by Celia Hayes
“Then a drink,” Peter said, “or hell, I vote we just go watch English Jack turn them cards.” He drew his cousin back towards the main street, and one of the most splendidly imposing buildings there.
“Look at that,” Dolph remarked as they peered through the glass doors. The interior was hung with mirrors and gold-framed paintings of elegant, if rather underdressed, women. “It’s called ‘The Alamo.’ Guess they wanted us to feel right at home.”
“They wanted to make our money feel right at home,” Peter added with cynical cheer.
As they came through the door, a very lovely girl in a low-cut dress came up and put her hand on Dolph’s cheek, cooing, “Why, you pretty Texas boys—won’t you just go ahead and buy me a drink?”
“I don’t think so, ma’am,” Dolph replied. Before his cousin’s eyes, Dolph put on his most innocent and blandest expression. “My mama don’t approve of drinking and I don’t rightly approve of such myself.”
“But your mama ain’t around to see what you do in Abilene,” the girl replied winningly.
Peter said, “Yeah, but his big brother is, ma’am.” He tipped his hat to her and took Dolph’s arm. “Come along, Rudolph—you know what Mama said ‘bout the demon drink.”
Dolph tipped his own hat with a convincing display of shyness, and allowed Peter to take him back out the door. The pretty girl made a moue of momentary disappointment, but as the glass doors swung behind them, they heard her greet the next man to come through with a cheerful, “You pretty Texas man—are you going to buy me a drink?”
Dolph whistled, a sly expression of admiration, as they continued down the sidewalk. “I think we had a narrow escape, Cuz.”
“So we did,” Peter laughed, and fondly buffeted Dolph on the shoulder. “You did that well—the honest, country idiot on his first trip to the big city. Your father did the same; I once overheard Captain Hays saying as much.”
“Did he, then?” Dolph suddenly looked as very young and unsure as he had pretended to be.
“He did indeed,” Peter answered. “And Captain Hays insisted that such a pretense made him uncommonly good at games of chance, for he looked such an easy mark, that every sharper west of the Mississippi could hardly resist.”
“So, that gave some advantage?” Dolph asked. Their boots thumped resoundingly along the wooden sidewalk. Dolph looked quite thoughtful and said, “I could use this, use it to advantage myself, Cuz, with buyers and all?”
“Uncle Carl surely did,” Peter sighed. “Captain Hays said the first thing your father did when he left home was to win a horse playing at cards, and the second thing was to borrow a carbine from him so they could join a Ranger company together.”
They paused to tip their hats courteously at a young woman elegantly dressed in flowered satin. She sailed down the wooden sidewalks as if she were a queen, the end of a delicate little chain leash in one hand, and what Peter thought at first was a tiny dog tucked into the curve of her arm. But it was not, as they saw at a closer glance. It was a plump little prairie dog with a collar around its neck. Peter realized that his cousin was staring more at the tame prairie dog than at the girl, who was indeed quite pretty, with very curly hair and a gap between her teeth which showed when she smiled at them.
“Hello, boys,” she drawled. “Are you in town looking for some fun today?”
“Not much, ma’am,” Dolph answered, still looking more at her pet.
“You boys surely can’t go wrong in Abilene,” she murmured invitingly. “Here, or down in the Addition. You’d be welcome any time.”
“We’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.” Dolph finally took his eyes from the prairie dog. “Might you direct me to a general store, ma’am? One that might have some fresh meat scraps or something of that sort?”
Oh lord, Peter thought with an inward sigh, he’s still fretting over that dog.
With a baffled but amused look the young woman answered, “Hazelett’s General is back that way, boys.”
As they continued on Peter said, “Speaking as a man of the world, Cuz, I find that I rather prefer the company of respectable women. And the temporary separation from such is not so unbearable that I must seek out the services of the other sort.”
Dolph’s eyebrows went up, nearly to his hair line. “Was she the other sort, Cuz? I hardly noticed.”
“Of course not, you were too busy staring at her pet prairie dog. What kind of woman would be offering hospitality to just-met strangers on the street? Of course she was. You weren’t interested in engaging her services, were you?
“No,” Dolph shrugged. “Still, there’s something finer about her, being kind to animals and all. I like people like that. I’d mind about the other thing, though.” Peter thought his cousin was flushing a little pink. “It’s like taking a room in one of those cheap boarding houses, sleeping on one of their straw-ticks? You don’t rightly like to think of how many have been there before you.”
“Interesting way to think of it,” Peter sighed. “Come on, then, Cuz. Let’s go find that poor mutt of yours, and have a quiet dinner with Uncle Hansi and the cattle buyers. At least, you and I will get out of Abilene with most of our wages still in hand.”
“The sooner we leave, the better I’ll like it,” Dolph answered. “I figure they’ve made enough money off us as it is.”
Chapter Fourteen: What Once was Lost
Cannily, Hansi sold the supply wagon and the team that had pulled it and found a purchaser for all the remuda horses. He kept out the stump-horned steer and the team that pulled the cook-wagon. He sent Peter, Dolph, and Daddy Hurst to drive it all—wagon, team and blue steer—back to Texas. They took the long road to Kansas City, and then south along the old Shawnee Road. They wrote triumphant letters home, telling Anna, Magda, and the rest of the family about the success of the cattle drive north and of their immediate plans.
After helping to prod the cattle onto railcars, the other hands took their pay and loaded their saddles and bedrolls onto a train headed east to St. Louis. From there, they would take a Mississippi riverboat south to New Orleans and return to their homes in Texas by stage, rail, or coastal packet. Hansi went with them as far as St. Louis, to arrange for their fares home. Only English Jack had no intention of returning to Texas, graciously declining the offer of his fare.
“Fascinating experience,” he drawled to Fredi over dinner in the Drovers’ Cottage ornate dining room. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and I wouldn’t repeat it for another one, if it’s all the same to your good self.”
“What will you do here, then?” Fredi asked.
Jack looked blandly around the room. “This and that,” he answered with deliberate vagueness.
Once the cattle were loaded, and the hands paid off, there was no reason to remain in Kansas. Fredi remained a few days after everyone else scattered to the four winds. There were some small matters like bills and fines to be sorted out, and a large disgruntled townsman who came to the Drovers’ Cottage one morning insisting that one of Fredi’s men had absconded with his dog.
“That was the finest fighting dog in Kansas!” said the man. He had buttonholed Fredi in the lobby of the Drovers’ Cottage as he was on his way to breakfast in the dining room. “And I want to know what you’re going to do about that thieving rascal who stole it!”
“A fighting dog? Didn’t seem to have all that much fight left in it,” Fredi grunted. He was almost sure that was the same light brown hound, with the flesh of its throat carefully stitched up and bandaged by Dolph. Fredi’s nephew had departed Abilene several days before, the dog perched high on the seat of the cook-wagon next to him. Apparently others had seen it too.
“I demand payment for that dog!” the man snapped. “Or I’ll see the law on you!”
Fredi sighed wearily. “How much?”
“How much? How much for a good fighting dog? Ten dollars, at least!”
Fredi took out a roll of bills from his vest and silently peeled off five of them. “That dog
couldn’t fight his way out of a rotten gunny-sack. Five dollars.”
The man began to protest, but Fredi, hungry and impatient to dig into his breakfast, retorted, “You folk make a lot of money off my men, and our cattle. I think you should be content with five dollars for a dog that don’t fight worth a damn.” He leaned closer to the man, lowering his voice to a menacing growl. “Next year, maybe my men and our cattle, and our money—we go somewhere else? Some other town on the railroad with a fine stockyard and a big hotel! Nothing stays the same. Take the five dollars and be damned.”
Fredi shouldered his way past the man without a backwards look; a small-town bully, in Fredi’s experienced estimation. Five dollars for a scarred and beaten mutt was generous indeed, especially since the poor little beast was presently several days gone on the road east. He thought that might be the last of his business here, and tucked into breakfast with appreciation. The Drovers’ Cottage offered a lavish bill of fare for every meal. After nearly four months of campfire-cooked beans and cornbread, Fredi relished every bite.
Still, he felt a certain amount of regret, for in his own mind he sensed that this trail drive enterprise was done and complete—at least for the present. Fredi, unlike Hansi and Dolph, cheerfully lived in the moment, thinking no farther into the future than the next day, or the next challenge; in fact, not a moment farther ahead than necessary. Also, unlike his more fastidious nephew, Fredi had quite enjoyed all the various pleasures that Abilene had offered, especially once the herd had been dispatched into cattle cars headed east. All those responsibilities he had carried as the trail boss had been banished. But of his close friends and acquaintances, only English Jack was still in town, and he was a flint-hearted bastard, as cold-blooded as a snake. Fredi had just about concluded that it was time to follow the other fellows and go home. He had not made up his mind whether to go by train and steamer as the other boys had—a long but rather dull prospect—or see if he might hitch a ride with an Army supply wagon going south, and rustle up a little excitement on the way.
“Mistah Steinmetz, sah?” The colored boy who carried messages and waited tables hovered over him, a heavy silver-plate coffee pot in hand. “Miz Gore tole me to tell you, dere’s a message foh you at de desk.”
“A message?” Fredi brightened. Maybe there was something worth remaining in Abilene yet another day for. “Who from—do you know?”
“Jus’ a telegram, sah,” the boy answered. “Jus’ come from de office, I doan’ know.”
“No matter.” Fredi drank the last of his breakfast coffee, reflecting that although it tasted very nice, with cream and fine sugar, Daddy Hurst’s coffee from a tin pot and sweetened with molasses still was better for waking a man up. A telegram? It must be from Hansi. Perhaps he had bought a hell of a fine bull in the east, but Fredi couldn’t think for the life of him why Hansi would spend money on a telegram to tell him all about it. At the desk in the Drovers’ Cottage lobby, Fredi opened the folded paper with the telegram office’s insignia printed at the top. It took him only a second to read the terse message, and several seconds longer to comprehend its implications.
Grete freed stop Fort Larned stop Come at once stop J Steinmetz sends end message.
Fredi refolded the telegram with hands that felt like they belonged to another. Mrs. Gore, the proprietress of the Drovers’ Cottage, looked at him with apprehensive eyes.
“I hope it’s not bad news, Mister Steinmetz.”
“No.” Fredi shook his head, feeling as stunned as if he had been thrown from the back of his horse, or a lightning bolt has crashed to earth just at his feet. “Its wonderful news, but I must leave immediately. And I must send a telegram in reply. I did not know my brother had gone to Kansas. How far from here is Fort Larned and what is the fastest way to get there?”
“Coach,” Mrs. Gore answered. “The railway hasn’t reached that far yet. If you weren’t in such a hurry, you could go with an Army supply wagon, for they send goods out there all the time, for the Indian Agency.”
“No, I can’t wait for that, my dear Madam Gore. The coach it is, and today if possible.”
“I’ll send one of the boys to buy a ticket,” Mrs. Gore offered. Fredi gallantly took her hand as if he would kiss it.
“I’ll even ride on top with the driver, if so required,” he mentioned, “as long as it’s today.”
Fredi packed his meager belongings, putting on his rough working clothes once again. This was like a miracle come out of the blue. Johnson’s foray into Indian Territory the previous year had been unsuccessful in obtaining Grete and Willi’s return. Since then, the Army had forbidden the paying of ransoms for white captives, on the very fair grounds that it only encouraged the Indians to take as many as possible in further raids. Nonetheless, Hansi had encouraged the search, heartened by occasional reports of captive girls among Kiowa and Comanche villages who were of the right age and appearance. But it had been two years since Willi and Grete were taken. Fredi had been long enough with the Frontier Battalion to know that not every captive would be redeemed, and the longer that those of a young age remained with their captors, the greater likelihood that they would choose willingly to stay.
Three days later, he swung wearily down from the stage when it pulled in at Boyd’s ranch, on the crossing of the stage road over Pawnee Creek. He took down his saddle and bedroll from the luggage boot, arranging to leave them in the station office. Boyd’s ranch looked a small and ramshackle place, one long sod building with many additions and extensions. The fort itself lay further on, a rough square of low buildings made of dark limestone, painted white and raised above the level of the parade ground. Fredi supposed the longer buildings to be barracks. The parade ground itself was a busy place, with wheels and the feet of blue-uniformed men churning up fine clouds of dust continuously. From somewhere the notes of a bugle fell, and Fredi stepped hastily aside as a long train of heavy freight wagons rolled past.
“I’m looking for Major Steinmetz,” he asked of the first Yankee soldier he came close enough to speak to, a tall Irishman with yellow sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeves. “Where would I find him?”
The sergeant squinted down at Fredi, a quizzical look on his face, as if he suspected a joke was about to be played upon him. “And where would I look for a foine doctor and surgeon like the Major, but in the post infirmary?”
Fredi scowled. For four years, a blue Federal uniform had meant an enemy, even if his own brother wore such. He had no patience for a battle of wits with a blue-belly sergeant who appeared to have little of his original issue of them.
“He’s my brother, if you must know. I’ve come to take my niece home. Three days ago I’d a message that she was ransomed back from the Indians.”
The tall sergeant’s face brightened. “Ah! So that is why you have such a look of the Major, indade! The little maidy is staying with Colonel Wynkoop, for sure he is the Agent for the tribes in these parts. That is their house, over there,” he pointed. “You can’t miss it, for the Indians, y’see. The Major would be there.”
“My thanks,” Fredi nodded stiffly. He didn’t know which made him more uneasy, the blue-clad soldiers all around, or the handful of Indians. He skirted the edge of the parade ground, walking towards that house which had been pointed out to him. It had an indefinably comfortable air about it, as if a woman might live there, not a single man batching it. A short distance from the stone house, an Indian woman sat on the ground, weeping in inconsolable grief. Fredi spared a glance. The woman had cut her hair off short and it hung in ragged black locks around her contorted face. Her deerskin tunic was unfastened from around her shoulders, hanging to her waist, and she was slashing at her bared breasts with a knife. The blood ran in trickles and splattered into the dust. Two boys hovered around the weeping woman as if they offered solace; but they seemed embarrassed, too, as if they wished the woman would demonstrate her grief anywhere else but in front of the white colonel’s house. She cried out, wailing loudly, as Fredi walked past.
He wondered vaguely why she was making such a fearful noise and spectacle.
A Yankee officer walked up and down the veranda of the Colonel’s house. Now and again he glanced at the wailing woman as if he also wished for her to go and mourn somewhere else. There was something familiar in the set of his blue-clad shoulders and Fredi’s heart jerked in sudden recognition: Johann. They had not seen each other in nearly seven years; an astonishing thing, for they were twin-born and inseparable until the age of sixteen, when Johann went back to Germany to study medicine. He had returned just at the start of the war. When the fighting began, Fredi volunteered at once for the Frontier Battalion, but Johann went to practice medicine with Doctor Herff in San Antonio.
Then J.P. Waldrip murdered Magda’s husband. Up to that moment, Johann held abolitionist sympathies but considered Texas as home, the place to which he owed loyalty. But after seeing how the authorities had turned their backs on such a brutal injustice, he could not countenance serving the Confederacy in any way. Hearing that Johann had gone to California to join the Union Army, Fredi had sworn a heartbroken oath to Vati that when his unit ever encountered Union soldiers, he would fire into the ground, or above their heads. Now, looking across the dusty front garden of Colonel Wynkoop’s house, Fredi recalled that promise. He never did have to do such a thing. In the remaining three years of the war, he had mostly fought against Indians or Mexican bandits.
He stepped up on the verandah. Hearing his footstep, Johann turned towards him, his face reflecting momentary annoyance and distraction. Fredi cleared his throat. “Hullo, Johann.”
“Fredi!” In three long strides his brother was embracing him with fierce affection. “Ah, God, Fredi, it’s good to see you. I didn’t think you’d be here for another day. You must have traveled without stopping!”
“I did, brother, I did,” Fredi answered. “I didn’t know you were in Kansas!”