“The Northwest Mounted Police take their responsibilities very seriously,” Williamson replied gravely. “We were created only last year to enforce law and order out here in the wilderness.”
“I thought it was to fight the whiskey trade.”
Williamson flushed at Lesperance’s blunt words. “That, too.” He cleared his throat. “I think you’ll find that Mrs. Bramfield also wants to conclude this Prescott business as soon as possible.”
“Bramfield. The woman who found Prescott.”
“The same.”
“And then her husband brought Prescott’s belongings to the fort.”
“Oh, no. Only she came to report Prescott’s death. She lives over a day’s ride from this trading post in a cabin by herself.”
This stopped Lesperance. He frowned at Williamson as the sergeant stumbled to a halt. “Alone?”
“Entirely alone.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” agreed the sergeant. Lesperance resumed walking, so Williamson followed, saying, “But the locals say Astrid Bramfield has been on her own ever since she came to the Northwest Territory four years ago. She must know how to take care of herself. She even buried Prescott on her own, then brought his belongings to the Bow River Fort.”
“Maybe Mrs. Bramfield killed Prescott,” Lesperance suggested.
Williamson shook his head. “She’s a tough woman, but no killer. If murder was her aim, she didn’t need to bring Prescott’s possessions to the fort.”
“She may have kept some for herself.” Lesperance’s direct, forthright way of speaking reminded Williamson of his superiors at nearby Fort Macleod. He wasn’t certain whether the Mounted Police took Natives into their ranks, but Lesperance would have made an excellent Mountie—straightforward and determined.
“No, her honesty is impossible to deny, yet she refused to go back to the fort when it came time to meet you. This trading post was as far as she would come, and only then with quite a bit of reluctance.”
“A recluse.”
“Indeed. Even the Indians call her Hunter Shadow Woman. But you’ll find that these parts are full of peculiar characters. Here we are, our office-cum-mess. Right now it’s an office.”
They had reached one of the small log buildings that huddled near the trading post. It was barely more than a shack, a testament to the trading post’s rough surroundings. Out in the Northwest Territory, people made do with what they had. Over two thousand miles of prairie, mountains, and lakes stood between the Territory and the civilization of Toronto or Quebec. Sergeant Williamson stopped in the doorway and looked apologetic. “She’s inside. Please give me a moment to speak with her alone. Then we’ll have you and Mrs. Bramfield sign some papers and Prescott’s belongings will be released to you.”
Nathan gave a clipped nod and turned away when the sergeant went into the building. He heard voices within, the sergeant’s and a woman’s, and something, some rich quality in the timbre of her voice, sent immediate awareness tightening the surface of his skin. Something inside of him sharpened, like a knife being turned to the light. With a frown, he stepped farther away from the building and breathed in deep, looking around, assessing.
The trading post and the buildings that surrounded it were situated at the base of wooded foothills, and just beyond rose the jagged, snowcapped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Even from a distance, such impassive, raw mountains awed, becoming godlike as they stretched toward the heavens. No shelter, only rock and sky. A cold wind blew down from the mountains, swirling in dusty clouds around the trading post yard. A man’s life would be a fragile thing out in those mountains, even more tenuous than within the isolated woods surrounding the post. Hard not to feel small and temporary when faced with beautiful, pitiless wilderness.
Home. Of a sort. His mother’s grandmother had come from these mountains, journeying all the way to Vancouver Island and taking a husband from one of the local fishing tribes. The few times Nathan had seen his mother, she would tell him stories of the mountains, legends of magical creatures and elemental spirits that lived within each spruce and aspen, but the teachers at his school always said such tales were at best only ridiculous and at worst idolatrous. He paid neither his mother nor the teachers any mind. He had his own path to follow.
He’d lived almost entirely in Fort Victoria, a bastion of Britishness on the west coast of a fledgling territory. Not once had he traveled the hundreds of arduous miles to see his great-grandmother’s ancestral home. He had never wanted to. The mountains were the past, and he moved forward. His business, his needs, kept him elsewhere. Until now.
No one at the firm where Nathan worked wanted to make the journey to some hardscrabble trading post out in the middle of rough country. Someone had to go. Douglas Prescott had been a valuable client, and remained so even after he abandoned his family to find adventure as a trapper. Poor sod had found more than adventure. He’d found death. And somebody from Steedman and Beall must go out and claim his belongings. A trip to the Northwest Territory meant weeks of grueling travel through unmapped terrain. And then turn around and do it all over again to get home.
In the silence that greeted Mr. Steedman’s announcement, Nathan had stepped forward to claim the task. Somebody muttered, “Of course, Lesperance. He’s just the contrary bastard to do it.”
So he’d gone, and thought of nothing in his long journey but returning and throwing down the packet of Prescott’s belongings on Steedman’s desk as everyone gaped. Yes, he was a savage, as they said he was behind his back, but it had taken a savage to get the job done. He liked nothing better than defying expectations.
But as he stared out at the pearl gray sky, stretching above the harsh, magnificent mountains and deep green forests, Nathan couldn’t shake the oddest sensation of being drawn toward the mountains and wilderness, invisible hands reaching out to him. Come to us, the woods seem to call. We are waiting.
“Mr. Lesperance?”
Nathan almost snarled in surprise as Sergeant Williamson appeared at his shoulder.
“Sorry,” the sergeant gulped. “I called your name several times, but you didn’t hear me. Mrs. Bramfield is waiting.”
Shaking his head at his imagination, Nathan followed Williamson into the low building. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the changing light. Small windows cut into the west-facing wall allowed watery sunlight to wash into the single room. A heavy, crude table and several chairs composed the room’s sole furnishings. Primitive as it was, there were homes in Victoria equally simple, especially belonging to the Indians and Chinese laborers. Once his vision cleared, Nathan barely noticed any of this. His attention was claimed entirely by the woman standing on the other side of the table.
From Sergeant Williamson’s description of Astrid Bramfield, Nathan had expected a much older woman, someone well on the other side of middle age, with the rough features and sturdy build of a female living alone in the wilderness. Beauty, youth, and femininity could not survive out here. He’d met fresh-faced girls going out to live pioneering lives with their husbands, only to return a few years later, haggard, weathered women with girlhood left long behind. Mrs. Bramfield would likely be much the same.
Yet Astrid Bramfield took his few preconceptions and obliterated them. She was much younger than he’d believed, closer to his own age of twenty-eight. She wore men’s clothing—a heavy coat, jacket, shirt, and slim trousers tucked into worn boots. The hilt of a stag-handled knife peered above the top of her boot. Despite the coat’s bulk, her figure revealed itself to be an elegant collection of curves, her waist narrow, the flare of her hips tapering down into long legs. A gun belt hugged her hips, a revolver holstered and ready for use. Her hair, the color of wheat in high summer, had been pulled back into a long braid, revealing a face of pristine,