Wayward Wind (26 page)

“No,” she contradicated again. “If I was a
man
you’d not have the guts to face me.”

It clearly required all Brice’s self-restraint to refrain from leaping from his horse and knocking her down. His face turned
crimson and his mouth worked as he spat out silent oaths. He took his frustration out on his luckless horse and jerked on
the reins, causing the animal to rear and spin on its hind legs, stirring up a cloud of dust. He dropped his hat and cursed
loudly. Excited by the commotion, the dogs came bounding out from under the porch, leaping and frolicking and yipping happily.
Ruth grabbed Brice’s hat between her huge jaws and shook it playfully.

Without warning, Brice pulled his horse around in a smooth pivot. In the same instant his right hand lifted as swiftly as
a striking snake, the gun in it glinting dully. The crashing report of the two shots fired from the heavy Navy pistol echoed
back and forth through the hills before falling finally into a complete silence.

A look of pure shock settled over Lorna’s face as she stared wordlessly down at Ruth and Naomi. Ruth’s wiry body had toppled
and lay still; she had been shot through the head. Naomi, making pitiful whining sounds, blood pouring from her lower body,
crawled on her belly, trying to reach her dead sister.

Brice shoved the gun back into its holster and got off the horse to retrieve his hat. “That’s a start,” he said in a tight,
thin voice.

“That’s a mistake,” Lorna said flatly.

Moving slowly but decisively, Lorna stepped out into the yard, the uncoiled whip dragging through the dust behind her. She
faced him squarely. With the ease of long practice she willed herself to keep loose and to not allow her temper to force her
to make a foolish move.

“I done told ya—”

“I owed you for what you did to Bonnie, and now for Ruth and Naomi.” The words were spoken as casually as if she were speaking
about the weather.

His eyes dropped to the whip. “Ya get a thought of usin’ that whip on me ’n I’ll treat ya like I’d treat a man.”

“Don’t you mean like you’d treat a woman?” she drawled with heavy sarcasm, and lifted her straight black brows in a way that
infuriated him even more.

Brice had scarcely time to blink his eyes before she acted. She took a step back and cast the fourteen foot strip of leather
with a flick of her wrist. The tip of the bullwhip caught him on the chest. He let out a yelp and backed up rapidly. The reins
slipped from his hand and the horse shied away.

“Ya… bitch!” His voice was a strangled scream.

“Mule’s ass! Filthy hog! Son of a mangy… polecat! I’ll take your flea-bitten hide off, inch by inch!” she shouted. Half-mad
with fury now, she crouched; feet spread and firmly planted, her small, slim body poised for action. She watched his every
move with eyes made brilliant by her anger.

Brice realized the danger confronting him. She was like a small, striking rattlesnake. He grabbed for his gun, but he was
a second late. The end of the lash bit into his wrist and the gun flew but of his hand. For an instant he stared at the gash
cut to the bone, unable to believe that she would dare to do this. When he regained his senses, he lunged toward her.

Lorna understood what he intended to do—get close, which was the only defense against a bullwhip. She backed away. A good
whipcracker had to strike with the tip only for maximum damage. As soon as it wrapped around a man’s arm or body, the whip
could then be seized and taken away.

A muleskinner had spent a winter on Light’s Mountain recovering from a near scalping. He had taught Lorna to handle the whip,
and being one who had to furnish her own amusement she had spent many hours practicing with it, as she had with the knife,
until she could balance a potato on a stump and cut it in half.

Lorna shagged the whip backward.

“Ya gawddammed slut!” Brice lunged forward again, his face white with rage. “Ya shit eatin’— Yeeow!”

This time she caught him on the hairline. Hair and blood flew and he staggered backward, bellowing his rage, blood streaming
down his face from where the forked tip had taken away the skin. She snapped the whip again, catching him across the shoulders.
He yelped and spun around. She ripped open the seat of his trousers, drawing a bloody line across his bared buttocks. He let
out a helpless bleat of rage and tried to run. She hooked him around the ankle, tripping him, and stripped him twice across
the back as he scrambled to his feet and flailed his hands to catch the whip, but he might as well have been trying to snare
a striking snake.

She was careful not to use too much force. With the fourteen foot whip she could easily break his leg and she didn’t want
to do that—just yet. And she used care not to let the whip end wrap more than twice because she had to free it before he could
grab it.

“Ach, lassie! Have ye lost yer mind?”

Lorna was vaguely aware that her father had come running into the yard and was calling to her. She paid him no mind and went
after Brice with a vengeance, remembering the whip and burn marks on Bonnie’s body, and the dogs lying dead in the yard, and
the possibility he had injured an old man. Each time he tried to break away and run, she tripped him. And as he struggled
to get to his feet she lashed his back, buttocks and thighs, now wet with blood.

He could hear the sibilant rush of the whip as it came down across his back like a white flame, and yelled under its searing
pain. He was like a wild man, raging and frothing at the mouth, his eyes glazed. She laid the whip on him until she had cut
the shirt off his back and his trousers sagged down around his ankles. Each time he reached for them she lashed his buttocks
until they were enveloped in a sheet of white hot agony that brought his voice tearing up from deep inside him.

“This is for Bonnie,” Lorna yelled. A wildness filled her and she opened a deep gash on his cheek. “This one’s for Ruth, who
only wanted to play.” The whip snaked out and took the upper part of his ear. Bellowing like a wounded bear, Brice clamped
his hand to the side of his head. “This is for Naomi,” she shouted and laid the bloody tip of the whip across his bare belly.
“And this is for Volney.” Anger gave strength to her arm. The breathy hiss of the whip sliced through the air again. The tip
struck precisely where she intended it to strike, and flicked the hair from his lower belly.

With a sharp scream, Brice bent double, hands clasped over his dangling private parts, sure that they would be next. The pain
was almost unbearable; he lacked the power to stand and his legs gave way. He fell on his face in the dirt and lay there sobbing
like a baby.

Lorna went to him, coiling the whip as she walked. She looked down on the bloodied flesh and spat contemptuously.

“You deserve more than this, you mangy cur. Much more.” She hooked him beneath the chin with the toe of her moccasins, forcing
his head up. “You’re rotten, like a sore eating away at what’s decent on this mountain. We don’t need your kind here. Get
off Light’s Mountain! Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you, or White Bull will. And if he does it, you’ll be a long time dying!”
She spoke in a calm, unyielding voice.

Brice peered up through a curtain of pain. The figure standing over him was a she-devil from a horrible dream. A mass of tumbled
black hair framed a white face as hard as stone. Her red mouth sneered at him; violet eyes bored into him like a hot poker.
She was a witch that had set him on fire! He cringed. The movement sent rivulets of pain streaming all through him, and he
whimpered before this over-washing torture that threatened to fling him headlong into feared darkness.

Her exertions had left her shaken and drenched with sweat. Lorna turned to her father who stood beside the dogs, his face
slack with disbelief.

“Are they dead?” Her eyes held his, then dropped to the bloodied knife in his hand, and then to Naomi who lay in a pool of
blood.

“Aye. I could’na let her suffer.”

Lorna nodded numbly. In a backlash of emotion, her face suddenly crumbled, tears filling her eyes and streaming down her cheeks.

“They thought he was funning and wanted to… play—” Her voice was husky with tears and grief. She knelt down and patted the
still, warm bodies. “Bye, Naomi. Bye, Ruth. You were good dogs and minded when told to behave. I’m sorry I didn’t see what
he was up to till it was too late.”

A chill touched her and held her motionless. Intuitively, she knew when her enemy moved. She jerked erect and turned. Brice,
holding his britches up with one hand, had gotten to his feet and was staggering toward his horse.

“No!” she shouted, and sprang forward, striking the horse on the rump with the coiled whip. The squealing, frightened animal
bolted out of the yard. Without breaking stride and stumbling blindly, Brice turned and followed, cursing and sobbing with
pain.

“Ye’ve done it now, lass. ’Tis a fact Brice can’na take that ’n ever hold up his head again.”

“What other way was there for me? I didn’t want to kill him and I couldn’t let him go.” She tipped her head forward so he’d
not see the tears that again welled in her eyes. “I thought of killing him. I could’ve put my knife in his heart before he
reached his gun, but I’ve not killed a man, Pa.”

“Aye, lass. ’Twas my place to handle this.” He went to her and stood hesitantly, wanting to comfort her, but not knowing if
she could accept it. “’Tis sorry I be I let it come to this.”

Lorna reached for him and laid her head on his shoulder. It was so good to lean against his strength. “You didn’t know.”

Frank sighed. “He’ll hate ye fer this, lass. He’ll not make foot till he’s had his comeback.” He put his arms around her.
Where had the time gone? It was only yesterday she was a wee lassie. Now she was the size of Nora!
“I’ll kill the mon if he touches a hair on yer head,” he said with lusty gruffness. A chill touched him and he trembled at
the thought of the danger that lay ahead for her.

Lorna raised her head and looked at him. “Oh, Pa—what would I do without you?” She wrapped her arms about his thick waist
and hugged him hard. Her heart ached with a physical pain almost too hard to bear. The grief she’d held inside her burst out
like water through a broken dam. Her body convulsed and she began to sob great shuddering sobs.

Frank didn’t understand this daughter of his. One moment she had the nerve to face an armed man with a bullwhip, the next
she was crying like a child in his arms. He didn’t know what to say to her so he just held her and stroked the length of tangled
hair that flowed down her back.

Cooper rode away from Light’s Mountain so angry he was several miles away before he remembered to be cautious. He pulled his
blowing horse to a stop and then walked him to cool him off. Usually he traveled like an Indian, taking the longest route
if it was the easiest on his horse. This morning he had let his anger cloud his judgment and Roscoe had been the one to suffer
from it.

Cooper was puzzled by his own feelings of hurt and frustration, and dearly wished he could place the blame for his predicament
on Lorna, but knew the fault was his and his alone. He could have backed off at any time. Instead, he had allowed himself
to become more and more involved with her and finally the inevitable had happened. He could have no more turned down what
she offered than could a man turn down a drink of water when he was dying of thirst. He groaned aloud, remembering.

The sweet innocence of her giving was something he would cherish all his life. All the more reason why he’d not allow her
to bear his child alone—if there was a child. Even now, when he was so angry with her, he wanted nothing more than to hold
her, love her, and take care of her always. But she’d not twist him around her finger! he thought with a spurt of resentment.

“I’ll be double damned if she will!” he exclaimed aloud, and the sound of his own voice shocked him. Good God! She’d even
gotten him talking to himself!

He was sure he loved her, and in her own way she loved him. But to live a peaceful, happy lifetime together would take more
than love. It would take thoughtfulness, consideration and respect. He could not accept what she wanted him to do; give up
all that he’d worked for and take up another man’s leavings.

His thoughts veered. Hollis was a dangerous man. A stupid man who knew how to hate was always dangerous, and Cooper had seen
the hatred in Hollis’s eyes when he looked at Frank and later at Lorna. It was a hatred born from his humiliation. Would Frank
be able to handle him and protect his daughter? And what about the man, Brice? Hollis and Billy seemed to think he was the
big man on the mountain. Perhaps he shouldn’t have left Lorna there—but what else could he have done other than hog-tie her
and throw her over his saddle? Somehow he was certain Frank wouldn’t have stood for that. He’d seen the concern in his eyes
when he looked at her. There was love there, even if Lorna was unaware of it.

The sun rose behind him and swept the shadows from the broad land. Cooper saw the peak near the high mountain pass, many miles
away, turn to gold; the valley became green and still under the sun. He saw a buzzard soar, a covey of quail scutter beneath
the brush, a swarm of honey bees settle onto a patch of blue mountain flowers. A skunk waddled onto the trail and paused in
the sunlight. Cooper pulled Roscoe to a halt and waited for it to pass and wondered if it was sick because it was a nocturnal
animal not given to daytime wanderings. He heard the far off coo of a mourning dove and the lonely, plaintive call did nothing
to lift him out of his depression.

At the end of a short, steep strip of loose shale, he turned Roscoe and rode down the canyon toward the place where he had
left Griffin and Bonnie. He was eager to get them and get on home, yet strangely reluctant too.

He saw smoke from a fire, but it was thin smoke… the kind a cautious man like Griffin would allow to drift upward. Smoke
could be either a warning or an invitation, and in this country where you never knew if a man was friend or foe, smoke could
be an invitation to trouble.