The rain fell warm and gentle, almost a
benediction on the yellowed grass at Vin Tanner's feet. The tracker was glad of it. It
seemed right that even the sky should weep on this day.
Let the sky weep for him. He'd shed his
tears on this ground long ago, and now held them hidden behind his eyelids with fierce
will. He was no longer a boy, but a man, and it would not do to have the ghosts see him
crying.
He wondered if they still walked this hill
from time to time, their shadows drifting through the grass, leaving it undisturbed, drawn
back to this place all these years later. All that remained to tell the unaware of the
tragedy that had happened here were a few lengths of broken lodgepoles lying on the
ground, a scattering of rounded stones still blackened by fires long extinguished, and the
cairns. A dozen of them.
He'd been so young then. Only nine summers
had browned his skin; only eight winters had taught him the discipline of privation and
patience. Too small to build the racks that the men should have had to hold their bodies
against the sky for the sun and the wind to purify. So he'd built the cairns instead,
carrying the stones from the river at the foot of the hill one by one. It had taken him
several days. Before he was done, the corpse of the man who had taught him to hunt barely
looked like a man any longer, and that of the woman who'd kept him alive by lying across
his small form when the Army's bullets flew bore no resemblance to the beauty she had
been.
It hadn't mattered to Vin. He'd kept the
animals away at night with fire, and during the day he'd carried the stones ... so many
stones ... piling them up one by one to protect the bodies of the spirits who'd gone on
and left him behind.
Alone. Again.
Behind him, Vin heard Peso whicker softly.
If the ghosts were still here, they were not speaking to him. It was time to go.
He knelt next to the pile of rubble that
sheltered the bones of the man whose ghost he still whispered to from time to time, drew
his knife and bowed his head. A quick motion severed a small lock of hair. Vin slid his
knife back in the scabbard and lay the hair on the cairn, placing a rock upon it to hold
it in place. He whispered a few words in a language he rarely spoke any more.
Then he stood and walked back to his horse
through the wet grass. The damp leather of his saddle creaked as he swung himself up and
took the reins from the hand of the man who'd been waiting for him.
"You ok, partner?" Chris' voice
was low, made husky by a tightness in his throat. The gunfighter understood ghosts.
Vin nodded and threaded the reins through
his fingers. Peso danced, ready to go. But before he could turn the horse's head, a big
hand reached over and took his forearm in a strong, steady grip. Vin looked up from
beneath his dripping hat brim, and smiled.
"Thanks, Chris."
The hand released his arm and slapped his
shoulder lightly. The two horses turned as one and began to pick their way down the hill,
side by side, through the gray curtain of the healing rain.
The End
