Black Hills

had gone. It was a kind of symbol. As long as he was here, everything stayed. Everything was solid and familiar.
    “Nervous yet? About college.”
    “No, not nervous. Curious, I guess. Part of me wants to go, get started, find out. The other part wants everything to stop. I don’t want to think about it today. Let’s just be.”
    She reached out, took his hand for a moment. They walked in a silence full of questions neither knew how to answer.
    They passed a little falls engorged from summer storms, crossed a grassland green with summer. Determined not to drop into a brood, she took out her camera. “Hey!” He grinned when she aimed it at him. Then, with their horses close abreast, she leaned over, held the camera out.
    “You probably cut off our heads.”
    “Bet I didn’t. I’ll send you a print. Coop and Lil in the backcountry. See what your new cop friends think about that.”
    “They’ll take one look at you and think I’m a lucky guy.”
    They took a spur trail through tall trees and hefty boulders, with views that swept to forever. Lil pulled up. “Cougar’s been through here. The rains washed most of the tracks away, but there’re markings on the trees.”
    “Your female?”
    “Maybe. We’re not far from where I spotted her that day.” Two months before, she thought. The kittens would be weaned by now, and big enough for their ma to take them with her when she hunted.
    “You want to try to track her.”
    “Just a little ways. I’m not sure I can anyway. We’ve had a lot of rain in the last few days. But if she’s territorial, she could be in the area where I first saw her. It’d be good luck,” she decided on the spot. “For us both to see her on your last day, the way I did on your first.”
    He had the rifle if he needed it, though he didn’t mention it. Lil wouldn’t approve. “Let’s go.”
    She led the way, searching for signs as the horses picked and plodded. “I wish I was better at tracking.”
    “You’re as good as your father now. Maybe even better.”
    “I don’t know about that. I was going to practice a lot more this summer.” She sent him a smile. “But I’ve been distracted. The brush, the boulders. That’s what she’d stick to if she was hunting. And I’m not sure . . .” She stopped, and eased her horse to the right. “Scat. It’s cougar.”
    “I think it’s good tracking to be able to tell one pile of shit from another.”
    “Tracking 101. It’s not real fresh. Yesterday, the day before. But this is part of her territory. Or if not hers, probably another female. Their territories can overlap.”
    “Why not a male?”
    “Mostly they steer clear of females, until mating season. Then it’s all, Hey, baby, you know you want it. Of course, I love you. Sure, I’ll respect you in the morning. Get it, then get gone.”
    He narrowed his eyes as she grinned. “You have no respect for our species.”
    “Oh, I don’t know, some of you are okay. Besides, you love me.” The minute the words were out, she straightened in the saddle. Couldn’t take them back, she realized, and shifted to look him in the eye. “Don’t you?”
    “I’ve never felt about anyone the way I do about you.” He gave her an easy smile. “And I always respect you in the morning.”
    There was a nagging thought at the back of her brain that it wasn’t enough. She wanted the words, just the power of those words. But she’d be damned if she’d ask for them.
    She continued on, aiming for the high grass shelf where she’d seen the cat take down the calf. She found other signs, more scrapings. Cougar and buck. Brush trampled down by a herd of mule deer.
    But when they reached the grass, nothing roamed or grazed.
    “Nice spot,” Coop observed. “Is this still your land?”
    “Yeah, just,” she replied as she gazed across the vista.
    She started across the grass toward the trees where she’d once watched the cougar drag her kill. “My mother said there used to be bear, but they got hunted out, driven out. The cougar and the wolf stay, but you have to look to find them. The Hills are a mixing bowl, biologically speaking. We get species here that are common to areas in every direction.”
    “Like a singles bar.”
    She laughed at him. “I’ll take your word. Still, we lost the bear. If we could . . . There’s blood.”
    “Where?”
    “On that tree. On the ground, too. It looks dry.”
    She swung her leg across the saddle.
    “Wait. If this is a kill site, she could