He nodded. Poor girl. Didn’t she even have any coffee?
“Where’s the conversation?” she said, teasing him with a small grin. “Tell me a story.”
He shook his head.
“Too many years as a cowboy on this range,” he said. “You eat when you get a chance and do it fast. Talk’s for afterward, if you don’t have to get in the saddle again.”
“All right,” she said. “Sorry there’s no butter for the biscuits, but I’ve got honey in the wagon.”
She started to get up, but he stopped her with an upraised hand.
“Save it,” he said. “It’ll be mighty fine this winter.”
“Will you come over and share it with me?”
He looked at her for a long time. God knew, she was one brave girl.
“I will,” he said, “and I’ll bring the butter if you’ll tell all your other visitors not to ride up into my canyon.”
She gasped with delight.
“You have a milch cow, besides two horses?”
He nodded. “One thing I always hated about the cow camps was no cream, no milk, no butter.”
“Wonderful!” she said. “Next time I go to town I intend to trade for some chickens, and then we’ll have eggs, too!”
A strange feeling twisted his gut. Not only was he eating with the enemy, he was making plans to keep it up all winter. With a woman he was trying to rim out of the Strip. He was losing his mind.
“Did you hear what I said about the neighbors?”
“Yes. I’ll explain that you’re an ill-tempered, churlish, shameless, bold-faced Sooner who shoots first and asks questions later.”
She picked up her tin cup and looked at him over the rim.
“You don’t want them to see your place? You already built a cabin?”
“Anybody can see that cabin’s been there since long before I could be called a Sooner.”
Then, from some impulse he couldn’t explain, he added, “My daddy built it when I was a little boy.”
She stared at him, transfixed.
“Then you’re right to be a Sooner,” she cried. “If it was my homeplace, I’d take no chances with it, either!”
He could see her thinking about it, perhaps trying to imagine this land when the cabin was new.
“Was he one of the cattlemen who used to lease grazing land in the Strip?”
“No. He came out here to catch wild horses and never went back to the Nation.”
“The Nation? Was he a Cherokee?”
He nodded.
“An eighth or so. My mother was nearly fullblood.”
He clamped his mouth shut. Nothing like confessing to being a Sooner and an Indian to a rank stranger. What was it about Callie Sloane that had loosened his tongue?
“No need to noise the word ‘Indian’ around any more than the word ‘water,’ “ he said. “Only eighty allotments were set aside for Cherokees, and my claim wasn’t one.”
She answered him with a solemn, thoughtful nod. Her eyes were darker than usual and her face more pale in the deepening dusk. Its shape was so pure, its look so full of light against the night, that he wanted to gaze at her forever.
If he did, the fact that he’d just handed her enough information to cause him to lose his home would never again cross his mind. He wouldn’t be able to think of anything but her.
Such a storm of feelings rose in him, he couldn’t have sorted them out if there’d been a gun at his head. He put down his fork and stood up.
“I need to see to my horse,” he said, and left her.
He walked out past his horse and then hers and her mule, all the way to the edge of the arroyo that the creek deepened with every flash flood. His heart kept on pounding hard and fast, rolling in his chest like ominous thunder.
Looking out across his beloved prairie made it worse. Campfire lights glowed everywhere, sparkling with a taunting cheerfulness that tore him up. Why, he could even hear voices and faint faraway music on the night breeze!
Last night he’d been the only human being for miles as the grass waved in the wind and the wild animals settled into their dens.
This night, people were everywhere, their plows in hand. Soon the face of Mother Earth would blow away.
Fences would be next. Lots of fences—more, many more than the cattlemen who’d leased the land had ever built. There’d be enough fences to pile the wild horses up against them when the snow and sleet flew, enough to prevent them from drifting to shelter in the hollows of the land.
He had known this and he had fought it and he had hated it for so long that the bitterness ran wild in his blood. Nickajack waited for the old rage to rise in him.
Instead came a despair that spread deeper into his bones with every breath he took. How could the sun have set as always? Why hadn’t it blazed down and burned the earth to a crisp? How could the wind die down into a breeze tonight instead of growing into a curling, twisting tornado that would clean the ignorant farmers off this land and blow them back to wherever they had come from?
But the most mysterious question of all was how could one of those ignorant farmers, on this sorry, devil-spawned day of the Run, reach out and touch him in the heart?
They carried his saddle blanket and her quilt, both of his handguns and his long gun, and a canteen of water up to a rolling rise. Nick got them situated at the feet of the few scraggly trees so they wouldn’t be silhouetted against the horizon in the moonlight.
“We can see your flag and your marker from here,” he said, keeping his voice quiet so it wouldn’t carry out into the night. “Imagine a circle around us, take that half of it, and watch for movement against the sky.”
They settled in, carefully sitting far enough apart that they weren’t touching. Callie looked east and north, he west and south. He handed over the extra gun.
“Here’s a handgun you can use,” he said, “but I’m hesitating to let you have it.”
“Why? I told you I can shoot.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he drawled. “I know you’ll at least try, and this gun works.”
They chuckled very quietly, like conspirators up to no good.
“Proper or not, I’m glad you stayed here tonight,” she blurted, as if she, too, felt the camaraderie. “I’ve never spent a night alone in my life, and out here in this huge, open place with claim jumpers prowling around it wouldn’t be a good time to start.”
It sounded so preposterous, he laughed.
“You what?”
“Never spent a night alone. On the train, there were other people in the car. At Arkansas City, Dora took me in and let me camp with her family until I bought my own outfit. Besides, there were thousands of people camped all up and down the line.”
“But before that. In Kentucky.”
“Some of my kin was always with me. I shared a room with my Aunt Janey and my littlest brothers.”
“Where’d your husband sleep? With your big brothers?”
She hesitated. He thought he’d offended her with such a direct reference to the marriage bed.
“Oh, well, of course, after I married …”
Her soft voice trailed off for a moment.
“… Vance never did leave me, never was gone at night. Until he … passed on.”
Then, hastily, as if to change the subject, she said, “I don’t think we have to worry about getting through the winter, Nick. If this land can be this hot after the sun’s gone down, it’s too hot to ever be cold.”
He chuckled.
“Tell me that again come January. It’ll be just as cold then as it is hot now.”
“Surely not!”
“Surely so. And that same week in January it can turn warm enough to spawn a cyclone.”
“What a place! Does it feel so huge to you that it seems you’re no bigger than an ant?”
“No. I feel part of it.”
“What feels natural to me are the mountains, wrapping their arms around me. They make me feel safe and this make
s me feel … exposed, I guess. Like a chicken about to be caught by a hawk.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
If you can survive it
“Back home, nobody leaves the mountains without some of their kin going with them. I guess everybody feels the same way I do.”
“Sounds like mountain people don’t trust outsiders.”
“Flatlanders,” she said. “We don’t. And especially not the government.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place,” he said. “I have a lot of trouble with that myself. Any kind of government, tribal or …”
The Shifter’s soft whinny called to him through the dark.
Nickajack sensed Callie freezing in place.
“Baxter?” she whispered.
“Maybe.”
But they waited and listened for a long time and heard nothing else. Finally Callie let out her breath in a long sigh.
“Don’t be scared,” Nick teased her, in a whisper. “Fear’s your worst enemy.”
“I’m not scared!” she whispered back.
“In a pig’s eye!”
“Pigs! Why do I always make you think of pigs? If you keep this up, I’m going to start a pig farm right here on the line between your claim and mine.”
“Go ahead. The wind’s usually out of the south or southwest, so all the smell will blow to your place instead of mine.”
That made her laugh. Her laugh made him go warm in the pit of his belly.
They waited a long time more without a single word and without moving, but they heard nothing else except some faraway singing.
“The horses are settled,” he said, at last. “Nobody’s sneaking around.”
“I’m going to get the school,” she said fiercely, right out of the blue. “I won’t let anyone else have it. And nobody, sneaking or not, is going to get this claim, either.”
His jaw clenched. Damn the minute he’d jammed her stake into this ground. And damn the fact she had such a one-track mind.
“I thought you planned to raise pigs,” he said, keeping his voice light.
She made an unladylike noise of derision.
“Only if you drive me to it.”
There was something so trusting, so companionable, in her voice that he felt like the most treacherous snake in the world. He shouldn’t even be here, shouldn’t have been pretending that the connection between them was real and that they’d be riding back and forth sharing supper all winter.
“No,” she said, “I’ve been thinking that Mr. Peck might want to teach the school in this district. It’s plain he’s an educated man, and he has all those sons to do his farm work.”
She sounded so disconsolate that he searched for a way to cheer her. Usually he never bothered to think what another person was feeling, much less try to help. What was it about her?
“He didn’t strike me as the kind to want to fool with a bunch of young ones, though,” he said.
She thought about that.
“I believe you’re right,” she said, more hopefully.
It scared him, the way she believed him and the way he tried to glean what she wanted, what she meant, what she was thinking inside. He had to stop it.
“Maybe you’ll get the school, even if he wants it,” he said. “After all, they’d have to pay more to a man.”
“Well, thank you so much, Nick, for cheering me up.”
He had to laugh, she went from worried to hopeful to tartly sarcastic so fast.
“Just trying to help.”
“Well, don’t try anymore.”
“Then don’t cry anymore.”
That silliness brought a low chuckle from her, and then she was silent. Suddenly she spoke, her tone so low and calm it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
“If I ever let myself cry, my tears would wash away the world.”
The words struck him like an arrow in the heart. They held the bald, honest truth and not the slightest shred of self-pity.
“You’re too young for that,” he snapped.
Had she loved her husband, that Vance fellow, so much?
“Young has nothing to do with it,” she said.
They both fell quiet then, as if speech had no more power.
He felt the same way, he realized, but he hadn’t known it until she said it. Not that he had actually cried since his mother’s death nor ever expected to, but that was exactly the way he felt.
She was in the Strip tonight because sorrow had chased her there. He was in the Strip tonight not only because it was his home, but because he was running from the past as hard as Callie Sloane or any other homesteader. If he weren’t, he’d still be back in the Nation, meddling in other people’s affairs and mixing his life up with theirs.
Getting young men into situations that guaranteed they would never grow old.
And now, God help him, he’d done the same thing to this gallant girl who would be on her way out of the Strip right now if he hadn’t idiotically staked her a claim.
She seemed to have moved nearer, although he didn’t turn to look. And she still smelled of flowers, somehow. That ought to be impossible, clean dress or not, for even with the sun down and the night breeze up, the heat remained fierce.
The silence kept on growing more comfortable. It stretched out between them and pulled them together until it made as mysterious a bond between them as words had done. After a long while, Callie gave a feathery sigh and he felt her small shoulders lean against his back.
The night came on, laying more darkness across the sky and pulling more stars out to glitter, as if nothing had changed in the whole universe. The new fires gleamed everywhere he looked. He waited for his legs to move, his arms to reach for Callie Sloane and lay her down so she could truly rest, perhaps carry her into the wagon—except in there, out of the breeze, the air would be stifling. He had to do something so he could move away from her.
And he would. After a while.
Chapter 5
Callie opened her eyes. She started to wake, but the sweet smell of woodsmoke pulled her down into the dream again. The aroma floated in the heavy summer air, and wandered along the creek to find her and her little brothers picking blackberries up in Tall Pine Cove. They were having a good time because nobody was mad at her, the boys weren’t crying and calling her a traitor through their tears, and her fingers were flying to gather the ripest sweet berries. It was during the good days, before any of them knew about her and Vance.
Then she drifted into believing that the smoky aroma came from the cookstove in the kitchen, the day after she’d told Papa about the baby. Not one of her kin was speaking to her except Granny and Mama. Today she had to leave the mountains and the Sloane Valley forever. She was banished, and only Granny and Mama were trying to help her—with their eyes red and tear-swollen and their sadness cutting them in two, right down to the bone. She felt the same way, like she couldn’t hold her body together to walk out of there.
Helpless, she sank deep into her bed and listened to Mama’s cast-iron skillet clattering against the stove lid and the rolling pin thumping on the worktable, ready to roll the biscuit dough for the last breakfast Callie would ever eat with her family. She ought to get up and help, but instead, she snuggled her head into the crook of her arm and tried to get back into the berrypicking dream with her brothers.
“Callie, I’m leaving now.”
A man’s voice, not Mama’s. It woke her immediately.
Nick Smith’s voice.
A frightening feeling washed through her. Even dreaming about Kentucky, she hadn’t thought the man speaking was Vance. Or Papa. How had she known so fast that it was Nick?
He was leaving now.
She sat up, pulling the rough blanket up over her breasts with both hands. It smelled of horse sweat and dirt and it was way too hot, but she huddled under it anyway. He must have covered her sometime in the night.
A stronger smell, the smell of coffee, began drifting into her nostrils beneath the sweetness
of the smoke. Her stomach roiled. Ever since she’d started this baby, coffee in the morning made her sicker than anything.
“I have to saddle up,” Nick said abruptly, striding toward her.
Oh, Lord, he had to go away—fast! If she threw up in front of him, he might guess the reason and haul her off to town, slung over his saddle. If he was worried about riding by her place someday and finding her body frozen or starved, he’d certainly refuse to live next door to her and a baby!
She held her breath against the coffee smell and pulled down her skirts, which had bunched up around her thighs beneath the blanket. Then she held it up to him.
“Thanks for the use of it,” she said thickly, wanting to get to her feet but not daring to move.
He just stood there, all easy and loose, with his saddle slung over his shoulder, holding it with one hand as if it were a feather. He stared down at her as if judging her, somehow.
“It got right cool before sunup,” he said, sounding angry, as if she had demanded an explanation of why he’d covered her.
“Thank you,” she said again, then didn’t dare say another word.
He grabbed the blanket, then turned and strode quickly toward his black horse, which was patiently waiting. He stopped and turned back.
“I made coffee. I’ll bring back your wheel when it’s done. After that, you’ll have to take care of yourself.”
She waved him on, afraid to open her mouth to speak.
He went to the horse again, but took what seemed to be an age to saddle and mount. Finally he turned to ride away. The horse took a couple of strides, then stopped.
“Make a show of possession,” he called, “and forget the socializing.”
“I know!”
She did all right with that one, so she gulped in another breath.
“And I’ll never say the word ‘water,’ and I’ll throw my body across the entrance to your canyon if anyone comes near it.”
He threw her an exasperated look, as if she were being completely unreasonable, and rode off without a word of good-bye. Yes, after meddling freely in her affairs to his heart’s content, Nick Smith rode away and left her.
Thank goodness.
As soon as he had disappeared into the mouth of the tree-lined draw, Callie leapt to her feet and ran in the other direction, over a small rise and down it, where she emptied the meager contents of her stomach into the sand. Shakily, she walked back to the wagon, bathed her face in the tepid water in the barrel, and managed to take the coffeepot off the fire.
The Renegades: Nick Page 6