by Nora Roberts
“Might be next summer he’ll want to come.”
“Might be. But oh, it’s going to be quiet between times.” She heaved a sigh, then turned at the sound of a truck. “Farrier’s coming. I’ll go get a pitcher of lemonade.”
IT WAS the farrier’s son, a gangly towheaded boy of fourteen called Gull who, in the late-afternoon shadows of the barn, gave Coop his first—and last—chaw of tobacco.
Even after he’d finished puking up his breakfast, his lunch, and everything else still in his system, Coop remained what Gull assessed as green as a grasshopper. Alerted by the sounds of retching, Lucy left her work on her kitchen garden to hustle to the back of the barn. There Coop, on his hands and knees, continued to heave while Gull stood, scratching his head under his hat.
“Jesus, Coop, ain’t you done as yet?”
“What happened?” Lucy demanded. “What did you do?”
“He just wanted to try a chaw. I didn’t see the harm, Miss Lucy, ma’am.”
“Oh, for—Don’t you know better than to give a boy his age tobacco?”
“Sure can puke.”
Since he seemed to be done, Lucy reached down. “Come on, boy, let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”
Brisk and pragmatic, Lucy hauled him inside. Too weak to protest, Coop only groaned as she stripped him down to his jockeys. She bathed his face, gave him cool water to drink. After she’d lowered the shades against the sun, she sat on the side of the bed to lay a hand on his brow. He opened bleary eyes.
“It was awful.”
“There’s a lesson learned.” She bent over, brushed her lips on his forehead. “You’ll be all right. You’ll get through.” Not just today, she thought. And sat with him a little, while he slept off the lesson learned.
ON THE BIG flat rock by the stream, Coop stretched out with Lil.
“She didn’t yell or anything.”
“What did it taste like? Does it taste like it smells, because that’s gross. It looks gross, too.”
“It tastes . . . like shit,” he decided.
She snickered. “Did you ever taste shit?”
“I’ve smelled it enough this summer. Horse shit, pig shit, cow shit, chicken shit.”
She howled with laughter. “New York has shit, too.”
“Mostly from people. I don’t have to shovel it up.”
She rolled to her side, pillowing her head on her hands, and studied him with her big, brown eyes. “I wish you didn’t have to go back. This is the best summer of my whole life.”
“Me too.” He felt weird saying it, knowing it was true. Knowing the best friend of the best summer of his life was a girl.
“Maybe you can stay. If you asked, maybe your parents would let you live here.”
“They won’t.” He shifted to his back, watched a circling hawk. “They called last night, and said how they’d be home next week, and meet me at the airport and . . . Well, they won’t.”
“If they did, would you want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want to go back?”
“I don’t know.” It was awful not to know. “I wish I could visit there and live here. I wish I could train Jones and ride Dottie and play baseball and catch more fish. But I want to see my room and go to the arcade and go to a Yankee game.” He rolled toward her again. “Maybe you could visit. We could go to the ballpark.”
“I don’t think they’d let me.” Her eyes turned sad, and her bottom lip quivered. “You probably won’t ever come back.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Do you swear?”
“I swear.” He offered his hand for a solemn pinky swear.
“If I write you, will you write me back?”
“Okay.”
“Every time?”
He smiled. “Every time.”
“Then you’ll come back. So will the cougar. We saw him the very first day, so he’s like our spirit guide. He’s like . . . I can’t remember the word, but it’s like good luck.”
HE THOUGHT about it, how she’d talked of the cougar all summer, had shown him pictures in the library books, and the books she’d bought herself with her allowance. She’d drawn pictures of her own and hung them in her room, among her baseball pennants.
In his last week on the farm, Coop worked with his penknife, and the carving tool his grandfather let him borrow. He said his goodbyes to Dottie and Jones and the other horses, bade a not very fond farewell to the chickens. He packed his clothes, along with the boots and work gloves his grandparents had bought him. And his beloved baseball bat.
As he had on the long-ago drive in, he sat in the backseat and stared out the window. He saw things differently now, the big sky, the dark hills that rose up in rocky needles and jagged towers and hid the forests and streams and canyons.
Maybe Lil’s cougar prowled in them.
They turned in the far road to the Chance land to say another goodbye.
Lil sat on the porch steps, so he knew she’d been watching for them. She wore red shorts and a blue shirt, with her hair looped through the back of her favorite ball cap. Her mother came out of the house as they pulled up, and the dogs raced from the back, barking and bumping their bodies together.
Lil stood, and her mother came down, laid a hand on her shoulder. Joe rounded the house, stuffing work gloves in his back pocket, and flanked Lil on the other side.
It etched an image in Cooper’s mind—mother, father, daughter—like an island in front of the old house, in the foreground of hills and valleys and sky, with a pair of dusty yellow dogs racing in madly happy circles.
Coop cleared his throat as he got out of the car. “I came to say goodbye.”
Joe moved first, stepping forward and offering a hand. He shook Coop’s and still holding it crouched to bring them eye-to-eye. “You come back and see us, Mr. New York.”
“I will. And I’ll send you a picture from Yankee Stadium when we clinch the pennant.”
Joe laughed. “Dream on, son.”
“You be safe.” Jenna turned his cap around to lean down, kiss his forehead. “And you be happy. Don’t forget us.”
“I won’t.” He turned, suddenly feeling a little shy, to Lil. “I made you something.”
“You did? What is it?”
He held out the box, shifting his feet when she pulled the lid off. “It’s kind of stupid. It’s not very good,” he said, as she stared at the small cougar he’d carved out of hickory. “I couldn’t get the face right or—”
He broke off, stunned, embarrassed, when she threw her arms around him. “It’s beautiful! I’ll always keep it. Wait!” Spinning around, she dashed into the house.
“That’s a good gift, Cooper.” Jenna studied him. “The cougar’s hers now, she won’t have it any other way. So you’ve put part of yourself into her symbol.”
Lil bolted out of the house, skidded to a stop in front of Coop. “This is my best thing—before the cougar. You take it. It’s an old coin,” she said, as she offered it. “We found it last spring when we were digging a new garden. It’s old, and somebody must’ve dropped it out of their pocket a long time ago. It’s all worn so you can hardly see.”
Cooper took the silver disk, so worn the outline of the woman stamped on it could hardly be seen. “It’s cool.”
“It’s for good luck. It’s a . . . what’s the word, Mom?”
“A talisman,” Jenna supplied.
“A talisman,” Lil repeated. “For good luck.”
“We’ve got to get on.” Sam gave Cooper’s shoulder a pat. “It’s a long drive to Rapid City.”
“Safe trip, Mr. New York.”
“I’ll write,” Lil called out. “But you have to write back.”
“I will.” Clutching the coin, Coop got into the car. He watched out the back, as long as he could, watched the island in front of the old house shrink and fade.
He didn’t cry. He was nearly twelve years old, after all. But he held the old silver coin all the way to Rapid City.
3
THE BLACK HILLS
June 1997
Lil walked her horse through the morning mists along the trail. They moved through high grass, crossed the sparkling waters of a narrow stream where tangled vines of poison ivy lurked before starting the upward climb. The air smelled of the pine and the water and the grass while the light shimmered with the delicacy of dawn.
Birds called and chattered. She heard the burry song of the mountain bluebird, the hoarse chee of a pine siskin in flight, the irritable warning of the pinyon jay.
It seemed the forest came to life around her, stirred by the streams and slants of misty light sliding through the canopy of trees.
There was nowhere in the world she’d rather be.
She spotted tracks, usually deer or elk, and noted them on the tape recorder in her jacket pocket. Earlier she’d found buffalo tracks, and of course, numerous signs of her father’s herd.
But so far in this three-day jaunt she’d given herself, she’d yet to track the cat.
She’d heard its call the night before. Its scream had ripped through the darkness, through the stars and the moonlight.
I’m here.
She studied the brush as the sturdy mare climbed, listened to the birdcalls that danced through the sheltering pine. A red squirrel burst out of a thicket of chokecherry, darted across the ground and up the trunk of a pine, and looking up, up, she spotted a hawk circle on his morning rounds.
This, as much as the majestic views from the clifftops, as much as the towering falls tumbling down canyons, was why, she believed, the Black Hills were sacred ground.
If you felt no magic here, to her mind, you would find it nowhere.
It was enough to be here, to have this time, to scout, to study. She’d be in the classroom soon, a college freshman (God!), away from everything she knew. And though she was hungry to learn, nothing could replace the sights, the sounds, the smells of home.
She’d seen cougar from time to time over the years. Not the same one, she thought. Very unlikely the same cougar she and Coop had spotted that summer eight years ago. She’d seen him camouflaged in the branches of a tree, leaping up a rock face, and once, while riding herd with her father, she’d spotted one through her field glasses as he took down a young elk.
In all of her life she’d never seen anything more powerful, more real.
She made note of the vegetation as well. The starry forget-me-nots, the delicate Rocky Mountain iris, the sunlight of yellow sweet clover. It was, after all, part of the environment, a link of the food chain. The rabbit, deer, elk ate the grasses, leaves, berries, and buds—and the gray wolf and her cats ate the rabbits, deer, and elk.
The red squirrel might end up lunch for the circling hawk.
The trail leveled off, and opened into grassland, already lush and green and spearing with wildflowers. A small herd of buffalo grazed there, so she added the bull, the four cows, and the two calves to her tally.
One of the calves dipped and shoved, and came up again with his head draped with flowers and grass. Grinning, she paused to pull out her camera, take a few pictures to add to her files.
She could title the calf Party Animal.
Maybe she’d send it, and copies of some of the shots she’d taken on the trail, to Coop. He’d said he might be coming out this summer, but he hadn’t answered the letter she’d sent three weeks before.
Then again, he wasn’t as reliable about letters and e-mails as she was. Especially since he was dating that coed he’d met at college.
CeeCee, Lil thought with a roll of her eye. Stupid name. She knew Coop was sleeping with her. He hadn’t said so, in fact had been pretty damn careful not to. But Lil wasn’t stupid. Just like she was sure—or nearly sure—he’d slept with that girl he’d talked about in high school.
Zoe.
Jeez, what happened to regular names?
It seemed to her that guys thought about sex all the time. Then again, she admitted, shifting in the saddle, she’d been thinking about it a lot lately.
Probably because she’d never had it.
She just wasn’t interested in boys—not the ones she knew, anyway. Maybe in college next fall . . .
It wasn’t as if she wanted to be a virgin, but she didn’t see the point in getting sweaty if she didn’t really like the guy—and if he didn’t heat her up on top of the like, then it was just a kind of exercise, wasn’t it?
Just something to be crossed off the life-experience list.
She wanted, she thought she wanted, more than that.
She shrugged it off, put her camera away, took out her canteen to drink. She’d probably be too busy studying and working in college for sex. Besides, her priority now was the summer, documenting her trails, the habitats, working on her models, her papers. And talking her father into culling out a few acres for the wildlife refuge she hoped to build one day.
The Chance Wildlife Refuge. She liked the name, not only because it was hers, but because the animals would have a chance there. And people would have a chance to see them, study them, care about them.
One day, she thought. But she had so much to learn first—and to learn, she had to leave what she loved best.
She hoped Coop came, even for a few weeks, before she had to leave for college. He’d come back, like her cougar. Not every summer, but often enough. Two weeks the year after his first visit, then the whole wonderful summer the year after, when his parents divorced.
A couple of weeks here, a month or so there, and they’d always just picked up where they left off. Even if he did spend time talking about the girls back home. But now it had been two whole years.
He just had to come this summer.
With a little sigh, she capped her canteen.
It happened fast.
Lil felt the mare quiver, start to shy. Even as she tightened her grip on the reins, the cat leaped out of the high grass. Like a blur—speed, muscle, silent death—he took down the calf with the flower headdress. The small herd scattered, the mother bugling. Lil fought to control the mare as the bull charged the cat.
It screamed in challenge, rising up to defend its kill. Lil locked her legs, gripping the reins with one hand as she dragged out her camera again.
Claws flashed. Across the meadow Lil scented blood. The mare scented it as well and wheeled in panic.
“Stop, easy! It’s not interested in us. It’s got what it wants.”
Gashes dripped from the bull’s side. Hooves thundered, and the calls sounded like grief. Then it all echoed away, and there was only the cat and her kill in the high meadow.
The sound it made was like a purr, a loud rumble, like triumph. Across the grass, its eyes met Lil’s, and held. Her hand trembled, but she couldn’t risk taking her other off the reins to steady the camera. She took two wobbly shots of the cat, the trampled, bloody grass, the kill.
With a warning hiss, the cat dragged the carcass into the brush, into the shadows of the pine and birch trees.
“She has kittens to feed,” Lil murmured, and her voice sounded thin and raw in the morning air. “Holy shit.” She pulled out her recorder, nearly fumbled it. “Calm down. Just calm down. Okay, document. Okay. Sighted female cougar, approximately two meters long, nose to tail. Jeez, weight about forty kilograms. Typical tawny color. Stalk-and-ambush kill. It took down a bison calf from a herd of seven grazing in high grass. Defended kill from bull. It dragged kill into the forest, potentially due to my presence, though if the female has a litter, they would be too young, probably, to visit kill sites with the mother. She’s taking her kids, who wouldn’t be fully weaned as yet, breakfast. Incident recorded . . . seven twenty-five A.M., June 12. Wow.”
As much as she wanted to, she knew better than to follow the track of the cat. If she had young, she might very well attack horse and rider to defend them, and her territory.
“We’re not going to top that,” she decided. “I guess it’s time to go home.”
She took the most direct rou
te, anxious to get back and write up her notes. Still it was mid-afternoon before she saw her father and his part-time hand Jay mending a fence in a pasture.
Cattle scattered as she rode through them and whoaed the horse by the battered old Jeep.
“There’s my girl.” Joe walked over to give her leg, then the mare’s neck, a pat. “Home from the wilderness?”
“Safe and sound, as promised. Hi, Jay.”
Jay, who didn’t believe in using two words if one would do, tapped the brim of his hat in response.
“You need some help here?” Lil asked her father.
“No, we’ve got it. Elk came through.”
“I saw a couple herds myself, and some bison. I watched a cougar take down a calf in one of the high meadows.”
“Cat?”
She glanced at Jay. She knew the look on his face. Cougar equaled pest and predator.
“Half a day’s ride from here. With enough game to keep her and the litter I imagine she’s got fed. She doesn’t need to come down and go after our stock.”
“You’re all right?”
“She wasn’t interested in me,” she assured her father. “Remember, prey recognition is learned behavior in cougars. Humans aren’t prey.”
“Cat’ll eat anything, it’s hungry enough,” Jay muttered. “Sneaky bastards.”
“I’d say the bull leading that herd agrees with you. But I didn’t see any signs of her on the route back here. No sign she’s extended her territory down this far.”
When Jay just jerked a shoulder and turned back to the fence, Lil grinned at her father. “Anyway, if you don’t need me I’m going to head in. I’m ready for a shower and a cold drink.”
“Tell your mother we’ll be a couple hours out here yet.”
After she’d groomed and fed her horse and downed two glasses of sun tea, Lil joined her mother in the vegetable garden. She took the hoe from Jenna’s hands and set to work.
“I know I’m repeating myself, but it was the most amazing thing. The way it moved. And I know they’re secretive, skulky, but God knows how long it was back there, stalking that herd, choosing its prey, its moment, and I never saw a sign. I was looking, and I never saw a sign. I have to get better.”