For the moment, however, he needn’t think about that. It took all of his concentration to pick his way down the trail to the snow patch. His muscles were trembling, knees shaking. But in the end, he waded out into the mushy snow and dropped the ram’s gutted carcass. With bloody hands he scooped snow into the gut cavity to cool the carcass and straightened.
Mountain Flicker worked at Red Rain’s side just down the slope. He shot her a happy smile. She grinned back, pausing to push back a strand of long black hair. Her finger left a bloody streak on her smooth cheek.
Butler scooped up a handful of snow for himself, packing it in his mouth and crunching it for the water it contained. Then he walked down to crouch beside Mountain Flicker. She had half skinned an ewe, and was competently running her knife around the connective tissue as she pulled with a firm brown hand.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Happy,” she told him, a twinkle in her dark eyes. “We will have plenty of meat for the winter. And that rack you made allowed me to dry more than enough of the roots, leaves, and flowers. We had a good harvest of white-bark pine seeds. Best of all are the cactus tunas. A lot of them this year. You’ll like them. Very sweet. Like taipo candy.”
Butler grinned at that. He liked candy. Which made him think back to Doc crashing into the undertaker’s, throwing his arms out and falling to his knees, face tear streaked, as he cried, “Don’t eat that damn piece of candy!”
“You laugh?” she asked.
“And my brother calls me crazy.”
“Tonight I shall make you crazy.” She winked at him and wiggled her hips suggestively.
“And why is that?”
“It has been a half moon since my woman’s blood. I have the tenderness and the craving.” She wiggled her hips again. “This is the best time for your seed to make dudua’nee. A child. I’ve been waiting.”
“So have I,” he told her, standing. “But for the moment I had better climb back up to the trap and haul down another sheep for you to skin. If you’re going to grow a child, you’ll need the meat. And Cracked Bone Thrower already accuses me of being a lazy taipo.”
Butler chuckled to himself, turned, and started up the steep slope to the kill pen.
Glancing toward where the men of Company A lingered, he said, “Reckon you all won’t mind that if it’s a boy, I’ll call him Billy? No? Good, ’cause being crazy, I can do any damn thing I like.”
In the west a line of clouds were bunched on the tops of the Tetons, and he thought he smelled rain on the wind. Somewhere down in the timber, an elk bugled, its sweet high strains carrying on the fall air. The scent of lodgepole, fir, and spruce mingled with the last of the fall flowers. Around him, the mountains seemed to pulse with life.
Once, he would have been a gentleman scholar as his father had wished. Then a war had come and gone, and here he stood, defiant of the odds, a wild man awash in liberty.
He shook his head, lungs straining in the thin air. “And those fool secessionists thought they were fighting to be free? Tom, we had no idea, did we?”
133
October 1, 1868
Sarah lit the lamps and checked the clock. Doc should have been here by now. She walked to the window, peered past the curtains, and checked the dark street below. A misty drizzle was falling, the effect haloed in the streetlamps. The cobblestones reflected lights from the houses lining the street.
Three stories high, of frame construction, her house perched on the hill overlooking the city. On a clear day she could see across the span of San Francisco Bay to the distant uplands beyond. She’d painted her mansion a bright yellow, the windows and trim done in white. Protruding bay windows allowed her the opportunity to enjoy the splendid view, and she enjoyed reading in the light of the afternoon sun, a cup of tea near at hand.
Commensurate with her wealth, she had furnished it with the finest of Oriental carpets, brass lights, and furniture crafted from exotic tropical woods. The entire first floor, she’d given to Philip. One room he had dedicated to his study, another to his growing medical library. And its street access made it easier for him to respond to late-night emergencies at the hospital.
He should have been here by now. And yes, here he came. In the light of the gas lamps, Philip’s tall and lanky frame couldn’t be mistaken as he climbed the sidewalk. On the cobble-paved street, a horse-drawn barouche clattered past, a couple holding hands in the backseat.
Sarah breathed out her relief. When Doc was late, it always worried her. While they lived in one of the better neighborhoods, Philip had insisted on having his surgery down by the wharves.
“There’s no one close,” he had told her. “Besides, I can see to the houses down there.”
“What about a more well-to-do clientele, Philip? You’re a real physician. A mountain and a mile beyond most of the charlatans practicing in San Francisco.”
“Sarah, I do my share of surgeries at the hospital, but I’ve found my calling and place.” He had smiled wistfully. “Once I thought as you do. I wanted to be rich and respected. A man of such prominence I could look down my nose at Paw. I’ve paid the price for my arrogance and pride. My only goal now is to alleviate suffering.”
The irony was that, as her brother, he had that standing—though he had yet to recognize it. Every time he escorted her to the opera. Or the theater. Or a musical production. San Francisco’s greatest would stare speculatively at the man upon whose arm Sarah’s hand rested, and say,
