Faithful (34 page)

His voice was soft. “I guess this came as something of a shock.”

“Yes.” I paused. “Well, no. I mean, Kula, yes.” I thought about Mama. “I guess all my life I knew she was sad. Missing something. A piece of her was missing.” I saw again in my mind’s eye: Mama, her hair flying, eyes staring at, but not seeing, a painting that exploded with pain. All those times she went walking alone. Those times she’d looked at me as if she wanted to cry. She’d been trying to get back here, even if only in her dreams.

“It was an accident, my meeting her,” Nat said. “I was part of a gang, just a party to it. Back then, we robbed trains. Easy targets. We were in eastern Montana then. When we first took her and the others, it was for hostages. One of the other guys wanted us to have what he called insurance. I was pretty young. So was your ma. We spent time together. I tried to protect her. I couldn’t help it, I fell in love, and she fell in love with me. Then I couldn’t let her go.” He laughed in an embarrassed way. “She was the love of my life. But she was torn. I know she thought about you, all the time.” He was quiet. “Thank God she left me Kula.”

I kicked the mare to pick up the pace. In another mile I saw the wreckage two hundred yards below the road, at the bottom of the slope, and made to push the mare again. My papa was down there. He was all I had left. I had to help him. My hands moved up on the mare’s neck to urge her forward.

“Hold up,” said Nat, and he reached over and grabbed my arm. I followed his gaze up and across the meadow, to its far side. The grizzly was back, and it found the dead gelding. I closed my eyes. Then the fear in me rose up: my father.

“We’re going to have to wait until he’s had his fill,” murmured Nat. “Back off, boys.”

We pulled back into the shadows of the woods, so that we could just make out the bear in the distance.

“Why don’t you shoot him?” I began to feel frantic. “My father’s down there. What if he goes after him? For pity’s sake, shoot the bear!”

Nat looked at me. “No.”

“But, why? Just shoot the bear!” Panic filled me now, bile in my throat.

“Because it’s a bad shot, too far to be sure. Because we’d spook him and he’d charge us, and then we’d have a bigger problem. Because he ain’t eatin’ your pa. Because once we’re done here, he can have the horse. Because this is his place.”

“His . . . ?” I stared at Nat. I tried to speak but couldn’t find the words. I sat back, helpless. The bear’s place. I thought about what Tom had said. The bears were here first. But my father lay down there waiting . . .

The sun was a thin line in the west, while the men sat on horseback around me, letting their horses graze. I felt like the bear was eating me, devouring my insides. I edged the mare around in a circle, moving, constantly moving. It was only minutes but they ticked by like hours.

Kula reclined on the pinto like she was on a chaise. “So, you want to save your pa?” She nodded at the wreckage.

“Of course!” I felt hot and wanted to scream. How could Kula not understand that—she, who wanted her mother, our mother, back. The bear had not moved off the carcass, but the carcass was only a short distance from my father.

Kula looked at me with those level, dark eyes. “I thought you wanted to be rid of him, ruling your life.”

I looked past Kula, at the bear that was wrenching away pieces of raw flesh. She was right: I had wanted him to quit ruling my life. I still wanted that. But not like this. I loved him. I kicked the mare again, making her move in a tight circle around Kula. The pinto lifted his head and snorted.

“It doesn’t matter what Papa’s done. Would it matter to you? He’s my flesh and blood. He’s all I have.” My mouth felt dry, my legs tired from gripping the mare in tight fear. My back ached.

“Hold up.” One of the men pointed.

The bear had caught our scent, perhaps; it lifted itself off the ground, nose in the air. For a minute it didn’t move. Then it dropped to all fours and moved away from the carcass, nosing down toward the overturned wagon, down toward where Papa lay helpless underneath.

I couldn’t stop myself from crying out.

There was a rifle in a holster behind my left leg. Without thinking, I reached across with my right hand and yanked the rifle from the holster. I urged the mare forward into the meadow so I could see the bear more clearly. I propped the rifle against my shoulder and squinted, taking aim at the bear, sighting over the mare’s neck, my finger on the trigger, hearing George Graybull’s instructions in my ear.

But before I could pull the trigger, in my narrowed vision I saw Kula, who had swept down from the pinto and run into the sun, into the meadow, arms raised up, Kula between me with a rifle and a grizzly who could be across that meadow and on top of her in seconds flat.

Kula was an offering, a sacrifice, a prayer. Time slowed to a single heartbeat.

I saw my mother in my sister, a girl with black hair and eyes like deep pools reflecting moonlight. Saw her in the rolling hills behind the girl, the hills that rimmed the horizon. In the lodgepole pines, in the sea of grass, in the small white asphodel that dotted the green.

I saw Mama in the bear, whose head snapped up at the sight of the girl with arms raised high, the girl who stood in a narrow pane of sunlight at the edge of the meadow, her fearless back to the bear.

Mama rested in the great brown eyes of a dying deer. She lay in the nascent life arrayed at the edge of a hot spring.

She blew in a breath that kissed my cheek, a breath so gentle it was easy to mistake for the wind that settles the day’s end.

I sat on the mare, marking the soft working of her jaw as she pulled at the fresh grass, tears rolling down my cheeks unchecked. Mama was everywhere.
You’ve found me. You were right: I was here all the time.

Nat Baker hissed, and I lowered the rifle, as if Mama’s hand were on the barrel, pushing it away.
No, Maggie. Let it be. He’ll be all right; the bear won’t bother him.
We sat poised until the imperceptible moment when it was over.

The grizzly dropped its head and moved back to the horse’s carcass to feed again, away from Papa, and Kula lowered her arms. I felt hot tears on my cheeks as Nat gently took the rifle from my hands. Kula walked back to the pinto and pulled herself up. She looked at me with something like pity; I looked at her with respect. I loved her, in that moment.

It was another quarter hour before the bear stretched, then rolled on its back and left its scent, and wandered off into the woods away from us. The men waited, listening and watching, until Nat let out a breath. “Okay.”

I kicked the mare, trotted her down the slope to the wagon, jumping off the horse before she even stopped moving, grabbing the reins and tossing them over a branch as I ran to the wagon and Papa, the men and Kula behind me.

“Papa?” I reached my hand to touch his cheek, feel for breath.

He was alive but unconscious. The men worked as a team, cinching ropes around the wagon, cutting away as much of the wood as possible before they heaved the wagon’s bulk up and away from him.

“Whew,” whistled Nat, peering over the cliff edge. “Lucky guy. Nice work, tying it off like that, so it didn’t go over the edge and take him with it.” I turned my back to the cliff edge, shaking.

“His leg’s broke bad,” one of the men said. I could see the splintered bone in Papa’s shin sticking through the torn flesh. I suppressed a gag, and Nat wrapped a cloth gingerly around the wound. Papa’s arm bandage was holding, the cameo still fastened tight.

Nat touched the cameo. “Nice dressing,” he said. I caught Kula’s sharp look, her raised eyebrows, before she turned away. Kula and one of the men pulled apart lumber and canvas from the wagon to fashion a litter. I watched as Kula wove rope, her deft fingers flying.

“A travois,” Nat explained. “We’ll be able to lay him out flat this way.” Kula lashed the travois to Nat’s mare.

One of the men took Bill’s body across his saddle. “Not going to leave this fellow to old Griz,” said the man, and he spat on the ground.

I followed the travois carrying Papa, watching his face, so white, deathly white. It felt like it took forever to get back to the camp. When we arrived at last, Gus came over and lifted the blanket covering Papa’s leg.

“I cain’t do nuthin’ with this,” he said. “Got to get him to Mammoth. They got a army surgeon there.”

I went to Tom. He was sitting up. Gus had done his arm in a sling that looked professional.

“Yeah, he’ll be okay,” Gus said from behind me. “A little coffee, some rest. Gave him something for the pain, that’s what’s worked good.”

Tom smiled, a woozy off-smile. “I guess I got a nasty bump on the head. Gus here says I have a broken rib, too. That and the arm. I’m okay. Just tired. Go look after your dad.”

Nat was working on the travois, and packing more gear. One of his men was speaking to him in a low but urgent voice.

“. . . go to Mammoth and get arrested? Didn’t sign up for this. Don’t want no part of it.”

“You don’t have to come,” said Nat. “I’ll take my chances.” He raised his voice so that everyone in the camp could hear. “I just need two to come with me. We need to get this man to Mammoth if he’s going to live. We don’t have to get caught doing it, but I can’t go alone with the girl.”

The men shuffled and muttered. Gus stepped forward. “I’ll go,” he said. “Me, too,” said a younger man. Kula stepped forward, saying nothing. Nat gazed at her, then gave a slight nod.

“Saddle up, then,” said Nat. “We got a four-hour ride crosscountry, and it’ll be dusk in one and a half.”

Kula pulled herself up onto the pinto and I held the mare’s head. Tom stood unsteady, looking between us.

“I think I need to hitch a ride,” he said. He put his good hand on my arm, leaning against me.

I felt my face turn scarlet, and I grew bold. “You can ride with me.” His hand on my arm felt warm, and I looked up and met his eyes, those gray eyes that I wanted to look into forever.

Kula turned the pinto’s head and walked off. Gus and I helped Tom onto the mare, then I settled in front of Tom. He slipped his good arm around my waist and I felt his chest inches from my back, his fingers on my waist. We rode single file through the woods.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“What for?” he asked.

“For being, I don’t know, not who I really am.” I didn’t know how to say what I meant. My tongue tied into knots. I almost smiled; Tom still made me feel foolish. I looked at Kula, riding ahead. “I’m not a snob. Maybe I was once. But I’m not now. At least, I don’t want to be.”

“Who do you want to be, then, Maggie Bennet?”

Who did I want to be? “I’m my mother’s daughter,” I said. “My sister’s friend.”

We rode in silence a while.

“You sure surprised me,” he said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Didn’t have what?”

“What it took to get your father help.”

“I didn’t know either,” I said. “I couldn’t have done it without you there.”

Standing next to me on the edge of a cliff, I thought. Not rescuing me. I wasn’t afraid, because Tom was there. I put my left hand on his arm that was looped around my waist, and squeezed it. He leaned his cheek against my head and I felt his breath in my hair. I heard him whisper my name and thought I’d never heard anything so sweet.

In the waning light I caught a glimpse of Papa. He was unconscious and his face was still, but he was breathing.

It grew darker still, and I tried to follow by shadowing Kula, the white of the pinto’s rump showing even as the night fell. The moon rose—luckily, a full moon—and the landscape around us appeared foreign, huge, and ghostly. We seemed to ride forever, sticking to level ground as much as possible, but at times we had to stop and lift the travois across streams or over rocky terrain. I dismounted to help, my feet soaking in the cold water of the streams, bruising on the rocks as I stumbled in the moonlit dark. I was grateful for Tom, steadying me when I climbed back on the mare. Each time I sat back he circled his arm once more around my waist, gentle and firm. Each time he touched me I knew that, though I had much to discover, right now I had found what I’d been looking for.

“Almost there,” said Nat.

We rode through a gap in the hills and I saw the lights of Mammoth below us in the darkness. Steam curled up above the hot springs into the cool night air. I wanted to urge the mare faster, but I held back and followed Nat down through the trees. As we approached the first set of buildings, Nat slowed.

“Gus, you and Johnny stay here,” said Nat. He mounted the horse pulling the travois and took Bill’s body from Gus.

I looked at Gus in the moonlight. “Thank you.”

“Good luck, miss,” Gus said, one finger to his hat brim.

Nat, Kula still by his side, led us past two frame houses and then stopped just outside the circle of light from the windows of a large building I knew to be the infirmary. “The surgeon’s in this one,” I said.

Tom and I slid off the mare’s back, and Nat joined us. We lowered Bill’s body to the ground. I bent over Papa. His breath was ragged, but he was breathing. Nat unfastened his horse from the travois and rested the litter on the ground. Tom knelt beside Papa.

The cameo caught the light, shining. I bent, and pulled the pin from the dressing on Papa’s arm. I stood, and handed the cameo up to Kula. Mama would have wanted me to. Because it was all of Mama that I had left. Because I wanted Kula to know that I was her friend. I could feel Kula’s eyes on me, sharp, as she took it, looked at it. From the tree behind the building I heard an owl, its hooting mournful in the still air. Then came the sound of men’s voices, and I turned to go.

“I don’t need it,” Kula said, her voice crisp. “I have what I need.” She leaned over to hand it back to me, but I stepped away, and she sat back, tightening her hand around the cameo.

I tried to see her expression in the darkness, but her face was shadowed. “I know you have a place,” I said, “but if you ever, you know, want . . .” I let my voice fade. “I want you to have it. She would’ve wanted you to have it.”