Jessie Nolan looked up and saw his daughter and the man in black.
“Meetin’ over?” he said.
“Yes,” Madge replied. “You didn’t miss anything, Pa. How do you feel?”
“Tip-top,” Jessie lied. His shoulder ached like fire and his stomach seemed as hollow as a drum. “You see Paul Welch, honey? He was supposed to bring me one of those rifles. Said he’d help me clean it. “
Slocum squatted down next to Nolan.
“You’d better take it easy for a while, Jessie,” he said in his low sonorous voice.
Madge sat down next to her father on the ground.
“I saw Paul,” she said. “He said he’d stop by in the morning to see how you were.” She patted her father on the calf of his leg.
“He said I could bunk with him tonight,” Jessie said. “He’s got him a fine big lean-to and laid down spruce boughs under a bearskin that makes a bed like it has springs. I tried lyin’ on my own bedroll and it was like a bed of twenty-penny nails.”
“Pa . . .” Madge stiffened her back as she sat up straight.
He waved a hand at his daughter.
“Now, now, you don’t need to say nothin’, honey. I’m bunkin’ with Paul tonight. I aim to sight in my own rifle and . . .”
“And what?” she said.
“I ain’t missin’ the party when we go to take over Sawtooth,” Jessie said, his voice full of stubbornness and determination.
“Now, Pa, you don’t need to . . .”
Nolan brushed her away with his good hand and stood up. She looked up at him as if he had lost his senses.
“Madge, just sling my gun belt over my good shoulder. I’ll camp with Paul tonight. You got company and I’d just be in the way.”
Jessie stood up on shaky legs, braced himself with an outstretched hand to the tree. Slocum stood up, too, then Madge.
She pulled his buckled gun belt from under the lean-to and slipped it over his good arm onto his shoulder.
“Want us to walk you over to Paul’s digs, Pa?” she asked.
Jessie shook his head.
“I want to go on my own, darlin’,” he said, and started back up the slope toward the rocky outcropping. He seemed to walk well enough as Madge watched him leave.
After he had gone, she looked at Slocum.
“Well, I guess we’re alone, John,” she said.
“Your pa’s got iron in his muscles,” he said.
“He’s stubborn as a Missouri mule.”
“Good trait in a father,” he said.
“It—I mean, I just feel so lost without him. And he’s hurt.”
“He’s tough, Madge.”
“Like you, John?”
“Like a man I’d ride the river with,” he said.
She put her arm in his and squeezed him on the biceps with her hand.
“So,” she said. “What do we do now? It’s early still, and I’m not sleepy.”
“We can sit and talk and enjoy the evening and the stars,” he said.
“I’ve got just the spot,” she said and slid her arm from his and took him by the hand. She led him a few yards from the lean-to and pushed him gently toward a large log from a fallen pine.
The two sat down on the fallen log.
They did not speak for a few seconds. Both looked up at the night sky. The stars seemed close and the jagged mountain peaks stood out in stark silhouette, with the moon full above them like a shimmering beacon of light.
Madge reached over and placed a hand on Slocum’s, which was cupping his right knee.
“Have you ever been in love, John?” she said.
“Why do you ask?”
“You’re alone. There is something distant about you. I mean, you don’t say much about yourself. I think you’re a man of many secrets.”
“I know what love is,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Love is that devotion to another person, or animal, that binds you to that person, or pet, if not forever, for a long, long time.”
“So you have been in love,” she said. “Are you married? Have you ever been married?”
“My, you are inquisitive, Madge. No, I’m not married. I never was married.”
“Why not?”
He thought about her question. He had thought about it before. There was no easy or quick answer. There had been women, of course, some that he was fond of, but none that he wanted to live with to the exclusion of all others. Women fascinated him, but almost all of them wanted to put him on a leash, change him into someone he wasn’t, tame him, corral him.
“I never found the right fit,” he said.
“I don’t like being lonely,” she said. “All I have is Pa and the love we have only goes so far. I’m lonely here, and I’ve been lonely since my mother died a few years ago. Aren’t you lonely, too, John?”
“I’ve been alone, that’s true,” he said. “But I seldom feel lonely. I guess I’m pretty satisfied with life, and when I ride my horse, I feel part of everything around me, take comfort in the fact that I’m just another creature on earth, making my way through time and distance.”
She sighed.
“That’s pretty deep,” she said.
“Well, when you’re alone, you think about a lot of things. And if you open your eyes, you see a lot that most people don’t notice.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like the sky when it’s blue, and clouds when they are small and floating above a hot plain, a lizard sunning itself on a rock, a rabbit hiding under a sagebrush, as silent and still as the rocks around it, an eagle floating in circles high in the Rockies, a doe with her fawn, a majestic elk bugling on a ridge. Lots of things like that.”
“Still,” she said, “you need someone to put your arms around. Someone to hold you close. That’s human nature.”
“Yes,” he said. “I agree.”
“But you don’t have anyone like that. And neither do I, John.”
“No, Madge, not regular.”
“Is that all you want, John? A sometime woman?”
He drew in a breath, and his chest swelled with the night air.
“It’s not always what you want, Madge. Most of the time, it’s what you get. You take what you are given. And if you’re a good person, you give more than you take.”
“Hmmm,” she said, “I see what you mean.” She paused. “I think.”
Slocum laughed softly. He put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close to him. She squeezed her side tight to his own.
“I guess I need more patience,” she sighed.
“Patience, maybe. And belief that all good things come to those who wait and believe that what they wish for will come true.”
“You seem wiser than you look, John,” she said.
“Ha,” he laughed. “I don’t know if wise is the right word, Madge.”
“You’re pretty savvy,” she teased and dug a finger into his side to tickle him.
“Maybe,” he said. “About some things.”
“About women?” Slocum wasn’t ticklish, and she withdrew her finger, squeezed his ribs.
“Ah, women,” he said, “the most mysterious creatures on earth. They leave no tracks for a man to read. Their natures are like sunlight and shadow. One minute a smile, the next a snarl.”
“All women, John?” Her voice was very soft, but he could hear her.
“Most.”
She shifted her feet, scraped the ground with the soles of her boots. She looked over at Slocum’s face, a face rampant with shadows and tiny motes of moonlight and freckles of starlight. He looked straight ahead at the dark trees and the shadowlands that stretched out from where they sat.
“You know,” she said, “I was saving myself for marriage, for the one man I could give my heart to and who would love me. I got that idea from my mother. But I’m twenty-two years old and I’ve been wondering if it’s worth it.”
“Is what worth it?” Slocum asked.
“Keeping my virginity.”
“What is your virginity worth, Madge? Is there a price on it?”
“I—I thought there was. But now, I don’t think it has any value. I’ve had swains come to my door, but they were boorish and crude. All they wanted to do was get me into bed. They wanted to pull my panties off and take away my virginity, as if it were some kind of holy grail.”
“Some men look at women as trophies,” Slocum said. He wanted to light a cheroot and smoke it, but the conversation had suddenly turned interesting and he didn’t want to interrupt for too long.
“Go on,” he said.
“It got so that I had those visits from men. I guess I went into a kind of shell. As time went on, I just got lonelier and lonelier. I cried at night when I went to bed. I wanted a man, but not just any man. And then, I began to think that maybe I wasn’t meant to be married. Ever. And if I wasn’t meant for marriage, then why hold on to my virginity? Why not seek pleasure for myself, wedding ring or no wedding ring?”
“I can’t give you answers,” Slocum said when she paused as if waiting for him to jump into her monologue.
“No, I think it’s something I must find out for myself. What it’s like to lie in bed with a man and lose my virginity. It’s like entering into an unknown world for me.”
Slocum said nothing. His face did not change expression. He knew that she was looking at him, looking for some sign that he understood, or that he was ready to offer himself to fulfill all her fantasies.
“I think it’s a big step for me,” she said. “Or would be if I took it. What do you think?”
“It might be a big step if you’re afraid,” he said. “If you’re not, it’s not such a big step. You might like where that step takes you.”
“Yes, I might. With the right man.”
“That’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself, Madge.”
“I know, John.”
They were silent for a time. Slocum knew she was thinking, but he did not know what she was thinking.
Bullbats whirred through the air, the silver dollars on their wings flashing dull in the dim light of evening. They made little sound until they came close and then their wings just whispered soft as they parted the invisible waves of air.
After another silence, Madge leaned close to Slocum and breathed into his ear.
“John,” she whispered, “would you be the man to take away my virginity? Tonight, if you want.”
Slocum turned to look at her. He could not see her eyes, but her attitude told him she was both willing and eager. He put a hand behind her head and pulled it tight against his cheek. She smelled faintly of perfume, as if she had waded through wildflowers or rolled in a bed of lilacs. And beneath the perfume, she smelled like a woman. Like a woman in season.
“It would not be for that reason,” he said.
He tilted his head up and kissed her on the lips.
She shuddered as he wrapped an arm around her. He held the kiss for a long time. She did not draw back or push away.
“Ummmm,” she murmured through closed, pliable lips.
They broke the kiss and looked at each other, their eyes inches apart.
“Thank you for saying that, John. You are different from most men I’ve met.”
He said nothing. He reached out one hand and touched a breast. He swirled his finger around over the nipple, felt it harden and grow.
Then, he took his hand away and pulled her close with both arms so that her soft breasts pressed against his chest.
“That felt good,” she breathed.
“It was meant to feel good,” he said.
“I want more, John.”
“You will go places where you’ve never gone before,” he husked. He was aroused. Her body was soft under her clothing and her scent was now overpowering in his nostrils. He wanted her, and now, he knew, she wanted him.
“Take me where you want me to go,” she said, her voice soft and whispery.
“Sure?” he asked.
“Dead sure,” she said.
She squeezed him with both her arms and tilted her head up. Her kiss was moist and warm and he felt the surge of her desire course through him like an electric current.
He held her tight and then broke the kiss. He stood up and took her hand in his.
They walked toward the lean-to, hand in hand like first-time lovers at a tryst.
Stars winked in the dark sky like the lights of distant prairie towns, and the moon seemed to pulsate in some cosmic anticipation.