A Man with a Past by Mary Connealy

FOURTEEN

They went back for their horses and led them into the valley. The cattle seemed tame and uninterested in them. The bull only looking at them once in a while.

They hitched their horses and left ’em grazing, then walked to the little cave.

Mama was flat on her side with three skinny pups goin’ mad, eating like they’d been missing their mama for too long.

Mama didn’t like the company.

Falcon smiled at the poor critter. She’d had a hard few days.

He dropped to his knees to fit inside the small cave opening, and it wasn’t much bigger than just to fit a dog and her pups.

Falcon slid over to let Cheyenne in. When she got all the way in, she was a sight too close, but he couldn’t bring himself to object.

They sat shoulder to shoulder. Cheyenne crossed her legs at the ankles, and pulled her knees up nearly to her chin, then wrapped her arms around them.

Falcon copied her and rested his back against the cave wall, watching those babies fill their bellies.

Time passed. Crowded in like this, Falcon felt all the aches he’d been shuttin’ out of his thoughts. But they were healing. He’d be his own self soon.

Whoever that was.

The mama quit keeping an eagle eye on them and let her head drop to the ground as if it weighed a hundred pounds. Falcon leaned forward and rested a hand on the mama’s weary head. Her eyes blinked open. She watched but didn’t bite or run away. The puppies might not’ve let her loose. He caressed her and studied that nasty cut on her shoulder.

“She probably oughta have someone put some thread in that cut. Don’t know if she’d allow it.”

Cheyenne nodded, then rubbed the old girl on the forehead. The dog’s eyes closed again. She seemed to be getting used to her new cave mates.

The puppies fell asleep, one at a time. The mama had settled in and was snoring quietly. Worn out nearly beyond surviving by her terrible situation. Falcon saw no meanness in the dog. She might go for a throat to save a puppy, but he chanced it and slid a hand under the closest pup. They were all black with white markings, like their mama. This one had a straight blaze down the center of its face and four white paws.

It didn’t stir when he lifted it, nor did the mama. It worried him some. Just how exhausted were they? How close had they come to dying?

He pulled the puppy against his chest and cradled it there, then, thinking of Cheyenne, he handed it to her. She smiled at him. Her black eyes full of bright pleasure.

Once the baby was comfortable against her chest, nearly tucked under her chin, Falcon got another one. This one pure black except for one ear and the tip of its tail.

After a long spell, Cheyenne said quietly, “They usually have more puppies.” Cheyenne still sat shoulder to shoulder with him. Her only other choice was to get out, and she didn’t look like she had any plans for that.

“Let’s just sit here and be quiet until the babies wake up. They all need sleep and more to eat, I reckon. Mama included.”

A long time had passed when the one puppy still lying against its mama stirred and started suckling again. Figuring if that puppy had slept enough for hunger to again take charge, then these had, too, Falcon set his little white-eared pup down, and it flopped around and found food. Cheyenne added hers, and the mama woke up and licked her babies.

“How old do they look to you?” Falcon felt like he should be able to guess such a thing, maybe if his head was working right.

“No idea. A month at least. Their eyes open at about two weeks. So maybe a month. They’re still really young.” Cheyenne shrugged.

“Funny thing.” He watched the dog when he spoke. She must be getting used to them because she just attended to her babies now without a growl or a fang showin’. “I kinda like it in here. It feels like I’m in a sheltered spot.” He looked at Cheyenne. “You reckon that means I lived in a cave back in Tennessee?”

That got a smile out of her as he’d planned. He pulled out more jerky and fed the dog.

“You lived with the bears and cougars no doubt,” Cheyenne said. “You’ve got the ways of the wild on you, Falcon. I’m thinking you lived in the mountains there. You like the mountains here too much. Took right off for the hills when you got here, almost as natural to you as a bear hunting a cave.”

Nodding, Falcon pulled his canteen off his shoulder. “Cup your hands. We’ll give her a drink of water.”

The dog, wary but buried under puppies and too worn down and thirsty to resist, lapped water out of Cheyenne’s hands.

They let her empty the little serving of water, then Falcon poured more. He said, “I need to doctor that shoulder, but I’m not sure how, and I don’t have anything with me to use if I did know. If she’s been huntin’ her own meals, she probably won’t survive out here hurt like this. Must’ve managed it before, but now she can’t outrun much. We can wait on the cows, but we have to take her and the pups home with us.”

Cheyenne looked away from where she watched the mama lap up water fast enough it wasn’t all dripping away through Cheyenne’s fingers. “We’re turning dog thief?”

“This dog and her pups would’ve all been dead in a couple more days. We don’t even know for sure she belongs to someone. She might be a dog running wild.”

“So we can have her?”

“Your land. Your cows. I say that makes her your dog. We’ll talk it over with the sheriff about the cows. I s’pect he’ll want to have a talk with Ralston. After that, if the sheriff says it’s legal, we’ll take them to the RHR, too. If Ralston comes after those cows—and with his brand on a lot of them, there’s a chance he could, though I don’t know how he’s gonna explain your bull in here—then we’ll brace him with how he took over land that doesn’t belong to him. And if he can prove he came by it all honest, we’ll let him have everything back that doesn’t have an RHR brand on it. For right now, I’d say he’s got some explaining to do and what better way to make him do it than to . . .” He looked at her. At those black eyes and that dark hair twisted into one long braid hanging over her shoulder so it dropped nearly to her waist.

“Than to steal his cattle?”

“Yep.”

She wore somewhat less manly clothes today than he’d seen her in before. A brown riding skirt, not the britches she wore in the mountains. She had on a shirt the color of a biscuit. Blouse not shirt. Blouse was what it was called. Buttoned up the front with pretty tucks and wooden buttons.

He poured more water.

“Pa, is that you?”

The voice. Who had said that? It was gone before he could focus on it.

Like a flash of lightning he thought, Harvey.

C-could Harvey have been who said, “Pa, is that you?” Could he have a son named Harvey?

The pain came fierce. He bent his head forward to force himself to bear it, hoping more memories would come.

Then he knew Harvey was a . . . was a mule. That came clear.

“Falcon, what’s wrong?”

A hard tug on his arm brought his head up. He didn’t know it was down. He capped the canteen, set it aside, and rubbed on the back of his neck. The crease was scabbed over, hardly even tender anymore.

“I-I think I—maybe I had a mule named Harvey.” Of a sudden, the front of his head throbbed so hard his torso fell forward again. He’d’ve fallen over, laid out on the cave floor, if there’d been room. He braced his forearms on his knees, rested his head there, and forced himself to reason it out. He tried to picture Harvey.

“An old rawboned mule.”

Cheyenne clutched his arms. “Named Harvey?”

“Harvey, yes. I’m sure that’s from before. Out of my memory. Harvey was mine.”

Forcing himself to think made his head throb until it pounded, like someone hammering on it. He pushed on. The things buried in his brain seemed to be trying to get out, but they were using a hammer and chisel to make their way.

“You’re remembering?”

“I think so, yes.” A mule named Harvey. But then who had asked him, “Pa, is that you?”

He couldn’t get any image of children who’d asked that question of him. The question was asked by . . . by an adult man. That seemed right. The voice was clearer now, and he was sure it wasn’t a child speaking. Could it have been him? If it was, who had he asked? Clovis? From what he’d been told, he hadn’t seen his pa for years.

Keeping his head bowed, he found a prayer inside him. He could remember there was a God, but not what his own believin’ had been like. He couldn’t get that out of hiding in his noggin, either. And the pain was carving his head up. But he pushed on. It was there. Right there to hand, if he could only—

A hand touched his chin and lifted. He raised his head.

Their eyes met. He saw only kindness. Kindness and something else. Her hand moved until it slid up to rest her palm on his cheek. “Stop now. You’re in pain. I can see it in your eyes, in the expression on your face.”

“It’s givin’ me a powerful headache.” He covered her hand with his. It felt so nice, that strong, callused woman’s hand. “But I need to keep at it. It all feels close, and if I can just—”

She brought her other hand up until she held his face. “Stop. Don’t hurt yourself like this.”

“I have to, don’t I? I have to keep—”

She moved one hand to rest her fingers on his lips.

That drove his headache away and all thoughts of digging around for memories.

He said quietly, “I have to remember, Cheyenne.”

“You will. The pain has to mean you’re not done healing. With time, you’ll remember. But, for now, stop fighting through the pain. You have courage, and I like courage in a man, but I hate seeing you hurt.”

The soft suckling of the hungry pups faded. He forgot about the cool shade of the crowded little space, almost too little to be called a cave. All he could feel was her callused fingertips, and he smelled the warm scent of a woman. She looked at him, and he saw goodness in her eyes. Considering how cranky she’d mostly been, it was a fine moment.

“You’ve had a few memories. Give yourself time, and you’ll have more.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It stands to reason.”

He smiled. “So you touch me, lean close to me, all to distract me from my pain? An act of kindness? Or are you really starting to like me?”

Something dangerous flashed in Cheyenne’s eyes. A look that, if Falcon had any common sense, would make him hightail it before she started swinging a fist.

Then her eyes flashed with something else, and she whispered, “I’m starting to like you real fine, Falcon.”

He forgot every sensible thought in his mostly senseless head.