Mary turned away and looked ahead, telling herself this was all for the best. Sage was right. They couldn’t stay there forever. But she had been through so much that this new change frightened her. She had found peace and security and happiness. Now they were going out into the cold, cruel, real world again. Would Sage stay the same out there, away from his beloved mountains? What would things be like in Texas? It was as though she was leaving all security behind her now, walking openly into new dangers.
They descended without speaking. The only sounds were the scraping of the travois and the singing of a few birds. Wildflowers bloomed everywhere. Such a pretty place this was, in spite of its hardships. Sage was right to love it here. It seemed almost cruel to think he might never come back to it.
They wound their way through pine and aspen, the foliage of the aspen a bright green and just budding out in all its splendor against the bright, white trunks and limbs. Winter was over, and a chapter in their lives had melted away with the snow. There was no going back. It was gone forever, just like the winter snow.
She glanced back once more. The cabin was a small dot already, sitting alone high on the ridge. Looking at it made her chest feel painfully tight, and she prayed someone else would come along and occupy it, light a fire in its stone fireplace and keep it warm when the next winter came. She wondered where the next winter would find her and Sage.
“Good-bye,” she whispered and turned away. Oh, how her chest ached. She felt as though she were deserting a good friend. The cabin had been security for her, her little shelter from the cruel world, the place where she had begun to heal from the awful horror of that day the Comanche captured her and killed her husband and baby. She was suddenly not so sure she was strong enough to face real life again.
She concentrated on watching Sage, studying the broad shoulders and the way the fringes of his buckskins danced with the sway of his horse. She had Sage. That was all that really mattered, just as he said. She could trust Sage, depend on him. Sage would make everything all right.
Above, a mouse found its way into the cabin through a hole near the fireplace. At last the humans were gone, and there was even straw on the floor for warmth! He and his family would have a fine, new home.
Chapter Nineteen
Sage MacKenzie was in his own realm now, as they followed the foothills along the Rockies, heading south. This was the first time Mary had truly had the opportunity to see him as the mountain man he was. Her memories of when he had first found her were a blur, for her mind had not been in this world then. Once things had become more clear, they had been in the cabin. Now they were again on the trail, moving through land Sage MacKenzie knew well.
Being with Sage was like being with the wolves, for his ears seemed as keen, his nose as sensitive, his eyes as penetrating. In his buckskins and coonskin cap, he blended right in with the surroundings, so that whenever he left her to hunt for meat, she quickly lost sight of him altogether. But she was never afraid. She knew he always stayed close enough to be there if she needed him, knew he sensed danger when it was close and knew when it was safe to leave her and when it was not.
After the first few days she managed to put the memory of the cabin in a special corner of her mind and heart. The thought of it still hurt, but the beauty of the country through which they rode helped keep her mind occupied. The moments when she thought of the cabin brought on quick stabs of pain that moved through her body in sudden waves, and they hurt so much that she would quickly force herself to concentrate on something else, like a distant mountain peak or wildflowers that bloomed nearby.
And they did bloom, everywhere—larkspur, paintbrush, daisies, as well as columbine, fairybells, and near the water, violets. The foothills and rising cliffs were dotted with pine and aspen, mixing their dark and bright greens against purple and gray rock and red-rimmed canyons, with snowy peaks rising above all of it, meeting brilliant blue skies. Some hills did not even look real. They looked more like a painting, their gradual slopes appearing more like velvet than real soil. Smaller vertical hills rippled over them like draped cloth in soft greens and violets.
Several times a day they spotted deer and elk, sometimes moose. At first Mary didn’t always spot them. But through Sage’s trained eye she began to learn how to catch sight of animals from a distance. When the foothills opened into vast valleys, they would run into great herds of buffalo and sometimes rode through huge dips in the earth that Sage called buffalo wallows.
“Those holes are made when a couple of bulls paw up the ground in a fight over a female herd,” Sage explained one day as they rode. “After the fight, the winner lies there and licks his wounds. Sometimes we’ll find a dead carcass in a wallow—the bull that lost.”
“Well, if there’s a whole herd of females, why fight over them?” she teased.
Sage laughed. “I reckon they’re kind of stingy. Don’t like sharing. Most all male animals are that way come mating season—wild horses, the deer, most everything. Those wallows they leave can be bad and good. They’re bad because sometimes a man’s horse stumbles right into one and breaks a leg. They’re not always easy to spot on the open plain. But they also hold water, which can be a life saver if a man’s gone a while without finding any. I never had that problem much. I always stuck to high country—lots of streams and waterfalls.”
She could see he liked talking about his way of life, liked talking about it because he loved it, loved this land. She wished she didn’t have to take him out of it.
Now they sat near a camp fire. If not for Sage’s presence, she would have been terrified at night in these mountains. But she felt no fear as long as he was near. The night was still but cold. She huddled into the wolf-skin coat. The cold, combined with her weariness every night from this new way of living, had kept them from making love since leaving the cabin. It was hard getting back to outdoor living, even for Sage.
“The winter sure can spoil a man,” Sage spoke up then, seeming to read her thoughts. “Every bone in my body aches, and I’m used to this. You must be dead tired. You okay?”
She sipped some coffee. “I’m fine as long as I can stay warm.”
“Well, the farther south we go, the warmer it will get. Pretty soon we’ll take a couple of days just to stay in one place and rest up.”
Their eyes met.
“Sage,” she said quietly, “I hope you realize you can just take me to some supply train or someplace where someone else can take me the rest of the way home. You don’t have to go all the way.”
He frowned. “Now why in hell would I do that?”
How handsome he looked in the firelight, so rugged, needing a shave, his face so finely etched, like a perfect sculpture. What a fine specimen of man he was.
“Because I can’t stand taking you away from this land that you love,” she told him. “I just…I want you to be sure you understand that if you change your mind—if you feel you can’t leave here—I’ll understand. I’d never hate you for it. You don’t really owe me anything.”
He let out a disgusted sigh. “Don’t owe you? That’s a crock and you know it. For one thing, even if I didn’t love you, I’d take you back. I’ve been through hell with you. We’ve been through hell together. Do you think I’d ever for one minute consider this land more important than a human being who needs help?”
“But…you belong here.”
“I belong with you. I love you, Mary. I’m a big boy. I can live without these mountains. I can change how I live. Hell, it’s probably about time anyway. If I’m gonna get to settling and having a family, I can’t think of anybody I’d rather do it with than you. I can’t even begin to imagine your not being in my life anymore. Hell, I’d be lost, Mary. These mountains, this land—none of it would be any good without you. None of it would matter anymore.”
“But if…if we find out we can be together, maybe after a time…maybe you’d get tired of being settled, miss these mountains and your freedom.”
He shook his head. “N
o. I’ve had all that. It’s time to change it all, Mary.”
She studied him lovingly. “I’d be willing to compromise. I mean, we could live someplace near the mountains and you could go off and hunt—”
“Mary. Quit worrying about it. First we get you to Texas. Then it’s possible I’ll have to leave you there a while till I get things together—figure out how I’m gonna support you. Or maybe we’ll just leave together. Depends on how everybody treats you when we get there.”
“Don’t leave me there, Sage. I don’t ever want to be away from you.”
“It would just be for a while. Believe me, I don’t want to be away from you any more than you want to be away from me.”
She huddled more deeply into her coat. “You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t come back here and never return to me, would you?”
He held her eyes. “Do you really believe I’d do that?”
Her eyes teared. “No.”
“Don’t ever think that way, Mary. I know I’ve never been a settled man, and my life has been one of roaming and being on my own. But I’m not a traitor, Mary. I don’t make promises and then not keep them. I’m a man of my word. I’ve told you I love you, and that if I had to leave I’d come back for you. And that’s just the way it will be.”
She looked down. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just…there’s so much to think about. And I feel so bad taking you away from all this.”
“You aren’t taking me away from anything. I’m going willingly. There’s a big difference.”
She sniffed and met his eyes again. “I love you, Sage. I’m so scared to go back.”
“It’s your family. What is there to be scared of?”
“How they’ll feel about me, how I’ll feel, seeing the house again and all, my baby’s things”—she looked down—“Rafe’s things. I know I shouldn’t talk about him in front of you, but…it’s just so strange that he’s gone and I never even got to mourn him…stand at his grave. It’s like none of it ever happened, like I’ve come out of some kind of horrible nightmare and that other Mary was a different person. I feel like this is the only life I’ve ever known.” She met his eyes again. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”
He nodded. “I think I can. And I never said you couldn’t talk about your husband in front of me. He was your husband. You loved him. I wasn’t in the picture then, so there’s no reason for you not to talk about him.”
“None except…except if he’s still alive.”
He picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “That’s a pretty remote possibility, Mary.”
Something rustled in the brush beyond the fire, and the horses began whining and tossing their heads, tugging at the rawhide bindings that tethered them. Mary gasped at the sight of yellow eyes reflected in the fire’s flames.
“Just sit still,” Sage told her. “I felt them coming. Nosy wolves wondering how easy it would be to chomp on the horses or steal our food.” He slowly picked up his rifle, then suddenly turned and fired several shots into the darkness, the gun booming and echoing through the night air.
Mary jumped and covered her ears, and the horses whinnied even louder, amid barks and the whinnying sound of a wounded animal. The eyes disappeared. “Just stay where you are,” Sage told her then.
He stood up, walking around the perimeter of the fire’s light and talking to the horses, calming them, then listening intently. In the distance wolves howled. “They won’t be back anymore tonight,” he added.
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m sure, that’s all. I just hope those shots didn’t alert any Indians that don’t want us around.”
A shiver moved through her and he knelt beside her, setting aside the rifle. “Don’t worry. In this area, there shouldn’t be any Indian trouble. Mostly Utes around here, and I can deal with them.” He put an arm around her shoulders. “Ole Sage won’t let any Indians get hold of you again, so just put it out of your mind. Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”
She nodded, looking into his eyes.
He kissed her lightly. “I don’t want you worrying about a thing,” he told her. “Just sleep.”
“What about you?”
“I can sleep with one eye open. I intend to do that tonight.”
“But you must be so tired, Sage. You said yourself you ached all over.”
“Just the rest will help. There’s different kinds of sleep, and one is called mountain man’s sleep. That’s where a man sits with one eye closed and that side of him sleeping, and the other eye open and ready to fight and shoot. Then he switches sides, so by morning his whole body has gotten some sleep.”
“Oh, Sage, that’s silly.”
He laughed lightly. “Why, hell, woman, it’s true! You’ve got a lot to learn yet about living out here.”
She laughed herself, crawling into a bedroll. “Will we ever be rested and warm enough to make love again, Sage?”
“Sure we will, when we stop for that rest I talked about. I know a real good place where there’s a cave for shelter and a stream nearby and soft green grass—everything. I don’t reckon we have to be in a whole lot of a hurry.”
Her chest tightened again at the thought of what it would be like to go home. “No. I guess we don’t,” she answered. “I’ve been gone so long, a few days aren’t going to matter much.”
He moved around the other side of the fire and sat down, leaning against his saddle and wrapping a blanket around himself, his rifle lying across his lap.
For four more days they traveled from dawn to dusk, keeping to the foothills. “Better for cover in case of Indians,” he told her. “I just hope we don’t stir up some ornery bear. They’re in the worst temper in the spring, waking up mighty hungry from a long winter’s nap. One whiff of our food supply and we’ve got trouble. A lot of cubs are born in the spring, too. If you see a baby bear, don’t go near it, no matter how cute it looks. There’s nothing more fearsome than a protective mother bear.”
“I’ve already seen what an angry bear can do, remember?”
He wondered if the scars on his chest would ever fade. “Yeah, I reckon I remember it pretty well myself. That’s the first time one has gotten me. I don’t intend for it to ever happen again.”
“My God, Sage, what would I do out here if anything happened to you?”
“You’d take the supplies and my rifle and keep heading south till you come across other people. You’d keep your wits about you and remember all the things I’ve been teaching you. And you’d survive, because you’re a strong, smart woman.”
She straightened with pride at the remark, coming from such a man. “Do you really think so, Sage?”
“’Course I do. You’ve proved yourself under the worst conditions. You’re really some woman, Mary MacKenzie.”
She studied his back as they rode through a wide valley. “You really think of me that way, don’t you? As Mary MacKenzie.”
“Sure I do. All we have to do it make it legal once we get to Texas and are sure—” He stopped. He hadn’t wanted to say it.
“Sure Rafe is dead?” Her heart tightened. “You do think he could be alive, don’t you, Sage?”
“I told you it’s almost impossible. We just have to wait till we get there out of courtesy, that’s all. It wouldn’t look fittin’—you showing up already married legally to somebody else. They wouldn’t think less of you for what happened to you with the Indians, but they would think less of you for marrying without being sure about Rafe.”
He halted his horse then. “Hold up,” he said quietly.
Mary felt the blood draining from her face when she spotted them—a string of Indians spread out in a line ahead of them. “Oh, Sage, where did they come from?” she squeaked. “They weren’t there a moment ago!”
“That’s the way it is with Indians. They blend right in with the land. They can be more elusive than the animals,” he said quietly. “Just sit tight. Ten to one they’re Utes.”
The Indians began moving clo
ser, and Sage slowly pulled his rifle from its boot and laid it across his lap.
“Sage,” she whimpered.
“Don’t you make a move. Just trust me, Mary, and face them down good and strong. Don’t sit there looking scared to death. It will just make them more daring.” He quickly glanced at her, noticing how pale she was. “I promised you you’d not suffer at the hands of Indians again, didn’t I?”
She met his eyes and nodded, feeling calmer.
“Well, I meant it. Besides, Utes don’t much bother white women. They’re not so warlike as the Comanche—at least not yet. Not enough whites have tried to steal what’s theirs yet.”
He cocked his rifle. She studied the broad shoulders, the determined look in his dark eyes. He had grown another beard, as it was almost impossible to keep himself shaved every day when they were traveling. He held up his rifle when they came close enough for him to recognize they were Utes. He called out something in their own tongue, and one of them answered back, signaling the others to stay back while he rode forward to greet Sage at a closer range.
Mary struggled with her own black memories. To her, all of these dark, painted men looked alike. They all had a fierceness in their eyes, a hard, cold countenance that made them appear void of all human feeling. Sage had tried to explain their side to her, explain that they were also human, that they loved and felt pain and pride and all the other emotions and physical feelings of other human beings.
Sage conversed with the man in a mixture of words and sign language. She suddenly realized there were tears in the Indian’s eyes. It shocked her so that all her fear vanished. The man pointed in a direction south, then swept his arm around along the foothills nearby. He said something more, looking angry.
Sage nodded, then said something else to the man, turning and reaching into his parfleche and pulling out a pouch of tobacco. He held it out and the man grinned and nodded. He looked then at Mary, his eyes moving over her, then said something more to Sage with a grin. He turned his horse then and rejoined the others.
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