by John Jakes
“Kola, I don’t want you to take a chance and—”
The Sioux pushed him down, interrupting. “I must. I will be safe enough. It will take only an hour or two.”
Apprehensive, Jeremiah watched him ride into the blurred red dusk.
He never came back.
iii
On the following Tuesday evening when Jeremiah rode along the Kansas Pacific rails to the settlement, he was still suffering from a slight fever. Although the gusty wind was cool, perspiration gathered under the brim of his low-crowned plainsman’s hat. He swayed slightly in the saddle, a tall young man of twenty-three who gave the appearance of being much older.
He had his mother’s fair hair and his father’s gaunt cheeks and a weathered, pleasant face spoiled only by his mouth, which was so thin it sometimes took on a cruel cast. His good-weather clothing consisted of a collarless cotton shirt, blue once but now faded to ivory; a dirty gray buckskin vest with pockets; checked wool trousers reinforced with buckskin at the places a saddle tended to chafe the worst—the seat and the insides of the thighs. On his boots he wore plain American-style spurs called OKs. The rounded, filed rowels were easy on the flanks of a horse.
Wind blew dust clouds through the darkness and drove the grit into his eyes, making vision that much more difficult. He passed a siding that led to chutes and pens of unpainted lumber. Perhaps nothing symbolized America’s resurgent postwar economy so well as the huge herds of Southern cattle beginning to reach Northern railheads. In keeping with the mood of optimism sweeping the nation now that Grant had taken charge in the White House, this town had evidently expected to share in the coming livestock boom. But something had gone wrong. The new pens contained only little whirlwinds of dust. There were no cattle, and no sign of any.
Sweat continued to accumulate under the band of his hat. He wanted to take the hat off but he didn’t. It concealed the one mark which made him easy to identify—the streak of white hair starting above his left brow and tapering to a point at the back of his head. The streak had been white since Chickamauga, where a Minié ball had grazed his scalp. He often disguised the streak with a mixture of dirt and boot polish. Tonight he hadn’t troubled; he’d been too preoccupied by worry.
He rode straight up to the tiny frame depot beside the single track. The depot was dark except for an exterior lantern on the far end. A sign was nailed to the roofpeak below the lantern:
ELLSWORTH
Ellsworth, Kansas. Not much of a place from what he could see. A single street with a few pitch-roofed houses and a handful of commercial buildings of unpainted clapboard, strung out to the north of some cottonwoods growing on a bluff along the Smoky Hill River. A rutted trail meandered down to an easy ford.
Only a few lamps glowed in the village. At the far end of the street, music drifted from one of the largest buildings. A polka, played on a twangy, out-of-tune piano. Despite its raw, impoverished look, Ellsworth was civilized enough to possess a dance house where a man could have a rousing gallop around the floor with one of the hostess-whores such places employed, and while dancing complete arrangements for later in the evening. Jeremiah saw six or seven horses in front of the dance house. Trade was light, but then it was a weeknight.
“Giddap, Nat,” he said, barely touching his calico with one spur. He walked the pony through a billowing cloud of dust and then abruptly reined in. Light leaking from a cottage to the line of trees showed him a still form turning slowly in the wind.
His belly began to feel as hot as his forehead. He rode close enough to be sure, and when he was, bowed his head. “Jesus,” he said under his breath. “Oh dear Jesus.”
He could appreciate what Kola must have felt, reaching the end so despicably. He could imagine his rage and humiliation. Except for the meanings of dreams, nothing mattered more to a Sioux than a proper death of which the tribe would be proud to speak for generations. Such a death had to be met bravely, even flamboyantly, in combat with fierce and respected enemies. Instead, Kola had died like a common horse thief.
The anger rising in Jeremiah seemed to banish his fever and clear his head. He scanned the street to be sure he wasn’t being watched. Then he climbed down and tethered the calico on the river side of the trees, where the animal would be hidden from casual observation.
Reaching to his boot, he yanked out a buffalo knife. He scrambled up into the lowest fork of the cottonwood and cut down the hanged Indian.
iv
A sleazy café, the Sunflower, was open, though without customers until he walked in. The old man tending the place regarded him with the familiar suspicion reserved for new arrivals in a small town.
Jeremiah locked a smile on his face. He ordered some food—stew with too little meat and too much chili powder—and a cup of bitter coffee. He sat eating and drinking at one of three rickety tables while the rheumy-eyed, weary old man watched him.
He hated the delay, this pretense. But he needed information. As he lifted the cup to his mouth, his hand was steady despite his sickness. So was his voice when he forced conversation.
“Nice little town you have.”
“Glad somebody thinks so.”
“I can’t be the only one. Someone spent quite a bit on those cattle pens and the spur track.”
“Plenty of fools in this town, mister. They’re the ones who squandered the money. Even persuaded the governor to lay out a special drover’s highway up from Fort Cobb in the Indian Territory. A highway exempted from the quarantine law. We don’t need exemption, you understand. We’re not in the quarantine zone. But the highway’s supposed to show that Ellsworth is interested in Texas trade—”
He wiped his nose. “The Texas boys aren’t interested in Ellsworth, though. They won’t drive their herds this far north. Too much risk of Indians. Fellow who started the local paper last year, he found out. Printed his sheet for exactly three months, then packed up. He came to understand Ellsworth’d blow away if it wasn’t for the soiled doves at the dance house bringing in business. Mostly drunkards from the military reservation.”
“Oh, there’s an army post here?”
“Fort Harker. East a ways.” The man leaned across the plank counter. “You don’t sound like you were in the Union army. You a Southron?”
Yes, you prying son of a bitch. I fought the war we had no chance of winning.
Amiably, he said, “Maryland. We kept no slaves. Our family was loyal to the Union, but my pa was crippled. I had to tend the farm. Cost me three hundred dollars to avoid conscription, but I had no choice. Two months after Appomattox, Pa died and I sold the place and came out west to hunt buffalo. Name’s Jason Gray.”
The convenient story had served before. It satisfied the old man. After a last bite of stew, Jeremiah added, “I noticed an Indian strung up to one of the cottonwoods.”
A shrug. “He should have known better than to walk into the dance house like a white man. I mean, it wouldn’t sit well most anyplace but it definitely didn’t sit well here. The Cheyenne hit Ellsworth a year ago. After we recovered from that, the K.P. canceled the roundhouse we were promised. Next we got an outbreak of Chinee cholera. And there won’t be any cattle trade in the summer. That’s all going to Abilene where those scoundrels ignore the quarantine line and bribe the legislature to do the same. The truth is just this, Mr. Gray—and I quote our lately departed editor—Ellsworth is puking to death.”
Jeremiah grimaced. “Guess all that trouble would put anybody in a peevish mood. People here took it out on the Indian, is that it?”
“Way I got the story, he refused to leave the dance house when he was ordered. Kept jabbering that he needed a doctor. Sergeant Graves took offense and roused some of the citizenry.”
“Sergeant Graves,” Jeremiah repeated.
“Yes, sir, from the post. He’s down at the dance house most every night. Lends a lot of money to other soldiers. It’s a sideline of quite a few noncoms in the Plains Army. Graves charges interest like billy be damned. Must be rich by now.”
“And he whooped up enthusiasm for the hanging party?”
“He led it. Tied the noose personally.”
“Could your police force have saved the Indian?”
“What police force? All we have so far is a volunteer chief. And he’s away riding the Kansas Pacific half the time. He’s a conductor. Off working right now, in fact.”
“I see.”
“What you don’t see is that nobody wanted to stop it. Besides, Graves had every right to do what he did. He lost a brother when Custer took the Seventh Cavalry down to the Washita last year to punish the Cheyenne.”
“To massacre them,” Jeremiah murmured.
The old man’s eyes flickered with suspicion. “In Ellsworth, Mr. Gray, we think Custer did right. It wasn’t any massacre. It was protective action. When the Indians broke out of their treaty lands, they raised the very devil all over Kansas. Not twenty miles north of here, they struck Mr. Shaw’s homestead on Spellman’s Creek. Thirty or forty of them kept Mrs. Shaw and her sister prisoner for most of a day. Subjecting those two poor women to the grossest possible indignity. Over and over, the grossest—possible—indignity.” He emphasized the words so his customer was sure to understand.
“Not only did they do that,” he went on, “they ruined our cattle business before it even commenced. The Texans won’t come here now. When General Custer and the Seventh rode to the Washita, they gave the savages what they had coming.”
Jeremiah forced the smile back on his face. “I guess it all depends on who’s the killer and who’s the victim. If I was to shoot the right person”—the old man started; Jeremiah almost chuckled—“an Indian, for instance—very few in the nation would blame me.”
He laid out a shinplaster—one of the pieces of paper money printed during the late war. “Thanks for the meal. I’ll be traveling on now.”
“Buffalo hunter,” the old man grunted, half a question, as Jeremiah received his change.
“That’s right.” Jeremiah stared. Something in him took pleasure in seeing the old man bite his lip and avoid the unwavering, almost hostile gaze. Amused, he walked out into the dark.
With the dust clouding around him, he comforted Nat. The pony was fretting with Kola’s corpse slung belly down over his back.
Slowly Jeremiah unlaced a saddlebag and pulled out the packet containing the remainder of the proceeds of the train robbery. Two hundred dollars in shinplasters. He held the packet in his teeth and removed the next pouch, and the next. Each contained an army-issue .44 caliber Starr revolver. The second also held ammunition.
He thrust both revolvers into his belt, replaced the two empty pouches and the full one, loaded the guns and said to the calico, “I’ll be back soon.”
He walked toward the dance house.
You swore never to do this again. You swore you were done with it.
The voice went unheeded as he tramped along in the blowing dust with the Cottonwood leaves hissing in the dark on his right flank. He was gripped by a mounting excitement; yet by a certain melancholy too. He’d been a fool to think he could never change what he was. What the war had made him.
He put it all out of his mind composing himself, readying himself for the work to be done. With the barrels of the revolvers gouging his belly at every step, he felt whole again. It was as if a missing part of his body had been miraculously restored.
v
While he approached the dance house, the piano player swung into a mazurka. Loud laughter drifted through the open upper half of a Dutch door. He paused a moment on the dark porch, carefully counting and appraising those inside.
Only four soldiers were present, three quite young. Boys of seventeen or eighteen: new recruits, off duty and unarmed. The fourth soldier was a paunchy veteran.
Next he noted three men in nondescript civilian clothing, and the same number of women in tawdry dresses. Two men were dancing, one young soldier and one civilian, each hauling one of the women around the floor with clumsy, exuberant steps. Another of the civilians, a fellow in a threadbare frock coat, sat by himself at a rear table. The piano player was decrepit, the barkeep round-shouldered with a consumptive’s face. Smoke and amber chimneys on the ceiling lamps softened the figures as if they were images in an old, soiled painting.
He suspected his quarry might be present. The paunchy man wore yellow chevrons and was engaged in animated conversation with one of the younger soldiers. Jeremiah buttoned his vest over the butts of the Starrs, noting that the paunchy man had come into town without a sidearm.
He reached for the handle of the Dutch door. Amber-flecked eyes turned in his direction, but just briefly. The monte man was the only one who continued to watch as Jeremiah strolled to the bar, his palms damp and his ears ringing. When the monte man realized the new arrival hadn’t come in search of a game, he resumed his concentration on his deck of cards.
Jeremiah ordered whiskey. One of the whores approached. She stood close, so his right hip fitted between her legs. Even with the thickness of her shabby velveteen skirt intervening, he could feel the contour of her. A quiver in his groin reminded him it had been a long time since he’d enjoyed female companionship. But he shook his head.
“Fine thing!” she pouted. “You could at least buy a drink for someone trying to welcome a stranger to our fair—”
Belatedly, she fixed on Jeremiah’s eyes. Then her gaze dropped to the almost lipless line of his mouth. The commercial smile faded and a shiver worked across her bare shoulders. She backed away from him.
The dancers whooped and stomped. Their motion stirred the smoke. Jeremiah picked up the dirty glass full of whiskey but didn’t drink. He was straining to overhear the paunchy sergeant’s conversation down the bar.
“—an’ that money’s yours till a week from Friday. Then she’s due. No leeway.”
“Jesus,” the young soldier said. “You’re worse than a Jew.”
The sergeant chuckled. “No, sir. I’m a kind heart. There’s your receipt”—paper tore—“just in case you forget how much you owe.”
“When I’m handing back twenty percent on it? Jesus.”
The young soldier made straight for the card table. The monte man welcomed him with a warm grin and a call for refreshments. One of the whores served them.
Loud enough to be heard by the paunchy man, Jeremiah said to the barkeep, “Pardon me. I’m hunting for a Sergeant Graves.”
The barkeep nodded his head. The paunchy man pivoted, beaming.
“Amos Graves? Right here, sir.” He couldn’t have been over thirty, but the seams in his face and the discolorations on his nose made him look much older. Jeremiah had heard the Plains Army was a haven for men who couldn’t control their craving for alcohol.
“Sergeant Amos Graves,” the man said, his huge belly jiggling under his dark blue jacket as he approached. A pudgy hand waved a small block of paper. “Unofficial banker of Fort Harker and friend of the needy.” He had puffy cheeks, mustachios drooping past his mouth, and a whiskey stink. He planted elbows on the scarred wood next to Jeremiah. “New arrival in Ellsworth?”
“That’s correct.”
“Well, if it’s a loan you’re after, I don’t ordinarily extend privileges to those passing through, not unless they can offer me some collateral.” He surveyed Jeremiah’s clothes. “You a Texas boy? Sound a bit like it. Now if you brung a hundred head of cows up this way, I might be willing to—”
“I came to ask about the Indian you hanged.”
Despite the music and the thump of boots, most of those in the place heard the remark. One couple halted in the middle of the floor and turned to gape. The piano player missed a beat, mangled the next notes, then quit altogether. In the silence even the hiss of rapidly shuffled cards died away.
Again Jeremiah fixed a smile in place. He didn’t want to prod things to a conclusion too soon. He reminded himself to be wary of the barkeep. He suspected the man kept a weapon hidden for emergencies.
Sergeant Graves chuckled
in an uneasy way. “You mean that greasy buck strung to the cottonwood?”
“Yes.” Jeremiah’s smile broadened so Graves would relax. “Just curious about what happened to him.”
It worked. Graves waved for a drink, then said, “Why, he marched in here saying he needed a doctor. To treat his pox, I s’pose. All them red men got the pox. When we told him nicely this was a dance house for white folks, he wouldn’t leave. Got plain feisty, in fact. That’s when me and a couple of the lads took him in hand. I’ll give him this. He wasn’t armed, but he fought like a catamount.”
“You mean to say he came in here looking for help, trusting that someone would give it to him?”
Graves gulped from his refilled glass, grinned. “Yeah, damn fool.” A thoughtful pause. “I think he was a Cheyenne.”.
“He was a Sioux.”
Graves’ eyes flickered with uneasiness. A yellow jewel of sweat oozed out on his brow, another. Jeremiah thoroughly enjoyed making this drunken whale twitch and wonder.
Quickly he checked the three young soldiers. One was still on the dance floor, one at the card table, one leaning over the bar. He dismissed them as potential sources of danger. He was feeling more exhilarated by the moment.
“You know him?” Graves asked.
To keep the sergeant fretting, he evaded. “I took a look at him and recognized he was a Sioux, not a Cheyenne. Difference in height and in the nose and cheekbones.”
Activity in the dance house had come to a complete stop. Jeremiah noted the barkeep’s hands hanging in front of his apron, within reaching distance of whatever weapon might lie on an unseen shelf.
“You recognized that,” Graves said. “What trade you in, mister?”
“Buffalo hunter. Tell me about the hanging.”
Once again a friendly tone lulled the heavy man. He shrugged. “Oh, the whole thing didn’t take more than ten minutes. But we did have some mighty good jollification with him before we strung him up.”