Wayward Wind (17 page)

Dunbar nodded and Adam went through the gate, slamming it behind him. The man standing outside the fence stewed, the pain
in his arm and his leg feeding his anger.

“Goddamn sonofabitch treats a man like dirt!” he muttered. “All he cares about is that bastard of his’n. Wal, if’n I gets
his
bastard in my gunsight, ’n there’s nobody ’round to tell the tale, I’ll blast
one
of his bastards outta his flea-bitten hide!”

It was a morning with no rosy glow in the east. Mists hung over the valley like a curtain as if loath to allow the sun to
shine on the group making ready to leave the cabin beside the Blue.

The night before Cooper had questioned Lorna about the mountain pass she and Volney had used. She told him the facts, wisely
withholding her opinion until he asked for it. He discussed it with Griffin and with her and Bonnie, saying the decision would
effect them all. They decided to take the southern route, but because Griffin and Bonnie were still in weakened conditions,
they would travel slowly, taking the whole day to accomplish what Lorna had done in eight hours.

Bonnie sat sideways in the saddle on Gray Wolf’s back and Lorna on a folded blanket on his rump. Cooper led off, followed
by the women. Griffin on Firebird, with Lorna’s rifle in the holder on his saddle, brought up the rear.

They followed alongside the stream straight south. Very shortly after they left the cabin, the stream became a lively trickling
run, and when it widened they left it and turned toward the mountains. For an hour they held to a course just below the crest
of the foothills.

Despite the dreariness of the day, Lorna was wildly happy. Every instinct within her was keenly awakened. The colors were
more vivid, the sounds more vibrant. A funny little quiver danced down her spine.
She and Cooper were on their way home to Light’s Mountain
. Well, not quite, she amended to herself. But when they reached the place where the trail led north to Cooper’s ranch, Light’s
Mountain would be an hour’s ride to the south. Cooper figured at that point it would take him a good day of hard riding to
reach home.

As the morning progressed, the sky darkened. The wind made itself known first in small puffs and then in growing gusts. Cooper
began to wish they’d stayed another day in the cabin on the Blue. He kept going even when he knew they should stop for Bonnie
to rest. The trail led upward, sometimes so steeply that Lorna had to reach around Bonnie and hold onto the saddle horn to
keep from slipping off Gray Wolf’s back. At other times they brushed so close to towering rocks that she and Bonnie held up
their legs lest they be scraped by the stone.

A little more than two hours after they left the cabin, Cooper stopped. He chose a spot where a sandy bench was formed between
two overhanging shelves of rock. He tossed the mare’s lead rope to Griffin and motioned for them to stay mounted while he
walked to the edge of the rim, being careful to give himself a background where he would not be outlined against the sky.
With his hat pulled low over his eyes he surveyed the area in all directions. It was rugged, lonely country where stunted
cedars and gnarled oak clung to ridges of canyon and where red boulders stood, stark and defiant, as they had done since the
beginning of time.

With sharp, alert eyes Cooper scanned the area methodically. The only movements were those of two huge jackrabbits who jumped
out of a tuft of grass and zigzagged down the slope in smooth, even, bounding motions. Had Cooper’s mind been less occupied
with the task of their safety, he would have thought them beautiful to see. At the top of each leap their paired ears stood
straight up. They disappeared and all was still.

A low roar swelled into rolling thunder. Lightning jabbed downward spitefully, and Cooper felt a decided chill in the wind.
He hurried back to the shelter of the overhang.

“There’s nothing moving out there but the wind and the jackrabbits,” he announced. “We’re in for a storm. This is as good
a place as we’ll find to weather it.”

Lorna slid off Gray Wolf and held onto Bonnie when Cooper lifted her down. When Bonnie, stiff and sore, was able to stand
alone, Lorna pulled the saddle off Gray Wolf, removed the bridle and slapped him on the rump.

“He’ll come when I call him,” she said in answer to Cooper’s unspoken question. “He can take care of himself.”

Griffin led Firebird and the mare to a place where they would have shelter from the south wind, and Cooper jerked the saddle
off Roscoe. He placed it beside Lorna’s, took a blanket and stretched it out, urged Bonnie to sit down, and hurried to help
Griffin with his saddle.

A dazzling bolt of lightning flared, followed by a clap of thunder that sounded as if the very sky above them was being ripped
from end to end. The air was filled with a sulfurous stench. The horses whinnied and tossed their heads nervously. The men
sank down on the blanket with the saddles to their backs and the women between them. Cooper produced another blanket and an
oilskin that he spread over them. He pulled Lorna’s back to his chest and wrapped his arms around her.

A torrent of rain struck in a driving sheet. They were sheltered from the mighty blast, but sprayed by the rain sliding off
the overhang. Cooper pulled the oilskin up until only their heads were above it, and Griffin did the same on his side. A flash
of lightning revealed low, massive thunderheads above the mesa’s black rim.

“Are you afraid of storms, Lorna?” Cooper’s lips were close to her ear.

A quiver of pure pleasure went through her at the way he spoke her name. She had never felt so wildly happy in her life. It
wasn’t from fear of the storm that she trembled.

“No. I love storms.” She turned her head and whispered against his cheek. “Cooper?” She could feel his breath on her face
and smell its faint tobacco scent. “Will you think I’m crazy if I say that storms are exciting?”

“Is that why you’re trembling?” His voice was a soft purr in her ear, and she felt the vibrations when he chuckled. Being
so close to him caused her heart to thunder and little shivers to run down her back.

“You know it isn’t.” She giggled and brought her hand out from beneath the blanket to push the hair back from her eyes. Turning
her head, she burrowed her face in his neck. The arm around her tightened and she snuggled contentedly against his wide chest.

“You’re shameful.” The voice in her ear was lazily teasing, but underneath there was a hint of gentle possessiveness.

“So are you for thinking it.”

She both felt and heard his chuckle. She couldn’t stop the happy laughter that brimmed up in her throat. It was all so new,
this wonderful intimacy; being free to tease him, touch him. She caught his hands with hers and pressed them up under her
breast. She was alive, soaring, her entire existence focused on him and exulting in being held close in his arms. She filled
her lungs with the scent of him.
Oh, blessed storm, please go on forever!

Wrapped in her own special enchantment, Bonnie was scarcely aware of anything except the man who had turned his back to the
wind and the rain and put his arms around her, sheltering her. Rain was sliding off the overhang in a solid sheet. She reached
around Griffin to make sure his back was covered with the oilskin and pulled it up to shield the back of his head.

“Am I hurtin’ your shoulder?”

“No.” Griffin was silent after the one croaked word. He wanted to say something, wanted to tell her the feel of her small,
warm body so close to his was like no other feeling he’d ever had.
Bonnie, Bonnie!
It was hard for him to believe he was here with her, and that she was worried his back was wet or that she was hurting him.
This sweet, gentle, child-woman, so like a little lost rabbit, was in his arms, pressed against his heart—where she belonged.
The realization brought a gentling smile to his hard mouth.

The hand behind his back tugged at the oilskin to make sure he was protected from the rain, and the stump of her handless
arm burrowed into the folds of her dress. She was always careful to keep the sleeve of her dress down over it, to keep it
out of sight. Poor little girl, he thought. She’d had a hard old row to hoe, but she’d not put up with that fellow, Brice,
anymore. He would make sure of that. Griffin felt a tremor go through her and his arm automatically moved to draw her closer
into the hollow beneath his arm.

“Are you cold?” he murmured.

Bonnie shook her head. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. She wasn’t conscious of the hard ground, nor the soreness between
her legs, nor her cramped position. She was aware only of the man with the boyish face and seeking eyes, his arms, the pull
of his whiskers on her hair, his breath on her face. Was that his heart or hers thumping so determinedly between them? She
closed her eyes, suffused with joy and wonderment, experiencing a strange sense of peace. He held her gently but securely,
holding the storm at bay with his wiry body. She wanted to record in her memory this wonderful feeling so she could bring
it out and relive it again and again during the bleak days ahead without Lorna’s companionship. She thought longingly of spending
every day of her life with him, making a home for him, having him with her during the long, lonely nighttime hours—

Bonnie was jarred from her trance when she felt Griffin’s hand on her shoulder begin to slide down her arm. Her heart clenched.
She made a small, urgent grunt of protest when it reached her forearm. She tried to pull it away. His fingers tightened and
then worked their way into the folds of her dress, then into her sleeve and closed around the end of her arm. He held it gently
but firmly until she stopped struggling, and then his rough fingers began to lightly caress her. Bonnie thought her heart
would stop beating. A lump rose in her throat too large to swallow. Tears spurted and flooded her eyes. She turned her face
into the warm skin of his neck.

“Shh… shh…” She barely heard the sound that was murmured in her ear, but she definitely felt the lips that lingered there.
It was a moment she would remember forever.

Almost as suddenly as it had come, the rain ceased. The dark clouds rolled on as if chased by their enemy, the sun. It was
as though nature were showing off for the group beneath the overhang. Even as they stood and stretched, blue sky appeared
and a rainbow, vivid and magnificent, arched the sky. The sun reappeared with all its intensity, making the green of the washed
foliage, the red of the huge bluffs and the white of the snow-capped mountains beyond vivid.

Bonnie stood on weakened legs, keeping her eyes averted from Griffin, but knowing that now there was an awareness between
them that hadn’t been there before. She felt light and almost giddy with happiness. He had touched her arm, had held it. It
didn’t seem to be a thing of shame to him. He wasn’t repulsed by it! But then, she cautioned herself, he’d only touched it.
He hadn’t looked at it and he hadn’t seen how she used it, pushing and nudging, and carrying a pail of water in the crook
of her arm. A little of the joy left her when she thought of Brice saying it made him sick to see it, and she glanced quickly
to be sure her sleeve was down.

Lorna called to Gray Wolf and he came galloping up the trail, kicking and frolicking; his spirits high. Her laugh rang out
into the freshly washed air as she watched him. Cooper saw her run to the big horse and lovingly pat his face, hang onto his
neck, and murmur into ears that stood straight as he listened, and then twitched, as if he understood every word she said.
Cooper lifted her saddle and flung it on the gray’s back. His big eyes rolled and the skittish horse would have danced away
if not for Lorna’s hand in his mane.

“You’re going to have to learn to trust him,” she whispered in his ear. “He’s my mate.” She turned to Cooper with a bright
smile of thanks and pulled the girth strap beneath Gray Wolf’s belly and cinched it up. She slipped the bridle over his head
and the horse took the bit easily, as if eager to go.

When they were mounted, Cooper led out, leading the mare. The trail went upward and was difficult to follow, but there simply
appeared to be no other way to go except straight ahead. The trees around them were mostly Rocky Mountain nut pine and scrub
oak. Occasionally when they rode out onto a bare shelf they could see the peaks and ridges of the timberline, and above that
the white streaks of snow on the rocky mountain peaks.

Cooper led the party onward and upward, over rugged rock and along deep cuts until he came to an arroyo with brush-covered
sides. A swift stream flowed over smooth rock and they rode alongside it to where it cascaded down from the sides of sheer
gray cliffs. Past the waterfall they came out onto a high plateau. The air was thin and cool. Cooper set an easy pace. He
calculated how far they had to go and how long it would be before they reached the narrow pass through the mountains. He took
a sack of tobacco from his pocket and began to build a smoke. It was then that he saw the Indians.

There were four of them and they came like ghosts out of the shadowed trees, riding single file. Each Indian was starkly outlined
against the sky as he made his way downward toward the trail. The dark, alert eyes swung toward Lorna’s group even as the
rifle leaped into Cooper’s hands. The Indians wheeled and raced back into the thick stand of fur trees.

Cooper gave a sharp command to the others and spurred his horse to race for cover among the boulders on the down side of the
trail. He jumped from the saddle as the others joined him.

“Don’t shoot,” Lorna said sharply, forgetting her resolve to not interfere with Cooper’s leadership. She slid from Gray Wolf’s
back and came to peer over the boulder. “I got only a glimpse of them, but they could be Arapaho. If so, they may be friends
of White Bull.”

“And they may
not
be. Arapaho.” Cooper cocked his rifle and glanced at her. “Keep your head down,” he hissed. “Since the massacre at Sand Creek
the chiefs don’t have much control over young braves who’re still out seeking revenge. Not that I blame them. I’d like to
get that bastard, Chivington, in my own gunsight.”