Sacred Is the Wind (35 page)

“All-Father, you have brought me to this place. I have seen enough of my people and heard enough to know they have lost the way. Their feet no longer tread the one path. They are divided in themselves. They have abandoned the Circle. They no longer walk from life to life but take the straight road of
ve-ho-e
that only leads to death. What must I do, All-Father? Where are the warriors I may lead in battle? I do not think I will find any. Now I am alone. My father was killed by the Long Knives when we destroyed Custer Yellowhair and sent him under. So many of my people died in the battles we fought after that. You know their names. Now I am alone. How can I fight the Long Knives? Show me, All-Father.”

His words faded, each reverberation fainter than the last, until the world was silent again. He stared at the chain scars on his wrists. And he remembered the betrayal of a friend. A hand upon his naked back lessened his gloom. Rebecca stood at his side.

“My husband,” she said. Her voice was sweeter than the wind. When he turned to hold her close, the warmth of their naked flesh roused his desire. His fire was hers. She opened herself to him, became an instrument for his caress, for every kiss to play upon her lithe form. They clung to one another in the warmth of the sun, with the earth for their bed. They loved, and together, discovered every answer, every truth.

While Panther Burn slept, Rebecca brought water from the spring and washed her lover. His features were peaceful now, the deep lines softened. His hair was thick but close-cropped and threaded with silver. His eyes deep-set above prominent cheekbones. Gentle her hands upon his rock-hard shoulders. In the light of day she saw how the twin ordeals of war and imprisonment had marked him. Jagged furrows of scar tissue ridged his back and thighs—here the puckered flesh of a bullet wound, there the mark of a lash. Now her fingers traced a slim white line on his side where a saber had just missed its mark. This was a legacy of the Battle of the Little Big Horn when the Cheyenne and Sioux nations rose up and destroyed Custer and his soldiers. That had marked the beginning of the end. She touched the roughened skin circling his wrists, and her thoughts reached back to another day, when his flesh had yet to wear the mark of the white man's chains. A day in winter …

Winter 1883. There were guns on the Graybull. Amid the frosty peaks that rose like jagged spear points against a gray sky the panther had been brought to bay at last. A dozen Cheyenne braves, fifteen women, as many children, all reed-thin, all desperate but proud. Cliffs circled them on every side. Only one way into the valley and from the cave high up on the rocky slope Rebecca could see the campfires of the soldiers where better than two hundred troopers blocked the valley. The soldiers had tried two sorties against the Cheyenne and had lost seven men killed and thirteen wounded in the process, convincing General Miles to decide against another attack, in favor of reason. He had a plan and the man to carry it out, a man the general knew Panther Burn trusted
.

The braves sat in a half-circle around the white man, listening to his words. Zachariah and a few of the other younger men were for shooting the man outright, but Panther Burn would not hear of it. Sabbath McKean had come under a flag of truce
.

“The way I see it, you got two options,” said Mc-Kean. He looked like a diminutive bear in his fur robes that dusted the icy floor of the cave as he paced the frozen granite, his worn boots slipping on the glaze
.

“Why listen to this man who admits he has ridden against us? He has killed our warriors,” Zachariah said. At twenty-six he was in the prime of life, a man of reckless courage with a score to settle and memories of his murdered mother to fuel his hatred
.

“I have killed in battle. As have you, laddie.” Sabbath turned and stabbed a finger at Panther Burn. “And you.” Sabbath blew a vaporous cloud of air from his nostrils as he sighed. “I do what I think I must do. We have fought, yes, and yet I come without weapons now to speak of peace.”

The scout's voice rang out and echoed off the back of the cave. A baby began to cry in its hunger, a plaintive sound to move the hardest heart
.

“What words does your General Miles have for us?” Panther Burn said at last, looking out toward the mouth of the valley and the smoke from the soldiers' cookfires curling upward in the frozen air. He was trapped. That much was obvious
.

“Well, for one thing, January ain't no time to be fighting a war,” said Sabbath. He turned his back on the other braves to concentrate on Panther Burn. “Miles is offering you food and medicine for all men, women, and children. And a place at Fort Keogh up in Montana Territory with the rest of your people. Word is there'll be a reservation, over between the forks of the Big Horn and the Tongue. Panther Burn … life can be mighty good there. Sure it ain't Spirit Mountain. But neither is this damn cold cave.”

“And what must I do to enjoy such a good life, old friend?”

“Lay down your guns. Come with me to camp. Now.”

“Saaaaa!”
Zachariah exploded. He spat at the white man's feet. “We will never do such a thing. We are not women to cower before the soldiers.” He stalked out of the cave and stood on the lip of the sharp incline up which the Long Knives had charged and died. Blood still smeared the rocks, blue-clad bodies twisted in attitudes
of death. Sabbath glanced warily at Zachariah, then drew closer to Panther Burn, who stepped out in the sun that no longer warmed him
.

“You got a chance to get out of this alive. And to bring your family out alive as well. The boy ain't gettin' any better.” Sabbath nodded toward the rear of the cave, where Panther Burn's own son lay with the other ill and wounded. Michael was unconscious, his breathing ragged, his flesh feverish, so hot to the touch, and yet the boy shivered beneath the buffalo robe Rebecca had spread across him. Panther Burn walked back to Rebecca. She had no answer for him. But her eyes were pools of sympathy. Her heart was a wellspring of strength. He had been at war for sixteen years. A war impossible to win. For every victory, Cheyenne had died and there were none to take the place of the fallen, while the soldiers seemed as numberless as the stars
.

“They got cannon now. Two field pieces. The lads were just setting them up when I started out. You know what them long guns can do. If you ain't starved out, you'll be blasted out. The end will be the same. But we can save something if we act now.” Sabbath reached into his pocket and drew forth a watch on a gold chain and checked the time. “The general give me fifteen minutes. I gotta start back. Don't let it end like this. All the other bands have surrendered. The Red Shields. The Otter Creek band. All of them. You're the last.”

“The last …” Panther Burn repeated with a sigh. He looked at the gaunt faces of his people, those who had followed him in his war against the white-eyes. They trusted him. He could lead them into death. But … for what? He no longer knew. Death or life. It was indeed up to him. He reached down and took Rebecca's hand and held it a moment. Then he turned and walked back over to Sabbath McKean and held out his carbine to the scout
.

“Nooo!” Zachariah roared and charged into the cave. He jerked his rifle up to bear on Sabbath. Panther Burn stepped in front of the white man and snatched the
gun out of Zachariah's grasp and threw the rifle out the mouth of the cave. It crashed on the rocks below. Zachariah backed away, stunned. He stared at Panther Burn and shook his head. He scowled, reached up and tore loose the eagle feather Panther Burn had given him so many years ago. He ripped it from a single braid, crushed the feather in his hand, and dropped the remnant at Panther Burn's feet. A light extinguished in his eyes and, when he at last looked up at Panther Burn, the expression on Zachariah's face was utterly bleak. “I would have died with you,” he said in a trembling voice. He turned away in defeat as the other braves set aside their weapons and moved to rejoin their families. For the Northern Cheyenne, the war was over …
.

Rebecca cradled her husband's hand in her lap and lifted his wrist to her lips. Everyone had been saved that day, long ago, except Panther Burn, who was dragged from her side at gunpoint the minute he entered camp. Unarmed, there was nothing anyone could do. The Butcher of Castle Rock was to be made an example of. Sabbath McKean had protested but to no avail. Panther Burn struggled, tried to break free, to get his hands on Sabbath. He was knocked unconscious. The chains were hammered into place. He was taken to a separate wagon and placed under armed guard. That was the last Rebecca had seen of Panther Burn until now.

“You are back, my husband,” she whispered. “And I will never let you leave me again.”

But Panther Burn was sleeping. And he did not hear.

Michael stood at the iron door of the stockade. His new home consisted of a single room with a hard cot and a barred window. It was a jail cell for misfits and miscreants that the soldiers had built in the heart of Camp Merritt.

“Whatever happened to gratitude?” Michael yelled. He had brought Fowler and Denny back to Lame Deer and been promptly arrested for aiding and abetting a criminal—his father. There were no guards stationed at the stockade. A heavy chain and padlock secured the door. The soldiers were busily outfitting themselves in preparation for a long day's search of the reservation. Captain Morbitzer was determined to bring in Panther Burn. The few troopers ordered to remain in camp were either asleep or on duty protecting the Indian agent, while James Broken Knife's tribal police patrolled the town and outlying hills.

“Pssst.”

Michael turned and stared at the narrow window at the back of his cell. A hand patted the bars. “Hey!” came the whispered cry. Michael crossed the cell and peered out the window. Zachariah Scalpcane stepped back into the sunlight. He shielded his eyes and peeked past the corner of the stockade, then returned to the window. His breath reeked of cheap whiskey but his motions were steady.

“What do you want?” Michael asked.

“I want to know, I heard the soldiers talking. Has he … has Panther Burn come back?” Zachariah sniffed, spat on the ground. His voice was hoarse and he looked as if he were about to be sick. Michael studied the Southern Cheyenne; his expression grew guarded. “You'd better get away from here. The soldiers may find you. Then we will have to share this cell.”

“I want to know. You tell me,” Zachariah exclaimed, his voice louder, his red-rimmed eyes burning with intensity as he drew closer to the window. Then he slowly nodded as Michael cautiously retreated, an inner sense warning him about this man.

“He has returned,” Zachariah said. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes. “Too late, Panther Burn. Too late. Your people are gone. You abandoned them and they are no more. Your son is no more.”

“Zachariah …”

“No,” Zachariah hissed. “I was his son, before you. Then you came.” The brave shook his head and staggered back. “I loved him. All of us who followed him … loved him. But he handed us over to the soldiers. Now we die as old women. We could have died as men, as warriors, as Cheyenne.” Zachariah stared down at his shaking hands. He dug inside his dirty vest and took out a brown bottle, uncorked it, and lifted the bottle to his lips. He paused, shook his head, and hurled the bottle against the wall of the stockade. The bottle exploded, leaving a tea-colored smear spreading over the rock walls. Zachariah lost his balance and fell to his knees.

“What the hell is going on here?” A beefy-looking trooper rounded the corner. He spied Zachariah Scalpcane on his knees. “Oh shit, it's one of you drunks. Get up. Go on. Git.” The trooper nudged the brave with the barrel of his rifle. Zachariah ignored the prodding, and bracing himself against the wall, struggled to his feet. His lifeless features filled the barred window.

“I will make him pay,” Zachariah whispered. He coughed and wiped a dirty forearm across his face.

“Hey! I said move out,” the trooper ordered. He gave the brave a violent shove that propelled him unsteadily across the trampled earth toward Lame Deer.

“Zachariah Scalpcane!” Michael shouted. “If you are broken it is because you were brittle to begin with! The fault is your own!” Michael clung to the bars until the brave was out of sight, then crossed to the barred door and picked up the soldier and Cheyenne once more. “He never forgot you were his son. You did! Do you hear me? You forgot!”

Zachariah turned and waved. It was a meaningless gesture. Michael cursed and slammed his hand against the bars.

“Let me out of here!”

No one seemed to be listening. He pushed against the barred door with all his strength, he tore at the blackened links of chain until his fingernails were bloody. At last he slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. Three horsemen walked their mounts through the makeshift entrance to Camp Merritt. The soldier who had chased off Zachariah Scalpcane stepped in front of the trio and held up his hand to signal them to stop. Michael caught a glint of metal on the lead horseman's chest. He was a small-statured, broad-shouldered man who exchanged a few remarks with the guard. The trooper stood aside and the horsemen rode their mounts into the camp and over to Captain Morbitzer's cabin. Michael frowned, trying to remember something—yes, he knew the lead horseman. He was certain of it. But the name … McKean. Sabbath Mc-Kean. It was Marshal McKean now, or so Michael had heard once. Probably here to arrest me for helping Fowler and Denny make it back to the camp. The son of Panther Burn closed his eyes. A fly landed on his hand, then, as if taunting the prisoner, flew through the bars and vanished.

“Whatever happened to gratitude?” Michael wearily repeated. It was a question that had no answer.

20

K
ate Madison paced the length of the hallway, and sick from the repetition, altered her course for an already worn path between the parlor and what had been the dining room. She was sick with worry, the tension like an acid eating at her reserve. A knock at the door caused her to explode into action. She hurled it open, expecting Michael, and found Father Hillary.