by Paul Bagdon
“That’s not fair! Ben is—”
“The man refuses to help save the life of an innocent child! How can you justify that?” Suddenly, the cold flame in the preacher’s eyes went out like a matchstick dashed in water. His shoulders drooped a bit. “I’m sorry, Lee. I . . . I’m sorry,” he said and walked hastily toward the church.
The churchyard was quiet—almost desolate—as Lee walked to where Slick was tied. The wind sloughed quietly from the vastness of the prairie beyond the church. The building seemed an imposter, too new and fresh in contrast with the endless buffalo grass swaying and reaching toward the horizon. Lee looked up at the sky again and then set her cinches and mounted.
Slick wanted to run, but he picked up on Lee’s confused and somber mood and quieted immediately. He took his cue for a slow lope without argument and began covering the miles to the Busted Thumb Horse Farm.
Lee noticed that the clouds to the north had become more active, seemingly climbing up and over one another and then merging to form a front of pewter-colored cotton. And she couldn’t help but notice the sharp drop in temperature carried by the now-punishing wind.
She reined Slick to a stop and looked around, turning in her saddle. The clouds were still building, but there was no scent of rain in the wind. Slick danced under her, feeling the sting in the weather. Lee, realizing her mount’s unease, scratched his neck and spoke to him, almost as a mother would speak to a frightened child. The wind swept her words away, but the tone of her voice reassured Slick. When she resumed the lope after tugging her collar a bit more closely around her throat, both horse and rider were glad to be back in motion, heading for the Thumb.
The next morning Carlos and Ben stood next to their saddled horses in the enclosure behind Ben’s office, each holding a mug of hot coffee in gloved hands. The sun was making a feeble, halfhearted attempt to rise above the eastern horizon, its light giving little definition to the town.
“This no good, Ben. The storm of ’63, she started like thees. Wass early in the winter, jus’ like now. Whole herds, they died where they stood, no? I see them. I never forget.”
Chewing on his lower lip, Ben stared out into the murky light, seeing next to nothing where he should have seen the backs of the buildings along Main Street. “We gotta talk them out of it. It’ll be suicide for them to ride out on their wild goose chase if this develops into a storm.”
“The preacher will ride, Ben. I know thees. He isn’t a man who lets anything stop heem.”
“He’s a fool, then,” Ben snapped. “No one but a fool would risk the lives of a bunch of . . .” He dropped the sentence and sighed, then took a brass badge from his coat pocket and handed it to Carlos. “Better pin this on. Let’s go over to the church and see if we can talk some sense into Warner. But look—if they do go out, we’re going to have to break up. I want you to ride herd on the townspeople as close as you can. Like we talked about yesterday, I’m going to head out to the foothills. That’s the only place where Henry could still be alive if he did get in some trouble. If he’s out on the prairie somewhere, he’s dead.”
Carlos snorted. “Sí. But we don’ even know that he’s not long gone—jus’ rode on without no trouble at all. He could be settin’ in front of a fire with hees boots off in a cantina somewheres while we ride aroun’ in the col’ an’ wind looking for heem.”
Ben nodded. “Could be. I don’t know, though—I have a strange feelin’ about this whole thing with the kid leavin’ Burnt Rock like he did.” Ben stepped into his stirrup. “Let’s move, Carlos.”
There were a dozen or more men clustered around the front of the church. Near them stood four farm wagons, two covered with tarps on frames to provide shelter and two open. Rev Warner stood in front of the closed church doors. Beside the preacher stood Jack Sowderly, an elderly farmer.
“One thing I know is the weather,” Sowderly shouted to the group. “I seen a flock more prairie storms an nor’easters than anybody round here. Ever time there was this kinda yallowish haze to the clouds. Every doggone time! I don’ see that now, cause it ain’t there.” He looked at the gathering, his face flushed as if in anger. “Any of you folks see anythin’ yaller ’bout the sky? Sure, it’s cold. But there ain’t gonna be no storm. An’ I’ll tell you somethin’ else. We ain’t near as cold as that poor boy is, settin’ there waitin’ on us to bring him home!”
Eyes darted to the gray mass overhead and then back to the old man. “Let’s get going!” one of the men called. “Jack’s right! That boy is cold!”
Ben and Carlos looped their reins over a hitching rail and walked toward the group. Ben saw Slick standing, ground tied, in the shelter of the side of the church, and a hot surge of anger ran through him. He swallowed hard and kept walking.
The men were indistinguishable from one another, standing close together, as if drawing heat from their comrades. All were dressed in long range coats, and their hats were secured to their heads by scarves tied under their chins. They wore farm boots for the most part, although a few were in high riding boots. Their hands were protected by heavy gloves. Several wore gun belts around their waists, and one fellow held a double-barreled shotgun, muzzle pointing down, at his side. Lee’s back was to Ben, but he identified her by the cascade of ebony hair that fell down her back.
Ben strode past the cluster of people and stood directly in front of the preacher, facing him. “I ain’t gonna let this happen, Rev. Sending folks out into that mess out there is insane. Suppose this weather does swing to a storm? A nor’easter can last for days, an’ there ain’t anyone here who could survive if he got lost in one.”
“Please, Marshall, we heard your views yesterday. This is no longer your concern—it’s a matter of good Christians doing as they must, as they’ve been ordered by God,” Warner said, loudly enough for all to hear. Then he continued, “My people, pray with me . . .”
Ben turned to face the group, his eyes seeking, finding, and holding for a moment with those of the individual townspeople. “Carlos and I will ride out right now, and I’ll give you my word that we’ll either come back with Henry or we’ll have done the most thorough search for him any men could do. There’s no reason for you to put your lives in danger. You have wives, families, businesses—think of them. This is my job. Let me and my deputy do it without worryin’ every second that our friends are riskin’ their lives on a fool’s mission.”
A hand gripped Ben’s shoulder from behind. Ben turned and saw the preacher standing there. The preacher removed his hand. “You do your work, Marshall. Let us do ours.”
Ben’s right hand clenched into a fist. Warner stepped back.
Ben took a deep breath, broke eye contact, and walked stiffly to where Carlos stood. “They’re gonna do it,” he said quietly to his friend. “Ain’t no reasonin’ with them. That old goat Jack Sowderly’s got them convinced the sky is clear an’ the summer sun’s out.”
“I’ll watch them close as I can,” Carlos said. “’Least try to keep ’em from shootin’ each other.”
“Good.” Ben sighed. “I’ll go ahead, then. If I don’t find anything in two days, I’ll be back an’ join up with you, if they’re still searching.”
Turning from Carlos, he walked to Lee and stood facing her. “I’m scared, Lee,” he said quietly. “I’ve got to ask you once more, please don’t—”
“I’m sorry, Ben. This is something I believe I have to do. I’ve thought about it and prayed over it, and I have to go.” Her words began to tumble out faster, and her voice trembled slightly. “This isn’t about you or Rev Warner or anyone else other than a lost boy. We’ll find Henry. I know it in my heart.”
Their eyes held for a moment. “Be careful,” Ben said. He began to lift his gloved right hand to her face, but he held it back. “Be careful,” he repeated.
“You too, Ben. You be careful too.”
The cold didn’t really settle into Ben’s bones until he’d been riding toward the foothills for over three hours. It was then that
the storm began in earnest. The wind snarled, driving before it glass-hard bits of ice that stung human flesh and horsehide alike. It seemed that nature in its fury could no longer direct or control the wind—it howled from all directions, whirling the ice pellets now mixed with snow into an impenetrable maelstrom.
In a matter of twenty minutes, the footing was treacherous. The ice and drizzle that had preceded the snow now joined with it to create a glaze that even steel horseshoes had difficulty finding purchase on. Ben held his horse to what the Indians called a crawling lope—barely quicker than an extended walk. The gait was strange to Snorty, and he labored at it, arguing with Ben for more rein.
Now they can’t turn back. If only they haven’t spread out too far. If only Carlos is able to get them together before their horses panic or they lose all their bearings. If only . . .
When Ben stopped to dismount and walk for a bit on feet that felt like they were carved from stone, he pulled off his right glove with his teeth and drew his Colt. The arctic coldness of the metal surprised his fingers and palm, sending a message of heat—of having touched a white-hot stove—to his brain.
He unbuttoned the top few buttons of his range coat and thrust the pistol into the holster he had sewn to the fleece lining, just under his left arm. Even through his shirt and his long underwear, the chill of the weapon struck him like a bucket of ice water. He had no choice but to suffer the shivers. The lubrication that allowed the cylinder to turn freely and to function as it should had turned to glue in the bitter cold, and the .45 would be as useless as a chunk of coal if he needed it in a hurry.
Ben cleared the crystalline beard from around Snorty’s mouth and stroked the horse’s muzzle and neck. Snorty made it very clear that he didn’t like this crazy ride at all; he blew through his nostrils and tamped the snow in front of him with angry hooves. Ben checked the cinch and climbed into his saddle, easing his horse into that same grindingly slow pace.
There was no trail to follow, no signs to be noticed and analyzed. He rode in a miasma of shades of gray, pushing a good horse over unsure ground, risking the animal’s legs and perhaps his life. Each time one of Snorty’s hooves failed to find traction and skidded under him, Ben tensed and his hands shot to the saddle horn to launch himself free if his horse went down. Ben rode by instinct only; there were no landmarks, no familiar swales or outcroppings to guide him. The long minutes turned into hours as he rode, body numb, eyes squinting to protect them from the snow beating into his face.
The buffalo jerky in the deep pocket of his coat had turned to granite, but he shoved a few sticks of it into his mouth to let his saliva soften and warm it. As he worked on the jerky, his mind wandered amid the furor around him.
Lee’s falling in love with Rev Warner. The thought—one he’d been avoiding—struck him like the slug from a Sharp’s rifle. He has words I don’t know, and he knows things I don’t know.
A break in the wind allowed Ben a moment of less-obscured vision. The mounds of the foothills—white now rather than the green and brown of summer—appeared far ahead. And a thought every bit as cold and cruel as the storm surfaced in his mind.
Maybe I should bow out and let Lee find the life she needs.
He shook his head, chased away the thought, and replaced it with another. There’s somethin’ not quite right about Duncan Warner. Somethin’ that bothers me a lot. I’m just not sure what it is.
* * *
7
* * *
Lee had never been so cold in her life. She’d ridden miles in blizzards, searched for lost foals in driving rain and hailstorms, and stood on numb feet for hours waiting for a mare to give birth. But this—it was as if the glacial wrath of the storm focused directly on her and Slick. Only the band of flesh slightly above and below her eyes was exposed; she wore men’s woolen long johns, her culottes, two shirts, and a shearling coat that weighed almost as much as her saddle. She also had long, thick scarves wrapped around her neck and face.
An old Stetson was pushed onto her head, its brim tugged down alongside and tied in place with a length of baling twine. On her hands she wore mulehide gloves lined with jackrabbit fur, but she hadn’t been able to feel her fingers in three hours. Inside all of the layers of clothing, her body trembled like that of a person suffering from ague. Tears froze as they were forced from her eyes by the wind, and her lashes were rimmed with crystal ice.
Slick’s muzzle was frosted with ice too, and strands of mucus had frozen beneath his nostrils, looking like small stalactites hanging from his jaw. He plodded ahead, unsure of his footing, his muscles tense, transmitting his nervousness to his rider.
The process of a hot bath ran through Lee’s mind: the fire licking hungrily at the bottom of the big pot, the boiling water pouring into the deep metal tub, the steam rising in a cloud.
Rev Warner suddenly appeared beside her on Chowder. He eased his horse close to Slick and leaned from his saddle to speak into her ear, over the howl of the wind.
“I’m going to swing off toward the foothills,” he said. “I have a feeling that’s where he is.” He closed his gloved hand over one of Lee’s, but she barely felt his grasp. He leaned closer. “Are you all right?”
Lee forced a smile that felt like it tore the flesh of her face. “I’m fine. Don’t go too far out alone, Duncan.”
He nodded. “There’s hot coffee on the wagon. Howard brought a little firebox filled with pea coal like they use on chuck wagons. It’ll be a godsend. You look like you could use some.” He looked away from her a moment, then looked back. “This snow’ll end soon, Lee. I feel like I’m getting close to Henry—it’s almost like I can hear him calling to me.”
Lee watched as he swung Chowder away. In a brief moment he was gone, now invisible within the storm. In her mind, she saw him at the pulpit in the church, Bible in hand, his voice mellifluous and deep like the faraway rumble of a train. She heard the preacher’s words too, and they were filled with promise and hope and kindness. He’s such a believer, so devoted to the Lord.
A rear hoof slid sideways, and Slick threw his weight against the skid, jolting Lee from her thoughts. She patted the horse’s neck reassuringly. In a moment, Ben took over Duncan’s place in her mind. Ben was as different from the preacher as any man could be, but in some ways, the men were very similar. Ben was caring too. And both men were loners. Ben and Carlos were friends and had great respect for one another. But in the few hours Ben was able to find for himself, he preferred to ride out alone onto the prairie. Duncan, in the five or so months he’d been in Burnt Rock, hadn’t really befriended anyone besides Missy and her. She wasn’t sure what he did during his off hours, and she’d not asked him.
But Ben is troubled, she thought. Her mind flashed to the Colt he wore. He’d told her that he slept with it under his pillow. She shuddered, this time not from the cold. She heard the creaking of the supply wagon during a lull in the wind and turned Slick toward the sound.
Ben led Snorty into an overhang of sod and rocks behind a stone face that stood alone, guarding the foothills. The water in his canteen, even though he carried it in a deep pocket of his wool-lined duster, was frozen solid. He could easily eat handfuls of snow to quench his thirst, but his horse didn’t have that option.
Ben tugged some pieces of root and scrub from around the base of the stone face where the wind had hurried away any snow that attempted to settle. In his saddlebag he had a block of twenty or so lucifers with their heads encased in paraffin to protect them from dampness, and he fetched them with disobedient, numbed fingers. Twenty minutes of kicking through the snow and circling the face yielded less than an armful of dried branches, weeds, and the husks of tumbleweeds. He arranged the fuel over his canteen, which he’d placed against the dirt and stone where the face met the ground.
The wind continued to plague him; he used most of his lucifers before the fire caught. It was puny fire, selfish with its heat, but it did what Ben needed it to do. When the flames died, he wrapped his gloved han
ds in his scarf and picked up the canteen. He plucked the charred cork with his teeth and poured the slushy water into his inverted Stetson at his feet and carried it to his horse. Snorty sucked at the liquid greedily, wanting more when the hat was empty. Ben rubbed the animal’s muzzle, wiping away the frost from his nostrils and eyes. Then he mounted and urged Snorty away from the meager protection the stone face had offered.
The single shot was unmistakable, but the wind tore the report into shreds of sound that assaulted Ben’s ears from every direction. He held his breath, awaiting another shot that didn’t come. His mind churned as he tried to sort the first crack of the shot from the echoes and wind-twisted fragments. It had to have come from ahead and to his right, he decided, since he’d flinched back and to the left. He pointed Snorty ahead and asked for a bit more speed. Snorty responded by lurching into a stiff, awkward canter, plowing through hock-high snow in some places and skidding and sliding on places where the snow had been scoured away. Boulders seemed to pop up from the ground and disappear in the frenetic snow as rapidly as they’d come. Ben felt Snorty stumbling up a slope but couldn’t see more than a couple of feet around himself and his horse. He reined in beside a massive boulder, and a blessed break in the wind gave him a heartbeat of clear vision. Fifty yards straight ahead was a dark oval in a long wall of white—a cave. The snow and wind came again, but Ben had zeroed in on the lone dark spot. He pushed Snorty toward it.
The fifty yards felt like fifty miles. The wind was intensifying rather than diminishing, and it now was a keen, high-pitched wail that promised to cut through flesh and bone like a lumber mill saw. A gust slammed Snorty and forced him to stumble, and Ben grabbed at his saddle horn to keep his seat. It was no good; Snorty was going down on his side, flailing his hooves as he fell. Ben pushed off, crashed into hard rock on his side, and grunted in pain as the breath whooshed out of him. When he managed to choke some air into his lungs and stand up, he was alone in the other-worldly clutches of the storm. He stood in place, fighting down panic. A quick, barely formed prayer flickered in his mind and then was gone.