He crept forward to the base of the bridge. Stone and metal pilings rose up from the river’s swell, but the winter-fed current was too swift for him to get to them. He would have to go out along the short span first.
A small building guarded the entrance to the smaller span, its windows bright with flickering lamplight. Storm Arriving came up to the railbed and listened at the wall of the guardhouse. Nothing. Knife in hand, he sidled up along the window and peeked inside. Nothing. He stood and looked in. A vé’ho’e stared back at him, a bottle in his hand, a question on his face.
“‘Ey,” the man said, pointing.
Storm Arriving came around the building and yanked open the door. The vé’ho’e stood up from behind a table, small brightly-colored cards scattering on the floor. He dropped his bottle. It broke with a crash as Storm Arriving lunged for him. The vé’ho’e gasped through an opened throat, breath bubbling through blood. His eyes lolled, and he fell. Storm Arriving stepped back and hissed at the pain in his foot. He snarled as he pulled the shard of broken bottle from the flesh in his arch. Blood dripped, dark in the lamplight. He looked around, found a rag of cloth, and tied it around his foot. Then he went back outside and ran along the tracks, out onto the metal gridwork, trying to ignore the pain that shot up from his foot into his leg.
The railroad ties were slick in the rain and he had to move slower than he wanted to or risk slipping through the gaps. He’d lost track of the time. How long until Gets up Early gives the signal, he wondered. The towers that guarded the main span loomed before him.
The rain began to come down in earnest. His feet started to numb in the cold, and he thanked the spirits for small gifts. He reached the towers and looked up. Smooth stones and huge iron girders met over his head. He looked back toward the small town. He saw another vé’ho’e in the light cast by the open door to the guardhouse. The man shouted.
Storm Arriving began to climb, his fingers holding onto the girder, his toes jammed into the mortared joints. At the top, he slipped. His toes tore on the sharp stone, and his hands grabbed the rough edge of the girders. He felt warm blood trickle back down along his wrists as he pulled himself up. He looked back. More men had gathered around the tiny guardhouse. He shouldered his bundle and his rifle, and turned to face the span.
The arch of metal rose even higher into the night sky, leaning out over the water. Below, the iron rails on the bridge deck were already nothing more than two silver lines against the dark waters. Storm Arriving grasped onto the cold metal of the arch and continued his climb.
Rainwater sluiced down along the arch and the wind gathered its daring with every step he took toward the apex. His fingers began to cramp in the cold, and he stopped to shake life back into them before continuing onward. He heard shouts behind him, voices raised in heated argument. He looked back. The men were looking at the ground outside the guardhouse.
The cut on my foot? he wondered. Surely the rain has washed the blood away.
But the men had turned toward the bridge and were peering out into the darkness beyond their lanterns’ glow.
He kept climbing, the cables below him humming in the wind. He did not know how high he was above the water. The wind pushed and buffeted him, toying with him like a fox with a mouse. The top of the arch was just ahead, where the girders came close and leveled out. He clambered along the final length, and sat.
Men from the guardhouse began walking out along the bridge deck. Storm Arriving saw them peering this way and that, shining their lanterns into every nook, behind every pillar, inspecting the bridge step by step. Storm Arriving wasted no more time on them. If they saw him, they saw him. They would still have to reach him.
He took off the bundle and opened it. He took out a coil of braided buffalo-hair rope and shook it loose. Then he took out the first bunch of thunder-sticks, six sticks all bound around a seventh. He tied the rope around the sticks, and then lay down along the cold girder. He could hear the men as they reached the tower that supported the main span.
He tied the bundle of thunder-sticks to the underside of the arch, according to the instructions One Who Flies had given him. Leaving the fire-cord to dangle, he trimmed the extra rope, grabbed the second bunch of fire-sticks, and looked across to the opposite side of the arch.
The twin arches were joined by thinner girders, nearly twenty feet across and a little wider than Storm Arriving’s bandaged foot.
Don’t think, he told himself, and stepped out onto the girder.
He held his breath, but the wind did not. It pushed and he swung his arms for balance. He grabbed for the far side. A man shouted out from below, but further words were lost in the explosion that lit up the night.
Fire ballooned upward from the center of the little town. The men below looked back toward the explosion, then up at the arch. A second blast of fire rose toward the darkness. The men turned and headed back toward town.
“Thank you, Gets up Early.”
He tied the second bunch as he had the first. Then he took out the small box of little-fire-sticks. Holding the end of the fire-cord, he scraped one against the rain-wet girder. It sputtered and died. He tried again and got nothing. He took out another, wiped the rain off the girder, and tried again. It flared into flame. He touched it to the fire-cord, held it there, and nearly whooped with joy when it hissed to life.
He headed back across the girder. The light from the fire in town made it easier to walk the thin length of metal, but halfway across he heard a gunshot from the bridgedeck. A bullet hit metal and sang past him. He stumbled and slipped. He lunged for the metal of the arch, and landed hard on the girder, his feet hanging in air, his breath coming hard, and his ribs screaming in pain from the impact. Another shot hit the metal with a heavy clang. Storm Arriving got his legs back up on the arch, unslung his rifle, turned, and fired three quick shots at the man down on the bridgedeck. The vé’ho’e ran for cover behind the tower and Storm Arriving reached for the little-fire-sticks.
They were gone.
He swore. He turned and fired two more shots out of anger. They hit the stone tower and went zipping out into the night. From behind the tower, the vé’ho’e took another shot. It hit the cross-girder in a flash of sparks.
Sparks!
Storm Arriving shouldered his rifle and reached for his belt pouch. Numb, blood-stained fingers fumbled with the tie and he poured the contents into his hand. He grabbed the flint and let everything else fall away to the waters far below. He put the flint near the end of the fire-cord, took out his knife, and scraped the blade along the flint. Sparks spilled from the stone, hissing on the rain-wet girder. He smelled the sharp scent of burning metal. More shots came from below. Men shouted to one another. He tried to hide himself with as much of the girder as possible. He dragged the blade along the flint again. More sparks, lots of them. He did it again, again. Faster, he struck and struck. Sparks settled on the cord, sputtering as they died. More sparks. The cord spat, died. More sparks. A hiss. A spout of flame. It was lit.
He looked behind him. Four men at the towers. He had five shots left in his rifle. He looked at the fire-cords. He had taken too much time with the second one. The one on the far side had only a foot or so to go. No time.
Squeezing the girder with his legs, he leaned out. He fired two shots, saw one man fall, and saw all the others run for cover behind the towers. He fired two more shots, sending shards of stone about their heads. He fired his last shot, and tossed the rifle out over the river. Holding the empty bundle that had held the thunder-sticks, he leaned down alongside the girder. He wrapped the bundle’s heavy leather around one of the cables that hung down to the bridge deck, gripped it with all his might, and slackened the hold of his legs on the girder above. He began to slide down the cable, the leather growling against the cable’s braids. His speed increased and he held on tighter to the cable itself. The leather began to heat beneath his hands. He could smell it burning, the heat rose, the growling became a moan, a wail. His hands held on.
The bridge deck came up fast to meet him. Too fast. He gripped with his legs, felt the leather of his leggings give way, felt the cable burn his flesh. He let go, hit the rail, heard a snap, and hit hard on the deck. He scrambled to his feet and went back down with a lancing pain behind his shin. Back at the tower, the vé’hó’e came out from behind the stonework. They aimed and fired. Their shots went wide in the rain and darkness, but they could see he was down and unarmed. They ran forward.
Storm Arriving looked up and saw the twin stars of his work hissing overhead, so close to their goal. The men came for him, reloading as they ran. He rolled to the side, squeezed through the gap between the deck and the rail, and fell.
He hit the water with a shock that rivaled his landing on the bridge deck. The pain in his leg was intense, and the cold water on his seared flesh was like fire all over again. He pulled for the surface and spluttered for air when he reached it. The current carried him downstream, and he caught sight of the bridge just as the first charge detonated.
The explosion lit the bellies of the clouds and blew girders up into the sky. The second blast tore the peak out of the arch, and Storm Arriving heard a groan that seemed to come from the river itself. He watched as the bridge’s perfect arch folded in upon itself, as the flat deck bowed and twisted. The footings pulled loose and the stone towers cracked. Huge chunks of stone tumbled into the water, cables snapped, girders buckled, and slowly, grudgingly, the massive structure surrendered. It fell into the river, sending up a spume of water higher than it had ever stood itself.
Storm Arriving swam for the riverbank. When he reached it, the fires in the town still glowed, and as he lay in the river’s death-cold ooze, he looked upstream at the two ruined towers, at the tortured metal that hung from them, and at the span of empty space that stood between them. He looked at the scene, and he smiled.
The White House was quiet on New Year’s Day with both family and staff all sleeping in after staying up for punch and toasts at the midnight hour. Custer, however, was restless, as usual. He rose with the wan light of dawn, wrapped himself in his robe, and slippered his way downstairs to the library.
The library, with its leather-bound volumes, its curving windows, and its balcony that provided a vista of the Ellipse, Washington’s monument, and the river to the south, was Custer’s favorite room in the drafty, hundred year-old mansion. It seemed a place for a president, surrounded by the knowledge and wisdom of Western civilization; a place where at any point a leader could turn and find the silent, private counsel of the ages. He walked slowly alongside the shelves, touching a binding, the embossed letters of a title. He stopped at a set of five old volumes. Their ribbed, leather-bound spines were covered with hand-stamped gold filigree, but they had no titles other than “I” through “V”. He couldn’t remember having ever seen them before. He pulled one off the shelf. The leather-clad cover was shiny with age, the pages stippled with red on the cut edges. He touched the thickness and opened it up. Hand-set letters stood in uneven lines on thick, textured paper; the text, in Latin and French, kept rank in two columns. Custer turned to the front of the book.
Le Deuteronome
Traduits en Francoise
M. D C C. I.
Who, he wondered, among this house’s previous tenants, had brought home this book, an Old Testament that had been an antique when his country was just being born? He leafed through the first few pages and found the simple inscription: To John, from Poor Richard, 1789.
He shook his head in wonder and looked up at the hundreds of books stacked on shelf after shelf all around the room. What other secrets were up there, hidden among the biographies and atlases, what history left behind by legends? He looked down at the book in his hand, now close to two hundred years old.
What legacy will I leave, he wondered? What will I leave behind me for future occupants to find and ponder? Anything? Anything more than failure upon failure?
A quiet knock at the door brought him back to the present. “Yes?” he said.
The door opened and Douglas stepped inside. “Mr. President, sir? Mr. Greene is wanting to see you, sir.”
Custer frowned. It was far too early for Jacob to be here without a very good reason. “Send him up.”
“Yes, sir. Some coffee, sir?”
“Yes. Thank you, Douglas.”
The butler closed the door with a quiet snick. Custer put the ancient book back in its place and waited for Jacob’s heavy footsteps to ascend the staircase. He was still touching the gilded spines when the door opened again and Douglas ushered Jacob into the library.
“Autie,” Jacob said.
“Bad news?” Custer asked without turning around. He saw only the cracked leather of the spines, the decorations with their fleurs-de-lis, their lions rampant.
“Yes,” Jacob said. “It’s the bridge.”
A smile of sadness wrinkled Custer’s face, and he felt his eyes sting. “Of course,” he said. “It was the only thing left.”
“It’s destroyed. They blew it up.”
Custer swallowed. He could not turn around. He could not bring himself to face another human being. He thought: Now the failure is complete.
“Shafer’s at a loss,” Jacob said, his voice tight and pitched high with frustration. “He’s blaming everything from the quality of the iron to God-knows-what. He can’t understand it. He says they knew just where to place the charges. How in Hell’s name did they know how to do that?”
Custer’s smile widened, and he felt a mixture of sadness and joy swell within him. “I suppose,” he said, “they had some help.” He turned and looked at Jacob, chuckled at his friend’s consternation. “From an engineer, I’ll wager.”
Storm Arriving woke up slowly. He heard the quiet breathing of his wife beside him, heard the small tick-tick of coals slumbering in the hearthpit. He looked up through the smokehole. Chickadees pipped and squabbled in the evergreen boughs far above the lodge, and somewhere up the snowy hillside a vixen called for her mate.
Speaks While Leaving turned in her sleep, rolling up against him, her breasts warm against his aching ribs, her arm a comforting pressure across his chest. The sun poked its head out from between the clouds and the world brightened, grew sharp and focused. Storm Arriving looked down on his wife’s face and sighed. She mumbled in her sleep and he felt her arm hold him a bit tighter.
A child, he thought. A child. He wished he could see his mother’s face when she heard the news, but the idea of another trip away from Speaks While Leaving was unthinkable. Not now. Not for a long, long time.
He was glad, though, that it would be One Who Flies who told his mother and sister the news. Such news should come from family, and One Who Flies was nearly that. His friend’s insistence on traveling back to the camp of the Tree People for his recuperation made it easier for Storm Arriving to stay.
The sun ran back behind a cloud and the day turned back to dawn. Speaks While Leaving sighed, and he felt the curve of her waist as her legs entwined in his.
One Who Flies should be there by now, he thought briefly, and then Speaks While Leaving began to stir, and his mind was filled with other things.
“Are you all right, One Who Flies?”
George blinked and shook his head—a mistake—and felt his gorge rise. He held up a hand to assure Gets up Early that he was fine, but only half believed it himself. He had felt so much better when they had left the camp of the Closed Windpipe band. Now, though, the four days’ journey to the Elk River had sapped him of every bit of strength he had regained during his three-week convalescence.
“I will be fine,” he said, “once we reach the Tree People. How far are we from the camp?”
“Not far,” Gets up Early said. “A hand, maybe more.”
George took a deep breath and let it out through pursed lips, trying to dispel the wave of nausea that gripped him. He looked over his shoulder to where the sun’s glow hung low in the winter sky. The wind freshened, sharp and bitter out of the north, but it
carried a scent that revived his spirit and quickened his heart. Woodsmoke.
Home.
“We go.”
Within a hand of time, they heard the first shout from the hilltops. Gets up Early grinned and whooped in response, his voice echoing across the rising land. Their whistlers stamped in the snow and cried out with long yodels. The valleys ahead awoke with distant replies, and the air was filled with whistlers’ music. As anxious as their mounts, they headed into the valley mouth at a brisk pace.
People lined the trail that wound through the camp.
“What is the news?”
“Did we succeed against the bluecoats?”
“What about the bridge?”
Gets up Early grinned at George. “We will eat all winter on the stories we will tell.”
George smiled, too, but wanted only one thing. He looked up at the tree-covered slopes, searching. Then he glimpsed it: through the evergreens, a lodge decorated with black handprints over white spots and jagged lines.
“Where are you going?” Gets up Early asked as George turned away from the crowds of people wanting news and nudged his whistler into a run.
“Home,” he shouted over his shoulder. “I’m going home.”
His mount wound its way past trees and around snow-covered boulders, spade-toed feet digging into the steep slope. George hung on, pressure from his heels keeping the beast headed in the right direction. He held onto his wounded side. The whistler pushed uphill, passed close beneath snow-clad boughs, and George was dusted with snow. When he had wiped his face and eyes clear, he could see his home.
Mouse Road stood outside her mother’s lodge, still several yards away. She waved, and George saw her teeth bright in a wide grin. The grin faded as he rode up, and her hand went to her mouth, eyes wide with worry as she saw the bandages that bound his head, his arm, his torso.
He reined in before her, swaying atop his whistler’s back, suddenly light-headed. Mouse Road took a step toward him but stopped, her eyes filled with concern. He bade his whistler crouch, and slowly, painfully, he dismounted. He stood there, one hand on his whistler’s spine, gathering his strength and balance. Steam rose from the beast’s flanks and its cinnamon scent was sharp in the cold, wet air. But his wounds were not the only thing that stayed him.
The Spirit of Thunder Page 34