Overhead a black hat, blown by the wind, tumbled through the trees like a crazed owl. A horseman appeared at the periphery, galloping through the wooded depths to vanish as Caspion spun and fired. Or was it another phantom? The shot recalled him to the present, a present four years past as he saw the robe in the clearing beyond and the white echoed through his memory like the rifle report through the trees. The storm had abruptly ceased—all quiet and deathly still at its eye, not a murmur…rain dripping from the leaves, twigs snapping underfoot. A shaft of light shone through the clouds, while the robe, reflecting that greater aura, shimmered like a brilliant white flame drawing him to the source, the center—sentient, calling as he numbly stumbled forth.
In claiming the robe he woke again to Moneva’s death and his blood vengeance, then turned at the crashing charge to see the mounted Osage bearing down with a long lance leveled at his heart. Caspion jumped aside, firing his rifle in reflex as the spear ripped through his right ribcage. He rode the shaft, vaulting backwards, and hit the ground stunned, gasping from the shock and the wound—expecting the giant Osage to leap down any moment and claim his kill with a final knifing coup. But Time Face sat motionless on his horse, immutably stern, expressionless but for the round hole oozing blood from his forehead. Then he slumped in the saddle and fell, the back of his skull blown away. His horse trotted a short distance and turned, a bit curious of the clumsy dismount, uncertain of the limp form.
Caspion fought for breath then slowly raised his head to examine the wound. He was pierced through the outer ribs; it was damned wicked but not fatal—not yet. A deep barbed pain stung like fire ants; he couldn’t move, pinioned, the lance head driven through and held fast to the earth. He laid back his head and gazed beyond the tall rude shaft. Clouds convulsed, purling slowly about a dim orifice of light that shed a smoky, greenish haze over all. To his left he glimpsed another mounted form and heard the howling laugh of the fiend he hunted.
Rifle out of reach, Caspion made a tortuous pivot about the lance, trying to snag it with his leg, but could not. Krippit stared down from his saddle, relishing his triumph with a feverish grin. Caspion drew his knife and lashed out—his feints painfully weak, both arms nearly lame from his wounds. Krippit kept his mount just beyond range as he circled his quarry, casting taunts with flecks of spittle in his beard.
“Yea, Nimrod. Snarlin’ are ye? Lak a trapped wolf…takin’ the bait. Got yer robe, eh? How the Mighty Hunter hath fallen. Yea…”—stropping his knife on the length of his beard, looking down on the Wild Angel mute in torment, beautiful and savage to his eye, like the sacred come to hand, come to sacrifice. “Gotcha spitted, Nimrod. Now ta flay. Flay ya slow…call the ravens an’ watch ’em feed”—savoring all with his lapping tongue. “Drop hot coals in yer wounds. Have ya taste the flames a’ Hell. Yea, pain eternal, ya stinkin’ Yank! Then rip out yer Injun heart an’ roast it in the fire…”
But strangely, his victim began to laugh; and despite the wincing pain, he laughed more freely, eyes set to mock his captor as he raised his hand to the darkening belly of the storm…so deep and opaque, acquiring the rumbling mass of shifting mountains, as if vast veins of grayish-green marble had come to sudden violent life, moved by the spirit within, unleashing the primal burst of dark and light set to churn amidst opposing ghosts and cries, seething like angry vipers coiling about the vortex to form an enormous funnel of black-twisting rage, the tremble, quake, and roar of a thousand locomotives lowering in a long descent—yea, converging like a great shadowed hand to snatch the very one who rode in judgment. Krippit glanced up, his owlish eyes struck wide in terror. He reined to flee but his mount bolted and dashed headlong into the ruling fury. Caught in the grasp of an unloving God, man and horse pawed the air as they made their harrowing ascent, rising through the deafening gyre of the dark whirling wind.
Caspion clutched robe and self and held tight to the lance; his body shuddered, weightless below the hellish gale, the inverted vortex drawing all to its center. Needle pains of shearing pressure pierced his ears like the soul scream of those torn away and he thought that timeless moment would mark his end. But as suddenly as it came, it passed. He felt the painful weight of life and flesh return. Still anchored; he found it somehow fitting that a former hide hunter lay skewered to the earth. A warm rain fell, cleansing him. His blood washed off in rivulets.
He gripped his knife and began notching through the lance; each brittle nick gnawing his wound. Still he bared his teeth and carved on, soon casting off the greater length. Then bracing his head, arms, and legs, he arched like a taut bow slowly rising from the ground. His muscles tightened and seized about the haft. Pain raked his gut in frightful spasms as if he were pulling apart at the wound. Finally wrenching free, he collapsed on his side, faint from blood loss and trauma. He remained utterly still for a time, letting the pain quiet, his muscles ease, before crawling to the water’s edge where he lowered his lips to slake his raw thirst.
A school of minnows chased from his ragged visage in silvery quest for the mossy depths; further out, a sunfish hit the becalmed surface, feeding on insects left crippled in the wake of the storm; a kingfisher swept low, snatched at a bluegill, missing, then darted off to await another chance. Man sipped quietly, motionless, numb to all but his watery reflection. At last sated, he rolled aside and crawled to a nearby log.
Puffballs grew from the rotted bark—he broke one open and sprinkled the dusty spores to stanch the wound as Moneva had taught him. Then he made a poultice of its meaty skin and applied it like a paste to ease the deep burning in his flesh. While he pressed his hands and lay there resting, the clouds parted and began to lift. Further restored by the sun’s warmth, his concern turned to Two-Jacks left bound in the timber. Anxious of the horse’s fate, he made an effort to rise, and once gaining his feet, found it actually less painful to walk than to crawl.
At Caspion’s approach Two-Jacks gave a sharp neigh and raised his head, eyes trained on his master. During the storm he had thrown off the blanket, but remained securely bound; and from all appearances unharmed, albeit resentful, chafing. Caspion knelt by and gingerly cut the bindings with his knife. Two-Jacks gave an angry snort and sprang to his feet, a bit wobbly like a newborn colt. Then backing away, still wary from the experience, he shook off a clutter of limbs and leaves, casting a lively spray in the effort. Caspion calmly caught hold of the bridle and began to gentle him; words softly intoned, the knowing hand stroking neck and shoulder, quietly and patiently gaining forgiveness as he leaned close and buried his face in the mane, inhaling the scent of his long-cherished beast, his last tenuous link to kindness and life. By and by Two-Jacks nudged his hand—seeking sugar in solace. Caspion fetched a portion from a saddlebag; the tribute eagerly accepted. Horse looked on with renewed favor as man ripped a spare shirt to bind his wound. An awkward chore, but the pressure held the poultice secure and eased the pain of movement.
While Two-Jacks sipped lustily from the spring, Caspion retrieved his rifle and spread the robe out to dry. The storm had blown west. The sun shone unimpeded in its wake, bestowing a pristine clarity over all its reign. The wind ruffled the white fur, and Caspion, gazing on the author of his fate, noted its muted sheen—though cleansed by sun, wind, and rain, its purity had begun to fade, now yellow at the fringe. And turning from the robe, he spied the giant Osage tangled in the brush, blown like a piece of refuse fifty feet away. Before it fouled the spring, he roped the body to Two-Jacks and dragged it to the far end of the timber.
There he discovered the other—Krippit—dangled from the fractured limb of a skeletal tree, his long angular form staved through the chest, suspended like a black parody of the crucifix. Revenge taken by a greater hand, by the Maiyun. Caspion, still mounted, approached eye to eye and harbored no regret at not killing his foe, his hatred too dominate and inexpressible to be mollified by any frail word or deed. Though he felt a cruel pleasure viewing the fiend so impaled; a pleasure enhanced all the more as he cut an ear from the sh
ivering flesh and saw the mouth open in slow rictus, a glint of life yet present in the eye. And Caspion, answering eye to eye, cursed his Tasoom to the cold death-dream that waited. Then he tossed the rope over an upper limb and hoisted the Osage feet first to the same level. After tying off the rope, he skinned the final ear while a gold watch hung pendant, still ticking before the blank, mute gaze. Finished, Caspion left the grisly pair—one high, one low—grimly mated against the sky.
Each day over the month he convalesced by the spring, he returned at sundown to witness their decay, playing out some nameless ritual all his own, making certain they remained thus till their flesh was pecked clean, leaving nothing but tattered clothing and bones to rustle in the wind.
XXXVII. Fate Of The Robe
By early autumn, flesh healed, vengeance fed, Caspion left the timbered isle and rode beyond the valley into the broad tableland north. Mounting a ridge, drawn to the highest point in view, he paused an aimless moment, gazing northeast. And before the notion even formed he saw Hesta vivid as day; watched his blue-eyed daughter, her black mane long and flowing, as she chased behind little James, a towhead, playing tag among the cedars east of the house; heard their bright laughter and sweet voices answer Martha’s call to dinner; saw her waving an apron by the doorway as Luther led a horse through its paces in a nearby corral—envisioned all his brother had dreamed and foretold: the barn and outbuildings finished, the shelter-belt, orchard, and shade trees planted and making steady growth…tender saplings, like the children, years from maturity.
Granted the vision, Moneva’s lost warmth and presence flooded him, melting the killer’s glaze from his eyes. Grateful for the brief glimpse, the bittersweet taste, he bade them long life and happiness but could go no further and never share, could not carry the stench of murder into their lives and foul their innocence, their water and food, their flesh and soul. He was an Okkliwus, a killer, rotting from within, calloused by his deeds; saber scars of ceaseless hunt and vigil lined his face and brow and streaked his hair, while his mind ached like an old wound haunted by violent hand. With the image of Hesta locked deep in his heart, he reined Two-Jacks about and headed southwest, following the Blue Vision, answering to the fate of the robe tied back of his saddle.
At that precise moment, through hiatus of time and distance, Luther, drawing in the stallion’s tether, witnessed a mirage of man and horse fading from the pasture west. Had it been Caspion he saw or his own love and longing mirrored in the heat? He blinked his eyes and turned away, attributing all to the effects of the sun; he’d heard tales of the Man Hunter roaming the territories and preferred not to dwell on his brother’s dark grief, the soul that surely died with Moneva. There remained so much to husband and build, to make life good and joyful for those who lived—for Martha, Hesta, and little James. As no plow had again touched his land, he vowed to never succumb to the seductive sadness of the grave—not of a parent, a child, or of his lost brother.
At the Arkansas, where the rails of the Santa Fe ran proximate to the deep furrows of the old trace worn by a generation of westering folk, Caspion eyed the tandem march of telegraph poles doting the plains like an endless crucifix replicating in a faint line to the horizon; he felt the species pull and followed. Indifferent to all he met, he left their greetings unanswered, as if he were no longer province to the flesh, solely focused to the elemental and enduring. To sky, earth, and Nivstanivo.
The lone being that called him from his insular drift, awakening him so to speak, was an aging monarch encountered one day beyond the Colorado border. For the past two years no buffalo had been sighted along the Dead Line. And whether the old bull had been challenged and run-off by a younger, or was simply the sole survivor of a once vast herd, he marked a tragic presence on the former range. He’d apparently wandered north on a delirious quest through old vistas, seeking scenes of past combat and frenzy, perhaps to rut and fight anew. But finding the plains scarred and empty of his brethren, he turned in rage on the inanimate forms that blocked his way.
Caspion watched the gallant fool blindly charge a telegraph pole and took pity. Offering himself as a target more worthy, he waved the white robe and called: “Hotoa…!”—his voice gravelly from disuse—“Ah-hy-ah! Here…the Veho hunter! Hotoa…here!”
But the old bull was Massa’ne and paid him no heed, had eyes only for the lifeless poles refusing to budge from his path. He’d snapped three, but the fourth would not yield. Dignity assailed, with a furious lunge he lowered his head and struck. His foe absorbed the mighty blow and stood fast. The old bull staggered back, mortally stunned, defeated—spike horns shorn away, forelocks matted by many wounds; mucus, bile, and blood draining from flared nostrils and black hanging tongue. Dark throaty bellows heaved from his ruptured depths. Speaking of what? A warning, an intimation of death? Or extinction—a crueler castration visited on the hopelessly singular, the attenuating, the very last. His eyes rolled back in their sockets as he stumbled to keep his footing and balance his swaying mass; fighting now simply to stand. His rumblings softened, more pitiable, imparting anguish with each lowing call—stripped to his first essence like a calf in want of its mother. Too weak to make a feint as man and horse approached. Caspion raised his rifle to its eye and fired, ending its misery; and now wishing for the same from some merciful hand.
Seldom more evident than a ground-shadow of a passing cloud, westward through the end of autumn over the ever-rising plains where the horizon wears the purple hue of mountains looming in the distance, and the soil turns to sand and the buffalo grass and bluestem yield to yucca, sage, and cactus, where a cloudburst brings a midnight flood and leaves the streambeds unburdened for a year—through such environs Caspion rode, past Purgatoire, Las Animas, beyond the juncture of Adobe Creek towards the spare low profile of Fort Lyons. A skiff of snow accompanied his late afternoon arrival, the ragged settlement sprung up over the years to accommodate soldiers, hunters, traders, humble pioneers and their more desperate kin questing for gold, timber, and furs cached in the mountains through to the far ocean beyond. The adobe-post structure of Bent’s Old Fort served as the lone livery, hotel, trading post, and saloon.
Several impoverished Indians huddled outside, front of the store, lacking even a tattered blanket for warmth, waiting for a handout—shedding every last stitch of dignity to maintain an alcoholic stupor. At the sight of the white-robed hunter, they edged away and quickly vanished, like wary crows taking flight, keen to Maiyun’s presence and fearful of the blue-eyed gaze.
Caspion, saddlebags on his forearm and rifle in his hand, opened the door and entered. An audible stir arose from the motley crew within as they turned to scrutinize the disquieting figure now approaching the bar. The sum of their remarks, whether of curiosity or disdain, formed an unintelligible blur to his ears, as if he were deaf or spoke a wholly different tongue. He laid his saddlebags to the counter and waited, stone-faced and silent.
“Whiskey?” the proprietor offered.
Caspion gave a slight nod and watched him pour, noting the stub of his left arm, sleeve tucked under and pinned. Then raising the glass to his lips, he took a whiff and tossed it down in a single gulp. Awakened by the fiery jolt, he drew a deep breath and held forth the glass in a steady hand. Again the barkeep poured; again he tossed it down. Then he stood—savoring the hot rush, fog dispersing, words coming clear. A man sidled up to the bar and set his carpetbag to the floor.
“Finworth’s my name,” he said, extending his hand, “Edmond Finworth.”
Caspion looked him over: a high-toned gent, hair oiled and combed, shoes polished, wearing a fine suit of clothes and a crisp smile. He gripped the hand none too kind and let it fall. Undeterred, Finworth straight-away declared his business.
“I’m traveling throughout the West, you see, collecting novelties, artifacts, fascinating tales. Point of fact, I’m a journalist. Perhaps you’ve heard of me…? No? Well, in any case I wish to purchase your robe.” He held up a gold piece, a Double Eagle. Inferring a
distinct lack of interest, he huffed: “Why sir, it’s but a relic. Faded as it is, I offer four to five times what it’s worth on the current market.”
Caspion eyed him coldly, his words voiced low: “What am I, man…? A whore who’ll drop my gown for twenty dollars? I’ve carried this robe five years. It brought me luck for a time. A hundred dollars…and it’s yours. Then you can bear its burden a spell.” The other wavered briefly, then swallowed hard and counted out five Double Eagles. Caspion left one on the counter and palmed four, testing their weight.
“Good as gold…for gold they are,” Finworth chuckled, nervous before the piercing eyes. “Go ahead, bite into one.”
“Bite you say?” Void of irony or humor, all levity bled from him long ago. “Man, I’ll bite the bullet. I’ll bite the dust. But damned if I’ll bite filthy lucre.” Then he hefted the robe to the buyer—whose knees buckled from the unexpected weight. As Finworth straightened, he smiled certain he’d met the genuine article: one whose words and deeds could gain a writer renown. He promptly made a second offer.
“Sir, I’ll pay a hundred more to have your name and know your story.”
Caspion knew the breed from the war—hovering like vultures in the aftermath of battle, assigning blame and creating heroes at the stroke of a pen.
“My name’s no matter,” he answered; “And you have my story. There…written in the robe.” Finworth looked on…puzzled.
Caspion & the White Buffalo Page 40