Tucker’s Grove (9 page)

Tucker kicked the dead trooper, and suddenly the flesh crawled up his
back. It seemed to him as if Kenner
’
s head had moved the slightest bit, directing the torn and empty eye-sockets on him.

Around him, all noi
ses vanished, and even the water in the creek ceased to move; he had the strangest feeling that the sun had stopped setting. Then he noticed that Kenner
’
s fingernails were black and glassy, curved into claws like knives.

“
I
’
ve got the last laugh, Tucker,”
Kenner said as he sat up and reached out with a fistful of obsidian claws….

When they found Tucker
’
s flayed and staring body the next morning, somebody said that a few straggler Indians must have gotten him. And nobody ever found Kenner.

³

“
Don
’
t tell me i
t
’
s not possible! You weren
’
t there! You sit b
e
hind your desks and think your civilized preconceptions had significance then. Well, you
’
re wrong, gentlemen. Dead wrong.”

—
letter from Lieutenant Edgerton to Montana State Historical Society, September 1896.

All through the blistering heat of the afternoon the following day, General Terry
’
s men and Major Reno
’
s survivors did their best to identify and bury the dead. A suffocating gloom hung over everyone, and most of the soldiers worked slack-jawed and glassy-
eyed, as if their brains refused to accept what their eyes told them.

Anxious to be gone from the battlefield, Terry ordered the men to set out at 6:30 that evening, trudging along and carrying the wounded on hand-litters. They struggled and gasped and swe
ated. In five and a half hours they covered only four miles.

The next day, some of the more resourceful troopers helped d
e
sign and construct mule-litters and travois. The others tried to find shade, and rested as sweat-beads popped out on their for
e
heads,
waiting for the heat of day to fade.

“
What do you suppose really happened to Tucker?”
Barrett asked.

“
Indians got him,”
Darby answered automatically.

“
Don
’
t be ridiculous. We all know the Sioux trotted off into the hills a day before Terry even got here. T
here weren
’
t any Ind
i
ans by that creek when Tucker was poking around.”
Barrett wiped the lenses of his spectacles.

“
Nobody ever found Kenner,”
Edgerton whispered.

Darby and Barrett held their silence. Barrett drank deeply from a flask of whiskey. He wiped
his mouth, then spat. “
Even whiskey doesn
’
t burn the taste of blood from your mouth.”
He drank again, offered it to Darby (who refused), and then tossed the flask to Edgerton, taking him by surprise. Edgerton fu
m
bled, but caught the flask. He drank, too.

They set out again after the waves of heat had brought heavy thunderheads into the sky, and nightfall came with the fanfare of thick rain. They slogged through the water and muck in pitch darkness, carrying the wounded and pressing forward, finding relief
in the clean rain. Couriers found their way through the storm, bearing the message that the
Far West
lay ready and waiting at the river for the soldiers. But the rain turned to hail, which lay on the ground in white pellets, like dead men
’
s teeth.

And thro
ugh it all, Edgerton felt an oppressive fear prickling at the back of his neck. Something stalked them through the dar
k
ness, biding its time, waiting. “
Do you feel it?”
Edgerton said to Darby.

“
You better believe it. God, I can
’
t wait until we get to Fort
Pease. I
’
m gonna crawl under a bed and hide for a week.”

³

Kenner found Darby at Fort Pease, ripping the door to shreds in the middle of the night. Darby
’
s hand still gripped his empty pistol even though his knuckles had split. Bullet holes burned into the
walls, but Edgerton and Barrett found no blood on the floor other than Darby
’
s.

Two days later, after Captain Marsh had launched the
Far West
on its breakneck journey to Bismarck, a murdered Barrett lay draped casually across the deck-rail, with his face
mutilated but his spectacles remarkably clean and untouched, still resting on the stubs of his ears.

Only Edgerton remained, but he knew Kenner would be co
m
ing.

³

“
Mister Edgerton, our very detailed records of the Battle of the Little Bighorn make no ment
ion whatsoever of the grisly mu
r
ders you describe, or of a soldier named
‘
Kenner.
’
You are o
b
viously given to unfortunate flights of fancy. It was for this reason two years ago that I refused to let the Society publish your own Sioux War memoirs. Even the
name of the villain in your fantastic story is a rather clumsy attempt to discredit me personally. Be advised that any further correspondence from you will be burned, unread.”

—
W. B. Kenner, director, Montana Historical Society

Kenner stands on the silent
deck of the steamer, staring at me with gaping eye-sockets that see more than his eyes ever could. He rips away the tattered top of his blue uniform and casts it over the deck rail, as if it pains and offends him. Trappings of a civilization that has fai
l
ed him. He does not taunt me, as I had expected him to do, but comes forward with a confident, wic
k
edly rolling stride.

“
You always were a bloodthirsty one, Kenner. This doesn
’
t hardly surprise me at all.”
I can barely believe the words that come from my l
ips
—
this is the last statement from a man doomed to suffer a horrible death?

The words bring Kenner up short. “
Bloodthirsty,”
he says. “
An interesting choice of words.”

I hold my pistol rigidly in front of me, though I suspect the bu
l
lets will have no effect. Darby was a good shot. But here I must make my last stand. Maybe I can club Kenner with the gun.

“
Is your rampage going to stop with me, or do you plan on ri
p
ping apart every trooper you can find? And from there go into Bismarck a
nd prey upon shopkeepers and their wives?”

I can see him clearly in the moonlight, and his outline has a vague and wavering quality, as if my eyes are not able to see him completely. I say nothing more. He still hasn
’
t answered my question.

“
It
’
ll end with
you, Edgerton. And I will end as well.”

“
Why? Aren
’
t you enjoying yourself enough?”
My instinct tells me to keep him talking, that perhaps he has to depart with the dawn or something. But then I remember that time has stopped around us. It is useless.

“
No
! I have no part in this,”
he says.

“
Then why are you doing it? You murdered
Tucker
and Darby and Barrett. Do you
hate us so much? Because we didn
’
t risk ourselves to go down and rescue your body? Is that it?
Well, I am sincerely sorry. If we thought you w
ere still alive, maybe one of us would have tried. But even you cannot be foolish enough to expect us to get killed for a man who was already dead. You
wouldn
’
t
have done it yourself.”

My voice cracks a few times, and I doubt if I will ever fully b
e
lieve t
he bravado that has come over me.

“
No, I wouldn
’
t have done it myself,”
Kenner admits. “
Nor do I blame you.”

My delicately constructed rationalization of irrational events breaks and falls apart around me. Kenner continues to speak, and for that I am thank
ful.

“
There
’
s a different war going on here, Edgerton. Civilization is poking its nose where it has no business being. We
’
re pulling our way of life up like a weed and trying to transplant it here. It
’
s not just the Sioux who are fighting
—
it
’
s the animals,
the plants, the water, the insects, the land itself. Can
’
t you hear how everything has hushed in anticipation of our meeting? Even time is holding its breath. You have stolen something, and now you are trying to flee to the boundaries of civilization wit
h
it. I can
’
t let you do that.”

My mind reels
—
what is it he wants? I look at Darby
’
s tom
a
hawk at my belt, and I can think of nothing else I have taken from the
wild lands. My friends died because of a tomahawk? If so, then why didn
’
t Kenner take it from Darby
’
s room at Fort Pease?

“
It
’
s the
blood
, Edgerton. We all drank the blood of a Sioux horse. While it pulses through your veins, I can
’
t let you leave here. I can
’
t let you pass across the boundary into civilization. Even now I can
feel the blood crying out to be released from the body that it finds so abhorrent. The pull was so strong it set fire to my veins and pulled me back to the borderland of life. The blood has a soul of its own, and it beseeches me to free its ki
n
dred from t
he bodies of civilized men. I must pour your blood back to the earth so that the wilderness can reclaim what you
’
ve taken. And when I have done my work, the blood will burn out of my own vessels, turn my heart into a lump of ash, and leap from my body bac
k
into the embrace of the land.”

Kenner steps forward, holding forth the knives of his hands in a placating gesture. I shout and shout for help, but can rouse no one. My grip on the pistol becomes steadier.

“
You were always something of a milksop, Edgerton.
Frankly, I
’
m surprised you are going to resist. I expected you to whi
m
per, like Barrett did.”

My fingers clench convulsively, and the pistol fires. The bullet ricochets off one of the rails behind Kenner. I could not have missed. I fire five times in all.
The shots wake no one. And Kenner walks through the bullets. I hurl the pistol at him and watch as it passes through his chest and clatters on the deck.

“
My body does not recognize your civilized weapons. The burning blood will have nothing to do with the
m. Relax, Edge
r
ton. I still remember you
.
The death itself will be quick. And perhaps this time the blood will not demand mutilation.”

I remember the bullet holes in the walls around Darby. And I remember how Darby
’
s battle had ended. “
Barrett
’
s spect
a
cles
! That
’
s how you clawed his eyes, but didn
’
t so much as scratch the lenses.”
I hope this will make him pause. It doesn
’
t.

He draws back an arm, preparing to swipe at me with his o
b
sidian claws.

The self-preservation drive bursts within me, breaking down th
e walls of reason and unleashing purely animal instinct. I tear Darby
’
s tomahawk from my belt and howl maniacally as I lunge forward, splitting Kenner
’
s breastbone and driving the primitive stone axe into his dead heart. The tomahawk strikes something as
f
irm as gelatin, and hangs suspended in Kenner
’
s flayed chest.