Sacred Is the Wind (28 page)

A chorus of cheers erupted from the exuberant crowd as the horsemen raced into view at the bend in the valley. Men hurried to place last-minute bets as mothers chased their children from the street in front of the church in an effort to clear the finish line.

“I see him. I see him!” Hope blurted out. “Rebecca … Oh, Rebecca, he's in the lead. I think John's in front.” Hope glanced at Rebecca, who remained with her back to the race, forsaking the outcome to stare down the road to Miles City. Behind the carriage, a dozen soldiers from K Company stationed in Forsythe rode in columns of two and headed straight for the agency office. There was nothing unusual about such an event. Troops were continually passing through the reservation. But the carriage demanded attention. It belonged to Tyrell Gude, the Bureau of Indian Affairs' agent for the reservation. The column angled past the aspens where Zachariah and his companions held rude court. They could see what Rebecca now noticed, that Agent Gude had a companion seated beside him on the carriage seat, a very pretty young woman dressed in a long gray woolen skirt and jacket, her black hair gathered in a bun at the back of her neck. Though they rode in sunlight, the young woman seemed bathed in shadow. Rebecca realized with a start that the woman in gray was Indian. Now the magic worked, the awareness Rebecca had inherited from Star. Her flesh grew cold as the soldiers angled off to either side of the crowd, who were oblivious of their presence. All eyes were fixed on the race save those of the medicine woman, who saw not only with her eyes but her spirit as well. The procession halted to allow the race its completion. Rebecca ignored Hope's exhortations, ignored the pandemonium as Cheyenne and soldiers and cowhands cheered on their favorites. The earth trembled with the riders' wild approach, each man galloping at breakneck speed. But Rebecca took a step toward the carriage, drawn onward by a sense of destiny, a link with this stranger. Tyrell Gude noticed Rebecca and waved to her. The Indian agent was a rarity among his kind. The short, rotund, bald little man also happened to be honest. He dabbed at his sweat-shiny skull and wiped his kerchief beneath his double chin. The horses smelled of sweat, the carriage of leather and dust. Gude stood in the carriage as the horsemen crossed the finish line to a mixture of cheers and groans. The Indian agent's cheeks were red with sunburn.

“Well done,” Gude shouted, slapping a soft fist into his cupped hand. “I knew John Timber's horse was the fastest on the res.” Rebecca drew closer to study the young woman, who appeared uncomfortable beneath such scrutiny. Gude noticed Rebecca's interest and nervously cleared his throat. He had hoped to avoid a confrontation. “Father Hillary promised the race would be later in the day.” Gude sighed, hoping to ease any tension. “I suppose even a priest can be allowed to stretch the truth from time to time.”

“I am sorry if I ruined your celebration,” the woman beside him replied. She looked to be in her early twenties. Her skin was as dark as Rebecca's but her eyes were a piercing sky blue set in delicate fragile features, a gently upturned nose, high cheekbones, a slim-bodied, willowy frame that stiffened in her white woman's trappings. She carried herself with an authority that belied her appearance.
The face so familiar, no, it could not be.…

“Ruined? Hardly. Can't help train schedules. Anyway, the company of a beautiful young woman is nothing an old man like me ever regrets,” Tyrell Gude exclaimed. He climbed down from the carriage and handed the reins to the young woman, then swung about to greet Rebecca.

“Why, Rebecca, how fine you look today. Wonderful day, simply wonderful. Ahh. I have been thinking of nothing but that chokecherry pudding all the way in from Forsythe. Our nation's birthday. Grand thing. Grand thing.” He turned to wave to a blond-haired officer, who saluted in return. “Thank you, Captain Morbitzer.”

“My pleasure, sir,” the officer replied. He ducked forward so as to present himself to the woman in the carriage. “Allow me to escort you to your house, ma'am.”

“Thank you, Captain,” the woman said.

“Henry, ma'am. Please call me Henry.” The captain walked his horse in a tight circle and gave his orders to his sergeant, who in turn bellowed them to the troopers. The soldiers of K Company broke ranks and walked their mounts across the street, each man making his way through the crowd as best he could and more than one passing a food table and requisitioning a platter of ribs or a mug of beer as he passed.

The woman in the carriage looked over at Rebecca. Tyrell Gude, ever alert to the proprieties, stepped up to the two women.

“Your pardon, Rebecca, I plumb forgot my manners. You two ought to have a great deal in common, at least in spirit. Katherine, this is Rebecca Blue Thrush. She is a medicine woman. And all these poor people have had to rely on the past years except for an occasional visit by the surgeon over at the post in Fort Keogh. Things will be a lot better now for all of us. Rebecca … the agency has sent us a doctor. In fact the way I heard it, Miss Madison pulled some strings to get here. She's Cheyenne too—think of it, Cheyenne!—and a doctor. Rebecca, this is Katherine Madison, come all the way from back East.”

“Rebecca Blue Thrush …” repeated Kate. “Why … you knew my mother. She often spoke—”

Rebecca spun around and darted off into the crowd. Only now, noticing Rebecca's flight, did they turn to stare with curiosity at the stranger in their midst, at this Indian dressed as a grand white woman. Kate, her words left hanging, looked down at her outstretched empty hand.

“Medicine woman … madwoman if you ask me,” Henry Morbitzer said in an imperial tone of voice. “Don't worry, Miss Madison, I am told these medicine makers are a trifle odd is all. That one's obviously been sifting through bones too much and talking to the wind. And I daresay folks about have need of something more than her witchcraft.”

“I hope so,” Kate replied in a worried tone.

“Will someone tell me who won?” Joshua asked, still sitting on the top step of the porch in front of the church. Father Lee Hillary had left to present the twenty-five-dollar purse to John Timber, the husband of Hope Moon Basket. Only Michael remained on the porch and to his nephew Joshua directed himself. He reached out in hopes of catching hold of Michael's trouser leg, but Rebecca's son had crossed over to the railing and was standing just beyond the blind man's grasp. “Who won? Who won?
Saaaavaaaaheeeey
. Answer me. Does Lone Bull owe me money? Am I abandoned? Father Hillary, Nephew … who won?”

“Beautiful …” Michael said softly. Standing above the crowd, he had a clear field of vision as he studied the woman in the carriage. The news had spread through the crowd. This woman was part Cheyenne. And a doctor. A real doctor. Michael smiled, a wicked light in his eyes. Suddenly he had a use for doctors. Especially pretty ones.

“Who? Who?” Joshua slapped his hands on his bony knees and then doubled his fists and shook them in the air. “
Who!
” But unfortunately for Uncle Joshua, a horse race had suddenly become the farthest thing from Michael Spirit Wolf's mind.

14

C
aptain Henry Morbitzer pulled the cover sheet off the last article of furniture in the parlor while Kate Madison finished inspecting the house. Everything was just as Tyrell Gude had described it to her during the three-day ride from Miles City. This had been Tyrell Gude's house. He had lived here with his wife for the better part of a year. Then after his wife took sick and died, Gude had moved over into the more austere bachelor quarters at the agency. A parlor and dining room and kitchen downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs, and every inch haunted by memories of the woman he had loved, the woman who had kept house for him, been friend and lover for twenty-one years. Kate emerged from the stairway and glanced down the hallway toward the back door. She had left it open to clear out the stuffiness. She walked back into the parlor, and smiling at the captain, continued on to the spacious, sunlit dining room, which ran almost the length of the house. Mrs. Gude had liked to entertain and loved dancing. Move the dining table out and arrange the chairs along the wall and the space would be ideal for physical assessments and surgery. The extra bedroom upstairs could be used for patients needing intensive care and hospitalization. Yes, the house would do nicely as a clinic. The front door banged open and a Cheyenne man in his early twenties entered staggering under the weight of both her trunks. He was a brawny fellow, handsome in a rough-hewn sort of way. Certainly nothing like the men she had known back East. The Cheyenne stumbled and dropped one of her trunks, thankfully not the one with her medical instruments and the supplies she had purchased from a pharmacy in St. Louis. However, several of her personal items spilled from her dropped trunk and Henry Morbitzer scowled as he came to the rescue.

“You clumsy oaf,” the officer muttered, righting the trunk. The lid hung ajar on its broken leather latch. Michael Spirit Wolf gingerly set the other trunk down in the middle of the floor and removed his gray broad-brimmed hat and lowered his head in an attitude of subservience.

“Sorry, Miss …”

“And a knock would have been proper,” Morbitzer added.

“Then he would have dropped both trunks,” said Kate. She turned to Michael. “No harm done. Dresses can't break. Thank you.” She held out her hand. “I am Dr. Katherine Madison.” A second fusillade of fireworks erupted in the street, followed by a howl of approval from the crowd.

“Excuse me, Captain, but Agent Gude sent me to tell you he needs to see you. Over in the agency building, his office there.” Michael smiled and his eyes were innocent, his shoulders slightly bowed forward.

“Blast it all,” Morbitzer exclaimed, and slapped his hat against his trouser leg. Then he shrugged. After all, he was in charge of the government's military command on this reservation and the responsibility of rank was ever a burden willingly accepted. “Well then, come along. I beg your pardon, Kate … may I call you Kate … I intend for us to be friends. Good friends. If you ever need me in any way, just come right on over to the camp. You can count on my support.”

“I am sure I can,” Kate replied, removing her hat and dabbing her upper lip with a silk kerchief.

“Come along,” the captain said, directing his command to Michael.

“Agent Gude sent for you. Not me.”

“See here, whoever you are …”

“I am Michael Spirit Wolf.”

“Oh … Well, I have heard of you. A troublemaker according to the briefing I received at Fort Keogh. Your father, Panther Burn, was a notorious troublemaker too.”

“He was a warrior chief, the last to surrender. He has killed many soldiers in battle. Yes, Captain Morbitzer … you could call him a troublemaker. He has turned many boy-soldiers into men.”

Morbitzer reddened. “Just what the devil do you mean by that.”

“Captain Morbitzer, I believe Mr. Gude is waiting,” Kate said, hoping to defuse an increasingly uncomfortable situation. Henry Morbitzer glanced toward the front door. “Quite so. But I don't like leaving you …”

“I am certain Mr. Spirit Wolf means me no harm.”

“I hurt my arm,” Michael said. “That why I dropped the trunk.” He started rolling up his shirt sleeve. “Maybe you will take a look.”

Captain Morbitzer knew when he had lost a skirmish. After all, she was a doctor. He nodded and headed toward the door, withdrawing as gracefully as possible. “We'll talk later,” he said, donning his hat and bowing to Kate. “Until then.” He stepped out into the noise of celebration, the aroma of pies and meat broiling, into the heat of the day and the reservation dust that had discolored his once immaculate blue uniform.

Michael walked across the room and took a seat on the newly uncovered couch. The cushions were too soft for him, and like the whole house, needed airing. Kate followed him to the couch. Michael gingerly lifted his arm for inspection. A subtle grin brightened his features as Kate leaned over, close enough for him to catch the scent of perfume and sweat. “It hurts real bad,” he said, as his eyes ranged approvingly over her long neck and to her wine-red lips. Kate placed a hand on his arm and he groaned and scooted across the couch to be closer to her. She frowned, muttered something beneath her breath, and then crossed back to a black leather bag and removed a wicked-looking bone saw; its jagged metal teeth gleamed in the shadows as if it possessed a malevolent life of its own.

“I am afraid it will have to come off,” she solemnly said. “I haven't unpacked the opium yet but I do have a drop of sherry if that will help, although I am afraid the amputation will hurt like hell.” The woman doctor advanced on Michael, whose eyes widened in disbelief at first. As Kate bore down on him, he looked with actual panic from the saw to his arm and back to the dreadful apparatus used for shredding flesh and bone. “Just rest your elbow on the back of the couch and hold on. I can have it off and the stump cauterized in a matter of minutes.”

Michael jumped off the couch. “Wait!” He tripped over the end table and fell sprawling. Kate loosed a hearty laugh and stared down at the young rancher who lay flat on his back.

“What a fine physician I am. See, your arm is healed already.” She tossed the saw aside and placed her hands on her hips. “I hope you have learned your lesson, Michael Spirit Wolf.”

“Oh,” Michael groaned. He tried to prop himself up but fell against the wall and cradled his right wrist. “Oh …” His features were bunched in pain. Kate's expression changed from one of triumph to concern. She crossed over and knelt by him. He
had
taken a nasty fall. It appeared her prank had backfired.

“Let me examine your wrist. You may have a fracture. How foolish of you. That's what you get for carrying on so. I—” Suddenly the wounded wing came to life and closed around her shoulders and drew her into his kiss. She was the dove snared by the hawk, too surprised to straggle at first and lost to this bird of prey, though pride would teach her to strive against his strength. His kiss was hard and fierce and filled her with streams of fire coursing all the way to her heart. Then, just as she began to struggle, he freed her, as if Michael wanted the kiss to end on his terms. Kate staggered to her feet and backed away, nearly losing her balance as her heel caught on the hem of her charcoal-gray dress. She steadied herself, wiped the perspiration from her forehead. “How dare you?” she said.