Markwildyr.com, Post #235
In June of last year,
I gave readers the Prologue of my last book in the Cut Hand Series (unless
another one demands to be born) called IDES, a great grandson of Cut Hand who
bears Indian features except for startling blue eyes. Here’s a part of Chapter
1.
* * * *
Chapter 1
Approximately one year earlier, Fort Yanube, South Dakota
I went down and rolled, coming
back onto my feet in a boxer’s stance. My dad had taught me the basics, but the
sergeant was the bigger man and simply overpowered me. I got in a few licks
before some noncoms arrived and pulled us apart. My split lip stung as I smiled
at his bruised eye. He’d have to face his troops with a shiner…given him by a teenager.
Dawson shook off his
restrainers and stabbed a finger at me. “You stay away from my little girl, you
hear me, you fucking breed!”
It wasn’t the first time I’d
heard that word, nor its adjective, but it was the first time one of my dad’s subordinates
had said it aloud in my presence. I saw red as the sergeant stalked away,
muttering to himself. He was barely out of sight before someone called the men
in the vicinity to attention, and I knew my father had arrived.
“What the hell’s going on?” Major
Gideon Haleworthy demanded. His eyes registered shock when he saw me. “Ides,
what happened?”
“Disagreement, sir,” I
muttered as I picked up my scattered books, the last day of school marred by
the unexpected attack.
My father put hands on my
shoulders and spun me around. “Boy, someone’s taken a lash to you. Who was it?”
Facing me once again, he put a hand to my cheek, and I knew the quirt had left its
mark.
A bluff, weathered man with
hashmarks all over the arms of his uniform arrived. Sergeant-Major MacLaughlen.
Shortly thereafter, my dad abandoned the field to him and led me across the
parade ground to our quarters.
Ma moaned aloud at the sight
of me, her normally dark features going even duskier. “William!” she exclaimed
but bit off her questions. No doubt she knew Pa would get explanations out of
me soon enough.
He held his tongue until she
had cleaned me up and applied what stung like horse liniment before beginning
his interrogation.
“All right, son. An
explanation.”
“I dunno, Dad. He caught me
with his quirt while I had my back to him.”
“He?” Mom asked.
“Sargeant Dawson,” my pa said.
A little gasp escaped her.
“Marybell’s father?”
“That’s right, Rachel Ann, Marybell’s
father.” My dad fixed his stare on me. “And why would he do that?”
I shrugged and winced. “I
dunno. I didn’t do anything.”
“Have you been sneaking around
and seeing the girl on the sly?”
“No! Well, I shared some of ma’s
venison jerky with her a couple of times. All we did was sit up against the
back of the headquarters building and eat it.”
“And?” he prompted.
I avoided my mother’s eyes.
“And I kissed her…once.”
“Is that all?” This time it
was a demand.
“Yes, sir. I swear. And she
kissed me back, so I guess she liked it.”
“Has Sargeant Dawson warned
you away from his daughter?”
I winced at the recollection.
“Just today…after the dustup.” I shot a glance ma’s way. “Called me a breed.”
“Meet my eyes, Ides, and swear
what you’ve told me is true.”
I swung my blue orbs to meet
his. “I swear it, Pa. I just kissed her…once.”
“And you didn’t force her?”
“No, sir.”
“I believe you, William. Now
you leave everything to me. No payback, do you understand?”
When Major Gideon Haleworthy
called me “William,” I knew he meant business. Normally, he used my nickname of
Ides, like everyone else on post.
“Yes, sir, I understand. Not
sure he does, though. If…”
“You leave Sergeant Dawson to
me. This might be a good time for a visit to your grandfather at Teacher’s
Mead,” he suggested. “You can catch tomorrow morning’s train to Mead’s Crossing.”
“Gideon!” my ma exclaimed. “He’ll
miss his graduation ceremony tomorrow night.”
This had been the last day of
school for me…maybe forever. I’d earned the credits I needed to graduate the
post’s school. Hang the ceremony, just give me my diploma. But I kept my mouth
shut and took in the haunted look of my father’s eyes.
“I’m, sorry, Rachel Ann, but I
think it’s better to take the train.”
“I’d rather go to Turtle
Crick,” I said.
“Easier to face your Uncle
John than Grandfather Cuthan?”
“It’s not Grandpa Cuthan,” I
said, “as much as it’s everyone else. There’s a host of people at Teacher’s Mead.
Heck, it’s a whole town now. But it’s just Uncle John and Ethan at Turtle
Crick. Besides, maybe they’ll give me a job.”
“For the summer,” Ma put in. “I
want you in college this fall.”
“But I need to find something
till then,” I said, not really agreeing. “And if they don’t have anything for
me, there’s the Liberty Ranch right next door. Dexter and Libby might need
help.
“All right,” my father agreed.
He started to leave, but I halted
him with a question. “What are you going to do to him…the sergeant, I mean?”
“If he’s honest and forthright
in answering for his actions, I’ll take his stripes and transfer him.”
“But you won’t cashier him?”
“Let’s get this straight, Ides.
I’ll not take any action because of his assault of my son. What he’ll answer
for is viciously attacking someone on an Army post. He’ll pay, but not with his
career. That would not be fair to his wife and daughter. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir. Uh, can I take
Stelle with me to Turtle Crick? She’s out of school too. And I know she’d like
to see Uncle John and Ethan.”
Gideon Haleworthy glanced at Mother.
She nodded. “All right, if Estelle wants to go, she’s free to do so. But that
puts a rein on how long you stay. Be back here in a week.”
“Two weeks. That’s not too
long, is it?” I asked. “Especially, if I get a job.”
A look of sorrow claimed my
father’s features as he nodded. “Two weeks for both of you unless you find work.
But you bring Estelle home, regardless.”
I knew that look. I’d seen it
all my life. He loved my mother, and he loved me…us, but life had taken dark
twists and turns before we came to live in the commandant’s lodging at Fort
Yanube. We’d lost my little brother, Gabe, to a sniper’s bullet when some land grabbers
shot at Uncle John and struck my five-year-old brother instead. To the rest of
them, Gabe was dead. But he was constantly with me. I experienced his presence,
heard his thoughts, and took comfort in our bonding. He was often the voice of
reason in my world.
And while my father liked and
respected my mother’s brother, Gideon Haleworthy was never able to truly
reconcile himself to John Strobaw’s deviant nature. While that was of no consequence
to the tribal side of our family, it went against the grain of the wasicun…the
white men. Although admittedly, the attitude of the conquerors had negatively
affected the acceptance of Two Faces by many of the tribes.
But my pa’s big problem was
me. My mother, half Yanube and half white, was born of Cuthan Strobaw—known to
the People as Dog Fox—and Mary Jacobsen Strobaw at Teacher’s Mead some
forty-three years ago. Pa was pure Boston Irish, so I should have been an eighth
blood, yet my features were as Indian as Uncle John’s…or even Grandfather
Cuthan’s, save for eyes as blue as my father’s. Growing up on an army post
during the recent Indian Wars had proved a demanding task.
Yet, here I was, all of eighteen-years-old—or
eighteen winters, as the tribal members of my family tolled time—an Army brat just
graduated from the post’s school. To my father, with his yellow hair—now
beginning to gray a bit—and fair features, it likely seemed I was a
troublemaker. Yet, in truth, it was trouble that sought me.
As the son of an officer—and
now the commandant—of the post, no one could actually shun me, the most severe
punishment tribesmen can inflict on their brethren, but the slights were there.
Always there. In time, most of the mothers and fathers of the troop grew
accustomed to me to the point I was tolerated, but the army was a restless
environment. A trooper here today was transferred tomorrow, so I constantly
faced strangers unaccustomed to a dusky face in their social midst. I sometimes
shuddered to think what my life on an Army fort would have been like had my
father not been a commissioned officer.
Actually, I didn’t have to
wonder. All I had to do was to look at the children of our two Indian scouts.
They didn’t live on post, of course, but they were around often and treated
with disdain by most of their white peers. They couldn’t go to our school or participate
in post life in any way. No law against it, except the law of human nature—or
more precisely, the law of the white human nature. I found the native children
more pleasant and venturesome than my schoolmates. Yet, they, too, were
withholding of their social intimacy. After all, I was different from them, as
well. My blue eyes were as unnatural to them as my cheekbones were to the white
children.
Racism is hell,
isn’t it? Ides lives in two worlds and isn’t sure which one he belongs in. But
it seems to me he’s more comfortable in Medicine Hair’s environment on the
farm. Nonetheless, he may prove to be a wanderer.
All the Cut Hand
series books, as well as some others, are available from JMSBOOKS.
Website and blog: markwildyr.com
Email:
markwildyr@aol.com
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Twitter: @markwildyr
Now my
mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing.
You have something to say, so say it!
See you later.
New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.
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