CHAPTER 3
Dear Brill,
You would not know me. A gun in one hand, an ax in the other. I have not vomited in two weeks. I am in love.
Dear Omar,
We have met an age before, perhaps in Ceylon. You were riding an elephant. I believe you saved me from a tiger with a single shot.
Dear India,
You wore saffron and indigo silk and recited odes as flutes sang. Monkeys jumped through the trees against purple hills, and we dined on mango and mongoose.
Dearest Omar,
Will you create the posters for our splendid concern? Reds and golds with the words OMAR AND INDIA: EAST MEETS WEST.
Dearest India,
I insist our convocation shines as INDIA AND OMAR, DERVISH TO PIONEERS. An epic journey suitable for the poet’s hand?
Dear Ned,
The boys in my charge are thick as pudding, the young ladies a delight, burgeoning in the lavage of education. Be wary of love. An untried heart is tender, rising with little yeasting.
Brill
A week before her own death, my grandmother, murmuring into my ear as I reclined on the pillow, foretold my good blood would tell. I would be as Peter the Great. Peter had been sickly, usurped and exiled to the wilderness. There he did not molder but hewed logs into a great garrison. Worked his small muscle into tremendous strength, returned to Moscow, and retook his empire. He built, with his own hands, the first heroic ships of Muscovy, the greatest shipyard ever known. Peter broke the boundaries of his private world, traveled widely, and learned more trades, skills, and sciences than a hundred men of his time, bringing culture and knowledge to the wild Russian steppes. He was made great by the wilderness and he did the same for it.
I was not hewing logs, but I could split kindling. Though catching sight of myself in the rare pane of window glass, my hair dank and shaggy, my clothes ill-fitting, I worried the robust backbone of the prairie was working on me not only to good effect. After all, spitting was a Nebraskan sport, handkerchiefs unheard of, bathing an elective summer pastime. My time with Lill reminded me of my breeding, however. Upon my return to the fort I begged a haircut from Avelina.
She pulled out the scissors and told me to sit down. “Steer clear of that Lill, she’s got a hundred years on you.”
I glared from under the shower of hair clippings. “She’s three years my senior, which is nothing. Lill’s perfectly nice. Better than that, she’s wonderful.”
Avelina sighed, and an alarmingly long chunk of hair fell into my lap. I picked it up. “What are you doing?”
“Slipped. A wonderful girl won’t mind that.”
“Avelina! Please!”
“Don’t get cramped. Hardly shows.”
I kept my decision to make Lill mine to myself. Instead, I regaled Avelina with my newly discovered talent as sharpshooter. She trimmed calmly until I revealed my plan to, with luck, make a trade of Chin for a firearm. Avelina shook the towel from around my neck and said, “If you’re planning on getting anything for that horse other than a kick in the pants, you’re in need of more than luck, Turpentine.”
I didn’t want to believe it. Chin had behaved herself on the way back to the fort. Admittedly, she had sidetracked for another bite of grass on the journey, but I’d decided that wasn’t unreasonable. She was a big horse and in need of constant refueling.
Others had a different opinion. Though there was some controversy over her name—either the horse had been named Chin, short for Chink, because she was obstinate, lazy, and not to be trusted, or it was short for Chinchilla, an animal useless until dead—the regard was much the same. Sausage was too good for her. No one would waste lead on shooting what was certain to be unpalatable.
Chin had, in fact, been wandering the prairies for months. Some other rube who had been fooled into a tortured ownership set her adrift into a snowstorm back in November. Tennessee stalked her for a week and struggled through three days to hook her up to the wagon, all for the pleasure of saddling me with the joke. I supposed, if I played my cards right and was patient, the right greenhorn would show up and I could pass on the favor. But I could not wait that long to secure a gun.
Lill and I had exchanged letters, delivered by anyone going between the fort and the Martine homestead. I opened the delicate envelopes with a shudder of pleasure. Yet as the violet-scented letters multiplied under my pillow, my eagerness for my own firearm mounted into a panic. There was no question that our relationship was predicated on my sharpshooting skills. If I, a penniless young man, patched and of impeached social standing, wished to have any chance at all with the beautiful Lill, I was going to have to win her heart with a well-placed bullet.
And so when a homesteader came through, desperate for cash and offering a silver .22 pistol with a burled walnut handle for sale, I spent what I’d so painfully saved for a ticket home with barely a regret.
I proudly showed the pistol to Tilfert. He turned it over, handed it back. “Tell you now, Ned, if you was to shoot me with that gun and I was ever to find out about it, I’d kick you from one end of the prairie t’ the other.”
Tilfert was in a foul mood. Breaking up volatile skinners who still embraced Union and Confederate colors as if the war weren’t over but only relocated to Nebraska, he’d had the lobe of one ear sliced almost from his head. As Tilfert bellowed, Avelina cut the hanging flesh from its mooring, too far gone to sew up. She threw the piece of skin out the door, handed Tilfert a cloth to hold to his head, and shouted, “Men will fight, no thought to what’s left after, who they leave behind. Worse than animals. But I won’t have the ‘news carried home to Mary’ on Tilfert Slade.” She slammed tin plates on the table. “No, they can find their bloody way without taking my man’s ears. Send ’em packing, I got another idea.”
I was unsettled by Avelina’s pronouncements. I was one of the skinners Avelina was so callously sending packing. If Tilfert didn’t pay me, certainly no one else was going to. I’d starve to death at the cusp of my growth spurt, my love affair withering on the vine.
I cleared my throat. “I’m out, then?”
Avelina looked surprised, then frowned and slapped the table. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you pay the sizable back rent you owe me … good and well worked it off, Turp. Got it?”
Tilfert snorted. “Work it off? Came with two dollars in his pocket and now he owes me three.” He shut up at the violent look from Avelina.
And so I entered into my second employment in Tilfert Slade’s Wild Western hunting and scouting services, catering to the adventure-hungry dudes who came west on the train (more numerous every day!). If all went as planned, we would certainly be rich by season’s end.
The new concern seemed, however, employment only for Avelina and unpaid at that. She raised the tents where the dudes were to sleep, stretched buffalo robes to lay over each cot, and prepared large-scale meals.
When she was ready, Avelina wagged the filaments of her gossip web, brushed Tilfert’s hat, hung a gold medallion around his neck, and pushed the shy man to stand on the platform when the train came in. His aim: to snag dudes in search of adventure like trout on a line.
Tilfert suffered. He could hardly say hello to a stranger, much less reel one in. “Cain’t you do the talkin’, Ave?” he muttered, staring at the platform like Satan was going to rise from the buckled pine. She would have none of that, but after days of Tilfert standing red-faced and salt-mute beside the tracks, I was enlisted to provide narrative.
Tilfert made a great effort to look wild and monumental as I hiked my thumb in his direction and made up outrageous lies. “That’s Tilfert Slade.” I spoke conspiratorially as though I were blowing Hickok’s cover. “Part bear, part Pawnee, part buffalo. Goes through bullets like peppermint candies. Killed more buffalo than any man on the planet and got that gold medal from President Grant himself for civilizing the prairies. Won’t be any wild left much longer. I spose Tilfert will have to go to Argentina or Black Africa, because a man like him can�
��t be contained. Still, he’s got a few hunts left.” I’d cross my arms and the dudes and I would stare and nod while poor Tilfert would try to contain his embarrassment and look savagely toward the lion-filled savannahs of his future.
“He’s off on a hunt tomorrow. I’m goin’ along to get some adventure before he’s used it all up.” Then I’d start, like an idea just came to me. “Say, you look like an adventuring kind of man. Would you be interested?”
Still, we had no takers. Tilfert’s savage silence looked more like simple-mindedness as he reddened and sweated throughout my narrative, rolling his eyes at the bullshit. For my part, I was skinny as a bean and looked as disposed to adventure as a walking stick.
Though I worried what would happen to me if Avelina and Tilfert went under, there was a benefit to unemployment: the freedom to practice sharpshooting to my heart’s content.
I headed out to the prairie, as anyone in sight laughed themselves silly. Chin, predictably and to the amusement of the fort company, refused to let me cinch her up to the wagon again: bucking, flirting out with her hind legs, rearing like a goat, and biting when any attempt to curtail her freedom was made. Her broomstick teeth and pie-plate hooves terrified me, so I gave up and traipsed about on foot.
That would have, in itself, been bearable. But Chin, though disinterested in being useful, was loath to be left behind. By the time I wandered ten yards from the fort in any direction, and no matter how carefully I crept away, Chin would espy my crouched form in the grass, commence neighing like an equine banshee, jump any fence or gate in her way, and follow at my heels like an enormous hound. It was hard to take.
On top of my horse problems, I found my beautiful little gun hopelessly out of whack, the barrel bent ever so slightly, the sights off-kilter. I couldn’t hit a dog if I were standing on its tail. I was truly alarmed. Omar would let India down. If I couldn’t be twin brother, could I hope to be lover?
I set my jaw. I would not give up. I practiced with that crooked firearm for hours, for days, my ears ringing, hands and shoulders stiff and sore, desperate to impress Lill. I used up my ammunition, spent the pennies I had left to buy more, used those up, then, unbeknownst to Avelina, begged more off the softhearted Tilfert.
Finally it came together. My muscles strengthened, my acuity sharpened, I could hit any stationary target with absolute regularity, though I couldn’t hit a moving target worth beans. Tilfert was sufficiently impressed that he agreed to hold a playing card at arm’s length for me to pierce with a bullet. If Avelina hadn’t burst from the house howling, “Are y’ completely soft in the head?” I think I would have done it.
I also spent no little time imploring Chin to behave like a real horse. I cleared Avelina’s garden of carrots, bribing Chin to allow the traces, the bridle, the harness to be, initially, just alongside her, then to be lifted toward her, finally to be placed on her person. I sluiced carrots into the horse’s maw while holding long conversations, impressing Chin with my desperate need of transportation. She seemed to take my desires into consideration, nodding as I spoke. Whether it was my debating skills or she was made sluggish by the volume of carrots, by week’s end she allowed me to tether her to the wagon.
Avelina, far from congratulating me on my accomplishment, came after me with the hoe. “A winter of stew you fed that no-good animal, a spring of breaking sod and a goddamn summer of toting water to ruin her good and embarrass you both!”
Probably true, I morosely figured, and by acclimating to the bent pistol I’d likely ruined myself for shooting any decent gun on top of it. While worrying over a future handicapped from regular guns and steeds, and figuring that my plan to get more money for powder and lead from Avelina was now defunct, it occurred to me that at least I could make some use of my dubious experience.
I searched out Tennessee.
He grinned at my arrival. “Hey there, Turpentine.”
“Tennessee.”
“You teach that horse to fetch yet?”
I laughed. “You really caught me on that one.”
“Can’t take much credit for it, you being dumb as shit, Turp.”
“Yeah, and you’re a clever guy: savvy, even.”
Tennessee looked wary. I hastened to camouflage the compliment. “I need some help. I want to impress that Martine girl with my new gun, and I can’t hit anything. You being such a sure shot, I wondered if you’d give me a tip or two.”
He took on a paternal air, nodded toward his rifle. “Sure. Let me get Henrietta, there.”
We shot for a while. I aimed wild. Initially, Tennessee swelled like a toad every time I missed and he hit, patting the breech-loading repeating rifle he’d been issued at Shiloh like a faithful pet. After a time, however, he grew irritable with my poor showing, then out and out frustrated. I acted the good sport for a while until Tennessee exploded, “You ain’t gettin’ it at all. I hate to tell you, Turp, but you better learn to bake, ’cause at this rate you ain’t never gonna shoot worth beans.”
I let on like I was mad. “I can shoot just fine. It’s harder to shoot with a pistol, and you know it.”
“Aw, hell. It ain’t that much harder.”
“It is. You sit there with a rifle making easy shots and putting me down. I’ll bet you couldn’t hit half as good as I’m doing with my gun.”
Tennessee hooted. “Now that’s rich, comin’ from a cloud-watcher like you!”
I crossed my arms. “Rich, huh? I’m willing to put three dollars on it, it’s so rich.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Are you scared?”
“Shit, I’m not scared, but I ain’t gonna take calico money.” He grinned at my idiocy.
“You’re scared, and I’m goin’ back and tell everyone so.”
Tennessee squared his shoulders and lost the grin. “All right, I’ll take your money and teach you a lesson, you moronic greenhorn guttersnipe. Give me the goddamn pistol.”
I handed him a bit of paper and a pencil. “Write it down, first. I’ll do the same and the winner will keep the notes.”
Tennessee looked at me with that wary look on his face again, but took the paper and put down his mark.
I nodded. “I’ll go first.” Four shots into the target center.
Tennessee took the gun. He looked down the barrel. “I ’spect I hardly need to make the attempt, do I?” Still he sighted, shot four times. He snorted at his poor showing. “Yup. You got me, Turp. Greenhorn no more.”
Avelina forgave me for the garden debacle when, with Chin’s help, we finally managed to snare half a dozen dudes to take part in the Wild Western Adventure. Instead of standing awkwardly on the station platform available for close inspection, Tilfert sat astride Chin, who, when plied with oats, would stand immobile. The sight of the titanic man on the gigantic horse was impressive indeed, as if western adventure itself pushed humans into monumental proportion.
The dudes stared, slack-jawed, at the spectacle. Each and every one was already in the grasp of the greenhorn disease, “buckskin grippe,” which symptoms included leather coats and pants finished with fringe cut as long as possible and enough silver conchos to periodically blind one another with the sunlight winking off them, eventually progressing to include moccasins gaudy with porcelain beads.
I, wearing a shirt Avelina padded in the shoulders, complimented their bang-on costuming, and referred to Tilfert as “Zeus of the plains,” and the dudes tumbled over themselves to purchase a breath of his Olympian atmosphere.
We herded the prospects into the tents, and Avelina fed them buffalo stew and rotgut as they chattered like schoolboys. They talked big talk into the night, sweating under the heavy buffalo robes, so full of excitement, whiskey, and the roles they were playing as to make sleep almost impossible. At dawn they arose from their cots looking a decade older than the night before, drank coffee, and pushed bacon around their tin plates.
The hunt itself was an embarrassment.
Tilfert, finally managing something to say, addres
sed the group of five shooters from the top of a small ridge. He motioned toward the dark smear near the horizon and mumbled, “There they are. We’s gonna ride to ’bout there”—he pointed to a freshet a small distance from the ridge—“where we’re gonna shoot. Don’t jump too soon. You’ll jes’ spook ’em, make th’ job harder.”
The dudes pushed back their hats, jingled their spurs, and rearranged their leather doublets, wearing looks of fierce concentration. Tilfert mounted his horse, the dudes followed suit. Tilfert began the approach, then turned and cautioned. “If the herd looks like it’s comin’ right on you, anythin’ you can do not to be caught in the middle of ’em is a real good idea.”
I waved good luck, and Tilfert rode up close. He tossed me his hat and nodded toward the dudes, jingling and shifting in nervous anticipation. “If anything happens to me, that hat’s yours, Ned. Good and broke in, prob’ly put on two pounds since the day I bought it.”
Tilfert rode out, the dudes jouncing on their horses to keep up. Before they reached the stream and the appointed shooting sight, however, anticipation proved too much. At the report of a gun behind him, Tilfert ducked low over the pommel of his saddle.
At that distance from the buffalo, the dudes had an icicle’s chance in hell of hitting anything, but once a bullet was spent, the dudes, absolutely unconcerned over Tilfert’s being in their line of fire, discharged rifles with abandon. The buffalo bolted. Tilfert urged his horse into a gallop, either to catch the herd or to escape the dudes’ fire, I couldn’t know. By the time Tilfert galloped abreast of the herd, the dudes were still struggling to calm horses spooked by the whooping and shooting. Tilfert did the only thing he could to save the hunt. He shot a big cow in the haunch to slow her up, then turned the limping animal back toward the dudes. When the hunters spied the wounded cow, now the only buffalo in sight on the wide prairie, they kicked their horses into action, pursuing the maimed cow like the furies.
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