by Cora Seton
“I’m just saying what Walker thinks.” Jericho shrugged.
“I think he’s wrong,” Hope said. “Maybe one show isn’t going to change the world, but people will do the right thing when they realize how bad it all could get if they don’t.”
“Scientists have known about global warming for over a hundred years,” Jericho pointed out. “The general public has known since the ’70s. Nobody’s done anything so far. What makes you think they’re going to start now?”
Savannah stared at her husband. “They have to.” She looked down at her son again pointedly.
Jericho swore beneath his breath. “I’m sorry. Of course we’ll figure it out. Don’t mind me, I’m just on edge because we’re in the final stretch of this show, that’s all.”
Avery looked around her. Took in Boone and Riley talking together. Clay and Nora leaning together on a log, Clay’s father, Dell, close by. All the other couples talking over their meals.
She loved these people. Loved this life—and this world.
Elizabeth couldn’t be right. They had to be able to fix things. As she watched Elizabeth head off after Walker, Avery wished she would keep on going and never come back.
“Oh!” Nora, sitting on a log nearby, suddenly leaned forward, her plate slipping from her hand.
“Nora?” Clay crouched next to her. “What is it?”
“Contraction,” she said through gritted teeth, grabbing hold of his hand. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Breathe, honey. Remember to breathe,” Clay told her.
“I’ll get her bag.” Riley leaped to her feet and ran for Nora and Clay’s house.
“I’ll call the hospital and tell them we’re coming,” Boone said.
Avery looked for Walker, wanting to share the excitement of the moment with him—
And remembered he was gone.
“I remember, you know,” Elizabeth said that night as they were getting ready for bed. Walker had no idea where Avery had gotten to. He wondered if Avery would simply refuse to sleep in the bunkhouse with Elizabeth here.
He’d phoned Sue from the hospital to make sure she wasn’t expecting them at dinnertime.
“No need for dinner when you’re already living together” was all she’d said. “Elizabeth’s got her bags with her. She’ll stay with you from now on.”
Trust the two of them to think Elizabeth was welcome here without so much as an invitation.
He’d given up, joining the others in the waiting room until Clay came to give them the good news.
After waiting two weeks past her due date, Constance Lizette Pickett had been in a big hurry to see the world, and she was born barely an hour after they’d checked into the hospital. Mother and baby were resting there now and would be discharged tomorrow.
“What do you remember?” he asked Elizabeth tiredly, wishing her back wherever it was she’d come from. Siberia would do just fine.
“The night we graduated. I remember what you said.”
Walker wasn’t following. Graduation? He was a kid back then. He remembered that night, though, now that she’d brought it up. The reservation school held its ceremony the same night as Chance Creek High. Elizabeth and Netta had stopped by to wish him well, and when the two grandmothers had gone into the kitchen to discuss plans for a party the next day, he’d found himself alone with Elizabeth, who’d told him of her big ideas to change the world. Neither of them had mentioned the promise they’d made half a year before, because neither of them cared a fig about it. Netta was fading and needed to lean on someone’s arm when she walked. Her sister was coming to live with her in a week or so to help her until the end. Elizabeth had broached putting off going to college, but Netta insisted she keep to her plans.
“What did I say?” Elizabeth was persistent, and if she had some point to make, she’d make it.
“You said people don’t change and never would. You said no amount of recycling would clean up the mess we’ve made. No amount of government rules would stop pollution. No amount of education would trim down people’s buying habits. You told me I should quit trying before I started.”
Hell. “I was right, wasn’t I?” He wasn’t ready to admit to Elizabeth he’d changed his mind. There’d been so much news about environmental degradation that year. The Amazon rainforest was disappearing; species were going extinct. But kids he knew from school were excited about the expansion of fracking in northeastern Montana and North Dakota. Talking about the money they could earn. Calling him an idiot for wasting his time at college.
“You said the world was doomed.”
Walker stilled. Elizabeth dropped the bedding she’d been fussing with and came to stand in front of him. “You said you’d never marry and you certainly wouldn’t have kids. You planned to walk away from all this when you turned thirty, move north into the wilderness and watch the rest of the world burn.”
She had him there; that’s exactly what he’d said. Thirty had seemed ancient back then. Now it was in his taillights.
“So what happened to change your mind? Did you see something during your Navy SEAL years that proved you wrong?”
Walker snorted. “Just the opposite,” he admitted. “That’s what got Boone, Clay and Jericho excited to build Base Camp in the first place. Everywhere we went we saw climate change in action. Not signs that it was coming; signs that it was already here causing problems all over the world.”
“And yet you’re going to marry me in thirty-nine days.”
He swallowed the first words that came to mind: hell no. He couldn’t say them until he knew what was going on. Not if she would hurt Sue in retaliation.
When she understood he wasn’t going to answer her, she laughed derisively. “You were going to marry Avery, which is even worse. She believes in love and family, Walker. She wants children. Wants a future.”
He wanted that, too, now.
“So what changed?” she demanded again.
He’d met Avery. He didn’t want to say that to Elizabeth, though. She’d find a way to cheapen it. He didn’t want to hear Avery’s name in her mouth ever again.
When the bunkhouse door burst open, he was relieved.
Jericho rushed in.
“Get out here,” he called to Walker, already backpedaling. “Intruder. Someone’s on the ranch.”
Immediately on alert, he snapped, “Lock the door behind me,” and hurried after Jericho. Outside, men had gathered and Boone was issuing orders.
“Clay, Angus, check around the tiny houses. Tell all the women to lock their doors. Greg, Kai, is anyone up at the manor? Check it out.”
“What happened?” Walker asked. “Where’s Avery?”
“I saw someone near the barn but lost them,” Harris said. “He was armed. Heading this way, but he might have already made it past us—lit out for the creek or something.”
“Avery’s with Savannah,” Jericho added. “She was going to spend the night there since I’m on guard duty.”
“Jericho and Walker, you check out Pittance Creek.”
It was over an hour before they reassembled, and by then Walker thought half of them were wondering if Harris had been seeing things. Walker doubted that. Harris was ever-vigilant and had the best eyesight of anyone he knew. If he said a stranger was on the ranch, then one definitely was.
They collected the women, gathered in the bunkhouse, where Elizabeth waited stoically for them. “Was someone there?” she demanded as soon as Walker appeared.
He shook his head.
“Someone was there,” Harris asserted. “I saw him skulking in the shadows near the barn. Would have missed him entirely if the chickens hadn’t been making a racket.”
“You think it’s about Hansen Oil again?” Hope asked Anders.
“We already handled that,” Anders said.
“I’m going to make a stink about this to Fulsom,” Boone said quietly. “If he has anything to do with it, it’s crossing a line. Meanwhile, we need to operate as if this threat is goin
g to remain imminent and unrelenting. No one goes anywhere alone. Anyone not on patrol sleeps in the bunkhouse. We get our chores done in groups. Everyone armed. Got it?”
They all nodded.
“Right, everyone move in here for the rest of the night.”
There was a lot of grumbling, but they all got to work, the couples tramping out into the night to their tiny houses to collect their things.
“You know anything about this?” Walker said to Elizabeth when they were alone again.
“Why would I know anything about it?” she shot back.
“Because first you came and then he did.”
She held his gaze defiantly. “Seems to me your lot attracts trouble well enough on your own without having to accuse me.” She got back to making up her bed, and by the time the others began to trail in with their gear, she was already under the covers, pretending to be asleep.
“You can’t keep wearing clothes like that,” Leslie said the following morning when Elizabeth emerged from the bathroom dressed in jeans and a blue cotton shirt. “All the women of Base Camp wear Regency gowns. You’ll have to get some from Alice at Two Willows.” She lifted her skirts and turned in a circle so Elizabeth could see what she meant.
“I don’t think so,” Elizabeth said scathingly, and Avery winced, but Leslie wasn’t fazed.
“It’s tradition. You wouldn’t want to break tradition. That’s one of the things that makes Base Camp special—” She broke off when Elizabeth walked right past her out the door.
Walker heaved a sigh and followed her.
Leslie turned to Avery. “I guess some people think they’re better than the rest of us. The joke’s on her, though. It’s always more fun to join in than keep on the outside of things. Don’t you think?”
Avery didn’t think anything was going to be much fun while Elizabeth was around. She finished getting ready for the day and went outside, too.
“Ugh, Star News is at it again,” Hope was saying as Avery joined the others grouped around the empty fire pit on logs. The day had dawned clear and hot, and she thought everyone was out of sorts. She’d barely slept the night before, all their bodies crammed into the bunkhouse close together. She’d been so grateful to Savannah for inviting her to spend the night in her tiny house—and so frustrated to be forced back into the bunkhouse with Walker, Elizabeth and everyone else.
Hope held up her phone so everyone could hear the Star News announcer.
“Tell me who on earth would voluntarily live in one of those tiny houses Clay Pickett and his father build?” a blonde was saying on screen. “They’re not tiny, they’re infinitesimal. Can you imagine how you’d feel about your spouse after a week in there? I bet those couples fight morning, noon and night, but you never see that on the show, do you? Face it, the whole thing is fake.”
“I agree, Marla,” a man said. “And that’s the problem with television today. You can’t believe anything. That settlement isn’t run on green energy; it couldn’t be. Everyone knows how inefficient solar and wind power is. Do they want us to believe the sun shines twenty-four hours a day in Montana—even in the winter?”
“What is he talking about?” Jericho sputtered. “Hasn’t he ever heard of batteries?”
“It’s all fake,” the man went on. “Every last bit of it. Remember when Clay’s wife, Nora, was being stalked? Fake! Her pregnancy is probably fake, too.”
“It’s a travesty, Paul,” Marla agreed. “You can’t believe anything you hear, and you certainly can’t believe anything you see. Climate change isn’t even happening, and if it is, it’s a completely normal process. Why can’t these Base Camp folks admit that?”
Avery was glad Nora wasn’t home yet and Clay was with her at the hospital waiting for her discharge.
“And don’t even get me started on Harris and his forge,” Marla said. “A forge, folks. In the twenty-first century. Yeah, making iron implements the old-fashioned way is going to save us all.”
“I never said it would save anyone,” Harris sputtered. “It’s an art form. A way of slowing down and appreciating life.”
“Don’t listen to them,” Samantha told him, touching his arm.
“As for Samantha, sheesh,” Paul said on screen. “I guess you can’t expect much from a groupie who drove the bus for Deader Than Ever for over a decade.” Both hosts cackled. “What do you think she’s growing in those greenhouses, eh, Marla? A little something they can all smoke? No wonder they’re clueless.”
Samantha grabbed the phone from Hope’s hand and stopped the playback.
“We don’t need to listen to that,” she said.
“We need to know what lies they’re telling people about us so we can make sure we counter them,” Hope said. She turned to the nearest crew members. “You have to make sure you get footage that shows they’re lying.”
“Anyone who believes those lies is a fool!” Samantha said.
“What if they don’t know any different?” Win spoke up. “What if they’re not watching Base Camp, so what Star News broadcasts is all they know about us? In that case, it won’t matter what we do on the show. Why isn’t Fulsom doing something about this?”
“Are you kidding?” Renata spoke up. “He must love this. He probably planted the idea in some Star News lackey’s head. Controversy, remember? He loves controversy.”
“Well, I’m not letting this slide anymore,” Hope said. “We have to counter their accusations on our website. Put up information of our own that clearly outlines our position. I’ll take that on.”
Avery couldn’t listen to any more of it. She took her plate inside the bunkhouse, dropped it off in the kitchen and was just leaving again when Boone cornered her.
“Can we talk?”
“Do we have to?” She wanted to find some chore to do that would leave her so busy she didn’t notice Elizabeth trailing after Walker like a sixth grader after her first boyfriend.
“We have to,” Boone said.
“Fine.” She followed him a little apart from the others, trailed by a camera crew, of course.
“There’s no good way to say this, so I’ll just say it,” he started. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with Walker and Elizabeth. I know he loves you,” he added, heading off her protests, “but Walker is a man of honor, and there’s something about this promise he made he obviously doesn’t think he can just walk away from. Fulsom has got a rule: no one on set who’s not in the process of working toward being married. I got a call from him this morning, checking up on things. He made it clear; I’ve got to find you a backup husband.”
Avery stared at him. Was he serious? “You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve been here from day one.”
“I wish I was, but I’m not. You don’t have to like the backup, you certainly don’t have to marry him, but you have to be filmed spending enough time with him to keep Fulsom happy. Got it? I’ll have him here in a day or two.”
Avery heaved a sigh. “Fine. Get me a backup husband. Get me twenty.”
“Avery,” Boone called after her as she walked away. “I’m rooting for you two, you know that, right?”
She didn’t bother to answer. Boone caught up to her, and when she turned to tell him off, Harris and Samantha were there, too.
“We travel in groups from now on,” Boone reminded her. “Someone was on the property.”
“Oh, come on.” Avery bit off the rest of what she wanted to say. Harris had seen someone near the barn last night, and Boone was right to put safety first. She longed for the day when life could feel normal again, though.
Whenever that might be.
“I just want to check on the bison,” she said.
“Then we’ll check on the bison together.”
Avery kept going, feeling like a fool trailed by her entourage, and when she reached the bison pasture and saw Elizabeth standing at the fence cooing to Champ, she nearly growled in frustration and would have retreated if Elizabeth hadn’t beckoned her forward. They all crowded around
her.
“Where’s Walker?” Avery asked, but she spotted him talking to Jericho closer to the barn. He’d spotted them, too, and she realized he was keeping an eye on Elizabeth.
“You’re not supposed to be alone,” Boone told her.
“I’m not.” Elizabeth pointed to the two men nearby. “I’m just seeing how the bison calf is doing. God, it’s cute.”
“It is,” Avery admitted. She didn’t like this new, human side to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was supposed to be all bad, so she could hate her. Boone and the others moved to talk to Walker and Jericho.
“You’ve done a lot of work this past year,” Elizabeth mused when they were gone. “All those tiny houses. The wind turbines. Everything.”
“It’s what we’re here for.”
“Thought you were here to save the world.”
“It’s the same thing.” She didn’t want to be sparring with this flint-sharp woman who’d known Walker far longer than she had.
“It’s not the same at all, you know.” Elizabeth’s gaze flicked over her. “You’re sending the wrong message altogether.”
“How so?” Avery was losing her temper. It was one thing to try to take Walker away—any sane woman would want a piece of him. It was another to talk down their efforts here.
“It’s not individuals who are the problem; it’s industry. It’s government. We’re one or two court battles, one or two pieces of legislation away from total disaster. You want to save the world, you need to start educating people on how to lobby the government. That’s what big businesses are doing. They’re spending millions making sure lawmakers don’t regulate them the way they need to. They’re fielding candidates for office. Every American could put a wind turbine in their front yard, and they’d still find a way to pump out enough carbon to heat up the earth and fry us all.”
“You sound like Walker when he doesn’t know I’m listening,” Avery said. He was far more cynical when he thought she wasn’t around.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Walker sounds like you these days,” she corrected her, “all light and hope and unicorns. In a few generations global warming could decimate bison herds like this. Everything we care about could be gone.”