Black Hills (10 page)

“For what?”

“All of them. For endangered and injured and abused. For the ones people buy or capture as exotic pets then realize they can’t possibly keep. I’m still talking my father into it, but I will.”

“Here? In the hills?”

She gave a decisive nod. “Paha Sapa—Lakota for Hills of Black, a sacred place. It seems right. Especially right for what I want to do.”

“It’s your place,” he agreed. “So yeah, it seems right. But it seems like a lot.”

“I know. I’ve been studying how other refuges are built, set up, how they run, what it takes. I have a lot more to learn. We’ve got some overlap with the National Park, and that could work in our favor. We’ll need some funding, a plan, some help. Probably a lot of help,” she admitted.

They stood on the trail of a world they both knew, but it felt to him as if they stood at some kind of crossroads. “You’ve been doing a lot of thinking, too.”

“Yeah. I have. I’m going to work on it in school. Build a model, I hope. Learn enough to make it happen. It’s what I want to do. I want to be a part of protecting all this, learning and educating. Dad knows I’m never going to be a beef farmer. I guess he’s always known.”

“That’s where you’re lucky.”

“I know it.” She ran her hand down his arm until their fingers linked. “If you decide being one of New York’s Finest doesn’t suit you, you could come back and give us a hand with it.”

He shook his head. “Or sheriff of Deadwood.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Cooper.” She turned into his arms.

So she felt it, too, he realized, and he only held her tighter. “You couldn’t.”

“I don’t want to be with anyone but you. I don’t want anyone but you.”

He turned his head to rest his cheek on top of her head. Looked at the tracks they’d left behind. “I’ll come back. I always come back.”

She had him now, and tried to hold on to that as tightly as she held on to him. She would will him back if need be. Back to her, back to where he was happy.

One day they’d walk through this forest again, years from now. Together.

As they walked back to camp, she put everything between now and then out of her mind.

That night, while the stars seared the sky overhead, she lay in his arms, and heard the cry of the cat.

Her talisman, she thought. Her good-luck charm.

Because she couldn’t understand why she felt so weepy, she turned her face into his shoulder and lay quiet until she could sleep.

 

 

 

JENNA WATCHED OUT the window. The hard, hot day threatened storms with a mottled bruising in the eastern sky. There would be other storms, and more bruising, she thought as she watched her girl and the boy she loved ride back from checking fences with Joe and Sam.

Even at that distance she could see what they were. Lovers now, so young, so fresh. All they could see were the summer blue skies, and not the storms blowing in.

“He’ll break her heart.”

“I wish I could say otherwise.” Behind her, Lucy put a hand on Jenna’s shoulder and watched as she watched.

“She thinks it’ll all fall into place, the way she wants, the way she plans. That it’ll be what it is now forever. I can’t tell her different. She wouldn’t believe me.”

“He loves her.”

“Oh, I know. I know. But he’ll go, just as she will. They have to. And she’ll never be quite the same again. There’s no stopping that either.”

“We hoped he’d stay. When he told us he wasn’t going back to college, I thought, Well, that’s all right. You’ll stay here, and take over the farm one day. I had just enough time to think it—and to think how he might’ve given his education a better try if his father hadn’t pushed so hard. Then he told us what he aimed to do.”

“The police force.” She turned from the window to study her friend. “How do you feel about that, Lucy?”

“Scared some, that’s a fact. Hopeful he’ll find his feet, and some real pride in himself. I can’t tell him any more than you can tell Lil.”

“My biggest fear is he’ll ask her to go back with him, and she will. She’s young and in love and, well, fearless. The way you are at that age.” Jenna walked over to get out the pitcher of lemonade to give her hands something to do. “She’d just let her heart pull her along. It’s so far away. Not just the miles.”

“I know. I know what it was like when my Missy lit out, like there was a fire under her feet.” At home in Jenna’s kitchen as she was in her own, Lucy went to the cupboard for glasses. “He’s not like his mother, not a bit. Neither’s your girl. Missy, she never had a thought for anybody but herself. Just seemed to be born that way. Not mean, not even hard, just careless. She wanted anything but here.”

She took her drink back to the window, sipping as she looked out. “Those two might want different things, but here’s a part of it. Your girl has plans, Jenna. My boy there? He’s trying to make some.”

“I don’t know if you ever get over your first love. Joe was mine, so I never had to get over him. I just hate knowing she’s going to hurt. Both of them are going to hurt.”

“They’ll never let loose of each other, not all the way. Too much there. But, well, nothing we can do about it in the meantime but be here. Storm’s coming in.”

“I know.”

 

 

 

THE WIND KICKED high and hard, ahead of the rain. Lightning slashed over the hills in whips of eerie blue, blinding white. It struck a cotton-wood in the near pasture, cleaving it like an ax. Ozone burned the air like a sorcerer’s potion.

“It’s a mean one.” Lil stood on the back porch scenting the air. Inside the kitchen, the dogs whined, and were, she imagined, huddled under the table.

It could pass, she knew, as quickly as it came. Or it could beat and strike and wreak destruction. Hail to batter the crops and the stock, twisting winds to shred them. In the hills, in the canyons, animals would take shelter in lairs and dens, in caves and thickets and high grass. Just as people took it in houses, in cars.

The feeding chain meant nothing to nature.

The cannon blast of thunder boomed, rolled, echoed, and shook the valley.

“You won’t get this in New York.”

“We have thunderstorms back east.”

Lil just shook her head as she watched the show. “Not like this. City storms are inconveniences. This is drama, and adventure.”

“Try hailing a cab in Midtown during a storm. Baby,
that’s
an adventure.” Still, he laughed and took her hand. “But you’ve got a point. This is E Ticket.”

“Here comes the rain.”

It swept in, fast-moving curtains. She watched the wall rush through, and the world went a little mad. Pounding, roaring, slashing in one titanic roar.

She turned to him, clamped around him, and took his mouth with as much fury and power as the storm. Rain dashed them, hard pebbled drops the wind shoved under the porch roof. Thunder crashed, an ear-ringing explosion. The wind chimes and dinner bells clanged and rang insanely.

She drew back, but not before she’d added a quick, teasing bite. “Every time you hear thunder, you’re going to remember that.”

“I need to be alone with you. Somewhere. Anywhere.”

She glanced toward the kitchen window. Her parents and the Wilkses stood watch on the front porch as she and Coop had chosen the back.

“Quick. Run!” Laughing, she pulled him off the porch, into the wild rain and wind. Instantly soaked, they raced for the barn.

Lightning forked the sky, electric sizzle. Together they dragged the door open to stumble inside, breathless and drenched. In the stalls, horses shifted restlessly as the rain pounded, as thunder rolled.

In the hayloft, they stripped off wet clothes, and took each other eagerly.

 

 

 

IT WOULD BE their last day together. When it was over he would say his goodbyes to Joe and Jenna, and then somehow to Lil.

He’d said goodbye before, but he knew it would be harder this time. This time, more than ever before, they were each taking different directions at that crossroads.

They walked their horses as they had so many times before, to the place that had become theirs. The fast-running stream at the verge of the pines where the wildflowers danced.

“Let’s keep going. We’ll come back,” she said, “but when we stop, it’ll be the last time. So let’s keep going for a while.”

“I might be able to come out for Thanksgiving. It’s not that far away.”

“No, it’s not that far away.”

“Christmas for sure.”

“Christmas for sure. I’m leaving in eight more days.” She hadn’t started to pack, not yet. She’d wait until Coop had gone. It was a kind of symbol. As long as he was here, everything stayed. Everything was solid and familiar.

“Nervous yet? About college.”

“No, not nervous. Curious, I guess. Part of me wants to go, get started, find out. The other part wants everything to stop. I don’t want to think about it today. Let’s just be.”

She reached out, took his hand for a moment. They walked in a silence full of questions neither knew how to answer.

They passed a little falls engorged from summer storms, crossed a grassland green with summer. Determined not to drop into a brood, she took out her camera. “Hey!” He grinned when she aimed it at him. Then, with their horses close abreast, she leaned over, held the camera out.

“You probably cut off our heads.”

“Bet I didn’t. I’ll send you a print. Coop and Lil in the backcountry. See what your new cop friends think about that.”

“They’ll take one look at you and think I’m a lucky guy.”

They took a spur trail through tall trees and hefty boulders, with views that swept to forever. Lil pulled up. “Cougar’s been through here. The rains washed most of the tracks away, but there’re markings on the trees.”

“Your female?”

“Maybe. We’re not far from where I spotted her that day.” Two months before, she thought. The kittens would be weaned by now, and big enough for their ma to take them with her when she hunted.

“You want to try to track her.”

“Just a little ways. I’m not sure I can anyway. We’ve had a lot of rain in the last few days. But if she’s territorial, she could be in the area where I first saw her. It’d be good luck,” she decided on the spot. “For us both to see her on your last day, the way I did on your first.”

He had the rifle if he needed it, though he didn’t mention it. Lil wouldn’t approve. “Let’s go.”

She led the way, searching for signs as the horses picked and plodded. “I wish I was better at tracking.”

“You’re as good as your father now. Maybe even better.”

“I don’t know about that. I was going to practice a lot more this summer.” She sent him a smile. “But I’ve been distracted. The brush, the boulders. That’s what she’d stick to if she was hunting. And I’m not sure . . .” She stopped, and eased her horse to the right. “Scat. It’s cougar.”

“I think it’s good tracking to be able to tell one pile of shit from another.”

“Tracking 101. It’s not real fresh. Yesterday, the day before. But this is part of her territory. Or if not hers, probably another female. Their territories can overlap.”

“Why not a male?”

“Mostly they steer clear of females, until mating season. Then it’s all, Hey, baby, you know you want it. Of course, I love you. Sure, I’ll respect you in the morning. Get it, then get gone.”

He narrowed his eyes as she grinned. “You have no respect for our species.”

“Oh, I don’t know, some of you are okay. Besides, you love me.” The minute the words were out, she straightened in the saddle. Couldn’t take them back, she realized, and shifted to look him in the eye. “Don’t you?”

“I’ve never felt about anyone the way I do about you.” He gave her an easy smile. “And I always respect you in the morning.”

There was a nagging thought at the back of her brain that it wasn’t enough. She wanted the words, just the power of those words. But she’d be damned if she’d ask for them.

She continued on, aiming for the high grass shelf where she’d seen the cat take down the calf. She found other signs, more scrapings. Cougar and buck. Brush trampled down by a herd of mule deer.

But when they reached the grass, nothing roamed or grazed.

“Nice spot,” Coop observed. “Is this still your land?”

“Yeah, just,” she replied as she gazed across the vista.

She started across the grass toward the trees where she’d once watched the cougar drag her kill. “My mother said there used to be bear, but they got hunted out, driven out. The cougar and the wolf stay, but you have to look to find them. The Hills are a mixing bowl, biologically speaking. We get species here that are common to areas in every direction.”

“Like a singles bar.”

She laughed at him. “I’ll take your word. Still, we lost the bear. If we could . . . There’s blood.”

“Where?”

“On that tree. On the ground, too. It looks dry.”

She swung her leg across the saddle.

“Wait. If this is a kill site, she could be close. If she’s got a litter she won’t be happy to see you.”

“Why is it on the tree? So high on the tree.” Drawing out her camera, Lil walked closer. “She could’ve taken out an elk or deer, I guess, and it fought, or it hit the tree. But it just doesn’t look like that.”

“And you know how that would look?”

“In my head I do.” She glanced back, saw he had the rifle. “I don’t want you to shoot her.”

“Neither do I.” He’d shot nothing but targets, and didn’t want to shoot the living, especially her cat.

Frowning, Lil turned back to the tree, studied it, the ground. “It looks like she dragged the kill off that way. See how the brush looks? And there’s more blood.” She crouched, poked at the ground. “There’s blood on the ground, on the brush. I thought she took the buffalo calf that way. More east. Maybe she had to move her den, or it’s another cat altogether. Keep talking and stay alert. As long as we don’t surprise her or threaten her or her young, she won’t be interested in us.”