Sacred Is the Wind (13 page)

“Wounds?” Zachariah replied, looking around at the blind man. Joshua held out his tomahawk and fit the shaft into the boy's open palm. Zachariah's eyes grew wide. “It is a weapon for a great warrior,” the boy responded, hefting it in his grip. “I will ride against my enemies. The blade is sharp and will cut deep.”

Joshua nodded but he kept his face turned toward the fading sound of the departing horse.

“Not as deep as a man's words,” said Joshua Bear-tusk. But Zachariah Scalpcane took no notice, hearing only the whisper of a stone ax slashing sunlight.

Esther fidgeted with a bolt of cloth she had brought for Star. She glanced out the window at the two figures on horseback, facing one another like monuments to enmity; Panther Burn, wild and untamed in his buckskins and shoulder-length hair, his braid of eagle feathers and brandished rifle, James Broken Knife in worn Levi's and plaid shirt, a fiat-brimmed hat hiding his cropped black hair, a farmer, one of many to walk the streets of Castle Rock.

“You could tell the Northerner not to go,” Esther lamely suggested, her delicate frame taut with concern. Rebecca perched on the edge of her bed. She was waiting to bid her mother farewell, for the stage from Castle Rock rarely left on time and she expected to have an extra day in the white man's town to ogle the dresses in Widow Chalmers's storefront window or to browse the fragrant confines of the Mercantile and spend a precious coin on a bag of penny candy. And just to visit. For it seemed she and Esther had had little time of late.

“You should not have invited James Broken Knife to come with us.”

“But I thought the ride back … the two of you together …” Esther tried to hide her smile. Rebecca raised her eyes heavenward. “Well, it is time you took a husband,” Esther finished defensively. She sniffed, muttered something about “thankless efforts.” She checked the window to make certain Panther Burn and James were not at one another's throats. She spied Samuel bringing up his wagon. Dust churned from its iron-rimmed wheels and trailed behind him in lazy spirals. James waved to the reverend. Panther Burn continued to glare suspiciously at the white man.

“A little bird told me she saw you standing in the Northerner's blanket. That you walked from camp and were gone a long time.”

“Saaa!”
Rebecca hissed. “Little bird? More like a plump calf named Hope Moon Basket. I saw her watching us.” Rebecca stood and walked across the room. She put her arms around her friend. “We walked. We stood together, in closeness. And the night called to us, whispering our secret names. Then we returned to the village. Nothing more.”

“The Northerner frightens me,” Esther said.

“And me too,” her friend replied.

“But … you will go to him again, if he plays his flute outside your door?”

“Yes,” said Rebecca. But before she could open her heart to her friend, Star swept aside the blanket partition that screened her bed alcove.

“You two have the whole day to chatter,” she said. “Esther, go to your husband. I would bid my daughter farewell in private.” Esther nodded, squeezed Rebecca's hand. Star looked on, summoning every vestige of control, determined to hide the breaking of her heart. Because she had seen in the sacred fire … too much.

“Good-bye, Star, I will miss you.”

“Me?” the medicine woman exclaimed with forced brightness. “Now don't let your husband hear such a thing. Or he will write it in his book. And make prayers against me.”

“You misjudge Samuel,” Esther replied. She glanced at Rebecca. “Please hurry.” Esther Bird Hat Madison did not want to sit between James Broken Knife and the Northerner any longer than she had to.

Only when the girl was gone did Star take her daughter in her arms and hug her close so their hearts seemed to beat as one. Rebecca was startled by her mother's strength, for it seemed as if the medicine woman were almost trying to crush the two of them together. At last Star grudgingly freed her daughter. Standing at arm's length, Rebecca could see her mother was crying. She reached out in concern.

“With James and Panther Burn there can only be trouble,” the young woman said, suddenly concerned at Star's behavior and searching for a reason to remain in the village. “Maybe it would be best if I stayed here. After all, Esther said she would come back to us. I don't have to go.”

“Yes! You must! You must!” Star exclaimed, and her eyes widened. Her daughter was taken aback by the force in the woman's voice, by the look of inexplicable terror that seemed to explode across Star's face. Then in another instant it was gone and Star was smiling, almost serene.

“You must go and be with your friend while you can. The white father's village of Wash-een-ton is far and much can happen on such a journey.” Star reached inside a beaded pouch hung at her waist and removed a small leather bag tied with a thong that she looped around her daughter's neck.

“You must never open this. For it will lose its magic if you do.” She opened the bodice of her smock to reveal a similar bag.

“My mother gave this to me. Now I to you, part of my magic, the way of my spirit, our spirit.” She patted Rebecca's arm, hoping to lull her daughter's suspicions. Rebecca gingerly touched the bag.

“What does it contain?”

“Ahh. Curious one. The same question I asked my mother and she asked hers. Well, each is different in some way, and each the same.” Star led her daughter to the door. “Four things. The ashes of a sacred fire …” Rebecca remembered well the mystical flames her mother had conjured.

“My blood mixed with the ashes so that I will always be with you,” the medicine woman continued. “And a handful of earth from the place where I bore you and brought you forth from my body.” She brushed her cheek against Rebecca's.

“Now do as Esther said. Hurry.”

“But that's only three,” Rebecca blurted out, suddenly frightened and unsure. “Ashes and blood and earth, but what else?”

“That I will never tell and you will never know,” Star replied. And for a second Rebecca thought she glimpsed in her mother's eyes something afire, something she had seen before, almost wolflike, burning. Yes, the spirit in the flames. Then the woman was Star again. And she smiled. “For life, my daughter, should never be without mystery.”

5

“B
lessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of lithe ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scoundrel.” Sam Madison quoted from the Bible but his thoughts were on a more homespun adage: “from the frying pan into the fire.” Hoping to avoid passing through the heart of Castle Rock, he had guided his team down a little-used path that skirted the rock formations that gave the town its name and approached the V-shaped cluster of shops and stores from the north instead of the east. But the good reverend hadn't expected to find the encampment of Bragg's Colorado Militia straddling the wheel-rutted path. There had been tension in the town for the past few weeks. There always was when an outbreak of Indian raids occurred. But the suspicions directed toward Simon White Bull's village usually abated with the end of the troubles, when the Southern Cheyenne's warring kinsmen drifted on north or west over the mountains. But the militia was different. Bragg's men had built their reputation on pursuit and warfare. Ranging the territory, in constant conflict, they had no use for peace and less for “God's savage children,” as Sam liked to call his flock. He knew Bragg's men were in the area but had hoped to avoid any confrontations between the peaceful Southern Cheyenne and the soldiers. And now he was bringing his wife and the others right through Bragg's camp. “For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

Panther Burn heard but did not understand why the
ve-ho-e
was speaking in such a way. He did understand the angry expressions on the trail-weary faces of the soldiers who paused in setting up camp to come forward and watch, in silence, the procession through their midst. Nor could Panther Burn see the scene as they did: A buckboard, first, rambling over the hard-packed earth, with a white man at the reins, his stiff white collar chafing his neck. Beside him, a squaw, dressed like a white woman in a dusty gingham dress buttoned to the throat; behind them on a makeshift bench seat sat Rebecca Blue Thrush. They didn't know her name, but more than one man brightened, found himself willing to forgive the atrocities and murders of the past few days if such a girl as this would stay awhile. Being bone-tired had nothing to do with lust. James Broken Knife, for all his plaid shirt and close-cropped hair, was recognized for what he was after a moment's speculation. For Panther Burn, the soldiers needed no moment. Several paces behind the others, the Northerner held himself erect as men in their dusty blue uniforms, others in various stages of dress, paused amid the myriad chores that men of little rank are heir to, to stare in mute hostility at the Northerner's passing.

Other than the red imprint of the Morning Star on the pinto's rump, neither man nor beast wore paint. But Panther Burn knew he needed no war paint for such men as these to bridle at his presence. He recognized them for what they were—warriors such as himself. For all their numbers he was determined not to be cowed. Let these bluecoats know he was not like the others of White Bull's village.

The camp dog can be tamed.

The panther, never.

Not a word was spoken, not an insult uttered. Only the silent threatening stares of a hundred Indian fighters who had witnessed over the years only the evil that red men could do, like any men.

“God's peace be with you this day,” Sam called out to those closest to him as he scanned the camp, looking for its leader. Many here were young men; too young for service in the Civil War, they had grown to manhood under the bloody tutelage of Jubal Bragg. Not all were young, though. Here were those who had once been farmers or ranchers—once but no more—men who had suffered loss; endured private tragedies in the clash between red culture and white. They marched to the same drums of vengeance as did their self-styled colonel.

And as if summoned by the reverend's thoughts, Jubal Bragg himself rode toward them on his way from town. He had come to see to the bivouacking of his men and to announce that the saloons and brothels on Commerce were open to them for the night. Samuel recognized the colonel from their chance meeting in Denver some years back. He still remembered Bragg's parting remark that he too was doing the Lord's work, only he was Christianizing the red heathens with the saber, not the cross.

Beneath the red sky of late afternoon Jubal glanced over his shoulder at Tom Bragg and Big Marley and spoke in a voice that did not carry to the reverend. But a few seconds later, Tom Bragg saluted and left the north road to ride at a gallop toward the camp. He passed the wagon, sweeping the white man and two women with a glance so filled with loathing that Samuel shivered despite himself. James Broken Knife suffered the same fate. Tom recognized Panther Burn and briefly considered an interchange with the Northern Cheyenne, especially since Sabbath McKean wasn't around to interfere. But Jubal had instructed him to hurry the men along with their camp and to post half a dozen pickets just in case there were any more like Panther Burn skulking about. Tom continued on, but he rode close enough to the Northerner's pinto to force the animal to dance a few steps aside. Then the youth was past and entering the camp.

With his temperamental brother safely dispatched, Jubal Bragg guided his mount off the side of the road and with Big Marley, ever faithful, at his side, awaited the buckboard as it left the outskirts of the campsite. As the wagon and the two braves on horseback departed, the soldiers broke their silence and returned to their duties, considering the irony of the moment—that they had followed a trail of carnage and never caught a glimpse of the Indians responsible, only to have some of the bloodthirsty thieves ride right through camp. And having the reverend lead the procession didn't fool the militia, not by a long shot. Samuel tugged on the reins and the wagon slowed as Jubal Bragg touched the brim of his hat.

“Well met, preacher. Glad to see you still have your hair.”

“I never doubted I would lose it, Colonel,” said Samuel, appraising the self-styled officer. “But then, a man has little to worry about from friends.”

Bragg glanced over the women in the wagon, to James Broken Knife and last to Panther Burn. The two men recognized one another.

“Don't speak to me of worry. I buried a family up on Cross Creek and a couple of white men up on the Divide. They were ‘befriended' by the likes of these. The dead have no worries.” Jubal ran a hand over his features, a simple gesture of weariness that failed to erase the darkness, the
masanee,
Panther Burn had glimpsed. “Your heart's grown too soft, preacher. The frontier is no place for you.”

“And maybe yours has grown too hard. I know all about you, Jubal Bragg.”

“Ahhh,” the colonel exclaimed, nodding. “I am the villain in this piece. Well, let me tell you something, Madison. You think you're a shepherd. Only you've mistaken the wolves for the lambs. But I see things as they really are. One day your brethren will go too far. They'll get caught with the blood on their knives. On that day I'll come back north …” His voice trailed off and he turned his horse and started down the path. He paused again and Marley halted as well. The eyes of Jubal Bragg bored into Panther Burn.

“Northern Cheyenne,” said the officer.

“I am Panther Burn,” the brave replied, undaunted.

“You do not hide behind illusions. Notice, Marley, the lack of a civilized ploy.” Bragg relived, in a single incendiary second, his nightmare, and the face he had seen. The Northerner obviously had failed to understand all of Bragg's rhetoric.

But Panther Burn had gleaned enough. The word “hide” piqued him. Yet spirits spoke through this
ve-ho-e.
And Panther Burn sensed death. But his own or Jubal Bragg's, which?