by Karen Wills
“I expected to die,” Nora answered, looking at the mountains. At least that part was true. “I’d grown sick in body and soul. I wanted you to have a good life with a father and mother both. Even if I lived for awhile, I expected to disappear up here. I just felt you had a better chance with Bridget and her husband. You’d go to school. Weren’t they good to you?”
Michael shrugged. “Mother was fun and pretty and kind to everyone. My father, well, strict and quick with the back of his hand if I sassed him.” He frowned. “You never even tried to find out about me. After you got well, I mean.”
“Your mother and father, for that’s what they were after taking you in, had the right to raise you without interference. I promised that in writing.”
“Well, you and this Chinaman? What about you?”
Nora gave him a level look. “You might as well start calling him Jim Li for that’s the man’s name.” Then her expression softened. “Oh, we worked together until we fell in love. You’ll understand why I did when you meet him. We went to Midvale and stood before a priest. We’ve been married and happy to be so.”
Michael walked out in front of her. He studied the clouds gathering over the mountains, then turned toward the cabin, now a rambling story-and-a-half structure. He walked to the end of the porch to study the outbuildings and the summer kitchen down by the creek. For the moment he seemed finished with questions.
“Would you like to see our place? We’ve poured ourselves into it. It’s a hard life, but we’ve kept body and soul together here better than most. Our few head are running up on the high pastures just now. We call this Evening Star Ranch. Jim fancied the name.” Nora’s voice showed her pride.
“I do, too,” Michael said. “Do you have a brand?”
“We do.”
“You should have an arch with the brand sign on it.” When Nora laughed, he scowled.
She wished she’d been more tactful. “Well, now, perhaps you’re right. But you see, so far we don’t own the land outright. I’ll file for homestead papers as soon as the government makes that possible. We’ve already made all the improvements they could want and more. When the time comes, would you help us put up that grand arch for the entrance?” It was as close as she dared come to asking him to stay.
Michael looked young and uncertain thinking over her question. Nora saw none of Bat in him then, more her own expression when she readied herself to make some vital decision. “Maybe I won’t be able to stay that long. I’m just passing through. I’m on my own now, going to see the country for myself.”
Nora hadn’t touched Michael, but now she stood and lifted a tentative hand toward him, withdrawing it after a light brush against his rough wool sleeve. “I’ve thought of my son that I gave up every day for nearly sixteen years, Michael. I’ve wondered what you looked like, about your schooling, your friends, even what you like to eat. I wondered, but I never expected to have you standing here before me. Never expected such a miracle at all, but now that you’ve come, I ask you to stay awhile at least. Stay on. Let us get to know each other. You may not like all you come to know.” Nora paused. “It’s not an easy life, but give yourself time to make up your own mind whether to go or live here. Give yourself a chance to know Jim. He’s a fine man.”
Michael’s shoulders moved back as he straightened. He held out a hand. “Well, let’s shake on it then. I’ll stay awhile. Thanks for asking. It wasn’t such an easy job getting here, you know.”
Nora held out her calloused hand and felt it enveloped in the long, slim fingers of Bat Moriarty’s son. But the smile that met her own had a warmth about it that Bat’s never had.
“Let me show you about,” Nora said to her boy. “Jim is off hunting. He’ll be back soon. Won’t he be surprised to meet you? There’s someone else will be with him. You must meet Dawn as well.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The leather strap hanging around Dawn’s neck and shoulders secured a round basket heavy with purple huckleberries, leaving her hands free to find the best berries to nibble. It had been a good day. Jim hunted while she picked through a patch thick with ripe fruit. After he rejoined her, a small buck draped over his shoulder, they rowed across the river in their second boat, noting the first on the far side. Dawn ran up the bank. Mama would be so admiring of such a harvest.
Dawn wore leggings and moccasins below a loose, blue and white gingham dress. Her hair hung in braids looped behind her waist. Small and delicate, she appeared younger than she was, but people remembered her face. A brow with a widow’s peak, eyebrows like little birds’ wings, lustrous brown eyes tilted above high cheekbones, a small straight nose, a sensuous mouth, and dimples when she smiled. Jim and Nora had been given only Dawn Mist, but they knew and cherished the value of such a gift when they’d expected to be childless.
She flew up the worn path. At the sight of the twist of nearly transparent smoke from the chimney, her smile widened. Mama must be baking a day early.
Dawn undid the strap as she reached the porch, pushing the door open with her back, calling, “Mama! Guess what we found today.” She swung round, and nearly dropped the basket. A boy stood by the table, a boy who looked perfect as a high waterfall or flying eagle or running mountain lion could look perfect. Dawn stood like a stupified doe, the boy equally transfixed.
Nora stepped from the dimness behind him. “It’s you who’ll never guess what I found today. Or who found me. This is Michael, my boy that friends took to raise as their own when I fell on hard times in Helena. Michael, this is our adopted daughter, Dawn Mist. Dawn’s mother was a lovely Blackfeet girl. Her da who asked us to raise her for him is Beartracks Benton, a trapper originally from England, but we like him anyway.”
Michael was the first to act. He moved toward Dawn. “Can I help you with your basket?” She shoved it at him and he stepped back, holding it awkwardly.
“Is Jim on his way?” Nora asked. Speechless, Dawn shot her an imploring look. Nora added, “I’ll just meet him. You two fetch us some buttermilk. You might as well get used to each other. Michael’s going to stay on.”
Dawn cast her a glance of pure dread as Nora left, hurrying toward the distant figure of her husband.
Not only was the exquisite child-woman poised before him half-Blackfeet, she lived here. Her skin was brown, her hair black, and he saw moccasins peeping out from the outlandish gingham shift. Most of the girls he knew in Butte, like the boisterous Murphy brood, were solid, fair-skinned colleens who giggled before Mass behind square, blunt-fingered hands. They rolled their blue eyes before stepping into confession to confess what? Impure thoughts about the cocky young miners who winked at them and asked for dances at festivities in Hibernia Hall?
This girl presented something new. Wild without earthiness, feminine without flirtation, and strong without bulk. When she finally raised her leaf-shaped eyes, she tilted her head and studied him. Michael, who’d broken all the adolescent female hearts in Butte, found himself acutely aware of his frayed sleeves and cracked boots.
“Well,” he said giving the basket a little push onto the table, “did she say something about buttermilk?”
Dawn beckoned him and turned to the open door. Michael stood beside her in an instant, noting that her head with its straight part running from the widow’s peak to the nape of a slender neck, only came up to his chest. Still, she moved so quickly toward the creek that he had to take long strides to keep up.
They reached its bank, covered with wild roses and other flowers whose herbal fragrance billowed up in the wake of Dawn Mist’s fluttered rush. Michael weaved on his feet.
“Wait, Dawn,” his voice tremulous. “Do you mind if we just sit a minute? I’ve been walking for days. I haven’t eaten since yesterday noon.” He sank down to a moss-cushioned log and raked parted fingers through his hair. Dawn pulled the buttermilk crock from the water and turned to him. A blinding dazzle of sunlight danced on the water’s surface behind her. She always seemed to be stepping out of light.
/> “Here.” She climbed the bank, causing a sweet commotion among the roses. A pine squirrel scolded from somewhere in shadows across the water. Dawn unwrapped the crock and removed its cover.
Michael drank the cloying buttermilk in gulps. When he’d finished, he drew his sleeve across wet eyes. “It’s bright out here.”
The perfect oval face turned toward him and broke into a gentle smile. “You’ll be all right with us. Mama says we live in paradise itself.” She spoke on in a calm, unhurried voice, describing their lives.
“What about school?”
“Ho, there’s been some talk of one. Up to now, Papa and Mama have taught me to read and figure. I know a lot about China and Ireland.”
Nora called both their names as though she’d been doing it all their lives, and Dawn slowed to Michael’s pace as they sauntered back. He paused to appreciate the sunset spilling its colors over the mountains. He remembered, though, he had another stranger to meet.
“We’ve increased our household,” Nora called when Jim came close enough to make out her words. “It’s Michael, my son. He’s here. Just came walking up the road like you, as fine as you please.”
“How did he come all the way from Butte?”
“By feet and raft, I guess. Poor Bridget and Michael died. But Bridget told him about me while she could, only she gilded the lily. He thinks Tade was his father, believes he died in a cave-in a year or so after the real explosion that took him. I don’t want to set him straight just now, maybe never. Anyway, please watch your words around him.”
Jim’s smile turned uncertain at her last words. “I believe the truth to be best.” But seeing her jaw set, he bowed to Nora, something he saved for special occasions. “Michael, Taipai, is here. What good fortune.”
“Well, yes, of course. He’s a fine lad. He’s going to be with us for awhile. Forever, if I can keep him. We might as well learn to act like family. After all, we are, aren’t we? Come on. It’s long overdue, this meeting, wouldn’t you agree?” She pulled him into the cabin.
Michael sat at the table, corralling emotions that ranged from relief at finding Nora, niggling anger against her that he tried to ignore, and his aching awareness of Dawn Mist. He saw the long black hair swept across Jim Li’s buckskin-clad shoulders as Nora and the man approached. Michael squared his own. His father scorned the Chinese. Michael, Sr. insisted Celestials would take Irish jobs if given half a chance. Michael grew up believing all Chinamen smoked opium, gambled, and fought in gangs for territorial rights in Chinatown.
Bridget used to talk of how hardworking Chinese were, but Michael’s father only snorted in disdain and bragged about manhandling them. Michael and others snowballed or stoned unfortunate Chinese found walking alone yoked with balanced bundles of laundry. One finally drew a pistol from his black sleeve and fired in the air, scattering howling Irish urchins into the Finnish neighborhood where the rock throwing became their usual deadly battle between those two ethnic groups, yet another hatred nurtured over family dinner tables.
Disoriented, Michael had landed himself in this unimaginable situation. Was the strain of finding Nora over? Just beginning? Both? His own mother happy with a Chinese . . . married to a Chinese!
Nora and Jim entered. Jim, bigger than he’d looked from a distance, lowered wood beside the stove and extended a hand, confident pressure in its grip.
“We met fifteen years ago.” Jim’s eyes crinkled in a warm smile that made it difficult to be wary or remember his father’s contemptuous labels. Michael half-returned the smile. The man’s serene voice sounded somehow familiar. “You are Taipai, Evening Star. I gave you that name on our journey from Helena to Butte, America.”
“Nobody calls it that anymore,” Michael stiffened, fighting the urge to rub circulation back into his hand.
Not offended, Jim laughed. “I told you the story of my life that night. You were the first person in America to hear it all.”
“I don’t remember.” Michael looked hard into the man’s eyes.
“It’s a much longer story now. With a much happier ending thanks to this woman you have found. I welcome you to our home.”
There was hardly a trace of accent in the big man’s speech and he moved with a pride and freedom Michael hadn’t seen in Butte’s Chinese. Still, his mother married this man. Was it right?
They finished the meal of venison stew and huckleberry pie just as footsteps sounded, followed by exaggerated pounding on the door.
“It’s Beartracks.” Nora grinned at Jim. “I’ll let the man in.”
Before Nora reached the door it burst open, and a giant in buckskin leggings, a blue shirt, and a broad-brimmed hat ducked as he entered, tossing a pack of furs into the corner.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” he roared, hugging Nora.
Michael stood and the stranger inspected him up and down.
“Beartracks, my own son Michael is here. My son and Tade’s.”
“How—?”
“It’s a long story, but before you hear it, Dawn will get you something to eat.”
Dawn smiled at Beartracks. They gave each other a brief embrace.
“I came here from Butte,” Michael said.
Beartracks nodded, but, and this both surprised and disappointed Michael, didn’t ask questions. Instead, the man’s eyes followed Dawn as she brought him a dish of stew and bread.
After last cups of coffee, they moved to the porch, sharing each other’s news as stars bloomed into the blue-black field of the night sky.
Beartracks caught them up on the Hogans. Later, they played whist. Michael watched Beartracks in amazement. One of the weathered old mountain men on the outside, he seemed civilized. Michael heard a trace of English accent, too. Nora’s red hair and Michael’s own almost put them in the small numbers here. The two sun-darkened older men seemed different from any Chinese or English he’d seen, but his contacts had been limited in Butte. There Irish, Welsh, Finns, and a few others had their own neighborhoods. The Chinese, except for a few colorful restaurateurs, kept to themselves. As for the Indians—a half-starving few lived in a pathetic camp by the dump—otherwise he hardly ever saw one. Dawn Mist, Beartracks Benton, and Jim Li sat before him in relaxed dignity. He couldn’t picture these three degrading themselves before anyone.
So exhausted his closing eyes saw the room double-imaged, he heard with gratitude Nora’s suggestion that they think of sleep. He’d thrown his thin bedroll in the barn. When he asked Beartracks if he slept there, too, the man laughed.
“Not under a roof on a night like this. A corner of the meadow suits me. Why don’t you sleep by my campfire? Stop being a pilgrim. That’s what China Jim and Nora did.”
Michael had a growing sense of being in the presence of a legend and, last surprise of the day, for the first time in his sixteen years he’d contracted a case of hero worship. Then too, this man was Dawn’s natural father. Michael still struggled to sort out his feelings about Nora and Jim. A little distance might help.
When he emerged with his bedroll, he stopped. His mother and Jim huddled together, speaking in low voices. He heard Jim’s words, “. . . walking into shadows. The truth can rise like fireweed after a conflagration. It won’t stay under the earth no matter how you might wish it to. It must send up shoots.”
Nora’s gave an unintelligible answer, but Michael saw her shake her head, then stop as she noticed him.
“Did I interrupt something?” Michael asked.
“No.” Nora walked toward him. “Jim and I just share a slight difference of opinion.” She hesitated and then gave him a quick embrace. “I’m so glad you’ve come, son. Welcome. Welcome.”
Michael leaned into her, his arms still loaded. “Me, too.” No better words came to him.
He saw Beartracks disappearing into the night, striding as though he could see without straining, and half ran to catch up. They camped on soft grass next to the timothy meadow. The creek sounded its drawn-out whispers. The fire crackled, hissed, an
d sighed, then settled, shifting into a steady, low flame.
Beartracks recounted how he’d arrived from England, a young rake who’d caused nothing but trouble until his wearied family sent him to America.
“How’d you learn the mountain life?”
“Pete Dumont, the Indians including Dawn’s mother. Some I learned just stumbling around by myself. That and from the critters.”
Michael tossed a stick in the fire. “Can I go with you sometime?”
“Start with Jim Li. China Jim picked up the life here faster than most.” He grinned. “You should have seen those two when they first showed up. Nora so sick she could hardly sit in the wagon, but giving orders just the same. She looked pretty even like that.”
“She is pretty, isn’t she? They said my dad who died was good-looking, too. Is that wolves?” The long, feral keening harmonized and wound among tree spires, then spiraled into the thronging stars.
“Sound good, don’t they? Time for sleep, boy. Big day tomorrow.” Beartracks rolled his blanket around himself, turned away, and slept.
Michael awoke once in the night and saw Beartracks adding sticks to the fire, illuminated in the flare of the flames, his eyes half-closed, but seeming to miss nothing of the night that padded and blinked around them.
That fall, Nora took Michael over the entire ranch. He learned how to survive and even thrive on the North Fork, in its natural rhythms, rounding up and branding cattle, cutting and hauling hay, trapping and hunting game. He came to think of Nora as his mother as surely as he had Bridget. As they hiked or rode, she told him about her life in Ireland. Pieces of the puzzle of Michael’s life cascaded into place.
Jim hunted alone, his coming and going unpredictable. Sometimes he took off with Nora for a few hours. On one occasion Michael asked Jim if they had trouble from neighbors. Jim stroked the board he’d just hewn. “This is a place where people live as they can. They know us and treat us well by now.”