Wayward Wind, page 2
Lorna had been singing in these mountains since she was a small child. A traveling man had told Volney he’d not heard a voice such as hers in New York or in the great opera houses of Europe, and that her voice could make her rich and famous. But, of course, Lorna didn’t know that she possessed such a wondrous talent. She sang because the feelings inside her had to have an outlet.
She dismounted, walked to the edge of the shelf and stood with her back to Volney. She looked down the vast green mountainside to the river below, drew several deep breaths, and began to sing. The song she sang was a ballad, one Maggie had sung when she was young. Lorna felt strangely exultant when she was singing. Her soprano voice was high and sweet, wild and haunting. It had the carrying quality of a bell but with a suggestion of power held in reserve. The unearthly sound seemed to fill every crevice of the mountains and spill into the canyon below. It sent a shiver down Volney’s spine.
“Flesh of my flesh, heart of my heart,
forever, hand in hand with wond’ring steps
through the wide forests we go…”
On the side of the mountain, White Bull heard her. He stopped his spotted pony and listened, as did others. Billy Tyrrell, whose back and buttocks burned from the sting of her whip; Brice Fulton, dragging the saddle from his horse in the corral behind his cabin; Bonnie, dreading the moment Brice came to the house; all heard the glorious sound.
The high sweet notes seemed to dance along the valley from end to end. A Mexican drifter paused, lifted his head, listened, and crossed himself.
Three men driving a dozen head of stolen cattle looked at one another with superstitious fear in their eyes.
“Is that her?” one asked.
“It’s her. The Indians call her Singing Woman,” the younger man said in a subdued voice. “She’s sacred to them. They’d die for ’er. She roams these mountains, day or night, ’n nobody dares lay a hand on ’er.”
When Lorna finished her song, White Bull lifted his arm in silent tribute. He knew she had sung for him and it made his heart glad. He put his heels to his pony. It was time to return to the Wind River encampment and prepare his people for the trek south. They would break their journey here on Light’s Mountain, and he would see Singing Woman again.
Lorna sat with her back to a mountain spruce, her hat on the ground beside her.
“I’m afraid Brice will kill Bonnie.” She handed the sack of dried fruit back to Volney and met his eyes with her dark, violet-blue ones. Under strangely smoky lids and level black brows, they gave her an intense look of concentration.
“Ain’t nothin’ ya can do if’n she won’t leave him.”
“He’s letting the men use her, and her carrying his babe.” There was both worry and scorn in her voice. “Sometimes I think men are the lowest things on this earth. All they’ve got on their minds is fornicating. They don’t care if a woman wants to do it or not. It’s just like she’s not human. Back in the olden days, Light loved Maggie and my grandpa loved my grandma. What’s happened to people, Volney?”
“You bein’ bothered by them no-goods?” he asked tartly.
“They know better than to bother me. I’d kill them.”
“Brice’s fondness for other folk’s cows could get him killed.”
“I can’t wait for that, I’ve got to get Bonnie away from here.” Lorna chewed the fruit slowly and spat out a seed. “When Brice came here four or five years ago, he wasn’t so bad. He’d been discharged from the army and said he wanted to start a little ranch. But the longer he’s here the worse he gets.”
“He showed his good side at first. Your granny was alive then. She saw him fer what he was ’n told him to steer clear a you, or she’d clean his plow. Guess he feared she’d sic White Bull on ’em. Brice is the kind a man what’s got to have a woman, ’n he went out ’n got hisself one.”
“Bonnie’s had it hard. Her folks made her feel like she was dirt because she was born with one hand. Godamighty! It wasn’t her fault. Her own folks sold her for a keg of whiskey and a broken down horse and wagon.” Lorna pounded the dust from her hat by slapping it against her leg, her dark lashes hiding the worry in her eyes. “She’s only sixteen, Volney. At least that’s how old she thinks she is.”
“What’re you now? Eighteen? Nineteen? My, how the years go. It ain’t been no time a’tall since ya was wearin’ rags on yore hind end.”
“Don’t change the subject, you old coot. Can’t you see I’m worried about Bonnie?”
“I see it, youngun, but there ain’t nothin’ I can do. Talk to Frank. Maybe he can get Brice to let up on ’er.”
“Fiddle-faddle! Pa won’t do anything. I think he’s scared of Brice. That’s another thing, Volney. It’s crossed my mind that Pa’s up to something. He’s throwing out a lot of big talk about maybe setting up a hauling business and going to California or Oregon.”
This was news to Volney. He shook his unkempt mane from side to side. “What a ya think of it?”
“I’m thinking there’s plenty to do here, if he’d just knuckle down and do it. He’s never taken an interest in Light’s Mountain. It’s like he was here visiting. But if he’s set to leave, he’ll go alone. There have been Lightbodys on this mountain for more than sixty years. I’m the only one left. Here I stay, here I die.”
Volney looked at the girl’s set face. She always had a look of preoccupation about her, an air of listening to some distant music that no one else could hear. To him, she was the prettiest thing in the world. A shiny mass of hair was drawn back from her face and tied at the nape of her neck, accentuating her high cheekbones and the pure creamy pallor of her skin. The contrast of pale white skin and dark hair was still startling to Volney, who had known her all her life. She had a lovely mouth, full lipped and red, with a curious deep cleft in the low lip. Her slim young body moved with vibrancy, yet with the grace of the wind on the grass of the plains.
She needed a man by her side, Volney thought, just as Maggie had needed Light to stand between her and the varmints who would use and dishonor her. She was far too sightly to be left alone. A man had only to look at her to start a fever in his veins. White Bull loved her like a daughter, just as he did, but they wouldn’t always be there to protect her.
“I’ve got to be getting on home.” Lorna got to her feet.
“Ain’t you got no better footgear’n that?”
“Of course I have, but what’s wrong with these?” Lorna held out her foot. Her moccasins were well worn and her toe was coming through the end.
Volney’s bony shoulders jiggled with his dry chuckling. “If ya ain’t the damndest! I’d give a prime beaver pelt to see ya all gussied up in that white deerskin dress Little Owl made fer ya a few years back.”
“For goodness sake, Volney! You’ve seen me in it,” she sputtered. “Are you getting so old you’ve forgotten we spent a week at White Bull’s Little Snake camp?”
He laughed. “I ain’t forgot how White Bull yanked ya off’n that pony when ya thought to sneak off with a party huntin’ a killer b’ar.”
“You told him, or he wouldn’t have seen me,” she accused.
Volney ejected a stream of amber juice. “ ’Pears like even White Bull’s got sense enuff to know his warriors don’t have no bumps on their chest.”
“Oh, shut up about it,” Lorna said crossly. She swung into the saddle with her lips pressed together to keep from smiling. It was funny now, but it hadn’t been at the time. She’d dressed in Gray Owl’s clothes and had even put black river mud on her face. Just as the party was about to ride out—whish! White Bull had grabbed her by the back of the tunic and yanked her off the pony. He’d threatened to switch her legs with a willow switch if she tried to deceive him again.
“Are you going to be around long, Volney?”
“I’m athinkin’ on it.”
“Keep an eye on Brice’s cabin, will you?”
“You knowed I was agoin’ to anyhow.”
“Come up to the house for supper.”
“Nope. I got me things to see ’bout.”
“All right then, you old goat, don’t come!”
Lorna rode along the edge of the shelf until she found a break in the wall’s sheer face and sent her horse downward in a dangerous descent that laid her almost flat over its croup. She grinned wickedly, knowing that Volney was watching and that she’d get the sharp edge of the old man’s tongue when next they met. She struck the level ground with a jolt that rocked her forward and ran her horse in under the trees screening the canyon’s lower end.
Half an hour later, coming out into the open, she saw, a hundred yards away, three riders driving a small herd. They were facing her and she saw alarm evident in their attitudes. There was a brief run of time in which she walked her horse toward them. No one spoke, but one man lifted his hand in greeting. Lorna dragged her horse to a halt and faced the men. She knew them all. They were cronies of her father.
“What are you doing with old man Prichard’s cows? Are you taking them somewhere for him?” She looked at each of them with a level, searching gaze.
“It ain’t no business of yores what we’re adoin’, missy,” Eli, the older man, growled. “Ride on.”
“Seems you’re short handed. Looks like mighty hard work if it takes three men to drive a dozen steers. I’ll be glad to give you a hand.” Lorna leaned on the saddle horn and smiled sweetly. She stared at each man in turn. Luke, Eli’s young son, looked away and didn’t meet her eyes, but his cousin, Hollis, grinned and edged his horse close to hers so that his knee rubbed against her leg. Lorna sat her mount, holding a tight rein on her fidgeting horse, and eyed him with open distaste.
“Howdy, little purty gal.”
“Move back. The smell of you is enough to make me puke.”
He continued to grin at her, reaching out his hand and placing it on her thigh. His eyes were small and watery and his face dried and wrinkled beneath a stubble of whiskers. He made her skin crawl.
“If’n it’s work yore awantin’, I got me a itch ya can work on.”
Lorna lifted her brows so that her eyes were wide and innocent. “Take your hands off me or I’ll poke my knife in you.” To give emphasis to her words she knicked his skin with the sharp tip of the knife she palmed. The sudden pain startled him and he jerked his hand, cutting his wrist even more. The knife that had slid down her sleeve was evident now, so she held it in front of her.
“Why’n hell did ya pull a stunt like that for?” Hollis looked at the blood dripping on his thigh and jerked the handkerchief from around his neck to wrap his wrist.
“The next time you lay a hand on me I’ll cut the damn thing off!” She spoke quietly, with deadly intent.
“Yore pa needs to take a strap to yore butt!”
“Is that right?” Lorna looked past him and saw her father coming toward them. “Why don’t you tell him?”
When Frank rode up Lorna knew every suspicion she’d had about his recent activities was true. His face was flushed and his eyes were fastened on her.
“What ye be doin’ here, lass?” he growled.
“I came to help you steal old man Prichard’s cows,” she said lightly, her never still brain following another thought. Her father was weak, easily led. “It makes no never mind to me that the old man is barely scratching out a living for a houseful of kids, or that he’s depending on these cows to see him through the winter. They were easy pickings, weren’t they, Frank? What we ought to do is take these lazy, worthless friends of yours and go steal us a really big herd.”
“Ye dinna know what ye’re asayin’.”
“The hell I don’t!” Lorna shouted to keep from crying. Disappointment in her father caused her temper to explode suddenly and violently. “Do you think I don’t know about these little cattle stealing trips of yours? Didn’t you think I’d wonder where you were going to get the cash money to get into the hauling business? Did you have anything to do with that nester who was shot between the eyes a few weeks back? He left five children and no wife to take care of them. I know a hell of a lot more about what goes on in these mountains than you think I do, Frank.”
“Shut yer mouth!”
“I won’t shut my mouth! You and these men are thieves, rustlers. Stealing a dozen steers is just as bad as stealing a hundred. It’s the truth, and if the truth hurts, you live with it, or have you sunk so low you’ve not got any conscience left at all?”
Frank’s eyes widened and for a moment he was speechless in the face of his daughter’s blazing defiance. Her contempt washed over him in a chilling torrent. He went red with rage and the need to salvage his pride.
“Damn ye fer a sassy split-tail!” His words came out in a hoarse shout. “I dinna mean to hae ye treat me like dirt!” His Scottish accent was never more pronounced than when he was angry. His arm swung out in a looping blow that would have knocked her out of the saddle, had it landed. Lorna swung back, her reaction purely instinctive despite her surprise. Frank had never lifted a hand to her before.
The momentum of the swing had pulled Frank half out of the saddle. He was off balance and striving to right himself when Lorna dug her heels into the sides of her mount and the big gray’s powerful haunches propelled it forward, straight into Frank’s floundering mount, knocking it to its knees.
“I’ll get ’er, Frank!” Hollis yelled. “Head ’er off, dammit!”
Lying flat along the neck of her plunging horse, she passed Eli and Luke sitting their horses and knew she had only Hollis to contend with. She heard Frank’s strangled bellow and then she was into the trees. She gave all her attention to the trail which was boulder strewn and at times half blocked by brush and deadfalls. But she’d had a lifetime of riding such trails—taught by the best, White Bull’s people. Over the years she had developed a faultless sense of timing and a judgment of distances that made her handling of her wildly running mount wholly automatic. In a race on open ground, she was a formidable opponent, but over terrain such as this she had no match.
Within a short time she knew she had outdistanced her pursuer. Knowing herself safe she eased the stallion down from its straining run and shortly drew up to let the horse regain its wind. After a while she made her way leisurely along a route that would bring her out to the place she called home.
Now that she had time to think, her mind digested what she had learned. Her heart was heavy with disappointment and grief. Frank didn’t have the love for the mountains that she did. For as long as she could remember his dream had been to leave them. And to get money to do that he would steal!
Now that she thought about it, her father had never been a companion, or teacher, or friend, but she loved him and knew he loved her. Since she had grown up their entire relationship had been one of mutual avoidance. They lived in the same house, but each went his own way. She cooked for him and washed his clothes, but days passed without their saying more than a few words to each other. It had been that way while her grandmother lived and continued after she was gone. But until lately she’d never thought of him as being… dishonorable.
It was strange, she mused, but she knew Volney, Moose and Woody better than she knew her own father. They fit in these mountains, like she did. Her father just never… fit.
She passed the boarded-up shack where Moose and Woody lived during the winter. The two old prospectors had been in the mountains for as long as she could remember. In the spring they loaded their burros and trekked off over the mountain panning a little gold from the mountain streams, always looking for their gold strike. In the fall they came back to winter on Light’s Mountain. Lorna wished they were here now. It would be a comfort to sit and visit with her old friends.
The homestead and the mountains were Lorna’s entire life. It was unbearable to think of living any other place. Her roots were here in the place where Light and Maggie had built their home. She was a Lightbody. Not for one minute did she think of herself as a Douglas. The homestead was hers by the right of her birth, and here she’d stay.
But what to do now that she had seen the evidence of her own father’s thievery? Somehow she wished she hadn’t ridden into that valley and had the truth thrown in her face. A person’s got to face whatever comes. This thought came forward out of the chaos of her mind, and she took a deep, quivering breath and turned her attention toward getting home.
Lorna rode slowly down the path to the house. She felt a spurt of pleasure, as she did on each homecoming. The trail led off the mesa and into the coolness of a pine forest. A rocky stream, edged with cottonwoods, willows, and sycamore trees cut through the clearing beside the house that was built strong and true, blending perfectly with the mountains and trees from which it had sprung. The logs were thick and heavy, and fitted snugly together. The timbers were weathered and the stonework of the massive chimneys was smoke stained. The house seemed not only to belong there but as if it could be depended upon to be there forever. Lorna blinked back the sudden moisture that filled her eyes. This was all she had ever known or wanted.
She rode into the house yard and was greeted by her dogs, Ruth and Naomi, with yips and whines of pleasure. Why did some men spend a lifetime grabbing for things that weren’t really important, she thought, when all they needed was right there?
Evening came and with it the dread of the confrontation with Frank that she knew was coming. Not that she was afraid of him. She was well able to protect herself and he knew it. They were at a crossroads, she and her father, and it was unsettling to her to not know what the future held.
Lorna lit a lamp. She found herself wandering about the house, touching familiar things. Her hand rested on the back of the rocker Grandpa had made for Grandma Marthy. Granny had sat in the chair on cold winter nights and told her about the trek Light and Maggie had made from the Missouri Territory to the Colorado mountains. Her fingers trailed across the humpbacked trunk that held the small, patched moccasins Maggie had worn and the hair necklace she had woven from her shiny black hair. She’d made a wristband out of her hair for Light, and he had worn it, protected by a soft doeskin band, every day of his life. Thinking about it now, Lorna decided that someday she would make a wristband out of her hair for her man. He would love and cherish it every bit as much as Grandpa Light had loved and cherished the one his beloved had made for him.
