Wolves of Eden

by Kevin McCarthy

  “No sir.”

  “I thought not. Well you should do it, and in doing this you may cast your eyes upon an Indian girl in the employ of the colonel’s wife as a housemaid. A striking girl—​you cannot miss her.”

  “Yessir.”

  “She has not been in Mrs. Carrington’s employ for long, Sergeant.”

  “Sir?”

  “Well, you might begin your ‘investigations’ by asking about her time working for Mr. Kinney before she began to work for the colonel’s wife. And while you are there, you might ask the colonel to give you the freedom of the post and a letter compelling his officers and men to answer your queries regarding the sad end of the sutler. There are, I am told, logbooks and such, detailing who posted guard at which gates on a given night; company musters which may or may not detail men absent from quarters without leave. There are also the sutler’s account books, of course. A record more soured by bad credit and docked wages you will not find outside of a debtors’ prison. I’ve heard this new regular army of ours called just that, Sergeant. A big, blue debtors’ prison.”

  Kohn says, “Thank you, sir. I—​”

  “Don’t thank me, Sergeant. You have heard nothing from me. Not a thing. And if I find that you have brought whiskey to my patient, I will be a witness at your court martial.” The surgeon smiles.

  “Yessir.”

  “The Indian girl. You cannot miss her.”

  “Yessir.”

  14

  TOM & HIS MEXICAN GAL

  SO AT FT. LEAVENWORTH IN KANSAS WE WAITED & AS you well know Sir waiting in the Army means the usual run of dog’s work for a soldier thought up by officers who themselves are most of the time neck deep in whiskey because there is never a truer notion than The Devil makes work for idle hands!

  There is some truth to this for the enlisted man as well because at Leavenworth (it being a jumping off & transit stop for any Army heading West) there be any number of Hog Ranches outside the gates stuffed to the gills with whores & brimful of beer & trade whiskey in which a Bill might indulge himself once his wages caught him up & card debts are paid & expenses incurred for kit & caboodle back in Depot are taken out. Work for idle hands & then work for the sawbones with his mercury cure.

  There is only so much daylight & so much labour so what is a Bill to do with the acres of time he has once the work is done & there is nothing but flat hard frosted prairie grass around you & rumours of red men stalking every blade of it? Well Faro & Stud & Chuckaluck of course for they be all fine ways to pass the time though they do little for you in bitter winter when you are in need of a body in the bed beside you & maybe this is why Tom took such a shine to the one the soldiers at Ft. Leavenworth called the Mexican Gal. May She Go With God.

  Now before you think otherwise that Mexican Gal was no whore not in the way of the normal whores in the hog ranches off post. No for she was a wedded woman married to a Corporal from I Company who was a long time at Leavenworth & not one to cross so it was said though I never saw him in a fit of anger. But saying she was no proper whore is not to put her in a higher place than the hog ranch girls or the hog ranch girls in a lower one for we are all low creatures in God’s eyes & there is no lower on this earth some say than the immigrant dog face soldier in the Regular Army of the United States.

  But others such as myself would say that the lowest dog in a kepi cap & sky blue britches does in his heart be no different than the finest gentleman & the needs of his heart (& other parts of him God Forgive Me) are surely the same. A kind word from a woman or a smile even if bought & paid for. The soft stroke of a woman’s hand on your own or the press of a warm body against you of a cold night. I ask you where is the man on God’s earth who is not in need of such things?

  I tell you there is no such man & Tom well he does need it too maybe more than other men because he once had a world of women all for his taking so handsome & fine with words was he before the war. I reckon that poor Tom had a fear he would never get such comforts from a wife him being both of ruined face & Irish & a Regular Army soldier which are 3 terrible things in this country. He must of thought, “Who would have such a man for a husband but a whore?”

  But the lure of the cards was so strong on Tom that there was scarce a penny left for so much as a sniff of a whore at one of the ranches outside the walls of Leavenworth after paying his debts & for whiskey & what we all in the Company did kick in for extra grub. I thought then & I do think now that this is why Tom took his sweet shine to the Mexican Gal. She was free with her favours while asking little more than kindness in return I am told.

  As well as this she was a fine fair thing to look at with skin so brown you could feel the glow of the Mexican sun from it like there did be a coal stoked fire alight inside her & with a nose turned up & thick black curls a fellow could lose himself in & with brown shining eyes the colour & heat of bricks warmed in the sun. And though she was sparse & thin upstairs well a grand soft girl she was under her bustle with an arse like a lady’s pony I tell you.

  But no matter all this. It is of no matter that she was a camp laundress of the kind known for sharing her wares round the post as them in that trade is known throughout the Army & no matter she was the wife of that Cpl. in I Company a hard man from the shores of New Jersey & a veteran of the War like us brothers. No matter the way she had with delivering the babes of the wives on post into the world safe & sound with her mind full of potions & poultices & herbs collected from the plains about the Ft. for to stop the bleeding & soothe a wound. No matter still how she was known by all on post from Colonel’s wife to drunken Bill for selling the sweetest wild cherry pies for a fair price & for turning sheets white enough to blind a circling hawk & crisp enough to cut tin. No matter all this there did be something off about the girl. Something not quite right I tell you something as God Is My Witness & I did say this to Tom when I saw how sweet he got on her.

  “Nothing good will come of it,” says I to the brother. “With you mooning about her every free moment & lugging tubs of sodden sheets & smalls from laundry to line in the way of a gentleman suitor when she does be well made for hauling herself sure. Her man is one to watch Tom even for you.”

  I do not need tell you what Tom thought of the husband being one for him to watch. He laughed at me & clapped me on the back & in the Gaelic said back to me as we swung picks into the frozen earth for to dig yet another latrine sink, “Jealous Mickaleen. I can see it in you. Your eyes are gone green with it.”

  “Oh you are right Tom of course. Jealous as the brother with no peppermint stick.”

  Tom gave a laugh & went on with his digging leaving me again to think, “Nothing good will come of it” & nothing did but it does get me thinking (now if not then) that the off part of her was what drawn him to the girl. She was a Mex so she was an exile from her home place like Tom but it was something more than this something broken or bent inside her that Tom did sense like a horse can sense a rider’s fear or a dog a master’s sadness. Something askew much like his face was askewed & the thoughts in his head were at odds with all things peaceful & good in the world. And maybe I do not mean to say off but that she was different. She had a peaceable & warm way to her that was so at odds to Tom. It was so at odds to all the rough souls in the camp. Maybe it was this that made Tom love her & seek her out each day.

  This makes some sense to me now because at the time of his intoxication for the Mexican Gal Tom was a well settled boy in camp with the storms in his head becalmed the D Bar Bowie knife firm in its scabbard. His hands that were fists more than fingers mostly were loose & still in his lap when he sat & smoked his pipe like any other Bill. There were none of Tom’s usual brutal contests behind the barracks & no harsh words over cards or grim & terrible stares that caused me to pat his back & tell him to leave off that the man on the other end of his eyes had meant no harm in asking an innocent question. No my brother was as sweet & calm that short spell of winter & spring as the calf we rared up back in Ohio. It was like that Mexi
can did share some of her goodness & peace with my brother & he was for a time willing to take it.

  So though I was sure that no good would come of Tom’s passion for her (she having a husband who did appear to be fierce fond of his wife himself) I was happy to let things roll on as they did for it made my life a sight easier altogether.

  But I knew this could not go on for it was too good to be true by 1/2.

  What could be wrong with her you ask Sir? More than you might think altogether for it came to be the strangest thing I did ever hear. You see not long after Tom begun to spark with her the poor girl fell down with the cholera that betimes does besiege a camp or town & in her sickness is how her secret was discovered.

  Now the other women at Ft. Leavenworth (the officer’s wives even for she did help them birth their babbies & sew them up after so they did not tear easy the next time or so it was said round the Ft.) well the women of the camp did be fierce fond of the Mexican Gal & when she took ill with the cholera they nursed her & it being the cholera they minded to bath the poor girleen & what do you think they found? Forgive Me Sir but didn’t they find she was no darling girl at all but a fellow a proper born man like yourself or myself with the prick & balls of any bull you might see in a field?

  Well there is some strange things in the world Sir & I am telling you I did look upon some of them but this? Surely it was stranger to me because my brother was sweet on her but I tell you she did make for a fine woman & though I sensed there was something off about her well this is the last thing I did reckon. I do not even think I had it in me to imagine it at all but there you are. God has wrought this mad world & all in it so He must have good reason for the things he does. I am no priest or scholar & so I do not question it. She was a kind girl after all & May She Sit With God Who Made Her.

  But let me tell you Sir news of this did not take a long day to reach every ear in Leavenworth & so a fierce wild scandal was born in the camp & perhaps showing His mercy our Lord took her to Him later that night sparing the shame & banishment that was surely coming to her.

  Now a fellow could ask did the women tending to her refuse her care that might of saved her once her secret was discovered? For as bad as the cholera was that spring it was worse other times before & there is now medicine for it I am told. If I remember rightly she was the only one to die that time at Leavenworth though many fell ill & were cast to the hells of puking fluxing sickness.

  But a part of me also did wonder was it not a mercy her passing for maybe in the comfort of Heaven the Mexican Gal could not see how her loving husband did rise up from the depths of his wild mortification at the ragging & joking of his pals & one evening some days later did step out the livestock gates of the Ft. & into the long spring prairie grass for to put a Colt Navy to his head & spread his brains all over Kansas.

  I can tell you them I Company boys took it hard & decided it must be a broken heart he died of for he took the ragging well like a man should do it being only fair in the circumstances that your pals might have a laugh at such a thing. But to all who would listen they would say that shame did not come into it. It was grief spurred him to take the life that God once gave him & not the shame of wedding a Molly & not knowing it. Them I Company boys told us it was his love for that Mexican Gal no matter what hung tween her legs that sent him away in the head so that he put a bullet in it May God Rest Him. For love can drive a man to all sorts Sir it can.

  Of course I did not know the New Jersey Corporal himself & came to know him more in death than life so for me it is not here nor there at all. But Tom was fierce quiet about the whole thing & I never again did talk of his mooning round after her with his hair combed & tunic brushed nor did I talk of the gentle favours she shared with him among the sheets behind the sluice house.

  Well in quick time his mood blackened & Tom began again to pass long hours on his bunk with his arms behind his head & eyes staring wide at nothing on the ceiling while the barracks rumbled on round him & when he did rise from his mattress his D Bar would again slip its scabbard & even after the lamps were snuffed & The Taps sounded & men snored in their racks you could hear that knife running up an edge on the whetstone & could see if you looked my brother’s eyes shining with dead light in the darkness.

  You may wonder Sir what good is this to my testament & you would be right to ask it perhaps but I would answer that I write of it because it opens a window for to see the state of my brother’s heart back then. It was like an engine always running on damp coal & rank steam. I write of it so that you might know of Tom’s condition when he 1st made acquaintance with the one who would become his True Love on the long march to this Valley of the Powder River. She is a part of this story maybe a bigger part than you would reckon though likely it was as much her misfortune to meet my brother as it was his to meet her.

  15

  December 9, 1866—​Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory

  THE STAFF OFFICER, A YOUNG CAPTAIN, EYES KOHN with disdain. He says, “A sergeant, here to present orders to a colonel?”

  “Yessir.”

  Kohn stands at parade rest in an office inside the largest structure in Fort Phil Kearny. The headquarters barracks is constructed of planed logs and painted white both inside and out, unlike most of the hastily erected buildings. Rising from its roof is a lookout platform, allowing a view of the fort entire as well as of the surrounding valley and hills.

  “This is most goddamned unusual, Sergeant,” the staff officer says.

  “Yessir. My captain is incapacitated, sir. Captain Molloy, 7th Cavalry, sir. On the blue list, under surgeon’s orders. His leg was broken on the journey. We were sent here on General Cooke’s orders, sir.”

  Suspicion casts up on the captain’s face. “General Cooke’s orders, Sergeant? Why, you hand them over right this minute. How can—​”

  “I would prefer to present them to the Colonel himself, sir.”

  “Are you giving me guff, sergeant? Goddamn guff, are you?”

  “No sir.”

  “Then you present me with those orders or you’ll be had up for insubordination faster than you can shit grease.”

  “Yessir. But I don’t imagine General Cooke would want our investigations . . . ​thwarted, sir, as he has ordered them. I thought the colonel should be aware of them. As a courtesy, sir. . . .”

  “Thwarted? Investigations?” Now there is more than anger or suspicion in the officer’s voice. A desk man, elevated by his distance from the musket ball and his proximity to power. Nothing like an investigation to pique interest, Kohn thinks, or inspire fear. Investigations linked always to inspections, promotions. Demotions or drummings out of the army. The inspection discovered poor performance of assigned duties . . . ​recommends dismissal. “What investigations are you talking about?”

  “The death of the sutler, Mr. Kinney, and his wife, sir. General Cooke seemed to feel it of great import.”

  The officer stares at Kohn in an attempt to detect mockery in his words.

  “And why would Cooke want something like that investigated?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Only that I was told to present these orders to the colonel.”

  The officer stares at Kohn for a long minute and Kohn stares at the whitewashed office wall. He can stay here as long as the officer wants him to. He will eventually see the colonel and the officer knows it.

  “Wait here, goddamn it all,” the officer says.

  Kohn can hear voices from behind the door, deep, muffled and rising with some urgency. After some minutes of this, the door opens and the adjutant says only, “In.”

  Colonel Carrington—​late forties, black-​bearded, thin, small, academical—​is seated behind a desk not unlike the surgeon’s, thick and polished oak and conspicuously grand for an outpost such as this. The colonel appears to Kohn to be a man used to sitting at desks, and from men around the fort he has heard that this impression is not far from wrong. A recruiter during the war, Carrington never lifted so much as a feather duster
against the rebels, yet here he is, in command of a fighting fort at the edge of nowhere. A paper colonel given the stage when the lights have dimmed and the big show is over. It’s the way of things in the army. Political connections mean as much as competence. Mean more, most likely.

  The one thing the men Kohn has spoken to will concede is that Carrington can build Uncle Sam a grand fort for his money. The men call him Carpenter Carrington. There is little affection in it. Fighting men will love or hate a fighting officer. Indifference is the best they will do for desk dragoons.

  “Sir—​” Kohn begins. He notes the desk is strewn with official missives, orders, quartermaster’s reports, draughtsman’s drawings. A map labeled “Mountain District and the Dakota Territories” is pinned to the wall.

  “Orders, Sergeant. What is this about orders? From Cooke? Cooke sent you?”

  The colonel’s voice is nervous, pitched high and clipped, dry-​mouthed. He looks away from Kohn and down at the papers on the desk, moving the drawings in front of him, squaring them off amid the clutter of other paperwork. How different from Cooke’s office, Kohn thinks.

  “Yessir. And a letter, addressed to you, sir. The orders were issued to my captain but he is—​”

  “I know that, Sergeant. I’ve been told that. But you have these orders. And you are to fulfil them? An enlisted man? An investigation? Cooke wants an investigation into the death of our sutler? I simply . . .” The colonel looks up again at Kohn and appears to study him.

  “Yessir, and his wife. As you must know, sir, Mr. Kinney was brother-​in-​law to Mr. McCulloch, the Secretary of the Treasury. General Cooke—​”

  “I know who McCulloch is. Kinney never let us forget the connection. And Cooke . . . ​Cooke. God d—​” Carrington swallows down the oath as if it were a draught of poison. “Blast that man. What else did he say? Tell me, Sergeant. I simply don’t believe he sent you for the sole reason of determining that the sutler and his unfortunate wife were killed by Indians.”