Sudden Country (10 page)

"Amen," said the major. "Deacon Hecate hunted and trapped the Black Hills with Carson and Bridger when there were no railroads west of Chicago. He rode with Fremont, established the first mission school in the Dakotas, and until recently ran the mission school at Standing Rock." Rudeen introduced Judge Blod and Mr. Knox. The latter asked Hecate why he left the reservation.

"I could not abide the heathen corruption of the Word."

"May I ask why you wish to return?"

"I did not say that I did."

"The Deacon requires stained glass for his windows," Rudeen explained. "They are costly."

"We are paying a dollar a day for expert services," said Mr. Knox.

"My fee is two dollars a day. I will not work on the Sabbath, and I work only for Christians."

Judge Blod said, "May I inquire as to your age?"

"Three score and eight."

"The excursion will be rigorous enough for a man of thirty," said the Judge. "I cannot foresee a man of near seventy withstanding the hardships."

Deacon Hecate extended his right hand. After a moment, the Judge grasped it. The Deacon squeezed. Judge Blod grimaced and knelt.

" 'And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him,' " said the Deacon, " 'and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand.' "

Mr. Knox said, "Point taken. If you will release the Judge before his bones are ground to meal, we will meet your price."

He did as requested. Judge Blod rose with Major Rudeen's assistance and stood kneading his hand. Said the Deacon: "I require a Christian band. I do not encourage the company of heathens."

"I cannot promise regular Sunday churchgoers," Mr. Knox replied. "I fancy we are relatively free of Aztecs and Druids."

"Sunday mornings I read Scripture. They may listen or not, each according to the condition of his soul. I will not be interrupted."

"A little Bible-reading would not harm this crew." Mr. Knox offered his hand. He was prepared for the clergyman's grip, and I saw surprise and then satisfaction pass across the old man's severe features. When the contest had ended in a draw he asked if we were outfitted.

"That is our next step," said Judge Blod, color returning to his face.

"See Sam Greenspan. His wagons are the stoutest in the territory."

"Greenspan?" Mr. Knox looked amused.

"Christians are more common than good freighters," Hecate confessed. "Tell him you come from me."

Major Rudeen led us down an alley and across a vacant lot to a fenced-in area where a number of Studebaker wagons and one massive and venerable Conestoga stood about in various stages of repair. Half a score of shaggy Percherons grazed inside a corral, the smallest of them twenty hands high with great knobby muscles in its shoulders and thighs. Greenspan, long and thin and bearded and sheathed in gray wool from collar to boots, received us in a combination office and tool room, heard our needs, perched a pair of black-rimmed pince-nez astride his thick nose to consult a ledger, and said he would have us ready two days hence. Mr. Knox asked him how much money he required.

"Since the Deacon sent you, five hundred dollars."

"How much if he had not?"

"Five hundred dollars. According to him my soul is already forfeit."

Mr. Knox paid him from the fund he and Judge Blod had created and we went out to arrange lodgings.

"Militarily, spiritually, and personally, we would seem to be fully equipped," said the Judge, after we had parted with Rudeen. "One would think we were starting a colony."

"Not without women," Mr. Knox pointed out.

"Thank the Almighty for that."

I did not take part in this exchange. Since then I have learned the folly of thanking God too soon. But I am getting ahead of myself once again.

A SINGLE STEP

I
shall not burden the reader with the details of our stay in Cheyenne: of how some of us elected to stop at the hotel while others camped out on the prairie and pocketed the sum Mr. Knox had advanced them for rooms for themselves and stabling for their horses, or of the night I accompanied Judge Blod and Mr. Knox upon a visit to the camp and heard the men tell stories around the fire of grisly Indian depredations and sing songs about Dan Tucker, Sweet Betsy from Pike, and a woman named Dora who could do remarkable things with her anatomy. I must, however, share the details of the first meeting between Deacon Philo Hecate and Ben Wedlock, for it had bearing upon what followed.

Wedlock had stabled Nicodemus and taken a room on the floor below ours. This–surprisingly, in view of the Judge's grumbling about having stood bed and board for men who did not use it–failed to endear him to Judge Blod, who accused the saloonkeeper of pretensions to leadership; although not to his face. Whatever his purpose, we encountered him in the hallway between the shower and his room as the Judge and I were escorting the Deacon downstairs from a conference with Mr. Knox. The Deacon stopped abruptly on the landing. Judge Blod and I had to pull up short behind him to avoid a collision.

"I know you, sir," declared the Deacon.

Wedlock, large and bare-legged in a clean night-shirt strained across his chest and a towel over one shoulder, eyed the clergyman without embarrassment. The saloonkeeper was tidy in his habits, a fact scarcely indicated by the ravaged condition of his face.

"You got the advantage, Reverend," he said. "Me and church couldn't make tracks on each other and parted enemies years back."

"Nevertheless we have met. Were you assigned to New York during the late rebellion?"

Something flared quickly and died in the big man's good eye. It might have been a reflection of the electric light in the hallway. "If you mean the War for Southern Independence, I wasn't. Was you at Second Manassas? If you was, I'd likely know your backside better than your face."

"I served the Union as chaplain. It was the last time I was East." The Deacon appeared unruffled by Wedlock's insinuation. "I feel it is from that epoch that I remember YOU."

"It's the eye. Last month I shuck loose from this old hag swore I was her son kilt at Shiloh."

"The man I am thinking of was your size, and light of hair and skin."

"You're barking at the wrong old dog, Parson. We never."

The Judge made perfunctory introductions. The Deacon, still chewing over Wedlock's face and figure, said, "You know the Sioux tongue?"

"You don't?"

"I made use of an interpreter at Standing Rock. The hours of the day are few enough to commit the Word to memory without wasting time on archaic languages. You understand the nature of a guide?"

"You point, we head that way."

"With speed. I shall not halt to hunt truants. You will remain at hand in the event of a parley with hostiles. I issue the orders, you follow them. That includes Knox and Blod. Am I clear?" His ice-crystal eyes fixed themselves upon the Judge.

"Reasonably so. The captain of a vessel–"

"Wedlock?"

He showed his fine teeth. "I ain't cut out for command, Padre."

"Deacon."

"Deacon it is. You call the shots with Ben's blessings. This hall's a sight drafty." He nodded at each of us and retired to his room.

"I know that man," Hecate said.

M
orning was a steely streak in the east when our party gathered on the flats north of Cheyenne. Sam Greenspan had provided us with three Studebakers with new sheets and rebuilt wheels, each with a team of four: One of these had drawers built into the rear of the box, filled with foodstuffs and cooking utensils, and was placed in the care of Ben Wedlock, who as an innkeeper claimed knowledge of the culinary art; another contained picks and shovels and, for the purposes of our guise as prospectors, an assayer's weigh-scales; the third was empty and would be used to pack the gold back to civilization, although the men were told it was for ore. Mr. Knox and I took charge of the second, and the third was left to Judge Blod, who promptly mounted to the driver's seat and propped his inflamed foot upon the edge of the footboard. He was plainly in discomfort from the dampness of the morning air and, for once, not inclined toward conversation. The men stood about with their horses, stamping their feet in the early cold.

The Deacon had exchanged his cassock and collar for a buffalo jacket with the hide out and wore a stained black hat with a two-inch brim squared over his eyes. Stovepipe boots sheathed his legs to the knees. He approached Mr. Knox and me with a spur-crashing stride that suggested not so much a younger man as an old one who would not slow down for age to catch up. He might have been charging a sinner.

"Where is Rudeen?" he demanded.

"On his way, I should imagine," said Mr. Knox. "Is anything wrong?"

"These men are armed."

"That is the idea. We did not invite them along for their skill at conversation."

"There will be time enough to issue weapons when we run into trouble. Men traveling long distances scrape up against one another. I would keep altercations at the fist-fight level. 'He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.'"

"That is not the reason." The schoolteacher raised his chin, taking his eyes out of the shadow of his wide-awake hat.

A muscle worked in the Deacon's jaw. "I've not seen this many cutthroats gathered in one place since Lincoln emptied the prisons to fulfill the 1861 enlistment. Since my back will be to them most of the way, I would draw their claws."

"Why should they mutiny?"

"Because they know as well as I that this is no prospecting expedition."

"And what is it, if not that?"

"You tell me. No man heads into that country at this late date to search for gold not yet dug."

The pair stood silent, facing each other as the sky lightened; the schoolmaster erect and immobile, the preacher-frontiersman swaying as from some awesome dynamo turning deep within his system. Mr. Knox opened his mouth to speak. The measured tread of hoofs interrupted him. Major Rudeen had arrived with his patrol.

Years later, photographs of Colonel Roosevelt attired in full Rough Rider fettle would remind me of the major as he looked that morning, riding a gray gelding at the head of two columns in coat and gauntlets, all personal ungainliness having dropped from him in the act of mounting. The troop's guidons snapped overhead. He called a halt.

"Trouble, Deacon?"

"The holy do not seek it, nor do they shrink from it." The Deacon's gaze was still on Mr. Knox. "I have called for these men to be disarmed."

Mr. Knox said, "They were hired for protection. It makes no sense."

"It does seem a curious request," said Rudeen.

"I do not make requests."

Ben Wedlock joined us. "The men are wondering when we are fixed to move out."

Mr. Knox explained the delay. Wedlock listened, took off his hat, scratched his fair head, and covered it. After a moment he reached under his coat and brought out the Remington. The major's hand twitched toward his holster flap. Wedlock spun the pistol then and offered it to the Deacon, butt foremost.

"Honest folks don't need iron when things are quiet," he said.

The Deacon accepted the weapon and handed it without looking to a man near him. This was a pale scarecrow half the Deacon's age in a Mormon hat and chesterfield. In the poor light I had thought him to be another of the Cheyenne volunteers, but I saw now that he was of a different stripe.

"This is Elder Sampson," said the Deacon, as if the question had been spoken aloud. "He travels with me. Put it in the empty wagon," he directed. "Place all the weapons there."

The man called Sampson moved off to obey. Wedlock started after him. "I'll see to it."

"I shall see to it. You are the organizers," the Deacon told Mr. Knox and the Judge, who was listening from the wagon, "but this expedition is mine. We shall talk further." He strode away briskly.

"That man has his eye on the Throne of Heaven," remarked the Judge darkly.

"He tends to seize the reins," Rudeen said. "What counts is he will bring some of you through alive."