“That better?” he asked amiably, and Joe grinned.
“You gotta take him to the dance,” he told Claire. “Folk’ll just blow their minds.”
“What dance?” Randall asked.
“There’s one here every February,” Claire told him. “Just a few folk.”
“They come for miles,” Joe assured him. “And they’ll sure come to see him.”
“I seem to be the local entertainment,” Randall observed wryly. “Mustn’t disappoint them, so we’d better go to this dance.”
“We?”
“I can’t go alone. I shall need you to hold my hand and give me courage.”
“You don’t mean half the things you say,” Claire told him lightly. “I’ve learned that much.”
He didn’t answer in words, but raised one eyebrow quizzically. Suddenly she burst out laughing. It utterly transformed her face. Her eyes glowed, her cheeks were still rosy from the cold wind outside and for a moment she seemed the very essence of youth and life. Randall felt giddy. Gabe could have this fantastic, beautiful girl, and didn’t want her? Was he nuts?
“What are you laughing at?” he asked.
“You, raising one eyebrow. Do you remember when you were here before, Gabe envied you because you could do that? He could only manage both at once.”
“That’s right,” he said, remembering. “We had a contest.”
“I caught him practicing in front of the mirror, but he couldn’t manage it. He got so mad.”
She laughed again, and Randall joined in for the sheer pleasure of sharing it with her.
“The things that seem important when you’re eighteen,” he mused.
“Would you want to be eighteen again, Randall?” she asked.
He thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I guess not. I’m not sure why. I was happy enough then, the way boys are happy, without thinking.”
“And aren’t you happy now?” The question came out before she could stop it.
He might have made some meaningless answer, but he found himself thinking, then answering honestly.
“Fairly. Nobody ever gets back that carefree feeling, but you don’t need it. You grow into a different person and other things start to matter.”
“You don’t mean that, about becoming a different person.”
“When I look back so far, I hardly recognize myself. Do you?”
“Yes,” she said with a touch of defiance. “But I guess I’m not changeable.”
He spotted the danger and stepped back from it quickly. Damn Gabe! Why did he have to get in everywhere?
“Let’s get going while the light’s still good,” he said.
She took the road up into the mountains. It was the way they’d come the first day, but then they’d been in semi-darkness. Now he could look around him and appreciate the glowing blue, white and black of the earth and sky.
“Stop here,” he said when they were at the highest point before the road began to slope down.
He got out and went to survey the magnificence around him. Claire came to stand beside him.
“If you look far over there, you can just about make out the ranch,” she said.
It was cold after the heated truck. He felt her shiver and put an arm around her. In the same moment he felt the sky and the mountains begin to whirl around him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
She held onto him. “The mountains affect some people like this.”
“Yes,” he said, opening his eyes.
“Randall, are you all right?” She touched his cheek lightly with her fingertips.
He took her hand in his and looked at it for a moment before drawing it against his mouth, and letting his lips brush against it lightly.
He hadn’t meant to do it-at least, he didn’t think he’d meant to-but he was still giddy, and not quite sure what he was doing. And then, suddenly, it was done, and he was aflame from the sweet touch of her hand on his mouth.
She was trembling in his arms and for a moment, standing on the edge of the snowy vastness, he could have done anything. Her lips were softly curved. Just looking at them drove him to madness, and in another moment they would be against his own-moving softly, enticing him, opening for him.
“Randall…” she whispered.
“Yes,” he muttered thickly.
“We-shouldn’t stand here in this wind-it’s dangerous.”
A tremor went through him. “You’re right,” he said at last, reluctantly. “We should be going home. It’s very dangerous here.”
Four
Where did the time go? One day he arrived at the MBbar, the next he went out with the hands, feeding stock, coming back aching all over. And then he fell into the rhythm of the work and the life of the ranch, so that it became not easy, but possible. A week slipped away, then two, and suddenly he’d been there a month.
Bit by bit he began to enjoy himself. In England he was subject to Earl’s endless demands that the business make more and more money. However long the hours he worked, he never felt he could satisfy the old man.
But here nobody expected anything of him. Or rather, they expected the worst, and there was pleasure in showing that he was as good a man as any of them, could fork hay as long and vigorously as they could, survive the cold, ask for no quarter. In Montana, Randall was finding his own level, not as the heir to an earldom, but as a man among men. It was a high level that gave him pride in himself.
And friendship. When had he last had time for that?
There was time now to make friends with Frank, a man he instinctively respected. Time to let Olly teach him to cheat at cards. Not that he would use that particular skill, but he appreciated the honor.
The friend he valued most was North. The young cowboy sought him out, asking questions about England and other countries Randall had visited, and listening avidly to the answers.
“Where do you come from?” Randall asked him once.
“Up north.”
“Hence the name? I mean, it’s not your real name?”
