The Young Riders
The Journey
By Gabrielle Lawson
Chapter Nine
Rain thrummed on the tin roof like a thousand drummers. Thunder rumbled and shook the walls. Buck exhaled. He inhaled and exhaled again. And even that was difficult. His lungs resisted his efforts to expand them, while his ribs, jagged and sharp on his left side, stabbed at them. His whole torso had to lift just to pull the air in, and that movement sent long tendrils of pain shooting down his arms. But not to his fingers. They had long since numbed. He inhaled. It was all he could manage.
The door screeched open and that breath stuck in his lungs. He could not lift his head to see, but he counted the footsteps he heard. It took him a few seconds to realize that he could hear them. The thunder had stopped, and the rain had lost half its force. The footsteps stopped right in front of him, and Buck let out his breath and waited for the first blow to fall.
"I think it's time you left this place." That was not the man's voice. There was no anger in it, no hatred. There was sadness instead, but not the murderous grief the man had used against Buck. Buck had never heard this voice with his ears, and yet it was familiar.
Jenny stopped praying when she realized Buck had stopped moving. She froze, fearing that it had all been for nothing and now Buck was dead. The door behind her opened, and someone hurried across the room to her.
"You stopped," Teaspoon whispered. At first, he had taken the silence and stillness as a sign of Buck's death, but as he drew closer, he could see that Buck was, indeed, still breathing. His eyes had finally closed, and his body relaxed into unconsciousness. Jenny did not take her eyes off Buck. She wiped at her eyes which were wet with tears and then slowly touched his face, but Buck did not even twitch.
"You did it," he said, sitting behind her on the empty bed.
Jenny turned her head and Teaspoon's attention was drawn to the dreamcatcher hanging between the bedposts. It looked as if the small hoop and web had done just what Indian tradition said it would. But Teaspoon couldn't help the sick feeling in his stomach at seeing Buck so still. Was he really better this way or just more comfortable? Was he farther from this world now that he couldn't feel the pain?
"If he's still like this in the morning," he finally said, "we'll take him home."
Buck heard the owner of the voice as he knelt before him, and Buck noticed now that the rain had ceased altogether. Some of the chill began to leave him. "Buck," the voice said again, "give me your hand. You don't have to stay here. This is over and you've got a very important choice to make."
Buck tried to raise his head and found that he could. "Ike?" he asked, and the figure before him smiled. It looked just like his friend. It held Ike's wide hat in its hands. A bandana covered its smooth head. Buck shook his head. "Ike died."
The smile disappeared. "Yes, I did. But I didn't go far."
"Your voice," Buck said as he lowered himself onto his ankles. "Ike didn't speak."
The figure did not answer at first, but looked pointedly at each of Buck's hands. Buck blinked and looked himself. He held his hands up and turned them over, touching his fingertips together. He could see them, as they were no longer hitched behind him. He could feel them; the cruel ties were gone.
The figure spoke. "I did," it said. "You gave me my voice. And you could always hear it. I moved my hands as you taught me and you heard my voice."
Buck dropped his hands to his lap, noting with some small part of his awareness that he felt no pain in doing so, and stared at the figure, who smiled softly back at him. Something wasn't right, but it wasn't the figure in front of him. It was himself. There was no pain in his hands, his wrist, his ribs, his knee or any other part of his body, and yet he could feel. He hadn't eaten for days, but he wasn't hungry. He had been denied sleep, but he wasn't tired.
The figure's smile went away again. "It's a very important choice," Ike said, standing, and Buck knew it really was Ike.
Ike offered his hand. Buck took it and let Ike help him to his feet. As he stood, the darkness of the shed brightened and the walls and boxes and table faded away. A soft, cool breeze blew across Buck's face as the sunlight warmed his skin. He took a deep breath of the crisp air, filling his lungs hungrily after their prolonged deprivation.
Ike's hand touched his shoulder. Bucked turned to look at him, still bewildered that his friend was there. Buck reached for his shoulder, too, worried that Ike would vanish as soon as his fingers brushed his coat. But he did not vanish. He felt solid beneath Buck's fingers, and relief flooded through Buck so quickly that he nearly collapsed.
Ike caught him and they both ended up on their knees. "I missed you," Buck said in a whisper that was half-sob and half-joy.
Ike helped him up again. "I know," he said, "and for that, I'm sorry. I never meant to leave you alone like that."
Buck shook his head, happy enough at seeing his friend to outweigh the grief he'd felt since he lost him. "It doesn't matter now. You're here. You're real."
Ike sighed. "That's what we need to talk about."
The joy faded as Buck took in the look on Ike's face and his surroundings. Remembering his earlier misgivings, he wondered how he came to be standing on the plains when he'd been tied in that tin shed. It all seemed real, felt real, but Buck remembered what had happened. Both to him and to Ike. None of it could be real. "Am I dead?" Buck asked him.
Ike didn't exactly answer. "Let's take a walk." He held out a hand to the west, and, strange and impossible as it all was, Buck trusted him enough to follow.
Jimmy pushed the last bit of dirt onto Mr. Lathrop's grave and stepped back, leaning on the shovel. They'd found it in the shed, beside the table. Jimmy hadn't been in there before. He had expected to see some horrible torture chamber with chains and whips and whatnot. But it was just a shed, like any other. There were boxes and crates of tools and nails and such. There was a saw, a rake, a hoe, a shovel. The only difference was the blood on the table and the floor around it. Buck's blood. It made him sick.
Kid took off his hat and held it over his chest.
"What are you doin'?" Jimmy asked, barking more than he had intended to.
"He's dead, Jimmy," the Kid answered. "I'm just saying something over his grave."
"He don't deserve no prayers, Kid." Jimmy threw down the shovel. "You saw what he did to Buck."
"I don't claim to understand it, Jimmy," the Kid argued, "but he had reason, in his own mind. His family is here. Four fresh graves. Indians killed 'em."
"So that made it right for him to torture Buck like he did?!" Jimmy couldn't believe what he was hearing from the Kid. Kid could be naive at times, and too goody-goody for his own good, but this was going too far. "Buck didn't have anything to do with this!"
Kid put his hat back on and looked up at Jimmy. "I'm not saying I think it was right. I don't think anything can make what happened to Buck right. I said he had reason in his own mind. He wasn't right in his own mind. He was crazy with grief and anger and he couldn't see straight. He might have been a good man before all this happened."
Jimmy was still angry. "So for that, you pray over his grave?" He was hot and tired, and he smelled bad from dragging the body over to the grave site. He hated the man for what he'd done to Buck. He didn't see any reason to pay him any respect at all.
"Jesus died for sinners, Jimmy," Kid said, "and this man was a sinner. It ain't our place to judge."
"The hell it ain't!" Jimmy shot back. "Lou judged him fine when she put a bullet into him."
"I meant his soul!" Kid said. "Lou stopped him hurtin' Buck, and I'm glad for that. Let's just go get cleaned up. I want to see how Buck's doing."
Jimmy was still fuming, but he did hear what Kid was saying, and to Kid's credit he hadn't taken up Jimmy's invitation to fight. Jimmy didn't follow him in though. Not just yet. He was still angry, but it wasn't really Kid he was angry with. It was Lathrop, and Jimmy couldn't do anything to Lathrop to make up for what he'd done to Buck. Because Lou had already done it. He was worried for Buck. He'd buried too many friends already. And there was nothing he could do to help Buck, either. He was frustrated and he knew he had taken it out on the Kid.
Growling, because he had nothing better to do, Jimmy threw the shovel onto the grave and followed where Kid had gone. He was surprised to find him just around the corner of the house, leaning against it with his arms crossed over his chest. "We could tie a couple of horses to that shed and tear it down," Kid suggested with a smirk. "Might make us feel better at least."
Jimmy smiled and shook his head. "Let's get cleaned up."
Buck and Ike walked in silence at first, and, despite his many questions, Buck was glad for it at that time. He had been deprived of the sun, the grass, the trees. And now the sun was shining, warming his skin, adding a golden hue to the warm autum colors around him. The only sounds were the soft breeze, the chirping of birds, and the crunch of dried leaves beneath his feet.
As he took his surroundings, he began to realize that he knew the trees, the grass, the sky. He could not name the place, but somewhere in his memory he had the knowledge that he had been there before.
"You were born here," Ike said, as if he could read Buck's thoughts.
Buck stopped, causing Ike to stop with him. He turned, looking around at the place. Suddenly, tepees stood where bare grass had been as he and Ike had passed. And there were other noises, voices he knew, speaking harshly in the Kiowa tongue. "It is a white child!"
Buck turned away and the voices and the village disappeared. Ike watched him, his face drawn in sadness. "Wasn't anyone happy when you were born?" He started walking again.
But Buck had questions of his own. "How?" he asked, planting his feet. "How am I here? How are you here? You saw it. How was it there? There is no village here now, and that—" He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "That was years ago. How?"
"How isn't important," Ike replied, still walking.
"What about why?" Buck demanded. He chanced one more glance over his shoulder, and the village was still there. He heard his mother crying, his aunt yelling. He turned away and the sounds of the village vanished, leaving him alone with just Ike.
"Because of your decision." Ike's head was down and he kicked the earth as he walked. "You have to see all sides of it: past and present, white and Indian, good and bad."
Buck caught up with him and grabbed Ike's elbow, spinning him around. "What decision? What choice? Enough games, Ike. I'll go with you but I want a straight answer for once. What choice?"
Ike looked him in the eye and sighed. "Your future."
Buck met his gaze and didn't release his elbow. "What about it?"
Ike took a deep breath and pulled his arm free. "This isn't real, Buck, not like you know it. I'm not real and you're not real. The real you is dying."
Buck took a moment with that information, laying it over the sky, the grass, and Ike. He remembered the shed, the man, his prayers to the spirits. Perhaps they had heard him after all.
"You're dead," he told Ike again, testing his theory.
Ike nodded.
"And I'm dying."
Ike nodded again.
"This is the spirit world," Buck concluded.
Another nod.
Buck looked around again, avoiding what was behind him. He knelt and picked a few blades of grass. "It looks a lot like the world I grew up in."
Ike's lips tipped up on one side. "Except it doesn't play by the same rules."
Now it was Buck's turn to nod. "The choice is about my future, and I'm dying." He stood up. "I already made that choice."
Ike shook his head. "You were under pressure and in pain. You couldn't see all sides. That's why I brought you here."
"I begged to die, Ike. I thought the spirits had abandoned me. Why didn't you come then?"
"I did," Ike said. "You couldn't hear me. You couldn't see me. You wouldn't close your eyes. I needed something and it took time to get it there. I brought you here as soon as I could."
Buck read honesty in his face and believed him, though he wondered what the thing was that he had needed. "So I get to choose now? Live or die?"
Ike nodded. "But don't decide too quick. You're not in the shed anymore. The one who put you there is dead. Lou found you. Teaspoon and Kid found her. They took you to the house. That changes things, doesn't it?"
Lou. He had heard Lou. He'd lost her again and thought it was only a dream. But she was really there. Buck remembered their conversation before he'd left. 'Nothing can go wrong!' she'd said, and he had been encouraged by her enthusiasm. He'd had a chance that morning. A chance at happiness after the Pony Express. A chance that he wouldn't be alone after the loss of the Express took his job away, his reason for staying with Teaspoon and Rachel and the other riders. They had become like family to him, but it was the job that had brought them together and kept them together until the war started pulling them apart. Even before his trip to St. Joe, his future had become uncertain at best. But the shed had reminded him that his life was seldom 'at best.' He had family now and then—his mother and brother, then Ike, then the riders and Teaspoon—but it was never permanent. He had moments of peace and happiness, but it never lasted. What he had that lasted was the look of disdain in other people's eyes when they looked at him, the ache in his chest when he wasn't included, the pain in his body when they beat on him. Would that ever stop?
"I don't think so," he finally answered.
TBC
