by Lucy Inglis
Cal let his head drop back against the wooden boards. ‘Keep reading. I’m hoping they’re wondering where we are about now and I need the distraction.’
Hope returned to the diary, and to the sighting of the white horse on the plain. ‘It’s the white horse!’ she said, breathless. ‘Your white horse! It can’t be the same one,’ she added quickly and rubbed her nose. ‘That would be mental.’
‘Yeah. Crazy.’ Cal’s voice was strange and distant. He stood and picked up the gun. ‘I’m going to check that crawfish pot. Can you put some more wood in the stove and some water on to boil?’
Hope watched him go. ‘Be careful,’ she called after him.
He raised the rifle in acknowledgement, not looking back.
When you didn’t come back that night or the next day, and the red horse was nowhere to be seen, I guessed you had gone to find Mr Meard. You had taken Red and the bay horse with you.
Summer was coming, although the cool breeze came up from the lake in late afternoon, as always. The Indians sat in their camp and I stayed by the cabin. One afternoon, a couple of days after your departure, I was washing some clothes in the tub when I saw Rose standing some yards away, watching me. Her eyes were as unreadable as ever, a trait she shared with her brothers. I carried on working, getting hot and sticky as I scrubbed. When the clothes were finished, I went to hang them, dripping, on the line.
Rose was stripping off upstream, down to her thin loincloth and the band of soft deerskin she wore to bind her chest. Clear Water had made one for me on the scout and I must confess it was an excellent arrangement, and far more comfortable than a corset. In the shade of the trees there was a pool deep enough to bathe in, and even to swim a few strokes, you told me. You used it often. I hadn’t ventured in so far, for I had never learnt to swim. Rose had a long body and carried little flesh, although she had a distinctly feminine curve to her breast and hip, which was not apparent in her man’s garb. Her coppery skin was paler on her body than on her face and arms, but she still glowed in the afternoon sun, turning her face up, burnished like a polished penny. She saw me staring. I felt my cheeks redden and carried on hanging the clothes. I caught myself, and was caught, staring at Rose quite often. She fascinated me: I had read about so many different cultures and never come across anyone like her. In the books I had been given, women were supposed to be tractable and obedient. The idea of Rose doing as she was told was practically laughable.
Suddenly a wet shirt moved aside and she stood in front of me. She was still smiling as she took my hand and tugged me up the hillside to the shade of the trees. She gestured to my clothes, indicating that I take them off. I shook my head, pushing her hand away when it went to the button of my shirt. She retaliated and pushed me, hard. And I fell straight into the cold water! Surfacing, shocked and spluttering, I wiped the water from my face. My braid hung like a wet rope over my shoulder and everything stuck to me. The water came to the bottom of my ribs, cold and raising gooseflesh across my skin. Rose joined me in the stream and splashed at me playfully, laughing at my splutters.
‘Stop!’ I protested, but couldn’t help laughing. ‘Rose!’
She threw more water into my face and I splashed back, soaking her. I liked this Rose, full of mischief as ever, but light-hearted. We stood: laughing but wary.
I thought I had become accustomed to unexpected happenings in my new life, but what occurred next was a considerable surprise: Rose placed her hands on my shoulders, leant down and kissed me full on the mouth.
I think, often, of that time, and the many things it taught me. I was no longer the girl who had left Portman Square all those months ago. That girl had vanished and in her place was someone I barely recognized, someone my family would not know at all. The work of simply surviving both on the plain and at the cabin had forged muscle and sinew where none had been before. I could lift Tara’s large saddle on and off her now without a thought, and could even tack up your tall red horse without much effort. I had gained a healthy appetite and some weight, despite our spare diet. My hands and forearms were tanned, and I knew my face was similarly tinted by the sun, although I had not seen my reflection since Fort Shaw. My fingers were becoming a little calloused from Tara’s reins and the lye soap of our laundry. It was a body that dictated its requirements in ways that were new and surprising to its owner. It wanted food, sleep, sunlight and sensation.
In the dark I lay in our bed and longed for you to return.
After a week, I found myself scanning the mountainside throughout the day. Lucky, sick of Tara’s mooning over the white stallion, had put her in the corral with him and they stood together most of the day. Lucky hunted and Clear Water cooked, always offering me food. She still talked on mysteriously about her domestic arrangements and Lucky still pretended I didn’t exist, or watched me with his clever, knowing eyes. Rose brought me a small gift each time she drew me from the cabin: a necklace decorated with teeth, a small braided bracelet in bright blues and yellows, and a little knife of my own amongst them.
As the week rolled over, I sensed a change in the little camp down the hill, and one morning there was no smoke from their campfire. Rose pulled me out of our house, crossing the threshold for the first time, long fingers locking around my wrist, and I understood. They were leaving.
Rose’s last gift was her possibles bag, looped around my neck. I wanted to ask her to stay, but I didn’t know how. And, truthfully, I knew Rose would do as she pleased. She tugged my braid to turn my face up, and scrutinized my features for a long time. Then she pushed the back of her hand to her suddenly bright eye. And shoved me in the shoulder.
Tara and the white horse were in the corral as the Indians packed up their camp. I busied myself with small jobs, not wanting to give in to my growing fear of being left alone. I was finishing the washing-up when Clear Water came to say goodbye. I stood, shaking the wet from my hands, then walked back with her to Lucky, Rose and the horses.
Lucky looked at me for a moment, his dark eyes serious. Rose was already in the saddle. Clear Water squeezed me tightly, smiling her gentle smile, and handed over the marriage outfit. Then she was up on her little roan pony. Lucky spoke and I heard your name. I shook my head, and gestured around, for I knew no better when you were likely to return than they did. His eyes narrowed, troubled. Then he nodded, once, and vaulted into the saddle. They rode out, not looking back.
You didn’t come home that night.
For a time, I faced the idea that you would not come home at all. The days were warm and our mountain sang with life. You finally appeared on the afternoon of the eleventh day.
I was sitting on our porch when your red horse paced into the meadow. Gaining my feet, I walked to the edge of the double step. You vaulted to the ground, graceful as ever, without looking at me. Slinging Red’s reins over his head, you led him up to our house. I stood, hands fisted against my thighs. You avoided my eyes until the last possible moment. Red halted.
I ran. Hurtling into your embrace, I slammed up against you, joined from chest to hip, arms around your neck, legs around your waist. You caught me, holding tight, face in my throat.
The door to the cabin was still open as twilight drew in. I lay in our tumbled sheets, stretched on my stomach. You lay next to me, head propped on your hand, fingers ghostly on my spine. There was so much to say it was hard to know where to start, although you seemed content not to talk.
‘You went to Helena?’
You made a yes noise, watching your hand as it drew patterns on my skin.
‘And saw Mr Meard?’
‘Yep.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘No railroad is what I told him. Take it through Missoula. Or someplace else. Not here.’
‘And nobody mentioned me?’
You lay back, putting a hand behind your head and looking up at the ceiling. ‘It was business matters, no social event. Rumour in town is, you all been killed by Indians and the wagon burnt.’
I let my fo
rehead drop into the pillow. ‘My parents will have heard by now.’
‘Reckon so.’
‘I hope they’re not too sad. They went to such a lot of trouble arranging the wedding.’
You rolled your eyes at the whitewashed planks above us.
‘I was thinking, while you were away,’ I said, hesitating.
You met my gaze. ‘Thinking what?’
‘That I’d never chosen anything for myself before.’
‘Meaning, exactly?’ Reaching over, you caught the end of my braid and stroked your cheek with it.
I curled my feet up, heels kicking myself as I thought. ‘Not food, not clothes, not when I did things, or what I did. Or even who I married. Not anything.’ I stretched. Outside, the birds sang their early evening goodnights. ‘And you’ve let me choose.’
As I talked you tugged the lace free and began to unplait my hair, combing your fingers through the heavy locks.
‘I can choose when I get up, what I wear, from slim pickings admittedly, but still. To do things or not do them. To save things, to make them better. Go to war.’ My voice hitched as you trailed the back of your hand down my body.
You laughed. ‘Looks like I found myself a real pocket tyrant.’
I moved closer and you settled me on your chest, stroking my sliding hair back. ‘Nate?’ I asked uncertainly. ‘Have you ever had someone like me?’
Your pale eyes sought mine and you touched my face like something precious. ‘Emily, there’s never been anyone like you.’
By the time Cal returned to the cabin, Hope’s pan of water was coming to a slow boil. He put the crawfish pot in the sink, where they scratched and flopped as they crawled over each other as he banged around in the cupboards, searching for something.
‘What are you looking for?’
For a minute he didn’t reply, then drew something from the back of the pine cupboard and held it up. It was a half-bottle of bourbon, cap intact. ‘Knew there’d be something here if my grampa had anything to do with it. We should drink to Buddy.’
Ten minutes later they were sitting at the table eating the boiled crawfish and toasting Buddy’s life from the battered tin cups. Cal cracked a tail in his long fingers, removing the flesh in one piece. He held it out to Hope.
She took it. ‘The eighteen-sixties must have been an amazing time to be here, with all this stuff going on.’
He nodded, swallowing his own mouthful before speaking. ‘But it was the beginning of the end for the Indian tribes here, with the buffalo massacres and everything. A whole way of life, wiped out in twenty years. And then you had the pioneers.’
‘Like Nate.’
‘Like Nate.’
‘He makes me think of the Puritans.’
‘Reckon he comes from that kind of stock originally. With the grandfather sounding like a zealot and everything.’
‘It’s not so much that. There’s a . . . certainty to him . . . I can’t think, a sureness, yes, that’s what I mean. He just knows.’
Cal smiled. ‘Yeah, he does. Perhaps because he’s pretty much got it mastered. And scouting paid well, precisely because the railroad people didn’t know the land and had to trust those who lived on it. Growing up on this terrain, he knows it. He doesn’t want to trap, and he couldn’t pan for gold, standing in cold water all day long with his leg the way it is. The generations before him, most of them were just clinging on by their fingernails.’
‘And I didn’t realize that the Indians and the settlers married.’
‘Quite a bit, I think. White women were high-status wives and a lot of the railroad and trapping scouts took Indian wives because they already knew the territory. Saved them a lot of time and trouble, and they knew how to live on the move, so they were an asset.’
They piled shells into a dish on the table between them.
‘Do you think they’ll be looking for us yet?’
‘Maybe. They’ll know something’s up by now.’
Hope sighed. ‘Good.’ She put another shell into the dish. ‘I think I’m full.’ Getting up, she washed her hands from the container standing in the sink. Outside, a light rain had begun to fall, even though the sun was still shining. The remnants of the campfire smoked and there were the beginnings of a rainbow shimmering overhead. ‘It’s so lovely here.’
He glanced over at her for a second, then picked at the surface of the table. ‘You really think so?’
She nodded and came back to the table, picking up her tin cup, looking at the dash of alcohol still in the bottom. ‘Do you think these are theirs?’
Cal looked at his own. ‘Maybe. Strange to think it.’
Hope lifted her cup. ‘To Buddy. Again.’
He tapped the bent rim of his mug against hers. ‘To Buddy.’
They drank, and returned to the diary. ‘More?’
Sitting at the table, they learnt of Nate and Em’s Indian wedding party.
‘Amazing. And awful,’ Hope said in wonder. ‘Poor Nate.’
‘Yep,’ Cal agreed.
‘And poor Emily. He should have warned her about it being a wedding.’
Cal shrugged. ‘I think he thought he’d probably get away without telling her. Indian weddings weren’t such a big deal back then, just a feast and then you moved in together. Not much fuss.’
‘Apart from the outfit.’
‘Oh, yeah, you were supposed to have one of those.’
She sighed. ‘And she’s decided she doesn’t really want to leave him.’
He nodded. ‘It’s a real kicker.’
‘Rose is a shit-kicker.’
Cal barked a laugh. ‘She is. But I like her.’
Hope rested her head on her hand. ‘Were there lots of women like her?’
He sat back. ‘I wouldn’t say lots. But the Indians recognize more genders than we do. So someone like Rose wasn’t out of the ordinary for them.’
She picked up the diary and read on a few pages. ‘I did not see that coming with Rose.’
Cal laughed. ‘Nor did I, but I’m not sure anything Rose does would surprise me. I think she’s making it up as she goes along. And she’s given me an idea.’ He jumped up and held out his hands. ‘Come on, let’s swim.’
‘But . . . what about the bear?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but I’m not sitting trapped in here. I’ll go stir-crazy.’
On the porch Cal stripped quickly, down to his jersey trunks. Hope hesitated, then undressed to her pants and T-shirt as he hopped, pulling off his socks.
‘Ready?’ He glanced across at her.
She nodded.
‘Go!’ They ran to the stream in the pattering rain and jumped in with a huge splash. Swimming quickly to keep themselves warm, they scrubbed their sore hands and Hope washed her dirty knees. Cal ducked beneath the surface and then stood up, shaking the water from his hair and gasping. Hope floated on her back for a few seconds, looking up at the sky. High above them, a jet leaked a contrail. She pointed.
‘Look at that. All that way up there. And they have no idea we’re here, even if they were looking. Like Emily’s family.’
Cal boosted himself on to the side of the pool, just leaving his legs in the water. Hope got up to sit next to him, her hair sopping wet and running. The sun was still shining and out of the water it felt warm. The air was damp but it was no longer drizzling. High, fine clouds streaked the blue sky in mares’ tails. Light bounced off the lake, making the treeline a dark silhouette. There were more wild flowers than ever in the meadow.
‘Cooper?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re pretty great, you know that, don’t you?’
Hope ducked her head. ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’
‘I’m going to take that as . . . awesome, incredible, or something.’
She laughed.
Getting up, he picked up the rifle and held out his hand to her. ‘C’mon. Thought we’d take a tip from Nate.’
Hope let him pull her to her feet. ‘What’s tha
t?’
‘You’ll see.’
At the edge of the forest, they found a patch of wild mint.
‘Oh, yes please,’ said Hope. ‘That coffee’s a bit rank, to be honest.’
A short time later, they sat on the porch, drinking the mint tea and talking. Hope was wearing an old shirt she’d found in the cupboard inside, and her shorts. Cal was back in his jeans and shirt. Their wet things were hanging over the porch rail.
Hope scanned the hillside. Dusk was coming down. ‘How much longer do you think?’
He shrugged. ‘No idea. I was hoping Dad would have thought of this place pretty quickly. Tomorrow?’
Hope rubbed her arms, nodding. ‘I’m not sure how many more crawfish I can boil alive.’
He smiled. He was sitting with his back to the cabin wall, a blanket like a shroud around him, knees bent, watching the fire in front of the little house. Hope fetched the diary and sat down next to him, shoulders touching.
She opened the book. Soon she paused, breathless, as Nate returned to the cabin. ‘He’s back!’
‘Go on then. What happens next?’
Hope read on, her voice faltering slightly. After Em’s recounting of Nate’s return, Hope closed the book. They both looked down at the meadow.
‘They—’
The kiss surprised her, his hand against her hair. Sweet and gentle, it was a gesture to a moment in time, an honouring of the story that had unfolded in the same place one hundred and fifty years before. And it was the perfect first kiss.
A flock of butterflies settled in Hope’s stomach. She had always imagined kissing someone properly would be weird and awkward at first. But it wasn’t. Her fingers slid into the thick, soft hair at the back of his neck as she leant against him. He covered her hand with his own and broke away slightly, touching his forehead to hers and closing his eyes. Neither of them were breathing steadily.
‘Hope, there’s something I need to tell you.’ He shifted away a little. ‘You remember Chief Hart?’