Chapter Five: Love

Blackfoot Village near Tom Logan's Homestead, British Columbia, 1890's

Two years had passed since the Mounties left the sons of Black Tom Logan alone, on their father's mountain.

In the Blackfoot village which was further down that mountain, Silver Fox awakened early, to disappointment.

She awakened early, every morning, to disappointment.

She was an orphan several times over, both her parents and her grandparents were dead, and she had no brothers or sisters.

Her only living relatives were her aged aunt, and her incredibly aged uncle, the Medicine Chief and now Clan Chief, Fox Blackfeather, with whom she lived.

Silver Fox's great aunt was his fifth wife, and he had been married to only one woman at a time, and had outlived them all.

And Autumn Hawk was beginning to turn grey, and feel aches in her bones in the rain and cold.

That's how old Fox Blackfeather was.

Out of all of his children with Autumn Hawk, none of them had inherited what it was in his blood that made him an extraordinary man, but Silver Fox was the son of the Medicine Chief's eldest brother, the ancient Clan Chief Standing Bear who claimed to have lived 500 years and died right after his only child in 500 years was born.

Standing Bear had not died of natural causes.

He and a grizzly bear had engaged in mortal combat that left them and Standing Bear's young mate dead, dead, but Silver Fox, whom her mother and father had died protecting, survived.

She had been mauled by the bear, but although just a tint baby, she survived and healed, perfectly, without so much as a scar.

Clearly, her blood was akin to that of her father and her uncle.

Some men among the tribe considered her unlucky and wanted to leave her to the elements, to whatever fate would befall her, but Fox would not hear of it, and after he consulted with the gods and the ancients, he made it clear that they would curse the tribe should and harm purposely befall a child of their blood.

Fox Blackfeather's blood.

Silver Fox's blood.

Autumn Hawk and Fox Blackfeather had six children, all of them daughters, the youngest of whom was two years older than Silver Fox.

Her extended family treated her well, but as an orphan who owned nothing but her personal possessions, despite her blood, Silver Fox's status in the tribe wasn't very high.

The chances that she would remain with her uncle and aunt until she was old and grey as they, however, were very high, indeed,

Silver Fox wasn't a very imposing young woman.

The young men were already uneasy with her because of her mutation. Had she been tall and leggy, or even busty and curvy, or unusually beautiful, maybe they would have overcome that feeling.

But Silver Fox was none of these.

She was barely five feet tall, and she was pretty, but very slight.

Just the type to remain an old maid.

And now, she was the only one left with her aunt and uncle.

Her youngest cousin had just been mated, and was off to live in a home of her own, with a man of her own, where everything she touched was hers.

The only boy who ever paid Silver Fox any mind was Old Black Tom's son, Jimmy, adopted into the tribe as Wolverine, just as his father, known to the tribe as Black Wolf, had been.

Jim Logan was only a little taller than Silver Fox, and he had been a shy, scrawny boy when they first took notice of each other two years ago.

But, Jim's shoulders and his chest were beginning to widen and deepen, and black hair was starting to sprout up all over his body; not to mention that his voice was beginning to deepen, as well.

Silver Fox despaired.

Soon, even Jim would abandon her, for one of the busty empty-headed, well dressed maidens who were beginning to notice him.

Well-dressed girls with painted faces and hands un-roughened by hard work who could devote their idle hours to catching a handsome young man, like Jim was turning out to be.

And then, she would be alone.

Living on the charity of her relatives, her aged relatives.

Silver Fox took over the work her cousin had done, and more, whether or not she was asked to.

She did most of the work, and did it uncomplainingly.

Going this morning, a frosty morning in Fall, to wash clothes in the stream.

She was scrubbing them against a large rock when she was shocked from her reverie by the approach of her aunt.

"I can't let you do all this work by yourself."

"But your hands..."

"My hands have been this gnarled since you were a baby. And I will have to do this work when you are mated. Or I can get one of my daughters or granddaughters to help us. You are not an old workhorse. You're a young woman. You should take the time to enjoy your youth."

Autumn Hawk took a cake of soap and a pile of clothes, and got to work.

Silver Fox snorted in disbelief.

"What do I have to enjoy? I will never be mated. No man in this village even looks at me. They fear me, because of my uncle, and because of what I am. Twenty years from now, I will still be with you and Uncle. Gladly, because where would I be without you? Where will I be without you, when you go on to the next world, and, in time, Uncle takes another wife? She won't want me around, some hard-luck old woman, with tainted blood. What will become of me? I will be like old Black Bear, who passes from place to place among virtual strangers because she had no home or family left of her own. What will I do when I'm an old woman, without a man or any children to take care of me when I'm stooped and grey? I'll just be some toothless crone being passed from one distant relation to the next. I don't own anything but my clothes, my blanket, and a few pots, bowls and utensils. I'll be carrying them on my back from place to place until I die under their weight. No, when you are gone, I will not trouble my cousins. Or my Uncle. I will take what I own and walk as far into the mountains as I can go, and follow you into to the next life. I will give myself to my brother the bear, like my father did."

Autumn Hawk laughed, and shook her head.

"And so nobly you'll go to your death, Silver Fox? You won't talk so bravely and casually about death when you are as old as I am. Old enough to know Death, to have had his hand cast over your life. And are you careless enough to forget that there is a man who looks at you? A man who wants to provide you with a home of your own, and children. A man who will certainly be there to take care of you, when you are old and grey. When he is old and grey. Which will happen long after even your Uncle has gone to his rest." Autumn Hawk reminded her, putting her arm around her niece.

"Jim will find another woman. The other girls in the village are beginning to notice him. All of the sudden, they all want Wolverine to come and sit by their fathers' fire. He'll want one of them and I can't blame him."

"True, they want him. Some of them. But Wolverine dose not see any woman but you, Silver Fox."

"But he's not truly of our blood, is he?"

"Wolverine? Son of Black Wolf? Who your Uncle and your father adopted into our tribe because they are of the same blood, the same spirit? Jim and Black Tom, even Victor are as much Blackfoot as you or I. "

"Jim doesn't live our way."

"Wolverine doesn't live anyone's way but his. He will always live his own way, on his own terms, like his brother, and their father before them. That is the nature of spirits like his. And yours. Whichever path you choose, Silver Fox, you will not be like Black Bear. You have many cousins, who regard you as a sister, who have already had many sons and daughters between them. They will not abandon you. And, even if they did, your Uncle, the Medicine Chief, he will outlive us all. Even me. You are his brother's only child, and you share his blood. He would never abandon you. If you stay with the tribe, you will only grow, in wisdom and status. After he dies, you may be Medicine Chief. Or Clan Chief. And lead our people into a future that waits one, two hundred years from now. You may be a woman, but you are the only living heir of Standing Bear and Fox Blackfeather."

Autumn Hawk saw a look of confusion on her niece's face.

She put her arm around Silver Fox, reassuringly.

"You are so young, you don't understand how things may change. You are not lamenting your future. You are lamenting your future without Wolverine. And lamenting your future with him. You are lamenting the end of your childhood. Which is only natural. Everyone no matter how old they are, we are all afraid of change. And unwilling to choose. Unwilling to grow up. But you are on the cusp of womanhood, just as Wolverine is on the cusp of manhood. You must choose. And live with your choice and its' consequences. That is what it means to be a woman."

They worked quietly, for awhile.

"I don't want a future, if it's without Wolverine. But I am afraid. To leave you, and my Uncle, my cousins, my village, and everything I've ever known. And I'm afraid of Victor."

"Leave? Wolverine is of our people. And his father's land is only half a day's journey away, on foot. As for Sabretooth, what do you have to fear from him? He would not harm you, because if he did, he would lose his brother."

"I'm not afraid he'd hurt me. What if, someday, I blossom into the kind of woman men take a second look at, and he decides he wants me for himself?"

"What if he does? Victor's a handsome man. And many more of the maidens whose intentions you fear chase him than chase his brother. I've heard none of them complain that he does anything to them that's strange, or unnatural. Quite the contrary. Besides, Sabretooth would not steal you from Wolverine, or he would lose his brother, as much as if he had harmed you. If Victor wants you, from time to time, let him have you. To keep the peace between the brothers, to keep the peace at Black Tom's hearth. It's no great shame to be the wife of two brothers, among our people. And not as unknown among the good Christian white men as they'd have us think."

Silver Fox looked shocked.

Autumn Hawk just laughed.

"The young. Everything is a surprise to them. A surprise and a tragedy. Silver Fox, if you want your life to be quiet, and to follow in the way a woman of our people's lives have followed, for generations, to live our way, then you will do it without Wolverine. But, if you want to be his mate, you must accept his life, and whatever it might bring you. No one can know what that is. It's your choice."

The two women worked in silence, for awhile.

"What would you do?" Silver Fox asked.

"I would go to the side of the man I loved, and stay there. Even if you were to inherit the mountains themselves, your life without him will be filled with regret. You will be worse off than Black Bear, then." Autumn Hawk answered.

Silver Fox was quiet, and when they were done with the washing, she carried the basket home, in silence.

Later that day, while they were eating their evening meal, she spoke for the first time since morning.

"Uncle, if I wanted to be mated to Wolverine, would you allow it?"

Fox Blackfeather put his bowl and spoon down, thoughtfully.

"I have known Wolverine's father since he came to these mountains, the first white man of my kind I had ever known. He became my brother a hundred years ago, before any man, woman or child living in this village was even born. Days after his son was born, Black Wolf spirited him away from the manor house, and brought Wolverine to me so that I could adopt him into our tribe. Even before Squire Howlett had the chance to bring him before a priest. Of course, I would allow you to become Wolverine's mate. I had not expected you to be mated to any other man. Yes, if Wolverine came to me and asked me for you, I would not refuse him. Why should I? To make it easier for you to decide?"

Silver Fox frowned.

"Nothing will make it easier for me to decide."

Fox chuckled and began to eat again.

"When you are as old as I am, you will look back on this and laugh harder than I'm laughing, now." He said.

"Why don't you wait for Wolverine to make up his mind? Let him choose, first. That will give you time to make up yours." Autumn Hawk suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea." Silver Fox agreed.

Pa always said that when you were 15, you were a man, and Jim Logan had been a man for almost a year.

A man who didn't have much in the world, not compared to what he would have had as James Howlett, but what he had, he was contented with.

He had his older brother, Vic, and the hope that Pa would come back, someday, and their father's homestead.

His beloved land, on which Vic and Jimmy had made improvements.

They built a small barn, a shed, and a chicken coop, and onto the main house, another section with two rooms and widened the porch, and also dug a cellar.

They extended their front garden patch and it was joined by some land around the homestead they had cleared, where they raised sheep, and pastured four horses, two for riding, two for work, and their old milk cow.

They made their living trading with the Indians, mostly, but also with the shopkeepers in Howlett, mostly during sheep-shearing season.

Victor was a regular at the saloon in Howlett, and Jimmy, now that he was a man, went with him, sometimes, but he preferred the world he knew best.

His mountain, his homestead, the Blackfoot village.

Where he met a girl who had considerably less in the world than he did.

Silver Fox.

After all, he was no longer a scrawny, sickly little boy, with nothing.

He was a man, with land, and a home.

A home without a woman in it, was hardly a home, and a man ought to have a wife, shouldn't he?

The trick was, how do you go about asking a woman to be your wife?

But, Jim reasoned, he was only just a man, and neither Silver Fox or her village were going to pick up and move, anywhere.

He had time.

In the last days of the Fall, before winter sealed he and Victor in so firmly that just to get to the Blackfoot village would be a struggle, Victor went off on one of his mysterious trips that he refused to tell his brother anything about.

There wasn't much for Jim to do after he'd fed the animals, and after he'd spent a few boring days around the homestead, feeding the animals and re-reading Pa's books, Jim decided to go up to the Blackfoot village, to see Foxy.

In the past, nobody but Chief Blackfeather, his wife and Silver Fox and their relations paid him much of any mind, but, as Jimmy began to fill out Pa's castoffs more snugly, and his voice lost that cracking sound, he noticed a big change.

A lot of the girls who had been too good for him, before, wanted him to come and eat at their fires, and some of the young bucks who'd made fun of him for being short, scrawny and white, all the sudden wanted him to go hunting or play war games with them.

Jim didn't mind taking the boys' invitations, at least from the ones who had teased him in good fun rather than malice, but he ignored the girls like they weren't there.

They could swing their hips and paint their faces and parade around in October in nothing but some well-placed buckskin fringe, and he just sailed right past them.

Any girl who had a hunger for a little something different in a man could have that hunger gladly satisfied by Vic when he came home.

Jimmy had eyes for only one woman.

The eligible young women of the village were all down by the creek, in various stages of languor and undress, some of them swimming around bare ass naked in the frigid water, all of them freezing their tits off, and Jim just touched his hat, politely and kept on walking until he came upon Silver Fox and one of her cousins, fully dressed and doing some washing.

"...should be down there with the rest of the girls, Silver Fox. I'm already mated and I've got one in his cradle-board and another on the way." Her cousin was saying.

"Doing what? Practising for a future living over the saloon in Howlett?" Silver Fox replied.

"You ain't gonna end up no whore as long as I live and breathe, Foxy. But some of those girls a little further down the creek don't seem to far off." Jimmy interrupted.

Silver Fox looked like she was about to jump up when he spoke, but then she just looked back at her washing.

"Jim, I understand if you'd rather take up with one of them than stick with me. I'm very plain. I have no figure. And no money. I have nothing to give you."

"Well, I reckon the land I live on has to pass through Pa and Vic before it comes to me. An' I'm short, an' hairy, an' funny-lookin'. I'm he spittin' image of my Pa, and he ain't never gonna win no beauty contests. I ain't got a goddamn thing to my name. Not the pot to piss in nor the window to throw it out of. So I reckon you'n me are about even. Only thing is, I got somethin' heavy in my pocket I been draggin' alla way up the goddamn mountain to give you. Only t'aint proper for me to do so, with alla these folks around."

"Jimmy!"

"Whut?"

"Go. I'll finish the washing." Silver Fox's cousin insisted.

Jimmy helped her up, and they started walking.

"Goddamn, Foxy, it's colder'n a fart in a daid Eskimo, today. Too goddamn cold for fuckin' inna woods. Shit, if'n I was to take out my pecker, it'd freeze n' bust off. Vic's gone off on one of his trips, like, that I ain't permitted to know nothin' about, an it's awful lonely at Pa's with nobody around but the livestock an' the dog. Seein' as how I cain't come up here an' leave 'em all to starve without me, maybe you can come an' stay a spell?"

Silver Fox wanted to say yes, immediately.

"I'd have to ask my Uncle."

"I awreday done that. Your aunt, too. They said there's plenty of folks to help them with the chores for a few days, an' I'm all alone. You need to git anything together?"

"Just my fur robe."

"You ain't gonna need it, darlin'. I'll keep you good'n warm."

To a city dweller, Howlett would have been like Antarctica and Black Tom's homestead like Hell, but to Silver Fox, the homestead it might as well have been a European spa resort.

Somewhere in France, like.

The main house was large and sturdy, and the brothers had covered the chinks in Black Tom's spilt rail logs with pitch, and then faced the whole building in stones from the river.

The kitchen, where the big stone fireplace was separate from the two bedrooms, and the boys had dug a cellar under the house that you could open a hatch and walk down to.

They had laid down had enough food and supplies for two winters, there.

The barn was constructed of logs and stone, the pastures and the garden fenced in, and they had a well from which you could get all the water you needed for cooking and washing.

Not to mention a bathtub you could fill with heated water from the big main fireplace, so you could bathe in nice, warm water.

And, the greatest luxury of all, Logan had his own bedroom, with walls and a door separating it from Victor's bedroom, with a smaller fireplace inside.

Not to mention a real bed, a brass bed, with store-bought sheets, a thick store-bought mattress on it, piled high with warm, soft, airy home-made quilts that Silver Fox had the decency never to ask if Logan or Victor made them, or both.

There was only so much work to be done all year, and this time of year, there was just cooking, washing, and tending to the chickens, the cow, and the two horses.

They even had a washtub and a washboard, and a clothesline hung out between two poles at the back of the house.

Even a small room with a chair and a table and an oil lamp in it, with all of Black Tom's books and a few new ones to keep them company in bookshelves that Jimmy had made.

Why, there was only four or five hours of work she had to do in a day; the rest of the time was hers and Jimmy's to do what they wanted to.

Seeing as it was that cold rainy, time of year, when the nights brought a blanket or frost thick over everything, they spent quite a bit of their free time in the brass bed.

Where she was curled up in Jimmy's arms, safe as milk, as he was fond of saying.

"You'll spoil me, Jim, bringing me here. I almost don't want to go back to the village to stay."

"Well, you don't have to, darlin'. An if you got tired of it here, we could go anyplace. Anywhere we went, I could find us a warm, dry cave in an hour. I could build us a shelter in less. If I had an axe and a horse and a rope, I could clear off some of trees and build us a cabin in a week. If I borrowed Pa's plow, you could even have a garden. I could make a livin', huntin' an' trappin'. If you didn't like it where we was, we could pick up stakes and move with the tribe, further down the mountain, when the cold comes. In a week, we'd have another cabin, there. An if you wanted to see more f the world, well, Victor's been just about everywhere. Even Europe. I know he's itchin' to get outa here. As soon as Pa comes back to look after the place, shit, we three could go anywhere we wanted. Anywhere we liked. America. England. France, if you wanted. Australia, which is all the way to the other side of the world, if you liked. We got nothin' but time, and nothin' can harm us. Like Vic's always tellin' me, people like us, if we got the balls to grab it, the guts to fight for it, and the brains to keep it, the world is ours."

In her heart, Silver Fox was like Wolverine.

She wanted to be free, to live his kind of a life.

But, in her head, she had reservations.

"Big talk for us. We've never been further off this mountain than Howlett."

"Then we'll start small. Why dontcha stay here, with Vic an' me? You can share my bedroom, and I'm sure Vic won't mind, as long as you do your share of the chores. He's always complainin' about havin' to do his share of what he calls the women's work. He ain't the one who makes the blankets and the clothes, though. Anyhow, I'm gonna live a goddamn long time, darlin'. I'll take care of you when you're old and grey, and my home is your home. Even if I leave this mountain, an' go off someplace else. Maybe we'll go to places wilder'n this. You're home's with me, Silver Fox, wherever I am. I've only been a man for a year, an' I expect I got a lot to learn, but one thing I know is that I love you."

Sliver Fox sat up with a start.

Jimmy found himself thinking she looked beautiful, naked against the moon coming through the window, and the night and the stars.

"Jimmy, you do? You really do?"

"I wouldn't lie to you. Only reason a man has to lie to a woman is to get her to lie with him, and shit, we done that. Many times, you li'le devil. I swear I love you, Silver Fox. If you don't care I'm a mutant, and a short, ugly, hairy one at that, if you'd like to be my woman, it'd make me the happiest ugly little man in the world."

"You are not an ugly little man, Jimmy. And you may grow some more."

"Yeah. Out. Like Pa. But not up."

"Jimmy, I love you, too. And I will always be faithful to you and Vic, and I'll be a good wife, and work hard for you and your brother."

"I know you will. And maybe, someday, you and me, we'll go a little further up the mountain, and I'll stake me out a homestead, and we can have a little place of our own. Where everything in it will be yours."

"Ours, Jimmy."

"That's alright, darlin'. You can have it all. I don't mind."

It snowed that night, and it was a week before Wolverine came to the village dressed in the elaborate buckskins he had been given at his tribal manhood ceremony, with his horse hitched to a cart containing a cage with two chickens in it, a feather pillow, and two bales of wool.

Gifts for her guardians.

While he met in the Medicine lodge with Silver Fox's Uncle, and her cousin's in law, her Aunt and two of her cousins came, to help her get dressed in her best clothes.

That night, at the evening fire, the Medicine Chief performed the mating ceremony for Wolverine and Silver Fox.

There was a very large banquet, and the young couple received so many gifts that Wolverine's wagon was almost full to bursting.

"But I hardly gave you nothing. I can't accept all this." Wolverine protested to Fox and Autumn Hawk.

"You gave us the most that you could afford. That's what we have given you. If you want to come and live with the tribe, you are both welcome, any time. We will save a space in all our camps for you to build your tepee." Fox told him.

"I imagine I will do that, one day. But, even living where I am, you know I won't be a stranger." Wolverine promised.

He took Silver Fox back down the mountain, that night.

She slept under the cover he mounted, in the back of the wagon, and when she woke up in the morning, it was Jim Logan who awakened her, dressed in Old Black Tom's best suit, which very nearly fit him, now.

He helped her out of the wagon, and Silver Fox found herself in Howlett, the nearest town.

She was excited; she'd only been to own twice before in all her life.

"What are we doing, here, Jimmy?"

"Well, darlin', for it to be legal in the Territory, I've got to marry you here in town, in the office of the Justice of the Peace."

It was a Thursday, and a sleepy one in Howlett, when the local Sheriff was awakened from a doze by what was obviously a boy in his father's suit that almost fit him, and a Blackfoot girl, dressed in her tribe's finest.

Sherriff Johnston knew the boy; it was Jim Logan, Vic Creed's half-brother.

Black Tom's younger boy.

But, he hardly knew Jimmy, though.

"That is you, ain't it, Jimmy? I hardly knew you, in that old suit. That's the suit Black Tom wore when he came down here 16 years ago, to try and convince me to change your birth record to put his name on it. Damn thing was ancient, then. Can't see you marryin' that pretty li'le gal in that old rag. That is what you're here to do, ain't it?"

The Sheriff liked young Jimmy.

Even though she did come down a peg or two, having her son with Old Black Tom, the boy's mother had been a fine lady, a lady of quality and character, and it showed in her son.

There weren't a lot of men who would trouble to marry a squaw under the law, let alone get dressed up to do it.

"That's why I'm here, But I ain't got the money for a new suit, an' a weddin' where you take our picture. Its' a damn shame. I'd sure like to have our picture took."

"Bill over there at the General Store, he owes your brother ten dollars. You go remind him of that, and pick out a five dollar suit. Gets you a picture and a frame too put it in, too. I'll take care of the lady, for you."

Well, didn't Jim Logan come back in the loudest dude suit five dollars could buy, black and yellow checks with a black vest and a black derby hat.

He was all buttoned into it up to the starched paper collar, looking as pleased and proud as a boy of sixteen could on his wedding day.

Sheriff Johnston married them, and the photographer from the Howlett Sentinel took the picture and signed the marriage licence as a witness.

The picture would be ready in about a week, but Jim Logan took his bride and his marriage licence in his wagon, out of town, back up the mountain.

"Bob, do you suppose Jimmy told his brother what he was doing?" the photographer asked the Sheriff.

"Hell, Al, you know Vic. You'd think that boy was his son, not his brother. Jimmy waited till Vic was gone to pull this caper, too. If Vic knew, he would have been right here, ready to witness that paper wearin' the best suit money can buy. I'll bet when he finds out, Vic's gonna pitch quite a fit." The Sheriff chuckled.

"Yeah. And he'll probably get the whole ten dollars from Bill, to boot."

Victor was, indeed, furious when he found out what Jimmy had done, and he wasn't ashamed about saying so in front of the squaw.

"You did what? Jesus H. Christ, Jimmy, are you out of your goddamn mind? Two chickens, a feather pillow, and two bales of wool? Shit!"

"Yes, but, my people filled your wagon with gifts. You got the best part of the bargain." Silver Fox interrupted.

"Well, that's something, frail, but I still ended up with you, and I'll bet you ain't worth it." Victor Creed snapped.

"Vic, I would appreciate it if you didn't say things like that about my wife." Jimmy warned

"Your wife! Wife, my ass! She's a goddamn squaw! That redskin shit doesn't hold water in a court."

"Why are you being so mean to me all of the sudden, Vic? You know I work like a mule in my village. Do you think I got married to retire?"

"You stay out of this, Foxy. I don't really mean you any disrespect. It's Jimmy I'm mad at, he's such a damn fool, goin' of an gettin' married to a child like you when he's no bettr'n a boy, himself!"

SNIKT!

"I had Sheriff Johnston marry us, too. It's about as legal as legal gets, Vic." Jimmy said, through clenched teeth.

"What? You did what? Well, fuck me, Jimmy, I wish you goddamn well would do something with those claws! I wish if you drove 'em right through my head it'd put me out of my misery! Two goddamn years of back-breakin' labor, bustin' my ass to get this piece of shit shack made into somethin' decent, and not only do you bring poor little Foxy, the most half-pint, half-grown squaw in the village around, you marry her under the goddamn law so's she's got a right to our land! Shit!" Victor spat.

Jimmy looked as if he was angry enough to put his claws through his brother, and even if that wouldn't kill the older man, it would make him angry.

Silver Fox had no wish to see Sabretooth, who was close to seven feet tall, with the hair color, musculature, and claws and fangs of a mountain lion, angry.

She made herself look as small and demure as possible, and slipped between them, and put both her hands on Victor's chest, in the most feminine and submissive manner she could muster.

"Victor, you know me better than that! Hell, you make it sound like I intend to do what a rich white woman does when she gets married. Lay on my ass, eat too much, and spread like a cheese. All Indian women know how to work, and we all work hard. I work harder than most. As an orphan, I've had to. I'm well worth your two chickens, and your feather pillow, and your two bales of wool. As for your land, I don't care what your white man's law says. This is Old Black Tom's land, and Jimmy's, and yours. If I ever leave here, without Jimmy, I will do it with my blankets, my pots, and the clothes I'm wearing, today. Jimmy may be my husband, but you are his older brother ,and Black Tom left you in charge. I know that you are the man of the house. I must do what my husband says, but also what you say, and I will do it, because that's the way it is. I won't make any trouble for you, and I'll work hard for you both. I love your brother, and I've got shit to go back to, after all."

Victor Creed looked down at Silver Fox, thoughtfully.

He removed her little hands from his chest.

"You may not be a whole lot of woman, Foxy, but you sure do know how to put what it is you got across, don't you. I think you might be puttin' on the dog a little, too, because I know you got more spirit than that. But I know those Injuns worked you hard, like a damn nigger slave. An' bein' as small as you are, I doubt you'll eat much. Mind, don't you and my little brother get on makin' little mouths to feed right away. Jimmy, I got a whole damn drawer full of those French letters in my bedroom, you take as many as you need. They're a damn sight cheaper than you two god damn children havin' a baby I'd have to raise up, like I raised you up. Still, I reckon we could use another pair of hands around here, an' have a woman to do the woman's work, like the cookin' and the washin'. An' the sewin'. You seen the seams on our shirts? An on those quilts? Shit! Hell, Foxy, I'll even treat you like I would a white frail. Christ only knows us bein' mutants, an' half-Irish to boot, we're about even with niggers, chinks, an' Injuns. But, if you get lazy, woman, or I hear you've been runnin' around on my brother, out you go. An' I'd say that if you was Queen Victoria, herself. You get me, little brother?"

Jimmy retracted his claws.

Coming from Vic, that was approval.

"I understand, Vic."

"What about you, Foxy?"

"I understand, Victor."

"Good. Then we'll all get along. Alright, Jimmy, let's you an' me unload that wagon fulla wedding presents. As for you Foxy, you can dump your gear in Jimmy's room. Then you can git to that laundry, what's in that basket by the door. Washtub's in the barn. Pump's right out front. Clothesline's in the back. Then wash them dishes, an' fix dinner. I wouldn't worry about us unloadin' the wagon, neither. Anything in there intended for you, women's things and such, we won't want."

"Then what?" Silver Fox asked.

"Ain't that enough work? I'm not gonna nigger you like your tribe did. C'mon, Jimmy. We got work to do. The girl knows what work is, an' I hope you didn't forget. It's not gettin' any goddamn earlier, is it? Let's go!"

Silver Fox had once left the tribe, and gone to work at the hotel in Howlett, so she knew her way around a white man's kitchen.

By the time her husband and her brother-in-law had finished unloading the wagon and doing the day's chores, she had the washing hanging on the line, and was putting dinner on the table.

Much of what was in the wagon were kitchen items, and Silver Fox stocked the pantry and made good use of what she had.

Dinner was cornbread, venison, fresh milk, steamed vegetables from the garden with spices, potatoes and squash, and beans with bacon.

Served on a set of baked clay plates and cups, one of her wedding gifts.

For the two men, who ate whatever Victor threw in a pot over the fire, or stuck on a spit, then picked out of the pot with their hands to eat on tin plates, it was like a banquet.

As they came in, Silver Fox was coming out with the seeds from the squash in a hanging basket she hung from the rafters of the porch.

"When those are dried, I'll put them in a seed pouch, and you can plant them in the spring." She said.

In the oven, she had break baking for the following day.

"Try not to stomp around, the bread won't rise."

"It's so damn clean in here. I could eat off this floor." Victor commented.

Silver Fox had to smile.

"Don't you boys ever scrub the floor? Or clean out the hearth? Or the stove? No, I guess not."

After dinner, Silver Fox realised she'd have the whole night with nothing to do.

And Logan's bedroom was a large as her uncle's entire tepee.

"And you and Victor are poor? How do white people live who are rich?"

Jimmy looked sad.

"Someday, I'll have to take you up to the old Howlett manor, and show you." He said.

Silver Fox knew that was where his mother, and her husband, who had given Jimmy his name and accepted him as a son, a man he'd called father, were buried.

She quietly resolved to herself to use some of the idle hours she would have to make a wreath for each of his parents' graves.

The next five years passed by, quickly, and, despite Autumn Hawk's predictions, in a regular and predictable way.

In Spring, the young lambs were born, and they plowed.

In Summer, they planted, and sheared the sheep, and Silver Fox spun some of the wool into cloth, and dyed it, creating an additional source of income for the brothers.

In Fall, they harvested, and spent much of the season in Howlett, selling their wares and buying supplies for the winter.

In Winter, they all spent much of their time inside the cabin, and the animals inside the barn, but Jimmy and Victor hunted more in those months than most men did.

That was when Sliver Fox made their new clothes for the upcoming year, and fashioned the old ones into quilts, or if they were ragged enough, rags to do the cleaning with.

Like the animals, Jimmy and Victor they could smell their prey, and the cold did not bother them as much as it did ordinary men.

Silver Fox also knew how to tan hides, and she taught Jimmy and Victor; it gave them all something to do when they were shut up against the fury of the mountain's snows.

She made buckskins for all of them, and some to sell, come the spring.

During their first winter, despite Victor's admonitions, Silver Fox became pregnant, but miscarried the child.

In the second winter, she gave birth to a stillborn baby.

She was just too small to carry a child; Jimmy began to take his brother's advice, and practise birth control.

Jimmy did not get any taller, but he became thicker, stronger and more muscular, and coarse black hair sprouted up all over his body.

Silver Fox didn't mind; among white men, she knew hairiness was next to maniless.

As for Silver Fox, by the time the fifth winter came, she had grown so that she was only an inch or two shorter than Jimmy, and her body had finally filled out into womanly curves, with wide hips and a full bosom.

All it meant to her was that she would probably be able to carry a child, now, and her husband was pleased with her womanly body.

She did begin to notice that where no men had ever looked at her, now when they went to the village, or to Howlett, they were all looking, but Silver Fox was not afraid.

She was flattered.

After all, she had Jimmy to protect her; there were few men who weren't more afraid of him than they were attracted to her.

There was, however one man who was attracted to her, powerfully, and not afraid of Jimmy.

Or anyone else, either.

Victor.

(Author's Note: Uh oh! Victor's figures everything he has is Jimmy's and everything Jimmy has is his, to share and share alike. Does Vic really think that includes his brother's wife? Hmmm. I'll bet this is where the trouble starts...)