第 24 页

She looked at him with that "rational" look on her face that brooked no argument. "But you want me, Stone Man. I may be a lady and an innocent, but I'm not stupid."

He groaned inwardly. Another ten seconds and little miss levelheaded would have him so confused he'd probably throw caution to the wind and give her what she was asking for. God knew he wanted to.

He had to change the subject. Fast. He cleared his throat. "Have you unloaded my toboggan?"

"No," she answered crisply, "I've been too busy saving your life to think about keeping your clothes dry."

He was too tired and in too much pain to soften the blow. So he simply said it. "Bear's dead."

Her face went chalky white. "Oh my God... When? How?"

"A few days ago." He swallowed the lump of dryness in his throat. "Some half-crazed cheechako burst into our tent one night and shot us both. With Bear he had time to aim."

Grief twisted her face. She stared at him, stricken and silent, waiting for more. Tears magnified her eyes, streaking down the milky surface of her cheeks.

Her pain brought his own grief to the surface. Memories crashed through the wall he'd built around them, punching him in the gut.

She opened her arms to him. A tremble seized him. God, it would feel good to be held right now.

He'd never been held without paying for it first.

He stared at her small white hands and remembered the delicate feel of them on his fevered brow.

All his life he'd waited for her hands, her touch. Only he hadn't known it until this very moment.

He was in big trouble. The space between them was too small, too easily brooked. He eased himself off the bed. His feet landed hard on the floor, and bolts of pain shot up his right leg, throbbing in his thigh. He winced, testing the area with his fingertips.

She was beside him in an instant. "Are you all right?"

The concern in her voice was almost his undoing. He clamped his jaw shut to keep from saying something stupid. Something like No, goddamn it, I'm not all right. I haven't been all right since the day you came into my life. "Are you-"

"I'm fine," he snapped.

She took a step backward, clutching the neckline of her flannel wrapper in shaking fingers. "Of course you are." She gave a short, forced little laugh. "Silly me."

He grabbed his clothes and started dressing. "I'm going to go tell the boys about Bear. It'll take the better part of three days to dig a grave. We'd better get started."

She didn't answer. He turned around slowly. She was still standing beside the bed with her head bowed. Even from this distance he could see that she was trembling.

Her silent pain clawed at his heart. It was all he could do to keep from sweeping her into his arms. He wanted to kiss her tears away. But he couldn't. If he kissed her now, he'd never stop.

He cleared his throat. "Uh, Devon?"

"Yes?" she answered without looking up.

"Uh, thanks for saving my life."

"You're welcome."

The moment he left the tent she sank to her knees.

Oh, Bear... The weight of painful memories dragged her slim shoulders downward and bowed her neck.

Cold seeped from the ice-sheened floorboards through her nightclothes and into her knees, but she didn't notice it. The cold in her soul was deeper.

Burying her face in her hands, she let the tears come.

Midas's voice droned on, melting into a meaningless mush in Devon's mind. She stopped listening to his half-baked, stumbling eulogy.

She stared at the gaping black hole in the ground, so deep and dark and terrifying beside the stark whiteness of the snow around it. Tears clogged in her throat and burned in her eyes, freezing on her lashes.

She stood stiff and alone, apart from the miners. Icy blasts of wind buffeted her cheeks, ripping strands of hair across her face. Overhead the sky was a dull gunmetal gray. A fast-moving bank of strafers shielded the sulking sun. All around her spindly, snow-covered trees stood like silent sentinels. The wind moaned and hissed through their whitened boughs.

It felt as if her soul were being twisted by huge, ice-cold hands. Every breath hurt, and her eyes felt raw and swollen from too much crying. Every fiber of her being ached for Stone Man's touch.

She longed to throw herself in his strong embrace and be comforted.

God, why hadn't he come to the funeral? It was one thing for him to pay respects in his own way, but couldn't he just once think of her needs? She needed him beside her, and she suspected that he needed her. If he'd only reach out to her...

She was daydreaming again.

The last four days had passed in a fog of painful confusion. Not a single word had passed between them. Each morning she woke up, did her chores, cooked their meals, and washed their dishes. All of this she did side by side with Stone Man, yet she was alone. Achingly alone. She wished the post were still open. That at least would have given her something else to do.

"Hey!" Midas's gravelly voice burst through her thoughts. "Anybody know Bear's real name?"

Devon flinched at the unexpected query; it sparked a memory so strong she nearly staggered at the force of it.

The memory was of one of "their" mornings. That's how she'd come to think of the time she and Bear had spent together. Their time.

"Bear," she'd asked him, "what's your Christian name?"

"Missy, you oughta know by now the Yukon ain't the place to ask a fella his real name."

"I wouldn't tell anyone, not if you didn't want me to."

"Nope."

She'd waited a moment before trying again. "Want to know my middle name?"

He'd grinned at her then. "You're going to dog-and-bone me to death on this one, ain't you? I won't get a lick o' rest till I tell you, will I?"

"Not a wink."

He sighed. "My mammy named me Eugene. Eugene Je-dediah Ott. Now, don't you laugh there, missy. I had sixteen brothers and sisters. I reckon by the time I was born all the good names were used up."

She grinned. "I reckon so."

"I'm gonna hold you to that promise, missy..."

"Well?" came Midas's gravelly voice again. "I'm tryin' to make a damn-er, danged marker. Does anybody know his name or not?"

Tears slid down Devon's cheeks and froze solid, lining her wind-reddened cheeks like silver threads. Absentmindedly she plucked the icicles from her face, wincing as a tiny layer of skin was torn away. "He'd want Bear on the marker, Midas," she answered softly. "Just Bear."

"That's what I figured," Midas answered, pounding a whipsawed plank of wood into the ground.

At every fall of the hammer, a crack of sound echoed through the still, frosty air.

When Midas finished whittling and pounding, she stared at the marker he'd made.

BEAR Buried 24, December, 1896 A good man to have knowed She buried her face in the coarse leather of her gloves and sobbed. Time ceased to mean anything as she stood there, braced against the driving wind. She cried until her soul was parched and her eyes ached.

"Devon lass?"

She heard Father Michaels's voice as if from far away. It took her a moment to realize he was standing beside her.

"Child," came his voice again, "the funeral's over. Ye'll catch yer death o' cold out here."

Devon lowered her hands and glanced around. Everyone was gone except for her and the priest.

How like the Yukon-ers, she thought, to let a person alone with their grief.

She stared at the grave. The black hole was filled in. Now it was merely a brown oval in the midst of a snowfield, and by tomorrow morning even that would be gone. Only the marker would remain.

Bear was really and truly gone.

"I don't think I 'd mind catching my death," she said dully.

"Ach, lass, it just seems that way now. Ye're hurtin', and that's to be expected. But yeVe got to go on. 'Tis God's way."

She snorted derisively. "Some God. Bear's dead, and his killer is free."

"Now, now. I'll not be hearin' that sort o' talk. And on the day before His birthday, too."

"Sorry, Father."

"Nothin' to be sorry about. I'd expect ye to be a bit angry. But lass, God ne'er takes anything away without givin' some-thin' in return. Watch, ye'll see. Somethin' wonderful'll surely happen soon."

"Nothing could be worth Bear's life."

"Ye're right about that. But still..." He thought a minute then brightened. "Maybe something good'll happen at the Christmas party."

Devon gasped. "Surely you don't think I'm going ahead with the party... Bear's party?"

"I thought 'twas the Lord's party."

"Yes, but it was for Bear and-"

"And all the men like him who missed home. Ye think they miss their families less since Bear's death?"

"No," she admitted, "but I can't go ahead with it. Not now..."

Father touched her forearm. "What about the Indian children ye had me invite? And the men themselves, what about them? Ye sent word they were to be at Joe Ladue's at seven o'clock Christmas night. "Tisn't exactly the type of surprise ye promised 'em."

She stared blankly at the grave. Thoughts and images and memories chased around in her head.

You just plan that party, missy. I'll be there. She'd planned it all right; she had enough food prepared to feed the entire camp and more beside.

"Bear would want ye to go on. Don't ye think he'll be watchin' from up there, waitin' for his first Christmas dinner? He'll be a mite disappointed to find out-"

She hiccuped loudly, sniffling. "All right. You win. The party goes on as scheduled."

He started maneuvering her toward home. "That's me girl. I knew ye wouldn't let the children down."

Stone Man stood alone on the hillside opposite town. Around him the wind blew furiously, its mournful dirge an echo of the suppressed pain in his soul. The keening wail was the only sound in the white, muffled world. Overhead the sky was a deep, soulless gray, an uninviting palette that even the hawks had today abandoned. He stared down at the straggling little funeral procession through aching, too-dry eyes. Wrapping his arms tighter around his body, he tried to find some measure of warmth. But it was impossible; the coldness was too deep, too pervasive.

And it had nothing to do with the weather.

He sank slowly to his knees. The hard-packed snow crunched beneath the weight of his body.

Above his head the wind rattled through a lone spruce tree, and a clump of snow plopped to the ground in front of him. A single flake landed on his eyelash, melted, and rolled down his stubble-coated cheek.

He bowed his head in prayer. The action felt foreign and uncomfortable, but he forced himself to maintain it. It was the least he could do for Bear.

"Take care of him, God. He's a good man." He cleared his throat. "Oh, yeah, and if you could, give him that arm back. He was powerful upset to have lost it."

With a great and determined effort he lifted his head and stared down the valley. The river was a winding strand of white velvet that snaked idly along the row of grayed tents. Behind it the great, frowning hillsides watched in silence.

The funeral was over. The mourners-from this distance a row of black-clad ants-dispersed, each trudging toward his own empty tent. There were only two people left at the grave site. A man and a woman.

If he strained, Stone Man could almost hear the flapping of the woman's black woolen skirts against her ankles.

"Devon." The word came out in a whisper of longing. God, how he wished he could go to her right now. To comfort and be comforted, as he'd never done in his life.

But he couldn't, wouldn't, breach the wall of silent safety he'd built up around himself. If he let her touch him now, when he needed it most, he'd never own his soul again. And his soul, battered and bitter as it was, was the only thing he'd ever had.

It was so damn terrifying, the thought of needing her, of not feeling whole without her. It was one thing never to have known comfort; he'd learned to live that way. It was quite another to touch the warmth and then be plunged back into the cold darkness. He could live with not having what he wanted. He couldn't live with needing what he couldn't have.

He pushed tiredly to his feet, and as he stood a white-hot pain sliced his heart. For one blinding moment he thought he was having a heart attack, but then the pain subsided. In its place settled a hard, heavy ache. It felt as if he were being crushed by a wall of granite, the rock slowly stealing the air from his lungs.

God, he wished he were man enough to let himself cry. Maybe that would relieve the pain...

* * *

Dinner that night was a tense, dreadful ordeal. Devon : as stiff as a blade, picking at her food without eating a bit Stone Man was equally silent and withdrawn.

When she couldn't stand it anymore, Devon dabbed at 1 corner of her mouth then set her napkin down and stood up clearing her place.

Her stiff formality irritated the hell out of Stone Man. God, he hated her this way. But what could he do about it? If one barrier came down, they all would, and he couldn't risk living with her without walls. She was too dangerous to his way of life.

He wanted her, but desire didn't blind him to the truth. Once they made love, nothing would ever be the same again. She'd leave him, and whores wouldn't be good enough anymore, and the wilderness he'd always treasured would seem lonely and colorless. Hell, even his tent would seem cramped and dirty.

He carried his plate and cup to the washbasin. They stood side by side, their elbows brushing as she washed and he dried. Not once did they speak.

As soon as the dishes were done they went to their respective places. He sat in his favorite chair, reading silently. She went to the stove; and for the remainder of the tense, uncomfortable evening, they sat silently together. Together and yet worlds apart.

Devon snapped open her pocket watch and glanced at the time. Oh, God. It was six forty-five. In another fifteen minutes the guests would begin arriving.