The Reckoning

by Len Levinson

  “A man needs his sleep,” somebody growled. “We've got a hard day tomorrow.”

  The lamp was blown out. Duane and the redhead stared at each other in the darkness, but Duane wasn't quite so mad anymore. “If I ever find another rat in my bed,” he said, “I'll beat the piss out of you.”

  “Anytime,” replied the redhead.

  The cowboys meandered back to their bunks. Duane lifted his blanket from the ratty mattress and threw it onto another empty one against the back wall. Then he pulled off his boots, fluffed up a pillow made from his extra clothes, lay down, and prayed silently.

  Dear Lord, please don't let me do anything stupid tomorrow, because Vanessa and I need this job.

  Vanessa sat on a rickety wooden chair and looked out the window at the soldiers’ campfires glowing at the edge of town. At least I've got a roof over my head, and a job, she thought. I'll teach children to read and write if it kills me.

  Figures moved around the campfires, and she heard a soldier plunking a guitar. It was an old melody from the Blue Ridge Mountains, or the great Smokies, but it could also be an Irish tune, or even an Italian one, for the frontier army got the rejects from everywhere, and according to what people had told Vanessa, the officers even worse than the men.

  She recalled the lieutenant who'd conferred so confidently with Mr. Gibson earlier in the day. Somehow, through a process she didn't quite understand, he'd become leader of the detachment. What makes one man rise and another fall? she wondered. Is it a quality that can be taught, or must you be born with it?

  She thought of her husband-to-be, who was a decent boy, but there are some things that you don't learn until you're thirty. Sometimes she felt more like Duane's mother than his bride-to-be. She and Duane had no money, and she could end up as Shelby's schoolmarm for the rest of her life.

  She didn't require a plantation, only a little home with a steady income. I wonder how much a lieutenant earns? Then she smiled at the odd turn of her mind. You're scheduled to marry one man, and you're thinking about another?

  CHAPTER 2

  THE CHUCK WAGON dangled pots, pans, and utensils as it rolled over the grassy plain, the sun a pan of silver in the sky. The Bar T crew was headed for the northern range, where they'd live in the open like Indians, eating meat off the hoof, lying down on the bare ground at night, and hoping no rattlers would crawl beneath the covers with them.

  Duane rode at the back of the formation, feeling earth emanations seep into his bones. The infinity of the range surged around him, reminding him of mild ecstasies he'd experienced in the monastery in the clouds. He spent most of his life studying in the scriptorium, and sometimes wondered if he'd wasted his time. He could detail the logical proofs of God's existence, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, but it seemed sterile and abstract compared to the actual wide open frontier world.

  “Howdy,” said a voice to his left.

  Duane snapped out of his contemplative mood, and saw Don Jordan, one of the Bar T cowboys. He was around Duane's height, a few pounds heavier, with medium brown hair beneath his smudged white cowboy hat. Duane wondered if another cowboy prank was in the making, such as a dead rat in his afternoon stew. “Howdy,” he said suspiciously.

  “I was hired two weeks ago, and was the tenderfoot until you showed up. All I've got to say is: Thank God you're here. I didn't think I could take much more.”

  Duane evaluated Jordan, and the first thing that struck him was the northern accent, since most Texas cowboys were from the South, and ninety percent had been in the Confederate Army. “Where are you from?” he asked, curiosity overcoming good manners.

  “Massachusetts.”

  “I'm surprised you haven't been shot by now.”

  “I mind my business, do my work, and keep my mouth shut. Besides, I know it's not easy to give up your way of life, just because somebody in Washington says so. You can't put this country back together by punishing the former leaders of the Confederacy.”

  “Don't like politics,” Duane declared. “But slavery was a sin, and even the Pope said so.”

  “You're a Catholic?”

  “I was raised in a Franciscan orphanage.”

  “My family was Methodist, but I don't go to church anymore. Isn't this land magnificent?”

  Duane gazed at clumps of grama grass, myriad varieties of cactus, and mesquite trees all the way to the horizon. The sky was brilliant blue, and the sun rolled steadily upward toward the peak of heaven.

  “What brings you all the way from Massachusetts?”

  “I didn't want to work in an office, or go to sea. How about you?”

  “I want to learn the cattle business.”

  “It doesn't seem very complicated. You brand them, make sure they get enough to eat, and then drive them to market. Have you seen Miss Phyllis yet?”

  “I guess every cowboy in the bunkhouse wants to get his hands on her.”

  “She'll probably marry some rich rancher's son one of these days, and merge their holdings in more ways than one.”

  “He'll be a lucky man, whoever he is.”

  “Miss Phyllis is the prettiest girl in these parts, but there isn't much to choose from, unfortunately. I thought of marrying somebody back home, and bringing her out here, but Boston girls are accustomed to plumbing, servants, and city conveniences. They think that Southerners, particularly Texans, are barbarians. And then, of course, they wouldn't want their hair to adorn the lodgepole of some Comanche's tent.”

  Duane had many questions, but held them in abeyance for another time. Bad manners to probe too deeply in the beginning, because so many cowboys were wanted by men with badges, and even Duane had certain facts that he hoped to conceal.

  The ramrod's booming voice called to them from the front of the formation. “Where's that tenderfoot? Somebody git him the hell up hyar!”

  Duane nudged Thunderbolt's flanks, and the horse quickened his pace. Duane rode around the cowboys, and wondered what the assignment would be, as he angled toward McGrath. “Yes, sir?”

  “What you say yer name was?”

  “Braddock.”

  “Take the point with Ross, here. If either of you sees injuns, ride back and tell me how many, where they're headin’, what they're wearin’, and if any of ‘em's got rifles.”

  Ross had short legs, rounded shoulders, and large ears. “What if they shoot first?”

  “We'll be right there to help out. Now get movin’, and keep yer eyes peeled.”

  Ross spurred his grulla, and the animal burst into a trot. Duane nudged Thunderbolt, and side by side, the two cowboys rode at moderate speed across the open range, their horses kicking clods of dirt. Duane leaned toward Thunderbolt's flowing black mane, to present less resistance to the wind. Ross said nothing, his mouth set in a grim, hard-bitten line. He was in his late twenties, and his face looked like hand-tooled leather.

  The windstream felt good against Duane's cheeks, and he liked the speed. Thunderbolt had plenty of bottom, and Duane felt the animal's strength surge beneath him. They approached Ferguson, a snake-eyed cowboy with a cigarette dangling out the corner of his mouth, riding the point. Ross and Duane slowed down as they came alongside. “See any injuns?” Ross asked.

  “If I did, you would've knowed it.”

  Ferguson drew the rein of his sorrel and aimed him back toward the cloud of dust following in the distance. Duane took his position alongside Ross, and since Duane was a tenderfoot, that meant he couldn't initiate conversation. He kept waiting for Ross to speak, but that knight of the range kept his lips shut.

  Duane scanned surrounding terrain for Indians. He'd observed Apaches at the monastery, when they'd stopped by the well on their travels. The monks prudently kept their distance, but on one occasion, Duane had seen what looked like a red scalp hanging from a warrior's belt. It was their land, but was everybody else supposed to pack up and go home?

  Ross bit off a plug of tobacco, but didn't offer any to Duane. “Where you from, kid?”

  “
Guadalupe Mountains.”

  “What the hell's in the Guadalupe Mountains?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “'At's what I figgered.”

  It was silent again, except for the sound of hoof-beats. Duane raised his eyes and saw an eagle high in the sky. What a perspective he must have, Duane thought. Must make that old bird wise. But Duane didn't have time to speculate upon eagle life. He lowered his eyes and checked mesquite trees, juniper bushes, and cholla cactus for a feather tied to an Indian's hair, or war paint on his cheeks.

  Duane was curious about Indians, as he was curious about everything else. Their favorite trick was to tie white men head down on wagon wheels, and build fires underneath their heads. I love this land, Duane thought, and if I have to fight for it— that's what I'll do. No Indian's going to cook me over a fire, and if he tries to steal the boss's cattle, hell—I'll fight for the brand.

  “Y'know,” said his companion, “Uncle Ray was a-fixin’ to clean yer clock last night. I wouldn't push him too hard, I was you.”

  “He puts something in my bed again, I'll ram it down his throat.”

  Ross looked at him coldly. “Yer a little too big fer yer britches, sonny jim. You ain't talkin’ back to me, are you?”

  “You tell me.”

  Ross spat a gob of brown juice at a pale green yucca blossom, and said, “Boy, you don't treat me with respeck, I'll get down from this horse and whip your ass right naow.”

  “The hell you will,” Duane replied.

  “I guess yer brave now, ‘cause the ramrod'll fire both of us if we git in a fight while we're a-ridin’ the point, but I'll tell you what. Tonight, after supper, you and me—back of the chuck wagon. What do you say?”

  Duane leaned closer and looked into his eyes. “Sooner or later I'll have to kick the shit out of somebody in this outfit, and it might as well be you.”

  “Children, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Miss Vanessa Fontaine, your new teacher.”

  Mrs. Gibson stepped out of the way, leaving Vanessa alone before her new students gathered in the parlor of the Gibson home. Each child perched a board across his or her lap, for desks. They looked like a bunch of imps, their beady little eyes focused on her, waiting for her to make a mistake.

  “Your parents have hired me,” she began, “because they want you to receive a better education. If you don't know arithmetic, can't read, and can't write, you'll be at a disadvantage in the modern world.”

  “Puhsonally,” grumbled a boy, “I'd druther be outside.”

  “You can't play your life away,” Vanessa lectured. “And besides, learning can be fun. I'll bet everybody in this class would like to know something, but you don't know how to find the answer. Why don't we make that our first project? You tell me what you want to know, and that's what we'll do. Any suggestions?”

  Nobody said a word, and Vanessa realized that they didn't feel comfortable in her presence. But she was nervous herself, with Mrs. Gibson looking directly at her. “I know that you're shy, but surely there's something that you're curious about, such as who invented arithmetic, or where certain words came from. You might even want to know why iron melts, or why water freezes at thirty-two degrees fahrenheit. Can't you think of anything?”

  It was silent, and Vanessa knew that she was failing to reach them. If I were little, and I lived in this town, what would I be curious about right now? A whiff of campfire drifted through the window, and a tantalizing possibility came to mind. “Something very significant happened in Shelby recently,” she said. “Can anyone tell me what it was?” Again, nobody said a word, so she continued undaunted. “A detachment of soldiers has come, and that doesn't happen every day. Perhaps we should search through every book in town for information about the lives of soldiers. Wouldn't that be fun?”

  A little girl with pigtails yawned. “My daddy says that books're full of lies writ by people what couldn't get an honest job.”

  “I wouldn't want to argue with your father, but if you do enough research, and compare facts, you often can tell who's lying and who isn't. The importance of an education is that it teaches you to evaluate information. I think that all of us should go home tonight, look through the printed material in our homes, and bring in everything about the Army that we find. Then, tomorrow, we'll have a reading session, and find answers to our questions!”

  A skinny little boy, wearing thick eyeglasses, wrinkled his nose and crossed his arms over his birdlike chest. “Why don't we just ask one of them soldiers to tell us about the Army?”

  “I'm sure they're much too busy ...”

  Mrs. Gibson interrupted her. “On the contrary, they seem to have quite a lot of time on their hands. I believe they're waiting to join up with another detachment, and it's two days late.”

  “Probably massacred by injuns,” the boy in the thick eyeglasses said confidently.

  Vanessa wondered how the teachers at Miss Dalton's School would handle the situation. She wanted them to actually learn about the army, not listen to old barracks tales from the mouth of a drunkard who'd fought against the South during The Recent Unpleasantness. But on the other hand, it could enable me to establish better rapport with my students.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” she said. “The next order of business is to elect someone to go to the commanding officer and ask him to deliver an address to the class. Do I have any nominations?”

  Every little finger in the room pointed to the new schoomarm, and every little voice shouted in unison, “You!”

  The soldiers’ tents were lined in a row next to a stream at the edge of town. Wet clothing hung from guylines, while a detail of soldiers repaired a wagon, and others cleaned rifles, mended harnesses, and sewed clothing, everybody keeping busy, but not so busy that they didn't notice the attractive blond woman strolling into their detachment area.

  A sergeant with curly red sideburns shot to his feet in front of her. “Can I he'p you, ma'am?”

  “I'd like to speak with your commanding officer.”

  “I'm Sergeant Mahoney, ma'am. Right this way.”

  He led her toward the largest tent, its front and rear flaps open. Inside, seated behind the desk, she could see the commanding officer.

  “Wait right here, ma'am. I'll be out directly.”

  She glanced at the soldiers, all of whom stared at her as though she were delicious. She'd sung to soldier audiences during her stage career, and knew that they were lonely men, with harsh lives and little money.

  Sergeant Mahoney returned, and stood at attention before her. “The lieutenant'll see you now, ma'am. You can go right in.”

  She entered the tent, where Lieutenant Dawes stood behind his field desk. “Can I help you, ma'am?”

  He had bronzed features, a solid jaw, and wore eyeglasses, which made him appear studious. Evidently he'd been writing something. “I'm the new schoolmarm,” she began, “and I'm afraid that I have a rather unusual request, sir.”

  He raised his right hand. “The name's Dawes. Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee? I don't suppose you'd care for whiskey.”

  “Wouldn't be schoolmarm here long if I did. I'm Vanessa Fontaine.”

  “You're just about the most beautiful woman that I've ever seen in my life, Miss Fontaine. What can I do for you?”

  Vanessa smiled politely. “My students have invited you to speak to them about what it's like to be in the army.”

  Lieutenant Dawes opened his mouth to render an unequivocal no, but possibly General Sheridan would pass through Shelby someday, and the pretty schoolmarm might tell him about kind, helpful Lieutenant Dawes. “I'd be happy to speak before your students, Miss Fontaine, provided you answer a simple question. What's a rare flower like you doing in such a godforsaken part of Texas?”

  “You're very gracious, sir, but perhaps you've been away from women too long, or the sun is starting to bake your brain, but there's nothing exceptional about me, I assure you. I've come here with the man I'm going to marry. He's looking for w
ork as a cowboy, and I'm the schoolmarm.”

  She's dirt poor, in other words, Lieutenant Dawes thought. There were many questions that he'd like to ask, but she was betrothed to another man, and Lieutenant Dawes was no bird dog. “What part of the South are you from?”

  “Charleston. How about you?”

  “I grew up in Washington, and if you're wondering if I fought in the war, I didn't. Besides, it's time to forgive and forget.”

  “I wouldn't go that far,” replied the former Charleston belle.

  The cowboys rode into the herd, searching for calves to brand. It was early afternoon, the slightly off-center sun beginning it's long drop toward the California canyons. Duane whirled his rope through the air lazily, as he spotted a calf. First he had to check the mother's brand, because range wars started over the misbranding of other people's calves.

  The cow carried the Bar T brand, so Duane resumed circling the lasso over his head. He aimed, then let the lasso fly. The calf flinched as the hemp fell over him. Duane pulled him toward the fire, but the calf dug his little hooves into the turf, and bleated pathetically. Thunderbolt paid no attention as he plodded onward.

  Duane rocked back and forth in his saddle, noticing other cowboys lining up with their calves. He caught a whiff of burning mesquite mixed with the fragrance of the sage as he came to the end of the line.

  He heard somebody clear his throat, and spun around. It was Ross, with a roped calf. The two cowboys looked at each other in silent hatred for a few moments, then Ross grinned. “Hope yer havin’ fun today, kid, ‘cause tonight I'm a-gonna bust yer haid wide open.”