AT THE CROSSROADS

The hellish nightmare called the Civil War ended a couple years ago, and I haven’t yet been able to get my post war life moving in any kind of direction. Seems I am having a harder time adjusting than many of the soldiers I knew during the war.

I keep bouncing between jobs which I hate that pay barely enough to live. If living is what you call it.

My riding skills, developed while in the cavalry, qualified me for one of the few, immediately available jobs, driving cattle. The need for drivers was growing fast as the demand for beef in the north was increasing at a furious pace. Don’t get me wrong, I hate riding herd; the hours are long as the day, the work is hard, and monotonous. But driving cattle is a paycheck and often I am desperate.

What is more concerning to me is that since the war, I have learned that there is something seriously wrong with me.

You see, I never got headaches before the war but now I get the kind that are sharp, searing, and completely incapacitate me maybe two or three times a month. Sometimes, if I am lucky, I get the other type. These headaches are just a steady, dull pain with minimal sharp edges. They last only a day or two and still allow me to function.

Even more troubling is my sleep which I often dread. You see, I experience vivid nightmares filled with rifle fire, and blood, and screaming. I still hear the moans and cries of the wounded and awaken often with the sounds of the suffering, half dead echoing in my spirit.

Worse yet, sometimes during my waking hours I am back there again.

Yeah, you heard me right.

One moment, I am tending the herd and the next, I am reliving the horrors of battle, hearing the screams, smelling the blood, and trying to kill the next man in front of me.

These “visions” take me someplace else for a while but don’t seem to affect my life directly. I don't think.

But I do know that something is drastically wrong.

Maybe I am a weaker man than the other soldiers, though I did talk to one who was experiencing the same types of “nightmares". He said he spoke to a doctor in Denver, and it helped him.

Imagine that. Talking to a doctor about these types of things. He’d think you’re crazy!

Well, I need to do something, so I have decided to look the doctor up when I get to Denver, which should be in a few weeks.

Currently, I am like an empty shadow moving around on a desolate planet, feeling only a vague connection to what is happening around me.

When I am in town, I see people laughing and talking, hear their conversations at the general store, and I really don’t understand it. I don’t get their excitement and interest at all. All I do know is that I am definitely not part of these types of interactions and that's fine with me. I really don't care. Maybe that's not normal.

All I can do is keep drifting into the drab colors of the future, hoping and believing I will heal, and once again feel some kind of a life spark.

I know I am somehow broken, and I keep trying with all my might to fix it.

I just don’t know what to fix exactly.

Or how to fix it.

**********

Well, once again, I needed a paycheck, desperately. I found myself in San Antonio, so I signed on to a Goodnight-Loving cattle drive headed North through Denver to Cheyenne. I have grown to hate the drives so I swore to myself that this time, this drive would be my last.

You see, now I have a plan. This time, with a paycheck in my pocket I will head further north, past Cheyenne, where the air is cool, and the water is so cold it turns hard like a rock. They have a special name for this type of water. They call it ice.

When I arrive at my destination, wherever that might be, maybe Washington Territory, I will begin again, start a new life.

I should have known better than to sign up for an August cattle drive as the day temperatures hover in the nineties and this type of heat makes me feel like I am cooking, from the inside out. On this particular drive I fell ill and couldn’t continue working. They threw me in a wagon and hauled me into a nearby town where they left me at the stable and the owner, a man a bit younger than myself, took care of me for a few days. I'd say Charles was about seventeen.

I was fortunate that Loving paid me for my time and released me from my contract after only eleven days on the trail.

Still recovering, I was on unsteady legs when I walked down the only street of this hastily built town which had sprung up six months ago, almost overnight. For the most part the ragged buildings, made from wood hauled in from the foothills and whatever scraps and pieces of wood that could be found on the prairie, were shabbily constructed. From a distance the town looked more like a few piles of weather-beaten wood than a place where people would choose to live.

There were many such towns, and they gave the cattle drivers a place to rest, gamble, drink and meet a "lady" if they so desired. Since these towns were built for cowboys, there were no frills, just practical, rough-hewn buildings, like the men they were meant to accommodate.

Like the previous month, the sun was pouring its grueling heat and brightness onto the dusty, rutted street. There were only a few people out braving the mid-day broil, and they were busy scurrying to the next shady spot.

Like them, I was seeking relief from the sun. The hotel where I was headed was only three buildings further ahead on my left, but directly to my right was the Red Deer saloon.

Life always looked better after a couple drinks, so I hesitated a moment, felt the pull of the alcohol. "Just one", I thought as I turned towards the saloon, took a few steps and pushed through the swinging doors.

It was stuffy and warm inside, smelled of sweat, smoke, alcohol and sometimes urine, depending on the direction of the wind, but it was still better than standing in the direct light of the blazing sun.

“Pour me one,” I said nodding to the man behind the bar.

The bartender was round, bald and swilling a white cloth inside a glass. He held the glass up towards the window next to the swinging door entry and admired it as if he’d just created a masterpiece of some sort. When he finished his ritual he looked up at me with an angry glare. The glare melted away and the round face cracked into a smile that crinkled his tiny moustache and he said in a pleasant voice, “whiskey?”

I was about to take him up on the challenging glare, but his crinkly smile made me think I’d misread him.

“Yep,” I said.

He moved efficiently behind the polished counter, which was the only feature in town with any semblance of elegance. He tipped a bottle of brown liquid and slid the shot glass at least five feet in my direction and I’ll be damned. The glass stopped right in front of me, spilling barely a drop which he swiped up quickly with another cloth.

“Thanks,” I said nodding to him and dropping some coin.

"What's your name cowboy?" he said in a voice that was friendly, like we were great friends, and he actually gave a damn.

"Name's Kyle," I said and that was the end of our conversation as he'd run out of interest, and I didn't talk much any way. He turned back to polishing his glasses.

First things first I figured, as I tipped my head back and tossed the liquid to the back of my mouth. I closed my eyes, tracked and savored that warmth all the way down to my stomach.

Kersploosh.

I opened my eyes and looked into the cracked mirror behind the bar which sat on angled, rusty nails. I was shocked by the filthy, repulsive face looking back at me. Then I realized the face was my own.

My dirty grey Stetson, the one I’d taken from a dead man at Vicksburg, was tipped back and squatted on a pile of long, greasy hair. The face was unshaven, smeared in dust and sweat, and stared back at me with vacant eyes too tired to register any type of a life force.

I concluded I looked like hell which was normal coming off a tough drive through a baking heat.

Shouldn’t really have had that drink until I cleaned up, I figured as I felt the light tingling of the alcohol already beginning its magic.

Oh well. I’d just got paid and was passing the saloon on my way to Susan's, the town hotel, for a hot bath, a shave, and a meal. Wasn’t my fault the saloon was between the stable where I’d been laid up a few days and the hotel, was it?

I braced my hands against the front edge of the bar knowing that if I wanted to head north and start a new life, I needed to push myself away from the bar and walk out those swinging doors.

This was the moment of truth I’d faced many times before, and lost, which was the reason I always found myself on another drive, seeking a payday and a chance to say “no” the next time I was standing at the crossroads of alcohol, and a future.

I was about to say “pour me another” when a series of whoops cut through the sweaty quiet which filled the saloon like a warm mist. In a moment, the vaqueros, playing cards at the back of the room, were up, spurs jangling as they shuffled for the door. The cowboys by the front window stood and strained to see just what the commotion was.

I was one of the first outside and a spray of dust wafted into my eyes as a horse past us at a gallop. My first thought was that in this heat the man was riding the horse way too fast, was going to kill it. Then I saw that dragging behind the horse was a rope, and to that was tied a dark-skinned man who was running as fast as he could to keep his feet.

After a few buildings the rider turned his horse and started riding back towards us. The man he was towing lost his balance and stumbled onto the baked earth, twisting and bouncing hard in the ruts and on the sharp edges of the broken rock. The rider continued riding at us, slowed as he passed in front of the Red Deer, swung down from the horse and wrapped the reins around the hitching post at the general store next door.

The dust was settling, but I still couldn’t determine much about the man he’d been dragging. A few of the townsfolk poked their heads out of the store windows and some were walking towards the rider from different parts of the street.

The sun was relentless, drowning us in a hot river of light and heat and I was dripping in sweat just from the effort of walking. As I breathed in streams of warm air, I could taste the dryness of the dust coating the inside of my mouth and nostrils.

The rider wore a tall, doe colored hat and his face was as big as a cow head. His eyebrows were thick and black, and his steely countenance radiated command. He was taking long, slow breaths from the effort of riding in the heat as he stood calmly facing the approaching town folk.

As I neared, I realized just how big a man he was. His shoulders were large and wide, like a bull, and he towered over the gathering crowd like a mountain.

He jockeyed something from the saddle and turned to the bundle huddled on the ground. The dust around it had settled and I now realized the bundle was making weak, pawing movements at the earth.

My stomach twisted on the jerky I’d eaten on my walk to the saloon an hour ago when I realized that the twisted bundle was a boy, maybe thirteen and looked to be some kind of Indian.

The beast of a man strode slowly towards the crumpled body in the sand. In his hand, coiled like a black snake was a whip which bounced against his thigh as he walked.

“Found him in my stable, stealing oats from the horse trough,” he declared. “And now,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I’m going to teach this Injun a lesson.”

“String him up Bart,” came a voice out of the crowd.

“Maybe,” he said casually, “but first I’m going to whip him.” The small crowd drifted apart, opening a path to the crumpled body.

I saw a small man behind thick, round glasses, moving in a twig like body. His movements were jerky, and he seemed to have trouble balancing the small derby hat on his head. The man exuded weakness but I respected him for stepping directly into the path of the sauntering, bull of a man.

“Just a moment,” said the man with a voice that had a squeak built into it. “You must not do this. The lord says….”

“Stay back reverend,” said the bull man in a voice which rumbled with authority. “This has nothing to do with you. Or god.” He kept sauntering forward, raised an arm and brushed the reverend lightly aside.

I heard angry, hateful rumblings in the crowd. “Whip him Bart, hang him, kill him….”

The people moved away as the bull man spread his legs and swung his arm as if to snap the whip.

The crumpled Indian, streaked in blood, tried to stagger to his feet. He pushed against the ground, made it to his knees, and then toppled over. He lay there a few seconds and with weak, pawing motions at the earth he tried to right himself. He rolled to his side, gathered some strength and pushed himself over into the dust again.

“Hold it Bart,” came another voice. This voice was steady, and the man stepped inside the loose circle.

I moved along the edge of the crowd for a closer look at the man who dared confront Bart.

I looked down at the Indian, pawing and toppling over in the dust. He left a veiny, red trail of blood as he pulled himself aimlessly across the dry, crumbling earth. I was amazed the boy could move at all. His clothes were streaked with blood and half torn off with black dust stuck to the red, open tears in his skin. I saw a pair of dark eyes in the face streaked with crimson muck. The eyes were wild with pain.

I had to look away. My temples began to throb. A headache was moving in fast, like a storm churning hard across the prairie.

“This is none of your business Frank,” Bart said evenly. “Caught the Indian stealing. Simple as that.”

A shiny star was pinned to Frank’s checkered shirt. The man was thin, and a scrawny beard climbed up the neck to a caved in chin. His hat was pulled down low, right to his eyebrows. As if he meant business, his right hand rested on the pistol at his hip.

Frank looked around at the angry faces forming a half circle around them, shrugged his shoulders, said, “you’ve hurt him enough.”

“Ask the James family,” said Bart. “I’m the one that found them tied to stakes outside their burning farmhouse only six months ago. Found the little girl too.”

“Whip him good Bart,” came the scratchy voice of an older lady. “Whip him to death.”

I looked back to the Indian and he was crawling in a small circle.

“A lot more families been killed around here,” Bart said, “and you know it. Now this Indian is snooping in my barn, maybe scouting the area for another attack.”

Bart, the bull of a man, began to saunter around Frank, so as not to confront him directly, giving Frank an easy way out. Bart snapped his wrist and the whip uncoiled in the air like a dark snake. He snapped down hard and the leather popped sharply.

“Wasn’t this Indian did the killing,” said Frank still holding his ground. “I know Indians Bart, and this one is not a Comanche. He’s Navajo. And they’re peaceful.”

Frank’s eyes moved across the circle of faces, trying to find some support. There was none. All he saw was the hot anger of a crowd getting wilder, and I saw him start to wilt, his eyes flitting about nervously.

“He’s an Indian,” declared Bart, “isn’t he?” Without waiting for an answer, he said calmly, “step aside Frank.”

I saw the sheriff’s Adam’s apple bobbing under the scraggly beard.

The angry calls of the crowd started again. The sheriff’s hand wrapped around the butt of the pistol at his hip. I thought for a moment he might stand up to the crowd that was turning mean as they remembered the tragedies of the past.

“You probably killed him already,” said the sheriff. Again, his eyes darted about, still searching for support. I saw the sheriff turn aside under the intense, yelling pressure of the crowd which had reached another level of hysteria, opening a narrow path to the crumpled Indian in the dirt.

I shouldn’t have had the liquor. It was greasing my stomach, the heat was wilting me and the headache which had settled in my temples and forehead was pounding.

I couldn’t believe the Indian boy was still alive, still suffering.

In the distances of a different time, I heard rolling waves of rifle fire and pain-filled screams which lingered several moments before melting away.

The crushed figure in the sand was moving again, further smearing his blood onto the baked earth.

“Whip him, Bart,” came a voice from the crowd. The supporting yells were gaining a dangerous power.

Bart was watching the sheriff to make sure the opposition was over.

The minister was standing with his mouth open; his thick glasses reflecting the glare of the sun.

Bart swung his arm again his body tensing this time to snap the snake onto the crumpled figure.

“Hold it,” snapped a voice. I heard the metallic click of a pistol hammer.

Bart turned around, at first surprise flashed on his face, and then a steady calm rose behind the dark eyes.

“None of your business, stranger” he said. His voice was even. His eyes studied me.

“Don’t move,” I commanded levelling my Colt Navy, which had seen significant war action, at the center of his chest. I could think of nothing else to say. I felt the attention of the small circle of townsfolk snap to me like rifles locking into position. I swung my gun towards them, aiming it real low in case it accidentally went off.

“Back off,” I ordered, and the crowd shuffled slowly back a couple steps. A few of the faces showed hate, stabbed at me with their eyes.

My gun came back to Bart. "Drop the whip,” I commanded. My eyes came up to his and I didn’t see fear in them. Only cold hatred.

“You’re making a big mistake mister,” Bart growled in a voice that rumbled dangerously.

I guess I was still an unknown quantity to old Bart so, with a casual swing of his arm he tossed the whip into the dust.

“Maybe,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. My mind was a little foggy from the liquor, the heat, and now a pounding headache, but I knew that beating that boy to death was not just wrong, it was cruel.

Again, I heard the agonizing moans of that Indian boy, and I remembered them, somewhere in the darkness of the past, mixed in with other wailing sounds of misery.

Bart planted his feet solidly before me and placed his hands on his hips. His head cocked to the side, and he said, “ok cowboy. Now what? You plan to stand here all day in the heat?”

That’s when I realized I didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t really give a s***. All I knew is that I couldn’t let him torture that shredded body anymore.

In the mists of the past, I heard them again, wailing cries of pain and suffering. I felt my anger rising, becoming an unreasoning force.

“He’s already hurt,” I yelled, trying to find a meaningful train of thought or a logical argument.

“I know he’s hurt. And I am going to hurt him a lot more.” The calm on Bart’s big face melted away. A vein began to move on his forehead and his jaw flexed forward.

“A lot of people around here been killed by the Indians, including women and children. My child…” Bart took in a long drag of the hot air and said while pointing at the Indian boy, “and he’s one of them. One of the killers. So,” he lifted his hat and stroked his black hair back, “why don’t you just go down to the stable, get on your horse, ride on out of here and we won’t come after you. Just like this never happened.”

The wailing screams I’d heard moments ago receded, and the thought of getting out of town was, I am ashamed to say, tempting. But I looked over to the broken body, writhing in pain and moaning quietly. Damn. The headache was pounding. My vision blurred and I shook my head, trying to clear it. I’d heard those sounds of torment before. I was drifting away, back to the cries and screams I’d heard in the dark nights after a horrid battle.

The ring of townspeople started closing in. Bart’s eyes were on me, watching. I felt my spirit start to wilt, and my body felt as if it were shrinking as I’d seen the sheriff’s do moments before.

The liquor started sliding around in my stomach. The sun was beating down on us and my shirt was sticking to the sweat on my back. The gun in my hand felt heavy.

Bart was watching me wilt. He was used to people weakening before him.

“Go on,” Bart said calmly, and he motioned with his head towards the stable.

I felt my gun hand start to lower. My mind was hazy, filled with disconnected thoughts. I was trying to sort through them, make sense of this when the screams came again, rolled through me in steady waves.

“No,” I snapped, feeling a strengthening rage. The only thought I understood with clarity was that beating that shredded, bloody carcass over there was evil.

“He’s been tortured enough,” I yelled. An unreasoning ferocity was taking over. “I’m sorry about your child.” I wasn’t really one for speeches and that was a big one for me.

Bart turned away from me and sauntered over to where he’d tossed the whip.

I watched him pick the snake up, coil it and saunter across the sand to the limp body as if I weren’t there. He didn’t even look at me as he rolled his massive shoulders and twisted his trunk, loosening up for the strike. He snapped his arm and the snake leapt out faster than my eye could follow. A sharp cracking sound cut through the air.

He turned towards the Indian boy whose head was up, the dark eyes filled with pain.

I’m not sure the Indian understood what was about to happen, but I could tell he was suffering a needless agony a human should never feel, and all he could do was lay there, waiting for more punishment.

I wasn’t thinking clearly, my thoughts moved in a swirling cloud. Everything was happening too fast. The damn heat made me feel like I might faint.

I wasn’t afraid to die, hadn’t been for a long time. I’d faced death many times in the war and was now indifferent to it, which in a way, gave me a fearless strength.

I’d heard the same miserable moans of that hurt boy in the aftermath of too many battles. The headache was gaining strength.

Those who knew me said I’d had a lot of trouble "adjusting" after the war. None of that mattered now because for some reason, I was prepared to die for this. My readiness to die wasn’t a conscious choice, but it just happened that I now stood at some kind of a crossroad in my life.

A booming sound filled the air and I realized I’d fired my gun into the dirt. The small crowd jumped back and even Bart ducked his head low between the shoulders.

“No,” I yelled my voice filled with a dangerous power. “He’s had enough.” A furious rage was rising fast, blurring my vision. I felt as I did right before a battle, filled with a seething anger, an unreasoning hate.

I moved my pistol in a low arc and the ring of people which had been closing stepped cautiously back. They were waiting for their chance, and when that moment came, they would be brutal.

The bull man never took his eyes off of me. As a matter of fact, the man looked confident, as if the outcome was inevitable. I let my eyes move over to the sheriff who seemed to be shrinking into the crowd.

“Sheriff,” I demanded with a strong voice, “you going to let them kill that boy?”

A quiet fell over the mob but you could still feel the hate, and I felt it shift from me to the sheriff.

The mob began to yell again, filled now by a fomenting, wild hatred and the sheriff was drowned out and I waited for him to step forward, but he melted away, back into the crowd.

I saw the stable boy, who’d helped me heal for the last four days, at the edge of the crowd.

“Charles,” I said with authority, “fetch a wagon and my horse from your stable. Load the wagon with water.”

Bart watched me steadily and growled, “don’t do it Charles.”

The lad looked unsure for several long moments. He looked at me, then at Bart. God bless him, Charles nodded to me and set off jogging down the street towards the stable.

“Just how far you think you’ll get cowboy?” asked Bart. “You figure to go prancing across the desert with a half dead Indian? That your plan?”

I realized it wasn’t much of a plan. But I had crossed the line between reason and fury. I was way past giving a damn about a f***** plan.

My circle of vision was darkening at the edges. I thought I might faint, tried hard to hang on.

I drifted away, heard rippling waves of rifle fire, and feral screams as men charged with unreasoning madness into thick, swirling smoke.

I reentered the present and found myself looking into the faces of a hate filled mob.

Something in me broke open and a blind savagery poured through me in a torrent, and I met the mob's hatred with a rabid ferocity of my own. My vision was blurred. Hues of red tinged the edges of the colors moving around me.

I was ready to die. Ready to kill.

“Don’t track me,” I yelled locking eyes with Bart. For emphasis I straightened my arm, levelled my colt pistol straight into his face. I held his hateful glare for what seemed a long time. The crowd began to shift uneasily.

Bart sensed that, possessed by an insane rage, I was no longer in control. He grew quiet, took a step back.

If he moved, I knew I would kill him.

Bart and everyone in the hostile crowd knew it too.

That’s when it grew quiet, as if the desert had sucked up all the sound. The half circle of men stood staring at me. I felt my body absorbing the heat of the sun.

I was waiting for something to happen, someone to move. My pistol was growing heavy. I swung it slowly back and forth across the front of the crowd. I was ready to fire.

I heard a new sound, and it took a moment for me to recognize the blessed sound of a wagon rumbling towards us from the stable at the far end of the rutted street.

Charles, I thought feeling a tremor of relief.

I remembered the plan.