hanging on a swivel iron, attached to the fireplace wall. He sensed, rather than heard, Nicole enter the room.
She was barefoot, wearing one of his shirts, and he thought she had never appeared more beautiful.
“Would you like me to fix supper?”
He rose and shook his head. She came into his arms.
“I love you,” he said.
Her reply was a loving whisper; a commitment spoken from the heart.
Preacher did not return that winter of 1870–71, and although Smoke did not admit his feelings aloud, Nicole knew he was worried about the old mountain man, fearing he might be hurt, or dead.
And it was Nicole who finally eased his mind, calming the unrest in him.
“How old is Preacher?” she asked one evening. A steady rain fell in the valley, occasionally mixed with sleet and snow. The winter had been a hard one, requiring brutal work from both of them just to stay alive.
“He’s pushin’ seventy. Least that’s what he’ll admit to bein’. Getting old.”
“And he’s lived a very long, exciting, and fruitful life. He wouldn’t want to die in a bed, would he? He’d want to pass this life the way he’s lived — in the wilderness. And wouldn’t he be sad if he knew you were sad?”
He smiled, his mood lifting from him. He looked at her, something he never tired of doing. “Yes, Nicole, you’re right. As usual.”
She came to him, sitting very unladylike in his lap, in the wood and rawhide chair, the frame covered with a bearskin. “We’ve got to get married, Smoke.”
“We are. We said we wanted to wait until Preacher came back.”
“Well … I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a baby.”
He sat stunned in the chair. “Nicole, we’re better than a hundred miles from the nearest doctor.”
“I went to nursing school, honey. There is nothing to worry about. All I want is for us to be married. I want the baby to have a legal name.”
“Preacher told me there was a little settlement of Mormons just west of here — over in Utah Territory. It’ll be a week there and a week back. Can you stand the ride?”
She smiled and kissed him. “Just watch me.”
The air was still cool when they rode out of the valley, heading for Utah. But spring was in the air, evident in the leafing trees, the plants, and the flowers that grew wild, coloring the valley. Nicole sat her little mare, Smoke rode Seven.
Nicole looked back at the cabin she had called home for months. “How dangerous is this trip?”
“We might go there and back without seeing an Indian. We might be ambushed ten miles from the cabin. No way to answer that question. I don’t know much about Utah Territory, so we’ll be seeing it for the first time — together.”
They camped on the third night just north of the Hovenweep, near Keely Canyon. They had seen a few Indians on the third day — the first since leaving the valley — Weminuche Ute. But they did not bother the man and woman, but only watched through obsidian eyes, faces impassive. They were armed with ancient rifles and bows and arrows, and perhaps they did not want to risk a fight against the many-shoot rifles of the man and woman; perhaps they did not feel hostile that day; perhaps they were hunting and did not want to take the time for an attack. With an Indian, one never knew.
On the fifth day, Smoke figured they were in Utah Territory — probably had been all day — and the settlement of Mormons should be in sight. But all they found were rotting, tumble-down cabins, and no signs of life.
“Preacher said they were here in ’55,” Smoke said. “Wonder where they went?”
Nicole’s laughter rang out over the deserted collection of falling-down cabins. “Honey, that’s sixteen years ago.” Her eyes swept the land, spotting an old, weed-filled graveyard. “Let’s look over there.”
The last faded date on a rotting headmarker was fourteen years old.
In the largest building of the more than a dozen cabins, they found a rusting tin box and pried open the lid. They found rotting papers that crumbled at the touch.
Smoke took Nicole out into the sunlight. “I know what I’ll do,” he said.
He took a small hammer and a nail from the side pack of his packhorse, carried in case an animal threw a shoe. He built a fire and spent an hour heating and hammering the nail into a crude ring. When it cooled, he slipped it on her third finger, left hand.
“It’ll have to do,” he said. “Close as I can make us to being really married.”
She kissed him and said, “Let’s go home.”
Eleven
Preacher was sitting on the rough bench in front of the cabin when they rode into the yard. He was spitting tobacco juice and whittling on a piece of wood.
“Howdy,” he greeted them, as if he had been gone only a day instead of months. “Where you two younguns been?”
“We might ask you the same question,” Smoke replied.
“Ramblin’. Seein’ God’s country in all its glory.”
“We got married,” Nicole said proudly, showing him her nail ring.
“Right nice,” he acknowledged, looking first at the ring, then into her eyes. “You with child, girl?”
She blushed. “Yes, sir.”
“Figured ya’ll get into mischief while I’s gone. Tain’t no big deal; I helped birth dozens of papooses in my time. Woman does all the work; man just gets in the way. Who spoke the words?”
