his girl came back to his knee she too was quiet & sullen & cursed the back of that Sutler’s wife with her eyes until the muleskinner said something in her Indian tongue & she looked away. Tom did then lay his gaze down upon the skinner but his sweetheart whispered something to him & after a time Tom broke his stare & looked back to her & she made to smile though in truth it looked to me like her heart was not in it.
Myself I did grow sad & ashamed. “How did I come to such a lowly place?” says I to myself. There are shebeens & whores the world over but of all of them I never did see a worse place than this one. Such a sink ditch for such low borne men as us. I felt ashamed to be there & yet perfectly made for such a place. I was an abject creature. I am one still now.
Finally Ridgeway stroked the arm of the Sutler’s wife & said his last piece to her & came back to our table. Just then did the Sutler Kinney himself return to his tavern bringing the cold of Autumn in with him smoke coughing from the fire with the open door. He took but one look about the place & knew that something was wrong & the muleskinner gave him a look so he went to his wife for a whisper & then disappeared behind the sheet into the whores’ quarters.
Tom’s girl raised her head from his shoulder & spoke to all of us. “You go now. You come back the morrow.”
Tom I could see did not want to leave but I think there was nothing he would of not done for her & he slowly stood & so we all did. But the whole time he kept his eyes on the muleskinner & Kinney’s wife. It was like he was warning them without words to mind how they treated his girl. Ridgeway saw this & thought the same thing & said to my brother, “It will be fine, Thomas. She will be fine.”
Tom turned to him his eyes dark with poison. “You would do well to keep your whisht Sir. This is not your affair.”
“Tom!” says I sharply. “He is only being a friend. Mind your tongue.”
Tom turned his eyes to me.
“You go now,” his girl said to him & stroked his arm.
Says Tom, “I am sorry Ridgeway. I did not mean it. You will forgive me?”
“Of course I will Tom,” says the Picture Maker gentle as always. And I will say to you now that to spite the night’s terrible beatings & the fierce trembling violence in Tom’s mind there was something about his apology to Ridgeway that was so regular & common & heartfelt that I saw in it the old Tom the one from before the War. Truly it came to me that the cutnose girl & Ridgeway both were a healing balm to my brother.
So we left the shebeen all of us & it was not the morrow but some weeks later when I went back to that pit again. Of course my brother went regular any night he could & even some days when he was not detailed though I hardly know how he did manage it. I think he took credit from Kinney God Only Knows how much. But I know his love for that girl grew stronger. It was blooming by the day & with it came Tom’s yearning to protect his sweetheart to keep her from harm & someday to have her always with him so that when everything that I will tell you came to pass it was almost like a thing destined. It was like cards that are dealt & must be played.
It is said that God gives us the will to choose the right or the wrong thing & His Son came down to forgive us for oft picking the wrong one but I wonder about this. I do think betimes there are no choices for the poor of the Earth at all & if there is any choice to be had it sits part way between 1 wrong thing & another. I oft wonder does a right thing even exist in such a place as this for such men as us to choose. In truth I do not think so.
39
December 18, 1866—The Pinery, Dakota Territory
KOHN AND JONATHAN WAIT HIDDEN IN THE TREES AT the streambank, the