by Marc Graham
As I led the team toward the fire, Dave emerged from the darkness. He didn’t say a word as he headed straight for the water’s edge, where he knelt to rinse his knife and the hatchet in the pure stream. I let him make his peace while I gathered our packs and lashed them together in a makeshift saddlebag.
The ponies didn’t seem to mind the new arrangement, so I chose the bay and the larger palomino for riding, fashioning crude halters from the rope. I put a lead around the third pony’s neck and set the bags on her back. By the time Dave joined me at the fire, the pony train was ready to set out.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Dave jammed the Bowie into its sheath on his belt and handed me a pair of tomahawks.
I choked back a gag as I took a last look at the charnel-house scene, then stripped the bodies of their remaining weapons and tucked them into the packs.
“What about your cane?” Dave asked as he swung onto the back of the palomino.
I looked to where the warrior hung from the hickory stick.
“I’ll manage without.”
Dawn had gathered on the horizon by the time we reached the muddy banks of the Missouri River and turned north. The fourth pony had found us during the night, and it was with two mounts and two pack animals that we rode into Nebraska City just before noon.
The freight town’s streets were clogged with people and livestock and wagons, all part of the mammoth effort of moving goods from the industrial East to the burgeoning West. In addition to the household goods needed to settle the plains—and the military supplies to protect those settlements—were tons of steel rails and wooden timbers awaiting shipment upriver to Omaha and the ribbon of track that stretched westward from there.
As we passed through the crowded streets, pedestrians and teamsters pressed against one another to make room for us, their faces mixed with curiosity and horror. I was too tired from the all-night ride to pay much mind, and it wasn’t until we reached the livery yard that I chanced a look back toward Dave—and understood the reasons behind the attention.
We’d not stopped along the way any longer than to water the ponies. The war paint was still bright on the animals’ breasts and flanks and legs and heads, symbols of power in bold, savage colors. More savage was Dave’s appearance, his clothes thickly smeared with black veins of dried blood, smaller spatters on his face and hat. I looked down at myself and, judging from the front of my shirt, my own appearance was no less frightful.
“Sixty for the pair of ’em,” the hostler offered for the pack ponies when we reached the livery.
“Seventy-five,” Dave countered. “These here are genuine Pawnee war horses. You can sell each one for that price, easy.”
The other man scratched at a grizzled jowl and smacked toothless gums impatiently.
“Sixty,” he repeated, “and I won’t charge you for washing the damned paint off them.”
“Done,” I agreed before Dave haggled us out of the sale. “And, if you’d point us toward a fair outfitter and a room, we’d be much obliged.”
As the liveryman counted out the bills, he gave us directions to a general store where we’d find a good bargain on tack and supplies, and an honest hotel that offered hot baths and clean beds.
“And, unless you want them for souvenirs,” he said, indicating our packs, “I’ll give you five dollars apiece for them hatchets.”
“Deal.” I eased the pack off my shoulder and fished out two tomahawks as Dave did the same.
The man licked hungrily at cracked lips as he eyed the ugly weapons.
“I—I don’t reckon you took the scalps, eh?”
A wave of revulsion washed over me, and I threw down the blades at the man’s feet.
“Five dollars each,” I growled, sickened at taking the blood money.
“Just asking, Chief,” he said. “There’s plenty enough folks around here that’s lost kin to those savages. More still that’s heard the stories. I reckon you could turn a pretty penny if you was to pawn a sure-enough redskin pelt.”
“We’ll just be stabling with you overnight,” I said, changing the subject. “See you first thing in the morning.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. He stooped to pick up the weapons, then thumbed one of the blades, crusty with dried blood.
I turned away and limped out the gate, onto the rough-planked boardwalk and toward the general store. At first taken aback by our appearance, the shopkeeper warmed to us when we showed him our bankroll and gave him the list of supplies and goods we needed. Accepting a deposit of half the total bill, he promised to have the saddles and harnesses delivered to the stables before we left.
“Can you point us to the Seymour House?” I asked after we’d made our arrangements.
“Seymour?” he scoffed. “You fellows don’t want to go there. Oh, it’s a fit enough place for river rats and farm boys still with shit between their toes. Gents like you—present appearances aside—would be far more comfortable at the Cincinnati House. Brand spanking new, and the rooms are still cheap. Trying to put the squeeze on old Seymour,” he added with a conspiratorial wink.
“Corner of Eighth and Otoe,” he said as he led us out the door and pointed the way. “This here is Fifth. You go three blocks up and two blocks left. I send my boy up there every so often, so if you need anything, just leave word with Mister Bagley and we’ll get you all squared away.”
Following his directions, we arrived at the massive, wood-framed building. As we approached, a small black boy emerged from a side door on the alley followed by a man in a long-tailed suit. On seeing us, the boy’s eyes went wide. He turned on his heels and scampered down the alley away from us. The man, however, put on a smile and came toward us.
“You must be the gentlemen Mister Naisbitt sent to us. Mister Perkins?” He extended his hand and Dave shook it. “Which would make you Mister Robbins, yes? Splendid. I am Phillip Bagley, maître d’hôtel. Please, come this way.”
He led us through the alley door to a well-appointed office.
“We are delighted to have you gentlemen staying with us,” he said. “You will understand, of course, that your entering through the lobby in your current condition might arouse more attention than you would otherwise wish. Please, do have a seat.”
He pointed us to a pair of overstuffed chairs, then tugged on a bell cord and pulled a pair of keys from his desk drawer.
“Your rooms are prepared,” he said, “and I have hot baths being drawn for each of you. Also, Mister Dodge has asked that you be his guests at dinner this evening at eight.”
“General Dodge?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. Word has already spread of your unusual arrival, and the general is eager to meet you. Ah, Master Luke,” he said as a young man dressed in the hotel’s livery knocked on the door and stepped inside. “Be so good as to take these gentlemen’s things to their rooms.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy replied, taking the keys from the man and not seeming to notice our bloody appearance.
“Master Luke will be at your service during your time with us,” Bagley said. “Once you are settled in, we’ll see to laundering your clothes. Have you a replacement set?”
We both shook our heads.
“Then allow me to see to that.” He closed the door and spoke to us in a lower voice. “Ours is a proper establishment, gentlemen, but we pride ourselves on anticipating our guests’ every need. Should you require any . . . shall we say, assistance while bathing, or to facilitate your rest, I shall be happy to make suitable arrangements.”
It’d been more than a year since Dave’s last visit with the Higgins sisters, so I was surprised when he shook his head.
“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” he said.
“Very well,” Bagley said. “Now, if you’ll follow me.”
The innkeeper led us from his office, up three flights of stairs—which I managed with increasing difficulty—and down a long hallway before stopping at a pair of corner rooms. “The view from these rooms is
not our finest but, being above the alley, they will be the quietest at this time of day.” He handed us each a key and shook our hands again. “If you have need of anything else, please let me or Master Luke know. Good day, gentlemen.”
I shared a questioning look with Dave, then shrugged, stepped into my room and closed the door behind me. I stripped off my bloody clothes and sank into the canvas tub. Steaming water leached the pain from my muscles and joints, but could do nothing for the ache that continued to squeeze my heart.
At length, I rose from the tub, toweled myself off and fell naked on the soft bed. I pulled the watch from my bag and flipped open the cover, then set it on the nightstand. With Gina’s smile emblazoned on my eyelids, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I awoke with a start, and it took several moments to remember where I was. A low-burning lamp had been placed on the night-stand while I slept, and I turned up the wick. The light revealed a new suit of clothes hung by the toilet stand. I was still puzzled by Bagley’s hospitality, but would have to save the questions for later. My watch already read 7:30, so I hauled myself stiffly out of bed and hurriedly dressed.
As I looked in the mirror, the image was that of a younger man in a different suit, one I’d worn on my first night with Gina so many years before. I could feel her touch, smell her scent, hear the song of her voice. My heart and mind faltered, and when I came to my senses again, I found myself sobbing on the floor by the bed, rocking back and forth as I hugged my knees to my chest.
A knock sounded on the door, and I checked my grief and wiped my eyes with my palms.
“Yes?” was all I could manage.
“You about ready?” I heard Dave’s voice say.
“Sure. Just give me a second.”
I eased off the floor, then wiped my eyes and blew my nose on a handkerchief. I straightened my suit in the mirror, and gathered my watch. Gina’s image caught my eye again, and I fought to stay in the present. I took a deep, shuddering breath as I stroked the sepia-toned cheek, then pried the thick paper from the lid. I held the tintype in the palm of my hand and studied the features one last time before closing my fist around it.
“If you love me, you’ll let me go,” I said in a hoarse whisper.
The words wrenched my heart no less than the first time they’d been spoken. I steeled my resolve, straightened my shoulders and dropped the crumpled photograph down the oil lamp’s chimney. The paper flared brown and gold, and a thin column of black smoke marked the funeral pyre of my love, my hope.
“How’d you sleep?” Dave asked as I stepped into the narrow hallway.
“I slept,” I said. “That’s enough.”
“I hear that,” he replied. “What do you make of all this, anyway?”
“No idea,” I admitted as we turned down the stairway.
The answer came as we stepped into the lobby. The room was packed with men and women dressed to the nines.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Bagley addressed the room, “our heroes.”
The crowd cheered and applauded enthusiastically, and we were instantly surrounded and pebbled with questions.
“How many were there? Are they truly red? Did you take any scalps? I hear they ride naked.”
“Don’t I know you?” a gruff voice boomed, and the pressing crowd parted to make way.
Grenville Dodge no longer wore a soldier’s uniform. There was no mistaking his military bearing, though, and his manner still made people jump to obey. He approached us, a burning cigar in one hand and a snifter of brandy in the other.
“Yes, sir,” I acknowledged with a grin. “I had the pleasure of sitting in lodge with you back in sixty-two, just before—”
“Pea Ridge,” he finished for me.
“At Elkhorn Tavern, yes, sir.”
“You came across the creek with the others,” he said. “Helped convince us you all were still camped across the way. Mighty fine strategy, taking us in the rear like that.”
“I’d like to say it was my doing, sir, but it was all General McCulloch’s idea.”
“Might’ve worked, too, if you hadn’t run short on ammunition.”
His eyes glinted as he took a sip of brandy. I thought back to that second day at Elkhorn Tavern, to the short stores of artillery rounds, the news of the supply wagons being sent back to Bentonville, the Confederate retreat that shortly followed.
“That was my idea,” he added.
“This, too?” I asked, indicating the new suits and crowded lobby.
“No, I have to say the credit for all this goes to our host, Mister Bagley.” He drew on the cigar and leaned toward us, letting his words float on a puff of smoke. “I daresay he’ll make more than enough on drinks and dinner tonight to pay for a pair of suits. Now, then,” he said, stepping back and including the entire room in the conversation, “from what I hear, I could have used you men up in the Black Hills. How many savages were there? Eight? Ten?”
“Four,” I replied dully.
He raised an eyebrow at that.
“Even so,” he said, “two-to-one odds is nothing to buck at.”
“Four-to-one, till Jim showed up,” Dave pitched in, stepping up to the role of carnival barker. “And, let me tell you, it was none too soon.”
While Dave wove his tale, I slipped through the crowd toward the bar.
“Rye,” I ordered.
“Same,” Dodge said as he joined me. “Your friend is quite the story-teller.”
“He is that,” I agreed.
“And what of you, Mister Robbins?”
“Jim, sir,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’ve been a blacksmith, a surveyor, a gunner. A story-teller I’ve never been. Frankly, I’m not sure what I am now.”
Dodge nodded thoughtfully at that and studied me with sharp eyes. Our drinks came and he tipped his glass to me before taking a sip.
“I leave for Omaha tomorrow to start driving that pig of the Union Pacific westward. Tell me, Jim—what do you know about railroading?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lincoln County, Nebraska—September 1867
I shifted in my saddle and urged Rigel onward, galloping into a night lit only by the half moon and a dozen torches. Scouts had reported a band of Cheyenne camped on railroad lands. Colonel Sperling, General Dodge’s right-hand man in charge of railroad security, had sent us to evict the squatters.
I’d wondered aloud why the mission couldn’t wait for morning, but the colonel’s wilting stare made me bite my tongue.
“I’ll take the men, if you need your beauty rest,” my second, Charlie Garrett, had generously volunteered.
Veiled insult aside, I’d seen how Charlie dealt with Indians—or blacks or Chinese or Mexicans—before. The troop would ride with or without me, and my being there to draw a rein on the men would give us a better shot at a peaceful outcome.
As we approached the camp of four tipis pitched around a central fire, our thundering hooves brought warning shouts. Men tumbled out of their shelters to line the small defensive barrier of brush that guarded the entrance to the camp. My riders fanned out from double-column to form a single line, twelve across.
I brought them to a stop a dozen paces from the camp and raised my right hand in greeting.
“Ha-ya-heh,” I said in greeting.
The men kept their rifles and war hatchets visible and their eyes locked on us, but one called over his shoulder, “Pok’ Ho’nehe, hoa’ha.”
An old man—the clan elder, I supposed—answered the summons and stepped from one of the tipis, leaning on an attractive young woman for support. I tried to focus on the pair as they approached, but the flickering of the campfire and the wavering shadows thrown by our torches had a hypnotic effect on me.
At once, the scene resolved into something from a nightmare. The nine Cheyenne men transformed into a mix of Union officers and Pawnee warriors, all with faces painted or streaked with blood. Turquoise and buckskin changed to diamonds and silk and, where the girl and old man had been, I n
ow saw Gina and her father, hands and feet bound as a raging fire inched closer to them.
“Gina!” I shouted.
I drew my revolver and spurred Rigel toward the camp. Without waiting for orders, my men drew their weapons, and shots rang out. The gunfire brought me back to my senses, but it was too late.
Four of the Cheyenne fell in a heap at the entrance to the camp. The other five fell back, while the girl half-supported, half-dragged the old man toward the shelter of the nearest tipi. Even as I shouted for my men to cease fire, more shots tore through the night, and the remaining Indians dropped in a tangle, the big-caliber rifle shots adding to the men’s momentum to drive them headlong into the ground.
I tried to bring order to the chaos, but a dull whoosh flew over my head and I watched helplessly as torches landed among the tipis. The fire quickly spread in the dry buffalo fur, and the skins and support frames quickly took to flame. I shouted again at my men, but there was no stopping the massacre.
Women and children fled from the burning tents, only to be shot down by the riders who now circled the camp like vultures awaiting the next kill. Screams echoed from the tents as the occupants chose the inferno to a bullet.
The horror lasted for what seemed an eternity. One by one, the tipis collapsed as the framing gave in to the flames and turned into funeral pyres for the poor souls left inside.
I drew Rigel closer to the camp, using my hand to shield my face from the raging heat. The horse shook his mane and pawed at the ground as the stench of wood smoke and burning flesh filled the air. The pounding of hooves and the cheers of my men sounded outside the camp, but the only noise that came from within was the rush of the flames.
Bodies lay scattered among the carnage. Some were past recognition as having ever been human. Others—the lucky ones, I supposed—bore little more than a red-ringed hole in their backs to suggest they were anything more than simply asleep.
I scanned the debris for signs of life, moving from one tipi to the next. As I passed the third one, a movement caught my eye and a shape crawled out from the smoking ruin. What had once been a slender, shapely arm was now a blistered, cracked and charred thing that groped to pull the rest of the form from the debris. A silver band on the arm caught my eye, and I recognized it as the one worn by the young woman I’d seen earlier.
