Kohn smiles again. Something of the old Captain in the words and the way he says them.
He turns to watch the Pawnee maneuver his pony among the wagons, whipping the Indian children with long cavalry reins, lashing out with his moccasins. The Sioux women appear to see him for what he is for the first time and begin to shout and call their children. Kohn and Molloy can hear the concern in their shouting and watch carefully as Jonathan goes among them, whipping and kicking the children, once snapping an old man across the back with his reins and saying something to him and laughing. The older Sioux shuffle away, averting their eyes from the Pawnee, and the boys on ponies gallop in among the wagons now. One of them, a chubby boy in a bright red shirt and breechcloth, his hair in two long braids, swings down from the bare back of his horse, holding onto the pony’s flanks with just his legs, and swoops up an Indian toddler by the arm as he rides past. Kohn smiles at the feat. Five years a dragoon and he has never seen horsemanship like it.
Another of the boys rides dangerously close to the Pawnee in a show of swagger and defiance. Jonathan laughs and rides at a small cluster of them to see if they will attempt to touch coup on him. He knows that for the Sioux boys, striking an enemy on the body with a stick carved and blessed for the purpose is as honorable an achievement as killing the enemy in battle. If they try it he will grab their coup sticks and dismount them. He cannot kill them—the bluecoats won’t allow that and there are too many pilgrims who may not want him to do it either—but he is taking some pleasure in terrifying the Sioux women and the old folks. Like lice, the Sioux, he thinks. Everywhere, lording it above all other tribes. Butchering, taking slaves. Jonathan’s sister was captured in a Sioux raid when she was only a girl of seven summers and every time he encounters the Sioux he looks for her though he knows he will not recognize her. There is a sore part of his heart that will never heal, for he loved his sister and watched her taken, hidden as he was in the scrub with his mother. Every day he has lived since, he remembers the shame of hiding and watching her taken by Sioux and remembers the sound of his mother’s weeping when she thought she was alone.
He gives a war call and turns his horse and rushes at a group of retreating women and children, their dog following, a lodgepole travois bouncing in the rutted track behind it. A pot stolen from the pilgrims is dislodged from the travois and rolls onto the trail and Jonathan, like the boy in the red shirt, swings down from his mount at speed and collects it. The Sioux women seem to know that he would happily rape and gut them and hurl their babies into the river and they do not look him in the face. He whoops and lunges from his saddle at one of the boys whose eyes go wide with terror. He slaps the boy on the back of the head with his reins as the boy turns and flees. He prays that he will meet the boy’s father, farther up the trail.
Soon it is over, dust settling, the pilgrim women repacking crates inside the wagons, folding linen. Some of the Indian women took a dress or two, a fry pan or cook pot, and the young Mennonite girl still howls for her rag doll but not much of value is missing.
“Thank you, sir,” a man says, his English better than the woman’s. “I am Willem Vogl and we are Vogls and Hitzelburgers. We go to Montana for farming and not gold. We are not gold-seekers.”
Molloy tips his slouch hat to the man. “Lieutenant Molloy, at your service, sir. Corporal Kohn, Private Rawson. And that is Jonathan. You won’t have to worry about him stealing your sugar.”
“I am pleased to meet you, sir,” the Mennonite man says, and he is joined now by an older man wearing a beard that covers his jawline, but no mustache. This man says something to the younger, then speaks in German to Kohn.
Molloy and Rawson look to the corporal. Kohn says, “It’s Swiss. Or Schwabian or some such. I can understand some of it. He thanks us, anyway, for driving off the Indians.”
The older man continues to speak to Kohn in his dialect.
Molloy says, “Well, you tell him he’s very welcome and that we would be much obliged to share a meal in return for escorting their train as far as Fort Reno.”
Kohn nods and speaks to the older Mennonite. His voice has taken on a harsh aspect that Molloy does not often hear from Kohn unless he is giving orders. Perhaps, Molloy thinks, it is just the language and the way it comes off the tongue.
“And tell them that we would be—”
“He wants rid of us now, sir,” Kohn says. “He’s saying they are pacifists and cannot abide soldiery about their camp.”
“What’s pacifists?” Rawson says.
“They don’t believe in raising a hand in violence against another man. Or they’re just damn cowards who don’t mind if others do it for them.”
“Admirable. Admirable . . .” Molloy says, uncorking his canteen. He hands it to Jonathan, who drinks and hands it back.
“And they cannot abide liquor either,” Kohn says.
Whether Kohn is translating the old man’s words or stating a known fact, Molloy is unsure. He does not care. The Mennonites have ceased to interest him. He is beginning to feel poorly again. These arrogant, grasping, pious pilgrims. Thieving, urchin Indians and their howling matrons. He could be in Dublin or Genoa. Rare, he thinks, to meet a German who won’t take a drink with you. Or share a sausage. Should not have watered the whiskey down. Get Rawson to crack another bottle once we are away from these crawthumpers.
“That fella done raised his hand and slapped that Injun kid. I seen it,” Rawson says.
“They’re not supposed to, but of course it happens, Rawson. It’s more in the way of being against warfare and fighting, I imagine. Against soldiers.” There is disdain in Kohn’s voice and he does nothing hide it.
Rawson says, “Well, did you tell them they wou’n’t have no goddamn sugar or a stitch of goddamn cloth between them without us soldiery comin’ up on them? Them Injuns was only kids and old folk and they done near cleaned ’em out without us, without Jonathan there. Did you tell them that? I have heard of ungracious—”
“Shut up, Rawson,” Molloy says. He turns to Kohn. “You tell him this, Kohn. Sir, I quite understand your position. I have no time for soldiery myself. Nonetheless, we will camp somewhat up the trail in case the Indians return. For this we would only beg a gallon of water for our pot. The river is brackish, we’re told, and not fit for man or beast for drinking.”
Kohn translates, adding some of his own sentiments to Molloy’s and the old man sends the younger off for water. “Get him a barrel, Rawson,” Kohn says, “and fill it up. Least the gentle sonsofbitches can do.”
Rawson dismounts, fetches a half-barrel from one of the mules and follows the man. Molloy and Kohn and Jonathan sit in silence, the old man no longer speaking to them, and wait for Rawson to return.
Kohn says, “It’s common among these kind, sir. Mennonites and Hutterites and the like. Happy to avail of the protections offered by the soldiery but too good to share a meal with them all the same. And abolitionists, every damn one of them, but not an ounce of blood shed for the cause of it. Shit on them, sir, and let’s be on our own goddamn way.”
“No way to treat your Dutchie kinsmen, Kohn,” Molloy says. He swigs from his canteen. Kohn has not told him that he suspects a further reason the old man will not share a meal with them is because he has recognized Kohn’s German for the Yiddish it really is. Jews as bad as soldiers to them. Peace-loving Mennonites have their hatreds too. Kohn spits into the dust between them and the old man. If the old man notices this, he does not react.
“Now now, Kohn.” Molloy spurs his mare and salutes the Mennonites. Rawson returns and stows the water barrel on the mule, climbing awkwardly onto his mount. The women and children, Molloy notes, are watching them from behind the wagons. He winks at one of the girls, who blushes under her bonnet and turns away.
A MILE DOWNRIVER they set up camp on a bluff above the North Platte banks and Jonathan takes the horses and mules away with him in a loose train to a watering spot he knows so they will not have to risk the brackish wa
ters of this part of the river.
Kohn wonders is it wise to have the Indian away with all their mounts and the mule. They will be riding shank’s mare if the Pawnee sees their animals as more valuable than his wages. Vos Got tut, iz mistomeh gut. Yiddish in his head unbidden. Speaking with the Mennonites has awakened it. If God wills it, it is good. With the captain making such slow going, they’d be as fast walking to Fort Phil Kearny anyway.
“Will I raise the dog for you, sir?” They are carrying two tents with them on the mules. They have thus far only had to use them once.
Molloy sits with his back to a rock and is writing in a journal, drinking from a fresh bottle. “I don’t smell rain, do you?”
Kohn looks at the late afternoon sky. Clear, cold blue cut with high streaks of white cloud that remind him of Spanish moss. Which reminds him of Louisiana and Texas, which in turn strikes him as far and many years away from here. He wonders how the boys in the 7th are getting on. Unlike Molloy, he does not hate the newly founded regiment though he has no love for Custer or Davidson. He considers the sky, not wanting to set up the dog tents if the weather does not demand it. On the plains it is hard to tell from one minute to the next. The weather can move in fast, as it could at sea or over the Lake Erie of his youth. His breath comes out as steam. If the temperature drops further, Kohn thinks, anything falling from the sky will likely be snow. “I don’t think so, sir.”
“Well then . . .”
“A letter, sir?” Kohn says, beginning to dig out a fire pit, setting stones around it. It has been years since he has written any letters of his own. He would not write his father if his father was the last living man on earth. His mother died soon after he himself joined up in ’61. His brothers and sisters look upon him as a shame to the family and he feels only anger and envy when he thinks of them. He would dearly like someone, anyone, to whom to write a letter. There was a girl, once, a French Jewish girl in Cincinnati. He imagines she is married now.
“Who would I be writing, Kohn?”
“Your mother, sir. You haven’t written her in a long while. And that time only because I hounded you to it.”
“What would I tell her, Kohn?” Molloy asks, and there is something so sad about the way he says it that Kohn does not pursue the matter. Molloy pulls from his bottle like an orphaned lamb fed from a teat of India rubber.
“Rawson, gather buffalo chips and wood for the fire,” Kohn says. To hell with it. Molloy would drive a man to drink. And Kohn wonders: does sympathy have its limits? Does love?
“Right-o, Corp, and then we can make us some of these,” Rawson says, opening his haversack to Kohn and Molloy. Molloy does not rise but looks into the mouth of the pack with Kohn.
“God damn you, Rawson, did you steal those sonofabitching eggs from the pilgrims?” Kohn says, taking the haversack from him. He looks inside again and counts seven eggs.
“I did not, the man gave ’em to me. He was ’shamed he says, with the old fucker not sharing up their grub with us for chasin’ off them Injuns. He gave me the eggs in thanks.”
“I will put you in a hole, Rawson, you thieving scalawag bastard.”
“I did not steal them. Sir, you got to believe me.” He turns to Molloy.
Molloy smiles drunkenly at the two enlisted men. “I believe I would enjoy some eggs fried in bacon grease with my beans and pilot bread. I believe that, Rawson. Kohn, how many times did you liberate grub from civilians in the war?”
“Only in hungry times, sir. We have enough vittles by far to get us to where we’re going. There’s no need—”
“I’m assuming they’d poultry with them, Rawson. The pilgrims?” Molloy says. He has reached that place in his drunkenness where the world appears designed for his amusement alone and all others be damned.
“They did, sir. An almighty pile of laying hens in crates the back of that Murphy. They ain’t gonna miss no dozen eggs.”
“There’s only seven here, Rawson,” Kohn says.
“Some got broke, sir,” Rawson says to Molloy. Then, as if he has remembered, “And a man don’t miss what he gives away as a gift.”
“True as God’s word, Rawson,” Molloy says, and goes back to writing in his journal. His skin is pale and sweaty even in the chill air. “Fetch fuel for that fire, Rawson. And a blanket, Kohn. I could use a rug round my shoulders while I await my eggs.”
Kohn fetches the blankets from Molloy’s bedroll, noting that the captain is cold even under the heavy weight of his buffalo coat. “That boy’s a thief, sir.”
“We are all the most frightful thieves, every one of us, Kohn. God forgive us.”
Kohn does not know or care what Molloy means. The officer has moved from the world as a source of amusement to the world as a pit of vipers, a dark and fatal place where no love or kindness lives. Kohn does not need whiskey to feel the world is such a place but he resists the idea. Someone has to.
8
NEW NAMES FOR US
“NAMES,” SAYS I TO MY BROTHER AS WE STEPPED TENDER headed & gut scorched from our skite through the cursed Depot gates of Ft. Thomas in Columbus. “We will be wanting a new name for ourselves Tom.”
Tom hacked & spat partly in the illness of drink & partly at my notions. “A new name?” says he. “I can scarce think of my own name now Michael. Sure our mother’s name has done us well til now why change it?”
I must confess to you Sir we did take the name Kelly spelled as such with a K which was our mother’s maiden name when we signed the manifest on board the La Belle Poole at Queenstown harbour & left our father’s name Sugru behind us in Kerry for the scouring Sullivan brothers & prowling Peelers.
Says I, “You heard that Michigan boy in the saloon when we did be speaking to him at the bar rail.”
“What Michigan boy?”
“The veteran Wolverine fellow who fought at Gettysburg & all over the farm as well but then stuck his fist into some drunk officer & was had up for it. You remember Tom he finished up the war in stockade lucky not to have taken the 1 ball in 6 agin the wall for his troubles. Do you not remember him at all Tom?”
I walked on a little into the Depot & Tom followed past a gathering of men & families & some sweethearts seeing off their beaus & honeys. Once inside we stopped & stood we 2 brothers on the laid stone parade ground. The flagpole in the centre of it was topped off with Uncle Sam’s banner which to spite myself I did love mostly for I had fought 3 years under it after all. Red brick barracks where we would live for the next weeks & months bordered this parade ground & in front of one of them was a lazy & drink sore line of smoking men waiting their turn for the receiving office & we would soon be among them.
Says Tom, “I dont remember him at all. I was well spiflicated by then surely.”
My brother had trouble with the words he chose at the best of times his scarred lump of tongue thick in his gap toothed mouth & I did oft wonder why he chose the words he did when simpler ones might have done the job just as well. But that is my brother who once could talk the stockings off the king’s own whore. Old ways die hard in men & I had some pity for him.
I said to him, “Well that fellow told us & I believed him that if a boy had trouble in the War any kind of trouble Tom well then that boy should take on under a new name for surely there was a record somewhere in Washington or some place & it would catch you up eventually. And when that happens sure the lad is given the boot with every penny of wages owed him signing on bonus & all revoked said that Michigan fellow.”
I waited to see how much of the trouble of which I spoke did Tom understand. This trouble you know well Sir (though you may not recall it) for you were there.
“Trouble?” says Tom.
Says I, “The trouble with the Provost Marshal’s mob that day when—” I pointed to his face.
“Sure I remember very little of that day Michael & know of it only what you told me. I know that we are still among the living Thanks Be To God.”
“Yes,” says I. “But our names went do
wn in the Provost Sergeant’s book that day. God knows they may well be on a page somewhere & like that Wolverine boy says come back to haunt us brother.”
Tom rummaged his pockets for the dust of tobacco he had left & rolled a needle. He put a match to it & passed it first to me as is the way with brothers with one burn between them.
Says Tom after taking his pull of smoke, “There does be very little reason I suppose, to risk 13 bucks a month & passage West for the sake of a name.”
“Very little reason at all Tom & every reason to change it.”
Says he, “We have given over our father’s name for our mother’s once before.”
“We have Tom.”
“So will we go with the mother’s mother’s name God Rest Her In Heaven?”
“No finer woman was our grandmother God Keep Her,” says I. “Best pleased to meet you Thomas O’Driscoll.”
My brother gave the pinch to his cigarette dropping the dog end back into the pouch waste not want not. Says he then as if trying it out in his mouth, “O’Driscoll. Thomas O’Driscoll pleased to meet you.” He gave a laugh then & said, “A fine Cork name for two fine Cork lads like ourselves.”
Well I gave a smile back at him forgiving Tom for all the things he done. I could forgive him even killing the Sullivan boy the thing which cast us across the ocean into the bloody maw of this wide queer kip of a country & to this junction between one life with one name & another life with a different one.
Our new name decided Tom & myself did Q up with the other men & for the 2nd time in our short lives we took on with the Army of the United States this time as Thomas & Michael O’Driscoll of the County Cork & Tom cast me a wink as he scratched it in the ledger as if to say, “Imagine 2 Kerry boys like ourselves playing Corkmen of all people!”
To spite my misgivings I was happy that day & so I do think was Tom. There is comfort to be had in something that is familiar to a fellow like the Army was to us.
Wolves of Eden Page 6
