Just then a pair of drovers came in with money won at the Faro bank in E Company’s barracks. They wanted whores & the cutnose girl gave welcome to them & set them at the table we just abandoned. Our seats were not yet cold & Tom’s face took on a terrible scowl at the notion that he did not get to lay down with his girl yet one of these two civilian boys would. Of a sudden I saw the wild mad Tom again the one the War made of him & for a moment I felt that he would loose terrible violence upon the shebeen & all within it & in truth (though it does shame me to say it in my sobriety) it would of made me glad at the time to join him in it.
“Go now,” says Tom’s girl & Tom to my surprise took heed of her.
“Daly will be off picket soon boys,” my brother said but looking at the Sutler who would not look at him & then turning his dead eyes at the Sutler’s whore skinner. His words in drink can be hard to reckon but Ridgeway & Metzger took their general meaning & made to leave. In Irish says Tom to me, “And pay the b______ for the last jugs brother. I will take my leave before I make wreckage of this place.”
As Tom turned to leave the cuckoo sprung from his hole again some minutes passing since his last visit & says Tom to me, “And before we leave this Valley I will have that clock for kindling.”
A queer look the skinner did give me while I paid him & Kinney snapped at the sleepy whores to parade before the drovers so they could make their pick.
It was a sad & quiet walk back to the Ft. & if any Indians were about they might of made mince of us. Later that morning as I rode guard on the woodtrain with the sun boiling the whiskey in my head I swore to myself I would never go back to that low shebeen but of course you know Sir I did not keep this promise.
33
December 17, 1866—Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory
KOHN HAS INQUIRED AND BEEN TOLD WHERE TO FIND the picture-maker and if Molloy thinks there is anything odd about the photographer’s tent being pitched behind C Company’s barracks, within the military stockade, rather than with the civilians outside the fort, or at very least within the Quartermaster’s adjoining yard, he says nothing.
Halfway across the parade ground to the enlisted barracks, Molloy halts on his crutches and takes what he feels to be a discreet sup from his bottle. “Kentucky mash,” he mumbles. “Not trade. Trade whiskey. They distill it in an effort to exterminate the Indian I have no doubt of this. It is this century’s small pox blanket.”
“Yessir.” Kohn cannot look at him.
Several C Company men are in front of the barracks as they arrive, two of them stuffing mattresses from a pile of hay on the frozen ground, three more sitting on a bench with their faces to the low winter sun like pagans worshipping a fickle god. The two soldiers stuffing mattresses turn to Kohn and Molloy.
“The picture-maker’s tent,” Kohn says. The men on the bench open their eyes.
Molloy smiles blankly at the men. After a long moment of silence, Kohn says, “Well, do you pig-fucking infantry not salute an officer when you see one?”
“How’s we supposed to know he’s an officer at all, him cloaked in buffalo hide, Sergeant?” says one of the mattress stuffers. The men stand up from the bench and languidly salute. Half-assed, insolent. Irish, Kohn notes.
Molloy says to the men, “Sergeant Kohn has a hardened ass, gentlemen, as you can see. Too long in the saddle, not enough in the sack, you might say.” There is something idiotic and ingratiating about his tone. An Irishman playing the Mick for his fellows, Kohn thinks. The fool. The low-born Paddy savages sniffing around each other like dogs.
“Don’t know no picture-maker, sir,” one of the mattress stuffers says, throwing idle fingers at his kepi brim by way of a salute. Kohn would have had him lashed to a barrel in the war for such slackness, never mind the outright lie. Molloy’s pal-and-buddy show has failed. Serves him right, Kohn thinks, making his way around the barracks, not caring whether the officer follows or not.
At the back of the log building there is a wood-frame tent of heavy sail canvas, its entrance flaps unlashed and hanging becalmed in the still morning air. Kohn does not hail but throws the flaps aside and enters the tent. Inside he finds the floor of the tent to be a raised, rough board platform. He is mildly surprised by this as the enlisted barracks still have packed earth or flat stone for floors. To one side of the tent is a table laid with tin tubs of liquid, piled high and randomly with square glass plates, and above these, hung with clothes pegs on a length of thin rope strung between tent poles, are a number of photographs printed to paper from the glass plates. Drying, curing, Kohn thinks. Stacks of paper-thin tintypes next to the tubs. In the corner farthest from the flap is a cot piled high with buffalo rugs and miner blankets. A figure rises up from the mass of bedclothes, a young man, his skin pale and sheened with the sweat of fear or illness; tousled long, blond hair. Like a woman’s, Kohn thinks, a whore’s head of hair when she wakes.
“You’re the picture-maker,” Kohn says, not looking at the man but stepping over to the line of hanging pictures. “What name do you go by?”
“I am, sir. Glover. Ridgeway Glover. Might I ask—”
Kohn unpegs one of the photographs and examines it. It is of an Indian girl, naked from the waist up, her back to the camera, half of a pale breast exposed, her head turned to look into the camera’s eye, a thick black braid down her back. There is a jug and a basin on a table beside the bed and the walls of the room where the photograph was taken are of dark, barked logs though the woman’s smooth, muscular back is lit and cut with shadow. Light gleams in the Indian woman’s eyes as if sourced there, though Kohn knows this must be a reflection of an artificial illumination. Despite her nakedness, there is nothing sexual about the photograph, Kohn realizes, thinking at first that the picture was a sort of French postcard. No, it is more than that and Kohn is, for a moment, mesmerized by it. There is something about the image. He cannot see the whole of the face but nonetheless recognizes the Indian woman he saw hanging laundry with the colonel’s wife. Sarah. His heartbeat quickens in his chest and sweat breaks under his arms despite the cold.
“You made this in the hog ranch?” Kohn holds the picture up for the photographer to see. “The sutler’s tavern off-post?”
“Why, yes . . .”
“She’s the whore Sarah, isn’t she?”
The tent flaps ruffle and Molloy enters before the young man can answer.
“For all that’s holy, Kohn, let the man up and dress himself,” Molloy says, resting on his crutches as if he has traveled a great distance. “How terribly rude. Forgive the sergeant, kind sir. You will come to find him a fair man but he can be short in the social graces.”
The air in the tent is suffused with whiskey fumes. As if aware of this and to mask the odor of his weakness, Molloy fumbles under his coat and comes out with a cheroot and box of matches. Kohn sees that the captain’s hands are steady as he lights the cigar.
Glover shoves off the weight of hides and blankets and stands. He is dressed already in woollen trousers, a bulky knitted sweater, several pairs of woollen socks, the under-pairs showing through holes in the outer layers, and Kohn thinks that the young man may have been several days in his bed without undressing. He is frail and thin under the layers of clothing, his pale hands delicate, knuckles round and raised like the rivets on a lady’s hatbox.
“My boots,” the photographer says. “I’ll just put on my boots.” He sits on a milking stool and pulls on a pair of boots that to Kohn’s eye must once have cost a cavalry sergeant’s monthly wage. They are scuffed and ragged now, carelessly worn and never once burnished. He takes an instant dislike to the young man, his wealth worn so carelessly as to speak of a life of ease. His life, from here out, will not be so easy.
“Is this the whore called Sarah?” Kohn says again.
“Sarah,” Glover says from the milking stool, looking up at the photograph. “Sarah . . .”
“Is it her name or not?”
“It may
be. I forget. I asked some of them their names. There was more than one I photographed. You can see if you look.” He points up to the other pictures hanging from the line. “I didn’t really know them.”
“You spent a good amount of time among them, making pictures of them and whatever else you did, not to know their names.”
“I—”
“This is Sarah. You know her and you know what happened when the sutler was murdered. You were there and you are going to tell me what happened. Do you understand me?”
“Wait. I don’t know—”
“You know.” Kohn steps forward, looming over the young man. There is a ferocity in his eyes and even in his drunkenness Molloy can see the terror on the young photographer’s face.
“Please, sir. I don’t know anything.”
“Kohn, let the man up. Jesus wept but you are a hard man. A hard, cold man.” Molloy turns his attention to the photographer. “Stand up, sir. And then help me to sit down on the bed there like a good fellow.”
Kohn turns his eyes to Molloy, the rage not leaving them. Molloy smiles around his cheroot and, standing on his good leg, takes up his crutches in one hand and holds them out to Glover.
The photographer looks up to Molloy as if to a safe harbor and stands and takes the officer’s crutches and taking his arm around his shoulder he supports Molloy as far as his bed and eases him down to sit upon the pile of hides and blankets. “Much better,” Molloy says. “Thank you, sir. Sit. Sit with me here.”
The young man sits down beside Molloy on the cot. His eyes dart from the officer to Kohn and back. Molloy again goes under his coat and this time comes out with his half-full bottle of whiskey. “Take a sup, sir,” he says to Glover. “A balm for the senses.”
“I am not fit for a drink, sir.”
“Take one.” Molloy smiles, beatific, kindness embodied. A smile that saps Kohn’s sudden rage. How can he hate the man? Because he loves him. Like a father. Shallow, wicked and weak. Damned. Like a father. Curse him. Zol er krenken un gedenken.
“Leave us, Kohn. We will only be a moment. A small sup and some easy words between us.” Molloy pats the photographer on the knee.
Kohn throws back the tent flaps and leaves. Zol er krenken un gedenken. Let him suffer and remember. He is unsure himself whether he means Molloy or the photographer. Both, most probably, goddamn them.
34
OUR 1ST PROPER SCRAP WITH MR. LO
IT WAS THE NEXT DAY AFTER OUR 1ST VISIT TO KINNEY’S hog ranch in August or maybe the day after when we did ride out in chase of some Indians under the command of Mad Capt. Brown the Q.M. & chief scalp hunter among us here at Ft. Phil. It does be important I reckon to tell you about it Sir for it gives you maybe some notion of what our days were like. For bloody days did have their sway on our conduct in the night especially the night we will come to soon in this testament.
Well this day had its start after a cutting detail in the Pinery as we returned to the Ft. in escort to the woodtrain. The mountains were purple with the late afternoon light upon them & the Little Piney creek was burbling joyous & everclear & sweet the grasses of the Valley bending to the breeze when out came the Q.M. thundering from the main gate with 8 or 10 other boys in saddle. Seeing the brace of us O’Driscoll brothers he let out a roar for us to follow him & follow him we did for we would follow that fellow to Hell just to see what he might do there.
One of the boys told us as we rode that Red Cloud’s Braves just some minutes before cut down a civilian drover & his mate & ran their oxen from the grazing south of the Ft. He is a fierce clever b______ Mr. Lo I recall thinking. We put our main guard to the woodtrain & while we did he blaggarded us & took the oxen instead from the unguarded grazing.
We did double back along the hilltop road whence we just came & I was glad to have my rifle & my pistols primed & readied. We carried two Navy Colts & already we were of a mind to save a last bullet for ourselves in case the jig was up & we were to be taken captive by the Sioux for it is said there is no worse fate on this Earth for a white man than to be taken alive by the savages. It was only talk then but we did see it with our own eyes since but Mr. Lo will do things to you for sport that the Devil would not do in a day’s work.
But none of this we were picturing as we rode in pursuit of the Indians them having a good head start on us. Instead we were thinking only, “Thank God we did not miss the chance for to go out on this old rumble!” Never did it come to my mind as we galloped across the grass & up higher into the Western hills that I might be struck down dead or scalped or gelded by the red savages we chased for soldiers do not think in such a way when the blood is hot. They think only of doing that which they are paid for & that which will give a jump to his black soldier’s heart & that is scrapping. For though my brother & myself did come to rue the War Between The States at its end (my brother especially & no wonder with his injuries) well there was something in us still that was joyful for the chance to fight. Perhaps it is in all men or perhaps more so in Irishmen but every American boy or Olive Oiler or Dutchy German I ever met in Union blue or Sesesh grey well every D___ one of them nearly did come alive in his body & very soul to the prospect of a bashing combat or dusty punch up & it is all the more to relish if you are ordered to do it.
In our blood lust I was not thinking of them 2 civilian ox drivers flayed out & butchered in the grazing grass back by the Ft. nor did I think of the 3 boys who got theirs on the woodtrain 2 days before our return from Ft. Smith & nor did I know that them deaths was the start of many more to come or that I would soon loathe battle & its sister Death & see her skulking in every shadow & behind every tree & keeping the very dark of night as her own. I did not know I would come to live in fear & that it would make my hands shake & dreams of Death would drive me dry mouthed from my bed the same as it did at the end of the War. I did not know any of this then but I know it now & wish I had the forethought to imagine it back when we had the chance to flee from this place to Virginia City as once we planned. But the blood does heat up in a chase & truth be told I could not think of anything but killing an Indian or 2 that day.
So we rode with our shadows stretching longer in the grass beside us & soon a scout with us (his name is Beckworth I learnt later & he has a whole flock of Crow women as wives & claims to be a Chief of mighty standing among them Crows) well this Beckworth came riding back to tell us he found the trail took by the savages & 1 of the rustled oxen was laying dead upon it. He told us it appeared the other 9 or 10 oxen were still in stampede with the Indians driving them & that we could catch them but the Indians would be game for a tussle if we wanted one.
Our horses were pulled up around him as he said this their heads bobbing at the reins the chase hot in their horse blood too. Says he, “You can make chase or bow out now but the going is hard in the hills & you got a pack of chances for a ambush on you.”
Well Mad Capt. Brown did not like this one bit. “Bow out?” says he. “Beckworth what kind of c____ s_______ coward are you? Did I hear you say bow out? Did I hear him say that boys?”
Our loonie Q.M. who by rights should be back with his woodtrain & his cut logs looked to Tom when he said this knowing well what Tom would think.
“You did Sir,” says Tom & his words was clear in his mouth but by this time Brown was no longer listening. He was already turning his horse for them steeper hills after the oxen thieving savages.
“You may bow out yourself Beckworth,” says Brown as he lay his spurs into his mount the mount that Tom roped & broke to the gun for him back in Nebraska. “You are not obliged to do the work of the Army of the United States but these boys are.”
Though I could not see Capt. Brown’s face I knew he was smiling & myself & Tom & all the boys were smiling ourselves too as all of us put the spurs to our mounts & followed with cries of Hup Hup & Heea Heea.
Of course Beckworth joined us as well for far from bowed out did he want to be when there was a chance for the taking of a Sioux or Cheyanne scalp or 2
for his wives who being Crows do hate the Sioux far worse & fierce longer than us & after some 10 or 15 minutes of hard riding Beckworth pointed & shouted & we all caught sight of Mr. Lo & our oxen being drove up a steep trail some 300 yds. ahead.
“Time to take our oxen back boys,” says Brown waving his wide brim sloucher hat like a cattle man might & we again lay in the spurs & the eyeballs of our horses went wide & their nostrils flaring with ears pegged back like they knew what lay ahead of them & were eager to join it.
So we lashed our mounts cross a wide meadow of wild hay to fetch the trail rising up to where the Indians were trying to drive the oxen into the mountains & we could see they were now in 2 minds should they fight or flicker. To my eye there looked to be no more than 15 of them but there could of been more or less I did not know only that there would be fewer again when we finished with them.
100 yds. we galloped hooves thundering beneath us the lot of us roaring & hollering like Johnny Reb in the War. 1 or 2 of the Indians drove their ponies on up the trail the whole time bashing the backs of the oxen with their spears & bows but a goodly number of them did turn back to give us a fight. It was 50 yds. uphill for us & 50 down for them with their wolf & coyote cries loosing arrows at us as they did descend.
Closer & closer they came & an arrow cut the air next to my head & I fired my Springfield at the Brave coming closest to me while all of us began to bunch up in a pack with guns banging & men shouting for the trail was narrow at the point where we met with rocks rising up on one side & the trail dropping off steep enough to toss you from your horse on the other.
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