The names from the past impressed Kirstie and made her sad. She thought of warriors in buckskin with buffalo-horn headdresses, of treaties made and broken, of lands taken away. And she could picture Zak Stone as part of that tradition, as he gazed at the sunset with his proud head held high.
“My own grandfather was born on a reservation in Montana. He married a French Canadian woman and went fur trapping in the North.” He described in his own family history the break-up of a way of life. “When he died in a hunting accident, his wife and children moved to Montreal. My mother was brought up in the city, the youngest of seven children. I never knew my father. He and my mother didn’t marry, and he left her before I was born.”
“So what brought you back from Canada?” Kirstie asked quietly. There was nothing to disturb the conversation except the stream running over rocks and jays calling from tall pine trees on the overhanging cliff.
“There was nothing for me in Montreal. I was a kid, just drifting, picking up scraps about the past the way you do. So I drifted south, wound up in Bear Claw Creek with a beat-up motorbike and a head full of stuff about my ancestors.” Zak grinned at this distant memory of himself. “This was thirty-five years ago. I’d been over to the reservation in Montana where my grandpa was born, learned all the stuff about healing. Let’s just say I found out it was my thing.”
“So you came out here, built your cabin and stayed for thirty-five years.” Matt stood up and stretched.
“I guess I like it,” came the understated reply.
Stealing a glance at Zak, Kirstie saw that he was smiling. The first time that had happened since they met, she realized. It changed her view of him totally to see the even white teeth, the creases in the skin around his eyes. “You like it until guys like us come poking around bothering you!” she countered.
“Yeah, well.” The smile faded on a shrug. “Wait here,” he told her, disappearing inside the cabin and coming back out with a hammock made of skins and leather thongs. He thrust it into her hands without explanation.
“What’s this for?”
“You wanna sleep out in the meadow?”
“With Lucky?” She nodded eagerly. “Yeah, but—”
“I said you wouldn’t help the horse get better by sticking around?” he interrupted. “Sure, I know.”
“So why this?” She untangled the leather strips and found out how the thing worked.
“It’s not to help the horse get through the night. It’s so you don’t lie awake in the cabin fretting yourself sick.”
“Right.” She glanced excitedly at Matt, who nodded. “I get to sleep under the stars with Lucky!”
Kirstie swung in the hammock, staring up at the moon. She thought of her mom running Half Moon Ranch without her and Matt, of Lisa and the friendship bracelets they exchanged each year. Slipping her fingers through the one she wore on her wrist, she sighed.
Nearby Lucky stirred. He took a step or two toward her, his dark shape outlined by moonlight, his mane and tail showing up white in the shadows. Stiff, poor guy, and still fighting for breath, his lungs possibly damaged beyond repair. Standing in the shadows, he gave off the confused aimlessness of all animals who are sick.
Kirstie turned her head and caught the gleam of his eye. “You listen to me,” she murmured. “There’s a spirit out here taking care of you, OK? It lives in the mountain, or maybe in the air; I don’t know exactly. Something to do with Wakan Tanka.”
Lucky gazed patiently at her swinging gently in her hammock. In…out, in…out—his breath rattled.
“This spirit is a great power and for some reason it likes Zak. The way I see things, it’s given him a special gift. If Zak goes up the mountain and talks to it, he can call up the spirit and use it to heal horses who are sick.”
Silence on Rainbow Mountain. Deep, dark night.
“OK, boy?” Kirstie whispered, her voice shaking. “Yeah, I know, this stuff gets weirder. And you want to know the weirdest thing of all about the Great Mystery?” She swung out of her hammock and went to stroke a trembling Lucky. “I really, really believe it’s gonna work!”
9
In the gray dawn light Zak Stone came to get Kirstie and Lucky.
“This is the good time,” he said, a faraway look in his dark eyes.
Kirstie struggled out of a deep sleep. She’d dreamed of herds of wild horses galloping over golden plains, their limbs fluid, coats gleaming. The dream horses made no noise, their hooves seeming not to touch the ground as they swept across the valley toward mountains lost in purple haze.
Now she opened her eyes to cold dew and white mist on the ground. Quickly she unzipped her sleeping bag and tipped herself out of the hammock. She saw Lucky standing patiently nearby, his coat wet, his broken stance suggesting the continued agony of hardly being able to breathe. And she could hear the gasping intake of air, the long, slow rattle out again, which told her that he was, as yet, no better.
“Where’s Matt?” she mumbled, zipping up the fleece jacket that she’d kept on all night. Her tangled hair tumbled over her face; she shivered as she gazed around the enclosed green meadow.
“Still sleeping.” Zak offered no explanation, but made it clear that Matt’s presence on the mountain wasn’t needed. Taking deep breaths, he began to concentrate on Lucky, walking in a slow circle around him, taking in every symptom of his sickness: the horse’s drooping head and swollen limbs, the strange, double heave of his ribs as he breathed out. Coming full circle to where Kirstie waited, he nodded then walked on.
This must mean it was time to talk to the spirits. For a second or two, Kirstie panicked. Would she need a head collar and lead rope? Should she be there at all? Or was it just down to Zak Stone and Lucky?
The answer to the first question was no. As if he understood something of what was happening, Lucky followed the tall, silent man out of the meadow. Each step was painful and difficult—down the grassy track, past the sluice box where water spouted and tumbled into the pool, up a stony slope toward the cliff top which overhung Zak’s cabin.
Still in doubt, Kirstie watched Lucky’s slow progress. Only when Zak reached the top of the cliff, turned and gestured for her to come, did she set off after them. She scrambled quickly up the slope, sending loose stones rattling downhill, disturbing a ground squirrel who’d been peering out of long grass. The squirrel in turn set off a couple of jays who screeched and clattered out of the branch of a pine tree then swooped and landed on the roof of Zak’s cabin below.
Reaching the flat, wide ledge, she rested one hand on Lucky’s shoulder, trying to make out some special feature that would set the place apart. To the right was the sheer drop of about fifty feet, to the left a series of smooth, strangely shaped boulders, marked with crevices where lichens and blue, bell-shaped flowers grew. “Is this Thunder Rock?” she asked.
For answer, Zak continued along the ledge. He disappeared into the mist behind the tallest of the boulders.
Kirstie ran after him, down a narrow channel between two high rocks. “How far is it? I don’t think Lucky can make it much further!”
Zak’s face, only just visible in the dark, damp shadows, was impassive. He stood waiting for the horse, who stumbled along after them. His hooves echoed down the hollow tunnel, his breath was halting, his progress agonizingly slow.
Then the rocks opened out onto a second, domed ledge from where Kirstie could see for miles. Hills rolled away from them in the silent dawn, rising to snowcapped peaks in the far distance. The ledge faced east, and as she, Zak, and Lucky emerged, she saw a sliver of red sun appear from behind a mountain, lighting up the gray sky. The Big Sky. Kirstie looked up as the glow from the sun spread, turning everything it touched from sleep to waking, from cold to life-giving warmth.
“This is Thunder Rock,” Zak said, pointing to a huge expanse of dark gray granite, still in the shadows. It rose like a whale’s back to their right, bare and stern, some thirty feet above the ledge. “The home of the spirits.”
Ki
rstie nodded and narrowed her eyes, standing close to Lucky and putting a protective arm around his neck.
As they turned away from the rock to face the rising sun, light spilled across the valley. It touched Kirstie’s face with a promise of warmth, slid across the ledge, and tipped the rounded peak of Thunder Rock. Gray granite glittered pink.
“Bring your horse to the foot of the rock and stay there with him,” Zak told her. “Understand that the great horse spirit dwells here in Thunder Rock and that I will ask him to protect Lucky and take away his sickness.”
Shaking, Kirstie obeyed. She led her beloved palomino into the cold shadow at the foot of Thunder Rock, fearing, hoping …
Quietly Zak began. “I call upon the Great Spirit, the all powerful god, Wakan Tanka. I ask him to send his spirit to this rock to protect and heal this horse.”
In the long silence, facing the east, Kirstie kept her hand on Lucky’s quivering neck. She saw the sun melt the shadows and raise the mist, shining bright across the valley.
Facing them, his face dark yet serene, Zak breathed slow and deep. He raised his hands skyward, gazing intently, eyes following a shape which seemed to swoop down from the sky and settle above Lucky’s head. When Kirstie turned to glance over her shoulder, expecting perhaps an eagle or a hawk, she saw nothing.
“Mighty spirit, I accept your presence in the great dawning of a new day,” Zak whispered. He lowered his hands and bowed his head.
Kirstie felt a pressure on her chest. She had to gasp for breath, closed her eyes to steady herself before she breathed out slowly. Opening them, she found Zak at Lucky’s side.
“In this moment, in this dwelling place of the spirits, come to me, Wakan Tanka. Work your Great Mystery through these hands.”
He reached out and placed his broad palms on Lucky’s trembling back, kept them there until he felt the horse’s muscles relax. Then he moved his hands slowly over the feeble, ailing body, passing them over his ribcage, bringing them up to his head. Through it all, the horse stood perfectly still, ears pricked as if listening to something beyond the silence, as if watching a sign in the deepening blue of the sky.
Breathe! Kirstie reminded herself. She drew air into her lungs. Breathe! she told Lucky. Deep and easy.
Zak cupped his hands over Lucky’s nostrils and leaned his head against the horse’s head. He held the position in intense, silent concentration.
There was a breeze from the valley. It lifted Lucky’s white mane and ran a shiver down the length of his golden back.
“Breathe!” Kirstie whispered.
Slowly Lucky raised his head and drew a deep, steady breath of cool air.
Zak stepped back, his work complete.
“So, no drums, no dancing?” Matt asked abruptly.
Perched in the fork of an aspen tree, legs swinging, her back against the silver-white trunk, Kirstie shook her head. “No. And I didn’t see a single feather or bead necklace, no fringed deerskin pants, nothing!” As far as traditional dress and music went, the healing ceremony at Thunder Rock could be said to have fallen far short of expectations.
“So tell me!” Matt demanded to know what had gone on. He’d woken in an empty cabin, with the sun streaming in through the window. By the time he’d dressed and made it to the meadow, Kirstie and Lucky were already back from the rock, and Zak was nowhere to be seen.
“It was amazing!” Kirstie sighed. She kept her eyes glued on Lucky, who was quietly grazing at the far side of the culvert.
“That doesn’t tell me anything! What happened exactly?” It was obvious from the frown creasing his forehead that Matt wished he’d been there to witness the healing ceremony. Leaving him behind had made him irritable.
“I can’t describe it.” How did you say that an invisible spirit had moved in the breeze and breathed new life into a sick horse?
“Try. Did he use herbs?”
“Nope.”
“Magic spells?”
“Nope.”
Matt strode around the tree, exasperated and skeptical. “What then?”
Kirstie jumped down to the ground and made her way toward Lucky. “Just faith, I guess.”
“Huh? And did it work?” He followed across the grass, striding ahead to confront her.
But she refused to answer. Sidestepping him, she stood, arms crossed, studying Lucky. He was still weak, no way his normal self. His coat didn’t shine the way it should; he moved awkwardly on those swollen joints. But he was eating contentedly, head down, cropping at the grass and chewing hard. “Listen!” she told Matt.
They heard water trickling through the meadow, leaves rustling.
“What am I supposed to hear?” he demanded.
“Is Lucky struggling for breath?” Kirstie asked, her eyes sparkling, still listening hard as if she couldn’t believe the evidence of her own ears.
Matt stared at the smooth motion of Lucky’s ribcage, in and out without the shuddering double-heave of aborted breath. He shook his head.
“So it worked!”
Thanks to Zak Stone, whatever he did and however he did it, Lucky could breathe easy.
“A horse can sometimes battle against a virus and pull through,” Matt the college-trained skeptic pointed out. “Equine influenza is serious but isn’t fatal in 100 percent of cases, especially if the horse is young and healthy.”
It was Friday evening: twelve hours since Thunder Rock. Zak had stayed away all day, leaving the cabin to Matt and Kirstie, apparently confident that Lucky’s healing had taken effect. The sun had traveled across a blue sky unbroken by clouds, blazing down from its midday height and only now cooling as the shadows lengthened and it sank in the west. Lucky had fed and drunk without a break, making up for the starving, fever-ridden days just past.
At dusk Kirstie had fetched a grooming kit from the trailer, and started work on cleaning Lucky up. She’d brushed the dust out of his coat, raising clouds of the stuff after a week of neglect. She’d been picking dirt out of his hooves when Matt had come along and started into his “There’s gotta be a logical explanation” routine.
“The trachea and lungs can recover once the body’s natural healing mechanisms kick in to defeat the infection,” he explained, cool and reasonable. “Fever constricts the blood vessels, leading to lack of oxygen in the lungs, but, as long as the horse rests, the damage is reversed as soon as his temperature’s back to normal.”
“Sure, Matt.” Kirstie hooked a stone out of a back hoof, her hair swinging forward across her face. “And that happens in a second, like this?” She snapped her fingers and shot him a frowning glance.
He hesitated then came back. “It could happen!”
“And why does it have to be scientific?” she demanded, hooking out more packed dirt. “Why can’t it be a spiritual thing?”
Struggling for an answer, frowning and about to resort to more college stuff, he suddenly changed his mind. “Because I wasn’t there,” he confessed quietly and honestly. “What I didn’t see is real hard for me to believe.”
“And I was, and I do,” she replied. “We were, weren’t we, Lucky? We believe.”
Zak came back at nightfall on his big black-and-white pinto. He rode bareback, with a head collar and rope, no bit or bridle. There was no mention of Thunder Rock.
Supper was bacon, eggs, and hash browns, cooked on his wood stove. The two men drank homemade beer, talked about baseball and cars, discussed the best route for Kirstie, Matt, and Lucky to take through Wyoming, missing the busy tourist roads of Yellowstone Park.
At ten, when Kirstie slipped away with a handful of oats for Lucky, she found that Zak had followed her to the meadow.
“How is he?” he asked, looming up in the darkness, his footsteps making no noise.
“Good!” She felt Lucky’s soft mouth take the food from her hand. Then his rough tongue licked between her fingers. “He’s eating plenty and the swellings are down.”
“Hmm.” Zak’s nod was brief but satisfied. “Your brother, Matt …”
he began.
“Take no notice!” Kirstie jumped in. “He doesn’t mean anything.” She wanted to say sorry. Though Matt hadn’t exactly behaved badly over supper, he’d sure been acting as if Thunder Rock had never happened.
“It’s cool,” Zak shrugged and spoke without regret. “Your brother is a twenty-first-century man. He has different gods. I belong in the nineteenth century, or before. That’s why I live out here, minding my business. I’m a kind of throwback, a mistake.”
She nodded that she understood. It sounded a lonely life, yet somehow she knew that for Zak it wasn’t. “Today was special,” she confided quietly, one hand gently stroking Lucky’s face. She answered Zak’s widening smile with one of her own, there in the heart of the tiny piece of paradise where he’d built his life. “This morning you did something for the two of us that we’ll never ever forget!”
10
“Hey, Kirstie,” Matt muttered.
“Yeah?” She was half asleep in the passenger seat, a day and a half into the journey home to Half Moon Ranch. A white road ran between ripening corn as far as the eye could see. In the back of the trailer, Lucky was tucking into his hay, resting and building up his strength.
“About Zak …” he began, then hesitated.
Kirstie glanced sideways at her brother’s profile: dark hair falling forward over a flat forehead, straight nose, square chin. He was so like their dad in the photographs in the family album, taken when Dad had been a college student, too. “Yeah, what about Zak?”
“I’ve been thinking—maybe I was a little tough on him.”
“Did you give him a hard time? What did you say?” Kirstie took her feet down from the dashboard and swiveled around.
“Nothing.” Matt shrugged, then frowned. “Exactly that. Nothing, zilch! Like if I’m dealing with a person’s sick horse, the least I expect is a word of thanks, a handshake.”
“Too late now.” Kirstie thought of the hundreds of miles between them and Rainbow Mountain. “I guess this is why Zak likes to be alone up there. Maybe he grew tired of trying to explain the way he did things to guys like you!” For a few moments, Kirstie enjoyed making Matt feel guilty. Then she decided to let him off the hook. “Hey, he understood where you were coming from, OK.”
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