Reason To Believe (29 page)

"You appreciate the necessities more when they become scarce. But then it becomes easier to unload all the nonessentials. Harvey is big enough to carry everything that's important to me."

"Harvey, your pickup."

He smiled. "I'll bet your horse has a name."

"Yes," she said, responding to his reference with a smile. "Misty Too. Named after the first horse Ben gave me. We had to sell her, but she was such a beautiful—"

"See you found us again, Cady," Ben said, joining them. He carried the scent of woodsmoke, winter-cold air, and the freshly poured coffee he'd acquired along the way.

"From the looks of it, I'm about to lose you again," Cady said, flashing his map. "I probably won't catch up to you again until..."

"Bridger's easy enough to find. You wanna keep driving, I'd head down there if I were you." Ben looked at the map, then nodded toward the door. "We're on the Moreau River here. We're headin' for Cherry Creek. You're gonna need a horse if you wanna stick with us, 'cause we'll be ridin' through bum-fuck Egypt." He glanced at Clara, then smiled. "Ever been there, Cady? In your many travels?"

"Can't say that I have."

"You won't get there without a horse."

"Then I guess I won't get there." Cady folded his map and pocketed it. "I don't force any creature to submit to my will. It's not a crusade or anything. Just the way I like to handle that aspect of my life." With a gesture he hastened to add, "I make no judgments, you understand. Horses are a way of life for you people. In some ways, Harvey and I enjoy a similar relationship."

Ben looked confused. "Harvey's your boyfriend?"

"Harvey's my truck."

"Your pickup?" Ben shrugged as he took a sip of coffee. "I make no judgments, either, Cady. Hell, whatever works for you." He grinned mischievously. "Whatever turns ol' Harvey on."

"Just a simple key."

"The key to heaven? Or is it more like the one I've got?" Ben pulled the keys to his friend's trailer from his jacket pocket. "This'll get in right next door to heaven. But like I say, depends on what ol' Harvey likes. I'm pretty good with pickups myself. What is he, a Ford?"

Cady was laughing now. "A Ford, yes."

"I've got a thing for Chevys. But now, a Ford, you never force one o' those babies, either. You give 'em a little grease in a couple places most people don't know about..." Ben's eyes sparkled merrily. "Ah, but you do. I can tell, you're a sensitive man."

"You really crack me up, Ben. I've heard about Indian humor, that there's a special character to it."

Clara chuckled. "Actually, the special character is Ben Pipestone."

"I get kinda crazy when I've had a few drinks—" Ben tossed her a wink "—of Clara's bathwater. Damn, that stuff's potent." He folded his arms, balancing his coffee near his elbow, obviously feeling quite full of himself. "That wasn't really good Indian humor, Cady. That was more like cowboy humor. I'm bilingual, you know."

"I'd say you're way beyond bi," the photographer enjoined.

"Hey, good one, Cady." Ben nodded, slipping Clara another familiar look as he lifted his cup. "He
touched
me pretty good, didn't he?"

"It went right over my head," Clara said, playing it coy.

"I'm sure you both have an appreciation for cowboy and Indian humor," Cady said. "You'll have to teach me the difference. I've always fancied myself a cowboy of sorts."

Ben nearly choked on his coffee. "What the hell's that? A cowboy
of sorts?"

"Obviously not the kind who rides horses except maybe in some sort of—" Cady twirled his hand with an illustrative flourish "—mythical way."

"Ever worked on a ranch?"

"I'm speaking metaphorically."

"Meta...?" Ben looked at Clara. "Must be a fancy word for bullshitting."

"Oh, Ben," she admonished. "He just means—"

"I don't give a damn how much bull you can throw, it ain't gonna make you no cowboy. Not even
of sorts."

Cady drew back, wounded. "What have you got against me, Ben?"

"Not a goddamn thing. Just don't try to bullshit a bullshitter." Ben's smile did not touch his eyes. "Or a bullshitter's wife. She's heard it all."

"I'm sure that's good advice."

"Best piece of advice you're likely to come by around here. We don't go throwin' a lot of advice around." He shrugged. "Just bullshit."

Ben felt as though he'd just scored a knockout without even touching his rival. He'd always hated it when Clara got involved in a deep, heavy discussion with a man. She could discuss anything she wanted with another woman, but the sight and sound of his woman having a serious discussion with another man made his blood run hot with resentment. He had to work hard to keep his cool. He had to remind himself that discourse and intercourse were not the same, even though it sure seemed like infidelity—
of sorts
—to him. Especially when the guy was a philosophical smart-ass. The kind whose verbal sparring led to mind-fucking.

But not this time. Not with
this
cowboy's wife.

Clara was pissed at him over it, though, he could tell. She didn't realize what a coup he'd just scored. Hell, it was a man thing. It was the part that really
had
sailed right past her, which left her pretty pissed.

Ignoring the darts her eyes fired at him, he introduced her to Marty Thomas, the owner of the bathtub.

"That was a lifesaver," Clara declared, shaking Marty's callused hand. "Thank you."

Marty nodded. "I've got a girl your daughter's age. They've hit it off pretty good. They're all over to her mother's house." He puckered and pointed his lips at the window. "Just up the way."

"Annie asked me to ask you if you mind if she stays over there tonight," Ben told Clara.

"They're makin' a bunch of caramel rolls for breakfast," Marty said.

"Sounds very nice." Clara shrugged. "I don't mind."

"So you won't have any kids around tonight," Marty said, including both of them in his smile. "Give you a little elbow room, huh?"

Clara looked up at Ben after Marty walked away. "I take it you haven't seen that particular rodeo buddy in a while."

"No, I haven't. Even if I had..." Ben's eyes flitted nonchalantly over the heads of the gathering. "I don't discuss my private life with too many people. Everybody knows you're my wife, and until that changes—"

"That's always been part of your problem. You never really talk to people. Half the time you just smart off, like—"

He drilled her with an abrupt stare. "You mean like I did with your friend Cady? He can take a joke, can't he?"

"He's not
my friend."

"You don't like him? Hell, I thought we were havin'
a
nice little talk there, like three
compadres."

"I hardly know him." She returned his heated look. "But I know you, and I know exactly what you were thinking and what you were doing."

"Jesus, I wasn't thinkin' much, and I wasn't
doin
a
goddamn thing."

"Trying to make the poor man feel foolish."

"The
poor man
oughta feel foolish. He looks like
a
goddamn..." He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "I don't like the way he keeps tryin' to get next to you."

"Now you're being foolish." She spoke to him with that schoolmarm self-possession that always got to him when he felt his own confidence suddenly slipping. "You know, I've never understood this," she clipped.
"You're
the one who's always flirting around with other..."

"I'm
the one," he echoed incredulously.

"I'm not like that, and I never have been. My interests are not... like that."

"And I've got no right to question anyone else's..." He didn't, and he knew it even though he'd yet to accept it.

"No
reason
to. Even if the man were my friend."

Settle down, he told himself. You're exposing your whole goddamn hand, and there's nothing in it but bluff. He folded his arms and eyed Cady across the room. "You think he's married?"

"Divorced."

"He told you that?"
Settle down, Jesus, just let it ride.
But he couldn't. "Hell, why shouldn't he? It's vital information for a guy who's interested in—"

"It holds no interest for
me.
He seems like a perfectly nice man, just to talk with."

Just out of idle curiosity... "You don't see the way he looks at you?"

"No, I don't." She laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, Ben, after all these years, you still don't know me."

"I know guys like that, and I know they flock to you like flies on honey." He shrugged. "And when I don't see you shoo 'em away, I figure I got a job to do."

"Really?" Her eyes widened. "Wait a minute," she said, seizing the upper hand. "Could this be the root of all our problems? I'm supposed to shoo away all those tacky little barflies who give you the eye, while you take cheap shots at the honey-sucking flies you seem to think are always hanging all over me? What a scintillating concept!"

A smile played at the corner of his mouth.

"The trouble is," she whispered, glancing askance, "we'd have to be running after each other all the time, wouldn't we? And I've already done my share of that. It did no good. I've learned my lesson." She eyed him pointedly as she backed away. "I'm quite finished."

"Where are you going?"

"Back to my own private little hive."

Ben didn't have much to contribute to the after-supper campfire tales. He watched the flames and brooded, deflecting the occasional attempt to draw him into a story with a laconic grunt. Mentally he was standing guard over Clara's little igloo-style tent, sitting off by itself behind a windbreak of chokecherry bushes. She was just being stubborn, he told himself, secluding herself for a "bout with a pout," as they used to say of Annie. Not that he wasn't a superb sulker in his own right, but since he'd quit drinking, he'd cut back.

Of course, Clara wouldn't know that. Damn, she was bundled up all alone in the little tent, probably shivering to beat hell and too proud to come out and share the best part of the day with the riders. She was one of them. She belonged in the circle. For all the sulky moods she'd coaxed him out of over the years, he figured he owed her one.

"Clara?" He said it just as softly and humbly as his deep voice would allow. "We got a fire goin' over by the tipi. Why don't you come over and sit with us for a while?"

"I'm sleeping," came the cool response from inside.

"Everybody's askin' for you. Auntie Mary, Marvin, Howard." He cleared his throat and dug deep. "Cady's over there, too."

"So?"

"I told him I was just, uh..."

"Just kidding?"

"Yeah. Just kidding." He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and prodded the sod with the toe of his boot. "I told him I'd give him a hat and a pair of boots, a set of steer horns for ol' Harvey, put 'em right up there on the hood..."

"And he could play cowboys with the rest of the guys?"

"Yeah. Told him all he needed was the right outfit. He liked that all over." He tipped his head back and smiled into the jet-black night. Myriad stars twinkled as though they, too, were amused. "He laughed. We all laughed. So, you know... I apologized."

"What am I supposed to do? Give you a gold star?"

"I came to apologize to you, too." He waited, but silence was his only reward. He missed the warmth of the fire. "You gonna let me in? It's cold out here."

"You won't find it any warmer in here, Ben."

"What's happened to your manners, Clara-bow? I didn't keep you standin' outside when you came to my door the other night."

"Ben—"

He unzipped the door and ducked inside, muttering, "That's my name. It's probably as close as I'll get to a genuine invite."

Her cot creaked as she jerked her head up, the movement of a shadow amid shadows.

"I can't sleep with all that snoring," he said quickly, then chuckled. "It's almost as bad as a fire-breathing furnace." He knelt on the empty sleeping bag next to Clara's. "And ghosts. You listen to my ol' man, he's got all the ancestors in there with us. Place is gettin' pretty crowded."

"Did you arrange for Anna to spend the night elsewhere so that you could—"

"You think there might be ghosts on the ride?" He started pulling off his boots.

She sighed and drew herself back into her cocoon. "Ghost Riders?"

"Ghooost Rii-ders," he crooned softly, and she expelled a quick, soft laugh. "No, I'm serious. I know it's my dad who's the spiritual one, but I hear him talking..." He slipped into the envelope of Anna's sleeping bag and stretched out beside his wife as he spoke. "And I almost expect someone to answer. He'll say something like, 'What's to be done? What's to be done, that the people may live?' And then he'll stay real quiet, and I stay real quiet. I don't know if he hears an answer, or if he's still waiting." He chuckled dryly. "I keep hopin' some voice will say to him, 'Get your scrawny ass in that pickup and stay out of the wind, ol' man.' In Lakota, of course, otherwise he won't listen."