Wolves of Eden

by Kevin McCarthy

  Everything was lost to my eyes for a moment in the gunsmoke but I did hear Tom shouting, “Swing the gun Michael swing it!” & as he said this two arrows struck my mount in the rear right flanks not six inches from my leg them arrows coming from where I could not see & my horse that gallant girl she gave a pitiful whinny & turned & kicked out her back legs the arrows like the teeth of some lion of the plains at her hind & she did fierce buck & turn in a full circle 1/2 thrashing me from my saddle while I could do nothing but grip tight with my legs my rifle near falling from my hand with the force of her wild bucking & turning.

  But with a fierce jerk of the reins she came back to me a fine mount she was I gripped the barrel of my rifle in my two hands & gave her spurs to turn her back downhill to the battle & as I did I swung that rifle at the first thing coming at me from the din & by luck it was an Indian lowering his bow to loose an arrow at me. Thank God but when I struck his forearms a blow his arrow sprung for the sky & not my throat & before I pulled up & swung the rifle again from the other side that Brave did have another arrow strung & was about to shoot when Tom’s pale horse crushed by mine & Tom fired his revolver at the Brave putting a hole under the arm holding the bow.

  Well I could not swing the rifle with Tom’s mount up agin me on the trail & Tom swung his revolver & caught its barrel in the eye of the Brave’s pony & tore that beast’s eyeball from its socket causing it to buck back & throw his rider & I spurred my horse for to tramp that Indian into the ground with her hooves while Tom shouted something I could not understand but took to mean that he could not get a shot at the Brave. I jerked the reins & danced my horse away & when I looked back that Brave was gone meaning his horse throwing him was the thing to save him though Tom’s ball hit him for I saw it with my own eyes.

  But I did not stop to think on this & there was more shots as men fired pistols & swung their Springfields like bludgeons & smoke hung on that trail making the men seem as spirits in sea fog & that fog was aswirl with the tumult of savagery red & white. I swear the din of our small battle did echo in the mountains like a stampede of buffalo. There was much screaming & roaring some of it born of terrible pain & fear & in the throws of this Tom lashed his mount up the trail & I did follow & in a flash we were clear of the smoke & could see the hinds of the oxen in the dust ahead with 2 Braves driving them.

  Seeing the pair of us one of the Braves did turn & charge at us with a war hatchet raised high up for to split our skulls 1 or the other of us & in this moment as betimes occurs in battle I did for a second pause to wonder what to do with my rifle or if I should go for one of my Colts & just as I decided to cast away my rifle my brother pulled up his mount & aimed & thumbed back the hammer of his own Colt to fire a ball into that Brave who slumped forward & passed between us with no harm from him before falling to the ground heavy & dead. Well his comrade did see this & decide it was the high road for him may the oxen be f_____  for he did turn his pony down the slope beside the trail & make for the cover of the cottonwoods lining a creek at the bottom of this hill.

  We turned back then & as we did saw the other Sioux following their pal down the slope 1 or 2 loosing final arrows as they fled. We watched as a Brave stopped & using his horse for cover he dropped down to scoop 1 of their dead from the ground. This was done with such speed & skill you would not of believed it Sir.

  After this we saw on the trail before us an Indian & a soldier wrestling with knives drawn in the dust with no sight of anything else in the world but each other’s eyes like two lovers abed for the 1st time & I pulled up to see Mad Capt. Brown prance his mount over to them & dismount with his sloucher hat gone missing in battle & his bald head white to the sky.

  He stood over the grim struggle for a moment like a spectator at a dog fight or music hall show but when the Indian gave our boy a flip & freed his knife well the Q.M. drew his cutlass from its scabbard swung it down into the Brave’s neck like he was chopping wood that sword lodging there with Brown trying to unfix it with his boot on the fellow’s back wrenching the cutlass back & forward until he freed it that poor Brave dropping his knife his eyes gone wide & white with the surprise of death in them. The fighting soldier did then shove the Indian from him the Indian’s blood gouting from the wound in his neck & from his mouth now & the soldier was covered in it & standing now & swatting & wiping the blood off him like it was burning oil. Our Q.M. then flicked the blood from the runnels of his cutlass & the gore did splay from the blade in a pretty fan shape in the last of the day’s sun.

  The Q.M. then brung the blade down again for to sever the Brave’s spine with a sound like an axe drove into a pine trunk & it came to my mind then that this was the first time I ever heard the noise of a cutlass lopping through a man’s backbone & while I was thinking this the wrestling soldier seized up a large rock from the trail side. It was a rock you would think too heavy for him to lift so big was it but there can be no accounting for a man’s strength when the fear of Death is on him & well that Bill brung the rock above his head & with a roar that was 1/2 a woman’s scream & 1/2 the shriek of a terrible bird or banshee he hurled down that rock upon the Brave’s back & it did splash blood & bounce from the body & roll down the slope. Still wailing his queer cry of rage & fear he scoured the dust around the trail for another stone & Sgt. Nevin did then dismount & take him in his arms & peacify him after some minutes of talking quietly to him & holding him in his arms shrieking & crying.

  I tell you it was hard to look upon because in the pit of every soldier’s mind is the certainty that fear & terror could crack you like a frozen jug with boiled water thrown in it just like that blathering Bill. So we looked away & instead watched as our Q.M. knelt down & rent the scalp from the dead Brave’s head with his knife. It made the sound of tearing cloth when it came free from the skull & though it is a terrible thing to write on a page it was an easier thing to look at altogether than Sgt. Nevin with that broken soldier in his arms I never did learn his name.

  Turning to me Capt. Brown did say, “Are you jealous Michael? Look at this f____ scalp!”

  Well that wild Capt. did look like a kid holding a fresh orange on Christmas morning he did.

  Horses & men circled now coming back from the fray men laughing & shouting loud with the deafness of gunfire asking where did be so & so & Johnny this & where was Bill that & Bill is here & Oh No Johnny caught his train look at Johnny G___  D____  to Hell. Oh not poor John.

  And so we all went to Johnny though I did not know him & would not ever know him now for he had an arrow in his neck & a spear through his body & his blood was drained out on the grass. His hair was still upon his head perhaps the b_______ did have no time for scalping & this was some consolation to us.

  Some minutes later there came the sound of hooves on the trail & Beckworth & another 2 Bills rode back down from the hilltop with 5 of the oxen which was not a bad return at all for the price of one man dead & 2 more wounded 2 horses dead with one more missing. We could be certain of killing 2 of their Braves & maybe more if you believed every Bill there who told of dropping 1 with his rifle or pistol though there was only 1 Indian body here among us to show for it with no hair on him it being now hung from Mad Fred’s saddle. I will not lie the sight of it gave us some cheer.

  And as we did gather together & settle the oxen & find our caps in the dust for the return journey to the fort a queer feeling came upon me. I busied myself trying to pull the arrows from my horse’s flank & got 1 out but decided to leave the other for the surgeon but I could not shake this feeling. It was like I felt that day in the meadow when Ridgeway made our picture.

  I mounted my horse then & took a look around at the sun setting over the hills the shadows below each hill like spaces in the world left dark. On top of the Big Horns the snow was a glory of pinking dusk & going to near red & I could not help think what an odd spot for myself & my brother to be. What a strange & faraway place for an Irishman to come to & maybe die so far from the green hills & salt sea air of home. I got to th
inking this as I watched some of his pals put poor Johnny over the back of a horse & I wondered if he was Irish like Tom & myself. I then came to think how far from any white man’s home this was German or Yankee or Swede or Italian. What a far & lonely place it was to come & die I reckoned. It was place perhaps we had no business being & goose flesh sparked up my back & I felt cold though that could of been the fight leaving my blood like it always did after a scrap or battle. I shivered & Tom put his horse tight up to mine & put an arm round me like he knew the feelings in my heart.

  Says he in Irish, “You got that first red boy you fired on.”

  “I suppose,” says I liking the feel of my brother’s arm round my shoulders in the dying daylight. For more than a year it was myself minding Tom tending to his wounds & his humours & such but here on this bloody hill trail it was him looking out for me. I sound a terrible woman for to say this but I promised you the truth in this testament Sir & this is the truth of my sentiments on that day.

  “They are good about taking their dead from the field,” says Tom as if to get me thinking of other things. “Likely better than we are.”

  This was a grand compliment coming from my brother. “I will give that to the b______  Tom. They fight like Devils.”

  He gave my shoulder a pat & rode away from me then to herd an ox back into our fold & my shoulders did feel cold with his arm no more around them.

  35

  December 17, 1866—​Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory

  “SHOW ME SOME OF YOUR TINTYPES, SIR,” MOLLOY SAYS to the photographer, noticing now, sitting beside him on the cot, that Ridgeway Glover is not as young as he had thought. In his thirties, most likely, but there is something innocent, youthful about him. Or once there was. The innocence has been washed from his features, Molloy thinks, taking a sup from the bottle of whiskey. Recently, he reckons, so that only up close can one witness its absence.

  “Mostly they are not tintypes,” the photographer replies. “Tin is too heavy to transport without a wagon. I put the glass ambrotypes to paper card. It’s easier for me to carry. And to send back East. Glass breaks. The images are lost. Tin would be best . . .”

  “Men about the camp speak highly of your work. I’ve heard tell you worked for Mr. Brady in the war.”

  “Yessir, I did.”

  “A fine Irishman, Mr. Brady. I met him once. That man and his camera showed the world what that war was, what it could do to a body or a town. I imagine his pictures may have helped put an end to the fighting. Yours as well, sir. What service to mankind.”

  The young man smiles sadly. “Few of my photographs were printed in the papers, sir. No paper would print a picture of a hundred amputated legs in the bed of a wagon. They were . . .” The photographer pauses as if reckoning something in his head. “I never could think of it all beyond the light and shadow. How the image transferred to glass or tin or paper. I made pictures of terrible things but I only now remember the pictures, the process of making them. As if the things that happened in the war—​the bodies, the ruination and wreckage—​didn’t exist until I captured their essence on glass. But I only look at the pictures and see the faults, the imperfections in the image, not the thing itself. I try to decide if it was myself or the solutions or the light that was at fault. I don’t see, sometimes, what is happening in front of my lens.”

  “The world needs such men, sir.”

  Glover shrugs and remains silent, as if self-​conscious suddenly, as if he has said too much.

  “May I see your work?”

  The photographer gets up from the cot and takes a handful of prints from the table. He hands them to Molloy and sits back down beside him.

  “I will take a sip of your whiskey now, sir.”

  “Of course you will,” Molloy says, handing him the bottle.

  He studies each picture. Most are taken at what appears to be a conference or meeting, officers, white officials and Indians in headdress posed together.

  “Laramie. The Laramie treaty,” Glover says. “I was asked by the Smithsonian to record it and I attempted to remain true to my mission. I tried to let the camera be a witness, a recording device. Some of the pictures are fine, I think, and would have served the historical record, though I don’t imagine they will have much relevance now, considering how both sides have so dishonored all agreements made there. You have perhaps seen how . . .” Glover sips from the bottle, winces and takes a bigger sup.

  “Oh I have seen it,” Molloy says, leafing through more photographs. Indian women in various poses Molloy vaguely recognizes as classical. In various states of undress, turned this way and that. Like nymphs or Greek goddesses in old paintings. Their poses strike Molloy in his drunkenness as ham-​fisted, almost comical. And yet they are strikingly beautiful in a way. They are whores, he knows, and yet something else emerges in this man’s photographs. Humanity. Nobility. It’s in their eyes, Molloy thinks, a maudlin tide washing through him. What would show in my eyes? It has been several years since anyone has taken his photograph. They would be photographing a different person now, he thinks. He blinks and accepts the bottle, drinks and hands it back to the photographer.

  “Your work is beautiful, sir,” he says, and he means it.

  “Thank you.”

  “This one . . .” Molloy holds out a photograph of a group of soldiers. They are outdoors, in a field of long grass and wildflowers. In the center of the group one soldier holds a dead wolf up under its front legs and the wolf, held upright, tongue lolling in death, is nearly as large as the man holding it. A big wolf. A bigger man, his face scarred and damaged. Unbidden, memory comes to Molloy of Miss Two Doves and the man she described as having a broken face.

  He taps the picture. “These men, Ridgeway. May I call you by your name? You don’t mind do you? These men. What are their names, Ridgeway, can you tell me?”

  Glover is silent for a moment. He takes a sip from the bottle and clears his throat. “I don’t know all the names, sir. Not all of them of course.”

  “Just the ones you do know, Ridgeway. Can you do that for me?”

  The photographer takes the picture, its surface glossy, minor blots of aberration at the margins of the print but otherwise perfect. The men are proud, clearly rendered, the light in that clearing allowing for a short exposure, the humid, dew-​laden air in early morning perfect for treating and fixing the print in the portable tent he used as a darkroom in the field. His paper stock and curing solutions, those months ago when he made the print, fresh and plentiful.

  “This is Private Napoli,” Glover says, pointing to soldier with a thin black mustache who is not smiling but is on the verge of it. “He is dead now. And this one, he is Jackson, I think. This one they called Henrik the Swede but I don’t know if that is his real name either. He is also dead. The others . . .” He takes a swig from the bottle. “I don’t know the others. I . . .”

  Molloy taps the photograph, his cheroot smoldering between his index and middle fingers. “This fine fellow, holding the wolf. You remember his name surely.”

  The photographer takes another drink and stares at the canvas wall of the tent, pale daylight flaring and dimming inside the flimsy structure as clouds mask and unmask the winter sun far above them. The weather is turning and the loose entrance flaps of the tent stir in the harbinger wind.

  “I don’t remember . . .”

  Molloy puts a hand on Glover’s knee. “You may not believe it but I’ve no mind to have a man hang for anything that has passed before my coming here. I know how things come to happen. Things no man wants to happen but they happen, and God in the heavens lets them happen and, it’s said, He stands to forgive those things that are not intended. At least that is what I’m told and I am inclined to believe it. I pray it is true, sir, though it makes no odds for some of us. But I won’t stand in judgment over what a man’s done that he’s not meant to do. I won’t see a man swing, not on my word. Nor on your word, Ridgeway.”

  “I don’t . . .” Glover
takes another drink and tears now shine in his eyes.

  “This is Thomas O’Driscoll, isn’t it? And this, this boy here is his brother.” Molloy points to another soldier in the picture standing to the right of the one holding the wolf. Despite the damage to the big man’s face, there is a clear resemblance between the two. “His name is Michael.”

  The photographer blinks and the tears tilt under his lashes and run down his cheeks. The tears make the man look younger again, Molloy thinks, and sadness fills his heart. He squeezes the young man’s knee gently.

  “They were there that night. They and maybe some others, when the sutler was done for, weren’t they?”

  The tears flow freely now but Glover sits in silence.

  “They are friends to you aren’t they, sir? Good men, I imagine.”

  Glover nods so slightly, it is barely perceptible to Molloy.

  “I don’t wish to see any man swing for the sutler, a man who kept women as little better than slaves. Do you trust me when I say that?”

  The photographer nods.

  “Help me to my feet, sir.”

  Glover wipes the tears from his face with a rough swipe of his hand and stands, helping Molloy to rise, handing him his crutches.

  “You are good friend, sir. A fine friend to those men and you will not be sorry for it,” Molloy says, crutching himself to the tent flaps. “Rest easy, sir. You have told me nothing I did not know before.”

  Ridgeway holds out the bottle to Molloy, nearly three-​quarters empty now. “Keep it, sir,” Molloy tells him. “I will find another soon enough.”

  “WELL, WHAT DID HE TELL YOU? Was it Private O’Driscoll and his brother there in the hog ranch?” Kohn asks.

  Molloy continues past him on his crutches, making for the gate wicket to pass into the quartermaster’s stockade. Kohn follows him. “Captain, was it O’Driscoll who killed the sutler and his wife, sir?”

  “For the love of all that’s holy in the world, Daniel, leave it go. You are a full chisel bastard every waking hour of the day and it is not becoming of a friend, much less a soldier. Has the army taught you nothing?”