“What in the world for?” Rooster demanded. “I don’t mind sleeping on the ground.”
“It’s not for us. It’s for them.” Fargo nodded at Cecelia and the children. She was stirring the stew, and glanced up.
“No need to go to all that trouble on our account.”
“It will give you someplace to run to if the bear comes. He won’t charge you if he can’t see you.”
Cecelia gazed at her offspring. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have one, at that.”
They had brought an ax and Moose took it on himself to chop down saplings and cut the limbs they needed. A thicket provided the brush for the sides. When they were done it was eight feet long and four feet deep.
Although Rooster had complained, he walked around it and declared, “A damned fine job if I say so myself.”
The long day in the saddle had given them all an appetite.
There wasn’t a drop of stew left in the pot when they were done. Fargo had two helpings plus four cups of scalding hot coffee. Leaning back, he patted his belly and said contentedly, “You’re a good cook, Cecelia.”
“It’s not all I do good,” she said, and she looked at Moose and winked.
Moose blushed.
“Tomorrow we start on the blinds first thing,” Fargo announced. He wanted them in position and ready as early as possible.
“You’re not expecting the bear that soon, are you?” Wendy asked.
“There’s no telling.”
“It shows up, we’ll have it in a cross fire,” Rooster said. “It will be like shooting ducks in a barrel.”
“Except this duck fights back.”
About an hour after sunset Cecelia ushered her flock to the lean-to. She spread blankets and had them say their prayers, then kissed each on the cheek and came back to the fire. Sighing contentedly, she said, “This has been a fine day.”
“Doesn’t take much to please you, does it?” Rooster said.
“Any day that ends with a full belly and my kids healthy and happy is as fine a day as I can expect.”
They made small talk for a while. Cecelia rose and tiptoed over to the lean-to. When she returned, she was smiling. “They’re asleep, and I’ll whale the tar out of anyone who wakes them.”
“Does this mean we have to whisper?” Moose asked.
“No, just don’t do any shoutin’.” Cecelia clasped his hand. “Let’s you and me go for a stroll, shall we?”
“Now?”
“Why not?” Cecelia tugged but Moose stayed where he was.
“It’s night.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark?” Cecelia pulled harder and Moose reluctantly stood.
“I ain’t scared of nothing. I just don’t see no sense to it when we’ve ate and can relax.”
“There are ways and there are ways,” Cecelia said.
“You have plumb lost me.”
“Come along, infant.”
Rooster waited until they had ambled out of sight before he smirked at Fargo and said, “Walk, my ass.”
Wendy was sipping tea from a china cup. “Surely you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“She has a hankering to have her pump primed and Moose has the pump handle.”
“Here and now?” Wendy said in amazement. “There’s a time and a place for everything, old boy, and this certainly isn’t it.”
“You’d say no, I suppose?” Rooster scoffed.
“I daresay I would, yes,” Wendy said. “We English are more reserved than you Americans. We know when to keep our peckers in our pants.”
“Prim and proper, eh?”
“Exactly. You’re familiar with British manners, then, I take it?”
“I know bullshit when I hear it,” Rooster said. “Madame Basque told me you pay her gals a visit nearly every other night.”
“Yes, well,” Wendy said, and coughed. “Prim and proper is well and good but a man shouldn’t be a fanatic about it.”
He turned to Fargo. “How about you, sir? What’s your view? When should a man turn down an offer to have sex?”
“When he’s dead,” Fargo said.
They were up at the crack of day. In order to cover the meadow from end to end they decided that they should post themselves at the cardinal points of the compass. Fargo figured they should draw lots but Wendy wanted to be by the stream.
Moose chose the west end and Rooster immediately said his spot would be to the east. That left south. Each man got ready.
The opposite bank of the stream was higher than the near bank. Periodic high water had eroded away the bottom, leaving an overhang. Wendy waded across and settled into a pocket where he was effectively screened from the woods behind him and could see all of the meadow.
Moose ripped out brush and piled it in a semicircle around a tree with the open end toward the meadow. Seated with his back to the bole, he was invisible to any animal that approached through the woods. He, too, could see the entire meadow.
Rooster was more elaborate. He chopped several stout limbs, climbed halfway up an oak, and rigged a platform for him to sit on. From that high up he had an obstructed view.
Fargo didn’t go to all that trouble. He chose a small spruce at the meadow’s edge and crawled under it. From where he lay he could see everyone and everything.
Cecelia added green wood to the fire so it would give off more smoke and put a pot on. She encouraged her kids to play and make a lot of noise—so long as they stayed near the lean-to.
Fargo placed the Sharps in front of him, folded his arms, and rested his chin on his wrist. Now all they could do was wait and hope the smoke and the smell of the food and the sounds of the kids playing attracted the giant grizzly. It might work. It might not. The bear could be anywhere within fifty miles. But since all the attacks had taken place in that general area, the brute just might catch literal wind of their bait.
The minutes crawled into hours and then the sun was at its zenith. Cecelia and her children sat around the fire eating and talking and making more noise than they ordinarily would.
Fargo and the other men stayed where they were. They didn’t dare break cover, not when the grizzly might be close by without them knowing.
As the afternoon waxed, Fargo grew drowsy but shook it off.
He must stay alert. When the bear came, it would be sudden and silent, and he must be ready.
The sun dipped and the shadows multiplied. Twilight washed the browns and greens in gray. Soon it would be too dark to see much of anything.
Fargo crawled from under the spruce and moved into the open. The others followed his example. Their disappointment was as keen as his own.
“I should have known it wouldn’t be easy,” Moose said. “It could be days before he shows.”
“The bounty is worth the wait,” Cecelia said.
Fargo picked up the coffeepot and filled his tin cup. “We’ll take turns keeping watch tonight.”
“I take a turn, too,” Cecelia said. “This was my idea, remember?”
“No need for you to,” Moose said. “I’m the man. I should do it.”
“Listen here,” Cecelia said, poking him in the chest. “I’m not one of those gals who sits on her ass while her man does all the work. A wife should be a helpmate and no one will ever say I shirk my duty.”
Moose’s eyebrows tried to climb into his hair. “We’re married?”
Little Bethany giggled.
Cecelia told her to shush and bent over the pot to stir the stew. “No, we’re not. Not yet, anyway, but who knows? You might take enough of a shine to me that livin’ with me will appeal to you. Until then, there’s no harm in actin’ like we already said ‘I do.’ ”
“I do what?” Moose said.
“Ain’t you ever seen anyone hitched? That’s what folks say when the parson asks them if they will.”