"You promise to let me go, if I tell you?"
"And we find it, maybe. At least, this way you got a chance to live. Where is it?" Ferg asked
"Back on the trail about five miles in a hole in a dead tree." Jake sighed heavily.
"You are sure, you speak the truth?" Coon asked as he walked by.
"I'm sure. I don’t' want to die." He proclaimed.
"We'll see, it shouldn't take long." Ferg told them.
"You promise to let me go?"
"If you speak the truth, we might be of a mind to."
"It is the truth." Jake said with dejection.
Snow Bird was busy with the meat now and Matt sat down to help her. She knew exactly how to hold the knife to gut it and she knew what parts were good and what parts weren't. She taught him how best to cut the deer open and take out what they would need. Matt watched her work on the first one and copied her actions.
"You learn fast." She smiled at him.
"Seen my dad do it a time or two, but he'd never let me do it. And he couldn't skin anything like you do."
"Your father was a mean man?" She asked, as they continued to work.
"I guess you could say that. I thought so, but now I'm rethinking it. He was wise in many ways, just didn't have the right way to show people the way. I loved him in my fashion. But he was way too hard on us kids. I only hope my siblings get out of that situation. He could break the girls' spirits." He told her.
"I am sorry for you, and them." She said softly.
"I survived." He told her with a smile. "And I hope they did too."
"Will they hang Jake?" She asked casting a glance at Jake tied to the tree.
"I don't know for sure. Trappers sort of have their own laws up here, most of the time. I'm certainly not going to defend him."
"Will Ferg take the money?"
"I reckon he will. Don't know what he intends doing with it. Right now, not much he can do the weather is setting in. And he can't take it back to the Place, someone might find out he had it, and try to steal it there. That money could cause all kinds of trouble there."
That night Snow Bird slept in the tent with Matt and they made love several times. Now they were no longer shy with each other. She came to him, naked and willing. When she came naked to his bed, he lifted the blanket from her and stared at her, all of her. He'd never in his life seen anyone so beautiful. He spent lots of time kissing and feeling on her. He touched her belly and kissed her there. "That was for the baby." He told her.
She sent him a tender smile, as her hand reached to play in his hair. "You will make a great father."
Delighted he grinned, and went lower, he rubbed his hands down her legs, amazed at how well shaped they were. He kissed her there on the inside of her leg and she moaned the pleasure it gave her.
"Too Tall would never love me like this, never pleasure me so."
They seemed to enjoy teasing and building the passion between each other now. Her body welcomed him in and their union was always good. But Snow Bird knew it was the tender way he regarded her, the gentleness of his hands, and the eagerness of his body to join hers that sent her into a frenzy of reactions. Reaching an orgasm twice, she loved on him a bit, and then she curled up in his arms and slept like a baby. The feeling of having a woman like her made him somehow a stronger man. And this making love was better than he ever guessed. He could feel the difference now that he'd taken her. Snow Bird was his, at least until he took her home. But that thought didn't bring him much peace. He pushed it from his mind. For a while, she was his, and his alone.
The next morning after she made breakfast Jake led them to the money.
Ferg pulled the money out of the burnt-out tree and raised it for all to see.
"Now what are you going to do?" Jake asked sarcastically. "Cut me loose." Jake held out his hands that were bound with ropes.
"Well, I studied on that last night," Ferg smiled and glanced at the others. "Coon and the boys are gonna take the kill to Sutton's Place, so they get the meat. Snow Bird will go with them, to see the meat is evenly distributed. Me, and Matt are going down the mountain to take the money back, and we'll turn you over to the law there." Ferg told him.
"Down the mountain, that'll take several days. I though