Silver and Spice

by Jennifer Greene

  “Look,” Jake said suddenly.

  She looked, and backed promptly into the wall of his chest. She was staring at a set of teeth embedded in the rock. Real teeth!

  “Fossils are all over this route,” Jake commented, clearly fascinated by the dental display. He tugged at her hand. “There are a thousand things I’d like to tell you about this place, but we haven’t got much time. Idaho’s still five hundred miles from here, and I’m determined to get there in the next twenty-four hours. But you have to see this-”

  What he evidently wanted her to see was a ledge where one step in the wrong direction could result in an instant plunge of several hundred feet. Wonderful view, Anne thought fleetingly. They seemed to be in hell. Jake’s arms draped around her waist and pulled her back against him, providing the only familiar, solid thing to hold on to anywhere in sight. Her eyes skimmed over the scene. Barren cliffs dropped below to a gaunt, lonely terrain of scalloped ridges and mystical shapes. Fire could have raced through this land and never made a difference. Fire, ice, storm…

  Jake loved this land? She hated it. It was just one more example of the differences between them… She suddenly caught sight of a single flower, a purple burst of softness growing from a crack in the rock. Then she had a glimpse of the strange prism of rainbow colors on the cliffs, breathtakingly brilliant hues accented by sun and shade.

  Jake’s chin nuzzled the crown of her head. “I’ve heard many stories about this place. A group of people were trying to cross here around a century ago, and they didn’t have enough water. They buried two of their party in the sand up to their necks, to preserve what body moisture they had.” His arms tightened around her waist. “They survived, Anne, but that’s what it took to survive.”

  She shuddered expressively, leaning back closer against him.

  “Then there was an outlaw named Joaquin,” Jake drawled. “He hated miners. His bride was Antonia, a sweet, innocent, lovely woman. While he was out one day, a group of miners assaulted his wife. Joaquin was very young, Anne, not more than twenty, and he turned killer after that, killer and thief, with a reputation that surpassed that of any other outlaw in the West.” Jake hesitated. “I think of that story every time I come back out here.”

  An icy chill touched her spine. “Not a very cheerful tale, is it? Thank heavens that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore.”

  “And we’re all civilized now?” Jake shook his head as he slowly turned her around to face him. “You think so, Anne? He was a man alone in a hostile world, who saw only one way to get back at life. I can understand that,” he said quietly, holding her closer. “Haven’t you ever felt helpless? Powerless to control things that were happening to you? As a little kid, didn’t you ever feel rage that people were hurting you and you couldn’t stop them?”

  “No. Of course not.” She slipped quickly from his arms and started the climb down to the motor home. Suddenly, she couldn’t get inside the vehicle fast enough. The land was damned. Desolate and hostile, the kind of place that bred outlaws. She wanted her peppermint tea and a twentieth-century chair and a reassuring book about stocks and bonds. She stepped up and into the motor home, out of breath. Only Jake would be demented enough to see a similarity between the feelings of some long-dead outlaw and those of an innocent child.

  Some minutes later, Jake silently vaulted into the driver’s seat, and they headed back onto the road. After a time, Anne moved up to the passenger seat with a fresh cup of tea warming her hands. She kept as silent as he was. From nowhere, she had a sudden mental image of a five-year-old girl, green-eyed and blond and innocent…desperately shaking her most precious doll.

  It was the day her dad died, a memory buried so deep she hadn’t known it was still there. As a little girl she’d had no idea how to deal with so much anger. How dare he die, how dare he die, how dare he never hold me again… More images flooded her mind. Marriages, and more marriages, and more marriages. How very adept she’d become at being flower girl at her mother’s impulsive weddings. But the image Anne remembered most vividly was of herself hurling pillows and books and pencils. She didn’t want to go to another school! She’d just made friends at the old one. No one had asked a seven-year-old-child if she wanted to be so joltingly uprooted, if she minded changing schools four more times in the next four years. Boarding school had been Ralph’s idea; he was her third stepfather. Her childhood had been a horror of loneliness, a long, disjointed train of in media res starts and abrupt finishes and never knowing where anyone was going.

  Rage had no place in Anne’s adult life; she’d put all that behind her. Everything had changed, anyway, once her grandmother had taken her in. Jennie Blake was stern but loving, a wonderfully strong woman whose home had been a haven. Anne had clung to the stability of household rules and discipline as to a lifeline. There was no more helpless anger. But Jake had touched some very old scars just now, reopened some very deep wounds…

  Jake’s eyes suddenly flashed to hers, a flicker of dark gray compassion, of the kind of understanding that was just part of Jake. “Maybe I can understand your outlaw,” she offered quietly.

  “I thought you would.” He turned back to the road. “You weren’t the only one buffeted around as a child, honey.”

  She averted her eyes, painfully aware of what different roads they’d taken to overcome those uncertain beginnings. “You look tired,” she said briskly. “Don’t you think it’s time I took a turn at the wheel?”

  She drove all afternoon. Jake slept in the back of the motor home. And all afternoon, she was haunted by images of his young outlaw. The one who was so very much in love with his innocent, sweet wife. And she thought of Jake, who’d never cared if he had two nickels to rub together…but heaven help anyone who tried to harm anything he did care about.

  Buttes gave way to steep hills by midafternoon. A huge, low violet cloud ahead of her kept growing larger on the horizon, as the road continued to dip and curve and climb. Only late in the afternoon did she realize that it wasn’t a cloud at all, but mountains that reached for the sky in front of her, snow-peaked and craggy, proud and royal purple.

  “We’ll be in the heart of the Bighorns by nightfall.” Jake suddenly yawned from behind her, then moved forward to crouch down on his haunches between the seats. “Would you believe there’s snow predicted in the Bighorns tonight, yet it’ll be seventy degrees tomorrow in Idaho? That’s West.” He yawned again sleepily. “And to really get you into the spirit of the land-” he grinned “-I think I’ll serve you yellow-jacket soup by a campfire. Think you’re ready?”

  She didn’t particularly feel ready for anything. This strange, unpredictable landscape frightened her, evoked odd and uncomfortable feelings. Awareness of things she hadn’t thought of in years, didn’t really want to think of…yet her eyes were captivated by those mountains, and she risked a quick glance at Jake after maneuvering the motor home around a treacherous turn. “Yellow-jacket soup-as in bees? Are you out of your mind?”

  He was.

  Jake drove two forked sticks into the ground, then took out a pocket knife and started to whittle the bark off the spit that was to lie between them. The fire, dancing and crackling, was waiting for him. “The thing with yellow-jacket soup,” he said gravely, “is to find the yellow jackets’ ground nest when it’s full of grubs. And this is all going to be very difficult to explain if you don’t wipe that cheeky grin off your face.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Anne’s eyes flashed merriment. “Most recipes start with ‘Preheat the oven,’ but all right, Jake. Then what?”

  “Why do I sense this doubting-Thomas attitude?” Jake sounded wounded.

  “You’re imagining it,” she assured him.

  “How are you coming there?”

  “Fine.” She was kneading some sort of flour mixture in a big bowl on her lap, another culinary creation of Jake’s. Which was fine, except that it was snowing. No big blizzard, but there was no question that the white stuff fluttering down was a little more than
falling stars. The cold was seeping through her culottes; it was the biggest, blackest night she’d ever seen; and they were totally alone in a state campground in the Bighorns. Naturally. No one else would be camping-much less cooking out-on a night like this. No one in his right mind.

  “Are you ready to hear what else you have to do to make yellow-jacket soup?” Jake demanded.

  “I certainly am.” The doughy horror was sticking under her fingernails, but she continued kneading. At least the mixture was coating her hands-one way to ward off frostbite.

  “You get the grubs off the nest by poking them with a lit match. Then you heat the nest over the fire until it dries out a little. About then you pick off the yellow jackets and cook them separately over the fire, pop them into boiling water, add a little seasoning, and voilà…”

  “Yellow-jacket soup,” she applauded. Jake faced her with a level stare as he took the bowl from her hands, removed the dough and set it in a greased pan near the fire to rise. Anne started laughing helplessly, and pushed up the collar of her coat with her forearms, since her hands were white and sticky.

  “It’s an authentic Indian recipe-”

  She started laughing again.

  “-that happens to be quite delectable.” He clapped her on the back when she started choking.

  “Come on, Jake, you’ve never eaten any such thing in your life!”

  “I have, too. Once.” He paused, his face taking on a peculiar expression. “God in heaven, once was enough.” He rapidly turned toward the fire again. “Nevertheless, you’re getting an authentic Indian meal tonight, lady. Just not quite that authentic.”

  “So tell me.”

  He cast her a sudden critical glance. “Why didn’t you tell me you were getting cold?” He hustled her speedily into the motor home, washed the dough off her hands, haphazardly draped her shoulders with a blanket, and covered her hands with a pair of Italian kid gloves he discovered in her purse before hustling her back outside again. Jake gave the gloves a wry look. They were as soft as a baby’s bottom, but they wouldn’t keep her hands warm even in the tropics. She loved those gloves, though.

  When she was settled on the log with the blanket beneath her, he started in again. “First we’re having bannock.” He motioned to the floury concoction she’d made. After the oddly textured, stiff dough had risen for a few minutes, he stretched it and wrapped it around a stick in coils. “It’s a trail bread. You roast it over the fire. No prospector or trail hand or self-respecting Indian would ever have a meal without it. Very important.”

  “Aaah.”

  He cast her another critical look, though evidently not for that peculiar sound she’d made. Moments later, her head was covered with his orange wool scarf. The fabric chafed her soft cheeks, but it was certainly warm; she just had a sneaking suspicion that the men from the funny farm would find her any minute now. In the orange scarf and blue blanket and cranberry coat, sitting on a log with the mountains all around and the snow lazily drifting down. Worse than that, she was starting to laugh again.

  “Then we’ll have cactus salad,” Jake continued as he turned his back to the fire. “Then Apache-fried rabbit. Only no rabbits happened to have the misfortune of running in front of the motor home. So it’s Apache-fried chicken, as it happens. Chicken via the grocery store, but we don’t need to mention that-”

  “I don’t know when you had the time to pick the cactus,” she said delicately. Not that she doubted him.

  “Well…” Jake sighed. “Once again, we had to veer just a little from our chosen course. The cactus came from a seven-and-a-quarter-ounce can.”

  “Darling.” Anne rarely used casual endearments; this one was necessary to soften the blow. “Cactus doesn’t come in a can.”

  He took a can out of the trash and held it up so that she could read the label: Natural Cactus in Salt Water, Drain before Using.

  “I beg your pardon,” she apologized gravely.

  “You persist in thinking I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  She persisted in thinking nothing of the kind. Jake always knew exactly what he was doing. Her smile faded, just a little. No one but Jake would have made her knead bread dough in the middle of a snowstorm in the Bighorns; no one but Jake had ever elicited purely whimsical laughter from her. She was fascinated by the mountain lore he’d picked up from heaven knew where. Fascinated, happily relieved that she wouldn’t have to eat bee soup, and just slightly…sad.

  Her dark prince had always charmed her, had always created a quiet, intimate, delicious fantasy when just the two of them were together. How could she help reaching out for him? But a lifetime was very different from scattered moments. Sand castles never lasted.

  Are you thinking about that boring stuff again? Her emotions warred with her mind. Anne, can’t you leave it alone even for a minute?

  Jake’s eyes sought hers over the crackling fire. The chicken was sizzling on the spit, the bread was browning and the slices of cactus were arranged on two small plates, pimiento slices between them, swimming in a dressing of tarragon-and-pepper-seasoned oil. All of it, unbelievably, looked and smelled quite good.

  “You will reserve judgment, Anne, until we’ve had dinner.” His voice was still teasing, but for a moment the humor didn’t reach his eyes.

  Anne decided to reserve judgment a little longer. The look in his eyes had nothing to do with Apache-fried chicken.

  Chapter 8

  “Delicious, Jake. I mean it.”

  Anne had tried the bannock first. The bread was a little tough, oddly sweet, and delectable with melted butter. That had given her the courage to move on to Jake’s Apache-fried chicken, and two pieces later she was licking her fingers. The strange batter was fire-sealed and crisp, the meat unbelievably succulent.

  “Have another piece.” Jake dropped down beside her with a second platter of chicken. The wind was whistling through the cliffs, but at least in their sheltered valley the snow had stopped. Their fire lapped up the darkness, warming their faces and toes…but not their backs. Anne knew her spine was never going to thaw, but at the moment she was hungry for another piece of chicken…

  A sterling silver fork, utterly incongruous in this wilderness, suddenly made its way in front of her nose. As Jake dangled a forkful of cactus salad before her, Anne swallowed. “Listen, Jake, it’s not that I don’t want to try your salad. I’ve grown cactus in my kitchen, you know. I like cactus. Which is why it occurred to me that maybe the Indians might have found an edible variety. Particularly if they were suffering from absolute starvation-”

  Since her mouth was unfortunately open, Jake took advantage and inserted a sliver of the pale green cactus between her lips. It tasted like a smooth, mild avocado-not at all what she was expecting. “Good?” he asked.

  She took the plate from his hands. “If I answer that, I’ll never hear the end of the I-told-you-so’s. You think I was born yesterday?”

  “I told you-” With exacting precision, she aimed a forkful of chicken at his wagging tongue, and chuckled at his response.

  “You’re looking for trouble,” he suggested.

  Actually, she wasn’t, not just then. As rapidly as she was devouring the salad on her plate, Jake was forking cactus bits to her from his own, knowing her fondness for anything that even vaguely resembled an avocado.

  “Are you cold?” he asked suddenly.

  “Freezing. Don’t take that away,” she protested when he started to rise with the chicken platter.

  He set it back down. “I’m beginning to think you’ve never been on a cookout before,” he said, amused.

  “You know darn well I haven’t. It’s a mystery to me how people could do this for recreation. The fire, for instance. Your toes burn while your back freezes. Your fingers get sticky, which means sooner or later everything else gets sticky. At least it’s too cold for bugs, but I’m afraid to take my eyes off the woods for fear a bear or cougar will come lumbering down for its dinner. This is supposed to be competition for
a restaurant with soft lighting and Irish linen and inside plumbing?”

  “Anne?”

  Her eyelashes flashed up, shadowing spikes on her cheeks in the firelight. How had his face loomed close so suddenly? She could smell him, all pine and cold freshness. “I hate to have to tell you this, honey, but you’re having a wonderful time.” Jake dropped a kiss on her forehead that reeked of satisfaction, readjusted his scruffy wool scarf rather possessively around her ears, and started cleaning away their debris.

  A wistful expression touched her features with softness. Yes, darn him, she was having a perfectly wonderful time. This rough-and-tumble life was her idea of torture, but for a few special hours… The word lonely surged into her mind from nowhere; loneliness was an emotion they always banished when they were together.

  Rising to help, she found herself watching Jake. While she brought their few plates and silverware into the motor home, he put out the fire. He was a very fussy man. By the time he was done, there wasn’t a sign that anyone had been near their cooking site.

  The wind seemed to have pushed every last cloud out of the sky, and now a silver moon cast its pale glow on the tall pines. Anne draped the blanket closer around her, waiting for Jake. He’d made fun of himself for buying the chicken from the grocery store, but every movement he made said that he was a survivor, well used to the wilderness. His rugged features caught shadow, then light; his spine was always straight, his step silent. Was he lonely, too? she wondered fleetingly. She didn’t at all like the thought of Jake being lonely. His eyes suddenly captured hers.

  “Would you kindly get your cold toes inside the motor home?” he scolded her.