Mountain Moonlight

chapter 12



In each night camp as they came down out of the mountains, Vala expected Davis to decide to sleep outside under the stars with Bram. Instead, her son sought the tent shortly after dark each night and didn't emerge until morning.

Which left her alone with Bram for some time before she retired to the tent. She both looked forward to those times as well as being apprehensive about them. But Bram's will power was apparently equal to hers and all they did was talk. No more good night kisses.

Then, on the morning of the third day of the return journey, Bram announced, "Tonight'll be our last camp out. Tomorrow morning we'll be heading for home."

"Bummer," Davis muttered.

Vala felt the same. She didn't want the trip to be over, wasn't ready for an ending.

Tonight, she vowed, I'll risk sleeping outside next to Bram. We're adults, we can control ourselves so that we're just two companions sharing the last night together under the stars. I want that last night with him.

To distract herself from thinking about how she'd feel when she was on the jet lifting away from Phoenix, Val deliberately concentrated on the growth along the trail. Catclaw, creosote bush, jojoba, prickly pear cactus, staghorn cholla. Until this trip into the Superstitions she'd never realized there was such a variety of cacti and shrubs in this arid area.

The most spectacular was the saguaro cactus that grew all around Phoenix, looking like a giant man with his arms raised. With her eyes now accustomed to the lush greenery of the East Coast, though, what did grow here seemed exotic enough to have come from another planet.

When they stopped to rest the horses, Davis said, "Look, there's a chuckwalla. He doesn't seem scared of us at all."

"As lizards go," Bram said, "chuckwallas are among the slowest and most phlegmatic."

"And the drabbest," Vala added. "Sort of a nothing color."

"Maybe 'cause he's slow he needs to sort of blend into the rocks and the ground so predators won't see him." Davis pointed at the sky. "Like that big hawk up there. I bet he eats lizards."

"Anything he can catch," Bram affirmed.

"All that makes me glad we're at the top of the food chain," Vala said.

"That's what you think," Davis put in. "Humans aren't at the top."

"Okay, I'll bite," Bram said. "What is?"

"Bite, that's a good one," Davis whooped, going into gales of laughter. When he was able to speak, he said, "What's at the top of the food chain? Vampires!"

Bram struck his forehead with the heel of his hand in mock horror while Vala rolled her eyes, chuckling.

By the time they remounted and continued on, though, her light-heartedness faded and vanished, replaced by a gloomy feeling of impending loss.

Davis, ahead of her in the single file chain, glanced back at her, but she couldn't muster up a smile.

Moments later he called to her. "Hey, Mom, we could sing like we did on the way up. You start."

What a turn of events, she thought. We arrived in Arizona with me trying to cheer Davis up and now that we're about to leave, he's trying to make me feel better.

She began with the old tried and true "Comin' Round The Mountain."

Davis chose one of his camp songs she and Bram had learned from him on the upward journey. Then Bram picked "Home On The Range."

The singing carried her along until their throats got too dry to continue. In one way it was a good thing the trip was near the end because they were almost out of water. And food, as well. Bram had packed for extra days but, as he'd said, he hadn't expected the trip to take so long.

Neither had she. And now she wished it had taken even longer.

Bram was well aware they could make it to Brenden's by dark, but he knew neither Vala nor Davis realized that. So, okay, he was cheating, so what? He needed this one last night with Vala. He'd long ago decided not to accept any fee at all from her, so one more night didn't make any difference. She and Davis would still have time to catch their flight the day after tomorrow.

He wished Vala and he could spend this last night alone together but he was willing to take what he could get.

Which, with Davis around, would be her company and maybe a good night kiss. He liked the kid--was going to miss him. Still, having a nine-year-old with them did put a crimp in romance.

He began looking early for the perfect spot to camp, needing to find one before they got too close to the flat. Old sharp eyes Davis might well pick up on his ruse if the kid realized they were practically out of the mountains. Along the trail a ways, he found a clear area with a few small palo verde trees growing on one side. "This is it," he announced. "The last night's camp."

The kid had gotten so good at setting up that Bram didn't have to tell him anything as they worked together. "I'd take you on as trail-help any day," Bram told him.

Davis beamed at the praise, then his smile faded. "Wish I could be," he said wistfully.

Bram cobbled together what remained of the food for the evening meal. "We'll have a late breakfast tomorrow at Brenden's Bronc Corral to make up for this," he told them. When everything was clean and put away, they sat on their sleeping bags in the gathering dusk in silence.

"How about a story?" Bram said finally. "Ought to be your turn, Davis."

"I guess so." The boy sounded far from enthusiastic. Then he brightened. "Maybe one Pauline told me, okay? It's about Wind Dancer."

He began telling about a young Ndee maiden and a young warrior who couldn't speak, but could sing, and how this warrior named Wind Dancer saved the girl from a wolf.

"She was hurt pretty bad, but he cured her by singing a magic song into her ear. They fell in love and were gonna get married, but then the warriors had to go and find some of the women who got trapped in a snow-storm. Wind Dancer tried to save the women from a bear that he fought single-handed. He and the bear fell over a cliff and they all knew he'd been killed."

"It was so far down, they couldn't go get his body. When they came back into camp with the rescued women, Wind Dancer wasn't with them and so everyone mourned, especially the girl who was gonna marry him."

"But pretty soon spring came and the girl was happy again. Some of the women followed her to find out why. They found her sitting in the wild flowers while a tiny little bird fluttered near her ear, like it was whispering to her. It was a hummingbird with feathers colored like the clothes the warrior who couldn't talk had worn. Then they knew Wind Dancer had come back to the girl he loved."

Davis glanced from Bram to Vala before adding. "There's a little bit more, but that's all I'm gonna tell tonight." Bram wondered why. Deciding not to pry, he said, "That'd be a sad story if it didn't end like it does."

"Do you know what comes after?" Davis asked.

Bram shook his head. "No, the story of Wind Dancer, the Hummingbird, was one I hadn't heard before."

Looking relieved, Davis said, "It's your turn now."

Bram said, "I know Mokesh told you Coyote stealing Fire was the first Coyote story, but my father told me the one about Coyote and the Wild Geese came first. So it won't really be out of turn if I tell that one."

"I guess not," Davis said.

So Bram told the story of how Coyote told the Wild Geese how much he admired their ability to fly and couldn't they help him to fly with them just once? Flattered, they lent him feathers and so he flew with the Geese for a while. "But Coyote had his own plan, one he kept hidden. As they flew, the Geese told Coyote never to look down while flying or he'd fall. Claiming he might forget, he wheedled a magic word from them that would keep him from being hurt if he did fall.

"So when they flew over the place where Coyote had wanted to get to all along, the Fireflies camp, he looked down and, sure enough, he began falling. Just in time he said the magic word and so he landed safely. After he took off his feathers, he began scheming how to steal Fire from the Fireflies."

Bram looked at Davis. "Know what this is supposed to teach Ndee kids?"

"I'm not sure."

"Vala?"

"How about don't believe the stranger who says he wants to fly with you just for fun."

Bram smiled. "Not bad."

Davis tugged at his ear. "Um--don't give away all your secrets?"

"Pretty good, too. My version is, if you already know someone is a Trickster--beware."

"Maybe that really is the first Coyote story," Davis said, "'cause it comes before he steals Fire."

"I hope you don't expect a story from me," Vala said.

"I haven't got any in stock unless you want to regress to something like 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff.'"

"You lucked out, Mom," Davis told her. "It's getting time for me to head for the tent."

Bram watched him haul his sleeping bag toward the tent, wondering if it wasn't a bit suspicious that Davis seemed so agreeable about going to bed early. As he recalled, it hadn't been that way on the trip in. Nor had the kid wanted to sleep outside again after that first time. Most kids loved the idea.

Dismissing the problem, he turned to Vala. "I always sort of rooted for the troll under the bridge instead of the goats," he told her.

She shook her head. "I might have known."

Bram eased back on his sleeping back until he was stretched out. Looking up at the sky, he said, "We're down to a half-moon."

He was surprised when Vala copied his move and, lying flat on her own sleeping bag, gazed at the sky. "That makes it easier to see the stars," she murmured. "Which is good, since I'm planning to sleep under them tonight."

He raised up on an elbow to stare at her and she smiled at him. "The operative word is sleep," she added.

Bram grinned, ridiculously elated. "Surely you don't think I'd be concealing a secret plan that might interfere with your sleep."

"You said it yourself. When you know someone's a Trickster--beware."

"When have I done anything even remotely Coyote-like?"

"You do have a way with you. I have a mental vision of you up there flying with the Wild Geese. Just remember, those who play with fire get burned."

"You're telling me that too late." He'd meant the words to sound teasing. Instead he heard truth ring through them. They stared at one another. He didn't know about her, but suddenly he could scarcely breathe. His heart pounded as though he was running for his life. There was nothing on earth he wanted more than to make love with Vala. Now.

He started to reach for her when, floating up from the flat land below, came the plaintive wail of a coyote.

Vala, listening to the coyote's call, swallowed, struggling to force out words to help break the spell she and Bram were caught in. "See," she managed to say, hearing the tell-tale huskiness in her voice with dismay. "I was right about the Trickster all along. He's out there somewhere laughing."

Bram, who'd been up on an elbow, sank back down onto his back, muttering, "You can bet he's the only one who is." Neither of them said anything else for some time. Vala told herself it might be best if she retreated to the tent, but she didn't move. Gazing up at the stars, she saw instead the twin lights of a jet heading for a landing in Phoenix. Soon she'd be on another, heading up, up and away from Arizona.

Blinking back tears, she fought to focus on something else. All that came to mind was her son's story of Wind Dancer. "I wonder what was at the end of that story about the hummingbird and why Davis didn't want to tell us," she said.

"Who knows?" Bram's tone was flat. Meaning he didn't care?

"Davis and Pauline shared secrets," she went on, not caring either, but needing to keep her mind locked onto something innocuous.

"He's lucky. Pauline doesn't take to everybody."

"I could see that." Gratefully she hung onto this new topic. "She's definitely one of a kind. I can't imagine her living in a city."

In a way, Bram, too, seemed more suited to the wilds than to city life. Perhaps he lived on a ranch outside of town somewhere.

"Where in Phoenix do you live?" she asked.

"In a suburban house a grateful client sold me. Nice guy, good price. There were some compensations to being a lawyer."

"Do you like living in the city?"

"As long as I can have nights under the stars like this, I don't mind," he said. "I must inherit some of my mother's genes along with my father's wanderlust because I enjoy having a place to come home to. Strange, I never figured to settle in like I have."

"Maybe it's due to Sheba. They say a cat turns a house into a home."

He chuckled. "Overturns a house, is more like it with her. Or was. I can't believe how the kittens have changed my wild and carefree feline into a sedate mother."

"Kids as well as kittens tend to do that to mothers," she said.

"Not all mothers," he told her with wicked suggestiveness threading through his words. "No way would I describe you as sedate."

"Remember, I'm on vacation," she said defensively, secretly thrilled with his insinuation that he'd enjoyed the wild moments they'd shared. He couldn't know he was the only man who'd ever tempted her into forgetting everything but him.

"We'd all enjoy ourselves more if we could think of living as a life-long vacation."

"Fat chance. The necessity to earn a living is no vacation, even if you like what you do." She sighed. "Actually my job's okay, it's just that I hate to--" She broke off, not wanting to reveal any more of her feelings than she already had.

"Why don't you and Davis spend tomorrow night at my place?" Bram said. "There's plenty of room and I know he'll want to pick out his kitten."

Damn the man--he'd set that up so she couldn't refuse. Instead of answering, she said, "Are you really up to the trouble of shipping the kitten to him when it's old enough?"

"I keep my promises." He sounded offended.

"Well, in that case, we accept your kind offer of shelter." She deliberately brought Davis into her answer, letting Bram know she was on to his manipulative ways.

Not that she didn't want to spend the extra time with him, but she feared it would make leaving all the more difficult.

"Are you disappointed there was no Apache gold at the end of the trail?" he asked.

She thought about what she'd found instead. Not the pictographs, awesome though they were. She had discovered something, after all, she'd learned that not all men were like Neal. Bram, at least, treated love-making as the wonder it could be. He was tender and passionate and he made her feel as desirable as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world.

He'd given her back her sexuality. Not that it would do her much good, since, unfortunately, she didn't want to make love with any other man except Bram. There were no other men like Bram.

Careful, girl, she warned herself, you sound like a woman in love.

A moment later, she caught her breath as a realization struck her. She was in love with him. With Bram. She made an inarticulate sound of disbelief and anger. How had she let that happen?

"What's the matter?" he asked. "You okay?"

No, she wasn't okay, she doubted if she ever would be again. "The truth hurts," she muttered.

"Been known to happen," he agreed. "Care to share this particular truth with me?"

"No!" she snapped.

She certainly had no intention of embarrassing them both by blurting out she was in love with him. He'd more or less told her his preference was for brief affairs, no strings attached. Love certainly hadn't entered his mind and, for her own peace of mind, she shouldn't have allowed it room in hers.

"You still owe me a story," he said after a long silence.

"I what?"

"Davis told a story, I told a story--it's your turn. And you don't get off the hook by saying you don't know any."

"I already told you it would have to be the three goats and the troll or nothing."

"I don't buy that. I'm willing to bet you have a storehouse of family stories. Think about it. Was the gold ring tale the only one your Grandmother Ella ever told you?"

"You wouldn't be interested in family stuff."

"Try me."

"Well, now that I think about it, there is something. My grandmother had a sister named Letty, who was older. I wasn't meant to know about this at all, it's an overheard tale. And I wasn't eavesdropping, I was a kid playing with my little cars underneath the dining room table where it was like a cave with the tablecloth hanging down all around me."

"Little cars?" he asked. "You played with cars?"

"They were left over from when my father was a boy. He gave them to me and I loved them. Anyway, the dining room was an ell off the living room where my mother and grandmother were sitting and talking. They had no idea I was under the table when my mother asked why no one ever mentioned Aunt Letty."

"At the time, I didn't even know there was a Letty in the family, so I perked up my ears and began listening. At first my grandmother didn't seem inclined to tell her but my mother persisted."

"'She may have been my own sister," Grandmother said, "but when she did what she did, I felt I had never had known her. Not at all. Of course, our parents disowned her and took all her pictures out of the albums. After that, they never again mentioned her name in my hearing.'"

"'Good heavens, what did Letty do?'" my mother asked.

"I didn't understand all they were saying but I stored the information away and pieced it together when I got old enough to know what some of the words meant. It seems Letty had been offered a job in Las Vegas when all the casinos except one or two were downtown and the mob ran all of them. I guess their parents assumed she was working as a secretary or something like that. Times had been hard on their Iowa farm and they appreciated the money she sent home from time to time."

"Ella was sent wonderful presents, too, and could hardly wait to grow up so she could join her sister in Nevada. None of them had any clue what was going on until Letty made headlines."

"Don't tell me she was a show girl."

"I won't, because she wasn't. Actually, it was clear from the newspaper stories that early on she'd become what Grandmother Ella called 'a fallen woman, and for money, yet,' before she took up with one of the lesser mobsters."

"A gun moll. Fascinating."

"Gun is right--she shot the man. The news stories played it up as a jealousy murder, since she also wounded the 'other woman.' Apparently Letty was let out on bail before the case came to trial because less than a week later she suffered a fatal 'accident' while crossing the street. According to Ella the entire family was relieved."

"It never occurred to any of them that she'd probably been murdered by the mob so she wouldn't have a chance to spill anything she might know. It's hard to believe my great-grandparents could have been so narrow-minded and so innocent."

"Different times," Bram said. "That's quite a story. You're the first person I've known with a notorious great-aunt hidden in her background."

"I've never told any one else her story. Since I've gone this far, I might as well admit that I've always sort of admired her. Not for murdering the man, but for striking out on her own and surviving any way she could in a setting and a time really hostile to women. If Davis had been a girl, I think I might have named him Letty."

"Interesting she was let out on bail. That's unusual in a murder case where there's a witness--in this case, the other woman. No doubt the mob knew who to bribe to get her free long enough to off her."

"I never thought of that. How cold-blooded." Vala shivered.

Evidently Bram saw this because he said, "Getting cold?" Without waiting for an answer he sat up and pulled her over onto his sleeping bag where he put an arm around her, nestling her against his side. "Better?"

"Umm," she murmured. "If I were Sheba, I'd purr."



For a few moments, Bram was content just to have her close to him, but it didn't last long until desire began to override every other emotion. He shifted, turning her face up to him and kissed her.

Her lips were soft and welcoming, she tasted of herself with a slight chocolate overlay from the last bar in the supplies--he'd split it three ways as dessert. Much as he liked chocolate, her flavor was far more addictive.

That's what it was--addiction. He was addicted to Vala. Would he ever be able to kick the habit? Not wanting to think about that just now, he concentrated on the kiss, deepening it, feeling her eager response rage through him. Davis is in the tent, he warned himself. Don't let this get out of hand.

He wouldn't, all he wanted was to hold her in his arms for a while, to kiss and caress her. No, that was a damn lie. What he wanted was to possess her completely and have her possess him as well. He needed to be locked with her in an embrace that would send them both on a trip to the stars. Vala was unique--no other woman was like her, or even came close. She not only aroused him almost past bearing, but she also made him aware of his own strength, strength he could and would use to protect her, to keep her safe always. "Sweet Vala," he whispered against her lips. "My beautiful Vala. Mine."

The last word echoed in his mind, mocking him. No matter how many times he might say it, she wasn't his.

"Bram," she breathed. "We can't."

No, they couldn't, not under the circumstances. But he let her go reluctantly.

After they'd bedded down, each with a sleeping bag partially zipped up, she reached a hand to him and he grasped it. He half smiled, thinking he'd never in his life believed he'd be lying next to a woman he needed in the worst way and do nothing more than hold her hand.

He supposed it meant something significant, but he didn't care to probe into that. Safety lay in keeping cool, in not making promises he couldn't keep.

When he finally started to drift off, a stray thought floated across his mind. When he first set eyes on the kitten yowling at his front door, he had no intention of keeping her, none at all. A pet anchored you down. He needed to be free, needed no restrictions, no responsibilities. He still felt that way. Didn't he?

Maybe. But, for better or for worse, somehow Sheba had become his cat. He wouldn't dream of parting with her. Half-asleep, he couldn't quite make the connection between Sheba and Vala. Probably because there wasn't any.