Montana Bride

by Joan Johnston

He let go of her hair and hugged her close. “I am.”

  One of her hands found its way under his long john shirt to his bare chest. His belly rippled with muscle, and she could almost count his ribs. “I like touching you, Karl.”

  “I like it, too,” he said. “I wish I’d known you weren’t feeling well these past couple of months. Bao probably has some remedy that would have helped.”

  “I was afraid he’d tell you if he knew.”

  “Well, I know now,” he said. “I’m going to see if I can find a midwife or a doctor in one of the towns farther north in the valley to help with the delivery.”

  “You’re thinking awfully far ahead, aren’t you? The baby’s not due until the fall.”

  Karl’s fingers sieved through her hair. “I don’t want to take any chances. It was hard enough getting just the right mail-order bride. I don’t want to lose you, Hetty.”

  “Any more than I want to lose you.” Which reminded her that Karl was headed off into the wilderness first thing in the morning to hunt down the most dangerous predator in the Territory. “Do you really have to go hunting that grizzly tomorrow?”

  He nuzzled a spot beneath her ear. “Yes, I do.”

  She arched her neck so he could more easily reach her throat and said, “I mean it, Karl. I’m afraid you’ll get hurt.”

  “I didn’t think you cared what happened to me.”

  “Of course I care,” Hetty said.

  “So you care about me, you just don’t love me.”

  Hetty sat upright in the dark, pulling her hair free of his grasp. Karl remained supine, but he tucked a hand behind his head to lift it off the pillow.

  She stared down at him, her heart caught in her throat, and realized she’d been lying to herself all these months. What a fool I am!

  It wasn’t only the way Karl made her feel in bed that she loved. It was the way he made her feel when he looked into her eyes at the breakfast table. The way he’d taught Griffin to ride and helped Grace with the study of plants. The way he took care of his workers. The appreciation he showed her for cooking his supper and washing his shirts. And the way he noticed that the sheets smelled like fresh air when they’d just come in from the line.

  She loved his plain brown eyes and his plain brown hair and his extraordinarily ordinary face. Except, in her eyes, there was nothing plain about Karl Norwood. No one else had brown eyes as warm as his. No one else had brown hair streaked with gold by the sun like his. And no one else’s face had ever been so dear. Why had she been so reluctant to admit that her feelings had changed?

  “I do love you, Karl. I do.”

  He sat up beside her. “I wish I could believe you, Hetty.”

  “Why wouldn’t you believe me? It’s the truth.”

  He sighed. But he said nothing.

  “It’s because of all the lies I’ve told in the past,” she said. “That’s why you don’t believe me.”

  “That might have a little something to do with it. That, and the fact you’ve made this profession of love to keep me from doing something that needs to be done, no matter how dangerous it is.”

  “You really think I said I love you so you won’t go hunting that grizzly tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “I take it back. I don’t give a damn about you! I don’t care if that grizzly claws you to shreds. I don’t care if he bites your head off. I don’t care if he eats you whole and spits out your shoes!”

  Karl laughed and pulled her close, then lowered her to the bed, covering her body with his.

  “This isn’t funny, Karl. I told you I love you, and you’re laughing at me. I’m serious!”

  “I’m serious, too. About making love to my wife and the mother of my children. Let’s enjoy tonight, Hetty, and let tomorrow take care of itself.”

  Hetty would have protested, but his mouth had already captured hers and his hands were doing magic things to her body that made it sing hosanna. She gave herself up to the pleasure of making love to her husband.

  Karl was right. Words didn’t matter. Feelings did. She would show him that she loved him. She would treasure him and pleasure him and be a wonderful wife and a perfect mother. Maybe then he would believe her. She had the rest of her life to convince him.

  She pushed aside her worry about some stupid grizzly bear. Karl knew what he was doing. Karl was strong. Karl was invincible. Karl would shoot that bear dead.

  Karl took the lead as he and Dennis and Griffin tracked the bear’s spoor across the mountain. Before he’d left that morning, Hetty had asked him if he couldn’t take Andy along, just to have one more rifle handy. Karl had held her close and explained that Andy had logs to get down the mountain, now that the skid trail was repaired.

  She was also worried about Griffin and wondered if he shouldn’t be left at home. Karl had promised to keep a close eye on the boy and reminded her, “He needs to learn, Hetty. And doing is the very best way of learning.”

  Throughout the day, Karl’s mind kept wandering back to the previous night, to Hetty’s confession of love and the lovemaking that had followed. Was it possible? Could she really love him?

  “I’ve found something,” Griffin said excitedly.

  “Keep your voice down,” Dennis warned. “We don’t want to scare him away.”

  “I don’t think that bear’s been here since last fall,” Griffin said, pointing toward a spot where bark was missing from a pine trunk. “Those claw marks are pretty old.”

  Karl studied the deep grooves in the bark, noting how high they reached. “I was impressed with the size of that grizzly’s paw prints. Here’s more proof that we’re looking for a truly enormous beast,” he said to Dennis. “I’d have to be standing on your shoulders to reach those upper marks.”

  “He’ll make a nice rug,” Dennis replied.

  “If you can find him,” Griffin muttered. “We haven’t seen any sign of him for a couple of hours.”

  Dennis’s eyes narrowed as he focused on Griffin. “We’ll find him all right, even if we have to stay out here all night.”

  “I wasn’t planning on camping on the mountain overnight,” Karl said. “Especially with that bear on the loose.”

  “Build a big enough fire, and he’ll keep his distance,” Dennis said.

  “You’re willing to bet our lives on that?” Karl asked.

  “Ma’s gonna be worried if we don’t show up at sundown,” Griffin said. “We better get started home.”

  “If we go back now, we’ll have to start over from scratch tomorrow,” Dennis said. “We’ve got that bear on the run. We’ll pick up sign again in the morning. I say we don’t give him a break. We keep after him and put him down.”

  Karl leaned his rifle against the tree, then took off his flat-brimmed hat and ruffled his sweaty hair. The weather had been unexpectedly warm, which made trekking up and down the mountain hot work. The terrain was so rough, they’d been leading their mounts for the past half hour. “I don’t know, Dennis. I didn’t tell Hetty we’d be out overnight.”

  “Every day we don’t cut wood is another day we get further behind,” Dennis reminded him.

  “We’ll make up the time,” Karl said. Once again, it was a question of men over money. Karl wasn’t about to lose a logger to some grizzly prowling the mountain. He would face down his brother, if it came to that, but he was confident he could do this job the safe way and still get it done.

  Throughout the winter they’d encountered only minor stoppages, caused by mishaps like missing saws and dull or broken axes, and minor repairs like Karl had insisted upon doing on the skidding trail. But Karl hadn’t counted on illness decimating his workforce.

  Since the beginning of spring, a quarter of the loggers had come down with a fever, accompanied by a bad rash that left them spotted like rattlesnakes. Karl had been told by the Salish to avoid the west-side canyons once the snow began to melt, but when they couldn’t give him a good reason why, he’d ignored the advice. When his men came down with the s
potted fever, he realized it had been a mistake not to heed their warning.

  Despite Bao’s best efforts to heal the infected men, within ten days, two of them had died. Panic had spread through the bunkhouse. Karl had been forced to double the loggers’ wages to keep them working. When yet another man got sick and died, Karl had called off cutting entirely for several days while he looked for the cause of the illness.

  Try as he might, he could find nothing different about the mountain terrain in spring except the prevalence of more animals—mountain goats, squirrels, and chipmunks—and he couldn’t imagine how they could have anything to do with this sickness. Bao had pointed out a reddish spot on one man’s arm, where he’d removed a tick, but Karl didn’t see how something as tiny as a tick could be killing his men.

  No one had gotten sick for the past two weeks, and Karl had been cautiously optimistic that they would catch up. And then the grizzly had appeared.

  Karl remained undaunted. This marauding bear was only one more challenge to be met and conquered. He smoothed his hair and settled his hat back low on his forehead. “All right. Let’s find someplace to camp that’ll give us an escape route if that grizzly attacks.”

  “I think we should go home,” Griffin said.

  “I told you we shouldn’t have brought him along,” Dennis said.

  Karl put a hand on Griffin’s shoulder and said, “Dennis is right. If we go home, we’ll lose too much time finding that bear’s trail again in the morning. When we don’t show up, your mom will realize that we’ve decided to stay out overnight.”

  “When we don’t show up, Grace will figure that bear attacked us and we’re all bleeding out somewhere on the mountain,” Griffin retorted. “She’ll do her best to convince Ma that they ought to ride to the rescue.”

  Karl smiled. “Hetty won’t do that.” But he wasn’t at all sure that she would wait patiently for his return. Especially since he’d been too busy making love to her last night to explain that this hunt might take more than a single day.

  “We’ll deal with your mom when and if she shows up on the mountain,” Karl said. “Right now, let’s get started setting up camp.”

  “You’re going to camp here?” Griffin asked.

  “Why not?” Karl said.

  “That bear was marking his territory when he clawed that tree,” Griffin said.

  “How could you possibly know that?” Dennis asked sarcastically.

  Griffin kept his gaze focused on Karl as he said, “I grew up in a Cheyenne saloon. Buffalo hunters, trappers, cowboys—all sorts of men came in there to have a drink and talk. And I listened. I’m telling you, Karl, we lost that grizzly’s tracks a couple of hours ago, but we’re in his territory for sure. That bear is probably closer than we think. We shouldn’t stay here.”

  “It’s getting dark,” Dennis said. “Where do you propose we go?”

  “We should head home,” Griffin persisted.

  Karl remembered what had happened the last time he’d ignored good advice. But Dennis was right about the time they’d lose if they abandoned the hunt now. “You said yourself those claw marks look old,” he told the boy. “We’ll build ourselves a fire, and we’ll set a watch through the night. We’ll be fine.”

  “Just because that bear hasn’t made it back to this tree yet this spring doesn’t mean he isn’t coming,” Griffin argued.

  “Give it a rest, kid,” Dennis said as he began untying his saddlebags. “We’re staying.”

  Griffin shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Karl hadn’t planned to be gone overnight, but he’d taken the precaution of bringing along bedrolls and enough food for a couple of days, in case the hunt ran longer than expected. He’d hoped they could find and kill the bear in a day. But that hadn’t happened.

  The timing of the hunt was terrible. He wanted to be home with his pregnant wife. He wanted to lie beside her and hold her and talk with her, as they had last night, then turn her in his arms and make sweet love to her. He wanted to look into her eyes and see the love she’d said he would find there. He wanted her to say those three words again—and be able to believe them.

  Karl hoped Griffin was wrong about Grace convincing Hetty to come looking for them. Surely Hetty would wait at least another day before she panicked. And surely they’d find that bear tomorrow and get back home tomorrow night.

  Karl picked a flat spot where they could spread out their sleeping pallets. Then they unsaddled their horses and picketed them close in, where they would be safe from other nighttime predators, including cougars and wolves. Griffin collected dead branches for firewood and moved stones into a circle to contain the fire.

  Once they’d made camp and collected and cut enough dead wood to keep the fire burning all night, they settled on the ground and Dennis handed out biscuits with ham, boiled eggs in the shell, and pickles.

  “This feels like a picnic,” Griffin said as he cracked his egg against a stone and began peeling it, throwing the shell into the fire.

  “Kid thinks he’s on a picnic,” Dennis said scornfully.

  “I’ve never been on a picnic,” Griffin continued. “But if this is what it’s like, Karl, I think I’d like to try it again sometime with Mom and Grace. I guess Andy would have to come, too, seeing as how he and Grace are engaged.”

  “I can’t believe you’re allowing that Texas kid to marry your stepdaughter,” Dennis muttered.

  Karl didn’t rise to the bait and argue. He knew how it must look, letting Grace marry a skidder who made thirty bucks a month, but Andy had insisted on keeping his finances private, so Karl endured Dennis’s outrage without comment.

  A wolf howled in the distance, and Griffin scooted a little closer to the fire. And to Karl.

  “Scared, kid?” Dennis said.

  “Wolves don’t bother me,” Griffin said. “But I’m not ashamed to admit that grizzly has me worried. Bears have pretty good noses. This one might get a hankering for ham and biscuits.”

  Dennis laughed derisively. “And you know bears can smell ham and biscuits a mile off because you heard it in some saloon?” Instead of eating the last bite of his biscuit with ham, he threw it over his shoulder into the darkness.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Karl said. “You want that bear to come looking for us?”

  “Why not?” Dennis said. “We’ll build up the fire so we can see him coming—assuming he can smell a mile and has a hankering for ham and biscuits. With any luck, we can finish this hunt up tonight and head home in the morning.”

  “I don’t like the idea of my pony getting attacked by some ham-sniffing bear,” Griffin said.

  “Too late now,” Dennis said. “Unless you want to see if you can find that bit of ham and biscuit in the dark.”

  Griffin snorted in disgust. “No thanks.”

  “That’s enough, Dennis,” Karl said angrily. “It’s going to be enough of a challenge killing that bear in the daylight. I don’t want to end up having to fight him in the dark.”

  “We can stoke up the fire, make it bigger,” Dennis said.

  “What happens when we run out of wood?” Karl said. “We didn’t cut enough for the bonfire you’re describing. Are you going out there in the dark to cut more?”

  “You’re worrying over nothing,” Dennis replied.

  “That grizzly is not nothing,” Karl said. “He’s a ton of teeth and claws.”

  “That I can put down with one bullet.”

  “Maybe not,” Griffin said.

  “Butt out, kid,” Dennis snarled.

  “Even if you hit that grizzly in the heart, it’s going to pump a couple more times,” Griffin said with relish. “His skull is so thick it’s hard to get to his brain. You’re going to need a couple of bullets—and a lot of luck—to put that grizzly down before he turns you into ground meat. One swipe of his paw can take off your head. His claws will rip your eyes out. His teeth—”

  “That’s enough, Griffin,” Karl interrupted. “You’ve made
your point.”

  Dennis exchanged a sardonic look with Karl. “That kid should be writing penny dreadfuls. I’ll take the first watch.”

  Karl was surprised when Griffin laid out his pallet right next to his, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe the kid was more scared than he’d said he was. What surprised him even more was seeing Griffin hug his rifle to his chest under the covers.

  “You’re liable to lose another toe if that gun goes off,” Karl said as he settled onto his side.

  “If I need this rifle, I’m going to need it in a hurry,” Griffin said. “Besides, I don’t have a bullet in the chamber.”

  Karl chuckled. “Good for you.”

  “Wake me up for my turn on watch,” Griffin said.

  “If you want, you can watch with me,” Karl said.

  “Don’t you trust me?” Griffin asked.

  How was he supposed to answer that? Karl wondered. “Did you ever think that maybe I wanted you to help keep me awake?”

  Griffin yawned. “All right. Wake me when it’s time.”

  Karl tried to sleep, but sleep eluded him. He kept thinking about that bit of ham and biscuit Dennis had set out as bait. What if it worked? He finally drifted off thinking of Hetty, of the softness of her breasts and the swell of her belly where their child was growing inside her.

  He woke to the horrific sound of screaming.

  When Karl and Griffin didn’t return from the hunt by sundown, Hetty convinced Grace there was nothing to worry about. “Karl won’t take any chances hunting that bear. If he’s still out there on the mountain, it means they haven’t found him yet.”

  “Or they’ve found that grizzly and it attacked them and they’re lying mangled on the mountain, praying that we come find them before they die!” Grace retorted.

  Hetty laughed at Grace’s hysterics in an effort to downplay her stepdaughter’s concerns, but a shiver shot down her spine at the thought of Karl and Griffin lying desperately injured in the woods, waiting for succor that wasn’t on the way.