Only Love o-4 Read online

  «Thank you.»

  Shannon wriggled out of the awkward backpack she had made from strips of leather and an ancient saddlebag.

  «How is your ankle?»

  «Fine as frog’s hair.»

  Shannon looked at Cherokee and knew her ankle wasn’t fine.

  «That’s good,» Shannon said. «Here, I brought you some food to pay back what you gave me this winter.»

  «Now lookee here. It weren’t no loan, so it don’t need no repaying.»

  «I’ll hang the venison back in the corner,» Shannon said, ignoring the old woman’s protests. «The rest I’ll put where it belongs in your dry goods cupboard.»

  Dumbfounded, Cherokee watched while Shannon suited actions to words.

  «That’s fresh venison,» Cherokee said finally.

  «Yes.»

  «Well I’ll be go-to-hell. You got yourself a deer!»

  Shannon said nothing.

  «Now, you just take back them bags of flour and sugar,» Cherokee said quickly. «I got plenty to last me till I scratch out more gold or trade some herbs down to Holler Creek.»

  Shannon ignored her.

  «Apples!» Cherokee said reverently. «Do I smell apples?»

  «You sure do. I put half of an apple pie on the back of your stove to warm.»

  «Bread. Pie. Iwillbe go-to-hell! You done went back and claimed all your supplies!»

  Shannon made a sound that could have meant anything.

  «That was a damn fool thing to do,» Cherokee said. «Two of them Culpeppers didn’t have no more than their pride hurt in the fight with Whip. They could have caught you.»

  «They didn’t.»

  «Still, they —»

  «I didn’t go back to Holler Creek,» Shannon interrupted.

  Cherokee was silent. Abruptly her seamed face split into a wide, gap-toothed grin.

  «It was Whip, by God,» she crowed. «He’s courting you!»

  Shannon started to deny it, then decided not to. Cherokee wouldn’t refuse to share in the unexpected bounty of courting gifts from Whip.

  But Cherokee might refuse to share in the spoils of attempted seduction.

  «Maybe,» Shannon said. «Maybe not.»

  «’Course he is. Where’s your mind, gal? He’s got an eye for you. Or did you wear that frippery for him already?»

  «I’m married, remember? That’s what everyone is supposed to think, and don’t you forget it.»

  «Huh. Wearing a ring didn’t make no marriage. Anyways, you’re widowed.»

  «Get off your ankle,» was all Shannon said. «I’ll bring in enough water and wood for several days, because I might not be able to get back beforethen.»

  «Going somewheres?»

  «Hunting,» Shannon said succinctly.

  Cherokee looked puzzled. Then she laughed her husky, chuckling laugh.

  «You gonna run him a right smart chase, ain’t you, gal?»

  Shannon’s smile was as hard as the blade of the hunting knife she had sheathed at her waist.

  «I’m going to run that old boy’s tail right into the ground,» she drawled, imitating Cherokee’s accent.

  Cherokee’s laughter redoubled until she was breathless.

  «You just keep on thinking that,» Cherokee said finally. «You just go ahead, right up to the moment Whip grabs you and drags you in front of a preacher.»

  Shannon’s smile slipped. Whip didn’t have marriage in mind, and she knew it very well.

  But Cherokee didn’t need to know. She looked so delighted that Shannon’s future was solved.

  «You stay off that ankle, now,» Shannon cautioned. «If I catch you up and around, I’ll make you do your own chores.»

  Still chuckling, Cherokee limped to the rumpled bed and stretched out.

  As soon as Shannon stepped out of the cabin, she knew that Whip was somewhere close by, watching her. Yet Prettyface gave no sign. He lay at ease in the sun in front of the cabin, letting the wind ruffle his thick salt-and-pepper fur.

  While Shannon drew water and carried wood, she kept glancing downwind, the one place where Whip could hide from Prettyface’s keen senses.

  She never spotted Whip.

  But she heard something that could have been the wind keening through distant rocks…or the sound of a man making the mountain silence tremble with the soft wailing of panpipes.

  After she left Cherokee, through the long, futile hours of hunting, Shannon looked for Whip. She knew he was there, for the prickling at her nape told her that she was being watched. If that weren’t enough, the cry of the primitive flute came to her at odd times, a mere echo of sound that made Prettyface cock his head and listen, but not snarl. The disembodied music carried no threat for the dog.

  Yet for all Shannon’s watchfulness and Prettyface’s acute senses, she never caught a glimpse of the man whose presence haunted her as surely as his music haunted the mountain silence.

  The next day she followed a game trail, walked between two boulders — and found three grouse neatly dressed out and tied by their feet, dangling from a tree branch.

  Frantically Shannon spun around, looking everywhere at once. There was nothing to see but trees and rock, sunshine and pure white clouds. She looked at the ground, but saw no tracks, no disturbance of twigs or leaves or dirt.

  Nor had she heard any shots. Yet there the birds were, obviously freshly killed.

  He got them with that bullwhip. Lord, that man is fast!

  Prettyface circled the ground beneath the grouse, growling almost silently.

  «Well, I’m glad you can smell Whip,» Shannon whispered. «I was beginning to think he was a ghost.»

  She hesitated, then took down the grouse and stuffed them into her makeshift backpack.

  «No point leaving good food for varmints,» she numbled.

  Prettyface sniffed the wind several times before he lost interest. His ruff settled and he looked at Shannon, waiting for a signal.

  Shannon looked at her hands and realized they were trembling. The knowledge that Whip might be our there just beyond the reach of Prettyface’s senses was unnerving.

  At least he’s keeping his distance. He won’t come closer so long as I have Prettyface and a loaded shotgun.

  Squaring her shoulders, Shannon set off across the mountainside once more. As she looked for game, she gathered fresh greens and stuffed them into the backpack with the grouse.

  When Shannon returned to her cabin, she found a side of bacon hanging from the crossed logs where the buck had been until she had taken it down, sliced off strips and set them to drying.

  She looked around quickly.

  No one was there. Nor did the nape of her neck prickle with primal awareness of another’s presence.

  Yet hours later, as the moon rose to send a rush of silver glory over the land, the husky music of panpipes was breathed through the night.

  Shannon sat up with her heart pounding and Prettyface’s throaty growl vibrating just beyond the bed. Then the growling subsided.

  Slowly Shannon realized that the keening sound was Whip’s flute talking to the night. She went to the window, opened the shutters a crack, and looked out. She saw nothing but moon shadows and silver light and the massive ebony shawl of the forest flung over the sleeping mountainside.

  Prettyface grumbled quietly and flopped down in the corner again. His action told Shannon what she already knew. She was in no danger from the husky, keening notes.

  She went back to bed and listened to the sound of loneliness distilled by a man’s breath blowing through a primitive flute.

  The next day was much the same for Shannon, the prickling of her nape and the sweet haunting of the flute while she hunted game that eluded her. The only difference was in the gift Whip left waiting for her — three fine trout, still cold from the stream.

  That night the flute woke Shannon again, but her heart raced less this time. Prettyface growled, prowled the cabin several times, then curled up and went back to sleep.

  Shannon lay
awake, listening to the husky lamentations of the flute, yearning toward the unspeakable beauty of something she couldn’t name.

  The third day Whip’s gift was onions and potatoes, luxuries Shannon hadn’t tasted in six months.

  That night she lay half asleep, waiting for the sound of the flute. When it came she shivered and listened intently. Prettyface awakened, prowled the cabin briefly, and settled back into sleep once more. Finally Shannon slept, too.

  The fourth day, Whip’s gift was a plot of jam that was like tasting a sweet summer morning, holding it on her tongue, and licking it from her fingertips.

  The sound of the flute came early that night, whistling up the stars, giving them to Shannon like another gift. Prettyface cocked his head and listened, but didn’t bother to get up. The big mongrel no longer associated the sound of the flute with something unknown and, therefore, dangerous.

  The fifth day, Shannon returned from hunting to find logs dragged up to the dwindling woodpile. The maul Silent John had used to split wood — and Shannon had broken — was repaired. The ax was sharpened. So was the crosscut saw.

  Prettyface sniffed every object suspiciously, his ruff raised and his chest vibrating with a low growl. But nothing came forth to challenge him. Nor did he catch any sense of unease from his mistress.

  The big dog’s ruff settled. Slowly he was coming to accept Whip’s scent as something normal.

  That night Prettyface barely cocked his ears when the flute’s husky cries wove through the twilight. Shannon paused in the act of draping clothes across the line to dry over the stove. She titled her head back and closed her eyes, letting the beauty of the music caress her tired spirit.

  On the sixth day that Shannon came back empty-handed from hunting, Whip’s gift was freshly chopped wood of the exact length to burn in her stove. The wood was neatly piled by the cabin door, close at hand whenever she needed it.

  While she looked at the wood, Whip’s flute whispered to Shannon from the surrounding forest, a haunting three-note cry. When she turned, she saw nothing.

  Nor did the flute sing again.

  On the seventh day, a bouquet of wildflowers waited for her.

  Shannon looked at the flowers and bit her lip against an unexpected desire to cry. Letting out a shaky breath, she searched the forest at the edge of the clearing, hungry to see more of Whip than a shadow slipping away at the edge of her vision. Sometime in the past six days, she had stopped worrying about Whip circling around behind her and catching her unawares. She no longer believed he would jump on her like an animal and rut on her whether she wanted it or not.

  If that was what Whip wanted from Shannon, he could have taken her more easily than he had taken the grouse or the trout. She knew her vulnerability when she left the cabin as surely as he must have known it.

  And the Culpeppers. She feared they knew it as well.

  Shannon wondered if Whip, too, had come across the tracks of four saddle mules just two miles below the cabin. Seeing the tracks, Shannon had been relieved to know that Whip was just beyond reach in the forest somewhere, watching out for her.

  Protecting her.

  The thought made Shannon smile, though the smile quickly turned upside down. She knew Whip’s protection wouldn’t last very long. As soon as he realized that she wasn’t his for the asking, he would ride on until he found a more willing woman.

  But until then, Shannon welcomed the knowledge that she wasn’t wholly alone.

  Slowly Shannon bent down and picked up the flowers Whip had left for her. It was like holding a handful of butterflies. She looked at the glorious colors, brushed her lips against the smooth petals, and tried to remember when someone had given her anything that wasn’t needed for sheer survival.

  She couldn’t think of one time. Even Cherokee’s unexpected gift had been meant to further Shannon’s survival, like a box of shotgun shells or a haunch of venison.

  With a ragged sound, Shannon put her face into the soft, fragrant flowers and wept.

  When she looked up, she saw Whip silhouetted against the burning blue of the sky. She blinked away tears, trying to see him better.

  She saw only empty sky.

  WHIP walked down the far side of the rise to the place where his horse was tied. The sight of Shannon crying disturbed him in ways he couldn’t name.

  Why would she cry over a handful of flowers?

  There was no answer.

  Whip muttered a curse and swung into the saddle. Then he cursed again and shifted his weight in the stirrups. Seeing Shannon walk through the clearing to the cabin had drawn a pronounced response from his body. She had a way of moving that could set fire to stone, and Whip was a long way from stone.

  He was both annoyed and amused by his own arousal. He hadn’t been this hot and bothered over a woman since West Virginia, when Savannah Marie had set out to tease one of the Moran brothers into marrying her. Whip had known precisely what she was doing, but the scented sighs and rustling silk petticoats and peekaboo glimpses of her nipples still had made his body as hard as an ax handle.

  But Shannon wasn’t wearing silk petticoats, and her breasts were hidden unless the wind blew hard enough to press cloth against the surprisingly lush curves of her body. Whip hadn’t gotten close enough to discover whether Shannon’s breath was scented, but he had discovered the spearmint someone had planted by the creek, and he had seen her pick springs and take them to the cabin.

  Whip wondered if Shannon would taste of cream and mint when he dipped his tongue into her.

  Then he wondered again why she had cried over the flowers.

  Maybe she’s just lonely.

  He considered that possibility as he began casting for sign on the trail that led away from Shannon’s cabin to Holler Creek. He knew that widows were often lonely, especially if they had no children or nearby family or friends.

  Hell, any woman would be lonely in those circumstances.

  Of course, there’s that old shaman in the cabin on the north fork of Avalanche Creek. Shannon visits him often enough. That’s company, of a sort.

  Whip had been surprised the first time he had tracked Shannon to the tiny, remote shack where the shaman lived. Then Whip had seen the old man’s crooked stance and realized that Shannon was helping him out.

  She must be used to taking care of old men. If gossip can be trusted, Silent John is no spring chicken.

  Or was.

  Is he dead like the Culpeppers think, or did he take a bead on the wrong man and find himself ambushed in turn and is lying low until the other man gives up?

  The only answer Whip could think of was another question.

  Maybe Silent John is like that half-breed shaman, bunged up and waiting to heal before he comes back. After all, he was seen riding out over Avalanche Creek Pass at the first thaw.

  The thought made Whip’s mouth thin. Much as he wanted the pleasure he would find within Shannon’s body, he no more wanted to seduce a married woman than he did a virgin. It wasn’t something a decent man did.

  That was why Whip had spent much of the past week quartering the land and scrambling up the various forks of Avalanche Creek, looking for any sign that Silent John was working on his claims or had gone to ground to wait out an injury.

  Whip had found nothing for his trouble but a few ragged holes far up the mountainside, signs that someone had taken a pickax to hard rock and gone looking for gold. But there was nothing to tell Whip how long ago the holes had been worked. All he could be certain of was that the ashes of the various campfires he discovered hadn’t been disturbed since the last rain, three days before.

  Three days.

  Three weeks.

  Three years. No way to tell.

  Hell, Caleb told me of coming across charcoal from fires built against cliffs high in these mountains. Nothing had changed since his daddy surveyed those same charcoal remains thirty years ago for the army.

  And the fires had been built by Indians three hundred years ago, before they had st
olen horses from the Spaniards and learned how to ride.

  I don’t have three hundred years to find Silent John.

  Whip did’t know how much more time he would spend in the Rocky Mountains. Already he had stayed here longer than he had in any place since he had left West Virginia all those years ago, when he was man-sized and boy-stupid.

  Part of what still held Whip in the Rockies was the presence of his brother Reno and his sister Willow, and friends like Caleb and Wolfe. But the land itself was also an extraordinary lure. The taste of the wind and the colors of the land were like nowhere else on earth. Something about the clusters of high, icy peaks and the long, green divides between the groups of mountains fascinated Whip.

  Yet as much as he loved the landscape, he didn’t expect to settle down and live in the midst of the wild Rockies. Sooner or later wanderlust would reclaim his soul and he would go wherever the mood took him, searching the earth for something he was able to describe only as the sunrise he had never seen.

  But until the yondering urge comes, there’s nothing to keep me from enjoying the sunrise I have right here.

  Accompanied only by his thoughts and a restless wind, Whip cast for sign in the long, raking light of late afternoon, He saw tracks of elk and deer and mountain lion. He heard the high, fluting cry of an eagle calling to its mate. But he neither heard men nor saw signs of anyone moving over the land.

  There were no new mule tracks where Holler Creek’s racing white water joined with Avalanche Creek’s eastern fork. The tracks of four mules were still there, blurred somewhat by a light rain but unmistakable.

  The Culpeppers had ridden to the fork in the trail that led to Shannon’s cabin. Three of them had stayed there for a time, sitting on their mules and drinking while the fourth Culpepper scouted the east fork of avalanche Creek.

  Whip had been on the rise behind Shannon’s cabin when he saw Darcy sneaking through the woods. Whip had pulled his carbine out of the saddle scabbard, sighted, and send rock splinters peppering over Darcy’s chest. Darcy had run back to his mule and set off at a hard pace.

  Whip had backtracked him to where the others sat their mules and awaited their brother’s return. The Culpeppers didn’t hang around for whoever had taken a shot at Darcy. They threw two empty whiskey bottles onto the rocks and put spurs to heir racing mules.