Wayward Wind (37 page)

The big man looked down at her small, white, oval face with large pleading eyes. He lifted a huge hand and settled it on her
shoulder. “Little purty thin’. I…” He gulped. “I got to say so. Let’s get ya on the horse ’n ya can go on ahead.”

Lorna whistled for Gray Wolf. When he came to her, Moose gripped her waist and lifted her into the saddle. She kicked the
horse and he covered the half mile to Moose and Woody’s shack at a dead run. The door to the windowless log cabin was open
and propped back with a stick. Woody stood in the doorway. He was a tall, extremely thin, stoop-shouldered man. His long face
was serious. Lorna slid slowly from the saddle. Her heart was so heavy with dread that she could scarcely breathe. Woody moved
aside and she entered the dimly lit cabin.

Frank lay on a bunk that was nailed to the side of the far wall. His forehead and cheeks were smoke-blackened and blistered,
and in front his hair burned to the scalp. A cloth, bright with blood, covered his naked chest. Woody had coated his burned
hands with bear grease and they lay on his thighs. Lorna could see that he was suffering horribly. She swayed on her feet
when she realized that he was dying. He opened his eyes when she knelt down beside him.

“Pa, I’m sorry—” She choked up and couldn’t say more.

“Ach, me wee lass, it’s sorry I be for the wasted years.” There was a momentary catch in his breath, followed by a faint moan.
It was a steady hurtful sound.

“Don’t talk about that. Pa. I caused this—I shouldn’t have gone off and left you!”

He waited for another ripple of pain to pass and ran his tongue over dry lips. “’Tis glad I be ye were gone.”

“It’s my fault. I wish I’d killed him!”

“Don’t fault yerself, me bonnie sweet babe. ’Twas me own doin’. I shoulda held me ground before so it dinna come to this—”

“No! Oh, Pa, please don’t… die.” Tears made her eyes sparkling pools of blue water. They spilled over and rolled down her
cheeks.

“It’s no so bad, sweet lass, but for leavin’ ye.”

“What’ll I do without you?” The cry came from a throat tight with sobs.

“I got ye the cover Nora made wid the wee stitches. It be singed but only a mite.” He tried to lift his hand to touch her,
but it fell back to the bed. “’N Maggie’s wee slippers ye be so fond of—”

“Oh, Pa. You went into the fire for them?”

“Aye. ’Twas little enough, lass. ’Twas all I could get for ye—”

“They’re just
things,
Pa. You’re what matters to me.”

“Nora loved the house.” His eyes pinched and a tear rolled from the corner and into his singed hair. “I couldna stop them.”

“Were Billy and Hollis with Brice?”

“Aye. But ’twas Hollis who shot me. He wants ye, lass. He means to have ye, ’n he be a mean mon.” Frank’s voice was weak,
but it outranged the small room and spilled out into the bright sunlight.

“He’ll never have me. I swear it!”

“Aye. Ye’ve picked Parnell to be yer mon, have ye?” At her hesitant nod, he sighed. “If there be a mon to stand against the
likes of Hollis ’n take Light’s place in yer heart, lass, ’tis Parnell.”

Lorna found a spot on his arm where she could lay her hand without giving him pain. These were the last few minutes she’d
spend with the man who had planted the seed that gave her life. Her father was dying, and all she could do for him was give
him peace of mind.

“Aye. Right ye be as usual, oold mon,” she said with the accent she used when she teased him and was rewarded by the flicker
of light that came to his eyes. “Don’t fret about me being alone. I’ll be all right. I’ll have Cooper. But… I’ll miss you,
Pa. I—I wish you’d be here to see your grandson.”

“I be knowin’ that ’tis bonnie he’ll be if he takes after me lassie.”

“I love you. I’m sorry for thinking you didn’t love me. You were lonely, Pa. I know that now. I’ve been selfish and self-centered,
going my own way. I wish I was more like Mama.” In spite of her resolve to keep calm, her lips trembled so that she could
scarcely say the words.

“Ye be her spittin’ image, but ye can’t be inside but what ye are. I be wishin’ I be more like Light. Yer mama said ’twas
no matter.”

“It didn’t matter to her. She loved you so very much.”

“’Tis me Nora that I’ll be seein’.” His words thickened and ran together, ebbing slowly out of time, receding like wavelets
on the sand.

“Give Mama a hello, Pa.”

“Aye.”

His eyes sought Lorna’s face and he gazed at her. He continued to look at her while seconds turned into minutes, minutes into
timeless silence. Lorna’s brain knew that he was no longer with her, but her mind refused to accept it. She stayed beside
him and silent tears rolled from the violet-blue wells and fell on her hand clasped to his arm. She wept for her Pa, who had
come to Light’s Mountain from far across the water and stayed with the woman he loved even after her death. She wept for the
home that was lost to her forever, and for herself, who was now alone.

When the well of tears ran dry, leaving her empty and a little mad with grief, she leaned over and kissed her father’s cheek
and gently closed his eyes with her fingertips.

“Good-bye, Papa,” she whispered. “They’ll pay for what they’ve done, Pa. I’ll make them pay if it takes the rest of my life.
I swear it.”

Lorna lay down on the bunk opposite the one where her father lay and fell into an exhausted sleep. She woke to the sound of
heavy pounding in her head. It was twilight. She sat up on the edge of the bunk and looked across to where her father lay,
his hands folded neatly on his chest. Slumping forward, she braced her elbows on her knees and held her face in her hands.
The pounding continued and she realized it was coming from outside the cabin. After a moment she got to her feet. The floor
rolled and pitched crazily under her. She braced herself against the wall until she was steady, then went to the door.

Moose and Woody were putting the finishing touches on a burial box they had made from odds and ends of boards they had scrounged.
Woody was straightening nails on a flat stone, and Moose was hammering them into place. They stopped what they were doing
and looked at her helplessly.

“I’m awfully hungry,” she said, and braced herself against the door as she felt herself sway.

Woody was a leathery, string bean figure of a man with an Adam’s apple that leaped spasmodically up and down. He was an educated
man who liked to read and Lorna had often wondered what had happened in his life that drove him to the nomadic life of a prospector.
As he came toward her now, his homely face had a worried look.

“Sit here on the doorstone, Miss Lorna. I’ll bring you something. You look done in.”

“Thanks, Woody. Did Gray Wolf let you take off his saddle?”

“He seemed to know it was a special time, miss. He stood pretty as you please. I gave him a hatful of grain, and Moose pulled
off the saddle. We turned him loose, knowing he’d not leave you.”

“He won’t go far. He’s all I have, now, Woody.”

“It’ll be no chore at all to put up another cabin. We’ll have a cabin-raising before winter sets in and ask the folks on the
other side of the mountain. It’ll take some work, but Moose and I want to help you build the place up again.”

Lorna shook her head. “No. Another cabin there would mean nothing to me. What was in it was what mattered, and there’s no
way to bring that back.” She sank down on the doorstone. “I don’t ever want to go back, Woody.”

Woody made no answer. He thought he’d never seen a face so sad. He held his silence while studying Lorna’s beautiful white
face. The girl didn’t know how lovely she was, even in her grief. Where would she go? What would she do? An unattached woman
as lovely as Lorna would have no trouble finding a protector, but from what he’d seen of the men in these mountains, there
wasn’t much for her to choose from. He stood there staring at her until he couldn’t bear what was in her eyes anymore. He
couldn’t bear to look at that much heartbreak, longing, anguish, all intermixed with such a bleak expression.

“Will you do something for me, Woody?”

“Of course. But first you must eat.”

While she ate, she told him about the sack of gold coins she had hidden in the chimney. “I’ll be obliged if you’d get them
for me, Woody.”

“Moose and I will go over first thing in the morning. We were gong to… make a place for Frank beside your ma.”

Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away. “Yes.” She took a few more bites of food, chewing slowly, forcing herself
to eat, because she knew she needed as much strength as she could get. “If there’s anything there you want, take it,” she
said quietly.

Woody made a growling noise of protest, but remained silent. He went to help Moose carry the box into the cabin. Lorna moved
from the doorway and kept her face averted from the box.

“Woody,” she said with her back turned away, “cover… Pa with Mama’s quilt.”

It was Moose who answered. “If’n that’s what ya want, it’s what we’ll do.”

The next morning Lorna saddled Gray Wolf and tucked the bag of coins Woody had brought from the homestead in her saddlebag.
Calm and clearheaded, she braided her hair in one long braid and tucked it down inside her coat. She didn’t have a hat, she
had left it at Cooper’s ranch. All she had in the world were her horse, saddle, the clothes she wore, Light’s knife, her rifle
and bullwhip, but it was enough. Moose made a travois, hitched it to their mule, and lashed the burial box to it. Lorna, leading
Gray Wolf, walked behind her father’s body to the family burial ground. When they came to the stream, Moose and Woody carried
the box across and up the hill to the gaping hole they had dug at first light. They lowered the box, then stood back with
their hats beneath their arms, their eyes on the sad-faced girl.

“Woody? Will you say something?”

“I’d be honored, Miss Lorna.”

He moved to the head of the grave and somberly recited the Lord’s Prayer. When he finished he and Moose looked to Lorna for
instructions and she nodded. Lorna watched until the box was no longer visible, then went to stand beside the wooden cross
that marked her mother’s final resting place. She began to sing.

Her voice rang clear and powerful in the crisp, fresh autumn air. It rose with an unearthly quality that reached the sky.
Both Woody and Moose stopped shoveling to look at her. She was facing the mountain with her face lifted. They were awestruck,
although they had heard her sing many times before. She sang now with such clarity and quality of feeling that it brought
tears to their eyes. Her voice on the still morning air was amplified and rendered directionless by the walls of mountains
surrounding the small upper valley.

Moose and Woody had never before heard the words or the tune, and Woody felt strongly that no one else had ever heard them
either. The words and the music were coming from the shattered pieces of the girl’s heart.

“I will meet you over yonder,

where there is no pain or strife.

I will meet you over yonder, my

dear ones—who gave me life.

There’ll be no more sad tomorrows,

no more sad good-byes.

I will meet you where the mountains

meet the skies.”

She stood still and staring for a long moment after the last echo of her voice died in the distance. Then, dry-eyed and with
a slight smile, she went to Moose and put her arms around his ample waist.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The big man choked up, grunted, and hugged her.

She went to Woody. “Thank you. I’ll never forget you and Moose.”

“We’ll make a marker, like your ma’s.”

“I’ll appreciate it. Someday I may be able to come back, but not… soon.”

“You take care of yourself, hear?” His Adam’s apple was jumping convulsively. He tried to meet her eyes, but could not.

“You, too.” Seeing his distress, she shook his arms, then raised up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be all right.
Don’t worry.”

She turned away quickly and mounted Gray Wolf. Her two friends watched her, saying nothing, knowing it was useless to try
to stop her from leaving. She kept her face turned away from rubble that was once her home, and sent the big gray splashing
across the creek and into the woods.

Cooper spent more than just a few hours gathering up the stock Lorna had let loose before she left the ranch. It took him,
Griffin and Louis the better part of the day. He was exhausted and angry—angry more at himself than anyone else.

Lorna Douglas was a selfish, wild, undisciplined little wildcat who was free of any sense of obligation to anyone except herself.
He should have known, back there on Light’s Mountain, that there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to get her own way. She’d
made a regular feather-head out of him with her sweet words and soft, clinging little body.
She loved him! Ha!
It was a game with her to try and bend people to her will; the ultimate result didn’t concern her. She could stay on that
damn mountain, live there, wallow in the legend of Light and Maggie Lightbody, and die there. He’d not ask her, ever again,
to share his life. Damn her! When she left she took a part of him with her, but he was through with her now—or would be as
soon as he turned over Volney’s gold to her.

When evening came Cooper went to the house for supper. It was a quiet group who sat around the table. Sylvia’s heart ached
for her son. It was obvious, so obvious, that he’d fallen in love with the little mountain girl with the big voice. He had
come to the house to tell her the old man had died, but the fact that he hadn’t mentioned that the girl was gone or that she
was responsible for his brood mares running free told her more than words how much he cared for her.

Bonnie had cried most of the day. She’d been within hearing distance when Cooper discovered his gates down, and in the first
heat of anger the things he’d said about the mountain wildcat, spoiled brat, black-haired devil woman had cut her to the quick.
She knew that Lorna was none of those things. She was good and kind and if not for Lorna she would more than likely be dead
by now, like Volney. She also cried for the old mountain man. He had been the one man on the mountain who had helped her escape
that living hell, and because of it he had died.