Cry of the Hawk

“No—but you needed another man for this damned handcar,” Moser explained, trying to make the best of it. “And a hand with the repairs.”

“We’ll make it quick,” said the older man. Nels Harris was in his second summer with the Union Pacific, hired on year-round for his knowledge of telegraph that he had earned during the war. He could repair a downed wire quicker than any man out here. When word came from the last station east that the wire was down somewhere between it and track’s end, Harris was asked to go and see to it.

“Didn’t have me enough breakfast to work all day on,” Moser grumped. It was nearing sundown, and his belly hollered for supper. The muscles in his back crying out for what comfort his three blankets spread on the cold ground could give him. It was enough to wish for.

“Neither did I,” Harris replied.

It was minutes later when Artus thought he smelled wood smoke and glanced over his shoulder. Looking up-track, he sniffed the air carefully. Then figured he must be imagining things. Wanting something for his growling belly so badly that he imagined the smell of a supper fire where he would be roasting juicy hump ribs. Remembering now the crackle and spit of the red, lean meat he and Jonah would carve from the huge carcasses they had provided for the track crews. A year gone now and he still remembered the taste of that red meat on his tongue.

The mind … maybe his gnawing belly … had a way of playing tricks on a man.

They were entering a short range of low, rolling hills.

“I’ll bet next week’s wages the break is no farther than the other side of this draw,” Harris huffed.

“You’re ’bout done in, ain’t you, Harris?”

“I’m not a young, strapping lad like you no more, Moser.” The sweat clung to the tops of the whiskers on his cheeks where it beaded, each droplet catching the pinkish, orange light of sunset. “Work like this makes a man old before his—”

Above the beads of sweat, Moser watched the older man’s eyes squint with confusion, then dilate with fear. His head snapped around, gazing up-track at the faint glow of the firelight.

There was no damned good reason for a fire to be built there beside the track, up yonder a hundred yards.

“I don’t like this,” Moser muttered.

“I got a bad feeling myself,” Harris echoed quietly.

But it was as if the handcar had a rhythm all its own once they had set it into motion on the downgrade side of the series of low hills. Both men no longer pumped hard as they had been getting it upgrade. Not really pumping at all now—but the handle kept on rocking up and down as the handcar hurtled them toward the fire glowing among the shadows come here to the hills at sunset.

“Goddamn! There’s Injuns up there!” Harris shouted, his eyes now filled with horror.

Moser didn’t pump for a few moments, craning his neck around to stare at the fire, watching the black figures lope off the side of the hill atop their ponies, blotting out the glow of the fire. The flames grew higher the closer they drew.

“Stop this car!” Artus growled. He was shoving his weight against the handle, but Harris started pumping with all he had.

“Don’t do that, goddammit!” growled the older man. “We don’t stand a chance stopping this thing … getting it started again back down-track. Pump, dammit—for all you’re worth! Pump right on through ’em!”

Artus was pumping. Like nothing he had ever done—not driving spikes into rail ties or chopping wood with the double-bit axe. Artus was pumping, glancing over his shoulder, watching everything come upon him much faster than he wanted it to. Pumping that handle as the rush of cooling breeze and the huffing of the older man across the tiny car from him were blotted out with the growing crescendo of war cries.

“Pray we can shoot on past them,” Harris was saying. “Faster. Faster!”

Moser had it figured that way too. The faster they went, the sooner they could sail right on past the Indians and their fire and be on their way toward track’s end, pumping with all their might. Closer and closer to the fire and the yelling warriors and that mishmash stack of …

—the whole world was topsy-turvy. Moser was in the air, turning over and over. Catching glimpses of Harris sailing through the sundown sky as well, the handcar tipped over, keeling onto its side slowly as Artus came down in a heap among the grass and sage and graveled roadbed. Tumbling … rolling. The cries of the warriors louder now than before.

As they swirled over him, their shadows like nighthawks swooping down on a moth or other flying thing, he thought of Grass Singing. Wished he had lain with the Pawnee girl instead of Jonah. It had been so long since he had been with a woman—he could not remember how they smelled when they got aroused with him, taking his hot, hard flesh in their hands eagerly, wanting the poke as much as he.

Did Grass Singing smell like these warriors? Rancid grease on their braids. Stale sweat gone cold.