“Aye,” Duff replied. “The water and the grass are good here, I think.”
“Have you named your horse?”
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I believe I have come up with a name.”
“What?”
“I’m going to call him Sky.”
“After Skye, good idea,” Falcon said.
“Aye, but being as the horse is male, I’ll leave off the ‘e’ in his name. Still, it will remind me of her.”
Falcon walked over to Duff’s horse and rubbed it behind the ears. “Hello, Sky,” he said. “How do you like your new name?”
A covey of quail flew up in front of them, and Falcon smiled. “Cousin, how do you like your quail? Grilled, or cooked in a pan?”
“I’ve never eaten the critters,” Duff replied. “Though I’ve taken my share of grouse.”
“Well, quail is as good eating as grouse, but they are a mite smaller. I reckon we’re goin’ to have to have two apiece to make a meal of them.”
“How do we hunt them?”
“Easterners use shotguns,” Falcon said. “But I use a pistol.”
“A pistol?”
“You’ve never hunted grouse with a pistol?”
“I don’t think I have.”
“It wouldn’t matter if you had. Grouse are bigger and easier to hit, so there’s no sport in it. Fill your hand, cousin. Let’s get us some supper.”
Falcon and Duff stood about twenty yards apart, then started walking through the grass. Duff was the first person to flush a quail. With a loud fluttering of its wings it darted up in front of him. Duff fired, missed the first shot, and fired again. On his second shot he saw a little puff of feathers fly out as the bird tumbled and fell.
“Ahh, what’s wrong? It took you two shots,” Falcon teased. As he was calling out to Duff, one flew up in front of him, but because he was teasing Duff, his bird got away before he could shoot.
“Did I misunderstand the concept here?” Duff called back. “It was my understanding that we were to shoot the birds, not let them fly away.”
Falcon laughed good-naturedly. “You got me on that . . .” Before he could finish his sentence two more birds flew up in front of him and he took them both. Even as he was looking back at Duff for affirmation, a second bird flew up in front of Duff. He got this one in one shot.
Chapter Twenty
Comfortably fed with grilled quail, and with his thirst satisfied by the cool, sweet water of Bear Creek, Duff watched the play of color on Laramie Peak as the sun dipped behind the range. The sun was gone, but a painter’s palette of color filled the western sky, from gold, to pink, to purple.
“What do you think about your place?” Falcon asked.
“I think this could make me forget about Scotland,” Duff replied.
The two men talked until the fire burned out, until not one glowing ember remained. Then, under a canopy of stars that was more magnificent even than they had been at sea, Duff spread out his bedroll and, to the music of the babbling creeks, the thrum of frogs, and the hooting of owls, he drifted off to sleep.
“Oh, Duff, I love it here,” Skye said. “This would have been such a wonderful place for us to raise our children.”
“Skye! What are you doing here?”
“I am here because you are here. For the rest of your life, wherever you are, that is where I will be. Was I not with you on the ship? Did you not hear my voice in the wind? Did you not see my face in the sea?”
“I miss you, Skye. I miss you so much.”
“I know, my dear. But don’t you know how it is here? We are never really apart. All you have to do is think of me, and I will be there, just on the other side of your memory. For you, it is reminiscence, but for me it is real. I will be reliving it.”
“Skye,” Duff said. “Skye.”
“Skye?”
Duff sat up in his bedroll, reaching out into the darkness for his Skye, but she wasn’t there.
For just a moment Duff felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness, then he knew he had only been dreaming. Or was it a dream? It seemed so true, so physical that it was hard to think of it as surreal. What had she told him? That she would always be just on the other side of memory?
He heard Falcon snoring and he looked over toward the other bedroll. Falcon was sound asleep, and Duff was glad. This dream was very personal and he wanted to keep it that way.
Falcon had come with Duff not only to be with him as he filed for his land but also to help him build the cabin he would need in order to “improve” his holding. So they spent the next morning and into the afternoon scouting the area, first determining the perimeters of his land, then deciding where best to build the cabin. Duff wanted it right at the confluence of the two creeks, but Falcon cautioned him that when the snow in the mountains melted, there would be a runoff and the creeks would be in freshet stage.
“You are likely to wake up one morning knee deep in water,” Falcon said.
“Aye, you are right. ’Twould be a big mistake to put it right here.”
They found a place on some elevated ground, at least thirty feet higher than the creek but close enough to it that it would be a ready source of water.
“When we come back from town, we will lay out the dimensions of the cabin, right here,” Duff said. They didn’t leave for town until early afternoon, but it did not take them long to finish their ride, for Chugwater was but ten miles from Duff’s land.
Duff’s initial view of the town was not all that reassuring. At first it seemed little more than a part of the topography of the land they were riding through: hillocks on the horizon, mostly the same color as the earth from which the clumps emerged. As they drew closer though, the hillocks and clumps began to take shape and he saw that they were not a part of the desert but were a town.
The buildings, consisting mostly of adobe brick and ripsawed unpainted and weathered boards sat festering in the sun. A sign as they entered the town reflected either the hyperbole of an overenthusiastic town booster or his sarcasm.
WELCOME TO CHUGWATER, W.T.
POPULATION 205
The jewel of Chugwater Valley
The town was not served by a railroad, but as they rode in, Duff saw a stagecoach sitting at the depot, the six-horse team standing quietly in their harness. The driver, with a pipe stuck in his teeth, was sitting in his seat, his feet propped up on the splashboard in front of him, his arms folded across his chest. He appeared to be grabbing a few moments of rest, totally indifferent to the depot personnel who were loading passengers’ baggage on top of the coach and into the boot.
The passengers were waiting alongside the coach: three men, two women, and a child. One of the passengers who had just gotten off the stage was a woman, whom Duff guessed was in her twenties. She was quite pretty, with blond hair and blue eyes. She brushed a fall of hair from her forehead, then flashed a smile toward Duff as he rode by. He touched his hand just above his right eye and dipped his head toward her.
“Pretty, isn’t she?” Falcon asked as they rode on.
Duff was surprised by the comment. He was riding behind Falcon and had no idea that Falcon had even noticed the brief and silent exchange.
“Aye,” Duff said. “She is.”
“What do you say we get the dust out of our mouths?” Falcon suggested, pointing toward one of the more substantial looking of the buildings. It was a saloon bearing the unlikely name of Fiddler’s Green.
“Aye, ’tis a good idea, I would say,” Duff replied.
Dismounting in front of the saloon, Duff and Falcon spent the first few seconds slapping themselves to get rid of the dust and raising a cloud around them.