Chapter 3

On holidays when his father was home he put Y to bed. Often he read out of a James Copper adventure book, or out of an old collection of gothic poetry. One night, however, he had pursued an illustrious mood after dinner with sherry, and felt compelled to tell Y a story from the war, something Y's mother normally forbid.

The story was about a soldier his dad knew who kept getting up to fight no matter what happened to him. He had lost his arm in cannon fire, but used the other to fire his pistol. His legs became useless when bullets splintered their bones, yet he crawled forward along the abatis undeterred. At last his head flew off in a skirmish, though his mindless limbs slashed his saber, felling two injun before succumbing to a well-earned death. His father said that the man's will alone propelled his fight and wondered drunkenly what will might do for himself.

"Whatever you hear in life know this," his father said, "you can never overestimate a creature's will to survive."

The next day after his father had gone out to push around snow his mother, who's illness then was still before her, came to Y and consoled him.

"Your father thinks he is teaching you important lessons," she said. "He acts like you will be a soldier too, but I won't allow that."

Of course Y had prickled. "What if I mean to? I could be a hell of a mean soldier!"

"Language! See what your father puts in your head! It is well to love him, but you must not mimic him. He belongs to himself only, and isn't wont to be parceled out or divied up like a birthday cake. The whole of him is in you, but so is all of me. It won't be my son swinging swords without a head. Though in you I suppose it wouldn't make much of a difference head attached or no."

They laughed at that together and she had smoothed his hair with her long fingers and kissed him on his forehead.

When he thought of her, that was how he pictured her. He saw as the beautiful woman who made him laugh, who made light of the imperious shadow of his father. Who made his father loveable.

He looked about him now at the arrangement of strangers and felt pangs of homesickness throbbing all through him. The memory had hit him as he passed through the threshold of a small isolated cabin in the timber. Beyond the trees stretched a sea of pasture and field. Beyond that, he knew not where he was.

The woman before him did not look like his mother, nor any lady he had ever seen. She was dirty and plain and dressed like a man. Her hair was ropy and thick as mud, same color too, and it ran down the back of her head like a single sheet of fabric. Her eyes were the prettiest thing about her, bright blue and pale, set back into the ruddy shade of her skinny face. Next to her stood a lanky man taller than everyone present save for the giant Wynchell. The man had orange-blonde hair like Dean's, though his was longer and straighter. He wore a simple outfit of cotton shirt and woolen pants but across his waist gleamed a studded gunbelt, clasped with an ornate buckle with an intricate silver print.

They both stared at Y as if he was an ancient enemy of theirs.

"What in the hell is this?" the woman wanted to know. "Dean Hollis you are become mad. Or just an idiot. Or both!"

"I must say Hannah, your charms are unsurpassable. Y, that banshee right there is my girl, Hannah. Next to her is my only living brother, Wilton. We call him Will."

"You can't be serious," Will said. "What are we supposed to do with him?"

"Nothing," Dean laughed. "He's a smart kid. All on his own. He's headed to Deerhead and we're going to help him."

"Goddammit, Dean! That don't make a lick of sense! What are you gonna do when he gives us all away?" Hannah barked.

"He won't give us away because he don't know nothing the general public don't already know bout us. We're in all the papers by now. Besides, he likes us. He came with of his own free will. Didn't you?"

They were all looking at him now. His stomach lurched and knotted up with nerves. "I suppose so. I meant to take the train to Deerhead."

"His daddy's fighting Indians," Dean explained. "We're headed that way, ain't we? Why shouldn't we give Y a hand? He'll be protected, fed and paid. Meantime we got an extra body to help with jobs. What's not to like?"

"It's reckless, for one," Will said.

"Don't talk to me about recklessness. You're the man who brought dynamite to that bank job in Alabaster. We wouldn't even be here if not for that."

"We wouldn't a gotten into that safe neither."

"Maybe I can just head to town? One of you can give me a ride?" Y shoved his hands in the pockets of his cotton jacket. He was embarrassed that so much drama should revolve around him.

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"Is that what you want, Y?" Dean looked heartbroken.

"There's a town bout five miles southwest of here," said Percy, who had been quiet up to now. "Wynchell and I could take ya."

"I don't want to be the cause of trouble," Y said, still looking at Dean.

In turn, Dean looked from Hannah to his brother. "No trouble. Right Will? Hannah?"

"Fine."

"No trouble. But I'm not cleaning up after him."

"Y, give us a chance. Give me a chance. I think this life is calling you. Perhaps I was meant to find you. Oh. Here's your gun back. And...your share from the train job."

He handed Y his father's peacemaker and with that a handful of bills. Y counted ten dollars. He had to stop himself from squealing. "I thank you, but what did I..?"

"You're one of us now, far as I'm concerned. Everyone else, let's count the rest of this up. Then we eat and drink. I'm starving."

"Go ahead into the kitchen, Dean," said Hannah, "you can count at the table. I've got a good stew on."

"...in accordance with all the above guidelines and bylaws of the Organization and in due harmony with the adjunct Principles of Warfare we of the Defunct Officer Guild do hereby grant admittance and membership to the good Captain. Let he who disapproves of the selection be reminded of the appeals process, and let he who disavows the personage applicant also be remanded to the same. Let us now break bread in celebration, and give tonight the honor we seek out tomorrow."

The speaker was a tall Englishman with a bushy black mustache called Wales. Where he was once an officer of the Royal Army many wars ago, he was known in America and by his men as a former major during the Civil conflict since driven to the Western verge after escaping the martial court. His crime was insubordination bordering on the traitorous, but he denied the charge. To him, a soldier fought by a creed not bound to Law nor Country. And so he established his guild for such soldiers as himself.

The new recruit was a middle-aged veteran of the Indian Wars found half-consciously staggering out of the Montana wilderness. When Sass picked him up he thought for sure the man would die. Judging by the yellow chevrons and shoulder boards, Sass had informed Major Wales that he was overseeing the death of a Captain of the U.S. Calvary.

But the Captain did not die. He had sustained puncture and slash wounds across his back and one Glasgow slice along his neck. His right knee had been nearly shattered by buckshot, yet it endured. The Captain was slow to speak, but when he did he told an ubelievable tale of a sure, all-encompassing defeat.

"We were retreating," he told them, "running for our lives, scrambling to establish a new defensive position downriver...but it didn't happen. It couldn't. Forget that we were outnumbered, there was a storm like none other upon us. A tempest it was. A fury unequaled."

"Jimmy," Sass said in a low voice. Wales was pulled aside. "He's talking about Ixopaw."

Sass was a Buffalo soldier, one of the old guard. Even ardent white men respected them, and the Indians feared them. All but the Ixopaw. And Sass said the Buffalo Soliders feared nothing but the Ixopaw. They existed on either side of a scale, he explained once.

"He's talking Ixopaw, but he means New Attica. Goldhunter. Wonder that. Let your mind run with the idea a moment..." Major Wales was resolved to make the Captain join up.

And now that he had the Major could begin unspooling his more ambitious plans. The D.O.G. was indeed as beholden to wealth and resources as anybody else. They needed gold. They sought glory.

The celebration took the form of a night of drinking, song and chili. Quartermaster Porter made a mean chili with peppers and tomatoes he kept preserved from his Texas days.

The old Fort Labrador was noisier than most nights. Livelier than most nights.

Wales sat the Captain between Sarsparilla and himself at the long table at the head of the mess hall. Beer flowed from large barrels bought in from Henry and carried by mule-pulled wagons.

"How do you like it?" Wales asked the Captain.

He took a drink and smacked his lips. His demeanor seemed forced and stiff. "I like it fine. Thank ye."

"That's a Mexican brew. Far north as you'll get it. El Mano del Diablo, Lieutenant Guerrero, my old friend, his brother runs the saloon in Henry. The brew is his father's recipe."

"He was a glorious drunk!" El Mano declared.

The hall erupted with laughter.

"Thank God for that, yeah?" said the Major.

"I'm a wino, myself," muttered Sass, smoking a cigar.

"The Captain's arrival is a good sign for us, lads," said Wales, standing up. "We are lucky to have him. Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

The Major sat down again and Sass handed him two cigars. He lit his own and held the other out for the Captain.

"Thank ye." He leaned forward to let the Major light his for him.

"You're in a good place now, soldier. I want you to know that."

"I appreciate all you're doing for me. I am humbled. But I serve the United States Army and I aim to report back at Fort Lincoln."

"Of course you do," said Major Wales, avoiding a glare from Sass. "And we'll help you see to that. But we got work in New Attica that you can help us with."

"You can come to the fort and join up. They'll see you get to New Attica. You can get struck down by the thunderbird, or scalped, or gutted, or beheaded."

The Major cleared his throat and was quiet. Everyone was happy when the chili came.

Some time after dinner, and a few more tumblers of beer, the Major was conciliatory towards the Captain, and made clear his intentions to aid the Captain's journey back to his superiors.

He was careful to point out that a short and quick route tracked through New Attica, and why wouldn't the Captain wish to help him out of convenience when the D.O.G. was so proud and honored to have helped a Captain of the 7th? After all, how many of the Captain's fellows could claim the same?

Ah, how many indeed.