Lords of the Plains

by Paul Bedford

  His face was concealed by long, greasy black hair. The skin tone was different to ours and his way of life certainly was, but I really didn’t see anything that should have provoked the irrational fear that had apparently gripped the advancing work force, myself included. With that momentously rational thought I came to a decision.

  Spinning on my heels, I called out to my two companions. ‘Turn that wagon around. We’re going back out there!’

  Dan viewed me with genuine disbelief. His mouth tried to work, but the words would not come. Elijah, as ever, had retained some composure. ‘You must have a death wish, Joe Wakefield. To go out there with those drunk fellas on the loose. Haven’t you seen enough killing this day?’

  The strange calmness that had come over me a short while earlier had remained, and I was suddenly very determined. ‘There’s a dead buffalo out there that needs skinning and butchering. I ain’t leaving it for no dirt-worshippers. I shot it, which makes it mine, and I aim to get paid for it. Cartridges cost money!’

  Dan had finally found his voice. ‘That’s just plain madness, Josiah. There’s a whole war party on the loose out there. Hell, you seen what they just done.’ He came from a devout Christian family, and so never shortened my first name.

  ‘We won’t have anything to fear from them. They’ll be having a celebray someplace, or mourning the death of that man I just killed.’ I stated that as though it was a proven fact, when in truth I had absolutely no idea what the savages might be doing.

  Neither man was for turning though, but they reacted to my entreaties in different ways. Good-natured, easygoing Dan had the finer feelings that allowed for embarrassment. We had come together well before the surrender, and soon became fast friends. He had backed me up in a number of conflicts, and yet he had always been a follower to my leader. Or at least he had appeared so up until that moment.

  Elijah was an altogether different case. He had only joined us a few weeks earlier in Omaha, in response to notices that I had posted around the city’s dance halls and dives. He had so far proved to be capable and hardworking, yet I had not really got to know him that well. He carried with him a guarded reserve that covered him like a cloak.

  In the face of their obdurate refusal, irrational anger began to build within me. I had hired them, so I could fire them! ‘Very well, I’ll go out alone,’ I exclaimed. ‘And when I get back I’ll get me some more help. You two are finished around here.’

  ‘You got no call to talk to us that way, Josiah,’ protested Dan, a hurt look etched across his homely features. ‘You an’ me have been through a lot together. That ought to count for something.’

  He was quite possibly right, but my blood was up. Some strange transformation had taken place within me. They were either with me or against me. Rigidly set on my course of action, I clambered up onto the wagon’s bench seat. Taking up the reins, I was about to move off when Elijah took hold of the nearest bridle. There was a tight look to his dark features that I hadn’t seen before. ‘Just hold on there, Joe. Like as not you’ll end up crow bait out there, and we’ve got spondulix coming to us. So you ain’t going no place until you’ve settled up.’

  Anger flared up within me. ‘I ain’t denying that, but you know how it is. All my money’s tied up in this outfit. You knew that when you hired on. Hell, you’ve got me to thank for bankrolling this and giving you jobs.’ With a conscious effort, I softened my tone, and added, ‘We just need a good killing season, is all.’

  Dan, standing off to one side, now looked puzzled by the sudden tension in the air. ‘Surely we can wait awhile, Elijah. He’ll pay us when he can. Won’t you, Josiah?’

  I chose to remain silent, my gaze fixed on the hard-eyed figure before me. Bizarrely, considering that we had supposedly started the day on good terms, I was now grimly weighing up my chances if Elijah should attempt to pop a cap on me. Unlike the majority of tracklayers, we both toted handguns. Our work took us way beyond the railhead, where self-reliance and a big stick counted for much.

  Sitting up on the wagon, I had a height advantage but less freedom of movement. My Colt Navy Six was fully charged, but the military flap holster made little allowance for swift action. Elijah favoured the heavier calibre Colt Army but, apparently unable to afford any kind of holster, carried it tucked into his belt in the small of his back. It really was impossible to discern which of us had a clear dominance. Had we both been liquored up, with our senses dulled, it might have been a different matter. So, short of throwing stones, there was little for us to do other than glare at each other.

  Such nonsense finally ended when Dan stepped between us. His fresh features carried an unusually determined look.

  ‘I ain’t about to let you two get to fighting over a few greenbacks. Josiah, if you’re so all fired set on going out there, get! It just seems a pure shame, is all, because the Sioux will probably gut you before you even reach that goddamned buffalo.’

  With great reluctance, Elijah finally released his hold on the bridle. Seizing my chance, I shook the reins and urged the team forward. Ahead of me, the unknown beckoned. By nightfall I might well be a naked, mutilated corpse, my bloody scalp decorating some savage’s lance. And yet, I had signed on to provide food for the work gangs, so that was exactly what I was going to do.

  As I rattled and bounced my way out onto the plains, the sounds of normality returned to the railhead. The walking boss bellowed his relentless demands, and hammers crashed down onto rail spikes. Death may have visited the camp, but nothing was allowed to halt the inexorable advance of the Iron Horse.

  It was as though I was wallowing in a sea of blood. The sticky liquid dripped from every finger, coated every surface. A warm wind rustled the long grass around me, but other than that the only audible sound was the noise of my own exertions. Initially, the fear of discovery had held me in its grip, but that sensation had soon been overwhelmed by other even more visceral emotions. I felt sick to my gut at the ghastly sight before me, and yet my task was far from over. The great oozing beast would provide enough meat for many hungry men, but the removal of it was no easy task.

  Having run my knife down the line of its spine from neck to croup, I had then flayed the hide down to the belly on both sides. I had seen this done many times before by my erstwhile employees, but always from a distance. My elevated role had been to kill the creatures, and then keep lookout for any unwelcome visitors. I purchased the expensive ammunition, so I sure as hell didn’t have to butcher the victims of it as well.

  My flesh crawled as I stripped out the two long bands of fat lying along either side of the spine. Could the camp cooks really use that? Practicality overcame revulsion. I threw the nauseating blubber onto the flat bed of the wagon. This unpleasantly close encounter was beginning to make me wonder how Dan and Elijah could do such revolting work day after day.

  The hump and ribs were the favoured red-meat cuts. I sliced into those with a feverish urgency. Time was passing. To be alone on the suddenly menacing plains in darkness, with only a slow moving wagon for transport was a fearsome prospect. Sweat streamed profusely down my blood-spattered face as I separated the prime tissue from the offal. Whether sheer dread or exertion was the cause was irrelevant. I was not leaving that desolate spot until my task was finished.

  Finally, the last of the huge bloody steaks had been heaved aboard. I cast a long, apprehensive look around me. The ever-present wind was my only companion on that bleak landscape. Quite possibly the war party was indeed having a celebration, secure in the knowledge that their camp was safe from retribution. They certainly could not have expected a lone, foolhardy individual to return to the scene of a single buffalo kill.

  Gratefully I wiped my gory hands on the thick grass. My eyes were drawn to the huge skull gazing reproachfully at me. I recalled that its tongue was considered to be a great delicacy. Well, the connoisseurs would just have to do without. I had had more than my fill of hacking and cutting for one day. Indeed, for many a day. It occurred to me that I w
ould either have to find some new skinners fast, or get into another line of work. There was no way that I could have known just how prescient that realisation was!

  Chapter Three

  The new day arrived in the same fashion, although never the same location, as did every other one at the railhead. I was dragged out of a deep sleep by the foul-mouthed demands of the walking boss. Around me in the huge, but densely packed railroad car, nearly two hundred men assigned to bunks three tiers high suffered the same fate. A full breakfast awaited them and then, rain or shine, hot or cold, the relentless activity commenced. Any man, in any army, would have immediately recognized the regime.

  Theoretically I could have dallied in my bunk, thereby emphasising my differing status. But what would have been the point? I was wide-awake, so such gratuitous behaviour would have merely provoked resentment, and served no good purpose. The only men immune to any criticism were the night guards, detailed as a direct result of the raid, who collapsed onto still warm blankets without a word. Had they been minded, they might have pointed out just how toxically flatulent the atmosphere had become during the night. Men who ate well, rarely bathed and almost never washed their clothes, became immune to the myriad vapours that they produced.

  Outside, the beginnings of a pleasant spring day awaited me. Kicking on my boots, I dropped down from the rail car. Splashing my face with water from a tin basin, I suddenly recalled the previous days events. ‘Hey boys,’ I announced to anyone that might be listening, ‘we’re all Indian fighters now!’

  That remark was greeted by hoots of well-meaning derision. ‘Sure, and you’re a fine man, Josiah Wakefield, with your big Sharps rifle. You’ll be after saving us all from dem heathens!’

  The funning was good-natured; the accent serving to remind anyone who cared that so many of the men hailed from the Emerald Isle. It also highlighted the fact that the men had hired on to lay track, not fight savages. Which, of course, was exactly what I might have to do again that day, if I rattled out onto the prairie. We only got paid when we produced meat for the workforce, which meant venturing out well away from the railhead to find the nearest buffalo herd. We! Ha, a fine trick of the mind. It wasn’t ‘we’ anymore, not after the previous day’s petulant display. I had effectively dismissed my workforce. And yet they weren’t just employees. Dan had also been a good friend.

  Now in a far more sombre mood, I clambered back into the railroad car to recover my weapons. After the events of the previous day, I had vowed to keep them with me at all times, which included the rowdy ‘free-for-all’ breakfast supplied by the Union Pacific. Any residual good cheer effectively vanished when I failed to see either of my skinners. How on earth was I going to fulfil my contract with the railroad? At best it would require an unwelcome trip to Omaha to recruit more men, with a consequent loss of earnings.

  Such glum thoughts were still exercising my mind, when shortly after I spied the stocky figure of Jack Casement, approaching me at a fast pace. That was in itself strange. If a man in his exalted position wanted someone, he sent for him. It was also unusual to observe him in a formal coat. Most times he settled for a rough woollen jacket or just shirtsleeves. As he ground to a halt before me, the former general eyed the rifle in my right hand and smiled slightly, as though I had just confirmed something for him. Turning slightly he gestured back towards the finely painted railway car from which he had emanated. Two men wearing sober, but obviously expensive frock coats were in deep discussion on the open platform at the end of the carriage. Without preamble, Casement demanded, ‘You see the one on the right?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That there is Grenville Mellen Dodge. As chief engineer, he is in charge of the whole shooting match. I might be your boss, but he is God. So that’s “Mister Dodge” to you, or “General” or just plain “Sir”.’

  ‘Why?’ I replied somewhat cockily. ‘I ain’t in the army any more, nor subject to its regulations. In fact I ain’t subject to anything that I can rightly think on.’

  Scratching his plentiful beard, Casement eyed me pityingly. ‘Excepting maybe the need to scratch a living,’ he replied, and then abruptly stepped so close to me that I could almost taste the odour of cigars that habitually clung to him. Reaching up, he placed a great paw on my left shoulder. I considered myself to be well formed, and sound of limb and lung, but the unexpected pressure was breathtaking. What he lacked in height, her certainly made up for in raw power. It was rumoured that he had once single-handedly lifted a thirty feet long, six hundred pound rail off the ground, and suddenly I fully believed it. Unable to move had I even wanted to, I now found myself transfixed by his piercing blue eyes.

  ‘You’re like all the other young fellas around here. You came out of the army with barely a dime to your name, but because you’ve seen something of the world, you think you’re beholden to none. Having said all that, you were the only man to bring down one of those hostiles yesterday, and I heard about you heading back out there to recover that meat. That took grit.’ He paused for a moment, as though unused to handing out compliments, before recalling that he was there for a higher purpose. ‘You got something, Wakefield, and General Dodge wants to use it. And what he wants, he gets. So you mind your manners around him, or I’ll smash you flatter than hammered shit!’ With that, he suddenly released his grip, placed a horny hand between my shoulder blades and propelled me none too gently towards the ornate carriage.

  The two men had walked back in, and it was obviously intended that I should follow. In truth, I was actually a little nervous. Everyone knew of General Dodge. As well as being a capable soldier, he was also an acknowledged expert on railroads, and during the war had been given control of them by none other than Ulysses S. Grant. Now he was a man on a mission, and that was to push the Union Pacific on across the vast empty expanse of the northern plains until it linked up with the Central Pacific heading east. The only problem was that the plains were not completely empty!

  As I entered the highly polished interior, I found the railroad boss waiting for me behind an expansive desk. His companion and only other occupant of the carriage sat off to one side, eyes focused resolutely on the floor. This individual was obviously small of stature, and sported a pencil thin moustache. His frockcoat was well tailored and immaculately brushed, and the leather shoes polished to an unbelievable shine. The overall appearance bespoke of a great deal of money, and one thing was for sure: whatever his role in life was, it certainly didn’t involve any manual labour or indeed me, and so I directed my attention elsewhere.

  The chief engineer was a man of lean build, with a neatly cut beard who immediately settled his eyes on mine. They were penetrating, but not unkind, and I recalled hearing that he was reputed to be a basically decent man driven by great ambition. Then again, hearsay was often wrong, and without deigning to offer me a chair, Dodge got straight to the point.

  ‘Mister Casement informs me that you are an accomplished Indian fighter and that you possess grit. Well, if you’re to work for me, you’ll need it.’

  ‘I thought I was already working for you,’ I replied obtusely.

  Casement gave a derisive snort, but Dodge continued as though I had not even spoken. ‘If we are ever going to claim what we bought from the French, we need to build this railroad. Yesterday’s events confirmed yet again what Lewis and Clark discovered sixty years ago. The Sioux are definitely hostile, and so I need men to fight them.’

  I stared at the chief engineer in astonishment, before cobbling together an answer of sorts. ‘I shot my first and only Indian yesterday, in self-defence, because they attacked us.’

  Dodge waved away such specifics. ‘That’s more than most of us have done out here, which makes you the right man in the right place. That was not the first hit and run attack that we’ve suffered. Far from it. They’ve been striking at surveyors and graders, and supply wagons. Those damned heathens sweep in out of nowhere, cause havoc and then disappear. They even stole a payroll strongbox from one wagon, fi
lled with gold Double Eagles, although God alone knows what use they’d find for so much specie. General Sherman has promised me army protection, but we may have to wait awhile. With the war over, the country’s forces are shrinking rapidly, and a sizeable chunk of what’s left is required in the South for reconstruction. So in the meantime, the Union Pacific needs someone like you watching its flank. Mister Casement admits to learning a lesson yesterday, and certainly won’t ignore any more of your warnings. Any news of importance can be relayed to me by telegraph.’

  I was taken aback by what seemed to be a new job offer, but was also more than a little dubious. ‘If I was to do that, then I’d need someone watching my back. I ain’t going out there all on my lonesome.’

  Casement was ready with the answer to that. ‘Don’t see that as a problem. That fresh-faced skinner you employed is still in camp.’

  Although happily surprised at that revelation, one more problem occurred to me. ‘Who’ll do my job? Your men will still need feeding.’

  The burly track boss had an answer for that as well. ‘Don’t you concern yourself, Wakefield. Just so happens that a new outfit pulled in last night, while you were out on the cold, hard prairie on your lonesome. It’s led by some young fella, name of Bill Cody. Cocky son of a bitch . . . a bit like you. Says he’s a real sure shot. Happen you’ll meet him afore long. You might even rub shoulders out there somewhere.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ I remarked with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. It hadn’t escaped my notice that nobody had mentioned money, but that was about to change.

  ‘You’ll get ten dollars a day, and found,’ Dodge announced, ‘and five dollars and found for every man you hire. Get out there and be our eyes and ears. Oh, and a word to the wise, Mister Wakefield: cut the flap off that holster. The extra speed might just save your life one day. Good day to you.’ And with that the interview was over abruptly. He turned towards the other man, who had appeared strangely disinterested throughout the interview, and left Casement to usher me out of the carriage. It was also left to the track boss to supply the nitty gritty.