Wayward Wind, page 10
He sat with his puzzled thoughts until the moon disappeared behind the old, scarred pine at the western rim of the valley. A restless lobo howled his frustration at the night’s failures and his defiance was heard and answered by another of his own kind.
More out of habit than the need to rest, Cooper threw out his bedroll and stretched out on it and looked up at the stars.
“Lorna. Lorna…” He wasn’t even aware of saying her name. Only the winds heard and moaned softly in the treetops above his head.
Chapter
Seven
It was dawn.
Lorna opened her eyes. Her awakening was instantaneous, none of her usual meanderings in the trance world between sleep and sensibility. This morning, her adolescent dreams had become a reality that jolted her mind and muscle into vivid awareness. Cooper! Cooper! Oh, my love! She stretched and curled her toes in pure delight. She’d never felt so happy in all her life. Her future was with Cooper. This morning she felt an awesome kinship with her Grandma Maggie, and wanted to be alone in the forest they both loved to think about it.
She stepped out into the cool morning and stood beside the door. A gray squirrel paused briefly to glance at her and scold before scurrying off for the nearest tree. A bluejay chattered angrily and flew in furious indignation to a branch of an oak tree and from that vantage point hurled insults at the old black crow searching in the berry bushes for a scrap of food. Bold in his hunger, the crow added his own croaking comments before flapping to a more productive berry bush, where he ignored both the jay and the woman. Lorna stood as still as a stone, absorbing the familiar morning sounds, listening for an alien one.
Satisfied all was as it should be, she ran toward the bluffs behind the cabin and began the steep climb to the top of the wooded shelf. She followed her own trail, holding to branches of scrub trees to keep from falling. Halfway up she stopped to look back toward the place where Cooper had thrown his bedroll, but she couldn’t see it for the thick tangle of berry bushes. She continued her climb. At the top of the bluff she surveyed the area with quick knowing eyes before she showed herself. Nothing moved. Always cautious, she ran several hundred feet to the right and stopped beside a large blue spruce to look and listen. She darted from tree to tree until she’d circled the place where she had come up from the cabin.
Confident that she was alone with only the creatures of the forest to observe her, she went to the edge of the bluff, straightened to her full height and stretched her arms to the rising sun. She was free. Here there were no confining walls around her. Here she could pretend she was at home on Light’s Mountain. She ran a few steps, jumped and twirled around and around with graceful abandon. She dipped and swayed and laughed aloud. She was happy, so happy! She wanted to dance and sing, giving herself up to the sheer bliss, the wonder of knowing she had found her mate for life. She had to sing. The feeling inside her had to have an outlet, a celebration of this wonderful discovery. She no longer feared Brice would come and take Bonnie. Cooper was here. He’d stand with her against anyone.
The song she sang was an old one Maggie had taught her granny. It was about a very young girl who waited for a lover who had gone wandering over the sea to seek his fortune, but returned home when he realized the treasure he was seeking was his own true love. It was a haunting love song with a compelling little tune. Lorna sang softly and swayed from side to side, her voice, sweet and clear, filled the air around her and carried on the breeze to the cabin below.
Cooper, coming up the stony path beside the stream, paused and listened. He felt his heart still. A spell of enchantment engulfed him as if the sweet, lilting notes clinging to the fresh morning air were coming from another world. He was pulled toward the sound, irresistibly drawn by it. His feet seemed to have no will of their own. As he strode past his bedroll he dropped his hat and ran his fingers through his wet hair.
He scaled the bluff behind the cabin, following the prints of small moccasins on the steep, narrow path that wound around boulders and gnarled mountain pine. He paused to catch his breath, digging in his bootheels to keep from sliding, then hurried on. As he climbed the singing grew louder. When he pulled himself up the last few feet so he could see over the edge he found himself looking into laughing, blue-violet eyes. Lorna held out her hand; he took it and stepped up onto the grassy plateau.
She whirled and left him, jumping and spinning, her hair whipping around her. Her feet scarcely seemed to brush the ground as she skimmed over it, twisting and turning to the tune of the music that came from her throat. “Tra-la, tra-la, tra-la-la-la.” Her arms reached to welcome the morning sun that glistened on her blue-black hair, and then swept low to the ground as though she performed some pagan dance.
Cooper watched every delicate movement, heard the trilling music, and could not believe what he saw. Could this beautiful, happy woman dancing with such innocent abandon be real?
In all his life, he’d never seen such beauty as she possessed. It was more than physical. It was in every delicate movement of her small, slender body. It was in the melodious sound that came from her throat, in her triumphant, happy smile, and in her eyes that gazed at him in open admiration. Her cheeks and lips were red against her pale skin and her glorious, blue-black hair danced around her face and tumbled down her back to her waist in reckless abandon.
A fierce rage of longing, an enormous desire, began to stir in Cooper’s body as he watched her twisting in a final, joyous spin and stop before him, her eyes glowing up into his. The soft, breathless laugh that came from her lips was as dearly familiar to him as if he had heard it a thousand times—he didn’t understand it, or know what was happening to him. He backed away and tried to view her as others would see her—a girl in worn Indian moccasins, britches, an old cloth shirt that hung to her hips and a cloth sash wrapped tightly around a waist he could span with his two hands.
“I knew you’d come.” She reached for his hand and held it in both of hers.
“How did you know?”
“I don’t know.” She laughed up at him. There was no pretense in the eyes that moved lovingly over his face.
Cooper’s head was spinning, reality was slipping farther and farther away. He felt a tremor running through him, as if the earth were going to part under his feet. He had to say something, but what?
“You’re up early.”
“I love the morning.”
“Last night you said you loved the night.”
“I love everything—now that I’ve found you.”
“Lorna—”
“Oh, Cooper, Cooper.” She came close to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest. The top of her head fit snugly beneath his chin. His hand came up and stroked the full length of her hair. He’d never felt anything so silky, so alive. His fingers refused to leave it. She tilted her face, smiled up at him, and asked mischievously, “Do you think I’ll break if you hug me?”
“I’m afraid you’re not flesh and blood.”
“If you kiss me, you’ll know that I am.”
“Lorna! Oh, wild, sweet, Lorna—” The words came from his tight throat in a tormented whisper.
She lifted her lips to meet his. The pressure of his mouth threatened to whisk her to the edge of blackness. The bittersweet taste of tobacco and the roughness of his cheek as her nose pressed against it did nothing but fan the flame that was growing inside her. The pressure of his lips parted hers and she felt the tip of his tongue exploring the inner surfaces of her lips. She was enveloped in a whirling velvet mist of sensations that made her knees weak and her body sag against his tall frame. His mouth left hers momentarily, then hungrily returned to capture her in a soul-searching kiss as an insidious, primitive desire grew in both of them.
These wanton, abandoned feelings were strange to Lorna, but she loved them and had no desire to stop them. Instead, she wanted the physical gratification of Cooper’s possession and pressed herself against the hardened evidence of his aroused body.
It was Cooper who drew back and held her away from him. His hands moved over her shoulders and back in trembling caresses as he peered down into her flushed face.
“You don’t know what this is leading to, Lorna.” His voice trembled.
Almost blindly she looked at him, compelling herself to concentrate on what he was saying, but the movement of his firm lips was more enticing than the words coming from them. She was learning how primitive and powerful desire could be. Her soft, feminine body had instinctively responded to the mating instincts of his.
“Yes, I do! It’s mating! I always wondered what it would be like to couple with my mate.”
“Lorna, Lorna,” he groaned, his words muffled in her hair. “We can’t… I can’t—”
“I’m your woman, Cooper.” Her voice was low and she was frowning. “Don’t you know that I’m your woman?”
Cooper felt a strange, bittersweet warmth. He stared down at her for a long, aching moment. Her lips were red and swollen from his kisses and a few tendrils of soft black hair curled at her temples. She was a dream, a mirage, as pure as an angel’s breath.
“You’re sweet, untouched—”
“I’m untouched,” she admitted with a three-cornered smile. “I’ve been waiting for you, Cooper. I’m your woman. I know it, but it’s too soon for you to know, isn’t it?” Her hands cupped his cheeks and she looked deeply into his eyes.
“You don’t understand how it is with a man? I want you. God knows I do, but—” He could read the loving acceptance in her eyes. Oh, God, she was so sweet, so tempting. “You can’t… give yourself to a man you’ve known for so short a time!” he said tersely.
“I’ve known you forever. But it’s all new to you, isn’t that it, Cooper?”
“Yes, it’s new to me,” he snapped almost angrily. “I can’t take a woman like you just as a passing pleasure. It would have to mean more than that.” He felt as if he were strangling.
“We’ll mate, my love. I’m sure, so very sure.” She spoke reassuringly, as if she were comforting a child, and stroked his cheeks with her fingertips. “When we do, we’ll take each other.”
He stood silently, his eyes searching her face. Then he began shaking his head in denial of his thoughts. She seemed to understand what was going on in his mind and rose up on her toes to brush his lips with hers.
“Light didn’t understand either—at first,” she whispered.
Cooper shook himself out of what now seemed to be a trance. “What were you doing up here alone? Dunbar or some drifter could’ve ridden in here and found you.” He spoke gruffly in an effort to bring them both back to reality.
She laughed. “After you’ve been with me a while, you’ll not worry about me getting caught out. Come. We’d better go see about Bonnie and Griff. They’ll be hungry for their breakfast.”
She scrambled down the side of the bluff as agilely as a mountain goat and waited at the bottom for Cooper, who came slowly and cautiously. When he reached her, she took his hand as naturally as if she had been doing it every day of her life.
“Now can you see how I found the mare and had to ride her the long way around?”
He nodded his head in answer to her question, then scolded, “You could have broken your neck coming down the cliff the way you did just now.”
“Oh, Cooper, you care. You do care!” She hugged his arm and danced alongside him.
“You’re damn right I’d care if you broke a leg. How’d I get you out of here?” he said, deliberately misreading the meaning of her words.
“We’d have to stay here then. Just you and I. I wouldn’t care a bit.”
“I’d pull you out on a travois,” he threatened, and unable to resist her infectious happy mood, grinned down at her. “That would be a mighty bumpy ride.”
“I know. That’s how Volney and I brought Bonnie here.” She had to skip to keep up with his long strides. “I’m worried about him, Cooper.”
“Volney can take care of himself. He’s caught the scent of a cat with a pelt that would bring him plenty of hard cash and he’s after it. He’ll be back.”
“I don’t know what to do with Bonnie if he doesn’t come back. I can’t take her home with me. Brice would get her.”
“I’ll take her home with me. Ma would be glad for her company.”
“Would you do that, Cooper?” Sharing this sweet intimacy with him made Lorna almost heady with pleasure.
“How soon before she can travel? I’ve got to be getting on home.”
“I don’t know when she can ride astride. That babe split her something awful.”
Cooper felt the color come up from his neck and looked away from the serious, unabashed eyes looking into his. There didn’t seem to be any subject too delicate for her to talk about openly and honestly.
“We’ll… ah… see how she gets on.”
* * *
In the afternoon Griffin moved out into the sun to expose the wound in his shoulder to the warm air. Lorna had fashioned a sling for his right arm to prevent movement from disturbing the healing flesh. He seemed strangely withdrawn. Although he spoke readily to Lorna, he didn’t direct any conversation to Cooper unless forced to answer a question.
Cooper waited until the young nester was alone, then moved over beside him and squatted down.
“I have a feeling something’s eating at you.”
Griffin looked steadily at him. His eyes were cold, the pupils shrunk to hard points. “What’s yore game, mister?”
“I figured you’d latched on to what Dunbar said. Well, nester,” he spat out the word and got to his feet, “I’ll say this one time: I feel the same about that old man as my brother does. Any man that puts me in the same pocket as him, or puts his name to me had better be ready to back it up, because I’ll call his hand.” The finality of the words lifted his voice to a warning note.
Griffin stood and spread his legs to steady himself. “I’m obliged to ya fer what ya done, but it goes down hard bein’ beholden to one with your name.”
“Name’s Parnell. Cooper Parnell. My pa was Oscar Parnell, as fine a man as ever lived. It was him that raised me, taught me to be a man. That old sonofabitch has got no claim on me, no matter what he says, Dunbar says, or anybody else says!”
Griffin stood stiff and defiant. “I aim to keep what’s mine if’n it means akillin’ him.”
“It’s what I’d do.”
Cooper stood there waiting for some response from the still-faced Griffin, but none was forthcoming. The man had retreated for the moment while he considered his words. The silence went on and on while hard green eyes bored into hard blue ones. After a long while Griffin nodded his head.
“If’n it turns out I’m wrong ’bout ya,” he said softly, “I’ll not waste time amakin’ it right.”
Cooper looked into eyes as cold and green as icy water. “How’ll you go about that?”
“By killin’ ya.” Griffin spoke each word clearly and distinctively. “ ’N I’d make sure ya take a long time adyin’.”
“Like Dunbar, huh?” Cooper looked at the slim, young cowboy as if seeing him for the first time. “You’d try it, wouldn’t you?”
“There’d be no tryin’,” Griffin said with a wintry smile. “I’d do it, ’n not like Dunbar. Ya’d not even know who done it, ’cause I don’t hold with no rules a fair play. When somethin’ needs killin’, I kill it, ’n it makes no never mind to me how it’s done.” His young face was as hard as stone. “I lived five years ’mong the meanest, filthiest scum this side of hell They tried ever’thin’ from stealin’ my food to abuggerin’ me. It wasn’t easy to stay alive, but I’m here. A lot of ’em ain’t.”
“I’m obliged to you for telling me what to expect. Now, if you’ve got it all out of your craw, sit down and listen. I have a proposition to put to ya.”
Lorna sat with her back against the wall and watched Bonnie twist her hair into a rope and fasten it to the top of her head with two heavy wire hairpins. It amazed her that Bonnie could do so much with only one hand, and she told her so.
Bonnie laughed weakly. “It ain’t hard, Lorna. I never had two hands ’n had to do thin’s right off with one. Ya don’t miss what ya never had.” The exertion of pinning up her hair had tired her. She rested her back against the wall and watched Lorna with large brown eyes that seemed unusually dark in her pale face. “Ya told me the babe had ever’thin’, didn’t you, Lorna? I didn’t dream that ya said it?”
“I told you that. It had the right number of feet and hands, even fingers and toes. It was perfect, Bonnie.” Lorna hoped to God she was telling it right. The truth was, she had only briefly glanced at the pitiful mass of human flesh.
Bonnie seemed relieved and smiled wanly. “I was ’fraid it’d be like me.”
“When you’re able to leave here, Cooper’s going to take you to his ma. He said she’d be glad for your company.”
The old frightened look came back into Bonnie’s eyes. “I don’t want to go off with him, Lorna.”
“You’ll have to for awhile. I’m thinking that when Cooper comes to Light’s Mountain you can come, too. He’ll stand up to Brice. Cooper’ll not let Brice be mean to you ever again.”
“Ya like him, don’t ya?”
“Yes, I do. He’s my life’s mate,” Lorna said in a proud, positive tone.
“Lorna! Are ya agoin’ to marry him?”
“He hasn’t asked me, but he will.”
“You’d leave Light’s Mountain?”
“Of course not! I’ll never leave Light’s Mountain,” Lorna said firmly. “My home’s there. I could never live anyplace else.”
“But… Lorna—”
“Cooper will come.”
“To stay?”
Lorna laughed. “Of course. It’s too soon to talk about that now. It’s enough to know that he’ll take you home with him and take care of you till the time comes that both of you come home to Light’s Mountain.”
