The boy considered seriously. Nobody cures a ham like my daddy, all slow-smoked and done with brown sugar. For dessert, I’d like either pecan or sweet potato pie, Cherokee, finished off with some of that strong Cajun coffee like the Louisiana boys drink.” He sighed. Finally, I’d like a big slug of corn likker.”
Sounds good. Even the whiskey. But I swore off that and I’m honor bound to keep my word.” Cherokee leaned back against the rail and listened to the sawing and hammering from the other end of the deck. And afterward, maybe we’d entertain some pretty belles out in the porch swing.” He thought about Silver. You got a girl, Bill?”
The other shook his head. There’s a girl I favor; but I was always too shy to press my case. Don’t reckon she’s still waitin’.”
I’ll bet she is,” Cherokee said. When we go back after the war, I’ll speak your part to her and see what she says.”
Dowdy brightened. Would you, Cherokee?”
What are friends for?”
Friends. Tso-ga-li-i. He knew what friends were for, Cherokee thought bitterly. They were to keep you talking and remembering so that time passed; to drown out the sound of the hammering and sawing on your crude wood coffin, and to keep you from dwelling on what was coming on the morrow.
At approximately noon on September 9, 1864, the Effie Deans moored up along a riverbank in the desolate area above the settlement of Omaha, Nebraska Territory.
While the other soldiers watched in sullen disbelief, a squad of soldiers marched Private William Dowdy off the boat and formed an open-sided square.
Cherokee watched in amazement and disbelief. Dimon won’t really do this,” he grumbled. He’s trying to scare everyone, that’s all. At the last minute, he’ll call the whole thing off.”
You better keep quiet, Cherokee,” one of the men next to him on the rail said. I hear rumors that you’re next for daring to buck him.”
As Cherokee watched, another six men carried the wooden coffin ashore, followed by the bewildered blacksmith in chains. They put the crude wooden box on the ground and Dowdy slumped down on it while the soldiers started digging a hole.
The gawky youth turned and looked toward the boat. In the warm September sun, sweat beaded on his red face and ran down his neck into the collar of the blue uniform that he had put on to survive—only to survive.
Cherokee stared back at him helplessly, then looked around for Dimon. But the officer was in his cabin, having turned over the dirty work to a lesser officer who looked miserable as he directed the men who dug the hole.
How ironic. How unjust, Cherokee thought. Surely the rash young officer wasn’t going to break all the rules and carry this thing through. Surely at the last minute when the hole was dug and the firing squad lined up, Dimon himself would appear and call the whole thing off. Yes, of course that was it.
He had the wildest impulse to go over the side, attack the squad with his fists, and somehow rescue the scared boy. The two of them would take off running through the tall prairie grass. For miles around, there wasn’t a tree—nothing but a gently waving sea of grass.
Dowdy looked at him, gave him just a hint of a smile, and shook his head. Don’t, he seemed to say with his eyes. Don’t try anything foolish, Cherokee, they’ll kill you for it. Don’t do it!
Nothing seemed real. Cherokee stood on the deck with the others. The breeze blew toward him and brought him the slight scent of wild flowers among the prairie grasses.
Almost in a trance, he heard the sound of the shovels, the water slapping against the sides of the boat. A man near him coughed and from somewhere in the grass, a guque, a quail, called: Bob white. Bob, bob white ...
The sun beat down on the scene, making his skin itch under the blue wool, reflecting off the rifles and the brass buttons of the men on shore.
The men were through digging the hole. They stepped back and waited.
Cherokee stood almost paralyzed on deck, watching along with the others. A cottontail rabbit hopped out of the grass, reared up on its hind legs, and sniffed curiously at all the men on the shore, the boy slumped on the wooden box, and the pile of fresh black dirt.
The firing squad was lining up, coming to attention. The officer in charge came over, took Dowdy by the shoulder, stood him up, and offered him a blindfold. The young man hesitated, then shook his head. He looked toward Cherokee and his mouth formed the silent words: Good-bye, friend.
Ready!”
The firing squad brought their rifles to their shoulders. The movement made the light catch their brass buttons. Any moment now, Dimon would run out on deck and stop this, Cherokee thought frantically, looking toward the officer’s cabin. The door remained closed.
Aim!”
Bob white. Bob, bob white . . .
Fire!”
Chapter Fourteen
No!” Cherokee screamed, but his shout of protest was drowned out by the sudden crack of rifles. Even as he watched, his young friend stumbled backward, paused for what seemed like an eternity, then crumpled and fell.
The frightened quail exploded up out of the grass in a flurry of wings. The rabbit took off in a flash. The echo of the rifles echoed and reechoed for a long moment, and then in the sudden stillness, Cherokee heard the men around him let out a collective sigh as if they had all been holding their breath. He felt so hot in the blue wool that for a long moment standing there smelling the sweating stink of close-packed bodies, Cherokee thought he would be sick. Then he swallowed hard and fell to his knees on the rough, wooden planks.
Through the other’s legs, he could see the men on shore lifting the big body, putting it in the wooden box, nailing the lid down.
Ham like my daddy cures it and maybe pecan or sweet potato pie . . .
I’ll speak your part for you . . .
Oh, would you, Cherokee, would you do that?
Somewhere in Bedford County, Tennessee, a pair of elderly people might be sitting down to dinner at this very moment, not even knowing that their son lay newly dead on a riverbank, forever far from home.
The squad put the box in the hole and filled it in. Then they marched back on board and the gangplank was raised.
The Effie Deans blew her whistle, and with a shout, the lines were cast off and she drifted away from the shore even as the big paddle wheel came to life and began to churn the muddy water.
Cherokee, still almost in a state of shock, walked to the rear of the boat and stared back. The prairie grass still blew and a rabbit peeked at him from the grass. Only a mound of fresh dirt disturbed the vast, empty stretch of desolate prairie.
Good-bye friend. Good-bye ...
The Effie Deans churned her way up the river. Cherokee stood at the stern and stared at the little mound of dirt until it was finally lost from view. And then he collapsed on the deck and shook, full of fury and anger as the night came on.
He wondered if the upstart colonel had plans for Cherokee, too. And if the brash young officer was foolhardy enough to execute the naive blacksmith, Cherokee decided Dimon wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone else he considered a threat.
Cherokee had given his word to fight for the Union. But as far as he was concerned, the Union had broken its word to its soldiers. Everything had changed now. He didn’t intend to wait until Dimon had time to plan a fitting end for Cherokee.
He said nothing to anyone as he ate his supper and made his plans. The rifles were stacked up near the cabin. How would he get one? Out here in this desolate prairie, a man without a weapon among wild animals and hostile Indians was a dead man. Somewhere upriver, he would have to steal one of those guns and get ashore when the Effie Deans tied up to send a patrol to hunt a little fresh meat. Cherokee would make his plans carefully.
A couple of days passed while he schemed. Then something happened that changed things so that he no longer had time for elaborate plans.
Night had fallen and the men lay in their blankets on the crowded decks and slept as best they could. There was a guard, but he was posted at the far end
of the deck.
A man crawled to him in the darkness. Cherokee?”
He didn’t move. What?”
You done me a favor once and the boys are riled about Dowdy, so I’m tellin’ ye.”
Telling me what?”
He saw only the outline of the soldier in the moonlight, and wondered who it was.
We heard talk,” the man whispered.
What kind of talk?”
First thing in the mornin’, Dimon is gonna arrest you, too, on some trumped-up charge. He’s afraid you’ll lead the men in a revolt.”
Morning. No time for elaborate plans. And then?”
Whata you think, Cherokee? You’re to be shot!”
Cherokee’s heart seemed to falter and then beat faster, as he remembered all too vividly the shooting of Private Dowdy. I’m much obliged for the tip, soldier.”
The man nodded and crawled away.
What to do? He didn’t have a weapon and he hadn’t finished his plan that would aid his escape. He would have to make his move tonight. Even with a weapon, if he managed to survive the current and make it to shore, he was miles from any white people. He’d be alone among thousands of hostile Indians who had been raiding and burning along the entire Western frontier since spring. But if the plains weren’t crawling with Indians on the warpath, the Union wouldn’t have been desperate enough to recruit former enemies for frontier duty. Suppose his informer was wrong? He could stay and hope Dimon wasn’t plotting against him, or take his chances in this wild country alone.
The moon came out, all silvery pale, and he thought of the girl he’d left back in Colorado Territory. It seemed like such a long time ago. He wondered for a long moment if Shawn O’Bannion was still alive and what had happened to Shawn’s little son and his haughty, beautiful wife.
Silver. U-ne-ga. He would probably never see her again. He closed his eyes briefly and saw her in his mind—her long, pale hair hanging loose about her shoulders, hiding her full naked breasts. Her eyes were hard but her mouth was soft and her lips opened as he kissed them. Did she still have the shoes he had bought her or even the gold nugget bracelet? By now, she might have married or left Colorado. He made a vow then that he wanted to hold her in his arms again and that if he made it all the way back to the Rockies, this time he would ask her to marry him and beg forgiveness for ever leaving her.
Cautiously, he turned his head and looked at the sentry. The man appeared to be asleep at his post, his head sunk down on his chest. The stack of rifles was near him. Cherokee glanced up, studying the night sky. A big bank of clouds was moving slowly over the moon’s face, darkening the night. He figured fast. With the clouds across the moon, Cherokee would have several minutes to maneuver before the scene was illuminated brightly again. His life might depend on those several precious minutes.
Cherokee got to his knees and watched the guard. The engine groaned rhythmically, the stern wheel churning water. Somewhere among the sleeping forms on deck, a man snored and a frog along the bank croaked loudly.
The clouds drifted across the moon’s surface as it hung like a gold piece in the ebony sky. He crawled between the sleeping men toward the stack of weapons, mentally calculating how far it was to the rail. Could he crawl through all those sleeping bodies with a rifle? Would the movement awaken the sentry? He had to be careful and not alarm any of the sleeping troopers as he crept across the deck. If he should trod on a hand or awaken anyone suddenly, he might cry out.
Cherokee’s mouth tasted so dry he could hardly swallow and his hand had picked up a splinter from the rough wood planking, but all he concentrated on was reaching those weapons.
He was close—so close and yet so far. Again he measured the distance to the weapons and then to the rail with his eye. If luck was with him, he would steal a rifle, crawl over the side of the boat, lower himself into the water, and swim to shore. With the noise the big paddle wheel was making, the slight splash wouldn’t even be heard. It would be morning before he was missed. Even then, they weren’t likely to come back down river searching for Cherokee, because they wouldn’t be sure where they had lost him. They might even think he had fallen overboard and drowned.
Luck wasn’t with him. He was only another couple of yards from the weapons when a man cried out in his sleep near him. The guard jerked awake and whirled toward the sound even as the moon came out from behind the clouds, lighting up the deck almost as bright as day.
Halt! Halt or I’ll shoot!”
For an agonizing heartbeat, Cherokee paused, making his choice. The weapons were too far away and the guard shouted again and swung toward him with his rifle. Men came up off the deck and soldiers scrambled for weapons. He didn’t stand a chance. Without even thinking, he dived for the rail even as he heard the crack of the rifle behind him.
A pain burned into the base of his skull as he went over the side, and for an eternity, he was in the air. Then he felt the muddy waters of the Missouri close over his head.
Sergeant Baker fired wildly at the dark shape diving across the railing. Halt! Halt, I say!”
Christ! The bastard was escaping! He fired at the man as he went over the side. Immediately, men were jumping up from the deck, shouting and gesturing. Lamps flickered on all over the Effie Deans as men struck matches to coal oil lamps. Colonel Dimon himself came running with a lantern. What’s going on here, Sergeant?”
Baker stopped picking at his bad complexion and saluted. One of the men went over the side, sir! I shot at him, don’t know if I hit him or not.”
The young colonel turned to those gathering around him. Stop the engines! Get some light out here!”
In the confusion of running, shouting men, the colonel glared at him. Baker! I’ll see this goes on your record. I understand you used to be a captain. Now with this, you may end up a private! Let’s go look at where that man went over.”
Christ! That uppity bastard would mention his record, Baker thought as he picked at his pimples and followed the colonel to the rail. It wasn’t fair that he himself always got such rotten duty—assigned to raw frontier. Before the war started, he’d been stuck in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Now just because he’d made a little mistake in judgment a few months ago and had gotten half a platoon wiped out, he was being shipped to a new hellhole. What he really wanted was to return to New York. He should have deserted while the Continental was docked there, but he was too much of a coward.
The Effie Deans shuddered to a halt midstream with men shouting and hanging over the rails, looking into the river. The moon shone big as a gold dollar, the stars glittering overhead, reflecting off the dark water. In the dim light of the lantern, Baker squatted and studied the deck. He put his finger in the scarlet smear and grunted with satisfation. Christ! I told you I hit him, sir!”
Colonel Dimon bent and looked, then stared out at the brown water. The stern wheeler had come to a complete halt in the middle of the river. You men shine those lights over the side! Anyone see anything?”
Baker looked out at the fast-moving current. There were no ripples at all and it was a long way to shore. Sir, I imagine the stupid bastard’s at the bottom of the Missouri now. No wounded man is strong enough to swim that distance.” He gestured toward the distant shore.
Dimon looked at the spot of blood on the deck. I suppose that’s true,” he mused aloud. Besides, even if he managed to get to shore, with no weapon and wounded, he won’t last very long. Anyone know for sure who it was?”
The men around them grumbled under their breaths, but no one answered.
Very well,” Dimon snapped, we’ll know when we do roll call in the morning.”
Sir,” Baker said, shall we put out search parties in boats or along the shore?”
The colonel shook his head. We’re behind schedule now what with having to take time to shoot that fellow. As I said, even if he managed to make it to land, which I doubt, he won’t last long wounded with no weapon and no food. He’ll be lucky if a war party doesn’t find him and torture him to death.�
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Baker looked out over the muddy surface of the water again. The glimmer of the lanterns didn’t carry very far, but the reflection of the full moon on the surface showed the water smooth as far as the eye could see. The dumb Johnny Reb was dead, all right, but not before he’d finished ruining Baker’s career.
Dimon turned to the ship’s captain. You may get underway again, captain. We’ve got a long way to go to fight the Sioux.”
The captain’s face in the lamplight looked shocked. You ain’t gonna make any attempt to find that poor devil?”
Dimon shook his head. No, I’m quite satisfied we’ve seen the last of him. I hope it was one of our major troublemakers.” He looked around at the sullen men on deck. Let this be a lesson to you all. I am in command here and there’s no point in deserting. Now let’s go north and fight Indians like you signed up to do! Captain, get underway!”
Cherokee had felt the dull pain explode at the base of his skull as he went over the side, diving headfirst over the rail. It seemed like an eternity he hung in midair and then he hit the water, went deep into its cold depths, and felt the current tugging at him, dragging him down.
Dazed as he was, he couldn’t seem to move for a long moment, and he knew he was wounded and probably drowning. Why not give up and let go? It seemed such an easy way to die—just close his eyes and take a deep gulp of water. Soon it would all be over, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more struggle.
Then he saw Silver’s dear face in his mind. I need you, Cherokee, my love ... come back to me . . . come back. I’ve saved a treasure for you ... In his mind, she kissed his palm and closed his fingers over it. Put that in your pocket and remember me ... remember ...
He had to live. He had to go back to Colorado Territory and ask that girl to marry him. Cherokee began to fight his way to the surface. His water-logged clothes pulled at him, trying to drag him under. He wasn’t going to make it, he thought, struggling to rid himself of the heavy uniform jacket. Even as he fought to get to the life-giving air of the surface, he felt the current sweeping him along downstream. Just as he knew he would die, he slipped out of the coat and broke the surface of the river, gasping and gulping in the air.
Quicksilver Passion Page 22