a fit with froth about her mouth & her eyes rolling back in her head & her body shaking.
True as God Sir I did almost go to her aid but her husband well he should of gone to her & not for the Henry rifle kept above the bar on the wall in case of an Indian raid. If Kinney went to his wife instead of for that rifle well then he might be living still & my brother & I both hanged from short ropes but he did reach for it in the end.
He did not get it of course for Tom stretched an arm across the bartop to grab a fistful of Kinney’s shirt & then he did drag him back & lay his D Bar knife up into the back of that Sutler’s head like I saw him do several times in the war so that the Sutler was stone dead before my brother dropped him & he hit the floor with the blood gouting out of his mouth in one final surge.
And all the while I must tell you Ridgeway did be shouting, “Stop! Please stop this!”
But we could not stop what that woman started & though many things may of happened tween the time my brother met his sweetheart whore & the time he lifted that Madam by the neck for striking her well nothing did happen that may of stopped it all from coming to pass. It is like God did ordain it to happen & well I am sorry that it did but more so for Ridgeway who had nothing to do with it & is dead now & died with such a thing blackening his soul. If there is any mercy in Heaven I am sure God will understand this & take pity on him.
For there was worse to come yet in that dugout tavern I tell you. Not knowing what to do I sent the other 2 away saying to them, “Metzy & Ridgeway you go back to the Ft. & speak not a word to anyone or we will all hang I tell you. Not a word.”
Well Ridgeway he did not move at 1st & though he must of seen a good piece of dying & dead men when he made pictures in the War I do not think he was ever in such close quarters to bloody murder as this. Well like I did say I was sorry & am sorry but done is done & already I was angry at the Sutler & his witch of a wife for making all this murder happen.
“Away with ye both. And not a word,” says I & finally they did leave.
“What will we do brother?” says I then.
In Irish Tom said to me, “The woman still breathes.” Like that he did say it like he was surprised by this.
“We will have to run for it,” says I.
“We will get nowhere without horses Michael. They would be on us in no time. And the woman still—”
I cut in on him.
“I know she is still alive for the Love Of God Tom! And now what? Now f______ what?”
A rage came upon me for I did also blame Tom for all this. Every bloody bit of it. We could of hung in Ireland & been buried in the earth of our home next to our father & mother & their fathers & mothers before them but instead we had to come to America to kill & suffer & tremble before the Rebs & now the Indians & all of it just to hang for the honour of a slapped whore? God In Heaven it was a rum scene & the vanity of it did twist my heart. “Why brother?” I begged him in my head. “Why did you never ever do the right thing? Why did I always follow you brother? Because you are my brother? Or because I am such a fool?”
But as I was thinking these angry questions Tom’s girl crossed the room to the muleskinner & took up his knife & before you knew it she did set to carving the scalp right off that dead boy before bringing it over to me. Well I did not want it & could not believe my eyes & she seemed to understand so she put the bloody pelt of long black hair down onto the bar. Then with the knife she went to the Sutler’s wife who lay there in the dirt agin