The Sons of Grady Rourke (24 page)

Liam's eyes were already adapted to the dark and he could see Spirit Keeper clearly. Four of the horses in their stalls slept silently, standing upright with one rear hoof cocked against their other back foot. The fifth horse from Melissa's wagon was too tired to sleep standing after dragging its feet through five miles of mud. So he slept on his side with his feet straight out in front of him like a colt. The weight of the animal's body on his lungs made him snore like a grandfather.

Spirit Keeper faced Liam for a long time, perhaps an hour. The longer he looked at her, the clearer her features became: dark skinned, black eyed, and hair flowing to her waist in back. Liam was surprised at how young she was. While he sat transfixed, she opened her robe which was long enough to reach the dirt floor. She pulled out a spirit post.

The woman slowly knelt on both knees. She leaned forward, put her hands together, and began to scrape out a small trench as long as the sacred post. Liam could hear her moaning softly as she peeled back each layer of the hard ground. In the dark, he imagined that he could see her fingers bleed. When the hole was two feet long and six inches deep, she laid the post into the tiny grave and carefully adjusted the hair bound to the top of the post. Pushing the soil on top of the stick, she whispered unintelligibly.

In the cavalry, Liam learned that many of the Indian Nations believed that hair was the visible extension of the human soul since both grow every moment of life. Some medicine men would let their hair grow until it dragged across the ground to show the power of their souls. Keeping the hair of a dead loved one was a special honor. It comforted the soul of the dead. And attaching a dead child's hair to a spirit post was the most sacred rite of all—done usually by the grieving mother.

Liam had only two close friends in the Army. One was Sergeant Buchanan. The other was a skinny cavalryman from back East. Being raised in a tenement slum, the second soldier had a strange respect for the Nations he was paid to destroy. He studied their ways and spoke of such things to Liam around many campfires. From him, Liam learned that those Nations that scalped their enemies did not always do the ugly deed for the coups hanging on a lodge pole. Many did it to keep part of their defeated foe's soul as the ultimate battle trophy. Liam's friend's soul now dangled from a Sioux pony's war bridle.

When Spirit Keeper's little ceremony was finished, she stood and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders. Even in the dark, Liam could see perspiration glistening on her prominent cheeks.

“What do you want with me?” Liam asked. Although his lips moved, he did not hear his own voice and the horses around him did not stir. He still sat cross-legged under his blanket.

Spirit Keeper made a fist, which she beat gently against her breast in time to her heart.

Liam bowed his head and closed his eyes. His breath came in slow, shallow movements. He seemed to sleep sitting up, as peacefully as the horses around him. When he opened his eyes and looked up, Spirit Keeper was watching him closely. She cocked her head slightly to one side. Moonlight glinting off puddles of melted snow cast its coldly white glow through the door and upon her face. Liam was mesmerized by the pale light on her dirty cheeks. She was not only young; she was beautiful. The man let a weak smile cross his silent lips.

Then Liam reached under his bed of hay and pulled out his heavy revolver. Looking up into the old soul shining out of her young eyes, he slowly pulled back the hammer which clicked into the cocked battery with a cold, metallic sound.

The smile slowly evaporated from Liam's lips as he raised the weapon with his right hand and laid the muzzle against his temple. He was surprised that the steel felt so cold against his skin.

“Y
OU AIN'T WELCOME
here.” Lt. Colonel Dudley spoke on whiskey vapors over his plate of cold hash. “I have Sheriff Peppin's word that you will not be molested. There ain't no evidence that you played any role in Sheriff Brady's assassination. I can't say the same for William Bonney or the Regulators. You, your wife, Shield, and Widenmann are free to leave.”

“Peppin will murder us like he did Tunstall.” Alexander McSween was perspiring heavily in the office of Fort Stanton's new commanding officer. “I demand that you keep us here for our own protection.”

Colonel Dudley pushed his breakfast away and stood up behind his desk.

“This is a United States Army post, Mr. McSween. When you commit a crime against the United States of America, I shall take you into custody until a United States Marshal rids me of you. Until then, the War Department has no jurisdiction in civilian brawls. You may leave after you have taken breakfast in the mess if you don't mind eating with darkies. If you don't leave by ten o'clock, I shall have a company of troopers escort you off post and dump you by the side of the road. Your choice, sir.”

“I demand protection, Colonel. At least for my wife.”

“Sir, I remind you that you were born in Canada. I don't even know if you are an American citizen. Either way, this interview is terminated.” The slightly inebriated officer squared his shoulders. “Orderly!” A black private threw open the door. “You are dismissed, Mr. McSween. Orderly, show our guests to the mess tent and have the First Sergeant hitch up their wagon. They will be leaving directly.”

“Yes, Colonel. This way, sir, if you please.”

“Our blood is on your hands, Colonel.” The lawyer slowly buttoned his black frock coat with some ceremony. He pulled on his short gloves like gauntlets.

The colonel smiled sourly.

“I shall try to live with that, Mr. McSween.”

When the door slammed, Colonel Dudley stood red-faced for a moment. Then he sat down, opened a desk drawer and brought out a bottle.

*         *         *

Patrick and Cyrus watched Melissa putter about the tiny kitchen and pantry. Both men noticed her rosy face and the slightest bulge at her waist. They glanced at each other until she turned around with a tray of biscuits and hot gravy. The silent woman set the platter down and bent low near the hearth for the coffee pot. The two men waited for her to sit and serve herself before they reached for the plate. All three turned around with their mouths full when the doorway opened to a clear and bright Saturday morning. With gravy trickling down his chin, Patrick stood with his mouth open when Liam entered. He walked slowly. His feet never completely left the floor as he approached the table. Liam was nearly bald.

“Jesus Christ, boy,” Cyrus shouted. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

Liam stood emaciated and trembling slightly. His scraggly beard ended at his ears. Where his shoulder-length hair had been, raw stripes criss-crossed his scalp like a bloody field newly plowed. The top of his head was brightly white above his tanned and wind-burned face. Faint trickles of blood erupted from his dry shave by a hunting knife sharpened on an oiled stone.

“My God, Liam,” Patrick whispered. “What in the name of Heaven?”

Liam pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. Melissa's blue eyes were wide. But her beautiful face showed no terror. That corner of her mind that had been brutalized eight years earlier instantly sensed the presence of another tortured heart. Instead of fear, she was overwhelmed by a brooding sense of kinship—to what, she had no clue.

Melissa stood and took two steps to Liam who sat, head bowed. Beside him and without a word, she put a hand firmly on each of his shoulders. She touched him as gently as she would cradle Abigail after a bad dream. Cyrus and Patrick both stood at their places and looked down dumbstruck.

Liam felt Melissa's hands. When he looked up into her face, his gray eyes were dry and empty. He looked sideways to Cyrus who bent slightly forward when Liam's pale lips moved and his words came out softly.

“Spirit Keeper is done with me, Sergeant. All she wanted was my soul and I gave it to her. I'm free now.”

The smile that spread across Liam's gaunt face was terrifying. Melissa raised her hand to his cheek and she pushed his face against her soft chest. Liam was still smiling when tears rolled down his face.

S
AN
P
ATRICIO WAS
not even a hamlet. A cluster of clapboard and adobe shacks nestled together against winter's howling wind and summer's ferocious heat. As hard-faced men with heavy handirons rode into the camp beside the swollen Rio Hondo, the bivouac of Regulators almost made a town out of the widening in the dirt road.

By Sunday afternoon, Alex and Susan McSween and their company increased the population to nearly fifty. Billy Bonney and John Chisum were there to greet them like returning heroes. But warm welcomes were muted by the sober remembrance of Dick Brewer only three days dead.

Susan McSween should have been uncomfortable in the company of so many desperate men. But they were like an army and the Regulators regarded her husband as their general. If San Patricio were to become a sovereign country, the austere and aristocratic John Chisum would become its Secretary of State.

With Lincoln and its House men only twelve miles up the road, San Patricio became a tiny garrison. Pickets were posted around the camp in case George Peppin might lead a posse to disband the Regulators once and for all. By Governor Axtell's proclamation, they were now vigilantes and nothing more.

A few Hispanic families called the San Patricio settlement home. They did not welcome these narrow-eyed shootists. The white men packing Colts and Remingtons on their hips steered clear of the Mexicans and their Catholic hovels. Regulators stayed close to the adobe home commandeered for their field headquarters.

Alex McSween's pink face continued to wear the wrinkled brow of man uncomfortable in his new element. Firearms did not fit well into the lawyer's soft hands. He sat uneasily at John Chisum's table. Billy Bonney looked like a pimple-faced boy beside Chisum's square jaw and leathery face. The grown men tolerated the teenage firebrand in their midst since he had been close to John Tunstall. Also, like McSween, he had walked both sides of the street in Lincoln and he knew the House.

When Billy had first arrived in Lincoln in the fall of 1877, his first job had been as a field hand for William Brady. Across Billy's lap was Brady's rifle, taken from his corpse heavy with Billy's bullets. Now Billy was a known killer: he had killed a man in Arizona only eight months before he shot Sheriff Brady. It had been Dick Brewer who hired Billy away from Brady's ranch to work on Tunstall's Rio Felix spread. By this April 7th at San Patricio, all but Billy were dead.

“How long do we just sit here?” McSween sounded nervous. His eyes twitched from the sweat running down his forehead.

Chisum took a long drag on his pipe. The cattle baron was calm and dignified.

“Until the time is right for us to take Lincoln back.”

B
ONITA
R
AMOS TOLD
Sean that Melissa had returned to town Sunday evening. He waited until Monday morning to knock on her door. As he walked up the street, he could feel the town's ragamuffin children pointing from the shadows at his disfigured face. His pace quickened.

“How's Patrick?”

Melissa nodded and forced a smile. Then her face darkened.

“And Liam?”

The woman lowered her face and shrugged. She shook her head. They were alone since Abigail was across the street in a one-room schoolhouse with ten other children ages six to thirteen. The big ones helped the little ones.

“Is he sick?”

Looking up, her expression was difficult to read.

“The soldier and Patrick will take care of him. He ain't much more than a boy.”

Melissa nodded. She agreed.

Sean sat for half an hour. He sipped hot coffee and avoided Melissa's penetrating eyes. They haunted him as much as the memory of Grady Rourke who would not stop invading the tall man's fitful sleep. He did not look at her until his tin cup was empty.

“Melissa, I need to get away from here for a while.”

Instantly, her eyes filled. Sean continued before they could spill over into his heart.

“I want to take you with me, if you'll come. Abbey can stay with Bonita. She's a good woman and I think Abbey likes her.” Melissa nodded. “Maybe we could take the buckboard over to Roswell. Jesse says it ain't as high as here and spring will come earlier down there.” His brow pursed slightly when he looked into her face. “Will you come with me, Melissa Bryant?”

Blinking her moist eyes, she reached across the table and touched his hard hand. Sean Rourke wished that his heart would stop.

F
OR THE WEEK
after Melissa left Grady Rourke's ranch, Liam recovered his strength, if not his mind. For the first time in five weeks, he slept without dreams or demons. He was back on his feed and Patrick wondered if they would run out of flour and bacon before week's end. When Liam cleaned his supper plate before the other men, Cyrus would silently shovel food from his plate into Liam's.

Liam's bald head scabbed over into rows of grotesque black crust. During meals, he wore his floppy yellowed, cavalry hat so Patrick and Liam could eat.

While Liam worked on a new garden plot close to the fenced-in graves of Grady and Shannon Rourke, and three infants too new to have been given names at all, Cyrus and Patrick would speak in hushed voices in the privacy of the barn. Cyrus explained to Patrick the ways of the Cheyenne. When the soldier spoke of campaigns and bloodied grass, his words came in clipped and carefully chosen sentences. His stories of the cavalry felt incomplete to Patrick. But he asked no questions and ex-Sergeant Buchanan offered no answers.

T
HURSDAY
, A
PRIL
18
TH
, Cyrus saw the buckboard first. He called to Liam and Patrick who came up from the barn. Bonita Ramos drove the two-horse team and Abigail Bryant sat at her side. The child was bright-eyed and happy.