by Dani Amore
“I wonder if any of them are people I killed,” Bird said. She chuckled, took another drink from the whiskey bottle, and looked at Tower, but he was focused on the old man.
“What did the spirits say about us?” Tower said.
The old man spoke at length, then pointed at Bird.
The translator spoke to Tower. “They said nothing about you. But her.” He pointed at Bird.
“They say evil surrounds her. And that she is already dead.”
Bird looked up.
“Now, that’s a hell of a thing to say to a lady.”
Sixty-Three
The tracker had been wrong.
They didn’t catch up with the men in the morning. It wasn’t until the early afternoon that the tracker came back and the Paiute spread out along the crest of a narrow canyon.
A wind had kicked up from the northwest, and bits of lava dust stung Bird’s face.
The black rock ran in ridges around a circular opening in which sat a narrow swath of scrub brush and a silty creek bed devoid of water. From her vantage point, Bird could see that someone had dug a trench in the deepest part of the run, and the result was a darker shade of sand. There was water beneath that gravel, and someone had found it.
There was an eerie silence as they waited. A snake slithered by, and Bird resisted the urge to use it as target practice.
As two of the Paiute began to circle farther to the west around the lip of the lava ravine, Bird saw movement below. Next to her, Tower rose from a crouch and stared intently at the action below.
A man had emerged from beneath the overhanging ledge of rock. He was a white man, and he held a young Indian woman in front of him, his forearm around her throat, a gun pointed at her head.
“I need a horse!” the man yelled out. “Get me a horse and she lives. I’ll let her go!”
Bird got to her feet.
“Bird,” Tower said.
“I don’t know if the Paiute care if she lives one way or the other,” she said.
He glanced down at the man. Yenata came running over to them.
“Where’s the other girl?” Tower yelled down to the man.
“She’s dead!”
“What about your partner? There’s more than one of you!” Tower yelled back. Bird had turned and was running toward the narrow trail down into the ravine. She had grabbed an Indian pony.
“He’s dead, too. There were three of us. The bastard shot Kurt and both our horses and took off!”
By now Bird had made it down to the floor of the ravine. She glanced back up at the ledge, saw Tower watching her and the Paiutes lined up in a semicircle around the lava floor below.
She walked toward the man.
Off to her right, she saw a cluster of rock slabs. At its base was a body, facedown on the gravel. It looked to her like another young Indian woman.
She saw no signs of any other men, and there didn’t appear to be any horses.
Bird walked closer to the man.
“You said you wanted a horse and you’d let the girl go. Well, here’s your horse,” she said.
The man looked wild-eyed at Bird. Up close, she could see his lips. They were white, parched, and cracked. The girl looked even worse. Her face was slack, her eyes staring off into the distance. Bird could tell that if it wasn’t for the man’s arm around her throat, she probably wouldn’t be able to stand.
“I know what the hell I said!” the man shouted. His eyes flicked toward Bird, then at the trail out of the ravine behind her, then up at the Paiutes lining the ledge.
Bird knew what he was thinking.
Unless there was another way out, he would have to ride right past a Paiute war party. No way he would survive that. Which meant he couldn’t let the girl go.
Bird knew what she would have to do, but it was a bad plan. She needed him alive. Her only hope was that they were planning an ambush. As if to answer her question, the man’s eyes flicked over to the slabs of rock, and Bird knew.
She drew casually and fired once, aiming for the man’s right eye, on the far side away from the Indian girl’s head.
Her shot found its mark, and the back of the man’s head exploded in a spray of blood and brain matter.
He fell backward, and, without the support he had been providing, the Paiute woman collapsed to the ground.
Bird heard a war whoop, and then the Indians were storming down the trail behind her.
A figure raced from the protection of the lava slabs and tried to run toward the other end of the ravine.
The first Paiute down the trail easily caught up to him and, with a short, brutal swing, bashed the man on the top of his head with a war club.
The man fell flat on his face.
Bird ran toward them. “Don’t kill him!” she shouted.
The Paiute slid from his horse with a knife in his hand.
Bird had her gun in her hand. As she drew near, she felt a slight stabbing in the middle of her back.
She stopped running and glanced over her shoulder. Yenata was on his pony, his lance held tightly against Bird’s back.
“Do not worry. We will not kill him. Not yet.”
Sixty-Four
The ravine was a terrible place to defend against an ambush, so the always-strategic Paiute warriors took the man and the two young women back to the oasis where Bird and Tower had originally stumbled upon the settlers.
The Paiute female who was still alive was placed in the care of the medicine man. Tower and Bird went to him to see what kind of help they could offer.
The Paiute doctor had the girl placed on a blanket and was forcing her to drink a mixture that was dark green in color; it smelled to Bird like sulfur.
The young woman’s eyes were closed, and there were cuts and scrapes all over her face. Her nose was swollen, probably broken, and there were deep bruises around both of her eyes.
The medicine man was chanting in a low, soft voice.
Tower went to reach for the girl’s wrist to check her pulse, but the Paiute doctor shot his hand out and caught Tower by the wrist, then gently pushed his hand away.
Bird pulled Tower to the body of the other Paiute girl. She had been placed next to a small fissure in the rock, and the Paiute warriors had gathered a large collection of stones to cover her corpse with.
Among the group of warriors, Bird spotted Yenata. She beckoned him over and said to him, “Can I look?” Bird then pointed at her own chest.
“It is not good to touch the dead,” Yenata said. Bird had seen the braves carrying the body with a makeshift travois. “A Paiute will not do it. Then you be purified. Take long time.”
“I haven’t been pure in a long time,” Bird said. She reached for the blanket covering the girl’s body. Yenata backed away.
“This might not be a good idea,” Tower said, glancing at the Paiute braves.
But Bird was determined. She lifted the blanket and pulled away the heavy shirt covering the girl’s body. There was no pentagram among the scrapes and bruises.
Sixty-Five
The Paiute had found a narrow vertical slab of rock that rose like a column from the earth.
The surviving white man had been tied to the rock, the ropes circling his chest, pinning his arms, and binding his feet. His hat was gone from his head, and his shirt had been removed.
He had been given a small amount of water to bring him back to consciousness.
Now he looked with panic at Bird and Tower.
“You have to do something!” he yelled.
There was a large bruise on the side of his face and a swollen knot just below his hairline. His eyes were wide and unfocused.
“We’re doing something,” Bird said. “We’re watching.”
Tower said quietly to her, “They’re going to torture him. I don’t think I can let that happen.”
Bird looked at him.
“What exactly do you plan to do about it? Get us killed so he won’t be tortured? Because they’ll just kill us, then torture him anyway.”
Tower glanced over at the Paiute men. Half were with the medicine man; half were by a small fire, sharpening their knives.
Tower approached the group surrounding the medicine man and focused his gaze on Yenata.
“Tell them that if you’ll let me,” Tower said, “I can bring this white man back to Platteville to stand trial for what he’s done.”
The young Paiute translated, but was cut off when Wumaga rattled off a burst of words.
“You will not take the prisoner,” Yenata translated. “It is not against the white man’s law for a white man to kill a Paiute woman. He would not be punished.”
Tower held out his hands. “I can only make a promise of my words. But as a servant of my god, I can’t stand by and let a man be tortured and murdered. No matter how much he deserves it.”
“No.”
Tower looked at Bird, whose expression told him he was close to putting them in danger. Some of the braves who had been near the fire were now standing directly behind both of them.
“I think I agree with the Paiutes, Preacher,” Bird said. “I just want to get some information out of him before they put those knives to use.”
Tower turned back to Yenata.
There was a soft shuffling of leather moccasins on the dusty lava rock and then a bright explosion of pain rocked Tower’s vision.
As he fell to the ground, he caught a glimpse of Bird doing the same.
Sixty-Six
The screaming awoke Bird.
She lifted her head; the dawn’s early sun stabbed into her eyes, shifting the pain that already enveloped most of her head and focusing it, making it a single searing flash of white-hot agony.
Bird closed her eyes, but a fresh set of screams brought her around again.
This time, the pain diminished enough for her to take in the scene before her.
The white man tied to the column of rock was now bathed in his own blood. There were hundreds of small cuts all over his body. His pants had been removed, as had his boots. The cuts were in neat lines across every inch of his body.
Bird guessed the man had stopped bleeding and was moments from death.
He opened his mouth, and Bird saw that his tongue had been cut out as well.
She looked away and at her own situation. She was on the ground, her hands tied behind her back. Her back was against something firm but not hard. It wasn’t rock; she could tell that. She twisted her head to get a glimpse behind her and saw the top of Tower’s shoulder. Bird guessed that he too was bound, and they had been placed back-to-back.
She pushed back against him.
“Tower, wake up,” she said.
“I’m awake.”
“Good. You got us into this situation, now get us out.”
Bird felt him test the bindings on their wrists.
“That won’t work,” he said.
She let out a long breath as the man screamed one more time. To Bird, it sounded like it might be the last.
“I’ve got to get a look at that girl’s chest,” Bird said. “Wumaga said there was a pentagram on the woman killed back in Platteville, but I didn’t see one on the girl who died.”
“Let’s stand up,” Tower said. “Push against me and slowly walk your way up to your feet.”
It took them several tries before they were standing.
“Now what?” Bird said.
The Paiutes were all gathered around the white man, watching him die. They were having an animated conversation, briefly interrupted by laughter.
“Try to twist your way toward me,” Tower said.
Bird struggled to turn, but the bindings were tight.
“I don’t think — ”
Before she could finish her sentence, a shot rang out. Bird looked toward the torture session, figuring the Indians had grown tired of the game and simply put the poor bastard out of his misery.
But she was surprised to see an Indian flat on his back, blood pooling behind his head.
The other Indians scattered as a lone bugle sounded, its warning bouncing around the vast array of lava rock.
The army had arrived.
Sixty-Seven
They tried to move to take cover, but their feet became tangled and they crashed to the ground. Or, as Bird noted with no small amount of satisfaction, Tower landed on the lava. Bird landed on Tower. She heard his breath go out of him with a whoosh.
Gunshots were echoing all around them. One bullet hit close to Bird, and her face was stung with shards of stone.
She heard the Paiutes yelling, soldiers cursing, and the rattle of hooves across the surface of the lava desert.
It was over in a matter of minutes.
Bird tried to look from side to side, to get a survey of the battlefield, but all she could see was the first Paiute who had died from the initial shot and her horse, wandering a hundred yards away, its bridle swinging with each shift of its weight.
“Any guesses as to who might have won?” Bird said.
“I doubt anyone did. The Paiute scattered because, from what I could see, there were a lot more soldiers. The Indians know this place better than the army. They’ll get away, live to fight another day.”
“How about us?” Bird said. “We going to live another day?”
The sound of a boot on gravel sounded near Bird’s ear.
“We’ll have to see about that,” a voice said.
She tried to look up, but because of the way she was bound, she could only see to the tops of the man’s boots.
Black leather boots, befitting a man in the U.S. Army.
“Soldier, help these people to their feet.”
Another set of boots came into Bird’s line of vision and then she was hoisted, with no small amount of gentleness, to her feet.
Tower was right.
The battle hadn’t been much of one. Two dead Indians and one soldier, who was being tended to by a fellow soldier.
And the man, now dead to Bird’s way of seeing, still tied to the rock. A pair of vultures circled above.
She also noted that the other young Paiute girl was gone, along with any chance of Bird finding out what may or may not have been done to her.
“I would love to hear how you happened to be out here with a Paiute war party while they tortured that man to death over there,” the first soldier said.
The man had gone to stand in front of Tower, so Bird couldn’t get a look at him. But his tone of voice had the moral superiority she always seemed to hear from army officers.
“And do you mean to tell me you’re a preacher?” the officer said.
“I am,” Tower answered.
“Why don’t you untie us and let us explain everything,” Bird said over her shoulder.
“I’ll be happy to,” the officer said. “Only so I can separate you. See, the bad news is I’m going to be tying you right back up again.”
“And why is that?” Tower said.
“Because you’re both under arrest.”
Sixty-Eight
They arrived at Fort Stewart and were immediately taken to the commander’s office. It was a short, squat building with a heavy wooden door.
Bird and Tower were placed on a wooden bench that ran along the far wall of the commander’s office.
Once they were seated, a group of men entered the small space. A man of medium height with thinning brown hair took a seat behind the room’s only other piece of furniture: a wide mahogany desk.
“It’s from Pennsylvania,” the officer said. “I paid quite a bit of money to bring that along with me. But culture, and the fine objects it often produces, deserve a home even out here in this very definition of nothingness.”
His voice is high and squeaky, Bird thought. Like a rodent.
“My name is Captain Hays, and I am the commander of this region. Young Officer Stewart here tells me you were being held against your will by the Paiute war party who committed the atrocities in Platteville. Yet you were not harmed. Do you care to tell us why?”
Hays glanced at her, then Tower. He nodded to a junior officer, who fetched a bottle and filled three glasses, then undid Bird’s and Tower’s restraints.
With her hands free, Bird drank Tower’s whiskey, set the glass down, and picked up her own.
“Now, what was your question?” she said.
Before the commander could speak, Tower straightened in his seat.
“Sir, I am simply a preacher riding the circuit, and Ms. Hitchcock here is providing security as we make our way, eventually, to San Francisco.”
“Hitchcock? Bird Hitchcock?”
Bird raised her glass. “Nice to be recognized.”
“We had nothing to do with the torture of that man. What you might like to know is that he most likely was one of the men responsible for the abduction and rape of at least two young Paiute women. I’m sure you or the law in Platteville are investigating.”
Hays smiled. “Mr. Tower, I am the law in Platteville and everywhere else for hundreds of square miles. Yes, the incident in Platteville is still under investigation.”
Bird thought about mentioning Tower’s experience as a detective but kept it to herself. Especially as she was going to point out that she suspected Hays could use the help.
“I request that you release us,” Tower said. “So that I can help the people of Platteville. I believe my services would be better utilized there than here. In the stockade.”
Bird took advantage of the lull in the conversation to help herself to another glass of the commander’s whiskey.
Hays looked at Tower, then Bird. He drummed his fingers on the mahogany of his fine East Coast desk.
Then he glanced at the other officers in the room.
“Release them. I don’t have time for this,” he said. “Besides, if I keep them here any longer, my whiskey supply will be severely drained.”
