he notices an Indian lying on the earthen floor, his hands and feet hogtied behind his back. The captive’s eyes are closed, whether in sleep or death or swollen injury, Kohn does not know. The Indian wears no shirt and his torso is coated in something dark and dried that Kohn knows is blood. Even inside this smoke-filled shelter, the temperature is not far above freezing. He would be surprised if the Indian’s eyes ever opened again. At a table of offcut boards sits an officer.
“Captain Brown?” Kohn says, saluting. “Sergeant Kohn, 7th Cavalry, we have met once before.” Above the seated officer is a line of twine festooned with scragged, black swatches, some with feathers in, others without. It takes Kohn a moment to recognize them as scalps.
The captain smiles at Kohn and he is missing several teeth, his own face swollen, a patchwork of scarring on his forehead, a black eye, fresh stitches across his cheek thick as bootlaces.
“I know who I am and I know who you are, Sergeant. You have come to arrest my boys. Boys,” Brown says to the seated soldiers, “this fine fellow is here to arrest you.”
Kohn turns to the men, his hand on the butt of his gun. He feels as if he has had it there since he entered the logging camp. He says, “You are the O’Driscoll brothers, aren’t you? We have also met before. You were with the captain when I met him about our horses and you were at the hog ranch when the sutler and his wife were done in. You will come with me and answer my questions or I will have you up for their murders.”
The brothers say nothing but look to the officer.
“Those are scurrilous accusations, Sergeant.” There is amusement in the captain’s voice.
“They are backed by witnesses, sir.”
“Witnesses? Who would that be? Witnesses? Have you been out interviewing the Sioux and the Cheyenne?”
“I am not at liberty to say who at the moment, sir. But I will question these two men. I have orders giving me the power—”
“Show them to me again and I’ll piss on them. General Cooke and his ‘investigations’ may rot in hell for all I care. I’ll be dead and so most likely will you, long before he or any other bastard stands in front of any court martial or hanging judge. Do you see that red fucker on the ground there?” the captain says, rising now from the table.
He crosses the short space in front of the woodstove to the Indian and kicks him in the ribs. The Indian grunts but does not open his eyes. “This red bastard is your murderer, Sergeant. You may tell that to General Cooke. This mutilator, this savage”—he kicks the Indian twice more—“you may string him up when we return to the fort if it pleases you, but you will not arrest any of my men.”
Kohn is silent for a moment. He turns his eyes to the seated men, who look from the captain to Kohn and back again. The silence of guilty men, Kohn thinks. Or dumb beasts. “You men were there. I know you were there and I know one of you or both of you killed the sutler and his wife and the other fellow who was with them.”
“You know damn all about anything, Sergeant,” Brown says. “Now get out of my camp before I have you shot for . . . for something, I don’t need a goddamn reason. You and that red beast waiting outside. Pawnee or Crow I will still have his guts hung in the branches.”
“You are refusing me leave to arrest these men, sir?”
“Get on your horse, Sergeant,” the captain says, drawing a pistol from his belt and pointing it at Kohn.
38
THE BAWD OF THE HOG RANCH SHOWS HER TRUE COLOURS
I DID ONLY GO WITH MY BROTHER 1 MORE TIME TO THE hog ranch before the night you want to hear of. We will come to that night Sir as I promised but only when I am ready to write of it.
After we took our September wages it was & our blood was hot that is the reason I went I think. A mob of Red Cloud’s Braves were after taking a clatter of beef cattle from the far grazing & well we did have a lively chase lasting near a whole day & a fair dust up at the end of it with none of ours hurt & none or maybe 1 of