Devil Dance

by Len Levinson

  Sometimes Old Buck suspected that no politician, not even himself, could solve the slavery issue, and only a massive bloodletting would bring peace to the land. I must do whatever is necessary to save the Union, regardless of how my enemies attack me, and how cowardly my decisions might be presented by the press, he decided. The reporters can whip whatever horse they like, since they never take responsibility for the consequences of their distortions. I don't want history to record James Buchanan as the last President of the United States.

  At West Point relations among northern and southern students had become as icy as nearby Bear Mountain Lake. No one actually mentioned the slavery issue, for the cadets were learning to be gentlemen, treating each other with utmost courtesy, while beneath the surface fierce contempt seethed.

  One afternoon Cadet Jeffrey Barrington sat alone in his room, boning mathematics for an examination, when he heard a commotion down the hall. Opening the door, he saw Cadet Frank Jesup of Maryland and Cadet Charles Paine of New Hampshire going at each other with swords.

  The corridor filled with students cheering for their favorites, while Jeffrey watched silently. Jesup and Paine appeared anxious to kill each other, utilizing skills taught by the fencing master, but then the sergeant of the guard was spotted, the alarm promptly sounded, and cadets fled to their rooms, including the combatants.

  Buck returned to his desk, but couldn't concentrate on mathematics. A day never passed when he didn't feel like punching an arrogant southerner in the mouth, and he knew they felt the same about him. All the tensions of the nation were gathered at West Point, where northerners and southerners lived cheek by jowl. I've just seen an opening skirmish of civil war, he realized. It is entirely possible and even likely that I will be shooting at my southern classmates one day, and they at me. I'd better learn my trade well.

  15

  * * *

  Nathanial missed Clarissa most in the middle of the night when he tossed and rolled sleeplessly for what seemed hours on end. He recalled their honeymoon, her laughter ringing like bells. How could I have lost Clarissa? he asked himself. She loved me madly, but I neglected, mistreated, and insulted her.

  A footfall reached Nathanial's Apache ears, apparently coming from the parlor. He reached for the Colt in the holster hanging from the bedpost. It might be the creak of timber on a cool spring night, he thought, but then the sound came again as someone tiptoed about.

  Nathanial crawled out of bed, pulled on his pants and boots, thumbed back the hammer of the Colt, and opened his door. The parlor was empty, or so it appeared. He lit a candle, but found no thieves, Apaches, or escaped criminals. Probably a mouse, he decided.

  To make sure, he thought he'd check his children before returning to bed. He crossed to Zachary's room and was startled to find the bed empty. Maybe he's gone to the outhouse.

  Nathanial checked the outhouse, but no one was there. Becoming alarmed, he rushed to Gloria's room to see if she too was missing. He opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief when he found her sleeping peacefully beneath her blankets.

  Nathanial glanced around the room, but nothing was out of order. He examined the closet, but only Gloria's clothing was there. On a quirk Nathanial dropped to one knee and glanced beneath the bed. To his astonishment it appeared that someone or something was there, but it was too dark to see.

  “Hello, Father,” said an embarrassed voice.

  Nathanial was so astonished, he became momentarily paralyzed. His son crawled forward with a nervous smile. “Guess you caught me.”

  “What the hell's going on here!” Nathanial boomed.

  “We're getting married,” said Gloria.

  “Like hell you are!”

  “Not right away,” added Zachary quickly. “We'll wait until we're old enough, of course.”

  “But . . . but . . .” sputtered Nathanial.

  “We're not as bad as you think,” said Gloria.

  Nathanial drew himself to his full height and managed to say, “I cannot have this under my roof. Zachary is going back to his mother on the next stagecoach to Santa Fe, and if I ever catch the both of you alone again, I'll get out the horsewhip.”

  He grabbed Zachary by the scruff of his neck and dragged him to his room, while both children begged and wailed. But Nathanial's mind was made up. “Damned little monsters,” he said. “Leave ‘em alone a minute, and they're up to . . .” Nathanial didn't know what to call it as he angrily pushed his son into bed.

  “But it's not what you think,” protested Zachary.

  “I ought to beat you to within an inch of your life, or perhaps I should merely burn you at the stake, you devil.”

  “Don't be so mean!” hollered Gloria, who had followed Nathanial across the parlor.

  “Get back to bed this instant, young lady!”

  “I won't.”

  Nathanial tried to catch her, but the ex-gutter rat dodged out of the way, then Zachary tackled his father from behind. Nathanial fell to the floor, and as he landed, thought he heard gunshots from the vicinity of the Indian reservation. He froze as Zachary struggled to flatten his father down.

  Nathanial shook off his children, his demeanor changing. “Get back to your rooms,” he ordered.

  “What's wrong?” asked Zachary.

  “Do as I say!”

  Nathanial ran to the stable, hastily saddled his horse, and rode out the door, heading for the reservation. The distant shooting had stopped, and Nathanial hoped it was a few drunken Indians firing old muskets, not another massacre. His horse galloped onward, wind streaming through Nathanial's long hair, as he tried to convince himself that the Mesilla Guards could not have struck again.

  The Mescalero encampment loomed out of the night, tipis damaged, bodies lying on the ground, splatters of red. The wailing of women roasted Nathanial's soul, and a little child staggered toward him, shrieking pathetically, bleeding from a gaping stomach wound. Nathanial climbed down from his horse just as the child collapsed. Nathanial ran to her, looked at the horrific wound, then gazed at the girl's features wrenched eternally in pain.

  Nathanial felt as if his heart would stop. He coughed, tears rolled down his face, and he felt wild, weird, as if he were looking down on himself from the sky above. He laid the child on the ground, closed her little eyes, and tried to pray, but was too filled with rage to ask an unfeeling God for favors.

  He raised his head as an old Apache grandmother approached, bleeding from a head wound, pointing her finger. “This is your fault, Sunny Bear!” she yelled. “You speak our language, you come among us and promise peace, but this is the result!” She extended her hands to indicate the carnage surrounding her. “You are worse than Steck, because we know he is a liar, but you pretend to be one of us!”

  Nathanial bowed to her judgment. It's true, he told himself. The smell of children's entrails reached his nostrils, and his passionate heart could not tolerate two massacres in a row. After twelve years of frontier service, countless battles, and skirmishes, and witness to numerous massacres—Captain Nathanial Barring-ton finally snapped. “By the blood of this child,” he swore, “justice will be done.”

  In the distance the Army could be heard, spurs and harnesses jangling, sergeants shouting commands, on the way to the latest massacre. Nathanial jumped onto his horse, pulled the reins to the side, and steered toward Mesilla. “You know what we've got to do, boy,” he whispered into his horse's ear.

  That animal lay down its ears and extended its legs as it carried Nathanial toward his next rendezvous with destiny. Hoofbeats clattered through the night, and all Nathanial could think was somebody's got to pay. He hallucinated the dead child, her insides hanging out, and he couldn't help thinking about the fragility of his own little children. All his West Point training and years of military discipline could not contain the frenzy of his heart.

  Lights were out in Mesilla when Nathanial arrived, and he thought it looked like Sodom, sin city of the Bible. He rode around adobe huts and outbuildings, finally
arriving in front of Juan Ortega's home, where he climbed down from the saddle and knocked loudly.

  No one answered, so Nathanial drew his Colt, aimed at the doorknob, and fired. The door blasted apart, and he hit it with his shoulder; it flew open. In the parlor a maid stood, an expression of terror on her face, lips trembling, unable to speak.

  “Where is his room?” demanded Nathanial.

  The maid couldn't respond, but a figure appeared in a doorway, wearing a white nightshirt to his knobby knees. “Who do you think you are?” Ortega asked angrily. “You have no right to barge in here!”

  Nathanial was so enraged, he was tempted to shoot Ortega on the spot. But somehow that seemed too good for him. Nathanial holstered his gun, then stalked toward Ortega. “I'm going to kill you, you son-of-a-bitch,” he said evenly, then dived onto the leader of the Mesilla Guards.

  Ortega managed to get off a short jabbing punch to the left eye, but it didn't stop Nathanial, who was bringing one of his roundhouse rights into play. Ortega tried to dodge, but Nathanial's clenched knuckles caught him on the right temple, sending him flying toward the wall.

  Nathanial followed Ortega, jabbed him in the teeth, hooked him in the kidney, took one in the mouth, but was so infuriated, he barely felt it. Filled with lust for justice, he landed heavy punch after heavy punch on Ortega's face, spun him around, kicked him out the door, then ran after him and caught him in a headlock, twisted hard, grabbed his hair, and slammed Ortega's face into one of the posts that held the roof over the veranda.

  Ortega slid to the ground, where Nathanial rolled him onto his back. Never had Nathanial felt so utterly out of control as when he pounded Ortega's face again and again. I have gone mad, he said to himself, as jagged bolts erupted in his mind. The time has come to pay for your sins, you bastard.

  Then Nathanial heard footsteps, the Mesilla Guards attacking through the back alleys. “Get him!” shouted Fonseca.

  Nathanial could run or open fire, but elected to charge them single-handedly, though he knew they'd kill him in the end. They crowded around, waiting to see who would take him on, when Nathanial arrived in their midst, throwing fists. He split one man's lip, cracked another's nose, blasted a third in the teeth, and kicked another in an unmentionable spot, when a club came down behind him, causing him to see wheels of fire.

  They beat him to the ground, and he growled like a bear as he tried to catch one in his hands. They piled on, aiming blows all over his body, as he twisted like an Apache, snorting and grunting, delivering short chopping rights and lefts, even managing to chew off a portion of one man's ear.

  But they outnumbered him, pounded him down, his face a bloody mask. He didn't hear the barrage of gunfire followed by the parade ground voice of Lieutenant Wood. “That'll be enough!”

  Soldiers ripped into the mob and pulled the Mesilla Guards off the pile, and the citizens offered no resistance, realizing they were surrounded by armed dragoons. Finally, the last two were removed, revealing Nathanial unconscious, arms akimbo. The post doctor rushed toward him, black bag in hand, examined him quickly, then said, “He's alive, but I'll need to take him to the hospital at once.”

  “Bring up the wagon,” ordered Lieutenant Wood.

  Out of the morning mist, at the edge of the crowd, a bloody apparition appeared. It was badly beaten Ortega, groggy on his feet, his bloodied nightshirt like Caesar's toga on the Ides of March, his face covered by contusions. “You are not going anywhere with that man!”

  “The hell I'm not,” replied Lieutenant Wood.

  Ortega staggered dizzily from side to side. “I have placed him under arrest, and he is mine!”

  “You have no rights that I am bound to obey!” Lieutenant Wood yanked his service revolver, pointed at Ortega's bobbing head, and said, “Consider yourself fortunate that I don't shoot you—son-of-a-bitch.”

  Ortega struggled to remain erect. “I am a taxpayer, and I demand the protection of the law!”

  “If there was justice, you'd be hanging by your neck from the nearest tree. Please make a threatening gesture, so I can shoot you in self-defense.”

  Ortega perceived an agitated young lieutenant, while a detail of soldiers carried Nathanial toward the wagon. Moreover, Ortega himself had a broken nose, numerous gashes, and could not see out of his puffy left eye. “You have not heard the end of this,” he said darkly.

  ***

  Nathanial opened his eyes several days later, and it wasn't the first time he found himself in strange hospitallike surroundings. He tried in vain to move his head, and it felt as if ribs were broken, his nose covered with bandages. He drifted in and out of consciousness and eventually remembered he was Nathanial Barrington, assistant Indian agent at Fort Thorn, and he'd damned near beat a man to death. One morning he noticed Dr. Steck at the foot of his bed. “Are you all right?”

  Nathanial whispered, “I believe so.”

  Dr. Steck shook his head in distaste. “You have committed an extremely rash act; therefore I have been forced to dismiss you. I assume you understand my position.”

  Nathanial grunted.

  “However, you can still be of service. When you are well, perhaps I can hire you as special scout, and you can visit the Mimbreno Apaches. But we'll speak more when you're better.”

  Dr. Steck disappeared, and Nathanial fainted shortly thereafter. Next time he opened his eyes, Lieutenant Wood sat beside the bed. “Can you hear me?”

  Nathanial groaned.

  “Ortega wanted to press charges, so I threw him in jail. I'll probably end up court-martialed, but I'd sure like to see that bastard drawn and quartered. Don't worry about your children—the schoolmarm has moved into your house and is taking care of them. Isn't that cozy?”

  Nathanial slipped into darkness, then some time later noticed the schoolmarm at the foot of the bed, beside his two children. “Everything's being taken care of,” said Miss Andrews, “so you needn't worry.”

  Nathanial's children moved to either side of him, bent over, and kissed his cheeks.

  Miss Andrews became mother to the children, in addition to their teacher. When not at school, she cleaned and refurbished Nathanial's home, to make it comfortable when he returned. She hoped he'd ask her to marry him, and one day while she was sweeping the kitchen, there was a knock. She opened the door, only to see Lieutenant Wood, her first and former lover.

  She did not invite him in. “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

  “You don't really think Nathanial Barrington is going to marry you, do you?”

  “Perhaps.”,

  “But the man is not capable of love. He is a scamp, cad, and blackleg, and every soldier in New Mexico Territory knows it.”

  “But he is capable of redemption, like all of God's children, even you, Lieutenant Wood. Have you ever thought of praying to God?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have prayed that Nathanial Barrington would die, so perhaps you'd return to me. Can't you see I'm the man who loves you most?”

  She admitted that Lieutenant Wood was not that bad-looking, actually, but no Nathanial Barrington. “If anything happens to Nathanial, you certainly would be my second choice.”

  “Perhaps I should poison his medicine.”

  “I'm not marrying a murderer.”

  Lieutenant Wood laughed. “I don't know what I'm worried about. Nathanial Barrington can't marry you even if he wanted to. He's married already.”

  “But he's getting divorced.”

  “Or so he says.” Lieutenant Wood tipped his hat as he walked away. “If you need me for anything"—he rolled his eyes—"you know where to find me.”

  After arriving in Nacogdoches, Texas, and ensconcing her maid and daughter in the best available hotel, Clarissa made her way to the local bank to obtain liquid assets. She carried a letter of credit drawn on the bank of New York, because it wasn't prudent to travel with bags of money on the frontier.

  Nacogdoches was a booming town on the main east-west trail through Texas, and the bank stood
on a street among hotels, taverns, and a variety of stores. Clarissa opened the tall, wooden bank door and joined a line in front of the teller.

  She felt excited to be drawing closer to Nathanial, and in another two weeks she'd be in New Mexico Territory. She prayed he wouldn't throw her out like the snake in the grass she believed herself to be, and she continued to worry about the schoolmarm.

  The other bank customers were a conglomeration of hard-bitten cowboys, businessmen, lawyers, and women of various descriptions, a far cry from the elegance of New York or even Charleston, but Clarissa felt happy on the frontier, among people whom she considered less devious than the folks in the East.

  The line moved slowly; finally she reached the teller, told him her needs, presented the letter of credit, and he gave her the appropriate documents to fill out. While dating one of them, she heard a man say, “Don't nobody move.”

  Four of the formerly friendly cowboys had drawn guns, evidently holding up the bank! Clarissa was rocked with fear as one of them, with a brown beard, stepped toward the cage, aiming his gun at the teller's chest. “Open the door.”

  The teller turned the lock, then a robber in a black shirt entered the cage, opened a drawer, and removed handfuls of money, which he dropped into a burlap bag. Meanwhile, brown beard told the customers, “Line up against the wall, folks.”

  Are they going to shoot us? wondered Clarissa as she took her place with the others. She carried only forty-odd dollars next to the Colt .36 in her purse, but was too frightened to use the weapon, and wished she'd never brought it.