Wolves of Eden

by Kevin McCarthy

  “You are lucky boys,” says he. “Taking on with Uncle again. I would up & join you if it was not for the farm & the wife & children. Course if it was not for the farm & wife & children I would have no yearning to join you.”

  The farmer did smile at this & tap lightly on the horse’s back with his long switch & I took note that Tom was at his ease with the man riding beside him on the buck board while I sat in back on a barrel behind them. To my eyes my brother’s face was calm with no madness or bitterness or bile brewing underneath it & I thought then that perhaps we made the right decision after all to sign on again for there was some comfort to be had at least with other men who knew what it was to fight for a living. There was comfort to be had from sharing a thread of understanding though that thread may be dipped & dyed in the gore of battle.

  And as if to confirm my ruminations after some minutes of riding in silence with the cart bumping along in the rutted tracks of the Columbus road the farmer says to Tom, “The war was hard on you my friend. You must of taken that ball standing.”

  Now Sir you have to understand that others almost never spoke of Tom’s face from fear of what they saw in Tom’s eyes or from kindness or both maybe & I flinched a little at the farmer’s words.

  “I did,” says Tom. “Chickamauga Tennessee in ’63. Sure I was fierce pretty before that fight I was.”

  I repeated his words for the farmer molding the muddle from Tom’s mouth into something the farmer could understand & the farmer smiled back & jigged the reins across the horse but there was sadness in that farmer’s smile.

  “I lost my brother at Peachtree Creek. I still think to tell him things I seen or heard in town. I right forget a good deal of the time that he aint around no more.”

  Tom doffed his hat & said, “We are sorry for your troubles Sir.”

  The farmer gave a nod. “Thank you kindly boys.”

  Well there was an understanding between us & we rode together on that wagon in a peace I feel was the last real peace we ever had in this life though I know there must of been other times I now forget at this late hour.

  But God Bless him that farmer brung us the whole way to Columbus & paid us 25¢ each for to unload his wagon. He told us as well that he wished he could hire 2 strong veteran boys like ourselves but that his holding was small & there was scarce enough work on it for 1 man never mind 3.

  “Uncle will fit you up nicely anyhow,” says the farmer when we were finished. “And you might get the chance to plug an Injun or 2 in the bargain.”

  “Grub & kit & a wage is all we are looking for,” says Tom. “I have no mind to plug any b______ ever again for I did plug enough in the War.”

  I translated my brother’s words (not even 1/2 believing them) & the farmer then shook our hands bidding us fine luck & good fortune.

  After this we did what any boy who is to take on the next day as a soldier would do God Forgive Us & we spent our last few greenback dollars on whores & whiskey in several taverns on the lanes around the Columbus Recruit Depot.

  Of course Sir you would be right to say that all our troubles which I am going to tell you of in these pages did later arise from whores & whiskey. But then I would say to you in reply that if we did not have whiskey & whores well how could we stand to live in this world at all? It is strange how things can be at once both good & bad for a body.

  7

  November 30, 1866—​Bozeman Trail, Dakota Territory

  THREE DAYS OUT OF FORT LARAMIE—​WHERE KOHN had purchased buffalo coats and hats against the chill of autumn that had, in their previous two weeks of travel, turned to the cold of winter—​and they are descending the muddy, rutted Immigrant Road for the banks of the North Platte, where they plan to cross and pick up the Bozeman Trail. They spy covered wagons in the distance. Kohn extends his field glass and puts it to his eye. Oxen teams, three, and two more of mules. Slow going, women and children walking beside the wagons to lighten their loads on the sandy North Platte banks.

  Kohn says to Molloy, handing him the telescope, “Small party, sir. And late in the season. If they are heading north, they’ll be held up at Fort Reno until a larger group assembles. They’ll probably have to winter there. Maybe at Phil Kearny if they’re lucky with the weather.”

  Molloy grunts and ignores Kohn’s offer to look through the glass. He is conscious but only just, having passed the three days of their stay to rest the horses and mules at Fort Laramie drinking with a detachment of 4th Cavalry officers out of Texas who regaled Molloy with stories of Comanche raids, of terrible butchery and wild pursuit. He has passed much of the last three days’ travel vomiting from his saddle and has dropped his flop-​brimmed Hardee hat several times so that Rawson is weary of dismounting and fetching it. It is a hat unbecoming a cavalry officer, Kohn has told Molloy more than once, though Kohn supposes the tall, furred buffalo cover is no better.

  The officer’s face is bright red with windburn and winter sun and sickness. He wears spectacles of dark green glass against the sun which he purchased in Louisiana, these being the fashion among men of means there, and Kohn cannot see Molloy’s eyes behind them. Kohn views the glasses as ridiculous, a foppish affectation, particularly when worn with the Hardee hat.

  Kohn continues, “Cooke’s orders. Not safe to make your way to the gold fields in groups of fewer than sixty, with twenty armed men at least. It makes for bad reading in the papers back east and ill affects the price of gold when prospectors are opened up like herring on the Bozeman and their women taken for Indian wives.”

  Jonathan smiles at this, though not so the bluecoats see it. And how many Pawnee women, he thinks, have been taken by white soldiers? Too many to count.

  “You are talking like a Jew now, Kohn,” Molloy says.

  Kohn laughs. “And you reek like an Irishman, sir, but you are awake at least. Will we dismount here and make ourselves presentable before we ride up on those wagons, sir? There may be women present.”

  At least Molloy has been listening. Anything to bring him back. Worst I’ve seen him, Kohn thinks. He has eaten little more than porridge oats and brown sugar in the past how many days. And most of that left in the mud of the trailside.

  “You may be right, Kohn. Rawson, Jonathan, pull up. I’d ask for my strop and razor but for lack of water.”

  Kohn and Rawson dismount and Kohn aids Molloy down from his saddle. The Pawnee scout stays mounted and scans the trail, the grassy hills around them. The air is cool, the sky clear blue. Autumn on the edge of winter. The month best on the plains, the scout thinks. More of the lieutenant’s whiskey, if he offers, to keep the chill from my bones. Not so much though. Sioux about. Signs of unshod ponies crossing the trail half a morning behind. Fresh. Young braves or women. Close by but no danger. Still, watch, notice everything.

  “We’ve enough,” Kohn says, “for a wash of your face. And a run of the comb, sir.”

  “Splendid, Daniel, splendid. And a drop for my canteen too. We will water down the whiskey some. I believe it may be time to wean myself in anticipation. . . .”

  He does not finish his sentence, as has been happening more and more lately, but Kohn is happy that Molloy has seen the need to taper off his consumption. It would be suicide to stop outright. The word is prominent in his thoughts lately. Suicide. Kohn has done the drying out with Molloy before. He knows the drill. A slow and steady readmittance to the slaughterhouse of sobriety, to the grim gauntlet of memory. Kohn is not without his own sorrows.

  “Of course, sir. Rawson, get a cloth and basin from the mule, the lieutenant’s set of combs and razor. I will make a fire and heat the water, Captain. We’ll scrub up nicely, sir, and go a-​visiting.”

  He smiles and Molloy smiles feebly back at him.

  “Lieutenant, for all that is holy, Kohn, I’ve told you a thousand times how to address me.”

  Kohn’s persistence in calling him Captain annoys Molloy as it reminds him of the war, of a time he has done his bloody best to scour from his mind with whiskey. Stil
l, good health to him, for he does bear up well under the cross, my Daniel. Never a finer man in the whole of the world’s armies, Molloy thinks. He holds your worthless life in his hands and holds it gently. As if it is worth preserving. Not like that thieving ape of an orderly in Italy. Have not thought of him in years. Took a ball in the neck on the last day of the siege of Ancona. With the Devil now, no doubt.

  Molloy’s service in the Irish Brigade in defence of the Papal States, only six years earlier, seems ancient to him now. A lark for a lad on the lookout for adventure; blessed escape for the youngest son of Catholic landowners, for a boy with no hope for the priesthood, no prayer of adequate inheritance. Twenty-​four years old and happy to see the back of benighted Ireland—​God keep her from all harm—​a foreign war in need of Catholic boys then a blessing to him.

  From Ancona’s fall and parole d’honneur prisoner of the Piedmontese to the mud and blood of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. A terrible rending of a nation, a great rebellion in need of quelling, and the Union Army in need of professional soldiers, the priest from Washington had told him that fine spring day in Dublin after his release and return from Italy. Men with experience of war, of command, he’d said. And you do look the part, Capitano Molloy.

  From capitano to lieutenant to captain to lieutenant in three different armies. Molloy had known he looked the part and had learned to play the part as well. He had succumbed to the American recruiting father’s flattery along with a number of other of Pius’s veterans, to bolster Union ranks in the early days of the war. His own mother had once told him he could never resist the lure of kind things said about him. You are as simple to see through as that pane of glass, my sweet Martin. He remembers his mother’s face. Not so simple now, my dear mother. Filthy with the muck of my sins, the pane cloudy and opaque. God bless and keep her. He has not written to her in months or has he? He cannot remember. Quell the thirst. Barley water and cherry juice for me now. Small beer. Why now? Don’t dwell on it, Molloy. There are those who depend on you.

  “Sir.” Rawson hands Molloy a tin basin with an inch of warm water in its bottom. Not much but enough for a wash and a shave.

  “Splendid, Rawson. Good man. And a drop from your canteen into mine, young sir, if you please.”

  “Will I fetch another bottle from the mule, sir?” Rawson says. Molloy has given him the first draught of every bottle he has cracked since they left Fort Caldwell. He has been near as drunk as Lieutenant Molloy for much of the trip.

  “You might as well,” Molloy says. “Take a draught yourself, give a sup to Kohn and Jonathan and the last bit for myself. This will be all for some days, I fear. The last supper . . .” Again his words tail off to nothing. But he smiles.

  Jonathan sees terrible sadness in the smile. He thinks he might be better deserting the white soldiers. Or he could kill them and report back that they were killed by Sioux while he was scouting ahead. Then he could take work with other soldiers who would bring death to the Sioux and Cheyenne instead of hoping for death to come to them.

  Ablutions complete, they mount and ride to meet the wagons which now have stopped and formed into a loose and porous circle into which the oxen and mule teams are being led. Early for camp, Kohn thinks. Two-​thirty in the afternoon but perhaps they have been travelling longer than normal or need repairs. He glasses them again and sees why they have stopped.

  “Jonathan,” he says, offering the scout the field glass. “Are they Indians? Can you see them?”

  “Women and children. Old folk,” Jonathan says. “Maybe Sioux. Maybe not Sioux. No warriors with them. Maybe more up the trail. We will watch for them.”

  It is the first time any of them has heard the Pawnee speak. He prefers to listen rather than talk. Even when he is drunk on whiskey, he does not often talk. The taakaar—​the white soldiers—​are the other way around mainly. He thinks they might better understand the country they are in, the enemy they are fighting, if they talked less and listened more. Still, he thinks the curly-​headed corporal named Kohn may be piita, a warrior. There are not many of them among the bluecoats but there are some.

  He takes the scope from Kohn and looks through it, though he saw the Indians at the pilgrims’ wagons while the others were still shaving and combing their locks. He assumes they are Sioux, or maybe Cheyenne, but he cannot be certain until he is closer. There do not appear to be any warriors among them. Some young braves perhaps but through the glass he confirms that they are mostly women and children mingling with the pilgrims. Some young boys on ponies, some travois pulled by dogs. Jonathan has heard talk of all the bands of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne and Arapahoe meeting together in alliance to fight and drive the white soldiers from the Powder River valley. These could be a band or some families en route to such a meeting place. Perhaps the warriors are waiting further up the trail in ambush or maybe they are away hunting or on a war party, the scout thinks and wonders would the lieutenant let him take a woman or a child as a captive. His wife at home would like another child and he would like to bring her one. A girl child—​for she has only sons—​to help with the hides and the cooking and to keep her company when he is away. A pang of longing for his wife comes to him, a piercing arrow high in his chest. He doubts he will be let and it will be difficult to travel and scout with a captive in tow but then the lieutenant may well be dead before they reach the fort where they are headed. On this he would bet ten horses. The afterlife will not be kind to the lieutenant; he can see it in his face. He is destined to follow the Morning Star to the spirit village in the south. A cold place. Dark.

  Rawson takes out his rifle.

  “Put it away, Rawson. Unless I tell you,” Kohn says.

  “You heard the Pawnee. They is Sioux most likely.”

  “Put it away, Private,” Molloy says from behind his green spectacles. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  Kohn smiles and urges his horse forward.

  They arrive at the wagons and there is no threat from the Indians but consternation and ill temper among the travelers. Black clothes and round-​brim hats and beards, the women in bonnets and plain dresses, the pilgrims running to and fro after a group of Indian children. One of the traveling women swings a broom at an Indian child who laughs and darts under the wheels of a wagon. Kohn notes a group of sullen boys on ponies, young, thirteen to fifteen years old perhaps, sitting just off the trail. They are speaking among themselves as if deciding on something. Kohn looks to Molloy and sees that he has noticed them as well but knows that there is little chance of him engaging them, even if they do become aggressive. There is too much about them that is similar to that day in Tennessee. Young boys acting as men.

  “Good afternoon, friends,” Kohn says.

  Instead of returning Kohn’s greeting, one of the pilgrims says, “Please, they steal from us. Drive them away from us please. They—​”

  The man—​in his thirties with blond hair and the black clothing of an Amish or Mennonite—​turns and catches an Indian boy of four or five climbing down from the back of one of the Murphy wagons with a fistful of brown sugar. The pilgrim holds tightly to the Indian boy’s arm and slaps him across the face, causing the boy to cry out.

  One of the pilgrim women shouts something in German at her husband or at the Indian woman who is holding her baby. Until now the white woman has been smiling and trying to take her baby back from the Indian woman, who is teasing the Mennonite mother, making to hand back the baby and then pulling it away. The Indian woman holding the baby sees the Mennonite man slap the boy and shouts something back. She shoves the baby into its mother’s arms, nearly dropping it.

  Kohn can comprehend some of the German spoken by the woman to her husband. It is a dialect he is unfamiliar with—​and nothing like the Silesian German spoken by his father until his father learned enough English to never speak it again, but many of the words the woman shouts are close enough to his mother’s Yiddish that he can make out the admonishment in them—
​“Stop” and “Don’t hit”—​and there is much about God and something about peace and the Book, and as he scans the group of pilgrims and the Indians intermingled among them he does not sense threat but there is confusion and an atmosphere of antagonism. Indian children chase one another, oblivious, under the wagon wheels, and another of them, older than the first, climbs out of the covered back of another of the wagons holding a rag doll. One of the Mennonite children begins to cry and another mother shouts up at the soldiers.

  She shouts something in German and then in accented English. “Please, make them depart! They take things from us.”

  Kohn answers her in a rough, simple German that is much colored with eastern Yiddish. Though his father mostly abandoned his native German soon after arriving in America, his mother raised him and his siblings with Yiddish in the home and it was much spoken in shul. There was a time when Kohn spoke it fluently. But like every immigrant kid on the streets around his Cleveland tenement home, he turned to English on entering school and soon was answering his mother’s Yiddish—​he thinks she must also have spoken Polish though he cannot remember hearing her ever do so—​in a language she often only barely understood. It pains him to remember this and so he rarely does. The only time his childhood Yiddish—​and the faint remaining traces of his father’s German—​is of any use, he thinks, is when he occasionally barks orders in pidgin German at immigrant Bills but does not think a soldier should be coddled in his own tongue when he is in the employ of an English-​speaking army and so rarely does it. The words feel awkward in his mouth.

  “Seien Sie ruhig, meine Frau.” Be calm, missus. “We will try to be rid of them.” He turns in his saddle and Jonathan appears to understand what he will ask before he asks it.

  The Pawnee slaps his mount with the reins and gives a whooping shout that reminds Kohn and Molloy of the rebel yell that so many times froze their blood in the war.

  “Do not harm any of them, Jonathan. Not a hair on their heads, do you hear me?” Molloy shouts, as if sober. “And put that bloody rifle back in its scabbard, Rawson, or I’ll plug your arsehole with it.”