“Yessir, though I feel I’d better serve the army in another regiment, General.”
“The army will decide how you’ll best serve it. Is that clear to you?”
“Yessir.”
Molloy’s hand twitches in his lap and he must focus all his attention for a moment to quell it. Sweat sheens his brow and the Nebraska light stabs at his eyes through the window. He looks away and swallows back blossoming nausea. Serve the army. Best. Last night’s whiskey, this morning’s brandy and coffee, all of it smoldering ash now in his belly.
Two loud raps on the door, like gunshots to Molloy, like the gallows’ trap clapping open beneath a man’s feet. He starts in his chair and his legs take to jigging. He tenses them and his hands resume their twitching instead. He clenches them together beneath the battered Hardee hat on his lap.
“Coffee, General.” The private soldier who’d helped Kohn dress and bathe him enters with a tray. Rawson? Doesn’t matter, his name. The private sets the tray down on Cooke’s desk and hands a mug to Molloy.
Careful, Jesus, don’t drop it. His hands shake as he takes the mug but it is only half-full, to avoid any sloshing out of the coffee. And half of that is brandy, thank God. Thank Kohn. Molloy can smell it before it makes his mouth.
Another sip and Molloy winks at the private while Cooke sugars his own mug, battered tin, a relic from his dragoon days. Bone china would work just as well for the man, Molloy thinks, the sweat cooling on his brow, the tremors stilling in his legs and hands with another sup. He smiles at his savior knowing it is Kohn’s work behind it all. I would be lost without him. Must be kinder to the man lest I lose him.
“Thank you kindly, Private,” he says. “It’s fine coffee.”
“My pleasure, Lieutenant.” The soldier turns to Cooke. “Will there be anything else, General?”
Cooke blows on his coffee and waves the soldier away.
Thank God in heaven, Molloy thinks. May he bless and save Daniel Kohn, my angel of mercy, in the wings, the shadows. My guardian angel.
The coffee is warm but not too hot and the brandy is the only thing that burns.
IN THE POST’S COOKHOUSE Corporal Kohn says to Private Rawson, “You’re certain he got the right mug?”
“Course I’m certain he got the right one. That boy gots the shakes like he got the malaria fevers. But one sup of the good stuff and he calmed down like we done dosed him with laud’num. Now, stump up, Corp.”
“No way to talk to a man above you in rank and station, Private Rawson,” Kohn says, grateful to the soldier despite something about the boy that rankles. Hardly any distance at all, Kohn knows, between a corporal and a private but some respect should be shown. It is as if the general contempt shown to Molloy has sifted down to him as his orderly. Or perhaps he himself does not command respect?
The private smiles at him. “No rank or no station gon’ matter where you headed.”
Kohn hands him a half-dollar coin. He will repay himself later from Molloy’s purse, of which he is in charge. From his pay to his field reports to his letters home to Galway, Molloy has put it all in Kohn’s hands. Kohn is honored to be so trusted, and conscientious to a fault, but wonders would Molloy have made him his chargé d’affaires if he were a Catholic or Methodist. A Portugee or Swede. A Jew for your financial affairs, Molloy has said himself, in jest, yes, but half in jest, full in earnest, as the officer has also said more than once. Still, Kohn is more of a nursemaid of late than a banker or clerk and Molloy has stopped caring at all what becomes of his money or his affairs. Every morning Kohn fears what he will find when he knocks to wake him but he has stopped hiding Molloy’s Remington New Model, knowing the man has chosen a slower form of suicide.
“Thank you kindly, Corp,” Rawson says, making to leave.
“So where is it you think I’m going, Rawson?”
“You and the sot. Why you think he in there with Ol’ Thunder now anyway? Only gettin’ his marchin’ orders.”
“The Captain’s transfer—”
“Transfer?” Private Rawson barks with laughter. “Hell, you boys be transferred north before the Sioux Injuns give y’all permanent transfer west, minus y’all’s hair. Good luck and Godspeed, my friend.”