I am not much in the way of an investigator. I hardly know how to go about things.”
The Indian girl takes the last item from the laundry line, a boy’s shirt by the look of it, Kohn notes, not having seen children on the post but knowing there must be some about. She folds the shirt and lifts the crate from the winter-browned grass, looking to Mrs. Carrington, who nods to her. She leaves with the crate of laundered clothes and enters the colonel’s quarters. The sun begins to dip behind the mountains and Kohn and the colonel’s wife are now standing in shadow. Kohn feels the cold.
“Sarah has had a hard life, Sergeant.”
“I can see that, ma’am.”
“She understands some English but she cannot read or write, so I do not imagine she can help you. She has been delivered from that life and is happy now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What do you think of our fort, Sergeant?” The woman looks around her. The dying sun washes the sky winter pink behind the mountains. The flag stirs on the flagpost. The parade ground is hoof-cut mud that will freeze again overnight. Men loiter in the last of the day’s light outside of barracks. A cow lows from somewhere. Sentries with cradled muskets walk the stands along the stockade walls.
“It’s a good fort, ma’am. One of the better ones, I would say.”
“Do you really think so? You have the look of a man who has seen many.”
“I have, ma’am. And I do . . .” He feels the need to reassure this woman that it is, indeed, a fine fort. That it is safe and well-built. A beacon of civilization.
“If only General Cooke thought the same. If only he could see it,” the woman says.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I don’t think Sarah knows anything, Sergeant. And I don’t think it matters much anyway. There are times in life, Sergeant, when we are . . . called to account for how we have treated others.”
“Called to account, ma’am? By who?”
The woman smiles at Kohn and again there is kindness in the smile. Pity, perhaps. “Are you a churchgoing man, Sergeant?”
“Not especially, ma’am. It is hard enough to find a rabbi west of the Mississippi.”
“Perhaps when you do find one, you might ask him who does the calling. Or perhaps you know the answer already. Good day to you, Sergeant.”
Kohn tips his kepi. “Ma’am.”
18
HOW WE MET YOU (THE GALWAY CAPT.) IN THE WAR
—Dec. 19, 1866—IT IS MORNING NOW THOUGH YOU would hardly know it so dark & cold is this Guardhouse cell. You might think that terrible Jew of yours Sir was burning his own wood for how little he will put in the stove for to heat this place but that is the Army for you. It is all Tyranny & the whims of bullies.
But I did not always hate the Army as I do now. No Sir there was a time the fine blue Army of the Union was a salvation to us. The War Between The States was blessing & boon to Tom & myself as we set our boots upon the quayside cobbles of a Philadelphia summer in ’61. It was a blessing because the war was just running up to speed when we arrived from poor Ireland right in time for Uncle Sam to lift back his toasty counterpane & say “Hop into bed with me boys & I will feed you & clothe you & teach you the trade of killing Johnny Reb who wants to start up a new nation in the South & keep the poor black man in chains & in the cotton fields. And to top it all I will pay a fine wage in US Greenback Dollars for the privilege of putting the bayonet & musketball to old Seseshoner Johnny Reb!”
Not that Tom & I would of gave a tinker’s f___ for the black man’s plight at the time much concerned as we were with our own & nor could we of located the Carolinas or Georgia or grand old Virginia on a map at knife point but we could see no better start on offer & both of us liked the cut of a soldier’s bags with the warm dark wool of the Army tunic & the pretty duck egg blue of the kersey leggings & rakish set of a kepi cap on a soldier’s head. Never mind the hunger that made our bellies think our throats were cut for as I told you we spent all