Chapter 14
Boone
Another week passes, and the days smear together into routine.
Mornings, I walk the perimeter with the rifle easy in my hands. Check the traps. Hunt if the weather allows. Clean whatever I kill and bring it back by afternoon for Lula to turn into something worth eating.
In the afternoon, Okee and I steal a few minutes alone in the lean-to. Today we circle the yard slow, checking where the drifts stack hard against the fence. Don’t see nothing moving but the horse switching her tail and the smoke off the chimney getting tugged east by the wind.
I duck inside to check the mare’s tack straps where they hang from the peg. Okee follows, shutting the half-door behind him against the wind. The horse lifts her head and blows steam, then goes back to nosing at the hay.
Okee runs a hand down the mare’s shoulder.
He’s got his hat pushed back a little, black hair loose down his shoulders, mouth set in that flat serious line he wears when he’s thinking ahead.
I like him best like this. When he’s using that smart head of his to see us looked after, and he don’t know how damn handsome he is for it.
Or he does, and he hopes to torture me with it. Either way, my body notices.
He catches me looking.
“What?” he asks.
I grin and step closer. “Just admirin’ the stable boy.”
He snorts. “I ought to teach you some manners for that.”
The warning in it sends a jolt through me, and I damn near grin myself stupid. “Oh? How do you intend to do that?”
One big hand comes up and braces on the wood beside my head, caging me in.
My breath catches as he leans close enough for his lips to brush that tender place under my ear.
His voice drops low, rough as sand. “I could make a proper mess of you right here. Bend you over that saddle rack, yank your trousers down, and lick you open until you’re begging me to fuck you proper.
” He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, that wicked half smirk still playing on his mouth. “Think you can handle that?”
“I don’t know, maybe we should try and find out.”
Okee’s half smirk turns into a full smile before he backs off and goes back to tending the horse.
The tease.
He turns back to the mare like nothing happened, running his hand down her flank again.
Lord, that mouth of his.
“Now that’s cruel.”
The horse shifts and bumps my shoulder with her nose, impatient for more hay. I scratch between her ears and step around her neck till I’m close enough to Okee to feel the heat of him through our coats.
He takes a step back. “Boone.”
I put a hand on his waist.
“Boone,” he says again, lower now, because he knows exactly what kind of fool I am. “Don’t kiss me out here. Lula’s always watching from the window.”
I glance toward the cabin wall like I might see through it. “She ain’t.”
He gives me a look for that, but he don’t move away when I bend in and kiss the corner of his mouth. Just one at first. Quick. Cold air on both our faces, his lips warm all the same.
I kiss his jaw this time, then his neck. He exhales sharp through his nose.
I slide both arms around him and pull him in proper, coat to coat, hat brim knocking his forehead.
He lets me hold him for half a breath before his hand hooks in the front of my shirt and drags me into a kiss rough enough to pay me back for all the foolishness.
I make a sound I hope the horse has the manners to ignore.
When he lets me up, his eyes are dark. He smooths my collar flat where he’s wrinkled it and glances once toward the cabin. “Compose yourself.”
“I don’t want to be composed. I want to be a mess. Why you bein’ cruel?”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to fuck out here with Lula watching our every move?”
“To hell with her watchin’, I ain’t had you in too long. I’m near beside myself.”
He gives me a look. “You’re surviving, just like I am. Now come. It’s too cold out here to drop my pants anyway.”
Cold air. Hot skin. The sting of being stretched by him. Lord have mercy. Before I can beg him anymore, he’s already walking toward the cabin. I follow, kicking a lump of snow into a ditch.
That’s when I see the tracks.
Not mine. Not Okee’s. Not Lula’s neat little prints from hauling scraps to the edge of the yard.
These are boots. Men’s, by the look. Half filled with ice and already softening at the edges, but not old enough to ignore.
One set comes in from the trees. Another crosses it once near the lean-to, heel dug deeper there, like somebody has stopped to shift their weight and stare.
They make a trail from the lean-to, then turn in the opposite direction of the cabin.
I crouch and brush the edge of the nearest print with a gloved finger. Frozen crust gives way beneath it.
Recent.
“Okee,” I call, before he can get too far. He stops and turns, alert, the tension in my voice enough to raise his hackles.
“You been up this way this morning?”
“What way?”
I point at the footprint and the others that follow it, up and out of the perimeter. He shakes his head, sweeping his attention over the snow-covered acres.
The tracks lead straight to the lean-to. Whoever it is has come close enough to put hands on the rail if he wants, close enough to count what we have, before turning back the way he came.
The woods stand quiet and black between the trunks, too still. The sort of still that makes a man feel watched.
The cabin sits behind me with smoke lifting clean from the chimney. Anybody with eyes can mark us easy. Count the wood stacked by the wall. Count the days we’ve been snowed in and start guessing what our supplies look like by now.
We stand there a moment longer, listening, before we turn back toward the house.
Inside, the cabin’s warm enough to make my face ache from the cold leaving it.
Warm bread, woodsmoke, and the faint, clean bite of soap.
Lula’s at the table with her sleeves rolled, a spread of dried leaves, little packets, and jars laid out in tidy rows over old newspapers.
There’s a pot steaming low by the stove and a sharp green smell in the air under the bread and smoke.
I stop and blink. “What’s all this?”
Without looking up, she says, “A remedy.”
“For what?”
“The cough you’re pretending not to have.”
I run my fingers through my hair. The sweet thing is that she is worried about me, but there’s bigger problems at hand. “Someone’s been nosin’ around,” I say, not bothering to soften it. “Tracks by the lean-to. Boots. Recent.”
“What?” she says, her sly expression sobering.
“Boone, stop. You’ll frighten her,” Okee says.
She waves him away. “How many?”
“Hard to tell for certain. One for sure. Maybe two.” I lean the rifle by the wall and strip off my gloves finger by finger. “Careful ones. Came in, checked the horse, left her.”
Lula sets the spoon down. “Why leave her?”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Okee says. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”
She waves at him again, not looking at him, face still on me, stricken with worry.
“That’s the question,” I say. “If they’re lurking over hunger, they steal something. If it’s drunks, they try the door and piss in the yard. This ain’t none of those things. This is somebody patient.”
Okee takes his pistol cleaning kit and falls into a chair with a sigh that says he gives up. His eyes cut to the window, toward the pale yard beyond it.
The fire pops. Fat hisses once where a drop hits the stove lid. Outside, the wind presses against the wall with a long, low whistle.
Lula wipes her hands on a cloth, movements neat despite the way her mouth tightens. “If it’s Hollister’s men,” she says, “wouldn’t they come with others? With guns?”
Okee breaks his pistol open, an oily rag in one hand. His jaw flexes once.
“They’re scouting,” he says, as if the answer was obvious to him all along. “They’re confirming first. How many are here. Whether we’re armed. So they can come back prepared.”
Her chin trembles, but she forces it still. “What do we do?”
She’s gone pale. Maybe Okee was right to protect her from the ugly truth of it.
“Don’t you worry. We ain’t lettin’ no harm come to you.”
She draws in a breath and huffs, a muscle jumping in her cheek like that ain’t the answer she was looking for.
“We pay attention,” Okee says, firmer now. “That’s the first rule. Double watch. Dawn and nightfall. I’ll take first dark.”
“I’ll walk the perimeter again before supper,” I say.
Lula’s eyes move between us. “And me?”
“You stay inside after dark,” I say.
Her brows come together at once. “I am not helpless.”
“I know that,” I say, softer than before. “That ain’t what I said.”
Okee sets the pistol down and looks at her square. “If something happens, you wake one of us. You do not go to the door. You do not investigate a noise. You do not try to be brave on your own.”
A little heat flashes in her face at that, but it isn’t fear. It’s temper. Better than fear. Temper keeps a body breathing.
“And if you two are both asleep?” she asks.
“Then yell loud enough to wake the dead.”
That gets the ghost of an expression from her. Something hisses, startling her. She dashes over to the pot.
That night the cabin feels smaller than ever. We eat quick—bread, pheasant, the last of the onion cooked soft in grease. Some kind of stewed fruits and nuts. It’s tangy, sweet, and crunchy.
“What’s this scrumptious little dish?” I ask.
She perks up some. “Rose hip, persimmon, berry nut crumble.”
“Holy hell, that is one delectable dessert. Even the words sound tasty.”
“Where’d you find all that?” Okee asks.
“Foraging. Just around the cabin. Took me a few days to gather it all.”
“You should stay close to the cabin, if you can help it,” he warns, and she shrinks some. Her mouth tightens but she doesn’t argue.
After that, there’s no talk beyond what needs saying. Okee banks the fire down to red coals. Lula washes the tin plates without humming a song like she usually does. I check the door latch twice, then the window, then check it again.
“Weather’s turning again soon,” Okee says.
He gets up and crosses to the window, easing the curtain back with two fingers. “If it comes down hard,” he says, “it will likely delay their approach.”
Lula folds the dishcloth once, then again. “And if they mean to come back before the weather breaks?”
I answer before Okee can. “We’ll be ready.”
When Lula climbs into the loft to sleep, Okee and I wait until the boards above us settle.
“You pissed her off,” I say, rocking my chair back on its back legs.
Okee don’t look up as he wipes his Colt with a rag. “No, I didn’t.”
“You know she don’t like to feel helpless.”
“So?”
“So she asked what to do and you told her to call for us. How’s that supposed to make her feel anything but helpless?”
“What was I expected to say?”
The Lord blessed Okee with a mind. Smartest man I ever met. With his head. Then there’s something—I’ve always assumed the handiwork of Alfred Collins—that splits off at his heart. Something that takes the message and chews it up before he can understand it plain.
“Tell her to take the pistol and do what we taught her, that’s what.
Stay low. Take cover. I don’t know. Tell her what you’d tell a new soldier who don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.
Listen for the crack to tell you where the thing’s comin’ from and how much room you got to run.
Hell, Okee, give her a thing to do besides scream. ”
Okee’s jaw works once as he faces the loft. Above us, Lula turns over in the blankets. One slow creak, then stillness.
Okee lowers his voice. “She is not a soldier.”
“No,” I say. “She’s a general.”
That brings his eyes back to me, humor bright in them. It has become our nightly foolishness, whispering about her once she’s down for the night.
We start with complaints. Okee says she is reckless. I say she’s cruel.
I grin before I can help it and add, “A soldier’ll at least do what he’s told. Lula’ll decide the order ain’t fit, improve it, and have you followin’ orders.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, and he rolls his head back to rest on the wall. The fire settles with a sigh, throwing one red pulse up the wall and across his face. Okee has that look he gets when he is holding too many thoughts.
“She listens to you,” Okee says, as if just stating a bitter little fact.
“I don’t treat her like a child.”
He sits up slightly, like I’ve hit a nerve. “I do? Because I don’t want her to be brave and get herself killed?”
“I ain’t even talking about being brave. The poor thing spent days in the goddamn forest to make a dessert and the best you can come up with is ‘stay in the damn cabin’? You treat her like she’s made of glass.”
“And you poke at her like she’s your little sister.”
I grimace at that. “Don’t be nasty.”
“What’s nasty about it? Because you want to fuck her?”
I give him my most surprised and appalled look, but it don’t take. He don’t flinch.
“All right,” I admit. “So what if I do? You’re fond of her too, even if you show it like a damn dictator,” I say.
“Mm.”
“Mm,” I mock back, grinning and letting my chair rock back another inch. I ought to leave it alone. I never have had much talent for that. “I see the way you look at her. You want to fuck her too.”
“Enough,” he grumbles. He wipes his face, sits up and moves to the bed.
I join him, resting against his shoulder.
He presses a gentle kiss to my temple, then says goodnight.
Outside, the weather turns fast. Wind comes hard out of nowhere, then snow after it, thick and crooked, swallowing the yard by the minute.
The lean-to disappears first, then the woodpile, then even the dark line of the trees blurs to nothing.
Before long the whole world beyond the window is just white fury.
No man could cross that open ground without losing his hat, and no horse would stand it long neither.
Whatever bastard was watching us this morning is out there buried same as everything else now, and for one night at least, the storm bars the way better than any bullet we’ve got.