A Man Dead

2

2A buzzard circled overhead, its occasional screech ringing out across the endless reaches of the cloudless sky. As he sat on the buckboard, reins looped lightly through his fingers, Han watched the bird intently, knowing its presence was a bad omen. Behind him, huddled beneath a threadbare blanket, the woman stirred restlessly. They had spent the best part of two days in a fruitless search for her boy, taken by a Comanche raiding party. She'd pleaded, begged him to continue, but it was useless. Han was no tracker, so they packed up the open wagon and headed south towards a small mining town in the hope of finding his sister.

“You expect me to help you, when you do nothing for me!” she had yelled, beating her fists against his chest. She blamed the Okinawan for everything, regardless of the facts, her hatred for him boundless. The Indians attacked her homestead in the night, ghostly shapes in the dark, and they killed both her man and Han's companion. They had taken her son, Jeremiah.

“They'll murder him!” she had cried, slumping down in the dirt to wail and rock herself backwards and forwards.

The search would always be fruitless. Han told her so. She didn't listen, just kept on crying and rocking, her mind and body racked with grief. He waited, sitting in silence next to her, staring out into the dull, grey morning after the attack had been beaten back. Han had killed many of them, but not enough.

At last, sitting up straight, her shoulders heaving, she grew quiet. “What will they do to him? Scalp him, and then what? t*****e?”

“No. They will keep him and feed him so that he grows strong and straight.”

“You don't know that.”

“It is what they do. They do it many times. They use their seed and replenish their family stock. Girls, to carry offspring.”

“Holy Christ! And you think that is better than killing him? They'll use him as breeding stock, like a goddamned animal?”

“In the years to come, he will forget who he was. He will think it natural for him to find a woman from the tribe to have a family with.”

“You heathen bastard. You're as cold and as heartless as they are. Dear God, you even look like them!”

He turned away. “I did not make this country what it is. You cannot blame me for its ways, its evil. I came here believing it was a good place, full of opportunities. Instead, all I have found is sadness and bitterness. Lies and betrayal.” He looked at her. “Do you not think that if I could, I would undo everything? Of course I would. If I had known what lay waiting for us, like a thief in the night, I would have stayed in my home and never urged my family to come to this damned place. You are not the only one who has lost loved ones.”

For a long time, her eyes studied his face. She didn't say anything more, but Han knew her hatred for him continued to simmer away just under the surface.

They moved away in the general direction of the town she'd called Prairie Rise. They hoped they might be able to rustle up some help… perhaps convince the Army to send a troop to track down the raiders who had taken her son. Perhaps. But the town held bitter memories for her. It was there that the gunfighter, John Wesley Hardin, had killed her husband. Nobody cared about that. Why should they care about her son?

They camped by a stream that first evening. The air was thick, the heat oppressive and, as the sun went down, Han stripped off his shirt and pants and swam in the cool water. She stood on the bank and watched him. Her eyes never left him as he stepped out from the water and stood before her, drying himself off with an old blanket from the back of the wagon.

“Okinawan,” she said quietly. He stopped, pressing the coarse material of the blanket against his face. He frowned. “What is that? The name of a tribe?”

He let slip a small, sharp laugh. “What is your name? You have not told me your name.”

“Susannah. Suzie for short.”

“My name is Han.”

“I'm not interested in your name, nor anything to do with you.”

Grunting, Han dried himself and pulled on his shirt. He sat down next to the small fire he'd made. Susannah made pancakes and fried them in an old tin plate. They ate in silence.

“Why did you lead those murdering bastards to our home?”

She spoke with as much indifference as if she were asking him the time. He stared at her, incredulous. How could she turn so sharply? So suddenly?

He wiped his plate with the last piece of his food and munched it down. “I didn't.”

“Strange how they appeared almost as soon as you did.”

“Do you truly believe what you say?” Shaking his head, he threw his plate to the ground. “Think about it, for one second, eh? I lead them to your place, then kill them when they attack. What would be the point in that?”

“Maybe you changed your mind. Maybe you saw something you liked.” She arched a single eyebrow, the light from the fire picking out and contorting her features, making her appear almost maniacal in the orange glow. “I've seen the way you look at me with your eyes full of lust.”

He turned away, feeling hot, and not only from the fire.

“You can't deny it. You heathens are all the same – after one thing and one thing alone. Tell me it isn't so.”

But he couldn't, because he knew it was true.