by Len Levinson
Sometimes, while playing the piano, she experienced fantastical conceptions. She recalled the notorious Nathanial Barrington downing one gin sling after another in the Saint Nicholas dining room as he consumed what had appeared a prodigious amount of food and read the newspaper front to back.
She was destined to meet the culprit, for her family had been invited to the party at Cortlandt Lake. She and her mother planned to depart New York tomorrow for their cottage in the Hudson highlands. Clarissa looked forward to riding her horse and listening to the music of the forest.
Everything was sound to Clarissa Rowland, and she believed every person gave off a musical aura. A mysterious tune had come to her across the potatoes and squash in the Saint Nicholas dining room, and she was curious to hear it again. Just because I'm getting married, it doesn't mean I can't talk with interesting people, she advised herself. Marriage isn't prison, I don't think.
Sheriff Boneham locked Sergeant Berwick into a cell on one side of the jail, and Cole Bannon across the corridor in another. “Do you remember that soldier you arrested?” the sheriff asked Bannon. “This was the cell he occupied, and now you're in it. It has a certain logic, wouldn't you say?”
The sheriff chortled as he departed the cell block. Cole Bannon and the sergeant stood behind bars and glowered at each other. “Stupid son of a bitch,” muttered the sergeant.
“Birdbrain,” replied Cole Bannon.
It was embarrassing for a Texas Ranger to end in jail, caught in the act of trying to stab someone. Cole cursed his bad temper and other shortcomings, but most of all cursed Sergeant Berwick. The disgraced ranger sat heavily on his wood cot, no mattress. “A killer is walking around free and nobody gives a damn.”
“You arrested a man fer takin’ a walk,” replied Sergeant Berwick. “You probably want to put half the population in jail.”
“How well do you know Doakes?” asked Cole.
“Well enough to know he's innocent.”
“He showed up in Santa Fe about two months ago, so you can't know him that well, idiot. If he killed those women, you don't think he'd tell you.”
“But you can't arrest a man for nothin’,” protested Sergeant Berwick.
“I saw him looking into a woman's window. Maybe I can't prove it to you, but I know what I saw. What can you tell me about him?”
Sergeant Berwick shrugged. “He's a good worker, minds his business.”
“Where's he from?”
“Someplace out East. Hell, I don't know anything about most of the soldiers, but that don't mean they're all criminals. Besides, if he's killin’ so many women, why haven't I read it in the papers?”
“Like I said, nobody cares about whores. I wonder what they ever did to him? He talk about women much?”
“Never.”
“When I was in the Army, that's all the men talked about.”
Sergeant Berwick knew that women were the main topic of barracks conversation, and now that he thought of it, it was odd that Doakes never said anything. “Maybe I'll ask him sometimes.”
“I'm sorry I punched you, but this case has got me baffled. If you care about dead women, why don't you see if you can dig up some information on Doakes? Maybe he's innocent, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure.”
“I'll think it over,” replied the sergeant, “but now I want to sleep.”
Cole stepped to the rear of his cell and looked out the barred back window at privies, sheds, and barrels of trash in the backyard. He wished he had a cigarette, but the sheriff had taken his personal belongings. He lay on the hard cot, placed his hands behind his head, and wondered if it would be possible to sleep.
He noticed a message carved into the adobe wall next to the cot. Sitting upright, he tried to read it in the dim moonlight filtering through the window. It had been carved with a sharp object, possibly a belt buckle, and declared:
I AM THE SCOURGE OF GOD
Chapter Fourteen
Nathanial selected a russet gelding with lean Arabian lines at the stable of his Uncle Jasper, then tied a bedroll behind the saddle. The saddlebags contained cheese, wine, and bread, courtesy of the Saint Nicholas dining room. Nathanial was on his way to Cortlandt Lake in the far northern reaches of Westchester County, where the party in his honor would be held Saturday night.
He rode up Fifth Avenue, lined with extravagant mansions and private clubs. The grid pattern ended in the fifties, then Nathanial came to squatters’ shacks, bone boiling works, swill mills, and hog farms. He steered his horse left to the Bloomingdale Road, which was the upper extension of Broadway, and rode it past farms to the Harlem River, where he crossed the bridge into Westchester County.
He thought it delightful to travel through lush wilderness without fear of a stray arrow from the bow of an Apache. He'd been a frontier officer so long, he'd forgotten how pleasant civilian life could be. There's something to be said for resigning my commission, he thought.
Through branches and leaves he made out the Hudson River, then the Jersey palisades came into view. He brought his horse to a halt, sat at the base of a tree, and watched sailboats and paddle wheelers traveling the mighty river.
He wondered how it had looked to Henry Hudson when that great navigator first sailed by in 1609. Possibly an Algonquin Indian sat on this very spot and watched the passage of that ship, thought Nathanial.
The warm summer sun created an emerald haze while the blue waters flowed steadily to sea. Nathanial saw the relentless passage of history, the transformations of lives and continents, while the river itself offered no judgment.
His sharp frontier officer's eyes detected movement to his right. Another rider came into view a hundred yards away, on a sunny patch of moss and ferns. The rider stepped down from his horse, then looked around suspiciously. He had blond hair, stood with his hands on his hips, and stared at the river for a long time.
Nathanial felt like a voyeur, but didn't want to disturb the other fellow's meditation. Then, with his back to Nathanial, the rider removed his shirt. He turned around, and Nathanial was shocked to realize that the rider was a woman in man's clothing!
She arranged her shirt upon the ground, then lay upon it, to sun herself. Silently, as if Apaches were in the vicinity, Nathanial returned to his horse, removed his brass spyglass from a saddlebag, focused upon his quarry, and his heart quickened as he saw two smallish breasts standing straight up, blond hair cascading about her head. A nymph of the woods, he thought, licking his chops. He'd spent the previous night with Patricia, but the girl with bare breasts shook him to the depths of his being, perhaps because she imagined she was alone.
Nathanial realized that he was salivating like a hound dog. He felt ashamed of himself as he led his horse away from the clearing. There are some splendors a man should never see, especially if they encourage conduct unbefitting an officer.
Wickiups stood empty and abandoned as Mimbrenos packed their few belongings onto horses and mules. One faction, under Mangas Coloradas and Victorio, would head west toward the Chiricahua Mountains, while the rest would follow Cuchillo Negro to Fort Thorn, where they'd try to live in peace with the Pindah-lickoyee.
There was much embracing and crying, for families were coming to the parting of the ways. Brother was separated from father and daughter from sister. It was a great tragedy for the People, but no one could reconcile opposite positions.
Finally the time came to move on. Cuchillo Negro and Mangas Coloradas embraced, for they'd been friends and warrior brothers practically all their lives. There was nothing more to discuss, for the fine points of disagreement had been debated in council many times. Cuchillo Negro believed in peace, while Mangas Coloradas knew it was impossible.
A red-tailed hawk floating on updrafts watched the strange spectacle below, as a group of two-leggeds split in half, one headed toward the land where the sun arose, the other to where it set. At the head of the Western group, Victorio rode beside Mangas Coloradas. The subchief's heart was heavy, for he knew that the people were
weakened by the loss of Cuchillo Negro's band.
“Do not despair,” said Mangas Coloradas, lifting his great mane of gray hair. “The People will survive this.”
Victorio stiffened his spine and held his chin higher. “I fear a terrible outcome for Cuchillo Negro. His heart is for peace, but the White Eyes are murderers.”
“The White Eyes have not yet invaded the Chiricahua Mountains, and perhaps never will. But if they do, the combined warriors of the Chiricahuas and Mimbrenos surely will stop them. I have seen it in dreams.”
“Do we defeat them, great chief?”
“That I was not permitted to see.”
Mangas Coloradas and his foremost disciple rode side by side, the mountain breeze cool on their bare chests as the Mimbrenos retreated from the land promised them by their gods.
Cortlandt Lake was a mile long and a half mile wide, fed by streams and springs, owned by the Rutherford family. Several members had built elaborate log cottages on cliffs overlooking the lake, while other cottages were at the water's edge.
It was late afternoon when Nathanial arrived at Uncle Jasper's compound. He'd spent summers here as a child, learning to swim, playing soldier among elm and maple trees, and paddling an old Algonquin canoe.
A wiser Nathanial left his horse with a servant, slung his saddlebags over his shoulder, and headed for his mother's cottage. Well-rested and stone cold sober, Nathanial intended to continue healing amid the balm of green leaves and clear lake water.
The front door of the cottage opened, then two young men appeared on the porch. Nathanial wondered whether they were servants, but was jolted by the realization that they were his brothers! He stopped in his tracks, while they stared at him as if he were an apparition, for this was their heroic older brother who'd fought in the Mexican War, the idol of their young lives.
Nathanial shook hands with both of them, then lied, “I've thought of you often. I trust you're doing well in school?” He cocked an eye, like the commanding general before his stripling brothers.
“I've applied to West Point,” blurted out Jeffrey, a hale and hearty lad of sixteen, with curly blond hair. “Did you know that General Scott is coming to the party?”
Nathanial thought his heart would stop, because General Winfield Scott was the real Commanding General of the U. S. Army. “How come?”
“He's visiting with friends in Dobbs Ferry, and he knows Uncle Jasper. They say he loves to eat.”
Nathanial harbored one primary ambition: to swap the single silver bar of first lieutenant for the twin silver bars of a captain. “I look forward to meeting the general,” he said. “And I understand many pretty girls will be in attendance as well. Has anybody told you two rascals about women, and how babies are made?”
The boys looked at each other and laughed. “Of course,” replied Jeffrey.
“Have you ever . . . ?”
“Sure,” stated Tobey, black-haired and lean, also sixteen. “Uncle Jasper took us to a place on Mercer Street.”
As he took me, thought Nathanial. My God. “Well,” he said cheerily, “I'm sure we have a lot to talk about.”
They sat on the front porch of their mother's cottage. Nathanial glanced about nervously, but no words came to mind. These were his brothers, not fellows he'd met in a Santa Fe cantina. He wanted to impart his hard-earned knowledge to them, although he wasn't certain he'd learned anything.
Jeffrey smiled. “Relax, Nathanial. There's nothing you have to do here. Let's have some liquid refreshment.” He snapped his finger.
An Irish manservant appeared around the corner of the porch. “And what might I get you boys?”
“Would you have a gin sling?” asked Nathanial, who then noticed expressions of disapproval on his brothers’ faces. “No—make that lemonade instead.”
The servant walked off with the order, reminding Nathanial of his Irish soldiers at Fort Union. He wondered how they were getting along without him.
Tobey looked his older brother up and down. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Getting better every day.”
“How'd it happen?”
Nathanial wanted to remain flippant, but caught a flash of the hell that had been Embudo Canyon. His throat tightened as he recalled the arrow piercing Lieutenant Davidson's chest. “An ambush,” he said gruffly. “I happened to be in the wrong place.”
The boys looked at each other significantly, then leaned forward. “How does it feel to be in a real battle?” asked Jeffrey.
“After you're in the Army awhile, you perform your duties by the numbers.”
Tobey shook his head incredulously, just as he had in his bitter days as a street urchin. “Why join the Army in the first place? I don't understand the both of you. I prefer to make my contribution in The Law, because you can't have civilization without law.”
“You can't have law without the Army,” Nathanial reminded him. “Those who disapprove of soldiers and armies generally change their minds when threatened by outside forces. The people in New Mexico love the Army because we keep the Apaches off their backs.”
“Is Santa Fe much of a town?” asked Tobey.
Nathanial smiled as he recalled his years at Fort Marcy. “Santa Fe is mostly saloons and cantinas. The climate is pleasant but it's filled with the worst criminals in America, and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody was getting killed there even as we speak.”
Private Fletcher Doakes walked through the mess hall serving line, holding out his tin plate. Orderlies on the other side served him bacon, beans, bread, and the usual mug of thick black coffee. He carried the meal to a vacant table and sat by himself.
The tables were lined carefully, with salt and pepper shakers in their appropriate positions. Everything was neat, clean, organized, and best of all, as headquarters clerk, he never had to pull mess hall duty. He ate his food in small bites, as his mother had taught him, and wondered if she'd be proud to know he was a soldier.
Occasionally he imagined he was normal, provided he didn't think about dead women. He was tired of army rigarmarole and wanted to go where he could kill with impunity. They say a life isn't worth an enchilada down Mexico way, he thought. Maybe I should head south, where nobody knows me.
He'd escaped the gallows of Santa Fe, but one man was on his trail. Should I desert? wondered the stranger. The bloodlust was coming on again, Doakes's hand trembled, his eye developed a tic. He barely recovered from one murder when compulsion to commit another started arising.
“Mind if I sit down?” asked a voice above him.
Doakes was jolted by the sight of Sergeant Berwick. “Go right ahead, First Sergeant,” he said with a smile.
Sergeant Berwick lowered his tin plate to the table. “I've been thinking about you, Doakes. You're the kind who minds his business but always ends in trouble.”
“Ain't it the truth?” asked Doakes. “If I'd been the usual drunken son of a bitch, it never would've happened.”
“I knows what you mean. Some of these lawmen, you pin a badge on ‘em, they think they own the world.”
Doakes noticed his tail whipping around on the floor. He couldn't understand why the sergeant didn't see it writhing in front of his eyes.
The sergeant examined Doakes's face and it appeared that Doakes was struggling to keep his cork from popping. The sergeant knew the feeling, having popped a few himself over the years.
“Are you all right, Doakes?” he asked gently. “Yer sweatin’ like a horse that just run ten miles.”
“Hot in here,” replied Doakes, fighting rising panic. He's seen through my mask, he realized.
“What's it like where you're from?”
Now he's researching my past, reckoned Doakes. Well, I'll give him the ride of his life. “It gets pretty hot this time of year.”
“What town?”
“I lived in lots of towns.”
“How come?”
“Ask my daddy.”
“Where's he now?”
Doakes narrowed his ey
es as he looked at the sergeant. “With all due respect, I thought it's bad manners to ask about a man's past.”
“A good worker comes along, I can't help wonder how he got that way.”
“My father was a minister,” lied Doakes. “He taught me right from wrong.”
“And your mother?”
“I'll never forget her after a performance . . . ah, I mean, after one of my father's sermons. Her face fairly seemed to glow, like an angel.”
“Sounds like you loved her very much.”
“She was everything to me, but she died.”
“How?”
“Just wasted away, and in the end she was nothing but skin and bones.”
The tail flicked on the floor. What am I talking about? wondered Doakes, his private world undermined by the questions of the Sergeant. “What about your mother?”
“Ran off with a hardware salesman when I was four years old.”
Doakes brought his last crust of bread to his mouth, for he'd been eating frantically throughout’ the conversation to provide an excuse for leaving. “I've got boots to shine,” he said nervously. “Nice talking with you, First Sergeant.”
Doakes fled toward the dish bucket, not daring to look back. I'll bet that damned ranger has put a bug into his ear. Doakes dropped his plate into the bucket, surprised to see a face looking at him from within the suds. It was his mother, screaming as he stuck the knife into her belly. His hair stood on end as his heart stumbled in his breast. Glancing sharply away, he headed for the door.
Doakes crossed the parade ground swiftly, imagining Sergeant Berwick watching from the windows of the mess hall. The killer turned a corner and found the gloom behind the stable. He sat on the ground, shivered, and scratched his arms, wishing he could vanish.
Chapter Fifteen
The sun dropped behind the Shinnemunk Mountains as Nathanial's head broke the surface of Cortlandt Lake. It was late afternoon, he could smell meat roasting on the grounds of his uncle's estate, and many guests already had arrived for the celebration.
