To Tame a Wolf

She would get quite a shock when she realized he saw right through her. He was looking forward to that moment.

“I thought you said you lived in Texas,” he said.

“Is that important?”

“Most Texans I know ain’t quite so delicate in their ways. But then, you had an education.”

She chose to disregard his mockery. “You were born in Texas yourself, weren’t you?”

“You wouldn’t know the town. Whereabouts did you live?”

Immediately she became guarded. “We had a place in Palo Duro country.”

She clearly didn’t want to continue on that subject. Sim whistled a few introductory notes and then began to sing.

“Well I come from Alabamy with my banjo on my knee, I’m goin’ to Lou’siana, my true love for to see.” He grinned at Tal’s dubious expression. “Lou’siana.”

“What?”

“That’s where you were born.”

She frowned. “You hear it in my speech.”

“Like I said, I’ve been all over.”

She considered that with a thoughtful tilt of her head. “You are too young to have fought in the war.”

“So’re you.”

“I saw what it did to people on both sides.”

“Is that why you left Texas?”

“My brother saw promise in this country,” she said. “He imagined what it could become.”

A dreamer, just like Caleb. Looking for something he couldn’t see with his eyes, never content with what he had right in front of him. Always wanting more.

And exactly how are you different from either one of them?

Sim spurred ahead. Tal caught up, and they left Turquoise and the Dragoons behind them. To the east rose the Chiricahuas, a range of peaks extending north to south across the horizon. The grassy expanse of Sulphur Spring Valley spread almost unbroken for over twenty miles, but Castillo Canyon was nearly another twenty miles north once they’d crossed the plain. Sim didn’t intend to push the horses too hard when they’d soon be facing much harsher terrain in the mountains.

Grass grew high where water collected in the draw down the center of the valley. A few hardy ranchers squatted on the richest land beside springs and creeks. Sim knew that the infamous McLaury gang had their own spread near Soldier’s Hole, but he and Tal had no cause to pass that way.

“We’ll make camp at Squaretop Hills,” he said, indicating the cluster of buttes rising up from the valley some fifteen miles to the northeast. “There should be water there for the horses.”

He watched Tal carefully, noting the slight stiffening of her shoulders and the jut of her chin. She didn’t suggest that they stop at one of the squatter’s holdings or the few more established ranches between here and the mountains.

“Do you know Castillo Canyon?” she asked.

“I know where it is,” he said. “It’s long and deep, cuts right into the high rocks. Hundreds of spires and pinnacles like towers on a castle. That’s what gave the canyon its name.”

Tal glanced at him with raised brows. “You have some poetry in you, Mr. Kavanagh.”

He almost gave in to the urge to spit. “The whore—the lady—in Turquoise was right. Ain’t no mining up there, at least not on the west slope. Anything else in the canyon that might interest your brother?”

“Not that I know of. I’ve heard there are settlers there—a family by the name of Bryson. I haven’t met them.”

“If your brother went that way, they might have seen him.”

She nodded, lost in her own thoughts. They left the dwindling trail and rode across washes and gullies, past occasional beeves grazing on the yellowing grama, threeawn and bunchgrass that thrived in the valley. The dry season was on Arizona Territory, but Sim sensed rain coming in the days ahead. With any luck, it wouldn’t fall until he had André Bernard right under his nose.

The shadows were growing long when they reached Squaretop Hills. Sim chose a campsite partially shielded by a thick growth of mesquite and unsaddled Diablo. Tal saw to her own horse while Sim sniffed out water running just under a dry creek bed.

He dug out a basin and let the horses drink. Once they’d been rubbed down and staked out for the night, Sim went hunting. He shot a brace of cottontails and brought them back to camp, where Tal had already gathered brush for a small fire. Once again he was grudgingly compelled to admire her practicality, no matter how schoolmarmish she could be when the notion struck her.

Damn all women. Most weren’t worth the confusion they inevitably brought with their presence. But as he began to skin the rabbits, he remembered why he’d looked forward to this night.

He tossed the bloodied animals to Tal. They flopped into the dirt beside the new-made fire, and she gave a little jump. Sim smothered a grin of satisfaction.

“I got our supper,” he said. “You cook ’em.”

She picked up one of the carcasses and examined it with a critical eye. “Not much, is it?” she said. “Well, I’m not very hungry, myself.”

Sim shot to his feet. “How many do you want?”

“I said I’m not hungry.” She drew a knife and set to work without the slightest sign of squeamishness.

He went to stand over her, hands on hips. “Never heard of any boy who wasn’t always hungry.”

She wrinkled her nose, sniffed and waved at the air as if she’d smelled something distasteful, and after a moment he realized that her broad gestures were aimed in his direction. “Some things can spoil even the healthiest appetite.”

“You ain’t exactly a nosegay yourself,” he snapped. “If you only knew how bad humans—” He broke off in consternation and quickly recovered. “Would you get your appetite back if I washed up, Bernard?” He yanked off his neckerchief, shed his buckskin jacket and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “I found a little water that ain’t too muddy. You scrub my back, and I’ll scrub yours.”

The anticipated blush turned her face pink under its layer of dust. “That won’t be necessary.” She focused her attention on the rabbits. “You can make yourself useful by rigging a spit—that is, of course, if you have an appetite.”

“A man on the trail takes what he can get—even if it ain’t the sort of meat he prefers.”

Her knife slipped, and he wondered if she’d guessed that he had seen through her masquerade. Sim rigged the spit as requested, letting her do the rest. He leaned back on his elbows a little way from the fire and studied her as night fell over the valley. The moon and stars had the peculiar effect of softening Tal’s features, breaching her disguise more effectively than the brightest sunlight.

She knew he was watching her, but she pretended to be oblivious. “Your supper is ready,” she said, stepping back from the fire. “I’ll be with the horses.”

“You prefer their company to mine?”

She braced her hands on her hips and stared him down. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, Kavanagh. Is that clear enough?”

Sim grinned, showing all his teeth. “Very clear, hombre.” He crouched by the fire and tore into the meat with gusto. When he’d finished one of the rabbits, he took a tin plate and seldom-used fork from his saddlebags, rinsed them in a freshly dug water hole, and sliced off steaming chunks of meat from the second carcass. He piled them on the plate and went in search of Tal.

She never heard him approach. She’d laid her bedding next to the mesquite where the horses were picketed and now sat cross-legged on the blankets, her hat beside her, raking her fingers through her mass of tangled flaxen hair. It wasn’t as short as Sim had imagined, for she wore it in tight braids that fit under the crown of her hat. She had a female’s natural vanity after all.