Taking a deep breath, I dragged the point of one blade across my chest. Blood dripped from the wound.
“Maheo,” I murmured, “accept this good woman’s spirit into the Afterworld.”
I dragged the blade down the length of my left arm, from shoulder to wrist. “Reunite her with our daughter. Let them find joy in each other once again.”
I sat with Clarissa’s body the rest of the night. Lost in a world of grief and pain, I didn’t hear my mother’s footsteps in the hall the next morning, was not even aware of her presence until I heard her shocked gasp.
“John! What have you done?”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Katherine staring down at me, her face reflecting horror as she glanced at the blood-stained scissors on the floor, at the dried blood on my arm and chest.
“She’s dead,” I said tonelessly. “Everybody’s dead.”
Katherine looked at me for a long moment, then she took a deep breath. “Cutting yourself to pieces won’t bring her back, John. Why don’t you go downstairs while I look after Clarissa? Take care of those cuts. Get something to eat.”
“I’ll take care of her,” I replied curtly. “Go home, Katherine. I want to be alone.”
For a moment, I thought she would argue with me. But she didn’t.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll make the arrangements for the funeral, if that’s all right with you.”
I nodded.
Our eyes met for a brief moment, mine wet with tears, Katherine’s filled with compassion. She laid her hand on my shoulder, staring down at me as if there was something more she wanted to say. Then, with a sigh, she left the room.
* * *
The funeral was hell. I stood at the graveside between my mother and Grace Van Patten, feeling more lost and alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
The minister spoke some words that were meant to comfort me, something about being reunited in the glorious resurrection, but they fell on deaf ears. Mere words could not comfort me now.
I stayed at the cemetery long after everyone had gone home, reluctant to leave Clarissa. I listened as the dirt fell into the hole, each shovel full of earth sounding like an echo of the pain in my heart.
I stared at the two graves, side by side, the dirt on my daughter’s grave still freshly turned. The tears came then, flowing unchecked as I bid a last farewell to my wife and my daughter.
Back home, I wandered through the house, haunted by memories. Everywhere I turned, there were things to remind me of what I had lost: Clarissa’s shawl hanging from the hall tree, Angela’s favorite doll, the book of poetry Clarissa had been reading, one of Angela’s tiny shoes peeking from beneath the sofa.
I moved numbly from room to room, touching, remembering, much as my mother had done the day she first returned to her father’s house. Only my mother had been saying hello, and I knew, deep in my heart, that I was saying goodbye.
How slowly the next few weeks passed! How long the dark lonely nights. How empty and quiet the days. Katherine came daily, bringing me food I didn’t eat and words I didn’t want to hear.
The Van Pattens came, too, making a valiant effort to put aside their own grief as they endeavored to comfort me. But I would not be comforted.
I took long walks in the rain, silently railing against the Fates as I prowled the dark streets. Twice I had known happiness, and twice events beyond my control had snatched that happiness from my grasp.
First Chivington had come, wantonly destroying not only the people I had loved but destroying a way of life, as well. And now Death had come, robbing me a second time. Without Clarissa, I was an outsider again, a stranger living among alien people in an alien land.
Lost in a world of grief and heartache, I turned away from those who sought to cheer me. With Clarissa gone, I no longer cared what other people thought of me. What difference did it make now if these people thought I was a heathen savage? What did I care for their foolish laws and conventions, for their inadequate expressions of sympathy? My words were harsh, often rude, but I didn’t give a damn, not about them, not about anything. I only knew I had to get away, away from people who were not my people. Away from a land that was not my land. I yearned to see the Black Hills again, to ride across land that was not cluttered with houses, to listen to the whisper of the wind as it soughed across the plains.
And so it was that early one morning in 1871 I boarded a train headed West.
I wound up in Missouri.
Chapter 12
In St. Louis, I sent my mother a wire, advising her to sell my house and everything in it, and do as she pleased with the money. I didn’t need it. I had better than five thousand dollars in my war bag; another thirty grand salted away in a New York bank.
For the first time, I was glad my mother had married Roger Wentworth. She had a husband to care for her now. Soon, she would have a child. A white child. One who would fulfill all the dreams and ambitions she once had for me.
With my affairs in the east settled, I turned to my own comfort. I bought myself a set of buckskins, a flat-brimmed Stetson, and a pair of hard-soled moccasins, determined never to wear shoes again. I purchased a new Henry rifle and several boxes of shells.
Later, I went looking for a horse. There were plenty of horse traders in town; some honest, some not. I steered clear of the animals the traders were over-eager to sell, ignored their double talk. I saw a lot of good horseflesh, but none that suited me until I spotted a rangy claybank mare bunched in a corral with a half-dozen mustangs.
Close up, the mare proved to be just what I was looking for, a tall horse with good conformation, sound legs, and clear honest eyes. I rode her out of town that same afternoon, and she proved to have sand and bottom, two requirements that often meant the difference between life and death on the plains.
I bought the mare that day. The next morning, I pulled her shoes, rasped her hooves, and left town, heading west, always west.
There was an anger deep within me that would not be stilled. Deep down, I had a strong desire to hurt as I had been hurt. It was not a good feeling, and so I trailed westward, hoping to spend some time alone in the mountains, hoping that the beauty and solitude of the high country would bring a measure of peace to my troubled spirit.
It was good to be riding across open country again, good to see miles and miles of virgin land; land that had never known the touch of a plow or felt the bite of a shove. Land that stretched away as far as the eye could see.
It was good to breathe air that did not smell of smoke or coal oil, or reek of cigars and perfume.
A great silence hung over the land - loud, somehow, after the constant clang and clatter of the city.
The day I saw the sacred hills rise up from the earth, I felt as if I had come home at last. I spent three months in the mountains and there, alone among the windswept pines, with none but the sun and the moon and the red-tailed hawk to know, I mourned the loss of my wife and daughter. Time lost all meaning. I hunted when the pangs of hunger drove me, slept when my body demanded rest, bathed when I could no longer abide my own stink.
Eventually, the raw edge of my sorrow healed over, and though the hurt never really disappeared, I learned to live with the pain.
* * *
Summer was warming the plains when I rode into Abilene, Kansas. Wild Bill Hickok was marshal at the time, having been appointed earlier that year. Abilene was a rough and tumble cow town in those days, filled with cowboys and cattlemen, gamblers and fancy women, and a few honest citizens. I kept pretty much to myself, just watching the people come and go. Noticing that every man in town old enough to shave wore a six-gun strapped to his hip, I bought myself a .44 Colt. I bought a gunbelt and holster, too, nothing fancy, just plain serviceable black leather.
For want of something better to do, I took to riding out of town and there, alone and unobserved, I practiced drawing and firing that .44. When I got to where I could unleather my iron smooth and fast, I started shooting at targets. I’d always ha
d a steady hand and a sharp eye, and before long my aim with that Colt was as good as it had ever been with a bow and arrow.
Funny, how the weight of that iron riding my hip made me feel. I guess, deep down, I’d always felt a little inferior because of my Indian blood, but with that Colt strapped on, I suddenly felt as good as any man in town. As someone had once said, God created all men. Samuel Colt made them equal.
Noting the way the gunslicks wore their hardware, I oiled up my rig, filed the front site off the barrel of the .44, and then I went out and practiced some more, cocking the hammer as I pulled the gun from the leather so that the Colt came out cocked and ready to fire, shaving seconds off my draw.
And when I felt I was about as fast as I was ever going to be, I practiced some more, drawing and firing from different positions and angles: belly down, flat on my back, lying on my side, on my knees, under my arm, facing into the sun.
I poured all my thought and energy into that gun, until I knew it as well as I knew my name. Until I could take it apart and put it back together blindfolded. Until it was as much a part of me as the color of my skin.
And then I practiced with my left hand.
From then on, whenever I grew bored or lonely, I went out and worked on my quick draw, until it was as fast as lightning, as smooth as silk.
When I wasn’t out perfecting my draw, I could usually be found on the front porch of my hotel, hat pulled low over my eyes as I watched the people go by. There was a pattern to their comings and goings. The decent folk did their business while the sun was high in the sky, women doing their shopping while their menfolk congregated at the smithy, talking about the price of beef while the blacksmith repaired their wagons or fashioned a new set of shoes for the family nag.
With the setting of the sun, most of the stores closed up tight, and there was a brief period of time when the streets were virtually deserted.
With full dark, a different breed took to the streets as gamblers and gun toughs emerged from their lairs like wolves on the prowl, heading for the saloons and cribs that made up the greater part of the town.
I spent a good deal of time at the Palace Saloon playing poker. I had learned the fundamentals of the game back in New York from Harry Kirke and Maury Leonard, two of old man McKenna’s grooms. Kirke and Leonard had been good teachers and I had caught on quick, but I had never been able to beat them. I’d been getting a pretty fair-sized allowance back then, and I had quickly lost most of it to my mentors until Jim McCauley, the head groom, took pity on me. Unbeknownst to Kirke and Leonard, McCauley had once been a dealer in a New Orleans bawdy house, and he had taught me a few tricks of the trade - tricks that would get you killed if you were clumsy enough to get caught. Things like how to palm an ace, and how to deal off the bottom of the deck. He had taught me how to mark cards, too. There were more elaborate methods card cheats used, too, like fastening a bag under the table so cards could be drawn or inserted on the sly, reflecting mirrors and rings, a sleeve holdout that was worn inside a sleeve and which, when the trigger was pressed, slid a card into the wearer’s palm. McCauley advised me on the wisdom of wearing a hideout gun when I was sharing a table with strangers.
I had never let on to Kirke and Leonard that I had discovered they were cheating me. I just started beating them at their own game, and when I figured I had won back what they had cheated me out of, I started playing square again. And so did they.
But here, in Abilene, I had no need to cheat. I didn’t care if I won or lost. The money meant nothing, the game meant nothing. It was just a way to pass the time.
After awhile, I drifted on, moving from cow town to cow town, drinking, gambling, and leading what is generally called “a sinful life”.
My first gunfight took place in Ellsworth, in a cheap honky tonk near the end of town, when a sallow-faced gambler who looked like an undertaker and smelled like an outhouse began making snide remarks about the color of my skin, loudly denouncing my right to drink in the same saloon with decent, God-fearing white folks.
I tried to ignore him, but that only stoked the fires of his rage. Finally, when he saw he couldn’t provoke me, he began to threaten me. Normally, I’m pretty slow to answer, but I began to get riled when he called me a “yellow-bellied, gut-eating bastard”.
“You’d best shut your filthy mouth,” I suggested mildly, “or draw that hogleg.”
There was a quick silence, and time hung suspended. In that brief moment of eternity, I saw everything around me with great clarity: the dirty sawdust on the floor, the brass spittoons strategically placed around the room, the expectant looks on the faces of the other customers, the curious half-smile on the face of the nude in the painting hanging behind the bar.
But most of my attention was focused on the man standing across from me. He was about my height, though not as heavy or well-muscled. His hands were pale and slender, like a girl’s, but they were rock-steady as they hovered over the twin holsters snugged on his thighs. His eyes, so pale they were almost colorless, were deep-set beneath shaggy brown brows.
Now, as time began again, those eyes drilled into mine. “What’d you say?” he demanded impudently.
“I said shut your filthy mouth, or draw that hogleg. Want me to spell it out for you, one word at a time?”
He blinked at me, as if he couldn’t believe his ears, and then his eyes narrowed, and he made a grab for his guns.
Long hours of practice stood me in good stead. Without hesitation, almost without conscious thought, I drew and fired.
For a long moment, the echo of my solitary gunshot was the only sound in the crowded saloon. The dead man slid quietly to the floor, spilling his life’s blood into the sawdust. No one tried to stop me when I shouldered my way through the bat-wing doors.
Funny, how quickly news of that gunfight spread. It wasn’t until the next day I learned that the man I had killed had enjoyed a reputation as a fast gun. A reputation that was now mine.
Three times in as many days men challenged me, calling me a dirty yellow coward when I didn’t immediately accept their challenge, dying when they pushed me too far.
That fast, I became a gunfighter.
Hickok came to see me after each incident, hearing my side of the story, comparing it to what other witnesses had told him, congratulating me for surviving, warning me to watch my back even as he suggested it might be wise if I left town.
I took his advice, but my reputation followed me wherever I went. Soon, everyone knew who I was. With recognition came a peculiar brand of respect and admiration. I was a notorious gunman now, and that title overshadowed the fact that I was a half-breed. People talked about how fast I was, how cool in the face of death, and forgot that my skin was still Cheyenne-brown.
Damn, but life was strange. When I’d been just another half-breed, no one wanted anything to do with me. But, once I’d killed a few men, all that changed.
Men bought me drinks. Saloon girls vied for my attention. Boys followed me like puppies, their eyes all agog as they imitated my walk. Newspapers carried my name. An eastern novelist wrote a penny dreadful, greatly embellished, about my first gunfight. Hotel owners and the like refused to take my money, insisting my presence in their establishment was good for business.
Of course, my reputation also made me a marked man and, as such, I was always on edge. Senses that had been dulled by years of living in the city grew sharp again, especially that peculiar sixth sense that warns of impending danger even when your eyes and ears tell you all is well.
More than once that mysterious sixth sense saved my life, prompting me to take a second look at a seemingly deserted street, warning me to run for cover when there was no visible sign of danger.
Once such incident stands out in my mind. It happened in the summer of seventy-two. I’d left a little no-account town earlier that day. I wasn’t headed any place in particular, and stopped to spend the night beside a shallow stream. I was bedded down, sound asleep, when suddenly I was wide awake without kn
owing why.
Not moving, I listened to the night. It was quiet. Too quiet.
Seconds passed into history, and then I heard the soft scuffle of booted feet moving off to my left. A low voice whispered through the stillness.
“Waco, you sure that’s him?” The voice sounded young and uncertain, with a slight Southern drawl.
“It’s him,” the man called Waco replied confidently. “Just do what I said.”
Still feigning sleep, I placed the two men in my mind’s eye. The first was off to my left, likely in the cover of a fire-gutted oak that stood about five yards away. The second bushwhacker was somewhere behind me and to the right.
“Ready, Marty?”
There was an ominous snick as Marty eared back the hammer of his gun. “Ready.”
They were looking right down my throat, but they were slow. And stupid. Amateurs, I thought disdainfully. Pros killed you first and jawed about it later.
There was a muted rasp of metal against metal as Waco jacked a round into the breech of his rifle.
It was time to move. I rolled out of my blankets seconds before a slug from Marty’s Colt buried itself in my bedroll.
I came to a halt belly-down, firing at the muzzle flash that lit up the night sky like a Fourth of July sky rocket. A high-pitched cry of pain signaled a hit, and I rolled to my right, firing at the dark shape that separated itself from the deeper blackness of the night. Waco’s rifle and my Colt roared simultaneously, and I felt a blast of heat as a bullet tugged at my shirtsleeve. Muttering an oath, I squeezed off a third round, but it wasn’t necessary. Waco was already dead.
Rising cautiously, I moved toward the wounded man. I found him sitting against the blackened bole of the oak, whimpering softly as he pressed both hands against his lean belly in a vain attempt to stem the crimson tide bubbling through his fingertips.
Scowling, I knelt beside the would-be dry gulcher’s side. He was no more than a boy, sixteen or seventeen at most.
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