It became readily apparent that he was no longer considered a man. Oh, he looked like one but that was where the similarities ended. It became more and more real to him with his every outing into public...which he seldom did anymore. He hated the rough, uneven, washed out walls of the Horsehead but it was better than walking out into the daylight. Unfortunately, Sundays weren't negotiable for him. At least not while he still kept some small hope buried deep in his chest...whether he admitted it to himself or not.
Like every other Sunday he stood on the wooden sidewalk outside of the McKinney's General Store and waited as he ignored the jokes as the men who sat around the McKinney's laughed at his expense while he pretended not to hear. The hypocrisy was astounding; it could choke, amaze, and shatter. He'd realized long ago that even the good churchgoing Christians weren't immune. Of the ones that protested loudly at his presence now just behind his back he could count five that were faithful clients between whose legs he'd recently been not more than a few hours ago.
Luckily, the stage wouldn't be late.
He watched it storm down the main street, billowing clouds of grey dust behind it. Six horses drawing the large coach bringing mail, supplies, and hopefully passengers. He stood back and waited. As usual, he stepped up when the driver had shouted 'whoa' to the horses and the coach had come to a trotting stop. As usual, he stepped up and opened the door, even though he knew that nothing had changed. As usual, he still managed to feel the deep disappointment as he looked at the empty wooden seats.
"No passengers," the driver shouted, as usual.
"Thank you," Jackson said politely as usual as he watched the driver and his guard turn and throw the sack of mail to Mr. McKinney who ignored his presence outright, as usual.
As Daniel spared a final glance at the coach he reminded himself that he was a fool and that no one would ever be riding in to rescue him. There was no rescue. He might as well already be dead for all the matter his grandfather had spared that last desperate letter that he'd written in a moment of weakness. Daniel hated begging. He hated being weak. But he hated that his letter had been ignored even more.
Jackson turned and followed the mail inside, as usual. As usual, everyone else was served before him before he could step up with his hat in his hand and say, "Is there any mail for me Mr. McKinney?"
McKinney's eyes were always cold and resentful of having to service anyone that he didn't consider worthy. Jackson had noticed quite some time ago that 'worthy' seemed to have a very narrow definition and it most certainly didn't include him. The man pawed through the remaining mail and threw a few letters onto the counter as he mumbled, "You might as well take that with you." Then the man turned his back to Jackson and busied himself with other things.
Jackson picked up the four letters from the counter. None were for him. They were all addressed to the girls back at the Horsehead.
He sighed and put them in his breast pocket before turning to leave. Only this time he wasn't able to make it to the door before two of the men blocked his way. Harry Seymour and Norman Bate, not the greatest thinkers in the world but thankfully not the meanest either.
"Let me go." Jackson said calmly. He knew they wouldn't try much outside of the safety of the Horsehead. They just wanted to have some fun with him, not that it made the situation any better.
They blocked his path just enough so that he'd have to push up against them to leave. He knew they wouldn't get out of the way and he didn't try to talk his way out. He heard the others laughing as he squeezed past. Norman managed to grab at his cock. Jackson wiggled away and began walking quickly down the sidewalk towards the Horsehead as he heard laughter behind him and felt the sting of tears in his eyes that he still hadn't learned to avoid.
He entered the Horsehead and heard Edmund, behind the bar, say, "You have a caller."
"Not dressed like this!" Jackson demanded as he walked towards the back as quickly as he could. He didn't want to see anyone, but he wanted his last good suit ruined even less.
He could still feel the anger and humiliation flowing threw him as he ran into his room and slammed the door behind him. All he wanted was solace and a moment to compose himself; instead he got a punch in the face that felled him onto his back.
"Goddamned whore!" Jackson heard shouted at him. Jackson didn't immediately place the voice and he didn't care. All he wanted was to crawl away and protest, but he couldn't. He felt stunned, either by the punch or the fall he didn't know. And so when he felt the awful entry into his mouth he didn't fight for anything but air.
He'd already learnt that lesson. Don't fight. Fight and they hurt you. Don't struggle. Struggle and you hurt yourself, because they aren't going to stop. Breathe. Or you'd pass out and feel worse when you can finally manage to pick yourself up. Calm down. Or the panic grips you and you can't breathe. Do all those things and it will be over soon...enough.
And it was.
Soon enough he felt streams of hot foul smelling obscenity coating his face and neck. The man was still pinning him, straddling his shoulders. Jackson wasn't horribly shocked when he opened he wet eyes and saw one of the town fathers reaching for a fistful of his hair. Then the man cruelly slammed his head down onto the wooden floor in a dull thud.
Jackson saw black pinpoints in his sight. He was vaguely aware of someone speaking at him, the feel of spit on his face.
Then a touch on his arm. Jackson quickly shied away as he tried to protect himself.
"Nnn," he slurred.
"Shhh," he heard a gentle voice say. "It's over."
He felt a soft hand caress his forehead and sweep his hair back away from his face and he knew that it was Maggie, even before she'd spoken. "You're safe, Danny. It's over."
Jackson finally let go and felt a sob escape his lips. He was vaguely aware of some of the others standing at the doorway of his room, but he didn't care. He'd cast his dignity away a long time ago. There was no point.
"I wish I was dead," he whispered out. "I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead."
And no one tried to tell him any different, not even his wonderful Maggie.
Maggie brought him a cool wet rag for his swollen lips. He still felt shaky but he, like the others, had to work. He knew that Madeline wasn't heartless but everyone had to earn their keep, and sleeping inside was safer than not. He couldn't take the chance of getting thrown out for the night; ridiculous as it might have sounded to him at any other point in his life, he was obsessed with keeping the claim on his lumpy, too small-bunk. It had quickly come to mean safety to him, safety from the bar, safety from the cradles, and safety from everything out there. At least in the Horsehead, Madeline always had someone who could keep an eye out for the girls and for him. It was something...
The evening started out much the same way it usually did. They were all gathered in the sleeping quarters. The bunk beds that lined the walls were little more than seating now. Jackson watched as the girls dressed and made themselves presentable.
The big mirror that Madeline had splurged on well before he'd gotten there had broken sometime ago. A fight between the girls over who owned a particular corset had knocked it off its nail on the only solid wall in the room. It resulted in several large shards of mirror scattered around the room. Now at least they kept the peace.
Even the bathing room had its own bits of mirror. Thankfully the bathing room itself was large, always filled with clean water every day, and right next to the sleeping quarters. No one had to go out to haul in water, not any more. Jackson was glad for it. Once the town men got enough drink into them they were capable of anything, especially attacking unwatched women late at night. After work, the last thing that any of them wanted to contend with was anything more complicated then washing off the smell of sex, semen, sweat, and rotgut so they could get to sleep.
Jackson let out a deep breath. He hated this part. He let the wet rag fall from his face and set about undressing.
He didn't look anymore. Not at himself, not at the women around him. Why bother? He'd learnt quickly that it was all the same. There were no surprises.
"Change of plans," Madeline said as she walked into the sleeping quarters. "Turns out Ann ain't coming back. A rider just came through from Creek Town and brought word. So I'm short a girl. Jackson, looks like you get to take her place."
"No," he said suddenly. "Y-y-you said I didn't have to."
Madeline nodded. "Maggie's face ain't healed yet. Customers don't take kindly when they can see a woman's face bones. I get to choose between you and Betty."
Jackson's eyes immediately went to Betty. Barely sixteen, if that; he saw her pale and suck her lip as the fear welled up in her.
Jackson felt an awful hollow feeling deep down in his stomach.
Madeline put her hands on her hips and said, "I choose you, but if you think it's better-"
"No," he said quietly as he inwardly accepted it. "I'll do it."
Madeline nodded. He wasn't looking when Madeline looked at Maggie; a silent exchange passed between them before Madeline left.
Jackson wasn't surprised when Maggie walked over to him and pulled him into the bathing room. As usual she pulled a bottle of oil off the shelf and handed it to him. Unlike usual she didn't leave.
"You're not going to like what's going to happen tonight." She said solemnly as she sat down in a corset chair.
He suddenly became self-conscious at having her watch what he had to do. He swallowed hard and then told himself that if he couldn't do it in front of her, how was he going to bend over later? And what if they hurt him and she had to doctor him?
Would doctor him.
He put the oil down on a nearby table.
"I told you that you needed to keep ready, just in case." Maggie said.
He took his shirt off and threw it aside and nodded. "I listened. I've been doing it."
"Every night?" She asked as he unbuckled his pants.
"Yes, ma'am," he said as he let his pants fall. He kicked them aside carelessly and then untied the waist of his underwear. He let them fall and kicked them onto of his pants.
"Then this shouldn't be so hard. Madeline will start you off easy, I think."
Jackson picked up the bottle and poured out oil into his hand as he mournfully said, "Drunk men don't usually care what they're doing."
Maggie was quiet.
Jackson didn't bother to look up at her. He lifted his foot up onto the chair that his shirt was sitting on and diligently began to work the oil into his anus as he stretched it out to the very point of pain.
"Remember what I told you about panicking. You have to keep as calm as you can. Use all of your concentration on relaxing your muscles. If you fight," she said waiting.
"They hurt me. Get through it," he said like a good pupil. "Get through it alive. Let the dust settle later."
Jackson looked up for a fraction of a second. She wasn't watching him. Maggie was staring off into the far wall. He had a clear view of her face. He knew that it was painful; it looked painful. The 'C' shaped burn was only a few weeks old. The hot metal had been held to her flesh for far longer then had been necessary to imprint the mark. The white of her jaw bone could be seen.
The bastard that branded her face was still a good customer of the Horsehead. He was still a good customer of Maggie's. He had to pay for what he did, but he didn't seem to mind. He had what he'd wanted; a 'faithful' whore. After all, who'd want her now?
~ ~ ~
O'Neill rode into the little town just after sunset. He could hear the sounds of the local saloon and it called to him. He was dusty, thirsty, and so very tired. He'd ridden hard, covering well over a state in less than a week. He felt as if he had saddle sores on his saddle sores. He knew that he couldn't stop until he found the man that he was looking for, but he sorely wanted to rest. Only his rigid stubbornness kept him straight in the saddle and trotting right for the heart of town.
He rode his horse to the sign that had caught his attention and carefully peeled his backside off his saddle. He dismounted and stretched out his sore muscles. Both his shoulder and his knee were throbbing horribly. He tied off his horse's lead to the hitch and then reached back for the second horse attached to his pommel. After tying off the second animal he retrieved his saddlebags and threw them over his shoulder, then walked stiffly to the wooden walkway in front of the saloon.
'The Horsehead,' he read with a bit of confusion. He froze in place and wondered if his information had been wrong; based on what the telegraph had said he'd assumed that The Horsehead was a hotel of some sort. Perhaps someone had been having a bit of fun with him? Then he figured, "What the hell!" and walked inside.
It wasn't all bad; even if the information was wrong he could at least get a drink. At least it might dull the pain and take the evening chill out. Somehow he wasn't terribly surprised by the look of the place: a bar, tables, and a piano off in a corner. He'd seen better, it didn't have a big fancy mirror behind the bar, no brass, or carved wood, but at least it was better then a canvas tent with a barrel of beer or a few whiskey bottles sitting on a makeshift table.
The women were the first to catch his eye. For a spit-sized mining town the women weren't half-bad, and he could feel a too long ignored longing stir deep in his belly.
How long had it been? He couldn't even remember? Sara had been dead for almost six months, but it had been more than three years since he'd seen her last. And he couldn't even remember what the last woman he'd bedded looked like. Maybe a whore, a few drinks, and a bath weren't such a bad idea? Men shouldn't do without, and he'd already gone longer then he ever had before. Even during the war he'd managed to find a little recreation now and again.
As he stood looking over the faces hoping to find the one that he had come searching for he saw something that made him momentarily question his sanity. He'd been out long enough to know that when women were scarce, men would go to other sources for sex. He knew what the men did in the bunkhouses. He'd been in towns where there were no women and to dances where men would play the female roles. He'd seen the dance hall acts where there were no women on stage. But he'd never seen a man serving in a brothel...at least not like this.
Usually, with men it was quiet and unspoken. Sex, quick and easy. Nothing was advertised. Even out in the frontier where the middle-class constraints were cast off and men could gamble, drink, and whore whenever possible, the idea of two men momentarily engaged to full fill a need was not unusual. This was everything but.
Two women stepped out with a man. By the state of their dress, or rather undress, it was obvious that they were working. Corsets, shifts, chemises, knee-length drawers, and stockings; the soft muslin, and linen cloth spoke louder than any barker could have. A whistle or two on their first steps out let it be known that they were wanted in specific directions. The man though, he was more than noticeable.
He walked out wearing a thin pair of drawers with a narrow flap at the front. He was oiled so that his skin glistened under the oil lamps, and his hair slicked back.
He walked in, smiled, and was called over to a table. O'Neill watched the young man stand over a poker game and chat up the men. One of those at the table abandoned his cards long enough to put his hand on the young man's ass.
O'Neill watched as the young man glanced back at the hand and casually asked, "Did you pay for that?"
When a quick answer wasn't given the young man walked away, towards Jack.
O'Neill openly watched him parade across his path towards the bar with a natural grace, and quiet strength that made him look twice. Watching him leave was almost as jarring. O'Neill's eye went immediately to the black lines etched into the taunt skin of his back. O'Neill had met up with enough Indians to know that the black designs were and that they were permanent.
Almost to the bar the young man stopped dead in his tracks. He turned slowly and looked at O'Neill straight in the eye.
"I know you," the young man said.
O'Neill said nothing, though he did hear a laugh or two from some of the men at the tables.
"I do know you," the young man said turning to take a step towards O'Neill as he looked harder, "I knew you. I met you at that the fort."
O'Neill looked deep into the man's face and felt his face drain of blood as an immediate cold feeling drowned him awake.
"Doctor Jackson?" O'Neill replied slightly horrified.
The look in the young man's eyes changed that quickly. "Never heard of him." The young man said before walking back towards the bar.
"Doctor Daniel Jackson." O'Neill repeated.
He watched Doctor Jackson whisper to the man standing with his foot on the rail at the bar. The man nodded to the bartender and the bartender poured Jackson a drink which he tossed back quickly.
O'Neill took a few tentative steps towards Jackson as he said, "Doctor Jackson, I've come because I need your help."
He heard an immediate snicker from Jackson. "Define irony!" Jackson said spinning around. "I needed your help too once!" The man's face as stiff and angry but his voice was all too level and dead when he said, "And yet I seem to recall that you told me that you didn't have the time for my nonsense and had me escorted out of your fort."
O'Neill heard the taunt pain in the man's voice, and couldn't say anything.
Jackson continued. "Now you need me?" Jackson walked towards O'Neill a few steps. O'Neill noticed immediately that Jackson's steps weren't as sure as they were before. He came close enough to reach out and punch his face if the man really wanted too. O'Neill knew he wouldn't move; anything to get this done.
"I've done a lot of disgusting things, unnamable things, things that I don't have the words to describe, and I've done most of them back there," Jackson said with a wave of his hand to the place that he'd walked out of not more then a minute ago. His words were slightly slurred and his movements careless. "But in all my life, I've never, ever, never...stooped to working for a man like you. You could throw gold nuggets at my feet and I wouldn't waste the energy to pick them up."
As Jackson half-staggered towards the bar O'Neill realized that the man was already drunk; and O'Neill watched him take another drink before O'Neill could gear up the courage to speak.
"I've been told," O'Neill said undaunted, "that you hold a double doctorate degrees in linguistics and anthropology, speak twenty-three languages, and have studied the customs of the plains Indians. Even lived with them for a while."
O'Neill received a laugh from the man that he needed to get through to. He watched Jackson toss back another whiskey as the man next to him leaned in and whispered again.
"My wife and child were on their way to me three years ago. Their caravan was ambushed and I was told that they were killed, but no one ever showed me bodies." O'Neill watched Jackson's back stiffen, but the man tossed back the next drink without pause. "I found the graves of the dead, dug them up myself. They weren't there."
O'Neill swallowed hard and took a breath before he said, "At thefort one of the Indian scouts that I had employed sold me information...a rumor about a gold-haired white woman that had been taken by Pawnee in the Nebraska Territory North of the Platte River."
O'Neill saw the man standing next to Jackson put money on the bar. The bartender took it, counted it, and put it away. He saw the bartender nod to a woman sitting in off to the side at the end of the bar; the woman was taking everything in as she nursed a whiskey in her hand. O'Neill saw her smile slightly; just enough to let him know that she knew more than she was telling. She nodded at the bartender who nodded at Jackson as he poured another drink before walking away. Jackson didn't waste any time in tossing back the drink.
"I need your help. If she's alive, I have to find her."
Jackson turned away from the bar; the man had him by the arm. As the couple passed Jack, Jackson turned to him and slurred, "If it was over Platte River they were not Pawnee; Pawnee hunting grounds are further north."
O'Neill stiffened, but he did nothing as his only chance at finding his family was pulled away drunkenly towards a back room.
O'Neill turned and saw the woman at the end of the bar still watching him. He went to her quickly and asked, "You the madam?"
She tilted the glass and swallowed before wiping her mouth with a finger. "My name is Madeline; what would you like?"
O'Neill considered her for a moment. He could just look into her face and know that he wasn't dealing with someone stupid. He knew what he was being asked. He let out a lungful of air and leaned back against the bar.
Finally, he said, "An interpreter and a guide into a world that I can't reach on my own."
"He's expensive." She said with a smile.
O'Neill felt a grimace. "I don't want him for an hour. I need him for a few weeks. I can bring him back."
Her smile never wavered as she gently caressed her hand up his arm and said, "But you can't take him; I own him. He sold himself to me willingly and he still has a debt to pay."
For a moment O'Neill couldn't believe what he was hearing. He didn't even feel the hand ghosting up his chest to play with his chest hair.
"How much?" O'Neill asked mindlessly.
"How much do you have?"
He pulled the saddlebags off his shoulder as he turned and placed them on the bar. He opened the bag with his gold in it and put two hefty bags on the bar.
She smiled and picked on up. She weighed it in her hand and asked, "Is it all gold?"
O'Neill nodded and said, "Yes, ma'am. That's my army pay. I got that no more than a week ago."
She handed the bags off to the bartender. As the man poured out the gold and weighed it on a small scale behind the bar as O'Neill asked, "Is it enough?"
"No," she said simply. "He's worth more."
O'Neill reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the only other currency that he had. He pulled out the old blue kerchief and laid it on the bar. He figured that if she was alive, it was worth it. And if she was dead, it didn't matter.
He watched her open up the kerchief and sort out the jewelry that had been sent to him after his wife's aunt had passed...his wife's jewelry; broaches, rings, bracelets, and a few other odds and ends.
As Madeline the madam held a pearl cocker to her throat she smiled and said, "You have a deal."
"Can I have him now?" O'Neill asked quickly hoping that Jackson wouldn't have gotten so 'engaged' that he would be able to ride horseback.
The words "If you like," hadn't even completely left Madeline's mouth as O'Neill strode away quickly.
To say that he wasn't pleased was an understatement on several levels that gradually descended down into the sour frown that dropped his face when he opened the door to the room where he could hear Jackson crying quietly, his face screwed tightly, but the noise stuck somewhere in the man's throat. O'Neill found the man loosening his pants with one hand as the other pushed O'Neill's new acquisition down onto a small table. Even from where he stood he could see the blood on Jackson's face.
O'Neill rushed up to take a handful of the man's hair in one fist and a wrist in the other. He pulled the man away as he twisted the wrist and led him out.
"He's mine," O'Neill growled into the man's ear. "If you don't like it, too bad."
O'Neill jerked the protesting man in his grip before ushering him to the door and hurtling him forward so that he met the wall at the end of the narrow hall. The man collapsed to floor in a boneless heap and O'Neill closed the door with a disgusted sneer.
He turned back and found his anthropologist still slumped over the table muttering to himself. His face was bleeding. O'Neill sighed unhappily and hoped this man could do more than what he'd seen so far.
As he shook his head he looked around the sad tight little room. They were usually called cradles for a reason; but this was one of the smallest that he'd ever seen. Aside from the little table that Jackson was leaning on there was only a big wooden bench in the room. O'Neill wondered why no one had ever bothered to put a bed in the place, even a small one to make things more comfortable. He shook his thoughts as he chided himself for mentally wandering away; he had more important things to do than rearranging the profitability and comfort of a cat house.
O'Neill realized that he should have done more then just thrown the man out. When he turned he found Jackson still slumped over the table. He could see the man shivering as he struggled to keep his feet.
He went to Jackson and pulled him up only to find that the man instantly fell against him and grabbed at his clothes. The man's right eye was swollen shut and his mouth to be even more swollen and he was still muttering, "Please don't hurt me. I'm good. I'm good."
"I know you're good," O'Neill responded keeping his voice even trying to calm the shrinking, semi-hysterical man as he tried to help. "We'll get you cleaned up."
Up close his eye went directly to the design on Jackson's back. Though it looked like lines from a distance, up close he could tell that they weren't. What he thought were lines were in fact a trail of small deer tracks running up the length of his back in black ink. The staggering marks on his skin gave the impression of two lines running parallel to one another.
When Jackson turned around and drunkenly staggered towards him, O'Neill realized that he'd been staring at the man's back. He felt as if he'd been caught off guard and allowed himself to be pushed back by Jackson's drunken stumble towards him. He felt his shirt pulled on again as Jackson used him to support himself and push O'Neill at the same time.
"I'm good," the man repeated.
"You are good, "O'Neill found himself repeating again as he allowed himself to be pushed back again.
O'Neill felt the bench behind his knees. He felt Jackson tug on his shirt again.
"The man's gone," O'Neill said quickly.
Then Jackson fell to his knees despite O'Neill attempting to help him up. But instead of immediately hauling him up and trying to sober him up so they could leave O'Neill found something interesting on Jackson's shoulder. At the top of the deer tracks he found a funny little symbol. It seemed to draw his attention so that he only began to pay attention to what was happening again when he realized that Jackson had unbuttoned his jeans and pulling out his shirt.
"Hey!" O'Neill shouted.
But Jackson knocked him off balance and back onto the bench. O'Neill felt his head fall back and heard it smack soundly with the bench's backboard. He held still for a moment, just long enough to feel the pain radiate from his head when he felt himself taken into a hot wet mouth. An immediate sense of instant gratification washed over him as he arched up into a feeling that he hadn't had in far too long. And...he was good.
O'Neill wanted to pull away, pick up the drunken man, and get them both out of the cat house, but Jackson's mouth quickly changed his mind. The man altered in sucking, licking, and nipping at his cock while his hands continuously played with his balls and inner thighs. O'Neill felt hot. He sucked his breath as a tight feeling swelled up like a gale in this belly. He had just enough time to grab on to Jackson's shoulder and lay his head back before he came hard into that talented mouth.
A mixture of fear, shame, and uncertainly kept O'Neill from really allowing himself to enjoy it beyond the immediate gratification; and the feeling intensified when he saw Jackson reach under the bench and pull out a chamber pot. Even drunk, with an eye so swollen that he probably couldn't even see out of it, and his lip still bleeding, O'Neill saw him spit out his seed. Jackson pushed the chamber pot back into its place and then reached in to take O'Neill's cock into his mouth again.
"No," O'Neill grunted as he got up from the bench.
He pulled his jeans, and tucked his shirt down between his legs before pulling his jeans up to button up as quickly as he could. To his relief, Jackson had passed out in the few moments that it took him to make himself presentable.
O'Neill took a few steps back and bumped into the door before he knew what was happening. He reached for it and swung the door open to find a woman standing placidly in the hall. O'Neill stood there open-mouthed and rooted to the wooden floor as she smiled back at him.
"I took care of the gentleman in the hallway." She said in a distinctly maternal way.
On one look he knew that she was a whore, but she wore more clothes than the other ladies. He also noticed that her face was seared open, as if someone had taken a C-shaped brand to her.
"I'll get him ready for travel," she added as she stepped into the little room, "why don't you go get yourself a drink." She took O'Neill's arm and ushered him out. "A man needs a good healthy drink before a journey."
Then the door was closed and O'Neill suddenly felt unsure of what he was supposed to do. For lack of anything better to do, and because he still felt a bit wobbly, he went out and got that drink.
~ ~ ~
"Daniel! Daniel!" Maggie hissed as she knelt down next to him.
She rolled him over onto his side and saw the damage. She stroked his hair; it wasn't too bad. She'd had worse in her time. She felt his breath and touched his chest. His heart was beating fine and his breath was easy. She realized that he was just asleep. She saw him throwing back the whiskey. Usually two or three were enough to keep him sedated enough to work without feeling much, but this night she saw him put away at least eight shots of whiskey. The majority of them 'after' meeting the man who'd just bought his contract. Maggie stroked Daniel's hair back and smiled. Perhaps this was the opportunity that she'd been looking for...for him.
It was easy enough to find all of Daniel's possessions. Everyone kept their things packed up in bundles, bags, or packs. She found Daniel's bunk and his leather satchel beneath. Out of everyone there, he had the fewest possessions. He'd acquired nothing while living there. What's more, she knew that he didn't hope to. He'd kept to himself whenever possible. Unlike the women that worked at the Horsehead, Daniel didn't seem to want to accumulate money, a wealthy benefactor, or adventure. He only seemed to want to pay his debt and leave...leave or die. Lately, she knew that neither seemed to matter to him.
She rushed back to his cradle and closed the door. Inside, she opened his satchel and poked around until she found a bundle of buckskin. She unfurled the bundle and found the clothing that she had first seen him wearing. At the time, he'd looked fierce. There wasn't much in life that bothered Maggie, but that first time his eyes burned with a strange vision that had actually made her shrink away. His clothes made him look like a savage. Armed with savage weapons, paint on his face, his long-hair had been dyed black, with his skin darkened from the sun; Maggie had been as surprised as anyone to have heard perfect English flow from his mouth. The manners, the well spoken softness of him, and the evident education: it had all been a great confusion...much like Daniel.
And yet she'd grown to love him as dear as any little chick that she'd ever had.
It wasn't hard to finish ripping the thin muslin fabric that barely clung to his hips. Maggie had never liked it, but Madeline had insisted that Daniel cover up as much of the ink drawings on his body as possible. His hips and thighs in particular. Just to make sure that he wasn't too hurt Maggie lifted his leg and checked him. To her surprise, he'd somehow managed to hold onto his innocence.
She wasted no time and dressed him while continuously trying to wake him. She put his moccasins and buckskin pants on him without his even stirring once. Unlike the first time she met him, she put a shirt on him. It was long-sleeved with fringe on it, but at least it covered him up. She held him in her arms and slapped him calling his name until his eyes opened for the first time. She shook him again for good measure. He became annoyed almost immediately and tried to roll away from her.
"Daniel!" She gently tried to rouse him again. "Wake up you son-of-a-bitch and pay attention! Your contract's been bought!"
"Bought," he mumbled sleepily.
"Bought," she repeated relieved, "you're leaving here. Are you listening?"
She shook him again.
His face looked pained, but it didn't matter.
"Listen to Maggie," she demanded. "One man is better than fifty. What did I say?" She asked loudly in his ear as she shook him.
"One man," Jackson said before pausing to swallow hard, "is better than fifty."
"Be good to him and he'll feed you."
Jackson staggered up until he was sitting. He fell over onto her heavily.
"Be good," Jackson repeated, "he'll feed me."
"Don't ever let him share you. Repeat it."
"Don't," Jackson said before wiping his face with his hands. "Don't let him share me."
"Say it again."
"Don't let him share me."
"Good," she said as she stood. "Repeat it again."
"Don't let him share me."
"Again." She said as she pulled on his arms.
"Don't let him share me." Jackson repeated as he got himself up, heavily relying on her assistance.
"If he shares you," Maggie managed to say as she strained to help him, "then he can leave you, or not feed you, or worse. Don't ever let him share you!"
Jackson nodded heavily, but she knew that he was mostly asleep. She'd be lucky if he remembered the important bits.
He'd become intricately familiar with the effects of the hangover over the course of the past few months and his first pricking of emerging consciousness told him that today would be no different. The oddness of the hard ground combined smell of a campfire made him instantly cautious. He held very still as he carefully evaluated his surroundings. He could feel a scratchy blanket thrown over his head. A cool morning wind blew into a pocket of the blanket. He breathed it in and instantly smelled coffee boiling over the distinctive scent of the dewy wilderness. He could smell dirt, water, and hear the sounds of animals waking the day.
"I know you're awake," an all too familiar voice said evenly. "If you want coffee, you'd better get up now. This is the last I have."
Jackson shut his eyes tightly and hoped that he was wrong. He pulled the blanket down far enough to see the speaker. The first sight of the man sitting comfortably on his bedroll by the fire with a tin cup in his hand made Jackson want to vomit all over himself. He laid back carefully as he let the memory of the previous night wash over him.
Maggie.
He remembered what she'd said. His contract had been bought. He'd been bought. One is easier then fifty. Food. No sharing.
Jackson sat up even though he really didn't want to. The sun wasn't fully up in the sky. He looked up at the weak morning light and realized that at any other point in his life he'd have been chastised for sleeping the day away, not that he'd ever tried. He swallowed hard and tried not to think of home. He felt bad enough as it was.
He pulled the blanket off. As he looked down, he realized that he was wearing his own clothes, not the cotton or linen clothes that he'd kept at the top of his satchel. He didn't remember changing, and he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.
Didn't matter.
He rolled over and got up slowly without falling. Standing on his own two feet he looked up and breathed in. For the first time in months he felt free. He knew that he wasn't; wouldn't be for a long time to come, but at least he was out of the Horsehead. It had been a beer and whiskey stench riddled, rough-hewn walled prison that had been drafty when the wind blew, leaky when it rained, and a disgusting example of everything that he had come to hate about white society.
He walked over to O'Neill and carefully lowered himself in front of the man so that he was sitting across from him.
"You bought me." Jackson kept his eyes down on the ground between them. It wasn't hard; his left eye had swollen almost completely shut. Though he couldn't remember that particular man's face, he could vaguely remember how it happened.
"You want coffee?" O'Neill asked awkwardly.
Jackson felt his mouth water but he said nothing.
"You should have some anyway," O'Neill said as he reached up and re-filled his cup. "It'll help clear your head; I need you to be able to ride."
Jackson reached for the cup when it was offered to him; he'd been rude enough to his master already. He held the coffee warmed tin in his hands as he stared at it. He hadn't had coffee in almost two years. It smelled very good, but something inside him made him reluctant to taste it.
"I was drunk," were the first words that fell out of Jackson's mouth. He knew that he was capable of a far more eloquent apology, but that was all he had at the moment. All he could think of through the hangover.
"Yes," O'Neill said, agreeing, "that you were."
Jackson risked looking up and sincerely said, "You have every right to beat me for what I said to you."
O'Neill looked away and instantly felt his stomach tighten. After a moment he said, "I'm not going to beat you." He looked Jackson over and suddenly felt very sorry for the man. "Look," O'Neill said picking his words, "how about if you and me make a deal? You help me find out what happened to my wife and son, and when it's over we're square. You can go your way and I'll go mine."
Jackson sat up as he fixed his good eye on the man sitting in front of him. He tried not to let his distrust of the man show on his face.
"What exactly does that mean?" Jackson asked quietly.
"Means you work off your debt to me by finding them."
Jackson realized after a few minutes of deliberation that he was far too quiet.
"I see," was all Jackson could think of to say.
"You don't believe me," O'Neill realized. "Fine," he said easily. "I'm sure that you've been through enough to be wary. I don't blame you." O'Neill picked a blade of grass and twirled it between his fingers. "I don't know how long this will take," he said after a while. "Maybe a few weeks. Maybe a few months. Maybe a few years. But when it's over, at least then I can live without this guilt on me." He looked away and said, "I'm sure you have someplace that that you want to get to...a home."
As soon as he'd said the words O'Neill froze. The memory of how they'd first met all those months ago came crashing back on him.
"No," Jackson said stiffly. "I don't. That makes it convenient for you to change your mind about this arrangement."
O'Neill looked up and looked Jackson full in the face.
"I've never gone back on my word!" O'Neill demanded.
Quietly, Jackson said, "And I've never met a white man that's kept his word."
O'Neill didn't miss what the man had just said to him.
"Fine," O'Neill said after a moment of consideration. "I'll put it in a contract and-"
"Paper burns," Jackson said softly, "memory fades. I've seen too many soldiers swear on their honor, promise this and that, and then do nothing once they have what they want."
O'Neill sat quietly looking back at the man.
"You really hate me, don't you?" Just as softly as Jackson has spoken, O'Neill said, "I can take you back. We aren't far."
Jackson looked down. He shook his head quietly.
"I know," O'Neill said truly, "I know that I don't have the right to ask you to help me. It would be quite fitting if you just sat there and did nothing."
Jackson fingered the edge of the tin cup in his hands as he said, "Don't worry Colonel. I know my role as a slave. I was raised to do my duty and keep my word." Jackson paused to swallow hard before he could continue. "I've never run. I gave my word to Madeline and I'll give it to you too. I'm yours, and I'll serve you well."
O'Neill knew that the last few words had been forced out of the man's throat.
"Just help me find my family. After that you're free."
Jackson didn't believe the words but he nodded. He wasn't sure what was worse, being beholden to an army officer or being lied to. Again, he decided that it was the lie that was worse...far worse. It cut deeper because it created hope that he wasn't sure he'd be able to survive when the time came.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected from O'Neill, but he didn't expect what he did get from him. He could tell by his behavior that the idea of owning a slave was foreign to the man.
Jackson rode along next to him, his hat borrowed from O'Neill riding low over his battered face. Riding in the blaring sun while still nursing the hangover was uncomfortable but manageable...as long as they didn't ride hard. The swaying of the horse's gait made him slightly nauseous. He was actually grateful for O'Neill's nervous chatter; he could just tell that the man didn't often talk like this, but it was nice to have something take his mind off of his queasy stomach and pain filled face.
"...I don't know. I was sort of thinking about going out there and maybe setting up a business. I had a Captain stationed with me back during the war. He used to get letters from his cousin who was out there. He'd live for those letters. His cousin used to say that it was warm and green; that the water and sky were so blue that they called it the land of the angels. I've seen a lot of country over the past few years. Some utterly breathtaking, some not." There was a pause. "I don't know. Don't know what I'll do when this is over, but whatever it is all I want is to find a place that I can call home, maybe someplace with a little stretch of water that I can fish. I haven't had that since before the war started. I guess I miss it."
Jackson kept his mouth shut.
"Can't see myself going back east. I hate the city. I hate that life. All those people crowded together until it all looks like one great big slum. Human beings all living on top of their own filth, that's what my father used to say about the old country. My da hated scratching out a living on that piece of rock, making another man rich while he killed himself. He said that no son of his was going to do that, packed us up when I was still a baby and brought us to this shore. I hate the city as bad as he did; probably the generations of Irish farmers in my blood. We need fresh air, hard work, and space. Suits us better."
Jackson still didn't respond.
They kept riding at a deliberately slow pace. They stopped only once to refill their canteens and they rode most of the day without incident, but didn't cover as much territory as they probably should have. O'Neill stopped talking about an hour into their ride. The ride was long and quite boring for both men.
They still didn't speak with one another after they stopped for the night. Silently, they unloaded their horses and set up a camp. Jackson collected firewood. By the time he returned, he found that O'Neill had already dug a pit and surrounded it with rocks. There were bedrolls down and cooking utensils were out. Jackson put the wood down and set about making the fire. Without being asked, O'Neill offered his flint and striker for the fire. Within minutes Jackson had a good fire going.
O'Neill pulled a jar out of his saddlebag and poured it into a small pot. "We both had better enjoy this generous meal. I spent all my money on you, so there aren't going to be any more supplies between here and when we're finished. Least not unless we pass a good sized town, which I seriously doubt."
Jackson said nothing as he stood up and walked to a nearby tree. Underneath he found a broken, half-dried limb. He cleaned the limb off as he walked back towards the fire. He leaned the limb over a rock so that it would hang over the fire and then braced the limb with a bigger stone. He took the little pot with what looked like stew in it and hung it on the limb.
He watched O'Neill pull out a cloth with a few wrapped biscuits. Jackson reached in slowly and tore off a small piece. He left without a word.
Off to one side behind a large boulder he hit pay dirt. Jackson knelt down and offered up a small prayer as he took a little piece of bread and left it, taking enough of the wild onions in the small patch for their dinner and the next meal. He wandered around and found what they needed for the rest of the meal; each time leaving a small offering of bread in thanks to the earth. He worked quickly and carefully with the plants taking only what they would need, and insuring that the plants wouldn't be harmed. He found dandelions to eat with the onions, enough herbs to spice up what he was sure would be an uneventful stew, and he even found enough mint to brew some hot tea.
He returned to the campsite under O'Neill's sharp eyes. He added the herbs to the simmering stew before setting the tea to boil. He found a small frying pan among the things O'Neill had set out. No tallow, no suet; as a last resort Jackson skimmed some of the fat off the stew and dropped it into the frying pan. He dropped a rock into the fire and balanced the pan inside the fire on the rock. Jackson quickly cleaned the dandelions and tore them into small pieces. He dropped them into the pan before making short work of the onions.
As they waited for dinner to be finished O'Neill said, "You know this is going to be a real long trip if neither of us talks to the other."
Jackson was staring into the fire as he said, "What would you like me to say?"
"Whatever you'd like to talk about."
Jackson thought about it for a moment and realized that he hadn't had a conversation with anyone that didn't involve a sexual act in months. That realization made him deeply ashamed.
Jackson swallowed hard and said, "Do you know anything about Denver City?"
O'Neill shrugged a bit. "Not really. I know of it, not really the same thing."
"It still exists?"
"Yeah," O'Neill said, wondering how Jackson couldn't know this information.
Jackson nodded. "The further west you go the more apt settlement's are to dry up and disappear. I was just wondering."
"It's still there." O'Neill said. "I haven't picked up a newspaper in a while. Big mining town though; last I read Governor Gilpin was boasting about getting a railroad through there to make it the big shining star of the pacific basin or some such nonsense."
Jackson nodded. "That makes sense."
O'Neill could see it in Jackson's eyes. The man was a thousand miles away and didn't seem to want to say another word.
"Is Denver home?" O'Neill asked.
The question brought Jackson back in a hurry. He promptly shook his head and said, "No, and I think it won't ever be. You said you wanted to go to the land of angels."
O'Neill smiled: Jackson wasn't that smooth at changing the topic.
"Yup. I wish I could remember what it was called. It was something in Spanish. I could never get the pronunciation down."
"The land of the angels means, La tierra de los angeles?" Jackson offered.
O'Neill looked up quickly with a smile and said, "That's it! Los an-
"An-hé-les," Jackson sounded out for him.
"Los angeles," O'Neill mimicked before smiling. "Sounds almost magical."
Jackson didn't think before he blurted out, "My uncle took me to the coast once. That territory has amazing land. You can walk from a sea of shining blue water to a mountain covered in snow, to a bone dry desert in a few days. If you really want to see it, you should go before more white men go there. They ruin everything they touch, turn it into farmland, mines, and dirty little towns."
Once he realized what he'd said, Jackson turned away and tended to the food.
O'Neill just watched the other. He could tell by Jackson's posture that he was waiting for some kind of reprimand. O'Neill realized suddenly that he agreed with his father in regards to slavery. After watching his father and grandfather work themselves to death and working for the landlord for forty years of his life, the old man had been an adamant Abolitionist, insisting that any kind of slavery was against God and nature. O'Neill had never really cared much one way or the other. Even fighting during the war, he'd just seen it as his duty. Taking sides always seemed like a thing for politicians to worry about. Now even after the great Emancipation, he found himself in possession of a slave. He wasn't comfortable with it, but he liked the anxious behavior from Jackson even less.
If they were going to take the trip together successfully, O'Neill knew that he'd have to get Jackson to trust him somehow.
Jackson handed him a steaming plate of stew with a big dollop of onions and greens in the middle of the plate. Then he was given a tin cup of something hot. He sniffed and realized it was mint tea. He dug in and realized quickly that the food was very good. He didn't even mind that biscuits that tasted more like baking powder than flour.
In the middle of dinner O'Neill suddenly asked him, "Who taught you how to forage like this?"
Jackson took another spoonful of stew. It bought him a minute to think. When he did answer, it was to say, "My aunts." And then he scooped more stew into his mouth, his eyes held firmly to the tin plate in his hands.
O'Neill accepted the answer and filed away all the questions that rose to mind for another time.
Somehow Jackson had managed to make breakfast even better than dinner. Jack watched from his bedroll as Daniel crumbled the leftover biscuits and then soaked them in water. O'Neill would have said something, but he hadn't really cared for them in the first place. He watched as Jackson fried herbs, a few leftover onions, some nuts, and prairie turnip. Without water nearby, neither of them had bothered to clean the dishes or pots. The concoction was put into the little pot that they'd heated their stew in last night and cooked. At about that point Jack snuggled back down into his bedroll and adjusted his saddle under his head and promptly fell back to asleep.
He woke up to a smell of baking bread. At first he couldn't believe that he'd managed to fall back asleep after the sun had risen. Then, he couldn't believe how good breakfast smelled and just how hungry he felt. He sat up, throwing his blanket away, and dragged himself out into the crisp morning chill as the usual morning ache in his shoulder reminded him not to move so quickly. Almost instantly a hot cup of mint tea appeared. He took it gratefully and swished his mouth out, displacing the morning taste before drinking back half of the hot tea. A second item appeared in front of his bleary eyes; a plate of fine-looking bread.
He looked up at Jackson who stood over him with a small smile on his face. O'Neill took the plate and smelled it lightly. Surprisingly, the second incarnation of those biscuits was much better than the first. The bread looked fried on the outside, in the bread he spotted the onions and prairie turnip that Jackson had foraged for earlier. Bits of herbs dotted the soft looking inside.
"I made do," Jackson said as he returned to the fire to serve himself his own breakfast.
O'Neill picked up the fork sitting on the plate and tore a piece of the hot vegetable bread. He stopped instantly and just held it in his mouth. He chewed slowly feeling the pungent herbs and the soft texture of the turnips. Whatever Jackson had done had taken the baking powder taste out. What little stew had been left in the pot had attached itself to the vegetables and was sitting in the background of the bread.
Wistfully, Jackson said, "My mother used to make something like this for us when our bread had gone hard. I wish we had venison. It's not the same without venison and a little tallow."
"This gets better?" O'Neill asked, shocked.
For half a second he thought he saw Jackson smile and blush, but it quickly passed.
They were on the trail in short order. O'Neill was actually surprised how easily Jackson slipped into the role of traveling companion. Without speaking they broke camp, put out the fire, packed their things and set off northeast towards the Nebraska Territory.
Early on O'Neill tried to start a conversation but it only went as far as, "How's your face feel today?"
"Fine."
"You sure?"
"Fine."
That was it for the titillating morning interaction.
Jackson made him stop once during the day. Jackson asked to borrow his knife; their second conversation with which to brighten the day. O'Neill watched him walk off into the brush, picking herbs and mumbling to himself. Jackson was no more than ten minutes. It was just enough time for Jack to stretch himself out and get his blood circulating to his shoulder and leg.
The third conversation of the day didn't happen until they stopped for dinner. They spent the day chewing on tasteless jerky, and their leftovers from breakfast; O'Neill was happy for another hot meal. Like before, he allowed Jackson to forage and then cook.
As Jackson tended to the boiling pot O'Neill asked, "So your aunt taught you how to forage and cook."
No answer.
The spoon never stopped stirring.
Then O'Neill asked the only logical question that he could think of to ask. "Why your aunt and not you mother?"
The spoon froze in mid-stir.
O'Neill realized from the stiff look on Jackson's face that it had been the wrong question to ask.
Jackson looked down at the pot as he quietly said, "Aunts not aunt. I had a few." Jackson swallowed and made himself busy chopping something into the pot as he said, "I watched my parents die when I was very young. My mother didn't have the time to teach me much."
Jack felt about an inch tall afterward. Jackson didn't talk to him again that night. When O'Neill finally laid his head down against his blanket covered saddle it was still with an annoyance. Dinner had been good, very good; but he still felt bothered about what he'd asked. Jackson hadn't said anything and O'Neill knew that he wouldn't. The man didn't seem angry, just distant...very, very distant.
And for some reason that bothered him.
The next day wasn't much better. They were starting to run low on water. In fact, it was on the riding along on the trail that O'Neill reached down for his canteen, rattled it and heard very minimal splashing.
"How much water you got?" O'Neill asked.
"I used it all up for breakfast."
O'Neill looked over at the man and realized that he was serious.
Before O'Neill could say anything Jackson calmly said, "I can go three days without water."
"You'll die without-"
"My uncle trained me well. I can go three days," Jackson insisted as he nudged his horse forward. It was in that moment that Daniel decided that he didn't need water yet. He wanted to ask for a bullet to put in his mouth, but he reasoned that the thirst wasn't so bad that he would stoop to asking O'Neill for anything. He had no copper and that was bad; copper was better than bullets for making a mouth moist. He decided that at the first break he'd pick out a small pebble to keep his mouth wet, it was better than nothing.
As he looked at the man's back O'Neill felt very guilty. He could remember eating more than Jackson and drinking more of the tea that he made. Suddenly, O'Neill wondered how long Jackson had been cutting back.
"We have to find water," O'Neill said tugging down on his hat.
After a moment he felt annoyance rise up, but instead of directing it outright at Jackson he was able to curb it slightly by saying, "At least since neither of us is talking much we won't waste spit...need the moisture and all."
That was the first conversation of the day.
By the time the sun was just starting to set O'Neill heard a sharp whoop from Jackson. He turned to find a bright smile on his face.
"There," Jackson said pointing out to a cluster of cottonwood trees in the distance.
That was the second conversation of the day.
Jack realized that the horses must have smelled water because they picked up their pace without urging. The second they entered the shade of the cottonwoods O'Neill realized two things. First, the salt from the sweat around his eyes was making it hard to see and second, there wasn't any water. As he wiped his face with his bandana he heard Jackson gallop away. He opened his eyes in time to see Jackson run his horse around a tree and gallop back across from him.
"What are you doing?" O'Neill shouted to the man as he continued to gallop back and forth across the center of the tree cluster.
After a few more runs Jackson stopped and brought his horse to stand next to O'Neill.
"Why?" O'Neill asked again.
Jackson didn't answer as he searched the ground. When he pointed, O'Neill looked down and saw small puddles of water rising up in the hoof prints.
"I'll be damned," O'Neill whispered out.
"I'll get wood for a fire," he heard Jackson say as he dismounted.
"Yeah," O'Neill said a bit dumbfounded.
O'Neill spent the next fifteen minutes digging where the little puddles had risen. In that short time he'd used his knife to loosen the soft ground and his hands to remove it. When the hole was deep enough that it held a good few inches of water, O'Neill refilled the canteen. He dunked his muddy hands down into the dirt blackened water and then walked over to sit across from where Jackson was setting up the wood as the horses went to drink.
He watched Jackson start the fire. Jackson's fire starter was nothing more than a piece of flint with a piece of iron attached to the rock with a leather strap, but seemed to work just fine. The sparks landed on little shredded pieces of moss. A few gentle blows on the smoldering moss and they had a nice fire going.
When Jackson sat up and stared to add the larger pieces of wood; O'Neill asked, "How'd you know?"
"How do you call these trees in English?"
"Cottonwood."
Jackson nodded and said, "Cottonwood only grow near water. The trees closer to the center of this group are greener in the center then at the edges, that meant a water hole."
With those words the third conversation of the day ended as Jackson got up to go find their dinner.
O'Neill smirked as he realized that he'd wholly underestimated the man that he was traveling with.
Dinner consisted of roasted roots, the last of the jerky, and some greens that Jackson found.
As finished the last of his dinner O'Neill said, "I should go hunting tomorrow."
"No," Jackson said quietly.
"No? We need food."
"Yes," Jackson put his plate down and looked up at O'Neill. "Let me do it."
"You want me to give you my gun?"
For some reason O'Neill couldn't fathom Jackson found his question funny.
After a moment of mirth Jackson said, "I don't use guns. I've never even held one."
"Then how do you expect to hunt?"
Jackson very seriously looked up and said, "First, the earth provides. Second, there are always many other ways. A gun is just dangerous, there is no honor is using it."
O'Neill said back as he let Jackson's words sink in.
"You know," O'Neill said after a moment, "you sounded like one of those bible thumpers my wife used to meet with."
Jackson just smiled to himself as he lowered his head.
"Spirituality and non-violence often go together...no matter the culture."
"So do the words futile and waste of time." O'Neill put his plate down as he firmly said, "Tomorrow I'll do the hunting."
O'Neill watched Jackson pushing the greens around on his plate as he asked, "And what will you kill?"
As he thought of something to reply with, Jackson continued, "There are only the two of us. There's no time to dry or smoke meat."
O'Neill didn't answer: he just watched.
"No one to trade with. No one to give any leftover meat to. Two men don't need much."
"You want me to kill something small." O'Neill said.
Jackson didn't answer immediately. He swept his food together at the end of his fork and shoveled it into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed before he spoke. Then he said, "My uncle used to say that wars are started because of men who take more than their fair share. But if we only take what we need then there will always be plenty for everyone and there would be no need for war."
Jackson stood and went to pick up O'Neill's plate before walking off to wash their long neglected dinnerware.
At least they were up to four conversations a day!
~ ~ ~
When morning came, they doused the fire, packed their gear, and dug deeper in the water hole. When they'd drunk their fill, the men refilled their canteens before watering their horses. In thanks to the little green patch that had quenched their thirst, Jackson said a prayer for to the trees praising them for their kindness.
Then they were off again, this time without any breakfast. Jackson wished that he could have offered his master something to fill his stomach, but they were at the start of the winter season and the earth was starting to fall asleep. He reminded himself to keep a sharp eye out for a good breakfast and mounted his horse.
As usual O'Neill tried to start a conversation within the first half hour.
"Who do you know in Denver?"
Jackson's policy was to be as polite as he could be without actually engaging the man more than was necessary.
"A relative," Daniel answered as he looked away and visually swept the surrounding area. He looked back at O'Neill's weapons and asked, "If I ask you to wait here will you do as I ask?"
"Why?"
"Because I just found food." Jackson said as he dismounted. "Please don't fire your rile or your gun, since I'll probably be in the way."
Jackson walked along towards the brush he'd been eyeing and studied it carefully. From fifty feet away he could see down feathers caught on some of the high grasses surrounding a large scrubby area. He crouched down and picked up a few good sized rocks and continued quietly along. Taking the biggest rock he weighed it in his hand. He hadn't hit anything in years; he took a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare himself for the possibility that he would miss.
"I hope Uncle Three Spotted Owls isn't watching this," he thought to himself as began to carefully approach the brush.
Within ten feet he could hear the sounds of an occupied nest. At nine, the quail heard him and panicked. Daniel took aim and let the first rock fly. He watched the bird fall to the ground in a mass of feathers and struggling upturned scaly feet as he took another rock in his hand. When he saw that the bird wasn't going anywhere he dropped the rocks.
"You taught me well Uncle," Jackson said with a wistful little smile. "You taught me well and I am forever grateful to you and to my family."
He walked up to the bird and knelt down. He took it in his hands and quickly wrung its neck. He let it fall gently to the ground as he said, "Thank you for feeding us. Your spirit nourishes us and for that we are very grateful." Jackson reached up and grabbed a small lock of his own hair and pulled it out with a quick jerk. He laid it on the ground next to the bird and said, "This is for your mate, to keep warm through the winter. May she grow strong and continue to feed my people."
With that he took up the bird and walked away.
Once he had mounted his horse O'Neill asked, "One of your aunts or your uncle?"
Jackson couldn't help the smile as he said, "My uncle."
They rode for three more hours before they passed a black walnut tree. O'Neill helped him pick enough walnuts to fill a canvas bag that O'Neill he had been carrying. Jackson couldn't help feeling odd about the situation; but at least, there wasn't anyone around to watch the man help him gather the nuts. There was enough to snack on for several days. Under the same tree Jackson found a small patch of prairie turnips. He harvested half of what was available. He cut the tops off and planted them down into the soil, and offered a prayer.
"Time to go!" O'Neill shouted from somewhere behind him.
Jackson took up the turnips and left without making another sound or gesture of acknowledgement to his master. He put the turnips away before mounting and continuing their journey.
Eventually, it started again.
"What relative?"
Jackson had to think about it, weigh the pros and the cons. He decided at last that there was no harm in speaking of a man that meant nothing to him.
"My grandfather lives in Denver."
There was a moment of silence.
"You're angry at him."
"Anger," Jackson considered the emotion for a moment. "I suppose, to a degree, I am."
"Denver's only about a week by stage from where you were."
Jackson kept his eyes on the horizon as he nodded.
There was more silence from the both of them.
It was Jackson who finally said, "My grandfather and I both have very different ideas about what a family is and how family should be treated...I think he's disowned me. But I know that he doesn't like me very much. Either way, I won't be seeing him again." Though he'd thought those words to himself a thousand times, it was the first time that he'd ever uttered them out loud.
"What did he do to make you hate him so bad?"
"Nothing," Jackson said. "He's done absolutely nothing. That's the problem. He does nothing. The notion of worth to my grandfather is to make wealth. When I was brought to him he promised to take care of me. I was very sad to be without my family and my tribe but I was with my blood kin. I wanted to make a family with him. I was a man; I didn't need a father. I was willing to care for him, but he threw me away.
"Then he kept throwing me away. When my schooling was finished I decided that the only place that I wanted to be was home. I returned."
Jackson was surprised when O'Neill gently asked, "How did you end up in the whorehouse?"
The question was abrupt and rude but uttered with such care that Jackson found himself laughing. When he was finished he somberly said, "Life leads us all in many varied directions. My uncle said that we all have a path to walk. It's important to walk as we are meant to."
"You were meant to work in a whorehouse?"
"I was meant," Daniel said letting out a breath, "to find my way around a circle. That...place was only one stop of many."
They lapsed into another silence.
Jackson hadn't been with this man long but he already knew that the wheels in the man's head were turning fast and hard. He saw the questions come before they were uttered.
"They were Indians, weren't they? Your uncle and aunts."
"That's actually a rude question." He heard himself saying before he could catch himself. Then he said, "Please forgive me. It's been a long time since I've been a slave; I've forgotten what my place is."
"You were a slave? With the Indians?"
Jackson turned and met O'Neill's eyes. He didn't see hatred or condescension, but he would have liked too. He choked down the anger as he tried to gently say, "Indian is not a very nice word. It's a generic term that was originally meant to describe a completely different race of people." Jackson took a breath before saying, "You are Irish. If I were to call you a British and say that it was the same thing you would correct me quickly, wouldn't you?"
"Hell yeah! Fucking British killed both my uncles!"
Jackson stopped his horse to say, "And the difference between your Irish and another British is the same as a Kiowa, Cheyenne, Paiute, or Arapaho. We aren't all the same. Nations are held together by common ancestry, custom, history, and language. But we are as different from tribe to tribe as every other nation of the world."
With his lesson imparted Jackson nudged his horse. He didn't start to doubt the person that he'd lectured until his horse began forward again. He was so accustomed to speaking out, to being favored, to fighting for his beliefs that he wondered if he would ever be any good as a slave again.
He heard O'Neill's horse catch up with him.
Jackson heard him say, "You always have the same look and the same body language when you start second guessing yourself. Did you know that?"
Jackson smiled but it quickly faded into a deep frown wrapped in grief. "My uncle and all of my aunts told me that repeatedly. They did everything in their power to get me to stop." He didn't even realize that he was speaking. The words just flowed out of him. "My aunt said to me that I was a special boy and that I would do great things, that great men shouldn't hunch over and hide themselves, that they should sit up, look people in the eyes, and tell the world with their bodies, mouth, and eyes that they are a force of nature."
"Smart lady."
Those two simple words caught Jackson completely off guard. He had to turn and look at the man beside him.
"She was Kiowas." Jackson said.
O'Neill looked back. "You expect me to recant something?"
"My experiences have been such that I don't have very much faith in the character of many."
"White men," O'Neill said. "That was the end of the statement that you didn't say."
"Yes," Jackson said plainly.
O'Neill was quiet for a few minutes before he said, "You're just stuck aren't you? Stuck right between two worlds that happen to be butting heads, and you're just going to let the clash destroy you."
Jackson didn't speak.
"It ain't going to get better by rejecting everything about you that's white. That's a part of you too."
~ ~ ~
They had been about to make camp when they spotted running water in the distance. Both men felt so grubby from the trail that without speaking they continued on into the darkening evening. Jackson heard his uncle's sage advice in the back of his mind to not travel by night, and he was in agreement; but the water looked good and he needed a bath. Neither of them said a word to each other the entire way to the water and hadn't since their last conversation.
Instead of a river, they found a small creek just as the last rays of the sun were fading. Jackson dismounted and let his horse walk itself to the water as he quickly went into the surrounding trees and bushes looking for herbs. Neither of them had eaten anything besides walnuts and turnips along the trip that day. The quail would be bland if he couldn't find something to flavor it with.
O'Neill watched Jackson wander off into the brush with little surprise. He took care of the horses' needs and put their gear away before setting up a camp for them. By the time Jackson appeared again the horses had been watered, fed, and brushed down. O'Neill tied them up reasonably close and set about making a fire. The night was already cool, and O'Neill had no illusions that the water wouldn't be colder than a witch's left tit. He had a nice fire going when Jackson dropped an armload of wood nearby before heading for the quail that he'd killed earlier.
As usual O'Neill sat down to watch Jackson work. The quail was plucked, washed, and dressed with a mixture of shelled walnuts, turnips and greens. But instead of stuffing the body cavity, Jackson split the quail down the back and slipped his hand between the skin and the breast meat; curiously enough, the dressing was stuffed inside the skin. Jackson used little sharpened sticks to pin the skin down before skewering the quail with two long sharp sticks. The wood that was still on fire was pushed aside, and a bed of hot coals revealed. The skewered bird was arranged over the bed of hot coals.
Jackson then sliced a few turnips and set them near the coals in the pit. The remaining greens and a few other things went into a little pot and set near the coals.
"I'm going to wash," Jackson announced before walking off to the water.
As he smelled himself Jack thought that it would be a good idea if he did as well. He went to his saddlebag and pulled out his other change of clothes, and an extra blanket that would work as a towel. When he found his soap he went off towards the water.
When he got there he found Jackson kneeling down in the shallow water and moving rocks around in the dark. He watched the man step down into the water so that it came up to his waist.
"Throw me your clothes," Jackson said without looking up, "I'll wash them, too."
O'Neill found himself blushing for a moment and he was glad that it was night. He set his things down on a nearby rock and set about undressing. He left his gun nearby, just in case. He carried his laundry and the bar of soap into the freezing water. He tried to find a comfortable place in the creek where he could kneel down but there really wasn't any. The bed was rocky and sharp. The rocks were slippery and he didn't want to risk falling. A combination of constant riding and the cold water were making his knees ache. He didn't want to kneel down only to have to ask for help in getting up.
"Come," Jackson said as he lifted himself out of the water to sit on a nearby rock with laundry in his lap.
O'Neill handed Jackson the soap and the laundry so he could get down into the hole that Jackson had made. O'Neill stepped down carefully and then dunked himself down under the cold water. When he came up he was chilly but felt better than he had in days. And the first pass of the soapy hand across his back was even better. He felt Jackson's fingers dig into his muscles, working the dirt out of his skin and the tension out of his back and it made him forget the cold around his lower body and the pain in his backside for few good long minutes.
"Here," Jackson said offering him the bar of soap.
For a moment Jack felt the same sleepy stupidity that he often felt in the first moments of waking, but he took the soap instinctively. It was a moment before he even knew what to do with it. As soon as he got himself together he washed the grime and sweat away. He rinsed off and then turned to find Jackson sitting with a pile of wet clothes in his lap.
O'Neill was given a hand up out of the water and then told, "You should warm up. I'll be there as soon as I'm done."
O'Neill dried off and dressed quickly. He left the blanket for Jackson and then headed off for the fire. He didn't want to admit it but he was colder than he was comfortable being.
~ ~ ~
When Jackson returned to the camp, he found that several things had happened. O'Neill was sitting on his bedroll waiting for his return, and he seemed both warmer and drier than previous. The quail had been turned over. The food smelled done; and the turnips were already served up and waiting. And O'Neill had stretched his lasso between two trees over the fire for the laundry.
Jackson didn't say anything to O'Neill, mostly because he wasn't sure what was appropriate. The only white man that he'd ever lived with had been his grandfather and that was a short-lived experience at best. He'd never seen his grandfather do menial housework; that had been left up to the keeper of the house. During his time at the University, he'd lived in an apartment of his own. He kept his peace and set the laundry to drip over a few bushes for the mean time.
"I'll hang them up over after there isn't any food to smoke them."
Daniel adjusted the blanket around his waist and sat down on his own bedroll set next to O'Neill's. He tested the quail: he didn't want to pull the quail out until he knew that it was ready. He mixed the turnips with the wild peas that he'd left boiling. He mashed them as well as he could and then served them with a few crushed walnuts.
They ate quietly for a few minutes before O'Neill asked, "Do you have any other clothes?"
"White clothes." This was followed by the words, "A suit."
"Not exactly appropriate."
He received a snort of agreement from Jackson.
"I have an extra pair of jeans," O'Neill said. "They're old, might fit a bit big, but if the clothes aren't dry by morning they're better than wearing wet skins."
Jackson finished his share of the turnip mash. When he was finished he asked, "Do you mind if I have more turnips?"
"Go ahead," O'Neill easily. "I'm waiting for some of that quail."
Daniel nodded and served himself the rest of the little pot's contents before picking up the skewered bird from the fire. Daniel pointed to a large piece of bark that he'd fetched previously. "Hand me that."
O'Neill brought the big piece of bark and laid it rough side down. Daniel turned the skewered bird skin side up onto the bark platter and tested it. He poked the bird a few times just to make sure that it had cooked all the way through. He'd learned enough during his time in college to beware of under cooked fowl and pork...not that he had ever eaten fowl.
Neither man could help the big smiles. Daniel removed the sticks from the quail and threw them into the fire before carving. Once satisfied with the meat's condition, he sliced down the middle of the breast and slid it onto O'Neill's waiting plate. Daniel smelled it and was tempted to at least taste it for a moment. Daniel watched O'Neill happily licking his fingers and tearing into it. The look of utter contentment that crossed his face was good enough that Daniel felt very satisfied in his work for the day as he picked up his plate and began to eat his turnips.
After a few minutes O'Neill pushed his food into his cheek long enough to say, "Aren't you having any?"
Daniel loaded his fork as he said, "It's bad luck to eat birds."
"You're kidding?"
Daniel shook his head and then finished his dinner.
After dinner Daniel boned the chicken, put all of the meat into the Mason jar that had held the stew a few days prior and burnt the garbage in the fire. He wedged the meat and stuffing filled jar under the water and weighted it under a rock. The water would keep it from spoiling, the distance from camp would keep animals away, and being near the creek gave him another opportunity to wash his hands.
As he walked back to camp, he saw O'Neill rubbing his shoulder. From the pained look on his face, Daniel began to wonder how long the man had been hurting. He shook his head as he thought to himself how all warriors stood laughing at an assailant and crying in the shadows...even the enemy.
He marched back to camp and fished the bottle of oil that Maggie had provided him with out of his satchel. He knelt down by O'Neill's bedroll and said, "Turn over. I'm going to make you feel better."
The look on O'Neill's face made Daniel feel about as cheap as he'd ever felt as a whore.
"Not...that," he said quietly, "I'm going to rub your back. My uncle liked it when I did this for him."
"Why?" O'Neill asked with a flippant tone as he began to turn onto his stomach. "Was he your master too?"
Daniel froze suddenly. He recovered himself but he knew that O'Neill had seen it.
"Your uncle sold you into slavery!" the man said, astonished.
"Not exactly," Daniel said quietly as he gently pushed O'Neill down onto his bedroll. Daniel arranged O'Neill's saddle so that the man would be on an incline. Daniel didn't know why the man insisted on sleeping with it as his pillow, but then he didn't understand the idea of pillows in general. "At the time he wasn't my uncle. He found me with my parent's bodies during a raid and claimed me; I would have died if he'd left me there."
Daniel poured a little bit of oil into his cupped hand. He set the bottle on a flat bit of ground and then carefully warmed the oil in his hands before he began to rub O'Neill's back and shoulders.
"He had just gotten married and he was too busy with his third wife to deal with me. His second wife had just had a baby so she was busy. He gave me to his first wife. She didn't have children. Unfortunately for him, she wouldn't part with me once he came and told her that he was going to sell me. The men that came trading were willing to pay four ponies for me; that was quite a lot for a child...even a white one."
Daniel began to gently work his fingertips into the tight muscles as he continued with his story. "My aunt was the first wife, the best wife. She was as quiet and docile as she was hardworking and devoted. I've never known a more virtuous and pious woman in all my life, but that day she turned on him with fangs bared. It would have been easier to try to tame an angry wounded bear. She would not give me up. She embarrassed my uncle publicly, so much so that several of the villagers came to talk to her, but she wouldn't budge. Eventually, he relented and let her keep me, if only to shut her up. All of his wives were sisters, and she was the eldest among them. She was the strongest, and if she had wanted to cause problems in his household she could have done it."
"Cut his losses. Smart," came a sleepy comment from the man under his hands.
"I used to take care of her dogs. I helped her cook, forage, plant crops, haul water, and I gathered the wood every single day. Even as young as I was, she gave me the responsibility of making the fire every morning. She knew everything about plants and how to cure with them, just like my mother. I helped her for a long time; and I was good at it too."
Daniel wandered up to the man's neck and shoulders. O'Neill was already relaxed and pliant under his working fingers. Deftly he began to dance his fingers along the shoulder muscles, reaching out with his heart trying to find the problem with the man's shoulder. Almost instantly he found an old scar on the skin's surface: small and round, torn skin badly put back together again. The bones under his hands almost vibrated to him as if telling him of the pain still singing through them.
"It was almost a year later, when one of the village elders came to my uncle's tent to mediate a dispute. They were discussing legal matters concerning a trade that uncle had made a week prior with another man in the village. My aunt had asked me to sit in the tepee with them the week before so that I could fetch the men water and food as it was needed. Normally, one of my aunts would have done that job but they were making preparations for the winter. Maybe if I had been bigger and stronger I would have been helping and the young wife inside, but I wasn't."
Daniel started at the base of the neck and slowly worked his way down. He eased the straining tendons and then lulled them to sleep as he pushed down gently trying alleviate the dull aches that he knew were there.
"A conflict arose, as they usually do. I was horrified when the man started miss-quoting my master. He all but lied to the elder about the terms of the trade. I got so angry that I got up and walked over to the man and corrected him. He was a guest in my master's home, I couldn't call him a liar so I quoted verbatim what he'd said the week before."
"Little stinker," O'Neill said half-asleep.
"All three men were shocked. The elder asked me how I knew what the man had said, so I quoted the entire conversation that had taken place during the original trade. The elder just smiled, nodded, and settled the dispute."
"Did you get a beating?"
Daniel couldn't help a little chuckle. "I was a slave, not a child of his home. I didn't have the right to speak to an invited guest like that. It was very rude of me. But the elder spoke to my uncle; my uncle said that I had impressed the elder and that he didn't want me beaten only spoken to about what I knew, who I was, and what I would be. Later, my uncle sat down and questioned me about many, many things."
Daniel found another two scars at the man's right side: straight cuts indicating a sword, knife, or lance. He knew by the waxy nature of the cuts that they were within two or three years old. He began on the lower back.
"Kiowas children aren't beaten by their parents; children are everything, the center of life. I didn't know it at the time, but he was trying to gauge just how special I was. I guess he finally wanted to know why his first, second, and third wives were so attached to me that none of them had ever let him lay a finger on raise his voice to me, not even when I really deserved it."
O'Neill made an 'hmm' sound which let Daniel know that he'd found a good place at the man's lower back. He continued to do his work.
"After that my uncle took me into his family. During one of the ceremonies my uncle said that I fell into a trance and that I spoke with my parents. He says that I told him about the dream I had after, but I don't remember. He said that my parents visited me that day and let my uncle know that they were still there by my side caring for me. That's why he took me as his nephew and not as his son; he didn't want to make my parents' spirits angry."
Daniel pulled the blanket over the man and moved down. He made himself comfortable before pulled the blanket up and took one of O'Neill's feet into his hands. Gently, he rubbed the foot as he continued, "He treated me like a son from that day onward. I was taught everything that I would need so that I could serve my people and I did. For as long as I was with them I did everything that was expected of me, and I was always happy."
He dug into the area between O'Neill's toes and found a spot that made the man moan. With the moral of his story told, he didn't feel like speaking anymore. The pain on the man's body was such that Daniel felt the need to chant a prayer over him as he tried to soothe him. The prayer went out of his mouth and up into the wind.
He couldn't help the happy smile as he thought how long it had been since he'd been allowed to help anyone like this. He changed his prayer when he reached the man's knee and not only found an ugly scar running the length of it but signs of inflammation around the knee joint. He continued up the back of the strongly muscled thighs and worked out the knots that he found there. He went to the other thigh and worked his way down. He searched the second knee carefully but found no signs of damage...until his hands went lower. At the calf he found an odd scar: irregular and jagged. It was obvious that it hadn't been made by a weapon. He gently prodded the leg. Every instinct in his body told him that the bone had snapped at one point and broken the skin. He knew it was true and said a prayer over the bone all its own.
He proceeded down to the foot and worked it until he was satisfied that every muscle had been touched and unwound. He tucked the man into his bed and stoked the fire before going to his blankets.
Jack awoke happily to the smell of frying bread and roasting meat. He lifted his head just high enough to take the odor deeper into his nostrils before dropping back down. He heard someone stomping rather loudly through the underbrush. He'd heard Jackson's footsteps enough times now to know the man by sound alone, and he wasn't trying to be quiet; probably so that he wouldn't get shot by a certain cranky, still sleepy, ex-Colonel.
Then he heard Jackson say, "If you don't get up, then you don't get fed."
"You mean you aren't going to feed me in bed?" Jack asked as he stretched out lazily. "I'm shocked. I thought you were a better slave than that. Don't you know that slaves, where I come from, feed their masters in bed?"
Jack opened his eyes and found Jackson standing over him with his hands on his hips. Jackson was wearing Jack's old jeans and nothing else.
"First of all Colonel, there's this funny new amendment that has recently freed all of the slaves in your world. And second, I don't come from where you come from. Up! Or, I throw your bread in the river and you can swim after it."
Jack decided to take the advice of Jackson's uncle and stop while the person that did the good cooking was still willing to do it for him.
"Where did you get the bread?" Jack asked as he somehow managed to get up. He felt so good that it was almost a surprise when he felt a twinge at his shoulder again.
"I found acorns over there, and the last of the walnut."
Jack looked at the meat hanging over the fire and the fresh skin sitting on the ground.
"I take it that squirrel is a food you can eat?"
"Too bad we don't have corn. It's good in a corn and pumpkin mush with lots of onion. My youngest aunt used to make it on special occasions. It was her specialty."
Jack quickly found a tin cup had magically appeared in his hand. It was soon filled with a hot tea. He yawned deeply and then went to taste. The moment the smell reached his nostrils he pulled it way and asked, "What the hell is this?"
"It's medicine." Jackson said pushing the tin cup near his face.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"It's good for you. The herbs in it will help with the pain that your knee and shoulder give you."
Jack was quiet as he wondered how he'd given himself away. "I'm fine." He said after a while. "And this stinks."
"Fine." Jackson said quietly. "The pain will continue. The arthritis in your knee will get worse until you're limping and finally using a cane. Will that make everything better?"
Jack clenched his jaw. He watched the other man for a moment as he spooned up Jack's breakfast. The potion stank badly, but he was sure that Jackson was trustworthy enough that he wouldn't try to kill him. But it still stank. He thought of another day on horseback and the pain that his shoulder had slowly been building up over the past few days. In the end he held his breath and drank down the bitter drink.
As he stuck his tongue out and gasped, the cup was taken away. Jack was served a plate of the delicious quail he'd had the night before with the flat fried bread on the side. He put meat in his mouth to kill the taste of the drink.
He watched Jackson take a bit of squirrel into his plate before cutting up the rest and throwing it into the empty stew pot. Vegetables and herbs followed. The leftover bread batter was poured over the top of the stew before the man sat down to eat. He watched Jackson eat his squirrel, fried nut bread, and leftover turnips.
As he watched Jackson eat Jack decided to test out the situation.
He reached over and traced the small half-moon shaped object on Jackson's shoulder as he asked, "What is this?"
Jackson chewed and swallowed his food before he answered, "The sun."
"And the one running down your back?"
There was a moment of silence before Jackson said, "Deer tracks."
Jack put his plate down on his lap. "And here I was thinking that we weren't going to do that any more; that thing where you answer my questions without really answering them because you don't really want to talk to me."
Daniel set his food down too. "You were in the military. Did you fight during your Civil War?"
Jack was caught off guard by the question. He felt his eyes darkening at the mention of the war, but he still managed to hold his voice steady when he answered, "Yes."
"Do you find it useful to speak of the dead men that you knew and fought with during that war? How they died? Your last memories of them?"
Jack felt a muscle in his jaw twitch, "Not particularly."
Jackson nodded and said, "For all intents and purposes my people have been involved in a war for our own lands against your people for the better half of this century...at least on the plains. In other parts of the country that fight has been going on much longer. Why do you think that I would want to sit and talk about all the things that remind me of the atrocities that I've seen? Of the brave men, women, and children that I've seen your military shoot down in cold blood. Of the sicknesses that have killed our people, and the lands that were ours that have been stolen."
Daniel picked up his plate and kept his eyes on it as he said, "This is why there are things that I would rather not speak with you about."
Jack wasn't surprised that the rest of the day was very quiet. Jackson spent that time working the squirrel skin on his lap as he guided the horse with his knees. When the skin was done they both just ignored each other. Jackson for his own reasons and Jack because he had nothing to say that would fix the problem.
For two days Jack thought hard and came up with nothing that would bridge the distance between them. A part of him still didn't trust Jackson. Deep down the man was red, and proud of it. Jack really didn't care, but when they entered their first village and it came down to it Jack wasn't sure if he could trust Jackson to translate honestly. All the man had to say was, 'They said that your wife died.' The journey would be over, Jackson would be free, and Jack would never know what really happened.
The thought of reliving what the happened with the wagon train master and the cowards that abandoned O'Neill's family was unthinkable. He never wanted to have to go through the pain of digging up the dead as he tried to ascertain weather this stinking, shriveled corpse or that one were his wife and son. But he had to know for sure what happened to them.
To make matters worse at the end of the second day his shoulder had started acting up again. He still cursed the day that goddamned Confederate bullet had ever ricocheted off that brick wall and slammed into his shoulder. The odds of it happening were slim. But the bullet had been real. And doctors were few. He counted himself lucky that he hadn't lost his arm, shoulder, and/or life. But it could still creep up on him in cold weather, tell him when it was about to rain, and rang out dull pain into his bones until he was willing to do anything for relief.
He wasn't at all surprised when yet another nasty cup of foul smelling tea was put under his nose. Jack took it willingly and drank it down, though he wished afterward that he hadn't. After dinner he lay down on his bedroll and asked for another rub down. He was actually surprised when Jackson didn't even hesitate to search out the bottle of oil and began to rub his back for him again. Like the last time Jack felt himself grow sleepy almost immediately. As Jackson's hands neared his shoulder he felt the pain build and then ease away. He was asleep before he knew it.
~ ~ ~
It was the next day that brought mixed tidings on his part and grief to his traveling companion. Just after sunrise they set out still on their north by north east direction. On horseback they exchanged a few remaining berries, roasted roots, and squirrel stew between them. Nothing was wasted and everything was appreciated.
The wind kicked up as they rode deeper into the plains. Without the trees to break the wind, O'Neill started to realize that winter was starting to set in faster then he'd realized. That's when he started to really worry. Neither of them had winter clothes with which to weather the kind of cold that the plains could bring. After spending all his money to purchase Daniel, Jack wasn't sure what to use to keep them both alive. Without gold, money, or goods to trade with, they were both as good as dead.
Jack considered turning farther east. The detour would take them at least a month out of their way, but within two weeks they could arrive at a bank. Jack could have money wired to him from his bank in New York. He'd been considering the pros and cons for days now, and with each passing day it was looking like a necessity. At least it did, until their horses brought them up over the crest of a very silent hill.
Jack looked out and all he saw were dark hairy piles of dead buffalo dotting the landscape. One after another the corpses of a small herd were scattered across the expanse of a half mile. Jack's first reaction was to smile hard and thank God for the good luck. Who ever killed them hadn't bothered to take the skins. If they stopped for a few days and worked the skins, not only would they have clothes for winter, they'd have food, and something to trade with.
He turned to his companion to tell Jackson just how lucky he thought they were when he saw the tears sliding down the man's face. The smile fell off of Jack's face. He took a second look at the dead herd. At first he wasn't sure what Jackson was so upset about, and then he remembered what the man had been preaching at him continuously; "Take only what you need."
As he surveyed the killing ground, Jack realized that there was no way that the two of them would be able to save all of the meat. All of the skins...maybe. If they worked hard around the clock they might be able to save the skins before they rotted out.
Jackson didn't say a word, he only cried. Jack knew that was bad in and of itself.
Jack didn't know what to say to the man so he didn't bother to say anything at all. He nudged his horse forward and went to the first downed buffalo. He dismounted his horse and knelt down near it. He smelled the buffalo's mouth. No smell, no maggots, no flies. Its eyes were clear and shiny. He felt its chest and stomach and found that it was still warm. On its side he found a large bullet hole. Jack slid two fingers inside and found that its guts were still rather warm.
He heard Jackson ride up behind him.
"An hour," Jack said, "Maybe less. We can save most of the meat and skins if we start now."
"I have to pray."
"Then pray," Jack said as he stood and pulled his knife out of its sheath. "But do it with this in your hand as you're taking it apart. Please tell me that your aunts taught you how to work skins. I've only ever seen it done, never actually had to do it myself."
Jack received a nod. He saw Jackson swallow hard as he struggled with what was around him. Jack grabbed his companion's shoulder and said, "We need this. We need the food. We need the skins. Winter is coming. Please help me."
To Jack's utter surprise those words were all it took. Jackson wasn't kidding about his aunts having taught him. The man could skin a buffalo in less then fifteen minutes. With forty dead buffalo in the herd he knew they wouldn't be able to finish before sunset unless they worked as efficiently as possible. While Jackson worked on that first buffalo, Jack set about lassoing each buffalo and dragging them closer to the first. By the time he was finished, Jackson was on his third buffalo. Two outstretched skins were already drying in the sun.
"I'll be back soon," Jack said before mounting his horse and riding off as fast as he could.
He was less than a half hour's ride from the nearest cluster of trees. When he reached the trees he cut down and stripped as many long straight limbs as he could find. He lassoed them together and then gathered as much fire wood as he could find. He tied the bundle to his pommel and dragged it back to the buffalo. He dumped his burden and then went back to the trees. One of the trees had fallen: it was young and looked as if a combination of wind and loose rocky soil had taken it down. He dragged it back to the buffalo also.
When he returned, Jackson had five skins stretched out in the sun and was working on the sixth. Jack hunkered down by the dead cow and watched as Jackson worked. He studied the incisions, the hand movements, and the techniques that he was using. When the seventh skin was being laid out in the sun Jack took out a spare knife from his boot and started slicing down the center of a big bull. He couldn't slice as fast as Jackson without losing accuracy and he didn't want to risk piercing the hides any more than was necessary. At first he found that he was leaving a great deal more meat on the skin than was warranted. It took practice, but by the time he was standing over his third buffalo his skills had improved a great deal.
When Jack had finished his sixth buffalo he proudly laid out the skin next to the two rows of skins that they already had started.
Jackson walked up next to him as Jack braced his back and rested for a moment. Jack turned to find him there. Jackson offered him a pot. Jack looked inside and found it filled with milk. Jack brought the pot of milk to his lips as he watched Jackson lay out his skin next to Jack's.
"What did you flavor this milk with?" Jack asked carefully.
"Blood," Jackson said simply. When he looked up he added, "It will give you strength."
Jack hesitated but he was hungry enough to drink down half of the pot without a thought. He offered the remainder to Jackson.
"You should make a fire," Jackson said as he stretched out. "Put big rocks in the fire. We should start butchering and drying meat. We'll need racks. Most of it will have to dry in the sun"
Jackson took the milk and drank.
"You can't finish skinning all the buffalo by yourself. It'll take you all day...or more."
Jackson wiped the white mustache off his face. "There's no way to finish this today. The skins that don't get worked on quickly will get stiff and we won't be able to tan them later. We should work on saving as much of the meat as possible. The tongues in particular; if we dry them we can trade them. We can't do this job alone." Jackson said before finishing off the milk.
"We can try," Jack said as he walked off.
He used the long thin limbs and sinew from one of the unbutchered bulls to create the kind of tripod shaped racks that he'd seen both Indians and settlers use to dry meat. By the time he was done with the first one, he found Jackson walking towards him dragging a skin filled with a butchered meat. Jack turned and found the bones of the animal sitting out in the sun.
"The meat has to be sliced very thin before it's put on the racks. If you put a few big pieces to roast we'll eat them later."
Jack didn't waste any time in digging a pit and setting meat to roast over the fire. He left it cooking while he pulled more tree limbs together to start construction on another rack. He looked up and realized that they'd already attracted crows and carrion birds. They hadn't grown bold enough yet to come close to the men, but it was only a matter of time.
When the second rack was up, Jack began slicing the meat into long thin strips and hanging them up. By the time he was done hanging all the meat that Daniel had brought him he was tired and stiff. He picked up the skin that Daniel had brought him, and he dragged it back to the buffalo. He decided to work with the best first and went to each buffalo, taking its tongue. He used sinew to hang them up to dry. It took him the better part of two hours to collect and hang all the tongues; but when he was finished he felt better about their chances of survival. The tongues were worth a great deal; they had something to trade with now.
He looked over and found Daniel throwing rocks at a couple of birds that had gotten too close the buffalo. Jack picked up his skin and carried it to the closest buffalo. He decided to butcher at least one cow on his own before he dragged Jackson back to the campfire for food.
He had just cut a good piece of shoulder off the cow when he got the strangest feeling. Clutching his knife tightly he stood up surveying the surrounding area as he turned carefully. Beyond the meat piled rack he could see a group of five people that had come over the hill. In the sunlight he could easily see that they were Indian.
"Jackson," Jack hissed as loudly as he dared.
When that didn't attract the man's attention, Jack whistled out once.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jackson stand, turn to where Jack was facing, and then start to shout out something in a language that Jack didn't understand. He realized that this would be his first real encounter using Jackson as a go-between.
Jackson walked towards the new arrivals. As he passed by Jack he said, "We need them. I'm going to offer them food and skins if they help."
"If they don't kill us first," Jack heard himself mumble.
The expected look descended down on Jackson's face. "We need them." The man said again. "Please allow me to try. If you shoot at them they could attack in self-defense and the buffalo would still go to waste. It's better to share. It makes sense."
Jack considered it for a moment and then said, "Don't get too close. If they try to hurt you, I will start shooting."
"Well," Jackson said turning away. "I supposed that's as much of a compromise as I'll get from you."
Jack cleared the rack and stood in direct line to where the Indians were. He didn't see any guns on them. He could see bows and one of them had a lance. Jack had no illusions; he knew firsthand what an Indian with a lance could do. In fact, there were times when he still had nightmares about that stone tipped lance ramming into his flesh.
His gun was on his hip. He also knew that his hands were slippery with blood and that his gun was probably covered with dried blood as well. He didn't like his chances of being able to save Jackson if the situation turned bad. It was his experience that they usually did.
Daniel walked up as friendly as non-threatening as possible. He could tell by one look that these people were hungry and were probably attracted by the smoke from the fire. Just by the clothing and the designs he knew they were Omaha.
Before the man could ask for food, and in their language, Daniel quickly said in their language, "Please friends, come join us. We have plenty of food. My master and I would be interested in offering you a trade. We found this herd of recently killed buffalo. We want to save as many hides and as much of the meat as possible before they become ruined. Come and eat and we shall talk."
O'Neill saw Jackson walk up slowly and come to stand far closer than Jack thought would be healthy. He watched carefully as words were exchanged for a few moments and then Jackson came back down the hill with three men. The four women that walked up came trailing behind them more cautiously. Jack noticed that they had no horses. A travois was carried between two women and on were the group's belongings. Behind the women came the children. Skinny, darkened from the constant sun, and walking hesitantly behind their mothers the three children varied in ages from toddler to just about ten years old.
Jackson walked up to him with a smile on his face.
"Jack O'Neill I'd like to introduce you to," and that was all Jack understood. He pretended to understand what Jackson was saying.
It was obvious to Jack that the big, silent one was the group's leader. He seemed about as trusting as Jack felt at present. The younger man was barely out of his teens, probably a son. The older one had grey hair and looked half-dead on his feet.
Jackson said something and then motioned to the fire where the food was.
"Come," Jackson said, grabbing Jack's arm and leading him towards the fire, "we're going to share a meal and talk about how we're going to divide up the work."
Jack obediently complied and sat as he kept an eye on the men. He noticed that the women didn't even bother to stop by the fire or the food. They stopped only long enough to remove a few things from the travois and then headed off to butcher and work on the skins that were still lying out in the sun. The first piece of meat went to Jack. He didn't hesitate to accept it, though he didn't eat from it until the quiet man opposite him had a piece in his hand as well. The other men were given food. Daniel called over the smaller children, gave them each a piece of meat to chew on and then sat them down off to one side near the travois. The older child was given a bowl of meat to take to the women and then promptly disappeared.
"Jack," Jackson said quietly.
Jack looked up a bit surprised since it was the first time he'd heard the man call him by his first name.
"I'd like to offer them all of the buffalo hearts."
"Why?" Jack asked confused.
"There very valuable to them. I was thinking," Jackson said as he carved out several other pieces from the meat. "That we should offer them at least a third of the skins and meat."
"That's a bit much, don't you think?"
"I think that they have children to feed." Daniel didn't look at him as he quietly said, "With the hunters killing off all the buffalo it's hard to find food. You'll realize just how hard once we get further onto the plains."
"And in return?" Jack asked already knowing that he was going to give in.
"They'll help us skin, butcher, and dry the meat."
"Everyone? Or, just the women?" Jack asked quickly before biting into the meat.
Daniel carved the meat harder and handed the old man a larger chunk.
Taking a deep breath Jackson started talking. Jack concentrated on his meat as he watched the back and forth deliberations. He turned back to check on the women once or twice; they were busy. Two were on the ground diligently scraping the meat and clinging fat from the skins while the third one drove pegs down into the edges of a skin securing it so that it would dry flat. The children were too busy eating to do anything else.
Jack only became concerned once when the leader raised his voice to Daniel and it looked like an argument was about to erupt. Daniel remained calm and kept his voice even and soft as he continued talking. The elder spoke once as the tension thickened, and then he gave a short nod. Daniel spoke again and the matter seemed to have been decided.
Jack looked at Daniel who merely said, "It's done."
"What?" Jack asked curiously.
"The men will help too."
"Not too happy about it though."
"Tanning skins is women's work. Butchering is women's work."
"Not when winter's coming it's not."
Daniel nodded once. "I reminded him of that. The elder agrees with me. The choice between pride and starvation isn't a hard one. They'll help, and you and I will promise never to tell anyone. When the meat is dry and the skins are finished we'll divide everything and then go our separate ways."
"Fair enough." Jack said as he put the rest of the meat into his hand, got up, and went back to work.
The tanning was as long and labor intensive a process as Daniel could ever remembered it being.
With four men, three women, and two of the children helping the work moved along faster. The toddler was left with the elder, Blue Stone, whom Daniel immediately insisted sit down and rest.
They worked through the evening and into the night. When Daniel looked up and found one of the little ones asleep on the furry side of an uncleaned skin. He wiped off as much blood and grease from his arms as he could before he went to pick up the child. He found the elder boy helping his mother scrape down a skin. Daniel grabbed the child by the arm and stood him up. The boy was so sleepy and tired that he did little more than stagger up to his feet and follow blindly to where Daniel led him. It took a few minutes to pull the bedrolls off the horses and set up the pallets for the children. Daniel set both the children down. Then he went to find the elder and found him with the baby asleep in his lap. Daniel picked up the baby and then carefully woke up the elder. He helped the old man to his feet and then led him to the second bedroll. He put the baby in the old man's arms and then wrapped them in the blanket.
He wished that he could have set a fire for them but all the dry dung and wood available was either smoking meat or being used to boil water for the tanning. He made sure that the occupants of both bedrolls were all tucked in tightly against the night wind that was picking up and then he returned to work.
The next day was full of the same long, tiring and endless work. And the day after, and the day after that.
~ ~ ~
"You picked up an admirer." Jack said as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and lay down on his side.
"I don't know what you mean," Daniel said as he took Jack's plate and set it aside with his own.
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do."
"Don't."
"Do," Jack demanded. "For Pete's sake he follows you around like some love sick dog!"
"He doesn't."
"Oh!" Jack said quickly. "Then you noticed?"
Daniel smiled and felt his ears burn slightly. "Alright, I did notice but he's harmless."
Daniel pushed Jack down onto his stomach as he reached for the bottle of oil.
"You're enjoying it, and you're letting him think that you love him too."
Daniel pulled up Jack's shirt over his shoulders before settling him down on his bedroll.
"No, I'm not. He's just a boy. Boys think that they're in love all the time."
He began to knead Jack's back slowly.
"He's a lot older than a boy, Daniel. Old enough to be a problem if he wants to be."
Daniel looked up and said, "That's a wicked thing to say."
He didn't like that Jack had said it but he knew better than to stop rubbing Jack down. The man was nothing but complaints when his shoulder was hurting, and Daniel knew that it was hurting now.
"No. Just true. You should put him in his place and tell him that you aren't interested."
"Alright," Daniel said compliantly to head off the rest of the argument that he knew the man was already prepared for.
He dug down into the muscles and received a deep moan. Apparently, that was the bulk of the complaints for the evening, because O'Neill relaxed rather quickly and then fell promptly asleep. Daniel worked on Jack's shoulder for a few more minutes until he knew that the muscles were loose, and ready for the next work day. Then he arranged Jack's limbs under the blanket and left for his own bedroll.
~ ~ ~
It had been Daniel's idea to bury an entire cow in a pit of hot rocks. They covered it in and buried it with coals and hot ash. It took the better half of three days to cook all the way through and it took them a few more days to eat it.
The last bits of the cow were hard. Without winter cold to keep the food from spoiling they had to dry out the cooked meat as much as possible. Now it was sun baked and almost impossible to chew.
A paunch was hung over a fire by a tripod. Water was put to boil. The meat was chopped and cooked with what last few roots and edible greens were found. Food was getting much harder to find. Daniel and the other women were resorting to picking anything that was edible...not matter what the taste.
The colder winds were coming. What little dung was found had to be used for cooking. Jack had assured him that short of felling the trunk of a tree the wood was all but gone, and yet Jack had ridden out two days prior to search.
The earth was starting to fall asleep. Edible greens and vegetables were getting harder to find. But in the least the first few skins were now around them. The first few pieces of dried meat were taken off the frames and put away.
Wrapped in a buffalo hide, he walked away from the small meat-hung camp and stared off into the distance. For the flash of a moment he wondered what his grandfather was doing and then quickly pushed those thoughts away. His grandfather had never spared him a thought; there was no use in doing so for him.
He thought warmly about Maggie and the other women that he'd met at the Horsehead and realized that since it was sunset the women would be getting ready for the evening's work. There would be an argument over a corset, a tin of rouge, or some other nonsense. Maggie would get into the middle of it and say something that only a mother would often say, if mothers used words like 'bitch,' 'bastard,' or 'fuck you!'
"They must be happy thoughts?"
Daniel jumped when he heard the voice.
"You scared me Stone Calf," Daniel said with a smile. "I didn't even hear you."
"Were they happy thoughts?" the young man asked again.
"Yes. And, no. I was thinking of friends that I met in a very bad place." He was quiet for a moment before he added the words, "I hope that they are well."
"You can come with us if you want. I've spoken with my father already. He said that if you are willing to come he will speak to your master, give him hides and meat for your freedom. You are worth the price."
Daniel looked at the young man and the sincerity in his eyes. He felt the tears in his eyes and reached out to gently stroke his face. What he didn't intend was for the boy to lean into him. Daniel turned his face away so that he couldn't be kissed. When he realized what he was doing he also realized that his eyes where tightly screwed shut.
"What did they do to you?" Stone Calf whispered.
Daniel took a small step back to give himself room. "I did it to myself." Daniel swallowed hard and then added, "Thank you. I think that is the most wonderful proposal that I have ever received in my entire life. But I gave my word of honor to Jack that I wouldn't leave him until I finished what he bought me for, and it will take a long while to finish. I'm sorry."
Daniel turned pulling the fur tighter around himself and began the walk back towards camp. The tears in his eyes blurred his vision. It wasn't until he got back to camp that he realized that there was a second horse standing next to his and that Jack was kneeling down next to the fire trying to warm his hands.
Daniel wiped his face and went to greet him. He saw Red Sky Woman holding Jack's canvas bag as she pulled out one item after another. Both her daughters rushed to their mother to help. Blue Stone sat near Jack and offered Jack a water skin. A large bundle of newly arrived wood lay near by, as well as a bladder filled with something else.
As Daniel approached he realized that Jack's face was wind blown and chapped from his trip through the plains. With nothing but a blanket for protection, Daniel knew that Jack was hurting. Daniel hurried to his satchel and found the bundle of herbs that he'd been hoarding for Jack. He poured a pinch of the herb mix into a tin cup and took it to the fire.
"Welcome back," Daniel said as he took the skin from Jack and filled the cup with just enough water. He put the tin cup directly on the hot coals.
"Anything interesting happen while I was away?"
It wasn't the question so much as the tone that caught Daniel's attention.
"No." Daniel said as he draped his warm, furry buffalo hide around Jack. "Come. I'll put you to bed and fetch you some soup. I made some salve that will help with the burns on your face."
Daniel set out his bedroll and went to get the soup for Jack.
When he came back he put the bowl and a spoon into Jack's hands with the words, "It's not the most exciting soup, but it's warm."
He got no reply. Jack kept his eyes down and started eating.
Daniel went back for the tea. He knew that the warmth would be appreciated and that the medicine would be helpful. He carefully retrieved the hot tin cup using a small swatch of skin. He stirred it quickly and found that the tea still needed to steep a bit more. He put the cup back on the coals and found a bowl to pour the tea into.
"Berries!" Little Iron Horse chirped happily. "He found Chokeberries!"
The little boy held out the bladder full of berries for Daniel's inspection.
"That's wonderful," Daniel said caressing the boy's hair. "Take it to you mother. Tomorrow we'll begin to make Pemmican."
He watched the boy wander off happily. Daniel couldn't help the smile as he walked back towards the small fire. He poured the tea into the bowl and took it to Jack. Then he walked back for his satchel and got the oil for Jack and a little bladder filled with salve. He sifted around in his satchel until he found a feather to apply it with.
He applied the salve by dipping the feather and stroking it gently over Jack's sore face. Jack moved around and jerked away from him as he tried to eat but said nothing at first.
It was when Daniel began tickling the feather over his forehead that Jack finally growled, "It smells!"
"So do you," Daniel said patiently.
It was when he didn't receive a reply that Daniel knew that something was wrong. He continued to apply the salve. He put his things away when he was done and found Jack's empty plate on the ground next to him. Jack was staring off into the stars above. Daniel didn't disturb him; he merely took the plate with him and went to fetch his own dinner.
~ ~ ~
It was staring into the vastness of black space and silver pinpoints in the sky that Jack realized that he was truly fucked. What he saw was real. He'd done his best to head it off but it was obvious that Daniel had no interest in avoiding a romantic involvement with the boy.
Being the genius that he was, Jack didn't even have any money to offer him. From the laughter and carrying on that he could hear from twenty feet away he knew that not only was Daniel comfortable with those people, he wanted to be with them. There was nothing to stop the man from walking away...nothing.
He lifted his head once and it was to find Daniel sharing a buffalo fur with the older woman. Sha-sho-ho, or something like that, Daniel had called her. He didn't even remember, and usually couldn't remember or pronounce the odd names.
He slammed his head down onto the hard ground and sulked.
Jack was almost asleep when he heard Daniel walk up and settle next to him. Jack turned over half-asleep out of habit.
"Shoulder," he managed to say as he sunk down into his blanket. The wool was scratchy and he realized that it was starting to smell bad. His shirt was lifted up and everything was forgotten when the first strokes of the hand-warmed oil swept across his bared skin.
Two days of hard-riding, searching through thorny underbrush, climbing trees, digging in hard packed dirt, dealing with the nasty cold winds, and sleeping out with only one blanket hadn't improved his mood. He'd thought himself lucky that he'd been able to find enough prairie turnips, peas, crabapples, roots, and millet to fill his bag. By some stroke of luck he'd even found a chokeberry tree. He'd filled the bladder that he'd been given with chokeberries for Daniel. He'd wanted to surprise him.
It was Jack that hadn't been expecting the surprise.
A fist dug into his shoulder pushing at his bones and muscle until they melted like butter. He willingly gave himself up until the tension left him a boneless heap. A few more sweeps and he felt his shirt pulled back down, before the warmth of the blanket and fur enveloped him. The hands reappeared lower under the blanket and began rubbing the back of his thigh before slowly and methodically moving down his calf and to his foot. The moment he felt those fingers digging between his toes he decided that he was about as close to heaven as he was going to ever come.
Jack heard the sigh escape his lips, he usually did, but he didn't often believe that it originated in him. Daniel usually just chanted something unintelligible that often only served to lull Jack to sleep. The pads of his foot were gently softened with firm thumbs before his foot gave up and melted away. The process began at the other leg. His thigh was gently rubbed until the ache from riding was eased away. Jack tensed almost instinctively. He knew that Daniel was always careful but habits were hard to break. Daniel always worked the strain away and it was always pleasant; but he could never stop the initial reaction.
Soon Daniel finished, but Jack refused to fall asleep. He watched Daniel fetch his bedroll and start to lay it a few feet away, as he'd been doing for almost two and a half weeks.
"Closer," Jack said sleepy. "Sleep next to me and we can share the fur."
Jack got up almost drunkenly and pulled the tucked fur from around him. Daniel hesitated, and then laid his bed out next to Jack's. Jack pulled it even closer before pulling the fur over them both. Daniel settled in. Jack didn't bother to wait for Daniel to fall asleep before he reached over and encircled his waist tightly.
He intended 'everything' to be as it was when he woke up.