Winter Fire (16 page)

Instead, he tasted her with a restraint that was astonishing in its leashed intensity.

An odd sound came from the back of her throat. With the tip of her tongue, she returned the delicate, questing touch.

The tremor that went through him was felt by both of them. He pulled away with a sharp movement.

“Sorry,” he said curtly. “I shouldn't have done that.”

Puzzled, she simply looked at him with luminous gray eyes.

“Don't get the wrong idea,” he said. “I just—
hell
. I just wanted to know what laughter tasted like.”

Sarah took a quick, soft breath. Something shivered in
the pit of her stomach, a response to his words as much as his kiss.

“So, what does it taste like?” she asked in a husky voice.

“Like you, what else?” he said roughly.

“I thought it tasted like you.”

He muttered something under his breath. When he looked at her again, his eyes were as distant as his voice.

“Are you stuck in there or can you pull out your hands?” he asked.

She looked at him and flinched.

I hate wanting you. It means not as much of me died as I'd hoped
.

But this time Case didn't have to say the words aloud. They were in every cold line of his face.

Her mouth twisted in a curve that was more resigned than humorous. Without saying a word she straightened and pulled her hands free of the rubble, wincing when one chunk of rock scrubbed roughly over her wrist.

“Are you all right?” he asked grudgingly.

With brisk motions she dusted off her gloves.

“Sure. What about you?”

Without saying anything he yanked out his hands. But he held them together in a peculiar, sheltering way, as though they were painful.

“You're hurt!” she cried.

He shook his head. Holding his hands side by side to form a bowl, he slowly opened his fingers.

Nestled on his rough leather gloves was an odd, miniature piece of pottery consisting of two mugs joined at the handles. But the cups were too small to have been of any real use.

“It looks like part of a little girl's tea set,” Sarah said.

Case went white.

“Take it away,” he said harshly.

A single look at his face killed any protest she might have made. She lifted the ancient pottery from his hands.

He stood abruptly and stalked off with long strides.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To check on Cricket.”

“He's grazing more toward the north side, down near that thick patch of brush.”

If Case heard, he didn't change direction. Soon he was out of sight.

Sarah looked at the tiny double mug and wondered why it had made a grown man flee.

“
I
t's a
toy,” Conner said, as delighted as a child. “Look. My fingertip fills one mug.”

Sarah smiled.

“Careful,” she said. “It's very old.”

Lola chuckled and admired the joined, tiny black and white mugs resting on Sarah's palm.

“I haven't seen anything that cunning since my cousin made me a doll small enough to fit in a duck-egg cradle,” Lola said. “Lordy, lordy, that was a long time ago.”

Ute looked at the odd mug from all sides, grunted, and said one word.

“Wedding.”

“What?” Sarah asked.

“It's like a…” Ute searched for a word.

“Ceremonial mug?” she suggested. “Only used on special occasions?”

He nodded vigorously.

“My mother's brother's people used them when a couple got hitched,” Ute said. “Some 'Paches do, too, so I hear. Shaped different, though.”

“As small as this?” Sarah asked.

“Hell, no,” he said in disgust. “Man couldn't wet even half of his whistle with them thimbles.”

“Have you ever heard of anything like this?” Conner asked, turning toward Case.

Case shrugged without bothering to turn around.

Disappointed by the other man's lack of interest, Conner shifted his attention back to Sarah.

“Was there any more?” he asked his sister eagerly.

“Listen to you,” she said, laughing. “They way you're acting, you'd think it was Spanish silver.”

“It's as good as,” Conner said.

Ute snorted. “Boy, you try spending that trash and you'll find out right quick the difference twixt mud and metal.”

Conner shot Ute a disgusted look.

“What I meant,” Conner said, “was that the mug and Spanish silver are both valuable because they're…well, history, I guess. It's like touching a piece of something or someone who lived a long, long time ago.”

“Yes,” Sarah agreed. “Kind of ghostly, but in a good way.”

Her brother stared at the miniature pottery, obviously fascinated.

“If you found enough things like this,” he said finally, “maybe you could understand what the people who made it were like, what they thought and felt and dreamed.”

“You sound like Father,” she whispered. “He loved the ancient things best of all.”

“What do you need a bunch of junk for?” Lola asked. “You already know what them folks was like.”

“Why do you say that?” Conner asked. “Because Ute came from people like these?”

“Hell, boy. Ute's more a mongrel than that dog slinking around trying to herd chickens.”

Ute chuckled.

“They was people,” Lola said, pointing to the double mug. “Good, bad, greedy, giving, smart, stupid, and everything betwixt and between. Just people like us.”

“We don't make mugs like that,” Conner said.

“But we get thirsty and we drink out of more than our hands,” she retorted.

“We make toys for our children that are miniatures of things we use every day,” Sarah added.

“Little wagons instead of big?” Conner asked.

“Dolls instead of babies,” she agreed, smiling. “And tea sets instead of—”

The cabin door shut behind Case. Hard.

“Whew,” Lola said. “Glad to see the back of that boy heading out. Like having a grizzly with a sore tooth in to supper.”

“Some folks don't like ghost things,” Ute said.

“Huh,” Conner said. “You think he's scared of a little—”

“Afraid of,” Sarah corrected.

“
Afraid of
a girl's toy?”

“Not liking something ain't the same as being scared of it,” Ute said. “I don't like fish worth a tinker's damn, but I sure ain't scared of 'em.”

“You eat snakes,” Conner said.

“They ain't slimy. Fish is slimy as snot.”

Sarah cleared her throat.

“'Scuse me,” Ute muttered. “Got to get some firewood.”

“Good idea,” she said, looking directly at her brother. “Take the piebald mustang. She's used to awkward loads.”

“Hell, I know that,” Conner said, disgusted. “Who do you think taught her to pack loads like a burro?”

She bit back an impatient retort. He was right. He had been the one to coax the mustang into accepting double duty as a pack animal.

But the habit of giving orders to her little brother was hard to break.

You have Conner tied so tight to you with those apron strings it's a blazing wonder he can breathe
.

“I'm sorry,” Sarah said quietly.

Surprised, Conner turned back and stared at his sister.

“I shouldn't be telling you things you already know,” she explained. “I'll try to do better.”

He smiled with a gentleness that made her eyes burn.

“That's all right,” he said. “Sometimes I need reminding, even though I shouldn't.”

She smiled, went to her brother, and gave him a quick hug. Though he lacked the muscle he would carry when fully grown, her head fit easily beneath his chin.

“I keep forgetting how big you are,” she said.

“So does he,” Lola said. “Keeps tripping over things with them outsized hooves of his.”

“See if I hold any more yarn for you to wind,” Conner threatened.

“I'll just find you where you fall and use your big feet,” she retorted.

Laughing, Conner left the cabin to help scrounge firewood.

“What's for dinner?” he called from just beyond the door.

“Beans,” Lola and Sarah yelled at the same time.

“Lord, what a treat!” he called. “I haven't had beans for, oh, two, three hours.”

“There are sage hens, too,” Sarah added.

The front door opened suddenly.

“Sage hens?” Conner asked.

“Case shot them,” she said.

“Well, at least we won't have to look for lead,” her brother said in a resigned voice. “We'll just pick it out of our teeth.”

“He didn't use a shotgun.”

Conner's eyes widened. “How did he get them?”

“Six-gun,” she said succinctly.

“Waste of lead,” Lola muttered.

“One shot each,” Sarah said. “Three birds. Three bullets. Fastest thing I ever saw.”

Lola's eyebrows rose.

Conner whistled.

“That's mighty fine shootin'. Mighty fine,” Lola said. “No wonder he survived a showdown with them Culpeppers.”

“He nearly didn't,” Sarah said tightly.

“Gal, I ain't never heard of no one walkin' away from a Culpepper shootin' at all, and you can go to church with that.”

“Huh,” Conner said. “And here I was thinking that he mustn't be much good with that six-gun of his.”

“Why?” Sarah asked, startled. “Just because he was shot?”

“No. Because he doesn't file off the sight, he hasn't shortened the barrel, and he hasn't honed the firing pin or changed the trigger to make it shoot faster.”

“Parlor tricks,” Lola said.

“Maybe, but those tricks make the Culpeppers lightning on the draw,” he retorted.

“Is that what Ute is teaching you when you're supposed to be doing chores?” Sarah demanded.

“
Adios
,” her brother said, closing the door firmly behind him. “We'll be back before dark with more wood.”

“Conner Lawson!” she called. “Answer me!”

Silence answered, which told her as much as words. She turned on Lola.

“I don't want Ute teaching Conner gunfighter tricks,” Sarah said flatly.

“Don't jaw at me. Jaw at your brother. He's the one doing the pestering about six-guns and such.”

Sarah bit her lip and turned away. With great care she put the tiny joined mugs in a natural niche in the logs.

I've got to find that treasure
, she thought again.
I've got to find it
.

But no real progress had been made today.

Case had dug several more holes. He found only broken pottery and the remains of old campfires for his trouble. Other than pottery, a burned can that had been used to
warm beans over a campfire, and a broken, dried-up leather hobble, the area around the ruins hadn't yielded any sign of man.

“You listening to me?” Lola asked impatiently.

Startled out of her unhappy thoughts, Sarah turned.

“Were you saying something?” she asked.

“Damned straight I was.”

“Sorry. I was…thinking.”

“Then set your mind to this,” Lola said. “You best be glad your little brother has a keen eye, fast hands, and the grit to use 'em in a fight. Them Culpepper boys ain't the church-going, prayer-shouting sort. They're poison mean clear to the bone. Every last damned one of them.”

Sarah looked up. The certainty in the older woman's voice was reinforced by the harsh lines of her face.

“You once knew the Culpeppers, didn't you?” Sarah asked. “Not just Ab, but the whole clan.”

“I was raised near 'em. My ma shot one of Ab's uncles from ambush for forcing hisself on me when I was twelve. Didn't kill him, sorry to say.”

Sarah looked as shocked as she felt.

“He weren't the first,” Lola said, “or the last. Ma brung me into the business as a young'un.”

The older woman shrugged and gave a gap-toothed smile.

“I only mention it,” she said, “so's you won't go to nagging Conner for him doing what's got to be done to protect his own.”

“I don't want that for my brother,” she said with quiet desperation.

“Man does what he's going to do, and women take the hindmost.”

Sarah's mouth flattened. She wanted to argue but knew it was herself she was fighting with, not Lola.

To hell with firewood
, Sarah thought harshly.
I'm looking for Spanish silver tomorrow and the day after and the day after that
.

I'll find it
.

I have to
.

“Speakin' of man doing and women taking,” Lola said, “you looking to get big from more than you et?”

“Excuse me?” Sarah said, confused.

“You do know where babes come from, don't you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then do you want a young'un or do you have something to keep you from catching?”

“It's not a problem. Half of what I need to get pregnant is missing.”

“Hell it is,” Lola retorted. “Case has just what you need, an it's by God loaded for bear every time he looks at you.”

Sarah felt her cheeks getting hot as she remembered bathing Case when he was asleep.

He was indeed quite capable of getting her pregnant.

“He wouldn't force me,” Sarah said tightly.

“He wouldn't have to. Or ain't you figured that out yet?”

“What?”

The older woman threw up her hands.

“Long on book learning and short on female learning,” Lola said, disgusted.

Sarah didn't say a word.

“You want Case,” Lola said flatly. “It's plain as the nose on your face.”

“Whether I do or not,” she said in an even voice, “Case doesn't want me.”

“Horseshit.”

“Please, don't use—”

“Don't go to chewing on me for speaking plain,” Lola interrupted curtly. “Plain speaking is downright needful unless you want to be breeding Case's babe. Do you?”

“It doesn't matter. He won't touch me that way.”

“Hell, gal, they all say that whilst they put their pecker up your skirt.”

“Case hates wanting me,” Sarah said bluntly. “He told me so.”

Lola blinked. “How come?”

“He doesn't want to feel anything.”

“Only critter that don't feel nothing is a dead critter.”

Sarah's smile was weary but real.

“Case doesn't mind feeling something toward the land,” she said. “It's people he doesn't want to care about.”

“Huh.”

Lola pursed her weathered, wrinkled lips, reached into her pocket for a plug of chewing tobacco, and remembered where she was. She sighed.

“Well, makes no nevermind what a man's two-eyed head wants,” the old woman said. “His one-eyed head gets the last word.”

When Sarah figured out what Lola was saying, she couldn't help laughing.

“Ain't you never heard it called that?” the older woman asked, grinning.

Sarah simply shook her head.

“For a widow woman, you sure are green,” Lola said. “How did you keep from gettin' a big belly when your husband was alive? Or was he just too old?”

“Partly. Usually he was too drunk to run me to ground.”

Lola's big shoulders moved in silent laughter. Then she reached into a pants pocket, pulled out a small leather bag, and threw it.

Instinctively Sarah caught the bag. It weighed hardly anything.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Bits of sponge. Case ain't no drinker and he ain't too old to plant kids in your belly.”

Sarah looked at the bag. “So?”

“So when you get to feeling randy, soak one of them bits in vinegar and put it where your monthlies come
from. Poke it up as far as you can. Then go do what you got to.”

“I won't get pregnant, is that what you're saying?”

“Oh, you might catch now an' again, depending on how often you spread your legs.”

Sarah looked at the small bag and hoped that her cheeks weren't as red as they felt.

“Nothin' to be shamed over,” Lola said. “I'm told some women like it.”

A shudder of distaste went through Sarah.

“I didn't,” she said, her voice flat.

“Never much cared for it myself, until Ute. Liking a man makes it tolerable. More you like him, more tolerable it gets.”

Blindly Sarah held the bag out.

“Take it,” she said. “I won't need it.”