Wife Stealer

by F. M. Parker

  "Good morning, Captain Payson," Grant said.

  Grant's familiar voice reached Evan through the haze of the pain-deadening laudanum circulating in his blood. He fought his eyes open, pulling the heavy lids apart, and looked up at the general. He tried to speak, but failed, his throat clogged with mucus and blood. He coughed—God, that hurt—and tried again.

  "Good morning, General Grant," Evan said, his voice frail.

  "How are you today?" Grant asked, staring down into the captain's brown eyes, appearing huge in his gaunt, bony face.

  "Wanting to travel, sir." Evan mustn't show his weakness.

  "That's what the chief surgeon tells me. Says you want to go to Texas."

  "Yes, sir. El Paso."

  "I'd estimate that to be about twelve hundred miles. You up to that?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Can you trust the corporal to stick with you all the way?"

  "John Davis is a good man. He said he'd help and he will."

  Evan knew he had to show his determination to leave. He mustn't die here in Vicksburg, for then he would be buried with the other slain soldiers in the military cemetery north of the city. The cemetery was but a few weeks old, yet it already contained more than 700 dead, counting both Union and Confederate casualties. The call of home was a drumbeat in his heart. Home was where he must be buried, close to his kin, who were the very best comrades for the long journey through eternity.

  The wound and the many days lying on the cot had drained him of his strength. Could he make his crippled body rise and show his ability to travel? He willed his right leg to move, and slowly it slid to the edge of the cot. Then it was over the iron rail of the cot and he felt the touch of the wooden floor against his bare foot. Fighting a sharp lance of new pain, he rolled to his side and brought his left leg to the floor.

  With a supreme effort, he sat up, a scarecrow man straining to move. He swayed with dizziness, and coughed. Fresh blood came into his mouth and out onto his lips. He brought a trembling arm up and wiped the blood away with the sleeve of his shirt.

  "Lie back down, Captain," said the chief surgeon. "You're killing yourself by trying to stand."

  Evan laughed, a hard and bitter sound. "You're probably right, Colonel, but I don't intend to lie here and die in this bed."

  He shifted his bloodshot eyes and fastened them on Grant. "General Grant, I'm no longer of any use to your army and I request a release from duty. I may not live long enough to even cross the Mississippi, but I want to start for home."

  Grant reached out and clasped Evan's hand in a firm grip. He felt the long slender fingers, the fingers of an artist who was a surgeon and could do such magnificent work. Grant was losing his very best. Also, he was losing a man who was closer to being a friend than any other in his army of tens of thousands. Grant continued to hold the captain's hand. His friend was dying, and never again would he see him. Death was an old acquaintance to Grant. It always journeyed with his army, and now had chosen Evan Payson. The place where it finally claimed the man wasn't important. He released Evan's hand and stepped away.

  "Yes, Captain, I'll release you from the Army so that you may go home."

  * * *

  The world around Evan felt fragile, as if it could shatter into nothingness at any moment. The pounding pistons of the engine of the river steamboat transporting John Davis and him across the Mississippi River seemed muted to but a fraction of its usual noise. The splash of the big stern paddle wheel was far away. Was his inability to hear the full volume of the sounds around him a sign that he was dying?

  Evan believed he could well be dying from his wound, for he had come close several times before. He wanted to delay that eventuality for as long as possible. He opened his eyes. Perhaps looking at the world would strengthen his hold on it. At the thought, he laughed sardonically to himself. His mind must already be going.

  He looked out from the bed of the surrey where he lay on a pallet made of the cotton mattress from his hospital bed. He judged the steamboat to be midstream in the three-quarter-mile-wide river. The docks on the Louisiana side of the river could be seen ahead. Half a score of Union gunboats were tied up there. Closer to him and upriver, a big fish roiled the surface of the greenish-tan water. The world still existed and the journey home was beginning.

  Evan had drawn his mustering-out pay and given John money to purchase a vehicle to carry them to El Paso. John had secured a strongly built surrey with soft springs. Evan's riding horse and a second one bought from a fellow surgeon had been paired to form a team to pull the surrey.

  The vehicle had a leak-proof top of canvas, and side curtains of the same material that could be raised and lowered. John had removed the rear seat and created space for Evan's pallet, and his personal belongings consisting mostly of a trunk of clothing. John had no possessions except the garments he wore. Evan had told John that he would share what he had.

  At General Grant's orders, Evan was provided food from the officers' commissary, and also the authority to cross the river on one of Commander Porter's riverboats. The army had recently received a shipment of provisions from Cincinnati. John, with the general's order in hand, had loaded the carriage with a wide variety of foodstuffs: canned corn, pears, peaches, salmon, sardines, ham, and a lucky find, bottles of wine. Colonel Crowley had given Evan a supply of laudanum.

  Evan had refused to allow his surgical instruments to be loaded on the surrey. He had asked John to take the full set of fine steel instruments—saws, scalpels, lances, needles, all the paraphernalia of a surgeon—to the Army hospital. Evan had become revolted at the carnage done to fine, young men. Too many had come under his knife and saw, never to be whole again. He could only guess how many arms and legs he had amputated. Many hundreds for a certainty in the battles of the past year and a half. Then there were the lesser wounds to men's bodies from bullets, bayonets, and bomb fragments. He was sick of it all and wanted never again to cut the flesh of a man's body.

  John came and stood beside the carriage. "Need anything, Captain?" he asked.

  "No, thanks, John. I suggest we call each other by our names for our soldiering days are finished."

  "That's a fact. It'll be good to get home."

  "We haven't had much time to talk, and now I'd like to make a request of you. If I die along the way, see that I'm buried in a cemetery and my grave is marked so that my mother and father can find it."

  "I'll surely do that. But don't you go and die on me. We're all set for traveling and in a couple of months we'll reach El Paso. But there's something else we need."

  "What's that?"

  "Guns. There's all kinds of rough men running loose now that the good ones are off fighting. We may run into some who'd take our belongings. We'd be safer with a couple of pistols, maybe even a rifle. Then we could give them a hot time."

  "You're right. We'll buy some at the first gun store we see."

  The sound of the engine decreased. The big stern paddle wheel stopped and reversed. A moment later the steamboat nudged against the dock, and deckhands threw lines to men on the dock and she was made fast.

  "Looks like we've reached Louisiana," John said. "You just rest easy and I'll get us headed west."

  He climbed up in the driver's seat and took up the reins of the horses. The ramp was lowered to the dock and he drove onto the shore.

  FIVE

  Brutus bugled a shrill, challenging call. He stomped the ground with his iron-shod hooves and bugled again.

  Ben snapped awake at the horse's warning. He scooped up the pistol that lay by his side on the blanket and pointed it in the direction the horse faced. He expected to find his Mexican pursuers or Indians ready to attack. But there were neither, and for an instant he missed seeing the wolf standing in the morning dusk.

  The gray pelt of the female wolf blended almost perfectly with the half-light. She sat quietly, ignoring the troubled Brutus and the Mexican horses grouped nearby, and looked at Ben. She appeared unafraid, merely curious.

/>   Ben could shoot the wolf for she was in range of his pistol. Instead he lowered the gun and returned the stare of the wolf. He had no way to truly know; still, he believed that this was the same wolf that had howled so mournfully the evening before. Now she was here. Damn strange behavior for a wolf.

  Brutus, not liking the presence of the wolf, moved closer to Ben. He nickered down at the man.

  "She's no danger," Ben said. "Just looking us over."

  He rose to his feet, expecting the wolf to leave at his movement. She remained in place, eyeing him, ears pricked in his direction.

  "Hello, Lady Wolf," Ben said in a friendly tone.

  The wolf bobbed her head once and then went back to being a statue.

  Ben grinned at himself for talking to the wolf, and for even wondering if she could really have acknowledged his greeting.

  He locked stares with the wolf for a moment, and then turned away to gather up his blanket. There was more than two hundred miles to go to reach Abilene and he should be riding. Breakfast would have to wait, for he had eaten the last of his food the evening before. That wasn't a problem. On the Llano Estacado, food was but a rifle shot away.

  He saddled Brutus and three of the other horses. Tow ropes were fastened. He mounted Brutus and reined him north. The horse broke into a gallop with the other horses following nose-to-tail.

  The wolf came to her feet and took a tentative step forward. She stopped and whined. Then she broke into an easy lope after Ben.

  * * *

  Ben crossed the Pecos River when the sun had climbed a third of the way into the sky. He allowed the horses to drink, and then rode up out of the valley and onto the north bank. He turned in the saddle to look back at the wolf that had trailed behind. Would she cross the river and continue on with him?

  The wolf had halted on the far shore and was standing looking in his direction. Her territory, the land where she knew every water hole, the favorite places of all the other animals, lay miles to the south. As Ben watched, she barked twice, then turned to the rear and broke into a ground-devouring lope that quickly took her from his view. He felt a loss at her going.

  He looked back to the front and lifted the horses to a trot, a rough gait for the rider, but one the horses could hold for miles.

  Near noon, Ben saw a broad swath of land ahead that was unnaturally dark. As he drew nearer, he saw the land seemed to be undulating as if the surface of the earth was moving. He recognized what he saw. A herd of tens of thousands of buffalo were migrating north. Their migration was late this year. Usually by mid-July most of the animals would have been near the Red River in north Texas, or beyond into Oklahoma.

  He pulled Brutus down to a walk and rode closer to the big herd. The nearer buffalo looked up and inspected the approaching horses and rider. A young calf, still retaining its tannish-orange color and not dark like the adults, ran in a frolicking, quick-stepping way out to examine Ben. The cow sounded a warning “whoof”. The calf watched Ben a moment longer, and then wheeled and dashed back to the side of the cow.

  Ben came to the edge of the herd and the buffalo drew back both left and right from him, parting in a great black surf, to let him ride through. Two large wolves, part of the large pack that followed and fed off the buffalo, watched him from a distance. The horses warily eyed the buffalo and the wolves.

  For more than three hours, Ben rode through the countless thousands of buffalo. Both to the left and right of him, the moving herd extended to the horizon. He had never seen the huge beasts allow a man to approach so close, some of them but a few feet away as he passed.

  The buffalo gradually closed in behind Ben. The wolves again took station on the perimeter of the herd, their keen eyes searching for an unwary calf, or an animal weakened by injury or disease.

  Reaching the border of the herd, Ben pulled the rifle from its scabbard. Hunger growled in the pit of his stomach. The tender meat of the hump of a buffalo's back would quiet it. He chose a yearling bull and raised the rifle. At the crash of the gun, the bull fell.

  He brought Brutus up beside the carcass and stepped down from the saddle. With a few strokes of his skinning knife, careful to keep hair off the flesh, he laid back the skin from the ridge of the yearling's back, then sliced five to six pounds of meat from the hump.

  Ben cut off a big bite of the dark meat and shoved it into his mouth. He chewed contentedly as he peeled a section of the thinner hide from the buffalo's belly and wrapped the meat in it. He climbed upon Brutus. In the evening, he would make jerky.

  * * *

  The Comanche warrior was standing on the plain and crying. Damn strange, thought Ben.

  Several minutes before, Ben had spotted the strongly built Indian. After hiding his own animals, he had taken his rifle and crawled forward. Through the spyglass, he saw the man was wearing buckskin pants and naked above. He held a musket in his hand. Close by were two horses. Ben had examined them, found them fine-looking animals, and had decided to take them from the Comanche.

  The man had all his attention focused upon something on the ground and had not once looked around him. Ben had tried to see what attracted the Comanche, but the object lay in tall grass and out of his sight.

  Ben drew within two hundred yards and raised the spyglass to his eye. In the magnified field of the spyglass, he saw the man's bare brown shoulders were shaking. The man lifted a hand to wipe at his face, and in the action turned his face partially in Ben's direction.

  Ben saw tears, and something even more astonishing, and his pulse jumped. The Comanche's features were gruesomely ugly. The full side of the face that Ben could see was heavily scarred, as if it had been cut and ripped by a saw blade.

  Ben was seeing the second ugliest man in Texas.

  Was the Indian crying because of his mutilated face? Or was the unseen object on the ground the cause?

  The thoughts of stealing the Indian's horses left Ben. He sensed the uniqueness of this convergence of the paths of two men inflicted with such unhuman features. An irresistible need to talk with the man came over Ben. He lowered the spyglass and shoved it under his belt out of the way.

  Ben wanted to talk, but the Comanche could have different ideas. Ben cocked the rifle and held it in his right hand. He had but to tip the barrel up and fire if the Indian wanted to fight.

  Ben went forward, walking upright and in plain view. He drew within a score of steps.

  The Comanche stiffened. He raised his head and smelled the wind flowing over the plain, and his tongue ran out as if tasting it.

  Ben coiled for action. He raised his left hand with palm out toward the man, and with his right aimed the rifle to point at the man's chest.

  The Comanche spun around and at the same time lifted his musket.

  Ben kept his left hand raised. He would give the man a fraction of a second more to see his open palm. If the peace sign didn't stop the man from trying to shoot Ben, then the rifle would.

  The Comanche halted the movement of his gun. His scarred face showed surprise, and the realization that Ben could have easily killed him before now. The man lowered the musket. His eyes became hooded, and he began to chuckle, the harsh guttural sounds coming from a long gaping tear in his left cheek.

  Ben's gash of a mouth opened and he laughed a devilish laugh of his own.

  The two ugliest men in Texas greeted each other.

  Ben looked past the Comanche and saw the reason the man had cried An Indian boy of nine or ten lay dead on the ground. He had a very handsome face and a lean, long-legged body. He had been a lad of whom a father would be very proud. Now the jagged ends of splintered bones protruded from the boy's chest, and fresh, red blood pooled beneath him.

  "Your son?" Ben asked in Spanish and nodded at the boy.

  "Yes. Son Of Moon." He pointed at the horse standing close by. "That worthless mustang fell and rolled on him."

  The Comanche jerked up his musket and fired. The top of the mustang's head exploded, showering skull and brains upon the ground
. The animal fell with a thud, kicked a few times, and lay still.

  Ben started to say something about the uselessness of killing the horse, but stopped himself. The man had felt the need to destroy the horse and it wasn't Ben's right to find fault.

  "I'm sorry for the boy's death," Ben said.

  "It will be a lonely life without him. But he now goes to live with the Great One."

  If there is such a being, Ben thought. "I have no son," he said. He slid his hand down across his mutilated face. "I can't get close enough to a woman to make one."

  "Neither can I, not anymore."

  "We've both had bad luck."

  "My name is Black Moon."

  "I'm Ben Hawkins. May I help you with your son? I would be honored to do so." He felt a growing kinship with the ugly Comanche.

  "I accept your help. We will bury him here where he died. And very deeply so the coyotes can't reach him." He laid his musket on the ground and pulled a knife from his belt. He began to dig at the sod of the plain.

  Ben knelt beside Black Moon and began to dig with his skinning knife.

  When the grave was deep, Black Moon wrapped his son in a blanket and gently placed him in the earth. Then the two men silently filled the grave with soil. From a source nearby, they carried flat slabs of rock and piled them on top of the grave.

  Black Moon pivoted slowly around as he surveyed the land. Completing the full rotation, he spoke to Ben. "I will always remember this place and the wonderful son that is buried here."

  "I shall also remember it," Ben said.

  Ben heard tears in the Comanche's voice. But then he saw the man change, his body straightening and head lifting, as he struggled to pull back from his loss.