Chapter 2

 

Cora Sloane had finished her teaching duties for the day and was on her way to the mercantile store. She was crossing the street when she saw the rider coming hell-bent for leather down the dusty, rutted street. She hurried the rest of the way across to avoid being run down, her heavy reticule bouncing against her leg. She’d just stepped onto the boardwalk when the rider reined the horse to a stop, causing a dust cloud to rise from the street.

The rider was a young Indian woman. Cora thought she might have seen her before, but she wasn’t sure. The horse blew out air. Its sides heaved. It had been ridden hard and fast for too long a distance.

Then Cora noticed that the woman was also taking deep, heaving breaths, too, but not because she was fatigued. She was weeping. She took another breath and exhaled it in a wail. Cora set her reticule down, stepped off the boardwalk, and went to her.

“Dead,” the woman said between sobs in a voice that tore at Cora’s heart. “All dead. Please help. Please.”

She started to slide off the horse. Cora reached up and helped her down, then guided her to the boardwalk. They sat on the edge of it, and Cora put her arm around the woman.

A small crowd began to gather. John Hix, the barber, came out of his shop, wiping his hands on a towel. Mr. Li hurried down from his laundry.

“Who’s dead?” Cora asked. “What’s happened?”

“Soldiers,” the woman said. “They killed everybody.” She wailed again. “Women, children, all dead.”

“Damn injun.” Jared Woodson emerged from the doorway of the mercantile store. “Soldiers done the right thing. Should’ve killed you, too.”

Woodson had a little farm outside of town, where he and his wife raised meager crops and two sons, both of whom had proved troublesome to Cora more than once in the little one-room school where she taught. He was cut from the same cloth as Elijah Lusk, also the father of troublemakers, whom the marshal had been forced to shoot down earlier that winter.

Cora stood and turned to face him. “You’d best watch your manners, Mr. Woodson.”

Woodson looked at her as if he hadn’t noticed her before, which he probably hadn’t. Cora was sure he considered women in general insignificant, but he knew very well that he’d better not think that way about her. He had been present when she backed Lusk down with the revolver she carried in her reticule.

Woodson narrowed his beady eyes and started to speak again, but he appeared to think better of it. He closed his mouth and tromped off down the boardwalk. Cora turned to see Mr. Li try and fail to suppress a smile.

“What’s going on here?” Hix asked, jamming the towel he held into his back pocket. He wore a wrinkled white barber’s jacket that hung on him loosely. Quite a few dark hairs adhered to it. He was several years older than Cora, maybe as many as ten. She liked him well enough, but she suspected that he wasn’t all he claimed to be. But then she wasn’t, either.

“I’m not sure what’s happened,” she said. “Something terrible.”

“Soldiers,” the Indian woman said. “Killed everyone.”

“That fool Putnam,” Hix said.

Kathleen Hyder, the estranged wife of one of Wolf Creek’s pastors, came out of the mercantile store carrying a small paper bag.

“I heard someone crying,” she said, her voice full of concern. She looked at the Indian woman. “You poor dear. Mr. Li, please go for Doctor Munro. This woman needs attention.”

“Yes,” Li said. “I will fetch him.”

“Fetch the marshal, too,” Hix said.

Li nodded and hurried off. The Indian woman sat up straighter. She seemed to be gaining more control.

“The soldiers came into the Kiowa village,” she said. “I am not of that tribe. I am of The People. I have visited here before.”

“I thought I’d seen you,” Hix said. “You’re Little Spring.”

The woman nodded.

“Tell us what happened,” Cora said.

“The People had come to talk with our friends the Kiowa, and all the men had gone out to hunt. No one was left behind besides women, children, and men too old to hunt. Soldiers came and killed them all.”

“My God,” Hix said. “All?”

“Not all. Many. Most. Charlie Blackfeather got me on this horse and away from the village. Now he will be punished or killed.”

No one seemed to know quite what to say to that, but they were saved from having to reply by the arrival of Deputy Marshal Quint Croy.

“Li told me there was a problem here,” Quint said.

Cora didn’t know the marshal well, but she respected him. He was young, about her own age, and she had never heard anyone say a word against him. He was quite a bit different from his flamboyant boss, Marshal Gardner, but the two of them got along well and did a good job of keeping the peace in Wolf Creek.

“It’s not your problem,” Hix said, and he told him quickly what had happened.

“It’s my problem if it affects the town,” Croy said, “and this sure as hell does. Pardon my language, Miss Cora.”

Cora smiled at him. “Quite all right, Deputy.”

He had no way of knowing that in her former life she’d heard considerably worse, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell him. He’d arrest her on the spot if he were ever to learn the whole story of her past.

Cora turned at the sound of Doctor Munro’s buggy rolling down the street. The doctor sat tall and straight in his black coat. Li sat beside him.

Munro reined in the horse and got down from the seat, as did Li. Hix went through his brief explanation of the situation again, and Munro bent to examine Little Spring, who pulled away from him. He didn’t appear to be offended.

“She appears to be unhurt,” he said. “I don’t believe she needs my attentions, but there might be others who do.”

“Yes,” Cora said. “There might be people still alive at the Kiowa village. If there are, they’ll need your help.”

“Absolutely correct,” Munro said, rolling the r’s in the word. Cora had never quite figured out his accent. All she could tell was that it wasn’t like anything else she’d ever heard. “I have my medical bag in the buggy, and I can pick up a few more things on the way.”

“I’m going with you,” Cora said.

Munro gave her a skeptical look.

“I can bind wounds,” she said. “I won’t faint, if that’s what you think.”

Cora had, in fact, more experience than she wanted with blood and death. Her outlaw brother had come home more than once with wounds that needed binding, and he had finally brought the law close behind him in the shootout that had made Cora a fugitive.

“Very well,” Munro said. “We’ll start immediately.”

“I’m going with you, as well,” Hix said, surprising Cora. She wouldn’t have expected him to volunteer to help. “I’ll get my horse and catch up.”

“I cannot go,” Kathleen Hyder said. “I will take Little Spring to the parsonage and see that she’s safe.”

“I’ll go along,” Croy said. “You never know what kind of trouble you might run into out there.”

“Your wound,” Munro said, referring to the arm injury that Croy had recently incurred.

“Don’t worry about that,” Croy said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m the doctor here, if you please,” Munro said.

Croy grinned. “That’s true, so if anything goes wrong, you’ll be there to patch me up, won’t you?”

“I suppose so,” Munro said. “Assuming that I choose to do so.”

Croy laughed. “I’ll get my horse and ride along with Hix.”

Li apologized but said he couldn’t leave his wife and boy. Cora understood, as did the others. She hefted her reticule and set it in the buggy, and Munro helped her up onto the seat. Munro went around to the other side and climbed aboard, the buggy sagging a bit under his weight.

Cora dreaded what they might see when they arrived at the Kiowa village, but she couldn’t abide injustice and suffering. She was determined to help if she could.

She made herself as comfortable as possible on the hard buggy seat and said, “I’m ready.”

Munro flicked the reins and clucked to the horse. The buggy bounced along the rutted street toward Munro’s office. Cora braced herself with her feet and hands so she wouldn’t jostle against the doctor.

“Do you think things are as bad as Little Spring said?” she asked as they neared the doctor’s office.

“Bad?” Munro said. “From what I’ve heard of Major Putnam, I’m afraid it might be even worse.”

Cora felt a chill at the base of her spine. Munro wasn’t a man given to overstatement. For the first time, Cora was afraid of what she might be getting into.

***

Whatever Cora had expected, whatever Munro’s words had meant to her, the reality of it was worse. The contrast of the peaceful flow of the nearby Cimarron and the brutality of the slaughter was shocking in a way that Cora registered but didn’t quite understand.

The river wound along between green banks with a few trees scattered here and there, and the bodies of women and children had been laid out not far from the river so that Wil Marsh could photograph them. The first thing that sprang to Cora’s mind as she climbed out of the buggy was a line from a poem by John Keats, “the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.” Cora had once thought the line beautiful, but she would never hear the buzz of flies again without seeing a cloud of them in her mind’s eye as they rose and fell over bloody bodies.

The stench of death mingled with the sharp odor of gunpowder that still lingered in the air. What had once been colorfully decorated tipis were flattened or burned, smoke still rising from them. Cora thought she might vomit, but she managed to control herself.

She heard a few wails from some women and old men who hadn’t been killed, but their number was few compared to the dead. Soldiers stood between them and the bodies to keep them away.

As far as Cora could see, there were only a few wounded to be treated. If there had been any others, the soldiers had put paid to them.

“What can we do?” she asked Munro, who had come to stand beside her.

“Very little,” he said. “It’s far too late.” He paused and got a faraway look. “I saw things in the war that I thought terrible, but nothing like this. This wasn’t a battle. This was butchery.”

“We must do what we can to aid the survivors,” Cora said.

“If Putnam will allow it,” Munro said, and began to walk in the direction of the soldiers, just as Hix and Deputy Marshal Cory rode up.

“Sweet Jesus,” Hix said as he and Quint reined to a stop beside Munro.

“Indeed,” Munro said, “though I very much doubt that Jesus had anything to do with this.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to speak to the major and see if he takes responsibility for what happened here, not that he has any choice. In fact, he’ll probably be proud of it.”

“Nobody could be proud of this,” Quint said.

“If you think that you don’t know men like Putnam,” Munro said. “I saw more than one like him in the war. He’s in the mold of General Sheridan, which is only to be expected, I suppose. And why do you think he had Marsh along to take pictures of the dead?”

Quint had no reply for that.

Munro walked toward Putnam, and the others followed. Cora saw Charley Blackfeather and Captain Dent in shackles with two soldiers standing guard over them. She pointed this out to Munro and explained about Blackfeather, though she didn’t know why Dent would be shackled as well.

“Dent must not have followed Putnam’s orders,” Munro said. “If that is the case, he should be commended instead of being bound like a criminal.”

Putnam was addressing his men when the small group from Wolf Creek walked up. Cora saw Wil Marsh standing off to one side, and she noticed that Hix was staring at him, though Marsh gave no sign that he even knew Hix was there.

Putnam paused in his remarks and turned to the newcomers. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You’re interfering with the army in the performance of its duties.”

Hix turned aside and spat in the dust. Putnam ignored him.

“You’ll have to leave immediately,” Putnam said. “We are about to ride after the men of this village. They pose a constant threat to the safety of the people of Wolf Creek and must be pacified.”

“Slaughtered, you mean,” Munro said.

Putnam shrugged. Cora had to admit that he cut a handsome figure in his uniform, but something inside him was twisted and ugly.

“Call it what you will,” Putnam said. “It is army business and no concern of yours.”

“You’ve killed women and children here,” Cora said. “They couldn’t have fought back.”

“Some of the boys came at us quite valiantly,” Putnam said. “As did some of the women. We had no choice.”

“You chose to come here, but you made a mistake,” Cora said. “These people weren’t bothering anyone.”

“You know nothing of these hostiles,” Putnam said in a condescending tone, dismissing her.

“We are going to treat the wounded,” Munro said. “Surely you have no objection to that.”

“You may do as you please with them. They are not my concern at the moment.”

“I want to speak to Captain Dent.”

“That won’t be possible. Dent is a prisoner. He refused my commands and refused to order his company to attack the hostiles. He will face military justice later, but for now he is to remain in irons.”

“You can’t prevent me from speaking to him.”

“Certainly I can. If you attempt to talk to him, I’ll have you shot.”

Cora could hardly believe Putnam meant it, but a glance at his cold eyes convinced her that he did. Something in those eyes reminded her of Jared Woodson. He and Putnam were much alike under the skin.

“Very well,” Munro said, making no effort to avoid the contempt in his tone. “I shall speak to him when you leave.”

“He will not be allowed to remain here,” Putnam said. “I cannot spare the men to guard him. Both he and Blackfeather will accompany us.”

Munro shook his head and sighed.

Putnam waited a second and said, “If that is all . . . .”

“That is all, indeed,” Munro said.

Putnam nodded and turned back to his men. Munro went back to the buggy for his medical supplies.

Hix looked over at Marsh, who still had not acknowledged him or the others.

“I’m going with the regiment,” Hix said.

“Surely you can’t mean it,” Cora said. “They plan only on more killing.”

Hix gave her an evasive look. “Maybe I can prevent some of it.” Without giving her a chance to ask anything more, he walked over to stand near Putnam.

“He’s an odd one,” the deputy said, watching him.

Cora nodded in agreement. “Indeed he is, but perhaps he can do something to dissuade the major from his plans.”

“Not likely,” Quint said. “Here comes Munro with his buggy. We’d best see if we can be of any help to these poor souls.”

“You mustn’t stay,” Cora told him. “You have to go back to Wolf Creek and let the town know what’s happened here.”

“She’s correct,” Munro said, pulling the buggy alongside them. “Stone Knife is still on the loose, and he’s likely to be enraged by what’s happened here. If he finds out about this massacre, he might very well attack the town. People must be prepared for that.”

Cora could tell that Quint felt that he had to do something to help the Kiowa, though there was really little that he or anyone else could do.

“You’re paid by the town to protect the citizens,” she reminded him. “Your first duty is to them.”

Quint nodded. “You’re right, of course. I’ll do a bit here first and then ride back.”

“Then let us get started,” Dr. Munro said. “It’s little enough we can do, but we must do what we can.”

***

It was heartbreaking work, but Cora was able to keep her emotions under control as she bound the wounds and burns of the weeping women and stoic children. The old men refused to let her touch them. They believed in their own medicine and not that of some white woman and doctor. Even most of the women who were conscious enough to resist didn’t allow the doctor to help.

After about a quarter of an hour, Quint told Cora and Munro that he was leaving.

“I’ve done all I can here. So have you, I believe. The soldiers are about to ride out. You should go back to town with me.”

“I can’t leave,” Cora said. She looked around at the dead and dying, the blood-soaked ground, the flies that buzzed around them all. “Not while there is still something I can do, some comfort I might give.”

“Doctor Munro will tell you that there isn’t much left to be done here.”

“The deputy is quite right,” Munro said, “though I feel it is my duty to stay.”

“And mine,” Cora said. “It’s possible that I can be of some help to you.”

“What if the Kiowa come back without running into Putnam and his soldiers?” Quint said. “They’ll kill you without a second thought.”

“I’m willing to take that gamble,” Cora said.

“And so am I,” Munro said.

“Well, I can’t force you,” Quint said. He shook his head. “I wish there were more we could do to help.”

“Go on back to town,” Munro said. “Give the warning.”

“I will,” Quint said.

As the deputy marshal started back toward his horse, Cora looked over toward the soldiers. Hix was in earnest conversation with Putnam, making his case to ride with the regiment, no doubt. Putnam was nodding as if in agreement. He’d be happy to have another gunhand riding with him, Cora thought, even if it was a barber.

Putnam turned away from Hix, and yelled some orders. The soldiers went to their mounts, and the two guarding Charley Blackfeather and Captain Dent were momentarily distracted. Blackfeather slammed into one of them, knocking him to the ground, and made an awkward run for a horse. The other guard raised his rifle, but Dent bumped him as he fired. The bullet sailed far above Blackfeather, who was nearly to the horse when three other soldiers caught up with him. Because of the shackles, there was little he could do to fight them. One of them hit him in the back of the head with a rifle, and as he started to fall, the other two grabbed his arms. He sagged between them, and they dragged him away. He was a big man, and he wasn’t easy to handle.

“Charley’s going to need my help,” Munro said. “If that blow didn’t kill him, that is.”

“He’s not badly hurt,” Cora said. “I believe the rifle butt hit him on that thick braid he wears.”

Munro looked at her. “You have very good eyesight.”

“So I’ve been told.”

At that moment one of the wounded women cried out in pain.

“See to her,” Cora said. “I’ll attend to Charley Blackfeather, if Major Putnam will allow it.”

Munro nodded, and Cora got some clean bandages and carbolic acid and went to here Blackfeather lay on the ground, with Putnam standing over him, cursing.

As Cora neared, one of the soldiers nudged Putnam. Red-faced, he clamped his mouth shut, gave Blackfeather a kick in the ribs, and stalked away.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that, ma’am,” the soldier told Cora.

“Hear what?” she asked.

The soldier grinned, and Cora knelt beside Blackfeather.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re dead,” she said. “You scalp isn’t even laid open. You have a knot on your head, but your braid cushioned the blow. I won’t need these bandages.”

Blackfeather turned his head and looked at her. “You aren’t being much help.”

“I have no idea what you were trying to achieve, and I’m sorry if I hindered you. However, even if you’d gotten to the horse, I don’t believe you could have mounted it, not with the shackles on you.”

“Putnam’s crazy,” Blackfeather said. “I thought I could get away and warn the Kiowa and Cheyenne chiefs.”

“What he did here is terrible,” Cora said, standing up. “He’ll be judged on that account. She looked at the soldier who had grinned. “So will you.” She waved a hand around to indicate the regiment. “So will you all.”

“I reckon you’re right,” the soldier said. “I was just following the Major’s orders.”

“Speak of the Devil,” Cora said, seeing that Putnam was coming back.

“Get that black-skinned ʼbreed back on his feet,” Putnam said. “Throw him on a horse. He’ll ride with us or be shot.”

Two soldiers grabbed Blackfeather’s arms and jerked him to his feet. He shook them off easily but made no further move to escape. For a moment Cora thought he might throw himself on Putnam. Putnam’s hand rested on his pistol, and Cora realized that the major hoped Blackfeather would do just that. If he did, Putnam would kill him.

Blackfeather must have realized it, too. The fire died in his eyes, and he stood quietly until the soldiers took his arms again, leading him over to where Dent had been mounted on a horse.

Cora started to tell Putnam again that he’d made a mistake, but she knew it was no use. He was blind to anyone’s view but his own, misguided as it was. She turned away without speaking and returned to see if she could be of any help to Doctor Munro.

The woman who had cried out was dead. Doctor Munro had left her to deal with another woman, who had been badly burned. The burns must have been terrifyingly painful as the doctor spread some kind of salve on them, but the woman made no sound.

Cora couldn’t bear to watch. She turned to see the soldiers, all of them mounted now and formed up into columns. Putnam waved his arm and gave a command. The columns moved out, their guidons fluttering. It was a stirring sight, not menacing at all, but Cora knew that the appearance did not mirror the reality or Putnam’s intentions.

Cora stood there for several minutes. After a while Munro joined her, and both of them watched as the columns rode toward the horizon and dwindled in size.

“Do you think we’re safe here?” Cora asked.

“I don’t know,” Munro said. “I do know I’d rather be her than under Putnam’s command. I expect his men are in more danger than we are. But we shouldn’t be thinking of that. We need to attend the wounded.”

“How many of them will survive?” Cora asked.

“A few,” Munro said.

Cora wondered what their lives would be like even if they lived. She stared after the soldiers for another moment.

No matter how many people you help, here or elsewhere, you can never atone for what your brother did, she thought. You can’t atone for the men he wounded or for those who died.

“Are you all right?” Munro asked, concern in his voice.

Maybe I can’t atone, but I’ll do what I can.

“I’m fine,” Cora said, and the turned back to do whatever good she could.