The Last River

by Leon Loy

  After checking out of the hotel, Caleb collected the chestnut at the livery, and rode through town to the Tonkawa village. He sat on the horse under a shady cottonwood, and watched as Indian children chased dogs and women busied themselves with various chores.

  A few men came and went among the lodges. One of them soon emerged from a lodge and stood talking to one of the women. He was a middle-aged man with hair beginning to gray, braided behind his neck. On his head, he wore a U.S. Army floppy hat. When he saw Caleb under the tree, he started toward him. It was Job.

  “I see you are well,” Job said, as he approached.

  Caleb dismounted, and said, “I had a good healer.”

  Job smiled, and put his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “You had a good angel,” he said, referring to Sparrow. “How is it?”

  “Nearly as strong as the other arm,” Caleb said, rotating his shoulder a few times, and lifting his arm as far as he could above his head.

  “She feeds you well,” the scout said.

  Caleb laughed. He pulled a wad of bills from his vest, and handed them to Job. “This is the hundred dollars for the horse Miller left us. Will you see that he gets it?”

  “He is on a scout with the soldiers,” Job said. “I will give this to him when he returns.”

  “What about you? No longer scouting for the Army?”

  “Not much. Today I care for my wife’s sister. A bad dog bit her on the leg. Made her very sick.”

  Job searched Caleb’s face, then added, “You are here for something else?”

  “No, I’m here to give you this money, and to thank you again for what you did for me and Sparrow. I owe you my life.”

  “You did not come to this place just to give money for horse,” Job said, perceptively.

  It was clear that Caleb wasn’t fooling the Tonk scout. “I will tell you why I came here, Job, but you must promise not to tell anyone else, not even Jefferson Miller.”

  Job nodded in agreement, and Caleb continued, “Sparrow never told you all that happened to her here in the Flat, before you met her out on the Llano Estacado. A man had her taken from the Comanche. He paid money for her, and forced her to become a whore in one of his cribs down by the river.”

  “This she told me, when you were sick,” Job said.

  “Did she tell you who this man was?”

  “No, she did not tell that.”

  “It was a big Irishman, named O’Riley.”

  “I know of this man,” Job said.

  “She spent months in those cribs,” Caleb continued, “enduring the worst kind of hell. Last night O’Riley had a visitor—me. I told him who I was, and why he was about to die. Then I burned down all those shacks, and his house—with him in it.”

  Job’s eyes widened as he listened to Caleb’s words.

  “No one needs to know it was me who burned O’Riley’s place,” Caleb added.

  “I will keep your secret here.” Job said, tapping his chest. “I will tell no one.”

  Then a cloud came over the scout’s face. “Where is Sparrow?”

  “She is in Dodge City, where we live,” Caleb said. “We are married now.” But noticing the grave look on Job’s face, he asked, “Why? What is it?”

  “My mind is troubled for you. Voices of my ancestors are speaking loud in my head.”

  “Voices?”

  Job nodded. “You do not believe in such things?”

  “Who am I to say?” Caleb said. He had never put much confidence in superstition, Indian or white. But, he did believe there were powers at work which defied explanation. He reckoned his meeting Sparrow to have been the result of such a power. He had come to believe it was best explained as the work of God. Maybe God was speaking to Job, too.

  “What do the voices say?” he asked.

  “They say you should return to your woman, now.”

  Caleb felt an icy stab in the pit of his stomach. “What do you mean?”

  Job stared into Caleb’s eyes. “Something has happened. Sparrow is in danger. This is what the voices tell me.”

  “What has happened? What danger?”

  “This is all I can tell you, for this is all the voices tell me.”

  A dark, dull ache swelled deep inside Caleb. It was like a sinking weight which had no place to anchor. He remembered something Sparrow had said to him before he left Dodge City. It was as if she was speaking it to him now, so clear was the memory of it. She had said that if he left her alone in Dodge City, some cowboy might come and take her away. She had said it in jest. But now it did not seem funny at all.

  Job reached with both hands and grasped Caleb’s arms. “They speak to you?” he asked.

  Caleb steadied himself. “No, not your ancestors, but Sparrow. Something she said to me.”

  “You should return to her, now,” the scout said firmly.

  “Yes. I should never have left her,” Caleb said. “Thank you, friend, for your warning.”

  “I hope the ancestors are wrong, for Sparrow’s sake,” the scout said, “Before you go, take this.”

  He removed a gut string hung around his neck, and put it over Caleb’s head. On it was strung a hawk’s claw with four sharp talons, blackened from many rubbings.

  “The hawk has strong medicine. Do not remove this from your neck until Sparrow is with you again,” he said.

  “I shouldn’t take this,” Caleb objected. “It must have belonged to someone in your family.”

  Job grinned, and said, “I bought it from an old trader, who gave a Kiowa chief two blankets for it last winter. Now, I give it to you.”

  “Thank you. I will wear it,” Caleb said.

  He stepped to the chestnut, and pulled into the saddle. “Do something for me, Job. When Charles Rath arrives from Sweetwater, will you seek him out, and tell him where I have gone? He’s my employer, and a friend.”

  As Caleb guided the horse from under the cottonwoods, Job said, “It will be done. Ride swiftly, my friend.”

  Caleb urged the chestnut to a gallop down the path to the river crossing. His jaw was set, his posture in the saddle was straight and rigid, but his mind raced ahead. He was calculating the distance he had to travel to reach Dodge City, and how many days it would take to get there.

  The horse descended the bank and splashed noisily into the river, the sluggish water reaching over its knees. Fording the river near him were several travelers. One man in a buckboard greeted him with a cheerful “Hello” as he passed by. Caleb wasn’t listening. All he could hear was the endless repetition of his wife’s haunting words.

  9

  Sparrow lay on the ground, hands tied behind her, feet bound at the ankles, and fought against the despair which was threatening to overwhelm her.

  Earlier, her captors had fed her bread and some kind of soup, and given her whiskey to drink. Her stomach ached so bad from lying over the saddle during the bruising ride, she could only eat a little of the food. At first, she refused the whiskey, but being offered no water, she reluctantly drank a couple of swallows, the liquid burning as it went down. They were all asleep now, the one named Buck only a few yards away.

  Lying on her side, she studied the stars, trying to remember what Caleb had shown her about them. She learned from the Comanche how to tell directions at night by the moon, but there was no moon out now. She stared for a long time, trying to locate the Dippers to find the North Star, hoping to gain some hint as to what direction her abductors had taken her.

  Caleb was far away, somewhere in Texas with the Rath supply expedition. How far from her, she could but guess. Only Dr. McCarty even knew she had been taken, and he had been beaten unconscious, maybe even killed.

  Failing to make sense of the constellations, she closed her eyes. It had been little more than two years since O’Riley’s men had taken her from the Comanche camp on the Prairie Dog To
wn Fork of the Red River, and brought her to his cabin in Fort Griffin. In her weariness, she could not prevent her thoughts from dwelling on the horrible winter spent in O’Riley’s cribs. Now, once again, she was a captive to vile men. Experience taught her that it was going to get worse, much worse, the longer she was with them. Her head ached, and her arms and shoulders hurt. Despite her resolve not to, she began to cry quietly, burying her face in the grass.

  The sun was not yet up when she was awakened by fingers running through her hair.

  “Wake up, pretty Ind’n,” Buck sang into her ear.

  She quickly tried to pull her head away. “Do not touch me,” she said.

  His grip closed, pulling her hair and causing her to cry out. “Is that better?” he whispered.

  “Please let go,” she said.

  He released her hair, but kept his face close to hers. “Don’t fight me, girl. It will go a lot easier for you when we get where we’re going.”

  “Where is that?” she asked.

  “It’s a far piece yet.”

  Sparrow knew she could not take another punishing ride bent over the saddle. “I cannot ride like before,” she said. “I hurt all over.”

  “You promise to behave, and I’ll let you sit in the saddle of that horse. You start kicking, and it’ll be like yesterday.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Is that a yes, you’ll behave? or a yes, you’ll kick?”

  “I will not kick you. I wish to ride in the saddle.”

  “That’s a good girl,” Buck said, pulling her to her feet. “I’m going to tie your hands in front so you can hold onto the saddle.” After he untied her hands, and retied them in front, he cut her feet loose.

  “I need to pee,” she said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Turn away.”

  He chuckled. “It ain’t my habit to turn my back to a Ind’n. Even a half-Ind’n woman. No, you just pee right there.”

  She turned away from him and squatted, moving her skirt aside with her bound wrists. There was enough light in the sky that she could see Harold and Joe getting the horses ready to travel.

  They had camped on an open prairie with not a tree in sight. If she made a run for it now, the men would easily catch her. She would have to wait for a better opportunity, even though she knew that every mile from Dodge City they traveled, her chances for rescue became less likely.

  “I cannot pee with you watching me,” she said.

  “Well, I can’t wait on you any longer. You’ll just have to do it in the saddle. You won’t be getting off that horse once we get started.”

  He yanked her to her feet and hurried her toward one of the horses. She twisted her arm away from him, and he cuffed her on the ear, forcing her to cringe.

  Harold laughed at them. “You need some help taming that squaw, Buck?” he said.

  “I’ll do more than tame her, brother,” Buck said. “I’ll have her waitin’ on me hand and foot like the red nigger she is.”

  He took her by the shoulders and shook her violently, bobbing her head around on her neck. “I’ll tie you down on that saddle again, you give me any more trouble,” he threatened. “Is that what you want?”

  She glared at him defiantly, but shook her head.

  “Good,” he said.

  As they got underway, Buck rode ahead of Sparrow, leading her horse with a rope. Harold rode in front, and Joe rode behind.

  The prairie stretched endlessly in every direction. The silver tips of sage grass took on a golden glow as rays from the sun touched them. Occasionally, they would cross a narrow arroyo, lined with scrubby cedar and oak. The sun was sometimes on their back, and at other times on their left side, so Sparrow knew they were heading in a southwestwardly direction. To where, she could not know.

  Twice the men stopped to dismount and relieve themselves. Buck made good on his promise, and would not let her down to do the same. She was forced to soil herself in the saddle.

  Late in the afternoon, they descended into a wide valley which ran east and west. A shallow, sandy river wound its way through the center. Harold led them into the valley, and rather than crossing to the other side, turned east, following the river downstream. Sparrow and Caleb had crossed many rivers on their journey from Texas to Kansas. The last one they crossed before reaching Dodge City had been called the Cimarron. She believed the river they were following now must be the same river.

  For another hour, they rode alongside the river bank. The day was warm and clear with no clouds. Her throat was parched, but when she asked for a drink, the men ignored her. She was afraid to push them too hard, so she rode on, suffering silently.

  In a bend in the river, the valley opened toward the north where a creek emptied into it. Cottonwoods grew heavily on both sides of the shallow steam. Harold led them through the trees, winding along a path into a narrow gulch, closed in with limestone bluffs rising thirty feet to the prairie above.

  Sparrow’s keen eyes took in every detail. The creek disappeared through a narrow crevice in a wall of limestone. Trees had been cut down near where the walls of the gulch came together. Several yards from the back wall of the gulch was a small log cabin, newly built. Wood chips were strewn over the ground near it.

  She was disheartened at how well hidden the little gulch was from the river. Unless someone was searching closely, the trail into the trees and the gulch would be easily missed.

  “End of the road,” Harold said, sliding out of his saddle.

  Buck dismounted, and reached up for Sparrow. She let him take her by the waist and pull her down.

  “May I have water now?” she asked.

  “There’s the creek, do what you need to do,” he said.

  She looked at her bound wrists. “Please untie me,” she said.

  “Alright. But you run, and I’ll wing you,” he said, placing his hand on the butt of his revolver. “There ain’t no doctor out here to mend a wound.”

  “Where would I run to?” she said.

  “Smart girl,” he said. He pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt and cut the cord. She rubbed her wrists and stretched her stiff back.

  “Wash off while you’re down there,” he added, “You smell like shit.”

  She furrowed her brows at him, wanting to retort, but restrained herself. Her back ached, and her abdomen still hurt from riding across the saddle the day before.

  “Do you have soap?” she asked.

  He laughed. “I didn’t think Ind’ns used soap.”

  “I use soap,” she retorted.

  “Well, this ain’t Dodge City,” he said.

  “We got some soap,” Harold said, starting for the cabin.

  Buck wrinkled his nose, and gave her a shove toward the creek. “Go on, get cleaned up. Remember, you run from me and I’ll shoot you.”

  She walked into the stream, which was hardly a foot deep, and looked back at the men. Harold had entered the cabin, and Joe was in the cottonwoods, making a rope corral for the horses. He kept looking her way.

  The stream was not deep enough to be very cold, but the water was running, and clear. Her reflection was dissected by dozens of rippling little waves. What would Sallie McCarty think if she could see her like this, she wondered? She must be an awful sight. And Caleb? Her heart skipped as she thought of her husband. Where are you, Caleb? she said to herself. Where are you? She knelt and splashed water over her face, and drank from her palms.

  “Take that dress off,” Buck said.

  She frowned. “I can bathe with it on,” she said.

  “Do what I say.”

  She slowly unbuttoned the front of the dress, then stepped out of it, leaving her linen camisole and drawers.

  “Go on,” Buck said, “Them things, too.”

  A flashback to the shameful treatment she had experienced in O’Riley
’s cribs in Fort Griffin gave her pause. Even though she had undressed for men many times in that awful place, she was determined to leave on her undergarments.

  “I will not,” she said, willing to take whatever punishment he might impose on her, rather than strip further.

  Buck pulled his knife, and started toward her with the intention of cutting off the undergarments, when Harold came out of the cabin with a lump of soap in his hand. Buck stopped. It occurred to him that exposing her nakedness was not something he was quite ready to share with his brother.

  Harold stood by him and stared at her. “My God, she has a fetching figure,” he said.

  “Are you going to give her that soap, or let it melt in your hand?” Buck said, impatiently.

  Harold walked into the creek and held the soap out to Sparrow. When she stretched out her hands to take it from him, he clutched her wrist and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “She don’t need a name, Harold,” Buck said. “She’s a Ind’n; that’s all you need to know. Don’t give her a name.”

  “We have to call her something,” Harold said.

  “My name is Sparrow,” she said.

  Buck cursed. “I ain’t callin’ you that. You ain’t got a name to me.”

  “My name is Sparrow Thomason, and I am married to Caleb Thomason. Take me home now, and maybe my husband will not kill you.”

  “Ha, Ha,” Buck said. “How is he going to do that? He run off and left you, and went to Texas. Sweetwater is where I heard. That’s a long way from here.”

  “How far?” she asked, hoping to gain some information as to where he was.

  “Far enough he won’t ever find you,” Buck said. “Even if he knew where you were, which he don’t.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  “You don’t worry about that. You just start washin’ that filth off you.”

  Harold let go of her and stood next to his brother. The three men watched as Sparrow sat in the stream and scrubbed her garments and herself with the soap.