Wayward Wind (3 page)

“Howdy, little purty gal.”

“Move back. The smell of you is enough to make me puke.”

He continued to grin at her, reaching out his hand and placing it on her thigh. His eyes were small and watery and his face
dried and wrinkled beneath a stubble of whiskers. He made her skin crawl.

“If’n it’s work yore awantin’, I got me a itch ya can work on.”

Lorna lifted her brows so that her eyes were wide and innocent. “Take your hands off me or I’ll poke my knife in you.” To
give emphasis to her words she knicked his skin with the sharp tip of the knife she palmed. The sudden pain startled him and
he jerked his hand, cutting his wrist even more. The knife that had slid down her sleeve was evident now, so she held it in
front of her.

“Why’n hell did ya pull a stunt like that for?” Hollis looked at the blood dripping on his thigh and jerked the handkerchief
from around his neck to wrap his wrist.

“The next time you lay a hand on me I’ll cut the damn thing off!” She spoke quietly, with deadly intent.

“Yore pa needs to take a strap to yore butt!”

“Is that right?” Lorna looked past him and saw her father coming toward them. “Why don’t you tell him?”

When Frank rode up Lorna knew every suspicion she’d had about his recent activities was true. His face was flushed and his
eyes were fastened on her.

“What ye be doin’ here, lass?” he growled.

“I came to help you steal old man Prichard’s cows,” she said lightly, her never still brain following another thought. Her
father was weak, easily led. “It makes no never mind to me that the old man is barely scratching out a living for a houseful
of kids, or that he’s depending on these cows to see him through the winter. They were easy pickings, weren’t they, Frank?
What we ought to do is take these lazy, worthless friends of yours and go steal us a really big herd.”

“Ye dinna know what ye’re asayin’.”

“The hell I don’t!” Lorna shouted to keep from crying. Disappointment in her father caused her temper to explode suddenly
and violently. “Do you think I don’t know about these little cattle stealing trips of yours? Didn’t you think I’d wonder where
you were going to get the cash money to get into the hauling business? Did you have anything to do with that nester who was
shot between the eyes a few weeks back? He left five children and no wife to take care of them. I know a hell of a lot more
about what goes on in these mountains than you think I do, Frank.”

“Shut yer mouth!”

“I won’t shut my mouth! You and these men are thieves, rustlers. Stealing a dozen steers is just as bad as stealing a hundred.
It’s the truth, and if the truth hurts, you live with it, or have you sunk so low you’ve not got any conscience left at all?”

Frank’s eyes widened and for a moment he was speechless in the face of his daughter’s blazing defiance. Her contempt washed
over him in a chilling torrent. He went red with rage and the need to salvage his pride.

“Damn ye fer a sassy split-tail!” His words came out in a hoarse shout. “I dinna mean to hae ye treat me like dirt!” His Scottish
accent was never more pronounced than when he was angry. His arm swung out in a looping blow that would have knocked her out
of the saddle, had it landed. Lorna swung back, her reaction purely instinctive despite her surprise. Frank had never lifted
a hand to her before.

The momentum of the swing had pulled Frank half out of the saddle. He was off balance and striving to right himself when Lorna
dug her heels into the sides of her mount and the big gray’s powerful haunches propelled it forward, straight into Frank’s
floundering mount, knocking it to its knees.

“I’ll get ’er, Frank!” Hollis yelled. “Head ’er off, dammit!”

Lying flat along the neck of her plunging horse, she passed Eli and Luke sitting their horses and knew she had only Hollis
to contend with. She heard Frank’s strangled bellow and then she was into the trees. She gave all her attention to the trail
which was boulder strewn and at times half blocked by brush and deadfalls. But she’d had a lifetime of riding such trails—taught
by the best, White Bull’s people. Over the years she had developed a faultless sense of timing and a judgment of distances
that made her handling of her wildly running mount wholly automatic. In a race on open ground, she was a formidable opponent,
but over terrain such as this she had no match.

Within a short time she knew she had outdistanced her pursuer. Knowing herself safe she eased the stallion down from its straining
run and shortly drew up to let the horse regain its wind. After a while she made her way leisurely along a route that would
bring her out to the place she called home.

Now that she had time to think, her mind digested what she had learned. Her heart was heavy with disappointment and grief.
Frank didn’t have the love for the mountains that she did. For as long as she could remember his dream had been to leave them.
And to get money to do that he would steal!

Now that she thought about it, her father had never been a companion, or teacher, or friend, but she loved him and knew he
loved her. Since she had grown up their entire relationship had been one of mutual avoidance. They lived in the same house,
but each went his own way. She cooked for him and washed his clothes, but days passed without their saying more than a few
words to each other. It had been that way while her grandmother lived and continued after she was gone. But until lately she’d
never thought of him as being… dishonorable.

It was strange, she mused, but she knew Volney, Moose and Woody better than she knew her own father. They fit in these mountains,
like she did. Her father just never… fit.

She passed the boarded-up shack where Moose and Woody lived during the winter. The two old prospectors had been in the mountains
for as long as she could remember. In the spring they loaded their burros and trekked off over the mountain panning a little
gold from the mountain streams, always looking for their gold strike. In the fall they came back to winter on Light’s Mountain.
Lorna wished they were here now. It would be a comfort to sit and visit with her old friends.

The homestead and the mountains were Lorna’s entire life. It was unbearable to think of living any other place. Her roots
were here in the place where Light and Maggie had built their home. She was a Lightbody. Not for one minute did she think
of herself as a Douglas. The homestead was hers by the right of her birth, and here she’d stay.

But what to do now that she had seen the evidence of her own father’s thievery? Somehow she wished she hadn’t ridden into
that valley and had the truth thrown in her face.
A person’s got to face whatever comes.
This thought came forward out of the chaos of her mind, and she took a deep, quivering breath and turned her attention toward
getting home.

Lorna rode slowly down the path to the house. She felt a spurt of pleasure, as she did on each homecoming. The trail led off
the mesa and into the coolness of a pine forest. A rocky stream, edged with cottonwoods, willows, and sycamore trees cut through
the clearing beside the house that was built strong and true, blending perfectly with the mountains and trees from which it
had sprung. The logs were thick and heavy, and fitted snugly together. The timbers were weathered and the stonework of the
massive chimneys was smoke stained. The house seemed not only to belong there but as if it could be depended upon to be there
forever. Lorna blinked back the sudden moisture that filled her eyes. This was all she had ever known or wanted.

She rode into the house yard and was greeted by her dogs, Ruth and Naomi, with yips and whines of pleasure. Why did some men
spend a lifetime grabbing for things that weren’t really important, she thought, when all they needed was right there?

Evening came and with it the dread of the confrontation with Frank that she knew was coming. Not that she was afraid of him.
She was well able to protect herself and he knew it. They were at a crossroads, she and her father, and it was unsettling
to her to not know what the future held.

Lorna lit a lamp. She found herself wandering about the house, touching familiar things. Her hand rested on the back of the
rocker Grandpa had made for Grandma Marthy. Granny had sat in the chair on cold winter nights and told her about the trek
Light and Maggie had made from the Missouri Territory to the Colorado mountains. Her fingers trailed across the humpbacked
trunk that held the small, patched moccasins Maggie had worn and the hair necklace she had woven from her shiny black hair.
She’d made a wristband out of her hair for Light, and he had worn it, protected by a soft doeskin band, every day of his life.
Thinking about it now, Lorna decided that someday she would make a wristband out of her hair for her man. He would love and
cherish it every bit as much as Grandpa Light had loved and cherished the one his beloved had made for him.

The quilt Granny had pieced was on her bed; the rag carpet her mother had helped to make was on the floor of her room. She
slept in the bed Light had made from an oak tree he had felled when he built the small one-room cabin that had sheltered him
and Maggie the first winter. Her grandfather had been born in that room, as had her mother. Three more rooms had been added
as the years went by, and now the house was large and comfortable.

An hour passed and then another while Lorna kept her dark thoughts at bay by remembering the tales her grandmother had told
her about Light and Maggie: how Light had killed a crazed mountain man to keep him from blowing up a cabin and killing an
entire family, and how he had killed his best friend’s brother who had forced himself on Maggie.

Darkness came and still Frank hadn’t returned. Lorna blew out the lamp and went to bed to lie staring into the darkness, her
mind filled with troubled thoughts about Frank, about Bonnie, and about the sudden loneliness of her life.

The dogs hadn’t made a sound so she knew the instant she heard the rapping on her window that it was Volney. The insistent
rapping also told her that the old mountain man knew Frank hadn’t returned and that she was alone.
What was Volney doing there in the middle of the night?
A spasm of alarm shot through her.

“Don’t break the window, Volney,” she called. “I’ll meet you out front.” She jumped out of bed, and holding up her long white
nightdress, went quickly through the house to the porch. Volney came around the corner of the house. “What is it? What’s happened?
How’d you know Pa wasn’t here?”

“Whoa, now. I knowed Frank wasn’t here ’cause he’s down at Brice’s. I got Bonnie hid up in the hills. They all been out ahuntin’
’er.”

Lorna emitted a groan. “What did he do? Did he hurt her?”

“He done a fair job. She dragged ’erself down to the creek ’n keeled over. If’n he gets ’er, the bastard’ll kill ’er shore
as shootin’. He’s mad as hops at you ’n her ’cause Billy backed down on some deal they was in.”

“Damn, damn him! Damn the trash that’s come in to ruin these mountains! What’ll we do, Volney?”

“He’s got ever’thin’ on two legs out alookin’ fer Bonnie. I seed varmints like him afore. They got to have ’em somethin’ to
kick ’round. They ain’t been here yet, ’cause Frank says she ain’t here. Yore pa ain’t wantin’ to bring no trouble down on
ya.”

“I wish Moose and Woody were here. They’d know where to hide her.”

“Wal, they ain’t,” Volney snorted. “If’n somethin’s done we got to do it. ’Sides, what’s them ole farts know of anythin’ but
lookin’ fer a pot a gold?”

“You just don’t like them, Volney.”

“Like ’em?” Volney echoed disgustedly. “Why, hell no! I ain’t got no use fer clabberheads lollygaggin’ ’round alookin’ fer
somethin’ they’d not know what to do with if’n they found it!”

“We don’t have time to argue about Moose and Woody. We’ve got to think of Bonnie. Bring her here. Brice won’t dare try and
take her from me. I’ll send a message to White Bull and—”

“No, missy. Ya ain’t gonna be no cause a no Injun trouble. I got me a place to take her to, a place I found while ahuntin’
some cats. It’s north and west a here… t’other side of the mountain.” He paused. “It’s a far piece.”

“I’ll help you. Wait till I get dressed.” She turned to dart into the house.

“Hold on, missy,” Volney called impatiently. “Pack up salve, some fixin’s ’n a grub bag. The little gal’s ahurtin’ right smart.
I’ll fix us up a travois to drag ’er on. Looks like it’ll rain afore mornin’. If’n it does, it’ll wash out the tracks.” He
stepped off the porch, then turned back. “Ya know, missy, ya could a gone tail-over-teakettle agoin’ down the side a that
steep ridge like ya done today. Ya tryin’ to kill that horse?”

“Oh, don’t fuss at me now, Volney. You say Bonnie’s hurt bad? Do you think the baby will come?”

“That’s up to the good Lord, youngun.” His voice gentled. “It purdee is. Now get a move on. We got us a far piece to go.”

Lorna turned and hurried into the house wishing her father had half the grit of old Volney Burbank.

Several weeks later, fifty miles southwest of Light’s Mountain, a man lying in his bedroll carefully lifted himself up to
lean on one elbow, his ears reaching for the sound that had awakened him. His eyes flared wide and he stared into the darkness.
He heard the muffled thud of hooves on the trail below the grassed bench where he had spread his blankets for the night. The
sound was not made by one horse alone, but several. He felt for the gun in his holster and the knife in his boot to reassure
himself that they were there, and reached for the rifle that leaned against his saddle. A short snort came from his own horse
tied nearby, and he jumped to his feet, hissed a command for silence and placed his hand over the stallion’s quivering nostrils.

“Quiet, boy. Quiet.”

The riders coming down the trail were too noisy to be Indians and too quiet to be cowhands going home after a rowdy night
of drinking. Their very stillness heightened his suspicion that there was a sinister reason for them to be on the trail at
midnight. He maneuvered himself silently and cautiously through the dry grass to the edge of the overhang. He was a big, lean,
wide-shouldered man who knew careful scrutiny and patience were essential in this country if you wanted to live. He eased
his long length to the ground and flattened himself. His narrowed eyes focused on the trail below. Lying perfectly still,
he listened and watched the shadowy figures approach.