The Marshal of Denver

by Judge Rodriguez

  They continue to follow the trail for another day and a half until they come up to a farmhouse on fire. They rush into it, looking for survivors, only to find none whatsoever. There are numerous arrows, strewn about, but it looks like they were haphazardly placed. The bodies appear to be shot by musket rounds of a Union musket. There aren’t any arrows in the bodies themselves, either.

  Having fought alongside the five nations, John’s sure this is meant to look like a war party did this, but thinks it was done by whites. Josh shares his thoughts on this as well, agreeing with John that this appears to be a setup. The band buries the bodies of the dead, hide the evidence, and ride on.

  Another three miles down the road, they come across another farmhouse in the exact same condition. A farm on fire, no survivors, set up to look like Indians did it. Once again, the band buries the dead and this time, destroys the evidence that it was done by the Indians.

  John is so disturbed by this turn of events, he mentions it once again to Josh.

  Josh says, “If anyone but us sees this, he’s gonna start a war between the whites and the tribes. I wonder how many other bands of raiders are doing this?”

  “Think we should pick up the pace?” John asks. “We might be able to catch up to them.”

  Josh nods and they ride at a hard gallop. They follow the trail into some hills for the next three hours.

  John gets an itchy feeling down in one of his legs. He reaches down to scratch at it and hears the report of a gunshot. Without thinking, he dives from the saddle and rolls away form his horse, while pulling and cocking his Colt. He crouches down, looking for where the shot came from. Not seeing smoke, John looks over to the members of his party, now dismounted themselves, all are crouched with weapons drawn, all looking around.

  Using hand signs, John motions to his team to check the surrounding area. John moves off to the west, while the others go to opposing compass points.

  John moves over the hill to investigate some brush when he hears Red-Moon shout in surprise, then weapons firing. He turns to go provide assistance when he hears further gunfire and Gray-Moon screaming in agony. Just as he takes a step towards where he saw Gray-Moon go, John feels a world-shattering pain in the back of his head and the world blacks out.

  The next thing John knows is pain. Pain in his head. Pain in his wrists and ankles. His next sensation is of how dry his throat is and how dark the world is. He feels the blindfold on his face and the gag in his mouth. He feels the ropes binding his hands and feet.

  He hears the sound of someone screaming constantly. He groans from the pain, almost passing out again.

  John hears footsteps approach, then feels something nudge him, forcing a groan out of him again.

  “I thought so. Hey, Cap’n! This one’s awake!” he hears a voice yell.

  “What about the other?” is the reply.

  “That one? Nah, still out. It took quite several whacks to put that one down.”

  John is overcome by nausea and passes back out. When he next awakens, he doesn’t know how much time has passed, but doesn’t believe it’s been too long, since as closely as he can tell, it’s still dark out.

  John hears some groans coming from in front of him, and it sounds like whomever it was that was screaming earlier, has stopped.

  He hears someone step up behind him, then gets painfully yanked up off the ground by his arm. Someone removes his blindfold. The light of the campfires is like knives going directly into his brain by way of his eyes.

  He successfully fights off a wave of nausea as he is pulled by his bound arms over to stand in front of Wilkinson on the other side of the camp.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Wilkinson says with an oily smile and a menacing gleam in his eye. “I owe you two more than you will ever know. Your little band has caused me untold amounts of grief. I think I will hang you as spies and be done with it. I want your friend awake enough to know what’s going on, though.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “Hm. I may not hang you after all. You may fall due to inter-tribal warfare. Oh, well. I’ll decide later.” He makes a shooing motion and John is pulled back across camp by the arm.

  As they make it across the camp, John notes there are plenty of home goods. He guesses they raided the burned-out houses of their foodstuffs and luxuries before torching the places.

  John is thrown back down to the ground in front of Josh, who is bound and gagged, like he is. He doesn’t have a blindfold on, but one of his eyes is completely swollen shut. John sees Josh’s good eye open and narrow in recognition. John nods to indicate he realizes the situation they are in. Josh nods as well.

  John raises his eyebrows questioningly, asking if Josh could see anyone close by, or coming over. Almost imperceptibly, Josh shakes his head.

  John starts working his hands to loosen the knot of the rope. While he is working on it, Josh stops John three times, indicating someone is coming over to check on them. Both young men act comatose, until they can hear the person leave the immediate area.

  It takes John over an hour and a half to work the knot loose. Once he is able to, however, the rest of his bindings come away quickly.

  John surreptitiously checks the area for enemy soldiers. Not finding any, he undoes Josh’s hands as well.

  When Josh pulls off his gag, he grates in Cherokee, “Red-Moon and Gray-Moon are dead. Killed by them.” He points toward the soldiers in the camp.

  John notices his friends hands are shaking and sees the tears in Josh’s eyes.

  “I want to cut the flesh from their bones and feed it to rats while they watch,” Josh continues.

  John, surprised at his friend’s vehemence, takes a long look at Josh’s face, then nods. It’s time to make them all pay. He pulls the knife he had secreted on the inside of his thigh and sees Josh do the same.

  The camp is fairly quiet and smaller than John thought. Earlier, it seemed to be a mid-sized camp, with several dozen tents. Now, John is able to see about a dozen or so, that is all.

  John and Josh separate and enter the closest tents to them. John’s tent has a soldier sleeping in it. Silently, John moves into the tent and cuts the soldier’s throat ear to ear. He cuts so deeply, he can feel his knife grate against the man’s spine. He grabs the man’s revolver and places it in his own holster.

  He sneaks out of the tent, in time to see Josh going from his second tent, to a third.

  John slips into another tent and sees that it appears to be some kind of storage area. He curses lightly, then slips into another tent. This tent has a soldier that, unlike the other, is sitting on his cot, drinking from an earthenware crock.

  The soldier looks up when John enters the tent and says, “What is—” his question ending in a gurgle as John’s knife enters his throat. John removes his shell coat, that is now covered in blood.

  John sneaks out of the tent and immediately takes to the shadows, as he sees someone crossing the camp, going from what looks to be the command tent, to another tent across from it.

  He sees Josh exit from his last tent to the one that the soldier just entered. From inside the tent someone says, “What the—” then, there is the sounds of a struggle coming from inside the tent itself. John runs towards the tent to provide his friend assistance. Halfway across the camp, he hears the sound of a crash, like a crock breaking.

  From inside the command tent, John hears, “The hell are you doing, Jones?” It sounds as if someone crashes around and it trying to exit the tent, but not doing a very good job of it. Taking that as his cue, John moves into the shadows of the camp, once again.

  He gets in place, just as Wilkinson emerges from the tent. Wilkinson stumbles forward a couple of steps, roaring curses at his underling in his drunkenness. Seeing this as too good an opportunity to pass up, John steps up behind the man and whacks him on the back of the head with the butt of his purloined pistol.

  Several seconds later, with a smug smile of vengeful satisfaction, Josh emerges from the tent. In the moonlight
, he also looks to be covered in blood. He crosses the ten yards to stand in front of John. “That who I think it is?” he asks.

  John nods. “How did you know your cousins are dead?”

  “I saw Red-Moon fall before I got beaten down and Gray-Moon was shot in the gut. They put him out of his misery a couple of hours ago.” He nudges Wilkinson with the toe of his boot. “This piece of rubbish got tired of hearing his screaming, so he ordered that Gray-Moon be silenced, permanently.”

  From the area of the horse lines, John hears what sounds to be several soldiers. John and Josh take one look at each other, then drag Wilkinson back into his tent.

  About a minute after they finish dragging the captain’s inert body into the tent, they both hear a pair of soldiers approach the outside of the tent.

  “Hey, Cap’n, you alright in there?” John hears one of them call out.

  “Yeah. Just fell. It’s ok,” John replied in a poor imitation of Wilkinson’s voice.

  “You gonna save any of that for us, like you promised?” the other soldier asks archly.

  Josh shakes his head. “No, of course not. Get back to your posts,” John replies.

  Josh draws his Colt, and slowly cocks it masking the telltale sounds of the clicking. Wilkinson chooses that exact moment to groan in his unconscious state.

  “Sir?” the first soldier asks.

  “It was nothing,” John replies.

  John hears a hurried mutter of conversation between the two. Finally, the second soldier says, “Can you send out Jones with something to drink?”

  “No. He passed out already.”

  In response, John hears the two soldiers cock their guns.

  John draws his gun and cocks it as they both crouch and ready themselves. The fabric tears as several bullets rip though it with the soldiers firing into the tent with abandon.

  John sees the flashes, takes aim, and fires, felling one of the soldiers. Josh shoots and fells the other. Both men exit the tent quickly, looking for further troops. They separate again, checking for anyone else.

  John is the one that happens to find Gray-Moon’s body. At first, he doesn’t realize who it is, but once he sees the gut shot, it becomes obvious. A sobering reality sets in. Josh is truly an orphan now. John’s thinking starts to get a little fuzzy. All he can think of, is how are they going to kill that animal, Wilkinson.

  Once they finish checking the camp over, they gather back at the command tent. Josh was able to locate their pistols and John was able to find some mulled cider and food.

  Chapter 35

  Wilkinson starts to stir just before dawn, while they are finishing their food. John makes sure to hog-tie the captain, as a precaution.

  Both young men are glad to finally confront this demon-spawn. While the captain is stirring, they discuss what they should do with him. Josh is holding out for confirming that he is really the one that is responsible for doing all those evil things to everyone.

  John wants to make him scream. Just like Gray-Moon screamed, for hours. Josh agrees to the punishment as well, but wants to make sure they have the right person.

  Wilkinson wakes about an hour after dawn, cursing both young men, their ancestors, their immediate family, even their horses.

  “If you answer our questions honestly, we will make sure you live long enough to go in front of a tribunal. If not, we will make sure your death is going to last for weeks. It’s your choice. Choose well,” John says in a cheery tone, as he leans down to speak to the supine body of the captain.

  “Go to hell,” replies the prisoner.

  “Why do people keep telling me to go there?” John shakes his head. “Alright, Josh. Break a couple of his fingers. Let him know we mean business.”

  “In how many places?” Josh asks with a broad smile.

  John waves negligently. “As many as you can.”

  Wilkinson clenches his fists.

  Continuing to smile, Josh pulls his pistol and smashes the butt of it into the man’s fist. Wilkinson’s screams resonate throughout the area.

  John allows him to scream for a moment, then kicks him over onto his side. The man continues to scream a moment more, until John backhands him hard across the face. Wilkinson starts sobbing and John slaps him hard again.

  John sighs and says, “Now. Are you going to answer our questions?”

  The prisoner whimpers and tries to nod, not succeeding very well.

  “Were you responsible for the burning of St. Gregory’s orphanage back in ‘60? The one we are blamed for?”

  He nods, then says, “They had too much gold for their own good. I went out there to get some kids to sell to some locals and saw their stash in the root cellar.”

  John shakes his head. “You’re a monster. Why did the sisters and the orphans have to die?”

  “They refused to give us the gold.”

  “When you captured us, you said you were there in the field for six months. Was that a lie?”

  Again, a nod. “Colonel Jennison left the next morning, before the soldiers were found. I recognized your girl immediately and knew she wasn’t any relation to that doctor.” He draws a shuddering breath, “The old man insisted so much, we had to shoot him to keep him from screaming about her being his granddaughter.”

  John looks down at his hands and is surprised to see that they aren’t shaking as violently as his heart is pounding. “Were you the one that sentenced Liz to death?” he asks through clenched teeth.

  “Yes, but I wasn’t there to carry it out. I had to ride on. I am sure it was done though. I handed it over to Jeff to be done.”

  Tears now tugging at his eyes, John looks away. “What about the Cherokee girl just before Elk Creek?”

  Wilkinson looks at him a moment then sighs. “Those mongrel injuns were supposed to kill them all. Can’t trust anyone to do anything right. That red-skin wasn’t worth the time I spent in taking my pleasure from her.” His face screws into a grimace. “All she did was just lay there screaming and crying. It wasn’t any fun at all.”

  John swallows down another wave of nausea. “Why did you kill her?”

  “Col. Jennison doesn’t agree that they aren’t human. He would have given me trouble about it. Also, I gave her my seed, she would have bred another mongrel if she was allowed to.”

  “Why did you not give quarter during the Affair at Elk Creek?”

  “Those animals were treating each other like actual humans. They are all traitors to the United States. If I had the choice, I’d kill them all,” he continues, his voice dripping with disgust. “So, are you gonna take me to be tried by my commander?”

  John smiles maliciously. “I told you that you would be tried by a tribunal. I never said a tribunal of who. You just admitted your guilt to the entire Night-Owl clan of the Cherokee tribe. We have accepted your admission of guilt and pass the sentence of death, to be carried out immediately.” He motions to Josh who moves up to the prisoner.

  Capt. Wilkinson looks in surprise at John. “You can’t –” His plea is cut off by Josh’s boot kicking him squarely in the side of the head, knocking him out once again.

  John and Josh look at each other and both smile broadly. Their quest is finally over.

  Almost.

  “So, how do we carry out the sentence, you think?” John asks Josh in Cherokee.

  “I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?”

  “I want to hurt him. A lot. He deserves to scream like Gray-Moon did.” John starts trembling in suppressed rage and anticipation.

  “I know there’s a punishment of leaving someone stretched out with leather straps. They get stretched out as it dries. It sometimes takes them a week to die,” Josh offers.

  “Mmh. I have an idea,” John counters.

  An hour and a half later, John looks down at the still unconscious captain. He is stripped, stretched out spread eagle in front of a fire ant hill. Josh is dribbling some honey they found in camp over the captain’s exposed privates.

  Almost imm
ediately, the ants start moving towards the nutrient-rich liquid. John can see the man’s skin twitching as the ants crawl over his exposed legs.

  When the first several ants bite him, the captain flinches. It isn’t until he receives a dozen or so bites, that the prisoner regains consciousness.

  It takes about a full thirty seconds after waking for Wilkinson to start to realize what is happening. He starts yelling curses at his captors, each one becoming viler than the last. John is rather surprised at the man’s inventiveness, particularly, given his current situation.

  After several minutes, the curses change to screams of pain as the prisoner begins struggling against the increasing number of bites.

  John notices that, not only are there welts starting to show up on the man’s body, but so are small drops of blood.

  The noon-day sun is drying out the leather, making it shrink. The increase in pressure is making the captain’s joints pop with deep, wet sounding crunches. They had put the leather down on the stakes low enough to the ground that as the lines dry and tighten, the captain is not lifted off the ground.

  The prisoner’s struggles get more frenzied as the ants finish consuming the honey and start biting into sensitive skin.

  Several minutes later, his screams change into a hysterical laughter. His thrashing about ceases and his laughter climbs several octaves. His laughter ends in a frothy gurgle as he starts foaming at the mouth, much like a rabid dog.

  John looks into the condemned man’s eyes. A glassed-over, unfocused stare is returned to him.

  Josh steps forward, pulls his pistol and puts the wretch out of his misery. He looks at John. “The mind was already gone. It was no mercy to kill the body.”

  Chapter 36

  John wakes in a cold sweat. He feels sick to his stomach. He gets up and exits his tent and makes his way quickly across the camp to the necessities trench, barely getting to it in time. Having narrowly making it to the trench in time to keep from messing himself, he feels his bowels roiling and tumbling. After his colon is finished with its explosive release, he has just enough time to turn around, before explosively retching all over the trench.