Sacred Is the Wind (38 page)

“Did you really think you could stalk the panther in his lair, Jubal Bragg?” said Panther Burn. His finger tightened on the trigger of his Winchester. Jubal Bragg's mouth fell open. This was only a man, yes, but a man transformed into the living fabric of nightmare. Jubal looked into eyes as nakedly savage as a beast's. And his courage failed. The revolver in his hand suddenly weighed a ton. Jubal could not lift his arm. And he would have died right then, if not for Big Marley, who charged out of the grove like a wounded buffalo. Marley shouted his challenge and fired his rifle. The shot went wild but distracted Panther Burn. The Cheyenne swung around and fired, levered another shell into the chamber, and turned to see Jubal Bragg roll backward down the slope and scramble under the firs. Panther Burn loosed a yell and charged. Marley moved to block his path. The big man roared out, Panther Burn fired again and saw Marley stagger and fall. Panther Burn ignored him. He wanted Bragg. With a wild war cry ringing from his lips, the Cheyenne burst through the cluster of firs. The ground fell away in a sharp five-foot drop. Panther Burn momentarily lost his balance, landed on his feet and rolled forward, and glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye. He whirled and brought his rifle to bear and squeezed the trigger. The Winchester bucked in his grip. He saw a flash of blue uniform, then James Broken Knife broke from cover, firing his revolver with every erratic step. He slammed headlong into a ponderosa and wrapped an arm around the trunk. He clung to the rough bark and worked back to catch a glimpse of Panther Burn, who was already running after Bragg. James glanced down at the Army Colt he had dropped. His hand crawled across his stomach and down, reaching for the grip of his revolver. He caught hold, raised it as he straightened, and sighted on Panther Burn's departing figure. James felt no pain, only a numbness in his chest and a pressure as if he were being crushed beneath a terrible weight. The moment was lost and he slid down the trunk until he was seated against it. He stared at his empty hands and wondered where his gun was. He fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out the five gold coins Bragg had given him. James leaned to the right and scooped a hole in the earth, dropped the coins in the ground, and covered them over with a fistful of dark loam. He remembered an alley in Castle Rock and Tom Bragg lying dead at his feet.
If only
.… He fell over on his side and died with his left hand covering the mounded earth as a man might sleep alongside his beloved, his hand upon her breast. But this was a dreamless sleep and his last thoughts were not of love, but of choices.
If only …

Horses in their panic reared in terror as Bragg burst among them in his headlong flight and tore the reins free on the first animal he could reach. He swung into the saddle as Panther Burn emerged at a dead run along the path and dug in his heels as he raised his rifle to his shoulder.

“Jubal Bragg!” he roared, bringing the colonel under his gun. His finger tightened on the trigger just as two hundred and eighty-five pounds of behemoth crashed into his back. The rifle went flying and Panther Burn after it. A massive weight bore him to the ground, crushing the breath out of him. The Cheyenne drew up his legs and kicked out and rolled free, gasping. Every bone in his body ached from the jarring impact. The world spun before his eyes, a blur of shadow and light, of trees and underbrush and looming darkness. He willed the world into place and the patch of darkness became Big Marley, bloody, battered, and still very much alive. He brandished a broad-bladed knife, fifteen inches of razor-sharp steel glinting in sunlight. “I'll carve you once and for all, you red demon of hell!” Marley growled. He towered over the Cheyenne. Needles clung to his ravaged face, bloodstains spread over the front of his coat. Big Marley lunged. Panther Burn darted out of harm's way and landed with feline grace by his rifle. He swung the barrel and knocked the knife out of Marley's grip. Big Marley closed in and caught the Cheyenne in a choke; the huge man's beefy fingers formed an ironlike grip encircling Panther Burn's throat. He lifted Panther Burn off the ground.

“You've haunted us too damn long,” Marley hissed, raising the Cheyenne till his legs dangled in the air.

Panther Burn rammed the muzzle of his Winchester against Marley's throat and squeezed the trigger. An explosion, smoke stung his nostrils, blood spewed in a grisly arc and spattered the ground behind Marley as the huge man hurled Panther Burn aside and toppled forward. Panther Burn struggled and kicked away as Big Marley, although nearly decapitated, reached for the Cheyenne's ankle, missed, and with his fading effort caught a pine cone, crushed it, and died. Panther Burn coughed and crawled to his feet. He staggered toward the horses. Bragg was gone, but he could still be caught. Wood splintered. Branches tore away as a horseman rode at a gallop out of a thicket to Panther Burn's left. The war chief spun and fired on instinct, and through the gunsmoke saw the rider toppled and roll down the incline almost to Panther Burn's feet.

It was Michael.

Panther Burn lowered his Winchester, dropped it and sank to his knees.

“No.” The war chief's voice was a whisper. No, he hadn't meant to … he thought it was … no … “No!” Michael's face was a mask of red. Part of his scalp was puckered and ripped loose, welling blood. His breathing was shallow and weak. Then a woman wailed and he heard Rebecca as she rode into the clearing, dismounted, and ran to her son. Panther Burn looked at her and shook his head, his unspoken entreaty, that he had not recognized Michael. Rebecca looked down at her only child and cradled him, a chant of anguish in her throat. Another shadow fell across them and Panther Burn snatched up his Winchester as Sabbath McKean led his horse toward them. The marshal held his own rifle in one hand, the hammer back, ready to fire from the hip if necessary. He came to a halt a few yards from where mother and father gathered about their wounded son. Sabbath stared at Panther Burn. The silence of the forest descended on them, but in this place of death, the beauty of the earth was tarnished, almost mocking.

“Now, we can kill each other or we can try to save that lad,” McKean said.

Panther Burn looked down at his son, then across at Rebecca, confusion and helplessness in his eyes.

“There is … a doctor … in Lame Deer,” Rebecca said.

22

T
wo women by lamplight, both healers in their own way. Both loving the same man, in different ways. Kate snipped the last of the sutures and examined her handiwork once more. The slug had peeled the scalp down to bone and butchered flesh as it glanced off his skull. The result was a nasty wound that by the grace of heaven, or the All-Father, hadn't killed. At least, not yet.

My son, my child
,

my little one
,

be strong

as your father is strong
.

Throughout the long ride down from the Divide, Rebecca had watched over Michael and sung her healing prayer. And as she sang, perhaps deep in his wounded sleep he heard and breathed and refused to let go of life.

My son, my child
,

my little one
,

be healed

as you are loved
.

Rebecca sat to one side of the bed, her eyes fixed on her son, her whole body tense as Kate bathed away the blood, cleaned the wound with alcohol, and stitched him back together. She covered his head with a gauze bandage, keeping the pressure firm but unrestrictive. And when she had finished, Kate slipped into a nearby chair across from Rebecca on the other side of the bed. Michael lay between them. They were in the upstairs bedroom that Kate used for a hospital room, where a patient might receive more intensive care. She folded her hands across her chest and leaned back in the leather-backed chair. Her robe was smeared with Michael's blood. She sighed and looked over at Rebecca, reading the silent pleading in the medicine woman's expression. Her song was ended, the All-Father must listen to her anguished heart now.

“He lost a great deal of blood,” Kate said, remembering midnight, two hours earlier, when she had answered the knock at her back door and discovered Rebecca, Panther Burn, and Sabbath McKean with Michael stretched on a litter looking like a corpse. Only Kate's professionalism had kept her from crying out in horror at the sight of the wounded burden being carried into her house.

Kate lowered her gaze to his strong yet gentle face, still unmoving as death. A tear spilled down her cheek, tracing an erratic path to her jawline.

“You love him too,” Rebecca quietly said.

Kate looked up and nodded. “I love him,” she admitted.

Rebecca nodded. “The wolf spoke your name,” she replied, knowing Kate would not understand. It was impossible to explain the old ways. They had to be lived. She rose from her chair and stood by the bed. Michael's once powerful physique seemed shrunken and drawn in.

“His color is bad,” said Kate, “but his breathing is at least even and regular even if it's a bit shallow. I like to think these are positive indications.”

“He will live,” Rebecca said. “I know this now. But I hurt because he hurts.”

“Such a blow to the head can lead to extremely negative complications … blindness … even speech problems. But if we are lucky, and infection doesn't set in …”

“My son will live,” Rebecca matter-of-factly repeated. She glanced over at Kate. “Thank you.”

Kate seemed surprised. Rebecca read her thoughts; it wasn't difficult.

“I saw my son, dying. And I asked why. Why had he risked his life so for a father who walked a different path? Then I remembered something your father told my people, long ago. Blessed are the peacemakers.” She placed her hand on Michael's. “I knew him then. My son was no longer a stranger to me. Panther Burn, my husband, is a warrior. He can never be anything else. His day is ending. My son is the peacemaker. He can never be anything else. His day has just begun!”

“And between sunset and morning?” Kate asked, caught up in the medicine woman's spell.

“Are the women who love them. You and I,” Rebecca softly answered. She looked down at Michael. “Stay with him, daughter of my long-ago friend. Your place is here.” Rebecca turned to leave. Her footsteps were muffled by the throw rug spread across the hardwood floor. The medicine woman paused, her hand upon the doorsill.

“Perhaps, one day, you will teach me some … of what you do here.”

“Yes,” said Kate. “If you will teach me … to … to ‘sing.'”

Rebecca smiled. Her heart grew warm, and when she turned toward Kate, a smile lit her face, erasing her hurt and her fears. “
E-pave-e
. It is good,” she said. And seeing Kate draw near to Michael, added encouragement. “He will live.”

“I hope so,” Kate whispered.

“Not hope. You must believe,” said Rebecca Blue Thrush.

Kate nodded and wearily scooted her chair closer to Michael's bed and leaned forward, resting her head on the down mattress. The top of her head pressed against his outer thigh. She used her left forearm for a pillow, her right hand bunched into a fist on the sheet. Kate closed her eyes and told herself she had done all she could. Nothing left now, but to—
yes, Rebecca, I will
—believe.

She closed her eyes a moment, heard a whisper of motion. A hand touched her head and clumsily caressed her hair. Rebecca saw, and froze in the doorway. Kate sat up, clutching at the hand. Michael was awake and watching her, a fragile smile upon his face despite his pain. “So, woman, I finally found a way into your bed.”

Moonlight soft on shuttered windows, curtains drawn, oil lamps burning low, faint light for fearful hearts. Sabbath McKean walked to the front window, and lifting a curtain, opened the shutters no more than an inch and peered out at a column of soldiers threading their way through the settlement past darkened houses and the shuttered buildings strewn along either side of what passed for Main Street. Captain Morbitzer, in the lead, sagged forward in the saddle, head nodding, jerking up as he caught himself falling asleep. Sabbath thanked his lucky stars that he and Panther Burn, Rebecca, and Michael had arrived unnoticed. Panther Burn sat on the stairs, a rifle across his lap. He seemed lost in thought, his eyes fixed on a still point far from the turning torturous world of the present. Sabbath continued to watch the troopers file past. He gave a start as the moon cleared the clouds, for among the soldiers rode Jubal Bragg. He must have stumbled into them by accident. Sabbath quickly closed the shutter and eased the curtain back. He picked up a cup of coffee from a nearby table and took a sip and grimaced. “Worse than old man Wister's at Foot o' the Mountains,” he said to himself. He had never learned to make good coffee. Cooking was the least of his vocations. He glanced over at Panther Burn. “He'll be all right. It ain't your fault. I mean. You didn't know it was the lad.”

“I thought it was you,” Panther Burn said. “I wish it had been.”

“Hope you understand if I don't share your sentiments.” Sabbath walked over and stood in front of the Cheyenne. “I want you to know something. Michael agreed to come and talk with you. I trailed him. It seemed a good idea at the time … keeping Bragg at bay until I had a chance to reason with you.” Sabbath tugged at his long mustache. His stomach growled. He took out his pocket watch. “Three in the morning.” He sighed, shook his head and started toward the kitchen, and paused as Rebecca appeared at the top of the stairs. Panther Burn looked over his shoulder and saw her and stood. She motioned to him.

“Your son would speak with you.”

Panther Burn hurried up the stairs and down the brief hallway to Michael's room. Kate stood aside, for the first time realizing that this was the terrible Panther Burn, scourge of the penny dreadfuls—just a man, average in height, a trifle too thin. Yet there was indeed an aura about him, and she had the feeling his kind would not come again. Panther Burn stepped quietly to the bed, and when his shadow fell across his son, Michael opened his eyes again.