Sacred Is the Wind (21 page)

“Too many shots,” Joshua said. He placed a leathery hand upon the boy's shoulder, his sightless eyes facing down the valley as if he could capture an image the rest of his people had missed. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed the still air. “Trouble coming.” He nodded. “A storm … but whether it is of man or
nonoma-e,
the heaven shaker, I cannot tell.”

“Aiiieee! We must hurry,” Hope yelled, charging back into the clearing, startling the horses and causing the children to cry. Her panic was infectious. “Run before it is too late for us.” Others took up her cry as blankets were gathered, dirt tossed on campfires, and the evidence of their camp hurriedly destroyed. Little ones wept and called out to their mothers. One old woman, Mary Fox, began to wail her death chant.

“We must scatter like the leaves before the wind!”

“Hide from the long knives.”

“We are lost. We are lost!”

“No!” Rebecca walked into the center of the clearing. Two of the older boys had started to lead the horses away. She grabbed the reins from their hands and tethered the animals to the branches of a white fir. “Have we become rabbits that we must scatter at the distant baying of a wolf?”

Rebecca's voice cut through their fear. Young and old alike turned to see who had spoken in such a manner and they were surprised to find Rebecca. She had kept to herself during the long journey into Wyoming Territory, opening herself to no one, keeping her sorrow locked deep within, unwilling to display her emotions to the others. Now she stood before them, strangely different, almost defiant. Hope rushed up to confront her friend. “What do you say to us? Shall we wait to be slaughtered like our families? Run. We must run! Run while we have the chance!” Rebecca slapped her across the face. Hope stepped back, startled, then with her cheek reddening she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Run where?” Rebecca asked in a calming tone. “We must wait for Panther Burn.”

“He is dead. The white men have killed him,” said a voice from the crowd of frightened faces.

“We are old men and women, we are mothers and children. We have no warriors to protect us,” another voice bemoaned.

“Then we must protect ourselves,” Rebecca said.

“How?”

“By being Cheyenne, not rabbits.” Joshua was making his way toward Rebecca, following the sound of her voice. She turned as he approached to stand beside her. “Someone hand me a branch. I shall crack the skull of a
ve-ho-e
before I face the All-Father.”

“And I am not a rabbit,” Zachariah exclaimed, brandishing his tomahawk as he took his place alongside Joshua.

Mary Fox stepped forward, her gray hair trailing down across her bowed shoulders, her care-worn features creased as she spoke.

“I know you, Rebecca Blue Thrush. At least I once did. But you are not as you once were,” she said in a cracked voice. She continued to peer intently at Rebecca.

“None of us is that. Nor will we ever be again.”

“And you would have us wait. How long?”

“Until Panther Burn returns to us.”

“And if he is dead?” said Mary Fox, speaking for the others and the terror they harbored in their hearts.

“He is not dead,” Rebecca stated. “I would know if he was.” She met the stares of her people, the fearful frightened stares that threatened even her own newly won resolve. She called to mind the dream, the spirit-wolf, the source of her mother's power. And now hers.

Panic faded, dissipated like an early-morning mist. Hope managed to stifle the last of her sobs. Rebecca leaned forward and helped her friend to stand, and spoke to her in a soothing, gentle tone.

“Take some of the others and see if you can find some berries, roots, anything we can carry with us for food.”

Hope nodded, wiped a forearm across her tear-streaked face.

“I will help,” Mary Fox said with a shrug. “I'm too old to run anyway.” The old woman toddled off after Hope. The rest of the Cheyenne returned to their earlier places of rest in the clearing. Children gathered about their mothers. Eight of the children, about Zachariah's age or older, left to help in the search for food. Others of the group sat slumped forward in attitudes of defeat, beaten remnants of a proud people, awaiting the will of the All-Father in the forest's gray-green gloom.

Rebecca, who had kept to the fringe of the camps the survivors had made, now chose a new place for herself. She knelt in the center of the clearing, sat back on her heels, closed her eyes, and began to sing in a soft voice. The words came haltingly at first, a song of courage, one of the last medicine songs Star had ever taught her. The song flowed out from Rebecca and seemed to fill the clearing, causing those who listened to take heart.

All-Father, hear your sorrowing children.

Send us your strength. Heal us.

Then who can stand against us?

Minutes passed, almost an hour. At last, sensing another's presence, Rebecca opened her eyes and spied Panther Burn standing in the shadow of the ponderosas. Only then did she end her song.

For three days the small party of Cheyenne played cat and mouse with Bragg's Militia. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, Sabbath or Panther Burn would double back to scatter their pursuers with a few well-placed shots. Bragg's response was predictable. Fearing an entrapment, each time he held his force in reserve and sent out a small detachment of soldiers to scour the terrain and clear the ridges and forest groves of the bothersome snipers, unaware that Panther Burn had already fled. And all the while, Rebecca's people kept to a grueling pace, fear spurring them onward long after muscles had fatigued. Still, their fragile lead couldn't hold forever. Panther Burn knew it and so did the others.

On the night of the third day the hunted camped beneath the towering rim of a narrow high mountain valley. All day, the sky had hung black and foreboding. Now, apportioning the food, Rebecca took charge in arranging the night camp, seeing to the needs of the wounded, encouraging the old, delighting the children with tales of the Thunderbird and how this sacred creator of thunder and lightning was returning from the warm countries. “The Thunderbird leads the way for the Sun,” said Rebecca in a grave tone. “And sometimes the Thunderbird shoots an arrow and strikes a person dead but of course the arrows are invisible.” The children clutched one another in mock terror, knowing well the game, that the tale teller must build apprehension until the moment comes to leap upon someone in the audience, shouting and striking the person with the Thunderbird's “invisible arrow.” Rebecca played the children well and chose the least suspecting to playfully attack. There were screams and laughter among the young.

Panther Burn watched, amazed and hopelessly puzzled by Rebecca's sudden transformation. What strange occurrence had rescued her from her grief? She seemed more uncomfortable than hostile when near him now. Perhaps the recent tragedy had opened her to the crazy spirit and the
masanee
had possessed her. He forced himself not to dwell on Rebecca's strange transformation. His head reeled before the many thoughts that assailed him—the decisions he must make; the responsibilities he had taken on. Panther Burn sighed and looked across the dancing flames of the campfire where his uncle, Joshua, Zachariah, and Sabbath McKean eased the chill of the mountain country from their bones.

“This pass seems like a good place to hold them up,” the white man said, gnawing a twig and staring at the coals. His voice sounded no more hopeful than the proposition.

“I will wait for them tomorrow,” Panther Burn said. Sabbath nodded, rolled the twig around to the other side of his mouth, stretched out the kink in his left leg.

“Suit yourself. What worries me is, I think ol' Bragg's wise to us. He might just come full steam ahead. So keep your horse handy. Jubal is one curly wolf who would love to get his paws on you more than just about anything else I can think of.”

“The rabbit can outrun the wolf when it has to,” Panther Burn absently replied. He was thinking of James Broken Knife. Panther Burn had recognized Bragg's scout but kept the knowledge to himself. He wasn't even sure why.

“I can fire a rifle,” Zachariah spoke up. “I am not afraid of the soldiers.” He rose and tried to stand as tall as an eight-year-old could manage. Panther Burn reached down and tossed the Hawken rifle to the boy. The heavy-barreled percussion rifle dropped into the boy's outstretched hands and promptly bore him to the ground. The youth struggled to his feet again and with all his strength managed to raise the weapon, though the big gun wavered in his grasp. Zachariah realized his inadequacy and lowered the gun. He dropped the weapon, spun around, and walked away from the fire to nurse his wounded pride in the shadows.

“You shamed him,” Joshua muttered disapprovingly.

“He will live,” Panther Burn said. “He would have tried to stay behind without our knowing. I have seen enough dead children, Uncle.” Panther Burn rose from the campfire, and glancing up, met Rebecca's gaze. She was watching him. Why? He tried to read the feelings hidden in her eyes but she looked away before he could track the course of her heart. The night was oppressively warm; even the air, thick and hard to breathe, gave one the feeling of being in a state of quiet panic. Panther Burn gave vent to his restlessness and ambled out of the circle of light, disappearing into the dark embrace of the forest.

No sound. Only the night. Only a man in the night, leaving the camp far behind. He walked in prayer, his heart lifted to his god.

“Taa-e,”
Panther Burn's voice drifted on the thickening air. “Mother Night, bring my prayers to the All-Father.”

The Northern Cheyenne lifted his gaze to the starless heavens where latent storm clouds blanketed the light from the sky and left the world below in gloom. He continued on through the trees until the forest thinned and he could see in the stygian reaches of the valley behind him a collection of flickering lights he recognized as distant campfires.

“Jubal Bragg,” said Panther Burn. Too close now. Delaying the militia would do no good. They would have to be stopped. Panther Burn glanced over his shoulder at the sound of a snapping twig. Nothing moved. Overhead a screech owl soared on its nightly hunt. The rush of wings reminded Panther Burn of another time, of a hawk. Around him, the shadows took form. Figures standing in the night. “Little Coyote,” Panther Burn called out. “High Walker … my pride took your life. A fault I cannot escape.” More shadows, sentient brooding shapes, fueled by a weary imagination, seemed to spring from the rich earth and surround the Northern Cheyenne. Panther Burn pictured the faces of the dead, the butchered innocents, Rebecca's people. Bragg has come looking for me, Panther Burn thought to himself. Right or wrong, if I had never come to the Warbonnet, then the killings would never have happened. He closed his eyes.

“All-Father,” he whispered. “What must I do?” He outstretched his arms, his face tilted upward toward an obscure sky. “Speak to your unhappy child, All-Father. Hear my plea. Your words are sacred. Teach me. Tell me what to do.”

No branch stirred. Yet he did not move, but remained, still and supplicant, waiting for the sacred wind, for an answer that did not come.

But he did not stand alone, for another had followed him into the forest, though she had remained at a discreet distance. Rebecca paused, peering through the spiny branches of a fir at the man in the clearing. She wanted to go to him, to tell him her words of blame had come from her grief, from her desperate sense of loss. She wanted to tell him she held no blame and to ask his forgiveness. Rebecca kept a quiet vigil and in her heart prayed with this Northern Cheyenne, with this man she loved and had hurt. Loath to interrupt him, she backed away, choosing her steps with care so as not to break another twig and alert him to her presence.

Tomorrow … tomorrow she would tell him.

Panther Burn lowered his arms and looked again toward the twinkling glow of the distant campfires and sighed. How long had he stood here on the hillside? Long enough for his arms to ache, long enough for the
maiyun
to have spoken to him, to have shown him the way.
Well, I must make my own way,
Panther Burn thought. “Little Coyote, High Walker, we will hunt together again in the land of our grandfather, let your courage be with me, my friends.” The shadows became trees once more, the ghosts returning to their far country. “Soon I will join you,” the Northern Cheyenne softly called to the departing spirits. Sabbath McKean had unwittingly planted the seeds of an idea, hours earlier. Jubal Bragg wanted Panther Burn more than anything, even the remnants of Rebecca's people. “Let him find me,” the warrior said aloud as he stared toward the distant fires of the encamped soldiers. “And we will end this. Jubal Bragg,” he promised quietly, “it will end tomorrow.”

11

Z
achariah, leading Joshua Beartusk by a length of leather rope, followed his people out of the valley. The trail Sabbath found had been rough going, a narrow serpentine path that zigzagged up the face of a steep ridge. The horses balked from time to time, and the elderly, needing rest, paused continually throughout the climb. But the young were there to help them along. At last, with what seemed one mighty and communal effort, the band of Southern Cheyenne reached the summit of the ridge and skylined themselves along the granite spine to peer back the way they had come. It was an L-shaped valley and even from the ridge, the place where they had made camp the night before was well out of sight, hidden behind ponderosa-covered hills and granite battlements. Black clouds boiled overhead, an ominous turbulence loomed all the way to the horizon. In the distance, lightning lashed the mountains as the storm crossed the divide and unleashed its violence. Zachariah thought of Panther Burn, waiting in the valley below, the valley so pristine and still and directly in the path of the storm. He should have been allowed to stay behind. He had proved himself and won his eagle feather. He was no longer a boy but a warrior. He should have stayed behind and killed many soldiers.