Dani pushed out of bed, reached for her robe and wrapped it around her as she went downstairs to start the coffee. She’d lived in Helena for five years in this comfortable house, built in the late 1800s, with a big fenced yard for the dogs and only five miles from her office, but since Jack left she’d found herself wishing for a piece of land to call her own, large enough for a horse barn and pastures. It was no longer important to live within a stone’s throw of the airport. So she’d taken the plunge and recently listed the house with a real estate agent, who’d called yesterday to arrange a showing for Saturday. Perfect timing, since Dani and the dogs would be off hiking. Maybe now she should seriously start looking for that special place. A change would do her good.
She organized her camera gear while the coffee brewed. Stuffed her backpack with supplies while she sipped the first strong cup. Took a long, hot shower and dressed in comfortable, layered clothing. It got cold in the mountains when the sun went down. She plaited her long dark hair and laced up her well-worn leather hiking boots. The dogs watched all this preparation with increasing excitement. They knew she was taking them camping. They smelled the smoke of a hundred other campfires in her camping gear. They loved hiking with her, and she in turn felt safer in their company. Remmie and Win were well behaved, never roamed far from her side and their keen sense of smell and hearing had proved invaluable in finding the small band of wild horses that roamed the Arrow Roots.
She always stopped to see Luther Makes Elk when she crossed into the Crow reservation and today would be no different. She packed a jar of homemade raspberry jam for him and would pick up some Chinese food at the little restaurant in Bozeman. Luther loved his MSG.
By sunset she and the dogs will have reached the old line camp on the flanks of Gunflint Mountain. The thought made Dani happy. She was anxious to see if any of the mares had foaled yet, and if the wildflowers were in bloom on the mountainsides. She wanted to once again hear the coyotes howl and admire a night sky so full of stars it made her heart ache with the beauty and mystery of it.
Before eight a.m. she was loading her Subaru with camping gear. The two dogs jumped into the backseat when she opened the side door, then she climbed behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition.
“Okay, gang, let’s hunt us up a herd of wild horses.”
* * *
JOE WAS UP well before dawn. He was restless, and the time difference made it feel as if he should have been up far earlier. He dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, the same clothes he’d worn the day before because he had no other clothes to wear. Just lucky that Rico had brought these clothes to the hospital yesterday morning. He wandered into the kitchen of the small house in Gallatin Gateway that Molly shared with her fiancé, Steven Young Bear. Joe had always been protective of his baby sister and had been skeptical that any man would be good enough for her, but the moment he met Steven, he knew instinctively that this man would take good care of her. Molly had told him that Steven was a Crow Indian and an attorney of great merit and integrity, and that she loved him very much. She spoke of him with such unrealistic praise that Joe hadn’t been prepared to like the man, but from the first handshake he was sold. Young Bear was quiet and self-possessed, and Joe had no doubt that he could handle any situation life threw at him. Last night the three of them had shared a simple meal of stir-fried chicken in the cozy kitchen of the small post-and-beam home, after which Joe had retreated to the guest room, exhausted.
Yet in spite of his fatigue, he hadn’t slept well. He couldn’t blame it on being in a strange place. Nothing was stranger than a hospital. Maybe it was the absence of constant interruptions. No nurses, no doctors, no badges checking on him hourly. Maybe it was the silence. The sound of the wind pushing around the sides of the house was all he heard here no matter how hard he listened. No sirens, car horns or traffic noises. Maybe thirty-six years of city living had been what kept him awake his first night in the heart of the Wild West.
He wandered into the kitchen and saw that Molly had left the coffeepot ready to go. He pushed the start button. The coffee grinder whirred and the smell of fresh ground beans infused him with comfort. Water began to hiss and thump and drip through the filter and into the pot. He leaned his elbows on the kitchen counter and gazed out the window at a landscape that was both foreign and compelling. No snow remained on the ground and the grass was just greening up. The leaves of the aspen in the grove near the house were a pale, newly minted green, quivering in the early breeze. Majestic mountains in shades of blue and gray loomed on the horizon. He could easily get used to the big spaces, the tall mountains and the silence. For the first time he understood why Molly had never wanted to come back home. This was home for her, and she told him she’d felt it the moment she first stepped off the plane. I just knew it in my heart, Joseph. I knew Montana was where I was meant to be.
Montana was a far cry from the Boston Fergusons, and Molly loved her big Scots/Irish family, but she loved it here even more and appeared to be sublimely happy with her life. Joe wondered if he would ever find anything like what his sister had found. Last night he’d watched the pair at supper, watched the way Molly looked at Young Bear, the shine in her eyes, the way she so openly adored him. The feeling was obviously mutual. Mutual enough that when Molly opened the bottle of red wine and neglected to pour herself a glass, Young Bear had looked at her for a long, thoughtful moment before nodding and saying, “I thought that’s what the doctor was going to tell you. I hope it’s a girl, and I hope she has beautiful red hair, just like her mother.”
Turns out his baby sister was going to be a mother, and watching the two embrace, Joe realized how empty his own life was. Oh, he wasn’t sorry about the divorce. Nothing had made him more miserable than five years of being married to Alison Aniston, but their loveless marriage had ended a year ago and for the last few months his contact with women had been purely physical. Which had suited him just fine until meeting Dani Jardine yesterday. At first he thought maybe his lung had collapsed again, but the fact of the matter was, she’d taken his breath away. He hadn’t realized a woman could be so naturally beautiful and vibrantly alive. Being Molly’s best friend made her especially off-limits. Better for him if he kept far, far away from her.
He padded into the living room, dropped onto the sofa and cradled the hot mug of coffee. The picture window looked east, toward a big mountain range. Some of the taller peaks still cradled snow near their summits. The sun was rising behind the mountains, turning the snow crowning the peaks a pale shade of yellow. He took a swallow of coffee and watched the show. He thought about Molly’s suggestion, of bringing Ferg out here. His son would love it, but would Alison allow it? She was fighting for sole custody, and she was a nasty fighter.
“Morning.”
Molly’s voice startled him. She’d come into the living room quiet as a wraith, red hair loose upon her shoulders and freckles plain in her pale face. She looked very much like a little girl, not a young woman soon to be married.
“Coffee’s all made,” he said.
She shook her head and made a face. “My stomach can’t handle it lately. Sleep well?”
“Like a rock.”
“Don’t lie to me, Joseph. You didn’t sleep at all and neither did I. All I could think about was Marconi and how he almost killed you. Once he’s behind bars and after you’ve testified, you’ll be safe, but I have a plan to keep you safe in the meantime.”
“I can hardly wait to hear it.”
“Don’t tease me. I’ve already told Steven about it and he thinks it’s a good idea. As a matter of fact, he called his sister, Pony, last night and she agreed that you should stay out at the Bow and Arrow. Nobody’d get within five miles of that place without being observed by everyone in Katy Junction. The ranch is extremely isolated and you have to drive through the middle of Katy Junction to get to it. There’s only one road in or out.”
“T
he Bow and Arrow.” Joe wondered why it sounded so familiar, then he remembered the wedding invitation he’d gotten in the mail. “Isn’t that where you and Steven are getting married?”
Molly dropped onto the sofa next to him, propped her feet on the coffee table and wrapped her robe about her. “It’s such a magical place. You’ll love it. Conveniently, we have to visit there today.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because today’s Saturday, and they always have barbecue on Saturday. Besides, I really want you to meet Pony and Caleb and all the kids.”
“I don’t need to hide out there. I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, yes, that’s quite obvious,” she said, giving him a skeptical up and down. “Don’t worry, you’ll earn your keep. Pony said they could always use another teacher.”
“You told me it was a ranch.”
“A huge ranch, with horses and buffalo. Steven’s sister started a school there, too, for Crow kids who weren’t making it in the reservation’s school system.”
“Troubled kids?”
“No. But special kids, for sure, especially Roon.”
“I remember you mentioning him. The boy who talks to wild horses.”
“And buffalo,” Molly added. “Roon sometimes helps Jessie Weaver on her rounds, now that she’s graduated vet school. Jessie used to own the Bow and Arrow until she sold it to Caleb, Pony’s husband. Then Caleb deeded half the ranch back to Jessie as a wedding gift when she married Guthrie Sloane, so now they co-own it. Guthrie helps Caleb and Pony run the ranch, and Jessie doctors most of the horses in Gallatin and Park counties. You should see her truck—it’s so cool. Anyhow, Roon’s so good with the animals Jessie says whenever he comes along with her on farm calls having him there cuts the need for tranquilizers by half.”
Joe took another swallow of coffee, dizzy from trying to keep up with Molly. “What’s all this got to do with me teaching?”
“Roon was one of the toughest cases at the Bow and Arrow. He had a big chip on his shoulder to start with and then he lost his little brother in a car accident. Pony had her hands full with him, but being out there at the ranch turned him around. So they started a school for kids like Roon. I think Pony and Caleb have about five or six kids living there now. They’ve built an actual schoolhouse next to the ranch, with an upstairs bunk room big enough to house all the boys. The kids help with ranch chores and spend part of their days in class, but only a small portion. Most of their learning takes place out of doors.”
“Sounds like my kind of school, but I’m no teacher.”
“Of course you are, Joseph. We all are. They have guest teachers out there all the time. Some like it so much they come back more than once. All you have to do is talk about what you do. Tell them what it’s like to be a big-city cop. Tell them what your work is like, what kind of education and experience you needed to land the job, tell them what you like and don’t like about it.”
“Kind of like show-and-tell?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll show ’em all my bullet holes and tell them to avoid a career in law enforcement.”
“Joseph, that’s not the least bit funny.” She gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. “Anyway, when you’re done telling them all about your chosen career, you answer their questions and afterward you help with ranch chores. And then—” she paused for effect “—then you get to eat the most incredible meals west of our mother’s kitchen. They have a cook named Ramalda and she’s a real treasure.”
“Good food?” Joe perked up at this.
“Great food, and lots of it.”
“Sounds like you visit there frequently.”
“As often as I can, and I’ve taught there, too, several times. I told them all about law school and different choices of careers within law and Steven’s fight to save Madison Mountain from the mining industry. In exchange, the boys taught me how to throw a rope over a fence post... Well, they tried. I’m a terrible cowgirl. I rode horseback once up into their mountains to see the buffalo herd and it took me weeks to recover. But I love it out there. It’s a perfect place to raise kids.”
“And this place isn’t?” Joe looked around the comfortable room and lifted his coffee mug to the view outside the picture window. “What more could you ask for?”
Molly just smiled. “Wait till you see the Bow and Arrow.”
* * *
IT NEVER FAILED to amaze Dani how much food Luther Makes Elk could eat. She’d brought him enough to feed a family of six, and by the time she left, most of the Chinese take-out containers were half empty. He never said much when she arrived, didn’t speak while she unloaded the bags of food and the small gifts she always brought. And she left him how she found him—sitting on his wooden bench in front of his shack, hat pulled low and blanket over his shoulders, gazing back through time and into the future. He shook her hand when she got ready to leave, the way he always did. Slowly, with a solemn expression. “Sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing,” he said. Those were his only words the entire visit.
The lack of talk didn’t bother her, though. She was a quiet person herself and always felt strangely revitalized by her silent visits with the holy man. Today was no exception.
Now she headed south for the Arrow Root Mountains, the sun slanting off her right shoulder, settling toward the Absaroka Range, the Crow reservation off to her left. Her dogs had abandoned all their manners and were jockeying for position in the passenger seat, craning their eyes out the windows with mounting excitement.
A convoluted series of dirt roads took her into the high country. This was a seldom traveled place, but she noticed fresh tire tracks today. She wasn’t the only one with spring fever. Eventually, rotting snowdrifts closed off the road and she could drive no farther. She parked where someone else had parked very recently. Footprints in the mud indicated one person had continued up the unplowed road and returned, probably within the past day. A ranger from the forest service had no doubt walked up to check on the cabin, knowing she’d rented it for the weekend. The dogs bounded out of the Subaru, sprinting in tight circles of excitement as she shrugged into her pack and balanced the tripod over her shoulder. It was three p.m. and they had another hour or so of hiking ahead of them before reaching the forest service cabin. With any luck she’d have her camera gear set up by sunset and would get some good shots of the band stallion, his mares and hopefully some new foals.
She loved hiking in these mountains and photographing the mustangs that lived here. To Dani, they embodied the free spirit of the West, the part that would never be tamed. Her photographs had appeared in several major magazines, and she’d recently agreed to supply many more for a book that was being written about the wild mustangs of the West. The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, had begun aggressive roundups in recent years to thin the population, but many felt their management goals were too low to maintain genetic diversity and long-term survival. The fight was on to preserve the purest strain of Spanish mustangs in North America, and Dani, through her love of horses, hiking and her photographic skills, had become a big part of it.
Her spirits were as high as those of her dogs as they hiked through mountain mahogany and juniper. The scenery was spectacular. Mountains framed every scene. The Bighorn, Beartooth, Wind River and Absarokee. Spring was in the air and the yeasty smell of the land, warmed by the afternoon sun, wafted in an earthy ferment around her. She knew in the higher elevations the wind would be thundering over the land like a herd of wild horses. When she was here she felt as if maybe there wasn’t a city west of Saint Louis. As if, in the four-hour drive from Helena, she’d traveled back through two centuries. Sometimes she wondered if she just kept on hiking into the Arrow Roots, would she vanish into the past? She wondered if perhaps she hadn’t already lived here in another life and maybe that was why, when she was with Luther Makes Elk, she felt no need
for words. The silence between them was comfortable.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing. His words came to her again as she took a breather. Luther didn’t say much, so when he spoke, she listened. As did everyone. He was, after all, a legendary holy man. What had he meant? Had Luther been referring to Molly’s brother Joe? Had he been telling her to leave the dark and dangerously handsome man well enough alone? Or had he been describing his own life, his days spent sitting on the old wooden bench in front of his shack, watching the occasional vehicle drive past?
She shifted the tripod to her other shoulder and continued on. Her breath came in short, hard gasps as the trail steepened. Her thigh muscles burned and her shoulders were already sore. She was pathetically out of shape. Cross-country skiing was good exercise and a fine way to enjoy a long Montana winter, but nothing beat climbing uphill while shouldering a heavy pack. She hadn’t slept very well last night, but she had a feeling tonight would be different. Tonight she’d forget all about how Joe Ferguson had turned her insides to mush and instead focus on finding the bright golden stallion, Custer, and his little band of unbranded mares. With any luck he’d be grazing his mares in the high mountain park that surrounded the old camp.
She was going to get some great photos. She could feel it in her bones.
* * *
“THIS IS KATY JUNCTION,” Molly narrated to Joe as Steven parked the Wagoneer in front of a small hole-in-the-wall diner called the Longhorn Café. The café comprised one of four buildings that made up a town that, except for the addition of telephone poles, didn’t look like it had changed much in well over a century. There was even a hitch rail in front of the boardwalk, which still looked well used, if piles of horse manure were any measure. “Guthrie’s sister, Bernie, runs this diner. She’s wonderful—you have to meet her. She brews the best coffee in the West, so you must have a cup. Badger and Charlie are probably here, too. They help out at the Bow and Arrow and spend the rest of their lives hanging out at Bernie’s counter and gossiping.”
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