A harsh, choking cry broke from his throat as he sat up in bed. His arms, ragged, aching, frost seared, flung out in a wide gesture. His face, bearded and scarred black, lifted. His eyes found the stars that seemed close overhead in a warm sky. Terrible sobs shook him. Tears streamed down from his aching eyes.
“God, oh, God!”
Over and over again.
“God!”
He could find no other word to fit into the prayer that sobbed and rattled and laughed in his throat.
The weary horses felt the blessing of that chinook wind. The cattle milled and bawled a restless chant. The melting snow in the tree branches dripped with increasing cadence. A golden moon rode across the sky toward the jagged skyline. The hard winter was over. The chinook had come. Its passage through the pines sang the requiem of cattle and horses and men that slept beneath the crusted drifts.
And when the coulees became rivers and the ridges lay bare, Buck Bell trailed his straggling herd up the ridge and on to the open prairie.
“Git along, little dogies, git along!”
He sang in a cracked voice as his horse patiently followed the drags.