So now these six disheartened men, sitting on this lonely rise, their ribbed-out ponies too tired to move underneath them, wondered what to do about a single feathery stream of smoke half a mile away.
To debate the merits of whether to make an attack was very Indian. But to debate a single wisp of smoke for half an hour was a much different matter, and it showed just how far the confidence of these Pawnee had sunk. The six were split, one cell for withdrawing, the other for investigating. As they dallied back and forth, only one man, the fiercest among them, remained steadfast from the first. He wanted to swoop down on the smoke immediately, and as the jawboning dragged on, he grew more and more sullen.
After thirty minutes he drew away from his brethren and started silently down the slope. The other five came alongside, inquiring as to what his action might be.
The sullen warrior replied caustically that they were not Pawnee and that he could no longer ride with women. He said they should stick their tails between their legs and go home. He said they were not Pawnee, and he said that he would rather die than haggle with men who were not men.
He rode toward the smoke.
The others followed.
three
As much as he disliked Indians, Timmons knew virtually nothing of their ways. The territory had been relatively safe for a long time. But he was only one man with no real way to defend himself, and he should have known enough to make a smokeless fire.
But that morning he had rolled out of his stinking blankets with a powerful hunger. The idea of bacon and coffee had been the only thing on his mind and he had hastily built a nice little fire with green wood.
It was Timmons’s fire that had attracted the hurting little band of Pawnee.
He was squatting at the fire, his fingers wrapped around the skillet handle, drinking in the bacon fumes, when the arrow hit him. It drove deep into his right buttock, and the force of it knocked him clear across the fire. He heard the whoops before he saw anyone, and the cries sent him into a panic. He crow-hopped into the gully and, without breaking stride, clambered up the incline, a brightly feathered Pawnee arrow jutting from his ass.
Seeing that it was just one man, the Pawnee took their time. While the others looted the wagon, the fierce warrior who had shamed them into action galloped lazily after Timmons.
He caught the teamster just as he was about to clear the slope leading out of the gully. Here Timmons suddenly stumbled to one knee, and when he rose he turned his head to the sound of hoofbeats.
But he never saw the horse or its rider. For a split second he saw the stone war club. Then it slammed into the side of his skull with such force that Timmons’s head literally popped open.
four
The Pawnee rifled through the supplies, taking as much as they could carry. They unhitched the nice team of army horses, burned the wagon, and rode past Timmons’s mutilated body without so much as a parting glance. They had taken all they wanted from it. The teamster’s scalp flopped near the tip of his killer’s lance.
The body lay all day in the tall grass, waiting for the wolves to discover it at nightfall. But the passing of Timmons carried more significance than the snuffing of a single life. With his death an unusual circle of circumstances had come full.
The circle had closed around Lieutenant John J. Dunbar.
No man could be more alone.
CHAPTER V
one
He, too, made a fire that morning, but his was going much earlier than Timmons’s. In fact, the lieutenant was halfway through his first cup of coffee an hour before the driver was killed.
Two camp chairs had been included in the manifest. He spread one of these in front of Cargill’s sod hut and sat for a long time, an army blanket draped over his shoulders, a big standard-issue cup cradled in his hands, watching the first full day at Fort Sedgewick unfold before his eyes. His thoughts fell quickly on action, and when they did, doubt marched in again.
With a startling suddenness, the lieutenant felt overwhelmed. He realized that he had no idea where to begin, what his function should be, or even how to regard himself. He had no duties, no program to follow, and no status.
As the sun rose steadily behind him, Dunbar found himself stuck in the chilly shade of the hut, so he refilled his cup and moved the camp chair into the direct sunlight of the yard.
He was just sitting down when he saw the wolf. It was standing on the bluff opposite the fort, just across the river. The lieutenant’s first instinct was to frighten it off with a round or two, but the longer he watched his visitor, the less sense this made. Even at a distance he could tell that the animal was merely curious. And in some hidden way that never quite bubbled to the surface of his thoughts, he was glad for this little bit of company.
Cisco snorted over in the corral, and the lieutenant jerked to attention. He had forgotten all about his horse. On his way to the supply house he glanced over his shoulder and saw that his early morning visitor had turned tail and was disappearing below the horizon beyond the bluff.
two
It came to him at the corral as he was pouring Cisco’s grain into a shallow pan. It was a simple solution and it kicked doubt out once more.
For the time being he would invent his duties.
Dunbar made a quick inspection of Cargill’s hut, the supply house, the corral, and the river. Then he set to work, starting first with the garbage choking the banks of the little stream.
Though not fastidious by nature, he found the dumping ground a complete disgrace. Bottles and trash were strewn everywhere. Broken bits of gear and shreds of uniform material lay encrusted in the banks. Worst of all were the carcasses, in varying stages of decay, which had been dumped mindlessly along the river. Most of them were small game, rabbits and guinea fowl. There was a whole antelope and part of another.
Surveying this squalor gave Dunbar his first real clue as to what might have happened at Fort Sedgewick. Obviously it had become a place in which no one took pride. And then, without knowing, he hit close to the truth.
Maybe it was food, he thought. Maybe they were starving.
He worked straight through noon, stripped down to his long undershirt, a seedy pair of pants, and a set of old boots, sifting methodically through the garbage about the river.
There were more carcasses sunk in the stream itself, and his stomach churned queasily as he dragged the oozing animal bodies from the fetid mud of the shallow water.
He piled everything on a sheet of canvas, and when there was enough for a load, he tied the canvas up like a sack. Then, with Cisco providing the muscle, they lugged the awful cargo to the top of the bluff.
By midafternoon the stream was clear, and though he wasn’t certain, the lieutenant could swear it was running faster. He made a smoke and rested awhile, watching the river flow past. Freed of its filthy parasites, it looked like a real stream again, and the lieutenant felt a little swelling of pride in what he had done.
As he came to his feet he could feel his back tighten. Unaccustomed as he was to this sort of work, he found the soreness not unpleasant. It meant he had accomplished something.
After policing up the last, tiny scraps of refuse, he climbed to the top of the bluff and confronted the pile of scum that rose nearly to his shoulder. He poured a gallon of fuel oil on the heap and set it ablaze.
For a time he watched the great column of greasy, black smoke boil into the empty sky. But all at once his heart sunk as he realized what he had done. He should have never started the fire. Out here a blaze of this size was like setting off a flare on a moonless night. It was like pointing a huge, flaming arrow of invitation at Fort Sedgewick.
Someone was bound to be drawn in by the column of smoke, and the someone would most likely be Indians.
three
Lieutenant Dunbar sat in front of the hut until dusk, constantly scanning the horizon in every direction.
No one came.
He was relieved. But as he sat through the afternoon, a Springfiel
d rifle and his big Navy at the ready, his sense of isolation deepened. At one point the word marooned slipped into his mind. It made him shudder. He knew it was the right word. And he knew he might have to be alone for some time to come. In a deep and secret way he wanted to be alone, but being marooned had none of the euphoria he had felt on the trip out with Timmons.
This was sobering.
He ate a skimpy dinner and filled out his first day’s report. Lieutenant Dunbar was a good writer, which made him less averse to paperwork than most soldiers. And he was eager to keep a scrupulous record of his stay at Fort Sedgewick, particularly in light of his bizarre circumstances.
April 12, 1863
I have found Fort Sedgewick to be completely unmanned. The place appears to have been rotting for some time. If there was a contingent here shortly before I came, it, too, must have been rotting.
I don’t know what to do.
Fort Sedgewick is my post, but there is no one to report to. Communication can only take place if I leave, and I don’t want to abandon my post.
Supplies are abundant.
Have assigned myself cleanup duty. Will attempt to strengthen supply house, but don’t know if one man can do job.
Everything is quiet here on the frontier.
Lt. John J. Dunbar, U.S.A.
On the verge of sleep that night he had the awning idea. An awning for the hut. A long sunshade extending from the entrance. A place to sit or work on days when the heat inside the quarters became unbearable. An addition to the fort.
And a window, cut out of the sod. A window would make a big difference. Could shrink the corral and use the extra posts for other construction. Maybe something could be done with the supply house after all.
Dunbar was asleep before he’d cataloged all the possibilities for busying himself. It was a deep sleep and he dreamed vividly.
He was in a Pennsylvania field hospital. Doctors had gathered at the foot of his bed, a half dozen of them in long, white aprons soaked with the blood of other “cases.”
They were discussing whether to take his foot off at the ankle or at the knee. The discussion gave way to an argument, the argument turned ugly, and as the lieutenant watched, horrified, they began to fight.
They were bashing each other with the severed limbs of previous amputations. And as they swirled about the hospital, swinging their grotesque clubs, patients who had lost limbs leaped or crawled from their pallets, desperately sorting through the debris of the battling doctors for their own arms and legs.
In the middle of the melee he escaped, galloping crazily through the main doors on his half-blown-away foot.
He hobbled into a brilliant green meadow that was strewn with Union and Confederate corpses. Like dominoes in reverse, the corpses sat up as he ran past and aimed pistols at him.
Finding a gun in his hand, Lieutenant Dunbar shot each of the corpses before they could squeeze off a round. He fired rapidly and each of his bullets found a head. And each blew apart on impact. They looked like a long line of melons, each of them exploding in turn from perches on the shoulders of dead men.
Lieutenant Dunbar could see himself at a distance, a wild figure in a bloody hospital gown, dashing through a gauntlet of corpses, heads flying into space as he went.
Suddenly there were no more corpses and no more firing.
But there was someone behind him calling in a beautiful voice.
“Sweetheart . . . sweetheart.”
Dunbar looked over his shoulder.
Running behind him was a woman, a handsome woman with high cheeks and thick sandy hair and eyes so alive with passion that he could feel his heart beating stronger. She was dressed only in men’s pants and she ran with a blood-drenched foot in her outstretched hand, as if in offering.
The lieutenant glanced down at his own wounded foot and found it gone. He was running on a white stump of bone.
He came awake, sitting upright in shock, groping wildly for his foot at the end of the bed. It was there.
His blankets were damp with sweat. He fumbled under the bed for his kit and hastily rolled a smoke. Then he kicked off the clammy blankets, propped himself on the pillow, and puffed away, waiting for it to get light.
He knew exactly what had inspired the dream. The basic elements had actually taken place. Dunbar let his mind wander back to those events.
He had been wounded in the foot. By shrapnel. He had spent time in a field hospital, there had been talk of taking off his foot, and not being able to bear the thought of this, Lieutenant Dunbar had escaped. In the middle of the night, with the terrible groans of wounded men echoing through the ward, he’d slipped out of bed and stolen the makings of a dressing. He’d powdered the foot with antiseptic, wrapped it heavily with gauze, and somehow jammed it into his boot.
Then he had snuck out a side door, stolen a horse, and, having no place else to go, rejoined his unit at dawn with a cock-and-bull story about a flesh wound to the toe.
Now he smiled to himself and thought, What could I have been thinking of?
After two days the pain was so great that the lieutenant wanted nothing more than to die. When the opportunity presented itself, he took it.
Two opposing units had sniped at each other across three hundred yards of denuded field for the better part of an afternoon. They were hidden behind low stone walls bordering opposite ends of the field, each unsure of the other’s strength, each unsure about mounting a charge.
Lieutenant Dunbar’s unit had launched an observation balloon, but the rebels had promptly shot it down.
It had remained a standoff, and when tensions reached their climax in the late afternoon, Lieutenant Dunbar reached his own personal breaking point. His thoughts focused unwaveringly on ending his life.
He volunteered to ride out and draw enemy fire.
The colonel in charge of the regiment was unsuited for war. He had a weak stomach and a dull mind.
Normally he would never have permitted such a thing, but on this afternoon he was under extreme pressure. The poor man was at a complete loss, and for some unexplained reason, thoughts of a large bowl of peach ice cream kept intruding into his mind.
To make matters worse, General Tipton and his aides had just recently taken up an observation position on a high hill to the west. His performance was being watched, yet he was powerless to perform.
The topper was this young lieutenant with the bloodless face, talking to him in clenched tones about drawing fire. His wild, pupilless eyes scared the colonel.
The inept commander consented to the plan.
With his own mount coughing badly, Dunbar was allowed to take his pick of the stock. He took a new horse, a small, strong buckskin named Cisco, and managed to get himself into the saddle without crying out from pain while the whole outfit watched.
As he walked the buckskin toward the low stone wall, a few pings of rifle fire came across the field, but otherwise it was dead silent and Lieutenant Dunbar wondered if the silence was real or if it always became this way in the moments before a man died.
He kicked Cisco sharply in the ribs, jumped the wall, and tore across the bare field, bearing straight down on the center of the rock wall that hid the enemy. For a moment the rebels were too shocked to shoot, and the lieutenant covered the first hundred yards in a soundless vacuum.
Then they opened up. Bullets filled the air around him like spray from a spigot. The lieutenant didn’t bother to fire back. He sat straight up so as to make a better target and kicked Cisco again. The little horse flattened his ears and flew at the wall. All the while Dunbar waited for one of the bullets to find him.
But none did, and when he was close enough to see the eyes of the enemy, he and Cisco veered left, running north in a straight line, fifty yards out from the wall. Cisco was digging so hard that dirt jumped from his back hooves like the wake from a fast boat. The lieutenant maintained his upright posture, and this proved irresistible to the Confederates. They rose like targets in a shooting gallery, pouri
ng out rifle fire in sheets as the solitary horseman dashed past.
They couldn’t hit him.
Lieutenant Dunbar heard the firing die. The line of riflemen had run out. As he pulled up he felt something burning in his upper arm and discovered that he’d been nicked in the bicep. The prickle of heat brought him briefly back to his senses. He looked down the line he had just passed and saw that the Confederates were milling about behind the wall in a state of disbelief.
His ears were suddenly working again and he could hear shouts of encouragement coming from his own line far across the field. Then he was aware once more of his foot, throbbing like some hideous pump deep in his boot.
He wheeled Cisco into an about-face, and as the little buckskin surged against the bit, Lieutenant Dunbar heard a thunderous cheer. He looked across the field. His brothers in arms were rising en masse behind the wall.
He laid his heels against Cisco’s side and they charged ahead, racing back the way they had come, this time to probe the other Confederate flank. The men he had already passed were caught with their pants down and he could see them frantically reloading as he sped by.
But ahead of him, down along the unprobed flank, he could see riflemen coming to their feet, the guns settling in the crooks of their shoulders.
Determined not to fail himself, the lieutenant suddenly and impulsively let the reins drop and lifted both his arms high into the air. He might have looked like a circus rider, but what he felt was final. He had raised his arms in a final gesture of farewell to this life. To someone watching, it might have been misconstrued. It might have looked like a gesture of triumph.