Maybe it was the hour of the night, maybe he was sick of hearing the same topic of conversation repeated over and over, but Corporal Tenson did something he never planned on doing.
“Want to see what I picked up at that camp?”
Gentry sat up. “Is that what’s in that pouch? Do you have a scalp or something? I thought they’d smell, but I haven’t smelled anything.”
“It’s not a scalp. Check this out,” Tenson said, turning the pouch over into his hand. The large red stone dropped into his palm.
Gentry inhaled sharply and then reached out to grab it, Tenson pulled his hand back.
“Sorry,” Tenson said, letting his friend grab the stone.
“What is it?” Gentry asked, holding it up to the lantern.
“My ticket out of the cavalry, and into a life of luxury.”
“Have you found out how much it’s worth?”
“No I haven’t told anyone I’ve got it. I’m too afraid they’ll make me turn it over to the captain.”
“Nobody knows you have it?”
“Just you, now,” Tenson said, smiling.
“I’ve got to show you something then,” Gentry said conspiratorially. He handed the stone back to Tenson.
Gentry reached under his cot and pulled something out that caught a glint of light a moment before he plunged it into Tenson’s stomach. The long bowie knife ripped through his stomach, spleen and kidney and brushed up against his spinal cord. The pain had been too intense to even formulate a scream. Gentry was not going to give him the opportunity anyway. He clamped his free hand over his friend’s mouth and twisted the knife back and forth as more and more pain and shock blazed though Tenson’s eyes. Gentry spoke.
“I’m sorry my friend, I really am. You saved my life once, and now I’m taking yours. It hardly seems fair. But I fucking hate it here and now I’ve got a way out and I had to take it, no matter what expense you had to pay for it.”
Gentry waited until he was completely sure his friend (although that didn’t seem like the right word anymore) was dead before extracting his knife from Tenson’s mid-section. He then wiped it off on Tenson’s blanket and covered him up with it. He quickly grabbed anything of any value in addition to the stone, which he clutched greedily, and slipped quietly into the night.
***
Eliza had watched the entire battle from her higher vantage point. She was mildly impressed with the Lakota’s savagery. Here were a people who had already lost everything dear to them, and still they fought viciously. She hoped the colonel would live, if only to be reunited with his bride, but either way, all that mattered was that the medicine man died.
She waited until the cavalry men departed as she walked amid the smoking ruins of the destroyed village. The Indians lay where they had been struck down. She checked each one of them, yet she could not find the shaman. A little known feeling rose in her breast; it was a sense of unease. She checked the only teepee that was not burning. It was the largest in the village and by its decoration, she figured it was a ceremonial gathering place.
The shaman was in there, but he was dead. He had been set in a place of honor in the center of the room, enshrouded in soft blankets made of deer and bison hide. Instead of her unease slipping away, it grew.
“This man died before the battle,” she said as she walked around him. She ripped the shroud off him, looking for a wound that could have caused his demise. She savagely ripped his clothes off, unsure as to the root of her anger. She kicked his body over onto his stomach when the front did not reveal any damage.
She kicked him again, this time from spite when she could not glean any information. His broken body hit the far side of the large teepee and rolled to a stop as Eliza strode out. Had her anger not burned so brightly, she would have been able to pick up on the faint traces of the information she so desperately sought.
***
Tomas had been one state removed when he began to hear rumors about the cursed cavalry unit. Each story sounded more fantastic than the last. But he had been around the frontier long enough to know that people with too much time on their hands like a fantastic tale. He did not sit up and take notice until some of these tales began to hint about a white witch, her cruelty only rivaled by her beauty.
“Eliza,” he muttered, draining his tankard of beer.
“Hey where you going?” the old grizzled man at the bar asked. “You’ve already paid for two drinks, I promised you the entire story.”
“Buy yourself a third,” Tomas said, flipping him a nickel and heading for the door.
The old man continued as if his drinking buddy had remained behind. “So they say that this white witch took the colonel’s family for some devilry until the colonel brought her the head of a great Indian chief. And when he came back without it, she had killed his family and then him. And then she cast some kind of spell on the men in the platoon. Seems they started killing each other. I think the witch part is made up. I think it’s more the medicine man sent some bad medicine.” The old man snorted and laughed at his own word play. “The Indians are some tricky ones. You have to be real careful how you kill them or they can rise up out their grave and get you.” He cackled. “Barkeep! Another drink for me and my friend,” the old man said, waving the nickel around.
The bartender shook his head and poured two more glasses. Who was he to judge? A nickel was a nickel.
Tomas bought the best horse he could find in the region and pushed the animal as hard as he dared. After five days of hard riding, and asking anyone he could for information on the battle site, he finally found himself amongst the ruins. Not much was left. It was mostly just pieces of shattered pottery here and there. After nearly a month, any bones of the Indians still left remaining from the scavengers had been picked clean. The village was nearly reclaimed by the land, save one large teepee. Tomas alit from his horse and strode purposefully towards it.
He said a small prayer upon entering. He noted the many footprints of animals that had entered in here previous to him, nearly obscuring the soft prints of the white witch.
“Eliza,” he said as he pressed his palm down onto the heel of the print. He looked over to where the shriveled husk of a man lay. He walked over to him. “Why have the scavengers not taken your sustenance?” Tomas asked. “And more importantly, what did my sister want with you?”
Tomas gently turned the man onto his back. His facial muscles had pulled up and dried into a perpetual smile. Tomas grabbed the blankets that had been strewn around the large teepee, almost shattering an ornate bowl as he grabbed the last one.
He turned the bowl over and over. “This is ceremonial,” he said to himself. “That makes you the shaman,” he said as he picked the man up and placed him on the blankets he had piled up. “Eliza, what trouble have you gotten yourself into now?” he asked as he left the ghost town with bowl in hand.
Tomas’ next destination was Durango, Colorado it was where the Cavalry 3rd Regiment was stationed at Camp Foster. He needed to find out more information and the best place was always the local saloon. Liquor tended to make tongues wag, as did his power of persuasion.
“Who’d you say you were again?” The soldier slurred, trying his best to focus on the person in front of him. “This is some powerful whiskey.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Tomas said pouring the man, boy really, another shot. “You were saying about the curse?” Tomas asked.