Wolf Creek

by Ford Fargo

Major Putnam held out his hand. Wil heaved a big sigh, reached into the camera and pulled out the plate.

  "There it is, Major." Wil winced as the officer dropped it into the dirt and crushed it with his heel. "How about me taking a few pictures of you alongside the dead? Maybe get one of your officers who knew how to follow orders to join you."

  "A set piece, as it were?"

  "You've got the lingo down, Major. We pose you a bit, make sure everything's where it ought to be, take the picture and you've got something worthy of the National Republican newspaper back in Washington. Or even your hometown paper."

  "A splendid idea, Mr. Marsh."

  Wil spent the rest of the day taking photographs, many with Major Joad Putnam in them making him look to be the sole conqueror of a hundred ferocious Indians. By the time night was settling and long shadows darkened the battlefield, Wil had packed his wagon and started the long trip back to Wolf Creek. The pictures for the major would bring him a pretty penny, but the knives and other trinkets he had stowed away would make him that much more.

  Best of all, he had a mighty fine shot of Tom Dent and Charley Blackfeather under arrest. He hoped he got the chance to photograph their hanging for treason. That would give him more satisfaction than money.

  Chapter 2

  Cora Sloane had finished her teaching duties for the day and was on her way to the mercantile store. She was crossing the street when she saw the rider coming hell-bent for leather down the dusty, rutted street. She hurried the rest of the way across to avoid being run down, her heavy reticule bouncing against her leg. She’d just stepped onto the boardwalk when the rider reined the horse to a stop, causing a dust cloud to rise from the street.

  The rider was a young Indian woman. Cora thought she might have seen her before, but she wasn’t sure. The horse blew out air. Its sides heaved. It had been ridden hard and fast for too long a distance.

  Then Cora noticed that the woman was also taking deep, heaving breaths, too, but not because she was fatigued. She was weeping. She took another breath and exhaled it in a wail. Cora set her reticule down, stepped off the boardwalk, and went to her.

  “Dead,” the woman said between sobs in a voice that tore at Cora’s heart. “All dead. Please help. Please.”

  She started to slide off the horse. Cora reached up and helped her down, then guided her to the boardwalk. They sat on the edge of it, and Cora put her arm around the woman.

  A small crowd began to gather. John Hix, the barber, came out of his shop, wiping his hands on a towel. Mr. Li hurried down from his laundry.

  “Who’s dead?” Cora asked. “What’s happened?”

  “Soldiers,” the woman said. “They killed everybody.” She wailed again. “Women, children, all dead.”

  “Damn injun.” Jared Woodson emerged from the doorway of the mercantile store. “Soldiers done the right thing. Should’ve killed you, too.”

  Woodson had a little farm outside of town, where he and his wife raised meager crops and two sons, both of whom had proved troublesome to Cora more than once in the little one-room school where she taught. He was cut from the same cloth as Elijah Lusk, also the father of troublemakers, whom the marshal had been forced to shoot down earlier that winter.

  Cora stood and turned to face him. “You’d best watch your manners, Mr. Woodson.”

  Woodson looked at her as if he hadn’t noticed her before, which he probably hadn’t. Cora was sure he considered women in general insignificant, but he knew very well that he’d better not think that way about her. He had been present when she backed Lusk down with the revolver she carried in her reticule.

  Woodson narrowed his beady eyes and started to speak again, but he appeared to think better of it. He closed his mouth and tromped off down the boardwalk. Cora turned to see Mr. Li try and fail to suppress a smile.

  “What’s going on here?” Hix asked, jamming the towel he held into his back pocket. He wore a wrinkled white barber’s jacket that hung on him loosely. Quite a few dark hairs adhered to it. He was several years older than Cora, maybe as many as ten. She liked him well enough, but she suspected that he wasn’t all he claimed to be. But then she wasn’t, either.

  “I’m not sure what’s happened,” she said. “Something terrible.”

  “Soldiers,” the Indian woman said. “Killed everyone.”

  “That fool Putnam,” Hix said.

  Kathleen Hyder, the estranged wife of one of Wolf Creek’s pastors, came out of the mercantile store carrying a small paper bag.

  “I heard someone crying,” she said, her voice full of concern. She looked at the Indian woman. “You poor dear. Mr. Li, please go for Doctor Munro. This woman needs attention.”

  “Yes,” Li said. “I will fetch him.”

  “Fetch the marshal, too,” Hix said.

  Li nodded and hurried off. The Indian woman sat up straighter. She seemed to be gaining more control.

  “The soldiers came into the Kiowa village,” she said. “I am not of that tribe. I am of The People. I have visited here before.”

  “I thought I’d seen you,” Hix said. “You’re Little Spring.”

  The woman nodded.

  “Tell us what happened,” Cora said.

  “The People had come to talk with our friends the Kiowa, and all the men had gone out to hunt. No one was left behind besides women, children, and men too old to hunt. Soldiers came and killed them all.”

  “My God,” Hix said. “All?”

  “Not all. Many. Most. Charlie Blackfeather got me on this horse and away from the village. Now he will be punished or killed.”

  No one seemed to know quite what to say to that, but they were saved from having to reply by the arrival of Deputy Marshal Quint Croy.

  “Li told me there was a problem here,” Quint said.

  Cora didn’t know the marshal well, but she respected him. He was young, about her own age, and she had never heard anyone say a word against him. He was quite a bit different from his flamboyant boss, Marshal Gardner, but the two of them got along well and did a good job of keeping the peace in Wolf Creek.

  “It’s not your problem,” Hix said, and he told him quickly what had happened.

  “It’s my problem if it affects the town,” Croy said, “and this sure as hell does. Pardon my language, Miss Cora.”

  Cora smiled at him. “Quite all right, Deputy.”

  He had no way of knowing that in her former life she’d heard considerably worse, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell him. He’d arrest her on the spot if he were ever to learn the whole story of her past.

  Cora turned at the sound of Doctor Munro’s buggy rolling down the street. The doctor sat tall and straight in his black coat. Li sat beside him.

  Munro reined in the horse and got down from the seat, as did Li. Hix went through his brief explanation of the situation again, and Munro bent to examine Little Spring, who pulled away from him. He didn’t appear to be offended.

  “She appears to be unhurt,” he said. “I don’t believe she needs my attentions, but there might be others who do.”

  “Yes,” Cora said. “There might be people still alive at the Kiowa village. If there are, they’ll need your help.”

  “Absolutely correct,” Munro said, rolling the r’s in the word. Cora had never quite figured out his accent. All she could tell was that it wasn’t like anything else she’d ever heard. “I have my medical bag in the buggy, and I can pick up a few more things on the way.”

  “I’m going with you,” Cora said.

  Munro gave her a skeptical look.

  “I can bind wounds,” she said. “I won’t faint, if that’s what you think.”

  Cora had, in fact, more experience than she wanted with blood and death. Her outlaw brother had come home more than once with wounds that needed binding, and he had finally brought the law close behind him in the shootout that had made Cora a fugitive.

  “Very well,” Munro said. “We’ll start immediately.”

  “I’m goi
ng with you, as well,” Hix said, surprising Cora. She wouldn’t have expected him to volunteer to help. “I’ll get my horse and catch up.”

  “I cannot go,” Kathleen Hyder said. “I will take Little Spring to the parsonage and see that she’s safe.”

  “I’ll go along,” Croy said. “You never know what kind of trouble you might run into out there.”

  “Your wound,” Munro said, referring to the arm injury that Croy had recently incurred.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Croy said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m the doctor here, if you please,” Munro said.

  Croy grinned. “That’s true, so if anything goes wrong, you’ll be there to patch me up, won’t you?”

  “I suppose so,” Munro said. “Assuming that I choose to do so.”

  Croy laughed. “I’ll get my horse and ride along with Hix.”

  Li apologized but said he couldn’t leave his wife and boy. Cora understood, as did the others. She hefted her reticule and set it in the buggy, and Munro helped her up onto the seat. Munro went around to the other side and climbed aboard, the buggy sagging a bit under his weight.

  Cora dreaded what they might see when they arrived at the Kiowa village, but she couldn’t abide injustice and suffering. She was determined to help if she could.

  She made herself as comfortable as possible on the hard buggy seat and said, “I’m ready.”

  Munro flicked the reins and clucked to the horse. The buggy bounced along the rutted street toward Munro’s office. Cora braced herself with her feet and hands so she wouldn’t jostle against the doctor.

  “Do you think things are as bad as Little Spring said?” she asked as they neared the doctor’s office.

  “Bad?” Munro said. “From what I’ve heard of Major Putnam, I’m afraid it might be even worse.”

  Cora felt a chill at the base of her spine. Munro wasn’t a man given to overstatement. For the first time, Cora was afraid of what she might be getting into.

  ***

  Whatever Cora had expected, whatever Munro’s words had meant to her, the reality of it was worse. The contrast of the peaceful flow of the nearby Cimarron and the brutality of the slaughter was shocking in a way that Cora registered but didn’t quite understand.

  The river wound along between green banks with a few trees scattered here and there, and the bodies of women and children had been laid out not far from the river so that Wil Marsh could photograph them. The first thing that sprang to Cora’s mind as she climbed out of the buggy was a line from a poem by John Keats, “the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.” Cora had once thought the line beautiful, but she would never hear the buzz of flies again without seeing a cloud of them in her mind’s eye as they rose and fell over bloody bodies.

  The stench of death mingled with the sharp odor of gunpowder that still lingered in the air. What had once been colorfully decorated tipis were flattened or burned, smoke still rising from them. Cora thought she might vomit, but she managed to control herself.

  She heard a few wails from some women and old men who hadn’t been killed, but their number was few compared to the dead. Soldiers stood between them and the bodies to keep them away.

  As far as Cora could see, there were only a few wounded to be treated. If there had been any others, the soldiers had put paid to them.

  “What can we do?” she asked Munro, who had come to stand beside her.

  “Very little,” he said. “It’s far too late.” He paused and got a faraway look. “I saw things in the war that I thought terrible, but nothing like this. This wasn’t a battle. This was butchery.”

  “We must do what we can to aid the survivors,” Cora said.

  “If Putnam will allow it,” Munro said, and began to walk in the direction of the soldiers, just as Hix and Deputy Marshal Cory rode up.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Hix said as he and Quint reined to a stop beside Munro.

  “Indeed,” Munro said, “though I very much doubt that Jesus had anything to do with this.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to speak to the major and see if he takes responsibility for what happened here, not that he has any choice. In fact, he’ll probably be proud of it.”

  “Nobody could be proud of this,” Quint said.

  “If you think that you don’t know men like Putnam,” Munro said. “I saw more than one like him in the war. He’s in the mold of General Sheridan, which is only to be expected, I suppose. And why do you think he had Marsh along to take pictures of the dead?”

  Quint had no reply for that.

  Munro walked toward Putnam, and the others followed. Cora saw Charley Blackfeather and Captain Dent in shackles with two soldiers standing guard over them. She pointed this out to Munro and explained about Blackfeather, though she didn’t know why Dent would be shackled as well.

  “Dent must not have followed Putnam’s orders,” Munro said. “If that is the case, he should be commended instead of being bound like a criminal.”

  Putnam was addressing his men when the small group from Wolf Creek walked up. Cora saw Wil Marsh standing off to one side, and she noticed that Hix was staring at him, though Marsh gave no sign that he even knew Hix was there.

  Putnam paused in his remarks and turned to the newcomers. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You’re interfering with the army in the performance of its duties.”

  Hix turned aside and spat in the dust. Putnam ignored him.

  “You’ll have to leave immediately,” Putnam said. “We are about to ride after the men of this village. They pose a constant threat to the safety of the people of Wolf Creek and must be pacified.”

  “Slaughtered, you mean,” Munro said.

  Putnam shrugged. Cora had to admit that he cut a handsome figure in his uniform, but something inside him was twisted and ugly.

  “Call it what you will,” Putnam said. “It is army business and no concern of yours.”

  “You’ve killed women and children here,” Cora said. “They couldn’t have fought back.”

  “Some of the boys came at us quite valiantly,” Putnam said. “As did some of the women. We had no choice.”

  “You chose to come here, but you made a mistake,” Cora said. “These people weren’t bothering anyone.”

  “You know nothing of these hostiles,” Putnam said in a condescending tone, dismissing her.

  “We are going to treat the wounded,” Munro said. “Surely you have no objection to that.”

  “You may do as you please with them. They are not my concern at the moment.”

  “I want to speak to Captain Dent.”

  “That won’t be possible. Dent is a prisoner. He refused my commands and refused to order his company to attack the hostiles. He will face military justice later, but for now he is to remain in irons.”

  “You can’t prevent me from speaking to him.”

  “Certainly I can. If you attempt to talk to him, I’ll have you shot.”

  Cora could hardly believe Putnam meant it, but a glance at his cold eyes convinced her that he did. Something in those eyes reminded her of Jared Woodson. He and Putnam were much alike under the skin.

  “Very well,” Munro said, making no effort to avoid the contempt in his tone. “I shall speak to him when you leave.”

  “He will not be allowed to remain here,” Putnam said. “I cannot spare the men to guard him. Both he and Blackfeather will accompany us.”

  Munro shook his head and sighed.

  Putnam waited a second and said, “If that is all . . . .”

  “That is all, indeed,” Munro said.

  Putnam nodded and turned back to his men. Munro went back to the buggy for his medical supplies.

  Hix looked over at Marsh, who still had not acknowledged him or the others.

  “I’m going with the regiment,” Hix said.

  “Surely you can’t mean it,” Cora said. “They plan only on more killing.”

  Hix gave her an evasive
look. “Maybe I can prevent some of it.” Without giving her a chance to ask anything more, he walked over to stand near Putnam.

  “He’s an odd one,” the deputy said, watching him.

  Cora nodded in agreement. “Indeed he is, but perhaps he can do something to dissuade the major from his plans.”

  “Not likely,” Quint said. “Here comes Munro with his buggy. We’d best see if we can be of any help to these poor souls.”

  “You mustn’t stay,” Cora told him. “You have to go back to Wolf Creek and let the town know what’s happened here.”

  “She’s correct,” Munro said, pulling the buggy alongside them. “Stone Knife is still on the loose, and he’s likely to be enraged by what’s happened here. If he finds out about this massacre, he might very well attack the town. People must be prepared for that.”

  Cora could tell that Quint felt that he had to do something to help the Kiowa, though there was really little that he or anyone else could do.

  “You’re paid by the town to protect the citizens,” she reminded him. “Your first duty is to them.”

  Quint nodded. “You’re right, of course. I’ll do a bit here first and then ride back.”

  “Then let us get started,” Dr. Munro said. “It’s little enough we can do, but we must do what we can.”

  ***

  It was heartbreaking work, but Cora was able to keep her emotions under control as she bound the wounds and burns of the weeping women and stoic children. The old men refused to let her touch them. They believed in their own medicine and not that of some white woman and doctor. Even most of the women who were conscious enough to resist didn’t allow the doctor to help.

  After about a quarter of an hour, Quint told Cora and Munro that he was leaving.

  “I’ve done all I can here. So have you, I believe. The soldiers are about to ride out. You should go back to town with me.”

  “I can’t leave,” Cora said. She looked around at the dead and dying, the blood-soaked ground, the flies that buzzed around them all. “Not while there is still something I can do, some comfort I might give.”

  “Doctor Munro will tell you that there isn’t much left to be done here.”