Wayward Wind (2 page)

Volney Burbank sat his small dun horse on the brush-clogged shoulder of the hill overlooking the ravine. He watched with sharp,
interested eyes as Lorna mounted her horse and turned him in the direction of the hill. He wiped the snuff stains from his
lips with the back of his hand, grinned, and shook his head. If there were anyone in the world the old mountain man loved,
it was this girl. Volney had been there when her grandmother had first spanked her bottom. He’d heard her squall just as he’d
heard her mother squall when she’d first seen the light of day.

Since he first came to these mountains back in the thirties, more than forty years ago, Volney Burbank had known every generation
of Lightbodys. Back in 1810, Baptiste Lightbody, known simply as Light, had brought his bride out from the Missouri Territory.
They had crossed land never seen by the white man and had settled in these mountains. They made friends with the Cheyenne,
the Dakota and the Sioux. Now they were a legend. Their story had been passed down from generation to generation among both
Indian and the Wasicun. Light had been a fearless, deadly foe to his enemies, but true and faithful to his friends. It was
said that Maggie, his childlike wife, was beautiful beyond belief, and that the Indians believed her to be of the spirit world.
According to the stories passed down, she could run through the woods as fleet as a deer with her feet scarcely touching the
ground. She could calm a wild beast with a soothing hand and could sing like a bird. Light loved her more than life. The Indians
believed that even the manner in which they died was magical. Light and his beloved were struck by lightning during a thunderstorm.
They died and were buried together deep in the forest they loved.

Two of their sons had had itchy feet and wandered on West. The third stayed, wed an immigrant’s daughter, Marthy, and raised
his family on the homestead in the tradition of his mother and father. Volney had known Lorna’s grandparents when they were
very young. He had celebrated the birth of each of their six children. Only two girls had lived; one married a teamster and
went to Oregon to homestead; the other daughter, pretty as a mountain flower, forever seeking laughter and sunshine, stayed,
wed, and had borne Lorna. Marthy had said that Lorna was very much like Maggie. Maggie’s hair had been as black as midnight
to the day she died, and Lorna’s was black and shiny as a crow’s wing. The girl had been raised wild and free by her mother
and her grandmother.

Volney frowned and his large, gnarled hands gripped the saddle horn as he pondered what had caused a pretty young woman like
Lorna’s mother to wed up with a sorry man like Frank Douglas. Frank had come West during the gold rush and completely dazzled
the young mountain girl.

“Horseshit!” the old man muttered and spat in the grass. “There’s no explainin’ women or their ways.” The only good thing
to come from it, he mused, was Lorna. After her mother died trying to have another child, there was nothing to hold what little
good there was in Frank. Old Marthy had kept a fair hold on things until she keeled over a couple years back. Now, all that
was standing between Lorna and the riff-raff that was filling the mountains was himself and White Bull, Volney thought sadly.

Lorna’s horse climbed to the shelf where Volney waited. Her eyes searched for her Indian friend. She spied Volney sitting
in the shadows on his little dun and tried to hide the pleasure she felt at seeing her old friend.

“You hiding, Volney?”

Volney’s whispery laugh sounded as part of the wind. “Yo’re aslippin’, gal. Ya ’bout got yoreself cornered by that sidewinder.”

“Ha!” Lorna snorted. “He couldn’t catch me if I was walking on my hands. Besides, all I had to do was whistle and Gray Wolf
would have kicked the stuffing out of him.” She patted the big gray on the neck. “Where’s White Bull?”

“Rode out when he saw ya was outta the fix ya got yoreself in.”

“I wasn’t in a fix,” Lorna protested. “Why’d he ride out?”

“He don’t tell me nothin’, no more’n you do.” Volney slipped his skinning knife out of its sheath, and tipped his head to
the north. “He just said, ‘tell Singing Woman my ears are sad.’ ”

“I’ve not felt much like singing lately. Besides, he’s been up north. He’d not know if I sang or not,” Lorna said, her face
inscrutable, with a look of inner concentration. She watched her oldest and dearest friend dig a plug from the depths of one
of the cavernous pockets of his tunic and busy himself trimming off a substantial chaw. He was waiting. He knew her so well.

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.