In the Season of the Sun (13 page)

Lone Walker turned to the son the Above Ones had given him to raise. See, was there not magic in Jacob Sun Gift as well? Let mystery speak and mystery listen. The spirit singer began his story.

He spoke of a man called Wolf Lance, a Blackfoot brave, a fierce and terrible warrior in battle, a trusted and honored friend to Lone Walker, for they had roamed the hills together as boys and dreamed their dreams of manhood, of great deeds and fine horses.

Boys became men and one day took wives to make homes together, to bear children. Wolf Lance, in love with a girl named Berry, came to the lodge of Two Stars, her father, and brought gifts of buffalo robes and four fine ponies he had stolen from the Kootenai across the divide. And Two Stars, impressed by such gifts, agreed to allow the couple to marry. Great was the happiness among the Medicine Lake band for Wolf Lance and his bride. Time passed and they were blessed with a daughter, Tewa, named for the Earth Mother.

Four years later, on a stormy night in July, the Berries Ripen Moon, Wolf Lance arrived unexpectedly at the lodge of Lone Walker and entered without being invited, trusting in the love of the man who was like a brother to him.

Even after fifteen years, Lone Walker could vividly remember that night, the very last night Wolf Lance had been among his people. The warrior huddled by the fire, and as he warmed himself, steam rose from the wolf-skin cowl covering his head. Lone Walker saw in a single glance that something was terribly wrong with his friend and he crawled out from his blankets, leaving Sparrow Woman's warm body, and sat by his friend near the trembling blaze.

“I must leave, tonight,” Wolf Lance said. “The Above Ones have walked in my dreams and shown me such things … I must leave tonight and take my wife and child.” His dark eyes, reflecting firelight, seemed afire. He hunched forward, bowing his burly shoulders; his big, strong hands opened and closed as if he were limbering himself up for some mighty struggle. “Do not ask me what has happened. Know only that it is for the safety of all your sons that I go. The All-Father has placed a terrible path before me, yet I must obey, for who cannot?”

“I don't understand,” Lóne Walker said. He looked over at the slumbering form of Young Bull, his son. How could the boy's life ever be in danger from Wolf Lance, whom they all loved as one of their own flesh and blood?

“I pray you never will,” Wolf Lance replied. He lowered his voice and continued. “Hear me now. I will take my family up onto the backbone of the world, where the twin horns of the Buffalo Cap rise against the winds, and there we will live and I will build my lodge. Let none learn of my whereabouts. But if I die, then perhaps Berry and Tewa will seek to return to their own kind. They may need your help.”

“How will I know?” Lone Walker said, accepting what he had heard but unable to understand fully his friend's predicament. Yet a man must follow his dream. Lone Walker understood this more than most people.

“The magic will tell you it is time to come looking for me.” Wolf Lance drew a knife and gouged the tip of his thumb and squeezed a drop of blood into the glowing embers. “I mix my blood with the ashes of your fire, with the dirt of these sacred hills. I am always with you, my friend.” Wolf Lance sheathed his knife, the sorrow of departure etched in his features.

“Surely the All-Father would not see you driven from your people,” Lone Walker said.

“No. This is of my own doing. I cannot change the will of the Great One, but I can avoid it. I must try.” Wolf Lance took a pinchful of earth from the cleared ground that served as an altar and sprinkled the dirt into a medicine pouch he wore around his neck. A moment later, Wolf Lance scrambled out of the tepee, paused illuminated in a flash of lightning, and then vanished in the thunder-filled darkness.

“That was fifteen summers ago,” Lone Walker concluded.

“Fifteen summers I have longed to see them. Now it is too late,” Two Stars said. “My eyes have grown dim. Yet to hear the laughter of Tewa again and to embrace my daughter, this too is seeing in a way. One day soon the All-Father will call me to his Far Land and I will ride on the spirit wind. Is it wrong for an old man to wish to hold the hands of his children one last time? Bring them home to me, Lone Walker.” Two Stars sat cross-legged; he began singing softly, a song, a prayer of homecoming.

“Tewa,” Jacob spoke the name aloud, liking the sound of it. The name fit the willful little sprite he had seen.

“I must go alone,” Lone Walker said. “If it was the daughter of Wolf Lance, and the buffalo spirit that came to my son, these are powerful signs. The All-Father's magic is at work.” Lone Walker stood and though Jacob towered over him, the warrior's bearing was undeniable, his authority almost impossible to resist. “Alone,” the brave reiterated.

Almost …

“I am going with you,” Jacob answered, taking up his rifle. “Now more than ever, I must.” He raised a hand to still his father's objections, but Lone Walker moved to block him again.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I am part of the magic,” said Jacob Sun Gift. The prayer of Two Stars drifted quietly between then. “And I am part of the song.”

Lone Walker started to reply, hesitated, then fell silent, his heart heavy with apprehension for his adopted son, sensing an urgent need to depart and dreading what might lie ahead. He turned and started toward his horse.

“Father …”

And Lone Walker looked around, first at Sparrow Woman, who shared his fears, then at the blind man singing; his gaze settled on the yellow-haired young man standing in the sun.

“Come with me” was all Lone Walker said.

It was enough.

PART IV

Tom Milam's Story

14

“I
t appears Nate Harveson sure knows how to have a good time,” Tom Milam said in an awed tone as he sat astride his horse. His heavy woolen coat protected him from the bite of the cold north wind as he waited for Coyote Kilhenny to give the orders to ride on down to the two-storied red-brick home and carefully tended grounds of Harveson's estate.

In the distance, a mile and a half to the south, flickered the lights of Independence, a beacon to trail-weary trappers returning from the howling wilderness and an enticement to settlers who had never been west of the Mississippi.

A smooth worn dirt road wound northward from the town. This thoroughfare was aptly named the River Road, for it followed the undulating course of the Missouri River. A secondary drive split from the River Road. It made an elongated loop past the sprawling estate that covered a bluff overlooking the wide Missouri. The river cut a great brown swath westward through the rolling landscape.

Independence was a good-size community of store fronts, shops, and homes of wood and brick ringed by a thick profusion of tents, cabins, lean-to shacks, and wagons. An array of brothels and saloons dominated the river's edge, there by the docks where the riverboats were tethered to the shore, preparing to make a final run to the settlements upriver before the waterway froze over, trapping the stern-wheelers on the periphery of some desolate frontier settlement.

“I'm for Gully Town and a hot woman,” Skintop Pritchard said. “I ain't dipped my wick in so long, I swear the first bona fide female I meet is in for some romping.” The jenny they were using for a pack animal brayed loud and long.

Tom rode clear of the mean-tempered beast and indicated the noisy animal with a wave of his broad-brimmed hat. “Here you go, Pritch. I'm not one to stand in the way of true love. If she ain't hot, a man like you will make her so.”

The jenny brayed again and kicked with her hind hooves. Pritchard scowled as the rest of the men laughed at his expense. “One day you're gonna go too far,” he muttered, fixing Tom in a murderous stare.

Tom Milam only smiled and his dark-featured expression never lost its cool reserve, his deep blue eyes hard as block ice. “I'll make a point of it,” he replied.

Coyote Kilhenny walked his horse forward and placed his big girth in between the two men before the face-off got out of hand. He looked from Tom to Pritchard and stroked his rust-red beard. His voice rumbled deep in his throat as he spoke.

“Enough.” Kilhenny pointed his Hawken rifle at the estate. “There'll be time for the gals of Gully Town,” he added. “Maybe even ol' Tam here'll find him a filly he can saddle and ride. 'Course, we might need to help him climb aboard.”

“And you can go to hell,” Pike Wallace said, adjusting his plaid tam atop his gray head. The wind tugged at his eagle feather. A snow-white stubble dotted his windburned chin. He patted his rifle and drew himself erect with all the dignity he could muster. “I ain't seen the day when I couldn't hold my own and more with the likes of you boys.”

A stiff north wind tugged at their coats. All of the men save Tom Milam wore capotes sewn from five-point Hudson Bay blankets. Tom's slender, wiry form was hidden beneath a black woolen coat that hung to his ankles. It was as long as a duster and had a wide collar that he pulled up to protect his neck. He tilted his broad-brimmed felt hat back on his forehead and studied Harveson's estate, his gaze as intent as a hunter's. He counted seven carriages tethered to whitewashed posts on the drive fronting the house. The windows of the house were ablaze with light and when the wind stilled, the tinkling music of a piano accompanied by flourishes from a string quartet carried across the rolling meadow to the men on the hill.

“You lads be on your best behavior,” Pike Wallace warned. “I hear Harveson's a man to walk cautious around.” The old Scot sounded almost fatherly in his reproach.

“If Harveson was interested in good behavior, he wouldn't have sent for me.” Coyote Kilhenny grinned at the men around him. Tom Milam nodded in accord with the man who had become like a father. Kilhenny touched his heels to his horse and the animal obediently started forward.

“Say, about this Harveson,” Tom spoke up, appreciation in his voice as he returned his attention to the spacious-looking two-storied home, the groomed gardens, and freshly painted carriage house, stables, and corral that made up the Harveson estate. “I don't suppose he has a young pretty daughter.”

“No, but he has a young pretty sister,” Kilhenny chuckled. “Though she might as well be his daughter. I've heard there's more'n one hound been chased off with a load of buckshot in the tail end.” Kilhenny scratched underneath his fur cap. He dug his fingernails into his shaggy red mane and worked over his entire scalp. Then he cradled his rifle in the crook of his left arm as young Tom rode up alongside.

“Danger's like salt. It only makes the meat taste better.” Tom flashed a row of white teeth in a broad, reckless grin; his eyes twinkled and he looked confident enough to dare the devil himself.

Coyote Kilhenny wagged his head in dismay. There was no point in arguing with the lad. He was incorrigible.

“You better rein it in,” Skintop Pritchard cautioned, riding behind Tom. Pritchard tugged at the earring dangling from his right ear and scowled as his gaze bore into the back of the younger man's head. “You got us chased out of Santa Fe. Don't close Independence for us too.” Pritchard glanced aside at Pike Wallace as if seeking the old one's support. Pike shrugged. He had no wish to be dragged into the argument.

“It's a free country,” Tom said, without glancing back. “And I'll graze any pasture that I please.”

“You mark my words, one day you'll go too far,” Pritchard warned.

“That'll be the day you're left behind to eat my dust,” With that Tom whipped his horse to a gallop and charged down the drive.

“Who do you think he is?” Abigail Harveson wondered aloud as she sat with her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around her knees. She was a winsome-looking nineteen-year-old with pale ivory skin and dark brown hair braided back from her features and caught in a cluster of thick ringlets. Her eyes were green like a forest at dusk, dark and unrevealing. In truth, Abigail was of an unpredictable nature. She stretched and yawned and the earth-tone flourishes of her silk bodice strained to contain her ample bosom. The browns and tans and russet ribbons of her dress flowed from a narrow waist over rounded hips. She watched as the horseman in black rode across her reflection in the window. Her breath fogged the glass pane; the tip of her pink tongue moistened her lips. She shivered, and blamed it on the dampness creeping into the room as the fire died in the fireplace. It had been a boring day up until now. But these rough-dressed characters on the hill had possibilities.

She left the window, walked across the bedroom, and continued on into the dimly lit hall. She noticed Virginia, the household servant, standing at the top of the staircase. The reed-thin young woman seemed transfixed by the music drifting up from the solarium at the rear of the house. Her slim ebony hands were folded on her white lace apron, fingers tapping to the rhythm. Abigail walked up alongside the maid and cleared her throat. Virginia, all of fifteen years, jumped and stepped back in deference to the woman at her side. Virginia had only been with the Harvesons for a week and wanted to make a good impression. “Excuse me, Miss Abigail, I didn't see you. I was just … uh … just—”

“Listening to the music,” Abigail finished, amused. “My brother is a man of many talents.”

“Yes, ma'am. I sure like to hear them play.” The servant was conscious of her mistress' presence and felt uncomfortable. “I better be tending things.” Houseguests meant plenty of work for Virginia and it wouldn't do for her to get too far behind. There was no room in particular that she wanted to be finished with before the music stopped. She turned to head down the hall. Abigail stopped her.

“Virginia,…”

“Yes, ma'am,” the girl answered, her tone worried and body tense as she faced Abigail.

“I don't bite,” Abigail said and smiled. “You know … you're free. Like your uncle Hiram is a free man. And nothing is ever going to change that. I like to think we are a family here. We have our different jobs, our different roles in life … but we care about each other. Like a family. Do you understand, my dear?”