The Wagon Train

Ground fog obscured sunrise; the gray, diffused light just seemed to appear.

Cutter was the first to speak.
I sure hope this situation don’t continue. My stones is near to shriveled and gone.
My leg, said Cole, my leg. I cain’t hardly feel my leg.
Amos, said Cutter, how likely are visitors anytime soon?
Can’t say. All my stock’s gone though, Henry. I know that.
Oh God, Henry, my leg, cried Cole.
JESUS JUMPIN CHRIST. STOP, TEDDY, STOP. NO MORE.
Henry, I’m afraid I’ll lose it sure.
Yeah well, that ain’t my fault is it?

Cutter noticed the boy’s silence.
How about ye, boy? Ye awake?
Been so for an hour.
There, see, Teddy? Been awake fer an hour an’ not a peep. Take notice. Hell, he’s probably calculatin’ the end of our confinement, right boy?
No response.
Well dammit, what’s the bump on yer side, boy? Ye got a better view?
The boy leaned forward as much as his bindings would allow. He craned his neck and squinted to peer through the moist gray air. Slowly a figure on horseback emerged; Eli Jumper was returning, an antelope carcass draped across his horse’s shoulders.

The boy smiled. Do now, he said.

---

At great distance it was difficult to identify number or species of the specks that slowly emerged on southern horizon. The rising heat of the day threw waves across the images and because Miles was walking next to his oxen, he had to stop and shield his eyes from the glare to be certain he saw anything at all. Since his wagon was leading the train all of the wagons halted, and immediately firearms were drawn. Several men ran forward to ascertain the danger, and opinions multiplied by the time Chambers rode back from his reconnaissance in advance of the train. Buffalo. Indians. Mormons.

Chambers dismounted, drew a spyglass and steadied it across his saddle. Spears, a nervous, slightly built Ohio farmer, spoke. Savages, captain? His face whitened as he gripped his musket. Should we prepare for an attack?

Well, said Chambers, squinting into the glass. Too far to tell exact. He looked at the pilgrims. Not many. Not much dust. Appears to be movin’ this way.

Chambers telescoped the glass and put it back in his warbag. He scanned the men around him. Slow as we are, he said, whoever that is will catch up to us if that’s their intention. We may as well take a closer look. Miles, we’ll ride out there a ways. If it’s trouble we’ll be back on the double quick. The rest of ye look to your wagons .

He looked at Spears.
Til then it won’t help to get all skeery.

The two men mounted and rode away at a trot. Miles carried a heavy dragoon revolver in his waistband. The pistol’s cold weight pressed against his abdomen, and suddenly he couldn’t remember the last time he loaded it. Totally irresponsible, he thought. Irresponsible. He removed his hat and wiped his brow, silently vowing to check his weapons every night.

Ain’t nothin’ to concern ye, said Chambers. The savages ain’t likely to behave in an untoward fashion.

Meaning what?

Foolish behavior. I seen Injuns perform all manner of oddness, but never so few come out in plain view for trouble.
After several hundred yards Chambers held up his hand.
Hold here.
He reined up, drew out his glass again and focused on the images. Well now, he said.
He handed the glass to Miles.

The boy walked in the lead; Cole limped along to the rear, using a section of rail fence from the tavern’s corral as a crutch. To shade himself Cutter wore a headdress of leaves and he rode Jumper’s pony. The Indian walked beside Wilson. The group had skinned and dressed out Jumper’s antelope and each one had thin strips of drying meat draped on his shoulders. To hide their nakedness they fashioned short breech cloths from the orange-colored hide, which they tied to their bodies with sinew and lengths of their bindings. Along with his pony Jumper had given Cutter his shirt but the Indian kept his blanket, which he wrapped about his dark shoulders. He still carried his bow and knife, the group’s only weapons.
Wilson, Cole and the boy had been walking for three days without shoes, so their feet were swollen and raw, rippled with angry welts from sandburs and thistles. Their unwashed bodies still bore the bruises and ligature marks administered by the drunken Pawnee.
When Chambers and Miles stopped to raise the spyglass Cutter could tell he was being observed, so he raised both arms in greeting.
Ho! He yelled. We’re Christians!
He looked at his companions. Boys, he said, I believe our salvation is at hand. Now open your ears and keep your goddam lips sealed. I’ll offer all descriptions. Understand?
He looked at Cole. Understand Teddy?
Hell yes. What do you think, I’m stupid?
Cutter kicked the pony into a trot, his eyes still on the group.
Behave yourselves. Follow me.
He rode toward Chambers and Miles, smiling and waving an arm over his head. When he was within two hundred yards of them he began shouting.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord.
When he was within fifty feet he dismounted and fell upon his knees, clasping his hands in prayer.
We thank the dear Lord for this. Yessir, the dear Lord must be looking out for us.
Chambers spoke.
What’s happened here? Who are you?
Merchants, said Cutter. Merchants and tradesmen, sir. Honest, God-fearing men like yourself. We been wanderin’ these prairies for the past three days, just as ye see us… wounded and sore. Hopin, prayin, sir, we’d be found.
And how did you come to this circumstance sir? asked Miles.
Cutter turned to look back at his group, now limping in behind him. When he turned back he removed his leaf hat. Tears glistened on his cheeks.
Three days ago, he said, his voice breaking, twenty mile below this spot, we was attacked and robbed by a band of thievin’ savages. Pawnee,they was. Them red niggers shot my cousin in the leg, burnt up our dugout and stole all our goods and horses, ‘cept this here pony, which belongs to that Injun there, who was spared on account of he was huntin’, away from our group.
He stopped, blew his nose between his fingers and wiped his cheeks with his shirtsleeve.
Heathens even took our boots, he continued.
He read the horror on Miles’s face and addressed him.
Sir, our difficulties grow by the hour. A little Christian charity, that’s all we ask.
He removed a string of antelope meat from his shoulder and held it out. We have some jerked antelope. Be honored to share it with your company. It’s all we got.

The appearance of the strangers hastened the train’s midday halt, and while the outsiders waited a respectful distance from the wagons a few women searched their family trunks for spare clothing. Every one of the unfortunates except Jumper received at least a shirt, trousers, socks and a pair of worn brogans or boots. In addition Cole received some carbolic solution to bathe his leg wound. The boy was even luckier; his youth garnered him a set of drawers and some camphorated wrappings for his feet.

Once they had washed with soap, combed their wet hair and dressed they were invited to take a brief meal – coffee, biscuits with molasses, and a cup of beef soup. It was as good a meal as any had eaten for some time.
Sarah Miles assisted her mother and three other women in preparing the meal, took up two plates and cups, filled them, and walked them over to where the newcomers sat on the prairie. She served Cutter first.

Oh bless ye, daughter, he said, smiling, baring his white teeth. Thank ye kindly.

She blushed with embarrassment and nodded and said you’re welcome in a voice barely audible and moved over in front of the boy, who just stared at her until she became even more embarrassed. Cutter came to her rescue.

Go ahead boy. Take the food. It ain’t likely to feed itself to ye.

The boy came to and gently took the dishes from her hands, his fingers accidently brushing hers. Sarah quickly turned away and started back to the wagons. Cutter shouted after her.
Thank ye, daughter. Bless ye and your folks.

He looked at the boy, whose eyes were still on the girl.

Well now. Which dish is the tastiest? He laughed. Cole snickered and spoke up.

I know that answer, he said.

When they finished eating Cutter motioned them to gather around. He spoke as he stacked their plates and cups.
Listen to me, he said. This train is headed to Oregon. There may be something in this if we play it smartly.

What are ye sayin, Henry? asked Wilson. Oregon territory? The only thing we got is some other man’s clothes, and ye sit there, contemplatin’ a walk across a thousand miles of God’s pisspot?

Cutter gave him a sharp look.
Watch your tongue, Amos. These folks ain’t used to ignorant speech.
He looked at the group.
And that goes for all of ye. Keep your traps shut. Let me handle this. I intend better for all of us, and this is as good a place to start as any.

I ain’t certain I want to go anywheres with them, said Cole.

Then ye and your pussed leg can stay here, said Cutter.

He rose and marched the plates and cups back to the wagons, where he engaged Miles and the scout in conversation. The boy could tell by his body language and gestures he was insinuating himself in the train’s business, and when they finished they shook hands. The deal was struck.

Cutter came back and knelt in the middle of the group.
We’ll travel with them as far as Fort Kearny. That’s six or seven days from now. In the meantime make yourselves useful. Firewood, water, whatever needs totin’. Do it. And keep your rude tongues and bad manners out of sight.

He nodded to Eli Jumper and the Indian mounted his pony and rode south, bow in hand.

Trial and Escape

The trial was quick: three days, including empaneling the jury, which took two full days because few adult Caucasian males would risk selection by appearing at the courthouse, which wasn’t actually a building, but rather a vacant lot upon which a canvas awning had been erected. The official courthouse was undergoing repairs from a recent fire, the origin of which had been pronounced “suspicious” by the town’s newspaper publisher, who wrote regular editorials accusing radical abolitionists of attempting to subvert local efforts to expand slavery into Kansas territory. The border region was about to be bloodied over the issue, and the newspaperman wanted to ensure himself a prominent place in the carnage.

The wheels of Missouri justice turned thusly: since the boy would not speak his name he was identified as John Doe in the papers of indictment. In fact, he had not uttered a word since he was jailed, which became the basis of an inept defense delivered by a Methodist minister from Ohio, a long-winded mynah bird who just happened to be on his way to California, and who claimed to have studied law prior to entering the seminary. For a five-dollar court-paid fee the reverend volunteered to represent the boy, whom he argued was so incapacitated mentally that he could not possibly have the strength of mind to plan, let alone accomplish such a dastardly act. According to the preacher the citizens of Missouri would be risking their eternal souls by finding him guilty.

On the final day the court magistrate shook his head at the preacher’s incompetence as he brought the gavel down to end testimony. Fifteen minutes later the jury announced their verdict.
Guilty as charged.
You’ll hang in Springfield, said the judge.
God rest your tortured soul, boy.
In response to the boy’s inadequate representation the court withheld payment from the preacher, who protested his claim for three days until finally the mayor of Westport relented. The preacher left for California, declaring he would serve the Lord by bringing souls of the heathen to Christ.

Six months later he was beheaded by a warparty of Modocs.

The day after the trial ended Cutter and the boy were loaded into a prison ambulance for the six-day journey to Springfield. The old springless wagon groaned as it swayed through the hilly Missouri countryside, following winding, rutted roads laid down over limestone shelves and cut through dust-covered, well-shaded thickets, serenaded by the thrum of cicadas in the stifling summer heat.
In addition to the driver two guards were sent along; a pair of pimply local boys, whose lack of education perfected their ability to endure the mindless ennui of slow travel. They simply made faces at one another as they rode.

The first three days inside the wagon passed in silence. Hot, dusty hours of travel were interrupted only by brief periods of rest for the team; the leg chains and manacles on the condemned were never removed. At night the two slept chained together inside the wagon, the floor of which was barely long enough to tolerate the full length of the prisoners.

On the morning of the fourth day they forded Horse Creek and as water seeped in through the floorboards the boy raised himself to peer out the barred window high on the box wall. The rattle of his chains woke Cutter from a nap.
Havin’ a last look are ye?
The boy made no reply, but watched the slow movement of the brownish-green water as it slid past the wagon, which cast small eddies downstream as it cut the current.
Never seen a trial as quick as your’n. Hell, they even took a week with me. These shitepokes is in a big hurry to be shed of ye.
The boy settled back down on the wet wagon floor. Cutter smiled. His teeth were uncommonly large, even, and white. The boy’s eyes narrowed as he spoke.
Ain’t the only one, am I?
Cutter laughed.
Shit boy. They been tryin’ to hang me fer ten year.

At noon the party halted near a willow-lined spring. The team was watered and turned out to graze. The driver, a fat, perspiring windbag by the name of Scoggins, ordered the two young guards around like valets.
Stake them mules out good now. They’ll wander ‘n you two’ll have to hike back to Westport.
Boy, fetch me some cool water. Make sure it’s from upstream of them mules. I cain’t have any of that warm canteen. Tastes like piss.

He reclined in the shade, lunching on hard bread and jerky as his boys moved slowly about the wagon. Cutter and the boy were unloaded to the rear of the wagon and set down in full sun, their leg chains run through the spokes of a rear wheel.
If it gets too warm on y’all just let me know.
Scoggins laughed, wiping sweat from his face with an oily rag. The guards joined him, squatting in the heavy blue shade to eat. They chewed with their mouths open, squinting at the prisoners, wiping their lips on their sleeves. The older boy’s name was Maxwell. His .58 Springfield rifled musket lay in the wet grass beside him. He wore a loose belt with a faulty cartridge pouch that twice opened and spilled lead balls. The younger guard was a slender 17-year-old named Little. He carried a Whitney colt stuck in his waistband, aimed at his testicles.
Flies buzzed around the prisoners. Cutter shook his head.
Say, when do you aim to give us some of that tug?
Scoggins lay back in the grass, tipped his hat over his face.
What’s the trouble dead man? Afraid ye goin’ starve to death?
Cutter looked at the boy. He smiled and sat back against the wheel. Fifteen minutes passed before he spoke again.

Hey boss? I got to answer the call.
What?
I got to use the convenience.
Scoggins lifted his head.
Go ahead. Fire away. I ain’t stoppin’ ye.
Well then, I suppose I’ll wait ‘til I’m back in the wagon. You and yer cousins there can clean up after me.
Scoggins lifted his hat from his face, let out a long sigh, looked at the guards.
You all take the prisoners down’t the spring. Watch ‘em close. If they look to go rabbit on ye, shoot.
He tossed the keys to Little, pulled his hat back over his face. The young guards looked at him for a long moment, as if they didn’t quite understand his words. Cutter interrupted.
Say there, uh, what’s yer name, son? Can we get started here?
Maxwell walked slowly toward the prisoners.
Well now, dead man, don’t be thinkin’ no fancy moves. I’ll prefer nothin’ more than to put a ball right ‘tween yer eyeballs.
And I’m sure ye would, son. Still and all, nature’s demands will force an unpleasant moment if we don’t hurry. Would you mind?
He held up his manacles, smiling.
---
The prisoners swatted at mosquitoes as they squatted in the thick willows at the edge of the spring. Maxwell and Little stood back on a small bank of sand-covered driftwood that marked the stream’s April snowmelt surge. Maxwell leaned against the Springfield as he worked a long stem of grama grass side-to-side between his thin lips; Little stared vacantly at the pale, cloudless sky. Cutter whispered to the boy.
What’d ye say your name was, boy?
Never did.
Well, I’ll just tell ye here and now that I ain’t ever kilt a man that didn’t deserve it. And there have been quite a few instances when I should have, but did not.
The boy said nothing.
So you just keep that in mind.
Cutter finished, hitched his trousers.
C’mon, Cutter said as he pulled the chain that connected their leg irons. Over’t the stream.

Both waded out of the willows to a sandy ford at the water’s edge. Maxwell brought his rifle to his shoulder; Little put his hand on his revolver.
Whoa now, said Maxwell, where in hell you all reckon you’re goin’?
Cutter turned, smiling. He held up his hands.
Need to warsh, yokel. You all know what that is, don’t ye?
Maxwell lowered the rifle. His eyes were slits.
I’m goin’ to enjoy seein’ you hang, bub. Ain’t enough water in the whole damn world to warsh the blood off’n them hands. But you all go ahead. I’m watchin’ ye.
Cutter snorted, turned back to the water and knelt down, the boy beside him. Cutter whispered.
How far behind us ye reckon them numbskulls stand?
What?
How far?
Twelve, fifteen foot, mebbe.
Yup.
Under the water Cutter’s hands found a smooth river stone the size of a Macintosh apple. He looked at the boy.
Well, boy, this here’s where it happens.
What happens?
My stay of execution. Now… when I move, ye best come with.
He began to rise. The boy saw the dripping stone in his right hand. His eyes moved up to Cutter’s face and the white, shining teeth. The outlaw winked.

Suddenly Cutter spun around, cocking his right arm as he pivoted toward the guards. The boy turned to see Maxwell’s eyes widen as he started to raise the heavy Springfield, but it was too late. The stone caught him at the base of the throat, making a hollow thunk as it struck; the rifle dropped at his feet. Maxwell sank to the ground, gurgling and writhing, hands at his throat. Cutter looked at the boy.
Move, damn ye. Move.

As the boy scrambled to his feet he saw Little fumbling with his pistol, shaking violently in his effort to free the weapon from his waistband. Cutter reached Maxwell’s rifle and grabbed the long barrel just as Little aimed and pulled the trigger. There was an empty click. Misfire.

Before Little could cock the weapon again Cutter swung the Springfield and knocked the pistol out of the guard’s hand. The guard stumbled backward. Cutter aimed the rifle at his chest.
Now, Cutter said, I’ll have those keys.

Little’s eyes rolled side to side between Cutter and the boy; he looked as if he would scream, but no sound came. Instead, he grabbed the key ring from his belt and threw it. The keys spun on the heavy ring as it sailed through the humid air, shining like gemstones in the sunlight until they splashed in the middle of the creek.
Shit, Cutter said. He lowered the rifle. He was about to speak again when Maxwell grabbed his leg. A huge, purplish welt bloomed on the boy’s throat where the stone struck him. He grunted in ragged, gasping breaths as he tried to claw his way up from the ground.

Goddammit, Cutter muttered. He looked at the boy.
The outlaw smashed the butt of the rifle down on Maxwell’s skull, sending a geyser of blood straight up in the air. Maxwell’s body collapsed, convulsed, and was still.
See how it is?
He kicked at the chain that connected their leg irons.
C’mon now, he said, and the two prisoners advanced upon Little, who stood, eyes wide, a single tear moving slowly down his cheek.
You’re the smart one, ain’t ye? said Cutter. Now, how will me and the boy be shed of these irons?
He leaned forward to bring his face close to Little’s.
Can ye tell me that?
Little sniffled, shook his head.
No?
Cutter straightened, turned to the boy, who suddenly wondered if the man intended to kill him too.
They will not help themselves, he said, which is why they end up fixed like this.

Little sank to his knees, head bowed, thin shoulders bunched in response to the sobs he could no longer suppress. Cutter knelt before him, speaking in low tones, addressing the young man as a father might console a favorite child.
If ye had tended that pistol better the day might’ve had a different outcome. Ye know that, don’t ye?
Little looked up, nodded.
Well then. It’s a lesson learned.

Little nodded again, his thin lips forming a faint, hopeful smile. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. Cutter rose, and turning to his fellow prisoner, smiled as if confirming the congeniality of the moment. His teeth flashed in the sun; he took in a deep breath and gripped the rifle firmly.
He swung the weapon waist high, striking Little in the temple with the heavy butt plate. The guard dropped like a steer in a slaughterhouse chute, blood streaming from his nose and ears. His eyes rolled, lids fluttered; his mouth opened twice, as if yawning. Cutter was not smiling when he turned suddenly back to the boy, who reflexively raised his hands to defend himself. The outlaw again kicked at the chain that connected them.
Pick up the pistol. There’s more work.

Scoggins was snoring loudly when Cutter gently pushed the hat from his face with the Springfield’s muzzle. The fat man snorted, rubbed his nose, and awakened to see Cutter and the boy standing over him, the rifle just inches from his nose. Scoggins moved his hands from his chest, slowly spread his arms.
Need another set of them keys, boss.
Ain’t any. The boy, he’s got the only set.
He ain’t got ‘em now.
I’m sorry, Cutter, I can’t help you.
Cutter’s smile faded. He cocked the Springfield.
Well then. Mebbe I should just… what was the words ye used? Fire away?
Scoggins’s forehead glistened with sweat. Tears filled his eyes.
Wait. Wait. No, please. For the love of God…
The heavy bullet exploded through the fat man’s sinuses; the ragged margins of flesh smoldered from powder burns, which in turn ignited threads on the edge of his muslin shirt collar.

When the body was found rumors of torture and man-burning fueled panic throughout the county.

The Teamster

The boy reconnoitered continuously as he moved through the streets, his pale, gray eyes moving beneath the frayed bill of his greasy woolen cap, scanning the wide, rutted thoroughfares for dropped coins, watches, glass vials – anything that might be jostled from the thousands of pockets crossing this threshold of the Overland Trail.

Toward evening when he had nowhere else to go the boy would climb stacks of discarded crates that choked the spaces between buildings. From there he could observe wagon trains forming for the trip west. Perched like a gargoyle in the waning daylight he would stare at the movement of animals and people and wagons until the images turned soft and grainy in the gathering darkness. Then he would climb down, and searching out a sleeping space, fold himself under his ragged canvas coat, knees bent to his chest, hoping for a dream that would carry him far out onto the prairie.

One morning the sky darkened under a storm that soaked Westport, turning the wide streets into bogs. By noon the hot, mephitic air carried the sucking sounds of boots and hooves and wheels that seemed too clogged and heavy to move at all. The hungry boy attempted to hopscotch his way across the churned quagmire of the main emigrant road, and as he moved he heard sounds of struggle. He looked up to see a clay-splattered teamster wrestle for control of a brace of tall, Missouri-bred mules.
Hold, Goddamn ye, hold now, he cursed.
The animals reared, white-eyed, ears flattened. Their jaws opened and shut as they sidestepped, tossing their heads, trying to turn away.
See here, ye damnable sonsofbitches.

The teamster’s temper fed the animals’ panic. He began hazing them with the muddy ends of their rope leads, shooting heavy globs of mud in every direction until finally a wad struck one of the animals above the eye.
The long, anvil-shaped head jerked upward as the mule simultaneously crouched on its haunches. A single, explosive movement took up the slack of the lead with a loud pop, and the force tore the line from the teamster’s hand. The mule hit full speed within yards, tailing mud fifteen feet in the air as it ran.

The boy’s reaction was pure reflex; he had little experience with livestock. The mule sucked past him and he saw the line whip up out of the mud, so he reached for it. It bounced into his hands, which closed so quickly he didn’t have time to think about consequence.

The force of the runaway jerked him out of his worn brogans, which sat empty in the muck as the boy was pulled headlong into the street. He managed to close his eyes before his face buried in the mud - the impact filled his open mouth with gritty, wet clay, yet he kept his grip even as his head and shoulders plowed a wet furrow past the wagons and spectators that lined the street.

And suddenly it was over; the mule stopped. At first glance it seemed the boy was the reason, but in truth, the animal simply halted at the rise of a small butterfly from the edge of a puddle in the middle of the street.
A crowd gathered. The boy didn’t move. Then he made a coughing sound, spat some muck and let go of the lead. His abraded palms oozed blood. His hair was matted with manure and mud, his face barely recognizable.

The teamster burst through the crowd to kneel beside him. Gently he turned the boy, whose shirt was ripped down the front to his waist, which lay exposed with his trousers and drawers pulled low, everything filled with mud.
By God, said the teamster, ye shoon’t have done it boy. But I’m glad ye did.
The boy reached trembling hands to his face and scraped mud from his eyelids. He spat again and blinked his eyes open, holding his hands in front of his face.
Can you see? Are ye blinded?
No. No, I ain’t blind.

The boy sat up, inspected himself, began scooping mud from inside the waistband of his trousers. He paused, looked around at the gathered crowd and continued cleaning himself. The onlookers murmured and began moving off. The teamster rose, grabbed the mule’s headstall, rubbed the animal’s nose.
They be knotheads, ain’t they?
The boy, still sitting in the street, picked mud from his socks.
Seen my shoes anywheres?
Right where you left ‘em. Over there, next to the walk.
The boy rose slowly, like something primeval emerging from the ooze, avalanches of slop sliding down his body. He moved to his shoes, pulling his sodden socks from his feet. He picked up the brogans and started away.
Hold on, boy.
The boy stopped, still facing away from the teamster.
Ye hungry? I got frijoles and hard biscuit. Come along, if ye choose.
The teamster started down the street, leading the mule. Without a word, the boy turned and followed.

---

Nighthawks chittered and swooped against the evening sky, reddened in the west where clouds shelved in preparation for distant storms that would flash and rumble on the horizon throughout the night.
At one end of the main street freight wagons were parked in long rows, packed and ready, the drivers making camp in the passageways between.

Silhouetted by his cooking fire the teamster lifted a heavy pot from the ashes; he handed the boy a tin plate heaped with beans, which were quickly set upon, the boy’s spoon sounds setting a metallic cadence against the night chorale of human and animal noises.
There’s more if ye need it.

The teamster pulled up an empty nail keg and sat. From his waistcoat he produced a small clay pipe, which he filled and lit as he watched the boy eat. In the orange firelight the boy resembled an ancient totem, cracked and fissured where the dried muck still clung to his skin and clothing. His hair was a headdress of splayed rows of dark, beaded strings of mud.

The teamster sucked his pipe and pulled his red beard. Long years on the trail had pressed his eyes to a squint, gullied deep furrows down his cheeks and across his forehead. When the boy sat down to a second helping he spoke.
Must be awhile since ye et.
The boy looked up.
Never seen none so eager for my board. That’s a fact. Go ahead, boy, eat up. Throw ‘er out otherways.
He waited another minute.
Your people camped hereabouts?
The boy shook his head, wiped his mouth on his crusty sleeve.
No? Where then?
Got none.
Well now.
I’m goin’ west anyways.
That so? And how will ye go?
The boy shrugged.
No outfit, then.
The boy looked at the teamster, shook his head.
Need possibles, boy. And transport. Ye plan to walk your way across the wilderness?
Could if I decide to, I reckon.
What will ye eat?
Ain’t got to that yet.
No. No, well…
The teamster tapped the ash from his pipe, stood.
Ye saved me a mule today. Let’s see what can be done here.
He climbed into the back of the nearest wagon.
Come up here, boy.
He lit a small lantern as the boy climbed under the heavy canvas cover. He tossed a flannel shirt at the boy’s feet.
See if that’s a fit.
The boy looked at him.
Go ahead. Your own h’ain’t much wear left to it.
The boy stripped off his muddy, torn shirt, dropped it with a clunk on the wagon deck. In the soft light his neck and hands were the color of leather gloves; between patches of mud the skin of his torso and shoulders shone like alabaster. The teamster’s eyes narrowed.
Strong lad, ain’t ye?

It took a moment for the words to register. When they did, the air around the boy seemed to hum. He paused, as if to sort out the source of a strange sound, and turned his head toward the teamster just as the man’s large hands closed upon his shoulders, forcing him down on his stomach to the wagon floor.

They struggled in silence. The teamster pinned the boy to the wagon’s rough floor, scraping his elbows and cheek as he tried to scuttle from under the man's heavy weight. The teamster’s face pressed close to the boy’s ear and the boy heard the wheezy breath, smelled the stale tobacco and coffee, felt the scratch of the beard. The boy flailed, clawing the air. It all happened in seconds. The teamster yanked hard at the boy’s worn trousers, grunting with each pull. There were ripping sounds. In desperation the boy flung his arms forward, seeking any handhold. Then he felt a metallic surface and closed his hand on it -- a heavy, cast iron pot lid.
Another pull and his trousers gave way; the boy felt the night air on his buttocks. The teamster sat back on his knees and raised himself slightly as the boy flipped over, swinging the lid with both hands. There was a solid, metallic sound, and the teamster pitched sideways on his right shoulder, his left hand going flat against the side of his head. Blood trickled between his closed fingers and his eyes blinked with surprise.

The boy pushed himself away, his breath coming in short, hard gasps. He was about to rise when the teamster caught him by the ankle. Kicking with his free foot, the boy caught the teamster on the forehead, cutting him again, and the man sagged against the wagon floor.

What came next was a surprise. The boy wanted to get away, so he swung the heavy lid again. He swung it back and forth, hardly feeling the strikes. He didn’t see the scarlet splatters on the wagon cover until he was done. Not until he felt the lid become sticky with the teamster’s blood.

He looked down. The man was no more. In his place was a corpse; blood-stained shirt, arms, hands, legs and trousers spread-eagled against the floor of the wagon, crotch darkened with urine; face, beard and skull battered into a shapeless, crimson pulp. Life was gone, and what remained hardly seemed the stuff of life, except for the sound of the man’s voice, which the boy recalled now, suddenly, blushing at the thought.
For a long moment he stood over the body, staring. There was no remorse; the teamster had betrayed him. No, he had survived. That was the only judgment he could apply.

The bloody lid slipped from his hands and he pulled up his trousers and picked up the shirt. He turned to go, and in turning his eye noticed a fold in the dead man’s pocket. Gently he lifted up the man’s leather coin purse and inspected the contents.

When his feet touched the ground outside a concertina nearby began to wheeze a jig as the silhouettes of small brown bats swooped down from the darkened sky to gather the insects that hovered in clouds above the camp. Voices strange and ominous filtered through the alleyway behind him, and the boy ducked down. The sounds seemed to close in around him. Bunching the waist of his bloody, torn trousers in his fist the boy took flight, bare-chested, shirt and teamster’s purse flapping in his free hand as he moved. Without direction or destination, without plan. Away. Just get away.

At that moment Deputy John Bayford Weaver was headed back to the city’s jail after making his rounds among the main street shops and warehouses. At age thirty-eight he lived a life of lock and window sash inspections, twelve hours each day, seven days a week, for twelve and a half dollars a month. As he strolled past the rows of freight wagons the deputy thought about the meal that awaited him at the jail: cold biscuits and red-eye gravy puddled with grease, black coffee, molasses, and perhaps a dollop of corn pudding, all from the kitchen of the Mays Hotel. He wondered if the meal had been brought over by Dora, the hotel’s kitchen girl. Dora, nineteen, hair the color of corn silk. Light blue eyes. Large-hipped, full-breasted, promiscuous. And as he walked the deputy recalled their encounter in the alleyway behind the hotel a week ago. It was a hurried fumbling, with skirts swept aside and trousers unbuttoned - a shivering, sweat-soaked coupling, barely one minute in duration, accompanied by no sound, nor smile nor kiss.

He gave her a dollar. She gave him the clap, which he would not discover for another three days.

As he crossed behind the last freight wagon at the end of the street, murder was the last thing on the deputy’s mind. But the panicked boy had reached that same place at the same time, barely slowing to dodge around the wagon; he ran into the deputy so hard that the teamster’s coin purse burst from his hand and struck the deputy full in the face.

Fortunately for Weaver he was a big man. The physical shock of the collision barely moved him -- although the surprise of it nearly emptied his bowels.
Good God Almighty.
Before him the blood-splattered, bare-chested boy lay stunned. It took a few long moments for Weaver to realize that the shiny objects scattered around his feet were gold coins.

Laramie

It was morning when Eli Jumper, Cutter and Cole arrived at Fort Laramie on the horses they purchased with the massacred pilgrims’ money. By noon they were drunk, and by midafternoon Cutter and Cole were incarcerated in the old fur trader's adobe guardhouse next to the Laramie River, accused by a drunken soldier of using holdout cards in a poker game at the post sutler’s store. They were saved from a severe flogging by the cirrhotic lifestyle of their accuser; the soldier collapsed and died the following day from complications of heatstroke.

The fur trader’s bastion was crumbling in disrepair; the adobe walls of the original stockade had been allowed to decay since the army purchased the fort in 1849, and the recently transferred garrison, consisting of one company of mounted infantry and one company of regular infantry, was charged with the responsibility of constructing a new post around a large parade ground.

Following their release Cutter and Cole contracted with the fort adjutant to haul timber from the Laramie Mountains 30 miles west. Cutter used the contract to negotiate the purchase of a team and freight wagon, and for the next month the two outlaws spent their days cutting and hauling and watching for Indians along the trail. At night they caroused with trail scouts and freighters in the trader’s small store, playing cards and exchanging gossip around cooking fires, and occasionally cheating drunken soldiers with slight-of-hand card tricks.

Eli Jumper used his hunting skills to supply meat for the fort’s cooking pots; game was scarce in the vicinity and the emigrants, freighters, traders and soldiers were willing to pay exorbitant prices to avoid the work and risk of ranging too far from the cannon muzzles to secure a taste of steak or tongue. Watching the Osage depart the fort one morning, Cole shook his head. Injun on horseback's got more lives than a cat, he muttered.

The discovery of the massacred train had sent shock waves up and down the trail; road ranches and trading posts from the Wind River country to Nebraska City hummed with rumors of mass attacks, scalping and torture. Casualty numbers swelled to the hundreds, and stolen livestock totals were inflated to the point that one trail-hardened scout proclaimed Sioux ownership of cattle, mules and horses greater than all the estancias in Texas.
Wonder what brand they’ll use, he mused.

At Laramie trail traffic slowed as summer wore on and the stories piled high. Only the experienced frontiersmen knew that the hostiles had long since departed the region for the buffalo-darkened country of the Powder River, and the relative safety of the Paha Sapa, as the Lakota called the Black Hills. Bearded, long-haired wilderness veterans sat alone in the corners of the fort’s drinking rooms and at the edges of the night fires, staring into their whiskey, listening to the greenhorn panic, confirming with silence the disesteem that drove them from civilization – too much talking, not enough knowing.

Cutter’s mind was busy too, not with thoughts of Indians, but money. As far back as he could remember he had been able to sense the easiest access to whatever wealth was around him. Skin games, robbery, bunko, forgery; he knew how to move the boodle. He called this talent his sugar nose, and from the moment he and Cole and Eli arrived at Laramie he had been sniffing out the possibilities, weighing the prospects, figuring ways to avoid punishment. He knew the risks: no penitentiaries meant hanging for almost any crime, or murder on the prairie by Indians, or even death from starvation or exposure if escape was not carefully planned. But Henry Cutter was not a man to fret consequence. He believed he was smarter than his marks, whatever the color of their skin. Superior intelligence would help him formulate the strategy he needed to succeed.

Unfortunately, neither Cutter nor Cole was well-acquainted with day-to-day requirements of life on the frontier. The dugout in Kansas had been merely a hideout; most of their time was spent prowling Missouri River towns, stealing whatever they found unguarded among the largely peaceable farmers and merchants. In contrast, the frontier along the Platte River emigrant trails was in a state of perpetual alarm due to deteriorating relations with the Indians. Everyone was armed.

But Henry’s sugar nose smelled a situation ripe with opportunity. Scarcity of goods was common. By the time emigrant trains reached Laramie the pilgrims were in need of almost everything – draft animals, wagon parts, whiskey, flour, sugar, coffee, clothing. The threat of Indian raids had reduced the flow of supplies: the post trader’s stores were nearly depleted and the army, too, had its supply problems. The soldiers, mostly poor, illiterate emigrants themselves, would spend every cent they had on food that wasn’t wormy or molding, warm socks, cheap whiskey, and dollar whores. Most appealing to Cutter was the fact that competition was all but nonexistent; prices could be set according to the dictates of conscience.

The first week in August brought a small supply train consisting of twenty ox-drawn wagons carrying goods consigned to the sutler at Fort Bridger - blankets, medicine, lanterns, hard goods, lead, and powder. The odd crate of bibles. And whiskey, barrels of whiskey. All cargo to be sold or bartered over the winter.
With the train came twenty-three men.

One of them was named Edwin Tabonneau, a Lakota half-breed known for his skill with bow and rifle. The son of a French trapper and a woman from the Oglala Bad Face clan, he occasionally hired on with trains as a scout and translator. But in the company of whites he could be surly, silent for days at a time, and few teamsters trusted his behavior, which became openly insolent as tensions mounted between his mother’s people and the whites.

On the night they arrived at Laramie Tabonneau and a bullwhacker got into a fight in the trader’s store, the cause of which no witnesses could later recall.
The whacker was stout and thick-necked, with hairy, club-shaped forearms he spread wide in an attempt to grapple with the half-breed. His intent was to break bones, but every time he closed with his opponent Tabonneau’s knife snickered through the air, biting the whacker’s arms, face, and torso. By the time the fight was over the teamster’s blood dotted the faces and shirts of the onlookers.

In the end the loser sat heavily in a chair, bright crimson rivulets streaming down his face and arms, soaking his shirt and trousers, dripping steadily into pools on the dusty plank floor. He refused all aid, wiping himself with a bar rag until the cloth was wet and dripping. Finally he sighed deeply, let the rag drop to the floor and spoke his last words:
Shut the window. I’ve taken a chill.

Cutter had a wagon and team; what he needed was a means to forecast the ebb and flow of weather, Indians and emigrant passage. He watched the teamster bleed to death and recognized the solution.

The next morning Cutter came upon the half-breed seated on a keg in the shade of the eves outside the trader’s store, eyes bloodshot, fingers trembling in the onslaught of a hangover as he attempted to light a short clay pipe. The teamster’s blood still streaked his shirtfront in dark brown waterfall shapes, crusty and stinking. Flies, chilled with dew, buzzed lazily around him, landing to crawl up and down the greasy locks of dark hair that spilled across his back and shoulders.
Hullo there, Cutter said.
Tabonneau turned his face toward Cutter, then away from him.
Helluva ruckus ye had last night.
Tabonneau spit.
Ye be a handy fellow.
Cutter moved closer to stand in front of the half breed.
I might could offer ye a job.
Tabonneau fixed Henry with a red-eyed stare.
Ain’t lookin’.
Well, sir, it’s more of a partnership really. Equal shares.
You didn’t hear me.
Tabonneau dropped the pipe and stood up, kicked the keg behind him. Cutter took a step back.
Now, now friend. No harm intended.
Go away from me. Or suffer.
The half-breed advanced a step. Cutter held up his index finger.
Fair warning. I am the wrong man. Come at me and ye won’t walk away.
Tabonneau stopped. He recognized a metallic sound, and looked down at the muzzle of the cocked pistol Cutter held at his hip.

The next day Tabonneau quit the supply train. A month later he, Cutter, Cole and Eli Jumper opened a road ranch at a site he selected near the Horse Creek Treaty grounds thirty-five miles from Laramie. East of the fort, the half-breed explained, provided first pickings of the emigrant trains and a thirsty ride for the soldiers. The sod and log building was a 12 by 20 foot trading room flanked by two small lean-to supply rooms. A dug-out stable and corral completed the structure, which opened for business in mid-October, low on trail supplies but well-stocked with kegs of whiskey and two fat whores fetched from Dobytown near Fort Kearny. Cutter fashioned two hide-covered hay pallets and a blanket partition in one of the lean-tos, and the Laramie soldiers sustained a lively trade on two-dollar pokes through the end of November, when a heavy snow blanketed the fort road.

Just before snowfall a young soldier rode to the ranch, claiming the Grand Bounce from the drudgery of military life at Laramie. He sat on a crate in the trading room all afternoon, drinking cup after cup of whiskey. I come here from Ohio to dust savages, he said, not muck stalls nor dig shitholes for goddamn officers. I’m a fightin’ man. He spit tobacco from between rotting brown teeth and dug a wad of cash from his trousers. Now fetch me another portion. I believe I’ll have anothern before I ride them gals.
For three hours Cutter, Cole and Tabonneau listened to him. When he passed out they dragged him by the ankles behind the building and cut his throat.

They rifled his pockets and saddlebags and buried him and his saddle in a washout three miles north of the ranch. His horse was turned out in the corral - a stray they intended to return to the fort, if anyone asked.
Then they burned his clothes. Cole kept his boots.

That evening after supper a smiling Cutter held up the soldier’s sparkling silver watch and chain in the firelight as he read the inscription on the case:
The time of life is short. Will Shakespeare.
He closed the case and pocketed the watch.
Winter’s comin boys, he said. Better stock up.

Desertions among Laramie’s enlisted troops ran close to 30 percent that winter. Few were caught and punished; none whose path crossed the Horse Creek road ranch.

The Juzgado

They let him put on his shirt before they locked him in the jail’s single cell, which measured 9 by 12 feet, at the rear of a box-shaped fieldstone building with a small ventilation gap high in the back wall.

It was a dark, reeking space, and the boy kept his back to the flat iron bars as he slid down to the cold, straw-covered stone floor. For a short while his eyes darted about, searching in vain for shapes in the inky blackness.

From across the room came the sound of slow rhythmic breathing, and the boy knew that a man he could not see, a sleeping man, already occupied the cell. The boy stared into the darkness, trying to collect himself, but in the still, foul air an aching exhaustion overcame him and slowly he sank to his side. Within a minute he was asleep.

He awakened to the sound of urination. Through the gap at the top of the back wall the first dim rays of daylight outlined a figure pissing in a bucket in the corner. As the boy rubbed sleep from his eyes the figure looked over his shoulder and shuffled back to the other side of the cell, yawning. He wore leg irons, which jingled and squeaked as he moved to the wall, stopped, stretched his arms, and loosed a loud, quaking fart before settling down upon a small blanket spread upon the floor.

His name was Henry Cutter. He was thirty years old, although in his dirty, loose-fitting workingman’s clothes he looked much older. He had a slender build, with long, thin arms and legs that culminated in large hands and feet. He sported a fashionably long mustache and goatee. At first acquaintance most who met him would describe Henry as an affable, intelligent man. He was that and more: At twelve years of age he killed a man for throwing a rock at his dog. By the time he turned twenty he had murdered twice again, a free black man and a Cherokee Indian. Since then his life catalogued violence and crime on a grander scale: war and gunfights, stabbings, assaults and robberies.
He had large gray eyes that focused on the boy, who began scratching his waist and neck where bedbugs had pitched into him as he slept.

Ticky in here, ain’t it?

The boy didn’t respond. His attention was drawn to the building’s front door, where a key rattled in the lock. The door swung open and Marshal Albert Toomes entered the room. A big man, well over two hundred pounds, he stepped to the front of the cell, folding his meaty fists around the bars.

Mornin’ Henry.
Hullo, Albert.
Son.
The boy remained silent.
Albert, said Cutter, I see yer boardin’ schoolboys these days. What’d he do? Turpentine your dog?
Same as you, Henry. Murder, robbery. Bashed the skull of a teamster, then run smack into one a’ my deputies. Had the man’s purse.
Well. What do you aim to do with him?
Hold him for trial.
Missouri hangs children?
Missouri hangs murderers, Henry, as you’ll soon find out. Hell, the two of you, mebbe you’ll get stretched together.
I ain’t hung yet, Albert.
As good as. Boy’ll go to trial, and soon as that’s over, his honor’ll write out your order of execution. Then it’s off to Springfield, mebbe both of you. Good riddance, too.
You got a mean streak, Albert. You know that?

The marshal looked at the boy.
Care to tell me yer name this mornin’ boy?
No response.
Ain’t gonna help you any, keepin’ quiet. If you’ve kin, they should know. You’re in deep, son.
He paused a moment, turned to leave, looked back at Cutter.
Breakfast’ll be up shortly. Then you two can swamp out the cell.

Toomes slammed the door behind him. Cutter stared at the boy, who sat slumped against the bars.

Ain’t got a pistol on you?
The boy turned to face the bars.
A knife then?
Cutter held up his chains.
Well, how’s about a key?

Captured

It was after they crossed the Republican River that the boy thought of her. As he herded the stolen stock he wondered which animals belonged to her family – was it the speckled ox or the mule with the dark mane? Would she reach Oregon now?
He pondered these questions without guilt. Cutter was right: The pilgrims encouraged their own bad luck by not being prepared.

But the boy felt reckless. He now had a weapon and a decent horse. Perhaps when they sold the stock he’d strike out on his own, maybe search her out, take her with him. If her father said anything, the boy would do for him just like he had for the slavers at Wilson’s.

They trailed the south bank of the Republican until mid afternoon, when the country ahead rose and broke into steep, cedar-filled ravines. They recrossed the river and moved the stock north, past the flood plain to rolling, buffalo grass tableland dotted with clumps of soapweed, keeping the river’s tree-lined course in sight. They made camp in a full red sunset, with buffalo sign all around them.

The next morning Jumper was gone. He took with him two mules, a long gun and a flask of rye whiskey. Buff’ler roast for supper, I think, said Cutter. Goddamn Injuns go stale on beans and salt pork over time.
I just hope he don’t get too drunk, said Wilson. Won’t butcher or pack it back worth a damn. Meat’ll be flyblown and look like dogs chewed it.
After a cold breakfast Cutter sent the boy down to the river to fill canteens while he, Wilson and Cole broke camp and got the stock moving.

The day had dawned clear, hot and humid; mosquitoes and gnats rose in clouds from the willow thickets as the boy threaded his way to the river’s edge. He buttoned his shirt collar and hunched his shoulders, fanning the worn straw hat he’d taken from one of the emigrant wagons. He dismounted and searched the steep bank for a place to wade; perhaps the insects would be less annoying if he stood in the river.

He discovered a sloping access to the water and removed his worn brogans and socks and rolled his trousers up to his knees. He stepped into the slow green current carefully, moving out into the river until the high-pitched hum of the mosquitoes disappeared. He filled a canteen and had a second half full when he looked up and scanned the river in both directions.

There was an Indian standing on the bank fifty paces downstream. He had a gray wool army blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His face was blackened around his mouth and eyes, and the vermilion he wore in the part in his hair made him look as though someone had attempted to saw his skull in two. At first the boy thought it was Jumper, but he quickly realized that this man was too tall and thin, his hair too long.
The Indian was motionless, watching, which delayed the boy’s notice of the weapon he held in his right hand - a flat, three-foot long piece of wood with a tapered grip and two six-inch iron blades protruding from the broad, killing end. The boy dropped the canteen he was filling, feeling a sharp chill as he realized his pepperbox pistol was still in the warbag that hung from his saddle.

He sucked a deep breath and without taking his eyes from the Indian began moving slowly toward the bank. An experienced frontiersman would have chosen the river; a man diving and swimming underwater presented a smaller target, and the water’s surface might deflect a ball or arrow fired from such a shallow angle.

But the boy was not experienced; he focused on the Indian as he moved up on the bank. The Indian did not move, and when the boy turned to run he understood why: Before him was a second Indian; in his upraised hand he held a stone-headed club. He stepped quickly toward the boy, bringing the club down as he came, and in the split second before he was swallowed in blackness, the boy thought about the face of the young prison guard whose pistol had misfired.

Wish All...

... a peaceful day of remembrance - with or without the BBQ sauce.