by Jory Sherman
Russell put his arm on Zak’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry son. I thought it was for the best.”
“Maybe Ma don’t want you to cry for her no more, Pa. Maybe she wants you to hunt with me, fish with me, ’stead of sittin’ around this Sioux camp like one of the old ones with no teeth, just waiting to die.”
“You got your ma’s sensibility, son, I reckon. No, she wouldn’t want me to be a lie-about-camp. She’d tell me to get up off my ass and make meat. But the trappin’s all played out and the buffalo are as thin as the mist on the Rosebud. Ain’t no life for me no more.”
“Maybe I should just give up, too, then, Pa.”
“Give up? I never said you should give up.”
“Well, Ma’s just as dead to me as she is to you. And now you might as well be dead, too. I come back and the braves are still talking about fighting the Crow and going after buffalo and making the Sun Dance. They’re living in the past same as you. I learned that much when I was staying with Mrs. McKinney down at Bent’s.”
“I ain’t give up.” Stubborn old bastard. Beard stubble on his face like mold growing on rancid deer meat. Grease worried into his buckskins so deep it would never wash out, his moccasins full of sewed up holes, and half his beadwork, White Rain’s beadwork, gone, the rest hanging on sinew thread, ready to fall into the dirt. His hair long and full of lice, dirty as a dog’s hind leg.
“It looks like you have given up, Pa. I can’t say it no plainer than that. You got old real fast, and next your teeth are going to fall out and you’ll go blind staring at those empty places all the time. You got to get up off the robes and walk up the mountain with me, make the elk come to your call, the deer to your grunt. You got to hear the crack of your rifle again and see if the beaver have come back up on Lost Creek or over in the Bitterroots.”
“I probably should give up.”
“Pa, what’s a ‘squaw man’?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“At the fort.”
“That what they call me?”
Zak dipped his head and nodded.
“Well, that’s from folks who just don’t understand about livin’ in the wilderness, son. They can call me a ‘squaw man’ all they like, but your ma was a special woman. And her ma, too. A white gal gets captured by an Injun and white folks don’t want nothin’ to do with ’em. Treat ’em like dirt. Worse than dirt, like cur dogs.”
“Did you feel sorry for Ma?”
“No. I saw who she was. Where she come from. Her ma was just a child when she was took. She didn’t know nothin’ of white ways after a time. So she became a Sioux woman. It takes a mite of courage to change like that, give up what you was and become somethin’ else.”
“I think I know what you mean, Pa. I remember Curly Jack told me once that he became a mountain man because it was a better life than he had back in Tennessee. Said a man had to become an Indian if he was going to live through a winter in the mountains.”
“Curly Jack said it right, Zak. We all came up here to trade with the red man. Once we tasted their life some, we got to lookin’ at things different. We saw white people for what they was, and red people for what they was. We never learned any of that in no school down on the flat.”
Zak thought about his schooling and realized that, while he had learned a lot about numbers and words and foreign countries, he had also learned that the white race hated the red men and didn’t think of them as being human at all. He began to realize that he and his father lived in two different worlds. It was a sobering thought and went deep with him and stayed there all this time. That was probably why he and Crook had gotten along so well. Crook was a man who could look into both worlds and see the worth in each, as well as the worst in each.
He fell asleep thinking of White Rain and how his father had begun to recover and get back to life after that talk they had. They hunted and fished together, traveled the Rockies as carefree as a couple of kids let out from school for the summer, and they had grown close. That’s when he found out that his father had been collecting gold in the Paha Sapa and saving it up, not for himself, but so that he could have a life of ease someday if he chose to live in the white world.
Neither of them had realized the path Zak would take, or that the country would take, going to war over slavery and states’ rights, brother killing brother, father killing son, son killing father. Neither of them could foresee the future, but both knew what they both had lost when the beaver played out and White Rain died.
Zak could look back and see that all the signs were there, like signposts on roads that wound through the Badlands. Changes. New paths. The old ones blown over by wind and weather, the new ones dangerous, treacherous, dark.
Neither had seen a man like Ben Trask come down the trail, driven by greed, bent on torture and murder. Trask had intruded on their world as surely as the white man had intruded on the world of the Plains Indians and all the tribes in the nation. Such thoughts tightened things inside Zak, turned him hard inside, like the granite peaks of the Tetons, like a fist made out of stone.
The war changed him, too.
He had seen men torn to pieces by grapeshot and shrapnel, heard their screams and cries, seen the surgeons saw off gangrenous limbs and battlefields strewn with the bodies of young men, some with peach fuzz still on their faces, taken from life long before their allotted time, and it was all horror to see young men march into clouds of smoke and die by the hundreds.
Yet he had escaped harm, somehow, with bullets and minié balls whistling past his ear, bombs bursting all around him, horses shot from under him, and stronger men falling, left crippled for life. He thought of his mother and father often during those years, appreciating them both more than he ever had, missing them in those dark hours when he heard only the moans of the dead and dying while crickets struck up their orchestras in the blood-soaked grasses of woodland havens.
Zak fell asleep thinking back through those years, and feeling just as alone now as he had when the rattle of muskets and the clank of caissons were like a horde of metal insects marching across the land, leaving destruction in their wake, those desolate and deserted burnt lands where corpses stiffened in the sun and wild animals fed on them at night.
And the first kill strong in his mind, that bleak moment when he had shot a gray-clad soldier in the eye, seen him fall and later gaze up at him with that one sightless eye, his stomach churning with a nameless grief for the life he had taken, and the hollow feeling afterward, knowing something had changed inside him, something that could not be spelled out or described or explained.
His dreams picked up strands of these thoughts and wove them into a mysterious tapestry hanging in a great empty hall where the coyotes sang songs of the dead and White Rain smiled at him, great tears in her eyes, and his father stood knee-deep in a beaver pond filled with blood, holding up a rusted trap from which dangled a water snake with a human head that bore a strong resemblance to Ben Trask.
Chapter 11
Sergeant Leon Curtis bellowed down from the driver’s seat.
“Who’s in charge here?”
Hiram stepped off the porch. Trask stood there, eyeing the three soldiers he saw in the lantern light. Two on the seat, one on horseback. Two horses were on lead ropes behind the coach, unsaddled.
“I’m Hiram Ferguson. That’s one of my coaches you’ve got there.”
“Sergeant Curtis, sir. Returning your coach from Fort Bowie.”
Curtis set the brake, wrapped the reins around the handle, picked up his carbine and started to climb down.
“Where in hell’s my driver, Danny Jenkins?”
Curtis said nothing until his boots touched the ground.
“Inside the coach,” Curtis said. A trooper untied his horse from the back of the coach, led it out, toward the sergeant.
“Jenkins,” Ferguson called. “Danny? Come on out.”
“He can’t hear you no more,” Curtis said.
“Huh?”
/> “The man in that coach is dead. Been embalmed and everything by the post surgeon.”
“Dead? How? Somebody kill him?”
“Yes sir, somebody sure killed him.”
“Who?” Ferguson asked.
“Man drove the coach into the fort with the lady come to teach the Injun women and children. He shot Jenkins. Said it was self-defense.”
“Damn it, Sergeant, I demand to know who killed my driver.”
“Man name of Cody. Zak Cody.”
Ferguson shook his head. “Who in hell is this Cody? I never heard of him.”
“Well, sir, we sure as hell heard of him. The man has quite a reputation. None of it proved, of course. But I wouldn’t want to go up against him. Your man Jenkins had the drop on him, according to the ladies who heard the story from Miss O’Hara, and this Cody feller shot him plumb dead.”
“Shit,” Ferguson said. He did not look up on the porch where Trask stood. But he could feel Trask’s eyes on his back, burning holes in it.
Curtis pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, handed it to Ferguson.
“What’s this?” Ferguson asked.
“A receipt, sir,” Curtis answered. “For the coach. To show that I delivered it.”
Ferguson held the paper up to the light as Curtis produced a pencil, held it out for him. Ferguson signed the paper and handed it back to the sergeant.
“That all?” Ferguson asked, anxious to open the coach.
“No, sir.” Curtis pulled an envelope from inside his tunic, handed it to Ferguson. “From the acting commandant.”
The packet was sealed with wax, oilcloth folded over. It rattled when Ferguson took it.
Curtis took the reins of his horse, mounted it stiff-necked, his back perfectly straight. He did not salute as he turned his horse, joined the other two soldiers. They rode off toward the town, vanished into the night. When the hoofbeats of their horses faded into the silence of night, Ferguson walked over to the coach and opened the door.
“Damn,” he said, peering through the gloom.
It looked like a package, a bundle. Something wrapped in burlap and bound with twine. He knew what it was. He could smell the decomposing body even through the formaldehyde and the crushed mint leaves in a sack tied around the feet, dangling down from the seat.
“What is it?” Trask asked, not moving from the porch.
“It’s Jenkins. Dead. Embalmed, I guess.”
“Shit,” Trask said as Ferguson turned away, then nodded to Grissom. “Put him somewhere, Lou. We’ll bury him in the morning.”
Ferguson walked back to the porch, climbed the steps. He held the oilcloth packet in his hands, unopened.
“What you got there, Hiram?” Trask asked.
“I don’t know. Something from Fort Bowie, I reckon.”
“Let’s go inside,” Trask said. “Find out what it is.”
They entered the office. O’Hara sat there, staring at them.
“You want me to give him some of that coffee, Hiram?” Cavins said. “It’s ready.”
Ferguson looked at Trask, who nodded. Cavins turned and walked to the stove, lifted the pot and poured steaming coffee into a tin cup. He carried it back to O’Hara as Ferguson broke the seal on the packet, opened it.
He read it while O’Hara blew on the coffee to cool it as Cavins held the cup up to his mouth.
Ferguson read the letter. It was not written on official U.S. Army stationery and it was unsigned. But he knew who had written it.
“What’s it say?” Trask said, eyeing Ferguson.
“Do you know a man named Cody? The one the sergeant said killed Jenkins.”
Trask stiffened. His jaw hardened and a glint sparked in his narrowed eyes.
“I know him.”
“He killed Danny Jenkins, all right, says here, just like the sergeant said. And Cody drove O’Hara’s sis to the fort.”
O’Hara’s eyes widened. Trask glanced at him, then took Ferguson by the arm.
“Outside,” he growled. “We got to talk.”
O’Hara’s face softened as he watched the two men go back outside and stand on the porch, out of earshot. He could hear only a murmur of voices, see their shadowed forms in silhouette.
“What else does it say, Hiram?”
“Read it yourself.”
“Who’s it from?” Trask asked as Ferguson handed him the letter.
“That’s for me to know right now. Someone at the fort.”
“Fine.” Trask read the letter, let out a deep sigh.
“Gives you something to use on O’Hara in there,” Ferguson said, licking his lips. There was still a faint taste of whiskey on them.
“Yeah. I think we’ll find out what we want to know about that map we found on O’Hara.” Trask paused, then handed the letter back to Ferguson. “Want to ask you something, though.”
“Go ahead.”
“How come you don’t want me to burn the information out of O’Hara? You know we’re going to have to kill him.”
“I know,” Ferguson said. “But it’s got to look like Injuns, Apaches, done him in. If he’s got burn marks on him from a hot poker, the army won’t buy it. He’s got to look like he was kilt by Apaches.”
“My way is quicker. Surer.”
“We have to play the hand my way, Ben. Trust me.”
“All right. Let’s see if O’Hara will tell us what we want to know.”
“You going to use his sister?”
“That’s what the letter says.”
Ferguson nodded. He had read the words. “You can tell your prisoner that if he doesn’t divulge what he knows about the enemy, that his sister will forfeit her life after being tortured by savage Indians.” Carefully worded. No names. Formal, stiff. But that was the man’s way, the one who had written the letter. And Ferguson knew that he meant what he said.
“Let’s see what O’Hara has to say about that map,” Ferguson said. “You put it to him about his sister.”
Trask smiled.
The two men walked inside. Ferguson put the letter back in its packet, folded it and stuck it in a back pocket of his trousers.
“Untie O’Hara,” Trask said to Cavins.
“You sure?” Cavins held the cup of coffee suspended above the prisoner.
“Yeah. He’s not going anywhere and I want to talk to the lieutenant. He’s going to need his hands to show me things on that map.”
“I reckon,” Cavins said, “if it’s all right with Mr. Ferguson.”
“Go ahead,” Hiram said.
Trask took the cup from Cavins, watched as he untied O’Hara.
“Can you stand up?” Trask asked. He shoved the tub of water out of the way with his foot.
O’Hara, freed from his bindings, flexed his hands and arms, moved his legs. He stood up on wobbly legs.
“Good,” Trask said. “Feel like talking with me now? You don’t have much choice.”
“I can’t divulge any information pertaining to my military duties.”
“Oh, I think you can, Lieutenant. If your sister’s life is at stake. What’s her name? Colleen? Yes, Colleen. We can see to it that some terrible things happen to her if you don’t play our cards.”
O’Hara’s face drained of color. “You—You have my sister?”
Trask and Ferguson exchanged glances.
“Yeah, we do,” Ferguson said.
Trask smiled at the smooth deception.
“All I want you to do, O’Hara,” he said, “is tell me what those numbers mean on that map. Did you draw it?”
“No, I’m not a cartographer.”
“But you wrote the numbers on it?”
“I might have.”
“Let’s take a look,” Trask said, grabbing O’Hara by the arm and leading him over to the table. He spread the map out, pointed to a spot marked with an X, west of the San Simon River.
O’Hara stared down at the map with its X’s and numerals.
“That spot there, for instance,” Trask s
aid. “You write down them numbers?”
O’Hara drew in a breath, moved his head as if to clear it.
“Yes, I wrote the numbers there.”
“Is that an Apache camp? One of their hidden strongholds?”
“Yes, it is,” O’Hara said tightly, as if the words were being forced out of his mouth.
“What’s this twenty-five mean? Right under the X, and the number under that, ten?”
O’Hara didn’t answer right away.
“Means twenty-five braves. Number under it designates women and children.”
“Can you find this place?’ Trask said.
“Maybe.”
“Well, you’re damned sure going to, O’Hara,” Trask said.
He turned to Ferguson.
“It’s all laid out here, Hiram. All the Apache camps. We could sneak up on ’em and do what the army won’t do, kill every damned one of ’em.”
“I don’t know if we have enough men, Ben.”
“Won’t take many. We pick up the men you got at those relay stations and swoop down on the camps and clean out every nest of rattlesnakes on this here map.”
“Tall order.”
“We have the advantage,” Trask said.
“How’s that?” Ferguson said.
“The Apaches won’t know we’re coming.”
“What if we run into soldiers?”
“We tell ’em we’re a hunting party. They can’t cover all that ground, and they don’t have the map. We do. And O’Hara here is going to lead us right to them.”
“What if they recognize him?” Ferguson asked.
“I can take care of that, Hiram. His own mother wouldn’t recognize him when I get through with him.”
“What do you mean to do, Ben?”
Trask smiled. “Dress him up like one of my Mexicans, put a sombrero and a serape on him, sandals, dye his hair coal black.”
“It might work.”
Trask looked at O’Hara. He touched a finger to his blond hair.
“You’re going to make one hell of a Mexican, Pedro,” Trask said.