Cry of the Hawk jh-1

by Terry C. Johnston

  “A hero you will be, Colonel.”

  He turned to look at Wiser. “Where is it you’ve decided to lead your company of regulars?”

  Boothog was taken aback by the sudden question that shifted the direction of the conversation. But then, Jubilee Usher was like that, adept at keeping men off balance, especially when he suspected those about him were polishing the apple. Usher was not the sort to allow his battalion of Danites to butter him up with false praise. Above all others, Usher knew who he was and needed no man to convince him he was just and righteous. He needed no one to tell him he would soon stand next in line to Brigham Young himself. Jubilee Usher was about God’s work in a pagan land.

  The rest were politicians, even Wiser had to admit that. Those members of the Council and the Quorum who surrounded Young were stodgy politicians, every last one of them trying to outmaneuver the rest. But Jubilee Usher—now here was a man who could command, every bit as powerful as Brigham Young himself. Perhaps that was why Young had dispatched Usher years ago, and gave him far-ranging orders and a free hand for his band of avenging angels.

  Perhaps, Wiser thought more and more on it, perhaps Brigham Young in some way feared the power and charisma and charm of Jubilee Usher.

  Come a day soon, it would be most interesting to see how Young would react to having the powerful man back at his side, seeing how years ago he had ordered Jubilee Usher to kill Jim Bridger with the words, “These mountains are not big enough for the two of us!”

  Wiser brooded on that now, wondering if the valley of the Great Salt Lake where bloomed in glory the City of the Saints would now prove to be too small for Brigham Young and Jubilee Usher.

  “I figure I’ll point them north from here. As I understand from this map we copied from the post commander at Fort Harker, Fort Hays is not that far ahead of us along this river, called the Smoky Hill.” Lemuel strode to the open tent flaps, taking a deep breath of the spring air. “I’ll go due north—with your permission, Colonel. North until I strike the Platte not far from Fort Kearney in Nebraska.”

  “No longer a territory, Major,” said Usher. “It became a state last year as I understand.”

  “Yessir.”

  “You’ll march west from this fort …”

  “Fort Kearney, sir. Yes. We can plan to rendezvous with the others in, say, the second week of July.”

  “That will give you enough time, Major?”

  “It will.”

  “How about my battalion? Have you thought of a route I should take?”

  Wiser took a hobbling step forward. “Perhaps it would be most prudent of you to march your wing on west, along the Smoky Hill. Past Fort Hays, Fort Wallace, and plunge into Colorado Territory, where you can strike north from there, to Fort Sedgwick.”

  “You’ve spoken of it—on the South Platte.”

  “Yes. Northwest of there within easy distance is Fort Laramie. Where we’ll be waiting for you—should we arrive earlier than expected.”

  Usher smiled as he rose from his chair, pacing to the small camp table where waited the cut-crystal decanter. He poured himself another glass of brandy. Savored its aroma, then took a drink, swishing it around in his cheeks. Enjoying it fully.

  “Yes, Major—that’s where Hastings and I will expect to meet up with you … and the lucky man who carries the head of Riley Fordham.”

  Spring seeped out of the land and with it the rains of April, along with the cool days of May. And finally the passing of those first days of June.

  July at last had come to bake the plains.

  And with it the coming of Hastings’s squad of twelve.

  They had inched their way north along the Missouri until reaching the mouth of the Platte River. From there they struck out due west, following the great Platte River Road of the emigrants—those wayfarers of a quarter century moving west before them—bound for California, Oregon, and those Saints on their pilgrimage to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. This dozen trail-weary scouts too were bound for a home most had not seen for many years. A home some had never cast their eyes upon.

  For now, they had pushed all the way to Fort Kearney, Nebraska. More properly, Hastings’s platoon reined up not far from the fort itself, in a little settlement fondly called Dobe Town. Most among the dusty, saddle-galled long-riders found much to their liking in that squalid grouping of saloons, watering holes, whores’ cribs, and even what was touted as an opera house—each structure really nothing more than a mud hut with some sort of storefront, clustered among the others along a rutted main street like some nightmare vision of sod walls and roofs that leaked on occupants when it rained, showered dust on occupants when the plains baked dry with the coming of July.

  July was dry. And growing more than hot with each passing day.

  “Some of us got all tangled up in what Jubilee told us, in that Bible voice of his—how he spoke his Bible words at us,” explained Healy Stamps, one of Eloy Hastings’s reconnaissance platoon, during the long days and nights of their march west from the Missouri River. “Few of us never was Mormons before Colonel Usher come along to save our souls and put our feet on the right road to immortal life.”

  “I s’pose I get a chance to meet the man, this Jubilee Usher—I’ll learn about the hereafter myself,” Jonah replied.

  “You can’t but be caught up in the righteous power of that great man,” Stamps went on, lights glowing beneath his bushy eyebrows. “He is one truly anointed by God—a powerful and mighty elder in the one true church of Jesus Christ in the latter days.”

  “Sounds to me like Usher took you in when no one else would, didn’t he?”

  “Don’t you know it,” Stamps answered enthusiastically. “Back during the war, with nowhere for a loyal Union man to turn but what he didn’t see Secesh on every side of him. I hope you don’t take offense, Hook—you being a old Confederate soldier yourself.”

  “Man does what he damn well believes in, Stamps. I carry no grudges again’ you, or most who fought in blue. I figure you always done what you thought was right, too.”

  “God Himself knows what is right for man. And God not only tells the Prophet Brigham Young, but those the Prophet chooses to ride at Brigham Young’s right hand.”

  “Usher?”

  “God speaks to the colonel all the time.”

  “Usher’s battle plans?”

  “Might say that. What to do, where to go.”

  “And most of all—just who to punish?”

  He grinned widely. “In the name of God, I think you must feel the burning yourself!”

  “Burning?”

  “The burning in the bosom! Don’t you feel it when you’re doing God’s work to stamp out evil on earth?”

  “As one of Brigham Young’s Angels?”

  “As Angels of Jesus Christ in the latter days—our Lord and Savior! As the Prophet said it, and Colonel Usher reminds us—there are few called upon to do the dirtiest of work to prepare the way for the new Kingdom here on earth. Those who take up the sword in the name of Jesus Christ, to smite the evildoers, these will surely be anointed in Zion come the Judgment Day.”

  When Hastings’s platoon arrived, they found more of their number already there to welcome them to the fleshpots of Dobe Town.

  It was a joyous reunion, finding Major Boothog Wiser and his entire company awaiting news from the east. There was backslapping and pump-handle shaking of hands all around, sharing of jokes and stories of the trail and offers to buy a round of drinks for all. And apart from the rest stood the one Jonah took to be Wiser himself—down at the end of the bar, with a bottle all to his own and that custom-made boot at the end of his leg.

  “Who’s the new man, Captain Hastings?” Wiser called out from the far side of the noisy celebration.

  Hook figured Wiser had caught him studying the major. He felt a nudge now and found Hastings at his elbow, prodding him down the bar, through the reveling crowd of horsemen just off the trail. To meet the major himself.

  “This
is a new man I picked up back at the Missouri.”

  “I see, Captain.” He drank a little from his glass, eyes studying Hook over the rim. “Where you from?”

  “Missouri.”

  “You sound Southern.”

  “I am. Born in Virginia.”

  “You fight for the Confederacy?”

  “I did. General Sterling Price.”

  “I knew this Price,” Wiser said. “Fought him myself. Perhaps we were on different sides of a battlefield at one time.”

  “Ain’t likely. War ended early for me. I was captured.”

  “Prisoner, eh? What then? You see the light—and figure the grand republic was worth saving?”

  Hook wagged his head. “Weren’t that way, Major. The Union will take care of itself. I figured the Yankees and their grand republic can just leave me be and let me get on with my life.”

  Wiser grinned slightly and brought the glass from his lips. Then held out his hand. “Lemuel Wiser. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Jonah Hook, Major.”

  “Pleased to have you with us, Jonah. You care to stay with Captain Hastings’s platoon of scouts—and if he wants to keep you with him—that’s fine by me.”

  “By all means, I’d like him to stay with my outfit, with the major’s permission,” Hastings said. “Jonah’s had experience fighting Indians.”

  “Indians?”

  “Sioux and Cheyenne,” Hastings replied to Wiser’s question.

  “Where was that, Jonah?”

  “Out on the Emigrant Road. On the Sweetwater. North Platte. With General Connor’s expedition to Powder River.”

  “My, my,” Wiser said approvingly, glancing quickly at Hastings with a bright light in his eyes. “You just might do to ride back home with us, Jonah.”

  Hook felt the first wings of hope take flight. “Thank you, Major. I was hoping to meet the colonel himself soon too. Heard so much about you both.”

  “You’ve learned of Jubilee Usher?”

  “Yes, Major. Is he with you?”

  Wiser grinned, on his face a benevolent light. “The colonel will meet us at Fort Laramie, Jonah. He has taken a different route.” He looked at Hastings. “And we will all go forth from here to effect that rendezvous with the colonel.”

  “How soon we pulling out, Major?”

  Wiser looked back at Hook. “Captain, we have a few days to spare. And I plan on spending them here. The men with me have rarely had money of late with which to gamble. And when they have had the money—it seems most no longer have the heart to gamble with me.”

  “I take it you like to play cards, Major?” Hook asked.

  “You a gambler, Jonah?” The light brightened behind his eyes.

  “Let’s say I get serious about a game of cards every now and then.”

  “Perfect! Simply perfect!” Wiser called out to the bartender to bring over two more glasses into which he poured drinks of the red whiskey. “Captain Hastings—first a toast to you for enlisting so splendid a recruit as Mr. Hook appears to be.”

  “I figured he’d do, Major.”

  “Indeed.” Wiser studied this new recruit. “Any man who believes the U.S. government should damn well stay out of the affairs of its citizens—especially the religious affairs of a growing population—that man should do well upon our return to Deseret.”

  “This grand republic got no business telling any man how to run his life, Major.”

  “Splendid, Jonah! Just what we have been saying for years now. There is, you are aware, a separation of church and state in the Constitution drafted by our Founding Fathers?”

  “I never knew that. No, Major.”

  “The Founding Fathers knew best—that it was God’s plan that our government should keep its hands off the religious affairs of the people.”

  “I figure the Yankees and their Union ought to just keep hands off of most everything, Major Wiser.”

  Wiser laughed suddenly, a head-rearing, hearty laugh. He clamped a hand on Hook’s bony shoulder. “To think we’ve found a kindred heart, Captain Hastings. In this land of the Gentile heathen, so far from Zion no less. And—a man who loves to gamble to boot!”

  46

  Early July, 1868

  HE WAS THANKFUL the prairie nights cooled off the way they did. As short as that starlit respite was from the growing heat of summer come to sear the high plains.

  Lemuel Wiser sat at the big table with Jonah Hook and the rest, fewer now than when they had started fourteen hours ago that very morning after a breakfast of eggs and potatoes and thick slices of ham with gravy served up by the former army mess cook in his smoky kitchen at the back of this saloon. Good biscuits on the side too, washed down with lots of coffee laced with sipping whiskey.

  “Gets the old heart pumping for the game,” Wiser had cracked as he tore open the first deck of cards for what had been a long, long day that saw players come and go. Very few of his men tried their luck. Soldiers mostly, in Dobe Town from Fort Kearney for a little recreation—some drinking, some gambling, and most surely some treasured but precious few moments behind those doors out back where the powdered chippies plied their trade.

  Army troopers or Wiser’s own soldiers—men always seemed to like the girls better than the gambling. Back there away from things, where a man was no longer self-conscious around his fellow soldiers, where a man could scream and holler and let it all out when the explosion came as he rode one of those fleshy or bony, coffee-colored or alabaster-skinned, whores.

  From time to time men dropped in and out of the game, at times there were more than eight ringing the table with Wiser. At times down to no more than four. Yet the gambler in the soul of the new man kept him at the table. Jonah Hook won a little, lost a little, managing to stay just far enough ahead that he could afford to keep a bottle at his elbow through the last fourteen hours. He poured drinks for the other players and himself, and stayed far enough ahead that he was not driven to carding out like so many of the others who gave up and left, empty-handed.

  Some of those losers stayed to watch. Others went out the door in silence. A few left noisily, grumbling their complaints as to the suspected lack of honesty in the good-looking stranger with the smooth tongue. It was not the first time Lemuel Wiser had heard such complaints, not the first time he had been accused of having an oily tongue or fast, slippery fingers.

  Wiser enjoyed being a gambler in everything he did in life. There was enough boredom after all. And all a man had to do was open his eyes and look around him to see the desperate lives of little men to know that. Long ago, Wiser had promised himself he would not be one of them. He would make things happen, create his own world and along with it create a specific order to that world, mirroring most how he saw himself. So far, he had done well in that regard.

  And with Jubilee Usher now returning to Deseret, it just might mean a promotion for Lemuel Wiser. If Brigham Young took Usher up the ladder, then Wiser would be the natural to step into the vacancy: to lead the Danites. To make of Young’s Avenging Angels what only Lemuel Wiser could make of them. To fashion them in his own image.

  What glory before God and the Saints!

  Yet across the last two hours, with the whiskey growing stale and the cloud of old smoke hung thick about their shoulders, Wiser had steadily lost. Not much each hand. But enough that his winnings were dwindling. Some going here, some there to that soldier. But mostly his money had been dragged across the wide table until it now sat in front of Hastings’s new man.

  “I must say, Jonah—you’ve proved to be quite a good card player.”

  Hook smiled back, cracking that bony face of his with a disarming grin. “Just lucky, I s’pose, Major. Cards is a funny game like that.”

  “Man learns a lot about another man—watching him play cards.”

  Hook peered over his cards, tonguing aside a quid of moist tobacco he was chewing. “That so, Major? What you learned about me?”

  “You’re good, Jonah Hook. One of the best I�
�ve played. Not the best, mind you. Because I’ve never lost to any man before.”

  “Not even Colonel Usher?”

  “I told you! Lost to no man.” He said it a little harsher than he had wanted. But it did not matter. He had spoken.

  Soon enough, Wiser told himself. Soon he would be stepping into Usher’s role—Colonel Lemuel Wiser. A man to be reckoned with—by Saint and Gentile alike.

  For the better part of the next two hours, the cards moved around the table. And the money moved between the last three of them left sitting at the table, in the center of the ring of onlookers who squinted down through the yellow, murky haze, a glow put to the tobacco smoke by the single oil lamp that hung just above their heads. Three remained. Wiser—sweating with more than the heat of this old summer night. An old soldier—who played his cards predictably as a barracks better, conservatively, and well. Jonah Hook—who now had all but a few of Wiser’s dollars on his side of the table.

  “There, Jonah,” Wiser said, feeling a surge of confidence in the strength of his hand. A full house: kings and sevens. Boothog was certain, something in his gut telling him that his luck was about to take a turn for the better. A gambler who wins is a gambler who has to hang in there through a short run of bad luck and bad cards.

  And Wiser knew he was truly a gambler.

  “I’ll raise,” Hook replied, pushing more scrip to the center of the table.

  Wiser watched the money come to the pot, then looked down at what he held in his hand. He studied what money he had left in front of him, next to his whiskey glass. It was as if Hook knew exactly how much it would take to wipe him out. And he suddenly hated the new man for it.

  Wiser smiled, despising Hook. “Here you go, Jonah,” he said with a silver lilt to his voice. “I’ll match you—knowing that you don’t stand a chance of beating me.”

  “That’s all you got, Major?”

  He held his hands out, guarding his cards. “You see it, Jonah. I’m just going to have to win back some of that money you won from me. And this is the hand to do it on.”