CHAPTER
6 
When Bell told Cuidado to stay behind and wait for Little Stick, Kindle told him it was a waste of his time, that we suspected our guide had taken our money and deserted. Since I appeared to have botched my chance to get us out of a tight spot, I remained silent. Kindle saddled our horses, and in the ruse of checking my saddle, said in an undertone, “Keep up the act, but be careful what you say.”
“Have you heard of them?”
“No. But, I know Bell’s type.”
“Which is?”
“Big hat, no cattle.”
“What about Little Stick?”
Kindle exhaled sharply. “He’s a good tracker; he won’t be caught unaware.” Though his voice was confident, his expression was worried.
He boosted me into the saddle and winked at me. How he could possibly wink at me in a time like this, I had no idea.
Tuesday rode next to me and, of course, didn’t say a word. Kruger rode behind and Kindle and Bell rode next to each other in front. I did as Kindle asked and kept up the act. It wasn’t much of an act, truth be told. I had lived eight years in England, and had learned the art of meaningless conversation at the knee of my aunt Emily, who was the absolute master. My cousin Charlotte—my current namesake, as it were, would think throwing in with four killers all a great adventure, no doubt—and I had watched many a duchess’s eyes glaze over with boredom after spending fifteen minutes in my aunt’s presence. By my estimate, it took twenty minutes of me talking about the weather, the flora and fauna, living in England, quizzing Kruger on Germany and asking him nonsensically if he’d ever met the king and didn’t he know they were related to the British royal family and I’d actually danced with the Prince of Wales (he wasn’t very good, of course, but one had to pretend otherwise), then my father had lost his fortune and I had to come home and …
“Does she talk this much all the time?” Bell asked Kindle.
“Yes.”
“Are you talking about me, darling?”
“You’re driving him batty, Lottie. Shut up.”
“Excuse me for trying to keep my mind off killing.”
Bell craned his neck to look over his shoulder at me. “You’ve never killed a man?”
I thought of Cotter Black jerking and falling forward, blood and brain matter spewing out the front of his head. I almost laughed at poor Charlie Bell. He thought I was a complete fool. Little did he know I would have no qualms about killing him if it came down to it.
“Heavens, no. I know it doesn’t appear so, and I wouldn’t blame you for mistaking it, but I was born to money. This is all foreign to me. Oh, I thought it would be a great adventure when Martin told me his plans when we were courting. The reality has been a shock. Before you get any ideas about ransoming me, my family is destitute and Martin doesn’t appear to care a wit where I am. How many men have you killed?”
“I know they are savages, but they are men, at least.”
“I don’t want to leave out the women and children.” He lifted a strap, which hung from his saddle horn. Both edges were nocked almost completely. He fingered the small space at the bottom that was uncut. “I’m gonna need a new strap after the next raid, if I’m lucky.” He let it fall and continued. “The Indians call it counting coup. They attach scalps to a pole and carry them around. Some of the tame ones carry a pole with feathers, so as to not offend the Quakers. But it stands for the same. White scalps.”
“And redskin,” Kindle said.
“You an Indian lover?”
“I know they scalp their red enemies, too.”
“More white nowadays, no thanks to the Army. What’d you do in the Army?”
“Chase Indians without finding many. Too much fatigue duty on the fort so I left. We don’t want to go this way,” Kindle said.
“Why not?”
“We came across an Army patrol yesterday. They were heading east, chasing some whisky traders. Best to go north, I think.”
“Oh, do you?”
Kindle shrugged. “Go where you want, but if you don’t want to run into the Army, I’d go that way.”
“Maybe we’ll go west, toward Sill and the Wichita Mountains. I bet we could find some Indians there.”
I only generally knew where we were and where we were going, but I knew for certain we did not want to go in the direction of Fort Sill.
“Ja, but they won’t be drunk Indians,” Kruger said. “They’re easier to kill.”
Kindle spat a stream of tobacco juice. “You’re the leader. Go where you want. But I don’t particularly want to come across the Army again. I’m afraid someone recognized me.”
Kruger spoke up. “Is that bad?”
“I mighta killed a man before I left.”
Bell smiled. “I thought you had it in you.” He nodded to Kindle’s gray. “How long you had this horse?”
Kindle shrugged. “Awhile.”
“I knew a man who had a horse like this.”
“More than one gray in the world.”
“You kinda remind me of him. In the eyes.”
Kindle spit again and glared at the man. “You don’t say.”
“He was a mean motherfucker.”
“More than one mean motherfucker in the world.”
I grimaced at the language, though I should have been used to the version of Kindle I observed around strangers. His switch to harsh and uncompromising no longer surprised me, and I realized it never should have at all. There had been flashes of this side of him at Fort Richardson—his full-throated defense of his men looting my ruined wagon train, his reaction to my lone excursion to town and drinking with the laundresses, his rage at his brother in Palo Duro Canyon. But, I’d preferred to focus on his gentler side, his tenderness, flirty conversation, and honor. The farther we traveled in Indian Country, the more I appreciated the fact he could be both. I knew he would go to any lengths to protect me one minute, and take me in his arms and comfort me the next.
Bell nodded. “Yes, there is. Well, as your luck will have it, we are going north. Northwest, in fact, to meet some friends. As a mark of good will for our new companions, we will give Fort Sill a wide berth. But we have nothing to fear from the Army. We’re making their job easier.”
“By killing women and children?” I said.
“The Army’s killed their fair share of Indian women and children. Ain’t that right, Oscar?”
Kindle nodded. “’S right.”
“Then you won’t have any compunction when the time comes.”
Kindle chewed his wad of tobacco and stared straight ahead. “I don’t have any compunction about killing who needs killing.”
“Good to hear,” Bell said. “Good to hear.”
The tall flowing grass of the plains was gradually replaced by short, stubby trees that gave way to taller hackberry, cottonwood, and a few oaks. I knew we would reach water soon, but wasn’t expecting the water to hug the base of a towering wall of red rock. Water seeped from the top of the wall in three places and trickled down into the pool below. A camp of tents and wagons was set up in a half moon along the bank, with the central area full of three or four cook fires and men ambling around. The horses picketed to the east of the camp were being guarded by two heavily armed men.
I stopped my horse and tried to catch my breath. In my mind’s eye saw Cotter Black falling forward onto the red dirt of the canyon, a smoking gun in my hand.
Kruger slapped my palomino on the rump as he rode past. She jumped forward, almost sending me to the ground. Terrified, I gathered her up and shouted at Kruger. “Keep your hands off me.”
His brows furrowed. “I didn’t touch you,” he said, and kept riding. Tuesday watched me over her shoulder as she rode off with Kruger. Bell seemed oblivious.
My horse danced, feeling every bit of my anxiety. The sound of a splash made me jump, and sent my horse into a circle. I patted her neck, to reassure myself as much as my mount, and shushed her. “Easy girl.”
Someone whooped in the distance. I squeezed my eyes closed and felt the weight of a man pinning me to the ground, ripping at my clothes, felt my legs being forced apart, my arms pinned wide.
I flinched and opened my eyes. A bearded man had edged his horse up next to mine. His leg pressed against my own as he steadied us by holding on to my saddle horn. “What’s the matter?” I clutched at my throat and stared at Cotter Black in terror. “Laura?” His voice was gentle and questioning, his eyes full of concern.
Kindle. I closed my eyes and covered my mouth while the last six weeks rushed through my mind in a blur. Cotter Black was dead. I killed him in Palo Duro. Kindle would protect me. I was safe.
“What’s wrong?” Kindle’s voice took on a note of exasperation. Was he so oblivious he couldn’t see the similarities to Palo Duro and how this might bring up ugly memories? Angry, I kicked my horse forward and didn’t answer.
We unsaddled our horses and led them to the water to drink. We kept our voices low so we could talk without being heard.
“What’s the matter?” Kindle said.
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him. His eyes darted around the camp, taking stock of our surroundings, before settling back on me. His gaze was tense, impatient, calculating, focused on the problem at hand, not on what happened weeks ago and hundreds of miles away.
I reached down and pulled a clump of prairie grass from the ground. “Nothing.” I rubbed Piper’s sweaty back with the grass and kept my face averted from Kindle to hide my tears. Kindle cursed softly under his breath, moved beside me, and stilled my hand with his own. I rested my cheek against my horse’s neck, taking comfort in her warmth and smell. She stomped her back foot and swished her tail against the flies swarming around us.
“Laura.”
Piper’s tail swatted me in the face. I lifted my head, ran my hand beneath my running nose, and kept rubbing my horse down. “Do you think Bell knows who we are?” Kindle didn’t answer immediately. I glanced up. “Do you?”
He exhaled sharply. “Unless he’s a complete idiot, which I’m not ruling out as yet. He brought us to a camp with other men who will want the reward, which makes me think he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But, I think he recognized my horse.”
I remembered the first time I’d seen Kindle’s gray across Lost Creek. Though I didn’t know it then, the man who held the reins was Kindle’s brother.
“Do you think this is what’s left of Black’s gang?”
Kindle shrugged. “Could be, though I can’t imagine my brother having much patience for a big-talking ass like Charlie Bell. More like a smaller gang with delusions of grander things.”
“Is this the camp the Army’s looking for?”
“Yep. See those pots? They’re making rotgut in it.”
“Am I the only woman here?”
“Besides Tuesday, probably.”
I scoffed. “She hardly looks like a woman.”
Kindle tried to hide his smile. “I agree, but you do know you’re dressed like she is.”
“And you know Bell and Kruger saw every inch of me this morning.”
Kindle pulled me into a gentle embrace. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave your side.”
My stomach fluttered at the feel of his breath on my ear. I placed my forehead on his shoulder and leaned into him. His arms tightened around me.
“I apologize for this morning,” he said.
I leaned back to see his face. “Why? I invited you in.”
“You don’t need to give yourself to me until you’re ready. I know what you went through.”
I swallowed and couldn’t meet his gaze. I appreciated the sentiment but didn’t believe him. He couldn’t know what I went through. To him, to society, I’d been degraded. No one dared say the word, which accurately described the terror, pain, and humiliation I endured for hours. No one dared let themselves imagine what it was like, how I relived it every hour of every day. I should be thankful Kindle wasn’t like most men, that his brother’s prediction he would never want to be with me had been wrong.
A new thought entered my mind. “How do you know?”
“What?”
“How do you know what I went through? Have you seen, or …”
He pulled away slightly, but I held fast. “It was done,” he said, “but not by my men, and not by me.”
“Where?”
“Washita.” He looked over my shoulder, and now he did extract himself from my embrace. “Bell.”
“You two are always at each other, aren’t ya?” Bell leered at me. “Lottie seems like the type who wants to be loved instead of fucked. We can probably find a tent for you. Picket your horses. Quinn wants to meet you.” He walked off.
My fingers itched to pull my gun and put a bullet in the back of his head. As if sensing my thoughts, Kindle put out his arm to hold me back. “My guess is you’ll have your chance sooner rather than later.”
We picketed the horses and found Bell talking to a man who was indiscernible from any other frontier opportunist—bearded, dirty, and greedy—with one significant difference: he was a midget. To make matters worse, he had shockingly orange hair, an apple-red face, and his neck was peeling like a snake shedding its skin.
Bell made the introductions. The midget’s—Quinn—gaze traveled up and down my person with an amused expression. “Well, you wear men’s clothes a damn sight better than Tuesday does.”
I gave Quinn my best smile and tried not to stare offensively. “Why, thank you, Mr. Quinn.”
“Just Quinn. No need for formality out here.” He narrowed his eyes at Kindle. “I didn’t catch your last name.”
“I didn’t give it. No need for formality out here.”
Quinn grinned and shrugged, bested with his own turn of phrase. “Charlie here tells me you’ve run off from your husband.”
“That’s right.”
Quinn pursed his lips and nodded.
“From Sherman?”
“No, from Philadelphia. We’d been in Sherman a short time.”
“Long enough to meet Oscar here. Lucky you.”
With an adoring expression, I threaded my arm through Kindle’s. “Every day I thank God for sending him to me. I think he might be the last honorable man in the West.” I turned my attention back to Bell, then Quinn. “I haven’t met anyone to challenge the belief yet.”
Quinn’s red, bushy eyebrows shot almost up to his hairline, which was unnaturally low. “Well, then. I suppose we know where we stand, don’t we, Charlie?”
“Help yourself to food and drink. Don’t drink this shit.” Quinn waved at the pot of liquid behind him. “The good stuff is in Chilvers’s tent. He’s the oaf. You can’t miss him.”
I peeked into the pot. It smelled horrid. “What’s in it?”
“Whisky, water—mostly water—molasses, red pepper, chewing tobacco for color, and we finish it off with gunpowder.”
“Gunpowder?”
“Gives it a pop.” He laughed at his own joke. “Redskins don’t know any better. One time, I accidentally gave one buck a bottle of the good stuff and he almost scalped me. Thought I was cheating him.” He patted his head. “I have to play fair with ’em or I’ll be scalped for sure. My red hair never ceases to amaze them.” He stirred the whisky concoction with a board and inhaled deeply. “Almost ready.” He lay the board across the top of the pot. “Now normally I’d be worried bringing a woman into camp with all these men. Whisky traders are a sorry lot. Not as bad as buffalo hunters, but pretty damn close. But the men are sated right now. They shouldn’t give you any trouble. Stay close to her, all the same,” he said to Kindle.
“What about Tuesday?”
Quinn laughed. “She won’t let anyone but Kruger get within ten feet of her. Chilvers learned the hard way, let me tell you. Why don’t y’all rest in my tent? Or fuck. It’s been a while since you’ve had four walls, if you ever have. It’s the second tent from the end down yonder.” He turned his back and walked off with Charlie Bell, dismissing us.
I should have been worried about Quinn, Bell, and the situation we were in, but when I saw the cot in Quinn’s tent, all the worries flew out of my brain. I lay on the cot and groaned. “Am I really going to not have to sleep on the ground? This might be heaven.”
“Don’t get too comfy, Marie Antoinette.”
“They know who we are, don’t they?”
“Probably.”
“Then we’re safe. They won’t get the reward if they kill us.”
“You, but there’s no reward for me.”
I sat up. “You don’t think they’ll kill you.”
“Not if I can be useful for them.”
“How?”
“Protect them from Army patrols.”
“Can you?”
Kindle shrugged. “Maybe. But I can make them believe it.” He hung his hat on a peg on the center pole, spread a buffalo robe on the ground next to the cot, and lay down. He put his hands under his head. “Your mouth, woman.”
I lay on the cot and stared at the ceiling of the tent. “Whatever do you mean?”
“‘I haven’t met anyone to challenge that belief’? If you weren’t worth five hundred dollars, Quinn would’ve cut your throat for saying it.”
“Oh, I think he likes me. Men like sassy women.”
Kindle laughed. “No, they don’t.”
“You do.”
“Well, look where it’s got me.”
I exhaled sharply.
“I didn’t mean it that way, Laura. You know I didn’t.” He reached up for my hand. “Come here.” When I didn’t move he said, “If I come up there, we’ll break the cot. Come here.”
I moved next to Kindle and nestled into his side. I inhaled deeply the scent I’d come to know as uniquely Kindle—leather, horse, and sweat—which now held hints of smoky tobacco. My stomach fluttered and a calm came over me as I clutched at his shirt and listened to his heartbeat.
He stroked my hair and said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else.”
“You’ve given up so much for me.”
“I’d been searching for a reason to leave the Army for years. Since Washita in sixty-eight at least. Maybe earlier.”
“What happened at Washita?”
Kindle took my injured hand in his and massaged it. “What always happens when men are led by arrogant, vainglorious fools.” Kindle sighed. “Our orders were there are no orders. Find the Cheyenne and attack them. Drive them back to the reservation. We went in the winter when they would be in their camp and most vulnerable. Custer drove us relentlessly through the cold and snow until we came upon a village with fifty or so lodges, one with a white flag of truce flying over it. But some braves had gone off and stolen some cattle. They were who the Osage scouts tracked to find the village. It was enough in Custer’s mind to justify attacking.” I propped myself on my arm so I could see his face. His eyes were narrowed, and he stared into the distance, seeing the past.
“At dawn we attacked. We bore down on the village, firing as we went. I’m not sure how many people I hit, or if I hit anyone. I saw quickly it was a village full of women, children, and old men. I tried to pull my troops back, but they were in the thick of it. No one heard, or if they did, they ignored me. I was absolutely powerless.” He swallowed. “I saw these two women hiding in some tall grass, not far from where soldiers were walking back and forth, killing and raping those they could find. I put my finger over my mouth and signed for the women to stay put.” Kindle used his free hand and made the sign. “A boy, too young to go on a hunt or war party but old enough to be good with a bow, stood up from where he crouched in the tall grass a ways off and sent an arrow flying at me. It knocked my hat off but my reaction was reflexive. I drew my sidearm and shot him. Right there.” Kindle pointed at his covered left eye and finally looked at me. “I’m not sure it was a real arrow. He was a child.”
I stroked his beard. “William.”
Kindle looked away and swallowed again. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “In the report Custer sent, he said he’d killed one hundred and three warriors. It was more like a dozen. The rest were women, children, and old men. Including the chief, Black Kettle, and his wife. The same chief who I’d helped negotiate peace with in sixty-four in Colorado before fucking Chivington attacked them at Sand Creek.” He inhaled. “I was in Denver when Chivington and his men returned. They went through town bragging about it, showing off the mutilated body parts of the Cheyenne. One man made a tobacco pouch out of an Indian’s scrotum.”
I covered my mouth and grunted in disgust.
Kindle flipped the eye patch up and rubbed his eye with his palm. “I should have left the Army after what happened at Sand Creek. Chivington was state militia, not the Army. That’s what I told myself. The Army was all I had left. So I stayed. After Washita, I asked to be transferred under Mackenzie.”
“Why Mackenzie?”
“Because I knew he would have control of his men. Wanton killing like Sand Creek and Washita would never happen under Ranald Mackenzie. When this war with the Indians ends, it will be because of him. You mark my words.”
“And Custer?”
“Can rot in hell.”
I settled my head back on Kindle’s chest and listened to the increasing activity outside. Voices raised in merriment. A fiddle being tuned.
“Aren’t they worried about an Indian attack?”
“I suppose they think the Indians would rather have their whisky than their scalps.”
“Is that wise?”
“Most likely not.” A gunshot rang out and I flinched. Kindle kissed my head. “Shh. You’re safe. Sounds like they’re into the good stuff.”
“I meant what I said earlier. About the last honorable man.”
“I’m not that honorable, Laura.”
I sat up on my elbow. “Were you talking of Washita the other night when you said there was so much I didn’t know about you?”
Kindle’s hand stilled, and he nodded.
“But, not everything.”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I stroked his beard, leaned forward, and kissed him lightly on the lips. I wrinkled my nose when I pulled back. “I cannot wait to shave your beard.”
Kindle played with my hair. “And I cannot wait for your hair to grow back.”
I lay my head back on his chest and tried to get closer. “What do you want to do when we get to Independence?”
“I’ve been thinking we should stay in Saint Louis a spell.”
“Won’t that be dangerous for you?”
Kindle rubbed my back. “There’s a place outside of town where we can live for a while. Until people forget who we are.”
“Will that ever happen?”
“Eventually. We’ll be safe there. It’s remote, peaceful.”
“How long will we be there?”
“As long as it takes for you to heal.”
I sat up. “Heal? It’s not a sanitarium is it?”
Kindle laughed. “No. It’s an orphanage. My sister runs it.”
“Your sister? You have a sister?”
“I do.”
“And she runs an orphanage?”
“For children orphaned by the war. I stayed with her for a while after Washita. We’ll be safe there.”
“Of course, if you think it’s the best place to go.” I lay back down.
“Any idea where you might want to go from there?”
I thought back to Maureen and our conversation over tea in a hotel in February. “Heavens, only five months.”
“What?”
“Maureen and I arrived in Galveston five months ago. How is that possible? It seems a lifetime.” I exhaled. “We ate lunch at the Lafitte Hotel and planned the rest of our journey. We’d decided on San Francisco before I ran into Molly Ebling and thought being on the coast would be too dangerous.” I laughed. “What a misjudgment that was.”
“You want to go to San Francisco?”
“I think so. What do you think?”
“I was hoping to meet Aunt Emily.”
“Were you?”
“I thought bringing a handsome man like me to meet her might redeem you in her eyes.”
“My God, you’re vain. Aunt Emily will love you. Will you wear your uniform?”
“I can probably scrounge one up in Saint Louis.”
“England, then.”