by Tony Roberts
Squat shook his head. “I ain’t gonna do it – you’d kill me.”
Casey eyed the other man who sat without speaking. “You two don’t deserve any pity.”
One of the women came in from upstairs. “You freeing us, mister?”
Casey glanced at her. “Yeah. You’re free to leave, all of you.”
“Oh thank God; you’re the answer to our prayers. These no good bastards beat us, forced themselves on us all. Raped us till we agreed to do their bidding. We got some food, water and nothing else. Had to service their ‘clients’ every night. They all did it.”
The two men glared at her, then more fearfully at Casey whose lips had tightened. “Go get the other girls and gather by the door. I’ve got something to finish here I don’t want you to see.”
The woman nodded and left, shutting the door. Casey looked at the two men. “I don’t think of you as humans. You do things that are inhuman. You are scum, filth. Dregs of society. I’d like to take my time in killing you, but time is something I don’t have.” He eyed both men, making a decision. “I’ve one bullet left in this. One of you is going to die right now. The other can take your chances and try to overpower me. Doubt you’ll do it. So long.”
One shot rang out. The women gathering in the room by the door flinched, then they heard the sound of someone being hit repeatedly. Grunts and cries of pain came to them, then there was silence.
Casey emerged, shutting the door behind him. His face was like stone. He’d killed thousands upon thousands in his time and many still gave him nightmares. Some though, he’d enjoyed killing because they deserved it. The world was a better place without those kind, and the ones he’d killed here he wouldn’t worry about, and nobody would miss them.
He walked up to the eight women, some he saw edge away from him. “It’s alright, girls. Your nightmare is over now. You’re free to go. You got homes to go to? Folks you know?”
Some nodded, some shook their heads. One, a slim, red-haired girl, stepped forward, eyes widening. “Casey? Is that really you”
“Yes it is, Lisa. Been looking for you for a while,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t come back to you but I was wounded. Took some time to get back up on my feet.” Which was true. “Your folks were asking if you’d want to go back to them?”
She came up to him and put her hands on his chest. “No, never. This life was hell but I’d rather go through that than go back to the life of living death there. You going anywhere special now?”
“I was thinking about going into Dakota Territory after finding you. Depended on where I found you, of course.” He looked at her closely. “Let’s get out of here and talk somewhere else.”
“Sure. Stay close. Want to feel safe, if you know what I mean.”
He nodded. She must have been subjected to some terrible ordeals at the hands of the evil people here. The other girls looked scared, relieved or close to weeping. None of them had homes in Omaha but three had homes in the area. They went to the hotel and Casey got them all huddled in a group around a table by one wall and asked the barman for help. He got hold of someone there who knew the sheriff and before long a deputy was there taking details.
He looked at Casey for a long moment. “Some would say I had to arrest you for shooting these people, but hell, rescuing these poor ladies is a service most would approve of.” He scratched his head, taking notes from the tearful girls. “We can contact the relative of some of these girls, and the churches could take those without homes and care for them awhile. If I could give you some advice?”
Casey shrugged.
“It’s this. By law I ought to arrest you, but I just cannot bring myself to do that. Get out of Omaha, get across the river into Iowa. I can’t arrest you there. By dawn if you’re gone I can just say some guy came along, shot the bad boys running an illegal brothel, set the girls free, then rode off into the night.”
“That’s kind of you, Deputy,” Casey nodded. “I think I’ll do that.”
Lisa clutched his hand. “I want to come with you, Casey. This place isn’t somewhere I want to stay.”
Casey nodded. “Let’s go. Got a bit of money; I’ll buy us a trip upriver by boat. Who knows where it’ll take us?”
Lisa agreed, and the two left soon after, Lisa making a tearful farewell to the other girls.
They went to the river, each with an arm round one the other, Casey’s mind whirling about what to do with Lisa, and how to hunt down and deal with Stoneleigh.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A boat took them upriver from Omaha. They paid for passage to Bismarck, and the journey took a couple of months. The steam paddle boat they were on provided them with a settled, relaxed time on their journey. The weather was mostly benign, the summer sun beating down on them, and Lisa relaxed in a chair on deck most of the time.
Casey, too, found it a contrasting time to that he’d recently experienced. He really had no idea what to do with Lisa, or what she really wanted with him. She was overwhelmingly grateful to him for rescuing her, and they spent a lot of time talking, both on deck, and in bed. She was reluctant to get too close to him in bed at first, her recent ordeals being too vivid and real for her, but there were nightmares and eventually she wanted him to hold her, and she became more confident once more.
He was very gentle with her. He had no wish to give her any additional problems and held her when she wanted him and backed off when she began to push him away. He initially let her have the bed while he slept in a chair. After a few days she let him come to the bed with her and slowly she let him into her world. She told him of the beatings, the rapes, the relentless ordeals that had broken her and the other girls so that they would do the men’s biddings and so they slept with those who came to the house, without pay. They were mere sex slaves.
She had come to Omaha on the recommendation of someone who had been passing through Fort Laramie who clearly had been working for that man Blake. They had exhausted the pool of available homeless girls in the city so had sent men out far and wide to find others. Lisa’s life in the bar in Fort Laramie had not been what she had hoped for and willingly wanted to believe this man from Omaha so she had fallen into the trap.
Casey listened patiently; it was a distressingly familiar tale, one he had heard or seen so many times before. Killing those animals had been a pleasure, even in cold blood. Lisa cried herself out a couple of nights and he merely held her close, stroking her hair saying nothing. It would either run its course or always be there dominating her life.
The third night she softly called him to her. “Casey, I want to feel loved,” she said. “I want to feel worth something, not as an object for men’s desires. I know I’ve been selfish and thoughtless but I so want someone to love me for who I am and not what I am. I’m a person not an object!”
“I know Lisa,” he said. “I don’t use women like those scum did. You’ll always be a woman to me, whether you are like you were when we first met or as you are now. I’m not the perfect man to settle down with, I can tell you, so don’t go thinking I’m some kind of angel or something. I’m what I am with my faults and all. I fight, I get drunk, I swear, I have had so many women in my lifetime I’ve lost count. I’m a wanderer; one of those guys who just can’t settle down.”
“I don’t get it,” she said softly. “You’re the gentlest, most thoughtful man I’ve met, yet you say you’re not the kind to settle down with a woman? You sound the perfect man for me!”
Casey laughed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you all I’ve done in my lifetime. Sure I was happy to have sex with you; who wouldn’t? You’re a great looking girl and so free with your living. You’re too free thinking to be confined by those people; be yourself. I’m happy to be with you for the immediate future but I’ll be joining the army up in Dakota territory when we get there. You want the life of an army woman? I don’t know – it’s your choice though. I’m not going to force you to go doing something you don’t want.”
“I want to stay w
ith you. I’ve had nothing but being taken advantage of since I left home. You’ve been the best thing that happened to me and when that man came by and told me you’d been killed I was so distraught!”
“Man? Not someone called Stoneleigh, was it?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide. “How did you know?”
“That was the sonofabitch who shot me. He clearly thought I’d been killed. He messed up, and I want his blood. I’m on his trail and I heard he’s joined the army up in Bismarck.”
Lisa looked thoughtful. “Then that’s why you’re going there. When you’ve got him and dealt with him, what next?”
“Oh I dunno. I suppose I’ll stay in the army for a while and see what kind of life I have. You’re welcome to stay with me, Lisa, but I can’t say how long it’ll be before I get itchy feet again.”
Lisa wrapped her arms around Casey’s neck and put her mouth next to his ear. “I’m going to stay with you, you damned pessimist. You’re the only guy who’s treated me like a human being. You don’t look the type to do that, with your build and scars. You look like you can rip up houses for fun, yet you’re the most damned gentle man I’ve known.”
Casey grinned. “Go careful, next you’ll accuse me of being nice to children.”
She laughed. “Guess you could, too.” She looked into his eyes. “Now – I’ve put this off for a while ‘cuz of what’s happened to me in Omaha, but… make love to me. Gently. Make me feel a woman again, Casey.”
___
Bismarck was built on the east bank of the Missouri and they got off on the jetty, a platform of logs tied together projecting out onto the river and fixed in place by a set of piles. The place looked like a frontier town. Dust blew in from the plains, but the town looked as if plenty was being built. A hotel was facing them, and a store stood next to it. Beyond it a school could be seen. “Looks like the place is going up in the world.”
Lisa nodded. “Hey, maybe I can get a job here.”
“Let’s go see. Good place as any for gossip,” he nodded to the barber shop he’d just seen. “I need a shave.”
“You need money,” she corrected him. “Can’t get a shave without paying.”
“Yeah, fair point. We need food, too. Ah shit, let’s find somewhere that’ll take us on.” He walked up to the barber’s and leaned in. A man sat being shaved while a second was reading the Bismarck Tribune paper. “Hey, know of any place looking to employ someone? I’ve just hit town.”
The barber looked up. “Try across the road; courthouse is being built and they want workmen to help finish it. You look the type they’re looking for.”
Casey waved a thanks. “I can then afford a shave,” he grinned. He left, followed by a burst of laughter. He pointed to the building site. Lisa shrugged. “Well, you can get by lifting a length of wood but not me. Guess I’ll see what’s next door,” she pointed to an office. “Might need someone to do some office work.”
They both struck lucky, and by the end of the day they had booked a room at the nearby hotel. Casey lay on the bed, stretched out, looking happy with himself. Lisa lay on him, stroking his chest. “So what did you find out, then?”
“Oh,” Casey looked at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. “Place was named after the German chancellor Otto Bismarck.” He looked at Lisa’s baffled look. “Guy responsible for uniting Germany under Prussian rule these past few years. Oh never mind, won’t affect us here. Looks like there’s going to be a war hereabouts.”
“Oh? Why?”
“They found gold in the Black Hills. That’s fucked up the treaty the government made with the natives, promising them the Black Hills. Now prospectors have moved in and built a couple of towns there. Its Sioux territory but that’s tough, so the prospectors say. The government has offered to buy the region from the Sioux but they’re not interested. So what I’ve heard now is that Grant in Washington has decided to drive the natives into reservations.”
“And that means war?”
“Uh-huh. Ironic isn’t it? The army here, the one I want to join to find this bastard Stoneleigh, is the Seventh Cavalry. It was them who went into the hills to confirm the rumors of gold. Led by a civil war campaigner by the name of Custer.”
“I’ve heard of General Custer!”
“He’s no general; he’s a lieutenant colonel. Not so grand. But he’s in charge. They’re camped outside town in Fort Abraham Lincoln. It’s on the other bank about four miles downstream. We passed it earlier today just before arriving here.”
“Oh yeah, I remember. So you going to join tomorrow?”
“Naw. Going to get enough money under my belt first, then as winter comes look to join then. They won’t campaign until the spring. You got a job here now, so it’d be stupid to quit right now. We could get a house here. I’ve impressed the boss already and he’s looking to build some houses. Could help build our house to the south and then we’d be able to live there and I’d be able to join the army. I’d only be four miles away and come here when off duty.”
Lisa nodded. “I don’t know if I could face being in a fort; besides, they don’t have too many women there, do they?”
“They have married men’s barracks, but space is a premium so they’d probably approve of our arrangement.”
She smiled. “I’ll be happy with that Casey. As long as we can keep a roof over our heads and be safe here I don’t care.”
They got settled in with their new jobs and time passed Casey did some asking around and went to the army recruitment center one Sunday and signed up. He’d decided that the building job wasn’t for him; it was far too boring and once their house had been built and he’d moved in with Lisa, there was no further need to work for the timber merchant. It did seem a little mercenary to be that blatant but the army was asking for recruits as war was almost certain now. The Sioux had rallied around a new leader, a medicine man called Sitting Bull who called for the braves to resist the white man’s treacherous betrayal of the treaty.
Many defied the agency calls to remain on reservations and looked to Sitting Bull’s cause. Casey couldn’t see how they could possibly win. They would almost certainly in the long run be defeated, but it wouldn’t be without a fight. He had sympathy for them but his grievance wasn’t with them; it was against Stoneleigh. He had a fair idea of what the man looked like from memory and from what Lisa could recall. Stoneleigh was a well-built man of about twenty-six or thereabouts with a lean face and brown eyes. There wasn’t a great deal else noticeable about him so Casey would have to do a bit of searching. Stoneleigh would probably recognize him much easier – it was hard to conceal a scar and his general build for long.
The recruitment sergeant was impressed with Casey’s war record but looked at him oddly. “You don’t seem old enough to have fought in Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Long.”
“I was old enough. Saw Grant at Appomattox too.”
“Ever saw Custer?”
“Nope but I heard of him of course.”
“Well you took the Oath so you’re fine to join the Seventh. Those scars – you got an awful lot. Mind telling me were you got those?”
“Tough battles, Sarge. Gettysburg for one – was in Pickett’s Charge. Also got caught by a grizzly a few years back in the Rockies. Was lucky to get away with my life.”
The recruitment sergeant nodded in agreement. “Go to the quartermaster’s at the end of the corridor. You’ll be fitted out there. Report tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”
So he was once more part of the US army.
The next few days he got to know the routine. It was something he took to like a duck to water; army life suited him. Lisa saw him every three days or so and every other weekend. She made his time with her memorable, having finally gotten over her ordeal and was now more relaxed around her man. She still had nightmares and he often held her and wiped away her tears when that happened. She did miss him when he was at the fort but she accepted that this was what he was. Best to have a man lik
e Casey than be a victim of someone who cared little for her and saw her merely as a means to get rich at her expense.
The hunt for Stoneleigh went on. There was no obvious sign he was there and he soon got into a small group of friends. The cavalry was arranged in three battalions, mostly made up of three or four companies. A company had two officers and around fifty troopers. There was the HQ staff and pack train detachments too.
Custer was the commanding officer and had under him two company commanders, Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen. Custer was known to be a flamboyant and reckless man which suited the mobile warfare of the cavalryman. Casey couldn’t see him in any other role. He was also a strict disciplinarian and Casey was told in no uncertain terms to obey orders or else. He saw the result of one man’s indiscipline and winced at the sight of the marks down his back as he was untied from the punishment poles.
The weaponry he was issued with was nothing new to him. The main weapon was a breech-loading Springfield carbine, shooting .45 caliber bullets. He also had a .45 Colt revolver and when on duty out in the wilds he would be given 100 rounds for the carbine and 24 for the pistol. The rounds would be carried in a cartridge case worn on his belt and in saddlebags with his horse.
Casey was in F Company. His commanding officer was a Captain George Yates, and the other officer in the company was 2nd Lieutenant William Reily. The man Casey and his fellow troopers really looked to, though, was Sergeant Michael Kenny. Kenny would be the one they obeyed.
The small group Casey got friendly with were all relatively new recruits. There was the Irishman Sam McFaddean, a red-haired man of about twenty-four years of age. He was tall, pale complexioned and spoke in a deep, slow voice. He never seemed to be without a woman either in her company or having one pursuing him. Then there was Joe Travers from North Carolina, a beefy guy with dark hair and a dry sense of humor. He was slightly older and Casey had a sneaky feeling Travers had seen some action in the civil war.
The last of their group of four was Vince Musson, an immigrant from France. Musson wasn’t his original name, but he’d Anglicized it upon arriving in New York a few years back. He spoke with a distinct French accent but refused to speak in any other language than English. Again, Casey had a suspicion that Musson had been in a war, and it was almost certain that this would have been the recent Franco-Prussian war that had ended in ignominious defeat for the French.