. For the five months she’d remained with Roger, she’d stayed for essentially the same reason, reluctant to abandon the man he’d once been.
“I think you love my Ben. Am I right?”
Chloe nodded.
“Loving him as you do, if something terrible happened that broke his heart, and he started drinking, would you be able to walk away, knowing he might one day stop drinking and be your Ben again?”
Chloe recalled how she’d agonized over getting a divorce. She’d loved Roger, but she’d eventually come to accept that the man she’d loved was gone and would never return. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I just don’t know.”
“I couldn’t leave Hap. I know now that it was a mistake.” Nan lifted her shoulders, her eyes sparkling with tears. “I should have divorced him, if not for my own sake, for my children. Instead I tried to be both a loyal wife and a good mother. The two should go hand in hand, but sometimes life’s twists and turns force a woman to choose one way instead of the other. When I reached that crossroad, I tried to walk both ways. It was the worse mistake of my life.”
“Ben understands.” Recalling their conversation on the deck, Chloe added, “A large part of him wishes you’d left, but another part of him understands why you couldn’t, Nan.”
“My son is an old soul. He’s sensitive, but in him, it’s never been a weakness as it was in his father. He was born with a knowing in his heart. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Chloe didn’t understand, not at all, but she very much wished she could. She went to kneel by Nan’s chair. “My Ben walks a different path,” Nan continued. “He always has. The way has not been easy, and for a time, he left and followed in his father’s footsteps, forsaking the things his grandfather taught him, trying to be something he wasn’t.” Her smile was a glow that moved slowly over her face. “Now he has come home again to walk the way of his ancestors, the way his grandfather taught him, the way he was meant to walk. Ben is what he is, and he can’t change. His Shoshone grandfather understood that. Even though I’m Irish to my marrow, I came to understand that. But Ben’s father never did. He wanted better for his son, never understanding that for Ben, there is nothing else.”
Chloe touched a hand to Nan’s knee. “Tell me, Nan. About Ben? What is it that I’m missing?”
“As his mother,” she whispered, “I love Ben simply for being Ben. The question is, can you?”
She looked deeply into Chloe’s eyes. Chloe didn’t see insanity in Nan Longtree’s gaze, but more a torment that ran so deep it couldn’t be expressed with words.
“You’ve felt it,” she said. “Deep down, I think you know, but you’ve refused to see and haven’t accepted.”
“But I have,” Chloe argued. She glanced at Methuselah. “He has a gift with animals. It’s no big deal to me. I’ve accepted all the creatures, even come to love them. How can you say I haven’t?”
Nan shook her head. “You’ve accepted only what you’ve chosen to see. But what of those things you’ve refused to see? What of the puppy, hovering at the edge of darkness, that Ben brought back to the light? What of the little boy with asthma who no longer struggles to breathe?”
A chill moved up Chloe’s spine. “What are you saying?”
“What of the woman who came here with fear and bad memories in her eyes?” Nan asked. “At what precise moment did the fear go away, Chloe? Do you remember?”
“It was a gradual thing. I just—” Chloe broke off and swallowed. “The afternoon we went to the beaver dam,” she whispered tautly. “On the way back, he . . .” Her voice trailed away. She threw Ben’s mother a frightened look. “What’re you saying?”
“Nothing. Some things can’t be explained with words. You just have to take a leap of faith and believe. But in orde
r to do that, first you must see.” She squeezed Chloe’s hand. “Before this goes farther, you must do that, Chloe.” She gestured at the window. “Go,” she whispered. “Follow the path he walks and see where it leads you. Learn the truth now. If it is more than you are prepared to accept, then leave this place. If you linger and go later, you’ll take his heart with you.”
Chloe grabbed a lightweight jacket from the hall tree and jerked it on as she set out to follow Ben. The jacket, she realized, was his, a black nylon windbreaker with elastic at the cuffs. The airy cloth hung in puffy folds to her hips, several sizes too large for her, just as she was coming to suspect the man might be. Ben, the descendent of a chief, only one quarter Shoshone by blood, but pure Indian at heart, a man cloaked in mystery, a man surrounded by magic. She’d felt it each time he touched her, been filled with it when he entered her, and afterwards, she’d floated back to earth, safe in his arms.
Chloe wanted to think she knew Ben, and in many ways, perhaps she did, but he was a man with many layers, and those layers ran deep.
The footpath was clearly defined and easy to follow. As she walked, she placed her feet in Ben’s tracks, noting his much larger footprints. She thought back to the first time she’d seen him. She’d sensed it then—an intangible aura of separateness. She remembered the wintry chill of his blue eyes, which had seemed to sear her skin.
After an arduous climb, Chloe came to the barbed wire fence that marked the perimeter of Longtree land. She struggled to slip through the wire, snagged the leg of her jeans, and spent a moment floundering like a hooked fish. Blast it!
When she was successfully through the fence, Chloe picked up Ben’s trail again, which zigzagged now, as if he feared he might be followed. She walked—and walked. As her muscles tired and her breathing became labored, she wondered more than once where on earth he was going. Still, she kept walking, determined to find him. Ben had meant to tell her something last night. Her run-in with Bobby Lee had veered him off course. After his mother’s strange warnings, Chloe couldn’t help but feel that it was time for them to talk.
Finally, Chloe came upon a cave in the side of a rock cliff. Light flickered within. She slowed her footsteps, her heart pounding with excitement and a measure of trepidation. She could see shadows dancing inside—eerie, elongated shapes that made her recall Lucy’s absurd story about Ben’s being a witch. What on earth was he doing that he had to conceal his activities in a remote hiding place like this?
For an instant, Chloe considered leaving. Maybe, she thought, there were some things she was better off not knowing. But then she remembered Ben’s arms around her last night—the incredible gentleness of his touch—and she kept walking. No matter what secrets he might have, she knew one thing with absolute certainty: there was no evil in him.
As she drew nearer, Chloe could see him moving about inside the cave. He was caring for animals, she realized. Lantern light bathed the interior of the cave, which explained the eerie light and shadows. The enclosure was lined with cages. From where Chloe stood, she could see a badger inside one pen, what looked like a coyote lying in another. Another very large cage appeared to be empty.
Seeing Ben work with animals didn’t strike Chloe as strange. She did wonder why he felt such a need for so much secrecy, however. She’d known about his wild animals from day one, and she’d surely proved to him over time that she could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.
Lengthening her strides, Chloe was about to call out when a deafening roar off to her left startled her half out of her wits. She whirled to see a huge black bear coming toward her at a dead run. The graceless animal plowed through brush and over piles of deadfall as if they weren’t there.
Chloe froze. For the life of her, she couldn’t make her feet move. When she tried to scream, all that came out was a squeak. There was no question in her mind that the huge beast meant to attack her. She watched in helpless horror as the distance narrowed between them. It seemed to her that the very earth vibrated with the bear’s lunging advance.
From the corner of her eye she saw Ben dash from the cave. She tried to warn him away, as afraid for him as she was for herself, but her vocal cords wouldn’t work.
He moved swiftly into the clearing, putting himself between Chloe and the bear. Stretching his arms high, he cried, “Kiss, stop! Suvate, it is finished!”
The bear skidded to a stop and swung its massive head, its mouth yawning and streaming lathery saliva as it let loose with another roar that vibrated the air.
“Ka, kiss,” Ben said, more softly this time. Then, more softly yet, he said, “Ka, no! Kiss, stop, Old One. Habbe we-ich-ket, eh? A death wish, yes? They kill rogue bears.”
The bear rolled back onto its haunches. Its beady eyes, small for its broad head, remained fixed on Chloe, and it took a violet swing at the earth with one lethal front paw, sending dirt and pine needles flying. With only five feet separating her from the bear, Chloe’s legs went watery, and for a moment, she feared she might pass out.
Ben approached the huge animal. “Toquet, it is well.”
Chloe really did almost faint when Ben slipped an arm around the bear’s neck. The top of the animal’s head hit him midchest, giving measure to its mammoth proportions.
“Keemah, come,” he said. “Meadro, let’s go.”
The bear grunted and dropped back to all fours to amble behind Ben into the cave. Ben opened the large cage and motioned the omnivore inside. When the door was secured, he crouched, reached through the wire, and said, “Sleep. It is good, yes? Sleep, Old One.”
Chloe had to sit down before she fell down. She turned in search of a log or a rock—anyplace where she might sit and put her head between her knees. Instead of a log, she saw a cougar. Methuselah, she thought. But then she remembered that Ben’s old cougar was back at the house, napping before the hearth. That no sooner registered in Chloe’s fear-numbed brain than two cougar cubs emerged from the bushes, swatting at each other and tumbling in playful abandon as they raced over to the larger cat. The adult feline rolled onto her side to expose her belly, and the two babies settled in to nurse. The mother cat’s green eyes half closed, and she began to purr, content to lie in a puddle of fading sunlight as her cubs suckled.
“Chloe?”
She couldn’t drag her gaze from the cougar. She was dreaming, she decided stupidly. That was the only explanation. This couldn’t really be happening. She was just having a weird dream.
“I’m sorry the bear gave you such a scare. When I come up to doctor the animals, I like to let Old One out for a little exercise. If not for the infection that set in, a .22 bullet would barely have slowed him down. With the antibiotics, he feels pretty good. If kept penned up, he gets stir crazy. If I’d known you were coming, I would have kept him caged. After being shot, he’s a little jumpy, and for now, at least, the cave is his home. He’s feeling territorial and protective of his roommates.”
Chloe felt a hysterical laugh welling in her throat. She gulped it down. “He could rip that wire open with one slap of his claws. He’s wild, isn’t he, Ben?”
“Yes, he’s wild,” he admitted hollowly. “I, um—suppose that strikes you as really strange.”
Oh, no. She met people every day who consorted with wild bears.
“I’m weird that way. The animals—they just come. They always have.” The tendons that delineated each side of his throat became more pronounced. He looked off into the trees. “I intended to tell you everything last night.” He swung his hand. “I swear to God I did. But you were so upset after the thing with Bobby Lee, I decided I should wait a couple of days.”
He passed a hand over his eyes. “I guess maybe I was almost glad for the excuse to put it off. I knew there was a big possibility that you’d make tracks after I talked to you.”
She couldn’t think what to say. He clearly believed she would leave him now. That made no sense to her. She’d long since accepted that he had an incredible gift with animals. Granted, she hadn’t realized t
hat the gift extended to full-grown and very wild bears. But having come to know him as she now did, it didn’t require a far stretch of imagination for her to accept that.
Go, Nan had told her. Follow the path he walks, and see where it leads you. Learn the truth now. If it is more than you are prepared to accept, then leave this place. If you linger and go later, you’ll take his heart with you.
The warning had come too late, Chloe realized. She already held his heart in her hands. She saw his love for her in every fleeting expression that crossed his dark face, in the fear that shifted like shadows behind the pain in his eyes.
He hooked his thumbs over the leather belt that he’d recently begun wearing because of her son. Bending his dark head, which he’d had shorn for the same reason, he dug at the earth with his boot heel. Watching him, Chloe’s insides twisted and ached, for this was not the same man she’d fallen in love with. Slowly but surely, he’d altered himself, trying to make himself pleasing to her and acceptably normal—so he could fit into her world.
In that moment, it hit Chloe like a fist in her solar plexus that he now looked more like a white man with a good tan than the descendent of a great Shoshone chief. He’d stripped away everything that made him special. Even worse, she’d watched him do it, and God forgive her, she’d been secretly glad. She hadn’t wanted her son to mimic an eccentric and become a laughingstock at school.
Tears stung Chloe’s eyes, and regret sliced her middle like glass. What had she done to him? And, oh, God, how could she have been so stupid? The sash he no longer wore and the moccasins he’d retired to his closet hadn’t been mere articles of clothing to him. They’d been his identity, and she’d let him toss them away. She hadn’t understood when he’d failed to leap for joy when he’d been asked to be the 4-H vet. Now she understood all too well. The kids in the stock program were raising animals for auction and eventual slaughter. Taking such a position would go against everything he believed.
Looking at him now, she yearned to have the old Ben back. He didn’t need to be accepted in her world. Half the time, she wasn’t very fond of it herself. There’d never be a finer man than Ben Longtree for her son to emulate. If Jeremy grew to adulthood, holding fast to the values and convictions that Ben believed in so strongly, he would become an extraordinary individual, a son to make any mother proud.
Only by Your Touch Page 33