Crow Mountain (23 page)

‘Do you want Tara?'

‘No, this kid's faster on the flat even if he is a little jumpy. And this'll be all about the running.' I could see, already, that you were anticipating the chase. You licked your lip, catching it in your teeth as your chest settled on a deep breath.

We set out, slow and easy at first, spreading out across the plain, trying to get as close as possible. The white horse wasn't spooky though, and when the band split – me with you, Lucky and Rose to east and west – he carried on grazing, mane flowing over his neck with each snatch at the grass. You ignored me, in the main, your focus with the stallion, but at last, when we were no more than forty yards away, you spoke.

‘Em, when we go, we go. If you lose us don't fret none, I'll be back. OK?'

‘OK.' I nodded, threading my reins.

‘And don't tire Tara out trying to chase us. I don't want
her leg in some prairie dog hole and your necks broke for the sake of it.'

‘Yes.'

You lifted the rope from your saddlehorn and began to feed it out. Lucky was watching you, waiting for the signal. Rose was letting out her rope too. You unlooped the canteen and passed it to me. I put it over my shoulder.

The stallion raised his head, wary. He lifted his muzzle into the wind, scenting our approach. He watched, alert, as you and Lucky began to close in on him, Rose at the rear. Suddenly he wheeled and took flight across the plain, heading straight for the buffalo herd. Lucky let out a cry as you all bolted after him. I followed, Tara surging into her skating gallop as we drove the stallion and the herd ahead of us. The sun was hot on my face and the wind blew as I sat deep in the saddle, urging Tara on, reins over her neck. The combination of the herd's presence and my lighter weight meant that we had no trouble keeping up with all of you, and I felt soaring pride as our little mare ran neck and neck with Rose's magnificent grey. She looked across and grinned, all hair and teeth and russet skin, whooping with joy at life.

In the end, it was the stallion's decision to flee into the herd that led to his capture. The buffalo were fast, but not nearly as fast as we, and their delay in reacting meant he was hampered considerably, although the dust storm they created as they began to stampede was quick to blight the air. Lucky rode him off, steering him directly into your path. There was a moment when I feared, desperately, that he would barge
your red horse, throwing all your weight on to your weaker leg. But it didn't happen and then your noose was dropping over his head in the cloud of dust raised by the buffalo.

Rose rode in from the other side, rope falling over the stallion's crested neck. For a few seconds, I lost sight of you all, the dust was so thick. I reined Tara to a quick halt, coughing. We sat, immobile, in the fog. A buffalo calf cried out for his mother and she lowed in return. Tara and I moved away from the sound, not wanting to come between them. We shifted out of the dust, back the way we'd come. Cresting a small rise, we sat and waited, watching for you. It was only a few minutes before you appeared, leading the white stallion like a pony.

Your face was filthy and you were sweating, your shirt sticking to you in patches. Rose appeared, sneezing roundly, and then Lucky, his face as deadpan as ever but dust clinging to the sweat and clay on his chest. Tara and I fell in with you. Your eyes never left the white horse as we headed back across the plain. You'd given him plenty of rope, but he did not seem to be averse to being led. I could see you were frowning.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Ain't supposed to be this easy is what's the matter. This horse, supposedly uncatchable, is acting like he wanted to be caught.'

We walked on steadily. ‘But how is that a bad thing?'

You shrugged, still worried. ‘Don't know. Maybe he's sick or something.'

The horse followed on behind us all day, as we rode
southeast. Ultimately we were heading for our mountain, but it would take us time to get there, perhaps as long as four days. You were confident the scout was done.

‘Told you, ain't nothing coming through there.' I could hear the satisfaction in your voice.

That night we struck camp by a shallow creek threading its way through the plain and ate a spare meal of pemmican and water. You had spent an hour or so getting close to the stallion, purely so you could restrain him by tying him to a tree. Yet the white horse remained perfectly still. Finally you stood at his head, speaking to him but not touching. His ears flicked backwards and forwards alternately, listening. Tara edged her way closer to him as she cropped the grass contentedly, and by the time we were preparing to bed down, they were standing together, blowing into each other's noses.

You lay down next to me at the edge of the fire. Rose was nowhere to be seen, but Lucky and Clear Water were following our lead. Propping your head on your hand, you watched the stallion and Tara.

‘Your horse is a flirt, know that?'

I craned my neck on the blanket to see them. ‘A flirt?'

‘She sure is. Give it another day, she'll have him eating out of her hand.'

We watched them in silence as Tara turned abruptly and walked off, leaving the stallion unable to follow. You shook your head, settling down. ‘Women.'

I elbowed you in the stomach but we were so close together in the bedroll there was no force behind it. You
huffed a laugh.

‘Tara's my horse now?' I asked, settling my head on her blanket.

‘Guess so, English. Don't girlfriends gang together?' You said, drowsy, laying your hand against my face. Just for a second, your fingers touched my mouth before they moved to rest on the blanket.

‘I don't know,' I said some minutes later when I could breathe again, but you were already asleep.

It took us exactly four days to reach home, by which time I was considerably tougher, although very bruised and sore. It seemed to mean little to me now when it rained occasionally as we crossed the plain, or at night when we lay beneath our large oilcloth sheet, talking in the dark as the raindrops bounced and popped from the material above us, tented by the saddles. I no longer felt the cold, nor minded sleeping on the ground.

As we broke from the forest and the cabin appeared high on the mountainside, my heart lifted. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was full on the meadow, lighting up the shingle roof and the wild flowers. We rode up to it and you led the stallion into the corral. Rose and Lucky put the rails in place behind you, almost six feet high, then you ducked out between them with your peculiar slight of shifting your weight so your right leg didn't buckle.

I untacked Tara at the porch rail, rubbing her down and thanking her for her service. As I slipped her bridle, she blew
at me, then moved off towards the corral and the stallion.

Dropping the saddle over the rail, I hung up her bridle and eyed the washtub. It had never looked so inviting, yet I couldn't take advantage of it with your family so close by. Clear Water was already making camp near the stream, just down from the cabin, setting up a fire pit and moving purposefully from one task to another. Lucky was sitting, cross-legged, looking at the view and smoking. Rose was watering the horses and preparing to tether them where they could rest and graze. You were already inside the house, getting the stove and the fire lit. Coming on to the porch, you saw me looking at the washtub.

‘Want to take a bath?'

‘More than
anything
,' I said, like a tired child. ‘But how can I with everyone here?'

You studied me for a few seconds. Disappearing inside, you returned with the quilt from the bed. Shifting Tara's saddle, you draped it over the porch rail. You put her saddle blanket over the side rail, effectively creating a screened area. Filling the tub, you studied me over your shoulder.

‘Never say I do nothing for you.'

‘Have I ever said that?' I asked honestly, shoulders slumping.

You straightened up, shaking off your hand. ‘Guess not.'

Going inside, I stripped and wrapped myself in a towel, taking the soap and the bottle of hair wash. I ached to be clean. On the porch I crouched behind my screen, yanking the lace from my braid and shaking out the thick, dirty hanks.
I clambered into the tub, sat down with a bump and threw water on my face. It was wonderfully cold and refreshing. I realized I'd forgotten the jug. I hesitated.

‘Nate?'

‘Yep?' you called from somewhere behind the cabin, near the woodpile.

‘I forgot the jug.'

There was a pause. ‘What use are you?'

I smiled against my bruise-spattered knees. ‘No use at all.'

You appeared on the step half a minute later, a piece of cut wood in either hand. I sat in the tub, hugging my shins. You shook your head, laughing. Returning with the jug, you made as if to pass it to me, then pulled it out of my reach as I was about to thank you. You put your free hand to your ear.

‘What did you say? I didn't hear . . .' You were teasing.

‘I said thank you!'

‘You did? Maybe I'm going deaf.'

I looked at you primly. ‘Maybe you are.'

Grinning, you stooped, filled the jug in the tub by my legs and tipped it straight over my head. I shrieked with surprise and laughter.

‘Nate!' I tried to wipe my face and maintain my modesty: it wasn't easy.

You dropped to your knees and rubbed my head with soap from the bottle, rough and gentle at the same time. ‘Do I have to do everything for you, English?' you teased, laughing.

‘No!' I spluttered.

Your hands stilled instantly. ‘You don't like this?'

‘No. No, I—' I had said something wrong.

You knelt in front of me and rested your wrists on the edge of the tub, watching for a long time. I sat in your captivating pale gaze, blinking as water trickled into my eyes. Reaching up, you hesitated before running the backs of your fingers over the line of my collarbone to my shoulder and down my arm. My breath snatched and I sat back, away from you, hands crossed over my chest.

You crouched back on your heels, very slowly. ‘Emily, you need to work out what you like and what you don't.' Pushing to your feet, you dropped down from the porch steps and went to talk to the others.

I sat in the chill water, my hair a sodden sheet, eyes stinging with soap. And my fingertips tracing the path of yours across my skin.

I barely saw you for the rest of the day, busy in our home-coming chores as we were, and that night I felt awkward. We ate with the others but I wasn't hungry and didn't eat much of the rabbit Lucky had snared. You rarely looked at me and you all spoke in your scratchy talk. Getting to my feet, I went back to the cabin. Tara was by the corral again, flirting you said, so I ignored her, annoyed. Climbing into the armchair, I wrapped myself in the quilted coverlet and watched the fire as I gnawed on your words. Yet I was too exhausted to do so for long and soon I was fast asleep.

I woke, at dawn, in our bed, still swaddled in the coverlet, spine against your chest where the pigeon-feather mattress
pushed us together in the centre. One of your arms was beneath my neck, hand slack on the sheet in front of my face, and now and then one of your fingers twitched in your sleep. The other arm was around my ribs. It felt wrong without the cramped bedroll; we weren't on the plain any more. Yet it was so perfectly warm and comfortable after our weeks on the hard earth, my body was unwilling to move. I lay for a long time, reassured by the steady movement of your chest as you breathed, though agitated by it at the same time. But I didn't know why. Full of confusion, I pushed your arm away as if it were burning me, and got to my feet.

‘You all right?' you asked, no sleep in your voice.

No, I wasn't all right at all. I opened my mouth to speak, but the truth stuck in my throat. ‘Perfectly, thank you.' I roused the embers of the stove, then fetched some water to boil.

You were soon up and out, first to the stream, then to the corral. I washed and dressed and walked down to where you stood, bad foot on the rail and a blade of grass in the corner of your mouth. You were watching the white horse.

I settled my hands on a rail, unsure of my reception. ‘What's going to happen with him?'

It was a long time before you replied, but when you did your tone was friendly. ‘Well . . . well, English. It's like this. It'd be a damnable shame to back a horse like that one there. He ain't never gonna be no riding animal. I like the horses I break to lie down and play dead if I ask them to, and he ain't ever gonna be that biddable. Wouldn't want him to be.
Though he's making a pretty good pretence of it now.'

‘He's pretending?'

You were bemused. ‘I ain't real sure, Emily. I mean, entires can be real placid around a mare, but . . .'

‘Entire what, please?'

You put the back of your hand to your cheekbone and rubbed it down your jaw, looking away. I realize now, of course, that it was in a sterling effort not to laugh.

The silence confused me. ‘So what will you do with him?'

‘My meaning was, he's a breeder. So, I'm thinking, we should put him to a mare.'

Aware of my shameful ignorance, I said nothing.

‘Problem is, which one? Rose's grey is one hell of an animal, but she's been in season just a few weeks ago. And Rose ain't one to stick in a place for that to come around again and, besides, she ain't got no time for a birthing mare nohow. And I ain't kept track of what Tara's up to, when it's just the two of us up here.'

As far as I was concerned, your words were nonsense. I had no idea.

You slapped the rail. ‘Problems for another day.' Your knuckle touched my chin so briefly I half started and half wondered if it had happened as you turned and walked away to talk to the others, who were stirring in their camp by the stream.

The following days passed quickly. At night I pretended to be asleep when you turned in. And we slept in our bed as we had
on the plain: companionably enough. Other than that, you didn't touch me again.