Sacred Is the Wind (15 page)

If the dining room was fragrant, the kitchen was all but heady with the mouth-watering scent of potatoes and steaks and freshly baked biscuits that Esther gingerly lifted from the fireplace oven. She tapped the iron pan and the bread tumbled out in a wondrous avalanche upon the table. Rebecca rearranged the piping-hot biscuits upon a platter and paused to tear one in half and dip it into a crock of honey and plop the morsel into her mouth.

“Saaa!”
Esther exclaimed, catching her friend in the act.

“Just testing. I wouldn't want you to serve your husband something that might not please him. He might take a switch to you and drive you from his lodge.”

Esther scooped up the remaining half of biscuit and gobbled it down. She nodded, pleased with herself. She had wanted to make a good impression on Reverend Holstead. Rebecca took up an empty plate and crossed over to the fire and began to fill the tin with potatoes, steak, and gravy. Esther looked on in disapproval. She leaned against the kitchen table, folded her arms across her bosom, her lips pursed as she tried to decide what, if anything, could sway her friend's affections.

“You bring the Northerner his meal?”

“Yes,” said Rebecca. She returned to the table and placed a couple of biscuits on the plate, then met Esther's worried gaze. “I have the feeling we are going to repeat an argument.”

“I just don't see why he had to humiliate us and offend Reverend Holstead by staying in the barn.”

“It is Panther Burn's way,” Rebecca said with a shrug.

“Well, it is a rude way,” Esther snapped. “And I suppose you will sit with him while he eats with the horses?”

“A little while. He does not like being so … close to so many white men.”

“Then let him leave.” Esther reached out and placed her hands on Rebecca's shoulders. “Stay here. After all, you came to be with me. We might not see each other again for a long time, Rebecca.”

“And we will have the rest of the night and tomorrow morning to talk and walk and look in the windows of the shops in town.” The flames in the fireplace leaped upward and a twig exploded, causing both young women to jump. Rebecca laughed at herself. Esther joined in, but half-heartedly. She tried to think of an argument to sway her friend from this course of folly. But even as she started to speak, the sound of a flute cut her short. A soft trilling song filtered in through the shuttered window, a melody Rebecca's heart had memorized, that called her to come out from the kitchen in the parsonage, out from under the roof of the white men to walk in the Cheyenne night.

“Don't go, Rebecca,” Esther whispered. And she stared at the back door as if the devil himself were without the walls of the house. “You think you know him, but I tell you he is not like other men. Please don't go.”

“I must,” Rebecca replied, setting the plate of food on the table near a jar of nutmeg and a tin of sugar.

“But why?” Esther asked.

“You said it yourself,” Rebecca whispered. “Because he is not like other men.”

• • •

Rebecca waited in the wind. Dust devils danced in darkness. Leaves blew against her ankles. Invisible fingers caught at the fringes of her buckskin smock, tugged at the hem of her calico dress. Rebecca walked away from the house, stared up at the Church of Good Hope's black spire jutting toward the cloud-strewn sky. A wind promising a spring storm gusted out of the west, subsided, gusted again. But where was he who had called to her, playing his music upon the night? Had she imagined the flute? Well, then, Esther shared her madness, for they had both heard. Rebecca stood in an arena of moonlight bordered on three sides by parsonage, church, and stable. But from the open north came the sound, a drumming of hooves, a rider coming at a gallop. Rebecca shivered, tensed with uncertainty, for a second considered running back the way she had come. And then she saw him, materializing in the silver light, Panther Burn. She gasped as he bore down on her. Something inside whispered to her to run away. Run away from him. But she could not. He was proud and terrible with his long hair streaming wild like a cape and his eyes, black, blazing as he leaned to one side, his arm crooked out, encircled her, scooped Rebecca up beside him. She stifled a cry of alarm, her heart in her throat. Then the pinto vanished past the church and raced off into the wind.

“No,” a voice slurred. “No …!” And James Broken Knife stumbled uncertainly out of the barn, where he had watched the abduction. What spell had this damn Northerner worked on Rebecca that she should not cry out? The Southern Cheyenne made his way into the moonlight, veering through the settling dust. “Has she no shame?” he muttered. An empty bottle slid from his left hand. The motion startled him and he jumped aside, lost his balance, and fell. James Broken Knife lay on his side until the world quit spinning. He cursed the bottle, cursed the Northerner for disrupting all his plans. His eyes focused on the hilt of a knife lying in the dirt. He reached out, brought it closer, and inspected the markings on the bone grip. Three wavy lines, the markings of the Spirit Mountain Cheyenne. The knife was Panther Burn's. The Northerner probably lost it from his sheath when he leaned out to sweep Rebecca up into his arms. James Broken Knife scowled and tossed the knife aside and rolled over on his stomach. Ah, if only he could rid himself of the Northerner as easily as casting the knife away. He crawled to his knees, then managed to stand. Suddenly his flesh tingled and he gasped as an idea wormed its way through his liquor-clouded brain. He remembered, earlier, how Colonel Bragg had seemed to take a special interest in Panther Burn. James didn't know why. Nor did he care. Suddenly he had a plan, and that was all that mattered. He would need more courage. Another bottle's worth. And he would need … the knife! The knife he had thrown away. Dropping to his hands and knees, he began to sift his fingers through the dirt. The wind blew grit into his eyes. The discomfort only served to sober him. James crawled and searched, all the while telling himself he could be rid of the arrogant Northerner. Rid of him for good. And free Rebecca from his madness. But only if he found the knife of Panther Burn. He searched frantically and prayed. And a dark God heard ….

Death and love in a night washed with stars. Toward the distant hills, the dark hills, a man and woman ride without a thought for the morning, she is a captive beauty and he has stolen her away, like her heart, stolen, this thief of love, of passion, this free and savage spirit.

Let the wind blow. Let the shadows dance before the moon and cover the earth in a shifting patchwork of silver and obsidian. A man and a woman vanish from the trappings of civilization, of ordered conduct, of gentle beds and tamed lives.

Let passion rule this night, for it is the song of every wind. And the stars are the sirens of desire, glimmering Circes that beckon to lovers on their odyssey, “Come, sweet strangers, hear our call, dare the unsafe harbor, and find in one another's arms perilous ecstasy.” Beware, to listen is to lose caution and gain a lifetime of memories.

Gentle was the wind's caress. Tender the music of the trembling boughs. An hour from town had brought Rebecca and Panther Burn into the low-slung hills that swelled toward the distant Rockies, majestic in their robes of night. Panther Burn leaped down from horseback, and setting his rifle aside, he spread his buffalo robe and a blanket upon the fragrant earth. The scent of lodgepole and ponderosa pine mingled with the dusky perfume of bittersweet nightshade that Panther Burn crushed with his buffalo robe. He stood upon the ground cover and turned to find Rebecca still on horseback.

“Are you afraid of me now?” he asked. His hand outstretched to her. She shook her head no. “The white man is like a spider. One builds a web, the other a trap of fences and streets and dirty-looking buildings and more fences. Here we are free. Come stand beside me.” She did not move. “Why do you wait?”

“I do not understand why I have come here.” For a moment Rebecca considered riding away on the horse, stealing the pinto and racing back to Castle Rock. What madness had seized her that she had not fled this man when he galloped toward her? She should have run to the house. She should have called out for help.
Something. Anything.
She slid down from horseback.
Nothing.
She had reached out to him as if following an instinct so ingrained as to be unfathomable. It was true, she feared this Panther Burn. But she feared herself, her unspoiled confused heart, even more. She walked soundlessly to him, stood before the Northerner. “I do not understand why I have come here,” she repeated in a hushed tone.

He took her in his arms then. His embrace, too powerful to resist, crushed her close to him. The heat from their bodies mingled, ignited the blood in their veins. Her small breasts thrust forward as he pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. The world seemed to spin out of kilter only for a moment, then Rebecca felt the tanned buffalo hide against her back and the stars twinkled like jewels overhead. Panther Burn's face eased across the backdrop of stars. His own eyes radiating a starry light. Rebecca fought her own passions. It was right to be here. And wrong. She wanted him and yet could not reconcile desire with her beliefs. And so she tried to push him away, but Panther Burn only caught her wrists and pinned her arms to the ground as he worked his way astride her struggling form. Rebecca realized the more she worked her legs, the higher rode her dress. She ceased to kick, but her body remained tense. Her long black hair was splayed out upon the robe. Panther Burn's spilled forward, masking his features in shadow. Slowly he lifted her arms and brought them together and he lowered his face to her wrists and his breath was warm upon her flesh. Then he threw back his head and gave a hearty laugh that reverberated among the moonlit conifers as he rolled off her struggling form. Rebecca sprang to her feet and ran toward the pinto. She paused to whirl around, her voice trembling with anger.

“Who do you think you are, Northerner,” she blurted out, “to treat me in such a manner?” She began to back away from him now, afraid to take her eyes off the man lest he charge her.

“No!” Panther Burn said sharply. Rebecca froze in mid-stride as the Northern Cheyenne rose to his knees. And now his tone softened. “Woman, who do
you
think I am? Only that is important. I know myself. I know I would never dishonor you. I called to you. And you came because here, in our hearts, you know we share the same song. I would have us share the same life. There, it is said, and the words no longer burn in my heart.” The cry of an owl echoed in the forest. The wind played a susurrant melody, haunting her thoughts, her memories. Yes, she had walked with Panther Burn before, but then it had been within sight of her village. And the very proximity of her people had guaranteed her safety, she had been able to indulge her passions without fear of them getting out of control. Alone with him she had panicked. Now she blushed for having displayed such weakness. His struggle with her had been a game.

“Do you play a game now? Are your words from the heart or the coyote spirit within you?”

“Come sit beside me and find out.”

Rebecca glanced at the pinto, peacefully cropping the budding green shoots underfoot. Save for the eerie wail of the screech owl and the creaking of the branches overhead, the world lay silent, as if one with the man upon the buffalo robe. The eagle feathers in his braided hair wafted in the dying breeze. He did not move toward her, leaving Rebecca to make her own choice. She started forward, hesitated, then continued, surrendering to the need to trust him. She knelt before him on the robe, and when his arms encircled her, she allowed him to guide her over onto her back. He lay alongside her, one arm across her bosom, his scarred hand caressing her cheek.

“Little bird, I have no wealth, no horses, nothing to offer Star that I might ask her to bring you to me in the two-called-together ceremony.”

Rebecca reached up and covered his hand with her own. “My mother's wealth is in her visions, that which no man can give her. And as for horses, Panther Burn of the Spirit Mountain … my mother has no need of horses.” She laughed softly and nestled in his arms and listened to the distant chorus of a coyote baying at the moon. Poor spirit, so lost, thought Rebecca. “We will live among my people?”

Panther Burn stiffened at her question, but he would not lie to her.

“I am a Cheyenne. My heart runs with the buffalo, it will not graze with cattle.” He knew his words stung her. Yet what could he do? Certainly not return to his father's tribe after leaving in such disgrace. But what right did he have to lead her with him into exile? “I will think on it,” he added at last, reluctant to bring anything between them.

From far off in the granite peaks to the west came a murmur of thunder.

“Perhaps the spirits say it is good and give their blessing.” Rebecca sighed.

“Ahh, then the
ma-heone ve-ho-e,
the holy white man, has not led you from the old ways.” His breath warmed her cheek. She liked that. She would not, however, let Sam Madison go undefended.

“I am a Christian,” she replied. “But that does not mean I am deaf. I can hear the spirits speak as well as you, Northerner.” When he laughed, she tried to frown in response. But Rebecca could not hold it for long. And when he lay on his back, she turned into him, her lithe form extended along the length of his body. She smiled then and lowered her head to rest upon his chest, the beaded Morning Star near her cheek. Rebecca had never experienced such a mixture of peace and turmoil, for her physical need for him was almost unbearable. And yet the very peace of being close to him, a peace she was certain he also sensed, this too was good. She closed her eyes, as did Panther Burn, and without meaning to, they fell asleep, together in one another's arms; a man and woman happy in their innocence, undisturbed by the thunder in the hills.