A Band of Unbroke Horses

ONE

In those final days of a war in which there was no glory and the taste for killing was long past, multitudes of drawn and wasted soldiers set forth upon the battered countryside, their shoulders rounded and their clothes reeking of blood. They stepped over corpses twisted and decaying and some stopped to pick at the spoils while others, dull and thoughtless, threw down their weapons and shuffled ahead.

They wandered alone and in pairs and in loose companies of varying numbers, all afoot, and oddly uniformed in tattered rags of gray and blue and many missing arms or feet or eyes. They bivouacked along the roadsides and in fields wherever darkness overtook them. At night they sat like mute beings wrought from nightmares, bent over small fires, unable to feed themselves and gazing out through hollow eyes.

Ten months before the Confederacy collapsed, field-commissioned Brevet General Ike Smith quit the army. He led the remnants of his battle-fatigued 12th Georgia regulars out of the Shenandoah Valley onto a rutted back road and summarily dismissed them.

Boys, said General Smith, addressing the assemblage from atop a gaunt and leggy mount. By the power vested in me by the Army of these Confederate States of America, I dismiss you from further participation in this war, which I do hereby declare to be over.

Stand your posts, commanded a handsome young officer wearing captain's bars upon his shoulders. This war is not over and the general as no authority to dismiss you. You men will form up in marching ranks. Sergeant, bring the company to arms, now!

The general turned his head, hacked, and spat and looked back at the handsome captain through eyes shot red from alcohol and road dust. He un-flapped his service revolver and discharged a round between the buttons of the captain's field coat. Dust coughed out from the hole the bullet made and blood ran freely from the wound beneath it. The captain sat upon his horse and stared a blank stare past the general. He sat there a long time before he pitched forward, then fell from his horse, dead at the feet of the men who looked on but did not move.

The general regarded the sergeant with a dark and somber gaze. The sergeant threw down his weapon and threw down his ammunition pack, and when he did so, the others did so as well.

No one moved to aid the fallen officer, but one man caught up the reins of the captain's mount and lifted himself into the saddle. He wheeled the horse around and whipped it into a gallop with no direction and no plan other than to desert the war. No one moved, no one spoke, and they all stood mindlessly waiting for their orders and watching the lone horseman whip his mount ahead of the dust cloud that followed him as he shrunk from view.

The general holstered his revolver, and reached back and fetched a tarnished flask from his saddlebag. He uncorked it and tipped it back, then looked slowly at the tired and questioning eyes that stared up at him.

Y'all are dismissed.

They mumbled and shuffled about, but none of them did anything but wait.

General Smith disregarded them all and nodded to a thin and pale private, standing at his boot heel. The general slipped his left foot free of the saddle iron and extended the private his arm. Private Raymond Smith took the arm, hooked the toe of his worn-out military shoe in the stirrup and swung up behind his brother. The general nudged the horse forward and tipped up the flask.

A mile down the road Raymond turned to behold the ragged company of gray-coated foot soldiers in poor marching formation as they followed behind.

By midday, the leggy gelding had out-walked the infantrymen until only the halo of dust that hovered above the trailing company was visible in the shimmering heat of the road. The general pulled the horse up sharply.

Get off, said the general.

Raymond hesitated and the general struck the dull-witted private from the horse's back with a broad sweep of his thick arm and dropped him to the dirt. Raymond picked himself up and slapped the dust from his trousers with his hat.

What did you do that for? Raymond asked.

Get yourself your own horse, Ike said.

Ike touched the gelding with his heels and the horse stepped out with Raymond trotting alongside to keep up.

Where am I supposed to get one?

That ain't my concern.

I got no money for no horse.

You got a rifle.

Well, I sure ain't trading off my rifle.

Then, Brother Raymond...you can walk.

Well, I ain't walking no more. I'll find me a horse.

Ike took another pull from the flask and continued riding. He corked the flask and hacked, then pointed off into the lowering sun as the private trotted alongside.

Yonder's one that'll suit ye, Ike said, his voice raspy and airy.

Raymond shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted at a shirtless man clucking a big yellow plow horse in a freshly turned field. He looked back to Ike for approval, but Ike ignored the dolt and took to hacking again.

Well, I’m done walking, Raymond muttered as he left the road and crossed the field, stumbling across the furrows as he went.

Ike palmed the flask and watched the pantomime. Raymond circled the shirtless man and the big horse, then walked up to the man and doffed his hat. Raymond's mouth moved. The man stopped, talked with his hands briefly, shook his head, and then turned away from Raymond. Raymond stepped up and spun the sun-darkened man around by his arm. The man threw off the reins and struck the dolt a powerful blow to the head. Raymond went down. The man advanced on Raymond, seized him about the shoulders, and dragged him off twenty yards, then cast him off onto a newly turned furrow.

The man turned and strode back to the plow horse. Raymond recovered the rifle and leveled it at the man's sunburned back. White smoke and flame exited the barrel along with the ball that ripped through the farmer's spine. The man arched backwards and fell dead upon the freshly plowed earth.

Raymond caught up the horse, loosened the harness, and let it drop. He left the headstall in place, removed the collar and cut the reins to riding length, then mounted bareback and trotted to catch up to Ike, who urged his horse forward and ignored Raymond as he approached.

I got me one, Raymond said, as he gawked down at the general from his perch astraddle the Belgian.

Put a pretty good knot on your head, didn't he? Ike said as dust exploded beneath the footfalls of the horses, and the column of soldiers behind them disappeared forever.

That night Ike and Raymond slept without eating. The next morning they robbed a farmhouse and, by the following night, the slow-witted Raymond had shot and killed another man and traded him horses.

They rode as two distorted images warped in the heat that ascended from the scorched roadway in shimmering waves. Week by week their appearance worsened. Their clothes hung like filthy rags, and they sat their thin and worn mounts like ancient warriors of the devil's brigade. They rode the plains and prairies into the sun. They rode through rain and the heat. They rode starless nights and days with nothing to eat.

The morning they rode up onto the banks of a great river, they heard music and boat whistles and the clank and clatter of deck chains and drayage wagons. All about them people chattered and hurried, and crowded the narrow streets. Long rows of docks jutting into the muddy waterway lay bobbing with smoking sternwheelers and all manner of skiffs and ferries and barges tied alongside. Sweaty black men transported burlap seed bags and wooden crates of various sizes onto waiting freight wagons. Dandies and women in uncommon finery strutted nearby and heavily spiced and greasy food smells swirled into the air from a steel chimney above a brightly colored dining hall where music played and women laughed and shrieked in disorderly good humor.

Ike and Raymond dismounted their boney nags and waited while a suited man turned to walk down the narrow alley in which they stood. The man hastened his pace and looked away as he passed by them.

Excuse me, sir, Ike called out to the man, his voice thick and whiskey-slurred.

The man glanced back over his shoulder and paused, then turned and quickened his pace. Raymond trotted forward and detained the man while the ponderous Ike caught up, wheezing and out of breath.

What can I do for you?

We just need a little money for food, that's all, Ike said.

I see, said the gentleman as he cleared his throat and backed away from Ike. A few pennies perhaps, he mumbled, and his eyes darted back to the alley entrance then furtively took in the rough appearance of the wretched-smelling man hulking before him.

The man reached inside his coat and withdrew a fine leather purse. His fingers fumbled inside the purse while he attempted to sort out the coins before exposing them. Raymond stepped behind the man, unsheathed a battered skinning knife, then moved in close and looked over the man's shoulder.

Raymond whispered through a crooked and toothy smile. We're powerful hungry.

The man tilted his head and shot a backwards glance at Raymond, then drew his purse close to his vest as to conceal its contents from the trespassing eyes of the dolt.

I'll take that, said Ike, and he snatched the purse from the gentleman's hand at the same time Raymond drove the skinning knife through the man's coat and slid it deep between his ribs.

The man slumped and Ike lowered him by his lapels to the ground, and then searched his pockets. He jerked the gold chain attached to the man's vest and withdrew an engraved watch from the pocket. He held the timepiece to his ear, then brought it down and clicked the cover open.

Half past nine, Raymond. Time you and me got us some breakfast.

Raymond's expression brightened at the prospect and he stepped over the man's body and stood in the shadow of the general.

Raymond grinned and looked at Ike. I want to get me some boiled eggs with runny yellers and some buttermilk.

Ike ignored Raymond and they left the elderly man where he went down. As they exited the alley, a dark-skinned stranger with the amber-colored eyes of a serpent watched them. He remained motionless and only his eyes tracked the approach of Ike and Raymond.

Raymond hesitated, but Ike walked on. When they were close Ike noticed the double-barrel ten-gauge hanging at the mulatto's left side where he held it with one hand, both hammers cocked and his long, delicate finger on the front trigger.

Ike stopped. Raymond fell in behind him. Ike regarded the mulatto with the air of his rank and tipped his head back in the direction of the still bleeding body in the alley.

That ain't your concern.

The mulatto neither commented nor acknowledged the general's words and Raymond braced for trouble.

When's the last time you ate? the general asked of the expressionless mulatto who did not answer.

Come on in, we'll get you something to eat, the general added, disregarding the mulatto's absence of response.

The mulatto measured Ike with his eyes, turned his head slowly to reassess the body lying in the alley, then slowly dropped first the left hammer then the right before moving his finger from the trigger guard of the ten-gauge.

Ike touched his hat, and when he stepped up onto the plank-board sidewalk that fronted the dining room, Raymond and the mulatto stepped up right behind him.

TWO

Before Ike, Raymond, and the mulatto finished breakfast, a confused gathering of angry citizens congregated outside the dining room. The door swung open and a sheriff and two suited men entered with all the color drained from their faces.

There they are, said one of the suited men as he pointed to the corner where Ike, Raymond, and the mulatto sat.

It was those two, the other suited man said, waving a finger wildly about and gesturing toward Ike and Raymond.

The sheriff approached the table. His hand shook and his nervous voice was too loud for the circumstances. He held a cocked pistol in a reckless manner and aimed it alternately between the two brothers as he spoke.

Don't you move. Put your weapons down slow on the table in front of you and stand up, ordered the sheriff.

You, the sheriff said, looking at the mulatto, get on out of here.

The mulatto rose without an argument and disappeared out the front door.

Ike and Raymond laid their pistols and knives out among the plates, and the sheriff pulled the two men out from behind the table.

Let's go, he said, gesturing toward the door with his pistol hand while he collected the weapons with his other. You boys are under arrest.

Out in the street the crowd that had gathered followed the sheriff and his two prisoners as they crossed the entrance to the alley and turned to cross the street. Someone screamed.

A shadow moved from a doorway near the alley entrance and the sheriff collapsed to the ground from the impact of a single shotgun blast. Then the shadow vanished and there was a great confusion of men running and horses fighting their riders.

Ike hunkered over the fallen sheriff and wrestled the sheriff's pistol from the dead man's grip on it. Raymond picked up the loose weapons lying at the sheriff's side and, in the disarray and confusion of the crowd, he and Ike fled deeper into the alley.

Two mounted riders wheeled their gap-mouthed horses and took up the chase, following the two fugitives around the corner and into the jaws of the narrow alley.

Raymond out-distanced his bearish brother and turned the corner at the other end of the alley as the horsemen bore down upon Ike. Ike, out of breath and wheezing, stumbled and fell, and the horsemen opened fire. Their bullets exploded the dust up all around the fallen general and bullets whined past him blindly missing their target and splintering the wooden walls of the surrounding buildings.

Ike's pistol shook loose from his thick hand when he fell, and he scrambled unarmed in the dirt of the alley awaiting his fate and cursing the two horsemen who fired wildly as they fought to control their mounts.

A shadow glided in behind him and, when he turned to look, Ike saw the dark figure of the mulatto then heard a thunderous explosion as hellish fire spewed forth from both barrels of the ten-gauge. The two horsemen lifted from their saddles and fell red and lifeless to the ground.

The mulatto stood over the general and offered no hand as the big man grunted and struggled to his feet.

Ike, Raymond's shrill voice called out.

Raymond ran into the alley leading three unruly horses that fought the reins and tossed their heads.

At the other end of the alley, the entrance filled with angry citizens and indiscriminate gunfire. Ike, Raymond, and the mulatto grabbed at the reins and mounted the white-eyed horses in reckless haste then spurred the beasts until their rowels ran red with blood. They rode south out of town at a hard gallop and whipped the horses on until their lathered mounts had nothing left to give.

At a small farm set back off the road, they abandoned the spent horses, stole three fresh ones, and rode at a lope until the sun set, and twilight overtook them. They slowed the horses to a long walk and rode in silence. Ike looked over at the mulatto who rode beside him with his shotgun across his saddle and one hand on the stock. Ike read the hand-carved letters on the buttstock of the mulatto's shotgun.

SAN...DO...VAL, he sounded out the letters. Is that your name, Sandoval? He asked.

The mulatto looked at him but did not nod or answer one way or the other.

You ain't much for talk are you?

The mulatto's eyes turned and, when they met those of the general, they were void of response, and then he turned back to the road.

Well, can't you say anything? Raymond asked.

The mulatto ignored the remark.

What's wrong with him, Ike?

Hard to say. Maybe he just don't have anything to say. It's not a bad trait in a man.

They rode until after dark, then stopped and made a cold camp. Ike lay back against his grounded saddle.

Sandoval, you're welcome to ride with us if it suits you, or you can turn out in the morning if you want, Ike said. The mulatto did not acknowledge Ike, and Ike rolled over and slept.

In the morning Ike turned his horse west upon the washed-out road, and Raymond and Sandoval did likewise. The next morning and every other morning after that for the months that followed, General Ike Smith commanded his company farther and farther into the ancient wastelands to the west.

THREE

During the waning weeks of summer, the Montana weather was fair; the days warm and the nights cold. In those months of summer, J.D. Elder walked with an uneven gait that was no more noticeable than that of most men his age who have poorly mended those infirmities that come with the broken bones and twisted legs common to the rough-country horseman. However, in the cold of winter he would hobble about like a stove-up old man twenty years older than his age, and he cursed the Confederate minié ball that shattered his leg and left him among the dying at Chancellorsville.

A U. S. Army issue willow cane stood against the inside wall behind the door where it remained untouched since the day he put it there. On his good days, he had no need for it. On the bad days, his pride would not let him take it up.

In the strong sunlight, Elder's creased and sun-darkened skin appeared as a stiff, copper-colored hide stretched over the bones of his face. He was a quiet man, gentle in his own way, but with a dark presence about him. In his youth, he was a man of handsome features. Time and circumstances weathered his appearance and features into those of a man of experience.

Singularity of purpose suited him. His wartime experience was a solitary existence he bore without regret. And he held no concern for the fate of the Confederate soldiers whose lives he surrendered to the Union Army when he tracked the rebels down through swamps and hardwood forests and across ground that left no sign of their passing.

He was a hunter of men, a profession in which he took no solace and no pride.

In his eyes, there was a shadow, distant and lonely, but there was no apology there, and no petition for forgiveness or consolation. His eyes were the eyes of age and wisdom, but they told you nothing of the man. The rash immortality of youth that once resided in them was gone, and in its place was fixed a quiet determination and an uncommon peacefulness. It was a peace negotiated and tendered in delicate balance. J.D. Elder's existence was a private withdrawal to the seclusion of the wilderness, a hermitage he preferred to the company of man.

In a small meadow surrounded by tall pines, the bent-over cowboy in his farmer's trousers and farmer's boots trod the plowshare furrow heavy-footed behind an unmanageable mule that pulled and quit, and finally let the plow stop and bog.

Elder thumbed the sweat from his eyes and took a certain pleasure in the musky fragrance of the freshly turned earth. The mule was uneasy, and it twisted in the traces and tossed its head as it reached for the swarm of flies that clustered just out of reach on its underbelly. Elder clucked the mule. The flies circled away in a small dark shadow of indignant buzzing then hovered back to the mule. Elder moved a calloused hand from the smooth plow handle to the thick reins that rubbed his sunburned neck, and he slapped the leather to the mule's rump. The mule lunged forward and the plow slipped free, turning the sod and leaving in its wake an imprecise row of clean, dark earth. Elder was no farmer and he took no exception to the crooked rows he plowed.

At the far length of the meandering furrows, a fence of lodgepole rails led to a sturdy log cabin chinked with river clay and sheltered by virgin ponderosa pine and Engelmann spruce that stretched skyward more than a hundred and fifty feet. Behind the cabin stood a barn and a corral with three young saddle horses and a mare heavy with foal, all switching flies in the shade of a steeply roofed lean-to.

On a lightly treed and gently sloping hillside east of the barn and house and corrals, twenty or thirty cows grazed; most with calves by their sides. A longhaired dog lay un-stirring on the south side of the cabin and watched with disinterest the hen and her chicks that scratched in the weeds near the front step where the grass had worn thin by the coming and going of Elder and the dog.

In this high mountain meadow, the late afternoon sun disappeared behind the ridge of granite peaks that commissioned its western perimeter. In the waning light, Elder watched his long shadow run out over the furrows and bend awkwardly trying to keep up with him as it encountered the fence and rose up to meet it.

At the end of the furrow, Elder stopped and turned to survey his work. He pulled off his hat and ran his hand through his thick hair and, for the first time, noticed the chill in the air. He looked back to the west and calculated another quarter-hour of daylight.

Elder unhitched the mule, drove it to the corrals, grained it, then put fresh hay out for the mule and the horses. All traces of daylight were gone from the sky when the dog followed Elder into the cabin.

The dog circled a spot near the door where it lay to watch the man build the fire that would light and warm the room. Wood smoke from the new fire back-drafted into the room and hovered about the ceiling beams until the flames heated up the air in the flue. The rising air drew back up the chimney taking with it the smoke, but leaving behind the smell of burning wood which Elder found pleasurable.

Elder prepared a freshly killed, young rooster then turned it slowly on the fireplace spit. The skin of the rooster beaded with fat that blistered and the fat dripped down upon the hot coals and burning wood, and crackled and sizzled. A new smell permeated the room, and the dog salivated and his eyes fixed on the rooster as it turned, and browned, and sputtered.

The man set out two plates. He piled them with boiled beans and molasses and hard biscuits. Then he tore the wings and neck from the bird with his fingers and arranged them loosely in a pile on one plate. On the other, he placed that portion of the rooster remaining, then sat down and reached for the rag he used to wrap the hot handle of the coffee pot.

As he did every night, Elder pretended not to notice the dog. The dog's eyes were eager with anticipation and its tail wagged, but it did not move from its spot. The dog stared. The man took up his fork, then set it back down and addressed the dog from the corner of his eye.

Buck, the man said.

He set the dog's plate on the floor at his feet. The dog sniffed the plate, and quickly took up one wing then the other, chewing each in short, quick bites, breaking it up only enough to get it down. His tail did not wag. He lapped the beans and gorged himself on the dry biscuits. He sniffed the floor for morsels overlooked in haste, cleaned the plate, then returned to his saddle blanket by the door to watch the man and wait for scraps.

Elder took his time and slowly picked off the white breast meat with his fingers, forked in the beans, and soaked up the drippings with the biscuits. He settled back in the chair, sipped his coffee, and let the heat of the fire ease the soreness in his shoulders.

The dog and man felt drawn to the fire; the dog for the heat, the man for some primitive calling he could not describe that caused him to stare blankly into the flames in a nightly ritual he had never attempted to understand. His stomach felt pleasantly heavy and J.D. Elder turned his chair to face the fireplace opening. He poured more coffee from the cast iron pot then set his feet upon the river-rock hearth and crossed his boots before the fire. The heat of the flame soaked through the thin leather soles and burned the bottoms of his feet. He enjoyed the painful sensation and held the position until he could no longer tolerate the heat. He moved his feet aside and relaxed as the heat warmed his legs and soothed the damaged one.

In his sleep, the dog whined and whimpered. His legs twitched and he dreamed, and in his dream, he was running. Elder's eyes grew heavy. He set his coffee cup on the hearth, stretched back, yawned, laced his fingers behind his head, and eased the chair back on two legs. The fire crackled and hissed less frequently as the logs settled onto the coal bed.

Elder remembered his wife but forced from his mind the thoughts that still brought him pain and anger. His gaze followed the small flames that spiraled upward as they kindled the patches of dry bark in a triumphant blaze that was at once fierce and contentious then, as quickly, died down to become part of the indistinct flame that eventually consumed the log. Elder's thoughts escaped quietly from his head by the rhythmic flickering of the flame that lured him into another world.

The harsh and busy shadows that danced on the walls earlier were now soft-edged and lazy. Outside the night was quiet. The wind in the treetops was delicate and all but still. The only discernable sound was that of the horses as they nuzzled the soft grass hay and snuffled undisturbed in the safety of their shelter.

Elder set the chair legs down on the floor, and began to nod. He sighed. His chest rose and fell in a slow cadence, and his breathing was deep and heavy. He vaguely acknowledged the echoing of an owl and barely perceived the high-pitched, frantic yapping of coyotes far away in the night—then another sound—closer, unfamiliar, and out of place.

The dog raised its head and cocked its ears at the imperceptible shuffle of boot heels on the wood plank outside the door. A growl started low in its throat. Then, before the dog could utter a sound, the door exploded open, slamming with an awful