“We’re for the Dakotas, sir. North to some new fort. The country crawling with Injuns, sir.”
“Injuns . . .”
“Yessir.”
“Spoken like an old Indian fighter. A buffalo hunter. Have you ever killed an Injun, Dan? You’ve butchered whole dozens of men, Kohn, but ever an Injun?”
Kohn’s face reddens. “I’ll see the quartermaster, sir. And then I’ll see to the mounts and packing.”
“Pack enough to get us there, Kohn, but don’t fret about returning.”
“Yessir.”
Another man inside the captain’s head and that man a son of a bitch, Kohn thinks; a meaner, simpler man able to look at the memories inside his head that Molloy himself cannot.
Molloy lets smoke leak from the corner of his mouth. Hammers. Nails. The rasping saw. A sergeant’s parade ground bellow as meaningless as the singing of birds.
“And Daniel?”
“Sir?”
The distant popping of muskets at the target range outside the town. Springfields. Molloy knows the sound better than his own mother’s voice and Kohn too notes the musketry and recalls that it has been some time since he has fired a gun or swung a cutlass. Molloy is not overly fond of drilling his men.
“Libations. We’ll be needing libations for the journey. The road is no place for a dry mouth.”
“Of course not, sir.”
COOKE’S ADJUTANT, Lieutenant Colonel Pearse, says to Kohn, “Take Rawson. And take care of your timepiece. And your purse. Hell, your goddamn back teeth. He’s been up for theft God knows how many times and it won’t be long before the men suspect that he’s been at it again. I’ve got a report stating the same right here on my desk. And he owes a king’s ransom in card debt. There’s not a man here in Omaha he hasn’t borrowed from and forgotten to pay. I’d give him the brig and the boot but Cooke won’t see a ‘fellow Virginian so abused.’ Those are his words, not mine. The general is fond of the boy, God knows why, but the damn fool will end up with his throat cut if I don’t get shot of him somehow.”
Kohn could have guessed as much about Rawson. Of all the men on post. There is some justice in it, he thinks. “Begging your pardon, sir, but is there no one else?”
“Take Rawson and be happy to have him. He’s not a murderer or a violator of women so far as I am aware, or no more so than any common soldier. And you can have one of Captain North’s Pawnee scouts. You will have to pay him yourselves, but if you submit the paperwork on your return, I’ll sign off on it and you’ll get the cost back. The one called Jonathan is in from Caldwell. I just saw him yesterday and he appeared sober. He’s a good man to have with you. Count yourself lucky.”
Kohn did not feel lucky but he did relish the prospect of telling Rawson to load his musket and pack his haversack. See you in hell, Corporal? You will be seeing me before that, Private.
4
THE THING THAT MAY OF STARTED US ON THE PATH WHERE WE FIND OURSELVES NOW
THERE IS NO 1 SINGLE SPARK THAT SETS ALIGHT A TERRIBLE thing to come in a man’s life. Truly how could you point to 1 thing in a life & say it was this that caused what was to happen later? For once you decided on such a thing you would soon see another that came before it & another that led onwards from that until you came to the 1st time your mother ever set her eyes upon your father. It is that far back you could reckon a bad thing started.
But like meat tween my teeth there is a thing that sticks in my mind as what may of started us on the path to where we find ourselves now. You might say it was the War but my mind lands on a different thing altogether.
I tell you Sir it was a calf that set us on our way strange as it may sound to you a pitiful thing shunned by a 1st calving heifer with no sense at all.
A beast born to die that sonofabitch Chillicoth farmer called that calf before he left Tom & myself try our best to save it. And save it? We pure resurrected it before that farmer went welsh on his word & robbed that beast back from us when it came up good & fat with our tending.