War might have seemed too harsh a word for some, but Crowley didn’t think so. There were soldiers moving through the area, and they were there for the main purpose of pushing any red men they saw onto the reservations they had set aside.
Crowley had no idea why. Until a little over a year earlier he’d made a very strong point to stay well away from human beings in general, and while he was once again obligated to deal with people, he had no desire to get involved in their politics. One thing hadn’t changed in his time on the planet: people got together and made messy political situations and then other people came along and tried to fix them. In the process there was normally a great deal of bloodshed. He didn’t worry about politics. He worried about the things that tried to break into the world and take it for themselves.
A man standing a few feet away from him was speaking. The man was short, stout, and stank. He needed a bath far more than he needed a whiskey, but the drink was what he was after and what he was enjoying.
“Big as a bear,” Stinky said, “and white as snow, and looking around like he’s waiting to kill something.”
Crowley could guess whom the man was speaking about.
The man pouring whiskey was taller, leaner and looked about as friendly as an executioner. Still, he nodded and poured and listened.
“Thing is, all the Indians is looking at him like he’s gonna kill ‘em and cook them up for dinner.” The thickset man smacked his lips noisily and slurped down his whiskey like it was water. His mustache, desperately in need of a trimming, trembled as he spoke. “Far as I can see that would be an improvement.”
Crowley kept his tongue. Ultimately, he didn’t much see a need to involve himself in the discussion. Still, it was interesting to hear.
When the bartender finally spoke it was softly, but with an edge. “Don’t much care for the Indians, but I’m just fine keeping the army out of here, too.”
“Oh to be sure,” Stinky said. He had a sloppy smile on his face and he nodded his head so hard Crowley wondered how it managed to stay attached. “Any ways you look at this situation, I prefer to avoid having a hundred soldiers coming along and shooting the hell out of everything again. I already had that problem in Maryland, Virginia, and in Alabama. I’m done with men in uniform.”
Crowley snorted at that, not even trying to suppress the noise.
Stinky looked his way. His brow knitted. “You think soldiers are a good idea, mister?”
“No. I just don’t think men in uniform will ever go away.”
“How you figure?”
Crowley cut a piece of beef and chewed on it for a moment before answering. “You have silver mines here. People are staking claims and digging and some of them are making money. Those people are going to want to protect what is theirs, so they’ll either hire men in uniforms to protect it, or they’ll demand men in uniforms to protect it. Either way, you’re going to get men in uniforms. Then you have your Indians, who maybe don’t care about the silver and maybe do, but either way probably don’t like getting pushed from place to place. They’re going to get upset sooner or later and they’re going to push back, and sure enough, more men in uniforms will come along to stop that from happening. I believe that’s why you currently have men in uniforms heading in this direction.”
Stinky looked at him for a long moment and then a smile broke on his face. He had a good smile. It made his face round and cheery. “Mister I like you. Let me buy you a drink.”
“By all means,” Crowley said. “But I’d ask you to do me the kindness of standing downwind. I’m still eating and you have a ripe odor on you.”
Might be that some people would have taken offense to that, but stinky did not. Instead he laughed. “It’s been a long few days riding to get here. Haven’t found the baths yet.”
The bartender pointed. “That way. Three doors down.”
Crowley finished his meal and Stinky, who had forgotten all about the offer of a drink, went to get himself cleaned up. Really, that was better for everyone involved.
* * *
Captain Henry Folsom looked around the settlement and glowered from under the brim of his Hardee hat. The men with him were tired and hungry and they needed supplies. He wasn’t overly fond of the way the place looked, but they would simply have to work with what they had available.
There were Indians moving among the people in the camp and he didn’t much care for that. His job was to make sure the Apache stayed where they belonged and that was a task he took very seriously.
“Sergeant Barnes.” Folsom spoke clearly, with a hard, barking note in his voice that perfectly matched his disposition. “Find stables and a spot upwind from this filth.”
“Upwind, sir?” Barnes asked.
Barnes was one of those people Folsom always found offensive: they’d all been on the road just as long, but Barnes was neat and clean and not a hair was out of place.
“I have no desire to smell the people here if they reek as badly as the area looks.”
Barnes snapped off a hard salute and broke away from the men.
When Folsom slid from his horse’s saddle and landed, it was with remarkable agility. “Sergeant Fowler?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Take your squad and ride a circuit around this cesspool. I want to know how many Indians are here and why they are here.”
“Yes, sir!”
A moment later the commander of the Seventh Battalion strutted toward one of the only solid structures he could find in the town. It was two stories of wood rot and sagging boards, but it was an actual building and that had to stand for something. The man who walked beside him was not Indian, yet he was not a proper white man, either. He said he was from China. All Folsom knew for certain was that Chi Chul Song was a better tracker than anyone else he’d met and that the fellow worked hard for a small wage. He did not speak to Song and the Chinaman returned the favor, but Folsom was happier with the man beside him than he was without. Song stood next to him with his muscular arms crossed over his broad chest and continued to say nothing while Folsom commandeered the Silver Springs Hotel for himself and his soldiers.
* * *
Lucas Slate felt the tugging at his body and soul like iron shavings might feel the pull from a magnet just exactly too far away to make them move. He could have resisted, but part of him did not want to. Part of him wanted this, needed to know what was behind the silent summons. What bothered him was he couldn’t decide if that part was what he liked to think of as himself, or as the thing that was changing him. There had been a time when he could tell the difference with ease, but familiarity was not being kind to him.
What had once been a distant voice inside his soul was now a part of him, much as he hated the notion. The endless whispering influence that had already changed his body was now better positioned for chipping away at his mind. He still knew who he was, but recent events argued that he might not stay that way too much longer.
One nameless town, one odd beastie – odd enough that Crowley had never heard of it before – and the thing inside him had taken over, nearly drowning him in the dark waters of his mind. The change had happened so quickly that he couldn’t fight it off. One moment he was himself and the next something else had controlled his actions. It had worked out to the benefit of Slate and Crowley alike, but it had put a strain on their relationship, and though Crowley did his best to act as if nothing was different, Slate’s mother hadn’t raised any fools.
His horse clomped along as calmly as ever. The dogs in the area, and there were a goodly number of strays, barked and raged and backed away. The horse didn't care. It wasn’t really a horse anymore, of course. It had been snakebit a while back, when he and Crowley were in the middle of the badlands. The horse had reared up and run a hundred yards and then fallen on its side. By the time he’d reached the thing, it was dying. The muscles in its body were shuddering and the beast was soaked in sweat, surely as good as dead. Crowley had come along, moving at a leisurely pace. He�
�d stopped long enough to shoot the snake dead and then followed, but the look on his lean face said he knew what Slate knew: the horse was a goner.
And for only an instant, that dark whispering voice that seldom spoke loudly enough to be noticed on a conscious level had reached out and taken control. Slate had leaned down and grabbed the dying horse’s head, wrenching it roughly around until the animal’s open mouth was aimed at his face. He’d leaned down and exhaled a powerful breath into the horse’s mouth and then held it closed with his hand.
He stayed that way until the animal shuddered and then shook him off. A minute, perhaps two, and the horse was up and fine and Crowley was looking at him with a calm that was even worse than the man’s damnable smile.
Something needed to be done about what was happening inside Slate’s body and his soul. He had no idea what that something might be, but he believed with every fiber of his being that the answers were somewhere near him, somewhere in this place. Just then he saw the palest man he had ever seen. Deathly white, actually. An Indian, that was obvious, but there was nothing natural about his hue or his demeanor. The man walked past him in the middle of a crowd, hunched over to the point where he looked easily a foot shorter than he should have. He had a shawl drawn over his head and if Slate hadn’t felt that something was wrong, he’d likely have dismissed the shape as an old squaw.
The face that peered from under that shawl was drawn and ancient, thin and angular. The eyes were hidden in shadow, but he could feel them scrutinizing him just the same. The man stood up quickly and let the old cloth fall from his head and his shoulders, dropping it to the ground. Around them, most of the people paid no mind, but every Indian backed away as surely as if they’d been hit with boiling water. A few of them screamed, to boot.
When he smiled, it was worse than Crowley’s. He spoke words that were not English. Slate should not have been able to understand them, but he did.
The old man said, “I know you.”
Slate shook his head. He spoke in English but knew the man understood every word. “I have never met you before. I’d remember you.”
“You will know me better soon.”
It was at that moment the Cavalry riders broke through the crowd. Slate had been so busy looking at the pale man that he’d lost track of everything else. The soldiers came on horses trained to bull their way through crowds. One of them had an old Indian woman by the wrist and was dragging her along beside him. Another had rope around the wrists of three younger women, also Indians, who were crying and trying to keep up with the rider and his horse.
Slate felt that other presence slither through his mind, but did not take the time to pay it any attention. He had other concerns. He was not fond of men who mishandled women. As a half-breed himself, he didn’t much care what race they were.
He rode his horse four paces toward the first of the riders and allowed himself a very small grin of satisfaction when the horse reared up and threw the rider. The horse didn’t like Slate’s mount. Most animals didn't. As he rode forward a little more the rest of the horses grew skittish and backed up, despite their riders’ urgings. The first of the soldiers looked up from where he’d landed on his tail end and glowered at Slate. Slate looked back down and kept his face deliberately expressionless.
“Watch where you’re going, you damn fool,” the soldier said. The old woman backed into the crowd as the soldier stood. Slate supposed he should have known the man’s rank in the Cavalry, but he did not. He had never much cared for the soldiers he’d met and the feeling had always been mutual.
“I did nothing, sir, but continue on my way.”
The man had risen to his feet and was still scowling, at least until he saw Slate’s face a little better. As he shaved himself when he needed and looked at the changes in his features with a sick fascination, he knew what the man saw and that it was not particularly pretty.
“Well you’ve interfered in a military operation!”
“Wrangling squaws is a soldier’s business these days?” Slate kept his voice as calm and soft as ever. Oh, he’d been riding with Crowley far too long. “I’d have thought you might actually try to find a few braves to fight instead of simply stealing their women.”
“Get off of that horse, you bastard. You’ll be coming with us.”
Slate looked at him for a long moment and rested his hand on the grip of his rifle. “As I am neither a squaw nor a brave, I believe I will stay exactly where I am.”
In the distance the other cavalrymen had managed to calm their horses – while successfully moving several feet back – and were carefully watching what happened. Apparently the man who dragged old women around was in charge.
“That’s a direct order!” He was furious, the soldier, but he was not very wise. He came toward Slate with one hand holding to the butt of his service revolver.
Slate spoke softly, his expression remained calm. “I am not now, nor have I in the past, been a part of your army, sir. I do not answer to you.”
“Are you a Confederate, boy? Is that the problem here?”
The man was likely a few years younger than he was. Not that it much mattered.
“In fact, sir, I was on the side of the North in the conflict, though I was not a soldier. I agreed with the notion that all men are created equal. I should think that would include red men, would it not?”
“What?” The soldier scowled and came closer still. Slate suspected he intended to sneak up and attack. He lacked in subtlety.
Slate sighed. “I am not a Confederate. The war is over, by the by. I am a gentleman. You might have run across a few in your journeys, though I fear it is just as likely you’ve never run across anything but gutter trash.”
That seemed to be enough for the soldier. He stepped forward with every intention of pulling Slate off of his horse. His gloved hands grabbed at the reins of the horse and tried to lead it roughly away.
The horse did not move.
“You’d do well to leave my mount be, sir. He doesn’t much like you.”
“Piss on your goddamned horse!”
Slate sighed and climbed down from the saddle. The great grey beast looked at him with only the mildest interest. Rather than bother with the horse Slate took hold of the cavalryman’s ear and pulled savagely. The man screamed as cartilage snapped. While he was howling in pain, Slate punched him across the jaw and broke bones.
The next of the soldiers was already drawing his firearm.
Slate looked at the man and did the same. “Don’t. It won’t go well for you.”
The man did.
It did not go well.
* * *
Stinky came back a while later. His actual name was Owen Napier, and he was a man without much purpose in his own estimation. “I come from a family of lawyers. They make a good living and I am fortunate enough to share in that, but I don’t much like the law. Thought I might come this way and find something more interesting to do with my time.”
“So you decided to try mining?” Crowley considered shaking his head at the notion because Owen-the-less-stinky didn’t strike him as a very physical man.
“Lord, no!” Napier shook his head hard enough to rock his jowly face. “I figure if anything I might report on what happens here. Send articles back to a friend of mine in New York.”
“Not a lot of money in that, is there?”
“I have a family. They’ll keep me fed.” He patted his belly. “As you can see that’s not much of a consideration for me. Besides, they’re glad to have me out here. I can’t get in the way and I might have useful information for them, too.” For a man who was carefully not admitting to being sent away from the family as an embarrassment, Napier seemed cheerful enough. When he patted his belly it also showed the bulge in his vest where he was smart enough to hide a small two-shot Wesson. It only took one bullet to kill a man if you were fast enough.
“So where are you from, Mister Crowley? I can’t quite place your accent.”
Crowley
looked at his new acquaintance and smiled. “Here and there.” Before Napier could ask any more questions, Crowley turned the tables. “What is it you have against Indians?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing at all. But I keep hearing about raiding parties burning peoples’ homes down and taking their women. That’s a godless thing to do.”
“Are you a scholarly man, Mister Napier?”
“I like to think so.” He nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“Look into your history a bit better and you’ll find that raiding parties, houses being burned down, and women being taken from their families are not at all new notions. I don’t believe there’s a part of the world where it hasn’t happened for as long as there have been people.”
“Well, certainly not among civilized folks.”
Crowley smiled again and Napier got a nervous look on his face. “Whatever makes you think a few buildings brings about a civilized human being?”
Before Napier could answer, Lucas Slate walked into the room, looming over everyone in the place. Most of the conversations died in an instant. Slate’s voice remained as soft and cold and low as ever. Napier looked toward him and blanched. “Mister Crowley,” said Slate, ”I believe I’m going to need your assistance.”
From outside the tent a slowly growing sound caught Crowley’s attention. It was a noise he’d known for many, many years and one he never had much affection for: the sound of many men on horseback. Like as not, they were men in uniforms and their intentions would not be much to his liking.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Mister Slate?” Crowley did his level best not to smile, but it wasn’t easy for him.
“There were a few men in uniform decided they had to take some ladies from this area without their agreeing to be taken. I intervened.”
Outside there were the noises of commands being barked and repeated, horses coming to a halt and whinnying their displeasure, and a few dozen men working quickly to become organized in a chaotic situation. In other words, soldiers in action.
SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror Page 33
