Wayward Wind (40 page)

“Is Lorna here, Ma?”

“No, son.”

“Has she been here?”

“No.”

“Fix some supper, will you? I’ll be ridin’ out in the morning.” Cooper wheeled his horse and headed for the bam. Sylvia could
have cried when she saw the look of disappointment on his face.

Lorna headed straight for the Johnson place. If anyone knew where Hollis had gone it was his cousin Luke. She rode into the
yard, saw Luke’s slatternly mother indifferently draping wet clothes on the bushes beside the washtubs, and reined over to
her.

“Howdy, Mrs. Betts.”

“Ain’t ya sinkin’ mighty low acallin’ on us poor hill trash?”

Lorna felt her insides quiver hotly. Pearly Betts, at thirty-five, looked twice her age. Her sallow skin sagged and hung in
pouches along her jawline and her hair, stringy and dirty, clung to her sweat slick face. She looked like what she was, a
bitter, worn down woman. Lorna felt a faint pity for her, but knew it was a wasted emotion.

“I’m looking for Luke.”

“What fer? Ya ain’t never give my Luke the time a day.” A smug smile of satisfaction came over her face. “I did hear ya had
a fire over at yore place. I sure hope it didn’t hurt that fancy house of yores none.”

“You’ll be happy to know, Mrs. Betts, that it burned to the ground.”

“Oh? My, my. Ain’t that a shame. Are ya awantin’ Luke to help ya build it up agin? Well, he ain’t agoin’ to. ’N I ain’t atellin’
ya where he is, neither.”

Lorna wondered why she had ever felt a spurt of pity for this woman. She turned her horse and rode in a leisurely jog until
she dipped from sight on the trail, then let Gray Wolf run for half a mile.

The idea of going to Brice’s cabin played on her mind. She knew he wouldn’t be there; even Brice wouldn’t stay on the mountain
after what he’d done. There was a chance that Luke and his father might have gone there to salvage what they could from what
Brice left behind. While she was trying to decide what to do she heard the sound of horse coming fast. She pulled off the
trail and waited. It was Luke.

“Miss Lorna—I saw you talkin’ to Ma.”

“I was looking for you. She wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

“I didn’t reckon she would. I’m plumb sorry… ’bout ever’thin’.”

“Where did they go, Luke?” she asked softly.

“Pa’d kill me if I told—”

“He’ll never know.”

“He said it ain’t no business of ours ’n I’d better not be ashootin’ off my bazzoo. But it warn’t right to burn up a place
like they done.”

“They killed my pa, too, Luke.”

“Frank? Lordy! They didn’t say nothin’ ’bout that.”

“Hollis shot him. Twice.”

“I’m plumb sorry—”

“Where did they go? Who was with them besides Billy?”

“Billy didn’t want to do it, Miss Lorna.”

“But he did. Who was the other man?”

“Dunno. Hollis said they’d met him in town ’n he was askin’ ’bout a woman named Lorna who lived down this way. He said you’d
done some caterwaulin’ ’n you’d stuck him with your knife.”

“Did he have red hair?”

“I dunno, Miss Lorna. I never did see him. Hollis said he was some high muckity-muck’s right-hand man ’n that he was plumb
tickled to run on to men like him ’n Brice. He had work for ’em. Good payin’ work.”

Lorna’s mind absorbed this information. The fourth man had to be Dunbar, the one who had come to the cabin on the Blue and
tried to hang Griffin. He’d be just the type to take up with the likes of Brice and Hollis.

“Did they go to Junction City?”

“I cain’t say, Miss Lorna—”

“You take care of yourself, Luke. If you ever want to get out of this hog wallow, go to the Parnell ranch up on the Thompson.
You’re a good man with horses. Cooper Parnell might give you a job.”

“Ya think he would?”

“You never know till you ask. Thank you, Luke. You’re about the only decent thing left in these mountains. You and Moose and
Woody.” She reined over and held out her hand.

“Bye, Miss Lorna. Ya… watch yerself. Hear?”

Lorna rode east and north, coming down off Light’s Mountain on the eastern side. Cooper had told her Junction City was straight
north of the place where they had turned to go to Light’s Mountain when they had left the cabin on the Blue. She followed
the canyon, riding cautiously. Her rifle was reassuring in her hand, and she held it ready. She was now in a vast and empty
land, and she rode into uncertainty with no one beside her. Gray Wolf alone was confident. He was on a trail and he held to
it.

At sundown she paused to water her horse, to fill the canteen and to prepare some food for herself. At this place she rested,
and for an hour she slept. More comfortable on the trail at night, she mounted up and went forward with extreme caution, pausing
often to listen. At any time she might come upon someone who had rolled up in his blankets for the night or another night
rider like herself.

The walls of the canyon closed in and darkness enfolded her; the wild cliffs rose up, rough, old, and silent. A river roared
through its confining cliffs beside the trail, and its bellowing echoed against the canyon walls. It was a relief to look
up at the narrow band of sky, with its stars.

Lorna lost all sense of time. Somewhere ahead, in Junction City, were Brice and Hollis and the man named Dunbar whom she had
knifed on the Blue. Her granny had always told her that birds of a feather flocked together. She never really understood the
full meaning of that until now. Her granny had also said that nothing brought men closer together than to be united against
someone. It appeared that her enemies had joined forces.

Hours passed. Suddenly Gray Wolf lunged upward, scrambling hard on the lip of a cliff. The cool night breeze hit her face
and she knew she was out of the canyon and on the flatland.

When dawn was breaking, she left the trail and rode into the dense woods. She was exhausted from the long hours in the saddle,
and Gray Wolf was tired, too. There was no sound but that of the walking horse and the twittering of birds. Within her there
was a vast emptiness, for every moment of the long ride she had been acutely aware of what lay ahead. She had been to a town
only two other times in her entire life. Just walking her horse into town was going to take all the courage she had. She’d
need a clear head and to have that she had to rest and think.

She woke after a few hours of sound sleep. The air was cold, and she threw off the blanket reluctantly, rolled it, and tied
it behind her saddle. She filled her hands with water from her canteen and splashed her face and dried it on the end of her
shirt. After combing and rebraiding her hair, she saddled Gray Wolf and turned him toward town.

The first thing she was going to do was to buy herself a hat. She felt the weight of the gold coins in the pocket of her coat
and blessed her granny for saving them. Use them when times were hard, she had said. Times had never been harder than now,
right this minute, as the long street lined with buildings loomed ahead.

Junction City was a town of pot holed, muddy streets, frame buildings and a few rawly new brick buildings, spread out along
one main street, with two streets branching off on either side. Houses, set like small boxes, lined these streets. At the
far end of town, looming gauntly above the houses, was the church with steeple and cross unfinished.

To Lorna it looked like a metropolis. She reined in on the edge of town to look. For a moment she sat deliberately taking
in the smells and sounds, which were wholly different from what she had known, and watching the activity in the street. Her
father had said that Denver was many times bigger than Junction City. She couldn’t imagine it, or how people could live in
such a crowded place. Smoke drifted upward from at least fifty chimneys, dogs roamed the streets, horses stamped at pesky
fall flies, and merchants stood in open doors or visited with customers on the board porches.

Lorna saw a mercantile sign above a store at the end of the first block, and feeling more frightened and unsure of herself
than she ever had in her life, she headed for it. A dog ran out from beneath a porch and nipped at Gray Wolf’s heels. The
nervous gray lashed out with his hoofs and sent it rolling in the dust. The cur picked itself up and slunk back under the
porch. Lorna scarcely noticed the interrupted gait.

There were a few horses on the street and a few people on the boardwalks fronting the stores, but no one paid any attention
to the small figure on the horse, and for that Lorna was thankful. She stopped at the store, sat for a minute, then slid from
the saddle. She dropped the reins on the ground in front of the horse, looped her bullwhip over her shoulder and took her
rifle from the scabbard.

“Don’t let any of this fuss get you excited, Gray Wolf. I’ll be back in a minute. I have to start somewhere,” she said and
rubbed his nose with her fingertips. “This place is good as any.”

Lorna stepped up on the porch and went through the open door of the mercantile. She paused and looked around. As soon as her
eyes accustomed themselves to the dim light, she saw an astonishing array of goods. Here was everything from dress goods to
harnesses to crackers and dried apples. Rope, chains, buckets and a variety of tools hung from the rafters. The aisles were
choked with kegs, boxes, tubs, pickaxes and bags of flour, salt and sugar. Lorna sniffed the air and smelled a mixture of
leather and spices, new wood and coal oil.

“Howdy, young feller. I didn’t hear you come in.” The booming voice came from somewhere among the coats, jackets, pants and
blankets that were stacked against one wall. Lorna watched the man come toward her. He wore a white shirt and had a striped
apron tied about his middle. Beneath an almost bald head, his face was round and pleasant. “’Scuse me, ma’am. Lookin’ against
the light, I thought—”

“I need a hat,” she said, almost defensively. She shifted her rifle to her other hand and reached into her pocket for the
bag of coins.

“Right over here. I’ve got ever’ kind a hat a young lady’s need.”

Lorna followed him to the hat counter. Sitting on blocks of wood was a selection of bonnets; straw hats decked with ribbons;
velvet hats with peacock feathers; and satin hats in every color of the rainbow. She wanted to cry. It was all so confusing.
All she could do was shake her head.

Mr. McCloud had been in business for five years, and he was certain that in all that time he had never seen a more beautiful
face than the one before him. It was a white, perfectly formed face surrounded with shiny dark hair that she had tried to
slick back to conceal beneath the collar of her coat. Almond-shaped eyes beneath straight dark brows were of a color he’d
seldom seen. The lower red lip that was slightly trembling had a cleft, giving her mouth a three-cornered shape. There was
almost a pleading quality to the violet-blue eyes that looked back at him.

“I think I know what you need, young lady. Come this way.” He led her to the men’s wide-brimmed, peak-crowned hats. “I don’t
know as I blame you a bit for wanting to hide, if you can, the fact you’re a pretty young woman. This town is full of toughs
and if you’re planning on staying long, it’s best you keep a sharp eye out.”

McCloud talked as Lorna looked over the stack of hats. Finally she placed the rifle on the counter, lifted a dark hat from
the pile and put it on her head. It came down over her ears.

“Too big,” McCloud said. “I’ll find your size.” He shuffled through the hats and came out with one. “Try this. There’s a mirror
back over here.”

Lorna went to the big mirror. She didn’t recognize herself at first. The mirror she’d had at home showed only one small part
of her face at a time. She grimaced at what she saw. She wished she was bigger, heavier, and her face wasn’t so white or her
lips so red. Oh, well, she couldn’t do anything about that. Her hair went into the crown of the hat easily, and she tilted
the brim low over her eyes. Back at the counter she picked up her rifle and tossed down the bag of coins.

“Take what you need,” she said and turned her back to look at the bullwhips that hung from a peg.

McCloud was dumbfounded. “I don’t want to do that, ma’am,” he said gently. “Let me tell you a few things, miss. You must keep
your money in your pocket and only bring out what you need or someone will snatch it and be gone.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said gravely and opened the bag. “How much for the hat?”

“Three-bits.” He took the coin she gave him. “I’ll get your change. I haven’t seen you around here before.”

“I’ve not been here before. I’m from Light’s Mountain.”

“Light’s Mountain? Is that a town?”

“No, it’s a mountain,” she said, turning away and blinking rapidly. Her eyes were clear when she looked at him again. “Mister—”

“McCloud.” McCloud held out his hand.

“Lorna Douglas.” Lorna shifted the rifle and put hers in it. “I’m obliged for the advice. I guess you can tell that I’ve not
been to town much. I’m looking for three men. Do you know Brice Fulton or Hollis Johnson, or a man named Dunbar?”

McCloud watched Lorna carefully. There was an aura of sadness about the girl and now a deadly intensity while she waited for
him to answer.

“I never heard of the first two. There’s a man named Dunbar that works for Clayhill Ranch.”

“Does he have red hair?”

“I believe so. Is he a friend of yours?”

“No. Can I ask you something else? Do you know if he’s in town?”

“He was last night, miss. But he probably went on back to the ranch this morning. Adam Clayhill don’t give his men much time
off.”

“Is there a lawman in town?”

“No, ma’am. The marshal from Denver comes up once in a while. There’s talk about incorporating the town and hiring a sheriff.
Most folk want law and order, but some are fightin’ against it.”

Lorna nodded thoughtfully. “How do you get something to eat here?”

“There’s a eatery right up the street. It’s run by a woman named Mable. Just walk in and sit down and she’ll dish up what
she’s cookin’.”