When they returned to the settlement, Winny was there. They went inside Abby’s cabin, where Winny had a fire going. The two women hugged and cried. Scooter waited it out. He knew how they felt. As Winny asked questions, Abby sputtered answers. Scooter helped when he could. Winny’s eyes were full of sympathy and concern. Abby’s eyes were full of hate for the soldiers. The events had aged her another twenty years. Scooter built the fire up, then went back outside and watched Connor’s soldiers trickle into the settlement. When Winny came out, she said that Abby wanted to rest forever under a pile of quilts with the fire banked up.
“Do you think she’ll sleep?” he asked.
“I hope so,” she said. “She refuses to give up. She thinks Yahnai got away.”
“It’s a good sign that we didn’t find him,” Scooter said.
Winny left to be with her children. Scooter hovered all afternoon in front of Abby’s cabin, talking to Oscar. He had no intention of letting any soldiers near her.
The wounded came on a fleet of eighteen sleighs provided by the settlers. Scooter missed out on any profits he could have made by hiring out his wagons. It would have made matters worse for Abby. She’d be angry enough when she found out that Isaac and the bishop hired their sleighs out, but it was the Christian thing to do. Soldiers were human beings, God’s children, same as the settlers. Same as the Indians.
He watched as soldiers were transported into the settler’s log meetinghouse. Those with the worst wounds were tended to in homes. The wounds varied in degree. Some were minor—soldiers shot in the arms. Some were worse—shot in the gut, shot in the chest. A few were expected to die. Several already had.
He wondered if Abby would burst out of her cabin and give Connor and the soldiers another tongue lashing. But for now, her door didn’t open.
The main body of soldiers returned on military wagons and on horseback, leading Indian ponies they had captured. Even many of those soldiers suffered from frozen feet, so bad they couldn’t walk. The joys of being a soldier.
Bishop Thomas sent a few settlers to the battleground to continue the search for Yahnai and to see what they could do for the few surviving Indians. He also ordered a warm fire built and new straw to cover the meetinghouse dirt floor.
The cold finally got to Scooter, crowding him, battering him, tormenting him. He went inside the meetinghouse to warm up. The door was stiff from the cold, but it was warm inside. The fireplace held a crackling fire. Settlers were congratulating soldiers on their victory. God’s intervention, some said. The Indians hadn’t accepted white man’s ways. Less time would have to be spent guarding livestock.
Scooter watched the soldiers with suspicious eyes. He worried about repercussions. After all, he’d flattened the colonel, something not easily forgotten. He only spoke when spoken to. He didn’t want anyone to question his accent. He slowly realized no one seemed to be concerned about it. There were other things to be concerned about—ministering to the wounded, feeding the soldiers, and giving them proper rest. Nevertheless, whenever he mingled with the soldiers, Scooter kept a few of his own men around him. Fascinated by what had happened right under their noses, his mule skinners seemed in no particular hurry to return to Salt Lake City.
Connor, he found out, was in Isaac Jacobs’s cabin warming up. Scooter was struck by the upbeat spirit of the soldiers. Few complained about the cold or about their frostbitten faces, hands, and feet. Rather, the buzz of talk focused on their triumph and the gory details of the battle. Some seventy teepees and wickiups had been destroyed and their occupants killed. Three soldiers bragged of finding and killing Bear Hunter. Of how they whipped, kicked, tortured, and shot him.
Others told of shooting at an Indian that might have been Sagwitch. The Indian escaped on horseback with a warrior clinging behind him. Well-aimed rifle shots killed the warrior but not the other rider. The other rider might have been hit in the hand. If it were Sagwitch, Scooter wondered where he was now and what he was doing.
Connor made his entrance along with Porter Rockwell, Isaac Jacobs, and Bishop Thomas. Although thoroughly warmed, Connor still gave a theatrical shiver as he stepped into the meetinghouse. Wrapped in exuberance, high-spirited, and loud, he walked among his soldiers. He patted them on the back. He told settlers that the battle had been a complete military success. He added that he still hoped to capture Sagwitch and arrest Shoshoni band leaders such as Pocatello and Washakie, whose people were not in the camp. He suspected them to be in the Malad Valley. Further, he warned the settlers that once the Indians had licked their wounds, they would seek revenge.
Scooter wondered what Sagwitch’s attitude would be. After all, the Franklin settlers were nursing and feeding soldiers.
“Believe me,” Connor repeated, “I’ll eventually wipe out all the Shoshoni.”
No sooner had Colonel Connor gotten those words out than the door to the meetinghouse opened. The light revealed the figure of a broken young woman. A gust of warm air seemed to escape, as if the log building were heaving a weary sigh at its uniformed visitors and all the talk of death.
As Abby walked through the door, her sallow eyes searched for one man. Soldiers and settlers alike scurried aside as if Moses were parting the Red Sea. Scooter wondered if she were going to give Connor another tongue lashing. Sergeant White rushed to protect his leader.
The colonel stepped behind Sergeant White. It made a comical sight, Connor trying to make himself scarce. He made a small sound in his throat, the kind of thing Scooter had heard before, when jokes turned out not to be jokes or when dire situations turned from bad to worse.
“Not you again,” Connor said. “Tell her to save her sermons. I don’t need them.”
“You didn’t listen very well last time,” Rockwell said. “You assured her nothing would happen to the women and children. You’ve lost credibility in that regard. She may have lost her adopted Indian boy out there. She may have been on the front row when tongues were handed out, but let her speak her peace. You owe it to her.”
Connor looked cold as a dead snake. He heaved a big sigh and braced himself.
“You can speak now, Sister Browett,” Rockwell said. “But I’d advise you to refrain from scratching the colonel’s eyes out. You already broke one soldier’s arm and gave another a bad headache, so don’t make a move toward him, or I will haul you back to your cabin myself.”
Colonel took out his fixings and rolled a cigarette, perhaps to calm himself.
“Would you mind not lighting that?” the bishop asked.
Connor ignored the bishop, lit the cigarette, and blew gray smoke in Abby’s direction. He could not hide the wicked expression of his cunning eyes.
Connor fired his first salvo. “So, missy, you have a weak stomach for war?”
Abby’s reaction surprised Scooter. There was no salvo of her own. Her face was sad, not angry. Her voice was low, not high. “You lied to me,” she began simply.
Connor took another drag on his cigarette and stood rigid as a fence post. “Don’t hold your breath, but I’ve lied before.”
Abby maintained control, pressing on with a sad voice. “I hear you’ve counted two hundred or so dead. There’s got to be nearly twice that. Don’t women and children count for anything? You think Indians are only potential humans or part human? Is it easier to not know the names of the dead when you do your body count? So much for the glory of the army. My son’s name is Yahnai. Y-A-H-N-A-I. Where is he?”
The soldiers stared at the ground and shifted their weight from one foot to the other.
“I was raised in Massachusetts to admire plucky soldiers, but you have disgraced your uniform. You represent Lincoln’s army. Don’t you have a responsibility to act with some deference to common decency? You should be building a public trust. Not wrecking it. You’ve broken what little faith we had in the army. What did your soldiers do, have a contest to see who could kill the most babies? Rape the most women? You act as though killing is a sport, not a sin. You feel no guilt? No personal responsibility? What you did is a total betrayal to humanity. Yet you seem to embrace it.”
Connor finally spoke, defending his actions. “Consider what we’ve done to the Shoshoni merely as a gesture of kindness, enabling God to command their souls to heaven more expeditiously. It seems only right.”
Scooter expected Abby to erupt, but she didn’t. She let Connor shame himself with his comments.
The colonel went on in an irritated huff. “It may interest you to know what we found in the Shoshoni lodges. Evidence that your beloved Indians are guilty of killing and robbing immigrants: jewelry, meerschaum pipes, even hand-sewn women’s and children’s clothing made by whites. So who has been killing women and children? The Indians. We will continue to do what we have to do to solve the Indian problem in all areas of my jurisdiction.”
Abby looked away. “I don’t know if God will ever forgive you.”
The colonel waved her off with a curt gesture of dismissal. “Time for you to go home. I want to wash up and have something to eat.”
Abby said, “You can wash off dirt, but you’ll never be able to wash off the blood that’s on your hands.”
Porter Rockwell stepped in front of Abby. “You’ve made your point, Sister Browett. I’m going to ask the bishop take you back to your cabin. The soldiers will be here tonight and leave tomorrow. Then you’ll be rid of them.”
Bishop Thomas touched Scooter’s arm. “Help me, will you?”
Scooter felt the uneasy stares of everyone in the building. He took a gentle grip on Abby’s arm and led her to the door. He agreed with everything Abby had said. There was no excuse for these Union soldiers to kill women and children. Indians were members of the human family. Just like him. And just like his father and two brothers. As Scooter reached Abby’s cabin, her knees buckled. She staggered a step, and he caught her and held her tight. Her tears soaked his shirt.