A forgotten evil, p.6
A Forgotten Evil, page 6
“Oh, it’s a dandy life,” he said, “home away from home, ain’t it. Say, ain’t Riley where Custer’s mustering the Seventh?”
“Sure is,” Joshua said. “We’re joining up there. I guess they knowed real Indian fighters when they saw them, didn’t they?”
The guard leaned his rifle against the wall and took out a twist, filling his jaw, giving it a roll before speaking.
“Why, I can see that myself,” he said, spitting into the dirt between his legs. “General Custer will be mighty pleased to see you boys come help save him from the Indians and all. Wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t invite you to supper for a chat, plan the war out and such as that.”
“Aw, we don’t know all that much about planning wars,” Joshua said, “least not yet, though we did have a set-to getting here from Kentucky, didn’t we, Caleb?”
“It’s a fearsome pair you make, all right,” the guard said, picking his rifle back up.
“We best be going,” Caleb said to Joshua. “It’s a fair walk to Junction City if we miss our train.”
“You boys tell the general I said hey,” the guard said.
As they made their way back to town, Caleb retrieved his axe from where he’d hidden it at the base of a rock fence. It was good in his hands, its weight and set comforting after the reserve and cold of Leavenworth.
“You going to carry that fool axe all the way to Riley?” Joshua asked.
“Maybe I just will,” Caleb said. “It’s got us this far, ain’t it.”
Below, they could see the lights of the city, and the lonesome whistle of a train sounded from down the valley. The ride from Louisville was alive, still, in Caleb’s bones, the power and thrust of the engine as they’d charged through the countryside. With each mile his confidence had waned, drowned in the vast distances and speeds. But in those moments when he was tempted to go back, the smell of the Beer Bucket Inn and Jude’s soundless vigil came back to him like a black dream.
“You think that guard was pulling our leg?” Joshua asked. “About Custer and all?”
“Don’t figure a general would be deliberating with privates what just enlisted,” Caleb said, “even ones of particular intelligence.”
“Especially ones what ain’t kilt a man?”
Turning his axe on his shoulder, Caleb looked over at Joshua.
“Maybe when you kilt a hundred men, maybe then, or stormed a thousand strongholds or took a dozen arrows in your gizzard, maybe then a general would invite you to supper or for a smoke so’s you could talk about the war.”
“Well, maybe so,” Joshua said, his voice trailing. “But killing a hundret could take some doing.”
It was not until morning that their train was to arrive, so Caleb and Joshua took up seats near the woodstove in the little depot, dozing in its warmth, but at midnight, the operator invited them out. He blew out his lantern, locked the door behind them, and disappeared into the darkness.
Curling onto the wooden benches outside, they pulled their coats about their ears to wait for morning, but during the night, the fog turned to drizzle, then to sleet that chattered against the boardwalk and set them to shivering. They took refuge in an empty freight car that smelled of horse manure and awaited the coming dawn like chattel to market.
The train arrived with its whistle screaming. Half frozen and smelling of barn, they presented their tickets to the conductor, who in turn escorted them to the back of the car where other men were gathered for the final leg to Fort Riley. As the sun broke in the morning, the train chugged from the station, its engine wheezing and rumbling and struggling into the vastness of the prairie.
They fell silent and watched as civilization disappeared behind them. None spoke of his fears, even in his communion, each harboring his uncertainty at the choices he’d made. The prairie rolled into the sky about them, swelling and ebbing and swallowing them in its immensity. Haze drifted in its valleys, a blue and aimless smoke, and at times great herds of antelope watched motionless as they passed, the flick of a tail, or turn of an ear, or lift of a hoof.
When a pale river twisted through the valley ahead, the train banked, giving full view of the cars.
“Look at that,” Caleb said, pointing to the car behind the engine.
“It ain’t got but one big window,” Joshua said, “with a curtain on it, too.”
“It’s a private car,” the blond boy sitting next to Joshua said. “They say it’s Monnet, big shot with the Kansas Pacific on his way to the railhead at Fort Harker. They say his daughter’s with him, though I ain’t seen her.”
“With a whole car to hisself?” Joshua asked.
Taking out his makings, the boy rolled a cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. “His own private cook, too, least that’s what they say.”
“Lordy,” Joshua said, taking another look. “I’d like to have my own cook right this very minute. I’d have him fry up some chicken, maybe a side helping of mashed taters and gravy, a slice of sourdough slathered in butter, ice-cold lemonade, and half a cherry pie for finishing.”
“You ain’t going to have no cook of your own,” Caleb said, “now or never, or clean socks either, far as that goes.”
“Well, if I had a cook, and he cooked up copper biscuits, I’d have him shot right off,” Joshua said, “then I’d toss his body in the river without so much as a word to mark his passing. That’s what I say.”
When the train stopped for water, they all got off to stretch and to see what place had befallen them. A tower leaned into the blue sky, water dripping from between its weathered cedar boards. Starlings gathered on its top, darting down, one after the other in turn, to drink from the muddy puddle at its base. Down the track, a shack stood empty, its window clouded and gray, its chimney blackened and cold. The hopeless door sagged and squeaked against the prairie wind.
“Lordy,” Joshua said, shaking his head, “it’s the end of the world, ain’t it, what with no place to eat or bury the dead. What we supposed to do with these meal chits, I wonder, cook them up in a black pot?”
Caleb looked down the platform, the smell of the air like sun-dried sheets. Beyond the slow chug of the train, the wind hummed its haunting refrain.
“Maybe we was supposed to eat before we left,” he said, “or maybe it’s some kind of army joke what played on recruits, or maybe it’s just mean-spirited sons of bitches all the way ’round for all I know.”
“I’m apt to be wasted dead away by the time I get to Riley,” Joshua said.
When Caleb turned again, he saw her, standing at the steps of the private car, a parasol hooked over an arm, a fleur-de-lis about her neck. She held a gloved hand over her eyes and scanned the horizon, her gaze falling on Caleb for the briefest moment, and his heart stilled.
“Joshua,” he said, “ain’t that the girl who was on the Belle?”
“I’ll be shot if it ain’t,” Joshua said, “all the way from Kentucky, too.”
“Going west for her lieutenant, I suppose,” Caleb said.
“Well, she ain’t been following us from the Beer Bucket Inn, that’s for sure.”
“That must be her pa’s private car, and this here his railroad.”
“Well, it don’t matter one way or the other, does it. It’s the scraps from their table you’ll be having, if you have anything at all. I’m thinking you spent too many years in the woods to know much about the world, Caleb. That girl just as well be the Queen of England, far as it matters for the likes of us. It’s a world you and me ain’t ever going to know, and that’s just the way it is.”
When Caleb turned back for a second look, she was lifting her skirt to step into the privileged world of the car. Her perfume lingered in the scrubbed air of the prairie.
He didn’t see her again, not at the second water stop, where he walked the full length of the train in the hope of catching a glimpse, or at the station when they pulled in, or while they were loaded into a military ambulance for the last trek to Riley. As the wagon rumbled away, Caleb watched the car for as long as he could see it, its draped window flashing in the brightness of the afternoon sun.
There were no walls, no blockhouses, no gates at Fort Riley, just stone buildings arranged in a square, all facing the compound in both private and public matters. Some were as houses, officers’ quarters, elegant and clean, while the enlisted barracks rose from the prairie like cold and detached mausoleums. Board walkways stretched their length, trussed and strutted for the endless goings of soldiers. Chimneys abounded, the smell of wood smoke thick and pungent.
Dust from the trampled parade ground gathered in their wheels and in their eyes as the wagon pulled to a stop. Turning, the driver wiped the water from the end of his nose and examined his sad cargo.
“All right, girls,” he said, “this here’s Riley. The corporal here will take you for your blanket and tick mattress issue. It’s a blanket each and one tick between you. It’s back to back, ain’t it, and keeping to your own side. First thing, come morning, the Officer of the Day will see you to the surgeon. If you’re well enough to be kilt in a proper military way, then you’ll be sworn in, God help you, and took to your first sergeant, a kind and understanding man dedicated to the brotherhood of the Seventh Cavalry. Course, if you’re too sickly or too lunatic to serve in the Seventh, you’ll be turned out forthwith, and it’s a free ride back to Junction City right here on this spot.”
“Sir,” Joshua said, “do we get to eat supper?”
“Meals in the army are morning and noon, boy. Supper is coffee and bread, if there’s any left over, and there ain’t none left over today. Course, you kilt something out hunting, then that’s extra, ain’t it, and you can share it all around. Some buy from the sutler’s store, but it’s twice the price and mighty poor practice for a career man. There’s many a soldier lost his pay and his stripes at the sutler’s check, ain’t he.”
“Will we meet Custer soon?” Joshua asked.
“Soon enough, I suspect, and it’s ‘General Custer’ or ‘sir’ to the likes of girlies like yourselves, ’less you want to be bucked and gagged and chained to the flagpole for the rest of your miserable lives.”
That night they slept in an empty barracks where they were separated from the other soldiers. Still under construction, the room was without stove or lamps or anything beyond the bare bunks and their own unwelcome presence. As they climbed into bed, the night grew cold, and their loneliness mounted within the room’s desperate vacancy.
Caleb lay awake, his axe secured under the tick. Back to back to Joshua, he listened to the sentry on the deck, the clack of his boots on the wooden planks, the pendular turn and pause of his watch. Pulling the blanket about his neck, he closed his eyes to await the morning.
Reveille sat them upright, like a blade in the soft bellies of their dreams. Shivering, they climbed from the warmth of their bunks and donned their clothes, their breaths rising into the cold of the room.
“Lordy,” Joshua said, tying his boots, “I hope we get to eat some breakfast while I can still walk.”
An officer stepped into the doorway. Black gloves were tucked into his belt, and a saber hung at his side. His hat was squared, and there was authority in the way he cocked his chin. A corporal stood at his side, feet apart, hands clasped behind his back. The room fell silent with uncertainty.
“I’m Lieutenant Clay,” he said, “Officer of the Day, and this is Corporal Brinehart. Soon as the mess is cleared, he’ll take you down for breakfast. After that, you’ll receive your physical at the post hospital, then whereupon the quartermaster will issue your clothing and a carbine. It’s government property, gentlemen, and not to be lost, damaged, or destroyed, but to be taken care of with the loving care of a mother for her child. To do otherwise will cost you dearly both in pain and pay, I assure you.”
Stepping into the room, he looked into each of their faces. “Now, I’m going to ask this question just once,” he said, “and you are to answer it with consideration, not just for yourself but for the good of your country and your fellow soldier.” Pausing, he studied the shine of his boots for a moment. “Is there anyone here who’s in trouble with the law? If so, then step forward, and you’ll be sent on your way without question. However, if I find out later that you failed to own up, it will be an unpleasant day all the way around.” There was the smell of soap and cologne about him as he walked the line of men. He waited at the end with his back to them. “Anyone care to step forward?”
When there was no answer, he turned to Corporal Brinehart, who yet stood with his hands behind his back.
“It’s Christians everyone, Corporal, so take them to breakfast.” The lieutenant stepped into the doorway and turned for a last look at the pathetic lot that shivered at the ends of the bunks. “Check them for head lice. The surgeon says another infestation, and he’ll burn the fort to the ground with the lot of us in it.”
“Yes, sir,” Corporal Brinehart said, snapping a salute.
Breakfast was fried grits and molasses, sugar-cured ham, pinto beans, two slices of sourdough bread, and a slab of yellow onion, all served up with the blackest coffee Caleb had ever tasted. No soldiers other than them were there, all having mustered for stable call in the pitch of dark. So they ate alone, like strangers in the land, but the stove burned hot in the center of the mess and drove the chill from their bodies and the misgivings from their minds.
In fact, for the first time since leaving Louisville, Caleb sensed the adventure and possibility of a soldier’s life and was more certain than ever of his decision. In the distance, the soldiers’ horses whinnied as they were led onto the hardpack of the parade ground. Maybe Joshua was right, after all. Maybe they would be Indian fighters and heroes to the last.
“Now, this here’s bread,” Joshua said, mopping up his plate and looking over at Caleb.
After breakfast, Corporal Brinehart lined them up at the door for a lice check, parting their hair with his fingers, searching for nits like some strange, blond chimpanzee.
“Well,” he said, reaching the end of the line, “there ain’t no lice, Lord knows why. I’ve seen cleaner hair under a mule’s tail.”
They marched to the post hospital and waited in line once more to take their turn with the surgeon. The morning sun fell against the rock wall and warmed them despite the chill day. The American flag flapped in the wind, mounted on a pole smack in the middle of the fort, the highest pole Caleb had ever seen, and crows scolded from its height, cawing at all who dared enter their territory.
When Joshua exited the surgeon’s office, there was a smile on his face.
“It’s a soldier of the Seventh Cavalry I’m to be,” he said, slapping Caleb on the shoulder, “and a mean Sheridan son of a bitch.”
“Caleb Justin,” the corporal called from the door.
“Yes, sir.”
“Step it up. The surgeon is waiting.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good luck,” Joshua said.
Shelves rose to the ceiling of the surgery, laden with jars of all variety, and the room reeked of camphor and the stink of sick. The surgeon sat behind his desk, his mouth hidden beneath a walrus mustache, and he entered some vital piece of information into his notebook. On the wall behind him was a single shelf of books and a chart of the digestive tract outlined in red. Without looking up, he pointed to the table.
“Sit there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And take off your clothes.”
“Sir?”
“Everything but your drawers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And hang them over that chair.”
Slipping out of his clothes, Caleb draped them over the back of the chair. A tree limb had torn out the leg of his drawers, and they now hung down to his knee like an old dishrag.
The surgeon took his stethoscope from about his neck and hooked its tips into his ears with practiced skill. First he listened to Caleb’s chest, then to his back, thumping him from time to time as if testing the ripe of a watermelon.
“Now take off your drawers and lift your sack.”
“Sir?”
“For all I know you’re a girlie,” he said. “Besides, I can’t check for hernias through your drawers. There. Now cough.”
“I ain’t got to cough, sir.”
“Cough anyway. It’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” Caleb said, and coughed.
When he finished probing, the surgeon picked up his notebook and made an entry.
“Am I in the Seventh Cavalry now, sir?”
“Well, you don’t have a hernia, and you aren’t a girl, least not a pretty one. I want you to put your feet together, Mr. Justin, and stand up straight. That’s it. Now, walk to that desk. Now, come back.” After another entry into his notes, he looked up. “How long you had that gimp, son?”
“Oh, that? Why, that ain’t nothing, sir,” Caleb said. “A tree was felled on my leg and busted it up some, but it healed right up.”
“I see. Sit up on this table for me.”
The surgeon pulled up a stool and examined Caleb’s foot, turning it first one way, then the other. Caleb studied the bald spot on the back of the surgeon’s head, a few gray hairs sprouting from the brown of his scalp, and wondered if someday he, too, might have such a spot.
“It’s healed up just fine,” Caleb said.
“Does it hurt when you walk?” the surgeon asked, looking up through his brows.
“Oh, no, sir. It don’t never hurt, walking or sitting neither one.”
He twisted the ends of his mustache and studied his notes, working Caleb’s foot once more, turning it to the side as far as it would go.
“It’s healed back crooked,” he said. “Didn’t anyone set that foot?”
