Still Life With Crows

by Douglas Preston

  Toward the middle of August theyd rampaged through a half dozen Cheyenne camps and driven the rest of them north and west out of Kansas. Or so they thought, anyways. They were returning to the Hickson ranch when they came through here. Medicine Creek. It was the night of August fourteenth they camped up at the Moundsyou been to the Mounds, Mr. Pendergast?

  Pendergast nodded.

  Then youll know its the highest point of land. There werent any trees back then, just a bare rise with three scrub-covered mounds on top. You could see for miles around. They posted pickets, like always. Four sentries at the compass points, posted a quarter mile from camp. Sun was setting and the wind had kicked up. A front was coming in and the dust was a-blowing.

  My great-grandfather had those broken ribs and theyd laid him down in a little holler right there behind the Mounds, maybe a hundred yards away. With the broken ribs he couldnt sit up, see, and the dust at ground level was just about driving him crazy. So they put him in this little brush shelter out of the wind. I guess they felt sorry for what theyd done to him.

  Just as the sun was setting and the men were getting ready to eat dinner, it happened.

  He tilted his head back, took a long swig.

  There was a sound of beating hooves right on top of them. Thirty warriors on white horses, painted with red ochre, came out of the dust. The Indians were all duded up with painted faces and feathers and rattlesand they came howling, arrows flying. Right out of nowhere. Surprised the hell out of the Forty-Fives. Made a couple of passes and killed them all, every last man. The sentries saw nothing. They hadnt seen any sign of riders approaching, hadnt heard a sound. The sentries, Mr. Pendergast, were among thelast to be killed. Now thats just the opposite of what usually happens, if you know your western military history.

  It werent no cakewalk for the Cheyennes, though. The Forty-Fives were tough men and fought back hard and killed at least a third of the attackers and a bunch of their horses. My great-grandfather saw the whole thing from where he was lying. After . . . after killing their last man, the Indiansrode back into the huge clouds of dust. Disappeared, Mr. Pendergast. And when the dust cleared there were no Indians. No horses. Just forty-four white men, dead and scalped. Even the Indians dead warriors and horses had vanished.

  A patrol of the Fourth Cavalry picked up my great-grandfather two days later near the Santa Fe Trail. He took em back to the site of the massacre. They found the blood and piles of rotting guts from the Indian horses, but no bodies or fresh graves. There were hoofprints all around the hilltop but nowhere else. No tracks went beyond where the sentries had been killed. There were some Arapaho scouts with the Fourth, and they were so terrified at the lack of tracks coming and going that they began wailing that these were ghost warriors and refused to follow the trail. There was a big uproar and several more Cheyenne villages were burned by the cavalry for good measure, but most folks were glad the Forty-Fives were gone. They were a bad bunch.

  That was the end of the Cheyenne in western Kansas. Dodge City was settled in 1871 and the Santa Fe Railroad came through in 1872, and pretty soon Dodge became the cowboy capital of the West, the end of the Texas Trail, shootouts, Wyatt Earp, Boot Hill, and all that. Medicine Creek was settled in 1877 by the cattleman H. H. Keyser, cattle brand bar H high on the left shoulder, horse brand flying H on the right. The blizzard of 86 wiped out eleven thousand head and the next day Keyser leaned his head against the barrels of his shotgun and pulled both triggers. They said it was the curse. Then sodbusters and nesters came and the days of the cattle barons were over. First it was wheat and sorghum, then the dust bowl, and after that they replanted in feed corn and now gasohol corn. But in all that time no one ever solved the mystery of the Ghost Warriors and the Medicine Creek Massacre.

  He took one final sip and dramatically clunked down his can.

  Corrie looked at Pendergast. It was a good story, and Brushy Jim told it well. Pendergast was so still he might have been asleep. His eyes were half closed, his fingers tented, his body sunken into the sofa.

  And your great-grandfather, Mr. Draper? he murmured.

  He settled down in Deeper, married and buried three wives. He wrote up the whole thing in a private journal, with a lot more detail than what I just gave you, but the journal got sold off with a lot of his other valuables in the Great Depression and now sits in some library vault back east. Never could figure out where. I heard the story from my dad.

  And how did he manage to see everything, in the middle of a dust storm?

  Well, all I know is what my dad said. When you get a dust storm in these parts, sometimes it blows on and off, like.

  And the Cheyenne, Mr. Draper, werent they already known to the U.S. Cavalry as the Red Specters because of the way they could sneak up on even the most vigilant sentry and cut his throat before he even realized it?

  For an FBI agent, you seem to know quite a lot, Mr. Pendergast. But you got to remember this happened at sunset, not at night, and those Forty-Fives had just fought as Confederates and lost a war. You know what its like to lose a war? You can damn well be sure they were keeping their eyes open.

  How was it that the Indians didnt discover your great-grandfather?

  Like I said, the men felt bad about whomping him and had erected a little windbreak for him. He pulled that brush over himself to hide.

  I see. And from that vantage point, lying in a hollow, covered with brush, at least a hundred yards downhill from the camp, in a dust storm, he was able to see all that you just described in such vivid detail. The Ghost Warriors appearing and disappearing as if by magic.

  Brushy Jims eyes flashed dangerously and he half rose from his seat. I aint selling you anything, Mr. Pendergast. My great-granddaddy aint on trial here. Im just telling you the story as it came down to me.

  Then you have a theory, Mr. Draper? A personal opinion, perhaps? Or do you really think it wasghosts?

  There was a silence.

  I dont like the tone youre taking with me, Mr. Pendergast, Brushy Jim said, now on his feet. And FBI or not, if youre insinuating something, I want to hear it flat out.Right now.

  Pendergast did not immediately reply. Corrie swallowed with difficulty, her gaze moving toward the door.

  Come now, Mr. Draper, Pendergast said at last. Youre no fool. Id like to hear yourreal opinion.

  There was an electric moment in which nobody moved. Then Brushy Jim softened.

  Mr. Pendergast, it appears youve smoked me out. No, I dont think those Indians were ghosts. If you go out to the Moundsits hard to see now with all the treesbut theres a long gentle fold of land that comes up from the crik. A group of thirty Cheyenne could come up that fold, hidden from the sentries if they walked their horses. The setting sun would have put them in the shadow of the Mounds. They couldve waited below for the dust to come up, mounted real quick, and rode in. That would explain the sudden hoofbeats. And they couldve left the same way, packing out their dead and erasing their tracks. I never heard of an Arapaho who could track a Cheyenne, anyway.

  He laughed, but it was a mirthless laugh.

  What about the dead Cheyenne horses? How did they vanish, in your opinion?

  Youre a hard man to please, Mr. Pendergast. I thought about that, too. When I was young I saw an eighty-year-old Lakota chief butcher a buffalo in less than ten minutes. A buffalos a damn sight bigger than a horse. Indians ate horsemeat. They couldve butchered the horses and packed the meat and bones out with their dead or hauled them out by travois. They left the guts behind, you see, to lighten the loads. And maybe there werent more than two or three dead Cheyenne horses, anyway. Maybe Great-Granddaddy Isaiah exaggerated just a little when he said a dozen of their horses had been killed.

  Perhaps, Pendergast said. He rose and walked over to the makeshift bookshelf. And I thank you for a most informative story. But what does the story of the massacre have to do with the curse of the Forty-Fives that you mentioned, which nobody seems willing to talk about?

  Brushy Jim stirred. W
ell, now, Mr. Pendergast, I dont think willing is the right word there. Its just not a pretty story, thats all.

  Im all ears, Mr. Draper.

  Brushy Jim licked his lips. Then he leaned forward. All right, then. You know how I said that the sentries were among the last to be killed?

  Pendergast nodded. He had picked up a battered copy ofButler & Companys New American First Reader and was leafing through it.

  The very last to be killed was a fellow named Harry Beaumont. He was the leader of the Forty-Fives and a real hard case, too. The Indians were furious at what had been done to their women and children, and they punished Beaumont for it. They didnt just scalp him. Theyrounded him.

  Im not familiar with that term.

  Well, lets just say that they did something to Harry Beaumont that would make sure none of his family recognized him in the afterlife. And after they were done they cut off his boots and skinned off the soles of his feet, so his spirit couldnt follow them. Then they buried the boots on either side of the Mounds, as a backup, like, to trap his evil spirit there forever.

  Pendergast returned the book, pulled out another, even more battered, titledCommerce of the Prairies. He flipped through the pages. I see. And the curse?

  Different people will tell you different things. Some say Beaumonts ghost still haunts the Mounds, looking for his missing boots. Some say still worse things that Id just as soon not repeat in front of a lady, if its all the same to you. But the one thing I can tell you for sure is that, right before he died, Beaumont cursed the very ground around himcursed it for all eternity. My great-granddaddy was still hidden in the hollow, and he heard him with his own ears. He was the only living witness.

  I see. Pendergast had pulled out another volume, very narrow and tall. Thank you, Mr. Draper, for a most interesting history lesson.

  Brushy Jim rose. Not a problem.

  But Pendergast seemed not to hear. He was staring closely at the narrow book. It had a cheap cloth cover, Corrie noticed, and its ruled pages seemed filled with crude drawings.

  Oh, that old thing, Brushy Jim said. My dad bought that off some soldiers widow, years and years ago. Swindled. Im ashamed he was taken in by such a fake. Always meant to throw it out with the trash.

  This is no fake. Pendergast turned a page, then another, with something close to reverence. To all appearances, this is a genuine Indian ledger book. Fully intact, as well.

  Ledger book? Corrie repeated. Whats that?

  The Cheyenne would take an old Army ledger book and draw pictures on the pagesof battles, courtship, the hunt. The pictures would chronicle the life of a warrior, a kind of biography. The Indians thought decorated ledger books had supernatural powers, and if you strapped one to your body they would render you invincible. The Natural History Museum in New York has a ledger book done by a Cheyenne Indian named Little Finger Nail. It wasnt as magical as Little Finger Nail would have liked: it still bears the mark of the soldiers carbine ball that passed through both the ledger bookand him as well.

  Brushy Jim was staring, wide-eyed. You mean . . . he began in an incredulous tone. You mean to say that, all this time . . . The things real?

  Pendergast nodded. Not only that, but unless Im much mistaken, its a work of singular importance. This scene, here, seems emblematic of the Little Bighorn. And this, at the end of the book, appears to be a depiction of the Ghost Dance religion. He closed the volume with care and handed it to Brushy Jim. This is the work of a Sioux chief. And here perhaps is his glyph, which might be interpreted as Buffalo Hump. It would take additional scholarship to be sure.

  Brushy Jim held the book at arms length, trembling, as if afraid to drop it.

  You realize that its worth several hundred thousand dollars, Pendergast said. Perhaps more, should you want to sell it. It is in need of conservation, though. The groundwood pulp in ledger book paper is highly acidic.

  Slowly, Brushy Jim brought the book closer, turned the pages. I want to keep this here book, Mr. Pendergast. The moneys no good to me. But how do I get it, um, conserved?

  I know a gentleman who can work wonders with books as damaged and frail as this one. Id be happy to have it taken care of, gratis, of course.

  Brushy Jim looked at the book for a minute. Then, without a word, he extended it to Pendergast.

  They said their goodbyes. As Corrie drove back to town, Pendergast fell into silence, eyes closed, deep in thought, the carefully wrapped ledger book held very gently in one hand.

  Eighteen

  Willie Stott moved across the slick concrete floor, sweeping the hot mixture of bleach and water back and forth, propelling stray gizzards, heads, crests, guts, and all the other poultry effluviacollectively known as gibs by the line workerstoward the huge stainless steel sink in the floor below the Evisceration Area. With the expertise of years, Stott flicked his hose hand left and right, sending additional strings of offal skidding away under the force of the cleanser, rolling them all up neatly together as they were forced toward the center. Stott worked the jet like an artist works a brush, teasing everything into a long bloody rope before giving it one final signature blast that propelled it down the drain with a wet swallow. He gave the floor a once-over, snaking the jet here and there to catch a few stray strings and wattles, the odd beak, causing the stragglers to jump and dance under the play of the hose.

  Stott had given up eating turkey within days of starting work at Gro-Bain, and after a few months had given up meat altogether. Most everybody else he knew who worked there was the same. At Thanksgiving, Gro-Bain gave free turkeys to all its employees, but Stott had yet to meet anyone who actually ate it.

  Work complete, he switched off and racked the nozzle. It was ten-fifteen and the last of the second shift had left hours before. In years past there would have been a third shift, from eight until four in the morning, but those days were gone.

  He felt the comforting pressure in his back pocket from the pint bottle of Old Grand-Dad. As a reward for finishing, he slipped out the flask, unscrewed the cap, and took a pull. The whiskey, warmed to body temperature, traced a nice warm tingling line right down to his belly and then, a few moments later, back up to his head.

  Life wasnt so bad.

  He took a final pull and emptied the bottle, shoved it back into his pocket, and picked up the big squeegee that hung on the tiled wall. Back and forth, back and forthin another five minutes the floor, workers platform, and conveyor belt overhead were all so clean and dry you could eat off them. And the stench of turkey shit, fear, blood, and sour guts had been replaced by the clean, astringent smell of bleach. Another job well done. Stott felt a small stab of pride.

  He reached for the bottle, then remembered it was empty. He glanced at his watch. The Wagon Wheel would be open for another thirty minutes. If Jimmy, the night guard, arrived on schedule, he would make it with plenty of time to spare.

  It was a wonderfully warming thought.

  As he was racking up the last of the cleaning equipment, he heard Jimmy coming into the plant. The man was actually five minutes earlyor, more likely, his own damn watch was running slow. He walked over to the docks to wait. In a minute he heard Jimmy approaching, jangling like an ice cream truck with his keys and all his other crap.

  Yo, Jimmy-boy, Stott said.

  Willie. Hey.

  All yours.

  Whatever.

  Stott walked into the deserted employee parking lot, where his dusty car sat beneath a light at the far end, all alone. Since he arrived at the height of the second shift, his car was always the farthest away. The night was hot and silent. He walked through the pools of light toward his car. Beyond the lot, cornfields stretched into darkness. The nearest stalksthe ones he could make outstood very still and straight. They seemed to be listening. The sky was overcast and it was impossible to tell where the corn stopped and night began. It was one huge black sinkhole. He quickened his pace. It wasnt natural, to be surrounded by so much goddamn corn. It made people strange.

  He unlock
ed the car and got in, slamming the door behind him. The violent motion sent the thin blanket of dust and corn pollen that had settled on the roof skittering down the windows. He locked the door, getting more dust on his hands. The shit was everywhere. Christ, he could already taste Swedes whiskey, burning the back of his throat clean.

  He started his car, an old AMC Hornet. The engine turned over, coughed, died.

  He swore, looked out the windows. To his right, darkness. To his left, the empty parking lot with its regular intervals of light.

  He waited, turned the key again. This time the engine caught. He gave the accelerator a few revs and then put the thing into drive. With its habitual clank of protesting metal, the car moved forward.

  Wagon Wheel, here we come.A warm feeling invaded him as he thought of another pint, another pull, just something to see him back to Elmwood Acres, the sad little mini-development where he lived on the far end of town. Or maybe hed make it two pints. It felt like that kind of a night.

  The lights of the Gro-Bain plant flashed past, and then Stott was humming along in the darkness, two walls of corn blurring past on either side, his headlights illuminating a small section of the dusty road. Up ahead it curved, angling lazily toward Medicine Creek. The lights of town lay to the left, a glow in the sky above the corn.

  As he rounded the curve the engine clanked again, more ominously than before. And then, with a wheeze and cough, it went dead.

  Shit, Willie Stott muttered.

  The old Hornet glided to a stop along the road. Stott put it in park and turned the key, but there was nothing. The car was dead.

  Shit! he cried again, slamming the wheel. Shit, shit,shit!

  His voice died away in the confines of the car. Silence and darkness surrounded him. Whatever had happened in his car just now sounded pretty fucking final, and he didnt even have a flashlight to look under the hood.

  He pulled out his flask, opened it, tipped it up, drained the last fiery drop. He licked his lips, turning the bottle over in his hands, staring at it. He didnt have any more at home.