Morning Light (23 page)

S
upper that night was a little more elaborate than the prior evening. Clint's belly button felt as if it were fastened to his backbone, so in addition to chili with beans, he got out the mixings for corn bread and started a pot of coffee. Loni's rapt attention to the bread-making process amused him.

“Thinking about trying this someday, are you?”

Crouched at his elbow, she nodded and smiled. “Maybe tomorrow night. I'd like to help as much as I can. This camping-out business is kind of fun, actually.” She eyed the skillet he'd set aside. “Are you going to try baking the bread in that?”

“I'm not going to try. I'm going to do it.” After removing an egg from a plastic backpacker's carton, he cracked it into the dry mixture. “You slap on a lid, keep it at the edge of the fire, and constantly move the skillet to maintain a fairly even heat. Pretty soon it's done to a turn.”

“Are the eggs safe to eat after being out of the refrigerator for so long?”

“I carry a small collapsible cooler filled with ice gel packs. I don't take a lot of perishables, but if we get up early enough tomorrow I'll make you some bacon and eggs.”

“Yum. That sounds so good, my mouth is watering.”

When the corn bread was ready for the fire, Loni offered to man the skillet. She looked so cute crouched by the rocks, her expression ever so serious. Clint paused while opening chili cans simply to study her. In the deepening darkness, with the firelight bathing her in gold, she was so damned pretty. Plus he was coming to like almost everything about her. He had a bone-deep feeling that she was the lady he'd been waiting all his life to meet. The thought was oddly frightening, mainly because he had no idea if she was beginning to feel the same way about him.

After getting the chili cans settled in the embers to heat, Clint made each of them an Irish coffee, using packets of sugar and creamer, followed by generous dollops of whiskey. When he handed Loni her mug, she took a sip and treated him to a look of blissful appreciation.

“This is too good for
words
,” she said, taking another taste. “Thank you!”

By the time supper was over and they'd washed and repacked all the cooking utensils, it was time for bed. Clint settled beside the fire, his rifle leaning against a rock within easy reach, his nine-millimeter Glock in the holster at his hip. He planned to sleep with an eye open all night, just in case his psychic sidekick actually had heard wolves in this area. Better safe than sorry.

From inside the tent Loni called good night to him. As he called back, he was reminded of one of his favorite childhood television series,
The Waltons.
He was smiling as he tipped his hat down over his eyes, thinking of himself and Loni as parents, with a passel of kids calling good night from every bedroom in the house. It was a nice thought to fall asleep on.

Three minutes after midnight Clint jerked awake with every hair on his body standing straight up. The forlorn howl of a wolf trailed off in the darkness, quickly followed by another off to his right.
Shit.
They sounded close.

Clint grabbed his Remington, pushed to his feet, and strode quickly away from the fire so he could see without being blinded by the light. He was about twenty feet past the horses when his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Turning a full circle, he caught movement off to his left, a wraithlike blur of grayish white darting between the trees. Malachi threw his head up, whinnied plaintively, and pulled against the ropes.

“Easy, boy, easy.” Clint returned to calm the horses. All of them were becoming spooked, not that he blamed them. Though the equines had never heard a wolf, they instinctively knew they were in danger. “No worries, Bathsheba. I'm here.” Moving down the line, he stopped to reassure each horse, standing with Delilah and Jemima a bit longer than the others because they seemed to be more upset. “It's okay. Just big dogs.” With lethal teeth and hunger gnawing at their ribs, unless he missed his guess. It was the only reason he could determine that wolves would come in so close to humans.

“Clint?”

He turned to see Loni standing near the fire, arms locked around her waist, face pale with fright. “Over here,” he called.

She started toward him.

“Tree!” he called.

She stopped dead. Clint moved out to meet her.

“I heard it,” she said. “Was that or was that not a wolf?”

“More than one,” he replied. “I'm sorry I ever doubted you. Don't know how the hell they got into this area, but I'm sure Oregon Fish and Game will be interested in the news when we get back to town.”

“Will they try to hurt the horses?”

Clint was no expert on wolves, but these struck him as being pretty bold. That told him the wild game, their only source of food, was probably scarce. The normal behavior of any species went out the window when starvation set in. For all he knew, if the wolves got desperate enough they might even attack him and Loni.

“They might go for the horses,” he finally replied. “Can you help me move them closer to the fire?”

“Sure, but I'll need a flashlight.”

Thirty minutes later, when the horses were positioned where Clint could watch them more closely, Loni came to the fire, lugging her saddle. “I'm sleeping with you,” she announced. “No way am I returning to that tent!”

Clint didn't argue with her. He just helped her make a bed between him and the flames, where he felt she'd be safest. While they worked, the wolves moved closer. He could tell by the sound of their cries. At one point the hair on the back of his neck prickled. He could have sworn he heard one of them whine only a few yards away.

“You're gonna think I've lost my mind,” he told Loni, “but what do you think would happen if I fed them?”

She fixed him with startled blue eyes. “Is that wise?”

“No, not by half. Every wilderness how-to book I've ever read says never to feed wild animals. It teaches them bad habits and may encourage aggressive behavior in future encounters with humans.”

“We probably shouldn't, then.”

A wolf whined again, and this time Clint had no doubt that the animal was just beyond the firelight. “I think it's a couple,” he whispered.

“A what?” she whispered back.

“A male and female. They mate for life, as I recall. Maybe they've got youngsters. That might explain why they didn't follow Trevor and Nana out of here. Only the male can leave the pups for any period of time. The female is probably nursing them. If he hunts too far afield, returning with enough meat to keep her nourished would be one hell of a chore.”

“I think they regurgitate. I remember reading that somewhere. He'd bring back meat for her and also up-chuck all he had in his stomach. Then he'd return to the kill to feed himself. But you're right. Traveling back and forth over too great a distance would be difficult.”

“Not to mention that he might return to find the meat devoured by another hungry predator. I think they're starving, honey.”

“Oh, how sad. Why doesn't he catch squirrels and rabbits and take them back to the nest?”

“Den,” Clint corrected, but beyond that he had no answers. He only knew this pair of wolves was apparently hungry enough to enter the fire ring. If that happened, Clint might have time to get off only one clean shot. “I haven't seen any rabbits. Have you?”

“Only in that one vision when Nana caught one for Trevor.”

“Which probably means they're scarce through here,” he mused aloud. “Squirrels are just as hard to catch, and there's not much meat on them. As for deer, fawns are the easiest prey, but they won't start dropping until early summer, probably a couple of weeks from now. There are elk herds in these mountains, and the cows calve in early spring, but they're a larger species, and elk bunch up to protect their young, making the calves harder to take.” He thought about it for a moment. “You remember that bacon-and-egg breakfast I promised you?”

“Will they eat bacon and eggs?”

“Darlin', I think they're ready to eat
us.
”

She shivered and rubbed her arms.

“I've got some steaks and sandwich meat, too,” he told her. “We can make do with canned goods and jerky for the rest of the trip.”

She gazed off into the darkness, the expression in her huge eyes a mixture of fear and compassion. “Let's feed them, then.”

Keeping his rifle close, Clint got all the perishables out of the pack. He hacked the raw steaks and sandwich meat into chunks; then he and Loni mixed the meat with eggs, two cans of stew, and a little cornmeal for filler. After dividing the concoction into two camp pots, they walked out into the darkness, Clint carrying his rifle and one portion of the food, Loni carrying a flashlight and the other portion. It was the scariest walk of Clint's life. To guard their backs he kept turning in circles, ready to fire the Remington from his hip if a gray blur leaped out at them from the trees.

After depositing the food offerings, he pivoted on his heel every few steps all the way back to the fire. The horses whinnied and chuffed, relieved to see them again. Clint moved down the line, petting each equine before rejoining Loni. Taking the flashlight from her hand, he flipped it on and directed the beam into the woods.

“Look,” he said to her.

Loni pressed close to his elbow. A smile lit up her whole face when she saw the two wolves devouring the food. “I sure hope it doesn't taste like more,” she whispered. “They might have us for dessert.”

Clint burst out laughing and bent to kiss her forehead. “You and me both. We're fresh out of meat.”

Fortunately the wolves left after finishing their meals. A few minutes later, from what sounded like the top of the ridge, two distinct howls rang out simultaneously through the night. Afterward there was nothing more.

“Do you think they were saying thank-you?” Loni asked.

Clint checked to make sure he had a cartridge in the Remington's chamber, a purely nervous gesture, because he'd jacked one in when he first woke up. “I prefer to think they were saying good-bye.”

A few minutes later Clint and Loni were settling down by the fire. Clint had no intention of sleeping, but he saw no point in alarming Loni by telling her that.

“You don't have to use your saddle as a pillow, you know.”

Loni sat forward to zip up her sleeping bag, and then leaned back. “I've seen cowboys doing this in movies for years. I may never have another chance to try it.” She wiggled her butt around to get comfortable. Then she sighed. “This isn't half-bad. Almost like a recliner.”

Clint huffed with laughter. “I've never saddle-slept with a woman—unless I count Samantha.”

“You won't be saddle-sleeping with a woman tonight, either. We just served dinner to a pair of wolves, thank you very much. I won't sleep a wink all night.”

“You need to rest. I can keep watch.”

“No way. I'll stay awake with you.” She studied the stars above them. “Who do you think came up with the idea to use a saddle for a pillow? It really is quite comfortable.”

“In the days of the Wild West, men on the trail slept with their saddles to prevent them from being stolen. In many cases a saddle and weapons were a drifter's only assets, except, of course, for his horse, his boots, and his hat.”

She sighed. “I think I need a Stetson to put over my face to get the full effect.”

He picked up his hat from where it rested on his boot beside him and tipped it over her eyes.

“It smells.” She lifted the brim to grin up at him. “How long have you worn this thing without getting it dry cleaned?”

“Dry cleaned? My
hat
? I clean it every once in a while with a pad from the hat store, and I set it on its crown to air out every few days, but I'd never risk putting it through a dry-cleaning process.” He grabbed the Stetson and took a sniff. “Smells okay to me. City girls. Fussy, fussy, fussy. It's only about ten years old.”

“
Ten?
And it's never been dry cleaned? I rest my case.” Her cheek dimpled in a smile. “You look so affronted. Hat fetishes must be a cowboy thing. Right?”

Clint hooked the hat over the top of his boot again. “A
horseman
thing. I don't raise cows, don't milk cows, don't pasture cows. Therefore I am not a
cow
boy. I'm also well past my majority, so the term
boy
doesn't fit me, either. As for my hats, I own three, two for switching back and forth, and one for dress—a black one, just in case I'm required to wear a tuxedo.”

She chortled with amusement. “You're having me on. Right? Surely you don't wear a Stetson with a tuxedo.”

“What do you think, that I'm suddenly going to change who I am for a fancy dinner or wedding? It's a dress Stetson, very fancy, with genuine eagle feathers tucked into a silk band.”