She slipped another piece of paper across the table to Big Ed. “That’s my price and the conditions of the sale.”
On cue, Pat O’Reilly leaned forward, saying, “Lass, I thought ye were supposed to offer Nichols first—”
“He didn’t meet my price.”
“But he never offers full price at first. He likes to whittle ye down,” O’Reilly countered.
Big Ed had glanced up, his glacial eyes narrowing.
Sarah gave a slight shrug, not wanting to overplay the rivalry between Big Ed and Nichols. That hook was now set.
Heatley was still studying the figures in the ledger, then glancing at her conditions. “Agatha, Theresa, and Mick stay with the business?”
“Agatha is the brains behind the shows. Don’t meddle. Theresa has a knack for keeping the girls happy. Mick’s been keeping track of inventory, and you’d be a fool to lose Mam. Her cooking is twenty percent of our income.”
Big Ed asked, “And what are you going to do? Start another house? You’re the Goddess, after all. You’re part of the allure.”
She glanced at Pat. “How are we doing on the Cheyenne lots?”
“Ye’ve doubled yer money, lass. And that’s after me percentage. As for the other project, between us, we’re currently holding forty-six percent of the investment. All we need is another five percent and we have control.”
Sarah nodded, saying, “Ed, I’ve created and run the best house in the Rockies. I’d rather retire offstage, conduct affairs where I’m not the center of attention. There’s my offer. Take or leave it.”
Because George Nichols is out there, and he’ll be coming for me one of these days.
Sarah sat back; the chair was uncomfortable as hell, but she’d endured worse.
And she’d wait.
If it took all afternoon.
111
May 15, 1868
Butler sat in the sun, his back to an aspen tree. With his knife he whittled on a chokecherry stem. He had stripped the bark, already steeple-notched one end, and was working on the other. When it was finished, he’d stretch sinew netting across the inside of the square he was making; it would be a light, portable drying rack. Propped on supports, it could be placed high enough over a pit of glowing coals that roots, fruits, meats, and leaves could be desiccated for storage. They’d also receive a slight coating of smoke. This, Mountain Flicker assured him, would keep them from molding, even in damp weather.
A smart and cunning people, these Mountain Shoshoni.
“Makes a heap more sense than Rebel commissary ever did,” Johnny Baker noted where he sat on Butler’s saddle.
“Thinking of all them roots and berries we been eating, I sure do miss salt pork,” Phil Vail added where he crouched in the crushed grass.
“I don’t know about you all,” Butler told them, “but I’ve never felt better. I know you’re missing your wives and families, and if—”
“We ain’t the ones living wild and free,” Pettigrew announced as he slung his rifle over his shoulder and stared out over the vista.
“Then what are you doing?” Butler asked. “You’re marching everywhere I do. Seeing the same country. Would you rather be back in the army? Camped in the rain and mud, making sloosh out of moldy cornmeal and rancid bacon? And not enough of that to keep your belly from being ganted?”
“Butler!” his father’s voice snapped.
He laid his whittling aside and crossed over to where his father lay on the travois. His broken thigh had mended to the point that he could hobble around camp on his crutch as long as someone helped balance him. People didn’t think about how awkward a one-armed man on a crutch was, especially on rough ground. And Paw’s leg, despite being mostly knit, pained him to walk on.
Butler crossed by the smoldering fire and glanced out at the slope below. The women, children, and some of the dogs were scattered across the landscape. Each place a bobbing white sego lily or onion grew, a woman would stop, plant her digging stick, and with a pop, lever it out of the ground. The child following behind her with a sack would pluck up the bulb and stem, clean the dirt away, and drop it into his or her sack.
This was broken country where Owl Creek ran out of the mountains; it consisted of tilted layers of sandstone, with rocky outcrops on either side of the valley. The sage-grayed, juniper-spotted slopes slowly gave way to conifer forest as the mountains rose behind the broken hills. To the south, the horizon was dominated by the peak known as Coyote’s Penis.
Looking back down the valley, Butler could see the distant Big Horn Mountains, looking blue in the misty haze. Fresh snow capped their heights. Here in the lower basin it had rained for a solid week, and now the moisture-laden air almost reminded Butler of Arkansas. “Almost” being the key word.
Most of the Dukurika men and dogs had left before dawn, following Owl Creek farther up into its mountains, their intent being to hunt the elk calving grounds in higher meadows.
Butler would have gone had he not been needed to care for his father.
“What do you need, Paw?” Butler dropped to a crouch beside him. The man’s hawkish eyes were filled with that old irritation Butler had known so well as a child. Years of cringing under their glare now faded as Butler realized it was an improvement over the glassy and wavering emptiness that had possessed Paw’s stare for the past week. The fever had finally broken, and the watery pink pus that drained around the stump of his right arm had slowed.
Since Butler had cut his arm off, Paw had mostly raved in delirium. Then he’d been so weak he could barely move. For days it had been all the man could do just to draw breath.
Puhagan had looked on as Butler and Mountain Flicker had tended Paw, and shaken his head. They’d made teas from red willow and aspen bark, adding rose hips
