sad and prone to thinking of times past; of Cleveland, of his father, his mother, his brothers and sisters he will never see again, the shul he will never again visit, the wife he will never have, the bolts of cloth he will never cut and the suits of clothes he will never sew. He joined the army to escape these things. He joined the army so he would not have to think or to remember. Drink and idleness do not suit him. He pours his last pint of whiskey into the snow and walks again to the sutler’s store.
There are a few men at the tables in the store drinking beer, as is allowed on most Western posts. On some posts whiskey and rum are sold during certain hours but Kohn has heard that Carrington is a dry commander and has forbidden it. Had he allowed it, perhaps Kinney would not have established his tavern off-post but that is vaser unter’n brik. He hears his mother’s voice in the Yiddish and his heart stumbles. A woodstove warms the store and Kohn begins to sweat under his coat.
The men at the tables look at him and then back to their weeks-old newspapers. Kohn knocks on the counter and waits as the new sutler enters from a back room. The sutler’s store, Kohn notes, is a far grander building than any other on the post, having a duckboard floor and wall boards planed and painted. It is a rarity in that it has more than one room and doors in place of blankets between them. There is a glass window beside the front door and the late afternoon light is weak through it. Lanterns hang from beams high enough that a man must have to stand on a ladder to light them.
“How can I help you?” the young sutler says.
Kohn has heard that he is the son of the sutler at Fort C. S. Smith and arrived some weeks earlier to take over the concession on the death of Mr. Kinney. Wracked with grief, no doubt, the new sutler. Hapworth is his name, and it is newly painted in fine lettering on a sign outside the front door. His father was a judge in Pennsylvania until he decided to tap his Republican cronies for a far more lucrative concern selling overpriced beer and tobacco, clove candies and woollen socks to soldiers stranded out West.
“Do you know who I am?” Kohn asks.
The sutler frowns and desultory conversations cease.
“I . . . should I? I don’t know, no . . .”
“I’m here with Lieutenant Molloy, 7th Cavalry, who is laid up in Company Q and we are sent here to investigate the death of your predecessor, Mr. Kinney. Did you know that?”
“No, I did not.” Hapworth is in his twenties, and blushes under Kohn’s gaze.
“I have General Cooke’s orders and Colonel Carrington’s sanction to investigate Mr. and Mrs. Kinney’s deaths. Do you understand me, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Good, then I will need to see Mr. Kinney’s account ledgers for this store.”
“His account ledgers?”
“Yes, get them for me please. I will wait here.”
The sutler smiles and Kohn takes it to be nervousness rather than spite. The sutler says, “But, well, I can’t because they were not here when I arrived. I packed his personal properties to ship back East myself and they were not among them. I would like to have seen them myself for there are many men owing for goods purchased who may not now be held to account but I could not—”
“And if I were to come back in there behind your counter and have a look myself, I wouldn’t find them, or anything like them?”
“Why, no, of course not. I am at a loss myself with the ledgers missing. I am out of pocket, Sergeant. The debts accrued by the soldiers on this post will not be honored because of it.”
There is laughter from one of the tables and words spoken sotto voce.
Kohn turns and walks over to the table, addressing a raw-boned private. “What did you say?”
The laughter stops and now the men stare at Kohn. The soldier says, “We didn’t say a thing, only that you must be the only Bill in the whole of the fort who wants to see them books found. There’s many a man happy they are gone and hope they stay there.”
The private is Irish as are, no doubt, the men at the table with him. A cursed, wandering race, like my own, Kohn thinks. And