CHAPTER
7 
What a waste of a good tent.”
I pried my dry eyes open and saw Bell silhouetted in the triangular doorway. I nudged Kindle’s chest, but realized he was awake when he spoke.
“I imagine we can use it as we please.”
“Well, not anymore. Come on.” Bell walked away.
Kindle rose and helped me up. He put on his hat, held my hand, and led me from the tent.
The pots had been removed from the fires, which had all been extinguished, save the one in the center of the semicircle of tents and wagons. Men walked by the center pot, ladled a thick stew onto a tin plate or mug, and either found a vacant camp chair to sit on or wandered back to their wagon. My mouth watered as the aroma of the stew wafted over. My stomach growled loud enough to get Kindle’s attention. He grinned. “Hungry, Slim?”
“Slim?”
“You’re getting a little on the bony side.”
“I hate to disappoint you but I’ve always been on the bony side. How do you think I pulled off dressing like a man?”
He draped his arm over my shoulder and whispered, “I’ll fatten you up when we get to Saint Louis.”
“Are you saying I will have to wait hundreds of miles for a good meal?”
He jerked his chin in the direction of the pot. “I suppose we’ll see.”
Kruger and Tuesday leaned against the nearest wagon. I smiled in their direction. Kruger saluted me with his spoon, and Tuesday glared at me. The woman had taken an immediate dislike to me and I couldn’t figure out why. Possibly I could; Charlotte was rather a prattle mouth. I wouldn’t like her, either. I wondered what Tuesday’s background was. Was she the daughter of a farmer trying to eke out a living on the frontier? Or had she been abducted from a wagon train crossing the northern plains? I knew from firsthand experience it was possible for Indians to take their captives long distances in a short amount of time. Had she been able to write and communicate her background to Kruger and Bell? Or had she known her entire family was dead and communication was pointless?
Bell handed us each a tin mug. “Beef stew, courtesy of the US Army.”
Kindle took his cup and said, “Stolen?”
“Does that offend your cowboy or Army sensibilities?”
“Neither. Just trying to make conversation.”
“This poor beeve was lost, roaming the prairie bellowing for its mama. Chilvers is pretty sure it’s from the wagon train massacred back in May.” Bell watched for my reaction. When he didn’t receive one, he turned away with a smirk.
“Tastes good all the same,” Kindle said. “Try it, Lottie.”
I forced myself to eat the first bite. After, my hunger was too strong to be denied. “I haven’t had anything so good since we left Sherman.” I batted my eyes at Kindle. “Sorry, darling. Did you make this, Mr. Quinn?”
The midget glanced up from his mug, which I suspected held whisky instead of stew. “No. I just make the whisky.”
“I heard a gunshot earlier. Aren’t you worried about Indians finding your camp?”
Quinn swirled his mug and studied me, as if debating whether to answer. Kindle answered for him. “You’ve got protection on three sides from the wall, so you have guards at the mouth.”
“Spoken like a true Army man,” Quinn said.
“Don’t take an Army man to see it’s a natural fortress. With plenty of water.”
“The water’s the secret to my whisky. I could use any old gyppy water and the redskins wouldn’t care, most like. Lots of traders do. But I say if you’re gonna do something, do it right.”
“Even stealing from Indians?” I said.
“It ain’t stealing. Fair trade. Whisky for buffalo robes, hides, meat. Or whatever they want to trade or gamble away.” The men within hearing distance laughed.
“Yes, but don’t Indians have a weakness for spirits?” I said.
“White men have a weakness for spirits as well. Are you saying they shouldn’t be sold whisky at the saloon?” Quinn said.
“You aren’t one of those women who preach prohibition, are you?” Bell said with a laugh.
“No. It seems dishonest, somehow, to trade the Indians cut whisky for buffalo robes.”
“She’s an Indian lover,” Bell said.
“I am not.” My face burned in anger.
“A Quaker, then?” Quinn said.
“I have no love for Indians. Kill them all, for all I care. But it should be on the field of battle, not going into a camp of drunk Indians and massacring them when they’re helpless.” Bell chewed his stew slowly and watched me. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Quinn sells them the whisky and you and your gang come through and massacre them. Do you abuse the women before you kill them?”
“Lottie,” Kindle said, a clear warning.
“Only the pretty ones.”
“So not often,” Kruger called out to raucous laughter.
Kindle turned so his back was to the group and said in a low voice, “Shut up or you’re going to get us killed.”
I glanced at Quinn and Bell, who were watching me with marked suspicion. I batted my eyes and laughed. “Good point.” I turned my focus on Bell. “I apologize. I’m new to the frontier and can’t seem to shake the mores of civilization. I’m quite sure the Indians deserve everything they get,” I said, though my stomach churned with disgust at what these men did for sport.
“Are you now?” Bell said. “You’ll get the chance to decide for yourself in a couple of days.”
Quinn spoke. “We’re pulling out tomorrow.”
“And we follow a few hours later. Give the redskins time to get nice and drunk.”
“Sometimes they do the killing for us,” Kruger said. “They get violent when they get drunk, turn against each other.”
“Also, give Cuidado time to catch up.”
“You’re confident he bested our scout,” Kindle said. “Wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“Want to wager on it?” Bell said.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Your gray.”
“And when I win?”
“Your freedom.”
“I didn’t know we were captives.”
“You’ve got your guns, don’t you? Once you’re a member of the Bell Gang, there’s only one way out.”
Kindle ate his stew before answering. “Our freedom. Both of us. Against my gray.”
“That’s two for one.”
Kindle shrugged. “Guess you’re not as confident in Cuidado as you say.”
Bell walked to Kindle. “If Cuidado doesn’t show, you both go on a raid with us, then you’re free to go.”
Kindle held out his hand, and they shook on it.
“I miss water closets.”
I squatted behind a tree about a hundred yards from the camp and heeded nature’s call. Kindle stood lookout on the other side. “And paper,” I murmured. I pulled my pants up, walked to Kindle, and pulled him away. I didn’t want him smelling my mess.
“That wasn’t a very good deal you struck, was it?”
Kindle shook his head. “Either way, we go on a raid with him. Where they’ll probably kill me and take you to be ransomed.”
I looked off toward the camp. A man exited a tent set apart from the others as another man entered.
“So, what’s our plan?”
“Leave tonight.”
“How? The horses are guarded. And all of our tack is on the edge of the main circle.”
“We’ll camp over there.” He pointed to the tent I’d been watching. “When the watch changes in the night, you and I go tell them Bell told us to take it. We slip out and ride like hell.”
So much could go wrong. “It isn’t a very good plan.”
“Would you rather ride with Bell and massacre drunk, defenseless Indians?”
“No.”
“If you can come up with a better plan, I’m willing to hear it.”
The man exited the tent, adjusted his pants, and walked off. I sighed. “I have no ideas.” I nodded to the tent. “Is that tent a latrine?”
Kindle’s expression darkened. “I doubt it. Come on. Let’s get our things.” I followed Kindle but watched Tuesday duck beneath the flap of the tent.
No one objected when we moved our gear to the edge of camp, between the outlier and the horses. I sat on my bedroll and checked my saddlebag. One side contained Enloe’s holster and gun and the medical equipment Harriet had been able to salvage from the ruins of the Indian attack at the Red River: my stethoscope, scalpel, clamp, and tweezers. It wasn’t much, but it would serve me in a pinch. I wiggled my fingers. They were a bit more flexible since Kindle had been massaging them.
From the other side of the saddlebag I pulled out my extra shirt, which needed a wash, a hairbrush, a cracked hand mirror, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I rubbed my hand over the cover and thought of Harriet Mackenzie with a smile. I wondered what she was doing. Probably sitting in Colonel Mackenzie’s parlor needlepointing or reading a book from the fort library. I longed to be there with her, to enjoy Harriet’s companionship. My smile slipped. Why was it we appreciated someone fully only when they were lost to us?
Kindle had once told me Harriet and I were more alike than I realized, an assertion borne out when Harriet helped me and Kindle escape from the Army and the Pinkerton in Jacksboro. She’d risked so much, as much as I had risked to save a young girl from the Comanche and Cotter Black. Despite everything that had happened since, I didn’t regret it. I hoped Harriet didn’t regret helping us.
I pressed the bottom of the now-empty saddlebag. The seams were intact; the bump in the middle confirmation the jewelry sewn inside was safe. I heard a woman’s cry and stopped repacking. “Did you hear that?”
“Yes.”
There was the telltale sound of a blow being delivered, and then a woman’s muffled cry. I jumped up as Kindle said, “Laura,” and grabbed at my hand. I pulled it away, went to the tent, and opened the flap. Tuesday knelt on the floor with her back to the door, moving her arm back and forth, as if sawing wood, grunting with every push.
I didn’t understand what I saw for a few seconds. Then, the naked legs splayed on either side of Tuesday’s kneeling figure jolted me into action. I walked forward, barely hearing Kindle’s “Laura!” or feeling his hand grasp at my shoulder. With a roaring in my ears, I grabbed Tuesday’s collar and jerked her away and onto her back, revealing the most repulsive sight I had ever seen.
An Indian woman lay spread eagle and naked on the hard, rock-strewn ground, her arms and ankles tied to stakes to keep her from fighting. Her round face was covered in bruises and dried blood. Her pudenda were a raw, bloody mess, thanks in no small part to the thick stick lying on the ground between her legs.
A rage I have never felt in my life, before or since, overtook me. I grabbed the stick, turned, jumped on top of a prone Tuesday, and began savagely beating her. Tuesday was much larger than me, but I had surprise and fury on my side. Her face was soon covered in blood—hers and the Indian’s. Kindle grabbed me by the arms and pulled me away from her. Tuesday rose with a quickness belied by her size and punched me in the stomach. I doubled over, and Kindle swung me away from harm, let go of me, and rounded on Tuesday, gun drawn. “Get out of here,” Kindle bellowed, “or so help me I will blow your head off.”
Tuesday glared at us, spit blood onto the ground, and left.
Slowly, the red left my vision, though my breathing came in short gasps. The Indian woman stared at us through slits where her eyes should have been, the skin around them swollen and dark purple.
“Christ,” Kindle said.
“Give me your knife.”
“Laura …”
“Give me your knife. Now.”
He pulled the knife from his boot and handed it to me. He stood between the tent flap and the woman, his body turned sideways, his gun drawn. I knelt down at the woman’s feet and signed to her to not move. One nostril was blocked with dried blood, making her breathing wheezy. I gently placed my hand on her foot, which appeared to be one of the few places on her body not injured, and cut the leather strap. The woman’s leg didn’t move. I picked it up gently and moved it next to the other. The woman winced and whimpered.
“I need my saddlebag, and water.”
“This is a mistake.”
The flap of the tent jerked back and Quinn and Bell entered. “What do you think you’re doing?” Quinn asked.
Kindle held his gun on Quinn and Bell. I straightened, holding the knife. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“She was given as payment for whisky,” Quinn said. “I own her and I’ll do with her as I please.”
“Not while I’m here you won’t,” I said.
Bell pulled his gun and pointed it at me. Kindle cocked his pistol. “Do it and you die.”
“He won’t do it. I’m worth too much alive, aren’t I, Charlie Bell?”
“Your lover isn’t.” Charlie swung his gun to Kindle.
“You kill him and I’ll make sure I don’t make it back to town alive. The reward requires I be alive, last I heard.” Bell’s eye twitched. “Put your gun down. Both of you.”
Kruger and Tuesday were in the doorway outside the tent, watching. Bell lowered his gun and Kindle did the same, uncocking his as he did. Quinn jerked the gun out of Kindle’s hand.
“How much?” I asked Quinn.
“What?”
“How much for the Indian?”
Quinn laughed. “You have nothing to bargain with. We already have you. We’ll keep his horse. The clothes on your back are worthless.”
“Mr. Kruger, would you get my saddlebag, please?”
“Laura.” Kindle grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the darkness of the tent, near the Indian woman’s head. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
“Helping her.”
Kindle rubbed his forehead. “Why? After what was done to you, what do you care?”
I jerked my arm away from him. “I’m helping her because of what was done to me,” I said in a hoarse, angry whisper. “I fought back, like she did, most like. The Indians held me down like that.”
“Stop it.”
“What, you don’t want to hear the details?”
“I don’t care who she is, I will never, ever, stand by and let that be done to another woman. If I die because of it, so be it.”
“You’re going to help her and kill us in the process.”
“Betray me.”
“What?”
“Side with them against me. Win their trust.”
Kruger returned with the saddlebag. I pushed against Kindle’s chest, committing him to the idea whether he liked it or not. “Take their side, I don’t care. You’ve outlasted your usefulness anyway. Mr. Kruger.” I walked past Kindle and took the bag from the German’s hand. With the knife I cut the stitches at the bottom of the bag, reached in the opening, and removed the last piece of my mother’s jewelry, our stake for a new life.
I dangled the sapphire-and-pearl necklace in front of Quinn’s face. “This for the Indian.”
Quinn reached for the necklace, but I pulled it away. Kindle sidled over to stand next to Bell. “What could you possibly want with that redskin?” Quinn asked.
“To keep you and your men from raping her.”
Quinn laughed. “Are you serious?”
When I didn’t answer, his smile faded. “You think she’s human, but she’s not. If the tables were turned, she would be cheering on her warriors as they raped you. Would probably lay a good beating on you as well.” Quinn narrowed his eyes. “From what I understand, no one here knows that better than you, except maybe Tuesday. She joins in on the fun and you put a stop to it. Why’s that?”
“I’m a doctor. I took an oath to protect life.”
Everyone but Kindle laughed.
“Do you want the necklace or not?”
He reached out his hand, but I held on. “I keep my gun.”
“If I’m not much mistaken, Tuesday over there plans to kill me first chance she gets.”
Quinn took my gun from my holster and tossed it to Kruger. “Well, you should’ve thought about that before you beat her with a damn stick.” He ripped the necklace out of my hand and walked out. Kindle followed but Bell put a hand on his chest. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Kindle glanced at me and back at Bell. “She’s on her own.” He pushed Bell’s hand from his chest and walked out of the tent.