Magic Words

by Gerald Kolpan

  Professor Herrmann produced a copy of the document, cleared by authorities. It appeared to be a Crown grant, dated 1686. The signature and seal of King James II showed the indenture to be genuine. When asked by a reporter just why the grant was so important, Professor Herrmann said that he was not allowed to divulge the details of his mission. “Let us just say that the current location of this slip of paper will not be viewed favorably by Wilhelm and his fellow Hohen-zollerns in Germany.”

  Joining the esteemed conjuror was his younger brother and successor, Alexander, who also performs magic as the Great Herrmann. Much publicity had surrounded the fact that the brothers were both opening their magic acts at different theatres on the same night and both offering dramatic new tricks. The younger Herrmann stated that the entire affair had been devised simply to generate publicity and that, far from being rivals, he and Carl were in fact the best of friends.

  “For any performer to do what my brother did—come when his country called him at the expense of great ridicule to himself, well, it only speaks of his magnanimous personality and laudable patriotism.”

  To this, his brother answered, “I am not a hero. I only did what any other loyal, self-sacrificing citizen of England or America would have done.”

  Professor Herrmann said that his performance has now been rescheduled for Saturday, November 10. Anyone holding a ticket from the original show would be admitted. Alexander Herrmann added that any patron bringing a punched ticket from his brother’s show to the Egyptian Hall would also be admitted to one of his performances at half charge.

  As is usual in cases involving matters of national security, the Home Office refused to comment on the adventure, and a confidential source within the Gladstone government disavowed any knowledge of the affair.

  40

  CHASED BY OWLS LOOKED INTO THE DISTANCE AND LIKED HIS position. He was far enough away from the new train spur to avoid federal entanglements, but close enough for his visitor to unload her horse at the railhead and ride out to meet him.

  By the location of the sun, he estimated she was on time. The day was not especially hot, but she appeared on the horizon through shimmering air. It did not surprise him that she was dressed in the manner of a white woman; but she rode like an Indian, full on, chin up and hatless. As she came nearer, he noted a second horse behind the first, laden down with cases and packages. Even from a hundred yards, he could see the white foam sweat from both.

  Calmly, he took the reins of his pony and walked toward the woman.

  “You will kill your horses if you continue to abuse them in this manner,” Chased By Owls said. “You beg to rejoin the Indian world, and yet you treat your animals in a way that only a white could.”

  She smiled at the tall brave. “I had hoped to begin our new association without pretense,” she said. “Chased By Owls has no interest in how much of an Indian I am or how I uphold the traditions of the Ponca or the Pawnee or any other of the pathetic man-women that once ruled this plain. He knows only that my return brings the money he needs to buy guns and that once in his tipi, I will perform acts for him that no woman—wife or concubine—would ever agree to.”

  “I see civilization has left Little Feather unchanged,” Chased By Owls said. “One would think all that time in England and New York would have produced someone more understated, especially when speaking to a chief from whom she asks a new life.”

  Lady-Jane spat into the high grass. “Take my word, you were not my first choice. But as soon as my brothel in Manhattan began to show signs of success, the local madams conspired against me, telling all the wealthiest customers that my girls carried a kind of syphilis that only Indians get—one that would shrivel a white penis in a week. I couldn’t return to Omaha. There, I’m considered not just a whore but a murderess as well. And so, my love, I come back to you—with a pocketbook that will keep you in Henrys and Winchesters, and an ass that can still provide enough pleasure to make you call the gods by name.”

  “Little Feather is blunt. But then she was always blunt and greedy. I expect for these treasures she will want certain things in return.”

  “Chased By Owls expects correctly,” Lady-Jane said. “All that shit work that I was forced into the last time I lived among you? No dice. My hands have almost returned to the point where they could belong to a woman—and I will not risk their destruction tanning hides and hauling water while you and your cronies sit in tipis and smoke.”

  “This might not sit well with the other women,” he said.

  “Chased By Owls can make any excuse he wants. I’m lazy, I’m sick—he can even tell the truth if it comes to that. His women are his problem.”

  The tall brave nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. When the whites come—and we both know they will—I demand a fine rifle and a good horse. I refuse to be denied the chance to kill as many as I can. I care as little for my life now as Chased By Owls cares for his—and I have scores to settle that require payment in blood.”

  Given the terrain, Lieutenant Randall Fix should not have been surprised at his situation. Before the contingent had left Fort Kearney, General Nelson Miles had warned every man.

  “The country we go to is at the far northwest of the territory,” Miles told his troops. “Chadron is a nightmare of forest, river, gully, and hiding-place. It is filled with what are called draws—little valleys like deep bowls. The enemy shall be perched at the top of these draws, waiting for us to explore the bottoms so that they may rain down their arrows and bullets. I tell you now; get trapped in one of those draws and my best advice is to get right with God.”

  Fix had listened in fear. Two days before, the renegades had sacked the Chadron settlement, taking every morsel of its food and ravaging the population. All the men had been killed. Women had been raped, as had children, male and female. There was even a story of a pregnant woman being cut open and her infant nailed to a tree and used as a target; such outrages could not go unavenged.

  Now, from the top of a ridge, Fix looked down and realized just how difficult it would be to avoid death. Despite the warnings, the realities of combat had caused the soldiers to chase the savages into the pines and cottonwoods. Once inside, the Indians melted into the green, invisible until their rifles exploded from the trees. Men fell screaming to the forest floor; dead and alive, their hair was taken.

  Pretending retreat, the renegades lured the soldiers down into the draws. Fix saw Private First Class Harold Murphy, his horse dead beneath him, raise his arms above his head as if could stop a hail of arrows with his fists. Howling in terror, his forearms and shoulders penetrated by long shafts, Murphy lowered his limbs. A tomahawk flew through the air and decapitated him. Already wounded, Corporal S. J. Bunch, whom Fix knew to be a fine and brave man, charged up the far side of a draw, firing at the renegades. He was cut nearly in two by gunfire. Randall watched as a Pawnee plucked Bunch’s blue Stetson from his head and placed it on his own. Fix knew then that Miles’s strategy was pure attrition: to break through the enemy’s defenses over the bodies of his own men.

  As his troops fell around him, Fix galloped down the ridge. “Skirt the high hills!” he called out. “Do not follow the savages. Anywhere they lead us will bring death! Bring them out! Fight them here!”

  Below the White River, ground troops formed thick phalanxes. At the first sign of the Indians, they fired as one. Braves and horses tumbled to the ground. Some rose with axes and rifles and were quickly cut down, others simply offered themselves in prayer, dying with their gods on their lips. When the field was still, a dozen men ran toward the bodies, knives held high. Fix galloped forward in a fury, placing himself between the soldiers and the dead.

  “No scalps, curse you!” he shouted. “Take even one and by God, if these Indians don’t kill you I’ll hang you right here.”

  The battle raged on, hour after hour. Cannon disintegrated trees; arrows bit necks of horses and men. The Chadron and Bordeaux creeks, filled with blood and bodies red a
nd white, choked the Niobrara.

  Exhausted and covered in gore, Fix slumped on his horse, his lips kissing the red-gold mane; his sword felt like a hundredweight in his hand. Staring at the ground, he wondered how great this victory would seem to the widow of Sergeant Ezra Petty, who lay just below his horse’s left leg, Paiute knives through both eyes.

  Fix wiped away tears. When his eyes cleared, he could make out General Miles in the middle distance, his sword raised, his horse rearing up against a mounted brave.

  The Indian was tough and sinewy, colored ghostly white with a mask of black above his nose and crooked yellow patterns on each cheek. He wore a full bonnet of eagle feathers that reached nearly to the ground and was screaming loud and high.

  Chased By Owls charged at Miles, his knife parallel to his body. He sliced into the general’s blue coat, turning the sleeve purple. His terrified horse baying and whistling, Miles pivoted to the left, bringing his sword down hard on his enemy’s wrist. Fix saw the red hand fly up into the air, the fingers seeming still to move. Chased By Owls’ arm became a cannon of blood, spurting red at Miles—face, medals, and coat.

  Chased By Owls took the reins in his teeth. His remaining hand reached down for a tomahawk and, with a bellow of rage, he hurled it at Miles. The general ducked his head and pulled his mount sharply to the right. The horse’s neck burst as the tomahawk found a vein. Shrieking, it fell to earth, landing on the leg of the general, trapping him in the snow. Miles reached below his twisted body to find his revolver. His wrist now a geyser, the tall brave dismounted and pulled his lance from his saddle. Staggering closer to the trapped bluecoat, he raised it high above his head.

  Miles’s blast knocked the Indian off his feet. Fix later said it was as if someone has suspended him by wires. The general shot a second time. To the lieutenant, the big Army Colt sounded louder than the Gatling cannon shooting through the culverts.

  Chased By Owls called out to the Wakanda and flung the lance with all he had left. He was dead before it landed.

  Fix saw the lance strike the frozen ground. He rode toward the wounded General, hoping to reach him before the enemy.

  His way was blocked by a demon.

  It rode straight for him, ululating like a damned soul. Its horse was painted the red of a cardinal and smeared with green and red lines. Its face was half blue and half gray, and its lips were a deep blue-black. From every part of its clothing flew long fringes bleached white as snow. In one small hand, it carried a feathered stone axe, in the other a Henry rifle.

  Saints preserve us, Fix murmured to himself, it’s a woman.

  The apparition threw the axe directly at his head. She missed by inches, but the action gave her time to raise the Henry to her shoulder. She cocked the handle and fired. The first shot whizzed by his head; the second grazed his shoulder. At the sight of his blood she grinned through the black lips, and to his astonishment, cursed him in perfect English.

  “Son of a bitch! How’s that? The next one’ll lay you on the ground!”

  She retreated a short distance, turned and fired again. The shell ricocheted off his metal stirrup.

  “Ma’am!” Fix cried out. “The army is not engaged to fight women. I beg of you—retire so that neither of us is hurt further.”

  “You’re the only one hurt, whoremaster. Besides, since when does a bluecoat care if he kills a woman? Except this time …”

  She fired again.

  “… ladies first.”

  Her next shot went wild. Fix galloped hard to the left, convinced now that, male or female, the creature intended to destroy him. He rushed forward and grabbed the barrel of her rifle, pulling it from her hands. With a scream of rage, she produced a long knife and tried in vain to slash him. Turning his horse at her again, he ran straight in, closed his fist and struck the woman in the face. Her nose crushed to her face and ran red.

  “White bastard!” she cried.

  At the sight of his pistols, the woman whirled her horse and made for the trees. Fix hesitated for a moment. She was defeated, retreating. Would it do any good now to leave one more body in the valleys of Chadron?

  He watched as she galloped into the distance. Amid the cacophony of gunfire he did not hear the single shot, nor could he have told who fired it or from where it came. What he saw was the she-devil falling from her horse, a mass of white buckskin and scattered fringe tumbling against the green of the pines.

  41

  ALEXANDER HERRMANN HELD A GLASS ABOVE HIS HEAD. HE toasted the bride, his cousin, his assistant, and himself. He toasted the people of London and the good mayor of New York City who had, only an hour before, bound him in holy matrimony. With each salutation, Julius Meyer offered health in a different language: santé; l’chayim; prosit; skol; salud! People throughout Delmonico’s great dining room heard his joyful voice and joined him in his tributes.

  “I believe,” Alexander said, “that if it were submitted to the rigors of the scientific method, there would be incontrovertible proof that I am, at this moment, the happiest man in the city of New York.”

  “Hear, hear!” shouted Seamus Dowie, who had exchanged his champagne for a pint of black stout.

  Julius held up a hand for attention. “Should I perhaps walk out to the street and accost the first scientist I see? I understand they may be recognized by thick spectacles and backs stooped from much study.”

  “Yes, that would be an excellent idea,” Alex said. “The moment you find one, we’ll give him a drink and give him a gander at the former Miss Scarcez here. You, sir, he will say, must be the happiest man in all of New York. Run and fetch him now, Julius—and bring that mayor back here, too. I expect he would fancy a good lunch, wot?”

  Adelaide blushed. “Please, Alex. I should think you’ve embarrassed that poor man enough already. Pulling a roll of bills from his beard!”

  “And why not? He’s only a poor public official—and graft isn’t what it used to be. Besides, my dove, he took it in stride. Laughed as hard as anyone else in the chamber, even the reporters. Still, I do hope I will have enough money for this party. When at last we got a moment alone, he asked me to slip the roll into his jacket.”

  Adelaide straightened in her chair. “He didn’t!”

  “He did—and then he asked if I could spare twenty ducats to the next show gratis. He apparently has five children and a wife plus some dozen favors to repay.”

  Seamus pounded the table, making the silver chime; Adelaide demurely placed her hand over her mouth and her shoulders shook. But Julius had been a serious boy who grew to be a serious man; the kind of laugh that takes one’s breath and brings a sore stomach was not something Alexander had ever associated with his cousin. As he watched Julius laugh, Alex felt like one of those explorers who sight a rare bird; an occasion to be treasured all the more for its scarcity. When the rest of the patrons had gone and the waiters began preparing their tables for dinner, the quartet was still there, laughing and ordering wine.

  “I owe youse two,” Seamus said, rising and raising his glass to Alex. “I owe ya, boss, for your long employment and entrustin’ me with the secrets of yer trade. It’s not everyone would take in a poor ignorant from Armagh and make him keeper of the keys. I can only hope there’s been sufficient givin’ along with what I’ve took.”

  The Irishman now turned to Julius. As he toasted him, a small splash of black beer washed over the rim of his glass. A mist covered his eyes.

  “And you, sir—well, I owe ya in ways I can only hope to repay as time marches—and I promise ya I will, though it take every day I’ve got.”

  Finally, with the light dimming outside, Julius looked at his watch and nodded to Alex. The magician took the check, frowned at the price, signed it, and called their bus-girl over.

  “Young lady,” he said. “Your service and that of your colleagues has been stellar. But I am not so sure about the kitchen. There are ingredients in the food that I am afraid should not have been there.”

  The girl, Scots and
no older than fourteen, blushed bright red.

  “Ingredients, sir? I am afraid I do not understand.”

  “Well, even offhand—there was this beneath Mr. Dowie’s dessert dome.”

  Alexander removed the silver cover from Seamus’s untouched plate. Inside was a large slice of cherry cobbler. The magician produced a long spoon and dug into the fragrant, bleeding pile.

  “Voilà!”

  From within the purple fruit, Alexander extracted a ring. It was a diamond approximately two karats in weight, set in a mounting of yellow gold. Adelaide checked her finger to make sure her engagement band was still there.

  “Well, well, miss,” Alex said. “This is quite the scandal. What would have happened if my friend Mr. Dowie here had bitten into this piece of jewelry instead of those tasty berries? Perhaps you or someone in your kitchen is missing a bauble now, hmmm?”

  The waitress looked frightened. “No one in our restaurant has such a costly ring, sir. I would have seen it.”

  Adelaide put her hand on the girl’s thin arm. “Enough, Alex! You’re torturing the poor child. Allow me to apologize, my dear. My new husband enjoys playing tricks on people. Well, he’ll think twice before he plays another one.”

  Adelaide reached toward Alexander, plucked the ring from the spoon, and pressed it in the palm of the waitress.

  “For you, my dear. And may you wear it well. Come, Alex.”

  Alexander protested, but his new wife took him by the sleeve of his coat. Seamus Dowie howled; and if it was true that the Great Herrmann had never seen Julius Meyer truly laugh, now would have been a good time to look at him.

  The Pennsylvania Station was crowded. Even though the snow had thickened outside, the crush of passengers made the station hot and close; it smelled of hair oil and wet wool.

  “You can still change your mind, you know,” Alexander said to Julius as they stood with Adelaide at the station gate. “I can think of a million things you could do here in New York, even if you don’t want to work for me.”