Pale Moon Stalker (The Nymph Trilogy) (32 page)

A crafty look came into his owner's eyes as he sized up the group. "As I said, I might...if you can afford a buck for it."

Max reached into his pocket and tossed a silver dollar at the salesman, who caught it deftly. "Very well. Let's see the show."

"Will the monkey perform tricks?" Fawn asked.

"Better than that. He will perform them with the aid of his personal assistant," Adams replied as he waddled around to the back of the wagon and raised the tailgate, propping it open and folding down a stage, complete with curtain. A thin bark sounded from behind the curtain. "Voila! Al Kazir, the Wonder Dog!" With that, he pulled the curtain open to reveal a small shaggy dog of indeterminate color and breed. The little beast sat up on his hind legs, begging for a treat.

"Oh, how sweet," Fawn exclaimed.

"He don't look like no Al-kasser to me," Bronc said dubiously. "Just a cute lil' ole mutt."

The salesman fed the dog a tiny bit of hardtack from his pocket, commanding him to stay. When he fetched the monkey from its perch, they noticed the reason the little animal had not moved before. Its leg had been chained to the post. Adams freed it and let it climb on his shoulder as he sauntered to the miniature stage at the back. "This is a most remarkable animal from darkest Africa. Zulu, you may begin."

Sky caught the involuntary flinch from the corner of her eye and looked at Max. His face had suddenly turned the color of bleached clay.
Zulu.
The fierce tribe he had battled in southern Africa. She felt the urge to offer comfort, but stood still, afraid of what Max might do if he realized she had seen his reaction.

Fawn watched in rapt awe as the nimble little monkey turned backflips and cartwheels, tossed its satin cap in the air and caught it. To the girl's utter glee, it then tossed the cap to the dog, which caught it in his teeth, then did a dance on its hind legs before walking across the tiny stage to lay it at Zulu's feet.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," Adams said with a grand flourish, "I ask you, have you ever seen a monkey or a dog who could count?"

Fawn shook her head and the adults joined in. She was obviously enjoying the show immensely.

"Zulu will turn flips. Each time he completes a series, Al Kazir will scratch the corresponding number with his paw. One," he said to the monkey, who turned one backflip and looked at the mutt. The dog's right front paw made a single scratching motion on the stage. Fawn clapped her hands delightedly.

"Three," Adams said and the monkey complied. So did the dog, who then looked at his owner, hopeful for another treat, but the fat man rewarded the monkey, not his other performer. "Seven," he commanded and the monkey turned seven times. But the dog made a whining sound and sat back. "Seven," Adams repeated through gritted teeth, almost biting off the end of the cigar clenched between them. He pounded the stage and the monkey leaped onto his shoulder, screeching angrily. The dog looked at him with sad eyes.

"Perhaps that is too high a number," Fawn ventured.

"Worthless mutt's counted as high as twelve," Adams said with an oath.

"No need for cussing in front of womenfolk," Bronc said in a warning tone, but Adams ignored him, intent on his glaring contest with the dog. "Seven," he repeated again, moving his hand in his pocket.

"He hides the food," True Dreamer said quietly to Max. "His heart is not good for the dog."

As if on cue, the mutt whined again and tried to lick Adams' hand. The man withdrew his other hand from his pocket and punched the little dog sharply across the muzzle. "Now we'll see who's boss. I run this show," he muttered as the monkey screamed and jumped up and down on his shoulder.

"They suit, don't you think?" Max said tautly to Sky.

"Do not hurt the dog," Fawn pleaded, tugging on the man's hand as he tried to raise it for another blow.

"That's it, folks. Show's over," he said, shaking the girl's hand off as if she were a leper.

He shoved the dog off the stage onto the floor of the wagon behind it. They could hear it land with a thump and a yelp. Then Adams started to raise the tailgate, but Max interrupted him. "How much for the dog?" he asked.

Adams turned, shoving the back of the wagon closed, his eyes narrowed in crafty calculation. "This is a highly trained animal from Arabia. Zulu and I could never think of—"

"How much?" Max asked again, this time crowding the fat man's space, looking down into his perspiration-soaked face.

"I couldn't accept anything less than fifty dollars, hard currency," he said, wheedling. The monkey screeched its approval as if happy to get rid of its competition for treats.

"You're amusing enough to go on the stage in a music hall, old chap. Five dollars, hard currency," Max replied. "And that is my final offer."

Something in his cold green eyes made the snake oil man back up and raise his hands protectively. "Lookee, mister, I spent a lot of time training that mutt—"

"It would appear you've wasted your time. I suggest you take the money before I start seeing how many backflips you can do."

"Now, see here—"

"One," Max said quietly.

Bobbing his head in nervous assent, Adams hastily agreed. "All right, five dollars it is." He reached out one pudgy hand, palm up.

"First the dog," Max said.

Adams turned around angrily and yanked down the tailgate. Leaning over as much as his belly would allow, he grabbed the dog by the scruff of his neck and threw him on the ground. "There's your damned mutt. Now give me my money," he snarled over the shrill noise of the monkey.

Fawn rushed over and picked up the rail-thin dog. "Oh, he is shivering," she said, backing away from the fat man with the piggy little eyes.

"Take it and leave quickly, old chap. Any more theatrics from you and I shall turn you over to the tender mercies of the young lady's grandfather. He is a genuine medicine man who could do things to you that would make backflips seem tame." Max shoved a greenback into the fat man's suit pocket. True Dreamer fixed the snake oil man with a penetrating stare that was even more frightening than the Englishman's.

It was not "hard currency," but Pythagoras Adams was not inclined to argue. He waddled to the front of his wagon and clamored up, stumbling in his haste to get away. With the monkey still screeching from his shoulder, he whipped his horse into a fast trot and vanished down the road.

Both men looked down at Fawn and exchanged a smile when she said, "He does not look like an Al Kazir to me, whatever that is. What should we name you?"

Sky knelt beside her and patted the dog, whose tail thumped happily. "Before we do that, I think we should get him something to eat. He looks starved."

"Probably how he trained the poor critter," Bronc said.

"Thank you, Stalker, and you, Grandfather, for rescuing him from that bad man," Fawn said before she followed Sky to their wagon in search of food for their new charge. "Can he ride in the wagon with me?" she asked Sky.

"I don't see why not, do you, Stalker?" Sky asked with a grin.

He smiled back at her. "No reason at all." Turning to Fawn, he said, "Before you name him, consider carefully. He looks to me to be a rather special dog."

"Of course, Stalker," the girl replied solemnly. "That is our custom. Our people always choose their own names by how they act or something they do, or visions they see. I will do the same for this one."

The mutt did not receive his name until they stopped for the night. Max set a fire and set about making dinner as the other adults bedded down the steers. By the time they returned to camp, tired and hungry, they could scent another culinary catastrophe. The pot of beans and fatback did not smell too bad, but something was definitely burning.

They found Max muttering to himself as he squatted beside the coals, fishing burned biscuits from a tin, inspecting each one and tossing those with black bottoms behind him. "There's one. Two." He replaced several passable ones, then threw out another. "Three. Four..."

By the time he reached ten, Fawn, Sky and the two old men could contain their laughter no longer. "What's so flaming funny?" he asked, throwing biscuit number eleven with a wicked snap.

"He can count—when he wishes to do it," Fawn said between giggles.

Behind his back, the dog made a scratch in the dirt each time he called out a number and threw away a burned offering.

"Snake oil fellow said...he could count...up to twelve. I betcha...he can go clean up ta...twenty," Bronc got out between guffaws.

"He appears quite proficient at mathematics," Max said, glaring at his laughing tormentors.

"I think we should call him Numbers," Fawn announced.

Max scowled at the performer, who sat, intently waiting for further direction. "All right, Numbers, shall we test precisely how high you can count?" he asked, picking up another tin of burned biscuits. He threw one to the dog, who sniffed it and whined, but did not eat.

* * * *

That night Sky knew everyone was waiting to see whether she would again sleep with her husband. To give her a push in that direction, Fawn invited an eager Numbers to sleep with her beside the wagon, shoving Sky's bedroll to one side to make room. She calmly picked up the roll and carried it away from the fire, but not to where Max had tossed his. If his nightmare returned, she would be close enough to reach him quickly, yet far enough away to preserve her pride—and peace of mind.

How long would it be before they again gave in to the simmering sexual attraction that had begun when they first met? It was his nightmare that had occasioned the consummation of their marriage in the first place. This was not the time to resume a relationship that might yet end sadly.

Max stretched out beside the fire, sipping coffee, this time not filled with grounds, thank heavens. In spite of the debacle with the biscuits, the meal had been palatable. He was progressing as a cook, but an utter failure as a husband. Over the rim of his cup, he watched his wife make up her bedroll. As much as he despised the humiliating dream that would not let him go, he had been grateful last night that it brought Sky to him. He knew it was the first restful sleep either of them had gotten since she'd read that damnable telegram from Bartlett.

And here she was, intent on keeping her distance. He debated walking over and dragging her to his bed. Bloody hell, she was his wife. He had the right to at least lie by her side. She was due to take the first night turn with the cattle. He watched her swing up on her horse and lope out to the herd. What should he do?

Fawn and Numbers were already sleeping soundly. He smiled at the child and her dog, then noted that Bronc was snoring with his usual buzzing gusto. But the old medicine man sat cross-legged on his blanket, back ramrod straight, face turned up to the starry night sky.

Was he making some kind of new magic? Communing with his Powers? True Dreamer had watched the interaction between him and Sky ever since the rift began. The old man's calm confidence gave Max hope. But nothing so far had turned out the way he'd imagined it might. Sky still kept her distance, polite yet remote.

What the flaming devil does he expect me to do?

Go to her.
The words intruded in his mind so suddenly, he splashed coffee into the dust as he jerked his body around, looking once more at the silhouette of Grandfather's straight back. Could he enter another man's mind? Max felt the hair along his neck stand up. Well, it was not as if he hadn't already seen True Dreamer's power demonstrated.

Quietly, he tossed the dregs of his coffee out and got up. He walked across the open ground toward the distant shadows of the cattle. He could see his wife and her horse outlined against the night sky. Moving slowly so as not to set off the cows as they grazed, he approached her. "Hello," he said when he was close enough not to have to raise his voice to be heard.

Sky turned and saw him standing in the moonlight, that pale hair gleaming brighter than the full moon itself. "What are you doing out here? You'll spook the herd."

"They seem calm enough to me. Get down, Sky. We need to talk and this is the only place with privacy enough."

She did not move. "What we have to settle can wait until after we leave the others behind."

"Is that when you plan to leave me behind, too?"

"I-I don't know. I need time to think things through." Her voice sounded defensive and she knew it. But he was the one who had betrayed her! Why should he make her feel guilty?

"Until we find out who's trying to kill us—oh, and deal with McKerrish as well—I don't think we can afford for you to be off by yourself. We have to stay together."

"We are staying together, Max. We're just not sleeping together."

"We did last night." There was a darkness in his voice.

"That isn't what I meant and you know it," she snapped.

"Raving out loud from a damnable nightmare is scarcely the way I would choose to win you back," he replied, his voice tight, low. "But having you with me...lets me sleep," he confessed.

"If you're trying to lure me back with guilt, it won't work." A steer bawled at her sharp voice.

"Best have a care or I could be trampled in a stampede," he said, drawing closer.