“I figure that’s the best place to start looking.”
Moser wagged his head as they started walking again, both grown cold from the standing. “Still don’t get it. You must have a good reason to wanna—”
“Boatwright told me.”
“Told you what? When did he tell you anything like that? You gotta be getting crazy about this—”
“I’m not crazy!” Hook growled. “Boatwright told me while you was pulling out the clothes for us. Whispered to me that he had good information that was give to him—about that bunch come through here end of last summer. They was talking about heading south and west into the Nations.”
Moser smiled slowly. “Shit, Jonah—if that don’t beat all! This pair of country boys got us something to track now!”
“I don’t believe I heard what you said, Sullivan,” growled Boothog Wiser at the man standing ten feet off as the entire guerrilla camp fell to silence around them.
Mike Sullivan glanced about him for a moment, then drew his shoulders back. “I said: you don’t always got first right to every woman we take.”
“That’s what I thought you said.” Wiser shuffled over to stand beside the frightened dark-skinned Creek woman they had captured earlier that spring morning.
April was half gone, and the men sensed the warmth in their blood, making them randy and ready to mount the first female they had come across after pulling out of the streamside camp, riding on into the timbered mountains in the foggy eastern stretches of Indian Territory. Boothog himself had grown weary of a long and cold winter. And the nigger girl.
They had left her body somewhere back among those limestone caves.
Now Wiser became acutely aware of the way the men stared at his left boot, which concealed the deformed foot. Whenever he caught a man staring, they looked away quickly, almost ashamed. More so afraid.
“Whenever you’re ready to take over, Sullivan—just let me know. I’ll step aside, you think you’re man enough to be second in command to Colonel Usher.”
Wiser slowly stepped behind the frightened, trembling young woman, her broad nose and thick lips betraying her mixed blood. Creek Creole. Black slave blood tainting the Indian purity, he thought, as he ran his hand down the curve of her neck, pushing aside her dress so that he could feel along her smooth shoulder the color of milk and coffee. As he did it, his left hand slipped unseen to the inside pocket he had sewn into his wool mackinaw.
Sullivan appeared buoyed by the clear hostility for Wiser he believed he saw some of the other men show. He took a step forward.
“I figure I’m ready to tell you to step aside, Major. I’m man enough to take over from you—and the rest of the men figure you’ve had too long a turn at the reins on us.”
“They do?” Boothog asked, not looking up, content still to stroke the young woman’s bare shoulder, sensing her shudder with his caress. Like a frightened bird in the palm of his hand … the way he remembered it as a boy, before crushing the life from the tiny bird, sensing the strong muscles and bone resist his grinding crush in those last seconds of fight.
“Go ’head—tell him, fellas.” Sullivan looked from side to side at the rest, almost twenty strong now, and more gathering, curious. Wiser had a few out scouting. “You got tongues—tell the major he’s done and I’m the one to take over for him.”
Wiser looked up. “This true, gentlemen? You all are of one mind with Mr. Sullivan here?”
None of them spoke. Most could not hold Wiser’s gaze as he touched each one of them with his hard, cold eyes.
“You said for me to tell you.” Sullivan took another step closer to Wiser. “Move aside if you don’t want to get hurt.”
“How do you figure I’ll get hurt, Sullivan?”
The big, hard-muscled man laughed, shrill and short. “Every man here knows I’m the best with fists there is. You don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of beating me. You’re … you was just raised with fancier folks, Major. I’d lick you too quickly.”
“I don’t stand a chance, is it?”
“If you want to fight to prove it, so be it,” Sullivan said, starting for Wiser, bringing his hard-boned fists up.
In a blur the pistol hand came out of the coat and fired beside the Creek woman’s elbow, making her shriek as she jerked herself away from Wiser in terror. The black-powder smoke made an ugly stain in the clearing beside her, the way Sullivan’s screech of horror made a blot on Wiser’s ears.
But Boothog had hit the man right where he wanted. He was marksman enough never to miss what he pointed the pistol at.
Sullivan was down, with both hands clamping his thigh where the bullet had plowed through meat and bone. Bright blood seeped between his fingers as he grimaced in pain.
“You there!” Wiser ordered, pointing the pistol. “And you. There, and there. You four—tie him down.” He waited a couple of rapid heartbeats, his own blood pounding in his ears, then hammered back the pistol once more.
“I told you, tie him down!”
Rope came out with hands that struggled over Sullivan.
“Drag him over there,” Wiser commanded. “Tie his hands to those two trees. No, spread him out. Get two stakes for his feet and hurry about it!”
Wiser turned to more than twenty men who were standing, staring at the wounded Sullivan being trussed and shackled.
“You—six of you, get my tent set up now. When I finish with Sullivan, I want to relax in privacy with the squaw.” He waved his pistol and a half dozen bolted from the pack to immediately set to work pulling the canvas wall tent from the back of the high-walled wagon. Wiser turned back and shuffled over to Sullivan.
The man spit at Boothog, then went back to shrieking, begging for help, someone to stop the bleeding from his leg.
“When are you going to learn, Sullivan … or any of you for that matter? When will you learn that it is foolish for me to compete with some of you on the physical plane? I am smarter than all of you put together, and there will never be any question of that. Will there?”
The group muttered their grudging agreement.
“And any of you who ever thinks of trying to prove yourselves smarter than me should come and take a look at Mr. Sullivan.”
Wiser moved closer to the man, stopping at Sullivan’s head. He knelt and pulled a knife from a beaded sheath. It wasn’t a particularly long knife, rather short compared to the bladed weapons the rest of the men wore on their hips. But it was a slightly curved Green River skinning knife, the sort the old fur trappers had used during the heyday of the beaver trade. And Wiser kept it expertly honed.
With a quick flick of his wrist, before Sullivan or the rest realized it, Wiser slicked off a fair-sized chunk of the end of Sullivan’s nose. Blood oozed immediately as Sullivan struggled, shrieking for someone to pull Wiser off.
“An amazing weapon. Centuries old, gentlemen. Man has made himself long knives and short ones, cutlasses and foils and sabers. Yet nothing has ever come along to take the place of one small but well-honed skinning knife.”
Roughly he pushed Sullivan’s head to the side, clamping the man’s cheek down into the dirt with a knee. As the man screamed and thrashed, he delicately sliced off Sullivan’s entire ear. The ground below Sullivan’s cheek was blotting with the free-flowing blood.
“Do you think he’s had enough, gentlemen?”
No one dared answer. He laughed, knowing they were afraid, not knowing how to answer his question. If they said yes, he’s had enough, likely they might be forced to trade places with Sullivan. If they said no, that their fellow freebooter had not yet had enough—then they themselves became accomplices to the bloody torture.
Wiser drew the knife down the length of Sullivan’s chest, slicing open his shirt and opening a narrow ribbon of bloody flesh at the same time. Sullivan’s screeching and thrashing was rising in volume, matched only by the stunned silence of the rest of the onlookers.
“These Indians in this western country have some unique and ra
ther beautiful methods of making an enemy suffer. And, gentlemen—any man who says he is going to disobey me, or thwart my control, is an enemy of mine. Mark my words—the next man who attempts what Mr. Sullivan has tried will end up in far worse shape than what you will see exacted upon this frail mortal. Watch, gentlemen—and heed well the lessons taught you this day.”
With a snap, Wiser turned Sullivan’s head over, grinding the bloody stub of the ear into the dirt while he carved off the other ear. He then went first to one wrist, and the other, gently slashing open the veins just below the hemp rope lashing the man to the trees.
“This where I shot you?” he asked, scooting down to the bleeding thigh wound.
Sullivan was whimpering, occasionally cursing, then begging again for mercy. Just to be left alone.
“I can’t leave you be,” Wiser explained. “You will serve far greater purpose in this moment of pain than the worth of your whole miserable life.” With a balled fist, he smacked the bullet hole, causing Sullivan to arch his back, and thrash the leg in agony.
“Exquisite pain, isn’t it? A lesson, this is—that all pain is itself a lesson, Mr. Sullivan.”
Wiser pricked open the bullet hole in the man’s britches, slashing up and down the trouser leg. Then with the tip of his knife, Wiser began slowly to burrow the knife into the bullet hole itself while Sullivan screeched inhumanly.
He dragged the knife blade from the bullet hole, which now pumped more vigorously.
“The Indians will cut off a man’s balls too, Mr. Sullivan.” He cut at the man’s belt, slashed off the buttons at the fly and yanked up the penis and scrotum, hearing an audible gasp from the rest of the onlookers, wide-eyed and ashen all.
“Are you man enough to live the rest of your life without your manhood, Mr. Sullivan?”
The victim writhed, mumbling incoherently, tears mingling with the blood and dirt smeared on his face.
“I didn’t think so, Mr. Sullivan. You may talk a good game—but you aren’t really as brave as you would make out to be, are you?”
With a quicksilver movement, Wiser dragged the knife blade across Sullivan’s windpipe, watching his victim’s eyes widen as Sullivan began to gurgle and froth.
“That sound is your last breath of air before you die, Mr. Sullivan. I don’t think you worthy enough to live—hardly worthy enough to ride with Jubilee Usher and his chosen Angels. So I’m not going to cut your balls off until you’re dead. Then I’m going to feed them to Colonel Usher’s hounds. And leave you right here for the crows who roost in these trees.”
Wiser wiped the knife blade off on Sullivan’s trousers as the thrashing slowly ceased. Then the victim lay still, silent.
He stuffed the knife back in its scabbard and turned to the group. “Is my tent ready? I so feel like making sport with that nigger squaw now.”
17
Late Summer, 1866
“WHAT YOU FIGURE on us doing now?” Artus Moser asked his cousin.
Jonah Hook’s lips were drawn across his sharply chiseled face in a thin line he dared not break just yet.
Moser swiped a damp bandanna down his face in what had become an automatic gesture here in late July on the southern plains, deep in the eastern part of Indian Territory, also known as the Nations. They stood on the crude covered porch of a trader’s house, one of those who by government license could legally trade with both the civilized and warrior bands assigned reservations here. While he had been glad to see white faces and hear English, the trader to the Creek tribe had nonetheless been less than forthcoming with information.
Here among the gentle timbered hills that formed the Kiamichi Mountains, Moser and Hook had wandered for days, asking their questions, growing more and more frustrated that so few understood their words, even less understood their attempts at crude sign language—anything to make the Creeks understand they were looking for a large band of white horsemen who were carrying along with them a light-haired white woman and three children.
“We can’t stay here, Jonah.”
“What you want from me?” Hook snapped, his cheeks red with more than the sticky heat. Even the leaves of the hardwood trees seemed to seep a damp, oppressive warmth into the heavy air.
“I come here with you—to help you find Gritta, dammit.” Moser kept his voice low as he glanced back through the open doorway, his eyes finding the trader behind his long counter, stirring a breeze before his face with one of those paper fans.
“C’mon—we gotta get away from here.” Hook stepped off the low porch, heading out.
“Where, Jonah? Back home?”
Hook whirled. “We ain’t got no home back there now. Not you. Not me.”
Moser turned as he heard the scrape of the old trader’s stool on the wood floor. The man was coming out of the steamy darkness of his store, then stopped and leaned against the doorjamb, as if he would go no farther into the heat.
“Didn’t realize you boys was on foot. Come all the way down from Missouri, walking, did you?”
“Most of us walked home from the war—lot farther’n that,” Moser replied. He watched the droplet of sweat creep down the old man’s bulbous nose, wondering when it would fall. Instead, it seemed to cling tenaciously there, pendant like a clear jewel the old man wore.
“Man who walks on foot, and goes off searching for someone who rides a horse, can’t really expect to get anywhere.”
Hook came to the step but did not mount to the porch. “Don’t you think we thought of that? They may be ahead of us—way ahead of us … but that don’t mean I gotta give up just ’cause they’re moving faster’n us.”
The trader fanned himself a bit more, moving the clear drop of sweat back and forth until it fell. “I suppose I wanted to be sure of my first impression of you fellas—that you weren’t here to stir these folks up. Enough of that going on, what with the Cheyenne and Kiowa and those Arapaho pushing up against these Creek from the west. Creek just wanna be left alone, you know.”
“We told you why we come here,” Hook said. “And now, since you can’t help us, we’ll be on our way.” He turned from the porch again, but stopped when the trader’s words yanked him around.
“You got any money on you—we can talk about you boys buying some horses.”
Moser nodded, starting to speak, but Hook opened his mouth first.
“What we need horses for, old man? No one knows a thing about this bunch we’ve been trailing out of Missouri. Ever since we crossed the line into the Territories—seems these bastards just up and disappeared like smoke.”
“Wish I could help you there, truly do. But took me years to get the trust of these people. You gotta understand, these Creek been chivied all the way from Alabam’ by white soldiers not that many years ago. Any white man come in here don’t see a welcome sign hung out.”
“Didn’t expect to stay round here long enough to have no one hug me,” Hook said.
“So you won’t be needing the horses, is it?”
“We could use ’em—we just don’t have no money.”
“Neither one of us come home with anything,” Moser replied, knowing it was a lie. He had seen Jonah dig up those few dollars from under that stone in the hearth. But Artus also knew that money had to last them as long as they could stretch it on the necessaries. Right now, a horse was a luxury. But in glancing at his cousin, Moser saw the light had changed in his eyes.
“I didn’t see no horses out in the corral when we come up,” Hook said suspiciously.
“I won’t keep them out where someone can walk off with them,” the trader explained. He pointed the fan off in a general southern direction. “My wife’s people keep them with their stock. Down by their place, a few miles off.”
“That your wife in there, the Injun squaw?”
“She’s Creek—yes.”
“Handsome woman.”
“Give us twelve children through the years. We almost stopped count on the grandchildren,” the trader said with a smile.
“Her people trade for horses?”
“Only if they know you.”
“They know you, don’t they?”
The trader fanned himself, studying Hook over the top of the fan. “So tell me, what you got to trade if you don’t have money?” He eyed their weapons. “That rifle of yours be worth two horses any day, son.”
“I’ll bet it would, old man,” Hook replied caustically. “It ain’t for sale. How you expect a man to survive out here if he don’t have a rifle?”
“You both hefting around big belt guns—”
“The rifle ain’t for sale.”
“Nothing else you want to trade, like them belt guns?”
“You take ’em for two horses?” Moser asked hopefully.
“I’ve got an old mare, fifteen years she is. Give you her for them two belt guns of yours.”
Hook laughed humorlessly. “You’re crazy, old man. We ain’t interested. C’mon, Artus.”
“Maybe there’s something we can—”
“C’mon, Artus.” He kicked off through the red dust that stived up into the heavy, damp air broken by shafts of unrelenting sunshine that broke through the thick-leafed trees.
Moser wanted to say something to the old man, but could not think of anything. He shrugged and leapt off the porch, following his younger cousin. Artus caught up with Jonah at the trees where they penetrated the cooler, heavy air of the forest, following the trail that had brought them here.
“Where we going now?”
“You’re always asking me. Why don’t you tell me where we ought to go.”
Moser thought hard on it, unable to feel right about anything he might suggest. “I don’t know where, now that we lost that bunch.”
“Then you ain’t a bit of help to us, are you?”
“S’pose not.”
“How ’bout if I suggest something then?”
“All right, Jonah. Where we should go?”
“Get us some horses.”
“Where we gonna get some—” He stopped, remembering. “You ain’t thinking of trying to trade them Creek nothing for a couple of horses, are you?”
Jonah shook his head, a crooked smile growing on his face. “I been thinking. We need to find work. And up to Nebraska Territory they’ve got work. But—I also been thinking we can’t walk up there.”
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