Cut Hand

by Mark Wildyr

  The shock of finding Otter and Cuthan well educated prompted a request from the Jacobsens to teach their children. Otter and I readily agreed, and friendships budded.

  In time, a romance did as well. Using Cuthan’s forged baptismal certificate, I saw him married to Mary Jacobsen at the Methodist Church in Fort Ramson, which was the name of the town as well as the army post.

  Chapter 24

  I AM not certain when I first felt the thing within me, but I saw looks of consternation on Otter’s face long before we spoke of it.

  “What is it, Joseph Otter?” I demanded one day.

  “Why are you not eating? You are losing weight.”

  “I don’t know. I have no appetite… except for you.”

  “Hush, the children will hear you.”

  “You are becoming a prude, Otter.”

  “There were not whites in the house before. Now we have a white woman tending our Cuthan’s manly needs, and we have three muddied little things that can’t decide whether to grow up looking like their handsome father or their pretty mother. And it is not proper to speak of such things to your servant.”

  “Oh, Otter, I wish I could stand on the walls of the fort and proclaim how dear you are to me.”

  “You cannot, so don’t talk foolishness. Act like a proper wife for once.”

  “I never have. Why should I start now I’m near fifty years old?”

  THE PAIN did not come until the following spring. By then I knew a canker feasted on my heart and liver and kidneys… my pluck. Otter plied me with tonics to ease my discomfort. When they gave only limited relief, he grew melancholy until we stood at the little graveyard one day. He looked at me with understanding in his eyes.

  “You will see them again, Billy.”

  “If there’s a God in heaven, I will.”

  “Will you give them my love?”

  “Yes. I will tell them what a fine man you came to be. How you rogered me with the best of them and kept me content for twenty years.”

  “Twenty years. So long, but not so long.” He looked around the homestead and watched the children playing happily. “I will miss you.”

  “And I you.”

  “I will come to you soon.”

  “Not before your time.” I nodded in the direction of Cuthan and his wife working the sourdough keg on the porch. “They may need you yet.”

  “When you are gone, I’ll be more of a danger than a help.”

  “Otter, you’ve got to promise me you won’t—”

  “I will wait for my time,” he assured me, a hand on my arm. “Besides, you’re not gone yet.”

  “I soon will be, husband. Who will you turn to?”

  “No one. There is no one after you.”

  “You are a man in his prime. You need someone.”

  “Past that, I think.” He patted his flat, muscled stomach.

  “I wish…. Never mind.”

  “I would fuck you, wife,” he said in a steady voice. “Now.”

  “You’ll have to lock the door. The children….”

  “The children will be fine. It is I who needs looking after at this moment.”

  “Then let’s go look after you,” I said, trying to hide a sudden pain. He was not fooled, but he was a magician, caressing me, teasing my flesh, expunging the discomfort with his manhood. He flanked the seed plumb out of me, proving how much of a man he really was.

  I WAS tired… physically tired and weary of pain, but there was still something to be accomplished. The Jacobsens brought word of trouble in the east. This war I had prattled about foolishly for thirty years seemed about to become a reality. A few days later, as Otter lay panting at my side, I reached over to stroke his beautiful flesh.

  “I must go to Yanube City. And it has to be tomorrow, I think.”

  He sat up immediately. “You’re not up to the trip, Billy. Is it something I can do for you?” Characteristically, he put up no fuss when I shook my head.

  Otter would not permit me to sit Arrow but took me in the buckboard. His decision proved wise when I spent a good deal of time lying in the bed of the rough contraption. He hazed all night, never stopping until we reached the town with my insides well scrambled. Before retiring to a room at the Rainbow and resting to husband the strength I would need, I sent a message to the fort asking James to visit me that evening.

  He came, and the shock of my appearance was plainly stamped on his face. “Billy!” he exclaimed.

  “It’s all right, James. I’m all geed up, but at the moment I’m resting comfortably. Otter brought me. Drove straight through from the Mead. Sleeping in the livery with the wagon right now, I imagine.”

  “Damnation! I’ll get him a room.”

  “No need to stir up that kind of fuss. He’s fine where he is. It’s you I’m worried about. Tell me what’s happening out there in the big world.”

  “It’s as you’ve been predicting. President Pierce wasn’t able to settle the slavery question better than anyone else, and it got worse under Buchanan. The Supreme Court struck down the Missouri Compromise with the Dred Scott Decision in 1857. In ’59, a crazy zealot named John Brown attacked the US Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. He got hanged for his trouble, but it stirred up both sides. Last year Abraham Lincoln was elected president on the Republican ticket. South Carolina seceded from the Union claiming the Doctrine of States Rights. In April their troops captured the US Arsenal at Charleston. It looks as if most of the slave states will join them. Might have already happened.”

  “So it’s full-scale war, isn’t it? What will you do, James?”

  “Resign my commission and accept one in the Army of Virginia.”

  “Are you so anxious to ruin your career and give your life for those same bastards who raped you all through school? Tell me, James, if you’ll permit a personal question, what happened to your father’s plantation when he died?”

  “It’s mine now. My brother’s running it. I haven’t seen it for years.”

  “The North will win. You know that, don’t you? They have the men and industrial capacity. And they have right on their side.”

  My friend bristled. “Are you so certain?”

  “Aren’t you? You’re a smart man, James. You understand the military. A lot of boys are going to die and be maimed for life because one power structure wants to preserve a corrupt way of commerce that deals in human beings.”

  “It makes no difference if they lose. It is a matter of honor.”

  “Listen to yourself. You sound like that shock-pated youth I first saw almost twenty-eight years ago. Idealism! What’s that ever got anybody except dead? James, sit out the war right here. You’re needed to counteract the Smiths of the army. The War Office will realize you come from Virginia. They will not want you back there, so they’ll leave you here where you can do some good. Think, man. Your brother will be a Virginian for you. If the South wins, he can protect the plantation. If it’s the North, salvage something for them.”

  We argued far into the night. Exhausted and in a great deal of pain, I kept doggedly to my pretenses, wearing him down. James agreed to consider the thing carefully before doing anything rash. Before taking his leave, he helped me to bed and planted a kiss on my numb lips. I whispered weakly for him to stop at the livery and have Otter come for me in the morning.

  I drank up my supply of laudanum like some poor sot guzzling strong drink, but it did not keep the beast that was feeding on my bosom at bay. The next morning Otter insisted I rest a bit longer while he found me something to eat. To my consternation, he dawdled away a good portion of the day, but I must have slept because he woke me to load my carcass aboard the wagon.

  My mate drove to the bank where Banker Crozier—and I now realize I do not recall his Christian name—came to the wagon to serve me himself. I closed my account to restore my hoard of gold and silver coins for Otter’s use. I then said goodbye to Caleb Brown, selling him my interest in the fur trade. Ben Bowers had to do with a short, sa
d goodbye. Abraham Kranzmeier had passed on years ago.

  At nightfall I asked Otter to halt the wagon. I wanted to star-pitch beneath the big Comanche moon one last time.

  “Isn’t it beautiful, my love?” I whispered as we lay side by side gazing at an incredible display of stars and lustrous gasses dominated by an immense Big Dipper, which he called the Seven Persons. “I have slumbered beside Cut Hand and Lone Eagle under the welkin, but you and I have never slept beneath the stars. I wonder why that is?”

  “It does not matter, because we are doing it now. Are you strong enough to accept me?”

  “If you’re strong enough to give it.”

  “Hah! You will see. I will show you.”

  In truth, my conscious self visited elsewhere during a part of the thrumming, although I stayed with him as much as possible. I would not have much more of this handsome man, and I strained to take what enjoyment of him I could.

  “The best ever!” he lied gallantly when he finished. He laid his head on my chest, and I stroked his white man’s haircut, longing for the long locks of his youth. What had I done to earn the love of such a man?

  THAT WAS yesterday. Today, Otter brought me home to Teacher’s Mead and wanted me to go to bed, but there were other things to do. First, I set out the final words in my journal, completing it with the notation as follows:

  William Joseph Strobaw, also known as Teacher and the

  Red Win-tay to the People of the Yanube, this final day of October,

  Year of our Lord 1861, at Teacher’s Mead on the Upper Yanube

  Thereafter, I said goodbye to my tall, handsome, well-formed son and his wife and three stairstep children. I gave them the hard chink from the sale of my fur venture, specie sufficient to see them through a few years, although the farm would provide all they needed. This fine Indian man and his white wife and blood children would be affluent beyond most people in the territory. I prayed to God they would be able to conceal that fact, and told them so.

  I asked Otter to help me to my bed, where he lay beside me while I uttered my farewell to him. That took some time and all of my strength. Above all, I wished him to understand what he meant to me, how dearly I held him. When that was done, I thought over the words I set down in the tome clutched to my aching chest and decided there were too many secrets for it to survive. I told Otter I would toss it into the fire—tomorrow.

  Epilogue

  October 1862, Teacher’s Mead on the Upper Yanube

  MAJOR JAMES Carleton Morrow closed the journal and stared at the cover. Yes, the tome should likely be fired to preserve the secrets it revealed. But it also told the personal histories of remarkable men and women. It portrayed a time never again to be seen on the Great Plains. It encapsulated the wisdom of this man called Teacher. Sighing, he withdrew the journal from the fireplace.

  Billy Strobaw’s prophecy was proving itself at this very moment. The United States was rending itself to pieces in a terrible war. The Confederates whipped the Union at Manassas and seemed to be winning everywhere. Yet there was no doubt Billy would also be right about the final outcome he’d predicted from his sick bed a year ago.

  James rose from the kitchen table and strode to the porch of the sturdy building. He studied the handsome Indian father as he and his two young sons vamped a plow, making one serviceable by salvaging parts from another. The wife, well along with her fourth, shelled peas and instructed her daughter in the art of food preservation. James knew Billy talked him into staying at his post to help protect the inheritance of these people. It was a good and honorable purpose, and he would do what he could.

  He stepped from the porch and joined Otter, standing at the fence of the little graveyard. It was difficult to tell from the erect carriage the man carried forty and one years. James read the rough stones used to mark the graves. Lone Eagle, a Warrior. Butterfly Strobaw, Wife of William Joseph Strobaw. Cut Hand, Peace Chief of the Yanube. William Joseph Strobaw, Teacher.

  James moved to the Indian’s side. “Otter, I am tired. Before long, I am resigning my commission, war be damned, and retiring to some acreage north of the fort. I don’t suppose you would come with me?”

  THE DARK, handsome warrior surveyed the length and breadth of Teacher’s Mead through large, liquid eyes before turning to the army officer. Joseph Otter now understood what his beloved Billy meant when he said, “I wish….”

  “Yes, James. I will come.”

  MARK WILDYR is an Okie by birth and New Mexican by choice who turned a childhood interest in Native American cultures into a career. His seven published novels and approximately sixty short stories detail how attitudes toward homosexuals—who once held places of honor among some of the tribes—began to change upon the coming of the white man, with his suspicion and fear of those who are “different,” ultimately becoming pariahs even among their own people as the Europeans became dominant.

  Wildyr continues to be fascinated by how different people interact together to discover who they are when measured against others. He gives back to his community by teaching a free writing class at an Albuquerque community center.

  Website and blog: markwildyr.com

  Email: markwildyr@aol.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

  Twitter: @markwildyr

  By Mark Wildyr

  Cut Hand

  Published by DSP PUBLICATIONS

  www.dsppublications.com

  Published by

  DSP PUBLICATIONS

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  www.dsppublications.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cut Hand

  © 2017 Mark Wildyr.

  Cover Art

  © 2017 Maria Fanning.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact DSP Publications, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dsppublications.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-63533-759-4

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-760-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905542

  Published October 2017

  v. 2.0

  First Edition published by STARbooks Press, 2010.

  Printed in the United States of America