OUR FRIEND RIDGEWAY GLOVER & A PICTURE IN A MEADOW
AS I DID WRITE BEFORE I THINK I BEGAN THIS TESTAMENT for to tell the truth of events Sir because you are owed the truth. I once had the idea to keep a record of the events in my life but I never did do it & so this is my chance my very last chance perhaps. But as I write I find I do it now for another reason & that reason is the Picture Maker Ridgeway Glover & what happened to him. I feel that it is guilt over this that drives my pen along the pages the ink thick & slow with the cold my eyes stung with squinting in the dim lamplight. The oil for the lamp is corrupted like everything else the Army would have its men use.
As I told you we first met that lovely boy called Ridgeway on the march after we left the Laramie Peace Talks & he became our friend & as such it did be our duty to protect & guide him & before everything went sour for us we did this I swear to you as God Is My Witness we did.
But since we came upon that poor dear Ridgeway’s butchered body in the long grass & your terrible Jew brought me to this Guardhouse more than 1 of the boys detailed as guards did ask me (because they too were fond of Ridgeway like all who knew him) Why did he leave the safe harbour of the Ft. on his lonesome? & in the silence of this cell I asked myself the same question 100 times & can halt on only 1 single answer. That poor Quaker boy was troubled over what he was witness to. His heart was blackened by it & then Tom had his words with him & then you Sir went to him & pressed him & not long after that he was seen packing his mules for the road. Oh I do not blame you Sir but I do blame Tom. I told Tom to leave Ridgeway out of it all that he had nothing to do with what happened but Tom said that he did. Tom said that he was there & that did make him a part of it. You will be wondering a part of what?
I do tell myself betimes perhaps our friend would of left the Ft. without escort anyway. He often did in the early days for to spite the danger well known to all in the Ft. well Ridgeway did not fear the world the way yourself & myself might. He did not look out into the forest & see the dark parts of it or the shadows but saw instead the fair side of things the way the heavens carve up the spaces tween the branches with their light or the way dew does sparkle in the morning grass in a sunlit meadow. He would see the world like this & he would want to make one of his pictures of it.
Many is the time we tried telling him that behind all the fine & pretty spots where he might like to make his photographs well the Powder River country is a place of rough peril & that in a sunny meadow may stalk Sioux Braves who would like nothing more than to claim a fair haired scalp such as his. But he would only smile & tell us that if a man did not think ill of others then he could only hope that others would not think ill of himself & that as a Quaker he would not raise a hand agin another man. This he did believe would keep another man from raising a hand agin himself more fool that Quaker boy May God Keep Him. Over time we became accustomed to him being here 1 minute & gone from us the next for to make his pictures of some natural wonder or Indian squaw.
So it oft happened that my brother or myself or even little Addy Metzger (a long time veteran Bill like ourselves a Dutchy bugler who does be a boon companion & liked by boys of all nations in C Company) well him or we would up & say nearly once or twice a week, “Ho boys where did Ridgeway get to now?” And we would set about to find him.
I do recall a time late in August when he did accompany a troop of us sent as the Paymaster’s guard to Ft. Smith. Well we made camp the 1st night aside the upper Powder River in a clearing where there was the black remains of old camp fires Indian or trapper or Army or what we did not know but never mind it was a grand place for a bivouack & as pretty as one of Ridgeway’s pictures. We caught 7 trout between us in the clear running river for to eat with our beans & pilot bread. That meal by the fire is a fine memory I will always keep with me. It was a happy time & there are not many I can recall since we came here.
Once we felt that this Valley was as close to Eden as any on Earth with its rivers & grass & mountains & clean air & plenteous game. Even now in the dead of winter you can see why the Indians fight us for to keep it. Of course if you stop long enough to wonder on it you may question the sense of losing your hair or your balls God Bless Them to a Sioux skinning knife for the taking of another fellow’s country. You might wonder is it right at all to be barging in & taking it. But there is little enough time for a soldier to wonder on things & the Army does not encourage it. The Indians do nothing with this land anyway neither grazing nor farming on it so I reckon they have no right to keep it but there is them that would argue the toss over this.
But none of this did I think the next morning on that Paymaster’s escort up to Ft. Smith when Tom & I woke after a good sleep to find the Quaker boy missing from his bedroll by the fire pit the embers burnt down to ashes & the morning air cool enough to see your breath with all around us but for the sentries on picket fast asleep still.
“Where’s Ridgeway got to then?” says I to Tom.
“See is his picture making things—” Tom did not know yet the word for camera & not in the Gaelic anyway. Says he, “See if the yokes are where he left them.”
“They are not,” says I.
Tom heft himself up from his blankets. He is not a Hail The Sweet New Day sort of fellow at all in the mornings. Says he, “For all that is holy that boy is like a G__ D___ tinker travelling here & there with no cares in the world for anything but where the road does take him.”
Rubbing sleep from my eyes I took myself over to one of the sentries a Swede with no English at all on him. “Did you see the picture maker Henrik?” I made with my hands the shapes of long hair & a box. “Ridgeway,” says I. The Swede did catch on at last & point me to a deer trail that led away from the clearing into the woods. I suppose I wondered why he did not stop Ridgeway from leaving the bivouack as was our orders but in truth there is always trouble tween civilians & the Army for oft times no man knows who is in charge of another so mostly a soldier will say nothing for fear of saying the wrong thing to the wrong man.
So Tom & myself took up our rifles & made to follow the deer trail into the woods & I tell you in no time at all we could not hear the running of the river & night shadows still hung heavy in the trees. We kept silence between us as we walked not daring to speak or call out to the picture maker for there is something of the woods that puts fear on a man no matter his age or experience of them.
Well Thanks Be To God but shortly the trees begun to thin & the morning sun strained to shine through the branches & soon we could see another clearing. We came to it after a moment & leaving the forest & our fears behind us in the wooded shadows we found ourselves in a meadow of fine long grass & wild flowers. It was maybe 200 yds. across & it dipped down in the middle to rise up on the far side to another wood. A layer of mist was afloat in the chill air at our knees & sunlight lit the water in it making it like a swathe of shining silver cloth above the grass. And across that meadow where the ground begun to rise into the far stand of forest my eye caught a thing moving & the sound of something did break the morning meadow’s silence & this sound was the low growling of a beast. More than 1 beast my eyes could now see & I tapped Tom’s shoulder & pointed for him to look.
“Wolves,” I did whisper to Tom in English first then in Irish too I do not know why. “Mac tire.”
“And there is Ridgeway,” says Tom raising his Springfield & using it to point some yds. to the right of what we now saw to be the carcass of a great deer or elk I did not know the difference then. Well it was lain out there in the wet grass that carcass the ribs of it white & bloody red & poking up like the beams of a shipwreck on a beach & 1 wolf had that dead elk’s guts in his teeth like a looter at the ship’s cargo. 2 other of the beasts did be at the hind of the elk snouts stained red but one was not at all at the elk’s body but instead in the long grass on his belly like a snake with his hackles up & his teeth unsheathed at the figure of our friend Ridgeway whose head & shoulders were under the camera’s drape with only his hand out of it for to open the lid of the camera’s eye or aperture I did later learn to call it.
I made to say to Tom that from under the drape Ridgeway could not see the great stalking wolf at all but before I could speak Tom flicked up the leaf sight on his rifle found his range & fired on that skulking beast for Tom is a man to act before he speaks or thinks. This is good betimes & terrible others. It was good that day for the other wolves did yelp & scatter at the shot & from 200 yds. away I could see Tom’s ball strike home to raise a puff of bloody fur & then bring the stillness of death to that marauder. The camera’s drape was flung up then & out came Ridgeway not knowing a thing of what just happened.
Well I cast a wave of my arm to show him he was safe & that it was only us boys come to save him & he looked to me as if he could not reckon who we were at all. We trotted then over with the grass wetting our kerseys. I went to Ridgeway & Tom went to his wolf & it was only now did the Quaker boy put 2+2 together to make 4.
“Oh I never saw that one,” says he. “Did Tom shoot it Michael did he?”
“He did. That wolf would of liked you for his breakfast. You know you only need ask & Tom or myself will escort you on your picture making. You should not be off on your lonesome here in the woods & meadows boy. Sure it is not only wolves about this place & we would hate for you to lose them fair pretty locks of yours.”
Ridgeway gave me a smile like he always did. Says he, “I have no fight with the Indians Michael & I do expect they will take little notice of me armed only with a camera apparatus. Wolves however may not understand my intentions or the lack of sustenance I would prove to be in any meal. So I thank you gentlemen but I just had to try for that picture. The elk & the morning light & the mist. The wolves. Do you see what I am saying? Of course they would not keep still for the exposure but—”
On & on he did rattle about the framing & exposure & composition & I did not understand all of Ridgeway’s words but I looked over at the dead elk with its guts reefed from inside it. The grass about the carcass was tramped down & red with blood the flies already skirmishing & for a moment all I could see was the carnage laid down upon the elk by the wolves. In truth the sight took my mind back to the War to bodies blown to very bits chewed by grape & canister dead men in the grass & mud with their guts like the elk’s strewn out as if they were ribbons tugged from a sweetheart’s hair. And all of it just a matter of Good Luck John or Bad Luck Jim. God snaps his fingers & the Devil snaps your neck. For a moment this was all I could think of & all I could see there in the meadow.
Ridgeway did perhaps see my confusion. He said, “Look at it. Let your eyes see it the way they would see a picture without the smells of it without the sound or even the colours. Just look at it Michael.”
And so I did & I begun to see the sun burning off the mist & the elk’s ribs appeared to me now like the ribbing of an accordion & I could see the flies’ wings flashing in the sunlight & the dew clinging to the grass like tiny diamonds in a queen’s cloak. I could near see what that Quaker boy was getting at even after what the wolves done to the elk I could see it & this made me proud & happy with myself.
“And did you catch the picture Ridgeway?” says I hoping now that he did.
“No. I did not have the time needed to expose it & there was too much movement. I thought maybe the wolves might sit still for me to get my picture.” He smiled at this joke.
Tom spoke up then from where he stood with his kill. “Make my picture Ridgeway. Will you make it with my shot wolf will you? I never did have a picture made of me.” Tom’s words in English were muddy & I did repeat them to Ridgeway.
“Why of course,” says Ridgeway. “Of course I will. I am sorry I never thought to ask before.”
Across the clearing came some boys from the camp breathless & drawn to the meadow by the sound of Tom’s shot. I waved down at them. “All OK,” says my wave.
“Tom shot a wolf,” I shouted across the meadow to them forgetting my fear of Indians for the moment. Or maybe I reckoned that if the shot did not bring them to us then my shouting would not.
The boys relaxed & strolled up to us. It was Metzger Napoli Jackson Henrik the Swede & Corp. Phillips who plugged two Sioux on a passage from Laramie a few weeks after ours. My brother gave a smile to this mob & held up his wolf under the forelegs.
“I shot this big f_____ of a wolf boys. Ridgeway is going to make a picture of it. Will you be in my picture will you boys?”
Says Jackson to me, “What did he say Mick?”
“He says Ridgeway will make his photograph with the wolf & would ye care to be in it?”
All the boys perked up at the prospect. It was common enough in the War to have a tin type picture made but by chance none of us there took the time or paid the money or had the sweetheart or mother at home for to get one made. I tell you it made the boys happy now the notion of a photograph taken here in the wilds of the West in a meadow with flowers & lifting mist & a dead elk & a dead wolf & a fellow’s mates around him.
Well Napoli brung out a comb from his tunic & all of us made use of it wiping down the tunics of our mates each man making like a mirror for another all of us getting shipshape & arguing should we sport kepis or bare heads & tipping canteen water into kerchiefs to wipe dirt from each other’s faces like mothers with their children before Mass.
“You should comb your wolf Tom,” says Jackson.
“He has a finer head of hair than you have,” says Tom back & when I repeated it the boys did laugh.
“And a prettier face than yours by a long piece,” says Jackson & he could say it because Tom was very fond of him for Jackson was not afraid of my brother with his Rebel ball scoured mouth & his terrible rages. He did not fear Tom like some of the boys in the Company & so Tom took his rags in good sport.
“Gentlemen,” says Ridgeway. “If you please.”
He arranged us about Tom & his wolf making sure to get the morning light behind him as did be best. He told me things like this later for I did yearn back then to become perhaps a maker of pictures myself though I am ashamed to say it because there is not much in this world I am good at besides killing & all such dreams for the likes of me are folly in the end. But they were different days so there was no harm in it maybe.
“Now boys you will need to hold yourselves still as statues while the picture forms.”
“Shame it aint a dead Injin instead of an old wolf,” says Jackson & we all laughed though you could say the Indians had the last laugh at Jackson in the end.
“No smiling gentlemen please,” says Ridgeway.
So we held the pose still & silent & unsmiling for our friend the picture maker Ridgeway Glover & in our stillness it came to me how queer it was the 7 of us boys from all the ends of the Earth standing there together holding stony faces like statues of marble you might see in a church but instead in a meadow of grass & yellow & purple flowers where maybe no white man ever stood before. How queer it is I reckoned that day as the morning sun burnt off the mist & warmed our bones no sound but that of birds singing & fizzing flies at the carcass & buzzing bees at the wild flowers & a strange kind of Quaker boy hiding his head beneath a drape with his hand held out on the camera’s eye to let the light inside the camera box to catch it there.
And as soon as I felt this well my heart did shift & things of a sudden turned queer & dreadful & fear came upon me & fierce terrible loneliness seized my heart. It was like the dead wolf had my heart in his teeth & I wonder now can you see this fear in my eyes in the picture though I did my mighty best not to show it then.
After some minutes the picture was done & later back at the Ft. when he cured it Ridgeway gave us each one for ourselves on paper card which made us all very happy even me with my strange heart.
Our journey back from Ft. Smith for all our prickling rifles & skittish mounts did pass quietly but there was happenings galore here in the Valley in the week we were away. Red Cloud’s boys made a start attacking the woodtrain on its way to & fro Piney Island running the mules & killing two A Company boys & a civilian timberman whose body never was found God Rest Them All.
Tom skinned his wolf of course & was of a mind to give it to his sweetheart whore as a gift but she did not want it & instead he took lend of 2 dollars from me & put that with 1$ & 80¢ he won at Faro for to buy her a dress of calico with flowers on it much like them in that meadow where he shot his wolf.
In the end Tom stuck that wolf pelt to the inside of the door to our barracks with shoeing nails. All the boys loved it & would touch its head for luck when they went out for back then we thought ourselves true & proper beasts much like that wolf with his yellow eyes & dagger teeth but this was only foolishness & there is no fool like a soldier I tell you.