COMANCHE MOON AS IT ILLUMINATED THE GREAT PLAINS,
CIRCA 1867
Rufus thought it quite remarkable that, there in the moonlight, Sally Erstwhistle looked for all the world like a man, her blonde hair hidden under that wide-brimmed hat, a coarse calico shirt tucked into her dead brother’s trousers, the legs stuffed into his boots.
Rufus had insisted that she change out of her plain blue, long-sleeved, neck-to-ankle cotton frock before they mounted the surviving horses and rode out of camp in the dead of night. And she had. Sally stripped down to what little underclothes she possessed, then pulled garments out of the wagon and the boots off Darden’s cold feet.
The war party was likely to come back no matter what, but for a white woman—if they thought her still alive—it was a sure bet. Less so, they figured, for two armed men who had already killed half a dozen of their number.
Rufus had three sisters back in Franklin, Tennessee, and was familiar with women’s ways and peculiarities. He had even seen them naked on occasion, but the image of Sally Erstwhistle’s lithe form in the heat of the moment stuck with him no matter the arrows flying about and the smell of fear and gunpowder in the air.
“That Sally is bound to make somebody a mighty fine wife,” he thought.
The meager caravan they’d started with—three wagons, seven pilgrims, six oxen, a few mules, a milk cow, and several dogs—had camped near a copse of cottonwoods flanking a small, clear stream. They’d planned to stay a day or so to rest the stock before continuing on to Fort Parker and then heading west through what they knew to be Indian country.
They had heard the tales of rape, pillage, fire, and murder, yet some would-be settlers got through unscathed. The Erstwhistle party were law-abiding, God-fearing, praying people. What were their choices? The Lord’s will be done.
There was only an hour of sun left when Rufus pointed toward a cloud of dust on the horizon. It grew larger and nearer, and pretty soon the outlines of mounted men riding hard in their direction could be discerned.
Two buffalo hunters, their pack mules loaded with hides and God knows what else, and three Mexican skinners—arrows protruding from the rear ends of the horses and, in some cases, of the men themselves—rode into the camp and quickly dismounted.
“Apaches!” said the red-bearded buffalo hunter as he slipped a Sharps rifle from its sleeve and grabbed a box of .52 caliber cartridges from his saddlebag. They could see the Indians now as well as hear them.
The big, red-bearded man loaded and fired twice at the onrushing horde. One horse and rider went down, and another brave was blown off his pony. All the new arrivals tied their horses, produced weapons, and began firing at the fast approaching Indians.
Rufus wasted no time retrieving his lever-action Winchester .44 caliber repeating rifle and U.S. government issue Navy Colt cap-and-ball pistol. Both were loaded, and as the Indian band—no more than a dozen—overrode the camp, Rufus shot one half-naked savage at point-blank range and another as he slid off his pony, a scalping knife in his hand, making for Sally and her long, blonde locks. These were the first men Rufus killed but would not be his last.
As a boy back in Tennessee, he’d lived with and amongst the Cherokee; truth be told, given the cold nights and close quarters, he probably had a little Cherokee in him.
The so-called civilized tribes of the east—the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees—were one thing, but Rufus had never seen anything like these plains Indians: small, lean, fearless, and at one with their tough little pinto ponies. They'd strike without warning, kill, torture, rape, and pillage, taking horses, women, and children, all for the hell of it, or so it seemed. They gave no quarter and expected none.
In the few minutes it took the war party to ride through the camp, the warriors killed and scalped one of the buffalo hunters, two of the Mexicans and Sally’s 14-year-old brother, Darden. Mr. Erstwhistle fell to the ground untouched but dead all the same. Sally pulled the old Confederate horse pistol from her father's belt and shot one brave in the face and another in the rear end. The red-bearded buffalo hunter found an ax and finished them off.
The Apaches rode back the way they came and regrouped at what they thought a safe distance. The red-bearded buffalo hunter, with his long-range sites and .52-caliber Sharps rifle, dropped two in quick succession. The Indians retreated farther and were soon joined by other warriors shouting insults, jeering, and performing remarkable gymnastics on horseback as they rode contemptuously back and forth before the camp.
When Rufus signed up in St. Louis, Mr. Erstwhistle had told him he would be responsible for the livestock and would have to pay seven dollars for the pleasure of their company. He could take his meals with the family but must make his bed far away.
“Fair enough,” he thought, and then he saw Sally. She was cooking, cleaning, and generally adding an air of domesticity to the rough business of wagon travel. Her mother had died the previous winter; there was about her an air of sadness and resignation, yet her countenance was alluring, beautiful, and aloof.
Now, with her father and brother both gone, Sally was an orphan and alone in the world. Death had most certainly caught up with her, and there was a real question as to whether she and Rufus would survive the night.
The settlers covered their dead with a tarpaulin and tended the wounded as best they could. The four Indian corpses were dragged out of the perimeter to bait the Apache warriors into coming in close so they could be shot as well.
Darkness came quickly, and before the moon appeared, six Indians retrieved all their dead, stole the milk cow, killed the dogs and the red-bearded buffalo hunter, taking his head and his Sharps rifle with them. That was when Rufus decided to set out and asked Sally if she wanted to come along.
So off they rode with an extra horse each roped to their mounts and one of the buffalo hunter’s pack mules still loaded with hides and God knows what else. The hunters would not be needing them, being dead and all.
The landscape of undulating hills was pocked with small stands of cottonwood and mesquite. They had to ride below the ridge so as to not be silhouetted by the moon, which ducked in and out from behind summer clouds.
This bright illumination was what historians would come to call a Comanche Moon. In the early summer, when the young braves’ blood was up, they took advantage of these well-lit nocturnes to ride hundreds of miles to ambush and slaughter settlers, no matter their race or creed. Only by displaying valor and skill in war could they advance in tribal society, make merit, and acquire horses and wives, in that order.
Sally’s transformation was complete. Rufus thought she even moved like a man. Only the telltale bulge of her hips and the occasional heave of her breasts gave any hint of the young, nubile body hidden beneath homespun cloth.
She said nothing as they rode stirrup-to-stirrup north toward Fort Parker, the nearest white settlement. They worked to stay just under the ridge and out of sight in all the bright natural light. The extra horses and pack animal made little sound as they glided through the high grass, down one slope, up another.
They sensed movement around them—it was felt and heard but not yet seen. When the moon came out from behind a cloud, they were amazed to find themselves in the midst of a large herd of horses and bison, their heads all down in the tall grass grazing. Rufus and Sally sat their horses in silence. With so many pintos and buffalo present, Rufus reasoned, an Indian encampment must not be far away. They rode on—up one draw and down another, the smell of wild horses, buffalo, sweat, and manure in their nostrils.
Sally still had her father's big ancient pistol in her lap, and tied to her saddle a sawed-off 16-gauge shotgun Mr. Erstwhistle had brought back from the war. Rufus carried his Winchester barrel-down in a scabbard by his saddle, the Navy Colt pistol in his right hand resting on the pommel. He cocked it when he saw what he at first hoped was a mirage: campfires down by a river not half a mile away, and Apache teepees lit by the moon.
Rufus and Sally rode quietly on, away from the horses and bison. Then, clear as day, moving directly toward them at a slow, hypnotic pace, came mounted riders carrying shields and lances. If the mysterious warriors saw them, they did not acknowledge it but passed by not a dozen yards to their lee. Rufus could make out their features—they seemed taller, more erect than the Apaches. He noted their war paint—faces half-black, half-white—as they rode in the direction of the languishing herd.
Sally and Rufus sat still as death, their horses munching grass and occasionally hoofing the hard ground. Finally, they looked at each other and simultaneously spurred their mounts to a gallop, looking back over their shoulders when they heard high-pitched war cries and the sound of lances banging against rawhide shields.
The ground trembled under the quickening hooves of the herd. The beasts thundered down the shallow valley toward the river. A stampede was under way.
The silent, war-painted riders were pushing the horses and buffalo toward the Apache camp. Sally and Rufus were witnessing a Comanche raid on their ancient, sworn blood enemies. The reservation Apaches were on the Comanches’ hunting ground. As much as these ultimate plains Indians hated the European settlers who took their land, killed their buffalo, gave them whiskey and disease, the Comanches hated the Apache even more.
The rampaging herd obliterated the campfires and tepees. Rufus and Sally could see and hear the slaughter but thought it best to ride away from it all, toward their own kind. This they did in silence.
The adobe walls and stockade of Fort Parker took form in the early light. The two of them rode through the gate to gap-toothed smiles, scratched heads, and endless questions. They learned that all the soldiers, rangers, and militia were out on patrol in pursuit of the fast, agile war parties on the loose all up and down the frontier on which the Comanche Moon shone.
Sally had been all night in the saddle and never complained once. When she finally got down from her mare she stared straight ahead and took off her big, wide-brimmed hat. Her long blonde hair cascaded down like a waterfall. There was an audible gasp from those gathered around. She said not a word. With the early rays of light shining on her sad young face, Rufus thought her the most beautiful sight on earth—and, of course, there were those hips.
Rufus took off his hat and stood before her, not knowing what to say. She looked at him and silently mouthed the words, “Thank you.” He smiled broadly; his entire future stretched out before him. They had survived in storybook fashion, and now they would thrive, together, forever in this harsh but bountiful land.
Their young eyes met again; they stared long and hard at one another. Rufus, hat in hand, shuffled his feet a bit and gave her his most expectant look.
Once again, Sally’s lips parted and silently formed a word: “No,” and shook her head from side to side.
Rufus watched the womenfolk surround Sally and take her away, intent as they were on undoing the gender transmogrification that had saved her life.
“Well, so long, Sal,” he said, under his breath.
Rufus had outrun arrows, bullets, and savage rage. He had looked certain death in the face and laughed. But this rejection business was new, different, debilitating.
By rote, he began to do the one thing he knew how to do—tend livestock. He unsaddled, fed, and watered the horses, checked their hooves and legs for cuts, briars, and brambles. The purloined pack mule was the last. Rufus let the buffalo hides fall to the ground. There must’ve been a score of them, worth five dollars apiece in St. Louis but not much out here. There were pots, pans, and mirrors for trading with the Kiowa.
As he started to remove the harness, Rufus discovered a canvas satchel under the mule’s blanket. It fell open, and a small leather pouch—like the bags squaws made for their braves to fill with magic and tie next to their testicles—landed hard on his foot.
Rufus picked up the bag and opened it. Inside was a bright-yellow, dust-like substance; it was quite heavy. The next bag held small, shiny nuggets. There must’ve been nigh unto a dozen of these leather bags in the satchel.
Rufus sat down on the pile of buffalo hides, the treasure trove in his lap. He was light-headed and dizzy as it finally became clear what great good fortune was this unexpected twist of fate.
He thought about Sally—just for a moment—and lifted his head and said out loud,
“Well, I’ll just be goddamned.”
Then the mule kicked him back into consciousness.
A STOCKTAKING OF THE PLAYERS IN THIS FRONTIER SAGA
The Women: The dozen or so who had surrounded Sally and escorted her away from Rufus and the curious Fort Parker citizens, those who had witnessed her hat come off, her hair come down, assumed the very worst - that Sally and Rufus had been carrying on like man and wife, without benefit of clergy, for the whole of the journey from St. Louis to west of the Brazos River. How could Sally not have been repeatedly violated by one or more of the teamsters, pilgrims or fellow travelers in the Erstwhistle wagon train. Women were not to be trusted, were not in control of their nature, their private parts.
These women couldn't know, of course, but whispered to one another in the most prurient fashion speculating that Sally's father had sold her body to finance his westward moving enterprise. May God have mercy on their souls.
The women were wrong of course, but they conjured up such sinful scenarios because to one extent or another all these things had been done to them and besides, the tales were titillating, exciting, fanciful and helped pass the time. The idea of someone remaining pure, virtuous and above it all was just beyond their comprehension.
Sally never said one way or the other. Her self-imposed silence seemed to grant consent to the most outrageous assumptions on the part of her new circle of protectors.
These escalating rumors of compromise and violation continued even after Sally was delivered to the surviving nuns at Fort Parker’s tiny Catholic enclave, whose Friar had gone off to hear the confessions of some reservation Apaches and never returned. The church had a garden of herbs and vegetables, grapes to make wine and a well. There were two goats for milk and cheese and the occasional sexual release for the poor celibate Padre Gregorio. A single beast of burden, Diablo the Donkey, carried the Mesquite limbs and tumbleweed used for kindling and firewood all the while dragging his enormous penis on the ground to the delight of Fort Parker’s children and devout parishioners who were Bible savvy and familiar with the 23rd chapter of Ezekiel. The prophet told all about a pair of insatiable whoring sisters of Egypt and their Assyrian paramours who were hung like “donkeys with emissions like stallions.” (Look it up, gentle reader, should you doubt.) There is nothing quite like scripture coming to life, especially on the frontier.
Things did not go well for the biblical Oholah and Ohoribah, as it seldom did for women in the Old Testament. Nothing would have given the Fort Parker citizenry more pleasure than for Sally to end up with a fate similar to those of the sisters in the Book of Ezekiel.
A sense of righteous indignation helps keep morale high and there is nothing like a good stoning or lynching to bring a community together with an elevated sense of purpose, especially on the frontier.
God's will be done.
Praise His Holy Name!
The Nuns: Sister Françoise and Sister Lorraine were reformed ladies of the night who had been transported to the New World from Seville by the Jesuits of El Escorial as penance for and in lieu of the lengthy prison sentences often imposed for prostitution.
The two were originally from Paris but had joined a pilgrimage in route to the religious shrines of Andalusia when they were apprehended practicing their profession on the pious pilgrims of both sexes, but that is a tale for another time.
Sally: The image of her mother ridden with pox and fever, a black bile oozing from every orifice, haunted her and crowded out the more recent horrors of her brother Darden lying on the ground, throat slit and scalped and her father, eyes bulging out leaning against a wagon wheel, his dead fingers tugging at his chest.
She felt safe and secure with the nuns in their tiny cell-like rooms of white washed adobe with a single crucifix on the wall and a vase that held the occasional wildflower. For the first time in years Sally felt at peace and at one with something greater than herself.
The three of them were all about the same age and their lack of a common language did not preclude intimate communication. When, after a long day of the keeping their vows of silence, François and Lorraine let their habits fall to the floor they reverted to the most childlike behavior. The three girls slept together on a straw mat on the cool tile floor. Naked and intertwined, they giggled and fondled themselves to sleep at night, never uttering a prayer or practicing the lessons of abstinence proffered in the Book of Ezekiel and elsewhere in the Holy Writ.
Fort Parker: This cedar log and adobe fortress had been built in 1834 by the Parker brothers, three Predestinarian Baptist Elders from Illinois. It had fallen into disrepair after a massacre but was now refurbished and part of a loose string of safe havens for westward bound pilgrims that stretched from Adobe Walls in the Panhandle to San Antonio in the south. The fort housed ghosts as well as Texas Rangers, cavalry, settlers and transients of all stripes. On May 19, 1836 a war party of Cheyenne and Kiowa overran Fort Parker, killing and kidnapping. Cynthia Ann Parker was nine years old when she was spirited away. She took up Indian ways and bore Nadrak Chief Peta Nocona three children. One became the fierce blue-eyed Comanche warrior chief, Quanah Parker, the last of that kind.
Rufus: After sitting undisturbed on those buffalo hides for a spell, rubbed his thigh where the mule had kicked him. He weighed in his hands the little leather bags of gold dust and nuggets. Rufus came to the conclusion that the world was his oyster, whatever the hell that meant. He had never eaten an oyster but had heard people say that time and again when things seemed to be going their way.
He liked the sound of it, and the idea of an oyster as well. Rufus figured he might be able to get one in San Francisco, could find a legitimate bank, cash in his trove of good fortune, and start a new life in the City by the Bay. He had heard plenty about that place; a city cool in summer and pleasant in winter, growing by leaps and bounds. The gold rush frenzy was still fresh. There were loose women, good whiskey and opportunity for all.
The question was, how to get to San Francisco with the medicine bags and his scalp intact? Rufus wondered about the other pack mule the Buffalo Hunter brought into camp loaded with hides and God knows what else. So he hunkered down and cogitated a spell under the protection of Fort Parker. It would all become clear in due time, if only his luck would hold.
On occasion he glimpsed Sally with Francoise and Lorraine. She had taken to wearing a habit and performing pious, nun-like acts. The vows of silence suited her just fine, but Rufus could see that body of hers rippling underneath the loose-fitting robes. He figured she’d keep. Surely, she would grow tired of this place and want a new life as well. Maybe he could send for her once he’d established himself in San Francisco. So much of their communication had been tacit, but Rufus dreamed of Sally in the most lascivious way and wanted to hear her moan with ecstasy, groan with delight. Now that would be one hell of an oyster, and well worth waiting for.
Rufus had taken to riding out of an afternoon through the gates of Fort Parker looking for Indian signs and or game. He snared a few rabbits, one deer and two elk, brought them back to the posts cook to much thanks and congratulations, protein being much in demand at Fort Parker.
One afternoon just before dark he saw something familiar, a riderless horse followed by a pack animal of some sort. They were coming toward him at a trot. He rode out and met old man Erstwhistle’s plow horse, all saddled up with arrows sticking out its rear end, and the Buffalo Hunter’s other pack mule, still loaded if disheveled after all this time.
He claimed the stock and tack, which was the custom on the frontier, and took them to the fort where he watered, fed and tended the animals. Rufus found another canvas bag under the blanket where the first had been. Bingo! Jackpot! Hallelujah! Nine more bags of gold!
God-a-mighty but Rufus was feeling lucky, that is until this mule gave him a swift kick. Damned if it wasn't time to strike out for California. Winter, however, would be here soon. Getting stuck in some snowy mountain pass like the Donner party was the last thing he wanted to experience.
Rufus limped about and pondered departure for a day or so, but his sense of self-preservation intervened. He did not get to San Francisco that winter, nor the next, but settled into a life of tending stock, hunting, trapping, shooting at Indians and catching the occasional sight of Sally. Rufus rented a room off from but attached to the stables and hid his gold under a plank in the floor. He took it out from time to time to touch and feel it, and imagine its worth and power in another place.
The modern world came to Fort Parker in the form of an itinerant photographer, Janus Abercrombie, equipped with a portable darkroom, a wagon, over-sized bellows camera, and a variety of chemicals. He traveled from town to settlement to farmstead and fort striking the images of menfolk, their women and children.
Sometimes he got paid, other times he took it out in trade. Fort Parker seemed a fair place to settle for a spell. Rufus took care of his old nag of a horse and, fascinated by the photography process, soon became his assistant.
Abercrombie was originally from Londonderry and claimed to have worked with William Fox Talbot but left England before being jailed for indebtedness. He moved his photography studio into the first floor of an abandoned building, and lived upstairs. The stench of photographic chemicals permeated the place but Abercrombie was used to it and didn't seem to mind
Another fixture on the frontier was one Myron Finkelstein, a peddler who sold a variety of needles, thread, thimbles, and the occasional pot or pan. On the side, he bought for cash jewels and other precious heirlooms from the pilgrims. Rufus showed him two nuggets and Finkelstein gave him federal dollars, at a fair rate of exchange.
Reservation Indians often came in to trade and pose for Abercrombie who had a ready European market for images of savages in their tribal garb. One aging brave brought in an old rusty Sharps rifle just like, or maybe it was, the one used by the red-bearded Buffalo Hunter to such fine effect back amongst the cottonwoods. Rufus bought and refurbished the Sharps rifle and not a minute too soon.
Brigands, desperados, banditos, pistoleros, and all-around opportunists began to pour into the frontier. This was well before dime novelists would glorify the West and shamelessly romanticize them into unrecognizable Robin Hood-like characters. They replaced the Indians in unpredictability and were more of a threat since they blended seamlessly into the general population.
One particularly bold bunch wandered into Fort Parker in pairs and hung around pretending to look for work until the military payroll arrived. The six of them stormed the officer’s mess and overpowered the paymaster making off with twelve hundred dollars in gold and paper.
Rufus was deputized and joined a posse of citizens and Texas Rangers. He rode off with the Sharps rifle and his Navy Colt revolver. None thought to bring rations or bedrolls and it was fortuitous that they caught up with and passed the drunk, horse thieving, (yes, they did it too) half-breed, amateur crooks who would not live long enough to enter politics.
The scofflaws were dead drunk and wrestling with one another around the campfire when Rufus took aim with his long-range sites and killed four, two with one shot. The others surrendered and were immediately hanged by the Rangers.
When the posse returned to Fort Parker, with payroll intact, Rufus was hailed as a hero. He was embarrassed by all the attention, but his prowess with the Sharps rifle led people to naturally ask what Rufus had done during the war? He would not say. Feelings still ran high on both sides, but business at Abercrombie's Tintype and Humble Likeness Parlor picked up considerably. Rufus took on more responsibility. He learned to work the big bellows camera, mix chemicals, develop and print in the darkroom.
Sally and the Holy Sisters showed themselves from time to time and Rufus finally convinced Lorraine to come to the studio. The three of them sat for a likeness. Sally never raised her eyes or opened her mouth but he had her now, or at least a version of her.
About this time, Diablo the Donkey just wandered off, dragging his huge phallus in the dirt. This left Sally to haul the firewood back to the abbey by herself. The Arapaho found Diablo and thought him to possess strong medicine. They bred him to their horses and some of their captive women.
Months later, Diablo returned to Fort Parker and on his back was Father Gregorio, naked, with three fingers missing, one eye gone and burns over most of his body. So much for taking confessions from reservation Indians. The Bishop in Santa Fe withdrew its Fort Parker mission and they all left, except for Diablo, who would not budge. The donkey wandered about like a stray dog, eating and defecating where he pleased, dragging his outsized donkey dick in his wake, thereby becoming an imperfect metaphor for organized religion on the frontier.
One morning when Janus Abercrombie had not come down to the studio by noon, Rufus climbed the stairs and entered his room to find Abercrombie dead in his bed of natural causes. This was a most unusual occurrence on the frontier, not his death but the natural causes part.
After the funeral, Rufus took possession of the studio and apartment, bought the building, ordered supplies from St. Louis, and began to solicit more business. He photographed farmers, settlers, rangers, Indians, pilgrims, preachers, soldiers, half-breeds, horses, dogs, landscapes, hangings, weddings, sandstorms, children, and the dead. For every likeness he struck, he made one for the client and one for himself. Rufus soon amassed a large image bank that would prove invaluable to scholars and collectors in the late 20th century when his negatives and prints were rediscovered and acquired by a major art museum in Los Angeles. Rufus's body of work would be called “a remarkable and unmatched documentation of the ever-shifting frontier, its people, time and place.”
Myron Finkelstein continued to pay well for the dribble of gold forthcoming, and the tintype studio was proving quite profitable. Rufus invested in land outside the fort. Rumor had it a railroad was coming through, and he didn’t want to miss out on that.
Rufus never took a wife, but many a widow and not a few married women found their way upstairs to his room above the studio, some for their own amusement and others to pay for their likenesses with sexual favors. Rufus had never been particularly religious and he graciously accommodated these ladies without guilt or remorse. As his moment of climax approached, he often conjured the image of Sally, recalling her graceful gait and athletic form as she walked off into the Southwestern sun with the religious column on their way to Santa Fe, and a fate he would never know.
He was middle age now, had put on a few pounds, and his hair was thinner than before. The persistent cough had become permanent, much like the one Janus Abercrombie supported for years.
From time to time he would take all his worldly possessions out and lay them on the bed: various deeds to property, his two suits, one wool, the other gabardine, five shirts and neckties, a pair of boots and shoes, a pocket knife, spectacles, a silver pocket watch and the tintype of Sally and the Holy Sisters. She never met his gaze, even through the lens, but she was gorgeous and now frozen in time. Some of the leather medicine bags were now empty but seven were untouched, his initial windfall of earth’s golden abundance still intact.
Then there were his guns; the Winchester .44 caliber rim fire repeating rifle, the big horse pistol Sally had carried the night they made their hellish ride, the refurbished Sharps rifle Rufus liked to believe belonged to the red bearded Buffalo Hunter who had used it to such a fine purpose. And of course, his pride and joy, the Navy Colt cap and ball pistol. He kept it oiled, loaded and wrapped in a soft leather sheath. Rufus had owned it since First Manassas when he'd taken this sidearm off the body of a Union officer. Its action was surprisingly spry, the click of metal and spring clear and fine, yet it had not been fired since he killed his first man to save Sally.
Rufus spit up blood and his stool was often black with bile. He walked with difficulty, his balance and wind were questionable, and he coughed more and more.
There was a wagon train woman Rufus had been seeing. He thought her with child, possibly his. Her family would take her away, but only as far as Arkansas and no further. She would leave Fort Parker within the month, the Navy Colt cap and ball pistol concealed in her carpetbag.
Generations later, an offspring of hers would inherit the piece and take it to Washington, where he worked for a President. One summer afternoon, he would drive into the Virginia countryside to Fort Marcy, a restored Civil War site on the Potomac, and shoot himself in the head. But that was beyond knowing, and even now, understanding.
Rufus looked down at all his earthly possessions, far more than he had ever imagined acquiring in three lifetimes. He considered his fortune. Good, bad or indifferent? Hard to say.
New kinds of people were pouring into the west, the frontier was moving further in that direction. The Plains Indians were no longer a threat, just a sad, pitiful people. He never made it to San Francisco and had never eaten that oyster, and he was fine with that.
Rufus looked in the mirror at this aging man through eyes that had seen much. He clearly recalled the War, and what he had done. He had deserted his regiment, the 3rd Tennessee, after First Manassas only to join the Union Army a week later for the one-hundred-dollar enlistment bonus. After the Battle of Balls Bluff three months later to the day, when General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac was pushed back into the selfsame river, Rufus figured he’d had enough of that business and deserted them, too.
“Rich man's war, poor man's fight,” he’d heard it said, and that was just about right. He’d stolen a horse, disguised himself as an itinerant preacher and moved west, slowly and mostly at night. He lived with that knowledge and had never been found out, but now, it weighed on him.
Rufus lifted the big horse pistol from the bed. There was no reason to think it would not fire. He raised it to his temple, pulled the hammer back - click-click - and taking a long hard look at himself in the mirror, gently squeezed the trigger.
THE LAY OF THE LAND
There was about Fort Parker a Chinese woman of indeterminate age who made black tea and countless herbal remedies. Her husband and two children had died or been killed, no one knew for sure, during their journey from California to St. Louis. This was a reversal of the normal migration patterns. She cooked, cleaned and picked up odd jobs around the community and never learned the language. She came to Rufus's apartment twice a week and was the one who found him slumped in his chair, pistol in lap… tears streaming down his face.
She took charge, made him drink copious amount of black tea, and there was to be no more whiskey. Rufus moved out of the upstairs apartment and into an old abandoned house on his property two miles north of the fort.
The house, such as it was, had been built and abandoned by the Gallagher family, a frontier farming foursome who had failed crops three years in a row. They took the money Rufus paid them for their 60 acres and moved west, to Oregon some said, but were never heard from again.
The Chinese woman, Mrs. Fung, made order of the place and Rufus slept for most of each day for almost a month. His cough subsided, his strength increased, his balance was once again normal. He was miraculously returned to robust health.
“I'm lucky to be alive,” he would say to one and all who came to call and have a look at this walking medical miracle.
Rufus's condition had given Mrs. Fung’s life a purpose, and she became much celebrated by the Fort Parker residents. They sought out her remedies, drank her tea and asked her advice, all of which made Fort Parker's many preachers and the single physician wary.
The Gallagher house, which would be Rufus's salvation, was made of sod and cedar, it had two rooms, one fireplace and was built on a slight rise among a copse of cottonwood trees. A spring fed stream ran in front of the house which sported a stoop almost big enough to be called a porch. Rufus sat there of an afternoon staring out into the middle distance, cogitating. Mrs. Fung had retrieved most of his belongings and waited on him hand and foot. Rufus reimbursed her handily for her efforts.
Mrs. Fung hesitated to bring him the pistol when he asked for it, but Rufus assured her he had no interest in doing himself harm. Life was too good, too full of promise. He missed nothing about the old life, not the camera, not the sitters and certainly not the chemicals, but he did sort of miss Sally. She was always with him in one form of the other.
As he sat on the porch, he examined the Walker Colt .44-caliber horse pistol. Already an antique, it had heretofore been reliable, especially in Sally's delicate little hand. It was loaded, but on closer inspection the copper percussion caps that when struck by the hammer ignited the black powder charge in the chamber and propelled the ball out the barrel at a muzzle velocity of 800 feet per second were a bit corroded, or at least some were
Rufus leaned back in his chair and pointed the pistol toward the stream. He pulled the hammer back, click-click, and squeezed the trigger. The pistol fairly exploded in his hand. Mrs. Fung came running as a huge rooster tail of water rose up from the stream. The porch was engulfed in black smoke and Rufus was laughing and laughing and laughing.
Next day, the Arkansas bound widow woman, the one with child, came to call and say her tearful goodbyes. She was under the impression Rufus tried to kill himself over her, a notion he did nothing to dissuade her of. To prove his change of heart, Rufus gave the outbound pregnant widow woman the Navy Colt pistol, but only after they had enjoyed a last act of sexual congress, which Mrs. Fung pretended not to notice as she went about her chores. The life of the Navy Colt was not yet over, and neither was his.
Rufus's land purchase had proven perspicuous. Very soon a gaggle of surveyors and land speculators fell on Fort Parker like hail in a summer rainstorm. They rode all over the place, tried to buy up everything insight including his. Rumor persisted that the west to east spur of the Trans-Texas Topographic and Telegraph Rail Service would reach Fort Parker within the year. Rufus sat tight, Mrs. Fung continued to clean and fix the place up, but was no more conversant than Sally.
The seasons came and went and sure enough the much-anticipated railroad crossed Rufus's spread not a mile from his front porch. Things picked up at Fort Parker. There was more traffic on the roads, new folks in town. Fancy dry goods to buy and wear. The tintype and likeness business reopened but Rufus never again darkened the door of the place.
Raul Martinez, the half-Mexican half-Arapaho boy who had been Rufus’s assistant, took over as would in time Raul’s son, and his son as well. It would be early in the following 20th century before proper ventilation was installed. All the Martinez men were to die well off but young of a consumption-like disease, much exacerbated by a dependence on alcohol.
Rufus watched the trains come and go but he refused to ride on one.
“No place to go,” he told anyone who asked.
Then the letter came. It was addressed to Rufus Rollins Whitworth at the Photogravure and Likeness Shop, Fort Parker, Texas and had taken six weeks to make the journey from Santa Fe, New Mexico territory.
Sally's handwriting was bold and florid, fancy even, like that of a woman who might have learned penmanship at a girl’s finishing school back East. After several tries, Rufus made it out to say Sally had grown tired of the monastic life, especially after Lorraine and Françoise died of influenza the winter before. Also, the church had never officially recognized her sisterhood and when expelled, she had married a shopkeeper but he died too. Sally asked about life at Fort Parker and might there still be a place for her there?
Rufus agonized over his response. He wrote and rewrote his answer to this letter that had come to him as unexpected as had the gold-filled leather pouches on the Buffalo Hunters' mules. In his letter, he told Sally to extract herself from Santa Fe and meet him at six o’clock sharp on the evening of July 4th in a place he had only vaguely heard of but lived strong in his imagination: The Meriwether Hotel in San Francisco. He enclosed a bank draft for a sum he assumed ample enough to cover her transportation and expenses. Rufus put the letter and the photograph of Sally and The Holy Sisters in the hands of one of Raul Martinez’ more trusted sons, gave him two mounts and told him to find Sally, put his letter in her hand and not to come back until he had garnered her response in writing.
Three weeks later the Martinez boy returned. Rufus paid him and hurriedly opened Sally’s letter. Inside, at the center of the single page was one, very large word.
“YES!”
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Rufus boarded his first train in early June, embarking on a circuitous route that would take him through some of the continent’s most beautiful and dramatic landscape, yet he took no notice. He was focused on Sally and San Francisco and his plan to get there well ahead of her, make all the proper arrangements, and leave nothing to chance. He was anxious, nervous, and wild with anticipation. His entire life had come down to this. Now, if only his luck would hold.
The highly recommended Meriwether Hotel on Knob Hill did not disappoint. Everything was red velvet and velour. There were fine carpets, plants and ferns aplenty, and the place smelled wonderfully of tobacco, redwood, and new money. It even harbored one of those newfangled chambers that elevated guests from one floor to the next to save them from climbing the stairs. Rufus took two large rooms on the north side, sixth floor, adjacent to each other.
As the appointed day approached, Rufus could hardly contain himself. He saw that both rooms were filled with fresh flowers and the beds turned back expectantly. San Francisco was in a fine state of celebration on this July 4th when at noon the front desk clerk allowed as to how a Mrs. Erstwhistle—she had kept her maiden name—was checked in and having a bath drawn.
The long-estranged pair was to meet at 6 p.m. in the Meriwether’s piss-elegant dining room. Rufus had planned a seduction dinner that could not fail. At 5:59 sharp, according to his pocket watch, Rufus rose from his seat to greet and bow slightly to a most gorgeous sight. Sally was just the same: long blonde hair, clear skin, and eyes the color of her dress, deep blue. If anything, she was thinner and more erect than before, though the same could not be said of Rufus. But there he was and, at her sight, all his anxiety suddenly melted away.
Sally came directly to him, opened her arms wide, and gave him a long, warm embrace. She sobbed a bit, as did he. They both sat and sized each other up as nature’s late afternoon illumination gave way to the warm glow of gaslights.
Out their window, the setting sun shared the sky with a full and rising moon, both reflected in the shimmering San Francisco Bay. Then, as he’d arranged, something neither of them had ever before seen appeared and was set before them: presented on a silver tray, nestled in a bed of shaved ice, dozens of oysters on the half shell. The white-gloved waiter poured sparkling wine into their crystal glasses. Rufus ate his first oyster, and a new world opened up for him then and there.
The wine from the Champagne region of France and the oysters were transporting. Rufus was taken back to their moonlight ride and the wild, musty smell of horses and buffalo that filled his nostrils and had somehow taken hold of his soul. He had never felt more alive—until now. In his mind’s eye he could picture that full moon on the Great Plains and the Comanche warriors who were now bound up on reservations. Seeing that moon the young warriors yearned to be their ancestors and to enjoy those long, violent rides in the nocturnal light of the Comanche moon.
After a while, Sally looked at him with her doleful eyes and made a questioning gesture with her hands and said,
“Where to start?”
Rufus realized, with the exception of the occasional “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to her father, he had never really heard Sally's voice. It was pitched higher than he’d imagined, not quite a squeak but with qualities of an unoiled hinge about it. Rapid-fire in delivery, abetted by expansive hand gestures and much giggling and rolling of the eyes, Rufus was to be a captive of this rapturous, whining monologue detailing the course of her life, its triumphs and disappointments. Well past three hours, Sally was yet to get to the part about the westward-bound wagon train and the unfortunate demise of her mother, brother, and father.
The sun had long ago set, the moon was high, and the gaslights were beginning to dim. Rufus drank and listened, and drank and ate, and grew more and more weary. He began to totter on his chair as Sally droned on and on and on.
In his stupor, Rufus heard a mysterious, high-pitched voice calling out to him from the future. It was like the kick of a mule. He could hear it clearly as though he was there, in Stockholm, in the audience listening to the Nobel Laureate’s speech. In his rich Southern accent, it admonished him in code to be careful what he wished for.
“…when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening—that even then there will still be one more sound: that of [her] puny, inexhaustible voice, still talking.”
William Dunlap