Dega had to swerve to avoid a boulder. Above him, and yet a long way off, was the pass. He craned his neck to try and see it but couldn’t. He slapped his legs. His horse was lathered with sweat, but he didn’t care. He would ride it to exhaustion if need be.

  The slopes became steeper. Dega had to slow and didn’t like it. The delay gnawed at him like a beaver gnawing at a tree.

  Without warning the sorrel stumbled and nearly went down. Dega was almost pitched off. He grabbed the mane to keep from falling, and when the horse righted itself, he used his reins.

  A hawk was circling high in the sky, but he paid it no mind. A doe dashed from a thicket, but he hardly glanced its way. His mind was on Evelyn and only on Evelyn.

  The cliffs hove into sight, and Dega smiled. Soon he would be through them and then it was downhill to King Lake and their families. He hoped Nate was home and not off hunting. If that was the case, he would go to Zach. Now that he thought about it, he would go to Zach anyway and bring him back, too. Zach was as good a tracker as his father and much deadlier.

  The sorrel slipped again. Dega patted and urged it on. A jay squawked at him and took wing. A marmot whistled a shrill warning and darted into its den.

  The sorrel began to limp.

  Dega looked down. He did not know a lot about horses, but he knew this was not good. He kept going in the hope it would stop limping, but instead the limp grew worse. Reluctantly, he drew rein and slid down. Squatting, he examined its front leg. Even to his untrained eye it was obvious the leg was swollen. He ran his hand up and down it as he had seen Nate King do and then lifted the hoof to inspect it. The hoof appeared to be fine. He set it down and unfurled and bit his lower lip. A long time ago Nate had told him that a horse with a limp should never be ridden. But he had no choice. There was Evelyn to think of. Accordingly, he climbed back on and goaded the sorrel higher.

  The horse could barely walk.

  Dega was in a quandary. He had to reach Nate quickly, but on foot it would take him the rest of the day and most of the night, and in the meantime, Evelyn was alone in that terrible valley.

  The horse dipped with every step. Suddenly it stopped.

  “Go,” Dega said, and used the reins. The sorrel didn’t move. He jabbed his heels as hard as he could and the sorrel turned its head and looked at him. “All right,” Dega said, and climbed down. He glanced at the high cliffs and then back the way he had come.

  He had a decision to make.

  At a steady jog it would take him as long to reach Nate as it would to return to Evelyn.

  Which should he do?

  Dega frowned and took the reins and led the sorrel to a tree and tied it. Then, squaring his shoulders, he stared up the mountain at the pass.

  “I wish we would go,” Bright Rainbow said.

  “I have explained why we are staying,” Evelyn replied. She had hold of the girl’s hand and was leading her toward the stream. The afternoon sun was warm on their backs, the high grass stirring in the breeze. “We have nothing to be afraid of.”

  A monarch butterfly flitted past and a grasshopper jumped from under their feet. In the woods a finch chirped.

  “Yes,” Bright Rainbow said, “we do.”

  Evelyn had been through this several times already. “I will protect you. I have my guns. And by morning my folks will be here.”

  “We should not stay the night.”

  Evelyn was tired of hearing that. They came to the bank and she nodded at a pool. “That will do. I’ll turn my back and keep watch while you strip and jump in.”

  “I do not want to.”

  “You need a bath. Your hair is a mess and your dress is dirty. Wash it and wring it out and set it on the grass to dry while you clean yourself off.”

  Bright Rainbow faced her. “I will do as you ask. You are my new friend. But you make a mistake. I am young. I am not dumb. And I tell you now, Evelyn King. We should go while we can.”

  “Take your bath.” Evelyn turned and walked a dozen steps. She could understand the girl’s fear, but it was broad daylight and the mountain lion wasn’t anywhere near or the other animals would be cowering in their thickets and nests. From where she stood she could see the length and breadth of the valley. True, the high grass might hide a skulking cat, but she was confident she would spot it before it rushed them. She heard splashing behind her.

  “The water is cold, Blue Flower.”

  “Wash good,” Evelyn said. “Especially your hair.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  Evelyn smothered a laugh. “Tell me a little about yourself. How old are you?”

  “I will have lived twelve winters this winter.”

  “Older than I thought,” Evelyn said. The girl was small for her age. “Where are your nearest relatives? Grandparents or an aunt or an uncle?”

  “My grandfather was bit by a rattlesnake when I was little. My grandmother took sick and died two winters ago. I have no aunts or uncles. There is only me.

  “There must be someone.” Evelyn reckoned that her mother would want to return the girl to her people. “A close friend of your mother’s would do.”

  “Oh. I understand. You want to give me away.”

  “You need to be with your own kind, your own people”

  “I like being with you.”

  “You hardly know me.”

  “I like being with you anyway.”

  “Get washed.” Evelyn was annoyed at how stubborn the girl was. Idly gazing at the rocky crags to the north, she stiffened. For a split second she thought she saw a black form gliding down a high slope. It was there and then it wasn’t. Given how far off it was and how big it must be, it had to have been a black bear. Black bears didn’t worry her. Most fought shy of people.

  “Blue Flower?” Bright Rainbow said.

  “Are you washing?”

  “Yes. I wanted to ask what we will do tonight.”

  “Stay put so Dega knows right where to find us.”

  “And if the Devil Cat comes?”

  “I will shoot it.”

  “You will not see it, Blue Flower. You will not hear it. It is like a ghost, the Devil Cat.”

  “I’ll keep a fire going. That will keep it away,” Evelyn said. A fire kept most every animal at bay.

  “We had a fire in our lodge and the Devil Cat came in after us.”

  “I will make the fire extra big. Now will you please wash?” Evelyn wriggled her foot in impatience. She looked to the north again. The bear had not reappeared. She imagined that by now Dega had reached the pass. Their spat notwithstanding, she could count on him not to let her down. Once her ma and pa arrived, all would be well.

  The dark one was a shadow among shadows. His paws made no sound on the carpet of pine needles. His long body slung low, he stalked to a spur that overlooked the valley floor. He had come to this same spot on many an evening to watch and wait for prey. Cautiously, he raised his head and peered down at the pair below. His tail twitched and he bared his fangs, but he didn’t growl. He must not give himself away.

  One of the creatures was in the water. It was small, not much bigger than a fawn, except it stood on two legs and not four. The other was on the bank, watching. It was not much bigger. They would be easy kills, but instinct rooted him to the spur. Not in the daylight. He would wait for night. There was no hurry. He wasn’t hungry.

  The dark one lay and watched. He was curious about these creatures. They were different from everything else. They made so much noise, uttered so many strange sounds. They moved in ungainly steps, as slow as turtles. Yet they were dangerous. The hard thing he had stepped in had cost him part of his paw. The long sharp thing the male creature wielded had pierced his shoulder. He must be wary.

  The small one was climbing out of the stream. She was clumsy. She slipped and fell back in and made a sharp bark. Again she tried, and stood on two legs and shook herself as the dark one did after a heavy rain. She picked up something lying on the grass and flapped it and then slipped it over her head and down around her thin body.

  They were so strange, these creatures. The dark one saw the little one go to the bigger one and together they walked toward a clearing. A tingle ran through him. In the clearing stood one of the four legged animals that looked like elk but weren’t elk. He would enjoy feeding on its flesh.

  Sliding back, the dark one wheeled and padded around the spur and into the trees. Every sense alert, he crept close enough to the clearing to see his quarry. They were sitting next to crackling spurts of red and orange.

  The dark one flexed his claws. He had seen something similar in the den of the creatures he killed. It made him uneasy.

  He fixed his attention on the little two-legs, studying them and their habits as he had studied deer when he was with his mother.

  They were gibbering. Their noises were alien: high and low, slow and fast, clipped and flowing. Chipmunks and squirrels were noisy, too, but not to the degree the two-legs were.

  His whiskers twitching, the dark one rested his chin on his leg. The sun was on its downward arc. Until it set he was content to lie there and observe.

  Then he would make his kill.

  Evelyn poured the last of the stew into the tin cup. “This is all there is,” she said, marveling at the girl’s appetite.

  “Thank you,” Bright Rainbow said. “I could not eat much more anyway.”

  “You are liable to burst,” Evelyn teased. She set the pot down and leaned against her saddle. “A good night’s rest and you’ll be as frisky as a colt come morning.”

  “If we are alive.”

  “You chew at a bone until there is nothing left.”

  “I do not eat bones.”

  Evelyn laughed. “That is a white expression.” She picked up the Hawken and the pot and stood. “You finish eating. I will be right back. I am going to wash this.”

  “Do not leave me alone.”

  “I am only going to the stream. I can see you from there.” Evelyn turned to go and the girl jumped up.

  “Take me with you.”

  Evelyn shrugged. “If you want. But you will be fine here.”

  Bright Rainbow quickly scooted to her side. “I never want to be alone again,” she said.

  Evelyn strolled into the high grass. To the west the sun was going down and the sky was streaked with pink, red, and yellow. “It will be dark soon,” she mentioned.

  “That is when the Devil Cat will come.”

  “How many times must I tell you? Mountain lions don’t stay put in one spot. They thin out the game and move on.”

  “What if there is a lot of game?”

  Evelyn had to remind herself to go easy with her. “When was the last time you saw the Devil Cat?”

  “When my father was killed.”

  “Then what are you worried about? Besides, we’ll have a fire. We’ll see it if it tries to sneak up on us.”

  “The fire will not help. The Devil Cat is not like other cats. You cannot see it in the dark.”

  “Why not?”

  “The Devil Cat is black.”

  Evelyn stopped cold in her tracks. She remembered the black animal she took for a black bear. “Surely not,” she said out loud.

  “What?” Bright Rainbow asked.

  “Nothing,” Evelyn said. But a seed of worry took root.

  Chapter Sixteen

  NIGHTTIME IN THE Rocky Mountains. The temperature dropped and the wind bent the treetops. It was the second night of the full moon, and with the moon’s rising a cacophony of bestial roars and howls ripped the wilds. A lady from the East once told Evelyn that it sounded like hell unleashed. Ordinarily, the dark and the wind and the cries hardly bothered her—when she was safe and snug in the family’s cabin. But to be out in the bedlam, to be sitting by a fire in a small ring of light in the middle of all that vast black sea of savagery, to be alone except for the company of a little girl while a legion of meat-eaters prowled and slew and yowled, was enough to raise goose bumps on Evelyn’s skin and for her to keep the Hawken in her lap and a hand on one of her pistols.

  The whites of Bright Rainbow’s eyes were showing as she nibbled at a piece of pemmican. She raised her head at every nearby yip and bleat. “The Devil Cat is out there. I know it.”

  “Will you stop?” Evelyn was tired of hearing about it. She had been worried about the black animal she saw all afternoon and evening, but it had not bothered them.

  “We should have gone to my hole,” Bright Rainbow said. “It is under a boulder and there is room for two.”

  “How is it the Devil Cat did not go in after you?”

  “I do not know,” Bright Rainbow said. “Maybe it did not see my father push me in.”

  “We do not need to hide in your hole. I will not let anything happen to you,” Evelyn vowed.

  “My father always said the same.”

  Evelyn helped herself to pemmican. She imagined that by now Dega had reached her parents and they were flying to help her. The thought put her a little more at ease.

  Bright Rainbow went to take another bite. “Look!” she whispered, and pointed.

  Eyes were staring at them from the woods. Evelyn started to snap the Hawken to her shoulder and stopped. The eyes were small and round, not big and slanted. “A deer, I think.”

  Neither of them moved. The eyes blinked a few times and melted into the vegetation.

  “See?” Evelyn said.

  Bright Rainbow let out a long breath. “I was scared.”

  “You have to stop doing that to yourself,” Evelyn advised. “How about if we do something to take your mind off the cat?”

  “What?”

  Evelyn hadn’t brought cards or a book. “We could tell stories. I was on a buffalo hunt not long ago and scalp hunters came after us.” She stopped. On second thought, that was almost as frightening as talking about the cat.

  “Scalphunters?”

  “They take hair for money.” Evelyn bit into the pemmican, sorry she had brought it up. She chewed, and suddenly stopped in midbite. Another pair of eyes was staring at them—or glaring rather. Big eyes. Slanted eyes. “No,” she said softly.

  “What is wrong?” Bright Rainbow turned, and gasped. Dropping her pemmican, she scuttled to Evelyn’s side and gripped her arm. “The Devil Cat! It must be.”

  “It could be any mountain lion or a bobcat,” Evelyn said, trying to set her at ease. But the eyes were too big for a bobcat, and the odds of another mountain lion having the same range as the one that killed the girl’s family were slim.

  “It is the Devil Cat,” Bright Rainbow insisted in stark fright. She dug her fingers into Evelyn’s arm. “We must flee.”

  Evelyn glanced at Buttercup. She would have to turn her back to the cat to throw on the saddle, and she wasn’t about to do that. “We will sit still. It is bound to go away.”

  Bright Rainbow whimpered.

  The eyes went on glaring.

  Evelyn shifted uneasily. She considered shooting. She might hit it. Then again, she might not, and if she only wounded it, it might attack.

  “What is it waiting for?”

  “Hush.” Evelyn grasped the unlit end of a burning brand and stood. Holding it aloft, she took several steps toward the eyes. They stayed where they were.

  “Don’t!” Bright Rainbow pleaded.

  “Stay put,” Evelyn commanded, and darting forward, she hurled the brand. It landed short of the woods. Instantly, the grass caught and flared, casting light several feet but not far enough to reveal the cat. In a flash the eyes were gone. Evelyn ran over, but beyond the fading light was ink black save for patches where moonbeams penetrated the canopy. Thwarted, she stamped out the flames before they spread and ignited the woods.

  Bright Rainbow was only a few feet away. “You scared it off!” she exclaimed in awe.

  “The fire did.” Evelyn clasped the girl’s hand and backed away from the trees.

  “You are very brave to do what you did.”

  “Fire nearly always scares an animal off.”

  “I was afraid,” Bright Rainbow said.

  “So was I,” Evelyn confessed. She bid the girl sit and added limbs to the fire so it blazed higher. It would be a long night, she reflected. She didn’t dare fall asleep or the fire would die and the cat would be on them. She decided to put coffee on, only that required more water.

  “Listen,” Bright Rainbow said.

  The valley had fallen quiet. From off over the peaks came a few howls, but the valley itself was eerily still.

  “Everything is scared of the Devil Cat.”

  That was preposterous, but Evelyn didn’t say so. “I have to go to the stream.”

  “Now?” Bright Rainbow clutched her arm “I will go with you.”

  Arguing would be pointless. Evelyn chose another brand and gave it to her, as well as the pot, so her hands were free to hold the Hawken. “Stay close.”

  “As close as your skin.”

  Bright Rainbow wasn’t exaggerating; she rubbed against Evelyn with every step. When Evelyn stopped to listen, the girl bumped into her.

  “Watch where you are walking.”

  “If I could I would climb on your back.”

  The grass, and the darkness, closed around them. As high as Evelyn’s waist, the grass swayed and rustled with the gusts of wind. The brand lit them and not much else.

  Evelyn inched forward. When she realized it would take half the night at the rate she was going, she walked faster. She never stopped glancing to each side and behind her.

  Bright Rainbow was trembling. When something burst from their path she cried out in panic and recoiled, and might have run off if Evelyn’s hadn’t grabbed her.

  “It was a rabbit.”

  “I thought …” Bright Rainbow said, and did not go on.

  “Stay calm.”

  “You would not say that if you had seen the Devil Cat,” Bright Rainbow said. “You would not say that if you saw it kill your father and mother and brother.”

  “Try,” Evelyn said.

  From somewhere in the grass came a guttural cough.

  Evelyn’s breath caught in her throat. She had heard similar coughs before; it was the sound of a large cat. Apparently the beast didn’t care that they knew it was there. She advanced on the balls of her feet, poised to fight or flee. Not that she would run off and leave Bright Rainbow. Her father and mother had instilled in her that when people were in trouble, she should help. She would protect the girl with her dying breath, if need be.

 

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