by Tim Marquitz
With that, Red jogged off into the darkness, whether to keep vigil or because he found the coyotes more pleasant company, Nina didn’t know, but she made herself feel useful by suggesting they scoop up pine needles and use them as beds to lay their blankets on. Jasmine praised her like it was the best thing she’d heard all day. Soon enough they all laid their blankets in a circle and began laying down head to foot.
Manning walked the perimeter on watch, a Spencer rifle in hand. Nina practically demanded to take second shift, but Manning shook his head. “You've done plenty,” he said, giving her a dragged out smile as she stifled a yawn. “Just get some rest. Need you fresh tomorrow. Maybe you can teach me how to play that rhythm you were drumming up.”
“Might require a private lesson,” she said and, before he could get away, tugged his vest and kissed him hard, not giving a shit who saw.
That night, despite bedding down on pine needles and rocks, to Nina's great relief, she did not dream.
THE NEXT DAY, THEY HEADED SOUTH, becoming more emboldened by Pa's instinctive feel for the landscape. For someone who claimed not to know these parts he seemed familiar enough. “That chain’s the Carson Range, and that one there is Sunflower Mountain,” he said, indicating a massive snow-swept peak off to the west. “And the one behind it...that big one, that should be Mount Rose, and on the other side of it is the Tahoe Basin.”
“And those there are the Painted Cat, the Shaky-Shaky, and the Big Nancies,” George slurred, gesturing with his filthy hands as if squeezing a pair of tits. He seemed to be—unfortunately—recovering more of his old self as the day wore on. It had started with lots of confused questions, then complaints, followed by insults, and finally just his usual jackassery. “How far we got to go, old man?”
“My guess is we might make it to Galena by nightfall or before midday tomorrow.”
“We might make it? Yer guess? He’s just guessing,” George said to Mason. Nina’s pa was already starting to walk away, but George reached out and grabbed his arm. “Why we following this coot anyway? All you’re doin’ is guessing, old man.”
“Turn loose of him, George,” said Mason, but none too harshly.
“You know,” George said, chin jutting as he swaggered closer to Pa. “You're lucky we never met in the field. I'da gutted you like a pig.”
“It’s a good thing we didn’t.”
“Damn right it’s a good thing.”
Nina stepped up, her vision starting to go red again, and she noticed Mason took a step closer, too. If she had to go by the ears with both Johnny Rebs she’d do it and not hold back or be held back this time. “Let go,” she said.
“What you think you’re gonna do?” George scowled at her.
“Look, son, I didn’t take any part in your war, so you have no reason to nurse these hard feelings,” said Pa. “In fact, maybe you need reminding the war is done and over.”
George Daggett turned three shades of red, each ensuing color hotter than the last. “Over or not, you’re lying. I remember you. I seen you. You was at Shiloh. I don’t forget faces. You was at Shiloh, you fuck!”
“Let. Go.” Nina said through grit teeth. “Last chance.”
“Georgie…” Mason said.
Then Buck was there, too. “Why don't you back the hell up?”
“What? I cain’t walk next to nobody? I cain’t have a conver—”
“You need to back off,” said Buck, then Nina noticed the big knife in his hand.
Manning stepped up as well, hands resting on his holstered dragoons.
“C'mon, Georgie.” Mason, seemingly too tired to engage in another round of threats, pulled his brother by the elbow. “You took a wallop during the wreck…and we ain't got the time for this right now.”
“Everyone, settle,” Pa said in a commanding tone. “George, I know you seen some bad things, and I don’t doubt you saw someone that looked like me, but trust me, I was not at Shiloh nor any other battle in that terrible war. I feel for both sides. There weren’t no victors. But we got to keep it together now. Things are transpiring all around us, and the real enemy is raising our friends and loved ones from the dead and turning them on us with their teeth and their fingernails, you understand me? We need to get to someplace civilized. Figure all this out. Your brother’s right. We don’t have time for this….” Her pa looked down at where George had hold of his arm, then looked back into the Southerner’s eyes.
George sniffled and held Pa’s stare for a long second, then he let go. He looked around at everyone, all of them watching him with various expressions. He looked at Nina, at Buck and Manning, past them at Father Mathias, Jasmine, Rachel, Red Thunder, and the shadowy figure of J.H. Strobridge, leaning casual-like against a tree. “Fuck all this,” George said, then he turned and nearly walked into Mason, who grabbed his brother’s arm to keep him from falling down.
“C’mon,” Mason said, and led George away.
“I’ll be glad to be done with those two,” Nina said under her breath, once the Daggetts moved out of earshot.
Pa shook his head. “George is dazed and tired and feeling weak. And he’s scared. We all are. If the world wasn’t disorderly enough, now it’s done gone every which way…” he peered at Nina. “And that keeps a man feeling all-overish.”
“But not you, Lincoln,” Father Mathias said, nodding at her pa. “You’re a good man. A natural leader, and a keeper of God’s peace.”
“You do me too much credit.”
“I don’t believe I do.”
“I’m glad you believe that, but you don’t know me half as well as you think you do, trust me.” Her pa watched after the two ex-Confederates for a second with a hard stare, then turned away. “Let’s get moving.”
NINA LINGERED BEHIND, WANTING NOTHING TO do with the constant bickering. It was sounder with the Daggetts and Strobridge in front of her. Let Mathias, Buck, and Pa set the pace. All three got along just fine up there, and it served them well to put up a strong unified front so the Daggetts stayed docile. Nina preferred a stealthier vigil, and she drew Manning with her.
The fragile peace that had existed the day before seemed to be gone. The uneasy energy gave wings to their feet, as everyone seemed anxious to reach Galena, if only to untangle themselves from one another.
Half a day on, Pa pointed out Mount Rose was more westerly now as the group hugged the foothills while they ambled south. Nina gazed up at the tree-covered slopes and spiny Carson ridge to her right. The mountain range seemed peaceful, content, a monstrous wall of rock and snow that should have been a barrier between Liao Xu and the east.
If not maybe for the dad blasted rail.
Maybe those steel tracks were the catalyst that had brought all this on.
Maybe Liao was seizing his opportunity while the devils of industry gorged on the Land and the People, heads turned away as they gnawed and chewed and worried at the bone.
Maybe Red Thunder was right.
A slue o’ maybes.
Dark clouds gathered in the west, squeezed beneath the sky's puffy white layers like grime beneath the nails, threatening to drop a funereal veil over those protective peaks. A low, rumble followed. Black thunderheads over top the mountains. Nina looked away. She’d enough darkness to last her a lifetime.
After another hour of plodding footsteps, the heat started its work. Sweat formed rivers inside her shirt, ran down her chest and stomach, saturating her clothing. Enveloped in her own stench, Nina kept her eyes focused on Jasmine’s shapely brown calves as she walked ahead of her in the same filthy, torn dress she had on days ago when they’d first met. They’d have to get her some right proper duds for fighting off deaduns once they got to Galena and burn that damned, soiled dress.
Rachel called out, pointing.
As a group, they turned. Plumes of sooty gray smoke rose in the northeast, winding lazily into the sky.
Manning took off his hat and drug his arm across a sweaty brow. “What’s that?”
“I imagine that w
ould be Reno.” Strobridge showed his stained teeth in what was either a grin or a snarl, then gave a nod. “Satisfied, Thomas?”
Father Mathias was coated in dirt, his black robes now more of a mercurial tone. “Satisfied? Yes. Happy? No.” The priest turned and kept walking through the sediment and scrub.
Those poor souls in Reno were suffering the same harrowing nightmare now. It made the bile in Nina’s stomach rise, but what could they do? What could she do? Nothing. That was the quick answer. So why did she feel a growing sense of obligation?
Nina sighed, irked at how easy her mind stumbled over the foolish idea of being some kind of a savior. She figured she could do with a distraction, so she unslung her pack and fished out an unmarked can and opener. The pack’s hemp straps were burrowing into her shoulders, so she stretched her arms before she worked off the lid. Pears. Good. Nina loved pears. Could have been more beans, which were tasty going down, not so much coming back up later.
Is it sad, she thought, that a can of pears is the high point of my day?
She ate as she walked, using her knife to stab the dripping pieces of fruit, but as sweet as they were, her gaze kept going back to that dark column in the sky. She barely tasted as she chewed.
“Don't cut your tongue,” Manning said, squinting. He brushed arms with her. “It just happens to be my favorite part of you.”
Nina snorted. “Wait til you see the rest.”
“You think maybe I'll change my mind?”
“This tongue of mine’s nothing but trouble.”
“I don’t know about that. I fully encourage you talking. Every time you do, you either make complete sense or a damn miracle happens. So, no complaints from me. Not yet, leastways.”
Nina soaked up his words, feeling more prideful than she had a right to. She pulled another chunk of pear and dropped it on her tongue. It tasted a little better. But she was curious about this Mister James Manning, and after these past couple days, she still hardly knew a thing about the man. He was about as tight-lipped as anyone she’d met, which, granted wasn’t a whole heap of a lot. She and Pa never stayed in one spot too long. They had pretty much been on the trail for years.
“So where you from?” she asked. “And what brought you to Coburn Station? Or Truckee? Whatever the hell it was…”
James's face clouded over, mouth bending into a thoughtful frown. He kept his eyes pointed ahead.
“It ain't so hard, you know. Start with where you were born.” Nina instantly regretted saying it that way. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe he'd had one of those tough kind of lives with memories best left buried and covered with a rock.
He chuckled, peered squinty-eyed at her. “I was born in Texas. San Jacinto Bay… Well, Galveston now. Changing from Coburn to Truckee is just following suit, I suppose. Names, they keep changing, eh, Ninataku? That how you say it?”
“Close enough. Go on. Don’t duck the question.”
He smiled, and through the dirt and scratches, his pearly whites made her smile, as well. “My daddy was a cavalryman in Sam Houston’s army. He grew up in Kentucky and saw an opportunity to do something other than bag cotton, so he signed on with the Kentucky Rifles. He and my ma just been hitched. She was a nurse and forced her way onto the boat alongside daddy to help with whatever needed doing, stitching fellas up and the like. I was born in ’36 the day after my daddy and his regiment captured His Most Serene Highness…”
Nina shook her head, having no idea what Manning referred to.
“A curly ol’ Mexican named López de Santa Anna?” He chuckled—maybe due to her blank stare. “Old news. Not important,” he said, checking the sky, then looking back at her. “Regardless, Texas became a U.S. State and eventually the American government rewarded my pa with a little over three-hundred dollars and an acre of land for every dollar for his part in the war.” He held his arms wide and smiled. “So that’s my story. More than you ever cared to know.”
Nina chewed another sliver of pear. “I want to more about your ma. She sounds like my kind of woman.”
Manning gazed ahead wistfully. “Ma did a lot of things. While daddy was off soldiering, she raised me and became a teacher and opened her own school. She was good with the numbers, too. Taught me how to work them. I had no brothers and sisters due to certain physical limitations. Her and daddy tried to give me a couple siblings, but they didn’t make it. So, needless to say, I was fairly doted over.”
“Didn’t make it?”
“Stillborn.”
“Oh.” She’d had a brother born the same way, but she was maybe three and barely remembered it. Pa never spoke about it neither.
Nina tried to get an image of Manning’s mother. Probably a willowy, female version of the man she was growing more attached to by the minute. She pictured a striking woman with sad blue eyes. “What did she look like?”
“Why are you so interested in my mother?” James looked bemused, but not in a displeased way.
“I lost mine,” she answered, suddenly feeling the weight of it.
James touched her shoulder. “I'm sorry to hear that. I imagine that's why you and your daddy took to the trail?”
Nina nodded, but she wasn't prepared talk about all that right now. It was easier asking the questions. “Since you come from a soldiering family and can handle your iron, did you fight in the big war? You had to learn to shoot like that somewhere.”
James shook his head. “No…no things got a little muddled for me. My…family, they died of yellow fever, and I...”
She waited as he walked quiet beside her, deciding not to push him.
“Let’s say I developed some mighty hard feelings against the world. Just had a heap of mean-spirited energy. And somehow, I don’t quite remember, I fell in with some lawless types. Hardly even knew the war existed. Well, I knew…but I was too busy being a bastard, I reckon.”
Nina let the silence ride out again, allowing her eyes to roam to her left over a set of low hills skirted by forestland. She believed that to be their destination and looked forward to getting there.
James laughed quietly. “Ma was pretty. Yes indeed. A head-turner. Her hair was gold and she had eyes like the clear blue sky. She had a strong Kentucky accent, but it was sweet and she loved to sing to me. Her voice, it made me feel…safe. I could have listened to her sing all day.” He paused for a moment, seemed ready to continue, but stopped short.
“She sounds like she was wonderful.”
He looked away, swiped a finger across his cheek. Nina presumed it was a tear, but knew better than to acknowledge it. James Manning was like Pa, and he wouldn't want anyone to think him weak.
“Thanks for bringing her up. Hadn't thought about her for a while, now. Good to take my mind off other things.”
“What other things? Aside from the obvious, if that’s what you mean.”
“Ah,” A raw expression touched his face and stuck there. “I took it out on Woodruff back there at the fort. I went hard on him. Too hard.”
Nina wanted to tell him it wasn't true, but she couldn't. “Maybe he didn't deserve the beatin' you put on him, but don’t shoulder the blame for it. Strobridge was the one made him into what he was. You were just…” Nina paused, trying to pick the right words.
“Too hard,” he said.
“Well…” They walked on a bit in silence. Finally she said, “Seems to me there’s something inside you. Something dangerous that…lies just below the surface. I’m wondering—”
Manning got a resolute look in his eyes. He stopped and looked at her, causing her to halt as well. “Nina, I never struck anyone without cause in my life.” His blue eyes got intense, and his stare made her feel fluttery. “I'd never hurt you. Not ever. I’m on your side.”
Nina nodded and let the understanding sink in, the pair of them going silent.
The men up front stood at the highest point of the incline, and her pa called back, “Everyone all right?”
Manning’s gaze never left her. “We’re fine.”
>
“Nina?” Jasmine asked from twenty feet up ahead.
She glanced at the woman. Rachel next to her, both of them looking her way. “Everything’s fine.”
Pa was walking back their way, and she saw he was hobbling a bit. “There’s a watering hole on the other side of this rise where we can wait for Red,” he said as he got near. “We can decide if we're going to camp there or head on and try to make Galena before nightfall. Maybe Red's done some scouting further into the hills.”
“Well, where exactly is this blasted Galena?” Strobridge asked as he plopped down on the grassy ground. He looked a might bit topped out, not that Nina felt much sympathy.
Pa pointed toward the low hills and range of trees. “Should be around the left flank of those hills, to our right. We can hotfoot it over yonder in two, perhaps three more hours.”
A half-hour later they rested at the edge of the watering hole, which was surprisingly large and still, with some toothy red and brown tufts of sedge here and there and small song thrushes chirping amongst the twiggy branches, pecking at the nutty seeds. George wandered up to the water, pulled his trousers open, and started relieving himself without so much as a pardonne-moi.
Manning stepped in between the Daggetts and the women, partially blocking their view. Nina reckoned it was more for Rachel’s sake.
Buck was sitting on the rocky soil and emptying one of his boots. He shook his shaggy head as he looked at George. “Whole world to piss on and the man’s gotta whip it out and piss right here in the water.”
“I do have to go, too,” Jasmine muttered low. “What about you, hon?”
Rachel nodded, then flicked a glance at Manning, her cheeks turning rosy. They wandered off behind some bushes, Jasmine turning and asking Nina if she was coming. She said she would in a second, but her feet had been throbbing something awful, and not just that but rubbed raw. She squinted at her bloody socks, then checked out the blisters on the outside of both feet by her small toes.
