Wayward Wind, page 23
The evening wore on. After getting the bed in Cooper’s room ready for Arnie and laying out bandages, salves, and everything she considered would be useful, Sylvia took the lantern and went down to the shed to look for a smooth straight plank they could use to set a broken bone. She had no idea if the plank would be needed, but she had to be moving, doing something, or else anxiety would mangle her nerves.
To a woman at home, not knowing if her man was dead or near death, the waiting hours were long and torturous. When she ran out of things to do, Sylvia leaned against the peeled pine post that supported the porch roof and strained her eyes toward the mountains, watching and waiting for a moving speck to appear out of the darkness and listening for the faintest sound of the creaking wagon or the jingle of harnesses. She was grateful for Bonnie’s quiet presence and for Griffin who patrolled the perimeter of the ranch yard.
It was after midnight when Griffin’s voice came to Sylvia from out of the darkness. “They’re acomin’, ma’am. I’ll be agoin’ out to open the gates.”
“I don’t hear anything,” she said and turned her ear toward the trail. She couldn’t hear a thing, not even the young nester’s footsteps on the hard-packed ground as he hurried away.
“I don’t hear anythin’ either,” Bonnie said. “But if Griff says they’re acomin’, they’re acomin’. He’s the beatin’est man ya ever did see fer gettin’ ’round in the dark. Ya want me to light the lantern fer ya ’n build up the fire ’n get the kettle to boilin’?”
It seemed to Sylvia a long time before she heard the sound of the approaching wagon. When she did her heart leaped with relief, then plunged with dread. She reached for the lantern when Bonnie came to the porch with it and stepped out into the yard, holding it high to guide the wagon to the house. She could see that Louis was driving the team and Cooper’s light colored hat was bobbing up and down behind the wagon seat. She stood very still, forcing herself to remain calm and accept whatever the next few moments would bring.
“Cooper? Is he all right?”
“He’s alive, Ma. He passed out while we were getting him to the wagon. Griff, fetch that new door ya made for the bunkhouse and we’ll carry him in on it. We’ll get him as close to the porch as we can, Ma, but it’ll mean ruining your flowers—”
“Oh, shoot! I don’t care about that. Is he hurt bad?”
“Pretty bad. Maybe you should let me and Griffin—”
“You mean he’s not a pretty sight? Landsakes, Cooper, you know I’m not squeamish.” She lifted the lantern and looked over the side of the wagon. The light fell on Arnie’s bloody, battered features. She wouldn’t have recognized him except for the thin, graying hair, the handlebar mustache, and the blue and white striped shirt she’d made for his birthday. He’d been so proud of it. Now it was riddled with a hundred tears and was soaked with blood. “Oh! Oh, God in heaven—” Her voice rose in hysteria.
“Ma!” Cooper said anxiously. “You all right, Ma?”
“Yes, son. Yes, I think so. What in heaven’s name did they do to him?”
“The goddamn pissants dragged him!” Cooper spat the words out viciously.
“Dear God! How on earth can men be so cruel to their fellow man?”
Sylvia was grateful that Arnie remained unconscious while the men got him on the bed and cut away his shirt and breeches. His boots had been torn from his feet when they dragged him and his feet and ankles were covered with blood and dirt. She inspected the sickening mass of lacerations by the light of every lamp they owned, and wondered whether or not she was equal to the task of caring for him. She was no stranger to the sickroom. Often she had dressed the wounds of severely injured men, but never had she beheld such a grisly mutilation of human flesh.
Don’t think about who did this, she told herself, think about what has to be done.
Griffin straightened out the bent leg and swore. “They busted his leg with a rifle butt, I’m athinkin’. The dirty bastards! ’Scuse me, ma’am. See this here bruise, Cooper? It’s what they done, all right. They busted it while he was down. Leastways it won’t cripple him up like it’d done if’n they’d busted up his thigh bone.” Griffin’s gentle fingers went over Arnie’s body feeling for more broken bones. “This’n’s all that’s busted. We’d best get it straight ’n tied up good ’n snug afore he comes to, ’cause it’s agoin’ to hurt like hell.”
When Cooper pulled on Arnie’s leg and Griffin worked the ends of the broken bone together Arnie moaned, then cried out as the searing pain hauled him up out of the darkness. He fainted again almost immediately, and Griff and Cooper hurried to complete the work on his leg before he became conscious again.
Sylvia turned her attention to the welter of bloody debris coating Arnie’s back and chest while Griffin cleaned his feet and ankles. Bonnie kept them supplied with pans of clean warm water. After they cleaned the blood and dirt from his body, they washed it with vinegar water and liberally smeared the tears in his flesh with ointment.
“I heared tell, ma’am, that a dosin’ of whiskey ’n honey is good for a man what’s lost blood like this’n has,” Griffin said when they had finished.
“I’ve not heard of that, but I’ll give him some when he comes to.”
“Sugar works the same, but I guess most folks has got more honey ’n sugar. It’s somethin’ ’bout the sweet—”
“Where in the world did you learn so much about doctorin’?”
Griffin carefully screwed the lid back on the ointment jar before he spoke. “When I got out of Yuma, I took up with a ole man who doctored when he was sober. He’d had schoolin’ at some place across the water. I think he said Edinburgh or somethin’ like that. He’d been in the war, ’n when he got to athinkin’ ’bout all the arms ’n legs he’d cut off, he’d get the willies ’n get roarin’ drunk. He’d do all sorts a crazy thin’s. I stayed with him for a spell ’n helped him out when folks pressed him to doctor. I’m athinkin’ he was a jim-dandy doctor in his prime.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died.”
“What a waste. Many a good man has drunk himself to death.”
“He died a snake bite.” Griffin’s voice had changed and Sylvia glanced at him. He was staring at Arnie’s bruised and swollen face as if his mind were a hundred miles away. “Sometimes when he got drunk he’d think he saw snakes. A couple a galoots thought it’d be funny if’n they was real. They throwed one on a porch where he was alayin’, rantin’ ’n ravin’ ’n thinkin’ there was crawly things on him. It bit him afore I could kill it.”
The small doses of laudanum Sylvia gave Arnie kept him sleeping for the better part of two days, then she ceased giving him the drag, knowing the danger of its becoming habit forming. He woke one morning in pain, but his head was clear and by evening he was able to give Cooper an account of what had happened to him.
“It was pure ole carelessness to let myself get caught up and yanked off my horse like a trussed up steer. This feller hailed me down to talk and was askin’ me the way to town when a rope settled on me and I was hog-tied afore I knowed it.”
“Do you know who they were?”
“There was no names called, but I know they was Clayhill men. They said tell Mrs. Parnell the next time it’d be my tallywacker. ’Course I ain’t saying nothin’ like that to Sylvia. When I see them birds, they’ll wish they’d finished up the job.”
“How are you feeling?” Cooper asked after a long pause and glanced at Arnie to let him know his mother had come to stand in the doorway.
“Well, I ain’t feelin’ up to snuff, but I ain’t complainin’, neither.” Arnie turned his head painfully so he could look at Sylvia, then back to her tall son sprawled in the chair beside the bed. “I’m a feared I crowded ya out of yore bed, Cooper. Ya coulda took me to the bunkhouse.”
“Ma wouldn’t hear of it. She’s a bossy woman, Arnie. You’d better know right off what you’re in for.”
“I’ll never have me no prettier boss.”
Cooper looked up to see the doorway empty and heard his mother’s steps going rapidly across the kitchen floor. He grinned at the man lying on the bed. “I trust your intentions are honorable?”
“’Course they are, boy. Your ma ain’t got no doubt about it.”
The two men looked at each other for a moment, then Cooper stuck out his hand. “I’m glad, Arnie. Real glad for you and for Ma.”
“Ain’t nothin’ settled—”
“I know. You’re more than welcome to come here. This is Ma’s home as much as mine.”
“I had it in mind to build a little place over on Morning Sun.”
“If it suits the two of you, it’s fine with me. Arnie,” Cooper’s eyes sought those of the older man, “do you think you’ll be up to sitting on the porch in a day or two? I want to go to town, but I’ll wait till you’re up to handling a rifle.”
“Do you think there’ll be a need for it?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to go off till I’m sure you’re fit to take care of things. I’ve not worried about it before because Ma can handle a rifle as good as a man. Louis is a good man, but he’s got to be told what to do. Volney’s down on his back. I don’t know if the old man’ll ever get up again.”
“Do you reckon it was the same bunch that did me in that worked on the ole man?”
“No. It’s not the same bunch at all.”
Cooper told Arnie about Clayhill’s men hanging Griffin, about trailing the mare to the cabin on the Blue and the run-in there with Dunbar. He told of taking Lorna to Light’s Mountain and of his suspicion that Brice Fulton was responsible for Volney’s injuries.
“I’m athinkin’ that folks is gettin’ meaner all the time,” Arnie said when Cooper had finished. “It’s got to be the times we’re alivin’ in. Didn’t used to hear a things like this till the war.”
“Folks have always been mean,” Cooper said, remembering his painful childhood at the fort where his mother was a laundress. “They just show it in different ways.”
“You mean to take the young feller when you go?”
“I was planning on it.”
“He’s a cold-eyed youngun. I seen some like him durin’ the war. They’d got all the softness knocked outta ’em.”
“You’d be surprised about Griff. He’s soft as mush when it comes to women or a hurt animal.”
“Is that right? Well, give me a day to get used to gettin’ around with that forked stick he fixed up for me. Then you go on off with a easy mind. I can’t run, but I can shoot.”
Lorna had spent a couple of weeks of very hard work, followed by several unprofitable days lolling around the house. The dried beans were in the basket on the porch waiting to be shucked and cabbages were in the cellar waiting to be shredded and made into kraut, but she couldn’t get interested in doing any of those things. It had been more than two weeks since Cooper had ridden away and she had whipped Brice with the bullwhip. She hadn’t heard from either man; not that she’d expected to hear from Cooper, but she had thought Brice would be back, with Billy and Hollis as backup to seek vengeance.
The news she received about Brice was secondhand. Luke, Hollis’s cousin, stopped by and said Brice, Hollis and Billy Tyrrell had left the mountain just as soon as Brice was able to sit a saddle. He said Brice was acting strange. At times he was like a mad dog snapping at everyone, and at other times like a whipped cur. Being around him was like walking on eggs, Luke said, you never knew which way to jump first.
It wasn’t thoughts of Brice that troubled Lorna’s mind; it was Cooper and what had happened between them. Not that she was completely aware of it, but since meeting Cooper, Light’s Mountain had lost some of its magical attraction. The September days were spent as they had been for as long as she could remember, preparing for the long winter months, but the zest with which she had accomplished these tasks was gone. She went about the work automatically, listlessly.
White Bull and his people returned. The old chief came to see her. She told him about the whipping she gave Brice, but carefully refrained from mentioning Cooper, knowing that if White Bull thought she wanted him for her man, he would send a party of braves to fetch him to Light’s Mountain. The tribe was planning to move on south, and if she was to visit the village she must do it soon. Not even the promise of that could shake her from her lethargy.
The saving grace of this dark time in her life, she was to realize later, was the new understanding between her and her father. His quiet companionship was her only comfort. Frank seldom left the homestead during the weeks following “Black Sunday” as he called the day Lorna had whipped Brice Fulton.
“He be a mon to seek vengeance,” he declared more than once.
“Let him try,” Lorna would reply heatedly, looking toward the rock covered mounds where they had buried the dogs Brice had killed.
She missed Naomi and Ruth. She missed them going with her to the barn when she went to milk the brindle cow and their happy yipping when Frank came to the house. Now there was only the clucking of the flighty chickens, the scolding of the bluejays and the caws of the black crows that hovered over the homestead.
Lorna didn’t know exactly when the idea came to her to go take a look at Cooper’s ranch. The idea was an offshoot of the notion she had to search for Volney. There were two places the old mountain man could have made for; a shack he sometimes used high up on the timberline, or one down on the Thompson River. From there it wouldn’t be far to where she thought Cooper’s ranch was located. The idea hung in her mind. She mulled it over until one day she thought of something Cooper had said: I’ll get a look at you and you won’t even know I’m within a hundred miles. At that moment the idea solidified into something she could hold on to and pursue, and a tingling excitement began to build within her.
Frank stood in the yard as she tied a bedroll behind her saddle and filled the saddlebags with provisions. Gray Wolf danced nervously, anxious to be away, and she spoke to him sternly. The morning was crisp as only a late September morning could be in the mountains. The smell of frost made the air sharp and tangy.
“I dinna need to be sayin’ to ye that I’d as soon ye not be goin’,” he said and looped the coiled bullwhip over her saddle horn.
“I know, Pa. Thank you for not arguing against it.”
“Ye be a woman grown, daughter. Ye be knowin’ yer own mind ’n goin’ yer own way.”
“I’ll be all right. You keep an eye out, hear? Don’t let yourself get cornered if Brice and his bunch come back.”
“They be halfway to California by now, I’m thinkin’.”
“Keep an eye out for Moose and Woody, too. They’ll be coming soon. They’ll probably be here by the time I get back.”
“Four days, ye say?”
“Give or take a day. Pa—” She never called him Frank, now. “Don’t worry.” She went to him and took the oilskin pouch of food from his hands. “Other times I’ve gone off and you didn’t worry—”
“Aye, I did in me own foolish way, but not like now. Ye be careful, girl.”
“Aye, oold mon, ’n ye be careful, too.” Lorna imitated his Scottish brogue in an attempt to make him smile, but his dour face remained furrowed with worry lines.
She stored the food in the saddlebag and swung into the saddle. Gray Wolf danced and Lorna laughed for the first time in weeks. In britches, perched atop the big horse with her hair stuffed up under a flat-crowned brimmed hat, she looked like a small helpless boy, but Frank knew she was far from helpless. With the rifle, the stiletto and the bullwhip she would be a dangerous enemy for any man to attack.
“Bye, Pa,” she called over her shoulder and gave Gray Wolf rein to set his own pace.
Lorna climbed up out of the valley and into the higher hills to pass over the ridge to the trail that led downward. She traveled by stages, letting Gray Wolf pick his own way for the most part, but here and there she reined wide of an unnecessarily steep climb out of consideration for her mount. She was acutely attuned to her surroundings, turning her head constantly, sending her sharp gaze skittering over the terrain in suspicious searching.
This was her country. She loved the upthrust ridges, the crisscrossing canyons filled with pines and the streams, almost dry now, that would be rioting in the spring, carrying the melted snow to the valleys below. She knew every species of wildlife that lived here: the birds—and she could mimic their song to perfection—the deer, the rodent, predator, and reptile. She could tell what had caused a panic-stricken deer to bound along the trail by the sound of the rustling in the underbrush.
This was her world and she had seldom been lonely in it. There was always the sound of the birds, from the concerted outburst of profanity from bluejays to the soft cooing of the mourning doves and hoot owls, the call of a coyote, the scream of a cat or the chatter from a squirrel to listen to. Now, this day, she was urgently happy to be leaving the mountains for the flat tablelands at the feet of them.
From the moment they left the homestead, Gray Wolf had sensed an urgency in the girl on his back. On the downward trail he traveled faster, as the summons came more strongly to him. Lorna let him go, but slowed him cautiously when the table on which she rode narrowed. On her left was a wall that rose a hundred feet into the air, and to her right the rim of the table marked a fall of nearly twice that distance, making this long and flat expanse a gigantic stairstep carved by nature into the side of the mountain. At the far end of the step the land was a jungle of boulders and it took her the best part of an hour to work her way through them. Once free, she found herself in a land of towering ponderosa pines and dense undergrowth. She and Gray Wolf drifted through it with almost no sound at all.
It was warmer in the lowlands. They stopped by a swiftly moving stream to drink and Lorna cautioned Gray Wolf. “Just a few swallows now, you’re too hot for much of that cold water.”
