Fire Down the Valley Ch. 06

"If that's what you want," Frank said, a bit of sadness evident in his voice.

"And, Frank. When you get to Denver. Stay there. I will find you."

Frank's face opened up into a broad smile and, with one long look back at Cal, he started to get the wagon moving again south along the logging trail.

Cal turned and looked at Ilesh, whose face showed an emotion he'd never seen before but that set into its normal calm and determination to adjust to the reality of the world. Cal wouldn't have to tell Ilesh. Ilesh had figured it out for himself—and would be the first to acknowledge that Cal going to his own kind in Denver would be all for the best.

"We go to the valley beyond the mountain now. You will be safe there," Ilesh said, as he and Cal started up the narrow path toward the tree line.

"We can't go far, for a few days or more, Ilesh," Cal said. "I must go back. I have money buried at the ranch. I'll need it."

Ilesh stopped and put a hand on Cal's arm. "I know you need to go back for more than money."

"Yes," Cal said in almost a whisper. "Henry will want to rest beside Lizbeth. But I swear, Ilesh, I then will be done with the past and all of this cattlemen, sheepmen, homesteader business."

"And also with the Arapaho?" Ilesh asked.

"No, never with you," Cal said, answering the question that Ilesh could not directly ask. "Even when I've gone to Denver—and, yes, to that man who was just here, to Frank—I will still come back to you, again and again. Sometimes I think that when I lived among your people was the only time I truly was in a civilized world. I don't want to lose that—or you."

"I am content," Ilesh said. And this simple statement lifted a great burden off Cal's heart.

- FINI -