Deborah Camp (30 page)

A tremor of apprehension coursed through her and weakened her knees. She sat in the rocking chair Tucker had made and told herself not to waste worries on the outcome of her careful preparations. If he tried to kiss her, she’d let him. She’d enjoy it, too. If he placed his hands on her breasts, she wouldn’t shrink from him. She only hoped her resolve wasn’t built on sand. She had tried once to respond to Micah’s attentions, but had bolted from his arms when his kisses had become demanding and his hands more imprisoning. It would be different with Tucker, she told herself. Oh, she hoped it would be different. She prayed
she
would be different. More than anything, she wanted to find a
trace of the trusting girl she’d been before Stands Tall had driven that girl from her body with his burning, plunging thrusts.

Copper stopped, realizing that she’d bounded from the chair and was pacing restlessly. She checked the table, needlessly adjusting the two settings and peeking under the cloth covering the fried venison. She heard footfalls outside and spun around to greet Tucker with a smile as he opened the door.

“Supper’s ready,” she said, a bit too loudly.

He stamped snow off his knee-high moccasins. “I’ve been smelling it and my stomach’s growling like a grizzly.” His gaze lit on hers and surprise spread a grin over his face. “Well, well, don’t you look pretty in that daisy yellow dress.” He planted his hands on his hips. “Yesirree. You look good enough to pluck, sugar. I’ve a good mind to pick you and wear you close to my heart.” He glanced at his leather pants and wool shirt. “I ought to change. I don’t think I’m fit to sit at the table with someone so beautiful.”

She turned away from him to hide the high color in her cheeks. No man had ever flustered her as he did. She had laughed at compliments from Micah and Gus, but she beamed inwardly and blushed outwardly at every sweet word Tucker spoke.

“Wash up and come to the table,” she murmured.

Copper uncovered the food and lit the wax candles. After scrubbing his hands and arms up to the elbows, Tucker held out her chair for her. She looked from the chair to him, confused.

“A gentleman seats his lady before taking his own seat.”

“Oh, I see.” She sat down and he scooted her and the chair to the table edge.

“You’re wearing your mother’s comb,” he noted. “Looks pretty.”

Copper touched it. “How do ladies wear their hair? I don’t know anything about fashion.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “You’re a natural beauty. Everything looks wonderful on you.”

“My, my! You’re a regular font of flattery this evening.”

“You inspire me.” He held out the bowl of greens to her.

“What other things do ladies and gentlemen do?”

He made a face. “Oh, they call each other ‘mister’ and ‘miss’ and they steal kisses on porch swings and in front parlors. I don’t yearn for those social trappings, believe me.”

“All people have their mating rituals. Usually they protect the girls from boys who would take advantage of them.”

Tucker grinned. “Boys will be boys.” He squinted one eye to study her until she became uncomfortable and sent him a baffled glance through her lowered lashes. He cleared his throat and switched his attention to slicing the venison steak. “Sorry. I was wondering what your given name might have been.”

“Rebekah.”

Tucker’s knife and fork clattered to his plate. “You know that? Rebekah’s your real name?”

She bobbed one shoulder. “I remember being called Rebekah.”

“Do you know your last name, too?” Excitement sent his voice up in register.

“Fincannon? It’s a name that sticks in my brain and feels right on my tongue.” She gave him a curious look. “Why? What difference does it make to you?”

“You could track down your people!”

“They were killed.”

“Yes, your immediate family was killed, but you have cousins and aunts and uncles somewhere.
Maybe even grandparents. You might be heiress to property and riches!”

She laughed with derision. “I doubt that. Why would a rich family journey out west?”

“For the adventure! Or for a new start. Or just to get away from meddlesome relatives. Rich people travel west all the time.”

“If so, they can keep their riches.”

“Don’t you want to know about your people?”

“Not really.”

“You’re not even curious?”

She glanced at his plate. “Save room for dessert.”

“Rebekah, answer me.”

Copper shook her head. “Don’t call me that.”

“But it’s your name, and it’s a beautiful name. It’s from the Bible.”

“Yes, I know, but it’s not me. I’m not Rebekah. I’m Copper.”

“Look, the Crow don’t claim you anymore, so why not go back to your white name?”

She sighed and searched for a succinct explanation. “Long ago a young girl was called Rebekah Fincannon. She vanished when the Crow took her. For the first few years she was known as Walks Among Spirits.”

“Walks Among Spirits? Because you survived the Indian attack?”

She nodded. “Then as I reached my woman years I was renamed Copper Headed Woman because of my hair and because Stands Tall didn’t want me to have a name associated with great medicine.”

“Why not?”

Copper smiled knowingly. “He was jealous of my medicine and he was a little afraid of me. By changing my name he hoped to lessen my power.” She smiled more broadly. “It didn’t work. My medicine gave me strength and my new name
pleased me. My hair set me apart and that lent me even more mystery and more medicine.”

“I think I’ll call you Rebekah.”

“No,” she said emphatically.

“Why not?”

“Calling me by a name strange to me won’t make me different.”

“I didn’t say it would.”

“Just like Rides In A Circle going by Ann.” She made a scoffing sound and waved her fork. “It changes nothing. There’s nothing wrong with the name I have now.”

He started to argue, but recognized the stubborn expression on her face and knew better than to waste his breath. “Well, I’ve never known a woman with so many names. No, wait.” He angled a glance upward in deep thought. “I did know of a woman in Springfield who’d been married four times. Edith Abbott Henderson Full-bright Watkins Sharkey.”

Copper gulped. “What happened to all of her husbands?”

“They died. Edith spent more time in widow’s weeds than out of them. Fortunately, black became her.”

Copper giggled. “You’re making this up.”

“No, I swear!” He held up one hand in a solemn oath. “She was one of my grandmother’s best friends. I tell you, I’m feeling drab, having only one name my whole life. Maybe I should conjure up a new moniker.”

Copper shook her head. “Tucker Jones suits you fine. Have you a middle name?”

“I do.” He squared his shoulders with importance. “Washington. Tucker Washington Jones. All three of those are surnames in my family. Tucker is my mother’s maiden name. Washington is my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. My mother had enough Eastern seaboard snobbishness about her that she wanted everybody to know that her
blood and the blood of her offspring was tinted blue.”

Copper snickered along with him. Bluebloods seemed grossly unimportant in the shadow of the great Rockies. “How’s the food?”

“Delicious. This venison’s so tender I can cut it with my fork. What’s for dessert?”

“Berry cobbler. My Crow mother’s recipe.”

He wore one of the wool shirts she’d made for him. It fit snugly over his shoulders and chest, the blue color changing his eyes to turquoise. Stubble darkened his jaw and chin. The bruised skin around his left eye had faded to pale yellow. He looked ruggedly handsome and achingly familiar to her. She’d grown accustomed to his moods, his laugh, the mischievious glint in his eyes. She had come to expect his flattery, his kindness, his affection for her and her child. Their relationship had changed when the splints and walking stick were no longer needed and he had regained his strength and agility. Ironically, she missed his depending on her, and she felt more vulnerable with the return of his former vitality. He was no longer hers to oversee. He was a man used to fending for himself, accustomed to giving orders and not taking them.

She could see him in her mind’s eye in his Yankee dress uniform, cutting a dashing figure.
Captain Tucker Jones
. He fit the image of a brave cavalry soldier, commanding a regiment, being decorated for his heroism.

“Where are your medals?” she asked, realizing a moment later that her question revealed her thoughts of him.

“Medals,” he repeated, then finished chewing his food and swallowed it before he answered. “Military medals, you mean? With the rest of my gear … wherever that is.”

“You had many?”

“A couple. Bars and stars and ribbons.” He
sighed. “Funny how they meant so much then and mean so little now.” He stared into the hearth’s fire. “I wonder what kind of life I’ll find when I leave here. I know one thing, I won’t be able to pick up where I left off. I’ve changed.”

“That’s bad?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Will you be put in jail?”

His gaze jerked to her. “Not if I can help it.” He made a fuss of pushing aside his empty plate. “Where’s that berry cobbler, woman? I’ve saved a place for it, as ordered.”

While she dipped the cobbler onto their plates, Tucker leaned sideways toward Valor’s cradle. “You got her settled down early tonight.”

“I wanted to sup without jostling her in my lap for a change.”

“What’s the occasion, Copper?” he asked, giving her a sly look.

“Homecoming, that’s all. We’ve been away and it’s good to be back in our own surroundings.” She tried to sound nonchalantly convincing.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“I thought maybe you put on that dress and stuck that pretty comb in your hair to tempt me. While I appreciate the effort, it’s not necessary. I’m smitten.”

She felt herself blush again. Helpless to prevent the nervous flutterings inside her, she shoveled berry cobbler into her mouth and refused to look at him.

“We’ve come a ways, haven’t we?” Laughter threaded through his voice. “I remember not so long ago when you rattled on about my body hair and my man’s root without bringing a touch of color to your face. Now I say something innocent like ‘I’m smitten’ and you’re all shy and pink-faced. I do believe I make you nervous, sugar.”

She swallowed the cobbler. “I do believe you
make too much of my red face,
shugah
. If you were sitting here close to the fire, you’d be red-faced, too.”

His laugh was deep and wholly masculine. “Oh, you’re close to a fire, but the one in the hearth is nothing compared to the one blazing between us.” He reached across the table and captured one of her hands. “Don’t bother to deny it. If Stands Tall had been a good lover, I would have been sharing your bunk weeks ago. He left a broken heart behind for me to mend.” He smiled jauntily, his fingertips moving like a whisper across the top of her hand. “Fortunately for you, I’m just the man for the job.”

Copper eased her hand from his to stack the dishes. “It’s good that Micah and Rides In A Circle are going to stay together at least until the baby is born. I think once Micah sees his child he won’t want to leave his new family.” She lifted her eyes to his. “Don’t you?”

“I think you know that Micah is not my favorite subject. You’re trying to throw this dog off the scent.”

“After we wash and dry these dishes, how about a game of checkers?”

“Checkers isn’t the game I had in mind.”

She released a long sigh. “Tucker, please don’t go on. I was afraid you’d get the wrong idea about this supper and my wearing this dress.”

“And what was I supposed to think? I’ll give
you
something to think about, darlin’. You want me to stick around until spring because you have strong feelings for me, not because we struck a trade. The way I figure it, if I wasn’t so good-looking and charming, you wouldn’t have gone to so much dagburned trouble to keep me.”

“I do like having you around, but my promise to take you to civilization in the spring stands.”

He made a disparaging sound. “I wish you’d be honest with yourself.”

“I’ll wash the dishes, and you’ll dry and put them away.”

He backed off, sensing that she was inches away from rejecting him altogether. She was as skittish as a young doe and he hadn’t discovered a way to tame her. Silently, he dried the dishes she washed. The fire in the hearth crackled and spit and cast tall, wavering shadows over the cabin walls. Sentry, lying near the door, raised his head and pricked his ears. A moment later Patrol bellowed outside and Sentry jumped up and lunged at the door.

“Hey, hey!” Tucker pulled the excited hound back. “You’re going to knock yourself out, you dumb mutt.”

Something thumped near the door. Caterwauling filled the night. Patrol barked outside and growled into the distance as he gave chase.

“What the hell?”

“Be careful! Arm yourself!” Copper whispered fiercely as Tucker lifted the bar off the door.

Grabbing the repeater, Tucker opened the door. Sentry dashed out and disappeared through the trees, following the faint bark of Patrol. Copper whistled shrilly, calling back the dogs.

“Let them hunt down whatever …” Tucker’s voice faded as his gaze landed on the decorated spear stuck in the side of the cabin. “What’s this? Another warning from the Gros Ventre?”

She shook her head and yanked the spear from the cabin wall. “Crow, but not my band.” She examined the wood shaft, painted with bars and wiggly lines, strung with buzzard feathers and a coyote’s tale. “Chief Weasel Teeth’s tribe. They camp below and don’t winter up in geyser country with other mountain Crow. Chief Weasel Teeth thinks bad spirits haunt the geysers because his son went there and never returned.”

“It never crossed the chief’s mind that his son
might have run across some desperados and lost his life?”

“More likely his son didn’t want to return. He was to be married soon and it’s said he didn’t want to take a wife.” Her sideways glance held amusement. “Men were more to his liking, and changing his name from Gentle Boy to Rutting Buffalo didn’t alter his persuasion.”