A forgotten evil, p.20
A Forgotten Evil, page 20
“I’m hunting for frogs this morning,” she said, “before the sun gets too high, and they head for the shade.”
“You be careful,” he said, “because where there’s water, there’re others who might be looking for a drink.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said, picking up her frog sticker.
He watched as she walked down the hill, the bend of her back, the swing of her arms, the pride and toss of her head, and he remembered how she’d stood in the doorway of that railroad car, how she’d fixed him tea like he was a real person, and how she’d given him Bleak House, her very own book to read, as if it mattered in the whole wide world. Now, she was here.
He picked up his axe and held it before him, its heft and shape familiar to every muscle in his body, and he swore that no matter the cost, he would see her through and back to her people.
His search for wood brought him out of the canyon and into a hedge of bois d’arc that twisted from out of the cracks of a limestone table. Little River said that bow wood should be seasoned, but there was no time for such luxuries now. Picking out a healthy sapling, he chopped with wide swings of his axe, the bit ringing in the hardness of the wood. Afterward, he cut the bough to length and set the bit in its end. He struck the head of his axe with a rock and split the wood in equal halves. The grains were tight and dense and should make a fine bow. The bowstring would require constant tuning because of the wood’s poor seasoning, its shape and tension changing as it dried.
By the time he’d reached camp, the clouds hung low in the sky, their bellies red and churning with sunset. A brisk north wind drove through the canyon, swirling eddies of leaves, their smell of earth and decay. Joan was stooped over the fire, fanning it back to life with a piece of bark.
“I’m back,” he said, “and I’ve found bow wood.”
She tossed the bark into the fire and dusted the ash from her hands. “Well, I’m glad,” she said.
“What’s the matter?”
“The frogs are gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they called a meeting, packed up their bags, and left overnight. There’s nothing to eat.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got the bow wood and rawhide, too. I will kill us a deer.”
That night in the glow of the fire, he shaped the belly of the bow, taking care not to sever the grain, and when morning light came, they carried water from the stream in the buffalo horns, steaming the ends of the bow in the fire, bending them again and again until their shape was elegant and strong. After that, he boiled the hooves in a hollow stump, dropping in heated rocks until they melted into a stinking and vigorous paste. With the paste, he glued the sinew onto the back of the bow to increase its strength, placing it under heavy rocks to dry in the sun.
With his axe he crushed the leg bones of the buffalo, shaping the splintered pieces of bone into arrow heads with sandstone he’d taken from the slide. From cedar boughs, he fashioned arrow shafts, and a search of the cottonwood grove bore wild turkey feathers with which he fletched the arrows.
While the bow was drying, he showed Joan how to dehair the rawhide with a piece of chert and to weave the strips into a strong bowstring.
Two hard days and they were at last finished. Placing his foot on the belly of the bow, Caleb tested its draw, pulling the string to his stomach to check its balance, to make certain that both halves shared the tension. The bow fractured on the second pull.
“Goddang it!” he yelled, throwing it into the fire.
“It’s all right,” Joan said, “we’ll do it again, won’t we. That’s why you brought two of them.”
Hungry and despondent, they started over, and this time the bow tested the full reach of the string. Caleb’s arms trembled under its tensile, and he knew the bow was good.
He rose at dawn and slipped the bundle of arrows over his shoulder. Stepping through the bow, he strung it over his leg, his fingers stiff with morning cold. If he was to kill a deer, it would have to be at dawn as they grazed in the tree line under the protection of early light. Joan’s sleep was sound beneath the warmth of her buffalo robe, so he decided not to stoke the fire for fear of disturbing her.
The morning smelled of frost as he made his way through the canyon, and his stomach burned with an emptiness he’d never before known. There was a weakness within him, a frailty that shortened his stride and stole his breath. If he didn’t get food soon, he’d be too weak to hunt, and their end would come with the bitterness of winter.
For an hour he worked his way out of the canyon to where the trees thinned into the prairie grass. When he was exhausted, he lowered himself into a plum thicket to scan the terrain. He laid his bow down and rubbed at the cold that pooled in his shoulders, his neck, and the small of his back. In that instant, a half dozen deer bounded from out of nowhere, knocking him backward into the tangle. By the time he'd unraveled himself, there was little left of the deer but their white tails flagging over the distant hill.
“Damn it,” he said, kicking dirt onto his bow.
That’s when he saw her, an old deer stalled in terror at the edge of the bramble, her raven eyes shimmering in the sunrise. He held his breath and reached for his bow, bringing it about and nocking his best arrow, his heart pounding with possibility.
Fearful of stampeding her, he leveled the bow from his waist, a shot fraught with inaccuracy.
The old deer did not move, her eyes rooted on his, and he loosed his arrow. There was a snort, and then another as she lowered her head. Caleb nocked another arrow with trembling fingers and stepped from out of the thicket, but there was no need for a second shot—his first arrow had shanked deeply into the white embroidery of her breast. She dropped to her knees and snorted once more before easing into the sand to die.
With his axe, he gutted her out, the gamy smell of butchery in the chill morning air. Afterward, he cut saplings for a travois, weaving them together with bark and grapevine taken from out of the draw, and then he loaded his deer, her head drooped and sweet over his shoulder, her tongue lolling from her mouth.
The travois was crude to be sure, but functional, and by the time the sun rose overhead, he was dragging home his catch. Even as he struggled with its weight, he was consumed with joy, because now there was meat, enough for weeks if they were careful, and there was deer skin for clothing, and horn for knapping, and bone for all manner of service. Tonight there would be roast for the spit, turned and blackened from the fire, and they would fill their bellies until they could eat no more.
Each time he rested, he rose again to his lading, overcome with the necessity to see the look on Joan’s face when she saw the deer.
From the top of the canyon, he smelled the smoke from camp and knew she awaited his return. Getting down the rockslide was more difficult than he’d anticipated, the travois snagging again and again in the uprooted rocks. Each time he levered it out with the axe handle, only to repeat the procedure a few minutes later when it snagged once more. By the time he pulled out on level ground, his hands were raw and throbbing.
He could see the campfire from the trees at the edge of the stream, the blaze licking high in the dusky light. “Joan?” he called. When she did not answer, he lowered the travois. Moving into the camp, he stood next to the fire, its flames crackling and hot under a fresh stack of wood. Leaning against the embankment was Joan’s frog sticker, and draped over the rock above the alcove was the buffalo robe. Each day she lay it there to dry in the warmth of the sun. “Joan,” he called again, “I’ve killed a deer.”
It was a feeling, no more, a sense of impending danger, or perhaps it was the silence, the kind that seeps from tombs, or pleads for mercy in moments of battle, or abandons old lives in the wee hours of dawn. Whatever the feeling was, he slipped his bow and strung an arrow and turned about. He searched the rocks, and there, looming in the shadows, a warrior stood, with his white-painted face, his shield of rawhide, and his knife at the ready. Caleb drew his bow and took aim, his mind centered on what must be done.
But there in the dimness of twilight, he saw Joan, with fear and resolve in her muddied face as she struggled against the warrior’s hold.
Chapter 18
Joan said, “Caleb, watch out!”
The warrior looked up, and she shoved her elbow under his uplifted arm. Grunting from the blow, he slung her into the rocks and charged Caleb, his eyes fierce, his knife poised and readied at the hip.
It was the time Caleb needed, that single extra moment to judge the intent and danger of the situation. Pulling his bow to full measure, he loosed the arrow, the whine and certainty of its power, the pop and scald of the string as it burned away the skin of his forearm.
But the warrior’s charge was unchecked, his momentum and resolve greater than the arrow that now grew from his belly. Like bears clutched in battle, they tumbled into the rocks. Caleb, stunned from the fall, struggled to unlock the warrior’s hands from about his neck, but even as the warrior’s blood dripped red and mortal from the arrow’s shaft, his strength was steel, and death, and unrelenting determination.
The cry that rose from the warrior’s throat was that of the wolf, the solitary howl from out of the wilderness, and his hands fell away, body slumping over Caleb, eyes clouding in his final moments.
The sweetness of breath came at last to Caleb, his mind cleared, and Joan stood above the warrior, her frog sticker rising from out of his back.
“I’ve killed him,” she said, her eyes locked on the sway of her weapon from the final heaves and labors of the warrior’s chest.
The warrior pulled himself up on all fours and crawled toward the rocks like an animal in search of a place to die. With head drooped between his arms, he struggled but fell backward, the frog sticker splintering away. He gathered himself up once more and struggled a few feet. But the wound was mortal, his life ebbing away, and he lowered himself on the ground to die.
With his eyes turned to the heavens, he howled, and Joan covered her ears, because in it was a warrior’s cry of defeat, a cry of forfeiture and loss, a cry of a child lost in the darkness. None who heard could not but know the sorrow and shame that were in it. Collapsing onto the ground, his hands closed and then opened for a final time.
“He’s dead,” Caleb said.
“Oh my God, Caleb,” Joan said, looking away from what lay before them.
“We had no choice, Joan. It was him or us. We both could be dead this very second.”
Sitting down on a rock, she rubbed at her face and then looked over at the warrior once more. “The rest of my life I’ll know that I’ve killed a man.”
“No, no,” he said, “it was my arrow, don’t you see. He was a dead man, Joan, with a gut-shot arrow and a painful death ahead. There can be no doubting it. All you did was save my life by bringing his to a merciful end.”
“It was hideous, Caleb. I would never have thought I could do such a thing.”
“Well, I’m mighty glad you did. I was getting a little concerned about breathing again.”
She wrapped her arms about herself. “He came out of the reeds and took me by the hair of my head. I didn’t know whether to fight or go along. I went along.”
“He would have killed you certain, Joan.”
“I guess he smelled the smoke from the campfire, because he hauled me up the rockslide, and that’s when I heard you call out. I thought we were both going to die.”
Taking her into his arms, he held her for a moment. “It’s over,” he said. “Now, come help me go through his things.”
They searched their victim in the fading light, taking his bow, splintered in the struggle, and a half dozen arrows from his quiver.
“He’s made these points from an iron skillet,” Caleb said, holding them up against the light. “They’re a sight better than my bone points. And here’s his knife. Boy,” he said, shaking his head, “will this make life easier.”
They turned him over and found a beaded medicine bag tied about his neck. In it was a river rock, rounded and polished, and a frayed turkey feather. Caleb put them back, tying the rawhide as he’d found it. Afterward, they stood over the body for the longest time, like pallbearers with folded hands.
“Can’t you close his eyes, Caleb?” Joan asked.
Looking into the warrior’s face, Caleb shook his head. “No,” he said.
It was not until they were almost back at camp that Caleb took hold of Joan’s arm.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, looking into the darkness.
“I didn’t even think,” he said, “but he must have had a horse.”
“But, Caleb—”
“We’ve got to go back. A horse could make the difference for us.”
They climbed back up the rockslide as the stars eased into the sky, and the warrior watched them from his place in the rocks, his eyes shining in the rising moonlight.
At the reeds they stopped and listened. Caleb whistled, and they listened again. A horse whinnied beyond in the trees. “You were right,” Joan said, taking his arm.
The horse was tied to a cottonwood sapling, a pinto with great brown and white splotches and eyes that shone wise and strong. When he saw Caleb and Joan, he pawed the ground and ducked his head in greeting.
“You’re a beauty,” Caleb said, rubbing his nose.
A canvas bag was tied through the empty shoulder sling of his black leather saddle, and a parfleche was strapped behind the cantle. In it was a horn spoon and a tin army mess pan. Caleb stuck his nose in the bag for a smell.
“What is it?” Joan asked.
“Cornmeal,” he said. Lifting the stirrup, he examined the trademark in the moonlight. “And this is a McClellan saddle, cavalry, I’d say. Our warrior was pretty well equipped.”
Taking the horse in tow, they made their way toward camp and came once again to where the warrior lay. Caleb handed Joan the reins.
“What are you going to do, Caleb?”
Kneeling, he placed his fingers on the warrior’s eyes, cold now, like the rocks and earth about him, and he closed them. “Reckon his life might have saved ours. Come help me cover him with rocks, Joan, or there will be little enough left come morning.”
By the time they got back to camp, the moon had faded behind drifting clouds, and a cold damp rode into the canyon. Caleb had forgotten altogether about the deer.
“Oh, Caleb,” Joan said, clapping her hands together, “real food.” Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him on the forehead. “You’re a grand hunter,” she said, and his forehead burned with the touch of her lips, and his spirit soared with pride.
He built the fire, and Joan helped clean the deer, cutting away a roast with the newly acquired knife.
“Be careful with the hide,” he said. “It’s your new coat, you know.”
He propped the roast over the fire on a green spit, turning it now and again, and watched as Joan stroked the pinto’s nose and held his big face to her own. When the roast bubbled into the fire and darkened in the red heat of the coals, the aroma filled their tiny camp. Both knew that this must be the most glorious meal man could ever know.
“I’ll go for water,” he said, handing the spit over to Joan. “We just as well have us a little cornbread, too.”
He cut away what fat he could find from under the deer skin and rendered it in the mess tin. From the canvas sack, he added cornmeal, and then water from the horn, before slipping the tin into the bed of coals.
“Look it,” he said, “he’s cut the leg off of canvas army trousers and sewn ’em up with rawhide to make the bag.”
“Oh, Caleb, when will it be ready? I don’t think I can wait much longer.”
“No eggs,” he said, “no salt, no baking powder either, come to think on it.”
“I don’t care,” she said, “as long as it isn’t frog legs or hoppers.”
And when it was finished, they took great slices of the blackened roast, still pink and delicious under the crust. Grease shone on their faces in the firelight as they ate like wolves, silent and insatiable at a fresh kill. Caleb tore off chunks of cornbread, stiff as hardtack, and gave one to Joan. She chewed with exaggerated motions, and he laughed, but both knew that it was real, that it was good, that it was substantial and life-saving fare.
Afterward, they lay on their reed mats, stuffed, and easy, and warmed against the damp. Somewhere upstream, a coyote yipped and then fell silent as the trail grew cold.
“How was the meal?” he asked, hooking his hands behind his head.
“The best I’ve ever had,” she said, her eyes flashing, “and I’ve eaten in the finest restaurants in Kansas City. I better put this stuff up,” she said, rising, “or the coons will have it before morning.”
“I’ll move the horse in closer to camp,” Caleb said. “We don’t want to lose him now.”
He hitched the horse to a skunk brush within the camp’s light while Joan cleaned the mess tin and put it back in the parfleche. She knelt and leaned into the light of the fire to tie the canvas bag. At some point her silence beckoned, and when Caleb looked over, Joan’s hands were covering her mouth, and her face was pale.
“What’s the matter, Joan?”
She turned the canvas bag into the light so that he could see. LIEUTENANT JOHN M. GILLIAN, QUARTERMASTER DIVISION, 7TH CAVALRY, U.S. ARMY was stenciled on the inside.
“What does it mean, Caleb?”
He told her then of what he knew, of Sergeant Wins, and of his suspicions about army supplies being sold out of Fort Harker. He told her of hearing Lieutenant Gillian’s name in the darkness of the Cheyenne camp and how he was certain in his own mind of the lieutenant’s involvement in the treacherous affair. He told her of the arms that Black Kettle soon after acquired and how it had cost the lives of so many soldiers, even the life of Sergeant Wins, and how it nearly cost her own life as well. He told her these things even though they struck deep and hurtful, even though she was shaken with disbelief, because he wanted her to hate Lieutenant Gillian as much as he did. He wanted her not to marry him and for her to feel the pain that his very name inflicted in his own wounded heart.
