Cry of the Hawk

45

April 1868

“PERHAPS IT IS time we took a holiday from one another,” Jubilee Usher told him as the big man slowly walked away across the canvas-sheeting floor of his massive tent.

Lemuel Wiser was relieved. Whenever he argued with Usher, Wiser was never sure how the argument would turn out. Except that he had long ago learned to make an idea sound like it was Usher’s from the start. Convince the charismatic Saint that the idea was his to begin with, and then the man would defend it with a fiery passion.

“We have been moving across this country faster than we had planned, Colonel Usher,” he said. “Hastings’s group is likely already away from the Missouri and pushing west along the Platte toward our rendezvous.”

Usher turned, grinning crookedly. “I certainly hope Hastings has the information we need for Brigham.” For a moment he gazed into his glass of brandy, swirling it around. “All of Deseret will need that intelligence, Major Wiser.”

“Hastings and his bunch are proven, Colonel. They won’t let us down. You handpicked them yourself—the steadiest we have among the whole lot. They learned a lot about Kansas that last scout you had them on.”

“Yes, I did pick them myself—most carefully.” Usher took a drink. “I wanted the best to ride back north again with Hastings, because they would be the outriders plunging into enemy territory farther than any of the rest of us. I had to know I could depend upon them to get the job done—clean and tidy. No messy mistakes. No deserters.”

“No, not like Fordham.”

Boothog watched the mention of the name twist Usher’s features, making his eyes mere slits with a flinty center.

“No, Major. Not like Riley Fordham.”

“But I do have four out looking for him already. I spread them out as you suggested. They’ll cover everything north and west of here, sweeping the land clear before meeting up with us at Fort Laramie. I’m sure one of them will have Fordham’s head waiting for you.”

Usher smiled. “That was a novel approach to this ancient problem, don’t you think, Major?”

“The burlap bags, Colonel?”

“Yes,” Usher replied, sinking slowly into his canvas chair. “Giving each of those four I sent scrambling after our deserter a burlap bag.”

“One of them will have the prize in his bag when we get to Laramie, Colonel.”

Usher stared into his brandy. “The head of Riley Fordham.”

“Yes, Colonel. And that man will win the prize.”

Usher gazed up at Wiser now, the grin disappearing. He sounded almost sympathetic. “You so wanted the girl, didn’t you, Major?”

Wiser had never been able to hide it. “She is every bit as beautiful as her mother, Colonel. Yes. The girl will bear a man many children, and make a Saint proud to have her for one of his wives when we return to the land of Zion.”

He turned away, gazing wistfully at the roof of the tent. “The thought of that has such a peaceful picture to it. I tell myself very often now what it will mean—returning there to old friends and family. After all these years of waging war against the blaspheming Gentiles.”

“Brigham Young will welcome you home with a parade, Colonel.”

Usher threw back the last of the brandy and licked a droplet from his lower lip. “A job well done. Yes. The Prophet will reward us all for a job well done.”

“Our job is not really over, Colonel.”

He waved a hand in answering. “Of course, it isn’t, Major. But I wish to be among my own people for a change. These … these Gentiles, nonbelievers—they taint our men, sully our faith at every turn. We need to return to our own kind—if only to renew our spirits as one would renew himself at a well he comes upon after crossing a vast desert in the land of Judah, the sands of Canaan, the wilderness of Sinai.”

“A hero you will be, Colonel.”

He turned to look at Wiser. “Where is it you’ve decided to lead your company of regulars?”

Boothog was taken aback by the sudden question that shifted the direction of the conversation. But then, Jubilee Usher was like that, adept at keeping men off balance, especially when he suspected those about him were polishing the apple. Usher was not the sort to allow his battalion of Danites to butter him up with false praise. Above all others, Usher knew who he was and needed no man to convince him he was just and righteous. He needed no one to tell him he would soon stand next in line to Brigham Young himself. Jubilee Usher was about God’s work in a pagan land.

The rest were politicians, even Wiser had to admit that. Those members of the Council and the Quorum who surrounded Young were stodgy politicians, every last one of them trying to outmaneuver the rest. But Jubilee Usher—now here was a man who could command, every bit as powerful as Brigham Young himself. Perhaps that was why Young had dispatched Usher years ago, and gave him far-ranging orders and a free hand for his band of avenging angels.

Perhaps, Wiser thought more and more on it, perhaps Brigham Young in some way feared the power and charisma and charm of Jubilee Usher.

Come a day soon, it would be most interesting to see how Young would react to having the powerful man back at his side, seeing how years ago he had ordered Jubilee Usher to kill Jim Bridger with the words, “These mountains are not big enough for the two of us!”

Wiser brooded on that now, wondering if the valley of the Great Salt Lake where bloomed in glory the City of the Saints would now prove to be too small for Brigham Young and Jubilee Usher.

“I figure I’ll point them north from here. As I understand from this map we copied from the post commander at Fort Harker, Fort Hays is not that far ahead of us along this river, called the Smoky Hill.” Lemuel strode to the open tent flaps, taking a deep breath of the spring air. “I’ll go due north—with your permission, Colonel. North until I strike the Platte not far from Fort Kearney in Nebraska.”

“No longer a territory, Major,” said Usher. “It became a state last year as I understand.”

“Yessir.”

“You’ll march west from this fort …”

“Fort Kearney, sir. Yes. We can plan to rendezvous with the others in, say, the second week of July.”

“That will give you enough time, Major?”

“It will.”

“How about my battalion? Have you thought of a route I should take?”

Wiser took a hobbling step forward. “Perhaps it would be most prudent of you to march your wing on west, along the Smoky Hill. Past Fort Hays, Fort Wallace, and plunge into Colorado Territory, where you can strike north from there, to Fort Sedgwick.”

“You’ve spoken of it—on the South Platte.”

“Yes. Northwest of there within easy distance is Fort Laramie. Where we’ll be waiting for you—should we arrive earlier than expected.”

Usher smiled as he rose from his chair, pacing to the small camp table where waited the cut-crystal decanter. He poured himself another glass of brandy. Savored its aroma, then took a drink, swishing it around in his cheeks. Enjoying it fully.

“Yes, Major—that’s where Hastings and I will expect to meet up with you … and the lucky man who carries the head of Riley Fordham.”

Spring seeped out of the land and with it the rains of April, along with the cool days of May. And finally the passing of those first days of June.

July at last had come to bake the plains.

And with it the coming of Hastings’s squad of twelve.

They had inched their way north along the Missouri until reaching the mouth of the Platte River. From there they struck out due west, following the great Platte River Road of the emigrants—those wayfarers of a quarter century moving west before them—bound for California, Oregon, and those Saints on their pilgrimage to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. This dozen trail-weary scouts too were bound for a home most had not seen for many years. A home some had never cast their eyes upon.

For now, they had pushed all the way to Fort Kearney, Nebraska. More properly, Hastings’s platoon reined up not far from the fort itself, in a little settlement fondly called Dobe Town. Most among the dusty, saddle-galled long-riders found much to their liking in that squalid grouping of saloons, watering holes, whores’ cribs, and even what was touted as an opera house—each structure really nothing more than a mud hut with some sort of storefront, clustered among the others along a rutted main street like some nightmare vision of sod walls and roofs that leaked on occupants when it rained, showered dust on occupants when the plains baked dry with the coming of July.

July was dry. And growing more than hot with each passing day.

“Some of us got all tangled up in what Jubilee told us, in that Bible voice of his—how he spoke his Bible words at us,” explained Healy Stamps, one of Eloy Hastings’s reconnaissance platoon, during the long days and nights of their march west from the Missouri River. “Few of us never was Mormons before Colonel Usher come along to save our souls and put our feet on the right road to immortal life.”

“I s’pose I get a chance to meet the man, this Jubilee Usher—I’ll learn about the hereafter myself,” Jonah replied.

“You can’t but be caught up in the righteous power of that great man,” Stamps went on, lights glowing beneath his bushy eyebrows. “He is one truly anointed by God—a powerful and mighty elder in the one true church of Jesus Christ in the latter days.”

“Sounds to me like Usher took you in when no one else would, didn’t he?”

“Don’t you know it,” Stamps answered enthusiastically. “Back during the war, with nowhere for a loyal Union man to turn but what he didn’t see Secesh on every side of him. I hope you don’t take offense, Hook—you being a old Confederate soldier yourself.”

“Man does what he damn well believes in, Stamps. I carry no grudges again’ you, or most who fought in blue. I figure you always done what you thought was right, too.”

“God Himself knows what is right for man. And God not only tells the Prophet Brigham Young, but those the Prophet chooses to ride at Brigham Young’s right hand.”

“Usher?”

“God speaks to the colonel all the time.”

“Usher’s battle plans?”

“Might say that. What to do, where to go.”

“And most of all—just who to punish?”

He grinned widely. “In the name of God, I think you must feel the burning yourself!”

“Burning?”

“The burning in the bosom! Don’t you feel it when you’re doing God’s work to stamp out evil on earth?”

“As one of Brigham Young’s Angels?”

“As Angels of Jesus Christ in the latter days—our Lord and Savior! As the Prophet said it, and Colonel Usher reminds us—there are few called upon to do the dirtiest of work to prepare the way for the new Kingdom here on earth. Those who take up the sword in the name of Jesus Christ, to smite the evildoers, these will surely be anointed in Zion come the Judgment Day.”

When Hastings’s platoon arrived, they found more of their number already there to welcome them to the fleshpots of Dobe Town.

It was a joyous reunion, finding Major Boothog Wiser and his entire company awaiting news from the east. There was backslapping and pump-handle shaking of hands all around, sharing of jokes and stories of the trail and offers to buy a round of drinks for all. And apart from the rest stood the one Jonah took to be Wiser himself—down at the end of the bar, with a bottle all to his own and that custom-made boot at the end of his leg.

“Who’s the new man, Captain Hastings?” Wiser called out from the far side of the noisy celebration.

Hook figured Wiser had caught him studying the major. He felt a nudge now and found Hastings at his elbow, prodding him down the bar, through the reveling crowd of horsemen just off the trail. To meet the major himself.

“This is a new man I picked up back at the Missouri.”

“I see, Captain.” He drank a little from his glass, eyes studying Hook over the rim. “Where you from?”

“Missouri.”

“You sound Southern.”

“I am. Born in Virginia.”

“You fight for the Confederacy?”

“I did. General Sterling Price.”

“I knew this Price,” Wiser said. “Fought him myself. Perhaps we were on different sides of a battlefield at one time.”

“Ain’t likely. War ended early for me. I was captured.”

“Prisoner, eh? What then? You see the light—and figure the grand republic was worth saving?”

Hook wagged his head. “Weren’t that way, Major. The Union will take care of itself. I figured the Yankees and their grand republic can just leave me be and let me get on with my life.”

Wiser grinned slightly and brought the glass from his lips. Then held out his hand. “Lemuel Wiser. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Jonah Hook, Major.”

“Pleased to have you with us, Jonah. You care to stay with Captain Hastings’s platoon of scouts—and if he wants to keep you with him—that’s fine by me.”

“By all means, I’d like him to stay with my outfit, with the major’s permission,” Hastings said. “Jonah’s had experience fighting Indians.”

“Indians?”

“Sioux and Cheyenne,” Hastings replied to Wiser’s question.

“Where was that, Jonah?”

“Out on the Emigrant Road. On the Sweetwater. North Platte. With General Connor’s expedition to Powder River.”

“My, my,” Wiser said approvingly, glancing quickly at Hastings with a bright light in his eyes. “You just might do to ride back home with us, Jonah.”

Hook felt the first wings of hope take flight. “Thank you, Major. I was hoping to meet the colonel himself soon too. Heard so much about you both.”

“You’ve learned of Jubilee Usher?”

“Yes, Major. Is he with you?”

Wiser grinned, on his face a benevolent light. “The colonel will meet us at Fort Laramie, Jonah. He has taken a different route.” He looked at Hastings. “And we will all go forth from here to effect that rendezvous with the colonel.”

“How soon we pulling out, Major?”

Wiser looked back at Hook. “Captain, we have a few days to spare. And I plan on spending them here. The men with me have rarely had money of late with which to gamble. And when they have had the money—it seems most no longer have the heart to gamble with me.”

“I take it you like to play cards, Major?” Hook asked.

“You a gambler, Jonah?” The light brightened behind his eyes.

“Let’s say I get serious about a game of cards every now and then.”

“Perfect! Simply perfect!” Wiser called out to the bartender to bring over two more glasses into which he poured drinks of the red whiskey. “Captain Hastings—first a toast to you for enlisting so splendid a recruit as Mr. Hook appears to be.”

“I figured he’d do, Major.”

“Indeed.” Wiser studied this new recruit. “Any man who believes the U.S. government should damn well stay out of the affairs of its citizens—especially the religious affairs of a growing population—that man should do well upon our return to Deseret.”

“This grand republic got no business telling any man how to run his life, Major.”

“Splendid, Jonah! Just what we have been saying for years now. There is, you are aware, a separation of church and state in the Constitution drafted by our Founding Fathers?”

“I never knew that. No, Major.”

“The Founding Fathers knew best—that it was God’s plan that our government should keep its hands off the religious affairs of the people.”

“I figure the Yankees and their Union ought to just keep hands off of most everything, Major Wiser.”

Wiser laughed suddenly, a head-rearing, hearty laugh. He clamped a hand on Hook’s bony shoulder. “To think we’ve found a kindred heart, Captain Hastings. In this land of the Gentile heathen, so far from Zion no less. And—a man who loves to gamble to boot!”