Montana Sky

carved stone, having no memories of her to pull out and hold on to.” She watched a bird flit by, chasing the breeze. “I’ve started thinking of it differently. It was seeingLily with her mother, and Tess with hers. It’s thinking of the baby Lily’s carrying. The continuity.”
    She turned to him, and her face was relaxed. “It was always the land that was continuity to me, the seasons, the work that had to be done in each one of them. When I thought of yesterday or of tomorrow, it was always the ranch.”
    “It’s your heart, Willa, your home. It’s you.”
    “Yeah, that’ll always be true. But I’m thinking of the people now. I never really did before—except for you.” She reached out, closed a hand over his. “You were always there. My memories are of you. Picking me up, me riding your hip, your voice talking to me and telling me stories.”
    “You were, and always will be, a joy to me.”
    “You’re going to be such an amazing father.” She gave his hand a last squeeze, began to walk Moon again. “I’ve been thinking. It’s not just the land that continues, not just the land we owe. I owe her my life, and I owe her you, and I owe her the child I’ll be aunt to.”
    He was silent a moment. “It’s not just her you owe.”
    “No, it’s not.” Adam would understand, she thought. He always did. “I owe Jack Mercy, too. The anger’s gone now, and so is the grief. I owe him my life, and the lives of my sisters, and so the child I’ll be aunt to. I can be grateful for that. And maybe, in some way I owe him what I am. If he’d been different, so would I.”
    “And what about the tomorrows, Will? What about your tomorrows?”
    She could only see the seasons, and the work that had to be done in each one of them. And the land, waiting endlessly. “I don’t know.”
    “Why don’t you tell Ben how you feel about him?”
    She sighed and wished for once there could be some corner of her heart secret from Adam. “I haven’t made up my mind how I feel.”
    “Your mind has nothing to do with it.” His lips curved as he kicked his horse into a trot. “Neither does his.”
    And what the hell was that supposed to mean? she wondered. Her brow knit, she clicked to Moon and gallopedafter him. “Don’t start that cryptic business with me. I’m only half Blackfoot, remember. If you have something to say—”
    She broke off as he held up a hand. Without question she pulled up and followed his gaze toward the tilting stones of the cemetery. She smelled it too. Death. But that was to be expected here; it was another of the reasons she so rarely came.
    But then she knew, even before she saw, she knew. Because old death had a quiet and dusty murmur. And new death screamed.
    They walked the horses slowly again, dismounted in silence with only the wind in the high grass and the haunting song of birds.
    It was her father’s grave that had been desecrated. What rose up in her was disgust, chased by superstition. To mock and insult the dead was a dangerous matter. She shuddered, found herself murmuring a chant in her mother’s tongue to calm restless spirits.
    Then to calm her own, she turned away and stared over the land that rolled and waved to forever.
    Not a very subtle message, she thought, as the healing rage took over. The mutilated skunk had been spread over the grave, its blood staining the mound of new grass. The head had been removed, then placed carefully just under the headstone.
    The stone itself had been smeared with blood, going brown now in the sun. And words had been printed over the deep carving:
     
    Dead but not forgotten
     
    She jerked when Adam laid a hand on her shoulder. “Go back to the stream, Willa. I’ll take care of this.”
    Her weak legs urged her to do as he asked, to crawl back onto her horse and ride. But the rage was still here, and beneath that, the debt she had come to acknowledge.
    “No, he was my father, my blood. I’ll do it.” Turning,she fumbled with the clasps on her saddlebags. “I can do it, Adam. I need to do it.”
    She took out an old blanket, spent some of her temper ripping it. After digging for her gloves, she tugged them on. Her eyes were bright and hard. “Whatever he was, whatever he’d done, he didn’t deserve this.”
    She took a piece of the blanket and, kneeling beside her father’s grave, began the filthy task of removing the corpse from it. Her stomach revolted, but her hands stayed steady. Her gloves were stained with gore