CHAPTER

2

Clutching the whisky bottle to my breast with my knotted fingers, I stared at the dead man while the words of my Hippocratic oath ran through my mind.

I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage.

Little Stick, our Tonkawa scout, placed his foot on Enloe’s shoulder and pulled the ax from Enloe’s head with a sucking, wet squelch. The Indian threw the saddlebags across the fire to Kindle, who rifled through them searching for loot. I thought of my indignation with the Buffalo Soldiers looting after my wagon train was massacred, shook my head, and chuckled.

“What?” Kindle said.

Enloe’s dead eye stared accusingly at me. “Nothing.”

“Laura.” Kindle touched my shoulder, and despite myself, I flinched. He removed his hand. “He would have killed me and taken you.”

“Five men in seven days.” I turned to Kindle. “Did you know I’ve never lost five patients in my life?”

“No.”

“Here I sit, watching a man bleed to death and doing nothing. If my profession wasn’t lost to me because of this”—I lifted my disfigured hand—“it is because I have so thoroughly broken my oath, I cannot call myself a physician.”

“Oaths mean little on the frontier. Here it’s all about survival. Kill or be killed.”

“What a nihilistic life we will lead.”

“It’s better than being dead.”

I watched Little Stick rifle through Enloe’s person, searching for trinkets to trade or possibly give to his family as gifts. “His horse is good enough,” the Indian said. “We can trade him at the next camp we come to.”

“How much longer until we reach your tribe?” Kindle asked.

“Four days.”

I stiffened, the thought of hiding out in a camp of Indians no more reassuring to me seven days on than it was when Kindle told me.

After we escaped Jacksboro, Kindle and I rode hard all night and most of the next day, until we arrived at what remained of the ruined Army camp on the Red River. Six weeks had passed since the Comanche abducted me from the camp and killed all the soldiers escorting me to Fort Sill. With the influx of travelers for the trial of Big Tree and Satanta, the ruins had been scavenged until there was nothing left but a broken wagon and empty crates.

I had pulled my horse to an abrupt stop and stared at the wreckage. “We’re heading north?”

Kindle reined his horse back to me. He gave his horse his head and rested his hands on the saddle horn. “Northeast. To Independence, Missouri.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Through Indian Country?”

Kindle nodded slowly.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Laura, I expect a dozen or more men left Jacksboro this morning, on our trail. The last place they expect us to go is through Indian Country.”

“It’s the last place I want to go.”

“Most will expect us to head to the railroad in Fort Worth. Sherman, maybe. A few will head south to Austin. But my picture will be all over the papers, and yours as well. Every railroad station in the state will be on high alert for us. The only direction that’s less likely than north is west, through the Comancheria.”

My head throbbed behind my eyes. “What’s in Independence?”

“Options. The railroad east or west. The Oregon Trail. The river to New Orleans. We can go wherever you want from there.”

“How are we going to get across Indian Country without being scalped or kidnapped?”

Little Stick emerged from the darkness, as if cued by a stage director.

“You cannot be serious.”

“We cannot do this alone, Laura. Little Stick will scout for us, ahead and behind. He will be with us little, only at night camp.”

I shook my head and looked away, trying to hide my tears of fear and frustration.

“Laura. We need another man, another gun, another person to take a watch at night.”

“I can shoot.”

“And very well. But, do you know how to speak Comanche? Cheyenne? Ute?” I shook my head. “Me, either. He will translate for us. He will be a modicum of protection from other Indians.”

“A modicum?”

“The Tonkawas don’t have many Indian friends these days.”

“Lovely.”

“He’s scouted for the Army for years. We can trust him.”

I sighed. “You can trust him. I’ll trust you.”

And, so here we were, seven days later, with five dead men and Little Stick grabbing the ankle of the last to drag him off to God only knew where.

“Wait.” I walked around the fire and removed Enloe’s eye patch. I washed the blood off with the leftover rotgut and handed it to Kindle.

“No one’s looking for a bearded Army officer with an eye patch.”

He stared at the bit of leather with distaste. “I suppose you’re right.”

I held the whisky out to Little Stick. He took it with a nod of thanks and set to his task.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “There isn’t enough for him to get drunk on.”

Kindle nodded, and with a half smile said, “You’re warming up to him.”

“No, I’m making sure he has no incentive to kill me, rape me, or turn me in. If a couple of sips of rotgut will buy another day of safety, I guess it’s a good bargain.” I took the eye patch from Kindle. “Here, let me.” He held the patch against his eye while I tied the leather strings behind his head. He adjusted it and said, “How do I look?”

With his salt-and-pepper week-old beard obscuring his scar, hat flattened hair, and face smudged with dirt, it was difficult to see the man I fell in love with. “Disreputable.”

He donned his hat and pulled it low. His one eye was barely discernible beneath the brim, waking the memory of a man staring at me across Lost Creek. I removed his hat. “Too much like your brother.”

Slowly, Kindle removed the bit of leather. His brother’s ghost descended like a curtain. John Kindle—or Cotter Black as he was known west of the Mississippi—couldn’t have separated us more completely if he was physically between us, grinning and laughing at how his plan to make me and his brother suffer had worked so perfectly.

Little Stick returned, holding a long, headless snake in his hand. “Dinner,” he said. The dead snake twisted and squirmed in the Tonkawa’s hand, and I tried not to vomit.

“Will it ever stop moving?”

Chunks of the skinned snake lay on a flat rock in the middle of the fire, twisting back and forth, though it was long dead and cooked through.

“When it gets to your stomach,” Kindle said. “Maybe.” Little Stick chuckled and bit into the piece he held.

I covered my mouth and pulled a piece of hardtack from my saddlebag. I longed for Maureen’s thick, savory Irish stew, for the warmth of our New York kitchen, for the sound of her humming her favorite tune as she worked, sometimes singing the Gaelic words softly to herself. I would stand in the hallway and listen, knowing she would stop as soon as I entered the kitchen, look up, and after a brief expression of irritation at being interrupted, her face would clear into a smile, and she would sing the stanza she made up for me.

I stared at the snake meat Kindle held, meat I’d skinned, gutted, and cooked while he’d taken care of the horses. Little Stick watched, giving me suggestions as my stiff fingers fumbled with squirming snake. My first human dissection came to mind: standing around a body as our professor cut into the dead man’s chest, the two male students next to me fainting, and the other students expecting me to follow. Instead, I stepped toward the body, kept my hands grasped lightly in front of me, and stared resolutely at the incision. The idea that six years later I would be using my surgical skills for my survival rather than another human being’s was absolutely unfathomable.

What a young, ignorant, innocent girl I had been. My experiences posing as a male orderly in the war had hardened me, but nothing prepared me for the West. The frontier had been an abstract, a myth of towering, noble men cutting a trail for civilization created by newspapermen to sell broadsheets, a dream of a better life dangled to poor farmers, the promise of a new start. A promise I bought into only too eagerly, a dream shattered on the banks of the Canadian River, and a myth crushed beneath brutality on a scale unimaginable in the civilized parlors of the East.

“Laura?”

I lifted my gaze to Kindle. “Hmm?”

“Are you sure you don’t want some? Cold camp the next two nights.”

“No, thank you.”

Little Stick finished off the whisky and tossed the bottle into the fire. “We will come to the forest soon. Better game. Less exposure.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. “Trees. How I’ve missed trees.”

From the waist down, Little Stick dressed as an Indian: deerskin pants, breechclout, and moccasins. Over his bare chest he wore a multicolored gentleman’s waistcoat that must have been splendid when new, but was now faded from exposure. The lines and swirls tattooed dark on his face were terrifying in the firelight. Strips of his long hair were braided with cloth and tied with metal trinkets and beads. My eyes were always drawn to the silver thimble on a thin strip of hair braided with yellow calico, and I couldn’t help wondering what woman had died so Little Stick could adorn his hair.

A mostly empty bandolier crossed his chest from left to right and he wore a Colt Walker on his left hip, gun handle pointing forward. An Army kepi embroidered with a horn rounded out his eclectic attire. He was dirty and stank and reminded me of things I longed to forget. But he showed a deference to me—almost a gentleness—I couldn’t understand and did not want.

As he did every night, Little Stick nodded to us, turned, and walked away from the camp. Kindle kicked dirt over the fire, extinguishing it, though a few embers peeked through. Bright stars speckled the moonless carpet of dark sky above us. I wondered if tonight would be the night Kindle would reach for me to quiet my growing worry that Cotter Black’s words had been prophetic.

Kindle sat next to me, close enough to feel his energy, though not close enough to touch. He smiled faintly. “Feeling okay?”

I nodded. Lying to Kindle was easiest when I didn’t speak. “Will they ever stop coming?”

“Eventually.”

“I should go back.”

“It is too late for that.”

“Five men, Kindle, dead because of me.”

“The world will not miss those five men.”

“Possibly.”

None of the dead men would have fit the stereotype of noble frontiersman the Eastern papers pushed. They were all cut from the same dirty mold, with a decided air of desperation hovering around the edges. I’d seen many more men of their ilk while in the West than honorable men. I sat next to one of the few of the latter.

I pulled my knees close and rested my forehead against them. I inhaled deeply, lay my cheek on my knees, and watched Kindle. He leaned back on one elbow, a leg extended toward the smoldering embers, the other bent and holding up his other arm. He rolled a twig of sage in his fingers, brought it to his nose, and inhaled deeply. He closed his eyes and smiled ever so slightly, his face relaxing from the tension of the trail into the countenance I knew so well from Fort Richardson.

He opened his eyes, glanced at me, and covered his embarrassment with a chuckle. He held out his hand and I leaned forward to sniff. The sage’s woodsy, slightly lemon scent brought a smile to my lips as well.

“Calming, isn’t it?” Kindle said.

“Yes.”

“Indians use it for cleansing ceremonies. They also use it for a variety of ailments. Mostly stomach troubles.”

“Do they? And how do you know so much about it?”

“I’ve spent almost six years in the West. You pick these things up.”

“What’s a cleansing ceremony?”

“Different tribes have different names and traditions, but they’re generally the same. When a boy is old enough, he is sent on a vision quest. He’s sent out into the wild alone to commune with the spirits, to get direction. Often times, a boy is given his adult name based on the vision received.”

“Is that how Little Stick got his name?”

Kindle laughed more heartily than he had in weeks. “No. He was given his name at birth and never outgrew it. It isn’t an exact translation.” Kindle raised his eyebrows and I understood.

“Heavens. Poor Little Stick.” I couldn’t repress a giggle.

“It hasn’t kept him from having two wives and six children.” Kindle waved away Little Stick’s inadequacies. “But, before a brave leaves on his quest, he’s cleansed in a sweat lodge ceremony.” He held out the sage branch. “That’s where the sage comes in.”

“Have you seen one?”

“No.” He scratched at his beard.

“Does it itch?”

“No, but I can’t seem to get out of the habit of scratching it.”

“Do you want me to shave you?” His eyes met mine, and I knew he remembered the night I had shaved him at Fort Richardson, how the world outside fell away. I longed to return to that moment, to do things differently, to make different decisions so we wouldn’t end up in Indian Country, a degraded woman and a disgraced Army officer.

“When we reach Independence.”

I reached out and touched Kindle’s hand. The jolt of electricity I’d felt when I shaved him was there, though faint, buried beneath shame and guilt. Kindle had given me so much and sacrificed everything to save me, and what had I done for him? The one thing I could do for him, he refused to consider. “I have ruined your career and your future. If we return, you could restore your good name, be dishonorably discharged.”

“My good name?” He laughed bitterly and pulled his hand away.

“Very few people know Cotter Black was your brother. Even so, no one will hold him against you, especially since you went after him.”

“There’s so much you don’t know about me, Laura.”

“There is nothing you could tell me that would make me think less of you.”

He met my gaze, and though I could barely see his eyes in the darkness, I could feel their intensity. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Don’t you trust me?” When he didn’t answer, I dropped my gaze. “I see.”

I stood and smoothed my blanket on the ground, folded it over for cushioning, and lay my head on my saddle, keeping my back to Kindle and the deadened fire. I tried to imagine myself in my bedroom in New York City, my head on a down pillow, sleeping under a blanket stitched together by Maureen. Outside, the lamplighters would be walking on their stilts, lighting the streets for the night. A heavy medical tome would sit on my bedside table, a bookmark saving my place for the next evening or whenever I had a chance to pick it up again. There could be a knock at the door any moment, with Maureen coming to tell me a servant was at the back door, asking for the doctor to come quick.

An owl hooted in the distance. I stared at the bank of the river. It could have easily been the riverbed where the Comanche stopped the first morning after they captured me. Where they spent hours raping and beating me, laughing and talking as they waited their turns. The memory was with me constantly, brought forth in a dozen ways. The sound of running water. The thunder of horses’ hooves. Laughing. Crying. Kindle’s grunt when he heaved a saddle on a horse. The clink of the trinkets in Little Stick’s hair. Little Stick. The stench of unwashed men. Kindle pulling away from my fingers lightly touching his hand.

I lived in a constant state of terror and despair, a scream of frustration always at the back of my throat wanting desperately to be free. I hugged myself to stop the shaking I knew would come despite the warm weather and the residual heat from the dying fire, as the longing for and revulsion of Kindle’s touch warred within me.