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IN THE WIND’S EYE
CHAPTER TEN
If war has its chivalry and its pageantry, It has also its hideousness and its demoniac woe. Bullets respect not beauty. They tear out the eye, and shatter the jaw, and rend the cheek. J.S.C. Abbott
His name was Ronny Tucker and he was a bear of a man. His arms bulged with muscle well-honed from years of pounding horseshoes into submission. When Leonie Emerson's mare came thundering into Tuck's livery stable, the blacksmith looked up from his shoeing and stared, hammer in the air. A frown on his ruddy face, Tuck let go of the hoof he had been holding and straightened up. He laid aside his hammer and the horseshoe he had been about to nail into place then walked slowly toward the lathered mount. "Easy girl," Tuck said softly. "Easy, now." He moved to the jittery horse and looked her over: checking the stirrups, the saddle, its flanks for any sign of injury to the animal. Seeing nothing to indicate why the horse would have come racing home, he reached behind him and began to untie his leather work apron. "Emmie?" he called out Emmie Lou Tucker poked her head out of the tack room where she had been doing inventory. "What is it?" She spied the gray mare standing at the trough, stamping its hoof on the ground, and turned worried eyes to Tuck. "Is that Windy?" He nodded. "Gonna ride out toward WindLass," Tuck told her. "I think maybe Leonie done went and got thrown." His wife's pretty eyes filled with immediate concern. "You don't think she's hurt, do you?" Tuck grinned. "You ought to know better than most that woman's got a hard head," he replied. "Nah, I don't think she's hurt." Since a bad knee kept the big man from riding a horse, he headed for the buckboard his wife had driven into town earlier from their farm. "I'll leave Windy here. Have Malachai see to her, will you?" "You tell Leonie I warned her about gallivanting all over creation by herself!" Emmie grumbled. "Riding around in men's trousers, too." She shook her head. "I don't know where that woman's head is sometimes!" "She needs a man," Tuck suggested as he climbed painfully up onto the buckboard seat. "Don't guess Leland Brell's ever gonna ask her to go out walking with him." "She needs a man what won't let her go gallivanting off by herself, is what she needs!" Emmie huffed. Tuck winked at his wife, then snapped the reins attached to Emmie's horse, Paladin. "Get up there, Pal!" There were building clouds out to the West of Savannah as Tuck took the road which led to WindLass. He eyed them with a touch of concern for one had a mighty good-sized anvil top forming on it. The wind was coming in pretty good, too, and if his knee was any indication of impending rain, Savannah was going to be in for some by evening. Hurricane season wasn't far off and bad weather was not one of Tuck's favorite things. His best friend, Tom Pete Michaels, was one of those rare birds who liked to watch the weather patterns and regale his friends with dire warnings and predictions. The thing was: usually Tompe, as most folks called him, was right on when it came to reading the weather. Tuck made a note to call on his friend before heading home that afternoon. By the time Tuck was less than an eighth of mile from where Leonie and Sinclair were huddled under a white oak tree, the rain had started to come down in fat droplets. Off in the distance, lightning was stitching across the sky and the horizon was gunmetal gray in coloring. There had been a drop in the temperature that was as forbidding a sign as Tuck could want that bad weather was only a county line away. "TUCK!" someone shouted and the smithy pulled in on Paladin's reins. He saw Leonie running toward him and gave a sigh of relief. "What'd you do, Leonie?" Tuck called out. "Piss off that mare of yours?" "I've got an injured man here, Tuck," Leonie told him as she reached the buckboard. She flung an arm toward a stand of oaks. "You're gonna have to help me carry him to the buckboard and lay him down." "You run over him, did you?" Tuck chuckled. He tied Paladin's reins to the dashboard and climbed painfully down. "You dadburn women drivers are a road hazard, you are." "It's Sinclair McGregor," Leonie told him, ignoring his joking. "Someone beat the hell out of him." Tuck glanced at her. "Was it Delacroix?" "Not personally, but Sin knows that was who ordered it done. There were three of them as best he can remember," Leonie snapped. She put out a hand to stop the smithy. "They worked him over something awful, Tuck. Be careful with him." Tuck's forehead crinkled with surprise. So, he thought, as he continued on beside the woman, that was the lay of the land, was it? There had been that little 'something extra' Emmie was always going on about being in woman's voice when she was speaking of the man she loved that had been there in Leonie's voice. Tuck knew he would had to have been blind, deaf, and dumb not to see it in the worry on the woman's face, hear it in the warning to be careful, or realize there was deep-seated anger on Sin's behalf in her tone. "He's got some broken ribs and managed to make a meal of himself for some fire ants," Leonie said as they reached the trees under which she had half-carried, half-dragged Sinclair. Tuck blinked against the rain that was coming down steadily now. "Fire ants?" He grunted. "I hate them sons-of-bitches. Remember when I burned up your mama's boxwoods trying to get rid of them sons-of-bitches in her front yard?" "Shut up, Tuck," Leonie snapped. Tuck threw her a look, but she had walked on ahead. "Sinclair?" she said gently, dropping down beside the prone man. "Ronny Tucker is here to help us." "Lord God Almighty!" Tuck exclaimed as he saw the damage done to Sinclair's face. He winced, knowing firsthand the kind of pain such a beating could cause. "I hope you got a lick or two in before they made mincemeat pie outta you, old son." Sinclair tried to smile, but his cracked lips and battered jaws would not cooperate. "Never got a chance to get one lick in," he replied. Tuck hunkered down beside him. "Don't reckon you can walk, huh?" "No way; no how," Sinclair reported. The smithy sighed. "That's what I thought." Without another word, he put his arms under Sinclair's shoulders and knees and hefted him up as though he was no lighter than a child, turned and started back to the buckboard. "How far's WindLass? Five, six miles?" "He doesn't want to go to WindLass," Leonie told him. She hunched her shoulders up in a vain attempt to ward off the rain that was coming down hard now. Tuck looked over at her. "How come?" "Ivonne's there," was the only answer the big man needed. He nodded and said no more. "He wants to go to his place," Leonie explained then climbed up into the back of the buckboard and helped Tuck situate Sinclair inside with as little pain as possible. She sat down, cradled his head in her lap and bent over him to shield him from the driving rain. Tuck pulled himself up onto the buckboard seat, drew in a long breath as he rubbed his throbbing knee. The wet weather always played havoc with the old injury that had been caused by a big roan stallion that had taken exception to being shod. He untied the reins, clicked his tongue, and sent Paladin into a slow trot toward Sinclair's cabin. "I don't like the looks of this weather," Tuck commented. "Neither do I," Leonie answered. They were almost to Sinclair's cabin. She--along with the men--was soaked through, and had a terrible headache from not having had either breakfast or lunch. "You'll stay until it passes, won't you?" she asked the smithy. "Nah," Tuck denied. "I ought to head right on back and get Doc Doorenbos to come have a look see at Sin," he reminded her. "Broken ribs aint nothing to sneeze at." "I'm all right," Sinclair reported then gasped when one of the wagon wheels rolled into a pothole. He grasped his side and nearly passed out. Tuck around and down at his passenger. "See what I mean? One of them things could go right on through to a lung, Sin." Leonie was frowning, trying to remember something she had heard about the good doctor earlier that morning. When it came to her as they pulled up in front of Sinclair's door, her shoulders slumped. "Tuck? I think Doc went out to Colby Burds place this morning. Miz Burds went into labor." Tuck paused as he was about to climb down from the seat. "I believe you're right." He shook his head. "First babies and such take awhile and she's having twins, aint she?" At Leonie's nod, he shrugged. "Well, aint nothing to it but for you to stay and watch over him 'til I can get hold of Doc." He grinned as he helped Leonie ease Sinclair toward the back of the buckboard. "Think you can handle that, gal?" Leonie met Tuck's knowing smile and pursed her lips. "I think so," she mumbled, knowing full well Emmie would be all over her like flies on sorghum just as soon as she returned to town. She winced when Sinclair moaned at being picked up once more, then hopped off the buckboard and ran to open the cabin door. Inside, the cabin was dark from the storm. She had to hunt for a lamp and fumble around for matches. Once she had the lamp lit, she held it aloft and went in search of Sinclair's room. Setting the lamp on the bedside table, she pulled the covers back, plumped the pillow, and stood aside as Tuck came in carrying Sinclair. Tuck hesitated in the doorway. "Well, what are you waiting for?" Leonie demanded. "Put him on down!" "I don't think we oughtta put him on the bed 'til we strip these wet clothes off'n him, Leonie," Tuck advised. Before she could answer, he swung around and stomped back down the hallway and into the sitting room. Carefully, he set Sinclair on the couch. "Find him a nightshirt while I get him undressed." Leonie didn't question the order. By the time she got back, Tuck had unbuttoned Sin's shirt, pulled off his boots and socks and was leaning over him, unbuckling his belt. "I'll brace him while you take his shirt off," Tuck said and gently pulled Sin toward him so Leonie could drag off the wet linen shirt. "I'm sorry to have to put y'all through this," Sinclair lamented as he rested his forehead on Tuck's broad shoulder. His head was spinning something fierce and he realized he hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours. His hunger, combined with the beating, was making him weak. He tried to lift his hand to rub at the pain in his right temple, but he just didn't have the strength. "We're gonna get you to bed quick as a frog jumping over hot coals, Sin," Tuck told him. "Just hang in there a bit longer 'til we can get you dressed." Leonie threaded Sinclair's right arm through the sleeve of his nightshirt, then walked around to the other side of Tuck to put Sin's left hand through the remaining sleeve. As carefully as possible, she pulled the nightshirt over Sinclair's head. "You're gonna have to pull his trousers off, Tuck," she said, blushing. Tuck chuckled dryly. "Sure you don't want to do the honors?" He glanced up and wagged his brows at Leonie. "Get his trousers off, will you?" Leonie grated through clenched teeth. She felt her face burning with embarrassment as Tuck eased Sinclair back and McGregor glanced up at her with mute apology. She looked away. "This is gonna hurt like hell, I'm afraid, Sin," Tuck advised. "I'm gonna have to have you lift your hips up……." 'I can't," Sinclair told him. "Aint no way in hell I can." Tuck nodded. "No problem." He straightened up and looked Leonie in the eye. "You're gonna have to pull them off his legs while I lift him a ways off the settee, Leonie." His face was stern, all humor gone. "You understand?" She swallowed, nodded, then dropped to the floor at Sinclair's feet. Not giving herself time to think what she was doing, she reached up to the waistband of his trousers. Outside, lightning zinged through the air and there was a loud clap of thunder that shook the cabin. The light in the lamp flickered, casting hazy shadows on the wall as Tuck went behind the settee, bent over the back and put his arm around Sinclair's waist. "Ready?" he asked. Leonie nodded. The last thing Sinclair remembered was a shriek of thunder, his own muffled scream of pain, and then total blackness swooping over him.
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The storm was raging beyond the windows. Rain streaked wildly down the panes and now again, the world would become a harsh blast of white light. Battering winds drove increasingly against the cabin and the timbers were set to shaking. A chill had invaded the bedroom and Leonie sat huddled in a chair Tuck had carried in to place by Sinclair's bed. Either her patient was sleeping soundly or was unconscious, she couldn't tell which. Every now and then, he would moan. There had been precious little in the way of meal fixings in his cupboards, she thought as she sat there, cold and hungry. What she had found, she had used to make a broth for him and the pot was simmering in the fireplace Tuck had been kind enough to light. Along with a couple of jars of stewed tomatoes, a few slices of slab bacon, and a handful or two of rice, the heel of a loaf of day old bread, a jar of pickled peaches, and a few shriveled up apples had been the extent of the bounty found in Sinclair's kitchen. "I reckon he eats up at Willow Glen," Tuck had replied when Leonie demanded to know how Sinclair could live like that. "A bachelor makes do, Leonie." The smithy had given her a wizened look. "Seems to me what he needs is a wife to take care of him." "Don't I hear Emmie Lou calling you, Tuck?" she has flung at him. "Don't I hear you telling me to leave so you can be alone with him?" Tuck had shot back. "Go……away!" Leonie had snapped, annoyed at his dry chuckle. Tuck had checked on Sinclair before leaving then had hunched his shoulders against going out again into the pouring rain. He stood on the little porch and glared at the streams of water cascading down from the roof. "This is gonna get worse 'fore it gets any better," he had warned Leonie. "Then you'd better get home to your woman," Leonie had reminded him. Nodding thoughtfully, Tuck had walked as fast as he could out to the buckboard and climbed up on the seat. He took up the reins, then called out just as Leonie was shutting the door: "Be gentle with him, Leonie!" With a snort of anger, Leonie slammed the door, but not before she heard Tuck's booming laughter competing with the thunder on high.
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She thought is was the thunder that had awakened her. Sitting upright in the chair, she wiped the sleep from her eyes and pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders. The storm had, indeed, worsened as Tuck had predicted it would, and was driving against the cabin with ever-increasing fury. Blustering wind skirled around the eaves and slapped branches against the windows. "No." Leonie looked toward the bed and saw that Sinclair was thrashing his head from side to side on the pillow. She shook off her blanket and stood up. "NO!" "Sinclair?" she questioned softly as she went to the bed. His savaged face was glistening with sweat and when she put her hand on his forehead, she drew in a sharp breath. He was burning up with fever! She looked down at his swollen right hand and knew it was the fire ant stings that had caused it. "Take the hill!" she heard him command, fear rising in his voice. "Take the hill!" She tried shaking him out of his nightmare, but he was well caught in its grip and seemed to take her touch as a hit rather than the gentle touch it had been. Wanting to make him as comfortable as she could, Leonie went to the kitchen and pumped a basin of water. Gathering some flannel rags, she went back into the bedroom, wet them, wrung them out, then sat beside him to wipe his perspiring face. "Take the hill," he entreated and his voice held a note of hopelessness. For over twenty minutes, he kept repeating the same words over and over again. The cuts on his lips broke open and oozed. His face had become a mottled black and blue color with tinges of yellow around the edge. He groaned as he tried to move and his fists clenched and unclenched. At one point, his arms shot up and he grabbed the iron bars of the headboard, yanking as hard as he could. "LET ME OUT!" he shouted. "Sinclair," Leonie said in a gentle voice. "You are safe. You are at home." He could not hear her. He was lost in the snow-mantled hills of Tennessee. All around him, men were dying, their blood running thick in the snow. Horses were screaming as cannon shot ripped open their bellies and spewed hot innards on the cold ground. The Rebel yell had been stifled; the bugle was sounding retreat; the drums of the enemy were frantically beating the rhythm of advance. Officers were shouting to their men; the enlisted soldiers were dying. Lightning cracked over the cabin and thunder rumbled heavily overhead. Light flared brightly against the windows and Leonie squinted to block out the harsh invasion. A shrill whistle of wind careened around the corner and blasted against the front door. The cannon fired, booming so loud he had to cover his ears to keep his hearing. The piercing whistle of the cannonball flying across the afternoon sky made him look in that direction only a moment before the deadly missile landed and exploded, flinging men and horses high into the smoky air. "They are overrunning the redoubt!" the Major yelled and then a sniper's bullet caught him in the throat. With an astonished look on his too-young face, the West Point graduate from Mississippi had fallen back, the front of his gray uniform awash in bright red blood. "CAPTAIN!" But the warning had come too late. Sinclair turned, only to feel the hot lead pierce his chest. He looked down, saw the mushrooming stain spreading across his chest. He thought of Duncan and Leondis, his parents, the men whose company he had held until they, too, had met their tragic fates in this godforsaken war. Another bullet whizzed past his ear and he was thrown to the ground, a wizened soldier from the Miller County Wildcats plastered on top of him. "Private Elijah Thompson, Sir," the soldier grinned. "At your service!" "Much obliged," Sinclair returned, then passed out. At two o'clock in the afternoon, all hell broke loose and the sky turned black as pitch. The wind began to moan around the cabin and the roof timbers began to shake and rattle. Leonie paused as she wiped Sinclair's face and neck and listened. She could hear what sounded like a train coming. Considering the fact they were miles and miles from any track, she knew exactly what was bearing down on them. "SINCLAIR!" she shouted, shaking him. "WAKE UP!" She lightly tapped his cheek with her palm. "WAKE UP!" The Union Colonel slapped him hard, splitting his lip. "You will answer me, you dirty reb!" Sinclair's head rocked back and forth as the blows came again and again. The Pennsylvanian had lost kin at Bull Run. He had been itching to question Sinclair for days but the field surgeon would not allow it. This morning, the physician had had no choice but to release his patient into the unmerciful hands of the colonel. "Answer me, boy!" Pain rocketed through Sinclair's head and gut. A rock hard fist drove into his belly and let escape all the air. Gasping for breath, his bullet wound stinging, he clenched his jaw to keep from crying out and took another hit, this time to the side of his head and he plunged into darkness once more. Overhead, shingles were tearing loose from the roof and branches thudded hard against the outside wall. The roar of the tornado was bearing down on the cabin and the very floor beneath Leonie's feet was vibrating. Each time a shingle was ripped off, Sinclair groaned. She sat down on the bed, tried to pry his hands from the iron bars above his head and couldn't. His fists were locked in place. "Let me out," she heard him whisper. "Please let me out!" Name and rank and regiment. That had been all he had given the vicious little man from Pennsylvania. Though two of his men had been executed right in front of him, he had said no more. His own beating had only made him more determined not to say anything that would give away the position of the main troop. "I'll make him talk, Colonel," the burly man with the Minnesota accent had promised. "We are not barbarians!" the Pennsylvanian had stated. But while the Colonel was seeing to other matters, the Minnesota sergeant took matters into his own beefy hands with the rebel. The first pass of the bullwhip had slammed Sinclair against the post and the leather strand had left a brand from shoulder to shoulder. The second pass had put a jagged line of pain from shoulder to hip. "STOP THAT!" Once more the warning had come too late. The third pass had cut deeper and had produced an unearthly scream from Sinclair's lips. He had awakened in the field surgeon's tent, afire with fever and more determined than ever not to open his mouth. What he had not counted on was the hole into which he had been thrown to loosen his tongue. He was moaning in his fevered sleep. His arms were rigid as he held the bedposts. Sweat dripped down his bruised face, puddled in the hollow at the base of his throat. The front of his nightshirt was soaked with perspiration and the rancid odor of fever permeated his body. "Let me out," she heard him plead and she watched him try to open his eyes, which were sealed shut from the beating. "You are out, sweetheart," she told him gently and unbuttoned his nightshirt so she could wash the sweat from his chest. "You are safe." "PLEASE!" he begged and the iron bars rattled beneath his fists. They had dragged him to the hole and thrown him in, mindless of the brutal cuts caused from the whip or the not-quite healed wound in his chest. He had slid down a small shaft and landed with a painful thud to his tailbone. Twenty or so feet above him, he could see just a rectangle of daylight, then even that was partially removed as an iron grate was thrown across the opening and locked in place. "Let's see how you like your new accommodations, reb!" someone had yelled down to him. He never knew how long he sat there until he finally became mad enough to examine his prison. He had stumbled about in the darkness--for it was now nighttime--and had finally concluded his cell to be about 10 by 10 feet in size. Under foot, the ground felt mushy and stank horribly, but there wasn't anything he could do about it so he finally sat with his back against the shaft's wall and dozed, his belly rumbling with hunger. Rain greeted his awakening the next morning as it dripped down on him from the crisscrossed bars of the shaft's entranceway. No one came to offer him food or water so he had stood under the doorway's center and opened his mouth to collect water. The rain washed his face and comforted him only a little. When he heard the unmistakable sounds of camp being broken, he had begun to demand to be released. "HEY!" he had yelled. "LET ME OUT OF HERE!" The fear of them leaving him there to die had not yet entered his mind. Surely the brutish colonel from Pennsylvania wouldn't dare leave a fellow officer locked in a hole in the ground then ride away. "HEY!!!!" He had tried to climb the walls of his prison, but the stone was slippery, wet with rain and slick with something that barred getting a good handhold on the jutting rocks; but he managed to get within two feet of the grate before his foot slid out from under him and he scraped himself all the way down to the bottom again, landing hard enough to knock the breath out of him before his head cracked against the stone and he lost consciousness again. Leonie sighed with relief when she heard the roar passing over the top of the cabin. One moment, the train was speeding toward them, the next, it was gone. She bowed her head and said a prayer of thanksgiving, grateful for the sparing of their lives. It was Sinclair's sudden release of the bedpost as he covered his face with his hands that brought her hurrying to his bedside. "DON'T LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE! OH, GOD! DON'T LET THEM LEAVE ME HERE TO DIE!" he sobbed. Leonie whimpered with compassion. Sinclair's words drove straight through her heart. "You are safe," she said for what had to be the hundredth time that afternoon. "You are safe. It's all right." She laid down beside him, stretching her body alongside his and gathered him in her arms. "It's all right." He was in the hole for three days without food. Passing into and out of consciousness that first day from the concussion the fall had given him, he would wake to remember where he was and begin to plead for help. On the second day, he realized no one could hear him and there would be no help. The thought of starving to death in a hole in the ground was more than his mind could take. "Don't think about it," he began to say. Over and over again, he chanted the mantra. If he did not dwell on the horror of such a death, surely it would not happen. On the third day, he had heard horses nearby and had tried to call out only to find he was too weak and his voice too hoarse from the litany he had spent every waking hour repeating time and time again. The thought of his salvation being within a call's distance away and him unable to issue that call, made him laugh. It was the laugh the little South Carolina drummer boy heard as he was taking a piss. And it was the laugh that saved Sinclair McGregor's life. "It's all right," Leonie said, frowning at the maniacal laugh that erupted from Sinclair's strained throat. "I'm here with you." "Ivonne?" she heard him question and knew he was at least partially conscious.. For a moment, she said nothing, then pressed his head to her cheek. "Yes, Sin. It's Ivonne." His arms came around her and he plastered himself tightly to her. "Don't leave me," he pleaded. "No never," she told him. "I love you," he said and he nestled his head against her breast. Leonie stroked his sweat-soaked brown hair. "I love you, Sinclair," she whispered, her lips trembling. "I have always loved you."
THE LEGENDS BEGIN WITH THE KEEPER OF THE WIND
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