A Good Man (50 page)

He and a handful of other officers do their best to stop the fleeing troops. But the men rush by them, frantically casting aside muskets, ammunition pouches, knapsacks. In the blink of an eye, Garrison Road looks as if a military supply wagon had overturned an spilled its goods. Booker gallops by, bucketing from side to side in the saddle, shouting his final order. “Port Colborne! Port Colborne. Make for Colborne!” His staff takes after him on foot.

Rooted in the powdery dust of the country road, he stares back over the ground so hard won and then so easily lost, sees the Fenians moving to the right to harass the Highlanders who had been sent up to relieve the Queen’s Own and who are making a fighting retreat, kilts swinging, bagpipes dolefully droning. Elsewhere, the Irish are driving militiamen through the fields, their retreat marked in the newly sprouted crops.

The debacle is complete. His company is gone, blown away like leaves in a November wind. Dependable Hardisty is gone. Stoical Jimson is gone. Except for the wounded tottering by, he is alone. A militiaman hops along on one leg, dragging the other behind him. Four brave souls hitched to a farmer’s buggy loaded with seriously wounded rattle by. One of them shouts a warning. “You best fly, sir. In twenty minutes the bogtrotters will be down on you when they’re finished with the Highlanders.”

He swings around to face Port Colborne and the comet-tail of the rout, determined to retire with dignity, at a walking pace. But once the enemy is at his back, his stride proves to have a mind of its own. It lengthens. Then it becomes a trot; next he is running, pounding the turnpike like he had pounded the cinders of the racetrack of his old school in the days he had won ribbons for his turn of speed. He overtakes the men hauling the buggy of gravely wounded, races by those sitting numbly in the road, legs collapsed under them, past those retching and shuddering in the ditches, done in by heat prostration.

The heat throbs in his temples, stitches his side, burns his lungs and mouth. The road begins to slither in his eyes and he falls, lies grinding his cheekbone ferociously into the clay.

When he sits up he notes a narrow country lane intersecting the road on his right, bordered by two rows of elms that meet above it in an arch of leaves. It has to lead to some farmstead, to water. He staggers down it, the sound of birdsong trickling down on his head. At the end of the lane stands a small house of yellow brick, surrounded by outbuildings, chicken coops, and a pigsty. Walking into the yard, he shouts a salute to the house. There is no reply. A flock of hens pecking a pile of horse dung by a well squawk and scatter when he approaches. A dented tin cup sits on the well cover. He pumps himself six cupfuls of icy water, gulps them down one after another until his forehead and teeth ache. Ducking his head under the spout, he sends a gush of water over his hair and neck, flicks his head back and forth trying to clear the havoc and confusion of the past hour from his head.

He sees Pudge lashed to the birch.

The farmhouse radiates emptiness and abandonment. Still, a family might be cowering inside, fearful of Irish pillagers. He gently taps on the door. Again, no response. He lifts the latch, calls a diffident hello into a mudroom reeking of sour milk and cow manure. Nothing. He eases into the kitchen.

The family has bolted. The breakfast dishes are still on the table, bacon rinds and congealed egg yolk on plates, cold coffee in mugs, a jar of strawberry jam unsealed, several flies trapped in its stickiness, a heel of brown bread lying on the table. He spoons the jar clean of jam, and swallows the bread sockly he chokes several times.

Going back to the mudroom, he rifles through the work clothes hanging there, trousers spattered with cow shit, threadbare shirts laundered so often their red-and-blue plaids have faded to pale remnants of colour.

His mind is focused on Pudge. To reach him, he will have to pass through the enemy lines. That attempt would best be made in the guise of a civilian. Exchanging his uniform for farmer’s clothing, he lays out tunic, trousers, and shako on the kitchen table, and places his sword alongside them, his pledge the farmer’s clothes will be returned. He tucks his revolver into the waistband of his pants and leaves his shirttails hanging out to keep it concealed. But if he requires a disguise, so does Pudge. He finds a pair of coveralls, stuffs them into a milk pail, and covers them with chickenfeed from a sack in the corner of the mudroom.

This time he keeps to the countryside, hoping to avoid the Irish troops moving up the road. Then a half mile into his journey he encounters a platoon of Irish soldiers, coursing the fields like hunting dogs. Caught in the open, he simply stops dead in his tracks and gapes, his impression of a rustic stunned by the sight of invaders. They are a tough-looking crew, broad shouldered and barrel chested, men who look like they’d been swinging picks since infancy.

When they question him as to what he is doing and where he is going, he shows them the pail and whines out, “All the ruckus scared off my milk cow. She ain’t been milked this morning, her bag will be about to burst. I got to lure her to me with these here oats.”

One of them says, “Yours isn’t the only cow we scared this morning. A whole herd of them took one look at us, bawled, and took fright. There wasn’t a bull in the whole lot of them. Nothing but steers and heifers.”

There are guffaws and whoops. They wait belligerently for a response. He grins sheepishly, awkwardly, rubs his chin as if struck dumb. It is the tribute they demand. Satisfied, they slope off with a final warning. Take yourself home. The Irish army is mopping up and you might catch yourself a minié ball.

He trudges on until he comes parallel to the crossroads on Garrison Road where Booker had met disaster. The Irish army appears to have turned it into a mustering point; it is plugged with soldiers. Amidst all this bustle, a civilian in their midst will likely be assumed somebody else’s problem or responsibility; with any luck he should be able to pass unmolested through the crowd, reach the other side of the road, and head for the spot where he left Pudge.

Many of the Irish are cooking; a haze of smoke floats in the air. Patrols are herding new captives to join those already sitting morosely under guard. Three men drive a herd of plough horses pried from the hands of local farmers into a rope corral. There is singing and laughter. A green-uniformed soldier trundles a cask of beer on a wheelbarrow, plunder from some roadside tavern.

Screwing up his courage, he moves down among the enemy troops. Soldiers bake bread dough twisted around ramrods, bacon spits in frying pans, potatoes roast in hot ashes. Men play cards on blankets spread on the ground. The atmosphere is curiously peaceful and domestic. No one gives him a second look. He spies a group of Irish officers astraddle the road, conferring on inal wback. Dipping his head, he tries to sidle by them, unnoticed. Then behind him he hears someone call out, “You there! Halt!”

Slowly, he turns and faces the officers. One wears a good deal more gold braid on his uniform than the others, a fine figure of a man with a full auburn moustache that gives proof of careful cultivation and grooming. “You there, suffering Jesus, what are you doing traipsing your arse around here!”

“Looking for my milk cow. The commotion scared it off,” he says, working up a humble, conciliatory smile.

His questioner crosses his wrists on the pommel of his saddle. “The man is looking for his cow, Captain Maloney,” he says disdainfully. “Here, gentlemen, is a stellar example of the Anglo-Saxon character. They care for nothing but property, property, and, once again, property. They are a people devoid of spiritual feelings or exalted sentiments. They swallow defeat like a cup of warm milk and go looking for their cow.” Then he adds, “But perhaps I must correct myself. This one must think he is under the special care of the angels to go cow-hunting on a day such as this.”

There is a burst of laughter from the Irish officers. “Well put, General O’Neill,” says one of them.

O’Neill demands to know where he has come from.

“Back up the road.”

“And
up the road
where you come from – are the Canadians regrouping there?”

“No.”

“And if they were, would you tell me?”

“Not in a month of Sundays.”

The General smiles down at him patronizingly, eases back in his saddle, stretches his legs against the stirrups. “An honest man at least.” He gestures to his officers. “Has anyone of you anything with which to write?”

One of them passes him a notebook and pencil. O’Neill lays the notebook on his thigh, swiftly scribbles something, rips off the page, and hands it to him. “There,” he says, “I’ve written you a pass. If anyone interferes with you, show him that. The Irish Republican Army demonstrates the utmost solicitude towards civilians. It is a point of pride with us to conduct ourselves at all times in such a fashion as to shame those mercenaries who serve the Queen of England for pay.” He waits for thanks. “Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

“Yes, I can look for my cow.”

O’Neill scornfully waves him off. “Yes, yes, go look for your cow. Be quick about it. Do not clutter the premises.”

Case veers off Garrison Road and makes for the copse where he had imprisoned Pudge, a blurry green smudge in the early-afternoon heat. The ground it had taken the Queen’s Own hours to win he navigates in ten minutes. Outside the wood he listens for any sound that would suggest the enemy’s presence, but all is quiet and still. He slips into the trees, proceeding gingerly, careful not to disturb any deadfall, stopping to cock an ear for voices or movement ahead. All he hears are bird cries, the faint rustling of leaves. On the edge of the glade, he crouches behind a bush, puts his hand to the revolver butt, and studies the scene. The sun glares in the clearing. And there is Pudge Wilson, his back to him, still bound.

One thing is not as he remembers it. The body of the Irishman is gone; a whorl of matted grass marks where it had lain. His breath snags in his throat. He rises, steals forward, addressing the bowed shoulders in a loud whisper, “Pudge? Pudge?”

His eyes run round the circumference of the glade, flick over the black trunks, the dark scramble of underbrush, catch the glint of the Irish soldier’s button, nested in the grass where the body had lain. Turning back to Pudge, seeing how the lanyard has sawed deep into the flesh of his wrists, Case hurries forward.

What greets him is impossible to absorb. First, the slaughterhouse stench of blood, shit, and tallow. Then the swarm of yellow jackets that the smell has attracted. They bead Pudge’s bloody lips and form a quivering, chaotic halo above his head. A cloudy film floats on his blank eyes. His jaws are cracked wide as if he is still screaming. A drapery of intestines falls to his knees, spilling from a belly ripped from crotch to breastbone, and yellow jackets, drunk on the odour of freshly butchered meat, are parading there.

His attempts to compose the body, to close Pudge’s jaws, to scoop his vitals back into the yawning cavity, enrage the insects. They settle on every inch of his exposed skin, stinging him, lighting him up with darts of pain. He does not flinch from their attacks. He does not flinch when he frees Pudge from his bonds and the weight of his lifeless embrace sags them both to the ground. He does not flinch when a cupful of blood empties from Pudge’s mouth and baptizes him with a slick caul. All he wants is to walk the two of them away from this, back to the moment when a petulant, rash decision was made so he can undo it. But despite his best efforts, Pudge will not walk, cannot be made to walk. He is extinguished.

Case watches as the storm advances. Sheet lightning convulses the horizon. Paroxysms of greenish-yellow light flicker in his eyes; there is a laboured, hollow groaning from the belly of the sky.

There is no shaking the one he left behind. He is sure that is the message of the thunder.

TWENTY-THREE

FOR SEVERAL DAYS IN
Fort Benton, the subject of most casual street-corner talk is the strange thunderstorm that had broken unexpectedly over the town so late in the season. But then another distraction rumbles down Front Street, an impressive convoy of Murphy wagons, flanked by a contingent of cavalry. In a matter of hours, the news is all over town that one General Alfred Terry is in command of the wagon train and he is headed for Fort Walsh to open peace negotiations with Sitting Bull.

When Case hears of this, it does not come as a complete surprise. Two months before, Ilges had informed him that vague rumours were circulating among the officer class that the United States government was about to form a commission to open talks with the Sioux. Immediately, Case had contacted Walsh to find out what he knew of this, and received a short, testy reply from the Major. “Nothing. But I have been ordered to stand ready to round up the Sioux and bring them in to talk – if this goddamn thing ever materializes.” For many weeks, Case heard nothing more concerning this. The flight of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce from Oregon, the anxiety and fear aroused by their presence in Montana was the chief preoccupation of everyone on the frontier.

Now, however, the notion of an overture to the Sioux has been resuscitated. What Ilges refers to as the Terry Commission has been given the responsibility of treating with Sitting Bull. What exactly the commission’s mandate is, Ilges does not know, but he presumes that Terry has been asked to extend the olive branch to the Sioux.

Case has his suspicions, however. Months of intricate diplomatic manoeuvring on the part of the United States, Canada, and Britain have to have prompted this step. A meeting between Terry and Sitting Bull could not have been engineered without the blessing and cooperation of all three governments. What he cannot see is how any outcome can please all three parties concerned. In his opinion, it is highly likely that the Americans will settle for nothing short of total submission on the part of Sitting Bull. Only the return of the Sioux to American territory will satisfy British and Canadian expectations. As for the Indians, he is certain that the best they can hope for is to gather a few paltry crumbs swept off the negotiating table.