Montana Sky

wore sheepskin jackets now against the cold and wind, andthe horses were plodding through nearly a foot of snow, with Charlie happily blazing the trail.
    “You take half the bear meat. It’s only right,” Willa said.
    “I’m obliged.”
    “Being obliged is the problem, isn’t it? Neither of us wants to be.”
    He understood her, he thought, better than she might like. “Sometimes you have to swallow what you can’t spit out.”
    “And sometimes you choke.” One of the wounds in her heart split open. “He left Adam next to nothing.”
    Ben studied her profile. “Jack drew a hard line.” And Adam Wolfchild wasn’t blood, Ben thought. That would have been uppermost in Jack’s mind.
    “Adam should have more.” Will have more, she promised herself.
    “I’m not going to disagree with you when it comes to Adam. But if I know anyone who can take care of himself and make his own, it’s your brother.”
    He’s all I’ve got left. She nearly said it before she caught herself, before she remembered it would be a mistake to open any part of her heart to Ben. “How’s Zack? I saw his plane this morning.”
    “Checking fences. I’d have to say he’s happy, the way he goes around grinning like a fool day and night. He and Shelly dote on that baby.” They all did, Ben thought, but he wasn’t going to mention the fact that he couldn’t keep his hands off his infant niece.
    “She’s a pretty baby. It’s still hard to see Zack McKinnon settling down to family life.”
    “Shelly knows when to yank his reins.” Unable to resist, Ben grinned at her. “You’re not still carrying a torch for my baby brother, are you, Will?”
    Amused, she shifted and smiled sweetly. There had been a brief time when they were teenagers that she and Zack had made calf’s eyes at each other. “Every time I think of him, my heart goes pitty-pat. Once a woman’s been kissed by Zack McKinnon, she’s spoiled for anyone else.”
    “Honey . . .” He reached over, flipped her braid behind her back. “That’s because I’ve never kissed you.”
    “I’d sooner kiss a two-tailed skunk.”
    Laughing, he shifted his horse just enough so that his knee bumped Willa’s. “Zack’d be the first to tell you, I taught him everything he knows.”
    “Maybe so, but I think I can live without either one of the McKinnon boys.” She jerked a shoulder, then turned her head slightly. “Smoke.” There was relief in that, in the sign of people and the near end of her solitary ride with Ben. “The crew’s probably in the cabin. It’s dinnertime.”
    With another woman, any other woman, Ben thought, he could have reached over, pulled her close, and kissed her breathless. Just on principle. Since it was Willa, he eased back in the saddle and kept his hands to himself.
    “I could eat. I’m going to want to round up the herd, get them down. More snow’s coming.”
    She only grunted. She could smell it. But there was something else in the air. At first she wondered if it was the sensory echo from the bear and the blood on her hands, but it lingered, seemed to grow stronger.
    “Something’s dead,” she murmured.
    “What?”
    “Something’s dead.” She straightened in the saddle, scanned the ridges and trees. It was dead quiet, dead still. “Can’t you smell it?”
    “No.” But he didn’t doubt she could, and he turned his horse as she did. Already on the scent, Charlie was moving ahead. “It’s the Indian in you. One of the hands probably shot dinner.”
    It made sense. They would have brought provisions, and the cabin was always stocked, but fresh game was hard to resist. Still, that didn’t explain the dread in her stomach or the chill along her spine.
    There was the scream of an eagle overhead, the wild, soul-stirring echo of it, then the utter silence of the mountains. The sun glittered off the snow, blinding. Following instinct, Willa left the rough path and walked her horse over broken, uneven ground.
    “We don’t have a lot of time for detours,” Ben reminded her.
    “Then go on.”
    He swore, reaching around to check that his rifle was within easy reach. There were bear here, too. And cougar. He thought of camp, hardly more than ten minutes away, and the hot coffee that would be boiling to mud on the stove.
    Then he saw it. His nose might not have been as sharp as hers, but his eyes were. Blood was splattered and pooled over the snow, splashed against rock. The black hide of the steer was coated with it. The