and they didn’t own him any longer. And his association with the BLM was strictly on a volunteer basis, so he could do things any damn way he pleased.
Jacy shifted in the saddle and leaned into the mountain as Pete, as sure-footed as a goat, maneuvered the rocky trail.
The temperature was twenty degrees, with a three-inch base of snow on the ground. He pulled the collar up on his sheepskin jacket and tugged his brown Stetson lower. Another hour passed, then another.
It was late afternoon when he spied the familiar pink scarf—a dot of color against the mountain. The sight made him smile in relief, and he reined Pete to a stop.
Koko was moving slowly along the trail, negotiating the rugged terrain and a travois she was pulling behind her.
He had stopped questioning Koko’s visions a long time ago. He’d learned about them one night seated around a campfire on the rez as his uncle had relayed to him the story of his birth: His mother Nola had been trying to get down the mountain. She was eight months pregnant and in labor.
Once again Koko was in her rocker when a vision came to her and she realized her daughter was in trouble. All of her visions came to her in the rocker. Tate had aptly named the rocker the “happening place,” and it was true, it was the place where his grandmother’s visions revealed themselves.
That stormy night she had seen Nola in labor. And, on a desolate trail bathed in moonlight, she had arrived in time to deliver Jacy into the world, then transport Nola and her child, via travois, to a road where she had flagged down a car for help.
Jacy dismounted Pete, and when he dropped onto the ground, his bad leg buckled. He swore, held on to the saddle horn, and rescued his pride and his balance before he dropped to his knees.
“Hello up there,” he called out. “Koko, it’s me.”
She stopped and searched the rocks below. He waited until her eyes locked on him two hundred feet below her. When she saw him, she gave a hearty wave, and he knew behind the wave she was smiling.
He watched as she unhooked the wooden poles from a harness she had tied around her waist. Free of her burden, she called out to him.
“You’re two days late, but I am happy to see you, my issohko.”
“I’m happy to see you, too, Grandmother. What have you found?”
“A bird fell from the sky. A matsowa’p bird, and she is hurt.”
A beautiful bird. A woman, not Marty.
Jacy wondered about that. Had Marty been transporting a passenger? It was true he flew hunters up into the mountains.
He searched the trail behind Koko, but saw no one else. “Was it Marty’s plane in your vision?”
“Yes. But he has joined his father and mother.”
Marty’s parents were both dead. Jacy understood what Koko was saying. He tied Pete to a dogwood shrub and began to negotiate the rocky trail.
Pris strained her neck to see who owned the deep voice that had boomed up the mountain minutes ago, but in her prone position she saw only treetops and more mountains.
“Is it your grandson?” she asked.
“It is him, sisttsi nan. He has come as I said he would.”
Pris didn’t really care who it was, only that someone had found them. The old woman had been walking for hours without complaint, dragging her behind. The trail was rough and Koko had to be exhausted.
She asked, “Now what?”
“Now Moon will take you the rest of the way.” Koko looked over her shoulder to where Prisca lay wrapped in the blankets. “Did I tell you that my grandson almost died last year? He should have, but his spirit would not allow it. It wasn’t his time, just like it wasn’t your time. I believe he is on a quest, like you.”
Listening to Koko and the way she talked, Prisca felt as if she’d been transported back in time. Still, it didn’t matter who or what this woman was, or what sort of a quest her grandson was on. What mattered was that she had been rescued from certain death.
She smiled back at Koko, relief in her own eyes. She would believe Koko and what she had said. It wasn’t her time to die, and it was true. She had unfinished business to take care of. Yes, a quest for justice, and God wouldn’t cheat her out of her revenge. Not when he knew how important it was to her.
She heard the shifting of rocks, and she looked past Koko again. This time she was rewarded by the sight of a man coming slowly up the trail.
He wore a heavy tan coat and jeans covering long athletic legs. His hair was visible around his collar, black and straight. She couldn’t see his face. It was hidden in the shadow of a hat.
He was limping, and for a moment she questioned just how much help he would be. Then he stopped and tipped the brim of his hat back and what she saw set her heart pounding. Koko’s grandson had the face of experience, with eyes as sharp as an eagle’s. A man who had seen too much, been to hell and returned. She remembered the words from a poem she’d once read.
Prisca watched Koko hug her grandson. When he hugged her back, then kissed her forehead, her heart constricted. Her mother had always kissed her cheek. She touched her face, remembering. But there would be no more kisses. No more hugs.
The reminder brought her back to the reason she had climbed into that small airplane in Missoula. She collected her raw emotions, stuffed them away, then focused on what had brought her across the ocean. Bjorn Odell and Jacy Madox were the ones responsible for her lonely existence. But thanks to Koko and to her grandson, she would soon be back on her feet, able to resume the hunt.
When Koko stepped back to let her grandson kneel down beside her, Prisca said, “I owe my life to your grandmother. She is my miracle.”
“And mine,” he said. “How badly is she hurt, Koko?”
“The leg wound is deep. A few cuts and bruises. Maybe a sprained ankle.”
Prisca again got caught up in his voice—so very low, but far more educated than he looked. It’s what distracted her and cost her not only her pride, but her dignity when he reached out and stripped the double layer of blankets from her body.
Jacy’s first thought was, where the hell are her clothes? His second thought was he hadn’t seen anything this beautiful in a very long time. If ever.
He tried to keep his eyes off her breasts, but the air was cold and the two porcelain-perfect mounds were dressed with rosy nipples and he lost focus for a moment, then he went in search of her injuries. He mentally tallied up the damage, and at the same time couldn’t ignore her narrow waist and shapely curves.
She had a superficial laceration on her thigh. He carefully removed the cloth bandage Koko had wrapped around the leg. The woman’s most serious injuries—unless she had internal trauma—were a four-inch jagged cut below her left knee, and a badly swollen left ankle.
“What’s your name?”
“I don’t know.”
He
