Prettyface was waiting up ahead where the trail forked. One vague path led to the Chute, which was still buried under summer avalanches. The other path led to the Rifle Sight claim, by way of a place Silent John called Grizzly Meadow.
«Go right, Prettyface,» Shannon called, waving her arm to the right.
The big dog promptly trotted off to the right.
Shannon glanced behind to see if Whip was suitably impressed by the dog’s obedience. But Whip wasn’t watching her. He was looking through a gap in the trees back down the trail. His narroweyed intensity was nearly tangible.
«Whip?»
He held up his hand in a sharp signal for silence.
Uneasily Shannon waited, eyes scanning the back trail for anything out of the ordinary. She saw only trees bending slightly beneath the breeze, and cloud shadows dappling the green-and-gray flank of the mountain.
After another minute Whip finally turned in the saddle to face Shannon.
«Nothing,» he said. «Just a bird startled by a deer, I guess. Indians have no reason to climb this high and outlaws are too darned lazy.»
«Grizzly?»
«Wouldn’t surprise me. We’re following a game trail. Bears follow it, too. They don’t break any trails they don’t have to, unless it’s berry season. Then they’ll plow through hell itself to get to a ripe thicket.»
Shannon looked around at the mountainside. Spruce, fir, and aspens grew thickly, shutting out much of the view. Ahead, there was a thinning of the forest that signaled the approach to Grizzly Meadow. The meadow with its rim of bushes and willows was the last good browsing for deer. After the meadow, plants grew more and more scarce until there was nothing left but rocky heights rising naked to the windswept sky.
«Have you seen any sign of grizzlies?» Shannon asked uneasily.
«Look on that tree to your right.»
Shannon looked. All she saw was a place well above her head where the evergreen’s thick bark had been scraped off, revealing the lighter wood beneath.
«Do you mean this scar?» she asked.
Whip nodded.
«But it’s at least eight feet off the ground,» she objected.
«Closer to ten.»
«What does that have to do with grizzlies?»
«Silent John didn’t teach you much, did he?»
«No. My learning comes from books he brought — bringsme from time to time so I won’t bother him with my chatter.»
«When a male bear marks out his territory,» Whip said, «he rears back on his hind legs and slashes as high up on a tree as he can.»
«Why?»
«An old trapper told me it was to warn off other males. If a wandering male couldn’t measure up to the resident claw marks, he just put on his best behavior and drifted to new territory.»
Shannon looked at the claw marks and tried not to think about the size and power of the grizzly bear that had left its sign so high in the tree.
«From the looks of those marks,» Whip added, «there’s a fair-sized grizzly that stakes his claim here in the summer.»
Instinctively Shannon’s fingers went to the saddle scabbard. The shotgun’s cool stock reassured her. The weapon was loaded, needing only to be cocked before it was ready to fire.
«Don’t worry,» Whip said without looking at Shannon. «It’s early for bears at this altitude.»
«Maybe. After the mule was killed, Silent John told me bears are notional creatures. Like Indians. They do or don’t do according to their own whims. And a female with cubs is pure poison. You see one and you go the other direction. Quick.»
Shannon looked away from the forest and smiled oddly at Whip.
«I think that was the most words Silent John ever spoke to me all at once,» she said. «It was his way of telling me how important the information was.»
The thought that Shannon had been so essentially alone for the past seven years troubled Whip. It made him feel like he was scheming to steal candy from a baby instead of planning to share mutual pleasure with a widow who understood what passed between men and women.
«Don’t worry,» Whip said tightly. «Those claw marks aren’t fresh. Anyway, most of the time bears want nothing to do with men, except to steal food if you’re fool enough to leave some lying around where you’re sleeping.»
Despite his reassuring words, Whip kept checking the back trail, as well as both sides of the vague track that led to the high claim.
As Silent John had warned, bears were notional creatures.
Whip saw nothing for his efforts but the untamed beauty of the country itself. It was a place of jagged stone crowns thrust up to the clean wind, of high green divides, and of quaking aspens whispering among themselves while thunderstorms stalked the skyline on stilts made of lightning.
«Can’t you get more speed out of the mule?» Whip asked after a long time of silence.
«I’ll try.»
«There will be sleet before long.»
«Hail, more than likely,» Shannon said. «Those are mean-looking clouds the wind is pushing toward us.»
She urged Razorback to a quicker pace. The mule didn’t object much. It, too, had smelled the raw edge of ice on the wind.
Once in the meadow, Whip and Shannon went about making camp as quickly as possible. While she picketed her old mule and Whip’s horse, he took the packhorse he had named Crowbait to the south edge of the meadow. There among the trees was a burned ring where Silent John had camped from time to time.
But not recently.
«How did you know this was the most sheltered campsite?» Shannon asked, coming up behind Whip.
«I’ve been here before.»
«When?»
«When I was looking for signs that Silent John was still in the area.»
«And?» she asked tightly, afraid that Whip might have discovered proof of Silent John’s death.
«No new sign. Not then. Not now. Near as I could tell, no one has been here but me, and I left damn few tracks.»
«Did you get up to Rifle Sight?»
«Yes.»
Shannon’s eyes widened. «Was there any sign of Silent John?»
«Nothing fresh. A broken pickax. A tin can filled with paraffin and sporting a tail of rag for a wick. The rag hadn’t been burned at all. The charcoal had been scattered by wind. There were signs of avalanche and a rock slide old enough to have wildflowers growing in the cracks.»
Shannon swallowed and tried very hard not to think of Silent John buried beneath the rubble.
«What about the Chute?» Shannon asked.
«If it’s over that ridge and off a bit to the north —» Whip began, pointing.
«It is.»
«— then it’s still buried in snow. Anyone there is buried, too. There are a few other places someone has been digging, but they’re up the north fork and don’t show any signs of recent —»
«Why didn’t you tell me?» Shannon interrupted.
«That I was looking for Silent John?»
Shannon nodded curtly.
«You weren’t talking to me then,» Whip said, his voice dry.
«Then why were you looking?»
«Because I don’t hold with adultery.»
The blunt words weren’t what Shannon had expected. She didn’t think of herself and Silent John in those terms, because it hadn’t been a real marriage.
Whip turned and faced Shannon fully. He looked very large to her with his broad shoulders and heavy wool coat and his collar lifted to turn the wind. But it was his eyes that held her. His eyes were as untamed as the sky.
«More than once in those first few days,» Whip said, «I tried to ride off and keep on riding. But I wanted you too much to keep my hands in my pockets.»
«You’ve done a fine job of overcoming that,» Shannon said ironically. «I’m proud of you.»
«You’re proud, period.» Whip smiled a slow, off-center smile. «I like that, Shannon. Gives you sass and vinegar to go with all the honey and cream.»