Elizabeth Lowell: Warrior

Soon, but not yet. The storm that had threatened three days before hadn't materialized. It was coming now, though. As Target followed the zigzagging trail that led out of the northern end of Wildfire Canyon, Nevada could smell the storm on the wind, feel it in the icy fingers ruffling his beard and making his eyes sting. Even the rocks around him weren't impervious. They had known the grip of countless winters, water silently freezing, expanding, splitting stones apart. Evidence of the silent, inexorable power of ice lay everywhere in the high reaches of the canyon, where slopes too steep to grow trees were covered with angular stones that had been chiseled from boulders and bedrock by countless picks of ice.

At the top of the steep trail, Nevada reined in and let Target rest for a few minutes. Between gusts of wind, the silence was complete. The tiniest sound came clearly through the air – a pebble rolling from beneath steel-shod hooves, a raven calling across the canyon. Target's ears flicked and twitched nervously as he tried to hear every sound. When a pebble dislodged by water clattered down the slope, the horse's nostrils flared, the skin on his shoulder flinched and he shied.

"Take it easy, boy," Nevada said in a soothing voice as he gathered in the roping rein more tightly.

Even as Nevada's left hand managed the reins, his right hand checked that the rifle was still in its saddle holster. The gesture was so automatic that he was unaware of it, legacy of commando training and years spent in places where to be unarmed was to die. The rifle's cold, smooth stock came easily into his hand, then settled back into the sheath.

Target snorted and bunched his haunches, wanting to be free of the pressure of the bit. Nevada glanced at the packhorse. Daisy was ignoring Target's nervousness.

"Settle down, knothead," Nevada said calmly. "If there was anything around but wind and shadows, Daisy would know it. She has a nose like a hound."

Target chewed resentfully on the bit as the wind gusted suddenly, raking the landscape with fingernails of ice. Nevada tugged his hat down more firmly and guided the horse out onto the exposed slope. For the first hundred yards, a faint, ragged line across the wind-scoured scree was the only sign of a trail. The line had been left by generations of deer, cougars, and occasional Indians. In modern times, deer and cougars still used the game trail, as did Rocking M cowhands who were working both Wildfire Canyon and the leased grazing lands beyond. Target was in the center of the scree when the black flash of a raven skimming over the land spooked him. Between one heartbeat and the next, Target tried to leap over his own shadow.

There was no time for Nevada to think, to plan, to escape. Reflex took over. Even as Target lost his footing on the loose stone, Nevada was kicking free of the stirrups, grabbing the rifle, and throwing himself toward the uphill side of the trail. Inches away from his rider's body, Target's powerful hooves flailed as the horse lost its balance and began rolling down the slope in a clattering shower of loose stone. Nevada fell too, turning and rolling rapidly, surrounded by loose rocks, no way to stop himself, nothing solid to hang on to.

At the bottom of the slope, a massive boulder stopped Nevada's body. Before the last stone in the small landslide had stopped rolling, Target staggered to his feet, shook himself thoroughly, and looked around. When nothing happened, the horse walked calmly to the edge of the recent slide and looked for something edible. A few minutes later the packhorse joined Target, having found a less dangerous way to the bottom of the slope.

Before long the gray sky lowered and dissolved into the pale dance of countless snowflakes. The horses turned their tails to the wind and drifted before the storm.

Nevada lay unmoving, rifle in hand.

*

Baby's ululating howl brought Eden to her feet in a rush of adrenaline. The wolf had been running free all day, for Eden hadn't yet needed Baby's keen nose. She would put him to work after the storm had passed, leaving a fragile shawl of white over the land. Then she would roam widely, noting and recording the cat tracks that would show clearly in the fresh snow. Once the snow melted away, Baby's nose would make certain that Eden could follow the cats even across solid rock.

A steaming cup of coffee in her hand, Eden went to the cabin door, opened it and listened. The slow glide of snowflakes to the ground and muffled sounds limited visibility to a hundred feet.

Baby howled again, calling out in the eerie harmonics of his wolf father.

Eden listened closely and muttered, "Not his hunting song. Not his lonely song. Not his great-to-be-alive song."

The haunting cry rose again, closer now, piercing the snow's silence.

"I hear you, Baby. You're coming back to me." A black shape materialized at the edge of the snowfall. With the ghostly silence of smoke, Baby came across the meadow clearing to the cabin. There was a brief hesitation in his gait, a slight asymmetry in his stride, which was the legacy of the steel trap that had maimed him years before.

Instead of greeting Eden and going about his business, Baby caught her hand delicately in his mouth and looked at her with intent yellow eyes. Curiosity leaped in Eden. Baby rarely insisted on having her attention. When he did, it was to warn her that they weren't alone any longer – men were somewhere near.

"Company is coming, hmm?" After what had happened in West Fork, Eden was glad for the presence of the huge, dark wolf. "Well, don't worry. I just made a big pot of coffee. Come on in, Baby. We'll greet whoever it is together."

Eden tried to withdraw her hand. Politely, gently, Baby's jaws tightened.

Curiosity gave way to a fresh rush of adrenaline in Eden. A picture condensed in her mind – eyes of pale icy green, a thick black pelt of hair and beard, a face that was too hard to be called handsome and too fiercely good-looking to be called anything else.

Stay away from me, Eden… I want you more than all the men in that bar put together.

It was not the first time Eden had thought of the dark stranger who had come to her aid. His image condensed between her eyes and the hearth fire, the wild sky, the rugged land. He haunted her with questions that couldn't be answered.

Who are you, Nevada? Where are you? Is it your scent on the snow-wind that is calling to my wolf?

As soon as the hopeful thought came, Eden pushed it aside. Nevada hadn't looked back after he had walked away from her. He hadn't left any message for her the following morning. He hadn't even told her his last name.

Eden looked into Baby's eyes and wished futilely that she could truly communicate with him. Baby had been this insistent only once before, in Alaska, when it was a silvertip grizzly sniffing around downwind rather than a lonely trapper smelling smoke and hoping for a cup of fresh coffee.

"Are you sure it's important, Baby? Mortimer J. Martin, Ph.D., personally assured me there were no bears left in this part of the Lower Forty-eight. That's why I left my rifle with Dad."

Baby made a soft, somehow urgent sound deep in his throat and tugged on Eden's hand. Then he released her, trotted away about twenty feet and looked over his shoulder.

"You're sure? Compared to the Yukon there isn't enough snow to mention, but I'm really not dying for a hike in the white stuff. There's not enough snowpack for cross-country skis or snowshoes, which means-"

Baby whined softly, pleading in the only way he could. Then he threw back his head and howled.

The hair on the back of Eden's neck stirred in primal response. Not even for the grizzly had Baby been so insistent.

"Baby, stay."

Knowing without looking that the wolf would obey, Eden spun around and ran back into the cabin. She grabbed a canteen, filled it with hot coffee, banked the hearth fire, yanked on two layers of snow gear, shrugged into the backpack she always kept ready to go and ran out the front door in less than three minutes. She glanced at her watch, wondering how long she would be gone. If necessary she could live out of her backpack for several days. She would just as soon have the comforts of the cabin, however.