When they arrive at the group, no one challenges them at first. Kohn and Jonathan watch as the younger O’Driscoll brother embraces the bloody, naked body of a man. Steam rises from the body, from the fresh and bloody wounds. Kohn can see an arrow protruding from the victim’s anus, gaping injury where his privates would be. There is an open wound to the abdomen and the intestines have been pulled through it and unspooled onto the grass. The dead man has been scalped, his skull bashed and broken. There are red and white fragments of bone in the grass around the body.
A mule lies dead and bleeding some yards away and the load it carried is strewn about like the flotsam from a sunken ship, sheets of heavy paper catching the wind, glass plates smashed, a camera and tripod askew and broken, a shredded tent canvas like a cast-off sail in a heap on the muddy trailside.
“Ridgeway,” Michael O’Driscoll says, weeping. “Ridgeway . . .”
All of the men watch this for a moment and then look away except for the man’s brother, Thomas O’Driscoll. There is rage in his eyes as he turns them on Kohn.
“You did this,” Thomas O’Driscoll says, the words unclear in his war-damaged mouth. “You and that bastard of a Galway man with you.” He raises his revolver and points it at Kohn. Kohn raises his own and points it at him.
“You will pay for it, you fucker. ’Tis you done this, you bastard.”
“I did nothing, Private, but follow the trail you left me. A blind man could’ve followed it,” Kohn says, his finger heavy on the trigger of his revolver. A small part of his mind tells him that he will not live long enough to see his own shot strike its target. He will kill Thomas O’Driscoll and Thomas O’Driscoll or one of the other men will kill him and that will be all. Nothing more. Thomas O’Driscoll’s knuckle is white with the pressure of his finger on the trigger of his own gun. Kill. Die. The End.
“No! No, Thomas.”
The words are shouted and then more words in Irish and the grieving O’Driscoll brother sets the corpse gently on the grass and stands. He takes the pistols from his belt, the cartridge belts from around his shoulders and hands them to one of the soldiers on horseback. He turns to Kohn.
“You take me, Sergeant. For the love of God I am responsible as if I killed the boy myself.” Tears run down his face.
Thomas O’Driscoll speaks in Irish to his brother, not lowering his pistol and Kohn has an urge to shoot him now that his attention is taken. He hesitates. Michael O’Driscoll roars at his brother, in a mixture of Irish and English. “You . . .” he roars, spittle spraying from his mouth. “You did this. You put fear in the boy . . .”
Michael O’Driscoll turns to Kohn then and holds out his hands. “Put me in irons, by God, and arrest me. I did this . . .” He falls to his knees, weeping, his hands outstretched to Kohn in as if to God Himself.
Captain Brown appears disgusted with the scene before him and he turns in his saddle to Thomas O’Driscoll. “You and Jones. You go get a wagon and see to the body.”
Thomas O’Driscoll turns to the quartermaster as if waking from a trance. “Yessir.” He looks down again to his brother.
“Michael,” he says.
“Go on, brother,” Michael O’Driscoll says. “Go on.”
“Private,” Captain Brown says, “I gave you an order.”
“Yessir,” Thomas says, sticking his Colt back into his belt and wiping the tears from his face.
“You go with him, Jones. And Jones . . .”
“Yessir.”
“Bring that goddamn Indian from the blockhouse.”
“The Indian, sir?”
“Yes, Jones, the goddamn Indian. I aim to show Mr. Lo that he is not the only fucker in this meadow.”
Kohn says nothing. He dismounts and ties Michael O’Driscoll’s hands behind his back with leather cord and helps him up to his saddle. He is anxious to be away before the men return with their prisoner, and the captain makes no attempt to stop him as he leaves with his own.
40
December 18, 1866—Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory
LATER THAT EVENING KOHN SITS HIS PRISONER IN A chair across the table from him in the guardhouse, the prisoner wearing shackles at his wrists and ankles.
Kohn says, “You think you will sit there in silence but you will talk