Sacred Is the Wind (25 page)

“Michael Spirit Wolf,” she gently said. She glanced at the coals, her heart aching for her husband. At last she could bear her silent longing no longer. It welled in her breast and sought release. Then Rebecca cried out in the long winter's eve of her soul. Her voice trembled with yearning and terrible need. “Panther Burn! My husband. You have a son! You have a son!”

A coal cracked, exploded, sending a coruscating column of sparks churning upward in the air. And among the pulsing embers, a single flame sprang forth and bloomed among the ashes like a flower of the night.

Castle Rock was burning. Main and Commerce were narrow avenues through a sea of flame. Fiery tides leaped upward and seemed to lap against the stars. Castle Rock was burning, from the caved-in remnants of the Hippolyte Hotel to the smoldering wreckage of the Church of Good Hope to the ruins of the Babylon Saloon. Flames spread outward from the town, ravaged dugouts and cabins. The livery shop, the general store, a dress shop, the barber's, Doc Schaefer's office, and the proud bastion of Castle Rock's first and only bank, blazed out of control and crumbled in on themselves. Panther Burn walked his mount down Main Street. A solitary figure, he rode past the fallen twisted bodies littering the porches and alley-ways. It had been a brief, bitter battle. Panther Burn had led better than a hundred young Cheyenne braves down from the north country, and joining with a war party of Lakota Sioux and a force of Walking Coyote's Ute, had attacked the town of Castle Rock in the wee hours of a winter's morning, scattering the inhabitants out onto the plains. Some resisted, determined not to leave their homes. And so red men and white fought and died among the burning buildings. A raging conflagration coursed from one false-front structure to the next. Once the flames had died and the wind scattered the ashes away, the town of Castle Rock would cease to be, just like the Southern Cheyenne village by the Warbonnet. Gunshots erupted on the edge of town, somewhere beyond the fiery barrier. Doomed resistance, nothing more. The victory this day had been complete. Panther Burn sighed, his mind full of misgivings, uncertainties brought about in part by Sabbath McKean's words of warning. The scout had decried the Northern Cheyenne's quest for vengeance and spoken against the raid.

The pony neighed and backstepped. Panther Burn thumbed the hammer on his Hawken and raised his war shield. He glanced to either side, searching for whatever had spooked his horse. The lurid light only heightened his war-painted features, a streak of black across his eyes and yellow slashes on his cheeks. The north wind gusted, scattered the soot-blackened smoke from the wreckage of an assay office. A man, barely distinguishable in the night, materialized out of the smoke. He walked directly toward the Northern Cheyenne, who leveled his rifle but held his fire. The white man was barefoot. This portly, middle-aged clerk, clad in gray trousers, a white shirt, and brown silk vest torn in front where a bullet had ripped the garment on its deadly passage, loomed like a specter of defeat. A crimson stain spread across his belly. As the man drew near, Panther Burn spied a cap-and-ball revolver dangling from the man's left hand. The clerk did not speak or even seem to be aware of the Cheyenne warrior on horseback. Dying with every step, the wounded man seemed to fix his gaze on some point not of this world. The man continued past. Panther Burn did not try to stop him. Timbers cracked and the roof of the assay office came crashing down. The pinto danced sideways in reaction. Panther Burn brought the animal under control and continued down the street; the stench of gunsmoke and blood-drenched ground sickened him. Yet it was what he had come for. Revenge. He urged the pinto into a gallop and left the burning town behind him.

The survivors of the town had arranged themselves in a circle out on the prairie, women and children toward the center, every man still able to fire a gun guarding the perimeter. None of them held any illusions. The war party far outnumbered the survivors of the ravaged town. And so the women began to wail and scream and call for those they had left behind to come and help them, refusing to realize that Castle Rock was a haunt for the dead and nothing more.

Cheyenne and Ute and Sioux milled in a heavily armed cluster, each brave anxious to have done with the task at hand. One charge would sweep over the
ve-ho-e
and finish the matter once and for all. Walking Coyote saw no need to wait for the one who had planned the attack. The Ute war chief was loudly asserting his own authority when Panther Burn rode up behind him. Walking Coyote turned to face the Northern Cheyenne and fell silent. The Sioux, accepting Panther Burn as the leader of the raid, waited with the young men of the Spirit Mountain Cheyenne for his instructions.

“Their courage is broken. The white-eyes wait to die,” Walking Coyote exclaimed with a sweep of his hand, indicating the cluster of townspeople just out of rifle range. Bathed in moonlight, the survivors were a pathetic island of humanity all but lost on the reaches of a prairie as limitless as the sea. Panther Burn walked his horse through the midst of his warriors until he reached the forefront of the war party. There he found Sabbath McKean, who had taken no part in the attack on Castle Rock. The short, burly frontiersman sat astride his horse, impervious to the hostile baiting of the handful of Ute braves. Mc-Kean rested a Spencer rifle in the crook of his arm. His back was ramrod straight but an aura of tension radiated from him. His expression brightened as Panther Burn arrived.

“There's a powerful lot of innocent folks out yonder,” he said, and spat a stream of tobacco at one of the Ute braves nearby. A second stream spattered the snow-patched ground underfoot. Away from the fire-swept streets, the chill air bit deep into the bones. The breaths of horses and men cast silver clouds upon the darkness.

“And innocent ones at the Warbonnet as well,” Panther Burn said, sensing the Ute war chief, Walking Coyote, moving up from behind, the better to hear.

“All the deaths in the world ain't gonna make that right,” McKean replied. “War's one thing. I done my share of killing. But I ain't never played the butcher. Couldn't live with myself if I did. I don't think you could either.”

“Do you know me so well, white man?”

“I only know we part company here. I'd like a minute so's I can ride over and join them folks yonder.” The frontiersman scratched at his red beard, grimaced. “Them's mostly women and kids. Panther Burn … I'd like to think I been riding with a better man than Jubal Bragg.”

Panther Burn adjusted his hold on the Hawken. As yet, he had not fired a shot. He had been too busy directing the threefold attack that reduced Castle Rock to so much rubble. He closed his eyes and listened to the fearful cries of those out on the flatlands. He heard in his mind other cries, other voices, those of Cheyenne women and children, ghost voices weeping in the dark dead past. He could add more voices to the atrocities of a year ago, but at what cost? He was a Cheyenne warrior—that was his dignity and his truth. He would not spit on his life nor needlessly soak his conscience in blood.

“Go to your people,” he said to Sabbath. “Tell them I give them their lives. But if the town is rebuilt, I will return and burn it again.”

“No! We must be avenged,” Walking Coyote said. “The earth must flow with rivers of blood. Only then will the ghosts of our people sleep!”

“My people! Not yours!” Panther Burn corrected him, his eyes narrowing.

“Shall a woman lead us? If you have lost your stomach for battle, then another will replace you. Let those who would be braves follow me.” Walking Coyote glanced around for support. His face was streaked with red war paint and glistened like a mask of blood. He held up his iron-tipped spear and raised up on horseback. “Who among you are still warriors, hear me.”

“They will not hear you,” Panther Burn said.

“Why not? My lance is hung with fresh scalps. You have none. I am Walking Coyote, war chief of the Ute. Who is there to still my voice?”

Panther Burn swung the Hawken rifle in an arc and brought the heavy barrel up alongside Walking Coyote's head with a resounding smack. The war chief, knocked from his mount, landed facedown on the frozen ground. The Ute braves stared in shocked amazement. By the time they recovered, the other warriors had already demonstrated their allegiance and gathered behind Panther Burn. The Ute braves could do little more than dismount and gather up their fallen chief and drape his unconscious form over his horse. They were too few in number to risk attacking the townspeople. Without a word the Ute turned their backs on Panther Burn and rode off into the night, heading west toward the mountain passes.

Panther Burn nodded. It was done. For now. He doubted the
ve-ho-e
would ever forget. Well, then, let them send their armies against him. Let them send Jubal Bragg. He glanced over at McKean. “One day,
ve-ho-e
, we may meet in battle, perhaps you with the longknives and I with my people. We will meet and fight and one of us may kill the other. But today, let it be said we parted as friends.” He held up his hand, palm out.
“E-peva-e.”

And Sabbath repeated, “It is good. Fare thee well, Panther Burn.” The scout nudged his heels against the flank of his horse and the mountain pony trotted off toward the circle of survivors. Sabbath called out to them in English, telling them to hold their fire.

Panther Burn turned his own mount toward the north. He called out for the rest of the braves to follow him.

And to a man, they did.

In spring, in the time of the Muddy-faced Moon, Rebecca Blue Thrush took her son up the slope of Spirit Mountain. She climbed the broad spacious hillside where the bitter-root was just beginning to dot the golden grass with pink buds. Little Michael Spirit Wolf squirmed and fidgeted and fought the constraints of his carryboard. His protests echoed down the hill, spooking the nearby horses where they grazed. Zachariah ran ahead, for spring had even thawed his moodiness. He raced his shadow and called for Rebecca to hurry along. Rebecca was determined not to alter her pace. An hour's climb carried them into the forest, where they followed a deer trail to a sun-dappled brook nestled in the heart of the forest and fed by an underground stream that poured in a lovely waterfall from the granite battlements above. Here in the shade of ponderosa and lodgepole pine and red fir, the world seemed awash with an emerald light. Here Rebecca found peace, a timeless balm to soothe her fears for Panther Burn. For try as she might to trust in her dreams, in the spiritual bond that linked her to her husband, she was only human, with human frailties and fears. When misgivings threatened to overwhelm her, she would flee to the mountain, to the brook, to this place of peace.

She freed Michael from his constraints and placed him on his back among the boughs. The infant seemed to be drinking in all the world at a single glance. He cooed and gurgled and filled the tranquil setting with his happy sounds. Zachariah ran off into the forest. Rebecca heard him playing as if he were in the thick of battle. She looked down at her child and wondered if Michael too would be a warrior. She did not want to think of him being hurt. Or hurting. Maybe by then men might have learned to live in peace.

“Don't worry, Rebecca,” Zachariah's voice echoed in the forest. “Panther Burn will return to us. And he will have many scalps.”

Rebecca closed her eyes and placed her hand upon her child, who wrapped his nut-colored arms around her wrist. The brook, a dozen yards away, lulled her to sleep. She dreamed of peace. And of her husband …

A moment became an hour. She might have slept longer, but Michael's full-voiced bellow of hunger roused her. Rebecca opened her eyes. Michael kicked and complained next to her. And on the other side of the boy lay Panther Burn. His expression was haggard. Yet his eyes radiated the joy he felt. For he had found his son. How long he had been beside Rebecca, watching her sleep and holding Michael, she could not tell. The medicine woman stared, unmoving, fearful of reaching out to touch him. If this were a vision, she wanted to keep it whole. Panther Burn put an end to her fears. He placed the infant against her breast, and rolling over, gathered mother and child in his arms.

Alone in the shadows, hidden behind a fir, Zachariah watched, a frown darkening his face. He heard the baby cry and Panther Burn laugh aloud and call out to his new little son. Zachariah scowled and darted away, hoping to outrace the sound that seemed to taunt him.

For Rebecca, her fears were vanquished and a completeness filled her being. Panther Burn was alive. He was with her. Souls soared; hearts nearly burst with an excess of love unspoken. No words were needed. Between Rebecca and Panther Burn, touching was enough. And sweet silence a song, eternal.

After the silence, after the moments when love must reign supreme and no thought be given other than to love, Panther Burn rolled free of his family's embrace and crawled over to the pool of spring water. He stared down at his reflection; his long black hair almost obscured his features, like a black cowl covering his head. He brushed his fingers across the glassy surface of the water and the Panther Burn he saw disappeared. When it formed again he saw his wife and son behind him.

“My husband, come with me to our lodge. Our people will have a great feast now that you have returned.”

He reached around and grabbed her naked calf where her buckskin dress failed to cover. He turned and buried his face in the soft brushed folds of her dress. She could feel his heat all the way through the buckskin and her belly grew warm from his kneeling embrace. She dropped a hand to his head and stroked his hair. “And later I will spread a feast of a different sort,” she said in a voice hoarse from her aroused passion. Panther Burn drew back and looked up at her.

“It is a feast at which I can never have my fill,” he said.

“Saaavaaaa!
You take me for a maiden whose fancies can be turned this way and that with words.” Rebecca playfully pushed him aside. Panther Burn stood and looked back toward the spring, where for a moment he had a vision of his own. Rebecca sensed this and said, “My husband?” She was suddenly worried for him.