A Mating of Hawks (13 page)

What was it about darkness that made a person want to be comforted by light? The feeling of helplessness because one couldn't see? How terrible it must be for Patrick, then. And not to be able to move half of his body! Thank goodness, Mary seemed a tonic for him.

Tracy made a cheese omelet and green salad. When the romaine and spinach in the ice chest were gone, she'd have to depend on sprouts and wild greens till she could grow some of her own, or replenish her supply daily from the ranch. That went against the self-sufficiency she wanted to enjoy. Maybe it
was
playing pioneer, but it would be fun to see how independently she could subsist.

It was cool enough to keep the fire going so she put garbanzos or chick peas on to simmer, made a pot of mint tea, and sat down at the table to go through cookbooks and make lists.

With a starter and dried milk, yogurt could be made indefinitely. She loved it with berries or honey and it made a tangy, nutritious substitute for milk in baking, soups, and casseroles. She'd always wanted to bake her own bread. This was the time to do it. She'd have to buy lots more soybeans. As well as the simple ways to use them, they could be made into a sort of curd that had a hundred uses.

She'd buy pounds of sprouting seeds: her favorite alfalfa, so crisp and succulent on grilled cheese and in salads, its vitamin count hundreds of times greater than that of the seed; tangy radish, cress and cabbage; mung, so good in Chinese dishes. And herbs! She'd have an herb garden.

Black beans, pintos and navy beans. Bulghur for pilaf and tabouli. Brown rice, lentils, split peas, dried fruit. Nuts. It was quite a list, but at last she stretched and surveyed it with a yawn of satisfaction.

She could eat very well, without a refrigerator, frequent trips to town or dependency on the ranch. And there had to be wild foods, the ones Papago Tjúni had taught Socorro about. Hadn't they been gathering berries on a slope above this very basin when they killed the scalp-hunters who were slaughtering Apache women and children?

There was a sound outside. Tracy's spine chilled and she held her breath. There weren't any ghosts! Maybe a deer or javelina. Then she heard unmistakable footfalls on the hard earth outside the door.

The curtains were pulled but she didn't know how opaque they were. She got the automatic, flicked off the safety and reminded herself that the intruder might be a hungry but harmless illegal, hiker or hunter.

“Who is it?” she called at the same time as a soft knock, followed by Geronimo's voice.

“Open up,
chica!
I brought you a present.”

Laughing in relief, she put the gun on the top shelf and unlocked the door. Geronimo stood grinning in the spill of light.

“Next time,” she said breathlessly, “how about giving a few toots of your horn from the other side of the creek?” Then she saw the giant dog beside him, the size of a small calf, and gasped. “What in the world is that?”

“A Rhodesian Ridgeback,” he said somewhat aggrievedly.

“A which?”

The beast made a soft sound in its throat and advanced on Tracy with squirmings of delight. It looked something like an outsized Dalmatian but had a tawny sleek coat striped with black down the back. The hopefully moving tail was black-tipped. The dog licked Tracy's hand and settled at her feet with a sigh of great content.

Geronimo beamed. “He likes you.”

“What,” demanded Tracy, “is this all about?”

“If you're going to stay over here alone, you need a good dog.”

“One that could eat me for breakfast?”

“Le Moyne's a lamb with women. Loves 'em!” The dog thumped his tail as if in agreement. Geronimo stroked his head. “He's pretty special. The Boers needed a good farm dog that could hunt lions and protect people without being vicious, and with short hair to discourage ticks. They put together the Hottentot dog, bloodhound, greyhound and Great Dane. This is what they developed.”

“Just a simple little farm dog,” Tracy said, now able to identify the loose skin around the eyes as bloodhound heritage as the flipped-up ear was the greyhound's. “Lord, Geronimo, I can't keep him! I don't have any dog food and—”

“I brought a hundred-pound bag of dry stuff and a case of canned. Anyhow, he'll eat scraps. Just for the sociableness of it.”

“I wonder how he'll like soybeans,” Tracy muttered. “Look, Geronimo, it's kind of you, but—”

“Shea says you have to have a dog.”

“Then why didn't he bring it?”

Geronimo's eyes slid away. “He—uh—he was busy.”

Tracy was torn between resentment at him for not coming himself and treacherous gladness that he'd at least worried about her a little. She had always liked animals, and once she decided Le Moyne wasn't to eat her, she found his streamlined solidity as comforting as his immediate fealty was endearing.

“I don't know,” she worried. “I hate to get fond of him and then have to leave him when I go away.”

Geronimo scowled. “Go away? Why do you want to do that?”

“I won't as long as Patrick needs me. But I wouldn't stay here at Vashti's sufferance.”

The barrel-chested, dimpled big man shrugged. “Well, you don't have to plan it all out now. If you leave, maybe Shea'll find another lady to keep Le Moyne happy.”

Improbable as that seemed, it sent a pang of jealousy through her. Yielding to what seemed to be inevitable, she helped Geronimo bring in the dog food and several big earthenware dishes. Le Moyne lapped up some water and politely crunched a few chunks of food before stretching out on the rug by Tracy's chair.

Geronimo cautiously sipped mint tea and ate half a carrot cake as he told her Le Moyne was very quiet. “He won't attack unless you order it or someone's trying to hurt you,” he explained. “If you yell ‘Charge!' he'll hit the target at shoulder level and bay as he springs.”

When she said she was forgoing electricity and plumbing till fall but would like a shower, he promised to rig up a gravity-flow one like that at El Charco. He cleared his throat, then shyly asked how Mary was getting along. When Tracy told him Mary's great-great-uncle had been a companion of the Apache Kid's, Geronimo whooped.

“No wonder she's the first lady I thought I could stand getting married to.” His dark eyes sought Tracy's anxiously. “Think she likes me?”

“She likes you,” Tracy assured him. “More than that, you'll have to ask her.”

With assurances that he'd get over as soon as possible to fix the shower and anything else Tracy decided would be handy, he took his leave, giving Le Moyne a farewell scratch between the ears.

As his whistling dimmed, Tracy gazed at Le Moyne. “I'm surprised your master didn't teach you to bite women on sight,” she said drily.

Le Moyne opened an eye and thumped his tail. “Well, my lad,” Tracy told him, as she dipped water from the reservoir into the enamel washbasin. “I confess I'll sleep easier with you here. You'd scare a miscreant worse than that little gun, and besides it can't wag its tail.”

More than that, Shea had sent him.

She slept well that night beneath the lavender-scented quilt and woke to sun filtering through the heavy cotton curtains. It was nippy so she put on slippers and her robe before she went around opening all the curtains to let the sun spill in. She let Le Moyne out and built a fire, both for warmth and making breakfast.

Removing one of the round lids above the fire, she made toast on a perforated pan lid while frying two eggs. It all tasted delicious. Le Moyne was back and padded after her as she made the bed and did the dishes.

“I don't know what to do with you while I go see Patrick,” she mused to the dog. “You haven't been here long enough to think it's home, but I hate to tie you up or leave you inside.” The best solution seemed to be to take him along and ask one of the yard men to keep an eye on him.

This worked well enough. Le Moyne was content to rest in the cool damp earth behind the rosebushes in the courtyard. Patrick chuckled at her description of the animal but said he was glad to know she had such a protector.

“And don't be stubborn about doing without electricity and such,” he urged, patting her hand.

She had lunch with him and Mary, then collected Le Moyne and drove off without having seen either Judd or Vashti. Patrick wouldn't expect her next day since she'd told him she was going to Tucson to lay in supplies.

Le Moyne preferred to swim the creek rather than try the log, so she ordered him to stay out and drip while she unlocked the door and stepped inside.

The Ridgeback made a deep-throated sound as her arm was caught and she was hiked to one side while the door slammed against Le Moyne's charge. The thud of his heavy body shook the cabin, rattling pans and dishes.

Tracy recognized Judd before she had much chance to be scared. “What's this about?”

He hefted the automatic he'd given her. “It's about what good this will do you if you leave it on a shelf! It's to show you not to put all your faith in that big mutt! I could be killing you right now and what could he do about it?”

Her anger rose. She called Le Moyne, reassuring him, and glared at Judd. “How did you break in?”

He laughed. “I have a key. Same one fits all the line shacks. That means any vaquero could get in.”

“No vaquero would,” she thrust.

“Tracy!” This wasn't going as he'd planned. She was accusing instead of on the defensive. Less brashly, he put the gun on the table and opened his hands placatingly. “Baby, if I didn't care about you, I wouldn't bother!” He glanced disparagingly about the room she was so proud of. “I wish I'd heard about this in time to stop it! But you'll get enough in a week or so.” He grinned charmingly, tracing her cheek with his finger. “I won't even say ‘I told you so!'”

She opened the door and Le Moyne came warily in, lips peeled back slightly from his teeth. He sank down on the rug at Tracy's command but he never took his eyes off Judd.

“That's one vicious monster,” Judd growled. “I'm surprised Shea wished him off on you.”

Tracy stood close to the Ridgeback. “He's gentle and sweet with me,” she said, then smiled. “But he makes me feel quite safe.”

“I showed you that was an illusion,” Judd pointed out. “Even if I hadn't had a key, I could have broken in a window.”

“I could doubtless stage some scary scenarios at the big house in spite of all your guns,” she retorted. “Of course, everyone's vulnerable to some degree.”

“That degree lessens a lot if you know how to defend yourself.” He took her hands, brought them to his face in a disarming gesture. “I don't want to scare you or make you mad, but Tracy, doll, you have to face realities.”

“I think I am. I'm not sure it's worth living a longer life if you have to go armed, walk in fear, and be ready to kill any stranger before he kills you.”

Judd shook his curl-clipped head. “You're looking at it wrong. After you've been to a Stronghold session, you'll see.”

“Judd, I'm not sure—”

“I'll pick you up Saturday morning at seven,” he said and was gone before she could argue.

VIII

Still not sure that Le Moyne would stay at the cabin without her, Tracy took him with her to Tucson and left him in the front of the pickup with the windows partway down while she raided natural food and hardware stores.

Once home, she poured her staples into big tight-sealing plastic containers, labeled them, and ranged them on the shelf with the glow of satisfaction she thought people had experienced ever since some Neanderthal lady surveyed her hoard of nuts and seeds.

Dried milk didn't have to be boiled to kill bacteria, so it was simple to heat it to lukewarm and mix it with yogurt starter in a glass bowl, which she set in the warmest sun and covered with a dark plate that would absorb more heat.

The experiment she was most eager to try and most dubious about was a dog-food recipe she'd found in one of her books, soybeans, soy sauce, brewer's yeast, dried milk, wheat germ, eggs and chopped onion, mixed and lightly sautéed.

Le Moyne wolfed down four patties without seeming to take a breath. “Maybe you
can
survive without horsemeat,” she laughed. He escorted her to the hot spring where she had a delightful soak and then briskly rubbed dry in the late sunlight.

“You'll keep the birds and wild critters away,” she told him. “So you can't always come along. But you relieve my mind, Le Moyne, and you're a very good listener.”

He wriggled at that and they raced to the house, Le Moyne holding back for her.

Next morning the dog gave a softly whispered growl minutes before Tracy could hear the crunch of Judd's footsteps. “It's all right, Le Moyne.” Getting her camera and tape recorder, she took him outside, and left a big bowl of water and some of his crunchies. “Stay here and guard the house.”

He trotted hopefully beside her. “Stay!” she said more emphatically.

His ears drooped but he stopped obediently, nor did he run after them as they crossed the stream and got into the RV. “Pretty well trained,” Judd grudgingly approved.

Tracy nodded but felt guilty as she glanced back at where the Ridgeback stood forlornly in the clearing. If she stayed very long at Last Spring, she'd probably have to get another dog to keep him company!

“Got your automatic?” Judd asked.

“It's in my camera bag. But if I'm getting a story, I won't have much time for a lesson on how to use it.”

“I can teach you all you need to know in ten minutes,” he said. “Not much you can do with that but shoot someone at fairly close range! What I want you to get today is an idea of the choice of weapons you have and the sort of potential they possess.”

“Does the session run all weekend?”

“Yes, but it's not so tightly organized as some courses because it's a mixed group. About ten are individuals and families and the other twenty are from a church.”