Tucker’s Grove by Kevin J. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

thanks to the cruel knives of the bloodthirsty Sioux. I will ask him to believe that the souls of hundreds of American s o ldiers now wander aimlessly and in anguish because the doors of heaven are closed to them.
    A civilized man will not believe me.
    He hasn ’ t seen Kenner.
    Nor has he seen Darby ’ s murdered body within the security of Fort Pease, with the heavy doors ripped apar t and bullet holes from Darby ’ s pistol dotting the walls… and not one man at the Fort having heard a sound all night long. Nor does he have Barrett ’ s flag-wrapped body here beside him on the deck of a haunted boat in the middle of the night. Barrett ’ s eyes were torn out, maybe so he couldn ’ t see his own blood spilling over the deck rail into the quiet river. His gleaming spectacles remained completely untouched on his face, as if for an ironic joke. T o morrow, when the Far West reaches Bismarck, they are goin g to give Barrett a full military burial.
    Put a man through all this, I say, and then ask him to be obje c tive about the savages.
    I took Darby ’ s tomahawk with me to give to his sister as a keepsake, if ever I see her, and if I survive. I have my pistol load ed at my side, but it gives me no comfort, because I r e member that Darby ’ s pistol did him no good in Fort Pease. Kenner still got him.
    I am sweating.
    On the riverbanks, all the insects suddenly stifle their sounds, extinguished like a fire. The river fails to make any sound against the Far West . The quietly snoring troopers on the steamer ’ s deck cease to breathe.
    Kenner has drawn a curtain of night silence around us, to she l ter himself from any prying eyes.
    A loud thump strikes the deck behind me, as of something heavy settling there.
    “ Your turn, Edgerton.” Kenner says.
    ³
    “ The nightmares of children are as nothing compared to the nightmares of men… and at times even the nightmares of men pale before reality.”
    — Lieutenant Edgerton ’ s journal
     
    June 27, 1876: Regarding the explanation of Walter Tucker ’ s death, as told by Lieutenant Edgerton, “ Purely conjecture, and purely preposterous!” — evaluation by Montana State Histor i cal Society, written in red ink.
    They stared at each other, quivering like pudding as the afte r shocks of terror ran through them and then vanished. Tucker looked at Barrett, Darby, and Edgerton — the four of them had survived. Many of the other men were weeping. The Sioux had fought for mos t of the following day and then, after setting the prairie afire, they took their women and children and departed.
    Brigadier General Terry ’ s rescue column arrived the next morning, too late to do much more than help find and bury the mutilated dead. Custer ’ s entire Seventh Cavalry lay among those dead, but Tucker was hard-pressed to consider himself “ fortunate.”
    All fighting had stopped, but the place still felt like a battlefield. Dry grass moved in the silence, implying the existence of a breeze, although the hot sun denied it. Flies and stench hung in the sluggish air as hundreds of bodies began to bloat. General Terry ’ s men were appalled; when they bedded down for the night, many of them tried to sleep with their noses on the wet river bank to distract t hem from the smell. Terry had offered a hundred dollar bonus to any volunteer willing to carry a me s sage downstream to the Far West , asking Captain Marsh to prepare to receive casualties.
    “ I ’ m going to see if I can find his body.” Tucker said. He had rinse d his mouth with fresh water again and again, but still the hot coppery taste of stolen blood clung to his tongue.
    “ Who?” Edgerton asked.
    Barrett scowled at him. “ Who the hell do you think?”
    “ You weren ’ t too anxious to go looking for him two nights ago, Tu cker,” Darby remarked.
    “ Well, neither were you!”
    “ Let him go. If he can ’ t find Kenner, maybe we ’ ll help look,” Barrett said.
    “ I, for one, don ’ t know if I can