Sacred Is the Wind (22 page)

“Who would be my eyes, then, young Zachariah?” asked Joshua, reading the boy's thoughts. The old man sensed the tension in the youth. It was obvious he still chafed from Panther Burn's rebuke the night before.

“I cannot always be your eyes, old one,” Zachariah snapped.

“Nor can I always be your common sense,” Joshua chuckled. “Come, my young warrior, life has many battles and you will have your fair share.” The blind man tugged on the length of rawhide, pulling the boy away from the trail's edge.

“Sometimes I wonder just who is leading who,” Zachariah muttered.

Sabbath McKean sauntered back through the weary ranks of the Cheyenne. He noted the people had reluctantly grown to accept him, which was all he asked. He did not care to have a knife sunk in his back by the very folks he was trying to help. He cradled his Spencer in the crook of his arm and walked slowly among the band, encouraging the weary, checking on the condition of the travois with their burden of wounded. McKean was troubled, and uncertain of exactly why. Everything seemed in order and the old ones were none the worse for their exertions. Not that I should be troubled, he mused, standing here among a bunch of red heathens who would probably just as soon toss me off this hill and leave me for Bragg and his lads to slit my gizzard. If a man could count his greatness by the number of enemies he had, Sabbath decided he must be king of the world. He stopped in front of Joshua Beartusk. Zachariah stared coolly at the white man and waited to one side.

“How are you, old-timer?” Sabbath asked, placing his hand on the blind one's shoulder.

“Sometimes it is easier not to see how far we have come. I do not know enough to be tired.” Perspiration beaded Joshua's forehead, his leathery features glistened with sweat. The very air around them seemed to shake as the heavens growled thunder.

“We better get off this stony-back before that storm hits,” Sabbath said, taking note of the glowering thunderheads sweeping toward them out of the northwest. The air lay still and heavy on the land and smelled of ozone. “I wish that storm would miss us and just keep Bragg busy.”

“Maybe the medicine woman could help,” Joshua suggested. “There are many spirit songs. Even one for storms.”

“What medicine woman?” Sabbath said.

“Rebecca. Star's daughter. She who must walk in her mother's path.”

“Damn. That's it!” Sabbath swung around toward the other Cheyenne resting amid the rock-strewn summit. Some of the youngsters had started down the gradual grass-covered slope that led to the forest a hundred yards away. “I knew it. I knew it but just didn't … see it.” Sabbath searched the faces of those on the ridge, then took count of the youngsters on the slope, then turned to face the valley again and the treacherous way they had come. “Where in hell is Rebecca?” he said in a low voice. It carried, though. And soon, Joshua and Zachariah and Hope Moon Basket and all the others roused themselves from their rest to stand along the ridge, faces turned toward the coming storm, their hearts echoing Sabbath's question. Where indeed was Rebecca?

Dark clouds churning. A sky like a witches' brew. Thunder in the hills. A place for killing. And being killed.

Panther Burn had chosen a broad open grassy expanse of ground near a clear running creek whose black water mirrored the grim heavens. With the sun hidden, an unsettling illumination bathed the valley, hiding the distant mountains, hills, trees, creek, and meadow trapped in twilight. Ignoring the elements, Panther Burn finished his preparations. In a circle around him, he placed a spear made from a strong young pine sapling, a war club, a tomahawk, and ammunition for the Hawken, powder and shot. Two knives he kept on his person, one in a sheath sewn on the inside of his calf-high moccasins, the other scabbarded at his waist. His chest was naked save for a quill breastplate, and muscles rippled beneath his coppery flesh. One last item he drew from his belongings, a ten-foot length of rope with a loop at one end and a four-inch wooden spike at the other. He slid the loop over his head and tightened it around his waist, then walked into the center of the circle and drove the spike into the ground.

“I regret, All-Father, I do not have a proper
ho-tamtsit
. This dog rope is of my own making and will have to do.” Using a rock for a hammer, he struck the spike one last time. “This stick will sooner leave than I.”

“No!”

Panther Burn whirled around to see Rebecca standing a few yards away.

“Woman, you have no place here,” he said gruffly, hoping to hide the way his heart leaped into his throat. She threatened his courage. It had been easier to think of dying without her around.

Rebecca refused to be put off by his hostile front. “I dreamt, last night, and saw you bind yourself with the dog rope. Only another born to the Morning Star can free one who binds himself with the dog rope.” Rebecca started across the circle. Panther Burn moved to block her path, his hands outstretched to stop her.

“You must leave this place. The soldiers will be here soon.”

“I cannot let you do this,” Rebecca said. Was it because of her? Because of her accusations spoken in her moment of pain?

She lunged for the stake. Panther Burn was too quick for her. His hands closed about her and spun her into his arms. It was neither the time nor the place for such an embrace, but as they closed with one another, their bodies pressed like hands joined in prayer. The tears from her eyes moistened his jaw and neck.

“You are not a Dog Soldier,” she said in a trembling voice.

“Before the night falls, I will be.” He tilted her head, the better to lose himself in the earth-brown depths of her eyes. “
Aatome
. Listen to me. The soldiers think I killed the brother of Jubal Bragg. I am the reason they burned your village. And I am the reason they continue to follow you and the others. Once Jubal Bragg finds—”

“My words were like … a blind man shooting arrows. I did not care who I wounded,” Rebecca said, her voice muted against his shoulder. Too much had happened. Being alone with him, wanting to give her love to him, to join her life to his, then hurting and hating and striking out at him. And now, holding Panther Burn once more and feeling his strength, sensing his own undiscovered depths of bravery and caring. And Panther Burn, fearing the nearness of her would rob him of resolve, discovered quite the opposite. He loved her. And what better use for his life than saving hers?

“Go now,” said the Northern Cheyenne, holding her away from him. “Do as I say.”

“I can help.”

Panther Burn abruptly laughed.

“You will see,” Rebecca blurted out. An idea flashed like gunfire in her thoughts. Suddenly she dared to hope. She started back toward the timbered slope. Choosing a place beneath a granite ledge that protruded like a massive pink-grained table out of the hillside, Rebecca knelt and gathered together a small pyre of twigs and dry grass and pine needles. Panther Burn realized she was staying. He started toward her.

“Follow the others!” he shouted. “You must not stay.
Ta-na-estse
!”

“No!” Rebecca called back.

“Then I will …” Panther Burn reached the end of his tether. The dog rope sprang taut, the noose tightened around his waist. “… make you.” She had tricked him. He could not reach her without pulling up the ground pin, and to do that meant offending the All-Father and all the spirits of the dead who had worn the dog rope into battle. He grabbed a stone and threw it at her. Then another. And missed with both. He shook his head and sagged in defeat. Panther Burn watched as she struck flint and lit the pyre, gently blew upon the tendril of smoke until a flickering pinprick of light danced atop the twigs.

Rebecca nursed a single flame into a fire. She fed more twigs to the blaze. The heat bathed her face. Perspiration beaded her forehead, stung her eyes. She continued to add wood, ranging out now for larger limbs. The blaze danced upward, lapping at the granite table rock. Rebecca stood back and stared at the fire. She needed pine cones now and needles for smoke. There were plenty nearby, and ignoring Panther Burn, she gathered an armful of dry debris and returned to the fire. She closed her eyes and visualized her mother. Star had taught her the prayer-song long ago. Maybe too long ago. It had been in a time before Reverend Madison and the new ways and
Jay-ho-vah
. The memory faded. Rebecca began to despair. For she couldn't remember the song. The medicine woman's daughter lowered the dry needles onto the flames, all but snuffing out the fire. White smoke blotted out the pyre and billowed over the table rock to rise in a thick coruscating column, a gash of brightness against a backdrop of somber greenish-black clouds.

The song … the song … Rebecca tried to remember. No, it was lost to her. Lost! Coals exploded, ruby-red embers shot upward. Rebecca backed away, startled, then gazed in awe and reverence, for two of the embers seemed to linger in the smoke, like smoldering eyes staring at her from beyond some distant and terrible vale, a place of incomprehensible power, a realm of spirit. She trembled before that fearful glowing gaze. Then a warmth filled Rebecca as if Star's own soul had passed through her daughter's.

“Mother … My mother,” Rebecca whispered, and a voice within her mind hushed her and told her to sing.

Then in a voice thick with emotion, Rebecca found the words where they had been all along, locked within her heart, and she sang. And she knew that Star, somehow … somewhere … sang with her.

Thunderbird, lord of storm, of wind
.

I call you to me
.

Earth-shaker hear me
.

Follow the trail I have made
.

Send
Oh-ho-ta
to split trees, to fire the grass

and scatter my enemies that they may learn to fear you
.

Rebecca's voice carried over the meadow to Panther Burn. She repeated the song, like a litany; her invocation was hypnotic. This song-prayer was no game, rather the way of powerful medicine. But she wasn't Star. Only Rebecca. What chance did she have of—

The trees upon the hillside shuddered. As quickly, a gust of wind had returned. The breeze rushed headlong down the valley and Panther Burn spread wide his arms as if to embrace the invisible force of nature. The All-Father was here with him now. The spirits flowed around him. Panther Burn tossed back his head and loosed a wild war cry. Thunder answered him. Rebecca continued to sing, her body swaying as if in a trance, while the column of smoke no longer rose directly in the air but flowed down the valley, streaming white in the wind.

And Panther Burn's heart leaped with joy.

He returned to his circle of weapons. The Northern Cheyenne lifted his eyes to the oncoming storm and saw, arranged in a single line across the valley floor, the soldiers.

For like the Thunderbird, Jubal Bragg had also seen and followed the spirit smoke to its source.

North wind rising. A whisper of violence in the wind. And a warning. But Jubal Bragg had long since ceased to listen to the spirits.

The soldiers held their file, thirty men strong, in an unsteady blue line, for the horses smelled the coming storm. The wind that buffeted their backs sent manes and long flowing tails streaming like banners, frightened the animals, and left them skittish and difficult to control.

“I don't like this,” Marley said to the officer beside him as a single fat drop of rain spattered off his shoulder and others began to strike the earth; they sounded like hoofbeats, and where they struck, geysers of dust shot upward. “Colonel Bragg, sir … I don't like this.” The colonel ignored his trusted sergeant and continued to study the long figure at the other end of the valley. Bragg squinted through his spyglass, twisting the brass casing until the image of the Northern Cheyenne swam into focus. Then he shifted the glass and studied the forested slopes and craggy hillsides rising to either side, walling them in. He returned his attention to the brave. As near as he could tell, the man was alone. Still, it could be a trap. What better bait than the man who killed Tom Bragg?

“James Broken Knife,” Bragg said to the Cheyenne on his right. “You take a look.” He passed the spyglass to the Southern Cheyenne, who took it, fumbled with the instrument a minute, then hesitantly peered through the scope. He studied the figure at the end of the valley and then passed the spyglass back to the colonel.

“It is him … Panther Burn.”

“I know that,” Bragg said testily. “But what is he doing?”

“Waiting for you,” said James, steadying his horse.

“I don't like it,” Marley repeated for the third time, with the same effect. He cast an apprehensive eye toward the rumbling heavens. The soldiers donned their ponchos as the fat round drops continued to fall, pummeling the earth and bruising flesh. The hills trembled with thunder. James Broken Knife looked to the north and remembered stories about the Thunderbird and shivered despite himself. He had not been a Christian long enough to forget.

“Waiting for me? Is it a trap? Speak plain, you red bastard,” Bragg said. Tom was dead. Half of Jubal's own life was gone, cut from him. He was alone now, truly alone. And all because of the man at the other end of the valley. The Cheyenne's voice carried to the soldiers. Panther Burn was singing. Then he shouted something unintelligible, at least no one could understand the words; the tone and gestures were another matter.

“He's taunting us,” Hec Knowles blurted out from down the line. “The son of a bitch is daring us to come for him.”

“He wants you,” James said, glancing at Jubal.

Murdered my parents, my brother … my parents, my bother
. Jubal wiped the perspiration from his features as his mind raged with an unspoken litany. “So be it,” Bragg said beneath his breath. “So be it.”

Marley sensed the madness rising to the surface. Lucid, the colonel might be able to hold his own with the brave. But not like this, Marley thought.