Under A Prairie Moon (21 page)

When the last notes of the song faded away, he again offered tobacco to the earth and the sky and the four directions. Standing atop the hill, he watched the sun climb over the edge of the world, watched as long fingers of pure light painted the sky with bold strokes of red and orange and gold.

And then, from out of the west, he saw an eagle flying toward him. With a gentle flapping of wings, the eagle landed on the edge of the circle, its sharp black eyes fixed upon Dalton.

“What is it you want?” the eagle asked. “Why do you stand here like this?”

“I have come seeking guidance,” Dalton replied. “And to fulfill a promise I made long ago.”

The eagle cocked his head to one side and regarded Dalton out of fathomless black eyes. “You have lost your way, son of Night Caller. You have lost touch with the true path.”

“I have come to find my way back.”

“No,” the eagle said, and his voice was a low rumble, like distant thunder. “You have lived two lives already, and now you seek a third, but your destiny does not lie with the People. The one who once guided your steps is now in need of help only you can give.”

“I don’t understand.”

The eagle flapped mighty wings. “Follow your heart, Crowkiller. It will lead you back to the true path.”

“Wait!”

But the eagle was already gone. Great wings outspread, the bird rose up into the heavens and disappeared into the rising sun.

Dalton stood there for what might have been minutes or hours. Confused, he sat down on the ground. He had been certain he had been sent to the past to fulfill the promise he had made to his father, but if the eagle spoke the truth, that was not the reason he was here at all.

One who had once guided his steps…

His father? Dalton shook his head. His father was no longer in need of help.

His mother?

What could she possibly need from him?

With a shake of his head, he pulled on his clout and moccasins. It was time to go back to the village. He would seek out Star Chaser and they would make a sweat, and then he would tell the shaman what the eagle had said. Perhaps Star Chaser would know the answer to the riddle.

Filled with a sense of peace, he again made an offering of tobacco to the earth and the sky and the four winds, and then he murmured a fervent prayer of thanksgiving to Wakan Tanka.

Moments later, he was riding toward the village.

Lost in thought, he didn’t see them until it was too late.

They rose up out of a fold in the ground, a dozen Crow warriors. Judging by their paint, and the carcasses draped over the pack horses, they had been hunting. For a moment suspended in time, the Crow warriors stared at Dalton, and then, with a high-pitched cry, eight of them charged toward him, leaving the other four with the pack horses.

Dalton muttered an oath as he slammed his heels into the stallion’s sides. Neck stretched, ears flat, the buckskin lined out in a dead run.

The sound of the stallion’s hooves and the thunder of the pursuing horsemen echoed the rapid pounding of Dalton’s heart as he raced for home and knew, with a cold and clear certainty, that he would never make it.

Bullets whizzed past his head. An arrow buried itself in his right thigh, he felt the sting of a bullet graze his left shoulder, a bright burst of pain as another bullet tore through his left side.

He bent low over the stallion’s neck, his heels drumming into the horse’s flanks, his only thought to get home, to Kathy.

A thick gray haze spread before him, a darkness, an emptiness that was all too familiar. Dalton risked a glance over his shoulder, wondering if death might not be preferable to a return to that thick gray haze, to that life between this world and the next that was not life at all.

Behind him, the Crow warriors reined their horses to a halt, unwilling to enter the eerie grayness that was not night, not clouds, not fog.

Dalton counted the days in his mind as he urged the stallion into the roiling gray mist. Had he the strength, he might have laughed. It was July 28, and instead of dying at the end of a rope, he was going to die from a wound inflicted by the Crow.

Hokahey
! The war cry rose up in his mind. It was a good day to die.

He rode steadily into the thick gray nothingness that stretched endlessly before him. In returning to the past, they had altered the future, he mused ruefully, but it seemed his destiny could not be changed and he was, indeed, fated to die on July 28.

His last thought before darkness claimed him was that they wouldn’t have to change the date on his tombstone.

* * * * *

Blackness hovered around him, and in the center of that blackness he saw the crimson glow of Satan’s inferno, felt the fires of hell burning through him, long fingers of flame that seared his back and thigh and shoulder.

He had not expected this kind of pain in hell. An anguish of spirit, yes, an eternity of regret, but not this constant throbbing agony that pounded through him with every breath. His body felt heavy, his mind felt drugged, sluggish.

The acrid scent of smoke stung his nostrils. Hellfire, he thought, but instead of the stink of brimstone he caught the scent of white sage and sweet grass. As from far, far away he heard the soft sound of chanting. The music wound around him, whispering peace, and then he felt a sharp pain in his back. The scent of blood filled his nostrils, he felt it run warm and thick down his back.

Demon hands clutched him in the darkness, holding him down so that he couldn’t move. Heat, like the devil’s breath, hovered over his back, growing closer, hotter. He screamed as a searing tongue of flame licked his tortured flesh. And then, mercifully, the blackness of eternity swallowed him up again.

He was floating again, lost in an unforgiving hell of pain and thirst and unquenchable fire that made him long for the days when he had drifted through a cold gray fog, blissfully unaware of light or darkness or pain.

In the distance, he heard voices, saw a beautiful white light beckoning to him, and he turned toward it. He knew in the deepest part of his soul that he would find some measure of peace there, a release from the pain that tormented his body, perhaps even forgiveness. But it would mean leaving Kathy behind. Kathy, with the promise of forever in her eyes.

He whispered for water and an angel appeared beside him, an angel with a cloud of auburn hair and worried brown eyes. An angel with Kathy’s face. Her memory would haunt him through eternity, he thought bleakly, and cursed Satan for letting him remember the softness of her touch.

She lifted his head and offered him water, a sip, then two, when he could have drained a river.

He heard murmured voices, words that made no sense, cried out as the devil’s breath seared his skin yet again, giving rise to excruciating pain that pitched him again into the blackness of infinity.

Eons passed, days and years of darkness and pain, pain and darkness, and an occasional glimpse of an angel’s face. But it was only an illusion. Kathy was alive and well, walking among the living. Her face, her voice urging him to drink, to eat, it was all a lie, and he burrowed deeper into the darkness, away from the pain and the memories.

Memories of holding her in his arms, of seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, dreaming dreams that could never come true. Regret ate at his soul like acid, and he wanted to die…he would have laughed had he been able. He had died twice already.

“Dalton! Dalton! Damn you, wake up.”

Kathy’s voice again, only he knew it wasn’t Kathy’s voice, couldn’t be Kathy’s voice.

“Dalton! Don’t you dare die on me! Do you hear me? I need you. You can’t die and leave me here alone. Please, Dalton.”

The voice grew thick, he heard the sound of crying, felt wetness, like cool rain, upon his fevered face.

“Please, Dalton. I love you. Please don’t leave me. Please.”

He struggled toward the sound of her voice, ignoring the pain that grew ever sharper as he swam upward through thick layers of blackness.

“Kathy…”

“I’m here. I’m here.”

“No…not possible…”

“Dalton!” A hand on his shoulder, shaking him. “Dalton.”

Her voice reaching out to him, guiding him away from the abyss of eternity.

“Kathy?”

Her hand clasping his, tighter, tighter. It was an effort to open his eyes, and he blinked and blinked again, and she was there, beside him, her eyes red and swollen, her cheeks damp with tears.

“Oh Dalton,” she sobbed, “thank God!” And laying her head on his shoulder, she began to cry.

“Hey.” He lifted his hand and patted her back. “Don’t cry, darlin’.”

“I can’t help it,” she wailed. “I thought I had lost you.”

He frowned, trying to remember what had happened, but he could recall nothing after he rode into the mist.

“No.” His fingers delved into the wealth of her hair. “You’re never gonna lose me, darlin’. I promise.” He smiled at her and then, overcome with weariness, he closed his eyes and slept again.

When he woke again, Kathy told him how Okute had found him, lying unconscious on the far side of the river. The stallion had stayed beside him.

“And the mist,” Dalton asked. “Was it still there?”

“Mist? I don’t know. Okute didn’t say anything about a mist.”

“It was strange,” Dalton said. “I thought I had died again. It was the right day for it, you know. The twenty-eighth of July.”

A cold shiver snaked its way down Kathy’s spine. “But you didn’t die. Did you find what you went looking for?”

Dalton nodded. “Yes. I found the vision I sought, and I have fulfilled the promise I made to my father.”

She stroked his hand, a dozen questions chasing themselves through her mind, like a dog chasing its tail. She wanted to ask him if he planned to spend the rest of his life here, with the Lakota, if he still wanted to marry her, if he wanted children, what he had seen in his vision, but she asked none of them. There would be time for questions later, when he was well again.

“Rest now,” she said, but he was already asleep.

* * * * *

He felt a little better when he woke again. Kathy was there beside him with a bowl of thin soup to ease his hunger and a cup of cool sweet water to quench his thirst.

He looked amused when she told him she was going to bathe him.

“I haven’t had a woman give me a bath since I was in short pants,” he remarked, the ghost of his old roguish grin playing over his lips.

“Well then, this will be a new experience for both of us,” Kathy retorted, “’cause I’ve never given a man a bath.”

“Well,” he drawled, “I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to it.”

She made a face at him as she washed his right arm, then his left, being careful not to get his wounded shoulder wet. She dried his arms, then carefully moved the cloth over his chest, avoiding the bandage wrapped around his middle.

She could feel Dalton’s gaze on her as she slid the cloth over his belly. Although they had made love several times, she was still a little shy and she felt her cheeks grow hot as she washed that part of him that made him a man.

Her touch aroused the expected response and he chuckled softly when she turned her back to him.

“Hmm, that feels mighty good,” he remarked, unable to keep from teasing her. “But I think maybe you missed a spot.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Her cheeks were on fire as she washed and dried his legs.

“Kathy?”

“What?”

“There’s no need for you to be embarrassed.”

“I know.”

He reached for her arm, wincing as the movement sent slivers of pain through his shoulder and side. “Come here.”

He drew her down beside him, his right arm wrapping around her shoulders.

“Dalton…”

“I just want to hold you close for a little while.”

She drew the blanket over him, then snuggled against him, glad to be in his arms again. She had come so close to losing him. It had made her realize how deeply she cared for him, how empty her life would be without him. She had prayed fervently, selfishly, for his recovery, unable to bear the thought of again losing someone she loved. And she did love Dalton, desperately.

She heard his breathing slow and knew he had fallen asleep again. But that was good. Rest was the best thing for him now.

Content to be near him, she closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer of thanks that he was going to be all right.

During the next week, Star Chaser came several times each day to examine his wounds. Okute and his wives came to visit, as did others whose names and faces Dalton remembered from long ago. The People were generous. They brought blankets and food; Yellow Grass Woman made Dalton a long-sleeved buckskin shirt; Dancing Cloud made him a pair of leggings.

Kathy was touched by their generosity, by their willingness to share what they had.

Dalton was not a good patient and grew worse with each passing day. He didn’t like staying in bed, didn’t like being weak and helpless. He insisted that he felt fine, that he wanted to get up.

Now, exasperated after arguing with him for the last eight days, her temper snapped.

“Go ahead then,” she said irritably. “Get up. But don’t expect any sympathy from me if you fall flat on your face.”

Jaw clenched, he tried to stand up, only to be overcome with a wave of dizziness.

“All right,” he muttered. “You win.”

She tried not to gloat as she made him comfortable. “You were badly hurt, Dalton. You lost a lot of blood. You almost died. It’s going to take time to get your strength back.”

“Time,” he repeated. Once, he had taken it for granted, but no more. Every day, every hour, was precious and he didn’t want to waste any of them lying in bed, weak as a newborn kitten. He had a sudden inexplicable urge to see his mother, to make sure she was all right.

“Kathy, I’ve been thinking. How would you feel about going to Boston?”

“Boston?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, how long we’ll be here. I want to go see my mother, in case I don’t get another chance.”

She had forgotten, for the moment, how temporary their presence in the past might be. At his words, she felt a tremor of unease. She didn’t belong here, in this time. What if they were separated? What would she do if she was sent back to the future without him?

“Sure,” she said, not meeting his eyes, “whatever you want.”

He took her hand in his. “I thought, while we were there, we could get married.”

“Oh Dalton…” Joy and happiness misted in her eyes.

“I take it you don’t mind then.”

“No, I don’t mind. I just thought you’d probably want to stay here.”

He was quiet a moment, his expression thoughtful. “Kathy, what happens to my people?”

“I’m not sure. I never paid much attention to history when I was in school. I know there were a lot of battles fought, but the only one I remember is the battle against Custer at the Little Big Horn. The Indians won that one, but it was all downhill after that. Eventually, they were all sent to reservations.”

“There’s got to be something I can do to make the future better for them.”

“I don’t know what it would be. Maybe you could warn Okute, tell him to take his people away from here before it’s too late, but I don’t know where they could go. And even if you could change the future, I don’t know if you should.”