by Fred Stenson
After that, Jimmy led the ridgling, and as they walked, he spoke to the horse in Crow.
Frank asked Jimmy how he had found him. Had he been watching him all night?
Jimmy was silent.
“That’s fine, Jimmy. You go ahead and hate me. I don’t care at all. But so you know? About tonight? You didn’t get me arrested and out of your hair. You almost got me killed. It wasn’t old Sam Steele waiting, it was Casey Callaghan. Casey would arrest me, if he saw me. For desertion, and get me shot. So maybe you and Lionel could just go fuck yourselves and leave me alone. If I want to die, I’ll go at it my way.”
Jimmy went in the direction of Kleff’s Farm. He was no more than a quarter of the way there when he started up the flank of a short kopje. He led the ridgling carefully through the stones, for the pinto could no longer see where to place his feet. It took a long time to get the horse up that hill, but when they did, there was a flat space and water from recent storms shining in rock hollows. Jimmy talked the ridgling into sucking water from a pool. Then he eased him down, first to his knees and then over on his side. That last part hurt and the ridgling made a human moan. Then he let his neck go flat and nudged up and down with his nose.
“Maybe he’ll live,” Frank said.
“I’d shoot him right now except for the noise.”
“I’m sorry I got the ridgling shot.”
But Jimmy wasn’t listening. He lay down along the warmth of the ridgling’s back, gathered his jacket tightly around himself, bunched his hat for a pillow, and slept.
The sun’s first flash above the horizon drilled Frank awake. His head was painful. His mouth, dry. He got his feet under him and walked to a rock that still had water cupped. He saw he was alone.
Jim Whitford was gone. The ridgling was dead.
He went to the horse and knelt beside it. He saw the half-stallion’s hip was a red hole from which flesh had been carved.
Frank stood and surveyed the plain in all directions. The light was creeping over it, but it was still full of places the flat morning sunlight could not find.
“Whitford! You son of a bitch!”
He imagined the old scout thinking: a dead horse is just dead. If you need it, eat it. But Frank shouted no more. If Jimmy was right there, he would not see him unless Jimmy meant him to.
Frank laid his hand on the ridgling’s hip, beside the red crater. The hair was smooth; the flesh firm and tight. He said aloud, “I won’t eat you. I won’t eat a horse I’ve ridden.”
For the next hour, the first of the day, Frank sat on a big ironstone. He watched the eye of the sun rise, how it painted the landscape prettily at first, then blasted it with fire. Finally, all the space was nothing but glare. Too brilliant to see.
The night cool of the rock surrendered, and once the sun bored into the cavity on the ridgling’s hip, Frank imagined things changing and fusing there. It would not be long until the wafts of putrefaction climbed the breeze and the message travelled to the eaters of the dead. The iron-jawed and the red-hooked. Somewhere, big cats draped over tree limbs or popping their tails in a patch of shade would consider how hungry they were, how willing to compromise.
To avoid them and their work, Frank walked off the kopje, headed north.
The meat cut from the ridgling was one message, something about survival and how Frank was not tough enough. The other was about options and how Jimmy had taken most of them away.
Quite possibly, as Frank walked north to Middelburg, he was still under the eyes of the eerie old scout. The only consolation was that if Frank was doing what Jimmy wanted, and was saved, it would not be Jimmy who saved him. It would be Jeff.
Part Eight
HUSTLING THE BOERS
Aldershot, January 22, 1901
Queen Victoria was dead. She had died at Osborne at 6:30 P.M., and the news was all over London within the hour. Word was somewhat slower getting to Aldershot but, when General Butler did hear, it touched off in him an abrupt and grinding drama: a grief so jagged he was amazed.
Butler had told countless Blacks, Arabs, and Indians (including Red Crow) that the Queen was their Mother. Apparently, one of those he had convinced was himself. Queen Victoria, mother of her nation’s army, of her generals, was gone. Butler was orphaned and wracked.
The other effect was a surge of sibling hatred. A confidante (with access to the royal household) had come to Butler’s home in the evening and told him that one of the Queen’s last questions was about “dear Kitchener.” How was the dear man managing in South Africa?
But nothing for or about Butler, the older son, once dear.
The Queen’s death made Butler think of a controversy that had arisen in the British newspapers: people wondering when the twentieth century actually began. The country had celebrated the event on New Year’s, 1900, but mathematicians had since pointed out that 1900 was the last year of the nineteenth century, not the first year of the twentieth. They should have celebrated in 1901.
At the time, Butler had dismissed the debate as trivial, but, of late, he had cast his vote with the mathematicians. Even if time were a mere invention to shine importance on human mortality, it still struck him that many things were closing up shop in the first month of the new century, January 1901.
For a whole generation, including Butler and his wife, Victoria’s death made a sound like a mighty oaken door slamming. What opened wasn’t another door but a slowly creeping dawn that lit a landscape suddenly unfamiliar. Barren, windblown rock—the new century looked to Butler like the Great Karoo Desert: a place not for planting but for burial.
The Queen was the symbol under which they had committed their lives, and she was gone. Did it not follow that Butler, Kitchener, Roberts, and the rest were now officially on their way to their own demise? However long it took, however far into the new century they lasted, the process of death was under way. Butler’s only hope was that Kitchener was feeling it too. His clomping feet not so securely planted; his hair lifting from the same force that would one day snap him from the planet.
In this way of thinking, Butler could easily see how South African war had also split across the fulcrum of New Year’s, 1901. The fight until then had been about winning. But they had not won, and so the Victorian part of the war had ended in failure and in the monarch’s death.
The old century and the old Victorian style had died ineffectually in one another’s arms. Butler feared that the new century would lack all of the old ornaments and comforts. Its history would likely be written in some undisciplined fashion, and certainly not by Imperial scribes like himself, who had always improved the story as it went along. Now, a thousand voices would clamour, each insisting on his version.
What this was, Butler saw, was democracy: what the new century would be all about. For a very long time, Britain had gone about bragging of democracy; insisting that the rest of the world should have it. But had Britain been a democracy herself? It could be argued that Britain had ceased to be a monarchy only with Victoria’s passing. Only then and not before.
If Butler could have laughed tonight, he might have at this idea that they had gone to war in South Africa to force the rebel republics to accept British democracy—when Britain had not been a proper democracy itself. After more than a year of bloody and expensive fighting, the Boers had learned nothing, but Britain had finally knuckled under.
After Elizabeth went to bed, Butler locked himself in the library, without the bother of a candle. He thought about the new century, and about democracy and war.
It seemed likely that it would now be impossible to fight any war; certainly impossible to win one. If the people were the ones to decide, why would they ever choose war? Why commit the wealth of their nation and the lives of their sons to the flames of war? By definition, war required despotism: either a monarch or something with the power of one to put shoulder to the stone of peace and budge it. To Butler, it seemed unlikely to happen. So his kind by logical extension, must soon be extinguished.
<
br /> Middelburg
The bush Frank lay under received the rain and concentrated it into fat droplets that dabbed his hat like a type of clock. He could not tell the time but he knew it was passing. In the tree above was a black bird that Isaiah called a Ha-Dee-Da, and from time to time it would lean down and laugh at him.
There was also a voice in his head goading him to walk down the slope and up to Gatling Howard’s tent. Go now, it said, while Casey’s not here to accuse you. Each time the voice spoke, Frank told it to shut up.
While it was true that The General and The Blue were not on the picket line, meaning their owners were away on a scout, Frank did not regard it as necessarily advantageous. What if Casey had already described Frank to Gatling Howard as a deserter? Even if he had never said a word to Howard, who was to say he hadn’t poisoned the minds of other Mounted Rifles who were now Canadian Scouts? For that matter, what if Hilliam, Bapty, or Charlie Ross had read the entrails and concluded he was a deserter all on their own? One way or another, if Frank went to Howard now, he could still be accused, and without Jeff Davis to help him.
Having decided to wait was a little different than being content to, and Frank’s discontent came from more than rain and hunger. The worst was the knowledge that, if he’d stayed sober last night, the ridgling would be alive and Frank might—at this moment!—be sitting in the concentration camp looking into Alma’s face.
Now that the camp had been roused to chase a man calling after Alma Kleff, he could not go there. Not any time soon.
Watching Howard’s camp in the rain told Frank a few things about the outfit he was hoping to join. For starters, they had many horses for the number of men. Except for the odd one messing with his horses or sitting under his oil sheet fixing tack, they were also an idle bunch. It looked like a roundup camp when the weather goes sour. If it had been a British army camp, some crazy officer would have invented a scheme to keep everyone busy: maybe spit-and-polishing boots that would be filthy again after ten steps of muddy marching.
After Frank had watched for several hours, a mail cart arrived. A dozen men got letters and parcels. Frank had not thought about mail for some time, but watching the men reading under their sheets and awnings made him remember when the YMCA man at De Aar had come around with sheets and pencils, and Frank had thought of writing the first letter of his life. It wasn’t that he wanted to write a letter now, but that he wished he had written one then. If he had, Jim and Madeleine would have known he was alive. They could have gone about their lives thinking that.
Then it occurred to Frank that his parents had probably made the trip to Ft. Macleod when they heard which train the soldiers were on. They would have been looking among the dress uniforms for their son. They would have heard that he was missing and presumed dead.
In his pocket, probably sopping, were the sheets of paper he’d bought to be a reporter at the party. He vowed that if this scheme to get into the Scouts succeeded, he would write the damn letter and mail it soon. It would mean admitting to his mother that he was serving under Gatling Howard, the man who had shot her relatives with a machine gun, but, angry as that would make her, she would still have some relief.
Within the mist and rain, the light began to fade. The cooking fires bloomed in the murk, and Frank’s impatience became shrill. He told it to shut up maybe twenty times as the smell of mutton came to him.
Finally, the eating and cleaning up were over, and the camp settled down for the night. That was when familiar shadows crossed the light. Jeff and Casey stepped down from their mounts and gave the reins to the horse campies. Bowlegged from a long ride, they walked to the cook’s fire, and the cook gave them coffee and started warming their supper. Cook also brought an oiled sheet to put over their heads, though they were soaked to the skin.
Frank watched them drink coffee and smoke; watched them eat. Finally, as he had hoped, Gat Howard’s tent flap opened and, carrying a lantern, Howard came crookedly on his stick legs to sit beside them. Paying no more attention to the rain than a duck, he leaned in and listened to what his scouts had to say.
That was Frank’s sign. He climbed out of the bush and popped his sodden hat against his pantleg. He walked in toward them, fast and businesslike, and pulled a stump between Howard and the two scouts. Said, “Good evening.”
“Now who in the blazing Christ is this polecat? And what gives you the goddamn impression you can come sit your ass in this conversation when you ain’t even a soldier?!”
Gat looked bristling mad, and divided in his mind over whether to hit Frank directly or to call a sergeant to do so. In that interval, Jeff started laughing and clapping Frank on the back. He shook Frank’s hand in a big loopy way.
“Why, I’ll be goddamned if this isn’t Private Frank Adams, Gat. Canadian Mounted Rifle. He’s been missing for months. How the hell are you, Frank?”
Frank said he was good. He tried not to look at Casey, in case that made him falter.
Jeff told how Aas Vogel Kranz had been attacked when no one expected it: how a shell had landed beside the Cossack post Frank was in. After the battle, the post had a dead Australian in it, but Frank was gone.
“So, what happened there, Frank? Did that first wave of Boers capture you?”
“I don’t really know. I don’t remember anything until I was wandering the prairie with that old ridgling horse I had.”
Frank dug his hair apart and showed his scars to the lantern light.
“One of them rocks that blew in hit me, I guess. For a long time, if I tried to remember something, I’d get a terrible pain. I didn’t even know my name.”
Jeff helped him through the story. Gat was listening. Frank finally chanced a look at Casey, who was frowning but silent.
Frank explained how he came to a farm he was sure he’d seen before. Maybe he’d reconnoitered it once. There were civilians there, staying with a Boer family, and it turned out those people knew him. They were from Canada, his own part, and they even knew he was a Mounted Rifle. So they kept him and nursed him back to health.
Howard was frowning after this part. “Now why in hell would people from where you come from, civilians, be in South Africa?”
Frank was on secure ground. He gave forth about Brooke and how an English newspaper had backed him to come and write about the war.
Then Frank explained how they took him with when they left the farm; how they went to the Orange River Colony, out Caledon River way. That was when Casey could not stand it any longer.
“Why would they do that? Why wouldn’t they just send you to the nearest army garrison? Or to Pretoria?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t think I was right in the head. If they’d seen a British patrol, they’d’ve handed me off.”
“Why didn’t they, then?” Casey said. He was on it now. Like a terrier.
“Their scout was a Canadian Halfbreed. He didn’t know the country. The route he took turned out to be in Boer territory. That’s how we got captured by General De Wet.”
“Oh, for fuck sake!” Casey turned scarlet and looked away. Gat Howard let out a whoop.
“This here story’s got more twists than the legend of Sheherazad,” he said. “You really want me to believe you stepped into Boer country and General De Wet himself caught you and made you a prisoner?”
Frank said De Wet didn’t stay long because he was being chased by the British. He left them with a commandant who took them into the Basuto mountains. That was where they killed Brooke’s horse wrangler, a Nez Perce named Young Sam.
Jeff looked up sharply. He leaned his long body forward. “I knew Young Sam. He was just a kid. Did they say why they did that?”
“Brooke told them Young Sam was a North American Indian, not a black. But they shot him anyway.”
Davis nodded and looked at Casey. Frank could tell there was an argument between them, something affected by this news.
Frank was starting into how he became a prisoner of the Basutos when Gat Howard put hi
s hands up.
“Hold on, son. I haven’t a clue if any damn word of this is true. It’s a helluva story and it’s long. We all got to get some sleep. You know this man, Jeff? You vouch for him?”
Jeff said he’d known him since before the war and, yes, he’d vouch for him. Gatling asked the same of Casey but Casey shook his head. He did not explain, simply refused to vouch.
“Hung jury,” said Gatling. “Where I come from that means you walk free. But I guess you could’ve done that without our say-so. What is it you came here wanting?”
“I want to be a Canadian Scout.”
“Whoa! Tall order. What is it you’re good at?”
Frank could think of no answer. Then he thought of Ovide and said, “I’m good with horses.” He expected Casey to sneer and tell how Frank had abused The General, but he kept quiet.
Gatling looked at Jeff. “This here’s Solomon’s solution. If you’re vouching for this man, are you willing to make him your horse-holder?” Then, as clarification to Frank, “We each got three horses in this outfit.”
Jeff said the arrangement suited him.
“That’s it, then,” said Howard, slapping his knees. He got to his feet with his lantern.
“When Jeff Davis needs you as a horse-holder, off you go. When not, you’re a horse orderly in camp. All the rest of the orderlies are blacks. You can be their foreman. I don’t make anyone a Canadian Scout if I don’t know about him. Based on Casey’s having doubts, and your story being such a tall tale, you’re on probation. Perform well and, who knows, you might get to be a Scout after all.”
Howard made an elaborate sideways bow.
“On the other hand, you can walk right back out of here. I won’t stop you or say a thing. Find your way back to Canada or, for all I care, grab yourself a frau and go farming.”