These Violent Times Read online

  “First . . . like I said . . . I’m the fella who knows . . . when he’s been beat.”

  Bishop, who had been looking at the man’s right boot, smirked mirthlessly. “That’s too easy. A Trojan horse.”

  Cavanaugh’s brow arched admiringly. “A scholar.”

  “Who are you?” Duffin repeated, standing over the man.

  “I am . . . the gentleman . . . you’ve been looking for,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m part of the crew . . . what set Doctor Bishop here . . . up for the raid on the Indian camps . . . and all the rest that’s gone with it.”

  White Fox tied the painted to a tree, moved forward as if to check the man’s wound, but Bishop stopped her with his human arm.

  Bishop kicked the Dragoon aside and took another step. Cavanaugh saw the lines from the triggers, going back along Bishop’s arms like nerves, tense as Bishop moved, his eyes narrowing.

  Bishop said, “Explain yourself.”

  “See,” he said to Duffin, his voice weakening into loud whispers, “now there’s . . . an executioner. Who wouldn’t . . . believe him . . . capable of . . . terrible things?” Cavanaugh couldn’t look away from the rig as he spoke. “You could . . . kill me now, Doctor . . . and I personally . . . would not . . . put any blame on you. You’re a stranger to me . . . and this was about nothing but cash.”

  “So you were shooting to kill,” Duffin said.

  Bishop demanded, “Who paid you?”

  Cavanaugh nodded toward the flames. “That one, burnin’ up right now. Said you stole . . . his wife . . . his home . . . his life.”

  “I took his home,” White Fox said.

  “His words . . . ma’am. I didn’t listen too much . . . after he paid . . . just let him prattle on.”

  Duffin said, “Tell me what you did to frame this man.”

  Cavanaugh struggled to rise on a stiff arm, but it caved at the elbow and he thudded to the ground, kicking up dust. “Aw . . . hell.” The Confederate looked at Bishop. “The blacksmith . . . he gave us special equipment he said . . . was yours.” He breathed for a moment. “We attacked some Cheyenne camps . . . some Arapahoe . . . and soaked ’em down with . . . bottles of blood . . . if you can believe it. Like some . . . unholy . . . consecration. Other stuff too . . . we spread . . . globes . . . all carrying disease.”

  “You knew what you were doing?” Duffin said with disgust.

  The man did something with his upraised shoulder that resembled a shrug. “Indians . . . sorry, ma’am . . . don’t mean nothin’ to me. Money . . . in the rubble where I live . . . is everything.” He snickered, winced from pain. “This smell . . . I know . . . too well.”

  White Fox scissor-stepped around Bishop’s arm toward Cavanaugh. This time Bishop did not arrest her.

  She moved over to the pistol in Duffin’s hand, which hadn’t moved a fraction of an inch. Her brown eyes were bottled fury as she glared down at the Rebel.

  “You’re wearing a Confederate Navy uniform,” Duffin said. “From?”

  “South Ca’lina,” Cavanaugh said. “Poor . . . ruined . . . Charleston. I consider myself . . . a man of the sea . . . but lean times bring . . . desperate measures. This came up . . . so we took it.”

  “You’re just full of lost causes,” Bishop said. “Who is ’we’?”

  White Fox moved an arm. In a moment she was turning the ax handle over in her palm.

  Cavanaugh, watching her, said, “My men . . . the ones that you took care of . . . this morning. Dumb clods . . . the lot of ’em. You got it right . . . lost causes. I don’t think there’s any left . . . is there?”

  “Lost causes or men?” Bishop asked.

  “Not men,” White Fox answered. “They are all dead.”

  “So . . . she can speak,” Cavanaugh said.

  She spit at him. “That too.”

  “You must be quite a package, dear . . . because . . . there’re a lot of dead men . . . on account of you . . . and your rat-crazy husband.”

  “Dead husband,” Bishop said.

  “Dead.” Cavanaugh’s watery eyes shifted to the rubble behind them. “And . . . cremated.”

  White Fox had the ax, slightly behind her hip, ready to throw, her face giving away nothing.

  Bishop said to Cavanaugh, “There are a lot of dead Cheyenne women and children. They’re just lying in the plains. Carrion. Yes?”

  “Maybe. Like I said . . . they don’t mean nothing to me.” He blew out what he’d been holding in his lungs to speak. “Can I . . . try to . . . stand?”

  “If you can do it on your own,” Bishop said.

  Duffin nodded in accord, and Cavanaugh began moving his four limbs. He made a hash of the actions, ungainly shifts and bends, but using every joint at his disposal, including the stiff knee-high boots for support, he got his feet under him and rose like a ghost from a grave, slowly and in waves. The red splotch in his center was actually comprised of several smaller holes, scattershot that had merged. Finally standing, albeit lopsided to the left, a complement to Duffin listing to the right, he towered, grinning, over the marshal. Breathing came a little easier, at least. There was no ugly raling.

  Duffin adjusted the aim of the Colt at the center of Cavanaugh’s chest, almost pressing the gun into him . . . wanting to slash the chronic smug set from Cavanaugh’s face with the barrel sight but holding back.

  Cavanaugh looked down at Duffin, like a parent at a child. “So you’re . . . the law . . . to whom I’m . . . turning myself in?”

  “Which I don’t quite buy either,” the marshal said. Cavanaugh shrugged the same shoulder as previously. “Rather do this . . . then get chased down . . . bleeding out. Don’t know the country . . . well enough . . . and better to spend the time I got left . . . with some hot food and a bed. Before the big day.”

  Duffin said, “You’re making this too awful easy.”

  “My old pap always said . . . I was born to be hung. Who am I . . . to cross him up?”

  “Why did he say that?” Bishop wondered.

  Cavanaugh looked at him. “Because . . . everything I did . . . was a lost cause.”

  Bishop kept the rig steady as Duffin locked restraint cuffs on Cavanaugh, the metal cutting his bony wrists.

  Cavanaugh winced. “Tight enough for you, Marshal?”

  Duffin said, “You surrendered. These’re a part of that.”

  “Don’t worry . . . I’m not going nowhere,” the prisoner said. “A couple of the doctor’s . . . shotgun pellets . . . also bit my right toes . . . maybe taking a piece of one off.”

  Bishop said, “There’s blood on the front of the sole. Saw it before. Pressure stopped the bleeding.”

  Cavanaugh tried to whistle, mostly sprayed spit. “You are as good . . . as they say.”

  Duffin cocked a head toward the ruin. “Walk.”

  “My nag’s . . . on the other side of that hill . . . unless we’re going to ride double.”

  “I’ll get it,” White Fox said.

  Duffin thanked her with a nod though she didn’t move, yet. The marshal looked to Bishop.

  “I have to take this man in, find out if any of this flapdoodle makes sense. But we also have an understanding, you ’n’ me. You’re under arrest.”

  “I want to find out what he knows too,” Bishop pointed out.

  White Fox stepped in. “And me?” she asked.

  “I have to ask that you come along,” Duffin said. “’Cause of your relation to and knowledge of the deceased.”

  “You say the sickness started here, in this house,” she said. “All right, so you found out what you needed to. I came as I said I would. I will remain with the doctor. But you promised me medicine, and I gave my word we would have a doctor who knew the best cures. We did not know such sicknesses before. You brought them, but we will die faster. I’m not going to throw away my people because they’ve been exposed. We need someone who knows the treatments. You’re keeping your word to me, Marshal, so I can keep my word to them. After the cure, I don’t care what
happens to me.”

  Bishop regarded Duffin. “There is an urgency, like she says.”

  “I saw the little girl, I am aware,” he said. “But nothing can happen without first going to the fort. All orders will issue from there.”

  Cavanaugh said, “You don’t need to be doin’ anything . . . with these two good folks. I’m the fella . . . and I’ll say it a hundred times if need be. Tell everything . . . you ever needed to know.”

  “The fort,” Duffin repeated. “That’s where we all need to go, regardless.”

  “The trading post,” Bishop countered. “That is where the medicine is.”

  “But you will need an order requisitioning it.”

  “We will be there when you send it, and White Fox will be ready to move out,” Bishop said. “I will come to the fort and she will follow.”

  The doctor looked at her for confirmation. She gave it.

  “Your oaths,” Duffin said, as though it was a bad deal in the making.

  “Did you even need to ask?” Bishop said.

  “I will get the horse,” White Fox told him. “We must hurry.”

  “I will . . . do my best . . . to keep up,” Cavanaugh said.

  “No,” she said. “Bishop and I go ahead, quickly.”

  Duffin was about to protest but stopped himself as he considered the odds. Right now it was three-against-one. If he turned on them it would still be three-against-one . . . but the wrong way.

  “I will keep you company,” Cavanaugh said. “I promise.”

  “Oh you’re going to ride beside me, all right,” Duffin said. “Draw one breath I don’t like, I’ll kill you.”

  “Marshal,” Cavanaugh said, and near-laughed, “I swear to believe you, but you still look like my baby cousin in short pants.”

  Bishop shook his head. “Don’t test him.”

  “This little fella, he’d kill me quick?”

  Duffin corrected him. “It wouldn’t be quick.”

  Bishop looked to White Fox, who was walking to the painted, hooking the ax back onto her belt. She gathered the reins around her fist and brought herself into the saddle, her back always to the men, the single braid to the waist tied off in blue. She galloped away to retrieve the Confederate’s mount.

  Behind her, the last burst of fire and smoke from the wreckage as she brought her painted around, starting back down the dirt road, and away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Traders

  They were miles out, Bishop and White Fox, taking a long slope through a field of tall flowers, riding quickly to its edge, then slowing, and following a small creek. They’d ridden mostly in silence, exchanging only a few words, with White Fox not looking at him.

  She did not have to. Her set profile told the epilogue to the story Bishop knew well.

  Bishop, forward in his saddle, the rig in its special sling, noted the brightness of the day and the sweet smell of the air, which he needed to fill his lungs to recover from the night before.

  “You never have to go back to that shack again,” Bishop said earnestly.

  White Fox nodded. “Now it’s just a grave. A monument to evil.”

  Bishop could not help but flash to the paper monument Avery had constructed in Good Fortune. That was a monument to evil as well, in a way; but not the same. Bishop did not believe his own heart was as black as that of the blacksmith. And yet they had both been driven to their acts by the loss of a loved one, however grotesquely that love was expressed in the case of White Fox. Bishop knew in his soul that the two were different. But how? That was bitterly elusive. Maybe there was value in Duffin’s way, taking things piece by piece, one step at a time. This way, the thought was once again too big for Bishop’s own learning to put in any kind of context.

  “Part of not going back is to let the memory die too,” the doctor said. Only when he heard it did he realize he’d said it aloud.

  “We are beings of spirit simply having a human experience,” White Fox said. “Spirit and memory do not die. Just bodies.” She looked at him, finally. “But the bodies of the young must be saved.”

  “That is my priority,” Bishop said. “You people have been thanking me for what I have been able to do, but—this is different. By God, this is my past come to haunt me.”

  “Haunt you?”

  “I always feared this. Disease on a grand scale. I saw it in the war. We lost more people to sickness than to injury. One to the other to the other to doctors to nurses back to patients. Illness moving indiscriminately from Yankee to Rebel. It is why I sought other means to cure. And then . . . Beaudine. Devlin. They turned me from what mattered.”

  “You can go back.”

  “How? I would always think of the workshop I just destroyed. The perversion of everything good.”

  “Don’t think like that, for my sake,” White Fox said. “I need you to doctor. You must be able to draw on everything you know.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But I just left a man bleeding back there.”

  “To hurry and help people who deserve your help. He was shot because of money.”

  “You always think the reason for killing makes a difference,” Bishop said.

  “It does.”

  Bishop shook his head. “I helped Confederates during the war too. My job was healing. Was. I’m executing by my actions or inactions.”

  “You were also, lieutenant, a warrior. As am I. Neither by choice. You must live like a wolf or an eagle. You hunt, you care for your nest or pack, you kill or you nurture, depending on what is before you.” She looked at him. “Instinct. That is your guiding star.”

  White Fox rode on, and Bishop couldn’t find his next words. He kept the reins drawn, drifting back from her a bit but staying to the edge of the creek, which was running clear, cold, and deep. He looked down to it, the water finding its own place, and let the cool drift against his face. He took another deep breath for more needed cleansing.

  White Fox said, “The trading post’s a half-day from here. I do not want to wait for the marshal.”

  “I had no intention of,” Bishop said. “They will have everything we need and will sell it to me without trouble.” He laughed, thinking of Avery’s wall. “My credit will be good. If not, the rig will co-sign.”

  White Fox failed to see the humor in that. “The world is a rotting carcass and we are all maggots.”

  They continued for a mile, and Bishop broke the silence. “Is Edgar Allan Poe still in your saddlebag?”

  White Fox looked back at him and said, “’The viol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky, the melancholy waters lie.’”

  Bishop said, “I don’t know that one.”

  “’The City in the Sea,’” White Fox told him. “I’ve read it all year and I still cannot understand it.”

  “I don’t think it’s meant to be taken as a real place,” Bishop suggested.

  “That is clear,” she said. “Real or not, I’d like to find that city someday.”

  Bishop was struck by the insight in that remark. “Some private place hidden from the world.”

  “Yes.”

  “That would be a fine thing.” He thought back to his lost home, the tombstone where his wife was buried, their boy with her so he would not go alone into the afterlife. The voice of White Fox, her longing; this was the first time since he lost his family that the idea of home did not bring up bile.

  They paused at the shores of a river. Bishop was nearer the shore, trying to lean out of his saddle for a taste of fresh water, the rig and sling fighting him, his hat just skimming the top of the running creek. “Well, these are melancholy waters.”

  White Fox, beside him, held out her hand without glancing at him. She knew where he was. He handed her the filled hat, she drank, he scooped the Stetson again, and then they rode on together. Hate for what the blacksmith had done to her rose but, as he drank, he swallowed it down.

  He wondered, for the first time, if it were truly possible to heal.

 
; * * *

  Side by side, at long miles of right angle to the other two members of their party, Duffin and his prisoner rode at a reasonable pace toward the fort. The marshal had opened the Confederate’s coat, stuffed it with the bandanna that smelled of corpse anyway, and buttoned the garment tight around the wound. The wounds weren’t deep. That, and leaning forward in the saddle, would keep him from bleeding out.

  Cavanaugh said, “I know you’re not really a young’un, but how’d you get to wear a marshal’s badge? Your pap a lawman?”

  “How’s the belly?” Duffin asked.

  “Holdin’,” the Confederate replied. “I really want to know. I’ve seen things at sea. In other lands. I’m naturally curious.”

  “Actually, he was a minister. Retired now.”

  Cavanaugh howled; laughter starting painfully in his belly and traveling up, and out, in a high-pitched burst that shook the marionette limbs and threw his head to the sky. Duffin would have been insulted if he weren’t busy watching his prisoner twist about in the saddle, as if it were a cover for some move to slip his cuffs. But Cavanaugh kept his hands in front of him, even lifting up his wrists to show Duffin, as his laugh became a quiet body-shake, then a dull ache from too much jiggling of the wound in his abdomen.

  “How was that funny?” Duffin asked at length.

  “The joke’s on me,” Cavanaugh answered. “Your daddy might not approve of your profession—”

  “He was, is, fine with my choice.”

  “Then we got that in common. Seeing me in these bracelets would’ve made my old man proud as a puffed cock on egg-layin’ day, all of ’em his.”

  Duffin was confused. “Prouder than when you joined the Rebel Navy?”

  “Oh, I don’t think he cared one bit for that. He was southern born, but only that. He wanted me to follow his profession. Housebreaker. He was a good burglar, made the papers as ’The Plague of Charleston,’ got himself shot breaking into a church kitchen. But if he weren’t in his grave, he’d raise a glass to my current situation. Believe me.”

  “I believe you,” Duffin said. “And for what it’s worth, you bested him might’ly.”