That is all & I do not know why I remember it. There is much you forget about a time & strange wild things you recall. This is one of them things.
26
December 15, 1866—Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory
“WHY, THAT IS A COURT MARTIAL OFFENSE, CORP—”
“Sergeant.”
“Sergeant. I can’t get myself caught up in no—”
“Rawson?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” Rawson will not look Kohn in the eye.
“You’ve been gaming again, haven’t you?”
Rawson says nothing. He glances up at Jonathan, the Pawnee scout standing still and quiet in the corner of the stall.
“I can see it in your eyes, Rawson. You are as easy to read as a French postcard.”
“One or two games is all and I ain’t pinched or a stole a thing from nobody.”
“First the chicken, then the egg, Rawson, you mush-brain. What did I tell you I’d do to you if I found out you were gaming or thieving?” Kohn holds up his Colt Baby Dragoon and with a flourish cocks the gun, then uncocks it.
A horse in a neighboring stall snorts and shifts.
“I don’t remember, Sergeant, ’xactly what you said but it was bad.”
“It was.”
He hands Rawson the pistol by the barrel.
“Will I remind you?”
“No, Sergeant.”
“What hour on the clock, Rawson?”
“Eleven?”
“Not a second earlier, not a second later, Private.” Kohn takes out his watch.
“I ain’t got a timepiece, Sergeant.”
“Take mine, here. And if you try to sell it—”
“What do you take me for, Sergeant, Christ almighty—”
“Rawson . . .”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Eleven sharp. Make a ruckus like you’ve never done before. And if you are hauled up, Rawson, what are you going to say?”
Rawson looks at Kohn for the first time since Kohn found him mucking out the cavalry stables. “Not a goddamn thing, is what I’ll say.”
Kohn pats him on the shoulder. “You’ll make a fine soldier one day, Rawson.”
“No, Sergeant. No I won’t.”
“You’re right, Rawson. You won’t.”
ELEVEN O’CLOCK, give or take a minute, and Kohn and Jonathan stand in the darkness with their backs against the rough logs of the mechanic’s shop when they hear Rawson’s first shot. They hear a second shot and raised voices brought to them on the wind but from too far away to understand the words. They do not need to understand them because they know who is shouting and what is being shouted and before long, men begin to exit barracks throughout the fort carrying muskets, some in shirtsleeves, unlaced boots, repeating the cry that started with the two shots. Indians. Indians inside the palisade.
The door to the mechanic’s shop opens, throwing out a bolus of lantern light from inside, and Kohn and Jonathan retreat to the shadows at the side of the structure. They watch one of the civilian mechanics run out of the shop holding a Henry repeater rifle and listen as he shouts over to the men now pouring out of the blacksmith’s and the wagon shop. A timber contractor’s barracks at the far side of the quartermaster’s yard empties of men shouting and carrying rifles. Where are they, goddammit? Where? They inside the fence, boys?
“You see anything?” the mechanic shouts over to the men gathered in front of the blacksmith’s.
“No. You seen anything?”
The wind brings more voices from the north end of the fort. Another shot, this one nearer.
“They close!” shouts one of the men standing in front of the smith’s and he and three others with him begin to jog to the gate wicket leading into the military stockade, one carrying a storm lantern like a beacon. They pass within ten feet of Kohn and Jonathan. Men clop up onto the rough boards of the sentry stands along the palisade. Orders are barked in high-pitched panic.
Kohn says to Jonathan, “Two, maybe three.” He pauses to think. “Maybe four but I don’t think so.”
Jonathan nods, his face blank in the shadows.
“No killing, Jonathan . . . if we can help it. If we don’t need to.”
Again, Jonathan nods and Kohn imagines that if he told the Pawnee there were ten men in the shop and they were going in to kill every one of them he would respond the same. Kohn nods back and when the mechanic rushes past to follow the smith’s men, he and Jonathan make their way across the yard to stop in front of the smith’s. They stand to either side of the door and Kohn signals that it is time to begin. He raps hard on the door with his gloved fist and waits.
They hear movement from inside and can feel the heat of the forge’s fires through the walls. The smell of iron and wood and coal smoke. The door opens and orange light from inside the shop stretches out across the mud in front of the shop. “What—”
Kohn grabs the man by the shirtfront and jerks him outside. Recognition flashes in his mind as he acts. The private working the bellows. The smiling boy not smiling now. All this in an instant and Kohn swings the mallet he took from the shop earlier. The sound of it against the soldier’s skull is like that of a melon dropped on cobbles and Kohn wonders briefly if he has killed the boy but does not stop because Jonathan is in through the open door now carrying a small, thick shield in his left hand and a war club studded with bear’s teeth in his right.
Inside are two men and one of them, the first sergeant from earlier, raises a revolver. His left hand is coming down to draw back the hammer when Jonathan smashes the pistol from his hand with the club, driving the shield into the sergeant’s face, knocking him over a workbench. Jonathan looks back at Kohn briefly before leaping onto the bench and down to the earthen floor on the other side of it. As he moves for the other man, Kohn sees the war club rise and fall, rise and fall, and he hears the dull, wet thud of the blows.
But this is all in an instant because Kohn is moving for Sweetman the blacksmith at speed while the smith frantically searches for a weapon, tin mug and dinner plate crashing to the floor as he stands and pulls a poker from the resting fire and turns to Kohn. Recognition comes into Sweetman’s eyes and he swings the poker at Kohn in a wild, glowing arc. Kohn can feel the heat of the poker’s tip as it passes his face. An instant later it comes back but Kohn is inside the arc now and the smith is forced to adjust his swing and as he does, Kohn swings the mallet, bringing it down on the smith’s collarbone in full bludgeon. At contact there is a sharp snap and Sweetman drops the poker and throws a punch with his left hand. Kohn swings the mallet again and the blow catches the blacksmith in the ribs and again there is the snapping of bones and the smith doubles over, the breath knocked out of him. Kohn forces himself to cease his attack lest he kill the man. He would like to. You have it coming you fucker, he thinks. You have it coming. He steps back and kicks Sweetman in his broken ribs instead and watches as the smith collapses to the ground.
Kohn becomes aware of a voice now and he turns to it. Jonathan stands over the first sergeant and the sergeant is begging the scout to stop, his face and neck coated with blood, his eyes stark and terrified white against the gleaming red, teeth missing from his mouth. Jonathan’s face is stoical but his eyes are alive and Kohn knows he has enjoyed this work. Too much time on his back. Too much whiskey and the attentions of his winter wife. All of it a dull repose before returning to this. Kohn realizes how similar are he and the Indian. Sloth and debauch suit them both less than the fray. A good war is better than a bad peace. Born assways up, Kohn thinks. Things skewed inside men like me and the Pawnee. He watches as Jonathan sets his club on the workbench and draws his skinning knife from the beaded sheath at his belt.
“No, Jonathan. He is done. Leave him.”
The scout turns to look at Kohn, the light dying in his eyes. He sheaths the knife. He does not appear angry at the loss of the sergeant’s scalp. A soldier, Kohn thinks, taking what he can, whenever he can, but expecting nothing.
>
“Watch the door, Jonathan, while I talk to our friend.” Kohn watches Jonathan cross to the door and close it most of the way. It would not be a good thing, after all, for an actual Indian to be seen within the palisade, friendly or hostile. Kohn can hear musket fire and raised voices from outside. He hopes his ruse does not result in any needless deaths but does not dwell on this. He has seen too many to care about one or two more.
“Now you,” he says to the blacksmith. “You are going to show me those goat-fucking ledgers or you’re going into the forge one piece at a time. Do you understand me?”
The smith works himself up to sitting with his back against a heavy press holding tools and iron scrap. He spits on the packed earth floor. “Fuck your mother, Jew. You are a dead—”
Kohn again kicks him in the ribs where he struck the mallet blow and Sweetman’s eyes bulge with pain and a feral whine emanates from low in his throat. Kohn then leans down and takes the smith’s wrist, limp and useless under the shattered collarbone. The smith roars with pain. He raises Sweetman’s hand and pins it under his own on the surface of the workbench, forcing the smith to contort himself so that he is now on his knees, pressing his good hand to his collarbone. Tears have sprung in his eyes and shine in the firelight from the idling forge. Kohn raises the mallet and the smith makes a loose fist.
“Open your fingers or I’ll smash your whole hand. And then I’ll start on the other and work my way down until there’s nothing on you that’s not broken.”
The smith resists and Kohn leans down, inches from the man’s face, and roars, “Open it!”
Jonathan looks at Kohn without expression and then continues his watch at the door. Kohn raises the mallet higher and begins to swing it down.
“Behind the forge, behind the forge, you bastard, behind the . . .”
Kohn stops his swing half a foot above Sweetman’s knuckles. “Get up and show me.” He drops the mallet onto the workbench and takes his Remington from its holster. “And if you give me reason to, I’ll put your brains on that wall, do you understand me?”
“Let go of my hand.”
“Get up,” Kohn says, dragging the smith up by his bad arm. The smith grunts with the pain and Kohn thinks that he may pass out with it. “Get the books.”
The smith cradles his bad arm with his good one and moves to the side of the forge. “There, third brick down, pull the brick out.”
Kohn says, “You get back over and sit on that bench.”
Sweetman does what he is told and Kohn pulls at the loose brick with his fingertips. The brick comes away after some tugging and in a larger hollow behind are three ledger books. Kohn removes them and walks over to the bench. The interior of the shop is gloomy, lit only by the open door of the main forge and the two low-burning open fires. Kohn gets up and takes a lamp hanging from one of the roof beams and shakes it to check it for oil. Satisfied, he strikes a match and lights it and sets it on the workbench between himself and the smith.
He sits down and opens the first ledger. “Keep your hands on the table,” he says.
“The boys gon’ be back, you know. Your Injun won’t be no use for you against them. You’re a dead man.”
Kohn ignores the smith as he scans down the columns at the names and the amounts owed. In this first ledger are notes of purchases made by individual soldiers and the amounts owed for various items.
Sweetman spits on the floor and flinches at the pain this causes him. “One more dead fuckin’ scallawag Jew like they stringin’ up all over the South . . .”
The letters in the columns—blessedly not the numbers; numbers have never given Kohn difficulty—begin to drift out of line, rearranging themselves on the page and Kohn forces himself to concentrate. Because he recognizes most of the words already, he is able to quickly determine that most of the money owed in the ledger is for common items purchased by soldiers on posts all over America. Socks, shirts, boots. Tobacco, beer, canned peaches and decks of cards. Books, bolts of dressmaking fabric. Kohn notes that the same names appear more than once in this ledger. It occurs to him that the debts may be tabulated and recorded in the second or third ledger.
Kohn smiles without looking at Sweetman. “Considering I have not yet decided whether to kill you or not, I’d reckon you’re a sight farther down death’s road than I am, bub.”
He opens the second ledger and is pleased to discover that his assumptions are correct. The soldiers are listed by name and the debt owed recorded along with a payment schedule of monies to be deducted from wages over future months. At an active, frontier post like this one extending such credit, Kohn imagines, could be a risk for the sutler. Men are killed or die by accident with some frequency and the sutler, thus, would take a loss on the debts of dead men but no robbing sutler worth his salt would do it if it were not profitable and Kohn sees debts of more than a month’s salary owed in the ledger. This seems startling to him at first and his pulse rises with the possible discovery but soon he realizes there is little to his theory to be found in these pages. He continues to scan the columns, flipping through the pages. The largest debt he sees is sixteen dollars, though this is only a dollar and a half more than the next largest. There are eight or nine soldiers owing thirteen odd and many more owing ten or less. He realizes that the fort has not been established long enough for the soldiers to have accrued debts so large as to be a motive for murder.
From the doorway, Jonathan says, “Things stop outside. They are standing down now.”
Kohn curses under his breath.
“The boys on they way back, Jewman. They gonna string you and the Injun up and feed you to the wolves, you black-hearted sonofabitch.”
“Shut your mouth or I’ll stuff that goddamned mallet in it,” Kohn says, opening the last ledger now. He looks over to Jonathan. “How long?”
“Not long. Or we fight again.” There is something in his voice that tells Kohn he would relish the chance.
Kohn quickly scans the names and the pages in the third ledger and is confused at first. Like the first book, this ledger lists individual purchases but they are almost always the same. He recognizes one name from the two previous ledgers and traces his finger along the lines to discover that the debtor had bought on the 19th of August: Whiskey and 1 hr, Martha. On another date: Whiskey x 2 jugs, 1/2 hour Martha, $14 total. Kohn realizes that before him is the debt ledger from the sutler’s off-post brothel. The debts here are, in many cases, larger than in the first two books. He smiles.
“I’ll be taking this one,” he says, closing it and slipping it into his tunic.
“I can’t collect out that one any goddamn way. They ain’t official owings. The rest I can collect.”
“These?” Kohn asks, standing, holstering his revolver, picking up the first two ledgers.
“Yeah, them. You gon’ go now or you gon’ stay and meet the boys?”
“Oh, I’d like to meet them, I would. Jonathan would especially, though none of you nativists have much in the way of scalps worth taking.”
“I’ll be seeing you again, Jewman.”
“I’ll be expecting it. You just get yourself better first and then we’ll have a fine old time. A dandy scrap.”
“You just leave them books there. And we’ll set a time and a place for you to meet your Jew god.”
“Sadly, we share the same god, smithy. And He does not give a penny fuck for you or me.”
“You just leave down them books or—”
“These books?” Kohn says again, holding them up.
“Yeah . . .” There is fear now on Sweetman’s face. Genuine worry for the first time since Kohn and Jonathan entered the shop. The smith knows what is coming.
“Here?” Kohn says. “Leave them here? Or what about here, bub?”
Kohn nods at the forge and smiles at the smith. From the doorway, Jonathan says, “They are coming now. Through the gate. His men.”
The smith says, “No, there ain’t no need for . . . you seen w
hat you need to see. Just set them two books down and take the other. You—”
“Growing up, you know, Corporal, books brought me nothing but rum consternation. And now look at what they’ve brought you . . .” Kohn turns and works the forge’s bellows, bringing the fire to a roar. He then tosses the two ledgers into the flames and almost immediately they begin to smolder and then, in an instant, ignite in the intense heat.
“You fucker. You pig-fucker, I’ll—”
“You should have shown them to me like I asked, you fool. You’d be twenty sheets richer and still have the books. Live and learn, mein fraynd. Live and learn.”
Kohn resists the urge to knock the smith off the bench with his fist and instead moves to the door to follow Jonathan out into the darkness. If the smith’s returning men see them, they do not pursue. Kohn imagines they will have less motivation for violence on Sweetman’s behalf once they discover they will receive no more income from the collection of their comrades’ debts. The first man whom Kohn hit with the mallet stirs on the ground as they pass him and Kohn notes that, at least, he has not killed him.
27
HOW WE 1ST MET DEAR RIDGEWAY GLOVER (MAY GOD GIVE HIM REST)
IT IS NOW THAT I MUST WRITE OF RIDGEWAY THOUGH it breaks my heart to do it. That poor boy May He Rest At The Right Hand Of God well he had no business being with us that night or any other. Pure innocent was that Quaker boy & I never learnt in full how he come to be attached to us in the 18th here at Ft. Phil K but that he must of had a high up Big Bug of a pal somewheres or maybe his father did & this Big Bug drafted perhaps a letter to Col. Carrington asking for Ridgeway be taken on for to make pictures of the West for newspapers back East & for the museums of Washington as he told us. It must have been something like this & be careful what you do wish for in this life.
For he was not cut out to live among soldiers such as us. He was not cut out for this world at all you could say & you would know it from the moment you lay your eyes upon him with his long fair hair & smooth face & bright eyes. He was a sight I tell you with his bow back saddle mule to ride & his rebellious pack mules weighed down with his picture making kit & tent & sundries. This world is too rough & ugly a place for the like of that boy & I did love him because of it.
Wolves of Eden Page 20
