Frontier

by Salzer, S. K.

  She shook her head. “But I’m fine. Everything will be all right.”

  He held her close a few moments longer, then pushed her to arm’s length. His brown eyes ran the length of her body, resting on her hair. “What happened?” he said, touching it.

  She put her hand to her head, feeling her hair wet and stiff with dirt. How long had it been since she looked in a mirror? What must she look like? “I did it at Sedgwick,” she said, “while I was sick. I hardly remember cutting it. Oh, I must look like the troll under the bridge.”

  He laughed and pulled her close again. “You’re safe, that’s all I care about. We’re together again.” He bent his head to kiss her, a moment she had dreamed of all her life, it seemed.

  “Are you in charge of this detail, Lieutenant?”

  Mark straightened up and saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  “I am Major Ranald Henry, paymaster for the Department of the Platte, and I wish to report the theft of thirty thousand dollars in greenbacks, stolen by Jack Gregory, our so-called scout, and a Mexican teamster—this woman’s driver. Your wife?” Mark nodded. “Well, she can tell you his name, he wears a patch over one eye. They were together in this, Gregory and that greaser. You must pursue them at once. No doubt they’re bound for the Canadian border.”

  Mark frowned. “Jack Gregory was alone when he showed up at Reno. No Mexican with him.”

  Rose gasped. “They really did go for help? They went to Fort Reno?”

  “Gregory did,” Mark said. “If it weren’t for him, you’d still be up against it. We had no idea what was happening here.”

  Henry waved his hand dismissively. “Then the greaser has the money or they stashed it somewhere along the way. Where is Gregory now?”

  “At Reno. He was going to rest up a day or so and join us later.”

  Henry groaned. “We’ll never find him. Cooke will have my commission. Send out a detail right away—I demand it!”

  “I’m sorry, Major,” Mark said. “It would be folly to divide our force in the presence of so many Sioux.”

  Henry turned to Lieutenant Anderson. “You’re senior here. Send a detail after those thieves.”

  Anderson looked at Mark. “Please handle this, Reynolds. I am ill. I am not myself.”

  “A fine pair you are,” Henry said. “Your superior officer will hear about this, you can be sure of it.”

  They left for Fort Reno that very afternoon. Trover traveled in the ambulance with Rose and Jerusha. His leg stank like meat left in the sun. He was embarrassed and apologized repeatedly.

  “I don’t notice anything,” Rose said.

  The day was dark and hazy, threatening rain that never came. They traveled twenty miles and made camp in darkness. Despite the hour, Rose asked Jerusha to heat water for her bath but Jerusha said she was ill so Rose did it herself, washing with lemon-scented soap before joining Mark in his tent. He had pushed two cots together and covered them with a single mattress to form a large bed. Their lovemaking was all she remembered and more. He was hungry but gentle and attentive to her needs—indeed, more than before. In the morning she felt a woman’s pride at the sight of his broad shoulders, browned by the sun, beside her in the bed. Even so, Daniel Dixon was never completely absent from her thoughts. She felt sad to think of him alone when she was so happy.

  When she stepped out of her tent, Rose was surprised to see snow-covered mountains in the distance, a view obscured by the previous day’s haze. They were beautiful, the air was fresh and clean, she was free of the stifling, foul-smelling redoubt and, best of all, she and Mark were together again. She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the sweet air, and stretched her arms over her head. She heard a noise and turned to see Dixon emerging from the conical Sibley tent next to hers, where Trover and other sick men had passed the night. Their eyes met and she felt her face redden.

  She lowered her arms. “Good morning,” she said. “How is Mr. Trover?”

  The surgeon looked tired. “His leg is infected, but you know that. Bits of necrotic bone are working out of the stump.”

  She shuddered. “How awful.”

  “I can’t clean it properly till we get to Reno. Will you and Jerusha keep him with you again today?”

  “Of course.”

  “I gave him laudanum, so he should sleep most of the day. Make sure he takes plenty of water and don’t cover the wound. It’s better left open to the air. Don’t worry if you see maggots—they only eat diseased tissue, actually clean the wound. Something we learned during the war.”

  He noticed her look of dismay. “Would you prefer I move him to the other ambulance?”

  “No, it’s too crowded already. We’ll take care of him.”

  But the smell combined with the heat and rocking of the ambulance was too much. Rose tried to ride, but Carl had been weakened by the ordeal at the redoubt. Even without her weight he had difficulty keeping up with the remuda.

  “You’ve got to get strong again.” She leaned forward to stroke his neck. “If you don’t, you’ll go to the dead herd.” He turned his head, as he always did at the sound of her voice. “You’ve got to, Carl. We’ve been through too much.”

  They traveled all day in a dry creek bed, seeing not another living thing until, hidden away in a shaded ravine, they came across an ancient buffalo, abandoned and waiting to die. Wolves lurked nearby. Over and over again the old bull tried to stand, his hooves scoring the ground around him, but again and again he failed. Once he must have ruled a harem of adoring cows, Rose thought, and now he was reduced to this, the wolves his only companions. When a trooper approached the old buffalo managed to stand, lowering his head in a pitiful show of fight, but his legs collapsed and he went down again. The soldier leveled his carbine and shot him in the head but the bull did not die. Instead he rolled onto his side, breathing wetly and noisily, regarding the shooter with an accusing eye. The trooper was about to finish him off when Mark stopped him.

  “You idiot—do you want every Indian within fifty miles to know we’re here?”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but we can’t leave him like this. Those wolves will eat him alive.”

  “I said no shooting.” Mark restarted the column. As they moved away the wolves closed in. Rose covered her ears but still she heard the buffalo’s hoarse bellows as the predators began to tear him apart. Mark was right, of course, she thought, but couldn’t they have done something, maybe cut the old thing’s throat?

  They arrived at Fort Reno at sundown under a fire-red sky and camped beside the Powder River. Instead of the mighty rushing torrent she expected, the famous river was only a muddy yellow stream, no wider in places than an irrigation ditch, flowing listlessly through the flat, sage-studded expanse.

  The fort itself squatted on a bald plateau with a rickety cottonwood stockade enclosing only the warehouses and stables. Most of the post was open to the plain. The hospital, barracks, and officers’ quarters, usually the pride of a post, were shabby structures with sod roofs and dirt floors. Would her new home—Camp Carrington, Mark called it—be like this? She hoped not.

  Captain Joseph Proctor, the post commander, visited their camp that evening. He said the supplies Mark had been sent for were loaded and ready but they would have to wait before moving on. “No train with fewer than thirty armed men is allowed to travel the Bozeman Road beyond this point,” Proctor said. “Colonel Carrington’s orders. Here, read for yourself.”

  He gave Mark a paper covered in Carrington’s spidery hand. “It’s too dangerous,” he said as Mark read. “Did you know Sioux wiped out French Pete Cazeau’s outfit two days ago? It happened not far from Carrington’s new fort.”

  Mark returned the paper to Proctor. “This applies to emigrant trains. Not military.”

  “Actually, Reynolds, that determination is left to the commanding officer and I say it applies to you. Yesterday I let Lieutenant George Templeton’s party through six men short and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. He had women and children a
long, just like you. My God, if the Indians . . .” He glanced at Rose and left the sentence unfinished. “Thirty men. No exceptions.” Mark protested but Proctor would not change his mind.

  The night was very cold. Mark had guard duty so Rose went to bed alone, shivering under thin wool blankets. Sometime after midnight, unable to sleep, she stepped outside, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. The stars were bright in the coal-black sky and ghostly fingers of fog reached out from the river.

  Somewhere a bell rang, not the clank of a bell mare, but a tiny and tinkling sound, like a child’s toy. She froze, a knot of fear tightening in her stomach. The sound came closer. At last a small, dark form tottered out of the mist. It was a dog, skeletally thin, with a piece of buffalo hide tied down firmly over its eyes. It limped toward them on shaking legs, drawn by the heat of the sentry’s fire.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the sentry said. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a dog, Private, some cruel person’s idea of a prank,” Rose said. “Give me your knife. I’ll cut that blindfold off and we’ll give the poor thing something to eat.”

  Major Henry stepped out of the gloom. “We don’t have food to waste on the likes of that.” He unsheathed a knife, reached down, and slit the dog’s throat from ear to ear. The animal’s hindquarters collapsed and slowly it rolled onto its side, dying without a sound.

  “Damn savages,” Henry said.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  They did not have to wait long for the next train. A line of Tootle and Leach Co. freighters with a few emigrant wagons rolled into the fort before noon. After resting and watering his animals, wagon master Hugh Kirkendall moved out that very afternoon. Dixon was in the hospital, operating on Trover’s leg, and could not leave with them.

  “Maybe we should wait,” Rose said to Mark. “Otherwise he may be held up for days.”

  Mark stopped buttoning his coat and looked at her. “What’s that to you?”

  “Well, it seems ungenerous after all he did for me at Sedgwick and then again at the redoubt.” She chose to omit the sandstorm incident. “I should think you’d be grateful.”

  Mark smiled and kissed her. “Of course I’m grateful but we’re on a tight schedule. The doctor can take care of himself. I’ve no doubt of that.”

  The road from Fort Reno was sandy and poorly graded and they made only seven miles by nightfall. As she and Jerusha were preparing dinner, Rose spotted two hungry-looking men and a sweet-faced boy among the emigrants. On impulse, she invited them to join her. She wanted company, Mark was often called away, and they looked like they could use a good meal. The three accepted eagerly, introducing themselves as William Thomas, a farmer from Illinois, Charley, his seven-year-old son, and Joseph, their Canadian driver.

  Dinner was a thick antelope stew served with fluffy yeast biscuits. The guests ate ravenously, using the biscuits to wipe their tin plates clean. For dessert Jerusha served apple dumplings sweetened with a drizzle of golden syrup. When Joseph excused himself to take his shift guarding the mule herd, William and Charley seemed reluctant to leave.

  “Mrs. Reynolds, Miss Jerusha,” William said, “it’s been a long time since Charley and I enjoyed a meal prepared by a woman’s hand. Maybe you’ll let us thank you with some music? Yes? Son, fetch the instruments.” William’s eyes followed the boy as he ran to their wagon. “His mother died last spring,” he said, “after bearing me twin daughters, two pretty babies. Lung fever took them, all three.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said.

  “Yes, it was a trial, for Charley especially. He grieved for his mother so—he looks just like her, with that flaming red hair. For a time he wouldn’t eat. I feared I’d lose him too.”

  “Well,” Rose said, “he appears to have regained his appetite.”

  William laughed. “He has at that, thanks be to God. Anyhow, Charley, Joe, and I, we’re seeking a fresh beginning. My brother, George, is prospecting on the Gallatin River and doing well. He wrote to say he could use some help and here we are.”

  Charley returned with a mouth organ and a well-worn fiddle.

  “‘Dan Tucker’ to start,” William said, sticking the fiddle under his chin, and at the count of three father and son launched into a well-practiced rendition of the rollicking tune. By the time they finished a handful of soldiers had gathered around. One called for “Blue Tail Fly” and they swung into that familiar melody, done equally well. A second fiddle player joined them at the fire, then a soldier with a guitar. Before long, they had a crowd of men, women, and children clapping their hands and moving their feet. A couple started dancing and within minutes more dancers joined them.

  A sunburned young private bowed to Rose and offered his hand. At first she refused, but he looked so disappointed she laughed and relented. When that tune was finished she danced with another soldier and then another. She felt like a girl at cotillion again until she saw Mark coming toward her with a face like thunder.

  “What are you doing?” He gripped her arm. Her dance partner melted away.

  “Dancing,” she said. “What of it?” She tried to free herself but his fingers dug deeper.

  “An officer’s wife does not dance with enlisted men. I thought you knew that. It is not done.” His mouth had narrowed to a tight line.

  The music stopped. Rose realized they were being watched but she didn’t care. With a hard yank she freed her arm. “For heaven’s sake, it was perfectly innocent,” she said. She had never been this angry at him before. “Everyone else was dancing. Is it against regulations for an officer’s wife to enjoy herself? Is that also not done?”

  The blood drained from Mark’s face and for one heart-stopping moment Rose thought he would hit her. Instead he forced a smile and leaned in to give her a kiss, she thought for the benefit of onlookers. “We’ll discuss it later.” He walked away.

  “I’m sorry,” William said as the dancers and musicians drifted back to their fires. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you.”

  Embarrassed, Rose waved her hand dismissively. “It will soon be forgotten.”

  But Rose did not forget. She pretended to be sleep when Mark came in at midnight after his watch ended, and she did not speak to him in the morning.

  They were under way before dawn. The cool morning gave way to a strong sun and a dirty wind. The road was sandy and steep, with the skeletal remains of cattle, so-called Mormon milestones, littering the countryside. They made thirteen miles before camping in a stand of trees along Crazy Woman Creek. When another train, guided by Jim Bridger, rolled into camp that evening, Rose looked for Dixon but he was not with them. This was a supply train, under Captain Thomas Burrowes, bound for Camp Carrington with several new officers. One of these, Lieutenant Alexander Wands, traveled with his wife, Jennie, and their young son. They and some of his fellow officers had left Fort Reno ahead of the train, hoping to reach Fort Carrington early, but were attacked by Sioux, right there at Crazy Woman Creek, just forty-eight hours before.

  “It was worse than you could possibly imagine,” Jennie told Rose. “Poor Lieutenant Daniels, poor, dear Napoleon, he was killed right before my eyes! I heard they did terrible things to his body, I feel quite ill just thinking of it.” As she spoke she kneaded the sleeve of her dress so vigorously Rose thought she might tear the fabric. Jennie’s hands were small-boned and white, meant to lift nothing heavier than a bone china teacup, Rose thought.

  “They were riding point, Napoleon Daniels and Lieutenant Templeton,” Jennie said, “when before you knew it the devils were upon us. Arrows zipping through the air—that’s how they sound, zip! zip! zip!—and those awful shrieking whistles!” She closed her eyes and Rose reached for her hand. “They kept coming and coming, like Hell had thrown wide its doors. Then Napoleon’s horse came back without him, the saddle turned under its belly, with George—Lieutenant Templeton—right behind, his face covered with blood. Thank God Captain Burrowes showed up when he did. Oh, my father was right—I shouldn’t have c
ome.”

  Rose tried to comfort her as she shook with sobs. Jennie Wands did not strike her as the kind of woman made for life in a frontier garrison. Rose hoped she would not make everyone’s life miserable.

  They left Crazy Woman Creek at dawn with Burrowes’s train in the lead. The signs of Indians were all around them. A few miles north of the creek the trail split in two and from this point forward the wagons moved in parallel lines with passengers walking between for safety. Twice they passed fortifications where earlier travelers had been forced to make a stand.

  When they stopped along Clear Creek at the end of the day, Kirkendall’s freighters, traveling at the rear of the column, failed to arrive. Thomas Dillon, master of the Tootle and Leach ox teams, took five men and went back to look for them. They had not gone far when they were attacked by Sioux warriors. Dillon was shot in the stomach. Caught in the open, without cover, Dillon’s men fought their way toward Kirkendall’s train with two men carrying Dillon while the other three walked backward, shooting as they went. Finally Kirkendall heard the gunfire and rode to their rescue. It was fully dark by the time both parties rejoined the main column.

  Legions of wolves, drawn by the smell of blood, circled the camp during the night. To Rose their howls seemed to be the sound of Hell itself. She lay beside Mark on their ambulance bed, staring at the full moon hanging over the mountains like a giant lantern, and wondered: could this possibly be the same moon shining down even now on the stately brick homes of St. Louis’s Garrison Street? Surely not, surely they had stumbled through some invisible portal into another realm, a place apart from the known world.

  Thomas Dillon died at dawn. Mark and Burrowes wanted to bury him on the spot, but Kirkendall would not allow it. “Tom and me go way back,” he said, “been in more tight corners than a feather duster. I won’t leave him out here for the Indians and wolves to dig up. How’d you like it if somebody did you that way, Reynolds?”

  “I’d be past caring.”

  “Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. It don’t matter anyhow. I’m taking him on to the new fort to bury him proper and that’s that.”