Lying there, grit in his teeth, he seems to recollect — it’s sort of a memory and it sort of happens — accompanying a wagon train of emigrants heading west across the dusty plains. He might have been a hired gun or a scout or he might himself be one of the pioneers, it’s not clear, but their passage takes them through endless black acres of burnt-out prairie grass, dust churned up by the wooden wheels so thick wet bandannas tied over their faces cannot filter it out (he can taste it, coating his tongue, clogging his throat), the teams of oxen plodding through it all, their hickory yokes squeaking, chains rattling, and there’s the tinkling clatter of tinware, the shriek of ungreased axles, the squalling of children; he can hear all this. Storms suddenly rise up out of nowhere and sweep wrathfully down upon them, lightning bolts slamming the ground around them like electrical cannonballs, and then as quickly they sweep away again, leaving the land as hot and dusty as if no rain had passed.
In the calm after one such storm, just as they are crawling out from under the oiled canvases of their wagons, they are attacked by a band of screaming wild Indians on horseback, emerging as though out of the vanishing storm itself, their naked bodies striped head to toe with red and black paint, their long ebon hair floating to the wind, bald eagles’ feathers on their heads and strips of flayed antelope skin and white feathery skunks’ tails strung to their knees and elbows — they make a sight to see, though looking can get a person turned into a human pincushion. Already the settlers are falling — men, women, and children, their horses and oxen, too — with arrows through their throats, chests, and eyeballs. He seems to recognize them all but doesn’t know them, except for that beautiful widow woman in black, the schoolmarm from the town up ahead, moving among the fallen, treating their injuries, consoling the dying, keeping wounded and orphaned children distracted by teaching them their ABCs.
He’s having a hard time thinking, he hurts so badly and feels so sick, but he manages somehow, hitching about on his one good leg, wincing with pain and nausea, to get all the covered wagons snaked round in a circle, tongues chained to rear axles, as a makeshift breastwork against the incessant hail of deadly arrows. The clumsy wagons teeter and tip and Dutch ovens, rocking chairs, and butter churns spill out like peace offerings, plows, skillets, chamber pots, and bucksaws, a proliferation of translated merchandise that dizzies him, or perhaps exemplifies the dizziness that besets him. He and the remaining settlers knuckle down — he hears cavalry trumpets in the distance but they are stifled mid-toot, hope lost, they’re strictly on their own here — to the business of killing savages, which they accomplish in great numbers; popping them off their ponies is like swatting flies, but they keep coming at full gallop in wave after wave, blowing war whistles made of the bones of eagles’ wings and whooping and hollering like a troop of demons, all the while showering arrows on them so thick and fast the day turns dark, until soon there are no settlers left but himself, and he’s got an arrow piercing his inner thigh, a poisoned one by the swelling sensation of it, and his mouth is full of sand.
He figures he’s done for, a feeling he might have had before, but then the schoolmarm passes, scowling down at him where he lies as though offended by what she sees. I’m sorry, mam, he says, or thinks he says, it’s all fading away. He knows he must be all swollen up and ugly looking down where the arrow’s sticking out, and he’s not sure his pants are all the way on. No matter. She produces a pair of scissors and cuts them away entirely, rips out the barbed arrow shaft like yanking a weed, then strips off one of her black stockings and ligatures his naked thigh with it, providing him just the briefest glimpse of a tender bare calf under her dark skirts, which makes him feel like crying, or maybe the pain does. She digs and snips at his wound with the scissors, then stoops to suck the venom out. The arrows are still whizzing overhead but they seem to be rising higher and higher until they are all but out of view, up where the hawks hover. He can hear her sucking and spitting, can see the tight dark bun of her hair bobbing between his thighs, but he cannot feel her lips on him, everything’s gone dead below the ligature. Not above it, though. Where her hand is. When she’s done, she cleans the wound with some warm liquid she’s produced from somewhere, salts it with a white powder the color of potash, and pours something like diluted ammonia down his gullet, making him gag. While he’s still spluttering, she shoves a long dull needle in so tender a place just above the wound that he cries out like one of those shrieking savages who have just passed by, injecting him with something from a bottle marked with a skull and crossbones. Hush now, she says, and she unties the ligature to use the stocking as a bandage, often brushing as she works the thing standing nearby, the only thing standing in fact for miles around. Before rising and leaving him there, she gazes at it sorrowfully for a moment, as if it’s about the saddest thing she’s ever seen.
Sorry, mam. Caint hep thet. But I’m mighty obliged. She frowns down upon him, her thin unpainted lips pressed together. There is a tiny black beauty spot on her cheek, set there, it would seem, though it’s probably but a mole, to complement her long black dress. Fer whut yu done fer my laig, I mean.
Did, she says sternly. I am obliged for what yu did for my leg.
Yes’m. He closes his eyes. Yu’re welcum.
When he opens them again, he finds himself stretched out in black satin and for a moment he thinks he’s in a coffin. No, no, I aint dead! he gasps, trying to rise.
Shore yu aint, sheriff honey. The saloon chanteuse is sitting at her dressing table powdering her breasts. He falls back into the bed, feeling like he’s been kicked below by a horse. Beyond the open windows where lace curtains hang limply in the midday heat, he can hear creaking wagon wheels, the blacksmith’s hammer, booted feet treading wooden sidewalks, curses, whinnies, shouts, the occasional gunshot. These sounds seem aimed at him, of no more duration than his need of them, and maybe, in the way that towns talk to sheriffs, they are. Though it wuz tetch’n go fer a time, sweetie.
I wuz havin a fearsome dream. Ifn it wuz a dream. Seemed so real.
Looked purty arousin from whut I could see.
I wuz layin out on the desert. Dyin. All alone. And some wolves come by. Whole pack of em.
Dont tell me. They et yu up.
I thought they wuz gonna. And I couldnt do nuthin about it. But they didnt. They jest sniffed at me and then they all lined up thar’n sucked whar I wuz hurt and lapped at my, y’know, my manly part, like cows at a salt licks. I wuz afeered ifn I moved they’d bite it off so I hadta lay stone still.
Whenever sumthin like thet happens t’me, I git itchy all over and hafta sneeze sumthin awful.
Thet werent exactly my problem.
No, but not unlike. She winks at him in the mirror, hefts her breasts one at a time, rouges the tips. Well anyhow, thet explains how I found yu, all swoll up and ravin like yer brain wuz cracked, buckskins cut t’ribbons and peed on by some filthy animule, musta been them wolves. Yu wuz a real morbid spectacle, dearie; the whole town lined up t’witness yu when I brung yu in.
I dont member none a thet.
Course yu dont. Yu wuz stock outa yer haidbone. But outa yer pants too and cuter’n a chipmunk. I shooed the buzzards off and throwed yer dazzlin carkiss over the rump of my hoss and brung yu right down main street; we done a whole parade, flags flyin, fireworks, brass band’n all, it wuz more fun than a injun roast. Whut wuz most byootyful, though, wuz when yu ast me t’marry yu.