He shook his head slowly. “Had the last words I figure I’ll ever have with Bill, and it’s a shame ’cause he’s been a friend to me. I take the woman. I picked up some of the lingo over time but even without it I could tell she don’ wanta go. She’s screamin’ her babies are dead, to kill her too. An’ I tell her I’ll take care of her. Not to worry. She’s safe.”
Harrier opened his mouth like a baby bird. Dawbs dribbled a stream of water into his maw.
“I bring her back here and I do take care of her. Still, she never speaks a word, sometimes keens so long and lasting I regret taking her for the noise. She tries to kill herself time after time, with a knife, a cutting piece of stone, a wire she hones to sharp. She gets to havin’ scars up and down her arms. I tie her hands and her feet.
“I feed her, sometimes I gotta force it down ’er. She almost dies, jes for wantin’ t’die. But I stick with her, don’ let her go. After months, she kinda snaps out of it. Not friendly like, still don’t talk, but she eats. She gets hold of a knife and she don’t try to cut herself, jes takes off her hair, like they do in mournin’.
“Enough time an’ she’s purty again. Fine, dark-eyed, skin the color of a new fawn. We come to an unnerstandin’, not warm but companionable, know what I mean? I’m thinkin’ it was a good thing, what I did.
“Someway, though, they know, the Injuns know she’s here. And while we’re thinkin’ we learned ’em a lesson, it don’t turn out that way. Hell, mebbe she was hootin’ like an owl out back or some such thing, because they come down and they exacted their revenge, by God.”
He was crying again. “I watch it all. And when every one of the poor sons o’ bitches was dead she finally talked to me. First time. She knows English. She tol’ me she would never walk with her children again. She would never feel their skin on her fingers. She would never see their faces.”
He worked his face; the struggle to continue fought in the muscles of his mouth. “Because of this, they took my feet. They took my hands. They took my eyes, and they left me alive.” The man gulped and sobbed. He rubbed what was left of his palms across his scarred face. “I made a mistake. I made a mistake!”
Phaegin looked hopelessly up at me from beside me. What could you say to a man who suffered the knowledge of terrible sin?
“I made a mistake!” he cried again. He took several long breaths. “I was wrong. There warn’t any good in her after all. I shoulda left her to Bill Packard.”
Phaegin stopped patting his shoulder. She rose from her knees and stumbled into the grass even as Jim Harrier ranted.
“But that squaw made her own mistake, leavin’ me alive, for I will forsake all but retaliation! She and her kind will pay!” He kicked and flailed in his madness. “She made a mistake too. She made a mistake too!”
We put the bodies within the wagon, arranging the timbers and the tumble-down railings that were once the corral around it. By the time we’d finished, Jim Harrier had spent his final breaths on his vow to exact payment, and we posited him in the wheeled casket as well. We took the soddy door and carved the names of the dead on its warped surface and staked it in the grass for any who passed and cared to know. Had it been spring or winter, we would have lit a flame and dispatched the dead respectfully with fire, but under the circumstances, a wildfire was the last thing we needed as traveling companion. We walked away, the dead watching from the windows of the black lacquered stagecoach.
Though it was only a few hours since we’d sojourned across to the swing station, it seemed we’d crossed some far boundary. We rolled the handcart, Pig keeping a fair distance from Phaegin, until the soddy was long past view. Phaegin stopped. “I can’t be out here anymore.”
She was solemn and spoke firmly, as if by saying it she would be transported away.
I shook my head. “We’re putting some distance between it and us.”
She waved toward the bones in the cart. “I mean, I’m not doing this anymore. I don’t want bones. I don’t want bombs. I don’t want the dead or the dying, the killed or killers.” She nodded like a toy. “It’s too much. I want dancing and smoking and drinking and laughing. I want it now.”
Curly took her hand. “You want to dance?”
Phaegin withdrew her hand. “I don’t want to dance. I want dancing. I want dancing! Do you hear me? I want laughing!”
Curly looked flummoxed. Dawbs, however, crooked his arm and threaded her hand through it. “We’ll walk some, and we’ll head thataway. It’s time to find comfort.”
She nodded stiffly. “Yes. There is none here, and while I think I am a strong enough person, I want you to know that … this is the end. I must be going now. I can’t be here any longer.” She gestured in front of her. “There is a line I have not seen before and now I can, and it is close, and I am afraid to cross.”
She shook her head and Dawbs squeezed her arm. “There’s no reason to cross. We’ll be away soon.”
Curly and I took over pulling the cart while Dawbs and Phaegin walked ahead, Phaegin explaining herself. “I thought it was bad being poor. But at least the rich are hostile in my own language. I don’t know why it’s better—maybe it should be worse—but if the worst happens and I’m strung up, at least I can have my say. Even if most don’t listen, someone might, or at least I’d think so. Here, I can’t tell the good from the bad. I can’t tell one Indian from another. I don’t know their story. I can’t remember the names of their families or tribes or who hates who. And they won’t know that me and Jim Harrier and Bill Packard ain’t practically the same thing!”
I thought of our walk through Chicago, and all the poor and sick who spoke in what seemed a hundred languages. Our nation spoke, but who understood?
Phaegin stopped again, breathing close to panic, then turned and walked stiffly to me. Dawbs took over my station, and I swung Phaegin into my arms. She buried her face in my shoulder as I trudged on. She hardly weighed anything, had left all plump good humor behind.
CHAPTER 29
We went with Dawbs to the railroad tracks and waited there until the train came through. Phaegin, Curly, and I lay low while Dawbs flagged down the engine. The men in charge of loading and paying for bones knew Dawbs well. “Big goddamn pile this time, now mebbe you can afford a shave an’ a haircut. You look like a goddamn dog with a squirrel in its mouth!”
When the laden train pulled away, Dawbs divided the money, then pulled me aside and took a folded piece of paper from his pocket. Another poster of Curly, Phaegin, and me, this one with the additional drawing of a severe-looking gentleman with a goatee and a well-waxed mustache. Dawbs shook the paper. “Conductor had a mess of these.”
I peered at the now-familiar images, then at the severe man. “Who’s that?”
“Coy Hayes. Pinkerton and a rattlesnake. Rumor is, he never fails to bring in his man.”
“How do you know?”
“You can read about him for a dime if you got it: Coy Hayes, Defender of Peace. He wasn’t always a big shot.” Dawbs thumbed toward the cart. “I had a run-in with him in New York years ago. Jailed for nine months: pornographic, indecent, lubricious, and salacious conduct.”
Dawbs looked out over the grassland. We’d spent a good part of the summer together and he’d already said that the cold nights told him to leave before the real chill set in. He nodded at the southern horizon. “It’s time for us to part ways, friend. I’m givin’ you the cart and all the supplies save one bedroll and a canteen. You best head north. Right out there.” He pointed behind him to some distant hills, then gestured beyond. “You’ll meet up with some wagon train, Mormons or California-bound folks, with better to do than follow others’ business. Peg on with ’em. Get yourself swallowed up.” He nodded toward Phaegin, who still had a dazed look on her face. “Do her good.”
“And you?”
He smiled. “The women in this country say, ‘I loved him, but then I married him.’ In the islands they say, ‘I don’t know if I love him, I haven’t slept with him yet.’ I’
m on my way to where the blood runs warmer, Ned: Mexico, South America maybe. If I’m lucky, I’ll light on an island where there’s nothing but loincloths, fruit, and bodily love. This is a mean goddamn country, and I’m … a gentle man.”
He lifted his hat. “Luck to you.” Shook Curly’s hand.
He hesitated, then approached Phaegin. “That line you were talkin’ about. If you can see it, it’s yet a considerable distance.”
Phaegin smiled wanly. “I’m gonna miss you, Dawbs. Good luck finding paradise.”
Dawbs nodded and walked away whistling. Pig squealed and followed until Curly called him back.
We spent the day nailing planks, pilfered from the train, over Dawbs’s carvings on the cart. Curly protested loudly. “The only thin’ keeps me goin’ is that cart.” He pointed to each figure. “Mary, Kerry, Sally, Leodora …”
Phaegin showed some sign of life, slapping his finger away. “We’ll not be welcomed by decent folks with a wagon fulla smut.”
Curly scoffed. “Then they ain’t so decent, is they? This is art.” He nodded and confabbed with Pig. “When I’m a cowboy, I’m gonna have art round me at all times.”
When the cart was made presentable, I made show of checking the compass. Picked up the cart handles and shouted with great confidence, “Let’s head out. This way!”
Though Phaegin had not lost the hunted look, she followed my lead, taking her place behind the now-heavier wagon, pushing as I pulled. Curly called Pig, who trotted sensibly in the shadows we cast.
We headed for the junction of the trail with no disasters but the inexorable diminishing of the supplies Dawbs got us from his friends on the train. After some days we were forced to such short rations that when I spied a small herd of four pronghorn antelope, my mouth actually watered.
Curly pounded me on the back. “Now’s yer chance to show us what a sure shot you are, Ned!”
I laughed. “The bullet couldn’t make it that far, Curly.”
Phaegin sat on the cart. “Can’t you sneak up on them?”
“On an antelope? They’ve got eyes like opera glasses.” Curly and Phaegin looked so disappointed, however, not to mention ravenous, I agreed to try.
Antelope, as well as having the best eyesight of any animal I’d ever seen, also suffered from an insatiable curiosity. Young pronghorns would pronk around a rattlesnake, sensing the thing was bad news yet compelled to figure it out. Older antelope retained this inquisitive disposition. I’d heard of Indians getting easy meat as antelope scrutinized windblown tethers on tepees. I hoped the stories were true.
Curly lent me his red kerchief. I tied it to a stick then crept through a shallow gully until I had halved the distance between myself and the herd. I hacked a sagebrush free of the ground. Holding that and the stick in my forward hand, my pistol in the other, I began creeping forward.
The animals raised their heads, the white rump hair bristling in alarm at the approaching brush. I dropped to my belly and waited. I despaired as three of the pronghorns bounced away. The big male, with an impressive pair of black cleft horns, held his ground. After minutes when the male did nothing more than stare, I crawled forward on my belly.
Not only did this maneuver require much more of me athletically than I’d anticipated, it was very painful on my knees and elbows. I desperately wished I’d thought to create makeshift pads instead of scraping over the rocky ground. I stopped and caught my breath, feeling like the sun had just increased twenty degrees in temperature over the last ten minutes.
The antelope was intrigued with my odd movements and took a few hesitant steps closer. I willed my heart to calm, moved forward another yard or two, stopped again, and fluttered the red kerchief.
The antelope extended his neck in seeming amazement. I waited, willing him to come closer. Praying he would, not only because we needed the meat but because I was in misery. My muscles cramped. Sweat ran into my eyes and into the cuts and scrapes I had incurred in my crawl forward, stinging mightily. Biting flies tortured me and, finding me a passive victim, fed to their hearts’ content and seemingly called their brothers to sup as well.
I crawled on, the smell of dust and sage filling my nose. I struggled not to sneeze, but lost the battle. I held my nose with my pistol hand and popped my ears with the ferocity of the blow.
The antelope jumped but did not run. Nor did he come closer. I remained statue still for a few agonized minutes, the tension suffocating. When I commenced my wriggle forward, I right off jammed my elbow into a cactus. I moaned.
I figured that was the end of the hunt. However, the sound seemed to further captivate my prey; he took several steps toward me. I wiggled the kerchief and moaned again.
As the antelope circled, I cocked my pistol. At this point I could see his liquid black eyes, intent on the scarf, his ears pricked so far forward it was as if the buck were pointing at what provoked his curiosity. His wonder seemed so human, so endearing, I hated to do it. But I had responsibilities. I pulled the trigger.
For three days we ate well. The day we finished the last scrap of pronghorn steak we arrived at the trail. We kept watch for more game, though I hoped I wouldn’t have to make another stalk. I was still plucking spines from my hide. As it turned out there was little reason to worry. We saw no sign of life, but for the far flight of birds and an occasional coyote. I mentioned that the soldiers called them wolf mutton, but Phaegin proclaimed she wasn’t that desperate. Yet.
After three days of no wagon train and no game, Phaegin began calling Pig “chitlin.” She cajoled, “Here, pork chop.” When she recited a recipe for pork roast with rosemary, Curly howled in fury.
Phaegin threw up her hands, “It’s only a joke, for crying out loud!”
Curly pointed at her. “You’d eat ’im in a minute if I weren’t here.”
“Now how could I catch him, Curly?” she groused. “I’d have a better chance of running down another of them antelope.”
I tried to distract Curly by calling his attention to the grooves worn in the granite trail. “Huge numbers of brave pilgrims have made their way down this trail. The ruts give testament to the great days of the American West, the wide-open country, the danger, the great civilizing of the wilderness.” I clapped him on the back. “And you are a part of it.”
Phaegin gave a bitter laugh. “Bravery and civilizing? I hardly think so.”
Curly scratched the vault of Pig’s back with a stick. “I been brave. An’ when you see me a cowboy, you’ll not scoff.”
Pig threw up his head and started squealing. Curly looked surprised. “Doncha like that? Sorry. How ’bout here?” He scratched behind the ears, but still Pig cried.
Phaegin stiffened beside me and pointed a shaking finger. Three Indians approached, riding over the swell that formed the surrounding basin.
Phaegin grabbed my arm. She trembled as she whispered, “We’re done for, Ned. You think they’re the soddy Indians?”
I shook my head while searching for signs of blood thirst, a demeanor of violence. The men were impassive, their faces arranged in no expression at all. They wore no paint save for vermilion dusted into the parting of their hair, which formed into two braids. One wore several feathers in his braid, another a necklace of blue beads and a scarlet blanket. The one with the feathers had tattered flannel shirting and canvas pantaloons made into leggings.
I squeezed Phaegin’s hand. “Just be calm. Curly, don’t do anything.” I stood, put my hand up in greeting.
The Indians looked us over, then spoke in their language.
I shook my head, smiling. “No parley.”
The Indians made motions of eating. One of them was missing two fingers on the left hand.
Phaegin riffled through the food box, finding some moldy pilot bread. I handed it over with a quarter bag of beans.
The Indian looped the bean bag on his mount, sniffed the bread and said “Phaw!,” throwing it down, and said, “Whiskey.”
I shook my head.
“Sugar
.”
I again made a mournful gesture.
The Indian tried once more, making a sign with his crooked index finger at his lips to describe a pipe, waving an open hand from his mouth indicating smoke.
I looked at Phaegin. “The cigars. Give them the cigars.”
She blanched. “No.”
The Indians waited. They each held a rifle, and though I had assured Phaegin it would be all right and these were not the same Indians that had perpetrated the torture at Jim Harrier’s soddy, to tell the truth I didn’t know any such thing and I was terrified. I smiled and pretended smoking. The Indians nodded. I eyed my bag. I could pull out my pistol rather than the cigars, but if the Indians’ rifles were loaded, we’d all be dead in an instant. Even if they weren’t, the knives at their waists would do enough damage that I wouldn’t risk it if I didn’t have to. I hissed at Phaegin, who was clutching at my arm. “I’m getting the cigars.”
“They can’t have my cigars.”
I pushed past her and went for her bag; she followed, clutching at my arm. “No, Ned. You can’t take them! Please!”
I pushed her off and grabbed one of the boxes of cigars and, while Phaegin yelled, “Goddamn, Ned!” I returned to the Indians. Phaegin went silent. I held up the box. One took it, opened it, murmured in a pleased way, took a cigar, and handed the box to the others. They each took two cigars and laughed, apparently making a joke by play-acting white people, gesturing widely and pompously in the air. One of the Indians said, “Fire.”
I pulled a match from my pocket and lit the cigar.
Phaegin moaned. The first Indian leaned from his pony and puffed. He straightened and made a strange face. He puffed again, grimaced, and coughed spasmodically, spitting and hawking. Once the spasm passed, he threw the lit cigar at me. As I brushed the cigar away, he kicked me in the chest, shouting something to his friends, and I went sprawling into the dirt and away from my gun. The others disposed of their cigars and raised their rifles.
The coughing Indian jumped from his horse and grabbed Phaegin, jerking her head back so the whites of her eyes showed, her nostrils flaring in terror. I shouted, “No!”
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