Wayward Wind (7 page)

Cooper watched, almost disbelieving what he was seeing. This docile horse couldn’t be the spirited animal he’d bought, and
yet all the markings were the same and this mare, too, would obviously foal soon. In hard-eyed silence he stalked after them.
There was one way to tell if the mare was his or not; the letters CP would be under her mane on the right side if she were
his. He always branded his breeding stock with a small iron he carried in his saddlebag.

A stillness of diffused sunlight and dense shade hung over the timbered valley—a quiet so complete that the rush of the water
traveling over stones on its way south and the plaintive song of a mountain thrush seemed surprisingly loud in that impenetrable
quiet. He walked up to the mare and she skittered sideways away from him. The big gray reared and whirled to lash out at him
with his deadly hind legs.

“Watch it,” Lorna cautioned, speaking softly. “This one’s half wild and Gray Wolf thinks you may hurt me.” She kept a tight
hold on the mare’s mane, and extended her hand out to the gray. “It’s all right. He’s a friend. Come, boy.” She made small
smacking sounds between words. The gray calmed, came to her hand and nuzzled it with his nose. “Go on and drink, my sweetings,”
she crooned. “I’ll be right here.” With a pat on the rump of each horse she sent them into the stream. She stood at the edge
of the water with her back to Cooper. “Gray Wolf is very protective. It’ll take a little time for him to get used to you.”

Long minutes went by while Cooper’s mind groped for an answer. She seemed an unlikely person to be a horse thief, yet when
the mare skittered sideways and bobbed her head, he’d seen the brand he’d put on her no more than a week ago. What had Lorna
done to the horse to make her docile? Had she fed her the leaves of that hemplike plant that had such a calming effect? While
the horses were drinking she made the little smacking noises with her lips, occasionally murmuring soft words when they raised
their heads and looked at her. To Cooper’s utter dismay, they came out of the water and to her when she lifted a hand to each
of them.

“Have you had enough, my beauties?” she asked in a whispering voice. “I didn’t want to leave you in that dark, old cave all
day, but I was afraid someone would see you. We don’t have to be afraid, now. We have friends with us. Did you eat all that
sweet grass I cut for you? Come now, back to the corral.” The two horses followed her into the enclosure. She rubbed their
noses with gentle fingers and spoke to them as if they understood each word she said. “You be nice to her, Gray Wolf,” she
said to the big gray. “She’s going to be a mama soon. If our friends are still here tomorrow and if Bonnie is better, we’ll
go out to that high, sweet grass and you can eat your fill.”

Lorna left the corral and replaced the bar gate. The two followed her and stood with heads over the poles. She gave each a
final pat and went to where Cooper had tied Roscoe and Griffin’s horse. Cooper was startled out of his dreamlike, confused
state when she patted Roscoe on the neck and moved to go behind him.

“Lorna! Don’t—”

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “He’ll not hurt me.” With her hand on Roscoe’s rump she passed behind him and Cooper
held his breath. Roscoe could batter down the side of a barn with his powerful hind legs. Cooper stood rooted to the ground
while she crooned and stroked each animal. Then she came toward him, her face pale and calm, and he felt as though he were
drowning, the waters closing over him; to his dying day, he would not forget this moment.

“You’d best not put your horses in the corral, Mr. Parnell. Gray Wolf will be jealous and fight them.”

“He didn’t fight the mare.”

“No. He took to her right away.” She smiled while she was speaking and then sobered. “He understands the mare is with foal.
He’ll look out for her.”

“The mare is mine. My brand is under her mane.” Cooper blurted the words lest he hold them back forever.

Lorna’s answer was accompanied by a gentle, musical laugh. “She’s yours? Well, I’m glad of that! I was afraid she belonged
to someone else.”

Cooper gazed at her, bewilderment in his eyes. “Why did you take her?” he asked quietly.

“Because she was running free. I thought that maybe Brice or some of his friends had come and would find where Volney and
I had hid Bonnie.”

He looked down into her luminous face, soft mouth and brilliant eyes. He wanted desperately to believe her, yet he had to
persist with what he knew to be a fact.

“I staked her out while I fished in the river.”

“She was running free,” Lorna said calmly. “I climbed the cliff and looked off down the valley. I saw her among the trees.
When I was sure she was alone, I went to her.”

“You went to her? She let you walk right up to her?” An edge had crept into Cooper’s voice. If Lorna noticed it she never
let on.

“Not at first,” she explained patiently. “I talked to her for awhile. Then I rode her around the mountain. It was a long way.
I didn’t want to be gone from Bonnie for so long, but I couldn’t bring her down the side of the cliff.”

“You want me to believe that you rode a half broken horse for a good fifteen or twenty miles—at night, without a saddle or
bridle?” What she was saying was impossible and disappointment knifed through Cooper. The mare could have slipped the halter
and run free, he conceded silently, but as for the rest of it…

“I don’t lie. If you think I do, take your horse and go.”

He looked at her and noted the wariness in her eyes and the tightness that had come into her face. “Lorna, I want to believe
you—”

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and when she brought them down they seemed to slump, as if she, too, was suffering from
a keen disappointment. She turned to walk away from him, then paused and turned back.

“ ‘Truth is unadorned, falsehoods are wrapped in cunning phrases.’ ” She quoted the words quietly and turned away.

The quote had such a familiar ring that Cooper called after her, “Who said that?”

She stopped, but didn’t turn around. “I did,” she said firmly, and walked rapidly to the cabin.

It was night, and Cooper restlessly prowled along the stony bank of the creek where he had thrown out his bedroll. He debated
about building a fire and boiling coffee, but decided against it. A fire, no matter how small, could be seen from the hills
above and he didn’t want to be the cause of bringing more trouble down on Lorna and Bonnie.

He thought of the glitter that had come into Lorna’s eyes and how her face had tightened when he insinuated she was lying.
But, godammit! How could he think anything else? Now, after he’d thought about how she’d handled the horses, he wasn’t so
sure that she couldn’t have done exactly what she said. It was uncanny how still Roscoe had stood when she went up to him.
The stallion didn’t like strangers, women in particular, yet he didn’t turn a hair while she patted his rump and swung his
tail. Was the woman a … witch? If not, she certainly was a charmer.

Just thinking about Lorna made him uncomfortable and warm. It hampered his thinking, as sensuality assumed dominance over
his mind. He knew very little about women, but he knew men and their ways. Since he was a boy he’d been able to pick the ones
who dreamed and created from the ones who raped and destroyed. The only woman in his life had been his mother, Sylvia. He
thought of her now, back on the ranch near Junction City. She had really bloomed this last year and all because Arnie Henderson
had come calling. Cooper chuckled when he remembered how embarrassed his mother had been at first. Arnie had come out from
Illinois to work for Logan Horn, and now Cooper suspected he was urging his mother to move to the Morning Sun spread. He would
miss her, but she deserved all the happiness she could get. God knew, she hadn’t had much when she was young.

His thoughts came back to the present. He had found his mare. The sensible thing to do would be to take the horse and ride
out. Griffin would stay with the women, so he’d not have
that
on his conscience. But an unnerving, alien thing was inside him, pulling at him. Although his common sense told him to go,
he wasn’t ready to leave just yet.

Cooper sat on a rock, watching the water glimmer and ripple over and around stones worn smooth by its passing. He recalled
each word Lorna had spoken and tried to find logic in her explanation. Suddenly something she’d said flashed across his mind:
He would find where Volney and I hid Bonnie.
Surely there couldn’t be more than one person in the territory with the unlikely name of Volney!

The Volney Burbank he knew was old and gaunt and suspicious of almost everything and everybody. As far as he knew, Volney
was the only bona fide mountain man in this part of the country. The old man was little more than a hermit. He ran a line
of traps in the winter and collected bounty on the pelts of various predators he killed. Cooper knew for a fact he had boundless
respect for the wild creatures he hunted and almost none for the human race. A couple of times a year his nocturnal wanderings
would bring him to the ranch and he would pick up a grub bag, leave a pelt or two, and pass on to Cooper any information he
had about a wild horse herd in the area. Cooper was the only one at the ranch he’d pass the time of day with. To everyone
else he was an enigma, an unkempt old man with a mane of gray-yellow hair about his thin shoulders.

Cooper liked the old man, although he thought he lived an unnecessarily monastic life. There was little doubt that Volney
knew about everything that went on in the territory, but he chose to tell none of it. As far as Cooper could recall, he’d
never mentioned anyone by name, or named places he’d been. Up to now Cooper hadn’t given it any thought, but could the old
mountain man be the Volney Lorna spoke about?

He turned and looked back toward the cabin. Through the open door, he could see a faint glow made by the fire in the hearth.
His thoughts turned to Griffin, the young nester he’d saved from hanging and who in turn had saved the girl’s life—for the
time being, at least. He was a strange one, Cooper thought. He had a dead serious confidence about him and a knowledge that
seemed too heavy for his years. Now, he and Lorna were trying to rouse the girl enough to get her to swallow a broth Lorna
had made from boiling dried beef. Cooper had little hope the girl would live. She’d looked pale as death the last time he’d
looked in on her.

“Is there anything else we can do?” Lorna’s voice was low, her face drawn into a worried frown. She placed the half-empty
cup on the floor beside her and watched Griffin ease Bonnie back down onto the bed.

“The only thin’ I can think of is put ’er hips ’n legs up higher ’n ’er head. I heard tell of that bein’ done if there was
a lot a bleedin’,” Griffin said softly. He had a worried look on his young face as if he really cared about the girl who moved
restlessly on the pallet.

Lorna studied him as if seeing him for the first time. “Do you think we should do it? She’s not bleeding much, but she needs
all the blood she’s got.”

“I don’t think it’d hurt none.”

“I’ll get a blanket and fold it.” Lorna stood and looked down at Griffin’s dark head and on an impulse asked, “What’s your
other name?”

There was a long silence before he said, “I don’t go by it, ma’am, unless I got to write it on a paper or somethin’.” He lifted
his head and looked up. Even in the dim light she could see the desolation in his eyes.

“I’m sorry for prying.” Lorna placed a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done. I’m grateful you’re
here with me now.”

“I’ve done time in Yuma, ma’am. I killed my first man ’cause I wanted to, the rest of them was atryin’ to kill me—”

“Don’t tell me you’ve done bad things,” she said quickly. “I won’t believe they weren’t forced on you. My granny said the
best men are the ones who’ve been tested by the fires of hell. Sometime I’ll tell you about my granny and my Grandpa Light.”

“I been to hell, ma’am. I spent five years there. I’m not wanted by the law, now. That’s not the reason I don’t say my name.
It’s that I’m kind a shamed, but I’ll tell you. It’s Fort. Fort Griffin. My ma was a whore there, ’n not knowin’ which of
the men was my pa, gave me the fort’s name. I think she thought it was a joke on the men.” He watched her closely, as if trying
to see whether she made light of what he was saying.

Not a flicker of emotion crossed Lorna’s face, although she never felt more like crying. “There’s no need for you to be ashamed
of your name,” she said softly but firmly. “Your pa may have been the bravest, most honorable man at the fort. Besides, you
don’t have to live in the shadow of what your ma, your pa or anyone else has done. You’re living now, and the kind of man
you make yourself to be is up to you. A name has nothing to do with it.” When she finished speaking he nodded and looked away
from her intense gaze. “Griffin? Do you mind me asking why you wear an empty holster?”

“No, ma’am. I was roped ’n pulled outta the saddle by some fellers pushin’ nesters off open range. They took my gun ’n my
knife ’n hung me so I’d die slow. Parnell cut me down. I’m ridin’ with him to help find a mare stole from him, then I’m agoin’
back to a spot I picked for myself. And I ain’t bein’ pushed off it like I was trash.” Anger and determination laid a sharp
edge to his voice.

“Mr. Parnell’s mare wasn’t stolen. I found the mare running free and brought her here. Mr. Parnell doesn’t believe me. More
than likely he’ll take the mare and ride out at dawn.”

Griffin looked up quickly. “I believe you if you say that’s how it was. I owe that gent plenty, ma’am, but I ain’t aleavin’
you here with this sick girl. That old man you was atellin’ me ’bout might not come back.”

Lorna’s hand found his shoulder again. “Thank you, Griffin. I’d be obliged if you’d stay.”

“Is she married to the one who done this to ’er?”

“I’m sure she’s not. Her folks were on their way to California when Brice bought her from them. She said he got a preacher
to marry them. Some preacher!” she said crossly. “Bonnie said Brice got him out of a saloon. She’d fought, cried and tried
to run away until then.”