Wayward Wind (36 page)

“Allas… thought I’d die by myself… Off in the woods… with nobody to know.” Volney spoke with his eyes shut. Both men were
surprised to hear him speak again and leaned forward to catch his words.” “’N buzzards’d pick… my bones clean.” His eyes,
glassy and wavering, opened and turned toward Cooper. “Ain’t bad… adyin’ in bed—”

“You’ll not be alone, old timer.” Cooper lifted Volney’s hand so he could see it clasped in both of his.

“She was… purtiest little thin’ ya ever saw. She’d come… arunnin’ to meet me—” His voice was a hoarse whisper, his face
gray, his eyes blank now. “Ne’er did have nobody… hug my neck till… she done it. Her hair… blacker in midnight… get all
tangled up… ’n she’d not let nobody touch hit or comb out the snarls… but me. Make me… purty, Volney. I want to be purty
… like mama. When I grow… I’m agoin’ to be like… you. I like you, Volney… I like you… better ’n anybody. Make me a… cotton-tail
powder puff… Did ya get… that ole cat ya was trackin’? Can I go with ya? Please, Volney.” The tired old man’s chuckle had
the sound of dry cornstalks rubbing together. “Ya behave yoreself, youngun. Mind yore mama, ’n… I’ll bring ya… stick candy
…” His voice faded away.

Cooper held tightly to Volney’s hand and was not sure when life left him. Griffin knelt down beside the bunk. He felt for
a pulse beneath the tangle of beard that covered Volney’s neck and spilled down onto the bedcovers. After a minute he reached
up and closed the old man’s eyes and got to his feet.

“He thought a heap a Miss Lorna,” Griffin said, looking down at the still face.

“I didn’t know he was so bad off.”

“He had a spell a few days back ’n another tonight. I reckon he knowed he was done for. This mornin’ I helped him let water
in a can, ’n it went down hard on him to have to ask me.”

“He’d want to be buried up there by his place on the Thompson. The mountains were his home. He wasn’t a flatlander. I reckon
I’ll have to put off the trip to town.”

“I’m sure glad Miss Lorna come.”

“She’s going to feel mighty bad. I guess I’ll go tell her and get it over with.” Cooper stretched and ran his hands through
his hair and fingered the stubble on his chin.

“I can put his clothes on. Your ma washed ’em up.”

“I’ll give you a hand as soon as I’ve told Lorna.”

Cooper stepped out into the still morning. Dawn filled the sky in changing sheets of color. There was a chill of early fall
in the air. He wondered if Lorna had been warm without him. He was anxious to see her, even though he had bad news to tell
her. He walked briskly past the shed to the barn.

The door to the barn was closed when he reached it. He opened it to swing it back. Light streamed down the long aisle from
the open door at the rear. Even without glancing at Gray Wolf’s empty stall, he knew with a sick, sinking feeling in the pit
of his stomach that Lorna had gone.

Lorna stood in the doorway and watched Cooper and Griffin enter the lighted bunkhouse. What would Volney want to talk to Cooper
about? The old coot was as much of a nighthawk as she was. He’d probably slept all day, was wide awake, and wanted to jaw
about
her
wild and reckless ways. If his business with Cooper was about her, she didn’t want to know about it.

She slipped into her coat and went to Gray Wolf’s stall. Talking to him in a low singsong voice to keep him calm, she saddled
him, slipped the bit between his teeth and led him out the back door of the barn. Lorna’s heart jumped with fright when Roscoe
neighed as they were leaving. She clamped her hand over Gray Wolf’s mouth to keep him from answering. Moving as swiftly and
as quietly as possible, she moved away from the bunkhouse and along the rail corrals where Cooper kept his mares and working
stock. Along the way she let down the gate rails. The stock would find the opening as they were, even now, coming toward them,
being curious about the strange horse in their midst.

Lorna headed south after she was clear of the homestead. The stock following her would wipe out her tracks and after a few
miles they would scatter. Cooper would be furious at her for letting down the gates, but it was necessary. Rounding them up
in the morning would keep him and his men busy for several hours, and by that time she would be miles away. She regretted
not being able to tell Volney she was leaving. In a week or two, if he didn’t come to Light’s Mountain, she would ask her
father to go see about him. Volney would understand and would get a good laugh over how she’d managed to outfox Cooper. The
chance to leave had just fallen in her lap and she had to take it.

It was over.
Cooper was not for her. She had made a mistake back on the Blue when she had looked at him and thought he would be forever
a part of her and she of him and that they could live their lives together as Light and Maggie had done. He would never have
the same feeling for Light’s Mountain that she had. It was a hard lesson learned and she was determined to not dwell on what
might have been. People didn’t die of broken hearts, she told herself sternly, and if others had survived a heartbreaking
disappointment, so could she. Something good had come out of the last few weeks—she’d discovered that her father loved her.
He’d not come right out and said so, but he did. It was more than she’d had before. After these brief thoughts of Cooper,
Lorna blocked him from her mind and concentrated on getting home.

The hour before dawn was the darkest. She rode cautiously and watched the stallion’s ears. He had strong survival instincts
and his ears would perk up and stand at attention when he sensed any living thing near them. Daylight found them near Volney’s
cabin. They stopped briefly for Gray Wolf to drink and for Lorna to fill her canteen and then pressed on.

It was midmorning when Gray Wolf stopped and his ears came up, signaling that there were travelers on the trail ahead of them.
He made a soft blowing sound and his front hoof stamped impatiently.

“What is it? Do you hear something?”

The horse’s ears twitched and he looked fixedly ahead Lorna turned him off the trail and into a thick growth of sumac already
turning red prior to shedding its leaves for winter. She moved back from the trail, lay along the horses neck and ran her
fingers over his mouth to quiet him. Soon she heard what Gray Wolf’s ears had picked up minutes before—riders coming down
the trail. She heard them long before they came into view. Three men on swaybacked horses, each leading a pack mule, two riding
abreast, the third several yards behind. They appeared to be prospectors, bearded, ragged and dirty. And they rode as if they
didn’t have a care in the world.

“Hand me that thar jug. Ya been suckin’ on it fer the last ten mile.”

The man handed over the jug and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “When I git to town, I’m agoin’ to get me the fattest
gal I kin find. I’m agettin’ me one soft as a featherbed, ’n I’m agoin’ to bounce up ’n down, ’n up ’n down. Whoopee! Rinky-dink
… whoop-de-do!” The echoes of the shout reverberated from hill to hill and were finally lost far down the valley.

“What’re ya agoin’ to do that fer? Ya ain’t got nothin’ to put in ’er.” A good-natured loud guffaw roared down the trail.

“How’d ya know? Ya ain’t ne’er seen it. I weren’t called Big Bull Jenkins fer havin’ no itty-bitty thin’. Gimme back that
jug. I’ll tell ya ’bout a gal I had oncet down in Podunkville. She was so fat I had to look twice to see if’n she was astandin’
up or alayin’ down—”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Lorna waited patiently until the sound of the men’s voices and ribald laughter faded in the distance before she took to the
trail again. She urged Gray Wolf on to greater speed to make up for the time lost. As they climbed higher the air became cooler.
Without a hat to hold her hair down over her ears she felt the cold. She set a course for the distant mountain, and after
a series of shortcuts she came to the step cut into the side of the mountain that led to the top.

Several more times during the day she had to leave the trail and wait for horsemen to pass. They usually traveled in groups
of two or three. Two men stopped not fifty feet from where she was concealed among the dense growth, dismounted and relieved
themselves. Their horses were more alert than they were and looked in her direction, ears twitching nervously. She scanned
the area and mapped in her mind a plan of escape in case she had to run, but the men mounted and rode away. The mountains
were chuck full of people, all strangers to her.

Darkness came quickly as she reached the crest of the mountain. As badly as she wanted to keep going, she realized the folly
of taking the dangerous trail down at night. Gray Wolf was tired and she was worn out to the point of being dazed. She found
a place where there was a little grass for her horse, and large boulders to shield her from the wind. She wrapped herself
in her blanket and with her rifle beside her, bedded down for the night. Sleep came instantly.

Lorna woke to full awareness. There was a thin layer of frost on the grass, but none on the rocky trail because of the heat
they had retained from the sun. She was stiff, sore and hungry, and tried to appease her stomach by drinking half of the water
in her canteen. She poured the rest of it in a shallow indention of a rock for Gray Wolf.

As she descended to the valley and the familiar trail that would lead her to the homestead, her weary mind dwelled on a hot
meal, a bath and bed, in that order. She sat listlessly in the saddle, trusting Gray Wolf to choose the easiest route.

Shortly before midday, when she was only a few miles from home, she caught the faint elusive whiff of wood smoke. She sniffed
it again and it became stronger as she traveled toward it. The smoke was heavy and tickled her nostrils. When she realized
it was smoke from a smoldering fire, she felt the first tinge of alarm. Her heart fluttered for a moment, then began to pound
urgently. She put her heels to Gray Wolf to goad him into a faster gait and they raced toward the homestead.

The sight that greeted Lorna’s eyes when she reached the top of the hill would stay in her memory forever. Beside the crooked
stream, its green banks lined with berry bushes, she saw the black skeleton of her home. The charred logs of its tumbled walls
were spread out like burned ribs and smoke wafted up from a dozen different areas. She stared at the blackened chimneys which
towered as silent sentinels over the pile of charred, smoldering logs and an accumulation of more than a half-century of personal
possessions.

“Oh, God! Ohh… Ahh…” The agonized wail that filled the silence was an utterly helpless, hopeless, strangled cry of despair.
With wild, reckless abandonment, she sent Gray Wolf scampering down the hill. “Oh, God! Oh, God! Pa! Pa!” The screams that
came from her throat excited the big horse and urged him to greater speed, and when they reached the smoldering ruins, he
braced his feet and stopped abruptly. Almost wild with fear and grief, Lorna tumbled from the horse. Her feet went out from
under her, but she bounced up running, screaming, “Pa! Pa!”

Silence.

The wanton destruction of the homestead was complete. The house, the barn, and the sheds had burned to the ground. The pole
fences were pulled down. Hogs lay dead in their pens and dead chickens littered the yard. Ginger, her gentle mare, as well
as Frank’s horse and two mules had been shot in the head and lay near the burned-out barn. The back and sides of the stone
smokehouse stood, without roof or door, surrounding charred hams, sides of venison and smoked turkeys. The tin shed lay in
a heap of rubble inside the still-standing support post.

Numbed, Lorna stood amid the death and destruction. Finally the full awareness of what had happened here penetrated into her
cumbersome mind. She raised her arms to the sky and a howl of raw, unmitigated anguish tore from her throat.
Maggie! Maggie! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!
She tried to say the words that pounded in her brain, but she couldn’t get them out. Her lips formed the shape of them, in
speechless agony, in a mute, gut-ripping moan. Her hands turned into claws, and crying, sobbing, wild, she tried to rip the
hair from her head. The pain brought her from the depths of horror to reality. Then she was sobbing with a new terror.
Where was her father?
She ran from one burned-out building to the other.

“Pa! Where are you? Oh, damn you, Pa! Please don’t be dead!”

From the edge of the clearing someone shouted her name. At first it was merely an echo in her head. The voice was loud and
familiar, and she looked up to see a big man with black hair and beard running toward her. He wore heavy boots, his duck pants
were held up with rope suspenders and his red-checked shirt barely came together over his protruding abdomen. Lorna ran down
the path toward him, her arms outstretched before her.

“Moose! Moose! I can’t find Pa—” She threw herself in his arms and the big bear of a man held her to keep her from falling.

“Frank’s with us, little purty. Me ’n Woody’s got him over at the cabin.”

“Oh, thank God! I was so afraid—” Her lips quivered like pink pedals in the wind, helpless, hopeless. The tears flooded her
eyes and ran down her cheeks.

“I been awatchin’ fer ya.”

“It was Brice, wasn’t it, Moose?” Lorna looked back over her shoulder. “Brice did it because I whipped him! He said he would.
It’s gone. Gone…”

“Yep, I reckon it was Fulton. Me ’n Woody heared the shootin’. It was done when we got here. Warn’t nothin’ we could a done
anyways.”

“I’ll kill him. I swear to God I’ll kill him!”

“Hit’s best ya come on, now.”

“Thank goodness Pa’s all right.”

Moose turned away, his big, shaggy head bowed almost to his chest. A new fear ripped into her. She grabbed his arm and got
in front of him so she could see his face. “Moose? You said Pa was with you—”

“Yep, I did. We ort to be agoin’—”

She shook his arms trying to make him look at her. “He’s hurt, isn’t he? Is it… bad?” she whispered hoarsely, pushing the
words out on little spurts of breath.