The Young Riders

The Journey

By Gabrielle Lawson

Chapter Five

Lou spotted the house up ahead. It sat on a low hill, surrounded by unharvested fields of rotting grain and a grove of trees here and there. The barn stood off to the left, near one of the groves, well away from the house. There was a small tin shed between the main house and the barn. Four fresh graves with wooden crosses lay beside the far side of the house. A buckboard sat out front, and the tracks she'd found not far from the stream led right up to it. She spurred the horse on a bit faster.

The hair on the back of her neck pricked up with the light breeze. She shivered, though the afternoon was warm. The house looked peaceful as she rode toward the spread, but she'd seen the horse, the blood, the knife. Buck would never have left his knife.

She slowed as she neared the farm and walked the horse into the little grove of trees that stood just left of the barn. She hooked the reins around a branch and moved slowly toward the barn. Just as she was about to clear the trees, she heard the screech of metal scratching metal.

"It's Sunday," a man's voice boomed. "God-fearin' people go to church on Sunday. I reckon I done missed services, wastin' my time here with you."

Lou felt her pulse quicken. Was he talking to Buck? She couldn't see the man from where she was, so she moved out of the trees and flattened herself against the side of the barn. She drew her gun and peeked around the corner in time to see a well-muscled man in a sweat-soaked, dirty white shirt walk into the house.

Lou knew he hadn't come from the barn, so that only left the little shed, which fit the metallic sound she'd heard. She risked being seen going around the front of the barn, so she turned and went around the back instead, intently listening for the man.

She heard him as she rounded the back and caught sight of the small shed. She looked around the corner again and watched him come out onto the porch of the main house. He was dressed in a black suit now, though he still wore the same dirt-covered boots he'd had on before. He stepped down and she prayed he wasn't coming to the barn for his horse. She let her breath out when he turned the other way, toward the graves. She waited until he disappeared behind the house before she turned her attention back to the shed.

It was short, not much taller than she was, and far enough from both the house and the barn to miss the shadows of each for most of the day. The sun reflected off a few spots that weren't darkened with age, and the glints left little streaks of color in Lou's eyes. She wished now that she had left her coat with the horse.

She ran across the space between the barn and the shed, just slow enough to keep her footsteps from making too much noise. She could hear the man still, singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" in an off-key baritone.

Lou touched the door and hissed as she pulled her fingers back. The metal was hot. Her fingers stung. She listened for a break in the man's song but it didn't come. She wrapped a bandana around her fingers and tried the door again.

She opened it slowly, trying not to let it screech, and slipped inside as soon as she had enough room. It was dark inside and stifling. The air was thick, like it was in Teaspoon's sweat lodge, only there was no dampness here, just heat.

It took a moment for her eyes and ears to adjust. She started to make out shapes—squares and rectangles. Boxes and crates. She touched one and it nearly toppled over. It was empty. She moved around them, further inside, toward the north wall. That's when she heard it, a short, shaky breath behind her.

Lou spun around, pistol ready, but she dropped the weapon as soon as she saw him. "Buck?" she whispered, falling to her knees.

He didn't answer. He didn't move. He was on his knees with his arms wrenched up behind him on a work bench. His hands were tied to a vice mounted there. One sat at a funny angle, leaving his fingers pointing away from the vice. There was blood on his shoulder, staining the front of his shirt and coat. His head hung down and his long hair fell like a curtain obscuring his face.

Why? her heart questioned as she brushed his hair back and lifted his head. He flinched at her touch and moaned softly but otherwise didn't fight her. He couldn't fight her. She could see that. His hair was matted with sweat and dried blood. His face was bruised and blood seeped slowly from his lips. His eyes were half-open but unfocussed.

Her mind raced, trying to work it out so that Buck had only been kept there a few hours or maybe a day. But the horse had told her a different story. It had stunk of rot and had been torn open by scavengers. And there was only one horse by the stream, one set of prints. There was no sign of Eagle Feather. Buck had not made it to St. Joe. He'd been here for days.

"Buck?" she tried again, speaking just a little louder but close to his ear. "I'm gonna get you out of here."

He tried to look at her, to focus. His brows came down over his eyes. "Lou?" he breathed, so quietly she thought maybe she'd only imagined it.

"It's me," she told him, rubbing his face gently. "I'm here."

He spoke again. No voice, just air moving past a parched throat. Lou couldn't understand the words. "I don't speak Kiowa," she said. She wished she'd brought the canteen with her. He needed water. The shed was too hot and he was still wearing his coat. Yet he wasn't sweating. His skin felt clammy, except where there was blood, some of it dry, some sticky.

Down. She had to get him down. He was up on his knees, and she could feel him shaking. The way his arms were pulled behind him kept him from relaxing, from sleeping. Why had that man done this to him? What had Buck done to deserve this—this torture? That was what it was. Lou felt herself flushing with heat to match the air in the shed. Buck hadn't done anything. He'd just been riding, on his way to St. Joe to maybe find some happiness with someone who could see beyond his color. His color was the only reason she could think of, and it was no reason at all.

"I'm going to get you down," she told him, clenching her fist around the handle of her small knife. Anger burned like a fire in her chest. Buck was her brother. She'd lived with him for over a year, ate with him, slept in the same room. She knew his gentleness and his strength. She knew his smile, his humor, his anger, his sorrow. She'd seen him thrown out of stores, denied a drink in saloons, accused of treason by the army, called names and just generally mistreated by townspeople and strangers alike. And he hadn't deserved any of it. Now this?

Lou's knife wasn't sharp enough, and she had to saw back and forth through the leather that held him to the vice. Then she wasn't strong enough. The strap gave, and, with nothing holding him up and no strength left, he fell. She caught him but couldn't hold him up. He grimaced against her shoulder and stopped breathing. Lou froze. She'd hurt him. She'd killed him.

No. He was tense. He was alive. He was in pain. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I have to. I need to get you out of here."

He breathed again, in short bursts. Lou struggled to keep him from toppling over on her. His arms fell to his side and he screamed. There was no voice, or just barely one, but she'd heard it anyway. "I'm sorry," she sobbed, holding him to her. "Just a little more."

She turned him over as she laid him down on the dirt floor. She nearly fell herself, but she made sure he landed gently, that his arms weren't trapped beneath him.

Now she could look him over without hurting him more. Buck's eyes were rolled up under his eyelids. His lips moved slightly, as if he was talking, but there was not even a hint of a whisper now. She pulled his coat open, as much to give him a little relief from the heat as to give her a better look at his wounds. She wanted to take it off of him, but that would cause him too much pain. "Stay with me, Buck," she urged him, touching his face again before beginning her examination.

There was a bullet wound in his right shoulder. It was high enough not to be too dangerous, except, of course, for blood loss and infection, both of which were possible considering he'd probably been shot, along with his horse, almost three days ago. She could see no other bullet wounds, so she felt his torso carefully. He flinched when she touched his left side and she guessed he'd broken some ribs.

She'd cut the leather between his hands to free him, but the binding remained tight around his wrists. She cut the right one free first, sensing from the strange angle his left had been in that there was something worse going on there. After the leather—a rein, she realized—fell away, she rubbed his arm and hand, encouraging the circulation in them.

Now the other. The leather was tied higher up Buck's arm, a few inches above his wrist and just where the angle changed. It was broken. The leather was so tight that it disappeared within the folds of his coat sleeve. She couldn't get her knife under the strap as she had the first one. She'd have to cut down into it, she realized.

She couldn't see it well enough. The shed was hardly more than a room of shadows and every time she moved his arm even a little, Buck tensed and sucked in another breath. "I need more light," she told him, knowing he was too far gone to understand.

Suddenly, there was a metallic screech and light flooded her face. She instinctively put up a hand to block it.

"Who are you?" the man screamed. He was just a silhouette to her, a shadow in the doorway. He had something in his hands though, and she feared it was a rifle. "What are you doing with that Indian?"

"I'm takin' him outta here," she answered, trying to keep her tone low. It wouldn't be good to let him know she was a woman.

"That Indian is mine," the man snarled, raising the thing in his hand.

Please don't let it be a gun, Lou thought. Her own was still in the dirt at Buck's feet.

"He killed my wife," the man told her, "my little 'uns. He's gonna pay."

He took a step forward, and Lou could only see half of him for the boxes and crates. Those boxes half hid her from him, too, she realized. Her gun would be hidden as well.

"He's a rider for the Pony Express," she told the man, hoping to keep him at bay while she reached back for her gun. "I work with him. He couldn't have done what you say."

"It don't matter if it was him who done it!" the man shouted. "They're all the same! All murderin' savages! Now you get on outta there and leave him be."

She had it. Her gun. "I'm not leaving him with you," she said, standing up. She didn't bother switching the gun to her right hand; she couldn't miss at this distance. She stepped over Buck and pointed the barrel of her pistol right at the man's chest. "And you're gonna see the marshall for what you've done."

"Ain't no law 'gainst killing no-good Indians."

Lou hesitated. He was right. What court would convict him for torturing a half breed, even if Teaspoon spoke for Buck? There would be no justice for this. Not unless. . . . She thought of Neville and what Buck had done after Ike's death. He never spoke of it, but they all knew Buck had done it. None of the riders had even looked at him askance for it. That was the only justice Neville would have gotten.

The man rushed toward her, arms raised with what she could now determine wasn't a rifle. There was no decision left. She fired. The bullet hit the man square in the chest. He dropped the board or cane or whatever it was as he slammed back into the flimsy tin wall. Lou worried for a moment that the whole thing would come tumbling down on them all. The shed creaked and swayed but it stayed up.

"Why?" he gurgled, still alive. "Just an Indian." He clutched at his chest.

She shook her head. "He's more than that," she said, still aiming the gun in case the man got up again. "He's a good man, and he's my friend."

The man's hand dropped from his chest, and he fell over to one side. Lou lowered the gun and turned back to Buck. He was awake now. His right hand opened and closed on the dirt floor. He stared at the ceiling and his breath came in quick, short pants. He was afraid.

Lou dropped down beside him and stroked his face. "It's over," she told him, no longer bothering to whisper or disguise her voice. "He can't hurt you no more."

He didn't relax, so she took his hand and kept talking.


There had been the one voice. The one he knew. The soft one speaking from so far away. He had found her once, said her name, but he fell away from her as soon as he had spoken. He wanted to cry out to her, but he couldn't remember her name anymore. And the pain came back.

It had never really gone away. The roaring winds would die down when he was alone, leaving only the rain. But the thunder would come again, sending lightning bolts through his arms and his back. So fierce was the storm that it had taken the air from his lungs, forcing him to withdraw farther from the voice he thought he knew. He could no longer remember.

And then it stopped. The thunder moved off into the distance, and he felt his body rest. He prayed to the spirits then that they would let him rest now forever and take the pain away for good.

The voice came back again, like a whisper carried in the wind. He knew that voice. In the distance, the storm flared and he felt the lightning touch his arm. The voice called again.

And then there were two voices, and he knew the second one, too. It was harsh and close, in his ear, filling his head. The spirits hadn't heard him, or they didn't care. The man was back and the wind roared around him, lashing at him with hail and rain.

Buck's eyes went wide, but he still couldn't see through the driving rain. He cried out, for that one soft voice, but the winds carried his own voice away. Thunder boomed with each word from the man. It came closer and there was no shelter to hide him from the lightning that would come.

Crack! Thunder exploded so close he could feel the heat, but the lightning did not strike him. Perhaps the spirits had heard.

The storm was weakening. The soft voice called again, and the thunder could not muster up its force. The wind lost its sharpness and its howl.

". . . no more," she called to him. She touched his hand. He still couldn't see her. The lightning had blinded him. But he could feel her now. He knew her name.

"Lou," his mouth formed. His voice could not lift itself above the lingering wind.


TBC