by Fortune Kent
“Who was the man the Captain shot?”
“Michael Donley. I rode over and helped take him to the rear. The Captain was walking back and forth, talking to himself.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell us?”
“We all knew the Captain sided with the Indians. Always excusing them. Donley was just doing his duty.”
Edward nodded and Jeb walked back to sit with Floyd. “Captain Worthington,” Edward said. “You’re next.” The Captain sat in the witness chair, hands rubbing the cloth of his trousers, eyes blinking, sweat gleaming on his forehead.
He recounted his service in the Civil War, his assignments after the War in Washington. The year before he had requested duty in the West and been sent to Fort Dodge. Major Curtis was in command.
As Kathleen listened to Charles tell of the raid on the Indian camp she pictured the scene, the mist rising from the creek, the horses trotting four abreast beneath the stars. She could smell the tang of an early autumn night, feel the bite of the frost. Almost as though she were riding over the short-grass prairie of western Kansas…
Captain Charles Worthington rode at the head of his company. His horse, Demon, was rested and eager. Charles shook his head. “No good, no good at all,” he muttered to himself.
Excitement was in the October air, the Indians’ Moon of the Changing Seasons, an excitement of facing the unknown, of going into action. His men were trained to fight and they were ready. The long months at the fort, on routine patrol, in fruitless search for marauding Indians was behind them. The excitement did not worry Charles. Without it, fear would take over.
We have four hundred men, Charles thought, and four twelve-pound howitzers. How many Indians were there? He did not know. Six hundred, the scout reported. More than a thousand according to the talk at the fort. How many were warriors? One-half, a third? But the Indian fighting strength was not what bothered him. The cavalry had better weapons, were disciplined, and should have surprise on their side.
Major Curtis was the problem.
“These chiefs at Rock Creek are peaceful,” Charles had told the major. “One Arm, Black Horse, Bright Kettle. They brought their people near the fort after the agent gave them guarantees. They’re trying to follow white men’s ways.”
The major snorted. “What did Sherman say—‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian’? They’re savages, blocking us from our destiny, murdering settlers, raping white women.”
And Major Curtis did not seem to differentiate between braves and women and children. “Kill all the Indians you come across,” were his orders, “big and little. Nits make lice.”
Remembering, Charles shook his head in despair. His opinion of Indians was very different. He found them decorous and trustworthy, understood their deep distrust of the white man. Was there not a trail of unkept promises and broken treaties stretching from the Alleghenies to the Rockies? I will not order my men to fire except in self-defense, he vowed.
The column moved on through the night. Not until light showed in the east did they stop in a grove of cottonwoods along the creek. Raven Cunningham, their guide, squatted on the ground, a lantern by his feet. Charles dismounted to join the major and the other officers clustered around the half-breed.
The guide picked a stick from beside the lantern and drew a horseshoe in the dirt. “The river,” he explained. He made a circle within the shoe. “One Arm’s camp, many lodges, six hundred Cheyennes, two hundred warriors.” He drew a small “X” near the camp. “Pony herd,” he said. A larger “X” some distance away showed “warriors hunting buffalo.”
The major rubbed his hands together. He was a short, wiry man with a scar on his right cheek. “I’ll lead the main assault from the south,” he said, scratching an arrow on the ground. “O’Connor, Stubbs, you’re with me. Pierson will swing to the north and destroy the hunting party. Swanson, take thirty men and disperse the ponies. Worthington…” He paused to look speculatively at Charles. “Form a line across the open end of the horseshoe. We’ll drive them your way. Start your advance after my attack begins. Understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” Charles replied. As a commander, he respected Major Curtis. As a man he despised him.
“This morning we destroy the power of the Cheyennes,” the major said. “Good hunting.”
Charles had his line of troops positioned by the time the rim of the sun appeared over the horizon. He patted Demon’s neck to steady him as he watched the smoke drift from the Indian campfires. He gave his sheathed Spenser repeating rifle a last check. The wind rose, making the flags and pennants snap along the line. Where was the pride he had felt when he had fought the Rebels? Compared to this, that had been a good war, he thought, if any war could be called good.
He knew the attack had begun when he heard hooves drumming on the flats leading to the Cheyenne camp. Charles spurred his horse up and down the line. “Take prisoners, shoot only in self-defense.” Over and over he repeated the order until his voice grew hoarse.
The men stirred, hearing the volleys of shots from the direction of the Indian camp. Charles motioned to his bugler. At the signal the line moved forward at a walk. Two squaws stumbled from the woods in front of them and a sergeant dismounted to lead them to the rear. The shooting from the camp increased to a steady staccato.
A brave ran from the trees, stopped when he saw the cavalrymen, knelt and fired. A trooper spun in his saddle, sprawled wounded on the ground. Two soldiers galloped ahead, crouched low, and the lead man struck down the Indian warrior with his saber. More Indians appeared at the edge of the trees and the cavalry line dissolved into a series of skirmishes.
Charles saw movement a hundred feet ahead in a brush-covered gully. His first impression was: squaws. Off to the right a trooper swung from his horse with his repeating rifle at the ready. Donovan? No, Donley, one of the Ohio volunteers.
Donley fired at the movement. A small child holding a white flag on a stick crawled from the hiding place.
“Stop!” Charles shouted as, he urged his horse toward the soldier. When he reined up, Demon’s front legs pawed the air. Donley watched Charles approach, all the while throwing nervous glances at the gully.
“Don’t shoot,” Charles called. Donley replied but his words were lost in another burst of rifle fire. A shot whipped past. Charles thought he saw a glint of metal from the Indians’ hiding place. Donley fired once, twice. A high-pitched scream came from the gully.
“Damn you,” Charles shouted, aimed a warning shot at the man’s feet, felt Demon pivot, making his arm swing up and the shot go wild. Donley fell, hands to his belly, and Charles saw a black stain spread below the belt buckle of his uniform. Charles leaped to the ground and ran to the wounded man. My God, he thought, I’ve killed him.
“I killed him,” Charles said to Edward. “He died the next day.” Charles’s hands clenched together in his lap, fingers laced.
“Were they squaws in the gully?” Edward asked.
“Five or six squaws and an old man. One of the squaws had a superficial leg wound.”
“Did you find what the metal was?”
“When we searched them we found one with a silver crucifix.”
“She was a Christian then?”
“No, probably not. The braves often took medals and the like from the bodies of settlers.”
“Do you have anything to add, Captain?”
“Nothing.” Edward waved him from the witness chair and looked to Josiah. “I’ve completed the case,” he said. Josiah nodded.
“Would you like to go to the library to consider your decision?” he asked Kathleen.
“Yes,” she said and accompanied one of the cadets along the empty corridors.
She sat stiffly at the desk in the book-lined room. What should I do? she asked herself. A few weeks ago she would have had no problem. After all, Charles had shot Michael, and admitted it.
True, he hadn’t meant to kill him, yet he fired in anger, had in fact murdered him.
She closed her eyes and tried to bring back the familiar memory of Michael running to her across the field holding a bouquet of daisies. For a moment she saw him, smiling, heard him call her, “Kathy, Kathy,” then the memory blurred, replaced by the sharp crack of rifle fire, the Indian child running toward the cavalrymen holding the white flag.
The Michael who fought at Rock Creek was not the Michael she remembered. This new Michael was a man, not a boy, and seemingly a vengeful man. She recalled him leaving Ashtabula, when they had been, for the first time, at odds. “I don’t know if I’ll ever come back to this town,” he said. “Here I’ll always be the son of the town drunk. I want to go where I can be a man.” So bitter for eighteen, she thought, so eager to prove himself. Was this, though, cause for murder?
But for Charles Worthington, Michael would be alive today. Yet, no longer could she view life as black or white, not since Edward. How could she when she was so confused about her feeling for Edward, doubting whether she had done the right thing after her emotions overcame reason when they sought sanctuary in the cave?
And hadn’t Charles been punished enough? Blaming himself for Michael’s death, haunted by the memory of what happened at Rock Creek. “I killed him,” he told her on the balcony the night of the masquerade. “Pull the trigger, pull the trigger,” he had said. Did she have the right to add to his burden? And what of the Indian women? Would they be alive today if Charles had not intervened?
When she returned to the ballroom the rain had stopped and the sun shone through the tops of the windows. “Have you decided?” Josiah asked.
Kathleen began to speak, hesitated when she found her voice trembling. “Yes, I have,” she said. “I find Charles Worthington not guilty.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Won’t you join me?” Charles called to Kathleen as she came down the stairs the next morning. He stood below her in the front hall.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“On a picnic. Please come.”
She smiled, feeling warm and alive. “Yes, all right. When?”
“Now, if you can wait another half hour before you eat. I’ve had the horses saddled.” He ran up the stairs until he was on the same step as she and extended his arm formally to her. She placed her hand lightly on his sleeve to let him escort her down the stairs.
As Charles helped her mount she glanced about looking for Edward. No sign of him. She had not seen Edward since the night before and a feeling of unease nagged her.
“Mad Anthony,” Charles said unexpectedly.
“What?” Forget Edward for now, she told herself. We’ll have our time together later.
“Your horse,” Charles said. “Named for the Revolutionary War general. He’s not like his namesake, though. He’s gentle, always has been.”
“And yours? The horse, I mean. What’s his name?”
“Demon,” he told her. She felt a sudden chill. The same horse he rode at Rock Creek. She remembered the trial the day before, the cavalry attack, the Indians hiding in the gully, the death of her brother. Kathleen shook her head. I won’t have this day spoiled, she vowed. Everything must turn out right today.
The weather was fine, cloudless with a light breeze from the west. They rode side by side, Charles and Kathleen, until they came to a meadow far from the blackened forest. While riding Charles did not speak, as though he too had been reminded of the past and now wondered how she felt toward him.
They dismounted and found a tangled clump of vines where they picked and ate ripe blackberries and blackcaps. The tang of the berries pleased her, and the smell of the summer fields brought back the quiet days when she was a girl in Ashtabula.
Charles breathed deeply. He looked rested and she thought he must have slept well. Jeb and Floyd, she knew, had left the Estate early that morning.
“Alice Lewis talked to me last night,” Charles said. Kathleen paused with a berry halfway to her mouth. “She admitted she put something in your milk after she heard you tell Clarissa you planned to kill me.” Kathleen licked her fingers. “I’ll give her an annuity,” Charles went on. “She can go live with her cousins on their farm.” Kathleen did not reply. She felt no rancor toward Alice Lewis. Today nothing would spoil her happiness.
They crossed the meadow, keeping to the footpath for the grass was still wet from the rain. When they came to a stream Charles knelt and dipped water for her in a metal cup. They sat on the sloping bank and Charles unwrapped the picnic lunch, handing her cold chicken and bread covered with butter and strawberry preserves. They ate and afterwards drank again from the stream. Several times Charles seemed about to speak, only to think better of it. Finally, he spread rugs on the ground and they lay on their backs beside the murmuring water. He turned to her.
“I’ve changed my mind about your Josiah,” he said. “At first I thought him a charlatan, but now I respect him. His performance yesterday was masterful.”
“I feel the same,” Kathleen said.
“And I’ve become very fond of Clarissa,” he said, watching for her reaction.
“I’m so pleased,” Kathleen told him. “I’ve also come to like Clarissa.”
“I’m surprised. She feels you don’t.”
“When I first met her she thought me narrow. I was, but having her tell me so hurt. And then she seemed so serene, but men—you for one—liked her. I couldn’t understand, probably because I’m not placid myself. I must be doing, trying to change what I don’t like. She accepts.”
“Which is what attracted me to her, I suppose,” Charles said. “I need someone who is at peace, for I am not.”
In a way, Kathleen thought, she and Charles were not talking to each other. They were trying, with words, to understand themselves. Does that make sense? she wondered.
“Nor am I at peace,” she said. She thought again of Edward Allen. “Do you know something? I’ve only been with you, Clarissa, and Josiah for a few days. Yet it seems I’ve known you a long time, and the better I know you, all of you, the more I like you.” And Edward, she thought, I’ve come to love.
She looked above her head through the leaves of a maple to watch puffed clouds drift across the sky. How she wished Edward were there to share this day with her. She stirred, then sat up with arms about her knees. Seeing her restlessness, Charles stood and helped her to her feet. When she mounted Mad Anthony he held the reins for a moment as he searched her eyes. “Someday,” he said, “I hope you’ll be able to forgive me.”
She returned his gaze. “Someday,” she said softly. “Not now. It’s too soon.” He nodded and swung into the saddle for the ride back to the Estate.
After the stableboy led the horses into the barn, Charles took Kathleen to the parlor and went to find Clarissa. Kathleen leafed through the copy of Harpers Weekly on the table, then leaned over the piano to pick out a tune with one finger. No, she decided, I will not stay here waiting. I’ll go looking for him, whether it’s proper or not.
Where is Edward? Neither in the house nor the stable. At last she climbed the stairway to his room and pushed open the door. She found the bed, chair, the table with its kerosene lamp exactly as they had been on her only visit. Otherwise, the room was completely empty. The trunks gone, bags gone, clothes gone. The masks of comedy and tragedy no longer leered from the wall. As Kathleen ran from the building she almost collided with Clarissa.
“Charles told me you’d come back from your ride,” Clarissa said. Kathleen saw concern in the other woman’s face.
“Edward. He’s left.”
Clarissa embraced her. “I know. I came to tell you he rode to Beacon to catch the New York train.”
“New York?” He might as well be going to the end of the earth. “Why?”
“I don’t know. But you might have time to see him before he leaves i
f you hurry.”
“Yes, I will.” Kathleen ran to the barn, holding her dress with one hand. She stopped at the door and looked back. “Clarissa,” she called, “I’m sorry.”
Clarissa looked alter her, perplexed.
Mad Anthony had not been unsaddled. She took the reins from the surprised stableboy, hurried the horse from the barn, trotted down the driveway. Clarissa, she said to herself, I’m sorry for the feelings I had, my impatience, my jealousy.
When she reached the lowlands along the river she urged her horse to a gallop. She had forgotten her hat and her hair blew free. As she rode into Newburgh on the river road she was conscious of curious stares from the workmen at the gravel pits. She did not care. Nothing mattered except Edward. Why? she asked herself. Marriage? No, she could not imagine Edward being interested in marriage. Because I love him, she decided, I must see him again.
The ferryman held the gate until she boarded as though he had waited just for her. The ship churned into the river and Kathleen felt the breeze fresh on her face. Far to the south she could see the scar from the fire on the mountains.
The newly painted depot stood a few hundred feet from the Beacon dock. She tied Mad Anthony to the hitching rack. No train waited, nor could she see one approaching. Was she too late? Kathleen hurried through the station and climbed to the long wooden platform. Men and women clustered in small groups or paced back and forth. She searched their faces. Ah, there he was. Edward leaned against a post with a black leather valise at his feet. She ran to him.
“Edward,” she gasped. He raised his eyes. He was dressed in the same rough jacket and trousers he had worn when she met him. Had it been only a week ago? The beard covered his face like a black mask.
He looked at her and shifted uneasily, one of the few times she had seen him unsure of himself. Now that she was there, Kathleen did not know what to do or say. A whistle sounded from upriver and she saw smoke billow above the trees to the north.