News of the World(12)

There was no point in saying anything about the gaudy and corrupt Reconstruction government running Texas, the mindless law against carrying handguns, even up here on the frontier.

Johanna listened as the Captain’s voice developed an edge. He was being insulting to the soldiers. Her eyes brightened.

Yes, very funny, said the lieutenant. He ran his eyes over everything in the wagon bed; the provisions and blankets, the little iron stove, the portfolio of newspapers, a sack of cornmeal, the sack of dimes and other coins, his shot box with the paper hulls and bird shot, a small keg of flour. He glanced at a flitch of bacon beside the wagon seat on the left side. The lieutenant regarded the flour keg and said, What’s in that?

Flour.

Very well. I suspect they’ll rescind that law here before long. I know people need sidearms to defend themselves.

Surely not, said the Captain.

The lieutenant ignored this. And you are going where?

Weatherford, Dallas, then south to Castroville and San Antonio.

Very well. A long way. Good day, sir. I wish you a safe trip.


SONS OF BITCHES, he said. You can come out now, Johanna. You can reappear like the flowers in May. They aren’t going to slap you in leg irons and throw you into a cell. He smoked his pipe as he flicked the reins. The pipe had been carved from kaolin into the shape of a man’s head and in the damp air the smoke hung unmoving so that they traveled on away from it and left it behind them hanging in the air. Johanna?

From behind him he heard, Kep-dun.

Don’t stick a knife in my back. Don’t let me hear the dreaded click of a cocked revolver hammer. Let us flounder on through life here as best we might.

Kep-dun!

She sprang lightly over the back of the driver’s seat and sat down beside him. She held the revolver in one hand between her knees. She made several signs of which he only understood one, which was “good” and the other “let loose” or “free.” Something like that. She smiled for the first time. There was no sign for “thank you.” There was no word in Kiowa for “thank you.” People should know that the one was grateful, because you know you have done something good, something commendable and there is no need to belabor the point. Kiowa is a tonal language and it sings up and down the complex verbs, and that by itself should be enough to express gratitude at being saved from the men in blue coats with the big long Army revolvers like hog’s legs on their thighs, with their coats and pants all exactly the same, which was in itself unnatural. He had faced them down and saved her. She tilted her head to one side to regard him with a bright look on her small round face.

Yes, let loose, he said. Free. He carefully took the .38 from her hand, clicked on the safety, and returned it to the left side of the seat and put the flitch over it again. She knew how to take the safety off, he thought. He smiled back at her in a rather stiff grimace.

She wrestled with the yards of unfamiliar skirts and settled herself and smiled a small, slight smile at the sepia-toned, dripping world of the Red River valley. It was more a lift of the powdery blond eyebrows than a smile. She said something in Kiowa in a happy tone. My name is Ay-ti-Podle, the Cicada, whose song means there is fruit ripening nearby. She gestured back toward the big bay saddle horse and tossed her hair back. It was as if she wanted to include Pasha in this newfound happiness.

Ah, Cho-henna, he said. He turned and looked down at her. If the officer had reached for her he had no doubt she would have cocked the revolver and shot him point-blank.

He said, Your relatives are going to be so happy to get back their sweet precious lamb.

Kep-dun! she said, brightly, and patted his bony hand.

Cho-henna, he said.

SPANISH FORT WAS a mile from the river inside a great bend. The Red River was the boundary between Indian Territory and that which was not Indian Territory. They had passed through a tangled country of short, sharp hills with knobs of stone on top of them that stood like monuments, like curtain walls. As they went on toward Spanish Fort they passed them by at walking speed and stared at them as if watching distant castles. A storm rolled up out of the northern March sky, out of the plains.

They came to the town of Spanish Fort in the late afternoon. It was also known as Red River Station and with its two names it was busy. There had been at one time some sort of defensive works here, perhaps Spanish, perhaps not, but they were long gone. The Captain held the reins taut and dodged other vehicles. Johanna at first sat in the back, far inside the bulk of the Mexican-made jorongo; she clutched it tight around her so that she was the shape of a lime kiln in bright red and black.

The Captain’s excursion wagon made sharp noises as the shafts turned on the fifth wheel beneath his feet. They locked wheels briefly with a freight wagon and it took the driver and the Captain and several bystanders to get them backed and free. Pasha sat back on his halter rope but didn’t break it. By this time the Captain was red mud to the knees. Red mud crusted the laces on his old lace-up boots. The streets were filled with layers of wood smoke as supper was now in preparation in the houses and establishments of the town.

He turned his head to look up at second stories and at the people in the second stories doing what he could not tell other than arguing and slamming the windows shut against the wind. Horse soldiers rode by in twos. The wind came running at them from the northwest at full charge and blew off people’s hats and tore at clotheslines. Town noises bit at the Captain’s nerves and so what must it be like for her? He turned to pat her on the back, thudding gently on the thick red wool. She glanced up at him with fright on her face.