Buffalo Summer

by Nadia Nichols

  Who might she find in that village, and would anyone know her name?

  The buffalo calf who had butted its mother was making another charge. Once again it bounced off its mother’s massive side, and again the cow calmly ignored it. Pony smiled and then quite unexpectedly her eyes flooded with tears. She wiped them away impatiently but something buried deep inside had been brought to the surface by the antics of the little buffalo calf and the response of its patient mother. More tears ran down her cheeks, and she wiped them on her shirtsleeve.

  “Don’t be foolish,” she berated herself, and to her complete mortification her words ended in a strangled sob. She buried her face in her hands, unable to stop the hot flood of tears and the horrible gasping noises of pain and grief. She had no idea how long she huddled there, releasing all the emotions she’d kept bottled inside for years. Finally, the low rumble of thunder roused her, and she lifted her head.

  Black clouds towered over the mountain peaks to the west. The sky above her was still a sun-washed blue, but Pony knew the speed of these mountain storms. She heard Dobey give a snort of alarm and turned her head. He was looking at something standing on the edge of the woods not fifty feet away. Her heart rate jumped as she struggled to her feet. A man moved out of the shadows. She stared in disbelief as she recognized her boss. He was holding a bulging cloth sack in one hand and looking as if he’d just robbed a bank.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, perfectly aware that her face was ravaged.

  “Ramalda was worried about you,” he said, holding both hands at shoulder height as if he was afraid she would pull a pistol out and shoot him. He gave the heavy sack a shake. “She sent food.”

  “How did you find me?”

  He lifted his shoulders apologetically. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I followed your tracks.”

  “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She wiped her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “I never cry.”

  “I know.”

  “I needed to be alone.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  “Please put your hands down, Mr. McCutcheon. I’m not going to shoot you, though maybe I should.”

  He nodded and lowered his arms. Another rumble of thunder made them both look. “That storm’s coming fast,” he said, glancing at the towering wall of thunderheads. “If we ride like hell we might make it to the line camp.”

  “What line camp?”

  “That creek down there is Piney Creek. See that big grove of trees midway across the meadow? There’s a cabin there, on the other side of the creek. It’s about a mile from here. Get your horse.”

  He didn’t wait to see if she did, but turned to retrieve his own. She wondered how long he’d been there. Obviously he’d spotted her, gotten off his horse and come ahead on foot. He might have been standing there for several minutes, but no, Dobey would have warned her. Caleb McCutcheon obviously knew that she’d been crying, but he hadn’t been spying. Moments later, McCutcheon reappeared astride Billy. The wind had picked up, and a sharp crack of thunder made Billy jump sideways and snort in alarm.

  “Come on, hurry up,” Caleb said. She tightened Dobey’s girth, untied him from the tree and swung into the saddle. “All set?” he said, and she nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s ride.”

  And ride they did, down the gentle slope at a dead gallop and out onto the flat meadow, sending the buffalo stampeding. They leaned over their horses’ withers and charged at the wall of black sky skewered with bright flashes of lightning that swept toward them, raced toward the thick grove of evergreens that sheltered the little cabin. Caleb reached the creek first and Billy hit the water at a lope that threw up a ream of spray. Four big lunges and they were across.

  Pony checked her horse and followed Caleb’s lead, but midway across, Dobey stumbled on the loose river rocks and nearly went down, neatly pitching her over his shoulder. As she scrambled to her feet, Dobey dashed off without her, disappearing into the trees. A bolt of lightning split the sky and the explosive burst of thunder shook the ground. Pony lurched out of the water as the rain began to fall. She felt the drops drumming hard on her head, realized that she’d lost her hat, and turned to look for it. There was a simultaneous brilliant blue streak of lightning and boom of thunder, and a lone tree not more than one hundred yards out in the meadow burst apart. She stared, transfixed.

  “Pony!”

  She heard her name over the savagery of the storm and turned again. Caleb was running toward her, and before she could move he had scooped her into his arms. He didn’t have very far to go before reaching the cabin. The door was open and he carried her inside, kicking it shut against the wall of wind and water. He set her down and held her at arm’s length. She stared at him in the dimness, dazed and a little out of breath.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his gaze intent and his hands shifting to touch the sides of her face.

  “I lost my hat,” she said.

  “The hell with your hat. We can get you a new one. You sure you’re all right? No broken bones?”

  “No broken bones.”

  Rainwater still streamed from his Stetson as he scrutinized her with those clear blue eyes. His thumbs gently brushed the rainwater from her cheeks, and for one heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to pull her close and kiss her, but she was wrong. “Thank God,” he said. His eyes and hands released her as he turned away, removing his hat and tossing it onto the table.

  “Thank God,” he repeated, a little out of breath himself. “You’re soaking wet.”

  “So are you,” she said over the drumming of raindrops on the roof. “Where are the horses?”

  “In the lean-to out back. They’re both okay.” He glanced around the dim interior of the cabin. “Looks like we might be stuck here for a little while.”

  She nodded and listened to the fury of the storm. “Good,” she said softly, thinking that being carried to this little log cabin in the arms of Caleb McCutcheon was probably one of the best things that had ever happened to her, but her voice was drowned out by the thunder.

  “What’s that?”

  Oh, for the courage to tell him how she felt! “I said, that’s good. It will give us time to eat all that food you brought.”

  CALEB UNPACKED Ramalda’s sack. He hoped his hands weren’t shaking. Damn, he’d come so close to kissing her. So close! He pulled out package after package, neatly wrapped for travel. There were the corn tortillas, of course, and a container of spiced lamb stew; several rolled enchiladas and something tightly wrapped in corn husks. There was a flask of hot coffee, which seemed an odd beverage for a hot July day, but he was grateful for it now, because as he unloaded the sack he could hear the sharp rattle of hail on the cabin roof. Ramalda had packed two fat oranges, as well. There was easily enough food to hold them for a couple of days.

  Not a bad idea. Two days with Pony in this remote cabin…and two nights.

  “Pull up a chair,” he said, looking around for the oil lamp. He found the lamp, lit it and set it on the table. “I think I’ll fire up the woodstove, too. We need to dry ourselves out.”

  Lighting the fire was simple. Everything was laid and ready to go, and the matches were in a glass jar on the table. Pretty soon wood was snapping and crackling and the tang of pine smoke flavored the air. He sat down and poured two cups of coffee.

  “That was quite a ride,” Pony said. “I wasn’t sure I could keep up with you.”

  “Hell, I was completely out of control,” he said with a faint grin that ended in an unabashed laugh. “Just hanging on for dear life.”

  “But when you crossed the creek…”

  He laughed again. “I closed my eyes and prayed. Shortly after that, when I realized Billy wasn’t going to stop at the cabin, I jumped.”

  She stared. “You mean, you actually jumped?”

  “Yes. Once he felt me leave the saddle, he stopped dead in his tracks, and I p
ut him in the lean-to. Your horse ran up and joined him. That thunderstorm kind of spooked Billy, but he’s been wired all day,” Caleb said. “My fault, I guess. I was worried about you, and he picked up on it.”

  Pony cupped her hands around the mug of hot coffee. “I just needed some time alone.”

  “Pete’s coming to the ranch obviously upset you.”

  “This has nothing to do with Pete.” She dropped her eyes away from his.

  “What, then?” Caleb said, leaning closer. “You were crying. Are you that unhappy here?”

  Pony shook her head but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I like it here very much. I was crying because I felt sad, that’s all. Sometimes I just feel that way.”

  Caleb straightened and shook his head, baffled.

  She changed the subject. “So you jumped off Billy because you couldn’t stop him?”

  “Well, now you know the truth of it. I can’t ride, I can’t throw a rope, either, and Lord knows it’ll be a long time before I’m comfortable at a rodeo.” He took a sip of coffee and sighed. “Hell, I buy horses that walk on three legs. I guess I’m not much of a cowboy.”

  She lifted her mug and met his eyes over the rim of it. “That’s all right. I’m not much of an Indian.”

  “I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know many Indians, but I can’t see how you could possibly be a better person than you are.”

  “If my grandmother could see the world I live in now, she would shake her head,” Pony said. “I am a kaalisbaapite,” she explained quietly. “A grandmother’s grandchild. That is different from a mother’s daughter, because a mother’s daughter is raised to live in the modern times, and a grandmother’s granddaughter is taught all the old ways. I was raised by my grandmother, Eliza Shane. I learned all the old traditions and customs and songs and all the plants to make medicines and all the ways of the animals. She taught me all that she knew.”

  “And yet you went on to graduate from one of the best colleges in the nation.”

  “My brother, Steven, used to tease me when I was young. He said, ‘You will grow up and be like the buffalo. You will go back into the mountain to hide from the modern world, and we will never see Pony again.’”

  “Pony. Your nickname. Where did that come from?”

  She lowered her eyes and set her mug back on the table with a faint smile.

  “I followed Steven everywhere when I was little, and when I got too tired to keep up, he would stop and say, ‘Pony up!’ and swing me onto his shoulder. His friends started calling me Pony and pretty soon everyone did. The name stayed with me.”

  “The two of you must have been close.”

  “Yes. There were six of us, but Steven and I were always the closest. My baby sister and my oldest brother both died before our parents did. Our father was a steelworker. When he was killed on a job in New York City, Steven tried to hold everything together, but our mother went to pieces. She couldn’t cope. Eventually she was put in an institution where she stayed until she died, and I was sent to live with my grandmother. My old aunt, Nana, took Steven and my two younger brothers. I think it was then that Steven decided he wanted to get off the reservation. He left as soon as he could, but the other two still live there with their families. He thought that after my grandmother died it was time I moved out of her world. He pushed me through the reservation school system, and then he pushed me harder and harder. He tried so hard to make me see that life could be good in the world he had chosen.”

  “But you didn’t want that.”

  “I am an Indian,” she said. “I want to be able to live like an Indian, and I want that life to be good.” He was riveted by the conviction he saw in her eyes. “But Steven showed me something important. He showed me that white people will listen to an Indian who has succeeded in their world and who can talk to them in their language.”

  “So you went to college.”

  Pony nodded. “I did well. I studied hard. Steven paid for everything. He wanted me to learn useful things so I could invoke changes for our people.”

  “After accomplishing all that, how could you possibly say that you’re not much of an Indian?” Caleb asked.

  This time she leaned toward him. “Because after all that, Mr. McCutcheon, when I tried to use everything I had learned to make good changes for the People, no one listened.” Pony gripped her mug, her dark eyes intense. “Because after accomplishing all those important things, I am and will always be just a woman.”

  Caleb sat back in his chair and studied her, his eyes memorizing the proud beauty of her face, and the lips that he had very nearly kissed. “I think you’re accomplishing great things,” he said. “What you’re doing for the boys is priceless. You may think you haven’t made a difference, but you’ve made a tremendous one. And I for one am damn glad that you’re a woman.”

  Some of the bitterness left her eyes as he spoke, and she lowered them, her thick dark lashes brushing her smooth cheeks. “Thank you,” she murmured. “But what I do really doesn’t matter much. I try to teach the children the old ways, teach them about their history and their heritage, but each year I look at the young faces in my classroom and I see that the People are fading away. Each year there are fewer traditional full-bloods on the reservation because there are more marriages between other tribes and to the whites. The true Crow Indian will one day be found only in history books.”

  Caleb felt a sudden chill that had nothing to do with his wet clothing. “That may be, but you can’t prevent people from marrying outside their own race. Love has rarely recognized or respected racial boundaries.”

  “True,” she conceded, flashing him a brief look that he couldn’t fathom. “In the end, all of the babies born on this planet will be of mixed race.”

  “Is that necessarily a bad thing?”

  “It’s a sad thing, Mr. McCutcheon, because we will gradually lose our old ways and traditions. The language will be lost. Our connection to the earth will be weakened. Our spirits will be torn in two.”

  Caleb pushed out of his chair and walked to the cabin door. He opened it and stared out at the turbulent world. His head spun and his heart was heavy. Pony could never feel for him the way he felt for her. He walked in the wrong world, and the wrong blood ran in his veins. She would want any children she bore to be full-blooded Crow, who would carry on the legacy and the culture and traditions of this very special grandmother’s granddaughter for at least another generation.

  He felt the rain and sleet hitting him and welcomed the honest violence of nature. He embraced the fierce mountain storm and the lightning that ripped apart the black sky. He stood in the doorway of the cabin and wished that one of those savage bolts of lightning would strike him and end his torment. But nothing happened, and so he shut the door again, turned to her and said, “Go ahead and eat. Ramalda will be insulted if we carry all that food back with us.”

  They returned to the ranch by dusk, riding quietly off the mountain in the fiery glory of a rain-washed sunset. He took Dobey’s rein from her when she dismounted. She untied the sack of Ramalda’s food from her saddle horn and turned to him. “We hardly touched the food.”

  “Give it to me,” he said, taking it from her. “I’ll stash it somewhere. If Ramalda sees we didn’t eat, she’ll think we’re sick, and if she thinks we’re sick, we’re doomed.”

  Pony nodded, smiled briefly, and then looked away. “I’ll help Ramalda with supper.”

  “I’ll take care of the horses,” he said. He stood cemented to the ground, a thousand unspoken words playing havoc with his outward calm. He cursed himself for standing in dumb silence while the woman he loved turned slowly away from him. Most of all, he cursed himself for not kissing her at Piney Creek. Maybe if he had, things would have turned out differently.

  CHAPTER TEN

  GUTHRIE SHOVED the pair of pliers into his hip pocket and squinted down the fence line to where the boys struggled with the ball of barbed wire, two of them trying to roll the loose wire onto
the ball, the other two watching and giving lots of snide advice. Roon was down in the swale, cutting off fence posts and keeping an eye on Absa. It was close to quitting time, and Guthrie felt a sudden sharp longing for an ice-cold beer and a cool dip in the swimming hole. He heard the approach of a truck crawling at a snail’s pace up the rough track. Badger, no doubt, coming to take the day’s tangle of old fencing down to the stash they’d made below the pole barn.

  “Okay, let’s wrap it up!” he called, and the boys immediately abandoned their struggle. “One of you go get Roon. We still have time for a swim before supper.”

  They always showed the most enthusiasm when they were piling into the back of the truck at the end of the day, but Guthrie couldn’t complain. All in all, things had gone pretty smoothly. Pony had a great deal to do with that. She rousted them out of bed in the morning, made sure they were washed and seated at the table when Ramalda dished up breakfast, and got them loaded into the truck at the start of the work-day. He didn’t notice that she nagged or cajoled; the boys just seemed to do her bidding without too much fuss. They obviously liked and respected her.

  They weren’t the only ones. Guthrie had noticed how quiet Caleb McCutcheon had become in the past week, ever since the afternoon he’d ridden up the mountain to find her. Guthrie sensed a melancholy in his boss that could only come from an aching heart. He recognized the symptoms because he’d suffered them himself not too long ago. There was really nothing anyone could do to help him over that rocky road. McCutcheon hadn’t asked for advice and wasn’t willing to discuss his feelings.

  But Guthrie wondered how long Caleb would try to pretend nothing was wrong and how long Pony would try to act untroubled by McCutcheon’s presence. Sooner or later, something had to give.

  In the meantime, he’d corral the boys and take them for a swim. He’d float on his back in the cool waters of that deep pool and count the weeks, the days, the hours and the minutes until Jessie came home again for good.