The Return Of Cord Navarro

by Vella Munn

  “Rest.” His hands felt empty. He had to fight to keep from reaching for her. “I won’t do that to you again.”

  “I don’t care. You have to know that.”

  The world around them had already taken on its night song, cooler, freer somehow than it had during the day. Her voice had risen to blend with it. “Yes, I do,” he told her.

  “And you feel the same way, don’t you?”

  “With all my heart.”

  “Oh, Cord.” She touched him, a warm, strong hand on his cheek. Although he didn’t move, he felt himself flow into the contact. As when they’d once made love, he lost the distinctions between them.

  The caress that wasn’t really one continued. He thought about her reaction to his stubble, wanted to protect her from that harshness. Wanted her to know that some things hadn’t changed about him and his body would still feel the same to her.

  He was full of words. Words that wouldn’t come. All he could do was dip his head so that his cheek pressed more firmly against her hand and look into her eyes and wonder what emotions she kept hidden from him.

  Maybe none. Maybe a lifetime’s worth.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  That I want to bury myself in you until there’s nothing except us. “I’m not sure I am,” he lied.

  “I don’t believe you. Don’t pull back, please. It’s all right,” she insisted, and he did as she ordered. “I shouldn’t have asked. I just—Oh, Cord, I’m such an emotional mess. I guess I was hoping you could tell me how to get through this. My moods are like a roller coaster, up and down until I think I’m going to go crazy.”

  “He’s all right. You’ve seen his tracks. You know—”

  “Yes, I do. I’m just tired. Maybe that makes me think things I shouldn’t. Worry more than I should. I mean, look at what we’ve already accomplished.”

  “Yes, we have.”

  “Do you mean it?” she challenged. “I don’t want you keeping anything from me. I need you to be honest even if it’s bad. Comparing this search to others, is it coming along all right?”

  “Much better than many,” he told her. If there was any way he could keep her from tapping into everything he was thinking, learning the depth and width of his concerns, he would do it. And if he couldn’t—

  “That’s good.” She sighed and stared at her hand as if surprised to see it against his flesh. Stepping back, she let her arm drop to her side. With that gesture, the night seemed to lap against her and take over. “Thank you,” she said. “I needed to hear that.”

  Fifteen minutes later they’d spread out their ground mats and unrolled their separate sleeping bags and Shannon had gotten out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she’d made so many hours ago. When Cord caught the smell of peanut butter, his stomach rumbled. Despite that, he picked up the two-way radio and made contact with Shannon’s parents because he wanted to give them more details on where they were and what they’d accomplished today.

  Despite the strain they couldn’t keep out of their voices, Shannon’s parents insisted that they were holding up well and were fortunately being kept busy. After telling them about finding Pawnee and having let all three horses go, he turned the radio over to Shannon. His call to the sheriff would have to come later when he was assured of privacy. In the meantime, he’d have to go on fighting himself.

  By the time he’d removed his boots, she had told her parents that they could expect the horses to show up at her place sometime tomorrow and that she’d appreciate knowing as soon as they did. After ending the conversation, she handed him his dinner. “Are you tired?” she asked gently.

  “Tired? I guess. I try not to think about anything except what I have to do.”

  “How well do you succeed?”

  “Most of the time it works.”

  “But not now.” She tipped her head slightly and studied him intently. “No. You don’t have to say anything. I won’t push, not tonight. I don’t want to have to worry any more than I already am. Does that make me sound like a coward?”

  “You’re doing what you have to. That’s all right.”

  “Is it?” Stretching her neck, she glanced at the still-darkening sky. “Even if the temperature goes down more, I hope the clouds break up completely tonight. The moon’s just about full. If it isn’t totally dark, if he can study the moon, it might make him feel better.”

  “It might.”

  “But you don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference because you’ve shown him there’s nothing to fear in the night. I hope you’re right, because if you aren’t—No! I said I wasn’t going to let myself worry.” She took a small bite while he studied the shadows’ effect on her features. It was becoming harder and harder to separate her from their surroundings.

  “My mother made the blackberry jelly I used in the sandwiches,” she continued. “She tried to get me to help her, but I guess I’m not as domestic as she, which isn’t saying much. What do you think of it?”

  “Delicious,” he told her although he’d barely tasted what he was eating.

  “And the peanut butter will stick to our ribs, not that I have to worry about putting on weight with all the exercise I got today. Listen to me. I keep rambling like—why don’t you just tell me to shut up?”

  “It’s all right,” he said as he thought about the miles that separated them from the rest of the world.

  “But maybe you have to listen to —

  “I don’t,” he interrupted. “Matt isn’t around here.”

  “No, he isn’t. Just owls and coyotes and crickets and mosquitoes.” Closing her eyes, she listened for a minute. “They make quite a lullaby, don’t they? I’ve always loved it.” She sighed. “I just hope Matt sees it in the same way.”

  He almost told her Matt would, but decided not to because that might bring them back to the conversation they’d sidestepped a few minutes ago. “It sounds like this at your place, doesn’t it?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. Sometimes when the coyotes get going, they all but drown out the TV.”

  “Do they ever give you any trouble?”

  “No. Actually, I rather like them, a sentiment some of my neighbors don’t share. However, you’ll notice that I don’t keep any chickens or rabbits or anything that might appeal to them. You’ve seen wolves, haven’t you?” Although he couldn’t make out her features, he sensed that she was smiling. “I’ve always wanted to, but with foals around it’s probably a good thing there aren’t any left around here. Still, I think we’ve lost something important and basic because they’re gone.”

  He told her that an Alaska fish and game employee had taken him along during a wolf population count a couple of years ago and that he’d watched a pair of adult wolves teach their young how to track and kill.

  “The balance of nature,” she said when he was finished. “It seems cruel, but predators keep the population of other animals in balance with the available food. Everything works as long as man doesn’t interfere. Too bad we couldn’t bring along the makings for a steak dinner. I swear I could eat the biggest one out there.”

  “Do you want more to eat? I’ve got—”

  “No. No, thanks. I’d probably better see how well I digest this.” Standing, she told him she was going to make a stab at cleaning up at the creek they’d stopped near. He watched her disappear, flashlight in hand, and then waited a few more minutes before contacting Dale Vollrath at his office. After the briefest of pleasantries Dale explained that he’d been out to the ranch twice to see how Shannon’s parents were doing and had let the head of search and rescue know what was going on. So far the press hadn’t picked up on what was happening but that might not last long. “Unfortunately, when and if that happens, we’re going to be swamped by reporters. I want to work with you, not be interviewed.”

  “I’ve found Matt’s trail,” Cord explained.

  “You have? That’s great. I’m sure that’s a big relief to both of you.”

  “Not as m
uch as I wish.” Keeping his voice as low as he dared, he told Dale about the faint gunshots he’d heard.

  “Damn!”

  “Yeah, damn. Except for us, is there anyone else on this side of Copper that you know of?”

  “The forest service gave me a list of a half dozen hiking groups on the east slope, but that’s not what you’re talking about, is it?”

  “No,” he admitted, hating his words. “Has there been any indication that those poachers are still on Brecken-ridge?”

  “I asked about that, too. In fact, trying to get a lead on them has taken most of my day. No one’s seen anything, not that that means much. We’re talking about a hell of a lot of territory. You’re sure about the sound being a shot? You said it was pretty far away.”

  “I’m sure,” he said, and Dale didn’t argue the point. Instead, the sheriff promised to do some more snooping around to see if he could come up with anything.

  “I’d appreciate that. And, Dale, I want to keep this between you and me.”

  “In other words, you don’t want Shannon knowing. It might not be possible, you know. If something happens...”

  He’d seen the result of what happens when a hunter mistakes a human for a deer and knew that that image would stay with him for a long time tonight. Shannon didn’t need to carry the same images inside her. Hadn’t she told him that she had enough to worry about as it was? Protecting her from anything more was maybe the only thing he could do for her, his only atonement.

  Had Cord been talking to someone? Shannon wondered as she returned to their camping spot. She thought she’d heard the murmur of his voice, but maybe she’d only imagined it.

  And maybe he’d seen more today than he’d let on and was relaying whatever it was to someone. If Cord knew something he was keeping from her, she would never forgive him. Damn it, they were supposed to be in this together! Forget his natural reserve, his closemouthed nature, his inability to communicate. Angry, she nearly confronted him and insisted he be completely truthful. Instead, she sat down and took off her boots, weariness suddenly overtaking her. Unless Matt set off a keg of dynamite, she didn’t think she could move.

  At the thought of Matt, she surrendered to a sense of warmth. Fueled by the area’s gold history, her son had recently spent a day digging a four-foot-deep hole in the backyard. How could anything bad happen to a boy with dirt on his knees and blisters on his hands and excited talk about all the horses he’d buy her once he had enough gold? Cord had found Pawnee. As the light faded, he’d placed his hand on their son’s boot print. They’d find him tomorrow. Her arms would feel full again.

  Arms. Hands.

  Although it was so dark that she couldn’t really see her hand, she held it close to her face. Despite his Ute blood, Cord needed to shave every day. Sometimes when he came back from a search, he hadn’t been near a razor for a week or more. When he walked in the door looking like that, she’d think of a bear. A powerful, fearless bear.

  And then he’d pull her close to him and she’d forget everything except his body taking over hers. Bringing her to life.

  Tonight her palm felt warm and alive. She pressed it against her chest, wondering if the gesture might transfer some of Cord’s essence from her hand to her heart. She needed a little of the incredible strength and competence that had saved lives.

  That, and more.

  Night! She had to face the night alone with him. “Wh-what are you thinking about?” she asked, her voice surprising her. She wasn’t sure hearing him speak would give her the necessary distance from her emotions, but she had to try. “At night, when you’re on a search, you must think about other searches you’ve been on.”

  “Yes.”

  “And is that happening tonight?”

  “More than ever.” The answer came too slow.

  “Tell me about it,” she prompted, although maybe she should leave this particular topic alone.

  “You really want-”

  “I really want to know, Cord.”

  As he’d just done, he again paused before speaking. His voice deep and low, he told her about having gone after an escaped convict, an experience that had made national headlines. She remembered; the man had been armed and desperate. What he hadn’t been was wise in the ways of the wilderness. By the time Cord tracked him down, the man had lost his fight and had been grateful to have someone take him back to civilization.

  “But he was still armed, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet you walked right up to him?”

  Cord chuckled; she’d almost forgotten what that sounded like and wanted to hear it again. “I watched him for a long time and made sure he had no fight left in him before I approached him.”

  “Approached him? You’re not a cop. I don’t understand. If someone told me to go hiking off into the middle of nowhere looking for someone who’d already taken one life, I’d tell them to take a flying leap.” She shifted position slightly, groaning despite her resolve not to. “Cord, you have a child. Does your life mean that little?”

  “My life means a lot to me, Shannon.” His voice was somewhere between a whisper and a growl—anger barely kept in check? “But law enforcement couldn’t touch that man because of where he was. If I didn’t go after him, he might have gotten away and later taken another life. Maybe a child’s life the next time.”

  Was that why or was it because he was a man who gave up on nothing—except his marriage? “It’s like those newspaper articles say, isn’t it? You’re invincible. At least, you think of yourself that way.”

  Cord didn’t say anything, and she wondered if she knew why. He’d never seen himself as anyone except a man who’d been given certain gifts and used those gifts to do a job, a sometimes desperately needed job. She shouldn’t have goaded him.

  “Look,” she said. “I don’t mean to press you. Maybe I’m trying to figure out what makes you tick when I have no business doing so.”

  “Yes, you do. You need to know if I can find our son.”

  She felt a spark, a silent shaft of lightning coming so quickly that she almost didn’t recognize it. But in a few words, Cord had shown his ability to step inside her head. He hadn’t, she believed, been able to do that back when their marriage was dying. When they’d both given up.

  “I don’t know if I want to talk to you,” she admitted. “I do know I wish with all my heart that we weren’t here, that we weren’t being forced together like this. That...that I didn’t feel so vulnerable.”

  She needed to hear him say he understood, but she was wrong because he was going to retrieve their son and life would go back to normal. She also needed to snatch away her raw words and hide behind silence. Silence! That was his domain, a large part of what had destroyed them.

  “Cord?” She took a breath while trying to decide whether to continue. “When I started my business, I was so scared I wouldn’t make it that I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Your stomach never becomes this boulder that weighs more than you can possibly carry, does it? What’s it like?” She forced the question. “To not feel fear.”

  “I don’t know.”

  His answer seemed to drift above them to blend with the night sky and the sounds that defined their existence. She felt both frozen and newly alive as if she’d glimpsed sunlight in the depth of a forest. “There have been times when that boulder feels larger than me.”

  “Tell me, please,” she whispered when he fell silent. Please let me into that private world of yours.

  “You don’t want to hear this.”

  “Yes, I do. Cord, if I once made you believe I needed you to play the macho role, I’m sorry. It was dumb and immature. I shouldn’t have said what I just did. I think I know what you’re getting at—searches that seemed like they would never end, the fear you wouldn’t get to someone in time.”

  “That wasn’t the worst.”

  This time she couldn’t make a single sound.

  “Ma
ybe all new fathers feel the same way—I don’t know.”

  “How...how did you feel?”

  “Scared.”

  “Scared? You?”

  “Shannon, I was only eighteen when you got pregnant—when I got you pregnant. The day after you told me, I walked into the forest.” His voice trailed away, leaving her feeling as if she was alone in the dark, alone and waiting for him to rejoin her. She felt surrounded by night. “I remember thinking a thousand things, having a thousand fears,” he whispered.

  “Being in the forest...” she said because she had to say something, “did that help?”

  “Not for a long time. I couldn’t find the answers inside myself. Finally I asked Gray Cloud’s spirit how I was going to put food in my baby’s mouth, whether...whether I was what you needed. He didn’t answer. I learned, the hard way.”

  Oh, Cord. “I wish you’d told me,” she whispered. It might have made a difference. Brought us closer.

  “I didn’t know how.”

  And I didn’t know how to listen. For a moment she fought the need to walk away from this conversation, the peeling away of too many self-imposed layers.

  Then she stood and walked barefoot over to where she knew he was. The night had served them well, she thought as she knelt beside him. Unable to see each other, they’d said things they probably wouldn’t have if they’d had to look into each other’s eyes. Now she’d made a lie of the darkness by coming to him. Heat, enough to wash through her body, nearly distracted her, but she held on.

  “If you’d confided in me...”

  “You were the one having the baby. You had enough on your mind.”

  “But if we’d both known what was going on inside the other, maybe it would have made a difference.”

  She didn’t so much as sense him move. Still, his hands now covered hers and she felt less alone. “I’d like to believe it would have,” he said.

  Despite the pain that accompanied his word and her inability to turn it into anything else, she now had a deeper understanding of Cord’s heart and mind than she’d ever had. Scared. Her wonderfully brave and masculine lover, scared. She tried to think back to when they’d faced the consequences of their too young, too innocent lovemaking, but the present—his hands engulfing hers—blocked that out.