December 13, 1866—Fort Phil Kearny, Dakota Territory
“IT’S MORE LIKE A WILD SESSIONER YOU’RE LOOKING each time I see you, Daniel. Your locks are truly rebellious. And I can bathe myself, for the love of God.”
“Thank you, sir. I should have them barbered but I am in no mind to trust any man in this fort with a razor to my throat,” Kohn says, sponging Molloy’s back. He lifts the officer’s arm and washes his ribs, his underarms, his shoulders. “You smell something less than sweet, sir, but you are looking better. You’ll be back in the saddle before long.”
“Please God you’re right, Daniel. I am feeling like a right and proper blue mass bummer, you out there unable to have a haircut for your troubles.”
“You’ve been through it, sir, and need to rest. The sawbones says the leg is healing.” He dips the sponge into the warm and soapy water and continues to bathe the captain. “Time is the best doctor as my father always said, never wanting to pay for a doctor when time could be had at half the price.”
“Yes, yes . . . enough of your Dutch wisdom, Kohn.” Molloy swallows and looks away. “A bloody buggering bum of a mollygrubbing malingerer I am, with you whipping yourself with the work on your lonesome. You should stand down from your inquiries, Daniel. Nothing good will come of them. And you are dripping water on my bloody mattress, you damned fool.”
Kohn ignores this and roughly washes under the captain’s left arm. “A transfer from the 7th, sir, for both of us, is the good that will come of them.” Kohn has almost convinced himself that, with a transfer, Molloy will contain his drinking, will wish less for death. A new start. New memories to replace the old ones that plague him. He hopes more than thinks this may happen because he is not certain what he will do if Molloy does not recover, does not cease his slow suicide. He does not allow himself to think about it. He loves no one else on this earth but Molloy and yet much of the time he cannot abide the man. He has only the army and for him, Molloy is the army. He is not certain whether it is the army or Molloy he loves and hates so. Dos hartz makht fun mentsh a nar. It is his mother’s voice this time. The heart makes a fool of men. He has a flashing image of standing in a tin tub as a small boy while she bathed him, his brothers waiting their turn but their mother smiling at him, taking her time.
As if to mock sentiments Kohn can hardly admit to himself, Molloy says, lowering his voice, “Would you not have a dram on your person, Daniel, for an old warhorse recovering?”
“I most certainly goddamn do not, sir.” It is his father’s voice he hears now. A fool goes to the bath and forgets to wash his face.
“There is no need to curse your betters, Daniel. It is unbecoming a man of your rank and breeding.” Molloy sulks but only for a moment. Not as long as Kohn would have imagined and he takes hope in this.
He says, “My betters? You may go and jump, sir, if you think I will aid in your debauch. I need you to speak to the Irish when you are well if we are to discover anything about who killed the sutler and his wife. The fort is full of them and none of them has a mind to bleat to a soreass Jew.”
“The Irish . . .” Molloy says. “A filthy, treacherous race of men, the women fit only for the milking shed or brothel. Round heels have the women of Ireland. Keep that in mind, Daniel, when time comes to choose a wife.”
“I will, sir.” He tosses the sponge into the bucket, dries his hands on a towel and holds out a freshly laundered undershirt for the captain.
“Tell us then, what have you learned on your travels, Daniel?”
Kohn helps Molloy into the shirt, followed by a wool sweater and two pairs of socks. He lifts the captain’s legs, one of them locked in thick plaster, from where they rest on the floor back into the bed and covers them with a fresh laundered sheet, several blankets and a heavy buffalo rug. He makes to tie a woollen scarf around Molloy’s neck but his captain shoos him away and does it himself. The hospital barracks is warm relative to the common soldiers’ barracks, having three wood stoves for heat and a raised floor of planed boards, but the building was hastily constructed and drafts of icy wind find their way through gaps in the planked walls and windows. Kohn can see his breath if he looks carefully.
“Nothing of note, sir. But that every soul on post assumes that it was other than Indians who killed Mr. Kinney and his wife and not one seems to think they did not have it coming. Some of the men I’ve spoken to appear to be delighted by their demise.”
“Death freeing them from debt, no doubt,” Molloy says, nodding, smiling as if he too sees the joy a murder can bring. “Give us a cheroot, Daniel, good man.”
“Yessir. Though they would not be exempt the debt, in fact, since they have signed their names to the monies owed the sutler, whoever that may be, and as such any serving sutler has the right to stop their pay up to five dollars a month until it is paid. You know yourself there are men who are never fully clear of a sutler’s debt and owe money on their discharge. Of course they might be considered free of their debts if the sutler’s account books cannot be found, which according to the new sutler, they cannot.”
Molloy smiles again. “As a Jew, you look first for the account books, Daniel. I would have expected nothing less.”
Kohn smiles back at him. “I thought that if I could have a peek at them, I might find the man or men with the call to blot out their debts with blood.”
“That is a fine, poetic way of putting it. A man of the book, you are, Daniel. But not every action is motivated by money. Some are driven by temperament. You of all people should know that.”
Kohn blushes and heat rises to his face. The book has always been a problem for him, as a boy and a man, the Hebrew letters never standing still long enough for him when it was his turn to read them at Krius ha toire. Even now words still jumble and rearrange themselves on a page if he is tired or lacking in concentration. He has noted in the past how much longer it takes for him to read an account in a newspaper compared to other reading men and he does not think he has ever handed over a message or drafted a bill of larder without it being blighted with misplaced letters and ill-spelled words. No man of any goddamn book, that is for certain, Danny boy. He does not say this and Molloy has no idea of it.
Instead, Kohn gives Molloy what he has been fishing for. “Certainly, sir, the pleasure a man takes in rash action can be its own motivation. And before you ask, I have been somewhat rash, sir. I yesterday destroyed a chair that had not wronged a single soul. Poor chair.”
“You didn’t kill anyone, so? I am disappointed to hear it.” Molloy smiles. Kohn’s furies have ever been a source of delight for him though it is a long time since he has properly relished anything.
Kohn is aware of this and pleased that he has amused Molloy, if only for a moment, with his recklessness. “No sir, I have made valiant efforts to restrain myself, though I have met more than one who could use killing.”
“There is a hardly a day goes by in this life that we don’t, Daniel. If only we could oblige them. Have you offered a reward for the return of the ledgers? You have said there are more Irish here on post than bedbugs in a whore’s mattress. And where there are Pats and Micks in abundance, there are chuck-a-luck debts to be paid and bark juice to be bought. The prospect of windfall will turn the account books up if they are not yet ash and scrap.”
Kohn laughs. “I’ve offered fifteen of your hard-earned greenbacks for their return. We shall see what happens.”
“And have the brass hats been welcoming, Daniel?”
“As if we’ve brought the cholera with us in a bucket. Colonel Carrington thinks we are here as spies sent by General Cooke, with our investigations as mere bluff for the purposes of reporting back just what kind of a no-count show he is commanding here. He has given me . . . given us freedom of the camp of sorts but he is no help otherwise and insists I bring anything I find to his attention. At the same time he doesn’t appear to have any interest in encouraging anyone in the camp to speak to me, including his wife. So welcoming, no. We are the least of his worries with his men dying or deserting by the day, but we are a worry to him nonetheless.”
“His wife?” Molloy lights his cheroot, filling the air with aromatic smoke. He begins to cough then, a heavy, liquid hack that tells of corruption of the lung, of cold journeys and possible pleurisy. It is the most common sound in every bivouac, camp or fort Kohn has ever set foot in and he is not unduly concerned by it.
When Molloy has finished coughing, Kohn says, “I was told I might want to speak to a serving girl working for the colonel’s good wife. An Indian who used to work for Sutler Kinney.”
“As?”
“She is a pretty girl, despite her injuries, so you can imagine yourself, sir.”
“The colonel’s wife with a whore for a serving maid? She would not have her, surely, if she knew.”
Kohn shrugs. “I don’t know, sir. The Carrington woman seems a kind soul, a Christian woman.” He thinks of a phrase Molloy often uses himself. “There are no flies on her, as you would say. I reckon she knows well what the girl did for Kinney. But she is good to her, you can see that and she did not let me speak to her so there is no point I can see in pursuing it. She said something about ‘being held to account for how we treat others,’ whatever she meant by it.”
Molloy smokes his cheroot and says nothing for some time. Then, “Sometimes the best work is done by doing nothing, Daniel. I was often told this by my schoolmasters.”
“I can only imagine, sir.”
“I will be fit soon enough to aid you. Hale and hearty as ever I was. Until then do nothing else. There is nothing to be gained from our finding out what everyone here already knows. The man and his wife are not, by your account, sorely missed and not worth losing blood for. Mind yourself, Daniel. I’ll have no one to wash my arse for me if you ship a knife in the guts for the sake of a man and his missus already homesteading with the devil.”
“The prospect of washing your arse again, sir, is call enough to keep looking into things. A knife in the guts might just be preferable.”