Mountain Moonlight - By Jane Toombs Page 0,27

she'd remembered rightly about Bram living with his mother only, then he must have had an absent father. No wonder he understood Davis so well.

Time to change the subject Bram told himself. She didn't want to hear about his past problems. "I'll lay odds Davis is not only comfortable by now, but asleep."

"I hope so."

He nodded toward the cabin. "If I'm right, then Pauline won't throw us out again. Come on."

He'd hit it on the button. Davis, lying on his stomach, was sound asleep on the cot. Bram listened as Vala explained to Pauline that Davis didn't wake easily so there was no need to be particularly quiet.

"I been waiting to tell you if you put that boy on a horse tomorrow you'll undo all the good that's got started," Pauline said in her deep, melodious voice. "He'd best stay right here for one more day."

"We'll do whatever you say," Bram told her.

"Good. 'Cause I need some roots and plants you two can fetch for me before dark. Gonna tell you right where they can be found. Lots quicker getting there with horses than on shank's mare, like me."

"We'll be glad to help out," Vala told her.

"'Course you will. Couldn't be raising a fine boy like your son if you wasn't all right yourself."

Pauline eyed Bram. "Might be some rabbit stew on the fire when you get back. Old feller from the back of nowhere brought me a couple real early this morning."

Bram knew the rabbits must be payment for one of Pauline's remedies. "I'll take right kindly to that stew," he told her, grinning.

"Always making fun," she grumbled. "Get you going or the boy and me might just finish all that stew before you get back here. Here's the directions."

He listened while she told him what she wanted and how to get where the plants grew, then took the trowel, clippers, and basket she handed him.

Vala took another look at Davis before they went out.

"He'll do without you for a time," Pauline assured her. "Might be somebody else'd appreciate your attention, though. Providing he deserves it."

Bram put his hand over his heart. "I'm a most deserving man."

Pauline snorted. "They all say that." She fixed her attention on Vala and added, "He's better'n some."

On that note he and Vala left the cabin. Not until the horses were saddled and they'd mounted--Vala could now swing onto Susie Q like a pro, he noted--did he speak.

"How deserving do you think I am?"

"More than some," she said, imitating Pauline. "I've never had rabbit stew, by the way. How is it?"

"Anything Pauline cooks is good."

"I don't know how she can live as she does--so isolated and alone."

"I do. I have the tendency myself once in a while."

She stared at him. "I guess I like people around too much to understand hermits."

He half-smiled. "I'm no hermit, though I admit the genes may be there."

"Genes?"

"My father was a wanderer. Or at least that's what my mother always called it." Inwardly, he cursed himself.

What was there about this woman that made him want to dump the past on her, to tell her more than she'd want to know, more than he'd ever told anyone?

Abruptly, he shifted to something else. "Want to try sleeping under the stars tonight?" he asked. "There's going to be a penultimate moon."

"What kind of a moon is that?"

"My term for one night short of full. Hard to tell the difference, actually."

"Never in my life have I slept outside."

"Past time to try it, then." He didn't understand why he needed to share the experience with Vala, but he did. He wanted her to feel what he did--the awesome beauty of the night and the stars and the universe.

"If I can reserve the right to retreat to my tent," she said.

"You won't want to." He glanced up at the sky, all but devoid of clouds, and saw a hawk circling in a thermal.

Vala must have followed his gaze, because she said, "Isn't he gorgeous? I've sometimes wondered why predators so often are. Eagles, cougars, wolves--all graceful and deadly."

"They're doing what they were born to do--hunt for food. Like men used to in the old days. The Ndee were never in one place long enough to grow crops--hunters, all of them."

"I can't think they found much to hunt in the Superstitions."

"There's game here. But the Ndee didn't trespass much on their sacred mountain."

"Have you studied the Ndee? You seem to know them well."

"Something like that."

No matter what subject they started out with, the conversation seemed to