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“Yes.” Mark stood up, and then he left the room. From the kitchen, he could hear the others talking, and he started to sing. He had a tune in mind, but the words escaped him. So, as he made up words to go with his little ditty, he decided that he would never, for so long as he lived, ever think about money again. He added that to his song, too.
“We have money now. A great deal of it. Not that we didn’t before, but now we have too much. I hope no one finds out. Here, Bossy, did you want a bite of ham? I can afford to give it all to you.” The cat, his grannie’s cat, didn’t touch the ham he’d dropped but did look at him oddly. “You wouldn’t have that look on your face if you knew what I knew. But then, you might—”
“Mark?” He looked at his brother Ewing, and he knew that he must have looked a fright. “You’re scaring the women. Not to mention the rest of us. Please, come and sit down with us—”
“I don’t think so. I think I’m going to float right off my rocker and sing a song about it. I bet people will pay me for it, too.” He thought about the two billion they were each going to get now and smiled again. “I think later I’m going to go down to the ice cream parlor and have all the ice cream I want. I don’t even—Ouch! You slapped me. What was that for?”
“You’re off your rocker. Go into the living room and have a seat.” He told his brother he wanted a sandwich. “All right. I’ll bring it to you. You’re scaring your wife.”
Mark made his way to his wife. She didn’t smack him, as he thought that she would, but she did hold his head to her breast. Now that he was calmer, as calm as he could be, Mark decided that they were going to have to get them a full-time attorney to make sure that they were all right with their taxes when the time came around. He was glad when everyone decided to stay for dinner. He didn’t know if celebrating was going to happen, Mark thought they were all in shell shock, but they would have fun.
~*~
Willow watched the two men who were setting bear traps from her high position in the tree. As soon as they were out of sight, she’d climb down and snap the traps so they’d not work. She’d been doing this for the last four years, and it was getting harder and harder to find them unless she, like today, was able to see them doing it. It wasn’t just illegal but it was dangerous too.
Just as she was climbing down the tree she’d been in for the last hour, she saw the big bear coming up the mountain. She could tell that he was a shifter. There were a great many of them around the mountains it seemed. Just her luck, the big lummox was going to get his foot taken off because his timing sucked. She watched as closely as she could until she had no choice but to speak to the shifter.
“Don’t move.” When he stopped, she smiled. It would have been a beautiful picture had she had a camera the way he was poised there with his one paw up and his other just a scant inch from the rusty bear trap in front of him. “Since I can tell you’re a shifter, I want you to back up—without lowering your paw about a foot. Can you do that?”
“I can wiggle back, I think, but I’m fearful of dropping my hand. It seemed important to you that I didn’t move my hand.” She told him not to move. She was coming to save him. “I’m not sure what you’re saving me from, but you have no idea how much I appreciate this. I’ve had a really shitty couple of weeks. Some good to it, but for the most part it’s—”
“Do you babble all the time like this? If so, someone should have pointed out to you that it’s fucking annoying when shit is about to hit the fan.” He didn’t speak again. When she was standing in front of him, he looked at her face. “That is the best costume I’ve ever seen anyone wearing. It looks authentic.”
She had to think about what she was wearing but looked down at herself. She had on knee-high moccasins that were lined with wool. A long shirt, like the moccasins made by the skin of a buffalo. Her coat, almost too heavy for the nice weather that they were having, was made of bear skin and fit her a bit too large. She had done that so that she could wear it for a couple more winters before having to find herself another fallen bear. The tribe that she lived with was under the assumption that no animal was left to rot if there were parts. This time, the skin could be used for their well-being.
“It is. I live with a couple of the tribes here in the mountains. They’ve taught me how to survive in this hard life we have here.” She told him not to move while she walked away to find something to snap the trap. When she came back, she had a large log in her hand and looked at the bear. “All right. I wasn’t going to tell you until I did it, but you’re too close. There is a bear trap about half an inch from your right paw. Or hand, whatever you call it. I’m going to spring it, but it’s going to pop up off the ground a little. Not to harm you unless it bloodies your mouth, but it won’t snap on you. Just stand still.”
“Count.” She asked him what he said. “Could you count to three or something? You know, just to give me a heads up?”
She simply slammed the log into the trap. It did pop up and hit him on the bottom of his mouth, and it hurt, but if he’d put his paw down, he would have lost it. The thing is meant to take off the paw to capture the animal.
“You didn’t count.” She told him he was surprised, which was better. “I suppose. I’m going to shift. Can you turn your back or something? I have clothing, but I need to stop my mouth from bleeding.”
“Do whatever you need to do. I have to follow the two men that are setting these suckers. This is the fifth one that I’ve snapped this week following them.” She started away and wasn’t surprised when the big bear ran up beside her. “I thought you were going to go nurse your mouth.”
“I want to keep you safe. You saved my life, and I need to keep you out of harms—”
“At what part in my saving your life did it look like I couldn’t take care of myself? I mean, really? I was all right just letting you snap your foot off and walking away, but I thought you’d put up a big ruckus and draw the men back here. You’re big enough to cover a large area if they wanted you for a rug.” She stopped at the top of the hill and laid on her belly. He did the same, scooting himself up so that he could see into the valley like she was. “Is there anything that I can do to get you to go away?”
“Nope.” He looked over the hillside, and she was surprised at how many people were there. “How long have they been down there? It looks like it’s been a while.”
“Two weeks, the best I can figure.” Her whispered answer had him looking around to see if anyone was close to them. “If you look up there in the mountain about two hundred yards from the campfire, you can see that they got a bear before I found them. I’ve already figured out how to get the cubs to the forest rangers so they’d not die, too. I know that it’s against the laws of nature to do that, but there are a lot of them left behind thanks to these people, and I love the bears most of all. No one will know that I did it. Understand?”
“Yes, I won’t say anything.” He watched the men, pissed off that they had their families there with them doing such a dangerous thing. “You said you have been tracking them for four years. Do they come back yearly, or is it a different group each time. That would help when I let the rangers know.” She was using a pair of binoculars. “Tell me what you’re seeing, please?”
“There are fifteen men with rifles. Ten of the men are barely out of high school. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling this is one of those becoming a man kind of bullshit. The Cherokees know that they’re here, but so long as they don’t murder for fun, they pretty much leave them alone. However, when they found out they were using bear traps, they’ve been sending out men to help me find them. It’s my thing, you see.” She moved the glasses from the group at the bottom. “If you shift now, I won’t look at you. I have no desire to see any more naked men than I have already.”
Willow felt the air tighten around her, taking her breath away. When the man reached for her glasses, she pointed up the hill about halfway up. She knew when he saw the tribe.
“They won’t kill them. Unless they fire on them first. Which I think is going to happen regardless. The tribe will tie them up, put out their fires, and destroy their camp gear. The bear will be dragged away so that other animals can have a meal from the carcass. Usually, they’d take the meat and smoke it, but they don’t trust what the white men have done to it.” There was a single rifle go off, and it didn’t look to her like anyone was fatally hurt. “They’ll notify the rangers by the way of cell phone and let them know where they are. Usually, they let them sit for a few hours just to teach them a lesson.”
“Do you know what will happen to the kids?” She said that she’d not given it any thought before. “I don’t know that I would have either, now that I think about it.”
When he handed her back the binoculars, she thanked him. Then she noticed that he was dressed. Thanking him for coming with her, she told him that she was headed back to the tribe. He didn’t move when she did.
“My name is Barron Cross. My family has lived on this mountain for generations. Have you heard of us?” She told him that all the tribes up in the deep mountains knew who Alford and Minnie Cross were. “My grandparents. Did you hear that they died recently?”
“Yes. The tribes here paid tribute to them for ten days and ten nights when they heard. There are markers, if you know what to look for all through the park about them. If I see you again, and one is near, I’ll show it to you. They were good people, your grandparents, and saved a great many Indians when they came to them for help. Your grandda, he was kind to everyone, and when he found things, artifacts that he would find while out, he would ask the chief if he could let the white man see them.” He asked her if she was a white woman. “I am. They raised me when they found me wandering the park. I was seven then. I’ve been living and being with them for the last eighteen years or so.”
