Montana Sky

They’d fished here, plucking trout from the water as easily as plucking berries from a bush.
    On those rocks he’d once written the name of his love in flint. The words had faded and washed away with the years. And pretty Susie Boline had run off to Helena with a guitar player, breaking Ben’s eighteen-year-old heart.
    The recollection still brought him a tug, though he’d have suffered torments of hell before admitting he was a sentimental man. He rode past the rocks, and the memories, and climbed, keeping to the beaten path through trees as lively with color as women at a Saturday night dance.
    As the air thinned and chilled and the scent of snow grew stronger, he whistled between his teeth. His time in Bozeman had been productive, but it had made him yearn for this. The space, the solitude, the land. Though he’d told himself he’d brought a bedroll only as a precaution, he was already planning on camping for a night. Maybe two.
    He could shoot himself a rabbit, fry up some fish, maybe hang with the crew for the night. Or camp apart. They’ddrive the cattle down to the low country. This much snow in the air could mean an early blizzard, and disaster for a herd grazing in the high mountain meadows. But Ben thought they had time yet.
    He paused a moment, just to look out over a pretty ridge-top meadow dotted with cows, bordered by a tumbling river, to enjoy the wave of autumn wildflowers, the call of birds. He wondered how anyone could prefer the choked streets of a city, the buildings crowded with people and problems, to this.
    The crack of gunfire made his horse shy and cleared his own mind of dreamy thoughts. Though it was a country where the snap of a bullet usually meant game coming down, his eyes narrowed. At the next shot, he automatically turned his horse in the direction of the sound and kicked him into a trot.
    He saw the horse first. Will’s Appaloosa was still quivering, her reins looped over a branch. Blood had a high, sweet smell, and scenting it, Ben felt his stomach clutch. Then he saw her, holding the shotgun in her hands not ten feet away from a downed grizzly. A growl in his throat, the dog streaked ahead, coming to a quivering halt at Ben’s sharp order.
    Ben waited until she’d glanced over her shoulder at him before he slid out of the saddle. Her face was pale, he noted, her eyes dark. “Is he all the way dead?”
    “Yeah.” She swallowed hard. She hated to kill, hated to see blood spilled. Even seeing a hen plucked for dinner could cause her gorge to rise. “I didn’t have any choice. He charged.”
    Ben merely nodded and, taking his rifle out of its sheath, approached. “Big bastard.” He didn’t want to think what would have happened if her aim had been off, what a bear that size could have done to a horse and rider. “She-bear,” he said, keeping his voice mild. “Probably has cubs around here.”
    Willa slapped her shotgun back in its holder. “I figured that out for myself.”
    “Want me to dress her out?”
    “I know how to dress game.”
    Ben merely nodded and went back for his knife. “I’ll give you a hand anyway. It’s a big bear. Sorry about your father, Willa.”
    She took out her own knife, the keen-edged Bowie a near mate to Ben’s. “You hated him.”
    “You didn’t, so I’m sorry.” He went to work on the bear, avoiding the blood and gore when he could, accepting it when he couldn’t. “Nate stopped by this morning.”
    “I bet he did.”
    Blood steamed in the chilly air. Charlie snacked delicately on entrails and thumped his tail. Ben looked over the carcass of the bear and into her eyes. “You want to be pissed at me, go ahead. I didn’t write the damn will, but I’ll do what has to be done. First thing is I’m going to ask you what you’re doing riding up here alone.”
    “Same thing as you, I imagine. I’ve got men up in the high country and cattle that need to come down. I can run my business as well as you can run yours, Ben.”
    He waited a moment, hoping she’d say more. He’d always been fascinated by her voice. It was rusty, always sounding as though it needed the sleep cleared out of it. More than once Ben had thought it a damn shame that such a contrary woman had that straight sex voice in her.
    “Well, we’ve got a year to find that out, don’t we?” When that didn’t jiggle a response out of her, he ran his tongue over his teeth. “You going to mount this head?”
    “No. Men need trophies they can point to and