Stony, he watched her turn and leave. Goddamn her, he was only trying to save himself —
No. That was a lie. Trooper Nell was right. One bullet was enough to finish the foolhardy youngster and he knew it. Why couldn't he get rid of the rage that had prompted him to fire the other shots?
A knock. He lifted his forearm off his eyes.
The shanty door opened. Against the fading August daylight, he recognized the silhouette of the bearded stranger, quilled pants and all.
"Griffenstein," the man in buckskin said.
"I remember. Dutch Henry."
"Had a hell of a time finding you. How's your leg?"
"Hurts. I'll be off it a while, I guess."
"I hate to hear that. I rode a hundred miles. All the way from Hays."
"For what?"
"To recruit you." Griffenstein pulled up an old crate and sat down. "The Cheyennes are running wild and all the cavalry does is chase 'em, so Phil Sheridan's decided to take the offensive. He's ordered one of his aides, Colonel Sandy Forsyth, to hire fifty experienced plainsmen and go into the field and kill all the hostiles they can find. I said we couldn't get a better man than you. You're still the talk of the Tenth Regiment."
Sourly, Charles said, "You mean my bobtail."
"No, sir. They talk about how you whipped those colored men into some of the best cavalry in the Army. They don't call your old troop Barnes's Troop, they call it Main's Troop — your real name — and the old man says amen."
"That a fact." Charles gripped his aching leg. "Here, give me a hand. I know I can get up."
He did, but he fell right back down, tumbling across the cot. "Damn. I wish you'd come one day sooner, Griffenstein."
"So do I. Well, next time. The way the red men are scalping and burning, there'll be a number of next times. You can join up then."
"Count on it," Charles said.
"How will I find you?"
"Telegraph Brigadier Jack Duncan. He's with the Departmental paymaster at Fort Leavenworth."
"A relative, is he?"
The convenient lie: "Father-in-law."
"Nobody said you were married."
"Not any more. She died."
And you killed every iota of feeling in the only other woman you ever loved as much.
The big man said, "Truly sorry to hear that." Charles's curt nod dismissed it.
They shook hands. Dutch Henry Griffenstein tipped his hat and left, closing the slat door, leaving Charles to swear with renewed frustration. In the dark he reached for the half-empty bottle under the cot.
Nellie Slingerland stuck by the firing. Charles was bad for business. Trooper Nell's was almost empty for the entire seven days that he lay in the shanty. The grocer turned sheriff dropped in on the last day to say witnesses had exonerated Charles on the grounds of self-defense.
Hobbling, he packed his few possessions. Nellie didn't bid him goodbye personally, just sent ten dollars with the barkeep. Charles used the money to get Satan from a livery in the respectable part of town. He left Abilene in the summer dusk and rode east into the dark.
45
When Willa went to pieces and forgot her lines a third time, Sam Trump said, "Ten minutes, ladies and gentlemen."
He drew her aside to the cushion-strewn platform serving as a rehearsal bed. He sat her on the edge, leaving inky prints on the sleeve of her yellow dress. Because of the fierce September heat, his blackamoor makeup ran and smeared.
"My dear, what is it?" He knew. She looked bedraggled; her silvery hair was dull and pinned up carelessly. He sat beside her, his black tights and tunic darkened by sweat. The white chrysanthemum pinned over his heart was wilted. Prosperity jumped in his lap and purred.
When she stayed silent, he prompted her. "Is it the weather? It will surely break soon."
"The weather has nothing to do with it. I just can't keep my mind on my part." She touched his hand. "Will you cancel rehearsals long enough for me to dash to Leavenworth again?"
"You were there not thirty days ago."
"But that poor child needs someone besides a housekeeper to pay attention to him. The brigadier's gone with the pay chest for weeks at a time. Gus might as well be an orphan."
Sam stroked Prosperity's sleek back. It was imperative that he find some way to jolt Willa out of her melancholy. It was deepening day by day, robbing her performances of energy. He nerved himself and said, "Dear girl, is it really the little boy who concerns you? Or his father?"
She gave him a scathing look. "I don't know where his father is. Furthermore, I don't care."
"Ah, no, of course not. 'The poet's food is love and fame,'
Mr. Shelley said, and it's true of actors also. But you are telling me that only half applies to you."
"Don't torment me, Sam. Just say you'll let Grace stand in for me for a few nights. I'll do better with Othello once I know Gus is all right."
"I hate to delay rehearsals. I have a premonition that our new production will be the one that propels us to the heights. I have telegraphed several New York managers, inviting them to come —"
"Oh for God's sake, Sam," she said, her face uncharacteristically hostile. "You know all those wonderful triumphs exist only in your imagination. We'll live and die provincial actors."
Trump stood. Leaping off, the theater cat caught claws in his tunic and left a long rip. Trump stared at his partner, wounded. Willa's blue eyes filled with tears.
"I'm sorry, Sam. That was a vile thing to say. Forgive me."
"Forgiven. As to your absence, what choice have I? You are sleepwalking through your roles. If one more trip to Leavenworth will arrest that, by all means go. Since we are being so candid, permit me to continue a moment more. I liked that young man when I first met him. I no longer like him. He's hurt you. Even when he's absent he hurts you. Somehow he reaches out into my theater to poison everything."
Willa gave him a sad half-smile. "It's called love, Sam. You've had affairs of the heart."
"None that destroyed me. I'll not see you destroyed."
"No, Sam. Just a few days, then things will be fine."
"All right," he said, doubting it.
On the train that carried Willa across the state, passengers jumped off at every stop to buy late papers. An unfolding story from eastern Colorado had burst onto the front pages. On the Arikaree Fork of the Republican River, a special detachment of Indian-hunting plainsmen under a Colonel Forsyth had been surprised by a huge band of Cheyennes. The detachment took refuge on a sparsely treed island in the river and forted up to fight.
Incredibly, they repelled charge after charge by the Indians, who numbered as many as six hundred, according to some of the dispatches. In one of the charges a renowned war chief named Bat had ridden in wearing a great war bonnet whose medicine was supposed to turn aside bullets. The medicine failed him. He was blown down, this Bat — Roman Nose, some called him.
Passengers on the train reveled in the reports of the battle of Beecher's Island, named in honor of the young Army officer, second in command, who had taken a fatal wound there. "They're safe," a passenger in the next seat exclaimed to Willa, showing a paper. "The men Forsyth sent to Fort Wallace got through. The relief column found 'em still holed up and carving their horses for meat."
"How many did they kill?" another passenger asked.
"Says here it was hundreds."
"By God, there ought to be fifty more fights like that, to make up for all the poor innocents who got scalped and outraged this summer.
Fuming, Willa spoke across the back of the seat. "You expect the Cheyennes to be peaceful when they aren't even treated with simple fairness and honesty? Almost a year ago, the peace commission promised them rations and weapons for hunting. By the time the weapons were issued, summer was nearly over. Do you expect them not to break faith when we do?"