By Cheryl McCreary
Copyright 1999
After Buck left he went to Rachel's barn and got Rolling Thunder. He rode over the hills feeling the wind blow through his hair. He let his thoughts ride wild through his mind just as Rolling Thunder rode wild through the hills. When he finally returned the sun was setting, casting an orange glow to the world. He could see Teaspoon walking over with Cody and Jimmy. He wondered what Teaspoon had told them of his outburst earlier. In truth Teaspoon knew little of his life anymore, and at the same time the ex-stationmaster knew more than he had ever known before.
Buck silently rode up. He saw a slight look of surprise grace Jimmy's face as he noticed that Buck's mount had no saddle. Jimmy wondered what his friend had become just as Cody, Rachel and Teaspoon wondered. He hoped that Jimmy would not also turn against him as Cody had done. Buck figured he wouldn't. Jimmy knew pain too, even if its cause was different. They were now more kindred spirits than they ever had been before.
As Buck dismounted he saw Rachel come out of the house. He saw her excitement at seeing Cody and Jimmy. She ran out in the yard and hugged Cody. It was a warm embrace on both sides. Then she turned to the solemn Jimmy. Buck knew that the sadness in Jimmy's eyes bothered her just as the sadness in his eyes did. Then Rachel hugged Jimmy tightly like if she ever let him go he would evaporate into the cool night air. Jimmy returned the embrace, the famous ex-lawman unembarrassed by his joy at being home, at least for a little while.
"Well dinner's about ready, I'm sure you boys are hungry," Rachel commented as she ended the embrace with Jimmy and gave Cody a stern look. She still didn't think that boy's appetite was right. His wife must be one hell of a cook to please that man. Rachel noticed Buck standing in the yard with Rolling Thunder, "Buck?" she asked. Buck silently nodded his head and began to put Rolling Thunder into the stable.
Those silences between Buck and Rachel said worlds at times. Her question was asking where he'd been, why he'd left, if he was staying for dinner all at the same time, but she didn't insist on answers to any of those questions. Buck's nod had told her that he was staying for dinner and that was enough for her. She knew she could no longer reach Buck. She no longer tried to.
By the time Buck returned to the house everyone was sitting down to dinner already. Jimmy and Cody noticed that neither Teaspoon or Rachel said a word to Buck. They let him silently sit down at the table next to Isaac. Neither Jimmy or Cody had ever known their old keepers to be so distant. Both Teaspoon and Rachel had a common need to tell their charges and now ex-charges what they thought of their actions. But Teaspoon and Rachel no longer did this with Buck. If fact there was an almost lack of concern there. Rachel was concerned about where Jimmy had been and why there had been reports of his death, but she seemed to have already dropped the matter of Buck's behavior this afternoon.
Buck noticed the unsettled mood that hung over Jimmy and Cody about the way that Buck, Teaspoon and Rachel now lived, but neither of them asked what was up. Jimmy because he thought the question would turn to his own grief, and Cody because he himself knew that there were things about Buck that he'd rather not know and saw how Teaspoon and Rachel could feel the same.
Isaac, however, was full of excitement even if everyone else was a little lost in their own thoughts. "So you're Cody and Jimmy?" Isaac asked bringing the attention of both men off Buck.
"Well, we just might be," Cody said, everyone noticed that Cody amazingly had a good manner with children. Cody had a couple of little girls back home himself. "I would assume you're little Ike?" Cody inquired.
Isaac smiled, "Yes sir," he answered as he slightly rose from his chair and extended a little hand across the table. Cody shook the boy's hand a little intrigued that the child was nothing like is father or mother.
Cody spent most of the evening telling old stories of the riders. Stories of Ike and Noah, and how happy they had all been before the war, before they all went their separate ways, before the harshness of life had set in. Isaac listened intently laughing at all of the old stories. Rachel and Teaspoon couldn't help laughing. They had both forgotten how contagious Cody's good mood was. Jimmy and Buck however were both still quiet. They liked to hear the old stories too, but both knew that what was would never be again.
Buck could never go home, no matter how much his heart and soul longed to. He had ridden out into the world to escape the grief of loosing Clara, the anchor to his world. With her death he had lost his trust in the world. After Ike's death and then Noah's death and then the war, Buck only saw the bad of the world even though he was at the time still a good man. Then he had meet Clara and she had restored his faith in the world, in the goodness that fills it. And he had believed that the two of them would live happily ever after and create their own world of love that shielded them from the chaotic world outside. But that wasn't what fate had planned. Clara had left his life as quickly as she had entered it, and with her she had taken his faith in the goodness in the world.
Fighting for the Kiowa had stripped from his soul what goodness and faith had remained. Buck was the shell of the man that he had been so long ago, before he had seen the horrors he had, and knew the things he did. He was a shell of a man just as the Kiowa would end up a shell of a people. If the George Custers of the world had their way only a shadow would be left were the proud Kiowa had one day stood. And the same was true with the Sioux, and the Comanche and the Cheyenne and all the rest of the tribes of the red man. This was the red man's place and in it he was doomed to be a stranger and a feared enemy.
Buck had already decided that he would do everything in his power to free Two Foxes. The young brave did not deserve to be part of this blood shed. Buck wondered if killing was still within his power. He knew that he could take another man's life with ease. He had done it several times before. The question was could he do it again, and if he did what would remain. When Ike died he had felt his heart break in two. When Clara had died he had felt his ties to the white world snap. When Soaring Eagle and Morning Dawn had been killed the same had happened with the red world. And all of this had left his heart in pieces that would never be collected back together no matter what he did.
Buck could feel his soul, hanging by an ever narrowing thread, to the world. If that thread broke there would be no more goodness in him. The Buck that had existed would be dead just as sure as if Buck had let those guards hang him at the soldier fort. Maybe the world would be better off without him. Ike still didn't think so. What did Ike know that he didn't?
Isaac's laughter filled the small room and penetrated into Buck's mind and soul, bringing him back to the small room filled with friends. He looked at his son, a big grin on his small face from Cody's stories. Buck loved Isaac more than anything, more than Ike, more than Clara. The only thing that could ever match it was his love for Soaring Eagle. Buck hoped that Ike would take care of his infant son.
Looking into the smiling blue eyes of Isaac Buck knew that killing wasn't in his power. He could never kill another man. It would cut that thread that was holding his life together and take him away from Isaac. He could never do that to his son. For the love of Isaac he could never let his anger drive him to that point again, ever. Buck would never be able to forgive himself if he did.
On to Chapter Eleven
