Buck leaned back against the door of the empty infirmary, pressing it closed until the latch clicked into the strikeplate.  He tilted his head back against the paneled door and let the day slide off his shoulders.  Alone.  Quiet.  Finally. 

Gathering the energy to undress, he shrugged out of his vest, tossing it toward the end of the bed.  His aim mindless, it slid onto the floor instead.  He pulled his shirttails free from his trousers and slipped the blue cotton down his arms and off his wrists without even bothering to unbutton the cuffs.  The shirt landed no closer to his goal than the vest had.  He sank down heavily on the edge of the bed and struggled to slide his boots from his heat swollen feet.  When they finally pulled free with a twisting tug, he lobbed them in the same general direction as the shirt and vest.  By the time his buckskin trousers had been added to the pile, his clothing was strewn across the infirmary floor as if a cyclone had upended a closet.  A frown clouded Buck’s face as he surveyed the sorry site, but he made no move to remedy it.  He usually took better care of his belongings, and Rachel would certainly cast a reproachful look in his direction if he acted that way in the bunkhouse, but he was too tired to care about being neat and he was a long way from home. 

The cornhusk mattress beneath him was worn from years of use – a lump here, matted flat there - and not much softer than the prairie bed he had slept on every night since leaving the station a week earlier, but it was the best Sorrows had to offer.  He didn’t mind.  All he really wanted was to get some sleep and perhaps, as the Reverend Mother had said earlier, his thoughts would be more clear in the morning.  Clad in only his long john bottoms and medicine pouch, Buck scooted across the narrow bed and leaned against the wall behind him.  The plaster felt cool and inviting against his back.  Arms propped on his bent knees, Buck blew out a long, slow breath and tried to relax while taking in his surroundings.

None of the Sisters having more than a slim knowledge of medicine, the infirmary was used only for minor illnesses – a cough or fever, perhaps a queasy stomach.  A child with a more serious ailment was sent to a doctor in one of the nearby towns rather than expose the entire school to the malady.  Sorrows’ students had been blessed with good health throughout the summer and the infirmary had seen little recent use.   The air in the closed off room was a bit old and harbored an odor of stale antiseptic. 

It was a sparsely furnished room containing nothing more than a table, chair and two narrow beds.  Although the beds themselves were simple, they were covered in patchwork quilts of many small, meticulously stitched pieces – gifts from a St. Louis parishioner years earlier.  Laundered to a worn softness they provided a bit of comfort to a child spending the night in the sick room.  The pattern on the bed near the window reminded Buck of the spokes of wagon wheels rolling across a plain of muslin with a solid colored center in each block acting as the wheel’s hub.  The wheel pattern was interesting but for some reason it almost pained him to look at it.  He preferred the quilt on the bed where he sat.  The long rows of triangles running its length looked like the spread wings of wild geese taking flight in blue calico.  Buck ran his index finger along a triangle of faded cotton, his mind wandering back to the last time he had spent the night in this room.  He hadn’t really been sick.  He and Ike had just taken a bad enough beating that . . . 

“Don’t think about it, Buck.”

The forbidden thought sent a chill knifing through him, its icy blade cutting to the bone.  Buck crawled under the comforter, his stiffened limbs stretched the full length of the small bed.  The patter of raindrops against the window on the opposite wall was gentle as a lullaby and Buck should have fallen asleep easily but he couldn’t.  He pulled the quilt closer around his shoulders hoping to find solace in its softness but the folds of faded patchwork could not sooth his weary mind.  Buck turned on his side, his back to the room, and tossed his arm over his head knowing full well slumber would not find him there either.  Tired.  Too tired to sleep.  Searching for a comfortable position on the matted cornhusk bed, he tossed and turned, churning the bedclothes into a tangled heap.  He felt the dull ache of loneliness grip him as he finally flopped on his back, staring at the quivering pattern of lamplight on the ceiling.

He had been gone a long time and was anxious to be home again.  Buck clasped his hands behind his head and sighed audibly wondering what his friends were doing at the station.  Having been gone for such a long time, he didn’t remember the schedule exactly, but thought that Noah would have taken the run to St. Joseph and either Lou or Cody was up next for the run to Seneca, probably Lou.  The others were most likely gathered around the table alternating between rich man and pauper in a game of poker.   With three of them away, Rachel would be sitting in to make the game more interesting.  The thought was amusing and a thin chuckle rose from Buck’s throat.  Rachel had learned to shuffle a deck of cards before she could tie her bootlaces.  It was a good thing she didn’t join in their gambling very often or she’d be a wealthy woman and they would be taking extra runs just to earn a little spending money.  Rachel understood the game wasn’t won or lost by the hand you were dealt, but by the ‘bluff’.  He’d seen her clear the table with nothing more than a pair of fours.

Bothered by Lou’s absence, regardless of his cards, Kid wouldn’t be playing very well.  Of course, the others knew his mind was elsewhere and would take every advantage of his distraction.  It hadn’t taken them very long to recognize Cody’s weakness around the poker table.  The cocky, blonde rider would be mortified to know the corner of his mouth twitched noticeably whenever he held a hand with promise.   Some day they might tell him just for the fun of it.  Cody’s stage acting might have a future, but his poker face needed work.  Jimmy was a harder read.  Narrowed to a dark slit, his eyes didn’t give away much and his expression was solid as granite.  Only a slight inflection in his voice as he called for cards hinted of his hand.  But Rachel.  Rachel was the master at hiding what she held.  Buck had learned a few things watching her bluff.  His own acting had improved greatly.  And not just in poker.

Buck reached for the lamp, intending to put out the wick, but stopped himself.  He didn’t much care for the dark anymore.  Funny.  It had never bothered him until . . . well, it had bothered him for a while.   Darkness had always been an escape, safety, a covering, but he had learned that daylight offered greater protection.  In the light of day he was an actor following laid out stage direction.  Put on the face.  Wait for the cue.  Deliver the line.  Move to the next scene.  His performance was believable, even to himself.   But darkness was a wiser audience and saw right through him. 

Buck sank bank into the warmth of his bed trying to rest, but found the darkness behind his closed eyes crimson and cold.   Curling onto his side, he resigned himself to a sleepless night.  His eyes wandered across the room, stopping briefly on the yellow center of a patchwork wheel on the bed opposite him.  He tried to pull away, but the quilt block held on tight and wouldn’t let go.
 

The site of Sister Francis dozing in the small chair at the table was comical.  Sister Francis was round and soft like rising bread dough and her ample frame spilled over the edge of the seat.  Leaning a stubby bent arm on the table to support her head, she had fallen asleep an hour or so earlier.  The pressure of her jowls against the heel of her hand made the large woman’s open mouth sit slightly contorted on her face.  Buck stifled a giggle as the nun’s double chin slipped off her hand sending her head bobbing.  For a moment she wove slowly back and forth like a child’s toy top in its final rotations before toppling over.  She mumbled something he couldn’t quite hear and fell forward using her oversized arms on the table top as a pillow.  She was doing a fairly poor job of watching over the sick room.  Luckily he was only battered and bruised rather than really sick.  He could probably die of one of the white man’s illnesses without Sister Francis ever waking up.

Buck noticed out of the corner of his eye that the boy in the other bed was amused by Sister Francis as well, although he made no sound.  The owl boy never did.  He looked to be white and should know his own language, but in the four months Buck had been at the school, he had yet to hear the hairless boy utter a single word.  He was very odd.  Most of the time he acted wild, like he was possessed with something dark and strange.  But the image of the boy standing by the stairs, watching Albert’s gang beat him was lodged in Buck’s mind.  The bald boy had made no effort to help him then.  Why had he helped him today?

The boy turned away from the sleeping nun, his eyes locking briefly with Buck’s sideways glance before each boy quickly flitted his gaze elsewhere.   A yellow circle in the middle of a quilt block on the other boy’s bed caught Buck’s attention.  His curious gaze seemed determined to seek out the boy again, but Buck focused hard on the yellow circle to keep his eyes from straying.  It was late, but he wasn’t really tired. There were too many thoughts rumbling around inside his head to rest. 

He and the owl boy had been included in a group of older students to accompany several of the nuns to pick up the school’s supplies at the mercantile in Oak Grove that afternoon.  Buck had felt uncomfortable hemmed in by the tight aisles inside the store and preferred to wait on the front porch while the shopkeeper totaled the bill.  He had never seen a general store up close and was intrigued by the amount of merchandise.  That much food could feed an entire Kiowa village for weeks.  Even months! 

Some of the vegetables in the display bins were unknown to him and he had picked up various pieces of produce to examine them more closely.  His actions didn’t go unnoticed by the shopkeeper’s sixteen year old son and his friends.  The group of older boys had spent the last half hour leaning against the hitching post outside the store, trying to conceal the metal flask passed between them and impressing each other with jokes about the troupe of orphans loading the ramshackle wagon.  Taking offense at the “stinkin’, low-life, dirty, half-breed” handling his father’s goods, the shopkeeper’s son was quick to confront the younger boy and demand payment for the merchandise the “no count, Injun” had ruined by touching it. 

In his still limited English, Buck had tried to tell them he was only looking and had no money to buy anything and nothing to trade. 

“Well that is a problem, Injun,” the older boy said, tilting his head in mock concern for the orphan’s plight.  “But no r’spectable white woman’s gonna buy this merchandise now that some stinkin’ Injun’s done touched it.  You gotta pay, breed, and it you ain’t got no money, looks like we’ll just hafta take payment outta your hide.”

Buck understood enough of what the older boy had said to realize he was in trouble, but before he could react, one of the group clamped a hand over his mouth while the others dragged him into the alleyway between the mercantile and the livery. 

He had hesitated to fight back when Albert and Dutch had cornered him in the hallway at the school for fear the small woman in charge would turn him out and he would find himself homeless and hungry again.  But even though he had been on the receiving end of the fight, she had punished him as if he had been the cause of the altercation.  When she was finished with her wooden paddle, his backside was as tender as his bruised middle, but she didn’t send him away.  He’d had a few more problems with Albert and his bunch since, but unlike the first time, had no qualms about fighting back.  He was going to be punished either way and at least if he got a few good licks in, he would retain a bit of pride.  A sore bottom was a small price to pay for the satisfaction of seeing Albert or Dutch sporting a black eye or swollen lip.

But these boys were much bigger than Albert’s gang.  Stronger too and he smelled something ugly and dangerous on their breath.  Buck bit down hard on the hand over his mouth and felt a satisfying rush of blood sweep across his lips.  Cursing and enraged by the bite, the older boy rewarded Buck’s efforts with an uppercut to his chin so fierce that Buck’s head snapped backward like a rag doll shaken in the mouth of a mad dog.  Flying fists pounded him relentlessly from more directions than he could keep track of.  He heard laughter, but from far away as if he was in the bottom of a well.  He began to feel dizzy. Their grinning faces moved in and out of his vision in a strange, swaying, slow motion.  Buck staggered but kept his feet, knowing that to fall would most likely be his end. A thundering blow to his nose sent flashing lights before his eyes and blood spewing from his mangled face like a geyser.  Buck stumbled backward as another blow broke his eyebrow open and a gush of blood flooded over his eye. 

His vision obscured by blood and dancing lights, he didn’t recognize the owl boy for a moment and even when he did, he didn’t quite believe his eyes.  Never in his entire life had anyone come to his aid in a fight.  Yet there he was, the bald headed boy, fists clenched, swinging wildly at his attackers. 

He wasn’t a seasoned fighter, that much was obvious, but a few of his blows hit their mark before the shopkeeper’s son swatted him away like an unwelcome pest.  Not to be deterred, the boy simply ran toward the ruckus, jumped on the nearest gang member’s back and held on tight, gouging eyes and pulling hair.  The interruption gave Buck the opportunity to clear his head and wipe away the blood blocking his vision.  Before he could comprehend this strange turn of events, the two orphans were side by side, swinging, kicking and clawing at their attackers with a combined vengeance.  They still lost the fight.  Badly.  But before falling into blessed blackness, Buck was certain he saw the trace of a smile cross the owl boy’s battered face. 

He woke up on the trip back to Sorrows lying beside the owl boy in the back of the wagon between sacks of flour and cornmeal, wondering what on Earth had happened.  Because they had both been knocked senseless and the Reverend Mother thought their eyes still looked a bit strange, she had decided they should spend the night in the infirmary.  So there they were, alone in the sickroom, under the less than watchful care of Sister Francis.

It was said if he touched you, your hair and tongue would fall out.  Buck raised his hand to his shorn head, fingering what little hair he had left protectively, and dared another sideways glance in the white boy’s direction. The boy didn’t notice.  He was just lying in his bed, tracing a piece of the quilt block with his fingertip – not snarling or clawing the air with his hands. He didn’t look very threatening. 

Though his English had made significant strides, Buck was still in the Beginners class and knew the silent boy only by watching him during meals and in the big room of beds at night.  He remembered waking in the night once to the sounds of laughter when some of the other boys had tried to scare the owl boy by putting a mouse down the collar of his nightshirt while he slept.  The boy had been frightened waking to the scratching and scurrying of the mouse in his clothing and lashed out in his animal way. But after his antics scattered the troublemakers he carefully set the small creature back on the floor. His gentleness with the mouse had surprised Buck at the time, but he assumed it was because the boy was really some sort of animal, too.  Now he wasn’t so sure.

Fighting back was the only response Buck knew, but perhaps this boy’s defense was to frighten people.  He’d shown that he wasn’t much of a fighter.  By scaring his tormentors away he used his wits instead of his fists and kept his face intact.  Well  . . . at least intact until that afternoon. 

“Why?”

Buck’s question hanging in the silence of the sickroom startled the boy.  He raised up on an elbow and turned to face the Indian in the bed opposite him, arching his eyebrows as inquisitively as his battered face would allow.  He didn’t understand what the dark skinned boy was asking and was more than a little surprised that he had said anything at all.

“Why you fight?” Buck asked again.  Each word he spoke was pronounced sharply – the edges of a new language not yet rounded smooth. 

The boy was still for a moment, then finally twisted his expression and shrugged to indicate he had no answer.  His lack of a reason puzzled Buck all the more and he sat up in his bed, dangling his legs over the side, to get a better look at this strange, silent boy.  The quiet one seemed a bit uncomfortable under the scrutiny, but when the Indian offered a quiet “I thank you”, he sat in his bed, mirroring Buck’s position and nodded solemnly to accept the words of gratitude. 

Though the light in the infirmary was dim, Buck could see that the white boy’s face was a mess.  One eye was completely swollen shut and the pale skin was bruised an ugly purple.  His bottom lip was split and swollen twice its normal size.  By the hunched over way he sat, Buck knew the boy had been kicked in the middle and was probably nursing as many sore ribs as he was.  Buck didn’t feel any too well himself, but was confident he didn’t look nearly as bad as the white boy did.

Buck pointed to the other boy’s face.  “Hurt?”

His sick room companion puckered his mouth in thought, then raised his hand, his thumb and index finger spread apart to indicate an amount.  He thought for another moment and then moved his fingers a bit wider apart.  He then pointed at the Indian opposite him to pose the same question.

Despite the ache encircling his chest, Buck straightened his back to sit taller and gingerly traced the hump of his nose with his index finger.  It was tender and swollen so full it was almost a straight plane from the bridge of his nose to his cheekbone. 

“No hurt,” Buck replied, wincing at the pain in his nose as he lied.  The bald boy simply smirked and rolled his eyes.  This Indian was a prideful one. 

To refer to him as the ‘owl boy’ no longer seemed appropriate.  When Buck first saw the boy crouched in the limbs of the cottonwood tree in the school yard, he had been certain it was a sign of doom, but a bad omen would have never come to his aid in a fight. 

“What name?” Buck asked, then realized the silent boy wouldn’t answer.  To his surprise the white boy reached for his shirt at the end of the bed and withdrew a small piece of paper and the stub of a lead pencil from the pocket.  He scribbled something on the paper and then reached out to hand it to Buck.

Buck hesitantly accepted the paper.  His English was much improved but new words were still very hard.  He gripped the note, thumbing through the stacks of grammatical rules newly imprinted in his memory before attempting it.

“Ike?”

The boy broke into a grin and nodded.

“Ike,” Buck repeated with more confidence.  That wasn’t so hard.  Pointing to himself he said, “Running . . .”   He stopped and shook his head.  No, that wasn’t his name anymore.  “Buck Cross,” he said correcting himself.  Ike merely nodded nonchalantly.  He knew the Indian’s name.

The two sat in silence for a time doing little more than look at each other and occasionally grin at the generously sized nun snoring slightly from the far end of the infirmary.  It was a different silence than either had experienced before.  Not an empty silence begging for words to fill the stillness but a comfortable, fertile silence where seeds of possibility sprouted. 

“Why no talk?” Buck asked.  “No tongue?”

Ike looked slightly offended and rolled his tongue out of his mouth.  Yes, he indeed did have a tongue!  His indignity was short lived.  He frowned and ran his hand up and down his throat, then shook his head and shrugged. 

A haunting sadness floated in the boy’s eyes as he tried to explain his muteness -  almost as if there were ghosts scaring him speechless from the inside.  Buck understood now.  It wasn’t that Ike didn’t want to speak – he couldn’t.  Ike was alone not because he wanted to be or had done something to deserve his isolation, but because of a difference he couldn’t control.  No more than Buck could control the color of his own skin.  This boy was just as parched for the cool waters of acceptance as he was.  His soul had been cut just as deep by the sharp angles of a rigid, unyielding world.

The silence returned while Buck contemplated his offer.  It was hard enough taking care of himself.  He needed to concentrate his efforts on learning the white man’s ways.  There was so much yet to learn.  But he owed this boy and his Kiowa upbringing demanded that his indebtedness be paid.

“I teach you.”

Ike frowned and shook his head, motioning to his uncooperative throat again.

“No.”  Buck started moving his hands, making shapes and gestures that Ike didn’t understand.  “Make words with hands.”

Ike leaned forward, his posture anxious with interest in what the Indian was doing. 

“Not hard,” Buck assured him.  “I teach you.”

A slow grin of understanding spread across Ike’s face, brightening the dimly lit room.  He leaned across his bed and pulled another piece of paper from the shirt pocket, then quickly scribbled a word across the paper.  He started to hand the scrap to Buck but stopped and instead on the reverse side of the piece reprinted the word in block letters that would be easier for the Indian to read. 

Buck sounded out each letter carefully.  “Fend?”

Ike shook his head “no”, his eyes urging Buck to try again.  Buck studied the letters closely, then made another attempt.  He concentrated hard on the ‘r’ in the word.  There was no such sound in the Kiowa language and its pronunciation was still difficult for him. 

“Friend.” 

The hopefulness in Ike’s eyes made Buck realize it wasn’t just a word but an offer . . . a plea.  If he could have turned his eyes upon himself, he would have seen the mirror image of that longing in his own. 

Buck raised his right hand to neck level, his palm facing outward.  He brought his index and middle fingers together until they touched, then folded his thumb and remaining fingers into his palm so only the touching fingers were extended.  He then raised his hand until his fingertips reached the level of his face. 

Ike’s blue eyes danced with excitement as he mimicked Buck’s hands.  He repeated the sign until his movements were smooth and fluid.  Buck nodded his approval.

“Friend.” 
 

The sound of raindrops on the window pane brought Buck back to the present.  Ike had told him once that when he was very little, he had been afraid of the rain.  His mother had reassured him that there was nothing to fear in a storm.  That rain was simply the sky’s way of crying.  Surely the sky that looked out over the world, witnessing all the pain and hurt below was deserving of a cry once in a while. 

Although it was only a mother’s story to calm the fears of a small child, Buck thought that perhaps it was true.  Sometimes the sky appears to be in mourning.  Black clouds bent low under a heavy veil.  Thundering sobs shaking the drops loose.  An angry, thrashing, unbearable pain unleashed in a torrent of tears.  But at other times, it weeps quietly, gathering in scattered, confused tears left behind the roaring storm.   The sky cries, unashamed, until its tears are spent, then cleansed of their pain, the clouds lighten and move on.  If so, then how well nature knows itself.  Knows what it needs. 

Buck silently crossed the short distance between the beds and crawled across the quilt top to the window, raising it a crack.  Crisp night air and the melodic strains of the wind wailing floated through the opening, breathing life back into the closed room.  Buck wrapped Ike’s quilt around his shoulders and sat back on his heels, quietly tracing the stream of teardrops sliding down the face of the glass with his fingertips.  Safe in an embrace of faded patchwork, he slept, dreaming of a voice he had never heard . . . yet knew by heart.
 

Chapter Seven

In his three years as a student at Sorrows, Buck had heard the Reverend Mother humble herself in prayer before her God, scold children for stepping outside her boundaries and lecture him in the importance of proper grammar - but he had never heard her sing.  He had intended to check on Daniel in the nursery and hopefully, by some bit of divine inspiration, decide what to do about the child.  But to his surprise, rather than a quiet nursery of sleeping infants, he found Mother Augustine seated in the nursery’s rocking chair, quietly singing something about ‘black sheep’ and ‘the little boy who lives down the lane’ to the baby cradled in her arms. 

The sharp contrast of the Reverend Mother’s crucifix against her black habit had caught Daniel’s eye.  The little boy seemed mesmerized by the bright cross and occasionally reached out with a dimpled, inquisitive hand to touch the shiny object.   The baby seemed perfectly content in Mother Augustine’s arms and didn’t seem to mind at all that her voice was more than just a bit off key.

Perhaps it was the faint trickle of early morning light filtering through the window beside the chair that softened her features.  Or maybe a helpless infant has some sort of magical ability to change even the most severe countenance into something gentle.  Whatever the cause, the result was startling.  Buck crossed his arms loosely over his chest and leaned against the door frame watching the scene before him, nearly as captivated by the Reverend Mother’s actions as Daniel was by her crucifix. 

A whisper floated across his memory, distanced and muffled by time.  Buck closed his eyes for a moment and tried to bring the blurred image into focus.  He was very young, no more than three or four years old - an age of discovery when a child’s mind begins to grasp hold of precious moments, tucking them away to remember later.   He had awakened in the night, frightened by Red Bear’s story of the Utes sneaking into Kiowa villages to steal away the children.  His mother had drawn him into her arms and promised to scold Red Bear for scaring him.  She had even let him hold her beaded medicine bundle so he would be protected from the story.  Blue and yellow beads.  It reminded him of sunshine – soft, warm and beautiful.  Just like she was.  Her arms around him felt soft and warm, too.  Like sunshine in the middle of the night.  He couldn’t quite hear the words of his mother’s song.  He strained to remember, but it was such a long time ago . . .

“Come in, Buck.  No need to stand in the hallway.” 

The sound of the Reverend Mother’s voice broke through his reflection like a stone tossed into still water.  Buck hurriedly tried to pull the ripples of the memory back together – he wasn’t ready to let it go just yet – but they had slipped away out of his reach.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” he answered, his arms instinctively tightening to an almost defensive posture. 

“You aren’t.  Daniel and I were just getting to know each other.  We need to talk.  Come . . . sit,” she said, nodding to a stool near the rocking chair.  “Did you sleep well?  You look rested.”

Buck offered a nod in reply from the doorway. “Yes, I did.” 

The Reverend Mother motioned to the stool again and Buck compliantly crossed the dimly lit room feeling more like he was back in grammar class called to recitation.  She wanted an answer about Daniel and he didn’t have one yet.  After all these years, he still couldn’t please her.

“I didn’t think anyone would be here this early,” he said taking his assigned seat on the edge of the stool.

“I always begin the day with the little ones . . . every morning for the past twenty years.”  Mother Augustine rubbed her hand almost affectionately over the wooden arm of the chair.  “This rocker and I are old friends.”

“I didn’t know you tended the babies.  I thought they were Sister Margaret’s responsibility.” 

“Every child at Sorrows is my responsibility, Buck.”

“I’m sorry.  I meant no disrespect,” Buck muttered, fidgeting uncomfortably under her gray gaze.  “Have there been many as small as Daniel here?  I don’t remember.”

“No reason that you should.  The youngest ones have always been kept a bit apart from the rest of the school,” she explained, brushing her thumb gently across Daniel’s pink cheek.  Despite the little boy’s contentment in her arms, when she continued, her voice was tinged with sadness.  “But, yes, I’m afraid there have been quite a few.  Orphans come in all ages.  Steven, there,” she said, motioning with a slight nod of her head to the curly topped little boy pulling himself into a wobbly legged stand in a nearby crib.  “Steven came to us at only three days old.  His mother left him here promising that she would be back, but I knew better.   That was over six months ago.  I do think she loved him, but she was young and alone.  I don’t know which is worse.  For them to have known their families and lost them or to be this young and never know them at all.” 

“But surely you’ve found homes for them.  Don’t people want babies?” Buck asked hopefully.  He could understand families not wanting to adopt older children but certainly there was hope for the little ones.

“We placed a few in the early years,” Mother Augustine replied.  “But these are difficult times we live in.  A war coming will make matters no better.   Still . . . we pray that all of Sorrows’ children will be blessed with new families and trust the Lord will answer.  Until then we do the best we can and we will always make room for more.”

Buck was quiet for a moment considering Sorrows’ state of disrepair.  The ‘best’ the school could do certainly fell short of what he felt Daniel or any of the children there should have.  The school’s finances weren’t really any of his concern . . . no, if he was considering leaving Daniel there, it most certainly was his concern.

“Reverend Mother, how can you afford to take in more children?  You said yourself that the barn was still leaking and it looks like it could fall down any minute. Blossom must be nearly dry by now and the horses are worn out.  The school was crowded when I was here years ago and it’s worse now.”

Buck waited expectantly for a tangible answer from the Reverend Mother.  Perhaps she would answer that the school had found a new benefactor or that there were coffers of cash hidden away for the lean years.  Or if there was no immediate relief, at least an acknowledgement of the school’s dire straits would appease him.  But his barrage of Sorrows’ shortcoming did not penetrate the nun’s armor of faith. 

“We are doing the Lord’s work, Buck.  Our needs will be provided for.  They always have been.  They always will be.”  Mother Augustine spoke with such a serene certainty that Buck almost believed her. 

“Buck, I understand that you feel a responsibility for Daniel, and that is commendable, but it would be very dangerous to take him with you.  The fate of his parents reminds us that traveling in the open plains is treacherous and certainly unfit for a child.   You will both be safer if he stays here.”

“I just want what’s best for him.” 

“I know you do.  So do I.  He’ll have a home here and an opportunity to learn just as you had.”

Buck’s sharp intake of breath felt like a stab wound reopened.  An opportunity to be laughed at and humiliated was more to his recollection.  “You were hard on me,” he said, half under his breath.   He hadn’t intended to be so bold, but the words had been poised on his tongue since he rode into Sorrows’ yard the day before and used his moment of weakness to assert themselves.

“Yes, I was.” 

Buck’s own remark had startled him, but the Reverend Mother’s calm response left him slack jawed.  To his greater surprise, there wasn’t so much as a hint of guilt or remorse in her voice for treating him badly.  Surely if she admitted as much, he deserved an apology.  Didn’t he?  But rather than asking his forgiveness she just sat there, rocking Daniel as if there was nothing regretful in her admission. 

“I always ask more of those who show potential.”  Taking note of his bewildered expression, she began to explain.   “Buck, I’ve been teaching children for longer than you’ve been on this earth and no two have been exactly alike.  Each requires a different approach.   Some respond to a gentle touch, some need constant supervision to learn.  Others,” she added, pausing long enough to cast a knowing look in his direction, “others need to be made angry for the best in them to be called out.  We had a very short amount of time to teach you what you needed to know to survive away from your own people.  You say I was hard on you, but can you carry on an intelligent conversation in a language you weren’t born into?”

“I’d like to think so,” Buck answered, a bit put out by the question.  What kind of a thing to ask was that anyway?  Wasn’t she the one who had taught him?

Buck’s irritation brought a quick smile to her face. “Yes, you can.  Quite well in fact.  But at first you were so afraid of failing that you wouldn’t try.  A teacher must use whatever method is necessary to reach into child and if I had coddled you or made allowances for you, the result would have been different.  I was hard on you because you needed me to be.”

Buck sat back on the stool absorbing the Reverend Mother’s explanation.  It wasn’t what he had expected to hear, but once it sunk in, he realized what she said was true.  She had pushed him at every possible turn and he had responded to the pressure angrily, bitterly, at times hating her, but always more determined to succeed.  He tucked his head, a bit embarrassed, trying to think of something to say.  Should he thank her for making him so angry that he had learned just to spite her?  Should he apologize for having drawn a picture of her with flames shooting from her mouth?  Should he admit that he had let the garder snake loose in her office?  No.  He couldn’t confess that.  The snake had been only half his idea anyway.   He glanced up uncertainly, but understood by the look in his teacher’s eyes that nothing needed to be said.

“Will you be as hard on him?” he asked instead, nodding toward Daniel. 

“If need be.”

“Good.”

“You are welcome here to visit him anytime and I do hope you will come back.  And please bring Ike with you next time.  I would like very much to see him again.”

“Don’t think about it, Buck,” he warned himself. “Don’t think . . .”

“Reverend Mother . . .”  Buck went cold inside and swallowed hard to loosen the grip around his throat.  He took a deep breath and a moment to reconsider.  He didn’t have to tell her, but for some reason he wanted to. 

“Ike can’t come back with me.”

The nun was puzzled by his response, but the distress written on Buck’s face spoke more than his few words did. 

“He died about a month ago,” Buck explained, his voice so quiet the Reverend Mother had to strain to hear the words. “I should have told you last night, and I’m sorry . . . it’s just hard.”

“I’m certain it has been a very difficult time.   How did this happen?” 

The touch of her smooth fingers against his calloused palm startled Buck for a moment, but he allowed her to take his hand and the warmth of her touch drew the story from him.  The words that had been lodged in his throat like chunks of ice for so long spilled out.

“Ike met a girl.  Emily was her name.  Emily Metcalfe.  He had feelings for her.  More than that, I guess.  He didn’t know her for very long – not much more than a week – but I think he loved her.  It worried me and I told him not to get involved with Emily.  Ike always came out on the losing end whenever he cared for a girl.”  Buck was quiet for a moment as the brutal accuracy of his statement settled on him.  “Never thought it would come to this end, though.  He should’ve listened to me.”

“Emily’s father got on the wrong side of a gambler.  He accused the man of cheatin’ and . . . well, there was a lot of bad blood between them.  Metcalfe called the man out, but he wasn’t much of a gunfighter.  Got himself killed instead.  Emily tried to settle the score and drew on the man.”  Buck’s voice tightened, unable to hide his bitterness as he continued.  “She never should have done somethin’ so foolish.  Emily didn’t stand a chance against him and Ike died tryin’ to protect her.” 

“Buck, I can understand your resentment of the young lady, but it doesn’t surprise me that Ike gave his life for someone he loved.  That boy had a sweet soul.”  A sad smile crept across the creases of Mother Augustine’s face as she added quietly, “Once he let us see it.” 

“I’d put what happened out of my mind and was doin’ fine,” Buck insisted.  “But then I found Daniel and had to come back here.  And now . . . now Ike’s everywhere I look.”

“Those memories can be a comfort to you if you allow them to be.  They can provide the peace you need to move on,” she replied, her gray gaze locking with his dark eyes.

Buck pulled his eyes away.  If only it could be so easy.  She didn’t understand that he was perched precariously, straddling a wide chasm in a fragile balance.  One misstep could crumble away his delicate foothold and send him tumbling back into the abyss of grief that had swallowed him in the days after Ike’s sudden death.  She didn’t understand how hard it had been just to climb this far. 

“It’s hard.”

“But you mustn’t be afraid to try.”

“Ike didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“No, Buck, he didn’t.  Neither did Daniel’s parents or any of these children’s families.  Such violence mocks the will of God and the innocent suffer.  I’ve seen too much of it.  But the word of the Lord assures us that those who follow the darker path will be judged according to their actions.”  Mother Augustine paused for a moment and then asked, “And what of the gambler who caused you such grief?”

Buck took time to consider his response.  Would she think him a sinner or a savage to know he had taken Neville’s life without an ounce of remorse?  He was a grown man now, not a child longing for his teacher’s approval, but for some reason that he couldn’t quite fathom, what this woman thought of him still mattered.

“He was punished,” Buck answered quietly.  It wasn’t really a lie.

“Ike has found his reward, Buck,” the Reverend Mother offered in reassurance.  “The reward that is promised for all the faithful. I will ask a blessing of peace for his soul and for yours.”

The nun took a moment to carefully study the young man opposite her – the foreign features, the heathenistic relic around his neck.  Mother Augustine squeezed Buck’s hand gently as she rose and caught his eye once more. “We never really converted you though, did we?”

The corners of Buck’s mouth lifted for a moment and he readily met her gaze.  “No, Mother, you didn’t.  But I’d appreciate the prayer just the same.”

Buck settled against the spindled back of the rocker and brought Daniel to his shoulder. He couldn’t help but smile at the little boy, all clean and pink and smelling of talcum.  The baby’s weight was warm and comfortable against him and the soft rhythm of Daniel’s breath against Buck’s neck seemed to slow the pace of his thoughts. 

He had never rocked a baby before but there was something wonderfully soothing in the motion.   Maybe there really was something magical about holding a child – holding a new life in your arms.  Buck rested his head back against the chair’s wooden frame, watching the dawn unfurl outside the window.  The feather wisps of a dappled gray morning seemed strangely in contrast to the harsh realities inside Sorrows’ walls.  He would also pray for a family for Daniel, but realized the little boy would most likely spend his first sixteen years at Sorrows.  His growth wouldn’t be celebrated with parties and cakes but marked by exchanging one ill fitting suit of clothing for another that fit just as poorly. Lying awake in the dormitory at night, he would wonder what his life might have been like if his parents hadn’t been taken from him.  He would be given a religion whether he wanted it or not.  And at sixteen, with two dollars in his pocket, he would be ushered out the front door into a world that offered few chances and no apologies. 

But there was more to Our Lady of Sorrows School for the Orphaned and Abandoned than that.  Buck understood that now.  How narrow his scope had been, or perhaps how little he had allowed himself to see.  It wasn’t the home his own mother had wanted for him, or the life the McAllisters or any of these orphan’s families would have provided, but there was a love here.  Not as open or as obvious, perhaps you had to pull back layers of discipline and an endless supply of rules to find it, but it was a love none the less. 

“They’ll take care of you here, Daniel,” Buck whispered to the orphaned child in his arms.  “And if you find a friend, you’ll do just fine.”

Author’s note:  The lullaby included in this chapter is actually from the Iroquois rather than the Kiowa.

Epilogue

The night’s rain had cleared the dust and the morning breathed easier.  Buck closed the front door behind him and stepped onto the slanting front porch of the school, taken with the changes that had occurred overnight. 

The quince bush was in full glory, its scarlet buds blushing under a kiss of morning dew.  Wrapped by a blanket of awakening blossoms, the fence around the school, though bent low under the weight of the vine, seemed content not to be the keeper of order it was designed to be.  The barn did sit a bit awkwardly, but the building didn’t seem to be nearly as out of square as Buck remembered from the evening before.  With a coat of fresh paint and a few repairs it would probably stand for quite a while.  He had some money saved.  A nice little nest egg, actually.  The Sisters would never need to know where the ‘repair fund’ came from.  The money certainly wouldn’t be enough to cure all of Sorrows’ ills, but if he couldn’t find a new family for Daniel, at least he could do something to make this home a little better.

The wooden frame intended to support the porch stairs had suffered from dry rot over the years and wasn’t a terribly secure passage.  The top tread was missing altogether.  Buck took a big step off the porch into the school’s front yard, the Reverend Mother’s words, “You mustn’t be afraid to try,” following him.

Washed clean by the rain, the leaves of the cottonwood had been transformed into a thousand shimmering mirrors.   But rather than the image of a cornered child seeking a safe haven from his tormentors in the towering tree’s limbs, each silver frond reflected the laughter and dreams of two young boys back to him. 

The tree had been their refuge.  Perched upon its wide shoulders, its branches acted as tributaries carrying them to a private place.  In the boughs of their safe harbor, they had passed idle time hatching cooly calculated pranks of revenge against those who had wronged them and mapping plans for a brighter future. 

From their lofty hideaway, Buck had spotted a young beauty across the school yard and fell head over heels for his first blue-eyed blonde.  An embarrassing infatuation that had sent Ike tumbling from the tree’s branches in near hysteria watching his friend’s bumbling attempts at courtship on the ground below.  But when his affections were not returned and Buck climbed back into the sanctuary of the cottonwood, Ike had followed to pick up the pieces of his friend’s fifteen year old broken heart and assure him that girls really weren’t all they were cracked up to be anyway.

In their open-air classroom, Buck’s patient instruction had given Ike a language, but Ike had proven to be an equally effective teacher.  Books were not plentiful at Sorrows, but the school owned an ample supply of Bibles and once accustomed to the “thees” and “thous” it served as a fine textbook.  Although Ike couldn’t read the foreign words for him, at Buck’s mispronunciation, he would tap at his chest to draw Buck’s attention and insist his pupil repeat the word until the syllables flowed together correctly.  To Ike, the Bible was the history of his faith, but to Buck it was a book of great adventures.  He had tried to imagine rain so fierce it would flood the world and cheered along with David as the boy’s simple slingshot felled a giant.  After reading of Samson, Buck felt a special kinship with the man.  Samson knew the importance of a full head of hair.  Ike, however, preferred the story of Job who having lost everything precious to him was rewarded ten times over for his faithfulness.  The tale of unwavering faith in the face of despair struck such a chord in Ike that he asked Buck to read the story twice. 

And when dusk blurred the words, they would mark the page with a leaf and watch the day fade away in a blue mist, content in a silence so golden, its harmony so perfectly blended, it might have been composed by a grand master.

The sounds of laughter broke into Buck’s thoughts and he leaned back against the white bark of the tree watching two young boys carrying a milk pail between them jump from the porch and run across the yard toward the barn.  Their peals of unbridled laughter floated across the school yard and swept him back to another morning, not so very long ago.
 

Ike dropped to his knees in the loose, sandy dirt of the yard and carefully withdrew a small wooden box from the canvas bag that had held his belongings in safe keeping for the past six years.  He reverently opened the box containing his possessions as if it contained the world’s most precious jewels.  With a tender touch, Ike ran his finger along the faded wording, scripted neatly in a woman’s hand across the stationary.  If he tried very hard, he could still smell the faint traces of his mother’s lilac water on the yellowed pages.  Ike sifted through the papers until he found the object he sought at the bottom of the box.  He lovingly fingered the filigree finish etched in the metal casing and smiled his approval at the steady movement of the watch’s hands.  He slipped the watch into the security of his trouser’s pocket and placed the box back into the cloth bag.

<Come on, Buck!> Ike signed feverishly and jumped to his feet.

“I’m comin’!  Just hold on a minute!” Buck yelled back.  The hunting knife looked a bit out of place strapped around the leg of his school uniform trousers but he didn’t care.   There had been a time when he thought the few belongings he had carried with him from the Kiowa were lost for good.   In his urgency to reclaim his possessions, he had dumped the contents of a similar canvas bag onto the school’s front porch and his bone earring had fallen between the cracks of the dried planks.  In the time it took to retrieve it, Ike had gained a good twenty strides on him and was waiting at Sorrows’ gate. 

“Got it!” he proclaimed and headed across the yard, slipping his medicine bundle around his neck as he trotted toward Ike.  His hand anxiously clutched the small bag, his fingers blindly counting the contents inside.  One, two, three, four . . . Yes!  Everything was still there!

<Hurry up!>  Ike’s hands worked rapidly, signing his impatience.  <I thought you were anxious to get out of here!>

“I’ve been here for three years, Ike. I’m plenty anxious.”

<Well then, since I’ve been here twice as long, I’m twice as anxious!  Come on.  We gotta see if old man Evans will give us those jobs like he promised.  Two dollars each won’t last us very long,>  Ike signed rapidly then double checked his pocket for the coins Mother Augustine had pressed into his palm as she bid the boys “good-bye” at Sorrows’ door.

“Sure he will,” Buck retorted, wincing a bit as he tried to work the metal hoop of his earring through the partially closed hole in his earlobe.  “He promised us didn’t he?  Don’t white men keep their promises?” he asked with sixteen year old innocence.

<You ain’t never gonna get that earring back in there.  The hole’s been closed up too long.>  Watching Buck’s grimace Ike questioned, < Don’t it hurt?>

“No, it doesn’t hurt!” Buck insisted, working the hoop through his tender flesh .  “Ow!” he yelped, causing Ike to snort in amusement at his friend’s over abundance of stubborn pride.

“There!” Buck announced victoriously as the hoop finally slid through.  With the sheer jubilation of new freedom he took off running down the dusty road leading away from the school.  “Who’s the slow one now, Ike?” he called back over his shoulder to his friend.   “C’mon!  Let’s go!”
 
 

Buck’s gaze clung to the image in his memory until the two figures were nothing more than small specks in the distance.  They were so young.  So innocent.  Thinking they had all the time in the world.  He felt something foreign in his eye, but didn’t brush away the tear that slid down his cheek as the boys disappeared from view. 

It did hurt to remember . . . but he didn’t want to forget.