Chapter Five

"We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The flowers are our sisters,

the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.

All things are connected like the blood that unites one family."

Blackfoot

Sutter led the horses into the barn, untied the lead ropes and removed their saddles and blankets.

Footsteps plodded into the barn behind him. When he turned around, Cobb stood under the opening, his straight, white teeth gleaming behind his infamous smile. "Hear they call you Yellow Smoke now."

A grin tugged at Sutter's lips. "Among other things."

"Think I'll go with Yellow Smoke." Cobb walked toward him and lifted his friend off his feet in a bear hug. "I've missed you." He put him down and stepped back. "Must be a year since we've crossed trails."

Cobb ran a hand over the scruff on his chin. "Anyway, I'm glad you came. I offered to fetch ya, but Anya insisted on going."

"We both know once she makes up her mind there's no turning her from it." Sutter looked to the horses. "Her mare took a stone in the left hind foot this morning. I dug it out, but she could use some salve and a good rub down."

Cobb strolled over to Cheena, removed her bridle and replaced it with a lead halter. Be glad to help." He grabbed a tin of salve from a nearby shelf and applied it to the mare's hind foot.

The conversation with Sutter continued while he led Cheena into the stall next to the man's black stallion. "He's a beauty. Suppose you caught him in the wild."

"Watched him for days, learned his habits, where he grazed, where he took water and where he bedded down." Sutter brushed the stallion with a stiff brush and then rubbed him down with a white cloth while Cobb went through the same motions with Cheena. "By the time I approached him, he seemed familiar with my scent."

"Cobb's blue eyes met his. "I'll take care of your horse, and then put all three in the corral to feed."

Sutter nodded his thanks. "Anya said you were here, working their ranch."

"I worked for old man Fleming for nine years and when Lewis bought this place, I offered to work for him. Mind you, only until he got the fields plowed and the cattle and horses settled in."

A short laugh came from Sutter. "That's stretching the blanket a bit, don't you think?"

Cobb placed his elbows on the rail between them and offered a sheepish smile. "You always could see through me."

"None of my business, but I had hoped by now you'd have your own place. You're a good rancher and a good cowman."

"Ah, hell. You know I've been sweet on Anya since we were kids. Nothing changed when she married Lewis, not once I found out her Pa forced her hand. Guess I have black luck when it comes to that woman. When we were kids, she loved you, then she up and married Lewis. Sure as I'm standing here, she never loved the man."

Sutter picked up an errant piece of straw lying on the railing and stuck it between his teeth. "You weren't the only one gut-shot when she married Lewis, and like you, I never knew her father forced her into that marriage. Not until now." Sutter cursed under his breath, so low, he doubted Cobb heard. "Sheds a different shade of light on the whole situation."

"Sure does."

"You said Anya never loved him and sounds like he felt the same."

"I can't argue with that. Lewis was a cruel man, had it out for Anya. I could never figure out why he courted her, insisted on marrying her and then went sour on her once the boy came into the world."

"Something isn't right. Why would Lewis haunt them; try to drag her into the afterlife if he didn't want her in this life?"

"Ya got me there, and another thing, the ghost sure don't sound like Lewis."

"You've heard him?"

Cobb nodded. "Many times, mostly at night."

"Spirits don't always sound like they did when they walked the earth."

Cobb's blond brow shot up. "You've heard the dead too?"

Sutter nodded. "Seen them, too, but only in my vision quests. If we can see them walking among us, that means they have achieved great power."

"Well, I ain't never seen one, Lewis or any other, and after hearing his godless sounds, I never want to. This Hooki could scare the hide off a badger."

"How's the boy…any change?"

Cobb shook his head. "No. He lies in bed, eyes open and glazed over. Never moves." The ranch hand looked away as if deep in thought. "I done everything my ma taught me about getting a fever down but his hangs on like a tick on a coonhound."

"You got something else to say, Cobb?"

"Don't pay me no never mind." He lifted a shoulder. "What do I know? I'm just a cowpoke who's had a lot of time to think on this situation."

"Say it."

"Lewis went all cracked about six months back—got tangle-legged every night on whiskey—'bout the time that Hooki showed up. Next thing ya know, he hanged himself in the barn. Got a long string of rope, pitched it up over the rafters and put a stool underneath his feet. Reckon he just kicked that stool out when he finally had enough."

"If the Hooki was already here, how could it be Lewis? Anya said—"

"I heard ya the first time, 'Anya thinks Lewis has returned to make her life miserable.'"

With his index finger and thumb, Sutter rubbed his chin. "You don't think it's Lewis?"

"Don't see how it could be."

"You ever tell Anya that?"

"No," Cobb said with a shake of his head. "The Hooki wasn't bold at first, not like a starving grizzly after hibernation. He started out cautious like a fox watching for the weakest hen. The way I see it, she didn’t hear the haunt before Lewis hanged himself. Like me, Lewis heard him, though. Yeah, I think that Hooki got to him real good." He blew a long sigh. "I didn't tell Anya because I saw her slipping from the world a little each day and I was scared to death the ghost would spot that weakness in her."

"You think the ghost chose the boy instead?"

"I think it's time for you to become Ni-namp'-skan, all face-man, and find out."

Sutter clasped Cobb's shoulder. "And I think you spent too much time in a Blackfoot village growing up."

A nostalgic timbre edged Cobb's voice. "I wouldn't trade those days for anything, Yellow Smoke. Not one minute."

Sutter grabbed his saddlebag from the ground and slung it over his shoulder. "I'll toss my things in the bunkhouse and then see about Willie-boy."

"Hope you can help him. It'll be the end of Anya if something happens to that shote."

Sutter set the saddlebag down on a bunk and then opened the one that held his Ni-namp'-skan attire. The garments wouldn't frighten the boy since Cobb reported him unaware of his surroundings.

He laid the deerskin tunic and long pants on the bunk and removed a jar of red paint. Rubbing the thick liquid on both hands, he placed handprints in a random pattern on the tunic. He looked down on the deerskin trousers and thought about what he might draw to help the boy—a hawk so the illness would flee his body, a fast horse to carry the Hooki far away, two arrows, their tips meeting in the middle, to ward off evil spirits. Dipping his index finger into the jar again, these he drew on the front of the leggings with meticulous care.

As a final touch, he painted his face red with two fingers and then stepped back to admire his handiwork in the cloudy mirror on the wall.

After dressing in the decorated clothing, he opened the other saddlebag and pulled out the implements he'd need for the healing ceremony—a sacred bundle of pipes, a pouch holding the great yellow fungus that grows on the pine trees, a single sacred rattle made from buffalo hooves, and a whistle with a single hole. He secured a rope around his waist that held two additional pouches. One held sweet grass, the other sweet pine needles mixed with tobacco.

When at last he was done preparing, he reflected on the day's events, mostly Anya entering his life again. Old Person always said, 'Rain will come when animals lie down in the forest, but Old Man Sun enters your life when least expected.' He used to think the old women of the village made up the tale, but not anymore.

The sun shined brighter when Anya was around.

For years, he'd told himself Anya no longer had the power to hurt him, did not hold sway over his heart. He'd been wrong on both counts. When she'd dismounted and walked toward him that morning, volatile feelings erupted in his gut — a mixture of anger, hate and, yes, love. Old Person also said the line between hate and love is as thin as a breath of air.

Everything about her rushed his memory as if he'd seen her only yesterday—the long, blonde hair, the ice-blue eyes, even the spray of freckles across the bridge of her pert nose. His body had hummed with an aching vibration when he'd focused on her lips, that lush, pink mouth that once belonged to him.

God, had he hissed the rude words that she wasn't welcome at his house while primal chills raced down his spine? No woman had ever evoked such conflicting feelings in him. He had to admit in that unfortunate moment he'd never loved a woman with every part of his being the way he had once loved her.

No . . . loved her still.

With a curse, Sutter sent a prayer skyward for the boy, left the bunkhouse and walked toward the main house.