Murder at Medicine Lodge (17 page)

“Did you file that report?”

“No,” Captain Mac snarled. “By then I was a bit too busy to entertain myself with writing up a report about missing trousers. The Kiowas were kicking up rough, as Kiowas are prone to do. The result of the kicking was Major Elliot and others being placed under guard,” he jabbed his chest with the tip of his thumb, “which left Muggins here to take on their responsibilities. As I was otherwise entirely occupied, I left it with the two soldiers to sort out their squabble all by themselves.”

“And did they?” Hawwy quizzed.

Hands gripping the armrests he thundered, “Well one would assume so! They certainly didn't plague me further.”

*   *   *

It was getting late when we left Captain Mac's tent. As there was no longer a bugler to signal the day's close, a lone rifleman fired off two shots. As the close gunfire was wholly unexpected, I all but leapt into Billy's arms.

“That's lights out,” Billy chuckled.

Gathering my dignity I asked, “And that means?”

“Everyone must go to sleep.”

“At the same time?”

“Yes.”

“But what if not everyone is sleepy?”

“That's too bad.”

I mulled this as candles stuck into bayonets stabbed into the ground just outside the small two man tents were quickly extinguished. Ordinary soldiers lived too close to one another and as we walked down a row of these tents, I noticed that they slept too close, too. But the oddest thing was that inside each tent, on one side I could see a pair of feet, while on the other, the top of a head. I pointed this out to Billy.

“The army,” he said, “believes it's unhealthy for soldiers to smell each other's breath.”

“But it's all right to smell feet?”

Billy nodded and chuckled. I shivered. This was yet another thoroughly unappealing aspect of army life. Then a terrible thought struck.

“I won't have to sleep smelling your feet, will I?”

Billy hurriedly translated this to Hawwy. Both shared a laugh at my expense.

*   *   *

Sleeping in an army cot is horrible. An extra cot was set up for me inside Hawwy's sleeping quarters. Billy already had a cot in there and our three cots formed a three-quarter square. I was given a slip of a pillow that did absolutely nothing for my head and neck and one thin itchy blanket that smelled bad. Yet these were comforts when compared to being trapped alive in that cot. Evidently the canvas body had seen better days for, by the time it came to me, there was no body left in the rough material and it sagged under my weight, leaving me to hang suspended between the frame. I lay there too terrified to move, even more terrified that I would never get out of that thing. I spent a sleepless night worrying my fate while listening to my two tent partners snoring so loudly they rattled the tent walls.

As I was doomed to live through the night fully awake, my busy mind reviewed what little I had learned during my enforced stay, mixing all of that up with what I already knew. Then I remembered the occasion of my meeting William, gradually shifting to the physical differences between William and Little Jonas. Both were good-sized men, but Little Jonas carried solid weight throughout the whole of his body whereas William was slender, most especially in his legs. What if a third party, seeking to fit himself adequately in a uniform different from his own, had intentionally chosen a jacket and trousers to match his body type? Meaning that Little Jonas's jacket would fit but his trousers would be too large. The thief would then need to go for a second man's spare uniform.

William's.

Despite the blurry haze of fatigue, irritation at my tent partners, increasing dread of the cot, in those moments the murderer's temperament became apparent. I lay in that terrible cocoon, indescribable noise rattling the tent walls, seeing this man for what he was. Patient. Determined. Ferociously intelligent. A man who, for his own reasons, was able to destroy another human being without qualm. He was also a man who would have to know—

Trying to turn on my side in that idiot bed caused its noisy collapse, waking Billy and Hawwy with a start. Hawwy lit the lantern and then he and Billy were looking at me lying on the ground tangled in that hideous contraption. I didn't mind that so much anymore as I looked up at them and yelled, “Hawwy! Tell me what was concerning you when Little Jonas was telling us his story.”

Hawwy glanced at Billy who stood on the opposite side of my ruined bed. After Billy translated, Hawwy's expression became sheepish. “It struck me wrong.”

I managed to get loose of that bed and stand to my feet. Hands on my hips I demanded, “Why!”

Looking embarrassed, he turned his face to the side. “I—I just wondered how it was that ex-slaves had managed to read and write letters.”

“I don't understand,” I snapped.

Hawwy looked me fully in the face. He spoke, drawing out each word. “In some places, it's against the law to teach slaves to read and write.”

“Is this Louis-anna one of those places?”

“Yes.”

“So being from this Louis-anna, Little Jonas would not have been allowed the knowledge to understand medicine marks on pay-paas?”

Hawwy nodded. “That's right. And neither would his mother. Others would have to read and write for them.”

Someone else, I mused, remembering the events of just this morning as well as the things Skywalker had said before The Cheyenne Robber and Hears The Wolf had set out, then coming back with the uniform.

“I would like to speak to Little Jonas again.”

“You can't,” Billy said. “We are not allowed to move outside this tent until morning.”

“Why?”

“Rules.”

Throwing my arms wide I shouted, “How can human beings live like this!”

Billy laughed delightedly. “There are no humans in the army. Only soldiers.”

*   *   *

I was still awake, this time standing in the tent's smaller first room, looking out through the parted door-flap, watching the sky slowly change from black to gray, then become a smear of pale blue with streaks of pink when three shots were fired, the signal to rouse the camp awake. Taking this as permission to step out of the tent and stand under the awning, I listened to the muffled groans of the soldiers as they stirred inside their little two-man tents. Then I heard Hawwy coughing. After spending so much time with him, I would have known that cough anywhere. He always made that hacking sound whenever he woke up. Why, I never knew. He just did. Returning to the sleeping chamber, I waited impatiently while Billy and Hawwy shuffled around, Hawwy still hacking while he and Billy dressed. As soon as he was clothed and coherent, I sent Hawwy off in one direction while Billy and I made for the prison tent, Billy complaining about having to go at a trot to keep up with me.

We hit a stall when the guards refused us entrance. This time, without Hawwy to persuade them, the guards were churlish and would not be swayed. One guard blithely smoked a pipe while the other relieved himself. Ever resourceful, Billy did the next best thing to a face-to-face interview with the prisoner.

He yelled.

The guards didn't much like it that, one way or another, we would speak to Little Jonas, but as there were no rules concerning visitors yelling their lungs loose, they decided to take a more proper stance. The first soldier put his pipe away while the second, after buttoning up his trousers, retrieved their guns, handing one over to the first guard. Looking official now, they stood there, rifles resting across their chests, while Billy yelled my string of questions.

“How did your mother make a letter for you?”

“She asked Mrs. Mayhew, the new lady she maids for, to do the writing.”

“And who read her letter to you?”

“Lieutenant Danny.”

“You shared your mother's letter with no one else?”

“No.”

I stood there lost in thought, trying to work out how a man like Buug-lah had come to know the information about the stolen mule when the answer came to me in a very unexpected way.

Mrs. Adams stuck her head out of her tent and did some yelling too.

“What is all this noise out here? Don't you understand that a very important woman is still asleep?”

She had more to say, mostly in regard to offensive Kiowa manners, and as she ranted, she rattled pay-paas, using them in a shooing fashion, the way one would shoo off pesky flies. Then it hit me like a bolt. Her shaking those pay-paas reminded me that Skywalker had said that pay-paas were important. Now, he could have meant only letters, but seeing what she had in her hand, I couldn't take the chance these were the only kinds of pay-paas he'd visualized. With Skywalker's cryptic visions, it's always better to be safe. Without pausing for further thought, I irritated Mrs. Adams further by ambling her way.

Well, that certainly put her in a snit. She set to telling me that it wasn't fit for a strange man to see her while she was in her sleeping dress and with her hair tied up. Actually, I thought she looked better than I'd ever seen her, but she kept insisting she, “wasn't decent.” I didn't have time to argue. Lone Wolf would be coming back to the Blue Jackets' camp bright and early the next morning to close this situation one way or the other. As what he ultimately decided largely depended on what I could or could not tell him, out of necessity I cut straight through Mrs. Adams' persistent babble.

“I see you have pay-paas there. I would like to know what kind they are.”

This direct question set her back, her eyes bulging, mouth open as she gaped at me. Finding at last her well-honed tongue she replied, “They are information pay-paas. Newwwws-pay-paas,” she said, drawing out the last words as if speaking to a slow-witted child.

“And you can read the marks on those pay-paas?”

Her mouth snapped shut and held a frown as she looked at me, one brow arched high, as if I had just delivered a terrible insult. “Well, of course I can read them. I am an educated person.”

“Could you read them to me?”

Both eyes flared. She studied me as she considered at length, then said, “Only if you fetch me a cup of coffee mixed with milk and sugar.”

Billy and I darted off.

*   *   *

Mrs. Adams truly was an educated person. When we returned with the coffee, she was more properly attired, but her hair was still tied up and a pair of clear glasses were perched on the end of her nose as she sat in her chair, reading the newsprint aloud between sips of her coffee.

I listened with rapt attention. In those pay-paas the white people gossiped about one another, and from all over their recognized country. Mrs. Adams could tell me from those pay-paas what was going on in places called, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

“Is there any news from a place called, Louis-anna?” I asked.

“What?” she barked. Then seeing that I was perfectly serious, she set her coffee cup down on the side table and began energetically rattling those pay-paas in her search through each and every page.

Finally she found something. “There's only a small note,” she said in a musing tone. Then she read: “‘Mr. T. Babcock, landowner in La Salle Parish, is offering a reward for the return or any information on the whereabouts of a blaze-faced mule. Said mule was taken from his property during the dead of night and made off with. A subsequent search of the surrounding area and share-crop shanties has not proved fruitful. Mr. Babcock has said that this has become a matter of principal far beyond the worth of the missing animal. Mr. Babcock announced that every effort will be used to secure its return. He has put any and all Rebel miscreants known to be loitering with intent anywhere near the region of La Salle Parish, on notice that their thievery will not be tolerated. Sheriff's inquiries remain pending.”

The pay-paas made a racket as her arms crushed them against her lap and she looked at me in a confused and irritated fashion. “Is that what you needed to know?”

“Yes,” I said excitedly.

“Well, I certainly don't understand,” she shrieked. “What has a carpetbagger's missing mule to do with Kiowas?”

“Excuse me?”

She leaned forward in the chair. I became captivated by her mouth as her lips seemed to form each sound of the strange word, the way her eyes, when seen through those glasses on the end of her nose seemed as large as an owl's. “Car-pet-bag-ger!”

The more she leaned forward, the farther I sat back, in a feeble attempt to get away from her, my knees drawn up to my chest, arms hugging my legs. Once she'd finished this odd word, she retreated and I was able to sit properly.

“What does this mean?” I asked. “This caa-pet-baa-ga.”

She whipped those glasses right off her face as she tore the still air with her cry of frustration. Then she was shouting at me as if I'd suddenly gone deaf. “It means an evil man from the North who steals from the poor of the South.”

“And this man stole the land the pay-paa says he owns?”

“That's exactly right.” Mrs. Adams regathered her dignity as her well-proportioned bottom wormed in the creaking chair. “It also means that the lawmen of Louisiana are not looking very hard for his stolen mule. Which is why the man is offering a reward.”

“One more question.”

“What now?” she lamented.

I licked my lips and blundered on. “Everyone reads those pay-paas?”

Once again she spoke in that gratingly sharp tone. “Yes, they do. All educated people read the monthly papers.”

I shook my head as if to clear it. “Monthly? I don't understand.”

She took a deep breath, expelled it in a heaving sigh. “Papers are…” She searched for a suitable Arapaho word. There wasn't one. She was forced to stay with English and hope I wasn't completely thick-headed. “They are printed each time the moon is full.” She lifted the pay-paas and rattled them near my face. “This is an old pay-paa. It came to me from the soldier chiefs who have all passed it among themselves.”