Sacred Is the Wind (34 page)

The law.

He tethered his horse with the other two geldings grazing near the camp and let the aroma of bubbling hot coffee lead him over to the fire. Night was falling, the land was gradually losing its store of warmth. A good hot campfire always felt good out on the trail. He nodded to the man towering over him. “You've put on a gut, Marley,” said Sabbath. He looked around at the bird man. “Hello, Bragg.”

“Marshal McKean … welcome,” Jubal purred.

“Been a long time, Jubal. Thought you might have retired on your laurels,” Sabbath said. He noticed the Winchester lying across Jubal's saddle and a brace of Smith and Wesson revolvers belted at the man's waist.

“Looks like you're fixing to do some hunting,” Mc-Kean said.

“It appears we all are. And no doubt we are tracking the same game. I see little reason for subterfuge, Marshal McKean. I have always taken you for a man who appreciates honesty.” Jubal brought a silver-filigreed flask out from underneath his coat, unscrewed the shiny silver cap, and tilted the flask to his lips. He sucked greedily on the tea-colored brandy, spilling a trace down his chin. He lowered the flask and sighed. “A renegade like Panther Burn is fair game for any man. And we are all hunters, one and the same.”

“I am the law, Bragg. That is the difference between us.”

“Granted, my dear fellow. Marley and I are only here to help the law along. Nothing more.”

“There ain't no law agin the colonel and me bein' here.” Marley squatted by the fire and hung a couple of rabbits on a spit over the flames. A pair of bloody pelts lay among his gear.

“I guess you are right,” Sabbath replied. He shrugged and walked back to his gelding and unsaddled the animal. He carried his own gear over to the fire and tossed his bedroll down opposite Marley and Bragg. “In fact I'll even go you one better. You ride with me. We'll take him together.” He grinned and helped himself to the coffee. He made a point of averting his face from the colonel's scrutiny. Bragg did have a way of seeing into a man. Sabbath knew that Jubal Bragg would hunt Panther Burn despite Sabbath's objections. Keeping Bragg and Marley close by might just save the Cheyenne's life. Sabbath intended to take the warrior alive if at all possible, even if it meant bracing these two.

“An interesting proposition.” Bragg helped himself to the brandy, swallowed, sucked in a draft of the cooling air.

“I trust you as much as I trust a rattler to kiss and not bite. Which ain't much,” Marley growled, glaring over the dancing flames. “Well, you just mark this, McKean. Me and the colonel are coming after that buck and we don't intend to let him slip away. Do we, Colonel?”

“Of course not. I have a score to settle with Panther Burn. I have waited a long time. A long time.” He brought a crumpled sheet of newspaper out from his coat pocket. “Since the moment I read of his escape I have thought of nothing else. In truth I believe God willed his escape that I might settle accounts with Panther Burn.” Jubal stared at the headlines again beneath the banner
The Denver Republican:
“BUTCHER OF CASTLE ROCK ESCAPES, HEADING NORTH!”
He placed the page on the ground and lifted his flask in salute. Sabbath was up to something, but never mind. Jubal wanted to be around in case McKean took it in his head to let the renegade go free. Despite the past, or because of it, McKean just might.

“We shall be honored to accompany you, Marshal McKean. After all, we are only interested in justice being served.” Jubal patted the newspaper page smooth. “You will not escape me this time, you red devil. I swear it on the memory of my brother.”

“Hell, Panther Burn isn't trying to escape,” Sabbath said. “I get the feeling he knows we'll be coming. I've followed him across Colorado and Wyoming and think I read his sign pretty well. It's like he's calling us on, and looking for a place to make his stand.” Sabbath finished his cup of coffee and leaned against his saddle and stared up at the evening sky, a deep blue ceiling hung with clouds like chandeliers. “He's waiting for us.”

Marley stared up at the northern ridges looming dark and suddenly foreboding, twenty miles ahead. He lowered his gaze to the meat hanging over the fire and tore loose a chunk of seared flesh. He tossed the leg bone from hand to hand until it cooled. Then he began to eat, trying to dispel a feeling of doom that had settled on him as silently as dusk upon the land.

Jubal Bragg chuckled and patted his Winchester, so close at hand. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

The dream rose with the wind on this September night. It swept aside the peaceful fabric of sleep and revealed a circle of leaping flames to Rebecca. She writhed and tried to turn away but the flames reached toward her, as if to consume her flesh and spirit. And beyond the walls of the house the two soldiers stationed to keep watch buttoned their collars and turned their backs to the wind and to the man coming out of the wind, riding at a gallop in the night, his body low in the saddle. The hooves of his stallion were muffled by the buffalo grass that covered the valley floor. Yes, a man came riding as Rebecca dreamed.

The flames were dancing madly, spirits of crimson, children of a mad devil writhing violently and parting now. Eyes watched her. Eyes peered at her from across the flames. She saw now the panther in the fire, a beast of rage, at bay but unvanquished. She knew the panther, she would have dared the flames to come to him. But with a savage roar he leaped …

Rebecca bolted upright in bed. The wind howled, the night came alive with spirit voices.

Outside the soldiers exchanged glances and shuddered, though the wind held no chill. Fowler was a name, Denny another. They were both mere privates. Fowler was hardly more than a boy, his cheeks were covered with downy soft fuzz. Soon he would experience his first shave. Private Denny was a strapping, corn-fed lad from Kansas, no older than Fowler but physically more intimidating. The cuffs of his blue woolen coat were two inches shy of his wrists.

“Better check on the one in the barn,” Denny said. Size carried rank. Fowler nodded and started across the yard. “Hey!” Fowler exclaimed. The wind snatched his hat away. The boy soldier leaped for it and missed.

“Damn!” the boy soldier shouted, and ran out toward the garden in pursuit.

“Forget the hat, dumbass!” Denny shouted. He started from the porch and thought better of it. “You left your carbine here!” Denny scowled, cradled his own Springfield breechloader in the crook of his arm, and stepped back out of the wind. “What a stupid …” He glanced up at Rebecca standing in the doorway. She was dressed in her buckskin smock and overskirt and a tanned leather pouch dangled from her shoulder. Her hair hung long about her shoulders and fell to her waist. The wind smelled of pine and tasted of earth. Denny caught the scent of wild roses as Rebecca bolted past him. At first he thought she was going to join her son in the barn, for a cow was in labor this night and Michael had decided to sleep close by. Denny entertained notions of how grateful this squaw might become if he gave her a bit more free rein about the place. She had no use for soldiers now, but Private Denny reckoned he could change her mind with half a chance. His thoughts were still cluttered with fantasy when he heard Fowler scream, a high-pitched shriek of terror borne on the wind and cut short.

In the barn, Michael lifted his bloody hands from the newborn calf he had just helped bring into the world. His naked torso glistened with sweat. Yellow slivers of straw stuck to his knees as he staggered out of the stall at the scream. The calf began to bawl. It took a hesitant step toward its mama; the calf's spindly brown legs barely supported the weight of its ungainly brown-and-white-patched body. Mama turned a broad brown face and mooed reassuringly.

Michael hurried down the alley, then inexplicably veered and climbed the wooden ladder to the loft, raking his palm with splinters in his haste. He might not share Rebecca's visions but he was his mother's son all the same. Though he was bone-tired from the birthing, Fowler's cry had sent a surge of adrenaline coursing through Michael. He reached the loading window and braced himself against the frame as the moon reared from behind a battlement of clouds, like the shimmering marble walls of some ethereal city founded among stars.

He saw his mother and the horseman charging toward her as if to bury her beneath his galloping mount.

“Mother!”

Rebecca had seen him in the fiery furnace of her dreams, the wind called his name and it howled in her heart and filled her with impossible joy, an overpowering happiness she had never truly abandoned. Time rolled back, became in an instant another night, when long ago he had stolen her away. Now, as then, the stallion flashed fire where the iron-shod hooves struck stone. Now, as then, Panther Burn loosed a cry of triumph and leaned forward over the plunging neck, his features buried in the animal's lashing mane.

Hands outstretched, caught one another, the momentum propelled Rebecca up behind her husband. Her arms wrapped around his chest.

Poor Private Fowler staggered toward them, his coat and trousers torn and smeared with dirt.

“Denny. He run his horse over me. It's him!”

Private Denny already suspected as much. He leaped from the porch and ran in front of Panther Burn. The soldier raised his rifle, squeezed the trigger, the weapon sprouted a deadly blossom of fire. The figure on horseback seemed more an intangible demon of the night than some mere mortal. The stallion reared at the rifle shot and the man blocking its path. Denny dropped his Springfield and fumbled at his holster flap, and tried to free his Army-issue Colt revolver. A Winchester roared in his face. The muzzle flash blinded him. The force of the bullet knocked him backward. He hit hard, rolled on his side, and curled up.

Young Fowler leveled his own revolver. The boy soldier gripped his gun with both hands and sighted at the couple on horseback. Michael acted on instinct and leaped from the loft. Fowler buckled beneath the rancher's unexpected attack. The Colt blasted a hole in the dirt. Michael took the weapon out of the unconscious man's fist. Panther Burn wheeled at the shot and saw his son standing over the fallen trooper and reined his stallion over toward him. The wind ebbed, at least enough for them to hear each other. In the dark, the two men were barely distinguishable.

“My boy has become a man,” said the man on horseback. “Come with me. Together we will ride the path of war.”

The cavalry mounts pulled free of the hitching post in front of the house. The geldings stared out at the dark as if uncertain which way to flee. They seemed to be waiting for Panther Burn's mount to take the lead. “Come with me,” the brave repeated.

“No,” said Michael. “My place is here.” He lifted the Army service revolver in his hand and stared down at the weapon. His hands were stained from the bloody birth of a calf. It had been a breech birth, hard going, but he had saved both mother and calf.

His were the hands of a life-giver. The gun seemed out of place. It belonged in another's grasp.

A hand swept down and snatched up the revolver. “My son,” hissed the brave, looming above Michael now. Panther Burn's voice was thick with contempt. Suddenly the stallion reared, pawing the air. Rebecca screamed, “No!” Michael dodged the flailing hooves and slammed up against the barn. The stallion leaped away and vanished in the night, the two cavalry mounts trailing after at a gallop.

Michael swallowed. His throat felt dry as crushed rock and his limbs were weak. His own father had tried to kill him! His own father …

A groan cut through his panic and Michael remembered the poor youth lying at his feet. Another moan drifted toward the barn, coming from the trooper lying among the bitterroot.

“Help me. Help me. I am killed,” Denny cried out in a trembling voice. Young Fowler rose up on his hands and knees, then began to rub his shoulder and neck. He glanced over in Denny's direction, then up at Michael, who leaned over to help the trooper stand.

“I think I busted my arm,” Fowler gasped. He peered at the Cheyenne through eyes clouded with fear and a single knifing pain that took his breath away. “I could have had him if it weren't for you. Had him cold. You got any notion of what you've done?”

Michael slapped the trooper's crumpled hat against the barn and placed the battered article on Fowler's head.

“Yes, I saved your life,” said Michael. He looked out at the night. “And maybe lost my own.”

19

A
fter love, after the warm entanglements and sweet words, the giving and receiving, after the passion, the triumphant storm and savage surrender, comes the stillness. The longing remains for lovers. It never leaves even in the quiet moments. The longing remains despite the wondrous sense of completeness. Love heals the broken, it shatters then mends, one can never have enough. In giving is the precious gift received, such is love's sublime irony.

Afternoon. The sun, balanced between the distant cliffs, hovered like a golden bird suspended delicately between sky and earth. Moments earlier Panther Burn had eased himself from the sleepy embrace of his wife and emerged from the lodge to check the valley sweeping out before him. Nothing stirred save the branches of the pines down by the creek bed. The meadow was empty except for a pair of gray squirrels chasing each other through the buffalo grass. He glanced back at the simple lodge hidden among the trees. Rebecca, with Michael's help, had built it more than a year ago. Her dreams had told her to. She seemed to know that one day Panther Burn would come for her. And she was right. He needed a refuge, a place to plan his next move. Lost among the pines, the single-room lodge was all but invisible to anyone downhill, on the edge of the pines. The air was cool here and felt good against his nakedness. This lodge was a good place too. He padded across the dark earth, burnt-umber pine needles cushioning each step. He had a mountain at his back, granite battlements ranged to either side. He was satisfied. The warrior stepped from the safety of the pines, raised his hands, and cried out in a voice that echoed down the hills.