Eye for an Eye

by Mark C. Jackson

  “Mate, can’t be too different from Chicago,” he said over his shoulder, then disappeared into a crowd of river rogues, trappers, and gentlemen gamblers. I pushed through the lot to stand next to Billy. Above us, on a balcony lit with torches, three women dressed in what seemed the latest fashions flirted with the men down on the street. Between the first and second floors of the building, a fancily drawn sign read, Frenchy’s Emporium.

  “This be the place, mate!” Billy yelled above the din.

  “Yes, I certainly hope so!” I yelled back, slapping him on the shoulder. We stepped onto the porch and through the open double doors. This time, Billy followed me.

  A grizzly of a man halted us inside the lobby. Without looking up, he mumbled something about a search, reached inside my coat, and felt the knife. Then seeing my face for the first time, he seemed shocked and slowly pulled away, his hand empty. I passed, with him still staring at me. He tipped his hat to Billy and let him pass without a search.

  “Mate, a pint for the both of us and to find Frenchy, the bastard owes me!” Billy hollered and made his way toward the bar. I stood overwhelmed by the mix of months-old sweat, cigar smoke and lavender perfume that hung in the air. This house was not only for a gentleman but for every river rat who had a few dollars to spend on a drink and a whore. As I followed Billy to the bar, a fair belle dressed in red silk and blonde braids took my hand. She frowned as I snatched it away. I was not there for a buck in the bed.

  We toasted to a long friendship, though we had met only three days before. The warm beer tasted terrible but I drank anyway. With our backs to the bar, Billy eyed a couple of game tables in the corner under the stairs and I looked for a tall man with little hair and perfect teeth. I knew that if I found Baumgartner, Rudy might be close.

  There came a clamor from the second-floor landing. The blonde braided girl took a tumble head first down the stairs to lay splayed across the floor, bleeding from her head. The room grew quiet as her temporary suitor slowly stomped down to her side. A large man he was, thick-headed and filthy, leaned in and pointed a finger at her face. “I come all the way from Minnesota, bringin’ timber down river an’ ain’t never been stolen from yet. Ain’t gonna be the first!” As she tried to sit up, he hit her in the nose, sending blood in every direction. She did not utter a sound.

  I already had my knife pulled when Billy raised an arm to stop me. “Best these things work themselves out,” he said and leaned back against the bar smiling. “Think of this as part of the show.”

  The grizzly man from the lobby moved through the crowd quick and swung a small club, hitting the back of the man’s head. With a crack, he fell directly on top of the woman, smothering her. She somehow pushed off his motionless body and stood, pulling down her dress to cover her naked legs. While holding her bloody nose with one hand, she took the club from Grizzly and hit the man twice, on his shoulder and across his right hand. “Piece a shit ya are!” she yelled as blood streamed from her nose and head.

  At the end of the bar, a door opened and a man stepped casually into the room. The bustling crowd again fell silent.

  “Now the evening begins proper . . .” Billy whispered.

  The man was dressed in a white satin shirt, drawn tight by a shiny leather belt. He wore black pantaloons tucked into knee boots. Graying black hair flowed free to the middle of his back and he wore a swirling mustache that seemed pasted on, yet fit impeccably with the contours of his handsome face. A scar as thick as a gold eagle coin ran across his chin and down his tattooed neck. Deep blue eyes matched the color of the scar. He portrayed a stunning figure of a man, a pirate without a patch or a musketeer without his feathered hat.

  I began to laugh. Billy hit my ribs with his elbow, leaned in, and said, “Don’t, else you might live to regret it.”

  I shut up.

  “You, sir, are out of line,” the man said loudly, drawing an ornately handled cutlass from its scabbard hanging about his waist. He walked slowly through the crowd, his blade parting the way.

  Now awake, the river man laughed at the musketeer strolling toward him. He tried standing then yelped as he realized all the knuckles on his right hand must have been broken. A glazed look of pain turned to fear as the tip of a sword touched his throat.

  “Ah, yes, out of line you are, sir, accusing my Christine, my beautiful Fille de Joie, that she steals from you. When you say this, it is as if you say . . .” He paused, pressing the blade closer. “I steal from you, oui?”

  “No, no, sir, you ain’t stolen nothin’ from me. It was clearly her doin’s, not yours.” The river man sat up cross-legged and tried leaning back on his hands but could only balance on one. “Anyway,” he said, his fear turning to anger, “what’s it to you, ya goddamn dandy?”

  The musketeer swung his cutlass, slicing the man’s shirt and chest but not knocking him back. He then pulled a handkerchief from inside his shirtsleeve and dangled it in front of the bleeding man. Jerking it out of his reach, he handed it to Christine. She curtsied and clumsily wiped her bloody nose.

  “I say again, sir, you accuse her, you accuse me.”

  The look on the man’s face showed not anger now but panic. He uncrossed his legs and began pushing himself backward until his head hit a post in the middle of the floor. “Who, who are you?” he whined.

  “Why, I am Frenchy,” the musketeer declared, “of Frenchy’s Emporium. Do you not even know where you lie, in a puddle of your own piss?” Then calmly, he asked, “Who the fuck er you?”

  “John, sir, John Brigham.”

  “Well, John Brigham, one chance you have to redeem yourself tonight, to wash mine and Christine’s good names clean of the accusations you so callously threw our way.”

  “Please, sir, I beg ya, let me walk. I meant nothin’ by it. I got a wife an’ three boys way north a here in Minnesota to go back to, after the timber’s sold.” With the sword back at his throat, he dropped his chin, almost touching its blade.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, by the point and swipe of my sword does his tune change.” Frenchy glared down at the man. “A wife and three boys? When he is away, do they know their father frequents whorehouses?” Lifting the sword’s blade, he raised John Brigham’s chin back up to look him in the eye. “A disgrace you are, sir, to your family and this institution.” Frenchy paused, as if to relish the silence of his tavern. With the flourish of a hand, he exclaimed, “To the pit I say, for your attempt at redemption!”

  A roar of applause thundered through the room as Grizzly lifted John Brigham up to his feet. Behind the stairs, hidden, double doors flung open and he stumbled into darkness.

  A young girl with nappy hair, pale skin, and the blackest of eyes stepped through the crowd of men toward Billy and me. She handed us each a small square piece of parchment and turned to walk away. She paused with a glance back, as if she recognized something about me, then was gone.

  “Ah, mate, tonight’s special. You meet Frenchy’s pets.” Billy smiled and with a wink, he finished his pint.

  CHAPTER 12

  The large parlor behind the stairs smelled of rotted meat and shit. Small oil lamps hung randomly on the walls between crooked paintings of young nymphs in various stages of undress. The ceiling had a smoke hole to the sky, black with the night. I felt a slight cross-breeze, as if someone had left an outside door cracked open. This did not relieve the room of its smell.

  Thirty or so invited men crowded in and circled around a jagged hole sawed out of the floorboards fifteen or twenty feet across. There were no handrails and the creaking wood was worn slick at the edges. Billy Frieze somehow positioned me to stand next to Frenchy. He glanced at Billy and said nothing. Grizzly closed and locked the double doors, shutting out the noise of the tavern. In the quiet, I heard purrs and grunts hollowing up from below, sounding eerily familiar. I cautiously peered down into the pit and could see nothing. Then I heard the heavy breathing of a man.

  “John Brigham, are you down there?” Frenchy yelled out with a grin.
“We are in for a treat this very evening, John Brigham.”

  Grizzly lit a torch with one of the oil lamps and tossed it into the pit. The flame trailed ten feet down into the darkness and with a thud, the torch landed on the ground. Brigham tried picking it up with his right hand but could not because of his broken knuckles. With his left hand, he swung the fire in a panic, as any white man from Minnesota would do when hearing those particular animal noises.

  “Chase your own shadow, do you, John Brigham?” Frenchy exclaimed to all. “I sense you know my northern pets by their laughter, oui?”

  Brigham swung the torch to his left, then to his right, leaving arcs of fire to brighten the pit. He seemed baffled as to where the grunts and growls came from. He became still and held the torch above his head, staring up at Frenchy and his invited guests. “I know whatcha ya got comin’, you bastard.” He paused to wipe sweat out of his eyes and from his brow. “I’ll burn its eyes out, then cook an’ eat it.”

  Someone sloshed a drink down onto the torch. The entire pit flashed bright as the fire lit the whiskey, exposing a hole in the wall, close to the ground and covered with bars. Brigham shielded himself from the spray of fire and randomly swept the torch toward the opening. A weasel-like snout poked through the cover, then disappeared. The grunts became louder and deeper as the animal appeared again and began to chew furiously on one of the iron bars. The river man from Minnesota held the fire close to the hole, hunched over into a crouch, and screamed at the top of his voice “Ugh, Ugh . . . !”

  Everyone laughed, except for Frenchy and me. He leaned in close and asked, “You witness a trial such as this before now?”

  I turned my head, locking eyes with him. His cold stare bore into me. He shifted his attention slightly to my left cheek then back to my gaze, not blinking once.

  “I know a wolverine well,” I said calmly, shifting my gaze to the blue scar on his chin.

  “My new friend, I’m sure you do . . .” He paused, as if to say something more, then leaned in closer and whispered, “Wolverines.”

  Brigham stopped screaming, then bam. A piercing yelp and sharp cracks of breaking teeth and bone echoed up from the pit, making us all jump. Brigham had slammed the torch against the cover, hitting the beast square in the snout as it gnawed on the bar. Grizzly kneeled, reached down past the floorboards, and heaved on a chain hanging above the opening. With a hair-raising scrape, the bars slid up. A growling black shadow, the size of a small wolf, streaked to the far wall and disappeared in the dark. Brigham swung the torch too late to stop the wolverine from tearing into the left side of his groin. He wheezed in a breath but could not exhale. With the few sharp teeth it had left, the animal thrashed sideways, letting go only to take better bites. Brigham flipped the torch upside down and with one hand shoved the fire into its eyes, bashing its head repeatedly. The blind and badly beaten wolverine tore away, with muscle and tendon clenched in its teeth. Brigham staggered back against the wall and slumped down, laying the torch in his pooling blood. With a sizzle, the fire went out.

  The acrid, sulfur smell of burnt fur filled the parlor. Grunts and whimpers drifted up from the pit and stopped with one last gasped breath.

  Brigham groaned, then hollered up, “I killed yer goddamned pet, you bastard, now I’m gonna eat it!”

  “Oui, and at what price you pay? Soon you will be dead from your bleeding.” Frenchy leaned over and peered down into the darkness. The ragged edge of the floorboards creaked as everyone else followed suit. Partially covered by his hair, the look on Frenchy’s face, it seemed, was one of mild disappointment.

  Grizzly lit another torch and tossed it down.

  “Hurt but sure ain’t dyin’!” Brigham declared, sounding stronger. He picked up the torch and stood right below Frenchy. Piss, shit, and blood soaked his britches. He had somehow torn a piece of shirt and tied a tourniquet around his leg to slow down the bleeding. Broken knuckles caused the fingers on his right hand to curl up inside his wrist. Otherwise, John Brigham was very much alive.

  Noise seeped through the double doors that led back into the tavern. Women’s laughter interrupted the seriousness of this affair. I breathed a sigh, relieved that John Brigham would live. I had experienced enough for one day and night, was bone tired and ready to find a bed to sleep in. The evening had taken a wild turn. I could not have imagined Billy Frieze leading me to stand over a pit of darkness, enclosing a man torn apart by a wolverine, yet still alive. Though I questioned why I stood on slick, creaky boards overlooking the justifiably defiant man, I was happy to be standing next to the one who might lead me to Rudy and Baumgartner. I learned long ago not to question Providence, no matter the brutality of the situation.

  Frenchy began to chuckle, softly at first, through his nose, almost a snort. He stopped, then burst into a gut-wrenching laugh. One by one, the others began to laugh, as if catching a joke to which I was not privy.

  A deep growl echoed out of the hole in the wall. A second beast attacked with vicious speed and strength, nearly knocking Brigham to the ground.

  The son-of-a-bitch did indeed have more than one wolverine!

  Frenchy turned to me and saw I was not laughing with him and his friends. I stared into his cold eyes, leaned in close, and hissed, “Brigham paid yer goddamn price.”

  He shoved me into the man at my right, which knocked him into the next man, and him into the next man. We all teetered at the edge of the floorboards.

  “Did I not say animals? My pets? Two pets from the north!” Frenchy bellowed, then looked straight at me. “You do not trust what I say?”

  I leaped into the pit.

  With a jar, I landed upright in the shadows, knife drawn.

  The wolverine darted in, chomping onto Brigham’s right hand, shaking it, then darting back, out of the way of the torch. His swings became useless as the animal continued to tear at his hand and arm, pulling him to the ground to get at his throat. By the fire, I saw him lose three fingers. The tourniquet ceased working, blood streamed from his torn groin to pool on the sticky ground.

  John Brigham was dying.

  I stepped between the two. The wolverine backed away grunting, licking its bloody teeth. Brigham stumbled forward, nearly knocking me down. He took a half-hearted swing at my head then fell, face first to the ground. I snatched up the torch and inched toward the animal, flushing it away from the hole so there was no escape.

  “How dare you interfere with my justice!” Frenchy screamed.

  I did not look up at him. The only sound heard was the wolverine’s rapid purring, as it paced back and forth in front of me. The boards above my head were quiet.

  “Who in hell have you brought to me, Billy Frieze?”

  “He seems to be a friend of Rudy’s, mate.”

  “Oui, his cheek, with the scar?” Frenchy sighed. “What is his name, mate?” he mimicked.

  “Zebadiah Creed, if it is indeed his true name,” Billy said calmly. The rest of the men stood silent; the wolverine stopped pacing.

  Frenchy peered down at me. “Jebadiah Creed, eh. We shall see who you really are!”

  “Zebadiah,” I whispered and set the torch down.

  The wolverine attacked, swift and silent.

  With a fist full of fur, I embraced the beast, rolled backward, and drove my knife through its heart. Letting go, I sent it slamming against the wall. Frenchy’s pet slid to the ground, dead, without a whimper.

  No one above me spoke a word. It seemed even the tavern fell silent.

  Brigham was still alive. He had turned over to lie on his back. Holding the torch, I kneeled next to him as he moaned, then tried to talk.

  “. . . an’ tell them boys a’ mine I’m sorry.” He paused to lick his lips then seemed to stare right through me. “I see stars,” he whispered. I glanced up, past Frenchy and the shadowed spectators to three stars shining through the smoke hole in the ceiling. I looked back down at Brigham. He smiled then grimaced. “I shoulda killed the whore.”

  With his l
ast breath, I began to sing a death song. The Lakota words comforted me as I knelt beside a pool of blood seeping into the earthen ground. For an instant, I felt a shift in the air, barely perceptible, more a feeling perhaps than real.

  Frenchy’s long, black hair nearly covered his face as he leaned over the pit. With the shadow of a smile, he seemed in awe of what he had witnessed. He turned to Grizzly and nodded. Grizzly raised a short, fat gun, its barrel opening wide to a funnel. I had not seen a blunderbuss since my brief stay at Fort Union.

  “You sing John Brigham’s death song, why?” Frenchy asked.

  “He died fightin’.”

  “And if he had not fought bravely, would you still sing his song?”

  “Yes.”

  “A compassionate man you are, Jebadiah Creed.”

  “My name is Zebadiah . . .”

  Frenchy waved a hand to Grizzly. “Whatever is your name, this is not a place for compassion my friend.”

  I raised my arms to cover my face and heard the click of the flintlock, then a deafening sha-boom.

  The world went black.

  CHAPTER 13

  I stand alone at the rudder, guiding a half-submerged keelboat through the hidden shoals and sandbars of a mighty flowing river. There are no shorelines as water and sky merge into one, open space. Yet, I feel constricted, confined to one course, determined to reach my destination. Jonathan pops his head out of the water then rises up to stand on its rippling surface. He strolls toward me leaving footprints in his wake. As we pass each other, not a word is spoken, no acknowledgment but for a nod.

  I smelled burnt acorns and lavender perfume.

  The late-afternoon sun shone through a window beside the bed. Blue curtains fluttered in a cool breeze with a bare hint of autumn in the air. Outside, I heard children laughing, playing a game, calling to one another who tagged whom and who was out. The bed I lay in was soft, not a thin bunk on a steamboat or a hay-stuffed mattress, but a real bed with shiny, gold sheets and pillows. I lay naked and clean, as if I had a wash. The pounding in the back of my head reminded me of how I came to be in that room.