Chapter Seven
Harmony experienced a mixture of relief and apprehension as Cripple Creek disappeared behind a ridge and she and Buck Hanner headed into the foothills. Would she ever return? Now she would be alone with this man, in whom she was putting so much trust. Trust. There was that word again, the word that had brought her so much pain. Now she was almost forced to trust this man whom she knew only on the surface, not deep inside. She had no choice but to hope for the best.
“When are you going to show me how to use my Winchester?” she asked.
“In time.” He looked ahead, quietly smoking, and she remembered his comment about liking the quiet of the mountains. He probably wanted his peace even more now, after having killed a man that very day. He’d seemed lost in thought when she asked the question, and a little irritated at having to answer.
She decided not to talk unless he spoke first. The horses plodded over gravelly ground, from which sagebrush and yucca sprouted, interspersed with a variety of colorful wildflowers. She wondered how anything could grow in the dry, hard ground. Yet ahead of them, in the higher foothills that approached the mountains, pine trees flourished, some seeming to be rooted in pure rock, some leaning over so that they appeared ready to fall at any moment. Yet they were very old trees and would probably still be there long after her own death.
Harmony rode near the last mule but to the side, not following directly behind because of the dust. When the trail allowed for only one animal, large boulders dotting either side so that were was only one way to go, she moved behind the last mule and coughed from the dust. In no time at all the day grew too warm, but there was nothing she could do about it. Beads of sweat began to form on her forehead and neck, and Pepper shuddered and tossed her head, as though disapproving of the heat. But in front of them Buck Hanner kept going on Indian, seemingly oblivious to the temperature or the time of day. They rode until well past lunchtime. Harmony felt a gnawing hunger but said nothing, not wanting to start complaining on their very first day on the trail. She’d get used to all of this, she was sure. But this was the hottest day she’d experienced since coming to Colorado. It was hard to believe that winter snows might shut her in her cabin for weeks. Right now she didn’t even want to think about her heavy, fleece-lined jacket.
For hours there had been only the sounds of hooves against hard earth, an occasional shudder or whinny, the swishing of the horses’ tails, the squeak of leather, and here and there the chitter of a prairie dog, which Harmony thought should be called an “everywhere” dog, because they certainly did not stick to the prairies.
She smiled when she watched the lively little animals, allowing them to take her mind off her physical discomfort and her fear of what lay ahead. She thought of the prairie dogs as friends. For that matter, she decided to think of all the animals as friends while she was alone. That would make it more bearable. She would spend her free time trying to tame some of them—except the horrible rats Wade Tillis had mentioned. She wondered if what he’d said was true. What on earth would she do if they arrived and the cabin was full of rats!
The higher mountains seemed close now, yet they were not. Buck had already told her it would be a good week before they reached their destination. She could see Pike’s Peak, but it never seemed to get any closer as they rode on that day.
When Buck finally drew Indian and the mules to a halt, Harmony guessed it was at least three o’clock in the afternoon. She frowned and dismounted slowly, her legs stiff and not wanting to come together. Buck did not seem the least affected by the long ride or the heat. He walked the horses into a little cove, where rocks created shade and the air was somewhat cooler. “We’ll eat here and rest a bit,” he told her.
“Well, at least I know you really do talk on these trips,” she answered, “and you really do stop to rest!”
He turned to watch her come up behind him, walking slowly and rubbing at her thighs. “Sure I talk—eventually,” he answered. “Part of the reason I’m keeping my mouth shut is I want you to start getting used to the sounds out here, to know what’s a real sound and what’s maybe a human signal or something out of the ordinary, like the growl of a grizzly.”
“Thank you for eliminating all fear from my soul,” she told him, taking a couple of Wanda’s biscuits out of the cloth bag she had tied around her saddle horn. “I’ll keep my ears open.”
“I’m serious, Shortcake. You’ve got to train your ears in this country.”
“Right now I’m still training my legs.”
He grinned and opened his canteen, taking a swallow. “You’d better drink a little yourself,” he told her, wiping his lips. “I’ll pour some in my hat and water the horses. There isn’t much in the way of water around here till you get up higher, and you’ve been perspiring a lot. You’ll dehydrate.” He gave her a wink. “Drink up. You’re small enough as it is. You wouldn’t want the mountain winds to blow you away, would you?”
She licked at dry lips. “No. I wanted a drink a long time ago, but I was afraid to ask you. You were so lost in your own thoughts I didn’t want to make you angry.”
He pushed his hat back and shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. If you need something—holler.”
She nodded, suddenly reddening. She looked around nervously, and he grinned.
“Got some personal business to tend to?” he asked.
She scowled. “I do.”
“Go find a rock. There’s nobody to see but the eagles and prairie dogs around here.”
She watched him warily. “And you?”
He laughed lightly. “Go take care of it, Shortcake. Then come back here and drink some water and eat a little something. We’ll rest in the shade awhile after eating. Now get going, unless you want something more embarrassing to happen because you tried to hold it in.”
She reddened more but could not deny the truth to the statement. She took a bite of biscuit, then stuffed them back into the bag and hurried behind a group of large boulders, praying she could trust him not to look. When she returned, he was coming from behind a craggy rock formation.
“Feels a little better, doesn’t it?” he said.
She had to grin, and she reddened again. “Don’t talk about it,” she answered. “I just want to sit down someplace out of the sun and close my eyes.”
He motioned toward a lower spot where there was more sand than rock. “It’s softer over there. Get a blanket and spread it out. Take your canteen and that bag of biscuits. I could use a few biscuits myself.”
She untied a blanket from her gear and unhooked the bag of biscuits, walking to the spot he’d indicated and spreading out the blanket. She set down the biscuits and went back for her canteen. When she returned, he followed her with his own blanket, unfolding it near hers, and they both sat down.
“We’ll rest here about a half-hour, then ride till dark,” he told her, reaching out and taking a biscuit from her. We can make a fire and eat a real meal once we hole up for night. Can you survive on these things till then?”
“Sure. I’m okay.”
He ate three more biscuits, washing them down with water. He leaned against a boulder then, pushing back his hat and looking up into the hills. “You get some shut-eye, Shortcake. I’ll keep watch.”
She frowned. “Keep watch? For what?”
He glanced at her and grinned. “For a lot of things. I’m just making sure no one followed us, and although it appears desolate and lifeless out here, little girl, there’s plenty of life, including rattlesnakes.”
Her eyes widened. “Snakes!” She looked around and he laughed.
“Just get some rest, will you? I’ll keep an eye out.”
“But what about you? Don’t you need to rest?”
He rolled a cigarette. “Cowboys learn to rest in the saddle with their eyes open. On a drive a man sometimes has to stay awake a couple of days straight, if the cattle are restless or a storm is brewing, or renegade Indians are stalking you. ’Course there’s not much worry about Indians anymore.” He licked and sealed the cigarette, his eyes saddening. She watched him light it and take a puff.
“Are there Indians around here?”
He glanced at her with his sad blue eyes and laughed lightly. “Hardly. Colorado chased out the Indians a long time ago. The ones that were here are long gone, on reservations that aren’t even in the state. You’ll run into no Indians around here, Shortcake, except a few of the civilized ones who try to make a living in a place where they aren’t wanted.”
She took a drink and then capped her canteen before she lay back, first squishing some sand into a hump under her blanket to make a headrest. “Do you know any Indians personally?”
He smoked quietly. “Not anymore. They’re all hidden away on reservations, and most folks, especially those in the government, would prefer to forget they even exist. I had an Indian friend once, down in Texas when I was a kid. We lived near an Apache reservation. His name was Fast Horse. We played together all the time—even cut our palms and held them together to vow to be blood brothers. Then, without any reason, his father got shipped off to a hellhole prison in Florida and Fast Horse got sent to some special school for Indian kids in Pennsylvania. I got one letter from him, telling me how unhappy and humiliated he was because they’d made him cut his hair short and wear hot, scratchy clothes, and he couldn’t hunt and ride and talk to the sun anymore. Then I didn’t hear from him at all for a long time, so I went to the reservation to ask about him. They told me he’d died in Pennsylvania, of some white man’s disease—measles, I think. I don’t remember anymore. I only remember that he died in a faraway place that he hated…and he was buried there, away from everything he loved.”
Buck’s voice trailed off, and she wondered if his eyes were red and watery from the heat and dust or from something else. He looked away from her, smoking quietly.
She turned on her side and rested her head in her hand. “I’m sorry, Buck,” she said quietly. “I guess I never thought about Indians that much…about them being real people I mean. I guess it’s just because I never knew any. Back East all people know about them is what they read in dime novels, or rumors they hear. Sometimes there’s an article in a newspaper about reservations, about something that happened on one or an argument over whether or not Indians should stay on reservations or be mixed into the white man’s world and split up.”
He sighed deeply. “The government would like to destroy them, but they can’t. They want to break up the reservations because they want the land. And they think if they spread the Indians out into white society that will kill the reservations, kill the culture, until one day there won’t be such a thing as a full-blood American Indian.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “But it won’t work. You have to know them to know what I mean, Shortcake. There is a spirit in the Indian that can’t be broken, and I’m betting that a hundred years from now there will still be plenty of full bloods and reservations. That land is theirs by treaty, and Indians have to be with Indians. It’s the way. They’ll never give up their culture, their love of the land, their spiritual beliefs and freedom of soul. And they belong out here, much more than we do. We’re the intruders, you know. But then I guess that’s just life.”
Harmony closed her eyes, thinking about Jimmie wanting to kick her out. “I guess there are always people taking advantage of other people, just because they have more money, more power,” she told him. “That’s why I’m going to have my own money—my own independence. That’s power. Nobody will walk all over me and tell me what to do.”
He watched her, wondering if she really knew what she was saying. He had power over her by sheer strength, and it was tempting to use that strength to break her stubborn independence. But a man didn’t take a girl like Harmony Jones that way. Someday she would give herself to him without resistance. He was determined to make it happen.
He looked away from her then, finishing his cigarette, thinking about Fast Horse again. It had been so many years, yet he still missed him. Everyone he had ever cared about was gone, and he sensed that it was the same for Harmony. They were a lot alike, although she didn’t realize it yet.
Harmony awoke to a hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her. Her first thought was of Jimmie, rudely touching her in the night, and she jumped awake, immediately gasping and moving back like a trapped animal.
“Don’t you touch me!” she yelled. She picked up a rock in a shaking hand.
Buck frowned. “Harmony, it’s just me—Buck. You fell into a pretty hard sleep. We’ve got to get going.”
She blinked, studying the blue eyes, just beginning to realize where she was.
“Harmony? You awake?” He saw the fear in her eyes. Someone had done something to this girl to make her hate and fear sex and men. That was obvious from the way she had reacted. He could tell she was just now coming back to reality. In her sleep, his touch had reminded her of something else—someone else. “What’s wrong, Shortcake? Somebody hurt you once?”
She looked at the rock in her hand, her breathing coming in quick gasps as her startled heart began to slow its rapid beating. “I…I’m sorry.” She set the rock down. “I thought…you were someone else.” She quickly got to her feet and picked up her canteen, removing the cap.
“Jimmie?” he asked. “The one who said you had no right to any of Brian O’Toole’s property?”
She hesitated, then drank some water and recapped the canteen. “I don’t care to talk about it. It’s no one’s business but my own.” She slung the canteen over her shoulder and picked up her blanket, marching over to Pepper. He sighed, picking up his own blanket and folding it, then picking up his canteen and loading both onto Indian. He mounted up before he reached down and untied the mules’ lead rope from a dying, gnarled pine tree that barely had any branches left on it. He glanced at Harmony noticing she seemed lost in thought as she sat her own horse waiting for his lead.
“Not all men are like that, Shortcake,” he felt compelled to tell her.
She met his eyes defiantly. “Meaning you?”
He flashed the handsome grin that made her common sense vanish. “Maybe.”
“You keep your mind on the business at hand, Buck Hanner!” she challenged. “I don’t care to find out what any man is like! I don’t need one, and once I get where I’m going I won’t need you either. You promised me—”
“Forget I said it!” he interrupted, his eyes suddenly angry. “Every damned time I try to be nice to you, you turn around and accuse me of having ulterior motives! This won’t be the easiest job I’ve ever had, you know, roaming through the mountains with an ignorant child who hasn’t even learned how to shoot a rifle yet! The least you could do is be civil to me and accept it when someone is nice to you without thinking you’re being attacked.”
He turned his horse and started off with the mules, then glanced back to see her just sitting there, her lips puckered, her face flushed from fighting tears. She looked like a little girl, in spite of her tempting figure. Why did she have to be do damned naive? This trip could be a lot more pleasurable if she were an easy woman. But there was nothing easy about Harmony Jones; it wasn’t even easy to understand her. Again he wondered what had happened to her to make her so afraid of being touched by a man.
He sighed and rubbed at his eyes, knowing that he didn’t really want her to be easy. He would have been disappointed, for he liked her…too much perhaps. Maybe he even loved her. Who could tell? He couldn’t get close enough to her to know the real Harmony Jones. And although this trip would be torture, having to just watch her, it was better than finding out she was wild and easy. Yet he could not help but picture her wild—wild in his arms, in his bed, wild just for Buck Hanner and no one else.
“I’m sorry, Shortcake,” he said. “I just wish you’d relax. We’ll be traveling for several days, then getting O’Toole’s claim back into working order. We can’t spend the next two weeks or so together with you blowing up over everything I do and say.”
She sniffed. “I know.” She rode a little closer. “Don’t be mad, Buck. I know there are probably a lot of other things you’d rather be doing. I just—I have bad memories about something that happened. When you touched me to wake me, I thought I was someplace else…that you were someone else.”
“Well, whether it was Jimmie or some other man, I’d like to get my hands on him. I meant what I said—about all men not being the same. It’s true, you know. What about Brian O’Toole? He was good to you, wasn’t he?”
She nodded and sniffed again.
“There. You see?”
She wiped at her eyes. “He was like a father to me, and he was married. Besides, I was a little girl when he found me. It wasn’t like…like…you know. It just wasn’t the same, that’s all.”
He pulled his hat down a little. “Well, if you’re thinking I’ve got thoughts about making a woman of you, forget it!” he told her, sounding angry again. “The way you act sometimes, I feel like your father myself, and there are plenty of women in Cripple Creek who can take care of me a lot better than a little girl who knows nothing about men and who has no goal in life beyond getting rich so she can be independent. So put your mind at ease, Shortcake!”
He headed out again, and she watched him for a moment. She did not want him to be interested in her that way, yet when he told her he wasn’t and spoke of other women, she felt that painful little ache in her heart again. It confused her.
He did not look back this time, and she rode out after him, following the mules. Nothing more was said for several hours. He didn’t even ask if she needed to stop. Toward dusk he halted, telling her to stay on her horse. He pulled his rifle from its boot and took aim. In the distance she saw a rabbit. He fired once but it kept running, and amid a string of curses he quickly cocked the lever of his Winchester and fired again. On the second shot the rabbit flipped over several times, then lay still.
“There’s our supper,” he announced, dismounting. “Damned fast little buggers. I should have had a shotgun.” He ran out to the animal and came back carrying it by its hind legs. She felt relieved when she saw a smile on his face. He was so handsome when he smiled. His blue eyes seemed to match the sky, his sandy hair the earth, his tanned face the rocks. Indeed, his tall, lean body looked as hard as the rocks, and there was an animal-like grace to his walk. Never in her life had she studied a man, compared a man to anything, thought of a man as handsome or otherwise. She had avoided men, never trusted them. For that matter, how could she trust another woman? Hadn’t her own mother abandoned her? That left her with nothing and no one, and she was better off that way, better off looking at Buck Hanner in the same way she looked at everyone else.
“You ever clean and skin a rabbit?” he asked her.
“No, sir.”
“Well, you’d better learn, Shortcake. You’ll be shooting some of your own game once I teach you how to use that rifle. The more fresh game you can kill, the longer your supplies will last. Remember that.”
He took a piece of rawhide and tied it around the rabbit’s hind feet, then to a strap on his horse. When he mounted up and rode off again, the rabbit dangled from the side of his horse. The sun was nearly gone, and they were in the middle of a broad, green valley, headed into the mountains beyond it, before he finally halted and dismounted again.
“We’ll make camp here,” he told her.
She looked around but saw no water. “I wish I could take a bath,” she commented. “I feel so gritty.”
“Most people are that way a good share of the time out here.” He untied the rabbit. “You can take a bath tomorrow night if you want. We’ll be by a stream then. I know a good place to make camp another day’s ride from here.”
She suddenly wondered how on earth she would take a bath when there was a man around that she still didn’t trust. Worse than that, they were in the middle of a wide, flat valley, with no trees or rocks to shield them, and she had a very pressing personal matter to attend to. She dismounted, watching him begin to unsaddle his horse.
“I’ll show you how to clean a rabbit as soon as we lay things out and make a fire,” he told her.
She swallowed. “Buck?”
He met her eyes, setting down his saddle. “Yeah?”
“I…there’s nothing around here…to hide behind.”
He grinned, his eyes running over her quickly. “Well, Shortcake, I told you not all men are rotten. If ever you’re going to trust me, here is a chance for the supreme test.” He bowed. “I shall turn around. And then when you’re through, you will have to do the same, because then it will be my turn.”
Her mouth fell open. “I’d never!” Her eyes narrowed with anger. “How dare you think I would even think of…of looking!”
He laughed lightly and turned around. “Hurry it up. I have pressing matters of my own.”
She watched him a moment, then backed up and took some paper from her saddlebags. She turned and ran then, as far away as she could, hurriedly taking care of matters and watching him every second. He did keep his back to her, and she began to relax. So far he had kept his word about everything, and she had to admit that when he’d asked her about what had happened to her, what Jimmie had done, his eyes had been filled with only kindness and care. Besides, it was becoming obvious he really did think of her as a child. All well and good.
She ran back to her horse. “I’m back,” she said timidly. Then she turned and began unsaddling her own mount, and he walked a distance away. For the first time she wondered what men really looked like. Her encounter with Jimmie had left her thinking they were surely hideous, the things they did to women brutal and ugly. How had Becky gotten used to it? How could she have looked at Brian with such love in her eyes, returned from their honeymoon looking so joyous? And she’d had several miscarriages. There was only one way a woman got pregnant. It gave Harmony a chill to think of it. She would never have a child, that was sure. And maybe children weren’t so wonderful after all. Hadn’t her own parents hated her so much they’d abandoned her? Hadn’t she just been in the way? Harmony Jones wanted no children. She would not bring another life into this cruel world.
“We’ll tether the horses,” Buck’s voice broke into her thoughts. To her relief he didn’t even mention what they had just done. She had thought he might tease her. “There’s nothing here to tie them to. Take the bridle off Pepper, and I’ll drive the stakes into the ground.” He removed long stakes from a pack on one of the mules, along with a sledge hammer; then he began pounding them into the ground, allowing each animal room to graze. He tied the front foot of each mule to a stake before he tied Indian and Pepper. The horses tossed their heads and whinnied, as though voicing their gratitude at being unburdened for the night. Buck laughed, petting each of them, talking to them. It was obvious he knew and loved horses, and Harmony was curious about his past.
She thought about Fast Horse. It had hurt him to talk about his Indian friend who had died. Apparently Buck Hanner had suffered some painful losses himself…Fast Horse…Mary Beth. Maybe he understood her more than she thought. Maybe he had his own hurts and haunts.
“Now for the rabbit,” he told her, throwing down the sledge hammer. “Get out a pan and bring it over here.”
He-walked to where he had laid the rabbit and she hurried over with a pan, kneeling down beside him. She wrinkled her face when he slit open the belly and pulled out the insides. “It’s really nothing, Harmony,” he declared, suddenly talking to her as if he considered her a responsible woman. Surely he did. Hadn’t he said he admired the way she’d stood up to Wade Tillis? But sometimes she did act like a child. She vowed to be more mature from now on, for she wanted him to think of her as an adult. “Clean it right away, and if you can’t eat all of it, smoke the meat real good and it will last a long time. Don’t be afraid of a little blood and guts. It can’t hurt you. Letting it repulse you is foolish. People have to survive.” He deftly cut off the head and began skinning the body. “The knife I picked out for you is a good one. It should make this easy for you, even though you’re not as strong as I am.”
He laid the carcass in the pan then. “Let’s get a fire started. It’s a good thing I packed a couple of bundles of kindling on the mules. That’s why I cut those big pine branches earlier when we were near trees. Sometimes you come to a place where there isn’t a damned thing to make a fire with, like this one. Tomorrow we’ll have no problem. We’ll be up among those pines in the mountains.”
He walked to the mules, rinsed his hands with canteen water, then cut one big branch that had been tied to a mule. He dragged it over away from the animals, and retrieving a hatchet, he began to chop it into shorter pieces. “Get out some of the kindling. We’ll have that rabbit roasting in no time. It’ll make us a damned good supper,” he told her.
Harmony quickly obeyed, bringing an armful of small pieces over to the spot. He started to tease her for bringing too much but thought better of it. He didn’t want to spark another flare-up and spoil the night. She set the wood down, and he used the hatchet to chop at the ground, pulling away some of the grass to create a bare spot.
“You don’t want to make a fire right in the grass or you might burn up the whole valley. And while I’m thinking of it, be damned careful in the pine forests, Harmony, especially later in the year when it’s extra dry. Right now the ground is wet and soft, but later, if you build a fire wrong or leave it untended, you’ll be roasted girl meat. That’s a sorry way to go, and a whole mountain and all the animals on it can be burned up.”
He leaned down and carefully lit some stacked kindling. As soon as it flared orange, he added a couple of pine logs. “Not the best wood, but it will do,” he told her. “It’s a good thing I found a nice dead tree. Green wood doesn’t burn. Remember that. Even this stuff is going to make a lot of smoke. If we were in Indian country, we could never make this fire. They’d see us miles away.”
He whittled at a couple more pieces of wood, then stuck them into the ground so that Y-shaped ends stood up. He gestured for her to fetch the rabbit, while he whittled a point at the end of a sturdy piece of kindling. Holding the rabbit, he pierced it with the pointed stick and hung the stick so that each end caught in an upright stick. “There.” He began to turn the rabbit. “Roast bunny.”
He met her eyes and she smiled with delight. “That wasn’t so hard,” she commented.
“Of course not. I’ll let you do all of it next time. You’re a smart girl and a survivor, Harmony Jones. You’ll do okay.”
She studied his blue eyes. “Do you really think so?”
“Sure I do. If I didn’t, I never would have agreed to bring you up here. You’re young and strong and determined, and you learn easy. That’s a good combination. Spread out some blankets and take out the rest of those biscuits. They’ll be hard as rock but better than nothing. No sense wasting them. And get out your fleece jacket. It will get damned cold in this valley tonight. It’s always cold out here at night. Wear your jacket under your blankets when you sleep.”
She nodded.
An hour later found them sitting on either side of the fire, eating roast rabbit. The night was smooth and dark, the sky a mass of stars. Harmony licked her fingers and rubbed at a full stomach; then she lay back, placing her head against her saddle. She looked up at the stars.
“Seems like we’re the only two people on earth,” she commented.
“That’s why I like it out here. A man can really do some thinking on life out here.” He tossed a bone aside. “Even a woman—those who bother to think at all, like you.”
She sighed deeply. “Do you think I’m crazy, Buck?”
He laughed lightly. “Sometimes. Mostly I think you’re a little mixed up and you’ve probably had some bad experiences that have made you a determined girl. I admire what you’re trying to do, Shortcake, but you are asking for a lot.”
A wolf howled in the distance, and she pulled her blankets up closer around her neck. “I know I am. But I don’t care. All my life I’ve never had anyone or anything I could count on, or that was all my own. Even Brian wasn’t really mine. He never formally adopted me. But he did leave me the gold claim, and I’m going to make something of it. I’ll be rich; then I won’t be scared anymore. Nobody will be able to threaten me just because I’m a girl and young and poor.”
“Well, Shortcake, sometimes there’s more to life than money. Money can make a person hard to live with.” He rolled a cigarette and leaned against his own saddle. The fire glowed warm orange in the black night. “I’ve seen men come out here and get rich, then change so much nobody knows them anymore. Some get rich and lose it all right away, and some—most—never find anything worth coming out here for. I find what some men will do to find gold amazing, what they give up—sometimes their very lives. For most it’s just a dream.”
She watched the glow of his cigarette as he lit it. “I suppose. Brian left a wife behind—Becky. She’d lost a lot of babies and was depressed. I think they weren’t getting along very well when Brian left. Finally she got sick and died. Poor Becky. During the last years she was always so sad. And Brian must have felt terrible, knowing she died alone. That’s why he collapsed, I’m sure of it.”
“That’s what I mean. He left behind security, a wife, a supply store, a brother, and a young ward who depended on him—all for gold. He never found any until he was out here over two years, and even that doesn’t amount to much.”
“Just the same I’m going to pan it. Five dollars a day sounds like a fortune to me, and I’ll get out more than that.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
She studied the various star formations. “You think there’s another earth out there someplace, Buck?”
He looked up. “I sure as hell hope not. One mess like this one is enough.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “It isn’t the earth itself. This land is beautiful. It’s the people on it that make it ugly. I think the perfect earth would be one just like this, with all its beauty, and no people except Indians.”
“Indians!”
“Yup. They’re as much a part of nature and the earth as the animals. Then everything would be in perfect balance. It’s the white man that spoils everything.”
“Well, you’re a white man.”
“So? That’s still my opinion.”
“It’s a strange one.”
“No stranger than a little girl going into the mountains to pan for gold alone.”
She laughed lightly, and his heart skipped a beat. He realized he had seldom heard her laugh. It was beautiful—melodic. What a nice sound! If only he could make her laugh more often! If only he could understand exactly what made her laugh and what made her angry.
“That’s a nice sound, Shortcake. A girl your age should laugh more and not be so serious about everything.”
She kept watching the stars. “Can’t help but be serious when you’re in my situation. But you’re right. I should laugh more. I’ve never had much reason. It feels kind of good to laugh.”
“It’s a release, just like crying.”
She nestled down under her blankets. “I’ve done all the crying I’m going to do. Good night, Buck.”
“Sleep tight.”
She closed her eyes, deciding she’d just have to trust him. It was too late for worrying about whether she could or not, and she was too tired to worry anyway. She pulled the blankets over her face to keep her nose warm.
Buck smoked quietly, watching her. He thought about getting under the blankets with her. Fact was, they’d both be a lot warmer that way, and he’d be glad to hold her just to keep her warm. But he knew she’d have none of that. He’d scare her clear back to St. Louis if he even suggested it, or maybe get a piece of lead in him from that little pistol she carried. And to think that tomorrow night she even wanted to take a bath! His self-control surprised him, but he knew once this trip was over, he’d best hightail it back to Cripple Creek and pay some prostitute a visit. But it wouldn’t be the same, not the same at all. One was lust and the other was love. One satisfied a temporary need, the other satisfied a man to his very soul.
He’d keep his distance—for now. But someday Buck Hanner was going to be Harmony Jones’s first man—her only man. He’d make sure of it.