Rain Shadow(30)

* * *

"I'm glad Sissy ain't gonna be my ma."

The fire hissed, and something sounding like a screw rolled on the  tabletop in the ensuing silence. Anton studied the clock parts scattered  across the scarred table, lamplight glinting off his spectacles.

"She ain't?" Slade asked Nikolaus innocently. "Why?"

"'Cause her and my pa ain't comparable."

Anton cleared his throat and corrected, "Compatible."

"Yeah." Nikolaus sprawled on a quilt before the fireplace. He and Slade  were munching popcorn Rain Shadow had popped over the flames.

"What's that?" Slade pressed.

Sitting between the boys, attention arrested, Rain Shadow sensed Anton  behind her and employed untapped reserves of willpower not to turn  around. Her skin flushed from the heat of the blaze.

"They don't like the same things. Ain't that right, Pa?"

For the first time she could remember, Anton didn't correct his son's grammar. "That's right."

"Sort of like you love popcorn, but she doesn't?" Slade twisted his body to get a better look at Anton.

"Well..." he hedged.

A log rolled in the fireplace, and Rain Shadow focused her attention on it.

"It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist," Anton said.

"Why're you glad, Nikolaus?" Slade tossed a kernel in the air and caught it on his tongue.

"She doesn't act like a ma and she has too many freckles. Did my mama have that many freckles?"

Rain Shadow held her quivering lips taut at Nikolaus' serious expression.

"No. But, Nikolaus, freckles aren't a reason not to like a person. Sissy  isn't a mother yet, so how would she know how to act like one?"

"What was a good reason you decided not to marry her then, Pa?"

"Son," Anton said, an exasperated puff huffing out with the word.  "You're too young to understand. Besides, some things are personal."

"Did she cry when you told her you didn't wanna marry her?"

"That's personal, too."

"Well, did she, Pa?"

"Nikolaus."

Suddenly the source of his embarrassment struck Rain Shadow. Laughter  welled up inside her and bubbled over. She clasped her hand over her  mouth too late and convulsed with mirth. Sissy had turned him down!

"What's so funny?"

At last she turned toward him.

He jerked his gold-rimmed spectacles from his nose and stood.

"I-I'm-sorry." His indignant expression provoked another fit of laughter.

"Is my personal life amusing to you?"

She smothered another grin. "A little maybe."

Vexed, he spun on his heel and stomped toward the kitchen where his  father was intent on saving his last two red kings. Anton poured himself  a cup of coffee and scowled out the window into the blackness.

"You going to check the animals tonight?" Johann asked.

"I'll do it," he returned.

"It's getting harder and harder to keep Rain Shadow in at night, but we  have to be careful. Two Feathers found a cold campsite on the east ridge  this mornin'. Ruiz is still out there."

Anton took a scalding sip of the strong brew without glancing into the room. "Sure wish I knew his intent."

Two Feathers grunted in agreement.

"Do you think it's her or the boy?" Anton asked the old Indian.

Wizened black eyes lifted to inspect Anton's face. "What he wants is for his own profit. Of that I am sure."

Anton nodded grimly. "I'm sick of waiting around for his next move like a  sitting duck. I think I should go after Ruiz. Turn the tables on him."                       
       
           



       

"What then? Kill 'im?" Johann asked.

Anton met his father's eyes. Of course not. But there must be something he could do.

Johann tamped his pipe with fresh tobacco. "Or ride into his camp and  say, 'Would you mind leaving these parts? You're tryin' me'?"

Anton plopped the mug down on the table in frustration. "There must be some way to discourage him."

Johann shrugged his shoulders. "Too bad she ain't married."

Two Feathers nodded sagely.

"Married?" Anton frowned at his father as if he was hallucinating.

"Yup. If it's Rain Shadow he wants, a husband would clear that right up.  If it's the boy, her husband could sign some papers and have legal  rights."

"You sure about that?"

Johann shrugged negligently. "Could check it out easy enough."

His pipe held between his teeth, he focused his attention once again on  the checker game. A spiral of smoke curled past Johann's grizzly white  brow. Anton grabbed his coat from a hook and wondered at the sheepish  look the two old men exchanged. "I'll be in shortly."

He'd lain awake nights with his shoulder throbbing, trying to uncover a  solution. Sending her on to winter quarters would only relocate the  problem, besides removing her from his protection. Ruiz had found her  once, he'd find her again. Seeking the law didn't sound helpful. After  all, Anton had thrown the first punch in that free-for-all. Ruiz could  plead self-defense. He'd thought the situation over, always ending at a  road leading nowhere.

But his father's suggestion was ridiculous. Who would marry her? That  Tall Bear fellow from the show who'd joked about offering her father  more horses?

Anton allowed the rich, pungent aromas of animals and grain to soothe  his ire. Helplessness didn't sit easily. He offered Jack a handful of  oats and rubbed the bony ridge between his eyes.

"You earn your keep, fella," he said softly, thinking of relentless  circles in the corral, Rain Shadow standing sure-footedly on the  animal's back, defying gravity while taking perfect aim at last night's  bean cans.

Nobody in his right mind would marry a woman like that. Anton fingered  Jack's meticulously braided mane. For days he'd mulled over a solution  to protect her and Slade from Ruiz. There was no justifiable reason for  him to feel he should be the one to find an answer. His common sense  told him to let her take care of herself like she wanted. Every  self-preserving instinct screamed for him to mind his own business. But  something else, some illogical voice, overstepped all sense and sanity  and prodded him to consider his father's idea.

He kneaded Jack's ear between his fingers and couldn't help recalling  the loving words and caresses Rain Shadow bestowed on the animal.  Earlier he'd had no means to protect her. But if his father was right,  he did now. He no longer held a commitment to Sissy. As mad as it  sounded, marriage seemed like the all-round best solution so far.

Rain Shadow was surprised to discover sleet needling her cheeks when she  stepped off the back porch. The house cushioned noises and weather she  was accustomed to hearing inside her lodge. She buried her hands deep in  her coat pockets and hurried to the barn.

Anton turned at the sound of the door sliding open and shut.

"Don't tell me I shouldn't be out here," she said defensively. "I'm sick of being cooped up in the house."

"I know the feeling."

"You mean we have something in common?"

He set a bucket aside.

"Anton, I'm sorry I laughed."

He shouldered past her without comment.

The gray and white cat sidled against the top of her boot, and she  smiled, inexplicably pleased with herself. She'd gotten to Anton,  disturbed him on a level she'd never reached before. Why the thought  warmed her inside she didn't know.

* * *

"Wanna ride into Butler with me?" Anton paused on the back porch. Rain  Shadow's hair shone blue-black in the morning sunlight, her braid hidden  inside her coat. She looked up from a shirt she'd been mending since  breakfast. "What about the boys?"
                       
       
           



       
"Annette's asked for them to stay at her place today. And our fathers will be close by."

She considered.

"I thought we'd scout the east ridge on our way, check out those campsites."

"When do we leave?"

"How soon can you be ready?"

"Only need my hat and holster." Any other woman would've taken a good  hour to prepare herself for a visit into town. Not her. She stabbed a  needle into the flannel and stood. "Can you help me carry Slade over?"

"I'll get him. I have to grab a pair of boots." He ran stocking-footed  up the stairs, pleased with the improved movement of his arm and  shoulder.

Passing Nikolaus' room, Anton glanced in and stopped in his tracks. He  stared at the empty bed for a full minute. Voices reached him, and he  followed the sound. Entering the usually unoccupied bedroom, be  discovered Nikolaus and Slade standing side by side in front of a long,  low mirror, obviously chosen for its exceptional reflection of their  painted faces. He stepped back against the doorjamb. They hadn't seen  him. The boys spoke in husky, guttural voices, absorbed in a game of war  paint and imaginary ponies.