Plainly he makes a jest of me, yet I let it pass in good humor.
When the rain comes, he joins me beneath the canvas. The drops fall heavy and warm, a summer storm soaking the worldoutside. The fabric sags, dark with moisture, but we are dry enough.
“Least it ain’t cold,” he rasps, easing down with a groan.
“I imagine that would be far worse.”
“Ain’t nothin’ meaner than wet and cold both.”
I glance toward the drowned firepit. “Would be pleasant if a fire could be brought inside.”
He chuckles. “Well now, I seen it done. Not in a tent like this, but the Shawnee, they build shelters to hold heat proper. Wigwams, tight-packed with bark and clay. Smoke holes cut at the top. Dry as bone within, no matter the weather.”
I study him by the lantern’s glow. “You have been among the Shawnee?”
He nods, eyes gone distant. “Few years back. Took a bad break to the leg, fever after. Scout I’d worked with—he’d married a Shawnee woman—brought me in. They had no call to help me, but they did. Asked nothin’ in return.”
“Weren’t you afraid?” The words slip out. “Of them, I mean.”
He cuts me a look, firm but not unkind. “No, ma’am. They bore me no ill will. Most of what folks say is fear, or guilt. The Shawnee don’t take up arms without cause. Their land’s been stripped away, treaty by treaty. Hard to fault a man for holdin’ fast to his own land.”
He falls quiet then, not angry, only convinced.
“They liked the stars too,” he says after a spell, chin tilting toward the dim patch of sky visible through the flap. “Old men would tell stories, all bound up in the constellations. Reckon you’d probably find ’em mighty interestin’.”
“I think I would. I’ve always loved the stars. The legends behind them. I traced their patterns night after night.”
“Awful lot to keep track of.”
“If you track them long enough, they become familiar. Year after year, the same stars return to the same place in the sky. I suppose I found something comforting about that.”
He squints upward. “When that Shawnee scout brought me in, he told ’em my name. Kodiak. One of the old men, he nodded and pointed at the sky. Said there’s a bear up there, you can see him plain if you know where to look. Three hunters on his trail, never lettin’ up. Every spring they rise again, chasin’ him ‘cross the heavens. Come fall, they wound him. His blood spills, turns the leaves red. But the bear don’t die for good. Next year he’s back, runnin’ just the same, huntin’ and hunted all over again.”
Goosebumps erupt down my neck. “Ursa Major. The Great Bear.”
“You heard it too, huh?” He smirks faint, like it’s some private joke.
“The three hunters,” I say. “Orion’s belt. The bear is destined to run forever. Around and around, never resting.”
The storm cools the air, the patter steady on the canvas above. I sit still, the warmth between us unexpected. “Your life sounds like an adventure.”
He chuckles softly. “Fool’s gambles is what it is. Only seems like adventure in hindsight.”
The lantern burns low, its glow warm against the canvas walls. I lie with hands folded, listening to the rhythm of his breath. He shifts, the canvas rustling. His nearness looms, and I can’t help but lean into his warmth.
“Ever sleep out in a storm before?” he asks. His voice, rich and deep, is a wondrous thing. Capable of instilling fear or comfort. Tonight, in this tent, it soothes me.
“No,” I admit. “Always there was a roof, no matter how poor.”
“Roof’s a comfort. But a storm in the wild, that’s somethin’. Make you feel small. Let you know whatever’s out there don’t really give a damn.”
The words tug at something in me. I live my life measured out in deeds, as if tallying the goodness I share will amount to something virtuous. It’s never guaranteed my safety, and yet, here I am, with my protector, my bear, under a canvas cover, quite warm and dry.
I turn to him in the dim light. His face is sculpted in shadow, the lantern light catching his cheekbones, his mouth. I ask, “There are worse places to be than here, aren’t there?”
He fixes on me and doesn’t break. For a moment, neither of us breathes. My pulse beats loud in my ears. I cannot name the force that carries me forward, only that I lift my face, ever so slight, until my lips brush his.
His breath shudders, and the sound alone nearly unravels me. A man like him—so powerful and always in complete control—is made weak under my kiss. It chills me to my bones.
