may sooner kill you and take it from you, boy.”
“You may try.” Kohn puffs on his cheroot and blows a stream of smoke up at the men.
“Eight,” says the soldier with the carbine.
“A reasonable man. Seven and we shake on it, Bill,” Kohn says.
Springfield nods and gestures spitting on his left hand, holding the carbine in his right, and mimes a handshake. “Done. Struck like a Jewman. Show me the dollar and I will tell you that there are three books in all with over two thousand odd dollars owing within. I will tell you a fellow here on post has them and is making good use of them and when you give me the other six bucks, I will tell you who he is.”
Kohn mummers the spitting on his hand and the handshake. “I am reaching into my pocket for my wallet.”
“Go ahead, Bill.”
Kohn takes a two-dollar note from the wallet and holds it out to the man with the carbine but the man indicates to the hatchet man to take the money. He switches the hatchet to his left hand and snatches the greenback with his right. Kohn then removes a five-dollar note and folds it around his fingers.
“Now speak up while I check that pot for coffee,” Kohn says, rising from the bed and passing between the two men, forcing them to step aside. He crosses the rough board barracks floor to the stove and lifts the boiler pot. He takes a tin mug from a shelf above the stove and pours coffee for himself, sitting down at the barracks’ long table. “There’s coffee enough for two in the pot boys but I won’t vouch for its quality.”
“We won’t be needing it,” Springfield says, taking a seat across from Kohn at the table. His friend crosses to warm himself at the stove but remains standing. “We will be going shortly. But I will tell you that them books you seek are held by a E Company boy who dogs as the fort’s smith and farrier. Never hardly been off-post nor fired no shot in anger for his work is valued highly by the brass, so he is left at it to smithy while we fight and die and do picket.”
Kohn remembers passing the smith’s, one of the larger structures at the southern end of the post within the quartermaster’s stockade and somewhat removed from the other barracks and stables for fear of fire. He cannot recall meeting the blacksmith but he ordered Rawson to have the horses reshod only yesterday. “What is his name?”
“He is called Ezekiel Sweetman, or that is the name he goes by. He’s a corporal, and a bull of a man as you would expect of a blacksmith. Sure, you may have met him if you’ve your horses shod since coming or p’raps you did refuse to pay his going, for he is a mean bastard who will shoe Uncle Sam’s horses all right as he is paid for it but will ask a king’s ransom for to shoe a civvie’s beast or a private-owned mount. So ’tis not like he needs the money as he’s his wages and a smithy’s special duty pay atop them, but there he is all the same with them ledger books and putting them to ill use for ill gain, the fucker.”
“How is he putting them to use?” Kohn asks, sipping his coffee and puffing his cheroot. He has a fair idea but is open to correction.
“Well the bastard is collecting what is owed at a half-rate before blacking a fellow’s name from the pages when he is paid up. Sure what else would he be doing with them?”
“Half-rate? How kind of him . . . and are the men paying up?”
“They are, for half is better than the full whack by far, and the smithy has given his word to burn them books once all owed is paid up so the whole of them owing have a bargain made with the devil at half-rate,” Springfield says, setting the butt of the carbine on the floor beside him. “And them owing can pay it by-the-by so ’tis never a hardship for them like when they owed the sutler hisself who did dock their wages as owing Uncle Sam.”
“That sounds fair enough but why do they pay him at all?”
“Well, he could sell the books back to the new sutler and they would owe the full whack then, surely. For the love of Christ, what kind of a