Cry of the Hawk

He turned away suddenly, unable to go on, the last words choked with bile. Angrily he wheeled and kicked dirt into the last grave, then spun again and set off toward the cabin.

It was long after they had started out, on foot, south toward Fort Smith, that Jonah finally felt like he could talk again. The sky had cleared the last two days, and winter’s cold had gripped the land with an unrelenting hold. Their breath formed frosty streamers behind them as they moved along at a brisk pace, not only to cover ground, but to keep warm as well.

“Someone’s gonna have to prove to me they’re dead. You put your daddy in the ground—so you know he’s dead. Me—I ain’t got none of that. Not for the children. Not for Gritta.”

“Don’t have to explain it to me, Jonah. Just tell me why we’re headed south. I figured we’d be heading west, into Kansas where them Yankee jayhawkers always came from before.”

“No, not this time,” he shivered with the cold. “We’re going someplace else.”

“The Nations?”

Jonah stopped, dragging Moser to a halt. “How’d you know?”

Artus shrugged. “You said it there at the graves—about the Nations.”

Then Jonah remembered. “Yeah. I gotta watch that—getting angry and spilling things like that. Always done it.”

“Why there?”

“I figure that’s the best place to start looking.”

Moser wagged his head as they started walking again, both grown cold from the standing. “Still don’t get it. You must have a good reason to wanna—”

“Boatwright told me.”

“Told you what? When did he tell you anything like that? You gotta be getting crazy about this—”

“I’m not crazy!” Hook growled. “Boatwright told me while you was pulling out the clothes for us. Whispered to me that he had good information that was give to him—about that bunch come through here end of last summer. They was talking about heading south and west into the Nations.”

Moser smiled slowly. “Shit, Jonah—if that don’t beat all! This pair of country boys got us something to track now!”

“I don’t believe I heard what you said, Sullivan,” growled Boothog Wiser at the man standing ten feet off as the entire guerrilla camp fell to silence around them.

Mike Sullivan glanced about him for a moment, then drew his shoulders back. “I said: you don’t always got first right to every woman we take.”

“That’s what I thought you said.” Wiser shuffled over to stand beside the frightened dark-skinned Creek woman they had captured earlier that spring morning.

April was half gone, and the men sensed the warmth in their blood, making them randy and ready to mount the first female they had come across after pulling out of the streamside camp, riding on into the timbered mountains in the foggy eastern stretches of Indian Territory. Boothog himself had grown weary of a long and cold winter. And the nigger girl.

They had left her body somewhere back among those limestone caves.

Now Wiser became acutely aware of the way the men stared at his left boot, which concealed the deformed foot. Whenever he caught a man staring, they looked away quickly, almost ashamed. More so afraid.

“Whenever you’re ready to take over, Sullivan—just let me know. I’ll step aside, you think you’re man enough to be second in command to Colonel Usher.”

Wiser slowly stepped behind the frightened, trembling young woman, her broad nose and thick lips betraying her mixed blood. Creek Creole. Black slave blood tainting the Indian purity, he thought, as he ran his hand down the curve of her neck, pushing aside her dress so that he could feel along her smooth shoulder the color of milk and coffee. As he did it, his left hand slipped unseen to the inside pocket he had sewn into his wool mackinaw.

Sullivan appeared buoyed by the clear hostility for Wiser he believed he saw some of the other men show. He took a step forward.

“I figure I’m ready to tell you to step aside, Major. I’m man enough to take over from you—and the rest of the men figure you’ve had too long a turn at the reins on us.”

“They do?” Boothog asked, not looking up, content still to stroke the young woman’s bare shoulder, sensing her shudder with his caress. Like a frightened bird in the palm of his hand … the way he remembered it as a boy, before crushing the life from the tiny bird, sensing the strong muscles and bone resist his grinding crush in those last seconds of fight.

“Go ’head—tell him, fellas.” Sullivan looked from side to side at the rest, almost twenty strong now, and more gathering, curious. Wiser had a few out scouting. “You got tongues—tell the major he’s done and I’m the one to take over for him.”

Wiser looked up. “This true, gentlemen? You all are of one mind with Mr. Sullivan here?”

None of them spoke. Most could not hold Wiser’s gaze as he touched each one of them with his hard, cold eyes.

“You said for me to tell you.” Sullivan took another step closer to Wiser. “Move aside if you don’t want to get hurt.”

“How do you figure I’ll get hurt, Sullivan?”