11

Slocum heard a voice, a human voice, as if spoken through water, through gravel, through thunder. It was saying something . . . but what? Was this death? Was this all there was to the long, long game everyone fought so hard to be part of?

He could not see, could barely hear, and yet he . . . felt . . . warmth, and cold and touch? Was something touching him? He worked so very hard to open his eyes, to try to break free from this dream, but it was impossible. And then he slept.

• • •

It was a voice again that woke him. And this time he knew he was not dead. At least he thought he wasn’t. He’d been wrong before about a good many things, so why not now? But something again touched him, dragged across his face, his arms . . . snakes? He worked to open his eyes, vaguely aware that he had tried to do this before and had failed.

Light, gray and fuzzy, wormed its way into his eyes. He pictured a small version of himself pushing his heavy eyelids apart, his muscles straining with the effort, and it worked. All at once they fluttered like a moth’s wings, opened, and in the dim, yellow light haloed over his head, he saw a grinning face leaning down close.

He found his voice, heard what he’d intended as a scream come out instead as a whisper, and he said, “Devil Woman of the Rockies . . .”

The mouth of the wavering, leering face opened wide and he heard the same watery whooshing sounds that began to sound a whole lot like low, drawn-out laughter. That was the last thing Slocum remembered for a long time.

• • •

Something touched his lips, woke him. It was hot, burned him. He flinched, tried to recoil, but the movement only brought pain. He heard himself whisper, “What . . . what is it?”

“Broth.” Then as an afterthought, the voice said, “For your throat.” It was a soft voice, a woman’s voice, but there was a hard edge to it, the voice of someone who would brook no foolishness.

“Who are you?” He made his eyes open, and everything blurred, came back into focus briefly, then fuzzed out again, as if he were looking at the bright sun though gauzy white curtains that kept blowing back and forth across an open window. The light hurt, but he wanted it to, wanted to take it all in. Surely he wasn’t dead. This looked too real—the inside of a cabin? He tried to move, and felt the pain again. It seemed to come from all over him, through him, lancing and piercing and throbbing all at once.

“You are alive, in case you were wondering.”

The voice came from his left side. He tried to turn his head, felt the pain again.

“Stop doing that.”

“What?” he wheezed through gritted teeth.

“Moving. I didn’t work for two days to get you patched up so you could rip apart your wounds.”

“Who are you? Where am I?”

He heard the voice sigh. It was definitely a woman’s voice. And not as hard as he’d imagined. But where was she? Then he heard footsteps, boots on wood, and the silhouette of someone blotting out the light from the far window, but the light outlined a form, slender with long hair.

Then she pulled the long hair back, gathering it in one hand, and reached up with the other, tied it back with something. Then she leaned down over him. “I am Sigrid Berglund.”

It was a foreign name, Scandinavian, and her voice bore the strong trace of an accent from such a place.

“And you are John Slocum,” she said.

He stared at her without speaking, trying to puzzle out who she was, what he was doing there, why he hurt so badly.

“You were expecting . . . the Devil Woman of the Rockies perhaps?”

“What? What does that mean?”

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

“No. Tell me what’s going on here.”

“That was the first thing you called me. Devil Woman of the Rockies. I thought it was funny. You are almost dead and the first thing you choose to say to me is that. Insult your savior, good plan, Mr. Slocum.” She laughed, a sound like ringing bells, but bold, with a confidence he’d rarely heard in a woman’s voice.

“Savior? From what?”

“I will say one word and you will probably remember. Maybe not.” She shrugged. “But we have to start somewhere, okay?”

He tried to nod, but it hurt. He whispered, “Okay.”

She cleared her throat and said, “Bear.”

He almost thought she was playing a joke on him, then something, like water dripping through an earthen dam, popped through. The drips became more drips, became a trickle, then a steady stream, then a spurt. Before he knew it, the mud gave way and memories of what had happened flooded his mind.

Slocum’s eyes flew wide open, and he jammed himself back into the bedding hard, wincing at the pain, but needing it, needing its reassuring lancing comfort to remind him that he had fought that grizzly and lived. Somehow, impossibly, with that foul death-dealing beast dead on top of him, he had lived . . . but only because someone had helped.

Someone, he remembered now, with a Sharps rifle had blasted the bear methodically, unmercifully until it had expired on top of him.

“You . . . You shot the bear?”

She stood upright again, folded her arms in front of her. “Is that so difficult to believe, Mr. Slocum?”

He almost chuckled. “Nothing is difficult to believe anymore.”

“Good,” she said.

And though he still hadn’t seen her face because the light was at her back and he was in a darkened corner, he could tell she was smiling.

“Now, let’s get some of this broth into you before you shrivel into nothing. And then the bear will have won. This we cannot let happen, right?”

This time he did nod. “Right.” Then other things occurred to him, things he needed answers to. “My horses . . .”

“They are fine, a few bruises and sore limbs from sliding and running down the slope, but I have tended to them. They are sheltered in my barn.”

“And my things, everything the horses carried? My guns?”

“Also fine. I took the liberty of unpacking your gear and have stored what was not necessary. I used what I needed—your clothes, that sort of thing. The guns and the rest of your possessions I have over there.” She nodded to a spot across the room. “You may have them when you are well. Now enough talk. You must eat.”