Crow Mountain (26 page)

By midday they had dug a pit almost a metre deep, their hands sore and bleeding. Placing Buddy inside, they began to throw earth on his body with shaky fingers, piling it in until there was just a small mound in front of them. Their hands and knees were filthy. Hope began to cry again.

‘Poor Buddy.' She choked on a sob.

He hooked her head against his chest with a brown elbow. ‘Hope, please. Don't keep crying. You're breaking my heart. We'll have to be more careful, is all.' He put his lips to her forehead. ‘Thank you. You saved my life.'

Hope scrubbed her wet cheek with the cuff of the jersey miserably. ‘But not Buddy's. Will the bear come back?' she asked into his shirt.

‘Hopefully not, but I'm not sure you got a clean shot and an injured grizzly is dangerous so let's just play it safe, OK? We'll be safe enough if we just stay with the cabin, get the fire going and keep our eyes open.'

They sat on the porch, sometimes talking, sometimes not, watching the fire Cal had reignited in the fire pit. Finally the
silence got too much for Hope.

‘Should we read some more?'

He eyed it. ‘I don't know.'

‘Why?'

Cal shrugged, settling his back against the boards of the cabin. ‘Forget it. Sure. That would be good.'

Hope read aloud the visit to the Blackfoot camp. ‘Pale Eye. It suits him.'

Cal spoke after thinking. ‘It would have marked him out. Blue eyes were prized among the Indians at that stage. Grey ones even more so.'

He was sitting, feet apart, back propped against the cabin wall, wrists resting on his knees. She sat next to him, their shoulders touching, and twisted her hair into its messy knot.

‘
. . . and the last thing I saw, high in the heavens, was a star shooting across the glittering ceiling of the sky
.' Hope closed the diary. The leather cover was starting to feel like home beneath her fingers. She rubbed her hand over the front of it and looked out at the view. It was hard to imagine something so different to her London life. And it was beautiful.

Cal let his head drop back against the wooden boards. ‘Keep reading. I'm hoping they're wondering where we are about now and I need the distraction.'

Hope returned to the diary, and to the sighting of the white horse on the plain. ‘It's the white horse!' she said, breathless. ‘
Your
white horse! It can't be the same one,' she added quickly and rubbed her nose. ‘That would be mental.'

‘Yeah. Crazy.' Cal's voice was strange and distant. He stood and picked up the gun. ‘I'm going to check that crawfish pot. Can you put some more wood in the stove and some water on to boil?'

Hope watched him go. ‘Be careful,' she called after him.

He raised the rifle in acknowledgement, not looking back.

B
y the time Cal returned to the cabin, Hope's pan of water was coming to a slow boil. He put the crawfish pot in the sink, where they scratched and flopped as they crawled over each other as he banged around in the cupboards, searching for something.

‘What are you looking for?'

For a minute he didn't reply, then drew something from the back of the pine cupboard and held it up. It was a half-bottle of bourbon, cap intact. ‘Knew there'd be something here if my grampa had anything to do with it. We should drink to Buddy.'

Ten minutes later they were sitting at the table eating the boiled crawfish and toasting Buddy's life from the battered tin cups. Cal cracked a tail in his long fingers, removing the flesh in one piece. He held it out to Hope.

She took it. ‘The eighteen-sixties must have been an amazing time to be here, with all this stuff going on.'

He nodded, swallowing his own mouthful before speaking. ‘But it was the beginning of the end for the Indian tribes here, with the buffalo massacres and everything. A whole way of life, wiped out in twenty years. And then you had the pioneers.'

‘Like Nate.'

‘Like Nate.'

‘He makes me think of the Puritans.'

‘Reckon he comes from that kind of stock originally. With the grandfather sounding like a zealot and everything.'

‘It's not so much that. There's a . . . certainty to him . . . I can't think, a sureness, yes, that's what I mean. He just
knows
.'

Cal smiled. ‘Yeah, he does. Perhaps because he's pretty much got it mastered. And scouting paid well, precisely because the railroad people didn't know the land and had to trust those who lived on it. Growing up on this terrain, he knows it. He doesn't want to trap, and he couldn't pan for gold, standing in cold water all day long with his leg the way it is. The generations before him, most of them were just clinging on by their fingernails.'

‘And I didn't realize that the Indians and the settlers married.'

‘Quite a bit, I think. White women were high-status wives and a lot of the railroad and trapping scouts took Indian wives because they already knew the territory. Saved them a lot of time and trouble, and they knew how to live on the move, so
they were an asset.'

They piled shells into a dish on the table between them.

‘Do you think they'll be looking for us yet?'

‘Maybe. They'll know something's up by now.'

Hope sighed. ‘Good.' She put another shell into the dish. ‘I think I'm full.' Getting up, she washed her hands from the container standing in the sink. Outside, a light rain had begun to fall, even though the sun was still shining. The remnants of the campfire smoked and there were the beginnings of a rainbow shimmering overhead. ‘It's so lovely here.'

He glanced over at her for a second, then picked at the surface of the table. ‘You really think so?'

She nodded and came back to the table, picking up her tin cup, looking at the dash of alcohol still in the bottom. ‘Do you think these are theirs?'

Cal looked at his own. ‘Maybe. Strange to think it.'

Hope lifted her cup. ‘To Buddy. Again.'

He tapped the bent rim of his mug against hers. ‘To Buddy.'

They drank, and returned to the diary. ‘More?'

Sitting at the table, they learnt of Nate and Em's Indian wedding party.

‘Amazing. And awful,' Hope said in wonder. ‘Poor Nate.'

‘Yep,' Cal agreed.

‘And poor Emily. He should have warned her about it being a wedding.'

Cal shrugged. ‘I think he thought he'd probably get away without telling her. Indian weddings weren't such a big deal
back then, just a feast and then you moved in together. Not much fuss.'

‘Apart from the outfit.'

‘Oh, yeah, you were supposed to have one of those.'

She sighed. ‘And she's decided she doesn't really want to leave him.'

He nodded. ‘It's a real kicker.'

‘
Rose
is a shit-kicker.'

Cal barked a laugh. ‘She is. But I like her.'

Hope rested her head on her hand. ‘Were there lots of women like her?'

He sat back. ‘I wouldn't say lots. But the Indians recognize more genders than we do. So someone like Rose wasn't out of the ordinary for them.'

She picked up the diary and read on a few pages. ‘I did not see that coming with Rose.'

Cal laughed. ‘Nor did I, but I'm not sure anything Rose does would surprise me. I think she's making it up as she goes along. And she's given me an idea.' He jumped up and held out his hands. ‘Come on, let's swim.'

‘But . . . what about the bear?'

He shrugged. ‘I don't know, but I'm not sitting trapped in here. I'll go stir-crazy.'

On the porch Cal stripped quickly, down to his jersey trunks. Hope hesitated, then undressed to her pants and T-shirt as he hopped, pulling off his socks.

‘Ready?' He glanced across at her.

She nodded.

‘Go!' They ran to the stream in the pattering rain and jumped in with a huge splash. Swimming quickly to keep themselves warm, they scrubbed their sore hands and Hope washed her dirty knees. Cal ducked beneath the surface and then stood up, shaking the water from his hair and gasping. Hope floated on her back for a few seconds, looking up at the sky. High above them, a jet leaked a contrail. She pointed.

‘Look at that. All that way up there. And they have no idea we're here, even if they were looking. Like Emily's family.'

Cal boosted himself on to the side of the pool, just leaving his legs in the water. Hope got up to sit next to him, her hair sopping wet and running. The sun was still shining and out of the water it felt warm. The air was damp but it was no longer drizzling. High, fine clouds streaked the blue sky in mares' tails. Light bounced off the lake, making the treeline a dark silhouette. There were more wild flowers than ever in the meadow.

‘Cooper?'

‘Yes?'

‘You're pretty great, you know that, don't you?'

Hope ducked her head. ‘You're not so bad yourself.'

‘I'm going to take that as . . . awesome, incredible, or something.'

She laughed.

Getting up, he picked up the rifle and held out his hand to her. ‘C'mon. Thought we'd take a tip from Nate.'

Hope let him pull her to her feet. ‘What's that?'

‘You'll see.'

At the edge of the forest, they found a patch of wild mint.

‘Oh, yes please,' said Hope. ‘That coffee's a bit rank, to be honest.'

A short time later, they sat on the porch, drinking the mint tea and talking. Hope was wearing an old shirt she'd found in the cupboard inside, and her shorts. Cal was back in his jeans and shirt. Their wet things were hanging over the porch rail.

Hope scanned the hillside. Dusk was coming down. ‘How much longer do you think?'

He shrugged. ‘No idea. I was hoping Dad would have thought of this place pretty quickly. Tomorrow?'

Hope rubbed her arms, nodding. ‘I'm not sure how many more crawfish I can boil alive.'

He smiled. He was sitting with his back to the cabin wall, a blanket like a shroud around him, knees bent, watching the fire in front of the little house. Hope fetched the diary and sat down next to him, shoulders touching.

She opened the book. Soon she paused, breathless, as Nate returned to the cabin. ‘He's back!'

‘Go on then. What happens next?'

Hope read on, her voice faltering slightly. After Em's recounting of Nate's return, Hope closed the book. They both looked down at the meadow.

‘They—'

The kiss surprised her, his hand against her hair. Sweet and gentle, it was a gesture to a moment in time, an honouring of the story that had unfolded in the same place one hundred and fifty years before. And it was the perfect first kiss.

A flock of butterflies settled in Hope's stomach. She had always imagined kissing someone properly would be weird and awkward at first. But it wasn't. Her fingers slid into the thick, soft hair at the back of his neck as she leant against him. He covered her hand with his own and broke away slightly, touching his forehead to hers and closing his eyes. Neither of them were breathing steadily.

‘Hope, there's something I need to tell you.' He shifted away a little. ‘You remember Chief Hart?'

‘Yes. Like the Hart in the book. Dan's father?'

‘Yes. They have a daughter, Carrie, too.'

Hope said nothing.

‘So, anyway. She was sweet on me, always, since we were little kids. Year younger. And the chief's a real piece of work inside the home, if you get my meaning. Carrie's mom's one of those women who walks into a lot of doors. And everyone knows, and no one says anything. And so he just gets away with it. That police officer, the one at the store. She does a lot up on the rez – she's big on issues like men beating up on women, and tried to speak to Carrie once, but even she can't do anything about it. I mean, who's going to prosecute a police chief for domestic violence in a place like this?' He struggled to speak through his teeth, then went on, ‘Anyway, she – Carrie . . . well it got a little crazy.' He pushed a hand through his untidy hair. ‘We started seeing each other, after Tyler died. Mom and Dad knew, sort of. They didn't know we were seeing so much of each other. I don't even know why I was doing it really. To make a point?' He took a deep breath.
‘So, a friend of Matty's has this great cabin upcounty. There's two of them on the edge of a trout lake. I told my parents I was going to stay over with Matty. But Carrie and I drove to the cabin. It was a Saturday.' He hesitated. ‘Then there was a banging on the door and Dan and Steve were there. They'd followed us, seeing as how my rig isn't exactly the least distinctive vehicle around, and they'd been drinking. Anyway, due to the situation being as it was, they got a drop on me, and I got pretty broken up. Carrie's screaming at them. And then her father arrives, with what feels like half the county police.'

His face was unreadable. There was a pause before he went on.

‘Carrie had chickened out of telling her parents she was spending the night away. Her dad's real strict and she just hadn't . . . so they were looking for her. She'd never even mentioned she was going anywhere. I mean, you can understand how they were worried. And when we'd arrived . . . I . . . I threw her over my shoulder and carried her into the cabin and she was shouting and beating me on the ass. This woman, she was staying at the other cabin and she'd seen that, and at the time she thought it was just in fun, which it was, but when the police arrived she must've kinda got caught up in the story. And she told them that, and made it sound bad. They thought I'd . . . made her go there.' He breathed out in a rush, shaking his head at the memory. ‘Carrie was always so scared of him and when they came through the door yelling and hollering at me to get down on my knees and put my hands
behind my head and all that stuff, she started to cry and . . . let them believe that it was true—'

‘She did
what
?' Hope whispered.

He waited for a second, trying to stem the tide of words threatening to flow out of him. ‘Yeah, I know. And I kinda understand why she did it, but—'

‘What happened then?'

‘They broke my face some more and a few ribs, my throwing arm. Hauled me into the station. And over the coals.'

Hope stared at him.

He shrugged in answer to her silent questions. ‘No, it wasn't the most fun I've ever had.'

‘And then?'

‘And then my dad came and they talked and Carrie's dad said he was going to prosecute me for rape.' He dropped his head. ‘And then Carrie begged him not to, told them she couldn't stand it if people knew what had happened to her. That this was a small community and that everyone knew our families. But of course, Fort Shaw is a small town, so the whole place knew within twenty-four hours. It was in every local paper, my name.
Our
name. Then the chief put word out he was dropping charges for Carrie's sake.' His voice was bitter. ‘I still have a criminal record.'

‘But if you didn't do it and the charges were dropped, how—'

‘Sex crime arrests aren't expunged. Even if the charges are dropped.'

Hope rubbed her face. ‘Oh God. Is she still here?'

‘Yeah. They live just outside Fort Shaw.'

‘Do you see her around?'

‘Not really. I don't want to see her. She tries to call me sometimes, usually late at night, but I just let it ring out. Look, I just needed to tell you. When we get back. Back from here. Well, I didn't want anyone telling you anything that might freak you out . . . I thought I should just tell you my version of the story. And now Chief Hart's made it his business to persecute my family. Even the people who work for us end up getting a parking ticket every time they go into town.'