by Jane Toombs
“These are fabulous,” she told Sage. “I’ve never tasted buffalo meat before.”
When the men finished dancing, the children danced—boys and girls separately. After that, there was a break before the women danced again, and then the men.
Laura and Sage changed from their dance costumes in the dressing room in the community building. Because Laura had brought a skirt, Sage had insisted on one, too. It was flattering that the girl wanted to imitate her, but scary, too. What kind of a role model was she for a ten-year-old child?
Since her hair was straggling down from the French braid, Laura undid the braid and brushed her hair until it settled loosely onto her shoulders.
Sage bit her lip as she watched obviously undecided about her own hair.
“I think the ribbons in your braids look really cool,” Laura told her.
Examining herself in the mirror, Sage finally nodded. “I guess I’ll leave the braids in, then.”
“That’s good, ’cause I’m gonna leave mine in,” Donna said, coming up to make a face at Sage in the mirror. “You know that cool guy from Walker River? The one that’s Joe Roan’s cousin? I heard him say he thought you were cute.”
Sage’s hazel eyes sparkled. “Honest?”
Donna nodded. “Wanna go look for them?”
Laura sighed inwardly. Only ten and thrilled because a boy thought she was cute. Sage needed a mother around to make sure she learned there were other things more important in life than being cute.
“Don’t go wandering too far off,” she told the girls.
They nodded, and hurried away, giggling. Laura gave herself one last look before leaving the room. She’d never be as striking as Jessica, but she wasn’t bad. And Shane had chosen her when he might have, at one time, been able to choose Jessica. If chosen was the right word. Yet what other word was there?
He came up to her immediately, making her realize he’d been waiting for her. Pleased, she smiled up at him.
“I told Sage she and Donna could wander around by themselves,” she said.
“Pretty safe here, even with the outsiders coming for the powwow,” he told her.
“I watched you dance,” she said as they went outside.
“I watched you, too.”
What he didn’t add was how it had made him feel to see his wife dancing with his sister, as caught up as any of the people in what she was doing. He’d noticed her lips moving and realized she must be chanting as well. Since she didn’t know Paiute, she had to have found her own words. The depth of her involvement in the ceremony had touched his heart.
“I thought you looked magnificent,” she said, surprising him speechless. “As Sage would say, this day has been awesome,” she added. “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself more.”
“It’s not quite over,” he told her. “There’ll be food and music and good times yet to come.”
“I already ate two buffalo tacos with Sage.”
“She conned you into buying them, I bet.”
“The poor kid was hungry.”
He casually tucked her arm in his, elated when she didn’t seem the least alarmed by the contact. “We’ll take a stroll around while they get things started.”
“I’ve never really gotten a good look at Pyramid Lake,” she told him.
“You can’t see much from here. I’ll take you to the lake maybe next week. I have the feeling I promised Sage I’d volunteer for a Girl Scout cookout there about then.”
“And now you’re volunteering me as well?”
“Looks like it.”
“No problem. You’ve already claimed the most expertise in outdoor cooking, so I get to watch.”
“No way. This is a cooperative venture. I demonstrate, you help the girls follow through.”
She made a face at him, wishing they could keep walking side by side forever, bantering back and forth, feeling close without any of the dangers of closeness.
By the time they turned back toward the community center, guitar music spilled out through the open doors and windows. Inside, couples had begun to dance.
Grandfather intercepted them as they entered. “As the eldest Bearclaw male, I claim the honor of the first dance.” He held his hand out to Laura.
She’d been preparing herself to tell Shane she didn’t care to dance, but, somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse Grandfather.
He whirled her around the floor with considerable expertise, making her understand that it didn’t matter if she lacked dancing experience with men—he had enough for both of them. Since she’d never been afraid of him, she wasn’t now.
“I always pick the prettiest girl,” Grandfather told her.
“Aren’t you forgetting Jessica Patsona?” she asked.
“Have to admit she’s a looker,” he said. “But so are you, in a different way.”
“I wonder how many women you’ve charmed in your lifetime,” she teased.
“More than he should have,” Shane said, as he tapped Grandfather on the shoulder. “My turn now.”
She was shifted into Shane’s arms so quickly she didn’t have time to protest, though that had been her intent. Laura stiffened initially, but when she found he had no intention of holding her any closer than Grandfather had, she began to relax, which made it easier to follow Shane’s steps.
“I don’t dance very much,” she told him.
“We’re doing pretty well together,” he said.
It was true. As they glided over the floor, Laura began to feel as though she’d been doing this all her life. Fun! Why had she been so afraid to dance with a man?
Not that she was ready to let just any man put his arms around her like this. But she was safe with Shane. He’d told her so, and she believed him.
Soon, though, being in Shane’s arms introduced emotions other than mere dancing pleasure. A tingling enveloped her, giving rise to an inexplicable urge to press her body closer to his. She felt flushed. Hot.
“It’s warm in here,” she murmured.
“Warm?” He sounded surprised, which flustered her.
“I need to cool off,” she said bluntly.
“Probably do us both good,” he agreed, and whirled her toward the door.
He led her off the floor with an arm around her waist and into the dusk outside. The moon was up, waxing toward full. She took a deep breath of desert air, where the leftover scents of the powwow mingled with the wilder smell of the vegetation and thought about moving away from Shane’s encircling arm. But she didn’t.
It felt right to her to be strolling along with him like this. For the first time in her life it felt right for her to be part of a couple.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Laura rode out with Shane, feeling as though the evening before had been a dream. Had she really strolled in the moonlight with his arm around her? Had she actually hoped he might kiss her?
She shook her head. That wasn’t like her at all.
“The day doesn’t suit you?” Shane asked.
Laura glanced at him, perplexed.
“You frowned and shook your head,” he told her. “Since I haven’t said a word and the horses aren’t misbehaving, I see nothing to be annoyed with except the day itself.”
“It’s a perfectly fine day,” she admitted. Actually the morning was gorgeous, with a cool breeze not quite counteracting the warmth of the sun.
Looking across the sagebrush-covered land, she could see cottonwoods in the distance, telltale sentinels guarding the stream. “Are we going to camp by the water again?” she asked.
“I have a better plan. Your lame pinto mare looked to be near to foaling.”
When he didn’t go on, Laura nodded.
“You must know how mustang mares behave at that time,” he added.
“I’ve read that they go off alone to bear their young.”
“Right. And almost always in the same spot, year after year. I know where that might be. We’ll check it out.”
�
�How far?”
He waved a hand toward the northwest.
Which wasn’t exactly pinpointing the location, but then this high desert terrain didn’t have too many distinguishing landmarks—at least to her eyes.
“Isn’t it dangerous for them to be by themselves when they give birth?” she asked.
“The mare’s stuck in one place for the few hours it takes for the foaling and for the foal to get its traveling legs. The herd wouldn’t wait around for her, so she’d be alone anyway. The places the mares choose are relatively safe. Coyotes are about the only predators around here. The big cats and the bears stay closer to the foothills.”
A jackrabbit shot out from practically under the horses’ hooves, but neither of them shied, and she commented on it.
He shrugged. “The good ones get used to desert wildlife early. Snakes’ll spook ’em, but not rabbits or quail.”
“I’ve never encountered a rattler,” she said uneasily.
“You probably won’t, either. Doesn’t mean you might not see one. But snakes don’t like close encounters any more than we do, so they generally take off if you give ’em the chance. Shy of men—like you.”
Laura blinked, startled to hear herself compared to a rattler.
“Haven’t noticed any other snake-like attributes yet, though,” Shane said with a perfectly straight face.
He was teasing her, she realized belatedly. She wasn’t used to being teased. She couldn’t recall if her brother or her father might have done it before that dreadful Halloween, but they hadn’t afterward.
In school she learned to be so successful at not being noticed that nobody there had bothered with her one way or the other. And she’d never before gotten close enough to a man so he felt free to tease. She rather enjoyed it.
“It might be worth it to shed my skin every year,” she said. “That way I’d never look old.” Though she was tempted to confront him about the “shy of men” comment, she didn’t. After all, it was true.
“Be an interesting spectacle to watch, the skin shedding.”
She decided not to touch that one. Changing the subject, she said, “I enjoyed the dancing yesterday.”
“With me?”
“That, too,” she admitted. “But what I meant was the powwow dancing. It made me feel—oh, I don’t know, I guess connected is the right word. Like I belonged.”
Shane, who’d always known he belonged, no matter what other problems he might have, didn’t comment for a time. Their relationship was still so fragile he hesitated to say anything too personal that might make her retreat.
“That’s one of the things a powwow’s for, to remind us we’re all part of a whole,” he said finally.
Laura turned to him, smiling. “Yes, that’s exactly what I felt.”
Walking with her in the moonlight had certainly given him feelings that had nothing to do with the powwow. It had taken a ton of willpower not to go any further than putting an arm around her waist. She was his wife, and it was getting tougher every day to remember the “in name only” proviso.
“If the mare is foaling, won’t we scare her if we get too close?” she asked.
He smiled inwardly. Skittish was the word for her. Every time she got a little too close to him in body or conversation, she retreated to a safe distance or a safe topic.
“What I’m hoping to do is get us near her familiar place before she goes there,” he said. “Once we’re camped upwind, we should be okay. And I’ll put out a pan of water for her. In this dry country, that’ll be a lure.”
He wished it were as simple to lure Laura closer.
Later, when they stopped to eat lunch by a stream, he pointed out the evidence that a herd had been there not long before them.
“The mare’s herd?” she asked.
“Can’t be sure—but indications are it was a harem herd, not just that bunch of bachelors. This is the black stallion’s territory, so it’s probably his. Which means we may get lucky.”
They reached the foaling place in mid-afternoon, a depression between a couple of small hills. A few straggly cottonwoods grew at one end, showing water collected there in the wet season, though now it was as dry as a bleached bone.
“The trees’ll offer cover for us,” he said.
“Shade, too,” she added. “That sun is powerful.”
“We’ll hold off on the tent until dark. If she shows up, the horses being nearby won’t bother her, but the sight of a tent might.”
“I don’t really need the tent,” she told him. “I can sleep outside as well as you can.”
After tending to the horses, Shane poured water into a shallow pan and set it at the edge of the nesting place. Retreating to their camp, partly screened by the trees, he helped her unroll the sleeping gear. They stretched out on their respective sleeping bags, side by side—though not too close—preparing to wait. Laura promptly fell asleep.
All that dancing getting to her, he thought. Her defenses down in sleep, she looked like the girl she’d once been, young and vulnerable, touching something protective within him.
Her energy and determination belied her air of fragility. Not that her body looked fragile. He couldn’t think when he’d seen a woman’s shape that appealed to him as much as hers did. Everything about her looked just right—breasts that would fit perfectly in his hands, those sweet curves to her hips….
Damn. He’d best do himself a favor and go back to thinking about being protective.
There was no question in his mind that she needed a man to watch out for her, and he was that man—because he knew how to deal with creatures who feared humans. Laura might look completely civilized on the surface, but her heart was as wild and wary as that of any mustang.
Last night she’d let him hold her while they danced. She hadn’t sidled away from his arm around her waist afterward, either. Progress. If he could keep his own desire curbed, the next step would be for her to be able to tolerate a real kiss—not those featherweight ones she’d already accepted from him. No, not tolerate. Enjoy. She needed to learn to welcome his kiss. To want it.
He closed his eyes, imagining her in his arms, responding to his lovemaking, and drifted into a doze. He woke abruptly when one of their tethered horses snorted. Rolling cautiously onto his stomach, he raised his head enough to look through the trees.
A single mustang was headed their way. Frowning, he watched the slow approach of what he recognized as a pregnant mare. Her dusty coat was multicolored, so it must be Laura’s lame pinto. Her dragging pace wasn’t the slow of caution. This mare looked to be at the end of her rope. He didn’t like the way her head hung down.
He reached across to Laura and touched her arm, saying in a low tone, “Wake up, but don’t move. She’s coming.”
He felt her tense under his hand, but she stayed put.
“Okay, ease yourself onto your stomach so you can see,” he told her.
“That’s her,” Laura said when she got into position. “But something’s wrong with her. More than the lameness, I mean.”
“’Fraid so.”
“I have the vet pack with me, maybe I can help her.”
“Don’t move,” he warned again. “Let her get where she wants to be.”
His practiced eye told him the mare was, to all intents and purposes, beyond saving. She might not even have enough strength left to be able to push out the foal.
“She looks so pitiful,” Laura mourned.
“She’s dying.” He spoke bluntly, wanting Laura to know ahead of time what they’d be dealing with. “A wonder she made it here.”
“I have medicine in the kit—”
“Too late.”
She frowned at him. “We can at least try.”
“The mare’ll need help delivering her foal,” he conceded, aware nothing was going to stop Laura. “Best to concentrate on that. Know anything about it?”
“Um, I’ve watched. If I have to, I think I can do what’s necessary.”
He heard the
uncertainty in her voice, but he’d learned enough about Laura by now to know she wasn’t likely to turn away from the sight of blood or to flinch at what had to be done, no matter what. He’d helped at enough births, so he was capable enough, but he thought Laura needed the chance to prove herself.
When the mare ignored the water, he knew she was beyond hope. She staggered into the depression and stood trembling, blood trickling from the opening of her birth canal.
“Already in labor,” he muttered. “The foal’s best chance to be born alive is to keep her on her feet—if we can. Time to go to her—move slowly and quietly.”
When they joined her, other than a flicker of her ears, the mare ignored them, being too far gone to feel alarm. Shane spoke softly to her, telling her in Paiute that she was brave, that her baby would live and run in the wind as she’d done in her time.
“Before you die,” he finished in English, “you will pass on the joy of being free to your child.”
Tears pricked Laura’s eyes at his words, but she blinked them away impatiently, concentrating on the birthing. The mare swayed on her feet as the foal’s head popped into view. She stumbled, her legs giving way, and fell sideways just as the rest of her baby slipped out. Laura caught the foal, staggering under its weight as she eased it to the ground.
With the towel she’d brought, she wiped the membranes and fluid from the baby’s face, then its body, noting absently that it was a male. The colt moved under her hands, already struggling to stand. A good sign, she knew.
“She’s gone.” Shane spoke from where he knelt beside the mare’s head, his voice tinged with a sadness Laura understood and shared.
He straightened and came to look at the colt, who was black like his sire, marked only with one white patch on his forehead. He now stood uncertainly on all four legs, nuzzling at Laura.
“As the midwife, you get to name him,” he told her, touched by her tenderness with the colt. “After all, he’s yours to raise.”
She was silent for a time, then said, “No, I’ll let Sage choose his name.”