Wayward Wind (33 page)

She filled her lungs, lifted her face to the stars, and began to sing, her voice soaring true and clear as a bell out into
the dark, moonless night

“Beautiful dreamer, waken to me,

Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee.

Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day,

lulled by the moonlight have all passed away.”

The melody was ideally suited for Lornia’s high soprano voice and she sang the song with more power and sweetness than she
had since it was taught to her by the Irish muleskinner who was gifted with a beautiful tenor voice as well as a talent with
the bullwhip. Regardless of how she justified it in her own mind, she was singing for Cooper and she felt strangely exultant.
The chill, sweet airs of early autumn blew down the valley toward the ranch house carrying her song.

On the porch, where he sat with Griffin and Arnie, Cooper rose up from where he lounged, his back resting against the porch
post. The sound of her voice cut him off in midsentence, clearing all thoughts of what he’d been saying from his head and
setting his heart to bucking in his chest. The little devil! Of all the crazy, stupid, things to do! If there was a woman-starved
drifter or outlaw within the sound of her voice he’d be looking for her. He’d like to shake some sense in her! No. Right now,
at this moment, if he could get his hands on her he’d… wring her neck!

“Gawd! What the hell is that?” Arnie said in a low hushed voice.

“Miss Lorna,” Griffin said simply, almost reverently.

In the kitchen where Sylvia and Bonnie were doing the dishes, Sylvia was wiping out the dishpan. The clear, sweet melody reached
her as if it were floating on the wind.

“Mercy!” she exclaimed. “What in the world?” She dropped, the cloth and hurried to the porch. The voice coming out of the
night was so hauntingly beautiful it was frightening. She went to Arnie and put her hand on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm
about her thighs and pulled her close against the side of his chair.

“She’s still here!” Bonnie murmured and followed Sylvia to the porch. “I ain’t never heared anythin’ prettier than Lorna singin’,”
she announced proudly.

“I’ve never heard anything like it in all my life,” Sylvia murmured. “Cooper—” She looked around. “Where’s Cooper?”

“He ain’t here, ma’am,” Griffin replied, and tugged on Bonnie’s hand so she would sit down beside him. He didn’t add that
Cooper had bolted around the corner of the house seconds after they heard Lorna’s voice.

“I begged her to come to the house, Griff. But she wouldn’t. Are ya mad ’cause I didn’t tell ya?” Bonnie sat down on the edge
of the porch. He reached for her arm and pulled her close to him.

“’Course not.”

In the bunkhouse, Volney lay in his bunk. The voice coming out of the night was more than mere music to his ears. His heart
began to thump strongly and the dull, hopeless feeling that had dogged him since he awoke one morning to discover he couldn’t
lift his arm and his good leg was almost useless faded away. He felt as if new life were being pumped into his tired old body.

“Wal, I’ll be hornswoggled!” he exclaimed, and began to laugh, a cackling sound, and slap his thigh with his hand.

“What’s that I’m ahearin’?” Louis asked, pulling up his suspenders and heading for the door.

“Why, it’s my little gal is what. Ain’t a bird in the world that can outsing my Lorna I knowed she’d come alookin’ fer me.
I knowed she’d reckon I was here.”

Out on the gentle slope of the hill, wrapped in the soft darkness of the night, Lorna finished the song. She listened intently
for the sound of a hoof on the sod, the faint squeak of a gate or creak of saddle leather. A velvety silence followed. She
closed her eyes and took a long shaky breath.
It was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

Suddenly she hated the silence and wanted to fill it with song. The spirit of sheer, reckless devilment laid a grip on her.
Once more, she told herself. She’d sing for Volney. She’d sing his favorite and he’d know she was thinking of him.

“O Shenandoah, I love your daughter.

Away, you rolling river,

For her I’ve crossed the rolling water. Away,

we’re bound away,

Across the wide Missouri.”

After each verse, Lorna paused for a few seconds to listen. Then, hearing nothing, she would continue. Her singing, like a
high, wailing wind, reflected the loneliness that possessed her; her voice rose to the heavens, soared down the valley in
a great tumult of pure sound. It seemed to fill the star-studded sky.

“O Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you,

Away, you rolling river,

Oh Shenandoah, I’ll not de—yeeow!”

The scream of fright came tearing out of her as she was jerked from the saddle by a rough hand that grasped her arm.

“Wolf! Wolf! Hiya! Hiya!” she screamed, and jerked her knife from the scabbard. The stallion pivoted on his hind legs, his
teeth bared, his front hooves ready to strike.

“Call him off, damn you!” Cooper snarled. “Call him off or I’ll shoot him right between the eyes!” His arm was like an iron
band around her waist. He plucked the knife from her hand even as she was turning to use it.

Her concern for her horse calmed her. “Whoa, whoa, Gray Wolf… it’s all right.” She spoke in a normal tone to the big horse
and in the same tone to Cooper. “Let go of me, you mule’s ass. He’ll charge you if I tell him to.”

“If he does, I’ll shoot him.”

“He’ll not back off till you let go of me.” She was careful to speak calmly. The horse tossed his head, one front hoof pawed
the ground, and he squealed with rage.

Cooper grasped her hand and let her stand away from him. With her free hand she stroked the stallion’s nose with her fingertips
and uttered soft, unintelligible sounds in her throat. Cooper wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told him about it,
but he was seeing with his own eyes a stallion, ready to lash out with its deadly hooves, calm down and stand quietly under
the fingers of this small woman.

“I’m surprised he let you sneak up on me,” she said.

“I came downwind.”

She turned to look at him. He was hatless and breathing hard. “I guess I was closer to the house than I thought I was.”

“A good quarter of a mile. I’ve not run so far in a long while.”

“You can run right back. I’m going home.”

His grip on her hand tightened. “Not tonight. You’re coming back to the house with me.”

“I’m doing no such damn thing! Get your hands off me, you… stinking polecat. You’ve no claim on me!” Even in the darkness
he could see the angry lights in her blue-violet eyes. She pulled on her hand, but he refused to let it go.

“I might have.”

“You don’t! I bled the week after you left,” she said spitefully, and moved as far from him as his hold would allow. “There’s
nothing of ours growing in me so there’ll be no reason for you to be sneaking around on Light’s Mountain.”

“That’s a load off my mind!”

His words cut into Lorna like the sharp edge of a knife. Pride kept the tears at bay and allowed her to snap, “Mine, too!”
The grip of his fingers was numbing hers. She pulled on her hand again. “I’ve been… looking for Volney. Bonnie says he’s
here and he’s all right.”

“He’s
not
all right.”

“Bonnie said he was healing.”

“Maybe. But he’s not himself. I think he’s had it in the back of his mind that you’d come here. You’ll see him in the morning.”

“I’ll not be here in the morning. I’ll be on my way to Light’s Mountain by morning.”

Cooper grabbed the stallion’s reins from her hand and worked on her other one. “Come on,” he gritted. “We’ll put this
beast
of yours in a stall, then I’ll take you to see Volney. After that I just may find a strap and beat your butt.”

With long, determined strides, he started for the ranch house. Lorna resisted and continued to resist even as she was being
dragged along. Finally realizing the futility of pitting her strength against his she relented, but she had to run to keep
up with him.

“Cooper, I don’t want to go down there. No! Please… please don’t make me—”

“Shut up and come on!”

She set her heels into the ground and tried to dig in. He almost toppled her over as he yanked her along.

“I’ll—see Volney,” she said and a sob broke her voice. “That’s what I came for. I was worried about him.”

“Then why didn’t you ride in to see him? Or was there another reason for this night visit?”

“What other reason is there? It certainly wasn’t to see
you.
”

“I’m sure it wasn’t to
see
me, only drive me out of my mind. You’ve got yourself in a fix this time, haven’t you, Miss Spitfire? You’ve got no sense
at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean! But neither me nor Griff has got the time right now to go up there and finish what you’ve started.
I told you I’d take care of that in my own good time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t stop to think at all, Lorna. You just act as the notion hits you.”

“I want to go home, Cooper.”

“You
are
going home!”

“No! I want to go home to Light’s Mountain.” She began to cry, silently and hopelessly, as she stumbled along beside him.

They reached the gate. It was difficult for Cooper to open it with one hand, but he managed. He pulled Lorna through and the
stallion followed. Gray Wolf’s mind was now on the two mares inside the poled corral. He neighed shrilly and danced at the
end of his reins. It was all Cooper could do to handle him and retain his hold on Lorna. Griffin materialized out of the darkness
when they reached the barn.

“Do ya have a stall that’ll hold him?” he asked as if it were an everyday occurrence for Cooper to come dragging a girl by
one hand and holding a wildly agitated stallion who had mating on his mind with the other.

“The stall opposite Roscoe’s will do it.” Cooper spoke jerkily, his breath coming in gasps.

Lorna pulled on her hand, then in a sudden frenzy she saw the walls closing around her. She lashed out with her moccasined
feet to kick at his shins.

“Stop that!” Cooper snarled and almost jerked her off her feet.

Lorna emitted a shrill whistle and the stallion whirled, ready to attack.

Cooper pushed Lorna at Griffin. “Hold her while I take care of this sonofabitch. Don’t let her get away from you. She’s slicker
than a greased pig, and by God, I’m tired of chasing her.”

Griffin’s arms circled her waist and he held her tightly against him while Cooper wrestled the stallion into the stall.

“Let me go, Griff. Please—”

“I can’t, Miss Lorna. Ya hadn’t ort to be out there by yoreself. It ain’t a bit safe for ya.”

Cooper dropped the heavy bar, closing Gray Wolf in. He grabbed Lorna’s hand once again as if not trusting Griffin to hold
her.

“Are you going to unsaddle him?” Eight hundred pounds of angry horseflesh crashed against the heavy timbers and shook the
barn.

“No! I’m not unsaddling him. I told you, I’m going as soon as I’ve talked to Volney.”

“Stubborn to the last, huh, Lorna?”

“Griffin—” Lorna turned to where the young man had been standing, but he was gone.

“Griff won’t help you. He knows you’ve got no business out there by yourself. If Fulton doesn’t find you a bunch of woman-hungry
prospectors will. They’ll be after you like a pack of mangy wolves after a female in heat.”

“You’re vulgar!”

“This isn’t Light’s Mountain. You’re lucky you got this far. And you’re stupid if you think they couldn’t corner you.”

“They’d be no worse than you!”

“You think not?” He snatched the worn felt hat from her head and the rope of blue-black hair fell down her back. “You’d not
like
what
they’d
do to you!” He heard her quick intake of breath and instantly regretted the words. “What you need is a strong hand to keep
you in line, Lorna, the same as that stallion of yours.”

“It won’t be
your
hand that does it,” she spat, and tilted her chin defiantly.

“Don’t be too sure about that. Come on. Volney’s not deaf. He knows you’re out here.”

She walked along beside him as they left the barn and went along the building to the bunkhouse door.

“Louis,” Cooper called. “Light the lamp and you and Sam skedaddle for awhile. Volney’s got company.”

“While they waited outside the door, Lorna wiped the tears from her face with the sleeve of her blanket coat and kept her
head turned away when the two men came out the door. Cooper pushed her into the bunkhouse ahead of him. The lamplight reached
into the four corners of the square room. She saw Volney’s matted, gray head lift up off the pillow so he could see her. Feeling
herself freed from Cooper’s shackling hand, she went to him.

“Oh, Volney! You old buzzard! I thought sure you were dead!”

“Wal, I ain’t. So ya can put that in yore pipe ’n smoke it.”

His voice was weak, but the old waspishness was still there. Lorna did her best to hide her alarm when she looked at him.
His eyes were overly bright and there were two red spots high up on his cheekbones. She felt a stab of fear. In all her life
she’d never seen Volney flat on his back. She glanced over her shoulder. Cooper stood watching them, his shoulder planted
against the wall. The look he gave her let her know he had no intention of leaving them alone. She squatted down beside the
cot.

“Did Brice do this to you, Volney?”

“I ain’t ever answered to ya afore ’n I ain’t adoin’ it now. What took ya so long to get here?”

“I went to the shack on the Thompson—”

“I’d a gone there if I’d a knowed you’d already met up with Parnell.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“Ya was aneedin’ a place fer Bonnie, wasn’t ya?”

“If this was the place you had in mind why didn’t we come here in the first place?”

“How’d I know his ma’d take her in?” He snorted in disgust and leaned over to spit in the can beside the cot.

“I want to take you home to Light’s Mountain. Can you sit a horse?”