Bittner, Rosanne (8 page)

By the time Lettie got Nathan put down again for the night, both she and Luke were bone weary, yet both knew their work had just begun. Luke bolted the door and sat down on a crate quietly to smoke a thin cigar he'd taken from his gear. It was finally warm enough inside the cabin for them to take off their jackets. Luke even took off his shirt, under which he wore wool long johns. He watched Lettie take down her hair. "It's going to be hard, Lettie."

"I know. We can do it." She shook out her hair, turned to look at him. His long johns were unbuttoned, revealing the dark hairs on his chest. It was the first time she had seen him without a shirt on. Finally there was time to think about what had happened when they first arrived. She knew by the way his eyes moved over her that Luke was remembering it too. It had been beautiful. She wanted to feel that way again.

"Why don't you undress out here?" Luke asked, his voice soft.

The flames that flickered behind the open draft of the stove door cast ripples of light on her as she began removing her dress. She shivered, but she knew it was not from the cold. For the first time in her life a man would look upon her nakedness. The night of her attack, there had been only the rape. The men had not even removed all of her clothing. Luke would be the first man to set eyes on her breasts, to touch them, taste them. She was glad she had something left to give him that was still virgin, touched by no other man. She dropped her petticoats, removed her boots and stockings, unlaced her camisole.

Luke crushed out his smoke in a tin plate on the table, marveling that he had found someone so utterly beautiful on his way to Montana, that he had actually arrived here with a wife and a child to call his own. "Come here," he told her. He saw her nervousness as she approached and knelt in front of him. She closed her eyes when he moved his hands inside the camisole and pushed it away from her full breasts. They were firm, the nipples a lovely pink. He pulled the camisole down her arms and tossed it aside, gently grasped her breasts, caressing them, toying with her nipples, until he saw her breathing quicken. Her head was flung back, her hair hanging in a cascade of waves down her back. He kissed her eyes, her lips. "They never touched you here, did they?" he said.

Lettie grasped his wrists. "No," she whispered. She opened her eyes to meet his gaze. He leaned down, licking at the white swell of her breasts, then took a nipple into his mouth, gently sucking, pulling, creating a sharp need deep in her belly. She grasped his hair, offered herself gladly, enthralled at these wondrous new feelings he created in her.

"Luke," she groaned, breathing deeply when he moved to her other breast to taste its sweet fruit.

"Lettie, you're so beautiful," he whispered. He picked her up in his arms, carried her behind the makeshift curtain and laid her on the bed. Lettie had spread the bearskin blanket over the top of the feather mattress, then covered that with more blankets. She sank into the pile of softness. Luke bent to remove her bloomers. As she lay there naked she curled up her knees and watched him undress, allowing herself to look at that part of man that had held such terrors for her.

"Don't ever be afraid of it again, Lettie," he told her. He moved onto the bed, stretched out beside her. She ran a hand over his powerful arm, across his broad shoulders.

His lips met hers, and in spite of their weariness, their passion was too powerful to ignore. He moved between her legs, grasped one leg under the knee and pushed it farther to the side, and in the next instant he was surging inside of her for the second time in one day. He pulled a blanket over them. Again they were lost in each other, oblivious to anything around them, ignoring the dangers, sure their love would hold them together whatever the future held.

Outside the bobcat prowled, searching for wild rabbits, perhaps some rats. It decided not to invade the realm of the humans who had moved into its territory... not yet. And in the foothills and distant mountains wolves began their nightly howling at the moon and to each other, making sure to remind any humans who came into this land who
really
belonged here.

Something else also prowled and watched, something human in form, but more animal in instinct and senses. A teenage Indian brave named Red Hawk sat on his spotted horse watching the cabin. A tiny bit of light created by a dimly lit lantern inside shone through one small window, the only sign of life in the dark night. Red Hawk turned to his father, a fierce-looking and honored warrior who sat beside his son on his own horse. The boy admired his father greatly, was proud of the deep scar on one side of the man's nose, where a Crow Indian had cut it partly off. That Crow man had died a slow, painful death at the hands of the mighty Sioux warrior. It was after that fierce raid that Red Hawk's father had taken the name Half Nose, a name feared by all white settlers and even some Indians in the region.

"Should we go and kill them, Father?" Red Hawk asked in the Sioux tongue.

Half Nose watched quietly for a few minutes. "No. He has a woman and child with him. He is one of those who has come to stay. He will still be here when the grass grows green again, when we come back to the mountains from the sacred winter grounds. Perhaps by then he will have more horses, something worth stealing. We have no use for oxen or mules."

"He has one good horse, that red one we watched him put in the shed when it was still light."

"Yes, and we will take it! He will never know we were here until he finds it gone in the morning. Then he will know how quietly a Sioux brave can take whatever he wants. He is new to this land. He has much to learn." Half Nose grinned. "We shall teach him and have a good laugh over it. We will take his horse, then get back to our camp. Tomorrow we must head south and east. Winter is coming."

"Perhaps he and the woman and child will not last until the grass is green again. Perhaps they will die from the cold."

Half Nose laughed lightly. "Perhaps." He nodded. "They will learn that they cannot own this land. The land will own
them.
It will swallow them up and spit them out!" Half Nose dismounted, and his son followed suit. Both men crept down the hill with the stealth of the bobcat that prowled in the thick woods beyond the cabin. They sneaked into the shed where Luke kept his horse and mules, using their skill with animals to keep them quiet while they untied Red. They led the horse back up the hill and rode off into the night.

Inside the cabin, Luke and Lettie lay sleeping, naked body against naked body, dreaming of the empire they had come here to build together.

CHAPTER 5

"Hello, there!"

Lettie studied the man who had shouted the words, a bearded, burly-looking man in buckskins named Will Doolan, whom Luke had already learned was thirty-five years old and once scouted for wagon trains headed to California and Oregon. The man stood on the porch of his sturdy-looking log home east of Billings, a piece of property Lettie thought was not nearly as pretty a setting as the one Luke had chosen, but then Luke had gone into country still prowled by outlaws and Indians alike, country beautiful because of its wildness.

"Hello, Will," Luke called back.

Doolan stepped off the porch, the fringes of his buckskin jacket moving with him. In the past two weeks the weather had remained stable, cold but bearable, not a lot of snow so far. Lettie wore a heavy wool shawl and a wool scarf wrapped around her head and neck. Nathan was wrapped in several blankets. Luke waved to the man as he steered the wagon in which they rode up close to Doolan's house. A huge dog chained to the corner of the cabin began barking wildly at their arrival. It was a beautiful animal, looked as though it had to be part wolf.

"Shut up, Bear!" Will ordered the animal.

The dog quieted, but it watched them warily. The front door of the cabin opened then, and a woman appeared, smiling. Lettie knew it must be Henrietta Doolan. Luke had met Will the first time they arrived at Billings, and the man had told him to come by for a visit anytime. All Lettie knew about these two was what Luke had been able to learn in town—that they had been here for about ten years, struggling against Indians and the elements to build a ranch, a man with the same dream Luke had. The couple was childless.

The woman Lettie saw in the doorway looked as though she had once been very pretty, but now her hair showed gray, and her face was beginning to wrinkle considerably. Lettie wondered if she was really a lot older than Will, or if the harsh living out here had just aged her well beyond her actual years. She was a little heavyset, but still had a nice shape.

"Henny, this here is the new couple I told you I met in town about three weeks ago—Luke and Lettie Fontaine. Luke went on west of Billings to see about claiming some land there."

"West!" Henrietta exclaimed in a rich voice. She looked surprised. "Well, what brave souls you are! Welcome! Do come in!" In spite of the cold, the woman rushed out to take Nathan from Lettie's arms so Lettie could climb down from the wagon.

Luke got down from his side and tied the lead mules, then shook Will's hand. "My wife could use a woman's company," he said with a grin. "This is the first time away from her mother and sister and the rest of her family."

"Well, I understand that feeling," Henrietta said in a friendly voice. Lettie smiled at the woman, and they exchanged a look of longing, both of them delighted to have another woman to talk to.

"I'm afraid I'm a bit of a city girl," she told Henrietta, taking Nathan back into her own arms. "I'm from St. Joseph, Missouri."

A distant loneliness shone in Henrietta's eyes. "Well, I was raised in a city myself. I came west from Chicago in '49 with my family. My father was on his way to California to look for gold. I took one look at our scout, who happened to be Will here, and I fell in love. I was only sixteen, Will was twenty-one. We got married at Fort Laramie, and I lived there for about five years while Will continued to lead wagon trains west—didn't get to see him much." She led Lettie toward the house. "We both finally got tired of being apart so much, and Will was always the type who hated too much civilization, so he chose to come up here to settle."

The woman rattled on nonstop, and Lettie sensed she needed to talk. She wondered if it would be that way for her in a few years, hungering for company, aging ahead of her years. If her figuring was right, the woman couldn't be more than thirty years old. She looked fifty.

"Luke and I had to come to town for more supplies," she explained as she walked inside the cabin. "Luke wants to get some tar paper for our cabin, and we need to stock up on more food."

"Well, out here it's a must that you get to know your neighbors, even if they're eight or ten miles away. You never know when you'll need them," Henrietta answered rather wistfully. "Please, take off your wrap and sit down. And let me see your little son! Will told me the boy's father was killed back in Kansas. I'm so sorry. I'm glad you found a good man who can be a father to him."

Lettie felt a flow of love for Luke at the words. In spite of the hardships and loneliness of the past three weeks, she couldn't be happier with the man she had chosen for a husband. The days were long and filled with backbreaking work that left them both exhausted at night, yet there had been few nights when they hadn't found the energy to explore the wonders of their passion. Luke was a good father to Nathan, always took time for the boy, even on the days when he worked so hard cutting and stacking wood and building fences for the animals that he could hardly walk straight when he came in at night.

"Yes, Luke is a good man," she said. "I met him much the same way you met Will—on a wagon train west. My family was headed for Denver. I just couldn't bring myself to let Luke go on alone when we reached Julesberg. I had to make a decision, and I know it was the right one." She set Nathan down, and he toddled off to explore the cabin. "Luke wrote out a paper for me back at Fort Laramie, where we married. He put it in writing that he has legally adopted Nathan, giving him full rights to anything Luke owns. He even had it witnessed. He wanted it as legal as possible, considering there are no judges out here for such things. I told him it wasn't necessary to put it in writing, but he insisted, not just for me, but for Nathan's sake in future years. Nathan already looks to him like a father."

"And what a fine-looking little boy! Look at that blond hair! Oh, you're so lucky, Mrs. Fontaine." Lettie felt sorry for her, realized she must be longing for the child she'd never had. Henrietta watched Nathan a moment, then took a deep breath, as though to shake off bad memories of her own. "I don't know why these men can't choose to settle in civilized places," she said then, as though to change the subject deliberately. "They have their big dreams of getting rich by claiming all this land for themselves, but the price many of them pay makes me wonder if it's worth it." She turned to take some cups down from where they hung under a shelf of dishes.

The words worried Lettie, and this time it was she who changed the subject. "You have a wonderful home here," she spoke up, looking around the spacious main room. A huge stone fireplace graced one wall, and there were many shelves for pans and dishes built into another, as well as a counter-top for the dishpan and water buckets. Braided rugs were scattered on the clean, hardwood floor and curtains hung at the windows. Although the pine table and chairs in the center of the room were hand-made, they were very well built and varnished to a shine. She noticed a curtained doorway at the back wall, which she supposed led to a separate bedroom, something that would be a luxury for her right now. Lettie longed for just such a home.

"Well, thank you, but it wasn't always this way." Henrietta set the cups on the table, then took down some plates.

"I do hope you intend to stay for supper. I'll have it ready soon." She set the plates on the table, then took a moment to admire Lettie's startling beauty as she removed her hat and coat. She ached at the thought of the hardships that lay ahead for the young woman. She could tell by Lettie's lovely green velvet dress that she was accustomed to a far different way of life. She wondered how long it would take the poor girl to start wondering if she had made a grave mistake. "In fact, you should stay the night."