“What are you thinking, nadainape?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I have never been happier.” He glanced back, realizing he hadn’t seen the men as much today. Reassured, he found them following, Phil Vail out front.
He’d barely noticed it in the beginning—just an awareness that they’d been gone. But when he checked, they were always where he expected them to be. None of them ever seemed concerned. Therefore, neither was he.
Maybe they’d had their own interests in the timber? Maybe this was just a phase of his madness?
He turned his attention back to his wife. She’d braided her hair for the day, and it swayed provocatively in time with her stride. She wore a doeskin dress that hung down from her shoulders in a fringed yoke, conforming to her hips before dropping to a knee-length hem. As she preceded him on the narrow trail, he enjoyed the sway each step imparted to her lovely hips. Thought of how it felt when he placed his reverent hands on their full swell, of the magic they contained: the enchanting essence of womanhood. The ultimate cradle of new life.
Just the thought excited him.
And she was his. Her smile, her teasing, the sparkle in her eyes. He could watch her by the hour, marveling as her quick fingers worked hides or did quillwork. He loved the way she gripped the mano as she ran it back and forth, grinding seeds and dried roots into flour for baking. Everything about her was fresh, young, and powered by an essential vitality.
“There should be new people by the time we get back,” she told him. “My father’s naatea is supposed to be coming along with Antelope Fire’s people.”
The Dukurika did that in summer. The families and small bands all congregated at predetermined locations to socialize, trade, and catch up on old friendships.
“So I finally meet your mother and father? What if Hard Hand and Fall don’t like me?”
She shrugged. “Why would they not like you? You are a good hunter, a responsible man. You do your share. You are not stingy.”
“I’m a crazy taipo.”
Again she shrugged. “Unlike most taipo you are not lazy and arrogant. You don’t see others as being less than you. You are a blooded warrior. A war chief. You have made a Puha journey, survived yokoh with Pa’waip.” She grinned. “You are even kind to dogs!”
“All those things don’t make me likable, Flicker.”
She shot a look over her shoulder. “Butler, you worry about the silliest things.”
He grinned, reslinging the sack of pungent sap on his shoulder. Dear God, he loved this woman.
The encampment filled the head of the valley and consisted of small family groups and their extended kin and close friends. Most had settled on the same small plot their families had occupied for generations, though this particular valley hadn’t been the gathering location for several years. Here, as well, the Sheep Eaters had given it time to grow new plants, attract game animals, and for the areas they’d burned to recover.
Butler remembered how Puhagan’s wife, Flowering Sage, had cried out with delight as she turned over a sandstone grinding slab, its concave surface having been left facedown after her last visit to protect it from the elements. Old lodge poles—carefully propped back in the trees—had been recovered from where they’d been stashed, and within a day, Puhagan’s small band had reestablished themselves.
For Butler, going native had its limitations. Especially when it came to his father. Somehow he just couldn’t invite the man into his lodge. Couldn’t stomach the idea of his father being aware of what he and Mountain Flicker were doing under the robes at night. Therefore, they’d built him a shelter several paces away under the aspens.
For his part, Paw Hancock continued to recover. He could manage on his own now, pulling himself up and hobbling along on his crutch, though he said the leg still pained him.
Upon their return to camp, Butler, first thing, looked in on his father. Paw had settled himself on a bench Butler had made of poles laid across two small boulders. It seated Paw high enough that he could get his good leg under him to get up. Paw’s parfleche bag was on the ground beside him. It contained all of his remaining possessions: a knife, a Starr revolver with its flask, balls, and caps. His strike-a-light, and other possibles.
“Had a good hunt?” Paw asked, the breeze teasing long strands of white hair across his fresh, pink scars. He didn’t bother to look up as Mountain Flicker walked past and checked the stew steaming by the fire. From a brass bucket she added water and moved it closer over the flames.
Butler slung the sack of pitch down before walking over to the bladder water sack and drinking. “Red Rain and the kids went after larkspur. The way Flicker tells it, they’ll dig a hole, line it with a hide, and use hot rocks to boil the sap and larkspur. All them mosquitoes and deerflies will be a thing of the past.”
“Stuff works,” Paw growled, still refusing to look up. “Used it in the past.”
Butler gave his father a questioning glance. “So, with all the world to escape to, you came here. You said it was the only place you weren’t a lie.”
Paw fixed his eyes on the creek where it ran through the willows a hundred yards to the north. With his remaining hand he batted at a fly. “Come out here with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Bridger and his boys. Seems some woman back in the settlements had led me astray, and her male kinfolk wanted to place the blame on me. Mountains was a heap safer.”
He gestured around. “Lot of us ended up as free trappers. Took up the life with the Snakes, Crow, and
