Chapter 3

 

 

THREE long, hard days went by, three days spent sponging Jed down when the fever spiked, reading himself hoarse when he ran out of stories to tell—which he wasn’t sure Jed could hear anyway—and trying not to think about the things he’d promised. Or about the feel of Jed’s smooth skin or the tickle of his black hair as his head rested against Gideon’s shoulder. Or about those quiet, clear moments that would come over Jed when he seemed almost fine, when he put all of his considerable attention and interest on Gideon.

It was easy not to think about those things when he had to reach into his wallet to pay out for their room, board, and protection. It hadn’t taken but two days for word about Jed to get around, and Gideon, tired and irritable, had coughed up the extra dollar when Miz Howard had come to him with a frowning sheriff’s deputy at her shoulder.

“He’s like to make all kinds of trouble for us,” the deputy had said.

Gideon produced a dollar and flipped it across the room to him. “Hope that’ll help cover any extra work, Deputy,” he said. He even meant it. Deputies had a tough job even in a railroad town like this one, keeping the peace between locals and tourists, and more between locals and other locals, with so many Negroes and Irish and Chinese in this here town. It was worth the extra dollar to know no one would bother them here.

Lila checked in on him from time to time, usually bringing food or something for him to drink as the days wore on. She came and sat with him, listening as he talked to Jed and adding stories of her own, soft and lilting. He was glad of her company, between her clients, and he told her so.

By end of the third day, Gideon was ready to have it over, willing to perform those death rituals if it meant Jed’s suffering would end. The room stank of both of them, of sweat and fever, even though he kept the two tiny windows open all the time. He had come to value the time he got to spend outside, washing out the linens and cloths they were using.

“He’s one hell of a fighter,” MacCray said the next morning. “I expect today will settle it one way or the other.” He smoothed the hair from Jed’s face in a manner that was surprisingly gentle.

“Any guesses which way it’ll go, Doc?” Gideon asked. Jed had been awake for a long part of last night, making quiet chanting noises, like a song with just a few notes, and Gideon had sat there listening, mesmerized by it, like his heart started to beat to that tune.

MacCray shrugged. “He’s gotten this far, and that leg looks better than I imagined it could when I first saw it. I’d say he’s got a good chance.” He stroked Jed’s forehead again.

Gideon felt a lick of jealousy at the overly familiar touch, which made him curse himself in the privacy of his head. That feeling told him plenty about his less than pure motives here. Damn it. “He’ll make it,” Gideon said grimly. “He better—I’ve put too much into this for him not to.”

MacCray snorted but stood up and stepped away from the bed. “I hope you’re right,” he said.

Just in case he wasn’t, Gideon decided he’d best lay it all out, for himself if not for the insensible Indian. He waited until the middle of the day when Jed was asleep again and the ladies were otherwise occupied. He sat on the bed but held his hands tight together between his knees. “Guess I ain’t the nicest of men,” he whispered, tilting his head to watch a face he’d become all too familiar with. “Got some habits decent folk don’t cotton to, and taking care of you, listenin’ to you talk, washin’ you down especially—they reminded me, powerful strong. Reckon you deserve to know that I ain’t all bad, though. I didn’t take advantage or nothin’. Reckon you deserve to know that if I have to do them rituals, I’ll do ’em as best I can, ’cause you’ve got me feeling right protective of you, Jed, and worried.” He chuckled a little, low. “Maybe if you make it through and get well, you’ll rub me the wrong way, and that’ll take care of these feelings,” he whispered. “That optimistic enough for ya?” he asked with a smile for the sleeping man.

There. He’d said it, said what he’d thought and wanted not to say. The fact that Jedediah was still too caught up in his sickness to hear it was neither here nor there.

It turned out, Gideon was right about Jed getting better. Just about dusk, his fever finally broke for good. It took Gideon a while to realize it. He thought at first that the Indian was dead, his body barely moving as he breathed so slowly that it was hard to see his chest rise at all. But while Gideon was working up the courage to touch him, to see for sure, Jed stirred, a slight twitch of his fist against the pillow, then a shift of his leg—the injured one. He made a low noise in his throat, not quite a moan. His eyes slowly blinked open.

For the first time in days, they were clear—swollen and tired, but not fever bright or unfocused. He looked around the room, his gaze drifting past Gideon before coming back to settle on him. “How long?” he asked, or tried to. The words were mushy, like his mouth didn’t want to work just yet.

“Four days,” he said, smiling. “And three very long nights.”

Jed frowned, his fine eyebrows drawing together and putting a furrow above his nose. “You stayed? The whole time?”

Gideon pushed himself out of the chair he’d been living in and picked up a cup of water. He sat down on the side of the bed and held the cup to Jed, helping him drink. “Didn’t have much else to do. And I didn’t stay the whole time. Had to see to my horse, make sure she was faring well at the place I moved her to. But mostly, yeah, I stayed,” he said, diffident. He didn’t add that every time he’d left, he’d asked Lila to keep an eye on Jed, just in case.

Jed’s eyes widened, and Gideon saw a flash of doubt, so he went on more softly, “Told you, I have good friends who are Indians. I wouldn’t have left any of them to go through this alone.” He held up the cup again, pleased when Jed drank down more.

When the cup was empty, Jed lay back in the pillows. “You are a good man. Better than I deserve to call friend. I thank you.”

Gideon patted him on the shoulder, flattered at the words and sure they were sincere. “Let’s see about getting you back on your feet now.”

Getting Jed back on his feet took a little longer than the three days he’d been at his worst. The Indian had had little weight to spare when he’d first come to them. After three days of fever and virtually no food, he was weak as a kitten and bony as a mongrel dog. Miz Howard and Elsie were good about keeping a broth or a soup available for him, but it was slow going. The first day, Jed could barely manage to stay awake long enough to eat, and solid foods were still out of his reach. After that though, his appetite picked up and so did his energy.

For Gideon, it was both a relief and another curse. He didn’t have to be around as much—Jed spent almost all his time sleeping, more peacefully as each day went by—but Gideon couldn’t leave yet, not with the Indian under his protection, as he’d come to think of it.

And not with the hole in his wallet. Between the four dollars a day for MacCray’s visits and medicines and the two-fifty for room and board, his forty dollars disappeared fast. He’d had to cash in the train tickets he’d bought for the trip to San Francisco to meet up with the show, and while he still had enough money for one for him, he didn’t have enough on him now for passage for Star. Boarding his horse had added up, too, and making sure Star was comfortable there. That meant short, fast rides and apples, which came cheap but still added up with everything else. He’d had more than his share of needs to satisfy, sharing a room with Jed, and Lila had made a fine profit off his little stallion’s wants, too.

But his mama hadn’t raised no cold-hearted son, and Gideon had held on to his charitable nature as he’d passed into manhood. He could make the money again—hell, he had money in the bank in San Francisco, just waiting for him to get there.

He thought he might ask Landon for a loan, something he could pay back once he got to his bank account in San Francisco, but he hated having to beg for a handout. He reckoned Landon wouldn’t think he’d spent his money wisely, no matter the color of the stranger’s skin. Which meant going overland—a long trip, but one that he could make in time to catch up with the show in San Francisco, maybe, if he got going soon. Very soon.

It was late night of the eighth day—fourth day since Jed’s fever had broken, that Gideon returned to the room to find Jed up and about. He’d asked for his clothes as soon as the fever had broken, and while Gideon missed the sight of that bare skin, it had been a relief to find Jed well enough to be worried about appearances. Now, though, when he stepped into the little room, he found Jed standing in only his leather loincloth, his hair wet and water trailing down his bare shoulders as he washed himself from the bucket of well water Gideon had left in the room earlier. He stood awkwardly, using his injured leg more for balance than to hold his weight, but he was up and moving well under his own steam.

It was a good thing Gideon had just left Lila, or he might have embarrassed himself. As it was, he looked away as Jed used a towel to dry his hair. “Good to see you up,” he said, closing the door. “You feeling better?”

“I will be ready to travel tomorrow,” Jed answered, his voice muffled under the cloth. “This has cost you much—I know this. Far more than what little I had to give you.”

Gideon hesitated, not sure how he wanted to say this. His silence must have been enough, though, because Jed nodded and the corners of his thin lips twitched, as if he would smile.

“I heard you talking to the woman,” Jed said, filling in the silence. “You sold your train tickets back for the money to stay here. I would like to repay you.”

Gideon stared for a few seconds, thinking, before he asked, “Do you know how to get to San Francisco from here? Overland, I mean? And fast?”

Jed’s expression tightened into a frown. “The fastest way is the train,” he said slowly.

Gideon shrugged. “Reckon so, but only if you can afford the tickets. I can’t, not for me and my horse, and I sure as hell ain’t leaving her behind.”

Jed tilted his head to one side, and Gideon wondered how much he remembered from the day they’d met. Enough, it seemed, for the Indian said quietly, “I can get you to San Francisco.” He nodded, clearly thinking. “We can leave tomorrow—”

“Not that soon,” Gideon said with a smile. “You need another couple of days to get your strength back, and we’ll need to get you a horse—”

“Why?” Jed cut him off. “I thought you wanted this to be fast. A horse would slow me down—your horse will slow us down.”

Gideon stared at him, wondering if the fever had come back or if it had been so high that it’d cooked his brain some—he’d heard tell of fevers doing that.

“Horses need more rest and time to graze that a man does not. My people can make twice the distance in a day on foot, if they move fast, than on horseback. We always freed our horses, if our need was urgent enough. Your need is not that urgent?”

The first words Gideon could find were the ones closest to his heart. “I ain’t never had a need urgent enough to think about leaving Star,” he said, harder than he’d intended. “She’s my horse.”

Jed drew a deep breath and nodded before he ducked his head back under the towel, rubbing the ropes of his hair in it. Freed to look, Gideon eyed the trim waist and narrow hips, the trim curve of his ass and the way the skin folded as Jed bent forward to dry his hair. “Tomorrow, I will get my pack,” he said, his voice muffled under the damp cloth. “Then we can leave.”

Gideon watched as Jed draped the towel over the back of a wooden chair, then ran his fingers through his hair, combing it out as best he could. That had him arching back, his chest thrust out. Gideon turned his head away… for all of two seconds. It was hard not to appreciate the long black strands that seemed to flow between his slender fingers. In the soft light of the room’s lamps, it gleamed, dark, blending into the shadows around Jed but shining where it caught the light.

Lila’s hair was long, but not as long as Jed’s, nor was it as thick or as black or as—

He ducked his head, taking a deep breath and staving off the comparison. He scrubbed his fingers through his own hair, but it was more to clear his head than to do any cleaning.

He sat down on the far side of the bed, toeing off his boots. They’d been sharing the bed since Jed’s fever had broken. It was big enough, and he was paying for the damned thing, anyway. Tomorrow? Damned Indian was foolish, crazy, maybe. Just what he needed.

But the next morning, Jed was up and gone before Gideon opened his eyes. At first he thought the Indian had run out on him. That was a shock. That after all he’d done, Jed would run off without a word.

But as he dressed and packed up his things, he settled on anger. He’d done all of this, and now he’d been left to get himself out of it. He could do it, no problem, but it vexed him that he’d have to. There would be someone headed to California soon enough, someone needing to get there before winter started setting in. He just had to get the word out that he wanted to go—at the liveries and at the restaurants and saloons, here with Miz Howard’s girls; travelers moving West always liked to relieve an itch when they had the chance.

He stripped the linens off the beds and left them by the door, knowing the house girl would pick them up along with all the others that were due for changing and get them to the Chinese laundry. He’d paid extra for this, too, and for the towels he tossed on top of the pile. He cleared away the water bucket and all the things they’d used before doing one last check of the room for his stuff and anything Jed might have left behind. The weather was pretty enough, and warm enough to sleep out in the open tonight—no sense paying to stay here anymore.

Lila and most of the ladies were still sleeping, but he left word with Elsie, who was in the kitchen and the one picking up the slack now that they were fresh out of house boys, that he was done with the room and he’d be by later to thank them all for the help. He grabbed up a biscuit on his way out the door—he’d paid for that already, and it was hot—so his mouth was full and his eyes half-closed as he made his way through the door and onto the back stoop to find Jed standing to one side, his pack on his back, his eyes closed as he shifted from one side to the other, testing his bad leg.

Without opening his eyes, the Indian said, “If we leave now, we can make it a good way before night falls.”

Gideon stood for several seconds, collecting his thoughts and getting past the surprise, hiding behind his mouthful of biscuit. When his mouth was empty, he said, “How the hell did you get out there and back?” He was thinking about the injury, watching the way Jed was still favoring the leg.

The Indian looked over his shoulder at Gideon. “I was careful,” he said. “No one saw me. And now that you are finally up,” he said with a frown of disapproval, “we can get started. I will meet you on the road out of town. I do not think you need to be seen with me when you retrieve your horse.” There was more disapproval in his tone, but Gideon let it slide by like creek water.

“You sure you’re ready to go?” He looked down at Jed’s bad leg.

“I have been ready,” Jed answered. “I was afraid you had taken ill, you were in bed so long. If we are to make good time, we must move while it is daylight. We left the solstice behind months ago, and each day grows shorter.”

“It’s only August, Jed,” he said, amused. “Days are still longer than I’d want to be hiking.”

Jedediah raised an eyebrow. “White people speak of hurry, but they do not know what it means.”

Gideon grinned and held up a hand when Jed started walking toward the alley, limping on the bad leg but using it anyway. “I paid for breakfast, we might as well eat it.”

Jed looked warily back at the house, but Gideon just shrugged and set his bag down, darted back in, and found a scrap of cloth to wrap four biscuits and some bacon in. It would be a nice lunch on the road, and he’d need to stop by a store, stock up on supplies for the trail. Jed hadn’t seen Star yet, either. When he did, he’d appreciate why Gideon cared.

As soon as the screen door banged shut behind Gideon, Jed started walking. “We’re gonna be in real trouble if you get out there and that leg acts up,” he said, jogging to catch up.

Jed paused when he reached B Street and met Gideon’s eyes. In the morning sun the blue was still night-dark, but nobody with eyes could miss it, that one thing about him that was so completely not Indian. “You and your doctor have done very good work. I understand how close I was to having my hair cut. I will not waste your efforts by doing anything I am not ready to do. The worst of it was the infection, as your doctor said, not the wound itself.”

Gideon frowned at him. “You sure?”

Jed nodded. “The muscle is still healing, as is the wound, but if I do not use it now, it will heal weak and be harder to use later. We can walk—and if you are taking the horse, we will be walking slowly enough.”

Gideon rolled his eyes, thinking that Star would be carrying Jed more than she would be carrying Gideon. He tried one more time, or started to, but Jed cut him off.

“I am well enough to do this. Go and get your horse and head out of town. I will meet you on the road.” He glanced back once more, and the stormy blue of his eyes shone brightly in the morning sun.

Gideon smiled at him and nodded. “I’ll trust ya. Okay, I’m going to get Star and some food for the trail. Won’t be more’n an hour. I’ll meet you on Front Street, across the tracks and a little ways out of town. Deal?”

Jed extended his hand, and Gideon grasped his wrist in the Indian way, then he took off up B Street at a jog. The memory of those shining eyes hurried him along.

He ducked into Doctor MacCray’s place long enough to find that MacCray was out on a house call and to ask that Elmer pass on word that he was moving on.

“Old Holt, he’s been in a darned good mood the past few days,” Elmer volunteered.

“Yeah?” Gideon hadn’t really noticed.

“Yep,” Elmer said. “I think he’s feeling like he can perform miracles.”

Gideon grinned; he’d been thinking the same thing, once Jed had turned the corner. “Well, he did a good job with my friend, that’s for sure.”

“I thought it might be him,” Elmer said. “Doctor MacCray was awful close-mouthed….” Elmer trailed off, inviting Gideon to open his own, but Gideon wasn’t stupid.

“The poor fella had a bad infection, but the Doc got him through it. Tell him my thanks again, and that I’ll write him a letter when I get to San Francisco.”

He left before Elmer could try and pump him for more information, ducked into a dry goods store for hardtack, coffee, and a tin pan to cook in, then headed for the livery, and Star. He found her trotting around in the corral by the stable when he arrived, kicking up her heels and looking all kinds of frisky. Bobby, the eldest of the stable boys, strolled out of the barn’s interior, wiping his hands on a rag. “Hey there, Gideon,” he called.

“Howdy, Bobby. I came by to take this one off your hands,” he said, and whistled for her. She threw her head and trotted over, reaching her long neck over the top of the corral fence to nibble at his hair.

“She weren’t no trouble. Lots of energy, but docile as a lamb,” Bobby said.

“That’s what makes her special,” he said fondly. To his horse he said, “Time to go, girl,” and led her by a haft of mane over to the gate. “You mind finding Mitch so him and me can settle my account?”

Bobby ran off and came back a minute later, carrying Gideon’s blanket and saddle, bridle and bags. Gideon filled the saddlebags, weighting them carefully before he threw on the blanket and saddle, adjusted the saddlebags once more and tied on his carpetbag suitcase behind the cantle carefully so it wouldn’t bounce around. When he fed Star the bit she stomped a foreleg, clearly ready for a run that Gideon would be all too happy to give her.

As Gideon tightened the leather at her cheek, Mitchell Freeman strolled up. He handed over two quarters and said, “That makes us square.” Gideon didn’t complain. He was surprised to get anything back, since Bobby’d told him Star had had her oats this morning. “Where you headed?” Mitch asked.

“San Francisco,” he said, swinging up into the saddle. Star threw her head and tried to work the bit forward, a bad habit she developed when she didn’t get enough exercise, and Gideon felt a little bad for neglecting her this past week.

“You’re riding?” Mitch asked.

“Yep. Spent too much of my travel money to get Star a stall on the train.”

“Long trip alone,” Mitch said.

Gideon smiled again. It would be, if he were traveling alone. He reined out with a wave for both men and put the late morning sun to his back, let Star pick her way across the train tracks and onto Front Street. The buildings on this side of the tracks were more ramshackle, shacks and tired storefronts that petered out fast. He started looking for Jed almost immediately, but was maybe half a mile out of town before he spotted him, standing just off the edge of the road, his belongings in the big leather sack that hung from one shoulder. A Winchester rifle was tied to the side of it, surprising for an Indian—it was probably good he’d left it hid out of town.

“Didn’t think you’d carry a gun,” Gideon said as he came alongside.

Jed shrugged. “Easier hunting than bows and arrows.” He frowned up at Gideon as he started walking, his limp pronounced, but it didn’t seem to be giving him much trouble. “I could sell it. Maybe make you enough for a space for your horse.”

“Not hardly,” Gideon said. “It’s old enough, I doubt it’d fetch ten dollars.”

“How much do you need?”

Gideon spurred Star forward without answering, and Jed set up an easy pace beside him, pulling ahead briefly then looking over his shoulder and slowing his pace accordingly. “Don’t matter none, I reckon it’s decided. Hey, I bought a map.”

“Why?”

“To tell where we’re goin’,” he said, amused.

“I know where we’re going,” Jed said. “We are going to San Francisco, as quickly as possible.” At that he narrowed his eyes, and then rolled his shoulders. Gideon was fast learning that both were signs of derision. “In a hurry, but with a horse.” White men, the narrow look and the shoulders seemed to say.

Gideon shook his head, but he smiled. At least he was going to have interesting company.

They walked for a lot longer than Gideon expected, Jed keeping pace—setting it, more like—until Gideon got tired of sitting and Star started reaching her nose toward the grasses that grew alongside the road. “Jed,” he called. He’d let himself get lulled by tall forest pines and a wide, well-kept road, and a hum Jed started not long after they’d started, not so much sounds but words: hyunh-hya-hyunh-huh. Native songs, they didn’t sound much like the chants of his friends in Bill Tourney’s show, and they were so quiet Gideon had to strain to hear them, but he’d learned that there were more kinds of Indians than there were different breeds of whites. The chanting came to a natural end point, and Jed looked over his shoulder. “Star needs water and I want to stretch my legs,” he said.

Jed nodded. “Stream up ahead. Good water. Cold.”

“How far up ahead?” he asked, suspicious. He’d already noticed that Jed had a way of leading him by the nose, and they’d only been on the road a few hours.

“Ten, fifteen minutes?” He pointed downhill, in the general direction the road was traveling. “There, in the fold of the land. This road will cross the stream.” Gideon wondered if he ought to pull out his pocket watch, but he let it lie, and sure enough they came upon a brook, not wide enough to need a bridge. He could see the heavy ruts of stage wagons where their metal wheels had scarred the stones.

The clear water burbled happily, and Jed found a rock, levered down carefully in deference to his hurt leg, and after a few seconds of eying the creek, he stuck his mouth in the water just like Star did. It tickled Gideon to no end to see them both like that not three feet from each other. Did something else to him to watch that long throat work, sucking water down, but it was worse when he looked away, and his gaze landed on Jed’s rump, sticking out at him and stretching the buckskin tight. Gideon cleared his throat and moved further upstream to get his own mouth wet. He used the pan he’d bought for cooking, though, scooping water out and gulping it down more civilized.

“You mind if we eat lunch, since we’re stopped anyway?”

“Oh, since we’re stopped anyway….” Amusement rang clear as a bell in Jed’s voice, and Gideon grinned at him.

“Well, there’s grass along this here creek for Star to munch on, and I’ve got those biscuits I grabbed this morning. They’ll sure taste good about now.”

He took Jed’s shrug and squat as assent, loosened Star’s girth, grabbed the biscuits out of a saddle bag, and pulled off her bridle. “Don’t wander, now,” he told her.

“You talk to your horse?”

“I give her commands,” Gideon said. “‘Don’t wander’ is one of a lot of ’em she knows.”

Jed raised his eyebrows, impressed. Most folks were impressed by Star and the horses like her that he and his daddy had trained up. Gideon handed across the biscuits and bacon. Jed nodded his thanks as he took his share, eating silently as he stared out at the woods around them. Gideon found himself watching the Indian, puzzling over the sense he had that something was different about Jed now, but he couldn’t quite put his hand on it.

After a time, Jed rose up from his squat and said, “With all of this around us, I cannot understand why you are watching me—unless you don’t trust me.” It was more a question than a statement, but it brought Gideon up short.

The truth was on his tongue and almost out of his mouth before he caught hold of it, but his good sense won the race and managed to stammer out, “Just feels kinda like a miracle that you’re still with us. Guess I have to remind myself from time to time that I’m not watching a ghost.”

Jed blinked at that, and his lips twitched just a little before the ends turned up in a quick smile. “Need to get back on the road, if you can get your horse to move.”

Gideon shook his head, but he was less skeptical than he had been that morning.

When they got back on the road, Jed went back to the pace he’d set that morning. Gideon, resting astride his horse, was of a mind to talk, but he couldn’t think about what. “You raised up around here?” he finally asked.

“Yes. And no.”

Gideon frowned; that cleared that up.

Jed went on after a minute without prompting, though. “My people were moved to a reservation in northern Montana when I was very young. I was moved away when I was still a boy, but near manhood. To a boarding school. I learned your language, and while I was there, whites found gold in Montana, and my people were moved again. North and west. I learned of your god, too. I was….” He paused and glanced up, pushing his loose hair back over one shoulder, “not very impressed.”

“Well, there’s lots of views on God,” Gideon said, happy to enter into this kind of talk. “I’ve met folks back East who think the Bible’s all about peace and the light of God inside each man. And woman,” he added. Catholics didn’t seem very generous to women, but the Quakers he’d met were downright egalitarian. “There’s Baptists and Adventists, tent preachers with all the hellfire and brimstone you’d ever want, and—”

“But there is no Hell.”      

Gideon blinked. “Your people don’t think there’s a place of damnation?” Most Indians he knew didn’t, unless they’d been converted, and even those could have their doubts about the concept.

Jed waved a hand, taking in the pines that towered above them and the mountains that stretched taller than that. “Your people dig into the earth for precious metals. I’ve been told that most of the time, it’s cooler underground than up here. They say they’ve dug as deep into the earth as that mountain stands tall,” he said, pointing again. “No Hell.”

Gideon chewed on that for a moment, and frankly he liked the sound of it. For sure, his inclinations would damn him even if his absence from church pews didn’t. “Maybe it’s deeper than man can dig.”

“Maybe it doesn’t exist,” Jed countered. “Why would your god create a place solely for suffering, when a man’s spirit can cause all the suffering it wants for without any help from the divine?”

Gideon grinned. He was liking this man, this peaceful Indian brave, more with each passing minute. He leaned over his saddle horn, stretching his back—and giving himself a finer view of the lean form in profile under the guise of checking the man’s gait. Each step seemed surer than the last, so maybe Jed was right about giving that leg some exercise. “This is beautiful country,” he said after a time. “Lots of folks call it God’s country—looks like we’ll be camping in it tonight.”

“I expect we’ll reach Bozeman first.”

“Hell, no, we won’t,” Gideon said, rejecting that idea firmly. Bozeman was over 35 miles away, across hilly land and curvy roads; he’d checked on his map before folding it up and stuffing it into a pocket of his suitcase. “An eight-horse team wouldn’t make it from Livingston to Bozeman in a day, and that’s with a stop and a change for fresh horses.”

Jed glanced over his shoulder again, sly. “Yes. Horses,” he said, but he was smiling.

Gideon patted Star’s neck. He knew she couldn’t understand the slight, but he still gave her a pat just in case.

After another hour, when it looked to Gideon’s eye like maybe Jed was starting to limp, he reined in Star and slid off her. “Here, you ride for a while.”

“No, thank you. She is yours.”

“And I’m offering to share her,” he said, annoyed. “You come up lame, and it’ll slow us down more than the horse.” He wasn’t at all above using a little manipulation to get his way, and if he was the one walking, he could set a slower pace.

Jed eyed the horse with a frown, and Gideon frowned back. “She’s plenty docile, Jed,” he said.

Jed shook his head, and his long hair fluttered back and forth. “It is not that. I learned to ride long before I became a man. Just….” He waved a hand. “Not on your saddles.”

Gideon shrugged. “I ain’t carrying it, so I reckon you’re stuck with that.” He waited patiently while Jed looked at the stirrups and the height of Star’s withers, and eased up alongside her right shoulder. “You mount horses from the left,” he said.

“Not with this leg, I don’t,” Jed replied. He gripped the pommel and swung his weight up and over, smooth as could be, ignoring the stirrups and letting his booted feet hang down past them. Star didn’t shy, didn’t even shift her feet under the new, slighter weight Jed’s body offered her, and Gideon hesitated before handing up the reins.

He set to walking and heard a quiet word from Jed, then Star’s hooves clomping in the dirt behind him. A piece of him—the wrong piece—kind of wanted Jed to take the lead, because he’d gotten a glimpse of Jed’s ass spread across the saddle and liked it. Instead, he remonstrated himself for wishful thinking and kept his eyes front, taking in the scenery. It was worth taking in: tall mountains that looked sheared away on some sides, huge, ancient stands of virgin timber climbing almost to their tops—with the train through here, he knew this would all change soon, so he was glad to enjoy it while he could. Logging in the West had changed Seattle and San Francisco from the drawings of when men had first settled the areas, but lady luck smiled on this part of the country, or had until the Northern Pacific had pushed through; before the train, there weren’t no way to get these trees back to the folks that needed them.

“The clear cutting has already begun,” Jed said, almost like he was reading Gideon’s thoughts. Far from being uncomfortable, Gideon liked that feeling.

“Can’t see it from here.”

“No. But further west, across the Continental Divide, and in all those places where they move the mountains for their coal and their metals, the forest is all but gone.”

“Can’t slow progress,” he said, quoting some old fool he’d met along the many roads Bill Tourney’s show had traveled.

“It is not progress. It is….” When Jed paused, it was Gideon’s turn to look up over his shoulder and wait. Jed was frowning now, his narrow mouth turned down at the corners and his fine brows drawn together again. He looked almost like he had those first days, when he’d been hurting so bad. “They kill the land.”

“Trees’ll grow back,” he reasoned.

“Maybe,” Jed said. He didn’t sound hopeful, and Gideon could understand that. White folks had taken a lot from the Indians in the name of progress, and there weren’t that many folks, white or not, fighting to hold on to any of it. He’d heard the braves in Bill Tourney’s show talk about the buffalo, seen photographs and nature drawings of the Great Plains to the south, covered with more buffalo down there than there were trees on these mountains. The only live buffalo he’d ever seen, though, were the ones they kept for the show—huge animals, but mostly docile, and fascinating to folks who’d only ever see them when the show, or one like it, traveled through their town.

“Let’s hope so,” he said, aiming for a lighter mood. They had a long trip ahead of them, and he hoped he’d have more than impure thoughts to keep him entertained on the trail.

“Yes. This is a fine horse,” Jed said. “You raised her from a foal?”

Gideon felt like maybe he was being handled, but he didn’t mind. He threw an appreciative smile Jed’s way and nodded, then told the tale of Star’s birth and of her unlikely name. She had a blaze on her face, not a star, but his daddy had told him she’d be one, if he took proper care of her. “So that’s how she got her name,” he finished. He looked back when Jed didn’t reply, and caught the man smiling at him, looking both fond and amused. Mostly, he decided, fond, and felt his pulse beat a little faster. Down boy, he warned his prick. Not that it was showing signs of life at the moment, but he knew it well. It wouldn’t take much to stir it, and then he’d be thinking cold thoughts and walking funny to hide it for the rest of the afternoon.

They didn’t make Bozeman, which caused Jed to grumble just once, but when they did finally stop for the night, he pulled a rolled blanket off the side of his pack and spread it out, and proceeded to gather up wood and build a fire while Gideon brushed Star down with the curry comb he carried, and loosed her in a patch of tall green grass. Talk was as spare as the fire, until Jed announced that he’d fetch dinner before they lost the last of the sun, and Gideon listened to his rifle crack twice, heard the rustle as he returned with a wild turkey carcass trailing behind him.

“Supper tonight, breakfast tomorrow,” he announced.

“I’ll take care of that from now on, you don’t mind,” he offered. He was a skilled shootist, and he couldn’t see how Jed needed to be on that leg any more than he had to be.

Jed set to burning off the feathers with no more than a nod. That made a powerful stench, so Gideon pulled his own bedroll upwind and just watched. Jed didn’t look like he needed any help tending, and it was soothing, watching the man’s quiet efficiency as he skinned and spitted the big bird, propping it high above the hottest of the coals.

“Gonna get chilly tonight,” Gideon said, already feeling it. This high up, the days were warm and the nights cool, not unbearably so but he was already planning to tug his bedroll nearer the fire and throw a little extra wood on it before he bedded down for the night. In answer, Jed stood, stretched his leg carefully, then picked up his own blanket and spread it behind Gideon’s.

“Warmer with two,” Jed said.

Down boy, Gideon thought again. This was gonna be a challenge.