Bittersweet

by Anita Mills

  “Just don’t act like you notice anything out of the ordinary while I get the box of cartridges. How fast do you think you can clear the breech and reload?”

  “Pretty fast.”

  “I’d better warn you not to drop the gun when the fire runs up the breech—it’s just a flash and it’s over, but it tends to startle if you’re not expecting it. Jesse said the seal leaks, and that’s why it does that. I just know there’s a flare when you shoot it.” Sliding the box onto the seat between them, she added, “It’s an 1853, so Mr. Russell just gave it to us. The newer ones cost thirty-six dollars, and Jesse didn’t think we could afford it. This one’s accurate enough, anyway.”

  “Where did you learn so much about a gun?”

  “There was just Danny and me, and we had to eat. But we didn’t have anything like this—we just had Daddy’s old Hawkens.”

  “I see. I guess you must’ve been a real Diana back then.”

  “The Romans didn’t have rifles, Dr. Hardin,” she said dryly. “I couldn’t hit the wide side of a barn with a bow and arrow.”

  He looked to the stand of trees again and cursed under his breath. He could see three Indians now. Trying not to frighten her, he said, “It looks like you’re going to get a chance to use the Colt.”

  “They’re still out of range.” Shifting her weight on the seat, she casually rotated the cylinder. “I don’t suppose you’ve got another bullet handy, do you? You’ve got an empty chamber.”

  “To keep from shooting myself in the leg or worse.”

  “Yes, I know that, but I’m holding it in my hand right now, and I’d like to start out with all I can get.” Seeing that he was about to raise the Sharps, she suggested, “I’d hold my fire until I knew what they aimed to do. If three’s all there are, they might just let us go by. And if there’s more waiting up ahead, you might not want to start anything just yet.”

  “It’s a hell of a place to make a stand, that’s for sure,” he muttered. “We can’t make a run for it, and there’s no place to hide,”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Are you always so calm, Mrs. Taylor?”

  “No.” She turned her gold-flecked brown eyes to him. “Hysterics wouldn’t help much now, so I figure I’ll be worth more to you if I keep my hand steady. But I can’t vouch for what I might do when the fight’s over.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a horse moving. “Now’s the time to show the Sharps, Dr. Hardin——they’re headed this way.”

  He could feel the hairs stand on the back of his neck as Indians emerged from the trees. She sat very still beside him, but the only fear he saw was the stiff way she held herself now. He rested the big buffalo rifle across his knees in full view, ready to take aim at the first sign of hostility. Her finger was crooked so tight around the Colt’s trigger that the knuckle was white.

  A big buck separated from his two companions and rode forward. His face wasn’t painted, but he didn’t look friendly. Stopping about twenty yards ahead of them, he raised one hand and shouted something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t polite.

  “You have any notion what’s going on?” he asked Laura Taylor.

  “No. Just don’t let him see you’re scared, and keep going. If they’re going to make any trouble, I’d say it’s about to happen.”

  “Yeah.” His mouth was so dry, it felt like it was full of cotton. “If all hell breaks loose, I’ll take the farthest one, and you can have the fellow staring at us. If the last one doesn’t run, you’re the one with bullets left, and you’ll have to fire while I reload.”

  “I understand.”

  The thought crossed his mind that he’d made it through four years of war without firing a shot, and it’d be a shame if after the hell he’d been through, it was a damned Indian that got him. His hand rested uneasily on the Sharps’s breech, ready for his finger to take the trigger, and his heart pounded while his brain told him that whether he was ready or not, this was it.

  “Hello!” Laura called out, forcing a bright smile.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Spence demanded furiously. “This isn’t a Sunday picnic, and they’re not after fried chicken.”

  “I’m not showing fear. I don’t know much about Indians, but I’ve heard they respect that.” Keeping a tight grip on the revolver, she raised her other hand to wave at the scowling brave. “We’re just passing through!”

  “Are you insane?”

  “I don’t know yet. If it’d help, I probably would be. I read somewhere if they think you’re more than a mite tetched, it’ll spook them, but I think the article was about Comanches.”

  They were less than twenty yards from the rider when he raised his war lance belligerently with one hand, while the other one brandished what looked to be an old musket. The gesture brought his companions out of the trees, one of them charging, raising a war cry.

  “I’d say we’re in deep trouble,” he muttered under his breath.

  Her hand crept to the box of linen cartridges, easing the lid off so he could get at them. “Yes, she said simply. “They’re in range now.”

  At that, she brought up the revolver and pulled the trigger, shattering the lance in the big buck’s hand. He jerked as though he’d burned his fingers, then he leveled the musket on her. Before he could shoot, Spence fired the Sharps, dropping him. Laura Taylor’s second shot hit one of the others, and he pitched forward, then slumped over his pony’s neck. The third Indian zigzagged, trying to lessen his chances of taking a bullet. Leaning out, he scooped up the wounded man’s reins, spurred his own horse, and tore out of there at a full gallop while the injured warrior flopped like a rag doll but managed to hold on.

  The Indian in the road lay where he’d fallen, and as the wagon passed by him, Laura looked away. When that fifty-two caliber bullet had torn through his brow, the rest of his head had exploded. Spence heard her gag, and he felt sorry for her. It wasn’t any sight for a woman to see.

  “I just hope there aren’t any more of ‘em, he muttered.

  “Yes. I don’t much believe in killing anything I can’t eat.”

  Her voice was so quiet that he turned to look at her. She had her eyes closed and her chest was heaving, but the Colt was still in her shaking hands.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, she said, shuddering almost convulsively.

  Laying the Sharps across his knees, he found her hand. It was as cold as ice beneath his fingers.

  “Laura—”

  “I’ll be all right,” she managed, her voice quavering now. She swallowed visibly, then raised her eyes to his. “I’ve never been more frightened in my life—never ever.”

  He slid his arm around her shaking shoulders and held her until she calmed down. “You could’ve fooled me, that’s for sure. I thought you were magnificent. All the women I know would’ve been cowering under that seat”

  “I wanted to, but then you’d be standing them off by yourself, and that wouldn’t be right.” Squaring her shoulders, she sat back, “We’d better reload. As loud as that Sharps is, everybody within five miles had to hear it.” She took a deep breath, then let it escape slowly. “I’m fine now,” she announced.

  “My heart’s doing double time,” he admitted.

  “You wouldn’t be human if it wasn’t. It’s the fools who rush in where angels fear to tread—Alexander Pope said that, or at least something very like it. If a body’s not scared by that, he’s a fool.”

  “Where did you ever get all those books, Mrs. Taylor?” he asked softly.

  “I worked for most of them. When Daddy was alive, he used to read to us from the Bible and a collection of fables. When it was too cold to work in the fields, he’d get out the old lantern, and Mama and I would sit on the floor with Danny between us, and we’d just listen to the same old stories over and over. His voice and the fire in the stove made us forget that the wind was blowing across the floor, and the windows were rattling like they’d break. My dadd
y would’ve made a good preacher, but he said there wasn’t much of a living in it.”

  “I was raised by a preacher myself,” he admitted. “You know, when I was a little kid, I used to think he wasn’t much of a man for hiding behind that Bible instead of earning a man’s living. Now I know I was just dead wrong. If anything, Thad Bingham was the finest man I’ve ever known, and I’d be a hell of a lot better off now if I’d listened to him.”

  “I’d say being a doctor is doing all right.”

  “Not if you’ve lost the heart for it.”

  “It was the war that did that, wasn’t it? Once you get to where you can forget all that carnage, you’ll remember the satisfaction of saving lives,” she predicted.

  “Which fable did you get that from?”

  “If you weren’t called to medicine, you wouldn’t have made it through medical school.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  The way he said it made her look up at his closed face and the tight jaw. His expression was bitter, almost hard. “You know, you weren’t like this when you came through Salisbury,” she said slowly. “All you could think of was getting home to your wife and little boy.”

  “Yeah, well, it didn’t live up to my expectations.”

  The tone in his voice told her he didn’t want to discuss it Sighing, she sat back on the hard seat. “I guess I understand. There’s things I can’t bring myself to talk about either.”

  “Yeah.”

  He saw the cluster of buildings, the United States flag flying over them, and he knew they’d finally reached Fort Kearney. Squinting into the sun, Spence studied those Stars and Stripes as the slight wind unfurled them against the sky, and he couldn’t help thinking of the thousands of men who’d fought and died for and against the country it stood for. His country now, he had to remind himself, but like damned near everything else, it was a bitter thought. The struggle had cost him everything but his life.

  Lowering his gaze to the dry, dusty prairie, he felt like he’d reached the end of the earth. He didn’t know how Laura Taylor could stay here, spending the harsh winter huddled in some hut, listening to the coyotes and wolves howling every night. Come spring, she’d be more than ready to take the first train going east, he expected—if she survived.

  Looking at the row of officers’ houses, the low buildings behind it, the neat parade grounds in front, he thought about trying to persuade her to stay here. At least she’d have the post doctor around when her time to deliver came, and surely some of those officers had wives living in those whitewashed houses.

  He pulled up at the corner of the parade ground and tied the traces to the wagon seat before he jumped down. “Seeing as how you’ve got everything you own back there, maybe you’d like to wait in the wagon.”

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t be long, but if you need to stretch your legs, you’d better do it here.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you want me to check if there’s a privy handy?”

  “No.”

  Pushing his hat back from his brow, he approached a group of soldiers lounging on a weathered board porch. “Know where I can find the post doctor?”

  “Hospital’s over back o’ the bachelor officers’ quarters, which is behind the officers’ houses,” one of them spoke up.

  “You sick, mister?” another wondered. “He ain’t much good for anything but physickin’ a body—it don’t make any difference what ails you, that’s what he does—if you ain’t got the runs, he’ll give ‘em to you.”

  “I’d just like to talk to him, that’s all.”

  It didn’t take him long to find the place. As he entered the building, the smell of turpentine and camphor overpowered that of diarrhea. In two rows of cots lined up along the walls, more than a dozen men lay uncovered, their bodies curled around griping guts. Dysentery. It was the bane of every military camp he’d been in. At the end of the long room, a redheaded man with a darker auburn beard turned around.

  “Don’t know you, do I?” he said, giving Spence the once-over.

  “Hardin—Spencer Hardin.”

  “Benjamin King. I’m supposed to be the surgeon around here, but I do a lot more dosing than cutting.” He cocked his head slightly, studying Spence’s face. “Didn’t waste any time signing you Rebs up to fight Indians, did they?”

  Spence shook his head. “I’m through fighting for anything. I was just passing through, and I thought I’d ask about some sick folks who might’ve come in some months back—early to mid-April probably.”

  “That’d be a little early—summer’s when we get travelers in. Oh, some stop in every now and then, but usually it’s for snakebite…wagon accidents…things like that. Most of the time I’m just treating the men here for dysentery,” King allowed, rubbing his beard. “Got enough of that around—so much I’m running out of Hope’s camphor, if you want the truth. I keep putting requisitions in, and they keep sending me out the damned blue mass.”

  “I’d rather do nothing than give anybody blue mass,” Spence agreed. “It’s too corrosive on a gut that’s already sore. I’d mix half a grain of opium with a quarter grain of copper sulfate and add it to two ounces of whiskey. If they can keep a tablespoon of that down every two or three hours, they usually get better.”

  “I’d as soon do my own dosing, if you don’t mind, the surgeon snapped. “Now—I’m a busy man, so let’s get down to brass. Just describe ‘em, and I’ll tell you if I’ve seen ‘em.”

  He’d said it so often, he could rattle it off by rote. “A blond man in his late twenties, a pretty, dark-haired white woman, a heavyset Negro woman, and a little white kid that’d look about four, all Southerners.”

  King thought for a minute, then nodded. “If he’s pretty enough to be a girl, and he thinks the whole world ought to be at his beck and call, then I’ve seen him.”

  “What about the others?”

  “The kid don’t look anything like him,” the surgeon said, nodding again. “Wife’s named Olivia or something like that, and if she wasn’t sick, she’d sure be a looker.”

  “Lydia. She’s passing herself off as his wife, but she’s married to somebody else. The boy belongs to her husband, not Donnelly.”

  “Yeah. When they stopped here, the old woman was dying, and the young one was downright delirious herself, but they wouldn’t even wait for the old woman to pass on. I think maybe they were scared, but I don’t know. All I know is they left as soon as the colored one died, and he didn’t even leave anything to bury her. Said her name was Fannie Jamison, but he didn’t want to say much else. Like I said, he was in one hell of a hurry to get out of here, and he wasn’t about to listen to anybody tryin’ to tell him he’d damned well better stay.”

  “Did you tell him it was cholera?”

  “I said it sure could be.”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “Not much. Just that they’d stop at McPherson if they had to.” King’s gaze met Spence’s. “I reckon they had to—if she made it that far. She couldn’t hold her head up. I gave her a good dose of Hope’s camphor, but I doubt it helped much. I figure if it didn’t, she’s long dead now.”

  “What about the boy?”

  “Well, he wasn’t showing signs of sickness, but he was exposed to it. I’m a physician, not a fortune-teller, but if I had to guess, I’d say Donnelly and the kid probably came down with it soon after they were here. Cholera’s damned catchin’, you know.”

  “Yeah. I can’t believe Liddy would abandon Fan, though,” Spence murmured, shaking his head. “That old colored woman raised Liddy.”

  “That so? Well, I couldn’t tell you what she was thinking, but I don’t think she had the strength to put up much of a fuss. Him I didn’t care for at all. He just left me with a mess of problems and went on his way.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There was a real hullaballoo over burying the old woman, seein’ as what she was. I had
to tell ‘em to get her in the ground before we had an epidemic on our hands. They put her off to one side of the cemetery, but I couldn’t get a marker for her. The major didn’t want it known there was a colored woman in with white folks, as if anybody’d know by the name,” King noted with disgust.

  Reaching under his coat, Spence pulled out a wad of banknotes. As he peeled off ten dollars, he said, “Everybody knew her as Auntie Fan. You don’t have to put that on it, but I’d like to know the place was marked some way—a cross maybe, or some flowers planted over her.”

  “Sounds like you must’ve owned her before the war.”

  “No. My wife did.”

  He was halfway across the parade ground before King caught up to him. “Here, the surgeon said, pressing the ten dollars into Spence’s hand. “Come spring, it won’t cost anything to plant a wild rose bush there. We’ve got ‘em all over the place.”

  “What about the cross?”

  “I don’t know as I can do that, so you take your money. If I can, I will, but like I said, it’s a touchy matter.” The corners of Ben King’s mouth turned down for a moment. “I’m real sorry about your wife, mister.”

  “Yeah. So am I.”

  As Laura watched him come back across the parade ground, she knew something was terribly wrong. And as he swung up beside her, the haunted look in his eyes confirmed it. Without thinking, she laid a hand on his arm.

  “Are you all right?”

  For a time, he didn’t answer. He just sat still, staring across the grassy ground, seeing nothing. Finally, he untied the worn leather traces and slapped the ends across the mule’s flank. “Yeah,” he said heavily, “but I’ve got to get to McPherson.”

  McPherson didn’t even look like a fort—it was just a cluster of wood buildings gathered together, dwarfed by endless miles of prairie stretching out from it in every direction. About the only thing setting it apart from a dozen small, dusty ranches between here and Omaha were the large corrals holding enough horses to mount a trooper company.

  “It’s sure not much, is it?” Laura murmured, echoing his thoughts.