by Edward Gates
“Where they going?” Charlie asked as he watched the Indians ride away.
“Back home,” Dave answered. “We’re now in Kansas, out of their territory. Their job is done. You respect them and their land and treat them right, they return the favor.”
They drove the teams until the sun was just above the horizon, then stopped for the night. After the camp was set up, Charlie helped Walter into a sitting position near the fire. Walter was feeling better, but still fairly weak. Charlie unwrapped the bandage and removed the dried cactus pad. He smiled as he looked at the wound. Other than his crude stitches, he could hardly see a wound at all. The redness and puffiness was gone.
“How’s it lookin’?” Walter asked.
“Surprisingly, very well,” Charlie answered. “Whatever that Indian put on it worked like magic. That bullet’s still in you, though. So you’ll just have to take it easy until we get you to a doctor.”
The next ten days on the trail were uneventful. Kansas was little more than a wide-open plain that stretched from one horizon to the other. The weather was unpredictable. One moment it would be nice and sunny, the next moment clouds would roll in bringing with them wind, rain, hail and even snow flurries. Whenever they came across some trees, they stocked up on firewood. Walter slowly regained his strength but found it difficult to breathe whenever he tried to do anything strenuous.
Fort Larned, in central Kansas, was normally manned by two detachments of regular army plus a cavalry unit. However, the regular military units had been pulled out to go back east and join the war. The fort was manned by a local civilian militia who welcomed the freighters. Charlie was relieved to be in a warm, dry building with a roof over his head for the first time in over a month.
With the army gone, there was quite a bit of vacant space to bunk. The three officers’ quarters at the west end of the fort were occupied by the militia. The north end had two buildings, each designed to house two companies of soldiers but now essentially empty. One of the buildings had a section of the barracks’ first floor cordoned off and used as a post hospital.
Walter was taken directly to the hospital and put in a bed; a doctor was expected the next morning. While Dave went to talk with the fort’s commander and the local lawman, Ed, Jesse and Charlie walked to the other side of the barracks to claim a vacant cot.
“How long you think we’ll be here?” Charlie asked Ed.
“We usually stay a day or two to resupply, give the animals a good rest, and relax a bit. But with Walter, though, we might be here a little longer. We’ll just have to see.”
Charlie rolled his bedroll out on a cot and lay down. It felt nice to have something soft under him for a change. He began thinking about his adventure so far. Eventually his thoughts got around to the time-agents. He wondered whether they had given up and returned or were still searching for him in Arkansas.
But he knew they would never give up. The androids were programmed to be vigilant. They didn’t eat, sleep or wear out. They would analyze and deduce from all relevant data in their search for him. It would be just a matter of time before they encountered Charlie again. He wondered where and when they would next meet and fell asleep with those thoughts running through his head.
Dave’s entrance into the barracks brought Charlie out of his slumber. He carried with him the items he and Ed had taken off the dead outlaws.
“Gather round!” Dave shouted. “It’s an early payday.”
Charlie scrambled to his feet and joined Ed, Jesse and Dave around a table in the center of the open barracks.
“I turned Big Jake’s head over to the local city marshal. He gave me two hundred dollars cash money for the bounty. It’s real money and not that Confederate red money.” Dave set the stack of bills on the table.
“Two hundred dollars! Would ya look at that!” Jesse exclaimed.
“Then I sold two of those horses. Got sixty dollars apiece for them along with the tack.” Dave turned to Charlie. “I kept that bay for you, Charlie, if you want it. The saddle’s a bit worn, but he looks like a good horse. I kept the roan for me. I liked the color.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. He was excited to have his own horse.
“Sure. Thanks,” was all he could muster.
“This here’s the loot we took off them outlaws. They only had ten dollars between them. We’ll split that up with the money. Take what ya want and we’ll leave the rest for the militia.”
There wasn’t much on the table. The outlaws’ personal belongings were a slicker, a duster, a vest and another sack coat. Charlie looked over the four well-worn holsters with guns. He noticed there was a watch and fob, and two saddlebags that contained nothing but some old clothes and personal items. There were two powder flasks, and a few leather pouches with lead balls. Dave picked up the coins and set them on top of the stack of bills.
“Can I have that slicker?” Charlie asked. “I need something to keep the weather off me.”
Dave tossed Charlie the slicker. “Here ya go. You want another gun?”
Charlie thought about it. “Nah. I don’t think so. It’s just one more thing I’d have to carry around. I’ll take that powder flask and more shot, though.”
“Slim pickin’s for bank robbers,” Jesse said. “I wonder what they did with all their money.”
“Maybe they weren’t very good robbers,” Charlie muttered, more to himself than anyone else. They all heard him and laughed at his comment.
Dave picked up the watch and Ed went through all four guns before he selected one and stuck it in his belt, leaving the empty holster on the table. Jesse looked through everything but the only thing he took was the vest.
“Okay. Max gets a cut because we’re on his business,” Dave said.
“He gets a cut because he’d kill us if he ever found out we didn’t include him in,” Ed said, bringing a chuckle from everyone.
Dave nodded and snickered as he picked up the money. “Let’s see, now. My cyphering ain’t the best. There’s us five and Max, that’s, uh… that’s, uh, six. Right?” Everyone nodded. “Okay. We got two hundred bounty, a hundred twenty for the horses, and just ten dollars in coins from those fellas we buried.” Dave was concentrating on the numbers. He rubbed his forehead.
“That’s three hundred and thirty dollars, Dave. Everybody gets fifty-five dollars each.” Charlie smiled. They all turned and stared at him. “Well, my cyphering is pretty good.”
“I believe I’ll have to agree with you,” Dave said. He counted out six stacks of money and handed one to each team member. Ed agreed to hold on to Walter’s share until they left. Dave stuck Max’s share in the satchel of paperwork he carried.
Charlie took his share with a nod and a smile. He finally could afford to pay his own way. With the excitement of his newfound wealth, he thought about where the money came from. He couldn’t believe that they were paid for killing some desperado -- that was unthinkable where he came from. This was a lot of money in the eighteen-sixties. A very lucrative way to make a living.
Charlie went back to his cot and his thoughts eventually rolled around to Walter. He was endlessly bothered by the paradox of Walter’s wound. Was he supposed to die back on the trail in the middle of Indian Territory? Could he have survived if I hadn’t sewn the wound shut? Maybe that old Indian saved Walter’s life. How could he know? All he knew was that these thoughts would haunt him until he found a resolution.
30
Fort Larned
The next morning Charlie put on a clean pair of pants and his last clean shirt. Now that he could afford it, he planned to take his laundry into town and get it all properly laundered and folded. He would also treat himself to a shave, a haircut and a much-needed bath.
He sat at the table in the center of the vacant barracks, cleaning and reloading his handgun. He had reloaded the gun a few times before, but hadn’t given it a thorough cleaning since he left Clemens’s farm. The cleaning took a long time, and the reloading of the powder, ball, patch and cap in
all six chambers seemed to take forever. If he was in a battle, he would never be able to reload this pistol in a hurry. Now he understood why Ed took a second gun to carry. When the gun was completely cleaned and reloaded, Charlie admired his work. It looked brand new. He holstered the gun and set the rig on his cot.
While working on his gun, Charlie had been trying to calculate what day it was. He figured it was somewhere around the middle of November but wasn’t sure of the exact date. He knew they left Fort Smith on a Sunday in October, probably the twelfth.
The other three men sat outside on the porch, waiting for the local doctor to arrive. A bell tolled in the small village of Larned outside the fort. Charlie walked to the porch and leaned against the doorjamb next to where Ed, Jesse and Dave were sitting.
“Must be a Sunday,” Ed said.
Charlie nodded. If it’s a Sunday, then it must be November sixteenth. November always brought a smile to his face: it began the holiday season for him back home. He smiled as he remembered the Thanksgiving holidays he had shared with Angel. But here, Thanksgiving hadn’t been officially designated yet; that would be declared next year by President Lincoln. Wow! It suddenly hit Charlie that the current President of the United States was Abraham Lincoln. He stared off into space, wondering what would happen to the future of the world if he could stop John Wilkes Booth.
“You all right, Charlie?” Dave asked. “You look like you seen a ghost.”
Charlie shook off his daydream and smiled at Dave. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. I was just thinking, is all. I might get a journal and write down some things about this trip.”
“Commissary’s across the way.” Dave pointed to a building directly across the parade grounds.
“Maybe I’ll head over there later,” Charlie said. “I want to get cleaned up a bit today.”
Jesse stood up and took a step off the porch. “That must be the doc.”
Dave and Ed stood as they all watched a man in a dark suit walk toward the post hospital carrying a black leather bag.
“Let’s go.” Dave stepped off the porch and they all headed toward the hospital.
The doctor, a young man not much older than Charlie, was well-groomed, of medium build and an inch or two shorter than Charlie. He had black hair and sported a thin black moustache.
Dave greeted the doctor, introduced the rest of the team and explained what had happened to Walter. The doctor opened Walter’s shirt and examined the wound.
“When did this happen?” the doctor asked.
“Little over two weeks ago,” Dave replied.
“How you feeling, Mr. Holmes?”
“Pretty fit. Exceptin’ I can’t breathe as good as I used to.”
“Does your chest hurt any?”
“It’s a little sore. Not bad, though.”
Dave stepped forward. “Are you gonna get that bullet out of him, Doc?”
The doctor sat down on the corner of his desk. “I could. But the problem is that wound is near healed. To take that slug out now I’d have to open him up again.” He shrugged. “If it’s not bothering him, we could just leave it there.”
Charlie had a bad feeling. He knew that any medical procedure in the mid-nineteenth century was a dangerous undertaking, considering their lack of sanitation and understanding of infections and internal organs. However, on the other hand, leaving that lead ball inside Walter could cause lead poisoning, infections and other problems in the future. The fact that Walter couldn’t breathe very well led Charlie to believe that the slug was in a position to cause a problem with his lung. He also could tell that this doctor didn’t know anything about any of these things. Once again he was faced with that familiar dilemma that was becoming ever more annoying: Should he open his mouth with information that no one else knew, or just keep quiet and let history go forward? He was getting tired of these paradox quandaries.
Dave and Walter looked at Charlie, silently asking him for his opinion.
Charlie didn’t want any part of this. He shook his head. “I don’t know, Walter. It’s up to you. You can get it taken out here and be done with it and never have to worry about it again. Or, you can just wait and live with it, hoping it doesn’t bother you down the road. If it was me, I’d have it removed. But, I’m not you. He’s the doc. Talk with him. It’s your call.”
Walter and the doctor began a conversation about the pros and cons of the operation. Charlie stepped back a bit to bow out of the dialog. After some discussion, Walter elected to have the bullet removed and Charlie was pleased.
“I’m taking my laundry into town,” he told Dave. “Be back later.” He slipped outside and went to his bunk to retrieve his dirty clothes before heading into town.
Larned was a small town. Scattered homes surrounded a small central business area of only one street. Charlie had no trouble finding the laundry, barber and bathhouse. The laundress told him his clothes would be ready the next day. After his shave and haircut he headed to the bathhouse.
Over the last month, Charlie had taken opportunities to somewhat wash himself, as best as he could, in the frigid waters of the Arkansas River. The last warm bath he’d had was in Clarksville. There, he was left alone in a fenced area with no roof to bathe himself and take his time relaxing. This bathhouse was a little different -- actually, it was a lot different. First of all, it was an actual house and not a tent with a tall fence around the tub.
The house attendant, a short elderly lady with gray hair pulled tightly to the back of her head, led Charlie into a room where a large metal bathtub sat. A stove burning in the corner kept the room warm and comfortable.
“You can undress here and hang your clothes on that hook, there. We’ll have the tub filled in a few minutes.” She left and closed the door behind her, leaving Charlie alone.
He removed his shirt and boots, and was about to remove his pants when a door in the back of the room opened and a girl in her late teens entered carrying a bucket. She nodded and smiled at Charlie, but didn’t speak. He sat on a stool and watched as this young girl removed a few buckets of the water from the tub and then replenished it with fresh hot water.
“It’s all ready for you now, sir. I’ll be back in a little while to check on you,” she said as she left and closed the door behind her.
Charlie stripped and climbed into the tub. The warm water soothed his aching muscles and instantly relaxed him. He sank down in the water and rested his head against the rim of the metal tub, closed his eyes and let his mind drift away.
He was shaken back to the present by the rear door opening again. The young girl came back in.
“Are you enjoying your bath?” she asked as she rolled up her sleeves.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to bathe you, sir. I’m Lydia, your personal attendant.” She pulled a three-legged stool over next to the tub, sat down and began soaping up a small hand cloth.
Charlie was a bit embarrassed. “Wait. Wait. Wait a minute. I’m quite capable of bathing myself. In privacy, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s part of our service, sir. I don’t mind at all.”
In spite of Charlie’s weak protests, Lydia began washing his arms and shoulders. At first he resisted, but soon relaxed and allowed her to continue. She gently pushed him forward in the tub and scrubbed his back. Charlie, although a little tentative, relished the pampering, especially when it came from the gentle touch of a young woman. She dumped water on his head and washed his hair, then pushed him under the water to rinse.
She washed his feet, his calves and his thighs. As she worked her way up his leg, he became a little nervous and tried to back away.
“Don’t get nervous, sir. It’s all right. I do this a lot.”
Charlie was hesitant but leaned back in the tub and let Lydia wash his private parts, desperately trying not to enjoy it too much. Just when she was about to finish, she took hold of him gently and whispered in his ear. “For a dollar I can take you to another level of pleasure
.”
Charlie was a little shocked. His initial reaction was to pull away and decline her offer. But he didn’t. He could feel himself rising in her grasp. A rush of warmth surged through his veins. A dollar wasn’t much money at all. He didn’t answer her, nor did he resist her. He stared into her brown eyes and melted as she smiled at him and slowly stroked him. He leaned back in the tub, closed his eyes and focused on Angel’s image, remembering her gentle touch while Lydia worked her magic.
Returning to the barracks, Charlie endured the gentle ribbing from his team about how well he cleaned up and how nice he smelled. He was also teased about the bathhouse attendants. Apparently, the others had bathed there in the past and were all familiar with Lydia. He was definitely one of the crew, now.
“How’s Walter?” Charlie asked, hoping to change the subject.
“He’s fine. Doc gave him some… some… what was that stuff called?” Dave asked Jesse, who shook his head. “Anyway, the stuff knocked Walter right out before the doctor cut on him. Only took him a few minutes to get that bullet out.”
“Probably chloroform,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, that sounds right,” Dave said. “We’ll have to stay here a couple days. Doc said he should be okay to leave after that.”
Charlie nodded, grateful for the time off the road and the warmth and dryness of a building to sleep in. However, he was still tormented by the notion that Walter should have died without his intervention.
That night, as Dave, Ed and Jesse all slept soundly, Charlie stared at the ceiling. He was haunted by Walter’s timeline that he had undoubtedly affected. How could he know for sure? He was toying with the idea of checking the death records both in Larned and Little Rock. If Walter was supposed to have died, would that still be recorded? Or would the ripple of a changed timeline affect written records as well? He had to find out, if for no other reason than to get some relief from his thoughts.