Come Spring

by Jill Marie Landis

  By the time he was completely dressed he was certain he would never marry. A wife would want things he couldn’t give, and yet, as he watched Annika filling the pot with water, he realized that even her nightgown and the borrowed nightshirt could not disguise her all-too-feminine curves. There was no denying his physical attraction to her; even though he was trying like hell not to show it, he found himself watching her far too often and much too closely. Everything about her intrigued him, from the way she brushed her hair to the way she walked across the room. There was one thing a wife could give him that he hadn’t had in a very long time.

  Unaware of his scrutiny as she ground the coffee, Annika spoke to him over her shoulder. “Why do you have to hunt anyway? I would think that in the winter there’s nothing out there to catch.”

  “Trap.” He walked to the workbench and picked up the enamelware mugs and two spoons. “Beaver, wolf, rabbit, whatever wanders into my traps are welcome because the pelts are prime in winter. They’re best when there’s an r in the name of the month. September, October, November, De—”

  “I know the names of the months,” she snapped. Annika folded her arms across her midsection while she waited for the water to boil. “Why don’t you move to Cheyenne? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about Baby or about stealing a wife. You could simply hire a housekeeper.”

  Buck paused in the midst of measuring out cornmeal for the morning mush. It was the first time she had asked him anything remotely personal in days. He watched her curiously as she bent to peer into the coffeepot she’d positioned as near the fire as she could.

  “And do what?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Anything.”

  “Store work? Clean out stables? Smithing?” He shook his head. “That’s not for me. Why should I work for anyone when I can live free and be my own boss?”

  She was studying him intently now, watching him as he added boiling water from the blackened kettle to the pot of meal. “Why do you think that’s all you’re capable of?”

  He set the pot down with more force than he intended and frowned. When he met her gaze he could see that she was not chiding him but seriously asking for an explanation. “Look at me, Miss Storm. I’m a buffalo man, a skinner. That’s all I know; it’s what I do well. I make enough money to live off it. The problem is that there aren’t any buffalo anymore—so I do what I can and I still take in a good wage for the pelts I cure and deliver. Besides, I’m not educated for fancy work. And I hate towns.”

  She looked about her—at the humble interior of his cabin, at the crude furnishings and the dirt floor—and wondered what he considered enough to live on. “My brother’s a rancher now. I’m sure he hires extra hands, and he’s trying to raise buffalo. Knowing them as you do—”

  “I know how to kill them, Miss Storm. Besides, can you really see Kase Storm welcoming me with open arms?” He laughed aloud at the thought. “I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t put a bullet through me before I can explain that this whole thing was a mistake.”

  Crumbling an eggshell, she mixed it with the coffee grounds and measured them into the pot. He was right, she thought. No matter what she might suggest, she couldn’t quite imagine Kase offering Buck Scott a job, not after the worry the man had put him through. She knew her brother’s temper wouldn’t allow it and could almost hear the two of them snarling at each other. Nor could she imagine Buck Scott living in the confines of a city the size of Cheyenne, or having to limit himself to the rigid rules and regulations of Society. The idea of the big man dressed in a nappy tweed suit nearly made her laugh aloud. But she was a firm believer that a man could become anything he wanted. She decided then and there to start thinking about what Buck Scott might do in Cheyenne.

  She glanced up and found him staring at her again. “What are you looking at?”

  He started stirring the mush. “I was wondering why you were even wasting time figuring out how I could provide for Baby in town. Seems to me after what I’ve done you wouldn’t care what happens to us.”

  Annika wondered the same thing but searched for an answer that would appease him without admitting the truth. “Baby ought to have a decent home.”

  “And this isn’t?” His blue eyes challenged hers.

  “If you could provide for all her needs, why did you write to Alice Soams?”

  Unwilling to admit that he was regretting his plan to marry Alice Soams, or anyone else for that matter, he tried to divert her attention to another topic. “Why don’t you check the coffee?”

  When Annika turned away, Buck thought about what she said and hated to admit that she was probably right. The only way he could keep Baby if he didn’t find a woman to live with him would be to move closer to town and find someone who could care for her. But what about him? What could he do in Cheyenne or anyplace else? He thought of a line from an old rhyme, “Butcher, baker, candlestick maker.” What talent did he have besides hunting, skinning, and butchering? It was all he’d known since he was fourteen, that and mixing up the home cures and remedies he’d learned from his mother.

  As he spooned out two bowls of mush he thought that perhaps he’d make someone a better wife than a woman as ill-equipped to take care of herself as Annika Storm. He watched as she carefully poured cold water into the coffeepot spout to settle the grounds. When she straightened and found him staring, her face flamed, then her brows dipped into a frown. “If you’ll turn around, I’ll dress.”

  “You’ve got two nightshirts on as it is. What’s to see?”

  “It’s not my fault that I haven’t anything decent to wear. If I had the contents of just one of my trunks I might be able to keep warm, but as it is, I’m just trying to make do.”

  When she planted her hands on her hips, he knew he’d riled her again.

  “Don’t you think I’d like something clean to change into? I can’t believe I have to wear these same clothes until you get me out of here. They’re already filthy, I’m filthy, and I—”

  “I know, I know. You hate it here.”

  She crossed her arms and nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Why don’t you take a bath?”

  Stunned, she eyed him suspiciously, not daring to hope for such a luxury. “Where?”

  “Right here in front of the fire. I’ll bring the washtub in after breakfast.”

  “And what will you do while I’m bathing?”

  “I’ll ignore you. What’s the fuss? I had two sisters.”

  “And I have a brother, but you’re not him.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “So where will you go while I bathe?”

  He was about to say no place, then reneged. “I’ll go check on my traps. The storm’s passed by now.”

  “Good. I’ll lock the door while you’re gone.”

  “The door doesn’t have a lock. Anyone who wants in is welcome. Nothing here worth taking,” he said low.

  Annika couldn’t help but look over at Baby still asleep in the big bed.

  Guessing the train of her thoughts he added, “A cabin door’s always open in an out-of-the-way place.”

  “Not when I bathe,” she assured him.

  BUCK pulled the hood of his coat close about his head and cursed loud and long since there was no one within earshot except the horse that stood beside him and the pack mule tied behind it. It was the fourth morning that he’d been ousted from his home so that Annika Storm could bathe and he regretted ever having given in to her demand the first time. Daily she reminded him to stay away as long as possible, and he usually had no problem obliging her while he used the time to check on the beaver traps he set along Blue Creek. But today it was colder than an eskimo’s grave and he’d never set traps so many mornings in a row.

  He unpacked his mule and started walking, encumbered like a beast of burden with his rifle slung over his shoulder and a packboard on his back in case he had to transport a heavy load. He hefted the trap chain, swung it over his shoulder, and wished he hadn’t taken to shaving every morning. H
is face was cold, damn cold. Why should it matter to him in the least what Annika Storm thought of him anyway? She’d never even mentioned his having shaved at all, so he didn’t see why he’d taken to doing it every day. But he had.

  As he slogged through the snow beside Blue Creek, hunting for signs of a beaver slide along the bank, he mentally went over the provisions he had stored away in and around the cabin. Yesterday he had shown them to Annika, had carefully pointed out the barrel of apples layered in dry sand, the bucket full of eggs packed in salt, the canned fruits and vegetables that lined the shelves beneath the workbench. She had refused to eat any meat since the rabbit skinning, but he showed her the small smokehouse behind the cabin anyway. Today he hoped to come across some game that he could add to the larder.

  Even as uncomfortably cold as he was, Buck couldn’t help but smile when he thought of the exchange the barrel of apples had inspired. He’d shown them to Annika and had added, “I was kind of hoping you’d volunteer to make an apple pie.”

  “I was kind of hoping I would be at my brother’s home by now.”

  Unable to resist baiting her he added, “I should have guessed by the way you make coffee that pie is out of the question.”

  “You should know by now that even if I did know how to bake pies I wouldn’t do it for you.”

  Ducking beneath a low branch, he shook his head and smiled to himself. She was a stubborn cuss, he’d grant her that. He recalled how he’d almost laughed during the exchange, but he didn’t want to let her know he was enjoying her company. The woman would no doubt use the knowledge to get him to do something else he didn’t really want to do. Hell, he was already stranded outside every morning and shaving every day, even though a good growth of beard would keep him warmer.

  She’d be gone come the first thaw, so there was no sense in letting himself enjoy anything about her, not her quick wit nor her beauty.

  A flicker of movement in the thick aspen across the stream caught his eye and he slowly, quietly lowered the trap to the ground. He shouldered the rifle and took aim at an elk that had paused, ears alert and nose in the air, not fifty feet away. If he could bring the big bull down, there would be more than enough meat to last for weeks.

  He raised the gun and took aim, knowing that in the aspen and the heavy timber behind it one shot was all he was likely to get. To kill the bull outright, he would have to break the spine where the neck joined the shoulders or hit him at the point of the elbow right behind the shoulder.

  When he pulled the trigger, the sound of the rifle reverberated in his ears. The big wapiti fell, its legs giving way beneath it as it crumpled to the ground.

  Buck shouldered his rifle again and jogged through the shallow water of the stream until he reached the dead bull elk. It was as big an elk as he’d ever seen and he figured it would take hours to butcher and would dress out at over four hundred pounds.

  He set down the packboard, glad to have it along because he would need it to haul the meat back to the pack mule he’d left downwind. Loosening the ax that he’d tied to his waist, he set it on the ground beside the animal and then unsheathed his knife. He slit the inside of the legs much the way he’d done the rabbits’ and then found the break joint just below the knee, cut into it, and snapped the leg bone over his knee so that he could easily disjoint the elk.

  He glanced up at the sky, thankful that the sun was once again shining brightly above the mountain peaks that fenced the eastern side of the valley. The sky was crystal clear and as blue—he noticed with much irritation—as Annika Storm’s eyes. As he began to skin out the elk, he hoped she’d be able to manage Baby all day. Not that she would be very happy about it. Although Annika had begrudgingly taken to caring for the child whenever he went out, he could not help but notice the gentle way she always treated Baby.

  Working as quickly as he dared, Buck slit open the belly and began to cut the paunch and the entrails away from the backbone. The viscera steamed as he rolled them out onto the snow. As he pulled out the heart that had been alive and beating only moments before, he paused, reminded of how fragile a thing life is and how quickly it can be extinguished.

  The sobering thought forced him to hurry, unwilling to leave Annika and the child alone any longer than necessary.

  “AND then, believing they should be free like men, Tonweya painted the tips of the eagles’ wings bright red and took them to the mountaintop. They spread their wings and flew away as he bid them good-bye. And that is why some eagles still have red-tipped wings.”

  Annika smoothed back the wayward curls from Baby’s forehead and covered her with a wolf pelt. The child had fallen asleep long before the end of the Sioux legend, but the telling of it had reminded Annika of her father and home, and missing both, she had finished it for her own sake.

  She pulled herself out of the all-too-comfortable bed and walked across the room to collect her cape. Drawing it across her shoulders, she stepped outside and wrapped her hands up in the folds of the rich satin. She paced the length of the yard, packing the snow that had already become trampled by their footsteps during the past few days.

  Able to walk to the gentle rise a few yards away, Annika pulled her cape tighter and stared out across the valley floor. She could see the silver blue of the shallow stream as it meandered like a twisted snake past the cabin. Leafless aspen stood like gaunt skeletons on the lower slopes with the dark, rich pines crowded nearly one atop the other higher up. The place was so silent compared to the city that she paused to listen. The wind whispered through the treetops, here and there snow dropped off overburdened branches to plop heavily onto the drifts below. Annika took a step and heard the snow crunch beneath her feet. She saw no signs of forest life nor did she see anything that remotely resembled Buck Scott.

  There had been no sign of him since morning and now that the sun was just about to disappear over the western slope of the mountains, Annika was beginning to fear the worst.

  “Damn the man,” she whispered aloud, remembering the multitude of catastrophes that he claimed might befall him. Then, immediately contrite, she prayed nothing had happened.

  There had been little unusual about the morning, although now she tried to remember if he had told her he was going to be gone all day or not. Their days had settled into a routine of sorts as both of them tried to stay out of each other’s way as much as possible in the confining space of the cabin. Every morning he would leave so that she could bathe in private, and afterward, as a thank-you, she would bathe Baby for him. The morning ritual had become a godsend, for although she was forced to wear the same clothes day in and day out, now at least she felt clean underneath.

  He was usually good enough to give her an hour or two alone before he returned, and then they would pass the daylight hours functioning under a truce. Buck had taken it upon himself to teach her all she would ever need to know and more about surviving alone until spring, and she had taken it upon herself to act as if she didn’t care to learn any of it.

  Until today she never fully believed anything could possibly happen to a man as big, as stubborn, or as vitally alive as Buck Scott. But now, as she stared out over the valley searching for any sign of him, worry chilled her more than the frigid, dry air lifting the hem of her cape.

  She strained to hear some sound that might indicate where he might be, but although the breeze whispered to her from the tops of the pines and the stream lapped gaily against its rocky bed, they held no answer. Soon it would be dark and she would be alone with the child. That was a reality she did not relish facing, but it was too late to go off in search of Buck on her own. His horse’s trail was still clear in the snow, but whether it veered off farther up the valley or not was anyone’s guess. She did not want to have to carry Baby out into the cold on a dangerous, perhaps fruitless mission.

  Taking a deep breath of the clear mountain air, Annika turned away from the sweeping view of the wide-bottomed valley floor. The air inside the dimly lit cabin was close and warm. She didn’t r
elish going back inside, but she had begun to shiver. As she carefully worked her way across the icy yard, she told herself she was being foolish, that Buck’s expertise and survival instincts would see him safely home.

  A week ago if anyone had told her she’d be praying for a chance to set eyes on Buck Scott again she would have called him mad, but just now all she wanted was to see Buck ride down the mountainside sitting tall in the saddle, leading his pack mule.

  And when he did arrive, she intended to give him a generous piece of her mind.

  IT had been dark a good hour before the cabin came into view. As Buck nudged his horse forward, he let the animal take its time and pick out a patch across the frozen ground. The thin streams of light that shone through the shutters of the cabin slowly grew from pinpoints to ribbons of light that spilled across the snow.

  He wondered if Annika was still awake or if she had fallen asleep with the lamp burning. He hoped she had already bedded down, for as much as he wanted her to think that he was unaffected by her presence, it was becoming nearly impossible. Night seemed to intensify the intimacy of their situation, for it was then that she unplaited her long braid and combed her sunlit hair until it shone like spun honey. At night she let down her guard and became vulnerable, starting at every howl of coyote or wolf, watching the door. Watching him more closely.

  For the past few nights when she made up her pallet he had been tempted to trade places so that she might sleep more comfortably. It was becoming nearly impossible for him to sleep with her so near anyway, especially when the firelight cast her shadow on the wall as she sat near the fire reading her book or writing in her journal. When she finally fell asleep her soft breathing was so magnified that he counted every breath and imagined the way it would feel playing against his ear. It was during those times that he would lie in bed fighting the hard quickening of his desire beneath the covers as he willed his mind to go blank.

  There was no moon to light his way tonight, but he kept his horse moving, knowing the animal could find its way home even in the dark. Both animals were weighted down with elk meat—he’d even tied the wide rack of antlers on top of the mule’s burden. A good half hour’s work still lay ahead of him; he had to unload the meat in the smokehouse where he could string it up. He would then have to unpack his equipment and feed the weary animals.