I woke up. Looked around and did not recognize the place where I was sleeping. Windows in this place were from floor-to-ceiling with gauze-like curtains pulled back with ties on golden lion’s heads. The floors were wide planks burnished to a honey gloss that must have taken years to achieve. The furniture were all antiques – beautiful mahogany, cherry and Birds-eye maple that must have been the original furnishings of the Great House.
There were landscapes on the soft rose-colored walls – originals and not prints. The walls were painted, not wallpapered and the room smelled of honey and beeswax. From the open window, I caught the pleasant scent of fresh cut grass and horses.
I turned my head. My muscles felt weak and I had no idea how long I had resided in that place, the bed, or the bedroom.
I had an IV in my hand bringing fluids, another in my stomach which grossed me out. Someone had cut a hole into my belly, stuck in a tube that was attached to a machine running in the corner. Its slow swishing sound was a metronome I had heard in my dreams,
There was another tube in my peter, draining pee into a bag hanging discretely beneath the bed. A hospital bed with a crinkly mattress. I knew what that was for. For a brief time after we’d left my Dad, I had suffered from night terrors and wet my bed. Mom had bought me a mattress cover that kept the pee from soaking through. She’d also picked up some pull-ups for me, letting me choose whether or not to wear them. Thankfully, the episodes had been less than a month long.
I was wearing diapers now, under a pair of sweats that were plush and soft. The color was so gay – a peachy lavender but since I had no say in anything for a while, I couldn’t really complain about my wardrobe. At least I wasn’t in one of those backless gowns.
I found the bed controls lying on my chest near my right hand. I fumbled at it, raising my bed up until I could see the rest of the room. There was a bureau opposite my feet with standard items on it. Brush, comb, hand lotion, tissues, wet-wipes. A silver pitcher of ice water on a tray with a plastic sippy cup. No photos, no personal items, and no toys.
An open book lay on the bedside table which was pushed away from me. I couldn’t see the title of the book, but it was the only one in the room.
The sun came in the big window and I watched as it crawled across the floor and up onto my bed, its rays warming my legs and telling me what direction the house was facing. West.
Slowly, I lifted the sheet and thin blanket, so I could look for my legs. I had an irrational fear that they would be lying next to Mrs. Weismann’s, back on the bus.
To my utter relief, both limbs were lying neatly under the covers, relatively untouched. My right leg had a ginormous scar on it, starting at my crotch and going past my knee. It was a thin white line but not thick scar tissue as if some butcher had sewed me back together.
I looked at the rest of me. I had similar thin white lines on my arm, belly, and ribs. Plus, the hole in my side where the food tube was stitched in. Where they fed me. Guess I hadn’t eaten pizza or hamburgers for a while. I looked around the room again, this time for an indication of the day, month, or year. A calendar. There was one hanging on a door. It was either the door to a bathroom, or the door out. The only way I could find out which one it was would be to get up and open it.
I slid my legs over the edge of the bed, expecting to feel the floor yet my legs dangled far above the warm planks. I had not realized that the bed was so high up or that my legs were so short. Not to mention that I was tied to the bed by the lines and hoses.
To even attempt a walk meant that I first had to be unhooked and that was not something I was willing to do on my own.
I sat on the edge and swung my legs, letting all the physical sensations I had missed flood through my body. The heaviness of my weight on bony butt cheeks, the light-headedness from sitting up instead of lying flat. The warmth of the sun as it caressed my skin, the tightness of my lungs as I breathed in and out. My stomach growled. I was both hungry and thirsty. The carafe of water was just out of reach and I knew what would happen if I made it to the floor and tried to stand up.
I fumbled for the call button and pushed the red one with the nurse symbol. At first, there was no response and then I heard the quick clatter of heeled shoes come down the hallway.
The solid wood door opened and a man in his early thirties with tattoos covering his arms and a ring in his ear stood there in the doorway with his mouth hanging open.
He wore scrubs. From the cheerful bunny rabbits and colored eggs on his top, I figured it was on or near Easter. He came into the room and the first thing he did was place me in the chair that was next to the bed but behind it where I hadn’t been able to see it. A recliner in soft blue with thick padded back and footrest.
His voice was gentle but full of wonder as he checked my pulse, blood pressure and temperature. “Well, hullo, John. How are you feeling?”
“My butt hurts,” I complained, and I was shocked at how thin and scratchy my voice sounded. I cleared my throat and he offered me a cup of water with only a swallow in it. I drank and swore that the ice water was sucked right through my mouth before it had a chance of hitting my stomach.
“You called me John.”
“John Doe. No one knows your real name. Do you remember it? Where you came from? Your parents? What do you remember?”
I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it. I couldn’t tell them anything for fear of my Dad or that the last thing I remembered was Mom standing in the doorway of our trailer telling me that it wasn’t safe for me there anymore.
“What happened? Where’s mom?” I asked with a terrible feeling in my stomach.
“You don’t remember the bus crash?” he asked with awful gentleness. I saw his photo hanging on a lanyard around his neck. His name. Mark Levy. R.N. Belle Fontanel Staff. The year 2017.
“You were on a bus traveling to New York City and upstate. The bus driver fell asleep at the wheel. He crashed into a tractor trailer, went under the trailer, and hit seven other cars before coming to a stop on its side. They said it flipped several times. You were the only survivor. I’m sorry, John.”
I keened, my hands reaching up for my face, claws digging bloody furrows into my skin. He grabbed my hands and rocked me, offering comfort the only way he knew how. Before too long, there were other people filling the room. Doctors and nurses, all vying for a chance at me. Poking me with needles, asking me questions about the crash, what I remembered and who I was. Through it all, I remained inconsolable until the doctor gave me a shot and I went to sleep.
T
all Man paddled for hours, his strokes even and smooth showing the power in his shoulders and arms. The other canoe and its pilot kept up without any effort; they traveled in silence, but it was comfortable. It wasn’t until they rounded a curve in the river around a spit of land covered by flowering magnolia trees that the landings and wharves of a large town came into view.
Paddle-wheelers and barges were docked on both sides of the wharf, busily loading, and unloading barrels and fur pelts, logs, and men. There was a general glow from lights in the background indicating a town, businesses, and commerce in action even though night had fallen.
Tall Man let the canoe glide softly up to the rough plank dock and a man in homespun and leather coat tied the craft off helping the Army Officer and servant onto the landing. He made a comment on their guides, saying that all three Indians were well known guides in the area.
Lacey asked directions to the Depot and was given those by the dock worker who also warned them that the Metis' were in town and looking for trouble.
The town was decent sized which meant that it had more than one main street, but the downtown area was only one block long with an Army Depot station, trading post, and blacksmith shop. A chandlers and general store were freshly built which indicated that fear of hostile raids was low enough to warrant building such an open not easily defended structure. Across the street was a tavern, a coach house with a livery stable and the fresh scent of baking bread told them the direction of the bakery and probably grist mill.
The largest establishment by far was the trading post – closest to the river and guarded by a patrol along the banks near the landings. Lacey saw the inside of the large square warehouse and was amazed at the vast quantities of beaver pelts, deer skins, and thick woolly hides, some stacked nearly to the rafters in the ceiling.
“Wapiti,” the Cherokee told him. “What you call buffalo.”
Lacey had heard of them – and that it sometimes took 3 days for the herds to pass by completely. They numbered in the millions. He was afraid that, like the passenger pigeon, the white men would kill them until they too were a creature long gone.
The three Indians waited outside the small office in the only brick building on the street. The Depot was two stories high with living quarters above the ground floor office. There were candles flickering upstairs and Lacey saw the movement as he knocked firmly on the wooden door that had been left unpainted. Someone had scratched US Post Laramie City deep into the raw oak.
The man who opened the door wore the bottom half of his uniform pulled hastily over his long underwear, the suspenders hanging at his sides like bedraggled wings. He was clean shaven, but his eyes had that weary bedraggled hound dog look that said he was exhausted or discouraged.
Lacey noted that he kept his left hand behind the door and assumed it held a Dragoon pistol loaded and cocked.
“Sir, Captain Lacey reporting in, sir,” he said crisply. He saluted, unsure of the Officer’s rank because he was out of uniform. The man surveyed the group, two white men, and the three Cherokee.
“Tall Man, Long Nose. Broken Water,” he greeted and held the door open, motioning that they should come inside. Following him down the shotgun hallway, he brought them to the back of the building into the small office. One wall held a huge map of the settled part of the US with pushpins marking the forts. There were only a bare few on the western side of the Mississippi.
“I’m Major Antony,” he said sitting on the edge of a fancy English desk that Lacey recognized as a Sheraton. They stood at attention until the Major told them to sit which left only the benches against the back wall near the doorway. There were no windows, an oil lamp sputtered on low illuminating the room until the Major turned it up.
Lacey explained the situation and the Major interrupted before the Captain could ask for help.
“You left a government shipment unattended and unguarded? You, sir, are criminally negligent in your assigned duties!”
Lacey stood at attention. “My son and I are on the last assignment in my career, sir. I resigned my commission and took this duty on only as a favor to my commanding Officer, General Scott. As for my duties – my son is the most important duty I have and one I will not shirk from. As for the…cargo, it is safely stored and buried in a place only Mr. Fitzsimmons and I can easily find. We came here to hand in my dispatches, arrange for a squad to retrieve the cargo, purchase horses and leave to track down my son.”
“Your duty is to deliver the cargo,” he snapped. “Give me the dispatches.”
Lacey reached inside his greatcoat and pulled out the leather wrapped pouch, handed it to the Major and watched as he carefully unrolled the packet. He read swiftly and his face paled as he realized the significance of the wagon’s contents. Then, he studied Lacey and Fitzsimmons before he spoke.
“If General Scott hadn’t vouched for you, Captain, I’d have you arrested and thrown into the brig for stealing the gold yourself. Tall Man?”
“We followed the Captain for many miles. What he told you is true. We found where he burned the wagons and the long ears. We even found the place where they buried the leather pouches, it will be safe, only white men will disturb the yellow metal. They will not find it as we covered their sign after they left.”
“Will you provide us with horses?” Lacey asked.
Major Antony said, “your duties are to bring that gold to St. Louis, not to me. We have no facilities to store it. You are a US Officer, Captain and until you fulfill that duty, you are bound to the rules of your office. If you run off, you will be a deserter, derelict in your duties and subject to a court martial. You have your orders. I can supply you with another wagon and team of mules, that’s all.” He paused. “What happened to the riding horse you brought with you?”
Lacey replied, “we assume that the stallion was taken by the same people that took my son.”
“If he is as fine an animal as you say, probably so. He’ll be sold to some Indian or trader. No telling where he’ll end up. There are precious few riding animals for sale here. You won’t find a horse except for Army mounts and those are not for sale. You are dismissed.”
Lacey saluted. “Sir, sleeping quarters for me and my manservant?”
“There are rooms set aside across the street at the coach house for our men. Just tell Wilson so. You can eat there, also. Report in at 9 a.m. tomorrow, Captain Lacey.”
“Yes, sir. Major,” Lacey returned not a trace of his anger or contempt in his face, voice or manner. He saluted and marched out of the door followed by Fitzsimmons, but the three Cherokee remained behind.
“Tall Man?”
“Major Antony. He is a good man. A father. He worries for his son.”
“How old is the boy?”
“Eight winters the boy has seen. If he was taken by warriors, they will make him one of their tribe. If he was taken by this Johannsen, he will be used as a pawn and discarded for the gold. Will the Captain pay for his child with the gold? I do not think he will, I think he will pay with lead.”
With that, the Cherokee departed the Depot, but they did not linger in the town, they returned to the canoes and disappeared across the river and into the forest.