Authors: Robert W. Walker
"Ever give any thought to retiring from the force, Lucas?"
"And do what? Sit on my thumbs?"
"You love the horses and the ranch. You could run the place."
"What as? Your hired hand? Besides, your parents are staying there now."
“Their house'll be ready soon."
"I don't know, babe."
"What about turning the place into a real stud farm. You know a lot about raising horses, and there's money to be made."
"You talking about putting me out to pasture?"
"It hadn't occurred to me, but maybe it's worth a thought."
"Not likely. I'm a tracker, Mere, a detective."
She gnashed her teeth. "Stubborn Cherokee wolf. You'd be in charge, running the place as my husband!"
He pulled his eyes from the light show and stared into her eyes, seeing the Auroras reflected there. He pulled her into his lap. "I thought you'd never ask."
"Is that a yes?
He laughed. "Was that a proposal?"
"Call it what you will."
"I'll let you know when we get back from Alaska."
She punched him. "Damn you!"
He shrugged. "Come on, we both know it's a test, this trip. If we can survive one another roughing it from Skag- way to Dawson...then perhaps we can survive marriage to one another."
"You're awful."
"Awful good."
Meredyth returned her gaze to the concert of lights overhead, the firmament's toast to cheer and merriment and future bliss. She wanted to reach up and capture it, bottle it, take it home to Texas, where she might take it out whenever she wanted to look at it, like a snow scene in a bubble.
"Why can't life always be this giddy and carefree?" she asked, while thinking, Will living with Lucas be like trying to grab onto the ethereal northern lights? It can't be done, not even if I could bottle the energy and hold tightly onto him.
But what if I lightened up? she asked herself. What if I stopped trying to psychoanalyze Lucas, accept him with respect and love, as I did when I feared his leaving me forever? Then I could hold onto him in a sense. He was after all Lucas Stonecoat, a brethren to the Cherokee Wolf Clan, a hunter by nature and spirit with a long and proud tradition, going back to the ancestor who wore the first stone coat, a warrior who had killed a conquistador in battle for the stone-hard metal jacket he wore.
There would be no taming Lucas, but there could be loving Lucas.
"I can do that now without fear," she said aloud.
"Do what?" he asked.
"Be Mrs. Lucas Stonecoat."
"Are you sure you have no greater ambition?" he jokingly asked.
"No, none greater."
"If I'd known the light show would win your heart, Mere, I would have brought you here years and years ago."
The activity of the auroras had calmed; other couples, growing cold, began disappearing, and soon Lucas and Meredyth found themselves alone and enveloped in an eerie but fantastical whirlwind of stardust fog, within which they embraced and kissed.