"Why, yes..."
"Beckett!"
"Be quiet, Dr. Kremer. Beckett, I want you to go get the brandy--all of it--and bring it to me."
Hesitating, Beckett half-turned toward the professor. "Sir?"
"Bradley, that brandy is mine and is none of your concern. Go back to your task, Beckett."
Closer to losing his temper than he'd been in many years, Malachi said, "Mr. Beckett, you will fetch that brandy, if you know what's good for you."
Without another word, Beckett scurried away.
Malachi waited until he'd left the tent before facing Dr. Kremer again. This time he hitched one hip on the corner of the table, a position that clearly irritated the professor. "Now, sir, let's talk about this notion of yours that you're in charge."
"There's nothing to talk about. I hired you to provide me with the support I needed to accomplish my summer's research. You have not done--"
Ignoring the interruption, Malachi went on. "I don't care who's in charge. I can take orders as well as I can give them." If he had his druthers, he'd be taking them, because there was a lot less worry in following than in leading. "But I signed on as leader of this expedition, and unless something happens that I can't do my work, I'll stay leader."
He hooked his foot around a short section of log that served as a stool, dragged it closer to the table, and moved to sit on it. "Young Tom's injuries have complicated things a bit, I admit--"
"Injuries which you inflicted," the professor sputtered.
"To my great regret," Malachi admitted, "but that's neither here nor there. What has caused the most disruption in our schedule is your niece's disappearance." Just saying the words sent him closer to cursing than he had been in many years. "We've spent much of the past ten days searching for her, with no result. This morning Willard and Murphy and I agreed that we'll search no more. We have to presume she is dead."
"I knew there would be trouble when I agreed to bring her along. Women have no place in the field."
Clenching his fists lest he strike the man, Malachi said nothing while he dealt with his rage. Finally he was able to say, "Starting tomorrow, Either Willard or I will take you and Beckett out every day. As soon as Tom is able, he'll join us. His wound is going to slow him down some, but being active will be good for him. Murphy thinks he's going to lose some of the use of his right arm."
"That's none of my concern. The man deserved to be taught a lesson, the way he strutted about with those ridiculous guns on his hips."
Again Malachi managed to hold back the words he wanted to speak. "While we will do our best to assist your collecting, we will not allow you to go to areas we consider dangerous. Right now, with the salmon running, the bears are active along the streams. That means we'll keep our distance. I'm sure there are other places you can collect, maybe up higher in the hills."
While the professor drummed his fingers rapidly on the table, he made no reply.
"You take your maps and figure out a new schedule, one that shows where you want to work every day, and we'll do our best to follow it." He stood and looked down at the older man, who sat stiffly in his chair.
Malachi had once seen a cornered porcupine that swelled up something fierce, with all its quills standing on end. Dr. Kremer didn't have quills, but something about him reminded Malachi of that critter, its back against a log, with no place to go.
"Franklin will hear about this, Bradley! You'll never work as a guide again!"
"Dr. Kremer, I wouldn't have the job again, for five times the pay. And my name is Breedlove. Malachi Breedlove."
He snagged his coat and hat from the center pole, and walked away. At the tent entrance he paused and looked back, almost laughing at the dumbfounded look on Kremer's face.
He supposed he should fix dinner. There was meat left from last night, and some cold biscuits from breakfast, but they wouldn't make a satisfying meal in this weather. To him, rain meant soup, even warm summer rain like this.
The devil with it! Willard would bring in fresh meat for supper. Anybody wanting food before then would just have to fend for himself. He just didn't care.
"Here's the brandy, Mr. Bradley." The young man held two small casks, one under each arm.
"Put them in my tent for now," Malachi told him. He'd decide later what to do with their contents. "Oh, Beckett?"
"Yes, sir?"
"You may work for the professor, but you're still a member of this expedition. I'll expect you to do your share from now on."
"Of course." Beckett took a couple of steps, then paused. "Mr. Bradley?"
"What?"
"May I work with the horses? When I'm doing my share, I mean?"
"Talk to Willard." Right now Malachi didn't feel capable of making even so simple a decision as who did what.
I haven't felt this hopeless since the day I found Pa and Gram, he realized. There just didn't seem much reason to go on. Back then he'd been pulled out of his blue funk by the need for retribution. Now he simply couldn't see any reason for living.
Nellie had given his life a new shape, a new meaning. And now they had been taken away, along with her.
He walked down to the lake and leaned against a tree, not minding the water that dripped from the branches above. A gray curtain concealed the mountains beyond, but he knew they were there. When I'm done here, maybe I'll come back. There's nothing for me anywhere else. For a while I thought about a place like Luke Savage has, a place where I could raise a crop, run some cattle. Where grass grows belly high to a horse in the summer and snow sits deep and silent in the winter.
Now that seems like somebody else's dream. All I want is to be alone, never to have to deal with men again. With men and their guns, their paltry minds and their greedy cravings.
He wore his guns today, two pearl-handled six-guns, tied low on his hips. Laying his hands on them, he felt their power and their danger. I could lay these aside forever, were I to lose myself in these hills. Nobody would challenge me, and after a while men would forget about Malachi Breedlove, the shootist.
"Even if some remembered, it wouldn't matter, though, would it?" A breath of wind blew the rain aside for an instant, and he saw the ghostly shape of the towering peaks beyond the lake. "Up there it wouldn't matter. I could live the rest of my life and never see another man."
Or woman.
* * * * *
When Nellie opened her eyes the second morning, she saw bright sunlight through the small window. Because she had slept only lightly, she had been aware of the cessation of the softly falling rain, then later, of the tree-drips growing less frequent, and finally tapering off to silence. Gertie had roused and let Buttercup out in the pale light of early dawn. After that Nellie had fallen into a deep sleep. Now it was getting late, probably two hours past sunrise, as indicated by the angle of the sunbeam.
She looked around. Gertie was not in her bed, the crude cot Nellie had insisted she use. "I'm used to sleeping on the ground," she'd said, "and wouldn't rest well knowing I'd taken your bed."
She slipped outside for a few minutes, and when she returned, she noticed that there was fresh water in the bucket. The embers from last night's fire were cold, though.
Quickly she washed her face and hands, wondering if she would ever be able to bathe her whole body again. When she had mentioned it to Gertie, the old woman had been aghast. "Get yourself wet all over? My Girl, you'd catch your death!"
Undecided as to her next move, Nellie tidied the cabin. When she could find no more to do, she went to the door and stood looking out. Between the trees, she could see glimpses of the river. But no sign of Gertie. Should I call her? Go looking? It's not all that far. I could go down there, follow it south. Sooner or later I'd find the camp.
Even as she hesitated, she heard something approaching. Nellie ducked back into the cabin and pushed the door shut. Should she bar it, as Gertie had last night?
"Hello the cabin!"
Nellie pulled the door open. "I was wondering where you were
," she said.
Gertie set down a pair of quail. "Buttercup went huntin'," she said. "He'll be back later."
Do they really speak to each other? Nellie had seen some strange things in her life, but never anything as remarkable as the relationship between Gertie and the big cat. Mountain lion, panther, cougar, whatever it was, the cat treated the old woman like a partner, sharing its kill, coming when called, warning of danger. "I should have started the fire," she said, in apology, "but..."
"You didn't know where I'd gone," Gertie said. She handed Nellie one of the quail. "Let's get these plucked. I want to have dinner before we go."
"Go?"
"Dadblame it, My Girl! A body'd think you got no sense. Your man, he moved on upstream. If he's where I reckon he is, it'll take us a couple of days to get there. We got to watch out for bear. They're all along the river, fishin'."
Joy filled Nellie, making her feel light, almost as if she were floating. "You're really taking me to him?"
"I said I was, didn't I?" Gertie did not sound happy.
Instantly Nellie's sympathy was provoked. She may not be my real mother, but she's been like one to me, these past days. I can't abandon her.
"Oh, Ma, don't feel bad. I won't leave you behind. You'll come with me when we go out at the end of summer." What Uncle would think of her plan, Nellie had no idea. But she would, somehow, see that Gertie returned to civilization. And she would find the old woman a home.
Although if I can't get her to take a bath, I may have some difficulties, once we return to civilization.
As near as she could estimate from various statements Gertie had made, the old woman had been in this isolated mountain valley for more than ten years. Miners had occasionally come here, but Gertie had avoided them. How she would adjust to living among people was Nellie's greatest concern.
They began their journey in the early afternoon. Gertie followed a trail along the ridge, rather than descending to the valley below. "Bears," she said again, when Nellie questioned their route. "They get right tetchy when they're fishin'."
That night they slept in Gertie's cave. When Nellie had seen where they were going, her heart had nearly stopped. She found that climbing up to the cave was not nearly so terrifying as getting down from it had been. But tomorrow I'll have to get down again. I can do that. I must.
She did, and it wasn't as bad as she had anticipated. Perhaps Gertie was right. Once she'd done it, the next time was easier. "How far is it, now?" she asked, once they were back on the trail that climbed over the ridge, some ways down the hill from the cave.
"Six, maybe eight hours walkin'," Gertie said. "Depends on what we run into. I ain't come this way before."
"But you know where you're going?"
"'Course I do, My Girl. There ain't no way a body can get lost, long as she stays in the valley."
Never having been lost in her life, Nellie nodded. She looked around. Directly ahead were mountains rising well above timberline. "But," she had to admit," I'm certainly turned around today."
"There's only two, maybe three good ways out," Gertie said. "Watch your step here. This rock's slidin' some."
After they had traversed the strip of talus and were following a zigzagging game trail down a steep hillside, Gertie said, "One way out's down the river, and I reckon that's not how I'd go. There's places where you have to climb way up to get through. And if you was to fall, you'd end up in the whitest water I ever did see."
"White water?"
"Like a boiling cauldron of milk, it's so white. That river cuts through places where it's near narrow enough to step across. Once, right after you was took, I thought to get out that way." She hopped across a narrow stream, waited as Nellie followed. "Didn't take me long to decide I'd be better off stayin' here."
"We came over a high divide from the southwest, but it wasn't that bad. There was a decent trail."
"Yeah, I've seen prospectors come in that way. Thought once or twice about tryin' it. But then I recalled that there wasn't nobody close by to miss me, and I sure didn't hanker to have to make my way back to Indiany. So I stayed here."
Nellie followed silently for quite a while after that. If she had been abandoned in an isolated mountain fastness, would she have survived as well as Gertie had?
Compared to her, I am weak and useless. Once I was grown, why didn't I strike out on my own, instead of becoming Uncle's assistant? I still have the money my parents left me. I could have found a college that would have accepted me, despite my sex and lack of formal education.
Looking at the woman who walked ahead of her, Nellie wondered if her initial assessment of Gertie's sanity had been accurate. One does what one must to survive. If believing her child was still alive, and only lost to her made her better able to endure, then perhaps it was not madness.
Perhaps it was her only means of remaining sane.
Nellie had much food for thought after that. She spoke little the rest of the morning. At their nooning, Gertie announced that they were no more than four hours from the lake indicated on the crude map they'd found at the deserted campsite. "We'll get there before sundown, 'less we have trouble."
Considering that they had seen--and avoided--bear, moose, and wolf on their journey so far, Nellie did not pin her hopes on seeing Malachi this night.
Chapter Twenty-two
Fog blanketed the surface of the lake when Malachi emerged from the common tent shortly after dawn the morning after the rain. Shivering in the damp air, he picked up the bucket and headed to the shore to fetch water. The peaks beyond the lake were ghostly shapes against the still-dark western sky, white streaks of unmelted snow striping their steep slopes.
At the lake's edge he paused to watch the golden light of sunrise creep slowly down the mountains. The silence was broken only by the distant scream of a hunting eagle. Maybe, when he'd taken Dr. Kremer and Beckett back to civilization, he'd return here.
"That's about the prettiest sight I ever seen."
Malachi looked over his shoulder at Willard. "It is, indeed. Makes a man want to set down roots and stay."
"Some men, maybe. But you and me?" Willard clapped him on the shoulder. "Ain't you learned yet that there's some of us not meant to settle." He dug into his possibles bag and pulled out his pipe. As he stuffed it, he said, "Oh, there's times when we get a hankerin' for a fire to set beside, or a woman to warm our beds, but it don't last. Men like us, we got feet that need scratchin' ever so often."
"I don't know, John. My feet haven't itched for a long time."
"They will. One of these days, you'll look at a hill and you'll say to yourself, 'I wonder what's beyond?' Pretty soon you'll be saddlin' up and goin'." The spiral of smoke from Willard's pipe rose straight into the still air. "Only thing might keep you in one place is a woman." He glanced sideways at Malachi. "The right woman."
"Maybe." What if there's only one right woman for any man? If he doesn't find her--or if he loses her--will he be doomed to wander all his life?
Together they stood and watched the fog dissipate. Soon the professor would be up and about, wanting his breakfast, ready to go out on another of his collecting trips.
Nellie picked her own flowers. All he does is sit on that horse and let others do his work. How'd he get to be so famous?
After a while, a fish broke the surface of the lake with a soft plop. Malachi realized that the fog had thinned enough that the water was faintly visible. They had stood here long enough. Time to start the day.
* * * * *
The day seemed endless. They walked for hours, stopping only briefly at a cascading stream to dine on dried meat and cold roots of the sort Gertie called taters. Nellie had looked at some before they were cooked and had decided, from the fragment of attached stem, that they were from some umbelliferous plant, but she had no idea which one.
Buttercup traveled with them some of the time, but when they went on after their nooning, he stayed behind, sleeping on a sun-warmed rock outcrop. "He'll catch up later,"
Gertie said, when Nellie voiced her concern.
Now why am I worrying about that fool cat? He's a wild animal, and can take care of himself.
The sun was well past the zenith when they descended a long, steep slope into yet another narrow, glacier-carved valley. They rested atop a tumble of rounded, gray rocks. "If your man ain't down there," Gertie said, pointing downhill and east, "then he's over at the next lake beyond."
Nellie could see nothing but giant pines and firs, growing amongst enormous boulders. Having a knack for knowing where north was, she decided, was not quite as useful as having a map in her head of an entire region. "Do you know every trail in this whole valley?"
After considering for a moment, Gertie said, "I reckon. Leastways this side of the river. I ain't never done much lookin' across the other side. Never seen much cause to. I got all I need over here."
"Have you ever..." Nellie wondered why she'd never thought of asking before. "There's a plant I've seen, with red and blue flowers. It seems to grow where the ground is wet and shaded most of the day. Have you ever noticed it?"
"I don't pay much attention to flowers. If I can't eat it, it don't do me much good."
The path was blocked by a fallen tree almost as thick as Nellie was tall. It had lain in place long enough that its slowly rotting surface was moss-covered and sprouting seedling hemlock. Once they had negotiated it, Nellie said, "I know you don't believe that we're here to look for plants, but that's really what I came for. There are plants here that I'm sure have never been seen before, and I'd like to tell the world about them."
For a long time Gertie didn't answer. Nellie followed her down the trail, wondering if the woman ever tired. Her own legs were aching. Their entire journey, both yesterday and today, had seemed to be going either uphill or down. Going down, she'd decided, was the more difficult. It put a strain on her hips, her calves, and her toes, which were bruised from sliding into stones in the trail.
"I seen a pretty little flower up high, once," Gertie said at last. "When you was a babe. 'Twas like a cushion of little bitty leaves, with great big red and blue flowers stickin' out on top. They looked like a bunch of them hot air balloons I seen once in a circus."
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