What breaks the spell is Boethius running round from the back alleyway to see did he miss his cue.
Major seems to decide to let the question of what the hell Starling Carlton was doing lie and he acknowledges next morning on parade that nothing much good could of come of that plan anyhow. He sees that now, too late. Snow falling like bread of heaven that won’t feed no Israelite. Maybe the major is feeling that old days are dying and new days are coming. Lige says he was only trying to get a shot in for Caleb Booth and he didn’t mean to kill no girl. Everyone understood that. Major seems intent on leaving it then. But that don’t stop John Cole asking Starling Carlton a few nights after in barracks what in hell he was doing. Starling Carlton is a friend so he must feel obliged to answer. He says when he seen that the chief ’s gun was one of them new Spencer carbeens he just got a choler in his head like a storm. He was sudden mad as a brushfire. He couldn’t see how he had to tote his goddamn musket in his goddamn sash and this Indian go about the place with gun royalty. That’s what he said, gun royalty. And so on. So, why’d you go stabbing him, says John Cole. Weren’t it obvious. Goddamn it, didn’t John Cole see the chief raise his carbeen to him? Goddamn, did he not shoot him with it? What you saying? Ain’t it a fact, Handsome John Cole, that you got Indian in you somewhere? I guess you feeling sorrow for your own kind, goddamn it. Then John Cole is confused for a moment and so am I. I can’t remember if the shot came before the stabbing or after. I am trying to get back to the vision of it in my head. I reckon it was after but my mind’s not so sure. Oh Jesus. Then John Cole is looking like Starling Carlton stabbed him too and then Starling Carlton comes over close and says, look see, I ain’t angry with you, John Cole, don’t you be angry with me. Alright, says John Cole, and only myself can see his eyes are damp. John Cole will cry if you do right by him. Then Starling Carlton puts him in a kind of bear hug. I’m thinking, I bet John Cole can smell the stink of that man now. It don’t last long but it happens. Then I guess we think we can be going on from there as usual.
CHAPTER TEN
NEXT PART OF MY STORY happens about two years later. Only thing that happens meantime out of the general going on of things is one of the Indian whipper-snappers takes a shine to me and as she learns her English from Mrs Neale I begin to learn about her. Her history as it was contained in her own language I guess she starts to discard out of her head because all her talk is of Mrs Neale and how things be with her in the fort. I guess she must be a cousin of the late Winona and as I can’t get my tongue around her Sioux name despite being the only few words I am obliged to acquire I beg mercy of her and ask if I can call her Winona. She don’t seem to mind. There’s a lot of giving of names in that old world of her people so maybe it seems natural to her that I give her another. Starling Carlton got angry and said I shouldn’t be friending vermin, that’s what he said. He was trembling as he spoke, his chins vibrating like the breast of a bird. He says Irish was bad enough and far as he’s concerned you can take all the Africans and put them into a great feed for hogs but he says Indians is the worst, according to Gunter. I can’t tell if he’s serious because his face don’t move when he says all that. John Cole says that Starling Carlton ain’t all there no more. Probably end up in Old Blockley, meaning, the famous lunatic asylum. I say Winona is only eight and she ain’t vermin, not a bit. Starling Carlton kept referring to this matter for half a year and then he shut up about it.
But Handsome John Cole weren’t right in his body and it was decided by the major that he should not take up another signing when his present time was done and he should release himself from the army. As John Cole and me had signed up together for the same term of service I would be free to leave with him. A passel of two soldiers, he calls us, and smiles his pleasing smile. We’ll get our pay and some dollars for the journey east and keep our hats, our trews, our shirts, and our linen pantaloons. Major said the best thing was to get out and then if a cure was found to come back in. He said we was excellent dragoons and ought to be in the army. But he couldn’t feed a man through illness time and again, regulations and sense forbid.
Now through all this while he’s talking John Cole is looking at him with ghostly face. Don’t think John Cole can imagine the world without the army suddenly. Feels like he is being cast out of paradise, he says. Won’t ever find a berth so good from Dan to Beersheba, he says. Major says he knows this well and it pains him to have to bring the news. Colonel thinks so well of him especially in the matter of engagements where he was obliged to fight.
I go over to Mrs Neale and ask for Winona as a apprentice servant and Mrs Neale says she’d be ready for that alright. Girls go out to be put in work around nine, she says, and Winona speaks well and has most of her letters. She got numbers too. I taught her all the plain cooking I know myself. She’s quite the dab hand with a bain-marie. You like white sauce, don’t you? she says. We are talking in the dark front parlour of her quarters and Mrs Neale knows me well enough but even so she squares to me and asks me the hard question. I don’t think any other woman in creation except her would ask it but she does which was a measure of her. I ain’t going to be easy in my mind, she says, unless I ask you. Men do think they can take a Injun maid for their own solace and I ain’t about to countenance that so you better speak truthfully now, Trooper McNulty, that you only want this girl for a servant. Why, I says, in the whole history of the world you can take my word that that is a yes. I will protect her like my own child. And how you so sure? she says. Well, I just am sure, I says. If I hear otherwise I will send men to punish you, she says. And I feel again that fierce strange heat off her like someone was burning logs in her bodice.