Mountain Moonlight - By Jane Toombs Page 0,36

he could.

His own father might not have been around much but when he did show up, he never belittled. Any belittling, Bram realized, had been in his mind, not in any word or deed of his father's.

As clearly as if he'd heard his father speak, words came into his head. "Doesn't matter what you do as long as you're true to yourself."

He'd heard those words when he was too young to understand and had taken them as a license for wildness. Hadn't remembered them in years. Only now did he realize what his father had been trying to tell him.

"Did anyone ever tell you to be true to yourself?" he asked Vala.

"Not that I--" She paused. "On second thought, maybe that's what my mother meant when she said if I felt in my heart it was right to divorce Neal, then I should go ahead."

"This trip is turning into a confession session," Bram said, thinking he'd already told her far more about himself than he'd ever revealed to anyone. Too damn much.

"That's because it's so easy to talk to you about anything and everything," she told him.

He nodded. She'd hit the nail on the head. She was easy for him to talk to as well. Good thing the trip would soon be over or the devil only knew what she might hear next from him.

Once the trip ended, though, Vala would leave. But they still had tonight to be alone together, he told himself.

Once more night of holding her in the moonlight, of making love....

"Full moon tonight," he said.

"I hadn't forgotten." He smiled at the promise in her voice.

When they reached the cabin, Pauline checked over the roots they'd brought back, admitted they were the right ones, but added, "Took you long enough to get this lot."

"Yeah," Davis chimed in. "It's way after lunch. We been waiting for you to come back. Pauline needs to tell you guys something about the next marker on the map."

Pauline explained that she figured the snake drawing on the map was meant to be the long squiggly rock formation that used to be called the rattler. "Ain't there no more," she finished. "Broke off a couple years ago into pieces." She looked at Bram. "You ever see it?"

He shook his head.

"Then I best tell you how to find where it was," Pauline said. "What you do is take the trail up to the bear, then look for another trail leading off to your left...."

While Pauline went on giving directions to Bram, Vala fixed her attention on her son. "How's your sore behind?" she asked.

"Real good. Pauline said I could ride at least as far as where the snake used to be. She thinks Bram did real good getting every sticker out and not leaving any part still in me 'cause then it festers." He lowered his voice, "She told me we got to be careful tomorrow but she thinks we may be okay on account of Mokesh was my friend."

Vala wasn't quite sure what he meant. "Careful because of your accident with the cactus spines?"

His "Nope," sounded so much like Bram's that she smiled.

Davis hesitated before going on, obviously torn between telling all and wanting to hold onto his secret for a while longer. "Maybe we should wait and see," he said finally. "Pauline says a lot of times that's all you can do anyway."

Vala couldn't argue with that.

They had red beans and rice Creole fashion for supper with Indian bread. Vala watched with amazement while picky eater Davis—"I hate hot stuff, Mom"--cleaned his plate. "Pauline used to live in New Orleans," Davis said. "She let me help her cook supper. Did you know there's voodoo down in Louisiana? They even sell the stuff to make voodoo with in stores. Pauline says most of it's fake, except for once in a while."

Vala decided to leave well enough alone and keep her mouth shut. Some form of voodoo belief probably did exist in New Orleans. Since Pauline had already assured Davis it was fake--or most of it, anyway--she'd do best not to go into her stock reminder of what was real and what wasn't.

"Pauline and me," Davis added, "we'd rather believe like the Ndee." He looked at Bram. "Tangible's when you can touch something--right? You said gold was tangible. You said the treasure might not be tangible. Pauline told me you were right. What I want to know is what good is treasure you can't touch?"

"How would Mokesh answer that question?" Bram asked.

Davis thought for