An Easy Death Page 3

  The husband helped his wife up and held her to him. The older man went over to the children and his own wife, the motherly Ruth, and gathered them up, trying to reassure them.

  Everyone was giving me sideways looks. They were all goggle-eyed at the sight of me. And scared of me. Which I didn’t mind. Better than weeping and hanging on me.

  “Thank you,” said the older man as he hugged the kids.

  I liked that. It wasn’t necessary, but it made me feel good. “I’ll see you safe to Corbin,” I said. “I’m the only one left alive.”

  The man nodded, but he was giving me an appraising glance. “You look pretty rough,” he said.

  “You paid us to get you there. I will.” I wasn’t being noble. It was a reputation thing. The Tarken Crew was reliable. That was why we charged a little more. We would never leave clients to die, if we were alive.

  The men were disgusted when I told them to take everything the bandits had on them. I had to do a lot of the work myself. I guess their gratitude only went so far.

  Martha was still trying to get hold of herself, and Ruth was comforting her; but she had only half her mind on it. The rest of it was back on the road behind us, with her dead daughter. I could tell by the way her eyes fixed on me over Martha’s shoulder. She would have questions.

  I got my Winchester back, and Galilee’s Krag. My Colts, still in their holsters, were stuffed in a sack, with their extra mags. The bandits hadn’t taken the time to remove the Colts from the gun belt, which had torn. On that nail, I figured. That nailhead had changed my life somehow.

  One of the bandits had a fairly good game rifle, which I was glad to see. I found some ammunition for Tarken’s pistol, and I found Galilee’s and Martin’s handguns. There was even another pistol, so dirty and ill cared for I wondered it hadn’t blown up with the firing of it. Another rifle was cheap to begin with, and now it was just about useless. I left that one. I found another handgun and another rifle, cheap but working. I kept hold of those for the moment. The bandits had been short on ammunition, but we got what was there, so we were well set as far as arms went.

  We didn’t find much food, wasn’t much money (which would have been useless in this situation, but always good to have), and none of the bandit clothes were in decent shape. These raggedy men had very little besides what was on their backs, and that was ruined by the blood and bullet holes.

  I retrieved the canteens they’d taken from our gear, and I got the kids to fill them all at a nearby stream, which was probably why the bandits had decided to stop at this spot to let their desires out. While the kids did that bit of work, I washed my hands and face and arms downstream. I felt a little better. I tried to rinse off my head, and it hurt so much I had to abandon that.

  The younger wife, Martha, the one who’d been raped—whose baby I’d found by the first campfire—was crying again, and her husband was looking at her helplessly. But when her two little ones began to cry along with her, Martha pulled herself together. Ruth helped by finding her sister-in-law a change of clothes, urging her to go wash in the stream. Finally Martha did get clean and put on different clothes, and she looked a little better after she’d washed the man off of her. She stood up straighter.

  I liked that. It made me hopeful we could get this done. If I had to drag all of them along, we’d never make it. When Martha began to get her children washed, too, I got the men to help me put the bodies in a heap away from the stream. This was a good campsite. I didn’t want to ruin it.

  “Time to walk out,” I called, and the adults began to load up with the packs. Even the oldest boy, who couldn’t be more than ten, took a little load.

  The bandits had made them carry everything this far, which again had helped me catch up with them. But I figured we’d have to find a place to stow this stuff. It would take everything we had to get to Corbin, without being weighed down.

  I knew better than to try to persuade them to leave some of the packs, here and now. That would be a useless argument, after they’d lost so much. They’d listen to me after they’d toted their goods a while longer. Already tired in our bodies and minds, we started moving in the right direction. At first no one said a word. They were knocked silent by everything that had happened over the past thirtysomething hours.

  That was my grace period. I knew it was over when the men drew ahead of their wives and children to catch up with me.

  They began asking questions I couldn’t answer, starting with the older brother, Jeremiah. The younger brother, whose name turned out to be Jacob, chimed in soon after. How long would it take us to get to Corbin? What would we eat on the way? Was it likely anyone would come upon us and help us? Or attack us? Where would we sleep?

  As Martin had told them when they’d struck the bargain, the trip to Corbin usually took two nights, driving from dusk to dawn while it was cool. One day camping on the road.

  This walk would take much longer, of course, and it would have to be in daylight. We’d be able to see whoever or whatever came upon us. Likewise, they could see us—and we were weak.

  “Why ain’t we following the road?” Jeremiah asked.

  I had a hold on my patience, but there wasn’t much to grasp. “Because there will most likely be more bandits on the road. And we’ve only got me for protection. We had to take the road when we had the truck, but we were moving faster and had good gunnies. Now we’re cutting across country. It’ll be a shorter trip as the crow flies, but we’re on foot. We can dodge some trouble, though.”

  Jeremiah accepted this with ill grace. I could tell he didn’t like not being in charge. But the farmer had enough sense to realize I had to lead this expedition.

  Jacob just nodded.

  I had to get them on my side. Not that they weren’t all for our survival, not that they weren’t glad I’d saved their lives and freedom, exactly. They were used to being in charge of their worlds, and all the people in those worlds. Especially women. Especially a young woman.

  I couldn’t put up with argument over everything.

  “We have to hunt for food. We have to watch out for dogs. We have to find some kind of protection for tonight. And as for people coming across us? Every now and then the Indians get bold enough to approach. Do not shoot at them unless you see them charging at us to kill us.”

  “Since the president died, the world has gone to hell. God help us all,” Jeremiah said, and his brother nodded.

  When people said “the president,” they meant the last elected president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. When he’d been assassinated in some city in Florida, before he could be sworn into office, the government had started down a slope that had gotten slicker and slicker.

  After the white government had collapsed, the Indian tribes who could muster up a group of warriors had taken back the land that had been theirs, forcibly if they had to. Now they patrolled it vigorously. Though most tribes were content to let white people pass through as long as they didn’t stay, there were some that were not.

  And bandits were everywhere, especially in Texoma, New America, and Dixie. I had heard that in Britannia, the area that had knelt to England, there was so much law that bandits were caught and hung quickly. The same for Canada, which had expanded to take in a lot of northern America. Canada had its horseback police, who were supposed to be crackerjack at their jobs. The Holy Russian Empire had a squad of grigoris and militia whose job it was to track highway robbers and kill them on the spot.

  But in Texoma and New America, formal justice was scarce on the ground. People were poor, times were hard. That’s why the farmers had needed us to get them safe to Corbin.

  And look at what had happened.

  I was kind of amazed and relieved they accepted my authority now, and I knew it was only because they were so dazed.

  As we walked, I had to listen to Jeremiah and Jacob going on at me about all this. It was almost beyond what I could stand, but I had to act like I was listening. Like I cared. They talked about the Deconstru
ction till I thought I’d scream. I could tell this was all stuff they’d talked about over and over. It was a familiar conversation to them. Comforting.

  I hardly needed to say anything at all.

  Finally, when they’d run down, and seemed to have settled back within themselves, I handed them each a bandit gun.

  “We know how to shoot,” Jeremiah assured me, and Jacob nodded with a lot of emphasis.

  “Of course you do,” I said, and I meant it. Farmers had to shoot wild animals, and their own livestock if the animals were sick. But that was far from being a gunnie. I had to remind them again, “Don’t shoot Indians unless they’re charging us.”

  The brothers looked grumpy, as if I was trying to get them to agree to something that was clearly not common sense. “Why?” asked Jeremiah.

  “If you do, they’ll track us down and kill us all.” I knew this. Another gunnie, named Chauncey Donegan, had watched it happen.

  The two farmers nodded—after a pause—and this time I believed them. I could move on to another thing I had to make them believe. “But dogs, you got to scare them away with gunfire before they can get in among us. Once they start biting, they go crazy.”

  “Sure,” Jacob said. “We’ve heard that.” He and Jeremiah gave each other a nod. That was settled. Glad to know my word had been confirmed.

  While they were so agreeable, I had to tackle the problem I thought would be hardest for them. They were looking tired enough. “We need to be looking for a place to store your stuff. Once we reach Corbin, you can come back with a large party to retrieve it. With mules. And guns. We’re too laden down. We’ve got to move faster.”

  Jeremiah and Jacob didn’t like that so much. Their eyes met in silent consultation. Jeremiah glanced back and saw the women and children struggling with their burdens. “All right,” he said after a bit of silence. Jacob nodded, too.

  I tried not to look as relieved as I felt.

  The two men went back to talk to their wives, reassure their children, and generally act like leaders. They’d had to be given something to do, besides be helpless. They’d both lost a child, and Jacob’s wife had been raped in front of him, and they needed to do something besides think of those things. At least until they got to Corbin, after which their thoughts were their own affairs.

  I couldn’t do anything about the memories in these children’s heads. They’d seen things that are bad for kids—for anyone—to see. They’d rallied a bit when I’d set them to filling canteens at the bandit campsite.

  So I told the oldest girl and boy to keep their eyes open for some kind of shelter where we could stow their heavy packs. I told the littler ones to start picking up sticks for the fire we’d have that night. I asked them all to keep their eyes open for any sign of life, animal or human.

  We took a brief halt while I did all this. I thought if I said one more word, my head was going to fall off my shoulders. I also thought if I didn’t start walking again, I’d just crumple to the ground and stay there. I stood straight and called, “Let’s move out. Everyone remember their jobs?”

  All the kids nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” said the oldest girl. “Yes’m,” said the youngest. For a second Jacob and Jeremiah and Ruth and Martha looked . . . a little less grim. We started walking, sticking more or less together.

  And we kept walking, step after step. I had moments when I wondered if I would die if I ever lay down to sleep, my head hurt that bad.

  Finally the sky began to darken. We could stop. In fact, we had to stop. Though it would have been safer to leave the camp black, I let them make a fire. It got chilly at night. They all wrapped up in the blankets from their packs. I had none. Ruth handed me one without a word. I figured it had been her daughter’s.

  They had some canned food with them, mostly home fixed but some store bought, and we heated it up in their pans. They had some shallow bowls and spoons. They’d been prepared, but not for what had come.

  I got as much food in me as I could, but I wasn’t able to eat much because of my head. When I asked the farm people to divide up the watches that night, they didn’t complain. I might have shot them if they had, and maybe they could see that. I needed to sleep and rest that much.

  I did not dream at all, not even of Tarken’s eyes as he died.

  The next morning it took me five minutes to get to my feet. I was sore and stiff all over, but my head was not quite as painful. It was more like someone was tapping on the inside of my skull, rather than banging.

  That was good, because today was going to be harder than yesterday, at least in some ways. I had to get everyone moving, their feet pointed north to Corbin. No one wanted to start out. Everyone wanted to make a wish and be there. Both women and men had cried in the night, for their lost children and other lost things. Their eyes were red and swollen.

  After I’d urged them enough, everyone disappeared behind bushes to take care of necessary business, ate a handful of something, drank a little water, and shook themselves awake.

  I asked the children to heap dirt on the remains of the fire, and that was a job they could perform with gusto.

  We crossed a rail line that morning, but it was all tore up. Maybe it had been abandoned because of this disrepair, or maybe the disrepair had happened after the abandonment. I tried not to spend any time wishing it were in good order. If there’d been a train, we could have stopped it and asked the engineer to send someone from Corbin to escort us, and maybe that would have come about. As it was, we were out in the open with very little protection. Though my vision was clear today, I didn’t think I could hit the side of a barn. I hoped I was wrong.

  Within an hour the oldest girl, Jael, spotted an overturned wagon. She had great long-sight. No one else had noticed it.

  The wagon’s axle was broken. I remembered seeing it at a distance on a previous trip. It was mostly whole.

  After some palaver Ruth and Martha consolidated what they deemed essential into two packs. Then the two women, Jeremiah’s two kids, and I raised the body of the wagon enough for Jeremiah and Jacob to stuff the other packs underneath it. After we eased it down, it looked exactly the same, to my relief.

  I looked sharp around us so I could give landmarks to whoever would return. I made them all get branches to sweep away the footprints around the wagon, and I hoped the wind would do the rest of the erasing.

  We moved on a lot more briskly, the adults taking turns carrying the two remaining packs. I looked up at the sky to get my bearings, and saw blue so vast it was amazing. Though it might be only spring, the heat had began to climb by midday. We were getting mighty low on water.

  Later that day we encountered three Indians on horses. The farmers set up a great clamor, but I told them to shut up. “Remember what I said,” I told them, in a voice so stern it was almost like hearing my schoolteacher mother speak through my mouth. Though my vision was beginning to blur a little, I thought I recognized one of the Indians. I walked away from the farmers, toward the horses.

  “Are you needing help?” one of them called. His voice was just familiar.

  “Standing Still?” I said.

  “Gunnie Rose,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  “We were set upon. I’m taking these people north to Corbin.”

  “Where is your man?”

  “Dead. His friend, too.”

  “And the dark woman with the big hair?”

  Galilee’s hair had been very entertaining to the Indians. “Dead.”

  “I am sorry,” he said formally.

  “Can you tell me if there is water near here?”

  “Yes, at the old settlement. It’s north and east of here.”

  “Thank you. My best wishes to you and your family and your chief.”

  “Easy death, Gunnie Rose.”

  “Good hunting, Standing Still.”

  They turned west and were on their way.

  Jeremiah and Jacob were standing tense and ready. It was a good thing I had told them not to shoot before I�
�d figured out the intentions of our visitors—and it was a better thing that they’d respected my words. I could feel them relax behind me as the Indians vanished.

  “What tribe were they?” Jacob asked.

  “Comanche,” I said. “This area is common ground for the Comanche and the Kiowa.”

  “How did you know them?”

  “I knew one of them. Standing Still helps out my stepfather from time to time.”

  “Doing what?” Jeremiah said this very suspiciously. Dealing with an Indian made my whole family suspect.

  “My stepfather owns a hotel. Standing Still brings in a deer for the table there every now and then.”

  “I wish he’d brought us one,” Jacob muttered.

  Sure, because we had the time to skin and butcher and cook a deer, and carry the remains with us. And because we had the money to pay him, which he’d expect, and rightly. I didn’t answer. It was a waste of my breath.

  I started walking again.

  The two men were talking to each other, and Jacob’s wife, Martha, moved up to walk beside me. “What did that mean, ‘easy death’?” She seemed almost shy with the question.

  “He meant . . . he was being polite. That’s what gunnies wish each other. An easy death.”

  Martha was silent for a minute. Just when I hoped it was going to remain quiet, she said, “You have a hard life, Gunnie Rose.”

  “You do, too. We all do.” That was as personal as I wanted to get with Martha. I didn’t want to know any of them better.

  It was easy to ignore most of the children, because they were scared of me. But the oldest girl, Jael, who was about thirteen, dogged my footsteps. She’d seen me interrupt her aunt’s rape and kill the men who’d done that and kidnapped them all, her interest wasn’t too surprising. I would have wondered about me, too. But Jael didn’t speak, which was fine.

  I took a turn at watch this night, since there was no way around it. I didn’t think I’d die now, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to live. I daydreamed about a dark room with no sound, no voices. And maybe in one corner, a bathtub and soap. The girl Jael broke into this pleasant picture and sat close to me, cross-legged, staring. I was too tired to mind.