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their standards, this was grotesque.
Cavalry Man: Powder Keg 115
From outdoors, I could hear the soft crunching
sounds of Jen s feet in the snow. And Jen cooing to
Clarice as she carried her around the way she would
a baby. Treating the little girl the way she would treat
a skittish fawn. Slowly, gently, speaking words that
were almost cooing sounds.
B'
I needed to get out of the cabin if only for a few min-
utes. Jen by then had Clarice on her lap sitting on a
box she d found in the overturned wagon apparently
rocking her back and forth, letting the girl cry.
I didn t bother them. I rolled myself a smoke and
walked a ways upslope. I d thought the clean air
would help but it didn t. I walked downwind of the
cabin, so they wouldn t be able to see what I d done,
and vomited on the far side of a copse of small pines.
That helped. I hadn t smoked the cigarette I d made.
The puking had been too urgent.
I reached down and scooped up a handful of snow
and stuffed it into my mouth. After I spit it out, the
worst of the vomit taste was gone. Then I smoked the
cigarette.
I wondered how much whiskey they d brought
with them. They d be good for anything if they had
enough whiskey. I knew then that it was damned un-
likely Mike Chaney would be brought back to town
alive.
Being in the cabin had drained me. I needed at
least a few hours sleep and I was sure Jen did, too.
Jen had taken a blanket from her horse and swad-
dled Clarice in it. Then she d propped Clarice up
116 Ed Gorman
against the overturned wagon. The girl appeared to
be fast asleep.
 I ve got just enough energy to cut down some of
those pine branches and build us a lean-to. Then we
can get started early morning.
 The trees are close enough. I can hear her if she
cries or something. Let me help you.
I needed to smile.  You re going to get me kicked
out of that he-man s club yet.
 Oh, I have a feeling they d never kick you out.
You ve got a streak of mean in you that ll get you
through about anything.
Then I didn t feel like smiling at all. A streak of mean.
B'
We cut the branches together but putting the lean-to
together fell to me.
Jen came over. She was as pale as the snow.
She held Clarice in her arms.
 We ll have to take her with us, I said.
 Good. I was afraid you d say we d have to turn
back.
 He s your brother but I want those two bastards
even more than you do right now.
 Clarice described them to me a while ago. One of
them is definitely Connelly. Him I saw around town.
I never actually saw the other one. Pepper.
 The mother and boy we ll have to leave here for
the time being.
 There ll be animals.
 There s a lot of firewood in the back. I ll carry it
Cavalry Man: Powder Keg 117
around here and stack it up in front of the door. No
windows for them to crawl through.
 She ll keep asking me about her mother and
brother. She won t want to leave.
I started rolling another cigarette. Then:  You
looked inside?
She nodded.
 You saw the broom?
 Yeah. I didn t have guts enough to pull the cover
back and look at the mother, though.
I knew it was time to get busy.  I ll start stacking
the firewood in front of the door now.
 You sure work hard.
 Keeps my mind busy so I don t have to remember
what I saw in the cabin.
 I wonder if Clarice ll be able to forget?
 She mention her brother?
 Just once. I saw him when I looked in through the
door. He was trying to protect his mother.
 You go to the lean-to. I ll stack the firewood.
I went over and started on the wood. Physical
labor felt good. It would make me sleep instead of
just being fatigued. A good hard three hours of
blackness would give me back my strength.
Work up a sweat and give in to just becoming a
mule. There is something about that kind of labor
that we all need from time to time. I worked out of
the agency office for four months and finally ten-
dered my resignation. A desk is not for me. They put
me back on fieldwork.
When I finished blocking up the doorway to the
cabin, I grabbed my saddle blanket from my horse
118 Ed Gorman
and went to the lean-to. The wind wasn t so bad just
then.
Clarice was on Jen s lap again, saying:  But won t
my mommy get cold?
 We ll put plenty of blankets on her, honey.
 Will she wake up to say goodbye?
 We should just let her sleep, honey. We won t be
gone that long and then we ll come back here and
take both of you back to town.
I couldn t figure out any way to say it any better.
Maybe the kid knew the truth even without us telling
her. Maybe she knew the truth but didn t want us to
say it. Maybe it was the only way she could deal with
it putting it off till she was stronger.
The wind stayed down most of the night. We
ended up huddled together because the temperature
dropped several degrees. We were awakened twice by
Clarice s screams. Nightmares. They would curse her
the rest of her life.
At dawn we discussed coffee. We both wanted it
but building a fire would waste time. We ate jerky
and bread and drank water from the canteens.
When we were getting the horses ready to move,
Clarice got away from us and worked her way back
toward the cabin. She hadn t seen the firewood I d
stacked in front of the door. In the light I saw what a
poor defense it was. Any number of animals could
rip it down and get inside.
But that wasn t what bothered Clarice. She stood
in front of the cabin and started sobbing.
I got to her first and lifted her up.  What s wrong,
honey?
Cavalry Man: Powder Keg 119
 That wood. How s my mommy ever going to get
out of there?
Then Jen was there. She took her and carried her
away. I couldn t hear what they were saying but as
the sun began to paint the snow hills a rich gold,
Clarice stopped crying.
Getting upslope took a lot longer than getting
downslope had. We didn t reach the mountain trail
for a good hour. The horses were still tired and,
much as we didn t want to admit it to each other, so
were Jen and I.
Clarice rode Jen s horse. We walked. And after a
while, so quietly that you could barely hear it in the
growing wind, Clarice cried. Jen would call words to
her but that was about all they seemed to be. Words.
They didn t slow the little girl s crying at all.
And for the first time, magnanimous son of a
bitch that I am, I felt resentment toward the little
girl. She was slowing us down. And what if she
kept up crying like this? And how could we con-
front Connelly and Pepper with a kid in tow? And
what if she started bawling when we snuck up on
them?
That little brat was all kinds of trouble.
And then finally I realized what a bastard I was
being.
I needed sleep. I hadn t had a good bowel move-
ment in three days. Tom Daly s wife was going to
blame me for Tom s death.
The kid wasn t the trouble; my life was the trouble. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]