The Men of Bitter Creek: The Man from Wolf Creek/The Christmas Baby

Chapter One

Cale shivered in his buckskins as he pulled the bearskin coat tighter around his chin to fend off the sting of blowing snow. He hadn't precisely expected this spring blizzard, but he had lived in the Teton Mountains long enough to plan ahead for the unpredictable weather. There was no one to save him if he got into trouble. He was on his own in this lonesome wilderness. It was a choice he had made ten years ago, when he was twentyfour. He had never regretted his decision to leave the civilized world behind.

Cale had checked most of his traps before the storm hit and had already started back to his cabin while the snow was still falling in flakes that slowly, gently buried the June flora. Now the wind whistled down the back of his neck, and the snow was deep enough to slip into his kneelength moccasins and melt around his toes. Best he could figure, he had another half mile of uphill walking to do before he could settle down in front of a roaring fire and wait out the storm.

The sight of a saddled mule sitting on its haunches between two lodgepole pines stopped him in his tracks. Cale shook his head in disgust when he saw the figure of a man yanking on the mule's bridle, trying to get the animal on its feet. The man wasn't wearing a coat, and despite his slouch hat, his eyebrows and mustache were white with snow. Cale considered making a detour around man and mule, but another look at the flannel shirt and denim trousers the old man wore convinced him the idiot would freeze to death if left on his own.

"Need some help?" Cale asked as he stepped into the stranger's line of vision.

The man let the reins drop and turned to face Cale. His eyes crinkled with pleasure, and he shoved his hat back and brushed the snow from his mustache with two quick flips of his wrist. "Glory be! Figured I was gonna freeze to death for sure. Didn't look like snow when I left the valley this morning." He held out his hand. "Name's Orrin Schuyler. You got a cabin somewheres close? I'm about to freeze my arse off."

Cale grimaced and ignored the outstretched hand. "About a half mile up. Follow me."

"Why, I'd surely like to do that, son, but Betsy here, she ain't moving. Can't leave her here. The two of us have been together a long time."

Cale walked over to the animal, murmured a few words into the mule's ear, turned his back and began walking away. Betsy brayed once as she struggled to her feet and followed docilely after him.

Orrin gathered up the reins and hurried after Cale. "I'll be hornswoggled. What did you say to her?"

"That if she stayed where she was, some Blackfoot or Arikara would have her for supper."

Orrin guffawed and slapped his knee. "Guess you told her, all right. Didn't catch your name, son."

Cale gave Orrin a cold stare. "I'm not your son, old man."

"No offense meant," Orrin said with a hopskip through the deep snow to catch up with Cale's longer strides. "So what are you called, boy?"

Cale frowned ferociously at the old man. Boy wasn't much of an improvement over son. Being alone so much, Cale wasn't used to talking. He found the old man's questions irritating. But Orrin Schuyler looked stubborn enough to keep yammering until he got an answer, so Cale said, "Name's Cale Landry."

"Cale Landry," Orrin murmured. "Heard tell of you at the last rendezvous down in Willow Valley. You the one can shoot the eye from a turkey at two hundred paces?" Without waiting for an answer Orrin continued, "Heard you don't come down from the mountains much, but when you do, you got the finest beaver pelts a body's ever seen. Story is some Flathead Injun woman taught you how to cure them skins so nice and purty. That so, boy? You an Injun lover?"

Orrin chuckled deep in his throat. "Guess folks'd call me an Injun lover too, seein's how I got me a daughter by one of them squaws. The girl's ma was one of them Nez Perce Injuns. Always stood so tall and straight, like she was some kinda queen, when she wasn't no such thing. Made you feel like you oughtta bow down to her. Raven -- that's my daughter -- turned out the same way. That girl fairly oozes pride."

Orrin clucked his tongue. "Her ma was some woman, all right. Died 'fore I learned the secret from her of how to cure skins so nice. Didn't seem no need for it while she was alive, and once she was dead, well, it was too late then. You're a lucky man, Cale Landry."

Right then, Cale was regretting the impulse that had led him to save the talkative old man. He caught sight of his cabin through the blowing snow and heaved a sigh of relief. Which turned out to be premature. Once the old man was warmed up, his lips loosened even more.

" 'Preciate you putting Betsy in the lean-to with your horse. Mighty fine bunch of furs you got stored in there, Cale. You must've had a right fine winter of trapping. Beaver and marten and muskrat, all three. Me, I ain't been doin' so well lately." The old man pulled a deck of worn cards from his vest pocket and shuffled them in his hands. "Wasn't for my girl selling buckskins with fancy Injun beadwork, we'd'a gone hungry once or twice this past winter. Figured I'd hunt us up some venison for supper tonight. Woulda had a fine buck too, hadn't been for this blizzard."

Cale went on with his regular routine, gutting and cleaning the rabbits he had caught and making a stew from them ...