Page 19 of Rocky Ride

“Black Breed ring any bells? The Deuce. You talked about him. Bruce and the Deuce. I never heard of those fellas, but they seemed to bother you a lot.”

“They’re dead.”

Sunday smiled. “Good thing. They don’t want to be ruffling your feathers.” She helped Travis sit up and then supported him while he hobbled to the bathroom and back to bed.

“I’ll make you a crutch today so you can get around a little better.”

“You’ve done enough already, Sunday. You don’t have to stay here and fuss over me.”

“Somebody has to, and I don’t see anybody else knocking on the door. Eat your porridge. You’re weak as a strangled kitten, all that blood you lost thanks to the wolves.”

Travis took a bite of the almost cold porridge and made a face. “Did you feed the dogs?”

“Do they look hungry?”

From the bed he could see all three of them cuddled up on the braided rug in front of the stove. “Nope. They seem happy.”

Sunday glanced at the picture of wild horses Uncle Carson had hung over the bed. “Your cabin is a lot nicer than mine.”

“Did you buy yours already built?”

“Nope. My husband built it for us to live off the grid. He felt it was something he wanted to do and I didn’t care, so I went along with it.”

Travis listened to her story.

“When the cabin was finished, we moved up here from northern Nevada. We’d been up here a couple of days when he goes out hunting for meat and a bear kills him. That was the end of us.”

“Sorry,” mumbled Travis.

“Yeah, I was sorry too. I loved him.”

Travis didn’t know what to say.

“His name was Ted, so I caught the bear that killed him, tamed him and called himTed. Kind of a payback.” Sunday laughed.

“Jesus, that’s a story. Doesn’t the bear want to go back to the wild and be with the other bears?”

“Nope. He stays with me. Used to me feeding him.”

“He got lazy,” said Travis.

“Guess he did. Never thought about it that way.”

“As soon as I can drive, I’ve got to go down the mountain and get stitches in my leg.”

“Won’t be for a while. Roads are all closed.”

“How do you know that?”

“Game warden told me when he came by.”

“When was that? How could I miss him?”

“You were out of your tree. He took a look at you and didn’t think you’d make it through the night.”

“Huh. I didn’t realize I missed so much.”

“You got a wife?”

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