by Sarah Bird
He shook his head.
“We only have one horse?”
“I’ll walk and you can ride. It’s not that far. Even walking, we’ll be in Mexico before dawn. Will you be ready?”
“I’ll be ready,” I answered. I wanted to say more, but needles of pain were poking me. I struggled to hold my eyes open and my throbbing head upright.
“Don’t leave me now, okay?” Wager said. “I don’t want … I can’t do this without you. We’ll get your feet doctored in Mexico.”
I nodded, wondering idly if they’d have to amputate them. I hoped not, but if it stopped the pain, I’d make that trade.
“Cathy.”
I looked at him. The fever and weakness made the feelings I had for him rise up and pour from my eyes.
For a long time he said nothing, just stared back at me. Finally, he spoke. “You make a hell of a man, woman.”
“Wager,” I said, naming my world.
We embraced, him looking south, off to the country where we’d build new lives together, me staring back behind at the country we were running from. The one that had no place for us. He fortified my spirit by whispering of his plans to find us a plot of land away from anyone and anything where he would build us a house with his own hands from bricks made of adobe. “We can grow a few crops. Raise some chickens?”
“And goats,” I whispered, for those beasts could survive anywhere.
“And children,” he added. “We’ll raise fine children as strong as their mama.”
“And as pretty as their daddy.”
After that, I slumped against his shoulder, too exhausted to speak, to hold my head up. Even taking air in caused my heart to hammer. I was closing my eyes against the needles stabbing them when I noticed, far off behind us, a giant flame rising up, a torch of wildfire, hazy and orange in the distance.
“A brush fire,” I whispered.
Wager looked back over his shoulder, staring to the north, and said, “Goddam them to hell.”
It wasn’t a wildfire. It was the trail of dust, burning orange in the last rays, led by a sniper with a buffalo gun riding hard toward us.
“We’ll ride double on Belle,” he said.
One look at the worn-down beast, though, told me what was there for both of us to see. “She can’t do it, Wager. Maybe with one, but two’ll kill her before we make a hundred yards.”
“I’ll strap you on and I’ll walk.” He bent down to scoop me up. I held him off.
“Too slow. They’ll catch us.”
“Okay, then you take Belle. Ride for the river and I’ll make my way down.”
He meant it. One more second and he’d of ordered me to ride.
“No, Wager. I stay. You go.”
“No—”
Anger gave me the strength to say, “Listen! Instant Drewbott finds out what I am, he’ll send me packing before word gets out he had a female in his command for two years and never knew it. You, Wager, it’s you he’s gunning for. You he got the sniper for.”
The words were costing me. I gathered what little strength I had left so that he’d understand how it had to be. “Wager, here’s what’s gonna happen. You gon take Belle. Get across the border. Get safe. Wait for me. I will come and find you.”
“I can’t, Cathy. I can’t leave you.”
The men were closing in. There was no time for argument. “Wager, you only have one choice to make here now. Ride free and live. Or stay here and draw their fire to both of us. If you leave, if they don’t capture you, that’ll give them one more reason to keep me alive. To make me tell them where you are.” He hesitated and, in a voice that came directly from my grandmother who was a warrior-wife of the Leopard King, I ordered him, “Go. Now.”
Wager Swayne forked his leg over the saddle, reined Belle around, lifted his heels to spur her, then stopped, reached his arms down to me and said, “Cathy, come with me. We can—”
I’ll never know what his next words were to be for I gathered up a handful of gravel and hurled it at Belle’s backside. She reared and took off with enough speed going down the slope that gravel avalanched down the hill. I watched until they rode into the shadows beneath the bluff and were swallowed up.
The thump of the soldiers’ hooves riding hard from the north grew louder. By the time they arrived, Wager’s dust had settled and it was almost too dark to see. Tack creaked. Hooves clattered against rock. The smell of men and horses, leather, boot black, and gun oil engulfed me. Gravel pelted my face as the major in command reined up and bellowed down, “Where is he?”
The sniper, a white sergeant, pulled up beside him. Two more white officers flanked him and ten troopers crowded in behind. John Horse was not with them. I chose to believe that, after leading them to the spring, he refused to help track me and Wager. The officers at the front had the look of Civil War vets who’d made the army a career because they liked a hard life with hard rules. One of the troopers led a horse that carried the familiar form of a corpse rolled in a blanket. Lem. I was relieved. He would be buried properly.
“Where is the traitor?” the major yelled down at me.
Traitor. So that was the story Drewbott had told. Thank the Lord I’d made Wager leave. The major continued screaming, ordering me to tell him what direction Wager was heading in.
My eyes closed of their own accord and the voices drifted farther and farther away until a voice called out, “Major, look at this!”
“What is it, Belton?” the major demanded.
“I got him in the glass, sir! See that streak of light cutting across over there. He’s making for the river, sir!”
My brain, then eyes, snapped into focus.
The major pulled out his own glass and zeroed in on something that made him sit up. “You,” the major shouted at the sniper. “How long to set up your tripod?”
“He’s too far out of range, sir,” the man answered.
“Well, then, saddle up, we’re moving in, I’ve got a bead on the traitor!”
“Belton,” the major ordered the black trooper with the spyglass. “Stay here and guard the prisoner! The rest of you, move out!”
I heard the clop and drag of hooves as horses were wheeled around. Then the snap of quirts being whipped against hide. Again I was pelted with gravel as they rode off. I struggled to sit up. My arms wouldn’t hold me.
“Belton,” I called up to my guard, a slump-shouldered fellow with a bit of a gut who was still mounted. He didn’t hear my feeble whisper as his attention was on his troop mates charging down the hill.
“Belton!” It was agony to raise my voice, but I caught his attention. He glared down. Seeing how close I hovered to death, though, he softened. I beckoned him to come closer, and, after glancing around to make sure that everyone was, indeed, gone, he dismounted, squatted beside me and demanded, “What?”
“Let me look,” I asked.
“I ain’t giving you my glass,” he snarled.
“Please, I want to see. Belton, I’m dying. Please don’t deny a man his dying wish.”
Reluctantly, he handed over the glass and I fit it to my eye in time to see Wager emerge from the shadows. Belle had slowed but she was upright and trotted onto the sandy ribbon of land that ran along the river.
Four hundred yards or less behind him, I spotted the sniper setting up his tripod. A few moments later, the first trooper emerged from the shadows. Wager would be out of range in a few seconds. But if Belle tripped or stumbled or broke stride, or if Wager didn’t make it across the border before the sniper sighted in, they’d have him. The first trooper pulled his carbine from its scabbard, aimed, and shot wild. The report startled Belle and she put on a burst of speed, breaking into a gallop.
The rest of the troopers emerged and swarmed after Wager. I stopped breathing. He was so close. Two other troopers fired. Belle surged forward. Her front hooves hit the water. Carbine fire pocked the river. One shot exploded half a foot behind Wager in a spray so big it had to of come from the Sharps. The sniper had hi
s range. Next one’d get him.
Belle’s back hooves kicked up a rooster tail of drops that fanned out behind, shining in the low evening light like handfuls of gold coins sprayed up by the river. When he was halfway across the broad divide, the major held up his hand and his men reined to a halt.
Wager had crossed the border. He was on the other side, beyond the reach of the United States Army. The shots stopped. He was safe. Wager was safe. I sagged back against the bedroll and darkness took me.
Chapter 82
The sound of a faraway conversation gradually formed into words.
“Did you get any water in him?”
“A mite, sir. A trickle or two.”
“That’s not going to be sufficient, Private LeBlanc. He’s been out for two days. You better get some water into this boy or he is going to die. He’ll probably die anyway, bad off as he is.”
“His feet ain’t pussing the way they were.”
“Hmmm. Yes, well, the carbolic acid stopped the putrefaction some. Yours is a hearty race, LeBlanc. You don’t feel pain the same way a white man does. Your people can endure unimaginable hardships. Nonetheless, this boy is on the brink.” The doctor heaved an exasperated sigh and added, “Well, if he is going to die, you might as well get him undressed before rigor mortis sets in. Remove his uniform.”
“Sir, listen, sir. He’s moaning.”
“Ah, yes, poor wretch. Death rales. Carry on.”
Though I ordered every bit of my being to fight, my eyes refused to open nor my arms lift, and my jacket—my armor, my shield for the past two years—was unbuttoned and stripped off me.
“Uh, sir, you might want to have a look at this.”
The smell of quinine and whiskey engulfed me as the surgeon moved close to gape at what had been uncovered. “What the blazes? This man has been wounded. His entire chest is wrapped. I don’t recall any injury being mentioned? Oh, well, cut those bandages off him. Let’s have a look at what killed him.”
Snick.
The cool blade of the scissors rested against my breastbone and took their first slice.
Wager.
Wager was waiting for me on the other side. I had to stop them. I forced life into my hand and pushed the blade away.
“Well, look at that, LeBlanc, a sign of life.”
The blade continued slicing downward through the bindings that had protected my secret. I ordered myself to wake up. The cool steel of the scissors’ bottom blade slid downward until it rested between my breasts.
“No.” My protest was a gargled groan, lost in the final snick of the scissors. Brushed by the rare touch of air, I felt my nipples pebble.
“What the deuce?” the surgeon asked.
With hard effort, I pried my eyes open and beheld the whiskery face of the sawbones, his nose and cheeks spotted with crimson rum blossoms, his pendulous lower lip drooping down, mouth open in amazement. His orderly, LeBlanc, a dapper, light-skinned fellow who oiled his hair until the tight curls were plastered down like they’d been scrolled into his skull, was gaping for all he was worth. The fools acted like the circus had come to town.
“What?” I croaked, anger lubricating my throat enough for me to speak. “They’re titties. Ain’t neither of you never seen titties before?”
The way those two were blinking and gasping, it seemed that the answer was “no.”
The rumpot surgeon was the first to collect himself and announce, “Colonel Drewbott must be informed. Immediately,” and bustled off, so discombobulated that he left his medical bag sitting on the bed beside me. The orderly, unable to peel his eyes from my chest, stayed behind. His trousers were tented out so far in front that I could read his intentions a mile off. When he moved on me, I grabbed up the longest, wickedest scalpel from the medical bag, pointed it right where he was bulging, and said, “One more step forward and you’ll back off a gelding.”
He jumped away, saying, “Wait until Vikers hears about this. Just wait.”
No, I didn’t think I’d wait for that seven-sided son of a bitch, and whatever mob he’d whip up, to pay me a call. Though I was weak as a washed kitten, I stuffed the scalpel into my pocket and tried to stand, but tumped over screaming when my feet touched the floor. I made it onto all fours, crawled to the window, hauled myself up until I could see the yard and found what I feared. LeBlanc stood at the center of a thunderstruck crowd, shouting, “A woman, I’m telling you! Cathay’s a woman! I saw her titties with my own eyes!”
So they knew. Now they would come for me. I threw the bolt lock on the door to the ward and wrapped my fingers around the scalpel.
Boot heels struck loud and hard on the wooden stairs of the infirmary porch. Heavy steps pounded down the hall. Shoulders slammed against the door. Fear was bigger than pain, and I managed to stand on my massacred feet.
Brawny shoulders thudded against the door. It opened a crack. A slice of Vikers’s face appeared on the other side. “One! Two Three!” he ordered. The men grunted as they bore down and crashed the thick door open. Vikers pushed through first. The rest of the mob, a dozen men, maybe more, forced their way in behind then stopped, staring at me google-eyed.
Someone in the back whispered, “Lordy God, it’s true.”
Another man added, “Tits.”
“I told you,” Vikers shouted. “Told you from the get something wasn’t right. Greene, what’d I say from day one?”
“Said something wasn’t right with Cathay. Said it from the git. You called it, Sergeant.”
“A woman,” Vikers crowed. “Only two reasons a woman’d go for soldier. One, to be with her man. Two, to get her some tail. Cathay doesn’t have a man. So…”
“So,” Greene yelled, “let’s give her the tail she come for!”
They made to move, but Tea Cake elbowed his way in, threw my cut-up jacket around my shoulders, and said, “Now, hold on a minute, y’all. What’s Cathay ever done to y’all? He served. Weren’t no shirker. Never beat on a duty. He done his hitch good as any of the rest of you. Where’s the fault there?”
“How slow are you?” Caldwell asked. “‘He’ ain’t done nothin’. ‘He’s’ a ‘she.’”
“So?” Tea Cake asked. “Seen plenty of women in my time could outwork, outfight, outbrave any two men.”
“She lied to us,” Vikers squawked. “Lied to every man here. Lied with every breath she took passing among us as a man. As one of us. You think she hasn’t been laughing her ass off at us this whole time? Playing us for chumps. Holding out on us.”
“Yeah,” Caldwell added, a new ugliness curdling his tone. “She’s here putting on she’s a real man. Woman needs to be schooled in what it takes to be a real man!”
Caldwell stepped close enough that I could smell he had a bad tooth. But I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to run. If they were going to take me, they’d take me standing. Like dogs puzzled when the rabbit doesn’t move, they froze.
“Are all y’all hiding pussies, too?” Vikers clamped a hand on my wrist. I didn’t fight him. “I’m going to get some tail off this bitch.”
With his free hand, Vikers fumbled with his fly. I pulled the scalpel from my pocket and tried to stab it into Vikers’s eye. I hit the bone of the socket instead, but that was good enough. He shrieked and blood sheeted his face.
I held the scalpel like a spear and asked, “Who’s next? Let’s get this over with. The Sergeant is down south waiting for me on the free side of the border and I need to get to him.”
I figured that Drewbott must of told them that he’d killed Wager, since the news caused a stir among the men. They looked at each other and exchanged whispered comments. Though I couldn’t make out what they were saying, they shrank back an inch or two.
“’Less you kill me,” I went on, “I’m riding to him tonight. First thing out of my mouth when me and the Sergeant are together again’s gonna be your names and how you done me here today. So, come on, let’s get this over with.”
Not a one of them moved or would meet m
y eye. Shame rose off those curs strong as the stink of rotten meat. None more so than Greene and Caldwell who, for all their licking of Vikers’s ass, thought as high of Wager as any of them.
Blood running between his fingers from where he held his hand to his eye, Vikers squawked, “Caldwell, you a bitch, too? I told you, take her. Give her what she came to the army to get. Put the bitch in her place,” he ordered.
Caldwell’s eyes narrowed, and he didn’t move.
“Caldwell, are you deaf along with being dumb as a stump? I just gave you a direct order.”
Blinking as he reeled from the insult, Caldwell glanced from side to side, but he still didn’t move. Still didn’t obey Vikers’s order.
“That’s it, Caldwell, you’re finished. You’re ruined. Greene, you’re my first in command now. Take the bitch!”
Greene wheeled on Vikers and barked out, “Why don’t you put your own damn pecker in that”—he waved at me—“that half-man hank of jerky?”
“Yeah?” Caldwell demanded. “Why you always giving us orders? Who you think you are? My massuh? Just cuz you read off a few pieces of paper, gave me scraps of all you stole off every one of us here, don’t make you my massuh.”
Vikers had skinned near every man in the mob. Of a sudden, the ones still paying him off saw a way to make their debts disappear. The instant that doing the right thing became a financial advantage, that mob of curs turned righteous about raping me and Caldwell commenced to leading them out of the infirmary.
“Goddammit, Greene, Caldwell!” Vikers screeched. “Get your black asses back here!”
The man did not know when he was holding a losing hand and, in the face of a mutiny about to turn ugly, he went on screaming out orders. “Goddammit, Caldwell, I’m cutting you off unless you grab this bitch cuckolded all of us. Now get to it! Tumble out! Tumble out!”
That was the fatal mistake: Vikers had barked at them like an overseer.
Without a word, Caldwell came back and smashed his anvil of a fist into Vikers’s face. Vikers dropped on his ass. Blood poured from his nose. Shards of the shattered lenses of his mangled spectacles glistened in the blood.
