Reason To Believe (42 page)

Ben glanced back at the fence line, stuffed with white-powdered tumbleweeds. Stick to what you know, Ben told himself. Even a cow generally had enough sense to follow the fence line. If he followed this fool stud, he'd end up wandering 'til he froze to death, and it would serve him right. So what if it was a red roan? A holy man would remember the dream. Any cowboy worth his salt would follow the fence line.

And Ben Pipestone didn't have a holy bone in his thick cowboy head.

The red roan whickered from the top of the rise.

He had to choose. He had bet on a red roan before and lost. He couldn't believe he was even
thinking
about making the same mistake again. He couldn't believe he was turning his face to the wind and tapping the gelding's flanks with the coiled rope. He
could not believe
he was taking a chance on a goddamn
dream.

"You'd better not be shittin' me, Red, or there'll be down and dirty hell to pay!"

Like what hell? He imagined the tail he was following whacked off in the old way and hanging from his own burial scaffold. A fitting epitaph for a horse's ass, he told himself. "But it's not just me, it's that boy, too," he muttered into his turned-up collar. "Help me find the boy, Red!" he shouted, and then softly in Lakota, through quivering lips, "Tunkasila, please help me find that boy."

The fence line was out of sight now, and out of mind. Haunted by the memory of the hill and the quest and the vividness of an old dream, Ben was determined to keep the red roan in sight. The roan was not a vision. It was a real horse. He'd struck the animal's scruffy hide with his rope, and he'd felt the vibration of the blow. He was following more than a hunch. A horse's brain didn't have but one track, and if the stud's mind wasn't on the storm, the scent of mare had to be somewhere in the air.

The horny bastard had to have a damn good nose on him, too. Which, of course, he did; he depended on it. So Ben had good reason to believe he was headed in the right direction. The roan was king of these desolate hills. If there was another horse around, be it potential rival or mate, the roan made it his business to investigate. It was a matter of instinct, a question of territory, a sound survival tactic. Nothing to do with one boy's dream or another's dread.

Tunkasila...

"Toby! Toby Two Bear!"

Tunkasila, that this boy might live...

"Toby! Answer me, Toby!"

Jesus, God, Tunkasila...

"Over here!"

The words sounded like distant bells on a stormy Sunday morning.

"Over here!" The voice was strong but frantic. "Get away, you!"

Mentally Ben blessed the sight of a cross fence and a pony's rump, blanketed with snow.

And there was Toby, hunkering down on the side of the fence opposite his pony, clutching the reins. "Ben! That horse... trying to bite this guy."

"This ain't no guy, Toby, it's a she-horse." And the roan was a horny savior, no doubt about it. Ben chased him off with the wave of his hard twist, but he would no more think of hitting the stud now than he would a child. He had to believe the horse was
wakan.
Holy.

"Go on now, Red. I'd give her to you, but she ain't mine to give.
Hiya, kola"
he said, calling the roan his friend. "I'll bring you a better one. You don't want her 'til spring, anyway. Go on, now."

The roan lingered briefly, eyeing the man as though making sure he truly believed, truly understood, then darted away and disappeared in a gust of wind, a whorl of snow.

"You saw him, too, didn't you?" Ben asked tentatively as he swung down from his saddle. "That stud. I didn't imagine him, did I?"

"That was the meanest horse I ever saw. He chased me." An ice-encrusted wool scarf drooped around Toby's red, chapped face, which crumpled a bit as his bravery melted around the edges. "Barely held on... crawled under the fence... b-barely..."

Ben stepped the lower strands of fence wire down and stretched the top one high enough for the boy to crawl through. "You did fine, Toby."

Toby dove through the hole and hurled himself at Ben like a football tackle, throwing his arms around the man's waist. "Fr-Freeezing..."

Ben patted the boy's back, devoting one brief moment to a show of mutual joy and relief. Then he directed Toby to his own saddle. "I'm gonna ride behind you to block the wind." He gave the boy a boost, then tied the pony's reins to the gelding's tail.

"How'd you get separated?" Ben asked once they were under way again. For direction Ben would have to depend on the cross fence and have a little faith, which seemed to be coming to him. Sure as hell, remarkable as heaven, it seemed to be coming.

"Eagle feather came off. Blew away. Got it b-back."
A
tearful Toby dragged his jacket zipper down a few inches and carefully withdrew the sacred object. "See?"

"Jesus, Toby—"

"Didn't have any t-tobacco, so I left s-some—" he sniffled noisily "—raisins. D-Does Tunkasila like raisins?"

"I believe so." Smiling stiffly beneath his face mask, Ben guided Toby's hand, tucking the feather back into its envelope. Then he zipped the boy's jacket back up. "Raisins and red roans and boys with more
toniga
than—"

More guts than brains, as some childhood hero had attributed to Ben long ago. Not a great compliment, now that he thought about it. He'd have risked anything for more praise from the older cowboy. And did, long after he'd forgotten the idol's name.

"Boys with a lot of heart," Ben amended. They would talk about using his head later. "Tie your hood down real tight over your cap, now," he said as he pulled his own scarf out of his coat. He used it to cover the boy's face, figuring on giving his new silk turtleneck a real field test.

They met a search party on the way back. A party of five on horseback, with some headlights bringing up the rear. Hard to believe they'd actually made their way back to the gravel road.

Hard to believe?
Hell, at this point Ben was almost ready to say there wasn't a blessed thing on God's white earth that was hard for him to believe.

"Lookin' for us?" he joyfully bellowed into the wind.

Elliot Plume rode up next to them, grabbed Toby's shoulder, then Ben's, giving each a quick, robust squeeze. "We weren't sure which way you'd gone, but we rounded up all the four-wheel drives we could find."

"I'm not sure now, either. He was off that way," Ben reported, gesturing vaguely westward. "Couldn't've found him without a horse." He decided not to explain which horse.

Alta Two Bear came tumbling out of the passenger side of a red Blazer, clutching a blanket. Toby swung his leg over the gelding's neck and slid into his mother's waiting arms. She ducked to peer under the bill of his cap, just to make absolutely, gloriously sure it was really her child as she bundled him up in the blanket.

"You need to check for frostbite. He just got separated when his eagle feather blew off." Ben gently thumped the boy's blanketed, hooded head with a gloved hand. "We had us a scare, didn't we, Toby?"

"Yeah." All Ben could see in the upturned face was
a
pair of bright, appreciative eyes. "Thanks, Ben."

He was offered a ride, but he chose to stay with his horse for the short ride to Joe Bigger's place, where the storm seemed miraculously to dissipate in the windbreak of a thick shelter belt. Most of the horses had already been fed and watered, but a few of the riders were still bustling about the corrals and pens, tending to the last of the chores.

"Hey, Ben!" someone called out. "Still got your ears?" He couldn't see the face—looked like a walking snowman—so he just waved as he trotted alongside the railing toward the gate. He knew the campsite was situated in
a
sheltered coulee just over the hill from Joe's house, and supper would be waiting at the little community center another mile or so down the road. If his hands and feet didn't fall off before he got there, he was looking forward to pulling into the chow line and diving right into some hot soup.

Anna met him on the run as he dismounted, spun him around with an exuberant hug, and took charge of both horses. "I knew you'd be fine, but I think Mom's been doing her usual worry routine," she confided. "Personally, I think you oughta play it up for all it's worth."

Ben agreed with a wink and a smile. Then he turned and saw Clara, resolutely headed his way. Like Alta, she carried a blanket. Undoubtedly she planned to mother him with it, but he had other ideas. Somehow he was going to get himself loved up, not mothered up. When she enfolded him in her arms without the slightest hesitation, he figured it was a good start.

She'd been sitting in a warm pickup, and she could feel him shivering, but for one brief moment she held him hard and fast, then looked up, searching the eyes in the holes of his face mask as she furiously set about brushing the snow off his shoulders. "Are you okay?"

"Chilled to the bone, but..." He nodded.

She shook out the blanket and draped it over his shoulders. "Thank God. Where's...?" She scanned the yard, located the vehicle, and escorted him in its direction. "Let's get in the pickup. TJ's helping the girls. I think we ought to have another prayer circle over at the community center, don't you? I mean, it has to be a miracle, finding him in this, and both of you coming back—"

He grabbed her arm and stopped her, midsentence, midthought, midway. She turned as he was tearing off the cumbersome helmet and face mask, his eyes seeking hers through the drifting, swirling snow. He looked pale, even a little disoriented, and that scared her. But he made her stop chattering and look at him, see that he was really there, that he'd been to hell and back and that if she wanted a miracle, she was looking it right in the face.

She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her warm cheek to his icy, badly chafed one. "I'll say the prayers this time, Ben, gladly. I'll sing glory alleluias if you'll let me."

"In Lakota?"

She stood on her toes and whispered hotly in his ear. "In bum-fuck Egyptian if there's such a language."

To his shivering delight she'd mixed the sacred with the profane, and he'd never been so glad to be alive. Laughing, he wrapped her with him in his blanket and headed them both toward the purring pickup.

She drove. He huddled in the blanket, clacking his teeth, shivering, and laughing perilously near the point of tears.

"What's so funny?" she demanded, but she was laughing, too, because the sound of it was infectious.

"Hell, I don't know. I was just thinking about what you said, and I imagined you singin' this crazy song all in cuss words, and me doin' this little teeth-chattering accompaniment." Which he kept demonstrating involuntarily between phrases. "I'd'a made one hell of an ice sculpture out there." His gesture indicated an imaginary tableau on the windshield, persistently being whapped by wipers.
"End of the Trail.
Frozen in time."

She giggled. "Now through April. See him before he melts."

"They could use a winter tourist attraction around here." He chuckled. "I can just see that bunch of movie stars who bought up half of Deadwood for casinos." He cupped a hand next to his mouth and faked a summons. " 'Hey, haul that frozen Indian up here. Put him up on the ridge there, overlooking the gold mines. Hell of a sunset shot.' "

"Oh, God, Ben, you have such a morbid sense of humor."

"Don't be bad-mouthin' my sense of humor, woman." He drew the blanket tight. "It's all I've got left."

"I don't think so," she said quietly as she parked the pickup in front of a small Quonset building. She shut the engine off and turned to him. "I think you have more going for you now than..."

He waited, hopeful.

She started to finish, then stopped herself and simply looked into his eyes, letting him see what she could not say. The silence was, for a change, not a cold one. It was replete with warm wishes and fragile possibilities.

He risked a bit of a smile. She offered a surer one. "Turnabout is fair play. I found you a bathtub."

"I think I'd better eat something first. Haven't been eatin' much. It didn't bother me, but now..."

As if on command she flung the door open, hopped to the ground, hurried to the passenger's side, and offered him her arm. And arm in arm they went inside to share a hot meal with the rest of the Big Foot riders.

Anna had somehow beaten them to the center. She met her father with soup and fry bread in hand. "Eez, she's a good girl," he said wearily. "Thanks, An—"

"Here, Daddy, sit down." She kept glancing up at him anxiously as she led him to one of the tables, and he wondered whether he looked like someone who'd just stepped into his own grave. "You need fuel when it's this cold, Daddy. A little food and you'll be just fine. But I knew you'd find him. I told his mom she didn't have a thing to worry about."

"They said you hadn't been gone that long," Clara said, "but it seemed like forever."

"I didn't think he could've gotten too far. Had tracks to follow for a little way, but then it really started comin' down, and with the wind..." He shook his head as he took a seat at the end of a long table. "But we made it back." It already seemed like a dream, totally surrealistic, like something that couldn't have happened the way he remembered. There was only one indisputable reality for him now. "We made it back."