"We"ll have to give it something to eat."
"I"ve got hay and oats in the shed."
"Wait until Zac sees it."
Tyler laughed. "He"s likely to want to eat it."
"But he doesn"t like venison. I heard him say so."
"He likes it better than nothing."
"Are we out of food?"
"We"re close."
Daisy jumped in front of Tyler. "Promise me you won"t let Zac hurt it."
"He won"t slaughter it, if that"s want you mean. He"s more likely to get Willie to do it for him."
"n.o.body can hurt this deer. Promise."
Tyler smiled, and Daisy"s heart turned a flip. His eyes were so warm, so inviting, she hardly noticed his beard.
"While we have it in the shed, n.o.body will touch it," Tyler said. "But I can"t promise you it won"t end up on somebody"s table after we let it go."
Tyler started toward the cabin again, and Daisy followed still feeling a little giddy. "Maybe we can keep it."
"No."
"I don"t mean in the shed. You can make a corral for it."
"It wouldn"t stay in a corral. If it did, the cougar would surely get it. Wild animals are meant to be free. If you"re going to lock them up, you might as well kill them. It would be a greater kindness."
Daisy walked behind Tyler, knowing what he said was true, angry because it was.
"Not all deer get eaten by cougars or men," Tyler said. "I saw a magnificent twelve point buck this past fall."
"Did you shoot it?"
"No. I let it stay with its harem. This doe might be one of his offspring."
Daisy felt a little better. Tyler wouldn"t let anybody harm the deer.
She wasn"t too sure the mules and the burro felt the same way. They didn"t seem pleased to be sharing their home.
"I"ll need water and bandages," Tyler said. "There"s warm water on the stove, bandages on the shelf."
By the time Daisy returned, Tyler was bending over the deer, his knee on its neck.
"Now that it"s safe, it doesn"t want to lie still," Tyler explained.
As she watched Tyler work with the deer, Daisy tried, and failed, to make sense of the last half an hour.
She had found the deer, but she had only meant to let it go. Tyler, who would have killed it for food if it had been running free, had carried it back to the shed, cleaned its wound, and bandaged it for protection. He even put some poles across the end of the shed to protect it from the mules and burro. It didn"t seem like it was her deer any more. It was Tyler"s. He was always protecting the vulnerable or weak. First her, now the deer. She suspected he was protecting Zac as well.
Daisy leaned over and patted the doe. Its coat was coa.r.s.e and rough. It lay still, its big eyes watching. "Why doesn"t it eat?" she asked.
"It"s too tired now. It"ll be time enough to worry if it hasn"t eaten anything by morning."
Daisy wanted to stay to a.s.sure herself the deer would be okay, but Tyler clearly meant for her to leave with him.
"Let"s hope Willie and Zac found a deer," he said as they returned to the cabin. "If not, I"m going to have a hard time explaining why I"m keeping one in the shed."
A hard time hardly covered it. Zac and Willie came back empty handed after a long, cold afternoon.
"Of course we didn"t get anything," Willie said. "I couldn"t surprise a deaf coyote with your brother talking his head off and floundering about making more noise than a bull moose in rut."
Willie received the news about the deer in shocked silence. Zac"s reaction was more vocal.
"You got what in the shed?" he asked.
"A young, female mule deer," Tyler said, his brown eyes glittering with amus.e.m.e.nt. "It"s at the end of the shed, behind the poles, if you want to go take a look at it. Daisy will show you. She"ll even let you pet it if you promise to be gentle."
Zac stared at his brother, his mouth open. "Here we are about to starve, and you got a deer in the shed eating its head off."
"It"s too tired to eat," Daisy explained.
"I"m surprised you"re not feeding it by hand," Zac snapped.
"You should have cut its throat while it was down," Willie said. "It can be right tricky once it gets on its feet."
"n.o.body"s going to cut its throat," Daisy said. "It"s hurt. We"re going to keep it until it get"s well."
"Next you"ll be taking in badgers and coyotes," Zac said, turning unbelieving eyes on Tyler.
"He already took in one coyote," Daisy said.
"Of all the ungrateful brats!" Zac exploded. "After everything I did for you."
"What did you do for me?"
"Take a bullet for one thing," Zac reminded her.
"I told you I was sorry about that, but that"s no reason to want to kill Tyler"s deer."
"It"s not his deer. It"s--"
"There"s no point in discussing this," Tyler interrupted. "The deer will stay in the shed until it"s able to survive on its own. In the meantime, we"ll eat the rest of the venison, then the bacon. If we must, we"ll boil some of the harness leather. But n.o.body is eating that deer."
Daisy hoped Tyler still felt that way when the food ran out. She didn"t think Zac would defy him, but she wasn"t sure about Willie Mozel.
The huge cat circled Daisy, its fangs dripping with saliva, its breath billowing out in thick, white clouds of moisture that almost reached her cheek. Daisy tried to run away, but her feet seemed too heavy to move. Each step was more difficult than the last. The snow seemed to become deeper with each step.
The cougar circled in an ever tightening ring. Daisy tried to scream, but no sound came from her throat. She searched for some weapon, something to fend off the beast, but there was nothing around her except an endless expanse of pure white snow. The beast crouched, bared its fangs, and launched itself at Daisy.
Daisy woke up with a pounding heart and heaving lungs. Inside her nightshirt her skin was damp. It was a dream. A horrible nightmare of a dream, but a dream nonetheless. She fell back on her bed, but over the pounding of her heart she detected the sound of crunching snow and claws on wood.
Her body stiffened. The cougar.
She jumped out of bed and ran to her window. She used her warm palm to melt the frost that covered the pane in a lacy pattern. Weak moonlight left most of the yard in shadow, but Daisy had no trouble seeing the cougar.
He was trying to get into the shed. She could see claw marks all over the boards. The mules and burro brayed their fear.
Daisy gasped in shock when Tyler came around the corner of the cabin, yelling and swinging a long club. She couldn"t believe he would attack the cougar without a gun, but he charged the animal like he was bigger, stronger, and had nothing to fear.
The big cat whirled to face Tyler, but rather than attack, he started to give ground. He uttered bloodcurdling snarls, his enormous fangs snapping at the club, claws capable of eviscerating a full-grown deer swiping at Tyler. Tyler kicked a spray of snow in the cougar"s face and jabbed at it with the club. The animal whirled and bounded away. It screamed then disappeared into the pines down the trail.
"You awake?" Zac called out.
"Yes," Daisy answered, still staring out the window, wondering if the cougar would come back.
"There"s nothing to worry about. You might as well go back to bed. Tyler has to chase that d.a.m.ned cat off about once a week. It"s practically a game by now."
Daisy took a last look before she crawled back into bed. She snuggled deep in her blankets. She"d forgotten how cold it was in the cabin after the fire went out. The Randolphs were crazy. There could be no other explanation as to why a supposedly sane man would attack a cougar with a stick.
Willie left at dawn the next morning. "I gotta see what those creeps have done to my cabin," he said.
"What creeps?" Daisy asked.
"Some prospectors who couldn"t get through to their own cabin," Tyler said. He left with Willie, a rifle under his arm.
"You gotta stop telling that girl lies," Willie told Tyler when they were out of earshot. "You"re gonna tell so many, you"ll forget one and get all tangled up."
"I don"t want her to know those men are so close," Tyler said. "It wouldn"t serve any purpose, and it would worry her."
"It might keep her from going out looking for deer to adopt." Willie looked at the sky. "Looks like it might clear up, but it"s still mighty cold. Ice can be more trouble than snow."
"Let"s hope it is for them. Will you come back and tell me where they"re headed?"
"Sure," Willie said as he headed along the ridge Daisy had followed the day before. "I got a score to settle with that bunch."
Tyler paused. An idea had just taken hold of his imagination. He smiled. "Want to have a little fun?"
"What did you have in mind?" Willie asked, giving him an appraising glance.
"I"ll show you when we get to the cabin."
Two hours later the men crouched behind a rocky outcropping about a hundred feet from Willie"s cabin. "I guess they"re still there," Willie said, disgusted. "Looks like they"re trying to burn up all my wood at once."
"You think you can get their horses away without them noticing?" Tyler asked.
"I could get a herd of buffalo through here and that lazy bunch wouldn"t know nothing," Willie said, scornfully.
"Get them as far away as you can. I want them to still be looking for them when I take Daisy to Albuquerque."
"Wouldn"t it be easier for me to draw them out and you shoot them?"
"It"s probably what they deserve," Tyler said.
"But you ain"t going to do it?"
Tyler shook his head.
"I didn"t think so. I always said you were too much of a gentleman for your own good."
"Just hide the horses."
"I can do better than that. I"ll move "em every day until the snow melts. That way they"ll be too busy to go after you."
"You sure? It could be dangerous. They"re not as harmless as you think."
"Nothing to it. Besides, I owe that bunch. They tore up my place something awful."
Tyler cursed as he watched Willie, careless of keeping under cover, make his way to the shed. Moments later he emerged astride his burro and leading three horses. Willie led them right in front of the cabin. The fool was intentionally trying to draw the killers out. Cursing, Tyler raised the rifle to his shoulder. He had barely put his finger on the trigger when a man ran through the door, shouting to the men inside.
Tyler squeezed off a shot. The bullet hit the corner of Willie"s cabin sending a shower of splinters through the air. The man hit the ground. A second man had just emerged from the cabin. He disappeared inside again. Tyler got off two quick shots, one clipping the corner of the man"s boot.
With a yell of triumph, Willie and the horses disappeared into the trees. Someone inside knocked out a window. Tyler placed a shot through the open s.p.a.ce. A yell from inside told him he"d hit someone. He cursed. He hadn"t intended to start an all-out fight. He changed his hiding place. By now they could have located him by the flash from his rifle.
He fired a shot at the man on the ground. He dived through the door headfirst, an audible curse on his lips. Tyler shifted location again and waited. He wanted to give Willie at least a five minute head start. Then he"d use the horse tracks to cover his own trail back to the cabin.
A rifle showed through the window. Tyler took careful aim and fired. Luck was with him. His bullet hit the rifle barrel knocking the rifle from the man"s hands and sending shards of metal ricocheting inside the cabin.
Somebody yelled. Someone else shouted, "Son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h!"
Tyler smiled and changed location. He could almost enjoy this. He waited five minutes. A hat appeared at the window, a boot at the door. In quick succession, Tyler nicked them both. More cussing inside the cabin, but no more targets.
Convinced the killers would stay put for a while, Tyler slipped into the woods and headed back toward the cabin.
Tyler returned in time to see Daisy, almost swallowed up in one of his coats, coming outside.