Montana Dreaming (Home On The Ranch)

by Nadia Nichols

  He began a slow and cautious descent toward the light of the fire.

  TENDING GUTHRIE was easier while he was unconscious. She was able to clean his lacerations without worrying about hurting him. When the gash on his head was tidied up to her satisfaction, the hair trimmed neatly from its edges and the wound amply flushed out, she decided to suture it because it was a good four inches long, running from behind his left ear toward the top of his head, and deep enough to reveal the gleam of bone. She had ten individual sutures with needles in her kit and used every last one of them, holding the little flashlight in her teeth to illuminate the area as best she could.

  Her work was slow and clumsy because her left hand was weak; the wrist and forearm didn’t flex at all, and her fingers tingled with the cold. She had to keep pausing to throw more wood on the little fire, but she finished with the feeling that at least she had done something to better his condition. She wrapped clean gauze around his head, binding a sterile dressing over the wound, then sat with his head in her lap, near enough to the fire to keep it going, to watch the bouillon broth and to wait for him to awaken.

  If he did.

  There was, of course, the possibility that he wouldn’t, that the internal bleeding would continue, the shock would deepen and he would slip into a coma and die. “But you won’t,” she whispered to him, smoothing the hair back from his abraded forehead. “You wouldn’t dare break your promise.” His face was a mess. As if he’d been dragged facedown over sharp rocks for a long ways. “Oh, Guthrie.” Her throat tightened and she blinked away tears impatiently. She couldn’t let herself cave in. He needed her to be strong. She couldn’t let him down.

  A sudden nearby rattle of loose stones startled her and she looked up, adrenaline surging through her. The firelight had blinded her night vision. A great monster could loom and she wouldn’t see it until it stepped into the circle of light cast by the fire. She reached for her rifle and drew it near, then slid out from beneath Guthrie and laid him gently on the ground. She stood and squared off toward the sound. To fire the rifle with any degree of accuracy would be nearly impossible. Her left arm and hand were unable to steady the rifle to get off a good shot. She would need to rest the rifle barrel on something, but what?

  More noise. More rocks and scree scattering down the steep defile. She sensed something large moving around the edge of the camp, something apart from the rattling stones. “Bear walker!” she whispered over the pounding of her heart. If screaming would have helped, she’d have screamed at the top of her lungs, for her nerves were drawn taut. She couldn’t stand still another moment without doing something, so without further delay she braced the stock of the rifle against her hip, pointed the barrel skyward and pulled the trigger.

  The noise was deafening. The rifle shot cracked open the night, reverberated off the mountain slopes, rocketed into the distance and then echoed back over the ringing in her ears. A great rush of sounds followed on the heels of the rifle shot, sounds that she couldn’t separate, couldn’t identify at first. Big sounds, nearby. A deep woofing noise like a huge startled dog, and then something very big running quickly away, scattering more scree behind it.

  The bear. The grizzly had been coming toward their camp, had gotten very close! Too close! Quick! More wood on the fire! She bent and flung several branches over the coals. Fresh flames licked up. In her panic she was lucky she hadn’t knocked over the billy can with its precious broth. She laid on more firewood with greater care, her hands shaking, and then squatted near the warmth and the burgeoning light, rifle balanced across her knees, listening, listening…

  THE SENATOR CREPT down the steep rock ledge. He kept a grip on the Weatherby and keened his eyes on the dancing firelight. His pulse pounded in his temples. His mouth was dry. His knees barely braced up to the steep descent. He paused to steady his breathing. Wouldn’t do to hyperventilate. Had to keep his wits about him. Had to do what needed to be done. He…

  A rifle shot shattered the silence, startling him so badly that he lost his footing and fell hard on his left hip, a jolt of pain stabbing up into his lower back. “No!” he gasped, struggling to rise. The man couldn’t have heard him coming. Couldn’t have known he was out here.

  But he heard something else now, something lunging toward him up the steep trail. In the murky blue moonlight he could see the great bulk of something monstrous. He pushed up and slipped again, lost his grip on the Weatherby, and it slid away, rattled down and down, toward the bear he had come here to kill. The bear whose head was to have graced the wall of his hunting lodge. The rifle struck the bear’s foreleg, bounced off and continued down toward where the dead horse lay.

  The senator was almost on his feet now, almost, but too late! The bear was upon him. It barely slowed its uphill lunge. It was scared and it was angry, and with one powerful swipe of its massive paw it swatted the senator aside as if he were no more than an insignificant piece of chaff.

  It was quick, there was no pain, and no time to be afraid. Just the way the senator would have liked it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JOE hadn’t slept a wink all night. He was as edgy as a cat, wired from lack of sleep and anxiety. He paced his kitchen while the coffee brewed, drank a cup on the way to the airfield, and was more than a little dismayed to be met by his boss in the hangar before he had even shrugged into his requisite leather flight jacket, before the sun had even properly risen.

  “Got a call from one of your clients last night!” Boss said, fairly swaggering with excitement.

  Joe’s heart rate trebled. The senator? “Oh?”

  “He liked the flight yesterday. Wants you over there again first thing this morning. He says this time he’ll bring his camera and he’s packed a lunch. What did I tell you? This is going to be a good account. That man’s richer than anyone else in this star-crossed valley.”

  Joe stared. “McCutcheon?”

  “Who the hell do you think I’m talking about? Your chopper’s all fueled up, I saw to it myself. Go on, crank her up. He’s waiting on you.”

  McCutcheon? But he’d seen all he wanted to see last night, hadn’t he? He knew the horses were back and everything was okay. What else could he want to see? Joe unwrapped a stick of gum and shoved it in his mouth as he walked out to where the chopper squatted on its landing pad. No more hunting trips for the almighty senator. Let him find someone else to squire him around on his little trophy expeditions. The stress of the past few days had aged Joe ten years. It wasn’t worth it.

  He’d stick to scenic tours and legitimate elk hunts, and to hell with everything else. To hell with it!

  IN THE COLD CLEAR LIGHT of dawn Jessie Weaver slept. It was not a long sleep, or a restful one. She had spent the night keeping the little fire going and Guthrie warm, feeding sips of bouillon into him when he waked and willing him with all her soul and spirit to stay alive. After the moon had set she’d drifted off, her back braced against the trunk of a tree, her rifle close at hand and Guthrie’s head cradled in her lap. She had a dream and in it she was riding Fox, the wily red mare.

  They were high in the mountains, when a raven flew overhead, quarking and croaking, dodging artfully this way and that, playing the updrafts and the sudden gusts of mountain wind, but when she reined in the mare to watch, the raven swooped suddenly down, its wings swishing loudly. It carved a tight arc around them, before winging down, down, toward a figure far below.

  A man stood on an outcrop of rock, below which loomed an immense free fall of space clear to the valley floor. She was filled with a sense of dread, for she knew that he was about to fall off the edge and into that void. Fox tossed her head, eager to be on her way, but the raven flew down toward the man and Jessie watched, transfixed and horrified.

  “Guthrie, no!” she said.

  For it was Guthrie who stood on the edge of that precipice, who wavered between life and death and who seemed to want to choose death over life. But why? Down the raven flew, down and down… And then she became the raven,
sluicing through the air on powerful wings, reaching out to him, catching him just before he slipped and fell into the bottomless void.

  “Guthrie!”

  She came awake with a jerk, her mouth dry and her heart pounding. She felt a movement within the cradle of her arms and legs. He stirred. Was alive. Relief flooded through her and she bent her head over his, cursing the day they had parted company, turned their backs on each other and gone their separate ways. Remembering the very moment it happened, remembering that she’d been the one to speak the fatal words.

  Remembering all and regretting deeply, but too late now to return to that place in time and take it all back, make it all right. Too late! Guthrie was alive for now, but would he be alive to see the sun rise over the Beartooth Wilderness they both so loved? “Guthrie.” She breathed his name and traced her fingertips across his forehead. “Guthrie…”

  Last night seemed like a nightmare, like something that couldn’t have happened, and yet it had. She was here, Guthrie was here, the bear had been here. The senator might still be on the prowl with that powerful gun of his, looking to shoot something, but she had fired her own rifle last night, and surely the senator would have heard it. He would have known to pull his horns in, to cower and hope no one ever discovered his foolish transgression.

  Perhaps he wasn’t here. Perhaps he’d left on the chopper last night with Joe Nash…if indeed he’d been here at all. Maybe they were wrong about the senator, though she doubted it. When her intuition spoke loudly to her, she listened, and it had already told her all she needed to know.

  When Joe Nash returned, he would set his chopper down somewheres nearby, and that would be the only chance to get Guthrie out in time to save his life. But first she had to find the place Joe would put the chopper down, and that meant leaving Guthrie, something she was loath to do. What if he died while she was away from him? What if he died wondering why she had left him? Yet if she didn’t find the place the chopper would land, he might die anyway.

  What was she to do?

  She spoke his name softly, her fingertips lightly touching his face, feeling the stubble of his beard. She bent closer. “Guthrie.” At the sound of her voice he moved. His eyelashes fluttered and he moaned.

  “Guthrie!”

  His eyes opened and he stared blankly up for a few moments, then shifted focus, searching for her. Finding her. Looking at her for a long silent moment. “Jess,” he said finally. “What…?”

  “Don’t try to talk. Listen to me. You rode up here two days ago to find my mares and you had an accident. You’re hurt, but you’re going to be all right. Joe Nash might be flying close to this spot pretty soon. I have to try to signal him so he can take you out of here. I’ll be gone a little while, but I won’t be far, and we’ll come get you. You’re going to be okay, Guthrie. Do you understand?”

  He gazed up at her in the dimness. “Jess,” he said again. His voice was weak, faint. “I heard a rifle shot. Big, powerful rifle. And footsteps after.” He formed the words slowly, carefully, but as their meaning registered she felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

  “I fired a shot last night to scare the bear away,” she said. “You must have heard me moving around….”

  “He was here. The senator. Shot Kestrel by mistake. Must’ve thought she was the bear. Covered us both up with brush.”

  Her indrawn breath was sharp. “Oh, Guthrie, no!”

  “Don’t go out there, Jess. He could still be nearby.”

  “No!” Jessie exclaimed. “Why would he do that? I can’t believe he’d do that!”

  “Joe must have flown him here, set him up over the kill site to shoot that bear.” Guthrie’s hand closed around her wrist. “Don’t go out there!”

  “But if the senator shot Kestrel by mistake, why wouldn’t he help you if you were hurt? Why would he cover you with brush?”

  Guthrie’s grip on her wrist weakened and his hand slid away. “He must’ve thought I was dead,” he said, struggling for breath. “I heard his footsteps. He dragged me. I saw him.” His eyes pleaded with her to understand the gravity of their situation. “I saw him.”

  The horror of his words overwhelmed her. She sat in shocked silence, trying to calm her racing thoughts. “I heard the chopper late yesterday,” she said. “It must’ve been Joe coming to pick him up. Why else would he have flown over here? He’s already picked the senator up, Guthrie. The senator’s gone!”

  He reached for her again but didn’t have the strength. “Don’t go up there, Jess. Please.”

  She reached to squeeze his hand. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be careful, I promise. I have to check things out, don’t you see? If the senator’s gone, we’re in big trouble, because it means Joe Nash won’t be coming back, and I’m counting on him to fly you out of here.”

  She took her rifle, since Guthrie was too weak to use it even if she left it behind and she doubted the bear would come near their campfire. In any event, she didn’t travel far. She rounded the brush pile with the stealth of a hunter, deliberately averting her eyes from any glimpse of Kestrel. She was unable to comprehend the actions of the senator. He must be insane! He must—

  Not fifty feet from where she’d left Guthrie she stopped short in her tracks, hands tightening on her rifle, breath catching in her throat. On the far side of the brush pile, at the very base of the rock ledge, lay the senator, and next to him, within arm’s reach, was a big fancy rifle. He was sprawled on his back, with his arms outflung and his eyes staring up at the early-morning sky, but he was far beyond seeing it.

  Jessie moved forward cautiously and paused again, heart hammering against her ribs. Across the left side of the senator’s face were several parallel gashes. From the angle at which he lay it looked as if his neck had been broken, and it looked as if the great bear might have broken it.

  For the reality of what she was seeing to strike home took a few moments. On reluctant tread she approached the body and knelt, laid her rifle down and pressed her fingers against the flesh at the base of his neck. The skin was still vaguely warm in spite of the freezing temperatures. The senator was dead, but he hadn’t been dead for long. The noise she’d heard last night hadn’t just been the bear prowling nearby. The senator must have spotted their campfire. He’d been creeping down the ledge toward it, carrying that big powerful rifle, when both her rifle shot and the bear had surprised him.

  “Fair play,” Jessie said without remorse. She shivered with a combination of cold and tightly drawn nerves, and glanced around, wondering where the bear was now. The thought spurred her into action. She stood, reaching her rifle off the ground, and walked back to the brush pile.

  “Guthrie?” she called out. “I’m right over here. I’m going to get your gear off the horse.” She laid her rifle aside and began pulling the brush off the pile. To expose Kestrel, that beautiful young mare that Jessie had held in such high regard, didn’t take long. She bit her lower lip as she worked the saddlebags and bedroll free and tugged Guthrie’s water bottle loose. His father’s old Winchester was jammed beneath the dead horse. She didn’t have the leverage with only one good arm to free it or the saddle, so she left both behind and returned to their campsite on the far side of the brush pile with the saddlebags, the bedroll and the water bottle.

  Guthrie was relieved to see her. She dropped to her knees beside him and lay her burdens down. “You don’t have to worry about the senator anymore. He’s dead,” she said flatly. “Looks like our bear killed him. And you were right. Kestrel was definitely shot.”

  “My fault. I shouldn’t have taken her…”

  “Guthrie, we have to get you out of here. I have to get Joe to help us. He’ll definitely be coming back for the senator. I don’t know why he already hasn’t!”

  “How did you get here?”

  “On Billy. I tied him off down below.”

  “Fetch him. I can set a horse…”

  “No, you can’t! You’re all busted up inside!”

  “Get Billy,
Jess, or I swear I’ll crawl off this mountain on my hands and knees if I have to.”

  Jessie rose to her feet. Guthrie was out of his head. Irrational. “All right,” she soothed. “You lie still and I’ll bring Billy, but I warn you, Guthrie, if you move so much as an inch, you won’t have to worry about that bear eating you.”

  Billy wasn’t far, but reaching him seemed to take forever. She had no intention of leading him to Guthrie. She had another idea of how to use Billy to save Guthrie, just in case Joe Nash didn’t come back.

  It was certainly worth a shot.

  MCCUTCHEON WAS restlessly pacing the length of the porch when he finally heard the helicopter approaching. Sunlight was already flooding over the rim of mountains to the east. Badger and Charlie hobbled out onto the porch and stood with him, watching the Bell JetRanger draw nearer.

  “He came straight here,” Badger confirmed. “We’da heard if he’d snuck up on the mountain to fetch the senator down.”

  “Yessir,” Charlie agreed. “And we was listening all the while, sure enough. He ain’t been up there.”

  “So that means if our hunch is right, the senator still is,” McCutcheon said.

  “Him and his big fancy gun,” Badger said, and spat over the porch railing.

  “Don’t forget about Guthrie and Jessie,” McCutcheon said.

  All three looked at one another as the chopper set down. “Hell!” Badger said.

  “Okay, here’s what I’ll do,” McCutcheon said. “I’ll feel him out and we’ll go from there. One way or the other, we’ll get Jessie and Guthrie home safe. As for the senator…”

  “The grizzly can have him,” Badger said.

  SHE WAS RIGHT about Guthrie. He’d tried to drag himself down the trail on his hands and knees, but he hadn’t gotten far. He was propped up against the trunk of an aspen, face gray with pain, forehead clammy with sweat, his breathing rapid and shallow. He gazed foggily at her when she knelt beside him. “Where’s Billy!” he said, gasping the words. “I can’t crawl too much farther.”