Worse Than Death

by James W. Marvin

  On the third day they lost another of the party. Ellen Broschitz. Widow of one of the men who’d been with Shannon on the rearguard. She’d been suffering from snow-blindness and Crow suspected that frostbite had nipped at her toes, in sopping boots and stockings.

  They’d been going a little distance from the wagons to carry out their toilet affair, so that the immediate area around the camp was kept clean and free from smells. Crow had insisted on that. And had also ordered that they should go in pairs, to try and save them from being surprised.

  But Mrs. Broschitz had been badly hit by stomach cramps, and the rest of the women hated her for the frequent walks to the place Crow had chosen for them, away to the south, close to the brink of the scree above the river.

  On the third day, in the middle of the afternoon, Ellen bad been unable to find anyone to go with her and had staggered out alone on her frozen feet, squinting through reddened eyes to try and keep her balance among the trampled mounds of snow.

  Crow had seen her go and done nothing, reasoning that if she came back then she was fit enough to carry on. And if she fell then she would be little loss to them. She fell.

  He saw her start to slide, very near the edge of the cliffs, her arms flailing at the air. Strangely, she didn’t fly, failing silently out of sight.

  There was no point in going to look for her. The Moorcock would have carried her away to a choking death before anyone could get near the top of the loose wall of rocks.

  It was one less to eat their shrinking supplies of food. Nobody seemed sorry that she’d gone. That was just the way things happened in the timeless frozen desolation.

  By the end of the seventh day, Crow knew that the Shoshone planned to keep away from them for a while yet. The killing of so many of his young warriors must have knocked the heart from the party for some days and Many Knives was using the time to build them up again. Probably feasting and keeping them warm and well. Telling them each night bow miserable must be the lot of the poor whites in the ring of wagons, with little food and water that had to be hauled up from the river in a dangerous operation every couple of days.

  But it would come. Crow knew that. Too many mourning squaws for the chief to ride way from.

  It would come.

  The suffering was taking its toll among them.

  The men were more used to hardship and the shortage of food and water didn’t hit them too hard. Kemp had suggested that they might allow their women their rations, but Crow had stopped that idea dead in its tracks.

  Speaking in that quiet voice that all of them on train had quickly learned to fear.

  ‘They get weak, it doesn’t signify. We do and everyone dies. Time comes and I might cut off their eating we share it out.’

  There was no argument. They’d learned about that with Crow as well.

  The ladies grew hollow-eyed, the bones of their children standing, out like the ribs on a spavined horse. Their skin became coarse and every one developed sores around their mouths and cheeks. Fortunately there was little work to do, as they were all growing weaker. Seven days with precious little to eat and none of it warm me everyone having to live off their own resources. Dig into their characters for the stamina to carry on.

  Some of them found it hard.

  But Martha Hetherington helped to keep them going. Moving around every evening, or when she saw an of them forming a group, encouraging them. Telling why they had to fight against the Indians. The phrase ‘fate worse than death’ kept on cropping up.

  The collecting of water was the single chore needed doing. And everyone dreaded it. Sliding d the icy rocks with ropes and heavy buckets of canvas. Dipping them into the milky waters of the Moorcock and heaving them all the way up to the top.

  Crow’s stallion was the only animal on the train. Geraldine Dutton, whose husband was, as far as she knew, safe in Greenbriar Canyon, had a little terrier dog, that she loved more than anything else. Lavishing the affection on it that would never go on the family she wan but which nature prevented her having.

  One of the great upsets on that seventh day was when Crow suddenly drew his honed-down saber and cut dog’s head from its body in front of Mrs. Dutton. Ordering Gilbert to light a small fire and roast it.

  But his horse survived. He watered it and tried to keep it tethered in the lee of one of the rigs, away from the jagged teeth of the wind. Knowing that the stallion might turn out to be a single last chance of reaching safety if all else failed.

  That night, In the wagon that he now occupied alone, having told the rest of the soldiers to make their own arrangements, Crow was resting, saving his shrinking strength, listening to the howl of the gale and the pattering of the sleet on the canvas, when he heard the noise of feet walking towards the rig.

  Stopping. A voice.

  ‘Mister Crow?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘May we come in?’

  ‘Sure, Mrs. Hetherington,’ he said, with a sigh, knowing that this was going to be some kind of complaint. Probably about the Dutton woman and her damned dog. Ills only regret was that he’d not killed it. earlier. She must have been feeding it when it could have been feeding them.

  If only it had been a big hunting hound, Still, there had been a mouthful of meat each. For them all, apart from Mrs. Dutton, who had gone behind one of the wagons to be sick.

  Crow had noticed that none of the other ladies had let their scruples stop them eating little Nicky.

  The Dougherty shook as two women climbed in. Martha first, and then a slighter figure that Crow immediately recognized as Rachel Shannon. His interest grew at the sight of the girl. She had been a little plump for beauty when he first saw her, but hunger had roughed away that layer of fat and she was now a hauntingly lovely girl.

  ‘Yeah?’

  They arranged themselves on the blankets, barely visible in the light of the dim lamp that Crow kept flickering in the wagon. They had plenty of oil but he refuse to allow any bright lights. It would be too easy for the Shoshone to set a bead on at night.

  ‘We want to talk.’

  ‘That all?’ he asked, looking at them. Since she’d begun to leave off her restricting corsets and had let her hair down from its tight curls, Martha Hetherington had changed radically. The mouth was less tight and pinch and the eyes more open and honest.

  ‘Yes. To talk about food. About Mrs. Brittain. An about the way the other Troopers keep …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hardly know how to put it, Mister Crow,’ said Martha, and in the poor light Crow could have sworn the she was blushing.

  ‘They been takin’ advantage of any of you?’

  ‘No!’ shocked.

  ‘Hell!’ he said quietly. ‘We been here a week now, with maybe a lot longer to come. If’n it had been me I’d surely have thought of takin’ advantage by now.’

  Mister Crow,’ exclaimed Rachel Shannon, moving as if to leave. ‘I don’t believe you ought to speak to us like that.’

  Crow noticed that Martha Hetherington said nothing.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re under your protection.’

  ‘Listen, Miss Shannon, and you listen good. Now I might sound like a revival preacher at a river-cross camp-meeting, but you better learn the facts of livin’ out here. Might not be tasty facts, but they are surely facts. If’n it hadn’t been for me you would all have been prisoners of the Shoshone or deader than a wagon-load of beaver hats.’

  ‘I know that, but …’

  ‘No buts, Rachel,’ he said, his eyes burning into hers, set deep in hollows of bone. The skin drawn taut across his cheeks by hunger, so that it looked more like the face of a wolf than a man. The teeth white in the flickering glow of the lamp. Again Rachel Shannon felt that strange tightening of her stomach at the brooding physical menace of the tall, lean man.

  ‘About food and Mrs. Brittain . . .’ began Martha Hetherington, conscious of a swelling tension in the cramped back of the wagon. Something building that she half recognized an
d half feared. Yet did nothing to check, almost tasting the excitement.

  ‘We got little food and no chance of getting more,’ snapped Crow. ‘Less’n one of us dies.’

  ‘You don’t mean …’

  ‘You starve or you eat flesh, Martha,’ he said, reaching out and touching her on the arm in an uncharacteristic gesture. ‘Simple as that. Lesson you got to learn. Lots of lessons. Life is about learnin’ lessons. Day you don’t learn one is the day they put a dollar on each eye and lower you in the cold earth.’

  ‘Mrs. Brittain. Poor lady is …’

  ‘Goin’ off her head. I know that. The baby turned away what wits she had. Guess she might be the first to go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Maybe out there,’ he said, jerking his thumb in the general direction of the Shoshone camp.

  ‘No woman would do that,’ said Martha Hetherington, leaning forwards so that her knee was pressed against his. Rachel Shannon saw the movement and also wriggled on the pile of blankets, hunching her shoulders so that the shadow deepened between her young breasts.

  ‘Any woman would, when it come to it,’ he replied narrowing his eyes at her.

  ‘My husband would have had such a woman whipped from the post.’

  ‘Your husband didn’t have the fuckin’ brains of a dead coyote, Martha.’ He saw her jaw gape open in horror at his words. ‘No; no point you mountin’ that high horse of yours. Every wet-eared pup knows not to chase retreating Indians unless you can see good and clear for mile That’s why you’re here, facin’ death.’

  ‘I still don’t think you should speak of … of the dead like that,’ she said,

  looking down at her feet.

  ‘He doesn’t feel a damned thing, Martha,’ he said, again touching her, this time on the knee, letting his fingers rest there.

  ‘We were married a long time, Crow,’ she whispered her voice barely disturbing the cold air inside the canvas-topped wagon. ‘Some good things. Some not…not so good. He wasn’t what you’d call a wicked man, you know. Not truly wicked.’

  ‘Not many men are. I known me some. Half-breed down in Natchez. Banker in Baton Rouge. Women ran a bordello out in Sacramento. Sisters. Preacher down in Missouri. Yeah, there’s some. Mostly it’s plain foolishness or pride. Most times it’s some kinds of fear.’

  ‘You know a lot, Mister Crow,’ Rachel Shannon, ventured, wishing that it was her knee that his hand laid on. Knowing that it never would be. Life wasn’t like that.

  ‘I learned. Like you should. Both of you. Both.’ He stopped speaking and looked at each of them in turn. Grinning as they both dropped their eyes. ‘Guess I’m minded to teach you both a small lesson right now.’

  ‘What?’ asked Martha, feeling her heart pounding as it was going to burst clean out of her mouth.

  ‘Lesson. Both of you. Rachel.’

  ‘Yes, Mister Crow.’

  ‘Check out that canvas. Make sure the lacing’s tied tight on the inside.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t want folks comin’ and botherin’ us now, do we? I’ve never seen this as bein’ a spectator kind of a sport.’

  ‘I don’t …’ she stammered, nonetheless reaching behind her to make sure the back-flap was properly tied.

  ‘Don’t what, little Missy?’ he asked, smiling at Martha Hetherington.

  ‘I have never …’

  ‘You got to start somewheres, Rachel. Where better than when you’re starvin’ to death and surrounded by snow and Shoshone?’

  ‘I think I should leave if you are goin’ to take your droit de seigneur, Mister Crow,’ hissed Martha.

  ‘My what, Ma’am?’

  ‘It means that you are in command here and we must do what we are told by you. Like the old-fashioned lords of the manor with their wenches.’

  Martha Hetherington read a lot of women’s romantic novels.

  ‘So why are you leavin’, Martha?’

  ‘In order that you and the girl …’

  ‘Guess this’ll be a lesson for the both of you,’ said Crow, his velvet voice seeming to reach out and caress the two women. Both the young and the old.

  ‘How?’ asked Martha, knowing the answer, but still wanting to hear him reply. Disbelieving what she was about to do.

  ‘I’m aimin’ to teach you two at once.’

  ‘No,’ said Rachel, fearing she was about to faint dead away.

  ‘Oh, no,’ added Martha, so quietly that even she didn’t hear the word.

  Crow enjoyed himself.

  He never cared all that much for what women felt, believing that they were simply there to be used and to give him pleasure.

  Martha and Rachel certainly did that.

  Neither of them wanted to strip off their clothes first, and Crow was forced to rip the dress of the older woman clear from neck to waist, her breasts spilling out into the hazy darkness, before they’d do what he wanted.

  He wriggled out of his breeches, keeping everything else on, making sure the Colt was tucked bandy near the pile of blankets at his head. But he insisted that both women should peel clean off.

  They threw their dresses and shifts and cotton drawers into a tangled heap at the back of the rig, kicking off shoes, panting at the bitter cold. Eager to join the man in the cocooned warmth.

  They pressed in, one on each side of Crow, squeezing their naked bodies against him. He stretched out like a cat in front of a log fire in winter, reaching out a hand to lay across them. Feeling both of their nipples harden at the touch.

  ‘Oh, Crow,’ moaned Martha Hetherington, abandoning herself to her lust in a way she never had with her poor dead husband.

  Rachel didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Her Mama had died too soon to warn her and Pa had never been able to pluck up the courage to talk to the girl. Beyond saying that she must take care and never let a boy touch her. Not anywhere. As that would cheapen her and no man would ever look at her or marry her.

  But Crow wasn’t a boy. And she liked the way it felt when his strong hand gripped her breasts, making her squirm and moan.

  Martha slowly summoned up all her courage and allowed her own hand to touch Crow. Moving across the muscular contours of his chest, over the flat, hard wail of his stomach.

  Lower.

  Lower.

  ‘My sweet Lord,’ she sighed. ‘I declare that my poor husband never pleasured me with such a most monstrous weapon of passion as this.’

  Rachel didn’t know what she meant and allowed her own band to slide nervously across the lean man’s body, eventually feeling it for herself, and squeaking out in shock.

  ‘My, oh, my! What is that, Mrs. Hetherington? Is it a kind of growth on poor Mister Crow’s flesh?’

  Martha chuckled. ‘Heavens, child! Guess you might go calling it that if’n you had a mind to.’

  ‘That’s enough talk,’ said Crow, finally using his own hands on the naked bodies of the women, feeling them writhe and gasp as he touched them. Both were warm and moist and ready for him and his only problem was deciding which of them to pleasure first.

  Martha lay on his left and being naturally right- handed it was easier for him to roll over on her and thrust his way between her parted thighs.

  ‘Great God Almighty!’ she moaned, arching her back, reaching round his broad shoulders and tugging him even deeper into her. Bringing her hips up to meet every push from him.

  ‘Am I to be left out?’ complained Rachel Shannon, lying alone beneath the coarse blankets while the Dougherty rattled and shook as if it was going across a dry stream-bed with a full load.

  ‘Man said that everythin’ comes to a person who waits,’ muttered Crow, taking most of his weight on his elbows. Being suddenly silenced by Martha Hetherington raising her head to kiss him on the lips, darting her tongue between his teeth with all the passion of a highyaller whore in a Bourbon Street cat-house.

  She reached her climax before he did, feeling the wetness of her satisfaction flood across her thighs. So intense a f
eeling that she nearly fainted away, only the relentless battering at her body by Crow keeping her from unconsciousness.

  He felt his own stomach muscles contracting with the power of his own orgasm, lying motionless across her for a few moments before the stickiness of withdrawal. Rolling back to lie panting and still between the two women.

  Rachel Shannon was nearly in tears.

  Here was something that should have been one of the greatest and most intense moments of her young life and nothing was happening.

  Nothin at all.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Crow had deliberately chosen that wrinkled old bag of bones Martha Hetherington and neglected her. And she was so much prettier.

  It’s not fair,’ she whispered.

  ‘Not much is, little lady,’ replied Crow, his keen ears catching her complaint.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Fair on account of you bein’ a deal younger than this lady here and hem’ more ready to wait a whiles for what’s coming your way.’

  ‘Can you do it now?’

  Martha laughed quietly, stretching out luxuriously under the rough covering, the threats of the Shoshone and starvation forgotten for a few blessed moments in the dark and security of the wagon.

  Crow also laughed. ‘Guess there’s some weapons that you can reload straight away. And some you can’t. Not right off.’

  Rachel didn’t understand what they were talking about but she laughed as well. Trying to be at one with them.

  Waiting for her turn.

  Rachel didn’t have to wait very long.

  It hurt.

  All that she remembered from that first time was the pain.

  A tearing, rending agony that went on and on, even though she cried out for Crow to stop. His breath was hot in her face, his tongue pushed between her sore lips so that she could hardly breathe. And when she started to scream it was the older woman who stopped her. Martha clambered from the blankets and quietened her in a way that Rachel could scarcely believe was happening. A way that disgusted her and made her gag, yet in some appallingly perverse way aroused her.

  But the pain …

  As the muscular body ground into her it was as though he was ripping her apart. His swelling passions so far inside her that she feared that he might burst her heart with it.