Well we did buy trade sap from that thief of a Sutler as well as corn mash from one of the civilian loggers. I tell you C Company made ready for a mighty knees up. Truly it was the last of the fine days we had in this place but my brother well my brother did not enjoy it at all. Gone was the only calm & contented boy in the valley my dear lovestruck Tom. For even while the rest of us flinched at every shadow Tom suffered no such petty fears but yet now his humours turned grim & dark again like his blood was aboil at something. Oft times there was no reason for his spirits turning & so I did not wonder on the reason that day but maybe I should of known. Looking back I can see that it must of been the Paymaster’s arrival that set my brother stewing for full pockets do cause a right stir of custom at the Hog Ranch. It is the same in any Army post the whole world over.
But that was later & never mind Tom’s humours for my spirits were bright how could they not be? The night before the celebrations our Company dog robbers stayed up til cock crow roasting spits of antelope & baking cherry duff & wild blueberry & blacka & raspberry pies with what flour they had that was not gone off. And one boy from B Company a Belgian or Dutch fellow I never did know which (he is dead now) well he did swop some partridge he shot for 2 tins of oysters in brine & didn’t he bake the finest oyster pie you would ever eat & I never ate one before at all! Picture it in your head a fine oyster pie with not a drop of ocean for 1000 miles!
As well as antelope we bought two fat legs of beef from a civilian cattle man & they too turned overnight on spits filling the whole of the Valley with the scent of roasting meat. I tell you Sir it set the wolves howling in the distance & drew Mr. Lo to light his fires on the hilltops about the Ft. where he did whoop & call along with the wolves. One of them Braves with a bellows of a voice begun to rain insults down upon us in the cold autumn air of that night so that we could hear him clearly but he called out a queer kind of English so that we laughed more than trembled at his words.
“Sons of rats in the city of logs you will die tomorrow with your pricks put where you eat your meat!” he shouted & many more things besides.
“Well,” says Cpl. Jackson to me as we stood picket at the livestock gate listening to that red fellow barking down at us in his Injin English. “I think my mouth will be too full of beef steak for my prick to fit in there too.”
“Your prick would surely fit Jack,” says I & he did cuff me one. I tell you we were in high spirits.
In time the wolves did cease their howling & Mr. Lo put himself a bed or shifted back to his tee pees & we came off our picket as the sun rose up in the East forging shadows in the rolling hillocks of the plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. And though they are dry & vast & it is frightening to be lost in them hillocky plains of grass well they do take onto their grassy tops the orange light of the rising sun while mist fills their dips & hollows so that you cannot take your eyes from the beauty of it. It makes you wonder if some day your cattle might graze that grass or will your children make hay from it or will your horse tramp the stream beds in search of wandering calves with the sun on your shoulders & a belly full of a wife’s breakfast? It is easy to dream & hard to know a dream will never come true.
But I was telling you about the celebrations Sir & after a short sleep we followed the sun up to heel ball our leather & climb into our clean & flat ironed US Army blues. We did look the very business for the celebrations & the day passed with the firing of the Howizter & the raising of the mighty 10 foot wide hoist of a flag. We then marched in review all the fighting men of the Ft. & after this Col. Carrington made a fine speech telling us how brave & hard grafting boys we were & I will not lie a tear came to my eye when the band struck up the Star Spangled Banner & The Battle Hymn of the Republic & the mountain Howizter banged while all of us both officers & men did snap to salute the raising of Stars & Stripes over this Valley. I will not lie to you for it moved me & many other men felt the same.
Oh we may grouse & piss & moan as men of armies have done down all the days of History but the sight of that flag does turn some lever in my heart & I swelled up with pride seeing it rise up that sky high pole to wave over this Valley as if to declare to every soul white or red who comes in sight of it that the Great & Powerful Army Of The United States is here & within the walls of this Ft. at least a man can find safe harbour & a hot meal & kind word. All this I felt in my heart while in my head I knew it to be all balls but that too is the way of soldiers since Caesar drove his armies into Gaul. Many is the time a fellow feels one thing & thinks another & just gets on with soldiering for better or worse.
While all this was happening Red Cloud’s boys did appear back up on the hills around us for to see what all the ruckus is about & they spent this time signalling each other with mirrors & burnished tin from hilltop to hilltop. At one point 20 or 30 of them made a gallop down Sullivant Hill toward the Ft. But they veered off then around Pilot Hill not to return that day as if they saw all they needed to see & were satisfied with it.
Finally Col. Carrington’s beautiful band played us out to Hail Columbia! & we made for tables heaped high with food in front of each Company quarters. Well the clay jugs of Oh Be Joyful & glass bottles of beer & surgeon’s stout did not be long in coming out & we did rag & jest & eat like Lords Of The Manor I tell you. And when the eating was done & the drinking just getting up steam Metzger took up his fiddle & another boy a banjo & another a guitar & another a mouth organ & another a squeeze box making up a proper Halloween orchestra.
I joined in myself with a ballad or 2 as the sun took its turn round a sky so blue you felt you could drink it & when it sunk to rest behind the Big Horns we lit the fires of Sowan there being so many Irish boys among us. The others from different lands or America herself just took them for camp fires (for who among us does not love a camp fire?) & they thought it a great waste when we Irish boys in the Company poured a measure of whiskey into a tin mug & left it with some beef by the fireside for the good spirits while we piled wood & buffalo chips onto the fire for to ward off the bad & all of us & some of the Scots boys too toasted the end of the light part of the year while we drank to welcome in the dark part to come blessing ourselves & pouring sups from our mugs onto the ground in offering. The spirits of our fallen brothers in C Company were there that night & supped with us.
It was then the drinking did rightly take off like rockets & the dancing came on a fierce roiling too with all the boys arm in arm with each other tearing up the earth with their clumsy dancing boots. The officers & their wives could be heard dancing & yarning too from Carrington’s H.Q. & for 1 day all seemed fine in the camp about us with the dying & killing forgotten. All was fine as we drank & danced & sung us C Company boys. It was like we were closer than brothers that night almost though to spite this it did not take my own brother long to gather up his bile.
1/2 scuppered says I to him in Irish, “Why are you vexed Tom on today of all days?”
For a long time Tom did nothing but stare at the fire like there was something to hate inside the flames.
I let him stew & turned myself to belt out a few bars of Aura Lee a favourite from the war that John Napoli sung in his Italian way so that I could not hardly understand the words but the voice on him was so sweet you did not care & felt he would be better fitted to a music hall than a Ft. in this vast wilderness. I tell you Sir that sweet Italian boy had a throat like an angel’s but his hands were the hands of a devil when he welt them in anger at an enemy. A strange world we live in when there are such different aspects in a man I recall thinking but at the time this thinking did not bring sadness with it. It was just the reckonings that come with drink & a smile did be nailed on to my face like the rung of a ladder.
Says Tom at last over the din of the music so that at first I did not hear him, “There will be a battalion of them just waiting their go.”
Says I turning back to him, “What’s that Tom?”
“There are hundreds down at Kinney’s kip pure hundreds of men & I fear for m
y Sarah,” says he innocent like with no withholding his sentiments.
I told you Sir that the spoiling rage was upon my brother that day & this could be far worse when he had drink taken but now there was a sad weakness to his voice & to the words he spoke to me in the language of our home. But again all of it felt to me like something pitiable & wrong & nought but trouble this love affair with the hog ranch girl.
So I felt heartsore for him but I asked myself too why could he not just relish 1 day with the boys in C Company in this fine Valley in this Elysium at the very ends of the Earth where though we may be dead tomorrow well at least we did get to see such beauty. Why must he ruin all this with his mad love for a girl (a whore no less!) who you & I would not look twice upon except in pity.
Some anger raised up in me & I stumbled at what to say to him for it came to my mind to say, “Well she is a whore so what do you expect brother?” But Thanks Be To God the words stopped at my lips & did not leave them. I took a long sup to drown such thoughts.
Instead says I, “Well there could not be that many of them Tom. Your heart has your head fooled.”
Tom did be silent again staring into the fire. I kept silent company with him though the ragging & singing went on around us like Billy O. He did finally speak. “I was detailed to Mrs. Carrington this morning for to set up her quarters for the celebrations. While you slept after your picket.”
“Well that is fine work Tom,” I said hoping that such a thing might of been something to relish. For Tom was fond of Mrs. C. & she of him ever since he did warn her off setting her camp chair on a nest of rattlers on the march up from Ft. Caldwell. She oft asks specially for him as stryker & feeds him jam & bread & sugared tea by the gallon as he labours for her. It is a lovely fatigue that is much in difference to the usual bloody business of a soldier here in this Valley.
“She is a fine woman. Kindly & good,” says Tom then in a strange manner.
“She is,” says I.
Then says he, “When I was done with the work I stepped above my station.”
“You did what Tom?” A stab of worry pierced my drunkenness.
“I asked Mrs. Carrington would she take on my Sarah as a servant for she could not have rough soldier Bills making her beds & cooking her grub no more than a lady in any town or city. I had to say it more than once for her to understand it but she took my meaning in the end & told me she would meet her & would see about it. She told me then that no woman should live such a life as the poor girls in the Hog Ranch. When I gave her a look of surprise that she should even know of such a place she told me that it is no secret to anyone at all in this Valley who has ears or eyes & that she did speak of it to her husband more than once.”
Well I will tell you Sir I did not expect this & did not know what to say thinking that surely a woman such as Mrs. Carrington even such a fine Christian woman as herself would not abide a fallen woman in her home & around her child who is a boy of 12 or 13 yrs. old. A 1/2 breed Indian of a fallen woman as well I did think to myself but I did not say this. Instead I said, “Well can your girl just up & bolt the shebeen? Can she do that Tom?”
“She will need be bought out & I do aim to do it,” says my brother.
“Bought out,” I replied knowing already this would be the case for whoremasters did not let their wares leave the store for free not when there was money to be earned off the backs of them. “How much?”
“She does not know only that it will be a lot. More than a soldier has in pay in manys a month but I told her I would pay it whatever the cost.”
“Well Tom I will give you what I have saved away for our stake but it does be only 18$. It will be 21$ next wages but I do not reckon that will be enough. Is there no way Mrs. Carrington can get her man to order Kinney to do it? Is he the C.O. of this Ft. or is he not? I’m fair shocked Kinney & his bitch are allowed run the place at all.”
Says Tom, “I would not ask you for the money Michael though I would be happy for it. And I would not ask Mrs. Carrington to do such a thing for it would put her husband in a tight spot. Kinney is brother in law to a Big Wig in Washington & it would not go well for a lowly officer such as Carrington to cross the man or his whore madam wife. I would not ask it.”
“What will you do then Tom?” I was not sure I would want to hear his answer.
But when it came it was meek & mild though wholly foolish in its conception. Says he, “Sarah will be paid & given board by Mrs. Carrington if she is taken on. Perhaps the 2 of us can buy her freedom from Kinney in small doses from her wages & my own.”
Says I, “Do you think that hungry c___ of a Sutler & his wife will allow for that? Sure she is the fairest by far of their whores never mind her—” I did not know how to put it to him. “Never mind her misfortune. She would earn more than the others for the Kinneys.”
Tom looked at me now & I took a drink so I would not meet his eyes but I could feel the heat of his bothered heart none the less.
“Certain things you do not need remind a man of,” says he. “I will find the money or I will take her out of there by hook or crook & may the Sutler & his wife & the grim muleskinner who looks over them be f_____.”
“I am sorry Tom. I only want to tell you how things are.”
“I do not need telling Michael not from you nor from anyone else.”
“I am sorry Tom. I will help you whatever you decide to do.”
“It’s all right Michael. I know you would.”
He did look at me then. “We will be for the hills perhaps. It will be the end of the Army for us. You do not mind that?”
“We are brothers Tom. I will do whatever it is you need of me as you would do the same for me surely.”
A smile came to his terrible face then & it was a sad thing to see I tell you. Says he in the Gaelic to me, “I know I am a hard man to have for a brother Michael. You are cursed with me.”
“Of course not Tom,” says I sad myself & filled with dread even as full of beer & mash as I was. “You have another sup Tom & think no more about it. Tomorrow will come with its own sorrows. Leave todays in the bottom of this jug.”
Tom took the whiskey but did not drink from it. The fire cracked & popped while Metzy played a slow lament on his fiddle & some soldier who did not know how to play it plucked a queer & ugly tune on the banjo. One of the German boys sung along with Metzger in his Dutchy tongue & it sounded like he had a mouth stuffed with cabbage & all the boys round the fire laughed & made to sing like him.
But I could not join this larking for some of the joy was gone out of the night & I supped more & more whiskey so that I might get it back but of course I never did. Tom is the sort who can rob the good from a day. God Forgive Me for writing it but it is true.
42
December 19, 1866—Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory
KOHN STANDS BESIDE MOLLOY’S SICKBED, THE HOSPITAL barracks’ stoves fighting in vain against the bitter cold outside. Kohn can see his breath. Molloy is yellow, his skin the color of whiskey piss, his breathing labored, eyes twitching and rolling under their lids in troubled, laudanum-induced sleep.
“He is in a bad way, Sergeant,” the surgeon says to Kohn.
“Yessir. Yes, he is.”
“You have a man in the guardhouse for the killings I hear.”
“Yessir. He has done something and was there when it all happened but I am not certain he is the sole killer.”
The surgeon looks as if he is considering something. “Look,” he says. “When you first came here it seemed important, somehow, that justice be served for the killing of the sutler and his wife and their man. It seemed necessary . . .”
“But?” Kohn says, turning to the surgeon now.
“But since then . . . I have seen twelve more dead men. Nine men are missing. Twenty odd maimed and injured. Look around you.”
Kohn has seen the beds full of wounded men. Some are septic and will not live out the week. One man has the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from whe
re his left eye once was. He does not need to look at this again.
“Killed in action and killed in a tavern are different things, sir.”
Again the surgeon is silent for a long moment. Then, “You have heard what kind of man the sutler was. What kind of woman was his wife?”
“I have heard but I don’t think that should matter, do you?”
“I didn’t once but now I am not so certain. You seem a good soldier, Sergeant. Kinney and his wife are not worth your dying for.”
“I will keep it in mind, sir.”
“I think you should.”
43
A TERRIBLE DAY IN THE PINERY
IT IS NOW WE ARRIVE AT IT THE DAY & THE NIGHT YOU wish to learn about & because my brother & myself do owe you as much Sir I will tell you the truth of things. But part of me wishes to God now I never put ink to paper for the lie comes far easier to the tongue than it does to the pen. It is like the page demands truth in the way spoken words do not.
Well the next day was the 1st of November & I will never forget it. Our heads were like they had mules kicking inside them & the boys who passed their revels at Kinney’s Hog Ranch the night before did be feeling already the sting of whore’s vengeance in their waters. I tell you Sir it was a sluggish muster for parade & the forming of work details. You have seen the like of it before I am sure with the desperate din of coughing & retching ringing from one end of the Ft. to the other & more than one Bill swaying in formation that morning with a face as green as marsh grass.
That morning my brother stood behind me at muster & because 1st Sgt. Nevin was speaking to Lt. Grummond (who looked not sick like the rest of us but was surely still drunk as always) I turned to look at Tom & though his face was set as haunted & pale he did not appear the worse for drink like the rest of us but was the worse for something else by far for as I told you Sir he was sick with love for a woman he could not have but all others could for a price. Seeing me looking at him Tom did say to me, “Will we up for the Pinery today Michael? I cannot bear to be around this place.”
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