Crow Mountain (32 page)

She took a deep breath, her voice breaking as the heart monitor flatlined . . .

‘I love you.'

H
ope sat on the hospital fire escape. In her hand, she held Elizabeth Crow's phone. Far away, clouds gathered over the mountains. There was an afternoon storm coming.

Behind her the door opened and Margaret Redfeather bunked down on the step, patting her pockets for a cigarette. ‘You OK?'

Hope said nothing.

‘Dumb question.' Margaret stuck the cigarette in the corner of her mouth and cracked the lighter. It flared and she breathed in quick then blew out slow. ‘This Crow–Hart mess goes back a long way. I think a lot on this, you know, Hope. I think about who we are and if we can escape our pasts. But in the end, all we can do is our best. And you did it. You really did.'

‘I'm not brave like you, or Rose. Or Emily.'

‘Yes you are, even if you don't think it. Took real courage to stand up like that, amongst strangers in a strange place. To tell someone what you really feel.'

Hope hugged her hollow, aching chest. ‘I'm not sure it made any difference, in the end.'

‘Guess we'll never know.' Margaret picked a shred of tobacco from her tongue, looking out towards the mountains. ‘But you know, when my tribe used to go to war we had this system—'

‘Coups. Like Emily won.'

Margaret raised an eyebrow. ‘So then you know what “Redfeather” really means?'

Hope shook her head. No, this she hadn't learnt from Emily.

‘For my people, if you took a clean coup, you got an eagle feather to wear in your hair. But if you won a coup against the enemy and it cost you real bad, but you survived to fight another day, you dyed that feather red and you wore it with pride.' Margaret ground out the tab beneath her heel and stood, putting her hand on Hope's shoulder. ‘Why don't you come on inside now? Everyone's worried about you out here all alone.'

Hope shook her head, looking at the sky. ‘No, there's something I promised Cal I'd do.'

For a moment, Margaret said nothing. Then, ‘You earned yourself one hell of a red feather today, Hope Cooper. Be proud. Own it.' She walked away, throwing her final words
over her shoulder. ‘And remember, call me if you need anything.'

The fire door banged and Margaret Redfeather was gone into the stormy Montana sunset.

Hope looked at the time on the phone in her hand and then entered the number she knew by heart but had never actually dialled. It rang for what seemed like a long time.

‘Hello?' a voice said, a little blurry with sleep. Then again, after a pause. ‘Hello?'

Hope took a deep breath. ‘Dad?'

On finally returning to England, Hope stepped off the red-eye flight, took the Tube to Marble Arch and walked to Portman Square. There, she sat on a bench in the London rain and looked at the house where Emily had grown up, the square's garden green and wet around her.

She went home and, after some discussion with Meredith, she became a student at a local school. In the times Meredith worked away, Hope began staying with her father's family in their noisy, echoing Hampstead house, which was still falling down around their ears. She had a tiny bedroom there in the eaves, with an old metal single bed and a view over the jungle-like garden. Everyone talked at once as they sat around the dinner table and they welcomed Hope into their chaotic midst as if she had been part of their lives all along.

She helped her father learn his lines outside the kitchen door, as he strode around the yard, clutching his silver hair and a glass of wine. She watched with her half-brothers –
James and Tom – three sets of elbows on the timber balcony, as her father took the stage at The Globe theatre; they visited him on the set of his detective series. She formed a tentative, honest friendship with her father's wife, although Mags could never be a real stepmother to her. Affectionate and tactile, her father and Mags however encouraged Hope to follow her heart: she wrote continually, and sent off her work to magazines and journals as often as she could.

Over in Montana, it had taken almost two years for Hart to be dismissed, officially, from his post. Although there was never any real chance it would get to trial, Hope had been glad to see him punished. The ex-chief still lived on the outskirts of Fort Shaw and spent a lot of time in the town bar apparently. There was nothing for him to go home to, after all, as Carrie and her mother had disappeared that summer.

A year after her time there, Hope had received, via Margaret Redfeather, an unsigned postcard from Denver. It featured a picture of the city and across it in large yellow letters it said, ‘Hello from beautiful Denver!' Margaret kept in touch, always, and was working full-time now with victims of domestic violence. Still wearing sharp suits, still smoking untipped cigarettes, still driving her silver Mustang.

At university, Hope studied English literature as she had planned – something Meredith had finally accepted – and made a large group of friends, although she saw Lauren and Scott often. Caleb and Elizabeth came to London for two weeks and on a Sunday morning ate ranchers' salad outside an East London hipster café, as babies in buggies cried and
dogs lay under every table and nobody cared. Caleb Crow declared himself a big fan of London, and wondered how Chuck was faring back home.

In her final year at university, Hope had a book published. A novel, set in Montana.

The diary accompanied her everywhere, although sometimes she did not look inside it for months. She found out all she could about Emily Howard Stanton, contacted her descendants, still living in San Francisco, and emailed them a transcript of Emily's account of that summer. She researched Nate's second family, and discovered the history of Little Elk's long reign as chief, the early death of his wife Clear Water from influenza, and the extraordinary life of Rose Redfeather, who bore a daughter to an unknown father some ten years after Emily's summer. Of Nate's first family, Hope never found a trace.

Cal was constantly in her thoughts. Often, she missed him so much she could barely breathe, finding herself lost and confused in a coffee shop, or reprimanded in a lecture for inattention.

She never stayed away from Montana for long – how could she? – and the Broken Bit was another home. Then, as time passed, she realized part of her had never left the mountain above Upper St Mary Lake, and that ingenious pioneer cabin, where she and Cal had been tenants for such short, precarious days.

Over the years, the pull to return to the cabin became stronger and stronger until it was impossible to resist . . .

Montana. Now
.

H
ope is on the porch. Before her the expanse of St Mary Lake stretches for miles in both directions. The cabin is restored, and the window replaced. On the wreck of the old corral by the wind-stunted tree sits a battered red Ford pick-up. A few deer move in and out of the treeline. The diary is at her side and she has retrieved from the dark corners of the chest a ragged eagle feather, a brittle blue and yellow bracelet, some elk teeth and a broken D-ring snaffle bit. And the possibles bag. Wild flowers carpet the meadow.

The untethered days up here putting the place to rights have been perfect. So much of who she is was forged on this mountain, and in such a short time. Emily's diary has become a touchstone, and Hope's life has taken roads she never could have imagined on that first flight to Helena.

She stands and walks to where Cal is loading the rig, ready for the drive home.

‘Dearest Buddy.' Hope puts her hand over the shirt in the small of Cal's back, warm and damp from work, and looks at the spot near the tree where they once buried the funny, brave young puppy.

‘He was a good little guy.' Cal wipes his face on his sleeve, and stoops to ruffle the white, grey-tipped ears of the wolf-dog lolling on the ground next to him. Another dumpster baby.

Hope crouches and kisses the dog's head, laughing as he
licks her cheek in a rough swipe. ‘Yes, Jake, almost as good as you,' she tells the huge puppy. She stands. ‘How's the shoulder?'

‘Not bad. Only a twinge.' Cal pushes his fingers into his chest. ‘Can it really be five years now?'

‘What, five years since you died?'

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Only for a minute.'

‘Might only have felt like a minute to you,' Hope retorts.

‘Anyone would think you cared. Cared enough to try and restart my heart by yourself. Railing on the hospital staff the whole while.'

‘You don't remember that,' Hope says, accusing.

He smiles. ‘Mom and Dad paint a pretty good picture.' He looks into the distance, towards the whitecaps, suddenly serious. ‘So, do I get my answer?'

She says nothing, for a while.

‘C'mon, y'know it makes sense. All this messing about with visas is getting to be a nightmare. And now you've graduated you said you wanted to take some time off anyway, with the new book. The plans for the house are finished. Mom and Dad are happy for us to start building whenever we like. And Zach will be the most incredible wedding gift!'

‘Stop saying the W-word,' she interrupts. ‘I think I have an allergy. And I'm still too young.'

‘And
that
argument won't wash for so much longer.'

Hope laughs, tugging on his shirt. ‘I want it in the vows that you'll make sure I have the internet. I've agreed to live off grid, not in the Stone Age.'

He hides a smile, sensing victory. ‘I promised you, didn't I?'

‘I really don't see why we can't keep living in the barn loft.'

‘Oh yeah? If we start now, we don't have to share a shower block with two dozen hands all summer.' He pulls a face. ‘And my folks are just about dying over the idea of us living on the ranch for good.'

Hope shakes her head. ‘Your dad. I swear, if he cracks one more grandpa or baby joke, I'll . . .' she threatens, undermining it by laughing as he wraps his arms around her waist.

‘I told him straight, we've got a few more years of practising before we start work on Cal Junior—'

‘What if
he's
a girl?!'

He raises an eyebrow.

She sighs, conceding defeat on that one. ‘But what about Mum? She does her nut about settling down so early every time I see her.'

‘I thought we agreed we weren't going to let Meredith tell us how to live our lives quite a few years ago?'

‘I know. But if it wasn't for her, we'd never have met.' Hope frowns. ‘I can't even imagine what that would have been like. And she's definitely chilling out a bit, don't you think?'

‘I'm not sure I'm ever going to think of your mom as chilled, but yeah, she's better. Since she got it that this isn't like her and your dad. This – you and me – is for ever.'

Hope shakes her head but she's laughing, forehead against his chest. ‘For ever. That's a crazy concept, cowboy.'

‘So let's just do it,' he says, keeping his voice deliberately light.

‘Excuse me while I die of romance.'

‘Oh, I'll romance you, Cooper, don't you worry, but I want you to say yes first. And mean it.'

She sits on the tailgate of the rig and loops her arms around his neck. ‘Where would we have it?'

‘At home.'

‘When?'

‘As soon as we can get it organized.'

‘Where will we put everyone?'

‘There's thousands of acres to put them in.'

‘Dad will want to come. And James and Tom. And I can't invite them without Mags. What a mess that'll be.'

‘Nah, we'll keep them corralled. I'll put Matty on segregation duty.'

The breeze is coming up from the lake, gathering pace as the day recedes.

‘You're not happy. What's wrong?'

Hope takes a breath. ‘I am – you know I am. It's just, I've been thinking, a lot, about coming up here. About them.'

‘You think a lot, you know that?'

‘Yes. Probably too much, but I keep coming back to the minute you were gone. Emily lived a lifetime of that minute.'

For a while, he's lost in thought, fingers tangling in the shreds of her hair. Finally the words come. ‘Emily lived a fine life. She knew love. Real love. And she loved. Stanton adored her. She was a great woman, an activist who devoted her life to making things better. She raised children who went on to be pioneers in their fields. A surgeon, a politician, a rancher.
Maybe it wasn't the life she would have chosen, but she made the best of it. And maybe that's all we can do.'

Hope shivers. ‘Then to die in the San Francisco earthquake.'

‘Did she die? They never found her body. Only his. And sometimes, I wonder . . . if somehow, she made her way back. Like she promised. Those things we found – the shawl, the reading glasses, I just wonder. Maybe she lived out her days here in Montana.'

Hope glances back at the cabin. ‘They feel so close.'

‘Always. And I'm grateful to them. To Emily, for being the woman she was, starting everything here, making us who we are. But to Nate too, for . . . being Nate. Although, you know,' Cal takes a deep breath, ‘he's a lot to live up to.'

‘You're not doing so bad,' Hope teases.

He points to the rig. ‘We should get going.'

With a last look around, she nods. ‘Yes.'

‘Home by nightfall.'

Jake is scratching over in the dirt of the old corral, near an ancient tree.

‘Hey, boy, what is it?' Cal walks over and bends to see what treasure the dog has unearthed. Half-buried in the dirt, moss and lichen is the corner of an old black slate stone. ‘Hope?'

Sliding down from the truck bed, Hope comes over. ‘What is it?'

Cal is already pulling the stone from the dirt, shoving it upright against the withered tree. The dirty black surface is etched with words and dates. No ceremony, no celebration, no sentiment.