Cut Hand

by Mark Wildyr

  I growled low in my throat. “You are well-named. A wolverine is a wily beast.”

  THE NEXT day, two Pipe Stem warriors escorted me until I was almost within sight of the bridge near the town. Thereafter, a buckboard and I were the only travelers on the road in the early April chill. The livery agreed to look after my Conestoga, so I reserved a room at the Rainbow and headed for the public bath. As I waited my turn, Second Lt. James Morrow entered, and we refreshed our acquaintance. I expressed surprise the public facilities drew military custom.

  “Too rushed and hurried an affair at the barracks,” the blond-headed, baby-faced officer explained. “It’s all right for getting clean, but once in a while I like to sit and soak.”

  I had no more than settled into the long galvanized tub used for these affairs than the lieutenant claimed the one adjacent. This was a social gathering place, so the tubs were grouped with the head of one at the foot of the next to accommodate gentlemen wishing to hold conversations. The life of the dragoon sculpted the young officer well. Bronzed forearms paled into white flesh, and the dark V of the tan at his neck drew the eye.

  “Oh Lord,” he sighed blissfully as he lowered himself into the hot water. “That feels sinfully good.”

  “Don’t say that,” I cautioned, “else some preacher declare it so.”

  “True. Ahhh,” he exclaimed, his lids slipping halfway over blue eyes. I thought he slept until he spoke again. “And how was your winter, Mr. Strobaw?”

  “Uneventful, except for nursing a family of four in my midst.”

  “Oh yes, the Bowers family. I understand he’s set up his own establishment… a cooperage, I believe. He will probably do well. There is always a need for barrels and kegs.”

  “Then they are well?” When the officer nodded, I added, “Maybe I’ll look them up.”

  The lieutenant had scant additional news. The detachment from Fort Ramson was not expected until later that month. Captain Jamieson had already left for the Boggs ambush site to recover the settlers’ bodies. The major was inclined to fault the trainmaster, so retribution would not be sought, although an effort would be made to impress upon the tribesmen the seriousness of attacking settlers. I sensed the lieutenant’s gaze on me as I stepped from the bath after adequately steeping the poisons from my system.

  The Bowers were happy to see me and insisted I share a meal in their home that evening. Timo and Little Beth peppered me with questions about Cut Hand. Their interest in him was inexhaustible. Doubtless in their dotage, they would regale others with tales of their own personal wild Indian.

  The following morning, I visited Caleb Brown, who informed me he made a connection with Mr. J. J. Astor’s American Fur Company and was seeking responsible investors to purchase pelts on its behalf. Since the merchant seemed an honest and honorable man, at least in our dealings, I risked five hundred American dollars with him. Even though this venture did not promise huge immediate returns, it would continue to earn something in excess of the interest the bank would have paid for so long as I saw fit to leave the principal or until the collapse of the agreement with Astor’s group. Hence, in a sense, I was a party to buying my own furs.

  My business transacted early, I visited the gambling room at the Rainbow, which claimed a hard-earned dollar in small bits and pieces before I gave it up as an ill-conceived idea. Intent on one dram of whiskey to be tossed back and forgotten, I found myself standing beside Major Wallston and the dark-headed Lieutenant Smith.

  After pleasantries, the senior officer asked about the state of the Yanube. I advised of the confrontation with the Fort Ramson troop and the reasons why. I also told of Yellow Puma’s health and Great Bull’s death, naming Carcajou as the band’s new leader. Both officers expressed interest in the character of this new chieftain. I expressed my frank opinion—he was a good man but a little removed when it came to dealing with Americans.

  The major asked after Cut Hand by name, and I told of his wedding. A slight flicker in Smith’s eyes led me to believe he knew something of my station. Following that, I retired, slept, rose, and departed for home.

  Captain Jamieson’s prior passage was clearly written on the land. The troop had marooned to the south of my clearing between the creek and the river, raising concerns over the dogs.

  The hounds were unharmed and so delighted to see me they deserted their posts to leap around Long’s feet at their own peril. The pony and the dogs were amicable antagonists. The canines couldn’t resist a friendly nip, to which Long responded with a not so friendly kick. A good feeding settled the animals down. The horses in the barn had exhausted their stock of piled fodder, so I tossed fresh hay from the loft before tackling the mass of half-frozen urine and fecal matter. Before nightfall, smoke poured from all the Mead’s chimneys.

  Memories of Cut Hand almost spoiled my return. The comforts of home receded into the dark corners of the room as lamplight replaced the sun’s glow. By the time I took to my bed, a sharp physical pain rose in my chest as jealous images of him rogering his new wife claimed me anew. My sleep was poor that first night at home.

  Early the next morning, barking dogs drew me to the door. A delegation of six Sioux warriors—strange to me—stood waiting for an invitation. I called off South and beckoned them forward, growing a bit nervous as they crowded into the west fronting room. Their first request, made in the Lakota dialect, was for liquor. Finally convinced I had none, they sat on my floor to talk.

  “Soldiers passed by,” the leader announced.

  “Yes, it was a detachment from Fort Yanube on its way to recover the bodies of the settlers killed last winter on the north bank of the Yanube.”

  Hooded eyes and firm lips told me nothing. “What did these soldiers say?” their spokesman asked.

  “I was not here,” I said, knowing they had seen my wagon tracks on top of the shod hoofprints. “I went to the Yanube winter camp and took their pelts to the trader in Yawktown. When I was in the white man’s town, I spoke to an officer who told me the army considers the attack to be the fault of the Americans.”

  They reacted to the information with visible surprise. “Why is this?”

  “The family who survived the fighting wintered here at the Mead. This Bowers is an honorable man. He told the commander of the fort the trainmaster killed one of the People over a stag. Then when the People came to protest, he slew another. The attack on the wagons came after that.”

  “So the army is not mad?”

  “Oh yes, the army is mad. The army is angry whenever an American is killed, just as the Lakota are angry when one of theirs dies at the hands of others. But this anger is constrained by the knowledge the tribesmen, whoever they were, were wronged first.” I added this to let them know the Indians involved had not been identified. “But if the dragoons meet even the slightest resistance, there will be blood spilled.”

  An angry mutter went around the group.

  “There can be an end to this thing if the tribesmen do not confront the troops until the memory of it has faded,” I continued. “Unless, of course, the Blue Coats find something at the massacre site that identifies the attackers.”

  Their talker, a weather-beaten man with a droopy right eye, studied the floor intently. “I am told there is nothing.”

  I gifted the leader with an old pistol and the others with knives and hatchets before they left. They gave me a handsome silver fox pelt some New York matron would envy as a neckpiece for her coat.

  Once again, bedtime brought pain and jealousy. Determined that I was a bigger man than this, I worked hard the next day to get my place in order and to take stock of stores in the cavern. The People would need supplies when they arrived.

  I went to sleep the following night behind an hour’s worth of sincere prayers. Wrestling with my problem, I decided—likely with warped judgment—that if I was right with my God a month ago, I was right with him now. After all, I had not committed adultery. If the Good Lord judged us all by the same measure, only Cut was guilty
of that.

  THE YANUBE arrived a week later. I rode Long to the river crossing and watched the camp pass over. They were tired from the journey but happy to be back. My heart dropped into my boots when Cut splashed across to greet me.

  “Hello, wife,” he said, likely to remind me of my oath.

  “Husband,” I replied to let him know I remembered.

  “It is good to see you. Tonight I will remain in camp, but tomorrow I want to hold you and put Dark Warrior every place he can be made to fit!” His laughing face turned serious. “Have you made peace with your God?”

  “Yes. If there is sin, it is yours.”

  He frowned. “How can that be?”

  “I hold myself for my mate. You spread yourself between two.”

  He turned away in genuine confusion. Now my task was to survive until tomorrow night without succumbing to green-eyed beasts.

  I loaded the wagon for the village, practically clearing out our food stores. I did so with no reservation. The People needed the strength only red meat provided. The remainder of the day was spent helping where I could. The merchandise received for the band’s pelts constituted another wagonload, which I would deliver the following morning.

  Yellow Puma surprised me by appearing stronger than a month ago. “My son,” he greeted me warmly. “The provisions you supplied are welcome.”

  “Thank you, Yellow Puma. You are looking better.”

  “I am feeling fit. I will be with you for a long time to come.”

  “That is good. On my journey back through the land of the Pipe Stem, I learned Great Bull has traveled on. Carcajou leads his people now. Also, an officer at Fort Yanube informed me the detachment from Fort Ramson will pass this way any time now. Probably on the other side of the river.”

  The rest should be said as well.

  “I received a visit from the Sioux after I got back. They know of the soldiers’ coming. They also asked about dragoons who passed on this side of the river heading east. I told them the troop was on its way to recover the bodies of the settlers massacred last winter. Cut Hand told you of that?”

  “Yes. What is the mood of the soldiers?”

  “At this point, they are blaming their own. The Sioux said the dragoons would find nothing to dispute this.”

  “Hah,” he grunted.

  “What they will find are the bodies, including women and a child. That will inflame them. You must be careful when they pass this way.”

  Yellow Puma sent for Cut Hand and several others to hear this news from my lips.

  “I understand being angry because of your dead women and children,” Bear Paw said. “But what has this to do with us? We did not kill them.”

  Cut spoke before I could. “Because to them a red man is a red man, and there is no difference. If you cannot find the Indian who killed this child, slay another so he can’t do it to some other child.”

  “That is the thinking of some, and that makes them dangerous.” I was chagrined Bear Paw and some others still did not comprehend what I had preached for years. “It is like our own hotheads, I suppose.”

  Otter and Lone Eagle accompanied me to the Mead when I left camp that afternoon. I did not wish their company, especially if Cut was coming later, but each seemed eager to see the place again. As I feared, both claimed beds in the west side and turned in soon after dark. Their day had been full.

  Cut Hand came quietly not long after. I heard his low voice speaking to the youths in the other room before he came to our side of the house.

  “Billy!” he said, giving me a hug. “Will you come bathe me? I need to wash in our shower. Your strange contraptions are becoming precious to me.”

  I did as he bade and washed his naked body from the top of his head to the heel of his foot. He tarried beyond the capacity of the hot water container and rinsed in the cold. Poor Dark Warrior shriveled at its touch.

  Cut took a great deal of care as he covered me that night. At the first spurt of his seed, he thrust so deeply I felt we were one!

  “Beloved,” he whispered hoarsely. “I have missed you so much. I have been afraid for you every minute.”

  “Except when you’re fucking her,” I said waspishly, ruining the moment. “Forgive me, Cut. I’ve never shared you with anyone before.”

  He allowed me to rest for a glass, that time it takes for sand to pass through the middle of an hourglass, and then entered me so easily, so naturally, so erotically I was lost in him until he finished with me. Then we slept.

  Lone Eagle, fairly dancing with excitement, woke us the next morning with news the soldiers were coming.

  Captain Jamieson and two sergeants were seated on a blanket before Yellow Puma’s tipi when we arrived. Two derelict wagons rested in the midst of a full company of dragoons. The young troopers looked nervous.

  The captain allowed the medicine pipe ceremony to be completed before he rose to greet us, clasping Cut’s forearm in the Indian way. “Ah, Cut Hand. It is good to see you again.”

  “Captain Jamieson. Welcome to our village. Are you in need of anything?”

  “Thank you, no.” Jamieson turned to me. “A sad business, Mr. Strobaw. As you can see, we located the spot where the killings took place. Women, a child. It’s ungodly!”

  “Some of your men don’t look too happy.”

  “Would you be joyful, sir? They carry the bodies of murdered folk.”

  “No, but I wouldn’t be looking to take it out on innocent people either.”

  “Nor are we,” the captain answered, the harshness leaving his voice. “But it’s hard for them to understand. They’re just boys, some of them.”

  Judging from the looks of the two sergeants, the boys were not the problem.

  “Has there been any word on the perpetrators?” he pursued the issue.

  “I thought that was agreed. Boggs was the perpetrator.”

  Jamieson’s muttonchops twitched. “I mean to ask if word has filtered down as to who he may have attacked.”

  I shrugged and stated the obvious. “Likely some of the Sioux, but which ones there is no way of telling.”

  The troop moved out before the young bloods of either race became too agitated. Yellow Puma’s warriors muttered deprecations against the blue-coated soldiers just as Captain Jamieson’s did against the buckskins, I expect.

  Cut surprised me and remained at the Mead that night. This time he chased Lone Eagle and Otter out of the house and barred the door. I understood his actions when he engaged in one of his more energetic and audible thrummings. I almost laughed in the midst of his climax when I caught sight of a deeper darkness at one of the paper lights at the window. Those rascals were outside listening to his performance. We’d have been better off if they were in the house. The door was thicker! Mischievously I let out a bellow: “My God, Cut! You’re magnificent. A stallion! A bull!”

  EACH DAY seemed to deliver an unexpected event. One came on the morrow after Cut left for the village. I found the demure form of Morning Mist standing with two friends just at the end of South’s patrol. I should have obeyed my instincts and spun on my heels, leaving them where they were. Instead, in the hope of promoting amity, I recalled the dog and motioned them forward.

  As Morning Mist neared, her submissive posture evaporated. She came up the steps and stared at me rudely. “I would see my husband’s other dwelling,” she announced and marched past me into the house. It was a ridiculous statement. Wives owned the dwellings in this culture.

  Two giggling girl-women trailed after her. They picked up things randomly and threw them aside with only a casual glance. My neat house was turning into a shambles. I stilled an instinctive protest as Morning Mist ambled into the private side of the house. She went first to the bed, and the three of them stood tittering. Then Morning Mist sat on the thing and bounced, squealing delightedly. Before I could protest, she lay back, moving her broad hips. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she raised her legs, but there was a point beyond which even she would not go. S
he turned over and sniffed the covers.

  “Yes,” she announced. “It is Cut Hand’s bed. I would recognize his aroma anywhere.” Pure showmanship. He held no aroma.

  When they flooded the bathing room by mishandling the spigots, I lost my temper and shooed them out of the place. The other two fled, but Morning Mist strode haughtily to the door. I had not seen the last of that one.

  Two nights later Cut showed up, obviously flustered. He flopped on a chair opposite me at the table. A deep frown puckered his brow.

  “What?” I demanded grumpily.

  “Don’t be like that. I haven’t said anything.”

  “Not yet. But when you do, I won’t like it.” In a flash I understood. “You know your other wife was here, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I heard. She… she wants to try the bed.”

  “So build her one.”

  “She wants to try that one.”

  “She wants to flaunt it in my face,” I hissed.

  “Damnation, Billy! I’m not asking you to stay and watch.”

  “You want me to leave my own house so you can flank her in my bed.”

  “I could just do it,” he flared.

  “Then do it,” I said in a deadly tone of voice as I rose slowly to my feet.

  “All right, I’ll tell her no.” Cut left shortly thereafter, as angry as I had seen him in a while.

  He made me pay for my refusal for a fortnight. According to my imperfect calendar, the month of July commenced before he walked through the door as if all were well. Finding me at the table washing some root vegetables, Cut grasped my shoulders and drew me to him in a passionate kiss. What Otter thought, I do not know. He fled the house.

  When Cut left the next day, I was sore all over, and he was walking funny.

  Chapter 13

  THE FOLLOWING morning, Otter and I returned from fishing to find my door ajar and the dogs agitated. Blood at the end of the meadow led to where South lay with deep wounds in his flank and head. He valiantly tried to crawl to us, whining in shame that he had not dealt with the intruders. I ran to the porch, shotgun at the ready.