Walking Wolf

by Nancy A. Collins

  Buffalo-Face turned to look at me, shaking his head sadly. “You’ve been good company on the trail, boy. I’m sorry to see you go. I just hope you don’t turn mean-crazy once you get yourself civilized. I reckon there are kindly White folks out there, somewheres. Lord knows, I never run across one. But, then again, I ain’t never seen an elephant, neither. Mebbe your luck will be better’n mine on that count. Just remember what I told you, and you’ll stand a halfway decent chance dealin’ with ’em.”

  I threw my arms around his wide, scarred shoulders and hugged him as I would my own father. “Thank you for giving me my new name, Buffalo-Face.”

  “Shoot, t’weren’t nothing, son.” Suddenly his smile disappeared and he wagged a tobacco-stained finger in my face. “But whatever you do, don’t tell ’em you’ve been keepin’ company with a Black feller who sells guns to Injuns! All that’ll do is put you on the wrong foot from the get-go!”

  With that, he returned to his oxcart laden with contraband. The last I saw of him, he was spitting tobacco juice and snapping his whip over Goodness and Mercy, cursing a blue streak. We never met again, although I heard, years later, that he had run afoul of White settlers in Oklahoma, who—upon learning he sold guns and ammunition to the Comanche and Apache—lynched him from the nearest cottonwood tree.

  Chapter Four

  The first thing that struck me about the town of Vermilion, Texas was its smell. To say that it reeked would be kind. Not that living the Indian life made me all pure and natural. Indian camps were hardly known for their sanitary conditions. What with dozens of horses and people living, eating, and crapping side by side, things tended to get mighty ripe. However, the Indians were nomads, and when their surroundings got too fragrant, so to speak, they’d up and find themselves a new campsite. Whites, on the other hand, had a tendency to stay put in their own stink.

  In retrospect, Vermilion was a wretched little one-horse town, clinging to the edge of the Texas frontier like a tick on a dog’s ear. But as far as I was concerned, it might as well have been the mysterious Philadelphia Buffalo-Face had spoken of.

  The town consisted of a collection of ramshackle one-story clapboard buildings and adobe huts occupied by a total of forty-seven souls—give or take a couple of Mexicans. There was a combination saloon and bawdy house, a feed and seed, a general store and a blacksmith who also stood in as the local undertaker. All of these businesses lined a broad unpaved street that, thanks to the recent rainy season, was composed of equal parts mud and shit, both human and horse. This foul mixture, when churned into the proper consistency by passing traffic, was capable of sucking a boot clean off a man’s foot and swallowing it whole, never to be seen again. Because of this, wooden boardwalks fronted both sides of the street, with haphazardly placed planks connecting the two.

  The moment I rode into town, I was aware of all eyes being on me. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare, watching me the same way a cougar does a wolf that’s wandered into its territory. What with my pony and my braids and breechclout, I must have looked like a full-blooded Comanche brave.

  I dismounted in front of the saloon and tied my pony to the hitching post. The moment I turned around, I found myself looking at a big tin star. The star was pinned on the chest of a burly, red-faced man with a drooping yellow mustache and a shock of blonde hair, atop of which rested a derby hat of fashionable make. A Colt six-shooter jutted from the holster strapped to the big man’s hip.

  “What you think you’re doin’ here, Injun?” the big man growled, letting his hand drop onto the butt of his gun.

  I smiled as Buffalo-Face had instructed me, averting my eyes and bobbing my head in ritual subservience. “My name is Billy Skillet. I have come here to be White.”

  The big man’s brows knitted together and his eyes lost their hardness. “Come again?”

  “I am White like you,” I hurried to explain. “I was taken by Comanches when very young, but now I have come to my people to learn to be White.”

  The man with the tin star pushed back his derby and scratched his head, looking me up and down. “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit and shot for stinkin’! You are White, ain’t you!”

  “Perhaps I can be of some assistance, Marshal …?”

  My mouth went dry in terror at the sight of the tall, broad-shouldered man striding towards me with two black circles, like the empty sockets of a skull.

  “He has no eyes!” I cried out, pointing at the fearsome apparition bearing down on us.

  The eyeless man laughed at my show of alarm and lifted the smoked glass spectacles he wore, allowing me a glimpse of his eyes underneath. “You needn’t fear me, my son—I have two eyes, just as God intended.”

  The Marshal scowled at the eyeless man. “Oh, it’s you, Near.”

  “Reverend Near,” the older man corrected, adjusting the lapels of his dusty frock coat.

  “What have you,” grunted the Marshal. “What do you want, Reverend?”

  “I couldn’t help but overhear this poor lad’s tale of woe,” exclaimed Reverend Near, flashing me a sympathetic smile. “Back in Chicago, I read stories of how the heathen Indians kidnap the hapless offspring of Christian settlers and raise them as their own, but I never thought I would be so fortunate as to meet such a specimen! Marshal Harkin, it would be my utmost pleasure—nay, my sacred duty!—to take this wretched, confused youth and instruct him in the ways of Christian brotherhood and make him a useful and productive member of society!”

  Harkin shrugged. “If you want to take on the boy, that’s your business, Reverend. Just make sure he stays out of trouble, y’hear?”

  The Reverend Near’s “church” was a shack placed on the farthest edge of town. The only thing that separated it from the other one-room shanties in Vermilion was a crude whitewashed cross nailed over the front door like a horse shoe. Inside it was one large room, divided in half by a couple of blankets suspended from a clothesline. The front half housed a couple of long benches and a wooden lecturing podium made from soap boxes.

  “Welcome home, my son!” exclaimed Reverend Near, flipping back the room divider with an expansive gesture, revealing a potbelly stove, a table, a chair, a stool and a narrow cot. Behind the stove, a built-in ladder led to a half-loft.

  As I stood and looked around, not quite certain what to do or say next, the Reverend pulled a black bag out from under the cot and began rummaging through its contents, still talking the whole time.

  “What’s your name again, boy? I didn’t quite hear it the first time.”

  “Billy. Billy Skillet.”

  “An excellent name for such a fine figure of a young man! But first things first—before I can begin instructing you, we must get rid of these heathen adornments,” he said, gesturing to my breechcloth and riding chaps. “A proper Christian gentleman doesn’t parade around dressed like a wild Apache!”

  “Comanche,” I corrected.

  Reverend Near looked up from his black bag, peering at me over the tops of his smoked spectacles like an owl getting ready to snatch a mouse. “Never smart talk me, boy! The Lord says honor thy father and mother. And, as of this moment, you are now my son—at least in the spiritual sense. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Reverend.” Actually, I didn’t understand, but it seemed like the right thing for me to say. After all, I was new to the White Man’s ways, and I was in no position to judge what was right or wrong.

  “As long as you remember that, we should have no problems getting along,” he said, his voice once again friendly as he pulled a large pair of scissors from the depths of his black bag. “Come here, Billy,” he said, gesturing for me to draw closer. I hesitated, my eyes fixed on the gleaming metal shears he held in his hand.

  “You needn’t fear me, my boy!” he laughed, showing too many teeth for my liking. “I intend you no harm!” Still uncertain, I took a timid step forward. The Reverend, scowling impatiently, grabbed me by one of my braids. “I said come here! Are you deaf, boy?” he thundered.
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  Before I could reply, he neatly severed my right braid, taking it off level with my ear lobe. I yelped in alarm, clutching the side of my head as if mortally wounded.

  “You needn’t carry on so,” the Reverend clucked, waving the scissors in front of my nose. “The way you’re behaving, you’d think I was skinning you alive! Now sit down and let me tend to that remaining pigtail of the devil.…”

  I shook my head violently, backing towards the blanket that divided the living quarters.

  “Billy, you’re making your father very angry with you!” growled the Reverend. He’d removed his spectacles and I could see that his pupils were dilated. I also noticed that he gave off a strange smell—one I would later identify as a patent medicine whose main ingredients were alcohol, bloodroot and laudanum.

  As I said before, the Reverend was a big man and, despite my status as a Comanche brave, I was still a youth of fourteen, and a rather slight one at that. While I had years of bareback riding and strenuous living on my side, the Reverend was a good six inches taller and outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. Bellowing like a wounded bull buffalo, the Reverend grabbed me by my hair and threw me roughly to the ground, planting his booted foot on the back of my neck.

  Why did I not shapeshift, you ask? While I could have easily killed him in my true skin, this was something I did not want. After all, it was my bloodlust that had driven me to seek the help of Whites in the first place. What good would it do me to make myself a pariah amongst them so soon? So I kept my human shape and took the punishment the Reverend meted out.

  “Honor thy father and mother!” he shrieked as he worked to remove his belt. “I’ll have no sassin’ me in this house, young man! No back talk! No misbehaving! You’ll do as I say and like it!”

  I winced as the belt came down across my bared buttocks, the buckle biting into my flesh, but I refused to cry out in pain. It came down again—and again—and again—until my ass streamed blood, but still I remained silent. His rage apparently spent, the Reverend let the belt drop from his numbed fingers and staggered over to his cot, where he sat for a moment, staring at me without seeming to see me.

  “Sin no more,” he mumbled, although I was uncertain whether this admonishment was directed at me or not. With that, he promptly closed his eyes and keeled over. He was snoring before his head touched the cot.

  I slowly got to my feet, grimacing in pain. However, I knew my discomfort would be fleeting. I had discovered I possessed miraculous recuperative powers years ago, when me and a fellow brave were trampled by a wounded buffalo during one of the hunts. The brave I was with died within hours of massive internal injuries, drowning in his own blood, while I was up and about the next day. More important than my physical state, however, was the emotional situation I now found myself in.

  I had suffered a humiliating physical insult that, in Comanche society, would have called for the death of my attacker if I was to reclaim my dignity. On the other hand, the Reverend Near, as far as I could discern, was a holy man of sorts, not unlike Medicine Dog. Which meant that he had access to hidden knowledge and was thereby worthy of respect. And it is well known that shamans of great power are often quite mad, prone to fits of violent, irrational behavior. And those who wish to learn from a shaman must suffer ritual debasement to prove themselves worthy …

  I searched the room until I found the pair of scissors Reverend Near had abandoned during his frenzy. I looked at them for a long time, then at the Reverend, snoring away fully clothed on his cot. Then, without any hesitation, I reached up and snipped off my remaining braid.

  My time with the Reverend lasted three months, and every moment remains vividly etched in my memory. For the longest time, I had no idea whether my so-called “spiritual father” was a holy man or a raving lunatic. Since I had nothing to compare White society against except the Comanche way of doing things, I was at something of a disadvantage.

  During our frequent “tutoring sessions,” which consisted of the Reverend reading aloud certain passages from the Bible and a pamphlet called “What Every Good Boy Should Know,” two things were stressed: that it was a dire and mortal sin to touch oneself below the waist, and it was an even worse sin to have someone else touch you there.

  The Reverend also advised against strong drink, calling it “the devil’s blood.” However, this prohibition did not extend to his own favorite beverage, a patent medicine called Mug-Wump Specific, which he guzzled at an alarming rate. I have no idea what, if anything, the potion was supposed to cure. But I soon learned that the Reverend’s erratic behavior and violent outbursts were tied to his consuming it. Whenever the Reverend hit the Mug-Wump Specific, he would wander from his usual topics and rail against “tempting devils that appear as fair women” or the unfairness of life in general.

  Gradually I came to know more and more about the Reverend. I learned that his first name was Deuteronomy and that up until six months previous, he’d been the pastor of a respectable church in one of the wealthier neighborhoods in Chicago. I was never able to discover how he ended up in a reeking shit-hole like Vermilion, but it seemed to have something to do with a young girl who had come to him to be taught her catechisms.

  When pressed, the Reverend claimed that the reason he was in Texas was to help bring the good news of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to the heathen Indians, and to provide spiritual guidance for the numerous cowboys, ranchers and settlers working their way West. However, his attitude toward Vermilion was hardly charitable. He seemed to have a particularly low opinion of the members of his parish, reviling them as harlots, sinners and ignorant barbarians. As it turned out, the reason for his acrimony stemmed from the town’s steadfast refusal to acknowledge him as a pillar of its community.

  I eventually became aware of Vermilion’s true opinion of the Reverend because of his habit of sending me on errands on those days where he was feeling “poorly”—which turned out to be fairly regular. On these occasions I would go to the general store to pick up his weekly supply of beans, coffee, salt pork and Mug-Wump Specific, which gave me the chance to view the town and its inhabitants free of the Reverend’s interference.

  Before I left on my first solo journey to the store, the Reverend lectured me at length on how important it was for me not to set eyes on the “palace of trollops,” for fear of my mortal soul. However, since the general store was two doors down from the saloon, it was hard for me to avoid seeing it, either coming or going. As I was leaving the general store laden with groceries, I noticed Marshal Harkin seated in a bentwood rocker outside the saloon, rocking gently back and forth. Without missing a beat, he glanced over in my direction and beckoned me to come closer.

  Although I was fearful the Reverend might be using the all-seeing eyes of God he was always talking about to keep track of me, I was curious as to what he might want. Since my arrival in Vermilion, the Reverend had kept me sequestered from its other citizens, assuring me it was for my own good, as the town was—in his own words—a “hotbed for all manner of sin and unnatural vice.” I was to speak to no one, and this included Marshal Harkin, who was not only Vermilion’s resident lawman, but also its pimp.

  “You’re that White Indian boy the Reverend took in, ain’t you?” he drawled, pushing back the brim of his derby.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He treatin’ you good?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You look like a right enough young feller to me, Billy. Whenever you get your fill of hearin’ about Jesus, you come see me. I’m looking for a boy to sweep up and empty the spittoons and slop jars. I’ll pay you a dollar a week. Good hard cash. You think about it, hear?” He leaned forward and tucked a piece of candy into my pocket, winking broadly.

  That was my first genuine interaction with Marshal Harkin, better known as “Gent” on account of his passion for fancy eastern headgear. During my brief time in Vermilion, I would come to know him far better than I would the Reverend.

  Gent was an open, straightforward cu
ss. He owned the Spread Eagle Saloon, where five rather tired-looking “dance hall girls” worked the clientele, taking them upstairs for two-dollar sex of the boots-on variety. He was fairly easygoing when it came to the cowboys who rode into town to let off steam during the roundup season. After all, they were his bread and butter. Gent was willing to overlook drunken cowpokes hurrahing the town—riding up and down the streets, firing six-shooters aimlessly into the air (and the occasional window)—but he was merciless when it came to saloon brawls. And more than one hapless cowboy found himself colder than clay after shorting one of Gent’s girls.

  On the whole, Gent saw the Reverend as a nuisance more than an upstanding member of the community. As far as he was concerned, the only reason anyone came to Texas was to get away from their past. The frontier was a place where a man could reinvent himself from the ground up without having to worry about phantoms from the old days coming back to haunt him. And it was clear to anyone with one eye that the Reverend was hiding out from a damn big spook. But the real reason Gent distrusted the Reverend was because he occasionally made forays into the Spread Eagle, attempting to sway the working girls from their lives of debauchery and sin. He had yet to win any converts, but Gent still took a dim view of anyone trying to stir up trouble in the henhouse. He knew Vermilion was still too young and poor to succumb to respectability, but he realized that it was only a matter of time before its citizens went from being rough-riding pioneers to civilized townspeople, and he sure as hell didn’t like the idea of Reverend Near getting a jump on making Vermilion a decent place to raise your kids up.

  He needn’t have worried, though. Assuming Vermilion had a future at all, the Reverend was hardly destined to be its midwife. Besides, he didn’t fool the whores one bit. They knew a sinner when they saw one. But not even they realized how bad off the Reverend really was.