Wild Sorrow (2 page)

My shoulder slammed into the iron hinge that spanned the width of the wood. I slid to the ground, splinters shredding the sleeve of my coat and scraping my skin, and I landed on one knee and hand in a bed of cactus. But I forced myself to roll to the side just as Rooster's powerful front hooves boomed beside my ear, exploding a weathered slat, trapping his foreleg in the hole he had just made. The rhythm of his tirade interrupted, his front foot snared, Rooster's weight surged forward, off balance, and he crashed through the right half of the gate, his big body like a long-legged locomotive speeding toward me, his massive red rear yawing to the left and threatening to pin me against the side of the gate still standing.

I was down already; there was no time to rise and run. I dove under his belly as the horse came at me. The metal stirrup struck my forehead with a thwack, and I hit the ground just behind him as Rooster rammed into the gate, an explosion of dirt, shards of wood, and snow pummeling my body.

Mountain had stayed well away from the action. He came to me now and sniffed at my face. “I'm okay, buddy,” I said as I got to my feet, feeling my forehead where the stirrup had hit. Rooster was down on one side, lying in the center of the entrance, both gates flung open by the force of his slide. He looked at me over one shoulder and then struggled twice to right himself, finally springing to his feet. A shard of wood extended from his right foreleg, and I cooed to him as I approached, patting his rump, running my hand along his side, catching hold of the reins and petting his nose. I pulled out the big splinter and the horse flinched, but he let me examine the area afterward. The leg seemed good, and as I walked him to test it, a granular snow drove down around us as if the clouds had opened a too-full chute and dumped a winter's worth of payback all at once. A boreal cold accompanied this downfall, and Rooster's breath froze in a cloud around his face.

“We gotta get inside,” I said, leading Rooster into the yard of the school, where I tied his reins to a hitching post inside the wall. The wolf raced ahead of me, into a blinding white blur. I followed, and he led us right to the doors of a chapel across from the entrance. A slat had been nailed across the double doors, but it was loose, and I easily pried it away. “This looks good, buddy,” I told Mountain.

I pushed on one side, and the heavy door groaned and screeched, its bottom scraping and then jamming against the hard floor, permitting barely enough opening for me to slide through. I took a moment for my eyes to adjust, brushing the snow from my shoulders and sleeves, and then Mountain wriggled through the gap and rammed into the backs of my knees, sending me sprawling toward the floor. I thrust out my hands to break my fall. That was when I felt cold flesh.

The body beneath me was frozen, blue-white, and stiff. Two sightless eyes stared through me; a round mouth opened onto a deep, black cave. I screamed and sprang to my feet, backing to the door, where Mountain gave a nervous whimper.

From here, I could see the whole scene, my eyes having adapted to the minimal light. An elderly Anglo woman lay dead on her back with legs spread wide, a dust-covered black dress reaching below her knees. A collar of twisted sage and feathers decorated each ankle. Her hair had been razored off at the scalp, her face painted with two yellow lightning bolts. A sign hung from her neck. I had to move close to read it. Scribbled in red crayon were the words
I am not an Indian.

The Howl

As I made my way back to Rooster, snow pelted my face—not just flakes of snow, but a blasting curtain of icy gobs that stuck to my nose and eyelashes and pasted the front of my coat with white ice in a matter of seconds. The winds had picked up again, and they were bearing down a blizzard on us. I looked down at Mountain, who was slinking beside me, and saw a thick coat of white frosting his head, neck, and back. “We have to stay here tonight,” I shouted into the wind, as I pulled my sidearm from the holster beneath my coat and slid it into my pocket. I untied the horse, who now looked like an enormous white sheep from the quilt of snow he wore.

I led Rooster through a blinding whiteout to the door. Once I had tied the reins to the door handle, I opened my saddlebag and grabbed a flashlight and my LED headlamp. I drew my handgun out of my pocket, then slid through the narrow opening and looked around, carefully sidestepping as Mountain came through so that he wouldn't knock me over again. I strapped on the headlight, feeling a pang as the elastic tightened over the place where the stirrup had struck my forehead. We stood in a big, empty nave, its small, high windows emitting little light. There was nothing but cold adobe walls and a hard stone floor.

I used my flashlight to examine the cadaver. On one side of the deceased's neck, I saw a dark line in the flesh. A tail of thin gray hair lay loose just above her head, where it had been sliced away from her scalp. Two low-heeled black shoes had been tossed to the side, no doubt removed so that the sage bracelets could be slid over her feet. I noted again the dust on the woman's black dress, and yet the chapel floor did not seem dirty. I spotted Mountain sitting nearby watching. He cocked his head at me.

“Wow,” I whispered. “This old woman had somebody real mad at her.”

Mountain followed me close as I looked around the chapel. In addition to the entry, there were two doors: one on the outside wall at the front and another on the opposite side at the back. I went to the one near the entrance, readied my gun, and pulled on the handle. Unlike the entry, this door opened with little effort, exposing me to bitter, arctic cold. A small square belfry stood empty, save a large drift of snow.

At the back of the church, I tugged on the arched door and it gave a deep groan, then a wailing sound that whistled down a long hall with doors along each side, which I presumed were the school's classrooms. I guessed that this wing led to the other big building in the U-shaped compound, probably the living quarters for its residents. I closed the door again, sure that whoever had left the old woman's body here was long gone.

I needed to get Rooster inside before the blizzard worsened. I pushed and shoved on the chapel's entrance doors, but just the one would move, and only a few more inches before its sagging hinges drove the bottom of the heavy wood slab into the stone floor. I tried to tug Rooster by his reins so he would muscle into the barrier, but seeing the obstacle before him, he pulled away instead. Finally, I pressed my back into the old door, bent my knees, and gave it all I had. There was a grinding rasp, then the sound of wood cracking as the lower hinge ripped from the frame. I straddled the door, heaved upward, and managed to lift it slightly and drag it back enough to lead Rooster through. Once inside, I attempted to push the door closed again to keep out the frigid air, but the hinge had warped and would not comply. The door stood ajar, snow driving through the opening, and within a matter of minutes, a drift began to build on the inside of the entry.

At the rear of the chapel I hobbled Rooster to keep him from straying. I removed my saddlebags and inventoried my provisions: jerky, two energy bars, some dried fruit, dog cookies, a small bag of oats for the horse. There were matches, toilet paper, a first aid kit, and a good knife. My bedroll, kept dry in a stuff-sack, had an extra set of clothes rolled inside. But my canteens were low—if we stayed more than a night, I'd have to find a way to build a fire and melt some snow.

After I unsaddled the horse, I dressed the small wound below his fetlock, where the wood shard had penetrated, with some antibiotic ointment and a gauze wrap. I shook the bag of oats and offered a handful to Rooster, but he snorted and drew back.

Mountain stood close, watching my every move. “At least there's one good thing about spending the night here,” I said to the wolf, to whom I often talked, since he was my live-in companion. “It will give Rooster's leg a chance to rest.” It was so cold that my breath was visible when I spoke, and the layer of ice still frozen to my coat made it heavy and brittle. I held up a stick of jerky. “You want something to eat, buddy?”

The wolf snapped his head to one side, as if the sight of the meat offended him.

I couldn't have eaten either, if I'd tried.

Since I'd taken my gloves off, my fingers ached and had begun to stiffen. In the cold darkness of the big, empty chapel, the wind gusted in gales, and with each one, a terrible groaning noise emitted from the bell tower. Mountain began to howl as if he could not bear the sorrow of the sound. This was more than I could endure. I went to explore the source of this horrible noise. I stood in the square adobe turret and looked up, the light of my headlamp projecting a few feet above my head. Lashed to iron spikes driven high into the walls, heavy ropes were tied around the old iron bell to keep it from moving, and it strained against the silencing bonds with every squall. As if to demonstrate, a bone-chilling bluster set the ropes to singing, and the hideous groaning sound reverberated against the slick walls of the belfry.

I knew I should roll out my bedroll and try to rest, but I could not bring myself to do it. First, there was the cold—a heavy weight of deepening chill that seemed to sink into the joints. Then there was the hate lingering around the remains of the woman whose final hours had clearly been spent in humiliation. But there was something more: I felt haunted by the sorrows that had seeped into the walls of this place. Even if I tried to sleep here, there would be no peace with that wailing wind.

I decided to explore the premises. Mountain followed as I beamed my flashlight ahead of us, and we pursued the pool of lemon-colored light down the hallway. Inside the first room on the right, several boxes slumped against a wall. The top one contained a cache of old items, including several group photos of the Indian children who had resided at the school.

The first, an aged, sepia-toned print, showed three rows of small boys, nine in each line: the first row seated, the second kneeling, and the third standing in regimental order. They wore brimmed high caps, round-collared coats buttoned to the neck, knickers, socks, and lace-up boots. Every item of their apparel appeared to be gray. No boy could have been more than six years of age, and not one of them had even a hint of happiness in his face. I felt such sadness as I looked at the photo that I set it aside, hoping the next would be a happier scene.

But it was not. The second photo bore the inscription
Sewing Class
. Eighteen young girls wearing identical sackcloth dresses, dark boots, and stockings sat like automatons in their chairs, which were aligned in a semicircle around baskets on the floor heaped with cloth. Each girl had her sewing in her lap, and looked down at it dutifully. Behind the students, three white women watched sternly over their charges, and five older girls sat at antique-looking sewing machines. On the wall hung a portrait of the Virgin Mary, a length of wire tacked to the top of the frame, allowing it to tilt downward so that the Virgin looked down upon the little children. Dark shades covered the windows; the only light in the photo came from a partly open door. A rack of newly made garments lined one wall. The children were manufacturing clothing.

There were photos of small boys blacksmithing, a picture of students hoeing weeds in an impossibly parched garden, group shots of small soldiers posed in perfect military formation in front of the chapel doors I had just damaged, older girls working in the laundry, and a nighttime glimpse of little tots in white nightgowns kneeling in prayer beside makeshift cots with threadbare blankets on them.

The last photo showed a priest in a long black frock surrounded by twenty or so thin, dark boys perhaps eight to ten years old. The group stood in the front yard of the school—I recognized the chapel with its bell tower. When this picture was taken, two large wooden crosses adorned the top of the chapel's front wall. One of the boys held a football—at last, a sign that the children were permitted to play! But I was relieved too soon. As I studied the photo further, I saw a small group gathered on the sidelines. A little boy who sat in a wagon had no feet. Another leaned on crutches. Beside him, a pale, emaciated boy with one arm in a sling had a disfigured face covered with boils and sores.

As I studied this last photo, the sound of a disturbance came from the chapel. Rooster whinnied and brayed, and I heard his shoes clattering on the stone floor. Mountain raced ahead of me as I made my way out of the classroom and back to the nave.

The sorrel strained against his tether, rearing and huffing, his eyes fixed on the chapel entry. I followed his gaze. In the spare glow of my headlamp and flashlight, I saw the big cat just inside the door, encroaching on the deceased's remains. The cougar was thin and ragged, a large place in the meat of her back thigh black with blood. She stood her ground, clearly out of desperation and hunger, and she opened a huge mouth full of powerful, pointed teeth. From deep in her throat, a deafening
gnaaagh
rang against the walls and reverberated across the room. Mountain charged forward, the hair along the ridge of his back standing spiked, and he gnashed his teeth as he growled and snarled. The cougar hissed and lowered her head, unwilling to concede defeat. The wolf postured, pulling his lips back hard and showing his teeth, lowering into a crouch, only a few yards from the cat.

“Mountain, no!” I yelled, moving toward him as I pushed my hand into the pocket with the gun. With the other hand, I kept the flashlight trained on them. I swallowed hard, tried to calm my voice and yet still be heard over the hissing and growling. “Mountain, stay,” I said. “You stay.”

The two opponents began to circle slowly around the body on the floor, the lion moving clockwise, and Mountain squaring off by shifting directly opposite her. The cougar gave another powerful warning
waul,
and rotated her huge head to look at me. Mountain lunged across the corpse and toward the cat, who drew up and uttered such a deep, rumbling growl that I could feel it in my gut. Just a foot from her face, the wolf snarled and snapped, and the cat recoiled from his gnashing teeth, one of her paws poised to slash.