Springfield 1880, page 21
It sickened Will Muncie.
Damn, how he missed good coffee. That part of the country was supposed to produce fine coffee, but he had yet to taste any since fleeing the great South. Well, maybe it was the water that tasted lousy and not the beans and grounds.
Captain Knight came to the fire and snapped a sharp salute. “Sir . . .” he began.
Muncie returned a half-hearted salute. Knight had always been full of brass and vinegar, a salty man who knew no fear. If President Jefferson Davis or any of the big generals had listened to Colonel Muncie, Captain Knight would be General Knight. The boy had practically won the Battle of Chancellorsville by himself.
“Go on, Capt’n,” Muncie said. He knew what would come.
Captain Knight was braver than Spartacus, but he also had the brains of a slave like Spartacus, or like all those uppity little creatures who now thought they were as good, and as free, as a man like Will Muncie. He spit coffee into the fire. What he needed was fine Kentucky bourbon. Pennsylvania bourbon? To hell with that. Yankees in Pittsburg or Harrisonburg or Philadelphia or Carlisle likely stole bourbon from Louisville and branded it their own. And Kentucky, by God, was a Southern state. He remembered all those “orphans” who had fought alongside the states that had the gumption to tell Lincoln and the Yankee congress to kiss their arse.
He stopped those thoughts and tried to listen to whatever nonsense Captain Knight was saying.
“What’s more,” the bantam rooster said, “we lost Bowdre, suh. Bowdre was as fine a man as we have in our service, Colonel. And he was shot down like a poor dumb cur dog in the street. Murdered. That man Foster gave him no chance. And then we left those wagons we came to take. Just left them, Colonel. Beggin’ the colonel’s pardon, suh, but that just don’t set well with the boys, Colonel. No, suh. It don’t set well at all.”
Muncie brought the tin cup to his eye level. He studied the cup and the steam rising above the lip. And he sighed. Captain Knight was passionate. He was also boring as hell.
“Suh?” the captain said.
Muncie brought his eyes up and locked them on the gallant former solicitor from Shreveport, Louisiana.
“Yes, Capt’n?”
“Colonel, I was just saying that it doesn’t sit well, suh, in a man’s belly, to turn tail and run. We haven’t run in a long time, suh.”
Muncie’s head shook. “Since 1865 or something like that, Capt’n, wouldn’t you say? Fifteen years ago.”
“Suh . . . I am just—”
“Capt’n,” Muncie said, his voice remaining calm, “I do not recall you with us at Pittsburgh Landing.” That was the name the Southern troops called Shiloh, the 1862 fight on the banks of the Tennessee River that spring in Tennessee. What had started out as a rout of Ulysses S. Grant’s Yankee devils and what had turned into a heartbreaking Southern loss. General Johnston himself, that gallant gentleman, had died in the first day of fighting. The bloody losses on both sides had shocked the Yankees and the Southern Confederacy.
“No, suh,” Captain Knight said.
“Right.” Muncie sipped his coffee. “You were still practicin’ the law in Shreveport. Helpin’ rich steamboat owners get richer.”
“Well . . .”
“I was at Pittsburg Landing, Capt’n. Shiloh, as some call it. By any name, it was a glorious slaughter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You learn somethin’ by studyin’ war, Capt’n. You should try it sometime.”
The colonel sighed. His patience had its limits.
“Here’s what I learned on that awful day in Tennessee, Capt’n. On that first day, we had pushed the Yanks practically into the cold waters of the Tennessee River. We all thought they were licked, no matter how many brave comrades had fallen in battle. It was a slaughter, Capt’n. A brutal slaughter. But we were winnin’ the day. We had won the day. Victory was ours. The blue bellies were almost in a full rout.”
He sighed again.
“The next day, Capt’n, the Yanks came back hard.” Muncie’s head shook. “They whupped us good, Capt’n. Whupped the tar out of us.”
He poured the dregs of the coffee into the fire, which sizzled and smoked.
“Once you see a man’s back, you figure he’s whupped, Capt’n. That’s why I let Capt’n Foster see my back. He thinks we are whupped, suh. That’s why I sacrificed the gallant Corporal Bowdre. Capt’n Foster, dumb Yankee that he is, will not fret over us after today. That will be his defeat, much as it was our defeat in 1862 at Pittsburg Landin’.” Muncie called out a name. “Lieutenant Fountain!”
CHAPTER 65
The bookkeeper of the Southern expatriates slipped from behind the horses tethered beyond the fire, made a beeline for Colonel Muncie and Captain Knight, and snapped a sharp salute. Lieutenant Fountain appeared out of uniform, having shunned his gray shell jacket for a black poncho, and the darkest denim britches Captain Knight had ever seen. Even the lieutenant’s face had been covered with greasy tar, making him look like a damned slave.
“Report, Lieutenant Fountain,” Colonel Muncie said without returning the lieutenant’s salute.
“Two, sir.”
“Two.” Muncie considered this. “You are sure.”
“Countin’, Colonel, suh, is my specialty.”
“Indeed.” Muncie grinned and turned to the stunned Captain Knight. “Mr. Knight, you seem to be out of sorts. Tell me, Capt’n, if you sent your enemy runnin’ back to their mamas, what would you do? Think, man. This is war. We don’t have time to debate. We must act with a certain amount of spontaneity.”
“I would . . . suh . . . ummm . . . I would . . .”
“Lieutenant?” Muncie looked at the black-faced, thin bean-counter.
“Make sure he was indeed retiring to where he said he was goin’, Colonel.”
“How many would you send, Lieutenant?”
“One should be able to do the job, suh.”
Colonel cocked his eyes. “But,” he said with a sardonic grin, “you counted two, Lieutenant.”
“It takes two Yanks, Colonel, to do the job of one good Southern soldier.”
“Indeed.” Muncie grinned at the perplexed Captain Knight.
“Bookkeeper,” Muncie told the lieutenant, “do a little subtraction for us, if you would not mind, my good man.”
“My pleasure, Colonel.” The man in black started back toward the desert. He stopped, and grinned, and nodded his blackened face at Captain Knight. “Would the capt’n care to join me, suh?”
“Indeed, Lieutenant, he would. At least, he should. Follow the lieutenant, Capt’n. Learn a little bit about war. It’s different from what you read in all those law books you pored over back in Shreveport.”
* * *
“Stay here,” the dark-faced lieutenant told Captain Knight.
The captain did not like being ordered about by a mere second lieutenant whose main duties were to keep the books for the colonel’s regiment, but he lacked the guts to say anything about it.
The man in black clothes with dark grease covering the white of his skin pointed at a dark shadow maybe a hundred yards down an arroyo.
“Whisper,” Fountain said. “Do you see it?”
“See . . . what?” Captain Knight asked.
“The cigarette.”
Knight stared. He did not see a damned thing but night as dark as midnight. He stared and looked hard everywhere near where Lieutenant Fountain’s finger aimed. He saw nothing but black. Sighing, he gave up. His shoulders slouched.
“Yankees like their smokes,” Fountain whispered so low it took every effort Captain Knight could summon to hear. “That’s why us Southern boys like a good chaw. Which is dangerous itself.” His finger shot out like a magnet. “There. See that?” He sighed. “Of course you didn’t. You got to keep your eyes open, Pops. Now, you just stay here and watch. I’ll do some cipherin’.”
The man who was a master at mathematics dropped to his stomach and slithered like a Western diamondback rattlesnake across the desert floor. Captain Knight could only stare, and he soon was staring at darkness, unable to see the bookkeeper, unable to see the man who was supposed to be smoking a cigarette somewhere in the night.
He bit his lower lip. He held his breath. He listened but heard nothing but coyotes yapping in the distance.
Two hundred yards away, Lieutenant Fountain came up slowly, smiling, and inched his way to a man called Bateman who had just stepped onto the remnants of a smoke with the toe of his square-toed boots. Bateman was thinking that he should be back in Rancho Los Cielos drinking whiskey and trying to get the clothes off that girl with those wonderful eyes and that luxurious hair.
It was a nice thought for a man to have.
It proved to be his last thought.
Fountain came up swiftly, brought his forearm tightly across Bateman’s throat, so tight the man could not scream or even gasp. Bateman shot his arms up to the big arm, but then the D-guard Bowie knife cut through his back, cut deep between his ribs, and plunged into the back of his heart.
For good measure, Fountain twisted the knife as much as he could, for the ribs were strong and he was a little tired. He heard the quiet sigh that told him the Yankee was dead, and gently laid the corpse on the ground.
Fountain wiped the blood on the dead man’s trousers. Then he went to find the second man.
Ten minutes later, Captain Knight heard horses snorting. A moment later, he saw two horses walking straight toward him. After he blinked, he realized that a Negro was leading those two horses. Finally, just before he was about to wet his britches, he realized that the Negro leading the horses wasn’t a man of color at all. It was the bookkeeper, Lieutenant Fountain.
The junior officer stopped to tether the two horses to the branch of a dead clump of brush. Fountain grinned at the captain and nodded. Knight, without questioning the man who knew math, followed his junior officer to Colonel Muncie.
“Those two Yankees,” Fountain reported, “have made the balance zero.”
“Well done, Mr. Fountain.”
The two officers waited, but Captain Knight lacked the patience. “So what do we do now, sir?”
“We sleep. And tomorrow morning, we will start out for The Canyon of The Sorrows.”
“But—” Knight wet his lips. “Well, sir, we don’t know where that trading spot is. The Yankee is supposed to send for us.”
“Exactly,” Colonel Muncie said. “But he has to get there first. And that means he has to leave a trail.”
“If there’s a trail, no one has found it. You have to have a guide.”
Muncie grinned. “Guides can be bought.”
CHAPTER 66
The two gringos stared at Soledad Tadeo, waiting for her to explain how she knew about The Canyon of The Sorrows. She let them stare. They did not need to know. She did not want to remember. But she did. She always remembered.
She had just brought in a pail of milk to her mother’s adobe cabin about two miles from Rancho Los Cielos. Her mother was singing and cooking supper. She had such a beautiful voice. The cabin smelled fine. No, it smelled wonderful.
Her mother was cooking inside because it was January, and the weather had turned cold. The wind howled outside, and Soledad felt warm and comfortable in her home.
“How,” her mother asked while frying the potatoes, “does it feel to be fifteen years old?”
It was Soledad Tadeo’s birthday. She was very happy. Her mother was frying potatoes to go with the beans and pork, but she would also be making sopaipillas for a birthday treat. Nothing was better than her mother’s sopaipillas after coating them with sugar and filling the insides with honey . . . if the honey was not stuck in the jar because of the cold. If it was, Soledad would have to stick her finger inside the jar, sop up what she could, and then lick her fingers and hands to her heart’s content.
“This will be my best day ever,” she said.
Soledad Tadeo had asked her mother for a pony. She knew she would not get a pony, even a lame one, because they were poor. Everyone was poor in Rancho Los Cielos. She would not be upset when there was no pony, when there were only sopaipillas and supper and something her mother had sewn or beaded together. That would be enough. But, still, wasn’t it wonderful to be able to dream? She would dream of a pony. One day, she would have a real horse.
So, she would not get a pony today, but she was fifteen. And when a girl turned fifteen years old, there would usually be a fiesta de quince años . . . the quinceañera, a celebration to mark a girl’s passage into womanhood. That would be tomorrow, in Rancho Los Cielos, to give thanks to God and to introduce this new woman to the village. That would be better than any pony.
Someone slammed on the door, and she turned around. Perhaps, she thought, it was a pony. Or maybe her mother had invited other children to come. Perhaps, the quinceañera would begin this night and not in Rancho Los Cielos in the morning.
Grinning, she raced to the door. She had not barred it when she came inside because her hands had been struggling with the pail of milk, nor had she removed the latchstring. She pulled open the door quickly, just as her mother was saying softly but sternly, “Soledad, no.”
The door opened, and she saw the Apache. She saw all of the Apaches.
Before she could scream, one swung a club that caught her on the side of her head, knocking her to the floor. She heard her mother scream, and then the Indians were rushing inside. The one who had hit her leaped on her, tossing his club away. He was young, not much older than her, with long black hair, a red headband, and a calico shirt.
Turning her head toward her mother, Soledad tried to say something. Her mother had grabbed a butcher’s knife, and she threw it as the six other Indians rushed inside. They did not close the door. The knife must have missed, and then the Apaches had knocked her mother down, behind the stove. They knocked the table over. Soledad could no longer see her mother. She could, however, hear her mother’s screams.
Rough hands grabbed Soledad’s long hair and pulled her forward. The young Apache buck glared at her. Another Apache, much older and blind in one eye, knelt beside her and the young warrior on top of her.
The old man reached for the crucifix Soledad wore over her blouse, but the young man spat and barked something in the rough language of that tribe. The old man muttered something, but protested no more, and rose to join the others behind the table.
The young warrior leaned closer to Soledad Tadeo. He said in a harsh, hoarse whisper, “Eres para mi y solo para mi.”
He had spoken in Spanish. You are for me and only for me.
His breath smelled of foulness. His eyes came close to her, and she felt his hands grabbing her blouse. The cloth ripped. Soledad closed her eyes. She tried to fight him, to push him off, but the young man laughed. She felt his greasy skin against her cheek, and his rough tongue on her throat. She pleaded with the Holy Mother to spare her and her mother, or at least spare her mother. She turned her head, but the man grabbed her head and forced it back. One hand went lower. She opened her eyes and saw his ear. She bit it. She bit hard, like a Gila monster, and the man screamed. He pulled away from her, but her teeth would not let go. A hunk of his ear ripped, and the warrior fell as blood sprayed her face.
The man rolled over and clasped his mangled ear. She sat up, spit out the lobe that tasted rotten in her mouth, and glared at him with hatred. She wiped her mouth as she rose. She would kill him. But the old man with one eye had returned, and he grabbed her by her long hair and jerked her to the floor.
Another warrior came from behind the table. He was completely naked from the waist down. He pointed at the bleeding young buck on the ground and laughed. He said something, but he spoke Apache. The old man with one eye laughed, too.
The boy did not laugh. He jumped up and drew the long knife from the sheath. Had Soledad Tadeo seen that knife, it would already be in the man’s belly. The young buck rushed toward her, but the one-eyed Apache stopped him. He was old, but his grip was strong and uncompromising as he held the man’s wrist and kept the blade of the knife from cutting anything.
The old man spoke to the one with the bad ear. The young man barked back. The old man grunted louder and nodded at Soledad. Then he released the young man, who raised his knife and sent the blade thudding into the table.
He said something and stepped to Soledad Tadeo, who prayed that she be killed now.
The old man sat down. He picked up the pail of milk and drank from it, the whiteness rolling down his copper skin and onto his buckskin shirt. The man watched as the young man with the ruined ear lowered himself on Soledad Tadeo.
CHAPTER 67
She knew her mother was dead. The Apaches had murdered her after—Soledad Tadeo closed her eyes. They had strapped her over her mother’s mule, tying her hands to her feet underneath the mule’s belly. They stuck a rag in her mouth, and another rag was tied across her mouth so tightly that the corners of her lips bled. She was completely naked. The wind was bitterly cold.
The Apaches took their time, covering their trail and moving in the night. When dawn broke, they cut loose the cords and pushed her to the ground. She stared at the unmoving faces. The man with one eye pointed to the brush, and Soledad realized that he meant for her to urinate or defecate. They gave her no tissue. The man raised his fist and barked, so she went behind the bushes. She cried. Then she told herself that she would never cry again. She was a woman. She did not have to use the bathroom, but she tried to scrub away the blood with sand.
The Apaches yelled something so she stood and returned to the mule. She looked at the Indians, and she saw the young one, the one who had—She shuddered, reviled, and wanted to throw up. She wanted to kill herself. But she found satisfaction in the young buck’s face. He had lowered his red silk headband and used it to wrap around his mangled ear.
They pushed her back onto the mule’s back, and tightened the rawhide cord again to her feet and hands. They mounted their horses, and pulled the mule along.
