Wolves of Eden

by Kevin McCarthy

  Well blood did pour down that girl’s face as blood from a head wound is want to & she did commence to weeping & wailing & cursing God & Mrs. Kinney in her language until the other whores took her back behind the curtain to tend her while Ridgeway sat up at the bar beside the Sutler’s wife.

  He sat there beside her telling her what I do not know but she did not take agin him nor curse him nor cast him out as barred from her husband’s rough saloon. No I tell you in no time did she be pouring out glasses of good & proper whiskey for them both & soon after this that awful woman took to weeping herself maybe in shame or maybe in the pity the wicked oft feel for themselves but whichever it was Ridgeway was there for to give her consolation.

  Well the 3 of us soldiers did not know what to do. I felt sick to my stomach the whiskey bitter in my mouth & Metzy was white as fresh linen with shame & fear & no doubt wondering would he get back the money he paid to poke the girl who was now in no fit state for it.

  As for my brother well you can guess how Tom’s face was cut with rage agin that woman & when his girl came back to his knee she too was quiet & sullen & cursed the back of that Sutler’s wife with her eyes until the muleskinner said something in her Indian tongue & she looked away. Tom did then lay his gaze down upon the skinner but his sweetheart whispered something to him & after a time Tom broke his stare & looked back to her & she made to smile though in truth it looked to me like her heart was not in it.

  Myself I did grow sad & ashamed. “How did I come to such a lowly place?” says I to myself. There are shebeens & whores the world over but of all of them I never did see a worse place than this one. Such a sink ditch for such low borne men as us. I felt ashamed to be there & yet perfectly made for such a place. I was an abject creature. I am one still now.

  Finally Ridgeway stroked the arm of the Sutler’s wife & said his last piece to her & came back to our table. Just then did the Sutler Kinney himself return to his tavern bringing the cold of Autumn in with him smoke coughing from the fire with the open door. He took but one look about the place & knew that something was wrong & the muleskinner gave him a look so he went to his wife for a whisper & then disappeared behind the sheet into the whores’ quarters.

  Tom’s girl raised her head from his shoulder & spoke to all of us. “You go now. You come back the morrow.”

  Tom I could see did not want to leave but I think there was nothing he would of not done for her & he slowly stood & so we all did. But the whole time he kept his eyes on the muleskinner & Kinney’s wife. It was like he was warning them without words to mind how they treated his girl. Ridgeway saw this & thought the same thing & said to my brother, “It will be fine, Thomas. She will be fine.”

  Tom turned to him his eyes dark with poison. “You would do well to keep your whisht Sir. This is not your affair.”

  “Tom!” says I sharply. “He is only being a friend. Mind your tongue.”

  Tom turned his eyes to me.

  “You go now,” his girl said to him & stroked his arm.

  Says Tom, “I am sorry Ridgeway. I did not mean it. You will forgive me?”

  “Of course I will Tom,” says the Picture Maker gentle as always. And I will say to you now that to spite the night’s terrible beatings & the fierce trembling violence in Tom’s mind there was something about his apology to Ridgeway that was so regular & common & heartfelt that I saw in it the old Tom the one from before the War. Truly it came to me that the cutnose girl & Ridgeway both were a healing balm to my brother.

  So we left the shebeen all of us & it was not the morrow but some weeks later when I went back to that pit again. Of course my brother went regular any night he could & even some days when he was not detailed though I hardly know how he did manage it. I think he took credit from Kinney God Only Knows how much. But I know his love for that girl grew stronger. It was blooming by the day & with it came Tom’s yearning to protect his sweetheart to keep her from harm & someday to have her always with him so that when everything that I will tell you came to pass it was almost like a thing destined. It was like cards that are dealt & must be played.

  It is said that God gives us the will to choose the right or the wrong thing & His Son came down to forgive us for oft picking the wrong one but I wonder about this. I do think betimes there are no choices for the poor of the Earth at all & if there is any choice to be had it sits part way between 1 wrong thing & another. I oft wonder does a right thing even exist in such a place as this for such men as us to choose. In truth I do not think so.

  39

  December 18, 1866—​The Pinery, Dakota Territory

  KOHN AND JONATHAN WAIT HIDDEN IN THE TREES AT the streambank, the damp cold making Kohn’s feet ache in his stirrups. He considers riding back to the blockhouse and having it out with Captain Brown and the two O’Driscolls. He would like to. There would be shooting and some of them would die but at least it would all be over.

  Why am I doing this? Kohn asks himself. Because once he has started something he cannot stop? Because he cannot abide the thought of men going about their business in the world untroubled by bloody murder? He had thought that by bringing the sutler and his wife’s killers to justice he and Molloy would have their transfer out of the 7th and away from Custer; that for Molloy such a change might act as a spur to cure himself of his affliction but in his heart Kohn has known all along that whatever happens, it will not matter. Nothing matters to Molloy now but his memories and the drink he uses to quell them. So it is pure stubbornness mainly, Kohn concludes. And because it is the right thing to do. Men should not profit from murder. Or is that too simple? He puts the question from his mind. It doesn’t matter.

  He decides he and Jonathan will stand down for now and return to the fort and as he moves to speak the scout points to the corral of upturned wagon boxes several hundred yards away in the winter meadow.

  “Sioux,” he says.

  Kohn takes his spyglass from a saddlebag and peers through it. Three Indians on horseback are riding full bore at the corral, behind which the sentries have retreated. He sees the puffs of smoke as they fire on the Indians and a second later he hears the sound of the shots. The Indians break ranks to ride in a frenzied circle about the corral and through the glass Kohn can see one of them holding aloft a streamer or red and flailing banner of sorts. The Indians appear to be oddly dressed in white cotton shirts open over their leather jerkins and one of them is wearing a wide brim black hat. On the wind Kohn can hear their war cries and the frantic blast of a picket’s whistle announcing the attack.

  Some moments later the dull of thundering hooves, five riders coming from the Pinery. Though Kohn cannot see their faces he knows who three of them are already and spurs his mount to pursue. As they ride, Kohn draws his Remington and watches as one of the attacking Indians vaults a wagon box with his horse and rides across the corral, scattering livestock. He swings what appears to be a club at one of the sentries and then vaults his horse back out of the corral.

  A final volley of arrows and amid much whooping the Indians turn their horses for the hills as Kohn and Jonathan reach the trail some fifty yards behind the five riders from the Pinery.

  The five fire rifles and pistols but the Indians are too far in front to catch and the group slows to a canter as the Indians top the rise of a hill and disappear behind it. The group of riders comes to a halt at the corral and are assured that the livestock is accounted for and the sentries unhurt. At Kohn and Jonathan’s approach, the five riders turn and again Captain Brown raises his pistol.

  “You—​”

  “Sir,” one of the riders says, “there is something on the trail, sir. Ahead there.”

  The captain holds Kohn’s gaze for a moment and then turns his horse and follows one of the men farther down the trail. The O’Driscoll brothers and two other mounted soldiers hold their gaze on Jonathan and Kohn.

  “You have some steam in you, soreass,” one of the other soldiers says. “I’d put a hole in you right here if I was one of these boys
you stand accusing.”

  “You would not be the first who tried, Private,” Kohn says.

  The quartermaster hails the men forward and they turn their attention from Kohn and begin up the trail to the captain. The winter grass bends in the breeze across the vast meadow.

  “Can we fight the five of them, Jonathan?” Kohn says but he knows the answer.

  “We can kill some,” Jonathan says.

  “Some will not be enough.”

  Jonathan does not reply. Kohn watches as the men reach the quartermaster and whatever it is that has drawn his attention. One of the O’Driscoll brothers dismounts and kneels to something on the ground. There is shouting and consternation.

  “Come on,” Kohn says. “Let’s see what it is.”

  “I know what it is,” Jonathan says.

  When they arrive at the group, no one challenges them at first. Kohn and Jonathan watch as the younger O’Driscoll brother embraces the bloody, naked body of a man. Steam rises from the body, from the fresh and bloody wounds. Kohn can see an arrow protruding from the victim’s anus, gaping injury where his privates would be. There is an open wound to the abdomen and the intestines have been pulled through it and unspooled onto the grass. The dead man has been scalped, his skull bashed and broken. There are red and white fragments of bone in the grass around the body.

  A mule lies dead and bleeding some yards away and the load it carried is strewn about like the flotsam from a sunken ship, sheets of heavy paper catching the wind, glass plates smashed, a camera and tripod askew and broken, a shredded tent canvas like a cast-​off sail in a heap on the muddy trailside.

  “Ridgeway,” Michael O’Driscoll says, weeping. “Ridgeway . . .”

  All of the men watch this for a moment and then look away except for the man’s brother, Thomas O’Driscoll. There is rage in his eyes as he turns them on Kohn.

  “You did this,” Thomas O’Driscoll says, the words unclear in his war-​damaged mouth. “You and that bastard of a Galway man with you.” He raises his revolver and points it at Kohn. Kohn raises his own and points it at him.

  “You will pay for it, you fucker. ’Tis you done this, you bastard.”

  “I did nothing, Private, but follow the trail you left me. A blind man could’ve followed it,” Kohn says, his finger heavy on the trigger of his revolver. A small part of his mind tells him that he will not live long enough to see his own shot strike its target. He will kill Thomas O’Driscoll and Thomas O’Driscoll or one of the other men will kill him and that will be all. Nothing more. Thomas O’Driscoll’s knuckle is white with the pressure of his finger on the trigger of his own gun. Kill. Die. The End.

  “No! No, Thomas.”

  The words are shouted and then more words in Irish and the grieving O’Driscoll brother sets the corpse gently on the grass and stands. He takes the pistols from his belt, the cartridge belts from around his shoulders and hands them to one of the soldiers on horseback. He turns to Kohn.

  “You take me, Sergeant. For the love of God I am responsible as if I killed the boy myself.” Tears run down his face.

  Thomas O’Driscoll speaks in Irish to his brother, not lowering his pistol and Kohn has an urge to shoot him now that his attention is taken. He hesitates. Michael O’Driscoll roars at his brother, in a mixture of Irish and English. “You . . .” he roars, spittle spraying from his mouth. “You did this. You put fear in the boy . . .”

  Michael O’Driscoll turns to Kohn then and holds out his hands. “Put me in irons, by God, and arrest me. I did this . . .” He falls to his knees, weeping, his hands outstretched to Kohn in as if to God Himself.

  Captain Brown appears disgusted with the scene before him and he turns in his saddle to Thomas O’Driscoll. “You and Jones. You go get a wagon and see to the body.”

  Thomas O’Driscoll turns to the quartermaster as if waking from a trance. “Yessir.” He looks down again to his brother.

  “Michael,” he says.

  “Go on, brother,” Michael O’Driscoll says. “Go on.”

  “Private,” Captain Brown says, “I gave you an order.”

  “Yessir,” Thomas says, sticking his Colt back into his belt and wiping the tears from his face.

  “You go with him, Jones. And Jones . . .”

  “Yessir.”

  “Bring that goddamn Indian from the blockhouse.”

  “The Indian, sir?”

  “Yes, Jones, the goddamn Indian. I aim to show Mr. Lo that he is not the only fucker in this meadow.”

  Kohn says nothing. He dismounts and ties Michael O’Driscoll’s hands behind his back with leather cord and helps him up to his saddle. He is anxious to be away before the men return with their prisoner, and the captain makes no attempt to stop him as he leaves with his own.

  40

  December 18, 1866—​Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory

  LATER THAT EVENING KOHN SITS HIS PRISONER IN A chair across the table from him in the guardhouse, the prisoner wearing shackles at his wrists and ankles.

  Kohn says, “You think you will sit there in silence but you will talk when I make you. Do you understand me, Private?”

  Michael O’Driscoll stares at the tabletop. “I will not talk to you. I will talk to the Galway Captain. No one else, by God.”

  “God will only watch when I start to work on you.”

  A faint smile comes to the prisoner’s lips but there is little defiance in his voice. “You will try it but those boys on guard, they are all C Company boys. They will stand for no wildness with me, Sergeant.”

  Kohn studies the prisoner, wondering whether he needs a confession or an incriminating admission to move him from here to Fort Reno or Laramie. Of course, if he could move him to Reno or Laramie, he could more easily work on him, get the confession or statement of evidence he feels he has a right to hear.

  “The captain is ill again. He cannot attend you.”

  O’Driscoll considers this for a moment. “Then get me paper and ink and I will write my confessions to him and him alone. My brother and I are in his debt. He will be repaid, not you.”

  “What debt?”

  “That is between myself and my brother and the captain. It does not brook on you, Sergeant.”

  “I’ve a mind to hang you now in your cell.”

  “You have the makings of a fine constable, with talk like that.”

  Kohn stands. “You will have your paper and ink and I will have a confession before the night is out or you won’t see tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is a long way from now, Sergeant. And I couldn’t care a fuck if I see it or not. Get me paper and ink and a lamp. I will need light if I am to scratch out my tale for the captain.”

  41

  ALL HALLOW’S EVE & TOM’S PLAN FOR HIS SWEETHEART

  SEPTEMBER DID TIP INTO OCTOBER & THE FORT GOT built to spite 10 or maybe 12 more soldiers & civilians sent West by Mr. Lo & his predations. All souls in this redoubt were afrazzle with the killing & dying even them such as us who was doing a great deal of killing ourselves. But gone was the joy of the chase or the banging of the musket & we went around always with the hackles up on us so that we never felt at rest even in our bunks. At times when my mind was not caught up with scouring the grass & trees for Indians hidden in ambush well it might cast itself back to Ridgeway’s question. Is any of this worth it? I did not know the answer & still do not know it of course for I am only a small nail in a tiny corner of God’s house & cannot see the whole of anything but more & more of me was coming to think that the Quaker boy may of been right in his thinking.

  It was this sort of thinking that made me again begin to wonder should we draw down what money I put by & make a flit for the goldfields like some already done. To be sure I am no fool & know that the boys who deserted here may be shot full of arrows their bones picked clean in a ditch now instead of lords of the gold mines as in their dreams. But some of them must of made it safely. Some of them surely did for you would hear of it from the timbermen or civilian dro
vers now & again.

  But I must confess all was not bad for us. No there must of been good as well as bad. I can remember 1 time as good Sir & I will tell you of it for there is bad to come in these pages I can assure you.

  It was the time when Col. Carrington did finally declare Ft. Phil Kearny to be finished & complete. Perhaps he did not know what the day means for the Catholic soldiers especially the Irish but Carpenter Carrington went & chose the last day of October for to celebrate this. Would you believe such a thing?

  Now you know well Sir this day is the feast of All Hallows Eve or Halloween or Sowan as we call it at home. You know it is the time when the spirits do return from death to visit the Earth & bonfires are built for to drive them away or welcome them home if they are loved & mean no harm to the living & glasses are raised & feasting done in their honour. It is done in Ireland & would be done here for there is a fair mob of untethered spirits in this Valley.

  Now to make the prospect of a fine day all the better the Paymaster arrived on the 30th with a month’s wages for the lot of us him with his armoured wagon boxes & an escort of 20 men from Ft. Laramie like the magi come to see the Christ Child if Christ was in need of his wages for to pay his Faro & Chucka Luck debts or buy Bust Head & whores God Forgive Me. The Paymaster came as part of a supply train of wagons carrying all & sundry such as newspapers & letters from back East bandages & poultices & several hundred bottles of medicinal stout for the surgeon of the Ft. which the escort did liberate & save from breakage so that the surgeon took possession of only 50 odd bottles. Of course we regular Bills was offered the rest at a price for to heal ourselves of an evening the stout being medicinal & us eager invalids! The bandages & poultices by some miracle of course did complete a safe journey unmolested.