Sacred Is the Wind (8 page)

“Sometimes. Sometimes not. This was the first time in about six months or so. Seems I remember around Christmas … Well, it don't matter. Only that he ain't got any talk in him for a while afterward. He'll be all right. I reckon it's bringin' you up from Denver that's kinda opened an old wound.”

Tom sighed, shook his head, then opened a flask he kept by his bed. He tilted the slim silver bottle to his lips. Marley watched with thirsty deference, but Tom lowered the flask, screwed the top back on, gasped, and took a deep breath. The bourbon settled his nerves. He returned the flask to the table by the bed and swung his legs beneath the covers. Marley started toward the door.

“Funny. I can't remember a thing about that day. Oh, I recall being put on the stage for Denver, and the train in St. Louis, arriving in Philadelphia and being curious why Jubal hadn't come with me to our grandparents'. But what happened before … well, it's all sort of blank. Funny …”

Marley paused in the doorway. “He saved your life, like he saved mine. That's all you need ever keep in mind. Don't never forget.” The door swung shut with a finality that only emphasized the big man's parting remark even as it plunged the room into darkness. Marley continued across the hall and back into Jubal's suite. He gently closed the door and felt his way along the wall to the nearest lamp, then struck a match and touched flame to wick.

“Not too bright,” Jubal said from his bed. He was sitting up, a Navy Colt revolver still gripped in his right hand.

“You up to beaver?”

Jubal nodded, but the shadows of his past seemed to fill the room. It was always like this, after the nightmare. A tide of memories impossible to stem. Apprenticed to a freighter for one year and working at full pay for another, Jubal Bragg had put aside enough for traps and supplies and at sixteen had headed west to the mountains. But trapping did not appeal to him, nor the lonely reaches where a man stands alone beneath the sky. Almost a year to the day he left, Jubal returned to St. Louis and the freighting company. He worked his way up from mulewhacker to manager. An older, wiser young man, Jubal saved his money, shrewdly chose his acquaintances and culled the favor of the city's wealthy merchants.

He saw to his own education while learning his trade and establishing a reputation for honesty and competence. At last Jubal garnered enough support that by the close of 1859 he had formed his own freighting company and moved to Denver City. Jubal held the belief that this burgeoning settlement by the banks of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River was destined to become the “Queen City of the West.” Denver grew, though not without a struggle. And so did Jubal's fortune. Success was inevitable to a man determined not to fail. At war's outbreak in 1861, twenty-two-year-old Jubal Bragg received a contract to supply the Union garrisons operating in the Colorado and New Mexico territories. War ensured a tidy profit with every shipment of food, tack, lumber, clothing.… Then came the Indian attacks, depredations against settlers and soldiers alike. In response, Jubal organized a militia, commissioned himself colonel and organized the locals throughout the territory to defend themselves against attack. With the Civil War come to an end at a courthouse in Appomattox, the territorial governor had requested that Bragg's militia continue to defend the outlying areas until government troops could be dispatched in adequate numbers to Colorado. Wealthy merchant, local hero, at twenty-six Jubal Bragg had everything—money, prestige, power … and nightmares.

“Colonel?” Marley cut through the reverie, the solid resonance of his voice dispelling the shadows of memory.

“Yes, Sergeant Marley, I am up to beaver. Why, I'm as sane as any madman.”

“You ain't mad, Colonel. You just got bad dreams from time to time.”

“Well-said, Sergeant Marley. Well-said. I'll drink to that.” Jubal climbed out of bed and wrapped himself in a brushed-velvet robe. Marley lit another lamp to further dispel the gloom as Jubal reached for a decanter of brandy and two glasses, leaving the revolver on the table by the spirits.

“I suppose the manager will be around. We had better have an explanation ready.”

“Everyone knows you hereabouts, Colonel. I reckon you can just do what you please.”

Jubal filled a glass for himself, one for Marley. He walked over to the window fronting Main. The hotel was the point from which two intersecting streets, Main and Commerce, radiated outward in a V. Houses sprawled beyond the center of town like a stain of civilization cluttering what had once been a sea of buffalo grass. The window faced west and in the moonlight Jubal could make out the outline of Castle Rock, those great battlements of granite rimmed with silver and jutting upward from the plain like some medieval buttress. The playthings of nature rupturing the proud earth in some forgotten cataclysm. Jubal sipped his brandy, watched Marley's reflection in the mirror as Marley drained his glass at a single gulp, then busied himself with reloading the Navy Colt. He swabbed the empty chambers, added powder and tapped in wadding and a lead slug, and sealed the chamber with a dab of bear grease, lastly replacing the firing caps and easing the hammer down.

“It's cognac, dear fellow, for heaven's sake don't bolt it down like that. The masters of Charente are turning in their graves.” Jubal took another sip. The brandy leached the cold that had plagued his bones since arriving in town from Foot o' the Mountains. It had been an eighteen-hour ride that had taken them into night of the following day, but the rooms at the Hippolyte had been kept waiting, of course.

Jubal shook his head and sighed. He had studied brandy in the same way he had studied the arts and law and what tomes of science he could lay his hand on. All to create an image that would one day completely subvert his true self, hide forever the reality of an unschooled frightened orphan left alone in the world by the act of a murderous band of savages.

He watched as Marley crossed over to his bed and placed the revolver on the nightstand. “Loyalty is as rare as oysters in the desert,” Jubal said.

“Sir?”

“You are one of a kind, Sergeant. That's all.”

“No sir. I got me two brothers back in Arkansas. Plowboys, let me tell you. Hell, they'd a liked to come west, only they're too stupid to find it.” He chuckled and stretched back out on the couch. This night Marley slept in his trousers, long johns, and woolen socks. “If it's all the same to you, Colonel, I'll get back to sawin' logs. I got me a whole pile to cut through afore sunrise.”

“To hard labor.” Jubal lifted his glass in salute. He inhaled from the glass and took a sip, wishing for a proper snifter. Cognac in an ordinary glass was almost a sacrilege. He stared back out at the town. Most of the buildings were dark, although light spilled into the street from the Judge-Me-Not Saloon. Movement caught his attention. He continued to watch until he could make out a cowhand and one of the gals from the Judge-Me-Not, dancing what appeared to be a kind of shuffling waltz. Jubal could hear no music, which lent an unearthliness to the scene. Watching, though, made him feel sad, but he continued. He had never had time for any kind of personal relationship, though he'd bedded his share of tarts. And Tom was his only family. At least having a brother made him feel not so alone. Tom was his link to the past and maybe to the future. At least they were together now. Tom Bragg was brash, but he'd learn. God, how he had complained about leaving Foot o' the Mountains. Still, it was better than sharing the morning's fire with a murdering …

The Cheyenne! Jubal dropped the glass. It bounced off the rug and rolled to a standstill, leaving a trail of cognac. Now he remembered! The Indian in his dream, the face changing. It had never changed before. It was the brave from Wister's place. But why had the dream changed now? Jubal had seen other Indians before. A number of them he had personally dispatched to their ancestors. Never enough, though. Never enough to balance the ledger for the deaths of his parents. But the Cheyenne … why had he entered the nightmare? Why him and none of the rest? Jubal felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Something about that cursed buck. He had sensed it from the moment the brave had entered the room. And when their eyes had met, what link had been forged in that single moment? Jubal had sensed it and he was certain the Cheyenne had, too. Jubal rubbed a hand over his features, wariness stealing into his bones. He glanced toward the lamps, decided to leave them turned up, and headed for his bed. Marley was already snoring, his great bulk draped over the length of the couch. No point in waking the man, for Marley would understand no more of this than did Jubal. The colonel climbed into bed, propped himself upright against his pillows, closed his eyes, and reconstructed the young brave's dark, handsome features. Lost in his thoughts, Jubal absently tugged at his sideburns, conjuring an image of the Cheyenne that was at once intense and malevolent.

“We will meet again,” Jubal said. “I think we do not even have a choice.”

That night, Jubal Bragg did not sleep.

That same night, two days' ride from Castle Rock, in the village by the Warbonnet, Rebecca's mother was singing. A soft, eerie tone had drifted on the early-morning air and roused Rebecca from her troubled sleep. She listened now, working herself down in the straw-filled mattress as if burrowing for sleep. Star continued to sing. “One has come. He is the end of days. He is the beginning of others. This one among us. The sign, the warning, as told in the thunder voices. When they speak again, many will go to you, All-Father. Accept the spirits of your children. One has come. He is the end of days. He is the beginning …”

Rebecca opened her eyes and glanced around at the sparely furnished but comfortable room that served as bedroom, kitchen, and sometimes bath. She had neglected to draw the curtain that partitioned her bed from the rest of the single-room cabin. Her mother's partition was also pulled back to reveal Star's empty bed. Rebecca's mother knelt by the hearth, stirring the orange glowing coals in the fireplace with a willow switch. Rebecca raised up on elbows as a flurry of sparks shot upward from a popping ember. The sparks danced and dazzled in the gloom, like the eyes of demons, like the spirits of the dead called forth, no, loosed upon the morning, only to wink out, a dozen at a time. Star continued to sing, repeating the words of her song, but softer until her voice could no longer be heard. And yet, Rebecca still believed that Star was singing. She somehow felt her mother's voice, heard within the litany, as incessant as heartbeats. And Rebecca shivered. For suddenly the woman, the mother who had meant warmth and comfort and love all Rebecca's life, seemed to be altered. Oh, her physical presence remained the same, but somehow the spirit was changing before Rebecca's eyes and she wanted to cry out in her terrible fear. She knew her mother was a medicine woman, and had seen her counsel the distraught, grind herbs and roots into powders and unguents to cure the ill. But she had never been audience to … mystery. Until now. And why now? In these early hours before sunrise, why? Am I mad or dreaming or both? Rebecca silently asked herself, lest she disturb her mother's incantations and cause her to lose control. And it would not do for the medicine woman to lose control, for as the embers exploded and cracked apart, the sparks whooshing upward seemed to coalesce into a single glowing visage, that of a … wolf … peering out of the shimmering light, its fire-orange eyes fixed on Star. The medicine woman's lips no longer even moved, yet Rebecca could hear the prayer-song. It seemed to fill the room now, it seemed to whirl and coil like gusts from a storm, increasing in its fury, a wild and swirling torrent of words and tones whose meaning Rebecca could not understand.
One has come. He is the end of days …
Panther Burn?
THE END OF DAYS
! How could the cabin still stand, how could the roof contain such a din? Rebecca brought her hands up to cover her ears, to no effect. For the song echoed from within, the tumult had been unleashed in Rebecca's own flesh and bone and mind.

Stop,
she told herself.
I will not listen. Oh, Mother, my mother, make it stop!

The wolf spirit leaped from the fireplace, its body formed of shimmering pinpricks of fire. Its glowing paws closed around Star, became one with Star, the medicine woman of the Southern Cheyenne. First the paws, then the snarling jaws, the sleek, gleaming torso, the livid eyes, all one with Star. Forms blurred. The singing stopped. And Rebecca, still unable to scream, watched as the spirit form merged and vanished, leaving only an old woman kneeling at hearthside, stoking embers to life. A shadow seemed to fill the room, a darkness from which there was no release. Rebecca, eyes closing, sank back upon her bed.

A dagger of sunlight slashed the bonds of sleep and Rebecca awoke. She blinked, turned her head aside, away from the patch of sunlight that slanted through a space in the log wall where the chinking had worked loose. Rebecca glanced over and saw her mother, asleep in bed, her breathing even, silver hair splayed across the down pillow Esther Madison had brought her from town. Asleep as if nothing at all had happened. But what had happened? Only the visions of sleep. Nothing more. Rebecca rose and stood beside her bed. She padded across the floor and listened as she walked, to the crow of roosters announcing to the world the arrival of another day. Dogs barked. Calves bawled in the meadow. Rebecca stared down at the gray lifeless-looking embers. See, Rebecca chided herself, only a few coals retain their life. She looked over at Star's huddled form and smiled. Only the visions of a troubled sleep and nothing more. She knelt on the granite hearth to stoke the fire in preparation for breakfast. Pain! Sudden, brutally swift. Rebecca gasped and sprawled backward onto the floor. She stifled a sob, stared at her outstretched legs, and gingerly examined her bare knees where the flesh was red and blisters were already forming from contact with the searingly hot stones. She glanced over in dumb astonishment at the fireplace. It was as if a roaring blaze had filled it for the length of a night and a day, and the granite slabs absorbed all the heat. But if that were the case, then would the coals not still be aglow and pulsing with fire-life?