Scalpdancers (42 page)

The herd had passed a restless night ringed by storms and the flashes of lightning in the mountains to the west. The herd nervously huddled, a thousand strong, in the center of the plain. Calves bleated alongside anxious mothers while the young bulls pawed the ground as they eyed the passing storms.

Anything could have started them moving.

As it was, the one-horned bull, all two thousand pounds of muscle and bone, stood half-dozing at the forefront of the herd when a tumbleweed, caught up in the grip of the approaching front, came rolling toward the bison and leapt a ditch. The tumbleweed became airborne for a matter of seconds, long enough to slap the old bull upon the rump and dig its spiny brambles into the beast's scarred flesh. The startled animal brayed in terror, lunged forward, and charged across the amber plain.

And the herd, all thousand of them, moved as one, galvanized into an unstoppable force by the actions of a single bull. Panic spread and the frightened charge became a headlong stampede, crushing everything in its path.

White Buffalo waited within his circle of strength. He held the rib fetish in both hands and searched the entrance to the pass, a hundred yards ahead. The bleak gray light became tinged with cobalt-blue as the front barreled out of the northwest. He watched the speeding clouds transform themselves into demons and bluffs, buffalo and wraithlike warriors, jumbled battlements and winged maidens.

He waited and watched and, suddenly, White Buffalo was no longer alone. He returned his attention to the mouth of the valley and glimpsed a solitary horseman outlined against a slate-gray sky. Lone Walker entered the valley of the Elkhorn but not alone. Cold Maker came with him. The wind increased in intensity and filled the air with ghostly mourning.

The Blackfoot rode up and dismounted about twenty-five feet from the shaman. He landed, catlike. White Buffalo continued to sit back on his heels in the center of his power circle.

“So you have come to die. Let it be so,” White Buffalo said and raised his talisman as he began to chant.

A savage blast of wind spooked Lone Walker's stallion and the animal scampered off toward the hillside. Lone Walker saw it as another manifestation of White Buffalo's power.

He wouldn't need a horse to do what must be done but to save his own life afterward. His courage momentarily failed and when it did, a horrible kind of pressure began building in Lone Walker's chest. He stared at the shaman's fetish, could not tear his eyes away even though his breathing became labored. The wind hurled its warning in his ears. But he could not move.

“All-Father…” Lone Walker tried to pray, to call on his songs. He was dying, and there was nothing he could do. In vain, he worked his sluggish limbs and held the Medicine Cane out before him.

White Buffalo stood and the wind tugged at his sacred white robe and his eyes burned beneath the buffalo head-dress as he continued his chant with renewed intensity, summoning Death Striker to destroy Lone Walker.

“You are a boy no longer. You are a man now,” White Buffalo called out, breaking the pattern of his chant. “But men die. You must die. Do you think your feathered cane can stand against my magic?”

White Buffalo was wrong. Even as he spoke, a north wind parted the clouds and for a few moments the land was bathed in the fresh golden light of a newly risen sun.

With the light came visions, the same spirits Lone Walker had seen at the edge of the world. He turned toward the dawn and saw the Ones Who Had Come Before springing out of the sunrise, and he heard their songs in his soul. He faced White Buffalo again.

“See the Medicine Cane!” he called out. “Know the truth. It carries the same magic cut from your own robe!” It took every ounce of strength, but Lone Walker managed to lift the Medicine Cane, and the shaman once more beheld the hide fragment. He looked down at his own robe. He didn't understand how Lone Walker had come by it, but he believed.

“Foolish one. You seek to harm me with that? Then your own talisman is my power to command. Mine!”

Lone Walker shuddered and a violent gust almost tore the cane from his grasp. He was dying. And not even the songs would save him. He had lost …

“Who are you?”
An old woman's voice spoke within his mind: Singing Woman.

“Who are you?”

“Lone Walker,” the young man rasped.

“What have you come to do?”

“Destroy the shaman.”

“Then do it!”

The songs of sunlight washed over him, through him, and gave him strength even as darkness closed in on the periphery of his vision.

“Here is your power!” Lone Walker roared out. The darkness retreated as he raised the cane above his head with both hands. His shoulder muscles bulged and the cane bowed, then snapped in half with a resounding crack.

The pressure in his chest suddenly subsided and he gulped in lungfuls of air. Thunder rumbled over the land and rose quickly to deafening proportion. The ground trembled underfoot.

As Lone Walker hurled the fragments of the shattered Medicine Cane to the ground, the source of the thunder revealed itself. In a swirl of dust and noise a thousand stampeding bison rounded a steep hill and charged headlong into the valley. The herd fanned out behind the frontrunning bulls.

White Buffalo wore a look of horror and spun on his heels to dash toward his own stallion, but the animal had pulled free of its ground stake and was already a quarter of a mile down the valley, the wooden pin bouncing along at the end of its reins.

White Buffalo turned back in anger. Afoot, they were in the same trap. He tucked the talisman in his belt. Let Lone Walker break the power of a rifle ball through his heart! White Buffalo took up his rifle, cocked the weapon, and snapped it to his shoulder. He squeezed the trigger. The flint struck sparks. Nothing else happened. The shaman stared down at the rifle in his hands and realized with sinking heart he had forgotten to reload from the night before.

The oncoming herd blared and brayed like denizens of hell.

Lone Walker, however, turned to face them; he would meet his fate head on. “Come,
Iniskim
,” he prayed softly. “It is the hour of your vengeance. I have brought you for this.”

Lone Walker glanced toward the hills. No. He'd never reach the trees in time, so he outstretched his arms to the stampeding herd, and as the great beasts of the plains closed the distance, he spied a horseman in their midst. Lone Walker could scarcely believe his eyes.

Morgan Penmerry rode at the forefront of the stampede, outdistancing the herd by mere yards. Leaning low over the neck of his gelding, he reached for Lone Walker.

Closer. Closer. The ground shuddered underfoot. Morgan didn't need to look back, he'd be the first to know if he lost his race with death.

“Oh, God,” he muttered and almost lost his balance. He tightened his legs about the gelding's middle. They'd only have one chance and this was it.

Closer still. His hand opened, reaching, and suddenly closed around flesh and he pulled. Lone Walker timed his motion and leapt. The gelding's forward momentum swung Lone Walker up behind Morgan with a force that threatened to dislodge them both. A few yards behind them, the one-horned bull shook its shaggy head and bellowed.

Morgan righted himself and, tugging on the reins, angled for the safety of the ridge. He wasn't certain they'd make it.

White Buffalo tossed his rifle aside and drew the rib talisman from his bélt. He planted himself firmly in his circle of strength. I am protected here, he thought, my magic is unbroken. The shaman began to chant as he held the talisman in both hands and raised it aloft, stretching to his full height. His powerful physique cloaked in sacred trappings seemed invincible right up to the moment the one-horned bull smashed him to the earth.

White Buffalo shrieked beneath the crushing hooves and tried to claw his way to safety as hundreds more bison trampled flesh and bone and sacred pelt into a single indistinguishable smear where once a man of power had stood.

24

Sparrow waited at the entrance to Elkhorn Valley. She had caught up the reins of the brown stallion but could not bring herself to enter in the aftermath of the herd. As the gusting breezes cleared the last of the dust from the pass, Lone Walker and Morgan emerged from the place of death and rode toward the woman.

The winds of change were blowing across the flattened grass, and the sunlight grew fragrant with the perfume of wildflowers, cedar, and pine. Sparrow huddled in her blanket and thought how good it was to be full of life and love in the turning of the seasons.

Neither man spoke. Their eyes were weary from what they had seen. Blood oozed from the gelding's flanks where a horn had hooked the animal as it brought the men to safety.

Sparrow would make a compress back at her makeshift camp among the quaking aspens. She led the men to her campsite. Lone Walker fell exhausted on the nearest unrolled blanket and Morgan didn't last much longer. But it was Lone Walker who slept the day away and all of the night as well.

The following morning dawned clear and cool, and the land seemed a whole and beautiful place again. And true to his calling, Lone Walker stood upon the hillside overlooking the plain, washed by the colors of the risen sun, and he began to sing in thanksgiving for another day of life.

Morgan Penmerry knew no prayers, but he was bloody grateful to be alive, and so he let the feeling in his heart be a hosanna to the Almighty as he saddled the gelding. Sparrow watched him for a while, then she cautiously approached and placed her hand upon his shoulder. He patted it and swung a leg over the gelding's blanketed back, and pulled himself upright. He was still a little clumsy, but he'd learn.

Morgan walked the gelding out of the aspens and reined to a halt alongside Lone Walker, who paused in mid-chant, in a most uncharacteristic fashion.

“You are leaving, Mor-gan?”

“Yeah. Figure I better before you
dream
up some new trouble to get me into.” Morgan eased back and appraised his friend. Their bond ran as deep as blood, maybe deeper.

Lone Walker's hair was braided now, and Sparrow had attached a raven feather to one of the braids and notched it accordingly, to indicate the young warrior was a shaman in his own right.

Lone Walker's features shone bright with new life, though his eyes were tinged with a subtle sadness that time would never completely erase.

It was the same with Morgan. They had both glimpsed a portion of the truth of things, how men are subject to a harsh and irrevocable justice.

“We have walked in a dream together. It has changed us,” Lone Walker said. “Where will you go?”

Morgan shrugged and indicated the vast expanse below them with a sweep of his hand.

“You could journey with us. Walk the path with us, into Ever Shadow,” Lone Walker said.

“That's your vision, my friend. Maybe I better find my own.” Morgan pursed his lips and thought a moment. This good-bye was more difficult than he had imagined it would be. There was only one way to get through it. He started the surefooted gelding down the slope.

“Mor-gan,” Lone Walker called after him. “My heart's glad you disobeyed me one last time and followed me into the valley.”

Morgan Penmerry lifted his hand without looking back. Lone Walker suddenly remembered the broken-blade cutlass thrust in his beaded belt.

“Mor-gan! Your long knife—?”

Morgan waved again, never looking over his shoulder. He continued downhill until he reached the plain.

“Farewell, my friend,” Lone Walker said softly. He raised his hands outward to the sky and sang to the sunlight and the cool autumn breezes off the mountains of Ever Shadow. He sang of the birth of new dreams and new journeys, of sacrifices and friendships. He sang of the Great Circle and the mystery that lies at its heart.

Morgan Penmerry rode directly into the sun until at last his shining silhouette lingered upon the horizon for a final moment before vanishing into the yellow day and the good wind.

“All-Father,

It is finished.

In beauty, it is finished.

Before me, behind me,

Beneath my feet, may I

Find peace.

Let there be long life and breath—

And let the end of one song

Begin another.”

About the Author

Kerry Newcomb was born in Milford, Connecticut, but had the good fortune to be raised in Texas. He has served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and taught at the St. Labre Mission School on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, and holds a master's of fine arts degree in theater from Trinity University. Newcomb has written plays, film scripts, commercials, and liturgical dramas, and is the author of over thirty novels. He lives with his family in Fort Worth, Texas.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1990 by Kerry Newcomb

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4804-7889-3

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com