In the Season of the Sun (45 page)

“It's done,” Jacob said and looked up at Tom. A look of horror crossed his face and Jacob broke into a run as Tom Milam slumped forward, his shoulders hunched. He looked small and almost childlike.

Jacob reached his side. Tom straightened, and though his chest was covered with blood, he managed a sad smile. His expression softened as if he were truly seeing Jacob and time had not changed them. He reached toward his chest and cupped the blood-stained ring that dangled from the chain. He tore it free and placed it in Jacob's hand.

“Are we always gonna be brothers, Jacob?” he asked. He tensed from the pain, lost his hold, and slid from horseback into his brother's outstretched arms, his Final breath, a sigh of acceptance and, perhaps, regret.

“Forever,” Jacob said.

EPILOGUE

I
t was a fair land cooled by a pine-scented wind, a land of sunlight and yet ever wreathed in darkness where the mountains rose to dominate the horizon. To this far country the Harveson riverboats had at last arrived. The boats brought new life and prosperity to Fort Promise. Here was a vanguard eager to claim the wilderness for civilization and, to be sure, profit. Abigail Harveson had immersed herself in the growing community, nurturing it as best she could, and with gratifying success. It had been two weeks since Coyote Kilhenny had marched away. The survivors of his command brought news of the slaughter. As for the survivors, they either took their place in Abigail Harveson's employ or were sent packing.

A settlement was taking root beyond the walls of Fort Promise, and an assortment of buildings was under construction. Even as Abigail's hopes for Tom Milam faded, she took pride in the influx of trappers and shopkeepers and their families. A nation was waiting to tap the riches of a wilderness, and Abigail was only too happy to supply its pioneers. Yet every evening she watched the sunset from the stockade walls and it seemed to her the horizon had been streaked with crimson for far too long. Deep in her heart she knew Tom would never return. He had ventured once too often into the howling wilderness and it had claimed him. Still she kept her vigil, and often the stalwart, homely Dog Bill Hanna stood at her side. He had proved himself an adept replacement for Kilhenny. He knew men and he knew the frontier and he was honest to a fault. And Dog Bill was more than a little in love with “Miss Abigail,” though he kept such notions to himself. He usually waited and watched the sunset in silence, content in Abigail's company.

One night nearly a week after the battle, he had blurted out, “Lookee there!”

At first Abigail thought he meant he'd seen Tom, then she noticed the disheveled figure stumbling toward the entrance to the stockade. Abigail gathered her skirt and hurried along the walkway and down the stairs. The broken, exhausted figure passed through the gate and saw Abigail on the stairs. Barely able to hold himself upright, he wavered like a sapling in a thunderstorm. However, his gaze brightened as Abigail drew near.

“Abby,” Con Vogel called out in a hoarse voice. His clothes were in tatters; his limbs trembled from lack of food. He was so grateful to be alive, he began to weep. “Abby … they're dead. So many dead,” he moaned. “Only thing that kept me alive was … thought of you.”

Abigail Harveson cautiously approached the man. Two of Dog Bill's trappers stepped from the shadows and caught Vogel under the arms for support. The man was almost out of his head from his ordeal, but Abigail felt no pity for him.

“It does me good to see you, Con,” Abigail said. She nodded to the men. “Chain him in the barn.”

“What?” her instructions caught Vogel completely off guard.

“Virginia confided in me the minute you left with Kilhenny,” Abigail said. “She told me everything.”

Vogel's features fell; his eyes widened. “No …”

“I've been hoping for your return,” she said. “Mose Smead will take you downriver to the first court he can find. There you'll be tried and hanged for the murder of Nate Harveson.”

“No …” His cry sounded scarcely human, yet it hung in the air as the armed guards took him away.

“You can be a hard lady,” Dog Bill muttered.

“I can be just that,” she agreed. Abigail turned and looked out through the open gates. I'm still here, the young woman told the land, her words uttered only in her mind. It had taken her brother and her own true love, and still she remained.

And there would be a time for tears, after her dreams.

Jacob walked his wounded mare through the fire-blackened pass. The place still reeked of death and he hurried through at dusk with the western horizon an open wound, a baleful mixture of crimson and ocher and deep-blue light to guide him home. He traveled the pass unnoticed and the cookfires of the village cast a glimmering note of peace and healing to his sorrow-laden soul. On the distant hillside, new burial scaffolds had been erected overlooking Medicine Lake. He was too late for mourning, but then again he had buried his own just two days' past on a scaffold above the sacred earth with the wind to lull Tom Milam in eternal sleep. Jacob had remained in the meadow for a little while, just to be alone with the stars and the memories of a time and a past truly lost to him, now and ever after. Now he returned to the village where life had begun anew.

Jacob watched the village, then lifted his gaze to the lodge on the hillside. Tewa was there. He would go to her and be loved by her.

He waited, listening, and heard the distant chant that rang out over the village like the sheltering wings of the Great Spirit, protecting and restoring. He listened in his grief and experienced deep in his soul a greater sense of belonging than ever before.

Jacob, though yearning for Tewa, was drawn inexorably to this voice at twilight in the season of the sun. Fireflies swirled and filled the air before him. An owl whirred past on wings of night. Jacob's steps were sure in the deepening twilight as he skirted the village. Tomorrow would be time enough to walk among his friends, Otter Tail, Yellow Eagle, and the rest.

Now, this very hour held only one purpose for him. He could no more deny the mystery and the power calling in the night than undo the last eleven years of his life.

Jacob made his way to the low plateau, a broken ledge really, eroded into the side of a hill above the village. He left the mare at the base of the slope and crawled hand over fist in desperation to reach the ledge.

At last he reached the shaman's sacred fire, and Lone Walker, for all his intensity, paused, seeing his “Gift from the Sun.” The medicine warrior's heart gladdened, for he had been unsure whether this young man of two worlds would return.

“You had one brother,” Lone Walker said in a voice rich with compassion. He could see into Jacob's heart. “And you have lost him twice.”

Jacob sat by the sacred fire and watched the spirit smoke coil and uncoil skyward like a writhing serpent, or souls, dancing, touching, free. Jacob lifted the serpent ring from his pocket and dropped it into the pulsing heart of the spirit fire.

Lone Walker's voice rose softly as he sang of the forest at twilight, the music of the rain, the caress of the wind. He thanked the All-Father for these things and for the Great Circle in which there was no final loss, only a temporary farewell in a oneness without beginning or end.

“Shaman, why do you sing?” Jacob asked, a question he had often uttered in good-natured jest.

“I sing so that the world will not end.” Lone Walker's answer never changed.

Tonight, for the first time, Jacob understood, and in that moment sorrow left him. He knew at last the path he must follow. To enter the mystery was to find life. His voice trembled, not with fear but expectancy and even joy.

“Father,” said Jacob Sun Gift. “Teach me the songs.”

All-Father,

With beauty

Will I walk.

With beauty

Will I speak.

Hear me.

Heal me.

It is finished.

It is reborn

In oneness, and peace,

in Ever Shadow.

Acknowledgments

Books don't get finished without the love and support of special people. I offer my love and gratitude to Ann and Paul Newcomb, my beloved parents; Aaron Priest, my agent; and my terrific editors, Greg Tobin and Linda Grey. I would also like to offer thanks to my friends.… especially to the children of Saint Rita's Catholic School for their hugs and joy and the gift of being part of their lives.

Thank you, All-Father.

May I walk the Great Circle of Life Singing.

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

978-1-4804-7887-9

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

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