by T C Donivan
Annie pushed the dead Indian away and took Rachel in her arms, but it was too late. I could not look at the poor, destroyed woman I had once made love to and turned away, replacing the spent cylinder of my Colt with the spare as I scanned the encampment for any surviving Crow. Spencer made his way to Rachel’s side. Annie tried to stop him, but he would not be turned away. In that moment I saw what shreds remained of the proud, arrogant man I had known, stripped away. He wept horribly as he cradled the mangled body of the girl he loved in his arms, her blood staining his clothes. He covered her with his coat and wailed to the moon and stars as I have never heard, nor hope to hear again, any living creature.
Hawker quickly took charge, doing an inventory of the dead and wounded. The element of surprise had served us well. Our attack had been swift and savage. By Hawker’s count, two of the Crow had escaped, but did not figure to cause much trouble, alone and wounded in the wilderness with neither their mounts, nor their friends. We counted among our injuries an assortment of contusions and minor wounds from the close in fighting. Sebastian had suffered the only serious injury, a knife wound to the chest. It did not bleed much and Zenobia went to work plugging it before the lung collapsed.
The sound of a blood curdling shriek shook me to my soul. I spun about to see Tree Owl as he stood over a prone Crow warrior, bloody knife in his hand as he finished off one of the wounded murderers. He repeated the performance, stalking the camp, seeking out any of our foes who still lived, Hawker and Trotter at his heels like dogs until the survivors had been dispatched to hell where they belonged. This accomplished, they made a second pass to remove the scalps. I could not watch such bloody work and concentrated my attention on the perimeter against attack.
The Crow had left behind a corral of nineteen solid, if undersized ponies. Hawker sent Noah and Tree Owl immediately back to retrieve our horses along with Mozart and Sosanna. Those of us with pistols sat sentry at the perimeter, weapons at the ready. I was happy to be away from the scene of sorrow as Hawker and the others piled the Crow bodies by the fire. Annie assisted Spencer in the preparation of Rachel for burial, a morbid task that would have been beyond my ability to complete. Rachel was sewn into a buffalo robe made winding sheet to hide the desecration of her flesh.
The night was long and terrible as we waited for the return of the rest of our party. As dawn neared, I began to fear that they too had run into an ambush and were dead. Just as the red cast of dawn began to break in the east, we heard Noah call out as he and the others rode into the camp. Sosanna flung herself upon her sister’s shroud, begging to see it one final time, but was, thankfully, denied by Spencer and Annie. I felt myself a coward for my inability to aid them in their hour of despair.
The morning was spectral, a fog having settled over the valley. We searched for an appropriate final resting place for the poor, dead girl, finally settling upon the side of a hill beneath a rocky outcropping, well shielded from the rain and far from the wagon trails that led west. We buried her deep and covered the grave with stones, disguising its location lest wolves or Indians discover and violate it. No words of Jewish, Christian, or other prayer were spoken.
Spencer was inconsolable, whispering over and over again, “Too late, too late.”
He sat by the graveside while the rest of us made camp, hunted and attempted to recover our wits. Sosanna contained her grief well, but seemed even more ethereal than before as she wandered about the hills that served as her sister’s cemetery, Mozart beside her.
Sebastian was in pain, but good spirits. He was in no danger according to Zenobia. The knife had not penetrated deep, but he would have to lie still to aid the healing process. Despite Zenobia’s assurance, I feared for him with such an injury in the wilderness.
Mordecai the dog arrived unexpectedly. He had been left behind at the fort, but had broken his leash and announced himself at our campsite trailing a three foot length of rope. Instead of going to his usual, bosom companions, he went immediately to Spencer and lay down with him by the grave.
As the day wore on and weariness overtook me, I sat by the fire, the realization of all that had happened descending on me like the weight of the world on Atlas. I grieved for Rachel and Spencer and gave consideration to the two men I had killed as well. Despite their monstrous behavior, I wondered if they had left behind innocent wives and children who would starve because of their loss during the coming winter.
Chance and fate I thought. If Kingfish had not stolen Annie, if the Crow had not found them. If I had not seduced her and begun the feud with the bully. If I had listened to Annie and done something more to deter him after the attack at the fort. The possibilities of alternate courses were overpowering and I cried out silently to God to turn back the days and allow me one more opportunity to set things right, but He did not hear me.
We ate our supper in silence and fell into our blankets, exhausted from the chase and fight. Spencer remained by the grave. Annie came to me and we slept together, but did not make love, finding simple comfort in the warmth of our bodies and fact that we were alive while so many others were either dead, or crippled by grief.
Chapter 20 – The Trial
We awoke well past dawn, a late hour for travelers in the wilderness. I took some breakfast to Spencer but he refused it and fed it to the dog. We sat together, shrouded in our gloomy thoughts. He began to speak finally, his once powerful voice, small and quiet like a man at confession.
“Did you see what they did to her?” He asked.
I had, but could not acknowledge it. “Let’s not speak of it,” I begged.
Spencer took no heed and began to list the abominations done to the poor, dead girl. I could not bear to hear it, so I got up and walked away, feeling as if worms had been let loose in my head. He continued to repeat the horrors, their litany drifting away on the wind. The others were busy picking up the camp, preparing to leave. They had built a travois stretcher as the Indians use to transport their elderly and infirm, fixing a rawhide stretcher between two sturdy saplings for Sebastian. Hawker and Annie were cleaning up the fire to leave as little trace as possible of our presence.
“How is he?” Hawker asked.
“I’m not sure he’s ready to leave.”
“We should go, the longer we wait, the more likely someone will stumble onto the grave,” Annie said.
I went to Spencer and voiced their concerns. He was unmoved and incommunicative, his ghoulish outburst having passed. The others were packed and ready to go. I did not relish remaining in that place, but my friendship for Spencer would not allow me to abandon him. I returned to the others.
“I’ll stay with him. When he’s ready, we’ll start back,” I told them.
“I’ll stay too,” Annie said.
“And so will I,” Tree Owl agreed.
I noticed Mozart saddling his horse. “Aren’t you going to stay?” I asked him.
He shook his head indicating Sosanna, who stood, trancelike, beside her pony, stroking its neck. “The lil missy needs to be away from this place. The air in these parts can choke a man’s spirit.”
I understood, but was surprised at his abandoning his former master just the same. I noticed too, that his demeanor had returned to its previous folksy condition, making me wonder if I had imagined the surreal conversation the night before we had overtaken the kidnappers. As if conjuring my thoughts, he gave a quick, intelligent look that spoke of things unsaid.
Hawker clapped one of his large hands on my shoulder and the other on Annie in a fatherly gesture. “Sorry, but Noah and me have business to take care of. The traders only come once a year and we have supplies and traps to purchase. You should be all right. There’s no sign of any other hostiles. If you don’t mind, we’ll take the remuda of Indian ponies with us and trade them at the Fort. We’ll split the money later.” He called out to Mordecai, but the dog appeared not to hear him. Hawker shook his head. “Looks like the pooch has set his cap for Spence.”
I thanked him for his trou
bles. Annie and I watched them ride away then settled in to wait. Tree Owl joined Spencer, sitting by his side in silent companionship. Though only late September, the season felt later, as if deep autumn had already descended. The sky was covered with gray clouds and the air was damp and chill. Annie and I rebuilt the fire and cooked a bit of pheasant. We got out the book of Coleridge she had rescued from her home on the Wind River and read quietly to each other from it.
We had just settled in to sleep for the night, when his fugue at an end, Spencer rose up on his hind legs like a lion and roared to the heavens. Mordecai leapt in imitation of his new master, barking and growling as if possessed by demons. Annie and I jolted upright, grabbing for our guns, thinking the surviving Crow had returned to murder us. Spencer came shambling down the hill from the graveside, swearing vengeance on God and all his angels. He pushed his face into ours and swore at us.
“Get the horses saddled, we have to find him!” He ordered.
“Who?” I asked.
“Kingfish.”
“Where shall we find him?” I asked, unhappy at having been roused from my much needed sleep.
“Rachel showed him to me just now in a vision. We’ll come across him tomorrow morning on the trail. Once we have him in our clutches, we can attend to the final act of this misbegotten play,” he said.
Despite the hour, we humored him, glad that he was at last willing to move from the spot. Luckily, the night sky had cleared and Tree Owl was able to navigate us by the stars as we headed back to the Fort. Deprived of my sleep, I felt my bone numbing exhaustion. My mind drifted and it felt as if days had passed in a span of hours. I caught myself nodding off in the saddle. The morning sun broke suddenly over a thicket of pine tree, blinding us with its fiery rays. My aching body begged for rest, but Spencer refused to stop.
“It’s not far now!” He promised. Lunatic, I thought.
Tree Owl reigned in his horse suddenly and pricked his ears to the wind making a sign of caution to us. Spencer ignored him and lashed his faithful Blue into the woods ahead of us shrieking like a banshee. Annie and I stared at each other in disbelief. I came full awake and drew my pistol, kicking Elijah in the shanks to follow my idiot friend, heedless of the danger. We rode between two boulders that marked out a wagon trail through the trees into a dark canopy of sheltering pines that blotted out the crimson morning sun. Ahead, I saw familiar horses.
Mozart and Sosanna sat atop their ponies by the trail, entranced as if watching a performance engineered for their entertainment. Across from them in a small clearing, Hawker and the other men were running up a hill. Spencer vaulted off of Blue and ran to join them, Mordecai at his heels. Annie and I drew up beside Mozart. She drew her rifle from its long sheath and laid it across the pommel of her saddle.
“Kingfish,” she said.
I recognized the coward as he darted through the trees, trying to escape his pursuers. They cornered him, but he did not surrender without a fight, it taking the three mountain men and the dog to subdue him and drag him back to where they had left the horses.
Hawker greeted us. “Glad to see you. We cut his trail last night.”
Kingfish continued to struggle until Spencer struck him a savage blow across the face with his pistol barrel which opened up a cut that bled down his neck. They secured him with ropes and sat him down in a muddy rut by the trail. His clothes were in shreds and his ugly face was swollen from full of insect bites and scratches giving him a generally dreadful appearance.
“What shall we do with him?” Dr. Zenobia asked.
Madness seeped from Spencer’s eyes as he inspected his quarry. “You set yourself up as our juror once, now we will do the same for you coward. We are not twelve, but I think we shall do. I charge you, Captain Uriah Kingfish, with the kidnapping, rape and murder of Rachel Hanisch.”
“It was them injuns kilt her, not me,” he cried.
Spencer paced before his prisoner with exaggerated steps like a bad actor in a play. “Those simple minded Stone Age children were merely the instrument of Rachel’s destruction. You were its architect.” He turned to his audience. “How say you – guilty?”
Sebastian sat up in his stretcher and nodded his head vigorously. “Yes, yes.”
“I concur,” Zenobia said.
Though I loathed Kingfish, I was reluctant, the weight of such a verdict too much for so early in the morning. Spencer glared at me. “Guilty,” I said wilting under his intimidating stare.
“He has the right of vengeance,” Tree Owl said.
Hawker and Noah assented. Sosanna shook her head in agreement as well. Mozart and Annie said nothing.
Spencer was satisfied “Good then. I pass sentence of death.”
He drew the Colt Revolver from his belt before anyone could speak and popped off two shots, one into each of Kingfish’s kneecaps. The impact made a sickening sound of exploding bone and flesh punctuated by Kingfish’s ghastly howling as he rolled in the mud trying to escape. Spencer shoved the pistol back into his belt and pulled Kingfish into a sitting position once more as Mordecai danced around him barking, a demented dog’s grin on his canine face. Kingfish’s knees were two bloody masses slowly pumping out his life’s blood. Spencer lowered his face into his victim’s.
“We have only just begun old friend. Next I shall shoot off your elbows and then proceed to the other joints, dismembering you as a medical student would conduct an autopsy on a cadaver. It shall be an education in anatomy. I thank God for Mr. Colt and his invention. With my spare cylinder I can reduce twelve joints to powder without reloading and then resort to the knife for the smaller joints.”
I was both fascinated and sickened by the spectacle of the finest artistic soul I had ever known locked in this macabre dance. He untied Kingfish, now that he was unable to run, then stood back and took careful aim with the pistol.
“Have mercy on me!” Kingfish begged.
Spencer laughed at him and pulled the trigger, the impact of the bullet nearly ripping off his left arm at the elbow. Sosanna began to sob. Mozart comforted her, shielding her eyes with his hands.
“Enough! Finish him,” I shouted.
The man who stared back at me was not the friend I had met on the banks of the Ohio River, but a vile demon no better than the creature he tortured. A chill struck my soul from the hatred in those eyes and my hand went instinctively to the pistol at my belt, fearing that I would be served next should I defy him.
In that moment, a gunshot crackled by my ear, blue flame choking the air. Kingfish jerked upright then lay down in the muddy wagon rut. Beside me, Annie sat in the saddle, the barrel of her rifle smoking. She went about the business of reloading as casually as if she had just killed a rabbit or a deer.
Spencer stared at the lifeless body that lay in the road, his eyes blinking uncontrollably. He turned to us and I pushed Elijah and myself in front of Annie. He pointed his revolver at me, but I felt my resolve drain away, unable to defend myself even if he shot me dead. Like a whippet, Tree Owl streaked across the muddy ground and pulled the pistol from his hand. When he put up a fight, Hawker knocked him from his feet. Spencer gave up and lay down whimpering in the mud beside the dead Kingfish. I closed my eyes as tears of grievous sorrow rolled down my cheeks. In one terrible episode, the loose fellowship we had formed on the way west had been destroyed forever.
Chapter 21 – Spencer’s Vigil
As autumn approached, Hawker and Noah needed to head west to lay their winter trap lines. With Annie having retired from the partnership, Trotter threw his lot in with the odd pair, leaving Sebastian and Zenobia without a guide. This, combined with Sebastian’s need for convalescence, prompted them to bivouac at the fort until spring when they could hire a new scout to take them on to California, or return east.
Spencer shunned his old companions, preferring the company of the dog, Mordecai. They camped by the river for a time then disappeared one day into the wilderness and did not return. We feared he may have destroyed himself or met a ba
d ending at the hands of a band of unfriendly locals, but Tree Owl found him alive and well some days later at Rachel’s gravesite where he had set up permanent camp.
Tree Owl headed south in early November inspired by a dream that told him he would find his mother’s ancestors in the New Mexico lands. He promised to return in the spring, determined the three of us would still embark on our long promised grand adventure. I had given up interest in the project, but hoped to see him again regardless when the snows had melted.
Our own plans were in flux. Annie and I were together, but without destination. We had little money and my share of the stores Spencer had provided us with had run out as our plan had been to be in San Francisco by now, at which time we would have shipped our sketches and stories to our publisher in New York and collected the remainder of our fees. Luckily, Annie was such a splendid hunter that we would not go hungry. Beyond that, we were at loose ends. A vague notion percolated between us to go to California in the spring, but rumblings of war with Mexico made us leery to commit even to that, as the province would likely be a hotbed of hostility should fighting break out.
Still, we enjoyed our days and even more our nights, making love and reading from our meager, but beloved saddlebag library. The leaves had mostly fallen, but the ones that remained in the treetops were ablaze with the brilliant bronze and red colors of mid-autumn. The ever green pines stood in contrast against them like a mirage offering false hope against the coming winter. Beyond the Fort, the blue foothills of the Rockies beckoned.