As Cullen poured and poured, he held up the "conversation" by reciting the after-action report figures like they were a box score. Nobody could say it hadn't been an even fight. The battle had started with 1,300 bluecoats, and 1,340 Texas men. There were two hundred and twenty-two Confederate casualties, with fifty dead, eighty wounded, and ninety-two missing or captured. He didn't add that the Yankee dead numbered fifty-one, nor did he mention that death toll only included Killed In Action . Glen's death was not included in that count, nor were eleven other noncombat deaths.
The fight had been so even, at first both sides had thought they were winning. But when Major Chivington's troops had pressed the retreating Texans, they'd overtaken the Rebel supply train. The Confederates had lost all their provisions, powder and shot, field pieces, as well as all their animals. They had gotten out alive, but they'd been licked as a fighting force. They'd lit out for Texas. That was the end of the Civil War in the far west, at least.
"Can you tell me a few things about the private?"
"What for? Don't matter now."
"I'm the one who's got to write a letter home to his folks," Cullen said.
"No…" Rusty took another drink. "I want to do it. Please. He was my… well, like my brother. I should be the one to tell them."
"Supposed to be an officer, but—"
"You ain't an officer."
"No. By regulations, Major Chivington should do it, but… well, he don't know any of them. I asked if he'd allow me to do it for our company."
"How many from Colorado?"
"Mmmm, let me figure…" Cullen did some mental calculations. "Out of fifty-one total dead, thirty-three were Colorado volunteers."
"How many for you?"
"I've got seventeen letters to do."
"Sixteen, then. I'll do Gary's."
"Maybe that'd be best."
There was half a bottle left, and Sergeant Cullen reached for Rusty's empty glass to pour him another. But Rusty reached out and took the bottle. He raised it to his lips and swallowed a big gulp. And another. He coughed but held the liquor down.
"I also talked to Jason and them," Cullen said, talking about the four other men in Rusty's fire team. "They say seven Texans came up that creek. Only one of 'em made it out."
"I wasn't counting. I was busy."
"That you were. Jason says him and Landry winged one of them, but then he surrendered to you."
"I had the drop on him. He had no choice."
"Six men you took down, son. I've never seen the like."
"Believe I winged that last one, but he was on horseback, and moving."
"Point is, boy… I'm going to write you up for a medal."
"Don't you dare."
"Hell, you say."
"I mean it, Sarge. Don't." Rusty took a long pull on the whiskey. He offered the bottle to Cullen, who shook his head. So, he took another swig.
Cullen smiled. "So, you don't drink, huh?"
"I'm a fast learner."
"You're fast, period. Never seen such shooting."
"About that medal?"
"Oh? Change your mind?"
"I want you to put in for it. For Gary Glencoe. Say it any way you want. But he's the one who gave his life for this… Whatever it is. Nothing good. Not glory, or any of the crap they always say about the war."
"Jason said Glencoe was so sick he never even fired."
"Jason's blind, then. I saw what I saw, so you take my word for it. I'm putting it all into that letter to his ma and pa. Our ma and…"
Rusty dropped his head, as if the tears starting to fall were so heavy, he couldn't hold his head up any longer. Cullen stood up to leave him in peace. He reached for the whiskey bottle. Rusty yanked it back. Cullen nodded and left Rusty alone with his bottle. And his tears.
Chapter 7
Ouray, 1864
After their victory over the Texan Rebels, the Colorado volunteers were garrisoned around Santa Fe and the northwest of New Mexico. But as the months passed, and there was no further threat from Confederate forces in the far west, the Colorado troops began to leave their militia and head off for home. Or, for wherever their fancy took them.
Often, their fancy was gold. The great strikes in California and Nevada—the same siren that had helped motivate the Confederates to invade in the first place—drew men from all over, and the Colorado fighters were no exception. And there were many other discoveries of gold and silver all over the unexplored vastness of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. With the promise of many more to come.
Not even Rusty was immune. When he drifted out of New Mexico and left the war behind, Rusty was in no special hurry to rush back to Perryman. It wasn't "home," not really. Home was a pile of ash out on the prairie and gone forever. Yes, he missed his sister Melissa some. But he didn't worry for her. She was engaged now, to Gary's brother Marcus. Big surprise, he thought.
No, the thing that made him reluctant to go back "home" was having to face Ma and Pa Glencoe. He could guess their questions from hundreds of miles away. They would pester and pick at him endlessly for details. Let them believe what he had written about Gary's heroism in battle. Let them treasure the medals the army had sent after Sergeant Cullen put in his dispatches. Let them remember the boy who still scampered around in their hearts. But God, don't let them ask Rusty. He'd have to guard every word, and the longer he lied, the worse it would get.
Why tell them about the way Gary's feet bled on the long march from Colorado? About the times Rusty had heard him sob quietly in his blankets. Did they need to know how many times Rusty had had to carry his rifle and Gary's too, just so their son could keep up? Why tell them about the stabbing pains their son frequently suffered in his gut? Let them remember the boy who'd wolfed down Ma's fine cooking. Not the half-starved, trembling wreck who couldn't hold down food or water for the last weeks of his life. Their son was dead. He would never come home. That, Rusty knew, was more than enough suffering. They didn't need any more.
It was one of the other guys in his rifle squad that finally got Rusty to quit drinking and moping around camp and light out. Jason Bachman, who'd ended up doctoring his own story about the fight on Apache Creek. It got Gary a medal, but also finally convinced him army life was wasting their time. Jason was sure God had smiled on them that day in battle for a reason. He told Rusty they were destined for great things and the key to their future was out there in the mountains, in nugget form. Just waiting for them to go find it.
For a year and a half, they wandered from freezing stream to muddy floodplains, shoveling dirt and panning rocks and sand, enough to duplicate the Erie Canal. Rusty grew muscles on the muscles in his arms. He packed meat onto his legs and shoulders. His palms grew so callused he was afraid it would affect his shooting hand. So, to make sure it didn't, he continued to practice for hours and hours, day in and week out.
They weren't totally luckless. They found flakes and nuggets of gold once in a while. More than enough to pay for their gear, their grub, and the clothes on their backs. But they never struck it rich. They never cleared more than fifty or maybe a hundred dollars when they found an assay office to sell their pickings. One time, up in the Sangre de Cristo range, they even hired on as guards on somebody else's lucky strike. And in all that time, Jason never once lost hope. He was living his dream.
But by 1864, Rusty realized he, too, was living Jason's dream. But not his own. He wasn't sure what that dream even ought to be. But after twenty-two months of scratching in the earth, he knew he wasn't going to find any dreams by digging it up.
He and Jason parted friends and wished each other luck. Rusty gave all his mining gear to Jason and started back in the general direction of Denver, with a blanket, a horse, a pack mule, an aching back, and less than fifty dollars to show for his two years.
Crossing through the southwest corner of Colorado, he came across another prospector. Hiram McGrew was a gnarled old gnome with a florid mane of salt and pepper whiskers and a propensity for breaking wind. Hiram had never had much more luck than Rusty when it came to grubbing around in the dirt. But he did have a boatload of funny stories, and some interesting knowledge of the local environs. Hiram was taking a break from his labors. He was on his way to take "a miracle cure" for his aching knees and his lumbago. Rusty decided to tag along with him.
"From here, it ain't but two days ride," the old rascal insisted. "Beautiful country. Full of natural wonders. Best of all, them hot springs. That's what keeps me going back."
"What's this place called?" Rusty asked.
"Well, I ain't sure it's taken up a name yet, not proper. There's an old mountain man, runs a trading post. Some kind of Frenchman. There's a saloon, of course. I even heard talk some fella wants to build a hotel up there. Thinks he can get rich folks to come from far and wide for the waters cure."
"I saw a hot spring once. Devil's Teapot. Maybe ten miles north of Denver? Water come up so hot you could boil an egg. Smelled like eggs too. That stink of sulfur put folks in mind to name it for the devil. But the only thing that cauldron would cure was having skin off you. Be better off sticking your arm into a simmering pot of chili."
"Oh, you ain't seen nothing. Ain't no stink up by Ouray's hot pools."
"Ouray, you call it?"
"Well, Ouray's the chief in them parts. They's Utes, up in there. Fairly peaceable, most of the time. Let 'em be, they won't bother you none."
McGrew proved to be an accurate guide. There wasn't any town proper, that was true. Old LaCroix was indeed a Frenchman, and still ran a trading post. There was a half-built skeleton of framing, the corpse of the hotel man's busted dreams. There was a saloon, Trail's End Whiskey Bar, complete with women of negotiable virtue.
Only one thing was different than the way McGrew had told it. The hot springs. They weren't just a miracle cure. They were God's own heaven on this earth. Something inside Rusty seemed to melt away when he dipped his naked hide into the blood-warm waters. It was almost as though all the bad, ugly things that had ever tormented him were drawn out and washed away. He could picture his physical and emotional aches like a cold ball of tar in his rib cage, crowding his troubled heart. And that tar ball would just shrink up until it disappeared. It was the most blissful feeling he'd ever known, or even imagined.
The only thing that got him out onto dry land now and then was looking at how his hands would wrinkle and pucker. Only the thought that the white, shriveled skin might slough off altogether could induce him to get out for a few hours at a time.